text:
Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a 1990 children's novel by Salman Rushdie. It is Rushdie's fifth major publication and followed The Satanic Verses (1988). It is a phantasmagorical story that begins in a city so miserable and ruinous that it has forgotten its name.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories is an allegory for problems existing in society at the time of its publication, especially in the Indian subcontinent. It presents these problems from the perspective of the young protagonist, Haroun. Salman Rushdie dedicated this book to his son, from whom he was separated for some time. Many elements of the story deal with the problems of censorship, an issue particularly pertinent to Rushdie because of the fatwa against him issued in 1989 by Ayatollah Khomeini. The book is highly allusive and contains puns in multiple languages. Many of the major characters' names allude to some aspect of speech or silence.

It is available as an audiobook read by Rushdie himself.

Plot summary
At the beginning of the story, protagonist Haroun Khalifa lives with his father Rashid, a famous storyteller and doctor, and his mother Soraya, until the latter is seduced by their neighbour "Mr. Sengupta" to leave home. Rashid is hired to speak on behalf of local politicians but fails his initial assignment. Rashid and Haroun are taken to the "Valley of K" by courier "Mr. Butt," to speak for "Snooty Buttoo," another politician. Attempting to sleep aboard Buttoo's yacht, Haroun discovers "Iff the Water Genie," assigned to detach Rashid's imagination, and demands to speak with Iff's supervisor, the Walrus, to argue against this decision. They are then carried to the eponymous "Sea of Stories" by an artificial intelligence in the form of a hoopoe, nicknamed "Butt" after the courier. In the Sea of Stories, Haroun learns the Sea is endangered by antagonist "Khattam-Shud," who represents the end.

In the Kingdom of Gup, King Chattergy, Prince Bolo, General Kitab, and the Walrus announce their plans for war against the neighbouring kingdom of Chup, to recapture Bolo's betrothed Princess Batcheat and to stop the pollution of the Sea of Stories. Rashid joins them here, having witnessed Batcheat's kidnapping. Thereafter, Haroun and his companions join the Guppee army of "Pages" toward Chup, where they befriend Mudra, Khattam-Shud's former second-in-command.

Haroun, Iff, Butt the Hoopoe, and Mali, the stories' gardener, investigate the Sea's "Old Zone" and are captured by Khattam-Shud's animated shadow, who plans to plug the Story Source at the bottom of the Sea. Before he can do so, Mali destroys the machines used by Khattam-Shud to poison the Sea, and Haroun restores the Sea's long-annulled alternation between night and day, thus destroying the antagonist's shadow and those assisting him, and diverting the giant "Plug" meant to seal the Source. In Chup, the Guppee army destroys the Chupwalas' army and releases Princess Batcheat; whereupon Khattam-Shud himself is crushed beneath a collapsing statue commissioned by himself. Thereafter the Walrus promises Haroun a happy ending of his own story. On return to the human world, Rashid reveals Haroun's adventures to local citizens, who expel Snooty Buttoo.

When Rashid and Haroun return home, the people of their city are loosened from the shackles of their misery and remember the name of their home, Kahani. Soraya returns to her son and husband.

The novel concludes with an appendix explaining the meaning of each major character's name.

Places

 * A work of magic realism, the story begins and takes place partly in "a sad city" which is located beside "a mournful sea full of glumfish," which were so miserable to eat that they made people "belch with melancholy." This city is thickly populated by people, of whom only the lead character Haroun and his parents are ever happy, while in the north of the city are factories wherein sadness is allegedly manufactured and exported. The factories produce air pollution that is only relieved during rain, which also heralds the arrival of pomfret into the nearby waters.
 * Most of the Earthly locations present in the book are located in the fictional nation of Alifbay, which is a combination of first two letters of the Arabic script based Urdu alphabet, Alif and Bay, and therefore contains many places named after letters, such as the "Valley of K" and the "Tunnel of I (which was also known as J)."
 * In the center of the Valley of K is the Dull Lake, which is said in the novel's appendix to be named after the Dal Lake in Kashmir. This implies that Kashmir is the place on which K is based. The Dull Lake itself is the location of the Moody Land, a landscape whose weather changes to reflect the emotions of the people currently present in it.
 * The larger part of the plot occurs on a fictional moon of Earth, named Kahani, whose orbit is controlled by a "Process Too Complicated To Explain" also referred to in the book as the "P2C2E." These processes enable it to fly over every single point on Earth like a satellite. Kahani consists of a massive ocean, which is composed of an infinite number of stories, each story taking the form of a current or stream of a unique colour. The colours encompass the whole visible spectrum and extend beyond into spectra that are not known to exist. The name "Kahani" itself means "Story" in Urdu and Hindi, and is ultimately revealed to be the name of the sad city; a revelation that removes the sadness from the city's people.
 * The Moon Kahani is, throughout most of the plot, divided into two sections equal in size, one of which is kept in perpetual daylight and the other in perpetual darkness. The two are separated by a narrow strip of twilight, which is marked by a forcefield named Chattergy's Wall. The daylight side is called Gup, a Hindi and Urdu word (meaning "gossip," "nonsense," or "fib" in English) and the night-darkened side is called Chup (meaning "quiet"). Inhabitants of Gup value speech and are called "Guppees," meaning "talkative people," while inhabitants of Chup are stated to have historically valued silence and are called "Chupwalas," meaning "quiet fellows." At the South Pole of Kahani is a spring known as the Source of Stories, from which originated all stories ever communicated. The prevention of this spring's blockage, therefore, forms the climax of the novel's plot. Much of the plot on the Moon Kahani can be seen as depicting the contrast between a liberal society and dictatorship.

Characters

 * Haroun: The main character/central consciousness of the story. A young, curious, courageous, outspoken child. He struggles throughout most of the story with a form of attention-deficit disorder caused by his mother running away with Mr. Sengupta at exactly eleven o'clock, and under its influence, he is unable to concentrate for a longer period of time. But he eventually overcomes his disorder at the climax, never to suffer from it again. He and his father are both named after the "legendary Caliph of Baghdad, Haroun al-Rashid, who features in many Arabian Nights tales. Their surname Khalifa actually means Caliph."
 * Rashid: Haroun's father, known as the Shah of Blah and the Ocean of Notions for his ability to devise stories impromptu, Rashid is a professional storyteller sometimes hired by corrupt politicians to persuade constituents in their favor. His attachment to his wife and to his practice of storytelling is probably his greatest psychological weaknesses; when either of them is lost, he becomes depressed and tends to lose the other. In the story, to recover the latter, he travels to Kahani by means known as "Rapture," through which he is able to travel inside his dreams and wake up in the world, his dream has created.
 * Soraya: Haroun's mother and Rashid's wife, who is tired of his imagination and leaves him for the dull and dreary Mr. Sengupta. In the end, she returns to Rashid and revives her affection for her husband and son. Upon her return, the depression overwhelming Rashid and the syndrome manifested by Haroun do not reappear.
 * Mr. Sengupta: Haroun's neighbour, who elopes with Soraya. As a rule, Mr. Sengupta despises imagination and stories, which sets the stage for his later appearance on Kahani as antagonist Khattam-Shud. Khattam-Shud's. His name is a legitimate Bengali surname.
 * Miss Oneeta: Mr. Sengupta's obese, talkative, self-important, overwhelmingly emotional, generous wife, disappointed in her husband after he has eloped with Soraya. In her dismay, she disowns him and her married name. It is she who reveals that Soraya has deserted her family and that her act has given Haroun his disorder, and also announces her return.
 * Mr. Butt: The mail courier, a reckless driver who, when requested to provide transport for Haroun and Rashid (who is expected to speak at an election of public officers), ignores all other demands to take them to their destination before dusk.
 * Snooty Buttoo: A corrupt politician who hires Rashid to convince constituents that he (Buttoo) should be re-elected. Buttoo is a class-conscious, pompous, arrogant, self-assured person whose chief hold over his constituents is that he has been re-elected before. To persuade Rashid to sympathize with him, he offers both Rashid and Haroun a stay on a luxurious houseboat called "The Arabian Nights Plus One." He is ultimately driven from his district by popular demand.
 * Butt the Hoopoe: A mechanical Hoopoe who becomes Haroun's steed in Kahani, capable of almost all known mental feats, including telepathy (the latter producing a recurrent joke that he "spoke without moving [his] beak"). He is also capable of flying at impossible speeds, between Earth and Kahani.
 * Iff: A "water genie" from Kahani who accompanies Haroun in Kahani. Iff's task is to control Rashid's imagination, in the form of waters transmitted to Rashid via an invisible faucet. Iff himself is a benevolent character having a blue moustache and beard; an effusive, somewhat cantankerous personality; and a habit of speaking in lists of synonyms.
 * Prince Bolo: A possible parody of the archetypal awe-inspiring hero or Prince Charming, Bolo is a reckless, slightly stupid, melodramatic figure, nominally the leader of the charge to rescue Princess Batcheat from Chup, but holding little authority; prone to becoming excited at the least provocation; and obsessed with rescuing Batcheat, so that all other things appear to him of little significance.
 * Princess Batcheat: A damsel in distress. Batcheat is the daughter of King Chattergy, ruler of Gup, and the fiancée of Prince Bolo. She is somewhat foolish; sentimental; reckless; and completely infatuated with Bolo, who is the only person to think her beautiful. Her name is pronounced "Baat-cheat," which is translated as "conversation." When Princess Batcheat is captured by Chupwalas during an excursion to the border between Gup and Chup, they plot to sew her mouth shut and rename her Khamosh, meaning "silent," but they never carry this out.
 * General Kitab: Literally "General Book," General Kitab is the commander of the Guppee Army, called the "Library." It consists of a multitude of Pages. The General participates in every debate regarding the worth of the cause on which the army has embarked, and frequently forms such debates on purpose to resolve all conflict of interest or opinion. The whole army, therefore, takes part in every campaign of Rogerian argument, whose sole aim is to produce conciliation and eventual unity among the Pages. Because Guppee laws permit unlimited freedom of speech, these debates are unrestrained to an extent that would (as Haroun remarks) be considered insubordination in the reader's world.
 * King Chattergy: Princess Batcheat's father and Prince Bolo's father-in-law, who forms the nominal head of Gup's government but has little real power. He is given very little role in most of the story.
 * Blabbermouth: A female Page of the Library of Gup. Blabbermouth is a talkative, ill-tempered, stubborn, unscrupulous, quarrelsome and courageous girl who despises Princess Batcheat, disguises herself as a boy (due to lack of equal rights for girls), and is skilled at the art of juggling. Blabbermouth joins the army of Gup to march on Chup. She saves many lives by impeding a bomb attack attempted by Khattam-Shud's ambassador. Thereupon she is exposed as a girl and expelled from the army by Bolo. She then becomes an aide to Mudra, an ally of the Guppees, with whom she is implied to be infatuated.
 * Mudra: Second-in-command to Khattam-Shud, who becomes disgruntled with his master's policies and defects to the Guppee side. His shadow, like the shadows of each and every person in Chup, can behave independently of himself and is, therefore, his sidekick. Mudra himself is an able warrior skilled in the art of hand-to-hand combat. Mudra is nearly mute, being able only to communicate his own name and that he "speaks" by Abhinaya, the sign language used in classical Indian dance. His own name is said in the appendix to be the generic term for all signs used in this language. After the climax, Mudra becomes President of Chup.
 * Khattam-Shud: The villain of the story, whose name means "completely finished." As a character, he is the "Prince of Silence and the Foe of Speech" feared by most Guppees. He is the ruthless ruler of Chup and in some sense the Kahanian counterpart of Mr. Sengupta. Khattam-Shud is the founder of a religion whose supreme commandment is abstinence from speech. In Chup City, schools, law-courts, and theaters had to close. Khattam-Shud tries to poison the Sea so that all stories go wrong and come to a bad end.
 * The Eggheads: Here, the technicians of Kahani: white-coated, completely bald, enthusiastic, cheerful, and intelligent. The Eggheads of Gup City are said to be the inventors of all "Processes Too Complicated To Explain," by which impossible feats such as Kahani's bizarre orbit, the creation of artificial happy endings for stories, and the transmission of "story water" to Earthly storytellers are easily accomplished. They are in awe of their superintendent, the Walrus, for his possession of a moustache.
 * Walrus: The superintendent of the Eggheads, distinguished from them by his possession of a small moustache that gives him his name.
 * Plentimaw Fish: Angelfish the size of giant sharks. The name is derived from their multiplicity of mouths, through which they constantly ingest the stories conveyed by the waters. Inside their bodies, the stories combine to form new stories.
 * Mali: A "Floating Gardener" composed of interwoven flowering vines and water plants that behave as a single organism. He is one of many, whose task is to prevent stories from becoming irretrievably convoluted and to cut away weeds on the Ocean's surface. Floating Gardeners are divided into a hierarchy of classes, of which Mali belongs to the First Class, presumably the highest. Mali, and presumably other Floating Gardeners, is virtually invulnerable, being able to withstand any and all attacks made against him by the Chupwalas.

Allusions/references to other works

 * "Sea of the Rivers of Story" is the English equivalent of Kathāsaritsāgara, the title of an 11th-century collection of Indian legends.
 * Elements of the story are indicated to have been drawn from Baum's The Wizard of Oz, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, as well as having been compared to the popular children's novel The Phantom Tollbooth.
 * Another obvious reference is to the stories of One Thousand and One Nights. Haroun, the son of Rashid Khalifa refers to Harun al-Rashid, a caliph who ruled from 786 to 809 and who features frequently in Thousand and One Nights stories.
 * "Iff the Water Genie" is a reference to the genie in "Aladdin's Magic Lamp." Haroun steals Iff's magic wrench, and as a result, Iff is forced to do Haroun's bidding, just as the genie did when Aladdin came into possession of the magic lamp.
 * The Walrus plays off of The Beatles song "I Am the Walrus" and Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter."
 * When the character Mudra is first encountered, the noises he emits are the gurgling sound "Gogogol" and the coughing noise "Kafkafka," as references to writers Nikolai Gogol and Franz Kafka, whose names they are distorting. Rushdie makes another reference to Kafka when Iff describes the Plentimaw Fish in the sea, who swallow stories, as hungry artists.
 * A reference is made to the folktale Rapunzel in the book's fourth chapter.
 * Haroun encounters a warrior who is fighting his own shadow. This is possibly a reference to J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan.
 * "Goopy" and "Bagha," the names of the Plentimaws, allude to the characters Goopy and Bagha created by Bengali author Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury. His grandson, the Academy Award-winning director Satyajit Ray, directed two films with Goopy and Bagha as protagonists.

Adaptations

 * A play based on the book was adapted for the stage by Tim Supple and David Tushingham. It had its stage premiere in 1998 at the Royal National Theatre in London.
 * An opera, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Charles Wuorinen with libretto by James Fenton, written in 2001, was premiered at the New York City Opera in Fall 2004.

title: Haroun and the Sea of Stories


text:
File:Micro adventure book cover.jpg

Summary
Cover of Micro Adventure book, Space Attack, taken by me for use in the article about these books, I consider this fair use.

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

title: File:Micro adventure book cover.jpg


text:
Ouadane

Ouadane or Wādān (وادان) is a small town in the desert region of central Mauritania, situated on the southern edge of the Adrar Plateau, 93 km northeast of Chinguetti. The town was a staging post in the trans-Saharan trade and for caravans transporting slabs of salt from the mines at Idjil.

The old town, a World Heritage Site, though in ruins, is still substantially intact, while a small modern settlement lies outside its gate.

Ouadane is the closest town to the Richat Structure, a massive circular landmark visible from space.

History
The early history of Ouadane is uncertain but it is possible that the town prospered from the trans-Saharan gold trade. In the middle of the 11th century, the Arabic geographer al-Bakri described a trans-Saharan route that ran between Tamdoult near Akka in Morocco to Aoudaghost on the southern edge of the Sahara. This route was used for the transport of gold during the time of the Ghana Empire. In his account al-Bakri mentioned a series of place names but these have not been identified and historians have suggested several possible routes. In 1961 the French historian Raymond Mauny proposed a route that passed through Ouadane but Suzanne Daveau later argued in favour of a more direct route that crossed the Adrar escarpment to the east of the town. The volume of caravan traffic would have declined from the beginning of the 13th century when the oasis town of Oualata located 360 km to the east replaced Aoudaghost as the southern terminus of the trade route.

The first written reference to the town is in Portuguese by Ca' de Mosto in middle of the 15th century in a muddled account that confused the salt mines of Idjil with those of Taghaza. At about the same date Gomes Eanes de Zurara described Ouadane as the most important town of the Adrar region and the only one with a surrounding wall. Fifty years later Valentim Fernandes wrote a detailed account of the trade in slabs of salt from the Idjil mines and role of Ouadane as an entrepôt. He described Ouadane as a 'town' with a population of 400 inhabitants. By contrast Duarte Pacheco Pereira in his Esmeraldo de situ orbis (written in 1505-1508) described the town as having approximately "300 hearths" which would suggest between 1,500 and 1,800 people. The Idjil sebkha lies roughly 240 km northwest of Ouadane, to the west of the town of Fderîck. The date when salt was first extracted from the sebkha is unknown. It is usually assumed that exploitation of the Idjil mines began after the mid 11th century as al-Bakri did not mention them. Instead he described a salt mine at a place that he called 'Tatantal'. Historians have usually assumed this corresponds to Tegahza but his description could possibly also apply to the mines at Idjil.

According to Pereira, in 1487 the Portuguese built an entrepôt in Ouadane in an attempt to gain access to the trans-Saharan gold, salt and slave trade. The entrepôt was probably short lived and is not mentioned in the detailed description provided by Fernandes.

In the 16th century the Moroccans made various attempts to take control of the trans-Saharan trade in salt and especially that in gold from the Sudan. They organised military expeditions to occupy Ouadane in 1543-44 and again in 1584. Then in 1585 they occupied Taghaza and finally in 1591 their victory in the battle of Battle of Tondibi led to the collapse of the Songhay Empire.

Tegherbeyat, the upper ruined section of the town, is almost certainly the oldest. It would have originally contained a mosque but nothing has survived. The ruins of the lower section of the town include a mosque that was probably built in the 15th century when the town expanded. Some of the horseshoe arches are still standing and some walls still have the remains of clay plaster, suggesting that the mosque was abandoned sometime in the 19th century. The mosque measured 24 m north–south at its eastern end and 17 m north–south at its western end where the minaret would have stood. From east to west it would have measured 15 m. The terrace was supported by five rows of horseshoe arches. At the eastern end are the remains of an external mirhab and a courtyard measuring 13 by 12 meters that would have been used in hot weather.

title: Ouadane


text: User talk:81.154.42.247

title: User talk:81.154.42.247


text:
1977 in rail transport

January events

 * January 10 – Passenger service on Boston and Maine Railroad's Lexington Branch ends when a train consisting of a Budd Rail Diesel Car and a switcher locomotive are stranded by a snowstorm at the Bedford, Massachusetts depot.
 * January 18 – The Granville railway disaster, Australia's worst ever, occurs at Granville, a suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, when a commuter train derails and hits a bridge, causing the bridge to collapse on top of the train.

February events

 * February 4 – Chicago Loop derailment Chicago, Illinois, United States: A Chicago Transit Authority elevated train motorman disregards cab signals and rear ends another train at a curve on the Loop during the evening rush hour causing four cars of the rear train derail and fall to the street below. Eleven people are killed and over 180 injured in the worst disaster in the history of Chicago's rapid transit system. The motorman is suspected of being high on marijuana.

March events

 * March 13 – The Shin-Nagata and Myodani route of the Seishin-Yamate Line opens, the first section of Kobe Municipal Subway in Hyogo Prefecture of Japan.
 * March 28 – The United States Interstate Commerce Commission approves Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad's petition to end passenger service.

April events

 * April 21 – Indiana Governor Otis R. Bowen signs into law an act forming the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District which will take over passenger service from the Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad.

May events

 * May – Auto-Train Corporation launches a second Auto Train, this time between Louisville, Kentucky and Sanford, Florida.
 * May 9 – The last Paris–Istanbul train with the name Orient Express makes its final run. The name persists as a train running from Paris to Vienna.
 * May 21 – The Glasgow Subway shuts down for a complete system overhaul.
 * May 23 – A train hijack takes place at the village of De Punt, in the province of Groningen in the Netherlands by activists aiming to endorse the Republic of South Maluku (Republik Maluku Selatan (RMS)), a self-proclaimed republic in the Maluku Islands. At the same time a hostage situation occurs at a school in Bovensmilde. The Dutch Marines storm the train on June 11, after six Starfighters fly over the train, creating a noise and distraction for the hostage takers. Six hostage takers and two passengers lose their lives in the operation. The activists at the school surrender after they learn of the fate of their fellow activists in the train.

June events

 * June 16 – Construction begins on the Minsk Metro in Belarus (at this time part of the Soviet Union).
 * June 30 – Last Railway post office to run on rails in the United States, New York–Washington, D.C.

September events

 * September – The second Auto Train route to Louisville, Kentucky is discontinued due to heavy financial losses.

October events

 * October 14 – First section of Amsterdam Metro opens.
 * October 26 – Locomotive number 043 903 pulls the last regularly scheduled mainline train on German tracks to be hauled by a steam locomotive.
 * October 29 – First run of the Maple Leaf train, operated by Amtrak and Via Rail Canada.

November events

 * November 9 – The first section of the Tashkent Metro, the Chilonzor Line from Olmazor to Amir Temur Xiyoboni, officially begins regular operation in Uzbekistan (at this time part of the Soviet Union).

December events

 * December 16 – London becomes the first capital city in the world to be directly linked to its international airport by underground railway as the Queen opens Heathrow Central tube station (later Heathrow Terminals 2 & 3 tube station) on London Underground's Piccadilly line at the centre of London Heathrow Airport.

Unknown date events

 * W. Graham Claytor Jr. is succeeded by Stanley Crane as president of the Southern Railway (U.S.).
 * Via Rail Canada takes over operations of the Super Continental passenger train from Canadian National.

title: 1977 in rail transport


text:
User talk:Harvestdancer

Welcome to the Wikipedia
Here are some links I thought useful:

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Feel free to contact me personally with any questions you might have. The Village pump is also a good place to go for quick answers to general questions. You can sign your name by typing 4 tildes, like this: ~.

Be Bold!

[[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Wants you to vote!]] 18:19, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hey Jason! Thanks for introducing me to wikipedia. I had no idea that it could be edited and other wise corrected so easily before the Jason wars. Now I'm hooked, this is very cool. Cheers David D. 17:26, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Conversation with Jason Gastrich

 * My conversation with Gastrich
 * More conversation with Gastrich
 * Conversation about the Conversation

I had to put this in its own archive to avoid the page getting too long.

Re : A recently deleted page
Hi Harvestdancer,

I've transferred everything to Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Jason Gastrich and deleting Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jas. Hope this settles it. :)

- Cheers, Mailer Diablo 20:30, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Mistake
This messege is in regard to the page Benedict Arnold. I don't want to have a bad reputation, so if you'll look at the edit, a vandal had initially made two changes to the article. I reverted to an old version, but only happened to change one problem in the article. You and I were editing at the same time, and somehow things got mixed up. I just wanted to clear that up. Thanks for the messege though. I'll be sure to be more careful with reverts from now on and to check the entire article for potential errors.

Amit 00:04, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedians against X
You mentioned at Category_talk:Wikipedians_against_Scientology that you didn't feel this was an appropriate category. Do you think the category should be deleted? -Harvestdancer 17:53, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

 * I do not understand how Category:Wikipedians against Scientology is going to help Wikipedia. I guess it should be deleted. --JWSchmidt 18:14, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

 * I just nominated it for a "Category for Deletion." -Harvestdancer 21:15, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

William Schnoebelen
I feel bad about deleting the category you added, since it's one I happen to agree with, but I don't think it can be considered 'uncontroversial'. Sorry :-( --Calair 11:45, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

 * I think it's one of the less controversial interpretations of his actions. See talk page for his article. Harvestdancer 02:47, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Least controversial interpretation? Quite possibly. But interpretation is not Wikipedia's function; see No_original_research for some related discussion. We can report on extant interpretations (citing sources), and indeed the article already does, but it's not our place to endorse one interpretation over another except maybe when the matter has already been settled, not just on the balance of probabilities - which is what 'least controversial' means - but beyond reasonable doubt.

 * By way of parallel, most of the world thinks O.J. Simpson killed Nicole and Ron. It's the least controversial of the competing theories, and the civil trial found against him on the balance of probability. But 'least controversial' is not the same as 'uncontroversial', and so he is not listed in . --Calair 06:50, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

 * LOL you forgot the No Wiki and accidentally added both of us to a category. Harvestdancer 05:47, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

 * And what a category, too :-) --Calair 12:08, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Harvestdancer
Hey, is this the same Harvestdancer that uset to post on news:a.r.w and news:a.r.w.m? I used to post there as Taliesin of Earthstar. Justin Eiler 02:46, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Guilty as charged. Harvestdancer 02:47, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Cool! It's good to see you again. Justin Eiler 02:49, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

template:user fsm
I'm calling out a posse, to fight for freedom of choice, to fight all those who think that only their opinion's right, template:user fsm was speedy deleted by an administrator without any cause or even discussion, I'm therefore putting it up for undeletion since people have put a jihad out against opinions in userboxes. As you were one of many people using the template, I'm trying to rally you into the posse. If you think the template should be returned to active status, put in a vote at Deletion_review/Userbox_debates. Janizary 04:26, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

On speedying userboxen
I don't feel that consensus is relevant to the issue of userboxen, because I believe that Jimbo is steering the community away from them. Wikipedia is not completely democratic -- this is one of those cases where most people don't understand what the best interests of the community are. I would be happy to discuss my thinking with you if you're open to conversation. --Improv 17:50, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Bannana Peel Sockpuppet Tagging
I tagged it for this. Its clearly a sock, as it is bringing up an incident from the RfC that occured with another banned Gastrich puppet. Hexagonal 18:32, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

 * Never mind. There was a typo in the sock notice, making me look for contribs by Banana Peel instead of Bannana Peel. Harvestdancer 18:37, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Help Request
I think I found overlapping templates that might be suitable for merging - but if I have, I have no idea how to do it. Please, I'm not asking for someone to do it for me, I'd like to do it myself, but I don't know how right now. I'm asking for instruction. I'd make a Suggestion to Merge, if one can do that to templates.

Anyway, they are Template:Middle Eastern deities and Template:Meso myth.

 * The first step is to engage in discussion on the talk page of both templates. After considerable discussion you would just choose one template to keep, and then use the "What links here" button in the toolbox to find all instances of the old template and convert them to the new one. But discuss first (maybe even find a relevant WikiProject and let them know).--Commander Keane 00:35, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

A request for abritration has been filed against you
Please see: Requests_for_arbitration --Ben 06:59, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

 * A baseless case that will soon be dismissed brought by a troll who has an RfAr filed against him. Harvestdancer 16:29, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

NPOVization on Native American slang in the Twinkie Article
Hello, I'm in the process of trying to fix the article on Twinkie. Part of the article deals with its usage in slang of American Indian culture. Becuase I am not familiar with it, I figured I needed the cooperation of someone who was Native American on wikipedia before I attempted editing the section. You'll see that it clearly needs wikifying, but a lot of it is very grey on what is false or simply badly worderd. I saw you had a userbox indicating Native American ancestry on your page, so I'm coming here with a request for help. -- The  i  kiro  id  ( talk/parler/hablar/paroli/说/話 ) 03:43, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Sock cat
Hello Harvestdancer, I just wanted to thank you for cleaning up after me. Indexing cat tags is something I have to work on remembering.;-) — Encephalon 19:35, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

 * No prob, happy to do my part. Harvestdancer 19:37, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing that to my attention. Mackensen (talk) 23:12, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

My Talk Page
May I ask why did you put that stuff back on my talk page??? The Reason I deleted it was 1) I don't know who this Jason person is and 2) I already addressed the picture issue. #1BEPFan 21:24, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Meta Wikimedia
All the Gastrich stuff we just went through ... well, it's about to start over. You see, he discovered he was only banned from Wikipedia, not Wikimedia. Check out His User Page. Be sure to look in the history, especially with regard to one possible sock puppet there. Look into his talk page too just for fun. Harvestdancer 01:55, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I did make a mention of this on his RfAr. Harvestdancer 01:55, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the heads-up (although I'm not sure why you contacted me, because I'm not an admin on meta). I don't know if it'll be necessary to block him there, but I'm sure the meta admins have it under control. Stifle (talk) 14:00, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Even though you're not an admin there, you are one of the admins who handled the case here, and as such I though you should be aware of this. It's the same reason I contacted JzG. Harvestdancer 00:38, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Userbox
One of your userboxes- the userbox for 42/Hitchhikers seems to be not displayed correctly but I couldn't tell if that was deliberate or not. JoshuaZ 15:52, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I wasn't paying close enough attention.  It's part of the Great Userbox Compromise. Harvestdancer 18:43, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Kuk Sool Won
Hello I heard you take Kuk Sool Won. I am a first degree black belt and the administrator of the Kuk Sool Won Wikia. It is a new wikia and I would like you to be a user on The Kuk Sool Won wikia. Please post reply Here —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.162.2.135 (talk) 18:02, 17 December 2006 (UTC).

Jewish angelic hierarchy
I appreciated your turning the article into a table. Wanted to point out that some of the material you added is unsourced and I believe does not necessarily represent what the article describes, Maimonides' system of angel classification. For example, you added material about archangels, but I don't believe it likely that Maimonides had the concept of associating archangels with ranks as the table described and it's not clear to me Maimonides had the concept of archangels at all. As another example, the material you added associates Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael with different kinds of angels, but Jewish tradition generally describes them as being of the same kind. Similarly, some of the interpretive translations you added are unsourced and may not be authentic. It's worth noting that Maimonides was a rationalist, not a Kabbalist, so concepts associated with the Kabbalah do not necessarily represent his system of angeology. Best, --Shirahadasha 22:26, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

 * Would you find it acceptable if the Jewish article were divided into two parts, the first part being a Maimonides section and the secon a Kabbalah section? Harvestdancer 04:25, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

 * Yes, with two caveats. The first is that (per the article title) the article is on traditional Jewish interpretations and sources. The Kabbala has influenced a number of religious traditons as well as popular culture generally, so I believe that popular and other interpretations of the Kabbala that aren't specifically Jewish might better belong on a separate article. The second is that (per: WP:OR) I believe the article should avoid presenting a composite from different points of view but should help the reader identify which source has what view, so I'd suggest a separate table giving Kabbalistic interpretations. "Kabbala" encompasses a wide range of sources and interpretations, so it would be valuable to identify whose interpretation of Kabbala is being presented. Best, --Shirahadasha 15:39, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Re: Bad faith
Assume good faith on my part, friend. I just gave the generic 1st level warning using VW for removing sourced content without any reasoning or mention on talk page. I just hoped that, in the future, this user will now know more about how Wikipedia works. There was a discussion on the talk page, and the edit actually ended up being valid, but it took a long discussion to get there. A user removing sourced content from articles for no apparent reason sometimes seems like vandalism at first glance. Political articles get very heated, at times, and users must be wary of edits and make sure consensus is met be making big changes. Random deletions of facts with no discussion usually get reverted in the circumstances, especially removing of something that has been in an article for a while (this is a hypothetical situation). I'll try to use a different template for future similar circumstances in other articles. I will apologize to the user as well. Happy Wikying, hmwith  talk  17:52, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Submitting Creashin to Checkuser
That's a fair question. The WP:RFCU article also includes the statement, "Checkuser is a last resort for difficult cases. Use other methods first." The only provision that I can see that might apply to Creashin is found under "acceptable requests," item F, which states that Checkuser may be requested to investigate "evasion of community-based bans or blocks." However, I don't see the need and I don't see this particular case as falling under the "difficult" rubric, nor am I in a situation in which a "last resort" is necessary. Checkuser is reasonably useful, but it is fairly time and resource-intensive and is made more difficult by the fact that Jason Gastrich hasn't posted as himself in a couple of weeks. Checkuser is also not always conclusive. It can be countered. Thought it appears that I have been caught up in the Gastrich-hysteria, as many of us have since Jason's first appearance in Wikipedia, my only interest would be in enforcing the community consensus that was established when he was banned. Users like Jason need to be kept out of Wikipedia by all reasonable means, and the overwhelming majority of his suspect socks, even those that flew under the radar, as it were, were never submitted for Checkuser. If it comes to that, I'll consider submission, but it hasn't come to that, and I don't really care that much. ;) - Nascentatheist 00:31, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh really? May I just ask, then: how many other banned users do you perform this valuable service to the community for, other than Jason Gastrich? Uncle Davey (Talk) 13:47, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Probably for other regular abusive sock-puppetters as well. Do you admit that Gastrich is such? Jason Harvestdancer | Talk to me 03:01, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Jason Gastrich sock puppets
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the suspects were not Jason, and that's probably why one template suggests that there were and are impostors. As you say, that doesn't excuse his behavior; but it also doesn't change the fact that the current discussion on the matter has become quickly moot. My reading of "Bible John" and reviewing the list of edits is a disconnect - a knowledge of Wikipedia that would probably be a bit beyond his capabilities. It's possible, and one such edit even has a "Bible John" signature; but that sort of thing isn't beyond Jason, as far as I've been able to tell. Again, however, the issue appears to be moot, and if it wasn't for Davesig's apparent obsession with Louisiana Baptist University, I'd be moving on from the subject already. ;) - Nascentatheist 22:07, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

You called it
Of the relationship between Uncle Davey vis-à-vis  Jason, and your comments here, I think you have it right. No one seemed to notice that you advocated for Jason, and no one noticed that I put his request on the noticeboard, even though I opposed his reinstatement. There was so much hate on the part of the "Christians" in this situation that they didn't seem to notice that it was you and I who were acting objectively. My questions to him were designed to see if he could truly comprehend why his behavior was unacceptable, and if he was rehabilitated or had hope for rehabilitation, and let the community decide regardless of my position on the matter. I have my doubts about codependency in this sort of situation, but you make a good case for at least subconscious manipulation. - Nascentatheist 01:26, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

A thought
You might consider that every time Uncle Davey posts false claims, uses ad hominem in order to avoid points or minimize others  because he can't muster an intelligent rebuttal, or when he tries to invoke imaginary gods and spirits, he does nothing more than decrease what little credibility he might possess. Between that and banned user Jason Gastrich's continuing juvenile behavior, it should be pretty clear that these guys bury themselves more and more with nearly every "contribution." I think you are wasting your time arguing with either of them. I see you as an admin someday, and these petty arguments will only come back to haunt you. FWIW. - Nascentatheist 17:42, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Naah. Nobody would be stupid enough to bring these things up to the front of anyone's attention again.Uncle Davey (Talk) 16:32, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I have an issue
I'm not making this official yet, which is why I'm coming to you this way. You're an administrator I've worked with before so I want your opinion.

I've been cleaning up after User_talk:Wtimrock, and am considering an RfC on User_talk:Wtimrock if he doesn't stop removing AfD notices, CSD notices, and occasionally recreating deleted articles. As I'm not an Admin, I can't get all the proof because the deleted articles are, well, gone. On the other hand, I may be over-reacting.

So please go to my talk page, take a look there, and tell whether me I'm full of it or not. Jason Harvestdancer | Talk to me 18:54, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Seeing as you have told him how to do it properly, I would be more inclined to list it on WP:ANI with a view to blocking him. In the meantime I am posting a polite warning and explanation that this-is-how-it's-done-here. I doubt he'd respond to an RFC. Feel free to drop back to me if you need help. Stifle (talk) 19:46, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

AfD
Please see: Articles for deletion/Chuck Missler (4th nomination). Thanks. Steve Dufour (talk) 19:09, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Nomination of Donald P. Scott for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Donald P. Scott is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Donald P. Scott until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Night of the Big Wind talk  11:11, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Your edits on Talk:Barry O'Sullivan
I've reverted your edits on Talk:Barry O'Sullivan. Consensus of sources and editors is that his claim of "being a woman" was merely rhetorical flourish in parliamentary debate and not a statement of fact. If you have any sources that suggest he is actively behaving in ways relating to transitioning gender other than his floor speech, please provide them. If not, please stop disrupting the discussion before administrative action is necessary. power~enwiki ( π, ν ) 00:43, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I have his own words, but apparently that isn't good enough for you. Jason Harvestdancer | Talk to me 20:53, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

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List of reptile genera moved to draftspace
An article you recently created, List of reptile genera, does not have enough sources and citations as written to remain published. It needs more citations from reliable, independent sources. (?) Information that can't be referenced should be removed (verifiability is of central importance on Wikipedia). I've moved your draft to draftspace (with a prefix of " " before the article title) where you can incubate the article with minimal disruption. When you feel the article meets Wikipedia's general notability guideline and thus is ready for mainspace, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page.  CASSIOPEIA(talk) 06:39, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi Harvestdancer, Greetings. Pls note that stand alone list needs source just like any other article - see Stand-alone lists. Thank you. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 06:42, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
 * There are lots or sources on the other side of the links, as this list was researched entirely on Wikipedia. Is it your advice that I have the sources in both places? Jason Harvestdancer | Talk to me  15:37, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: List of reptile genera has been accepted
 List of reptile genera, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created. The article has been assessed as List-Class, which is recorded on the article's talk page. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article. You are more than welcome to continue making quality contributions to Wikipedia. If your account is more than four days old and you have made at least 10 edits you can create articles yourself without posting a request. However, you may continue submitting work to Articles for Creation if you prefer. Thank you for helping improve Wikipedia! Clarityfiend (talk) 09:27, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
 * If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask at the  [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Help_desk&action=edit&section=new&nosummary=1&preload=Template:AfC_talk/HD_preload&preloadparams%5B%5D=List_of_reptile_genera help desk] .
 * If you would like to help us improve this process, please consider.

 * There's considerable overlap with List of snake genera, which should be addressed. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:28, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Happy New Year from Wikimedians of Los Angeles!
--JSFarman (talk) 02:08, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions alert - biography of living persons
Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:50, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Please don't do that
Harvestdancer, if a user gives you a discretionary sanctions alert for a particular topic, it's surely obvious that they themselves are aware of those sanctions. To then post back an alert to them, as you did here, looks merely retaliatory and hostile. Please don't do it. Bishonen | tålk 14:51, 12 March 2022 (UTC).

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title: User talk:Harvestdancer


text:
Chinguetti

Chinguetti (شنقيط) is a ksar and a medieval trading center in northern Mauritania, located on the Adrar Plateau east of Atar. Chinguetti had a population of 4,800 as of 2013.

Founded in the 13th century as the center of several trans-Saharan trade routes, this small city continues to attract a handful of visitors who admire its spare architecture, scenery, and ancient libraries. The city is seriously threatened by the encroaching desert; high sand dunes mark the western boundary and several houses have been abandoned to the sand.

The town is split in two by a wadi. On one side, there is the old sector, and on the other the new one. The indigenous Saharan architecture of older sectors of the city features houses constructed of reddish dry-stone and mud-brick techniques, with flat roofs timbered from palms. Many of the older houses feature hand-hewn doors cut from massive ancient acacia trees, which have long disappeared from the surrounding area. Many homes include courtyards or patios that crowd along narrow streets leading to the central mosque.

History
Occupied for thousands of years, the Chinguetti region was once a broad savannah; rock paintings at Agrour Amogjar, in the nearby Amogjar Pass, feature images of giraffes, cows, and people in a green landscape. It is quite different from the sand dunes of the surrounding desert, which make up most of the region today.

Founding
The city was founded in AD 777. The name Chinguetti means "spring of horses" in the Azayr language, an extinct dialect of Soninke that was heavily mixed with Berber. The area, at that time far more green than today, was home to agricultural peoples ancestral to several sub-Saharan ethnic groups, including the Soninke.

Center of Trade
By the 11th century, Chinguetti had become a trading center for a confederation of Berber tribes, known as the Sanhaja. They eventually melded with the Almoravids, represented by Abdallah ibn Yasin, who would eventually control an empire stretching from present-day Senegal to al-Andalus in modern-day Spain. The city's stark, unadorned architecture reflects the strict religious beliefs of the Almoravids, who spread the Malikite rite of Sunni Islam throughout the Western Maghreb.

After two centuries of decline, the city was effectively re-founded in the 13th century as a fortified trading-center for nomadic trans-Saharan caravans, and as a means of connecting the Mediterranean with Sub-Saharan Africa. Although the walls of the original fortification disappeared centuries ago, many of the buildings in the old section of the city date from this period.

World Heritage Site
In 1996, UNESCO designated Chinguetti, along with the cities of Ouadane, Tichitt and Oualata, also in the dunes area, as a World Heritage Site. Notable buildings in the town include The Friday Mosque of Chinguetti, an ancient structure of dry-stone construction, featuring a square minaret capped with five ostrich egg finials; the former French Foreign Legion fortress; and a tall watertower. The old quarter has five important manuscript libraries of scientific and Qur'anic texts, with many dating from the later Middle Ages. In recent years, the Mauritanian government, the U.S. Peace Corps, and various NGOs have attempted to position the city as a center for adventurous tourists. Visitors may "ski" down its sand dunes, visit the libraries, and appreciate the stark beauty of the Sahara.

The Friday Mosque is widely considered by Mauritanians to be the national symbol of the country. The recently discovered offshore oilfield was named Chinguetti in its honor.

Religious importance
For centuries, the city was a principal gathering place for pilgrims of the Maghreb to gather, on their way to Mecca. It became known as a holy city in its own right, especially for pilgrims unable to make the long journey to the Arab Peninsula. It also became a center of Islamic religious and scientific scholarship in West Africa. In addition to religious training, the schools of Chinguetti taught students rhetoric, law, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. For many centuries, all of Mauritania was commonly known in the Arab world as Bilad Shinqit, "the land of Chinguetti." It is sometimes said to be the seventh-most holy city of Islam,  The city remains one of the world's most important historical sites both in terms of the history of Islam and the history of West Africa.

Although largely abandoned to the desert, the city features a series of medieval manuscript libraries without peer in West Africa. The area around the Rue des Savants (or “street of intelligent ones”) was once famous as a gathering place for scholars, and as a place to debate the finer points of Islamic law. Today, the quiet city still offers the urban and religious architecture of the Moorish empire as it existed in the Middle Ages.

Climate
In 2021 Chinguetti was featured in a BBC documentary Life at 50 degrees C, which looked at ordinary people living in increasingly inhospitable areas.

Notable residents

 * Ahmad ibn al-Amin al-Shinqiti (1863–1913), who was born and lived here, is one of Mauritania's most famous writers.
 * Muhammad al-Amin al-Shinqiti (1887–1973), an Islamic scholar.

title: Chinguetti


text:
CETI

CETI or Ceti may refer to:
 * Genitive word used to identify the stars belonging to the constellation Cetus
 * Communication with extraterrestrial intelligence
 * Centro de Enseñanza Técnica Industrial
 * Cetí, a fish from Puerto Rico
 * Project CETI, an international initiative to understand the communication of sperm whales

title: CETI


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adrian Bochenek

Adrian Bochenek
Adrian Bochenek was proposed for deletion. This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was delete.

Seems like a complete vanity page, made by an anon. This guy might go on to become famous someday, but right now he isn't (and Google confirms that). Houshuang 18:21, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Delete. 'notable achievements' in maths and physics at the age of 17.. Why do I not believe it [[User:Xezbeth| Xezbeth ]] 19:06, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Joke by anon with quite a few edits, all the recent ones have already been reverted as vandalism, I didn't check the older ones. Sad. Andrewa 19:10, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Vanity or joke. Jayjg 19:30, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete: Joke. Geogre 19:54, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Although he may be bright, for right now he's just another kid, if he exists at all. [[User:Livajo|Ливай | ☺]] 02:52, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. ComCat.
 * Delete, amounts to vandalism. Wyss 12:44, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete "party boy" is only important in his own mind Carole a 05:16, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.


text:
Boilersuit

A boilersuit (or boiler suit), also known as coveralls, is a loose fitting garment covering the whole body except for the head, hands and feet.

Terminology
The term boilersuit is most common in the UK, where the 1989 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary lists the word as having been first used on 28 October 1928 in the Sunday Express newspaper. The garments are typically known as coveralls in North America, while overall(s) is used elsewhere. In North America "overall" is more usually understood as a bib-and-brace overall, which is a type of trousers with attached suspenders.

A more tight-fitting garment that is otherwise similar to a boilersuit is usually called a jumpsuit. The "siren suit" favoured by Winston Churchill (but also worn by many others in the UK when air raids were a threat) during the Second World War was closely similar to a boilersuit.

Description
A boilersuit is a one-piece garment with full-length sleeves and legs like a jumpsuit, but usually less tight-fitting. Its main feature is that it has no gap between jacket and trousers or between lapels, and no loose jacket tails. It often has a long thin pocket down the outside of the right thigh to hold long tools. It usually has a front fastening extending the whole length of the front of the body up to the throat, with no lapels. It may be fastened with buttons, a zip, velcro, or snap fasteners. Boilersuits with an attached hood are available. The word "boilersuit" may also refer to disposable garments such as DuPont's Tyvek suits.

Usage
Coveralls are most often worn as protective clothing over "street" clothes at work. They can be used for painting and decorating, mechanical work, farming, factory work, and other activities where clothes may become soiled. Many companies provide workers with corporate branded boilersuits for identification and marketing.

Coveralls are also sometimes used as prison uniforms in the U.S and other countries. Police tactical units often use boilersuits as a uniform, for instance the French police unit Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité, and the Austrian units EKO Cobra and WEGA. Similar coveralls made of Nomex in olive drab (and more recently, desert tan) are also used by the crews of armoured fighting vehicles in the US Army and Marine Corps, where the men and also their suits are sometimes called "CVCs", an abbreviation of "Combat Vehicle Crewman".

More form fitting coveralls with many zippered pockets, originally made of cotton treated for flame resistance, but made of Nomex since the late 1960s, have been used as flight suits since the beginning of World War II. There are two main categories for coveralls: cloth and disposable.

Both cloth and disposable coveralls are manufactured with their own unique protective properties including: high-visibility, insulation to protect against cold weather, waterproof, flame resistant to protect against fire, arc resistant to protect against flash fires, and even microporous fabrics when exposed to hazardous chemicals.

Japanese politicians have been known to use boiler suits to convey an image of preparedness.

Coveralls called student boilersuits are used by university students in some Nordic countries as a sort of party-uniform, with insignia on the back and colour varying with programme and university.

The suit is associated with the slasher subgenre, being worn by Michael Myers of the Halloween films.

Pete Townshend of The Who frequently wore a white boiler suit during performances and in publicity photographs from 1969-71.

The Church of Scientology has punished Sea Org members in the Rehabilitation Project Force by making them wear black boiler suits.

title: Boilersuit


text:
First Congo War

The First Congo War, also nicknamed Africa's First World War, was a civil war and international military conflict which lasted from 24 October 1996 to 16 May 1997 and took place mostly in Zaire (which was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the process), with major spillovers into Sudan and Uganda. The conflict culminated in a foreign invasion that replaced Zairean president Mobutu Sese Seko with the rebel leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila. Kabila's unstable government subsequently came into conflict with his allies, setting the stage for the Second Congo War in 1998–2003.

Following years of internal strife, dictatorship and economic decline, Zaire was a dying state by 1996. The eastern parts of the country had been destabilized due to the Rwandan genocide which had perforated its borders, as well as long-lasting regional conflicts and resentments left unresolved since the Congo Crisis. In many areas state authority had in all but name collapsed, with infighting militias, warlords, and rebel groups (some sympathetic to the government, others openly hostile) wielding effective power. The population of Zaire had become restless and resentful of the inept and corrupt regime; the Zairean Armed Forces were in a catastrophic condition. Mobutu, who had become terminally ill, was no longer able to keep the different factions in the government under control, making their loyalty questionable. Furthermore, the end of the Cold War meant that Mobutu's strong anti-communist stance was no longer sufficient to justify the political and financial support he had received from the capitalist powers – his regime, therefore, was essentially politically and financially bankrupt.

The situation finally escalated when Rwanda invaded Zaire in 1996 to defeat a number of rebel groups which had found refuge in the country. This invasion quickly escalated, as more states (including Uganda, Burundi, Angola, and Eritrea) joined the invasion, while a Congolese alliance of anti-Mobutu rebels was assembled. Though the Zairean government attempted to put up an effective resistance, and was supported by allied militias as well as Sudan, Mobutu's regime collapsed in a matter of months. Despite the war's short duration, it was marked by widespread destruction and extensive ethnic violence, with hundreds of thousands killed in the fighting and accompanying pogroms.

A new government was installed, and Zaire was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but the termination of the Mobutu regime brought little political change, and Kabila found himself uneasy in the position of a proxy of his former benefactors. To avert a coup, Kabila expelled all Rwandan, Ugandan and Burundian military units from the Congo, and moved to build a coalition including Namibian, Angolan, Zimbabwean and Zambian forces, soon encompassing a string of African nations from Libya to South Africa, although their support varied. The tripartite coalition responded with a second invasion of the east, largely through proxy groups. These actions constituted the catalyst for the Second Congo War the following year, although some experts prefer to view the two conflicts as one continuous war whose aftereffects continue today.

Decline of Zaire

As ethnic Ngbandi, Mobutu came to power in 1965 and enjoyed support from the United States government because of his anti-communist stance while in office. However, Mobutu's totalitarian rule and corrupt policies allowed the Zairian state to decay, evidenced by a 65% decrease in Zairian GDP between independence in 1960 and the end of Mobutu's reign in 1997. Following the end of the Cold War in 1992, the United States stopped supporting Mobutu in favor of what it called a "new generation of African leaders", including Rwanda's Paul Kagame and Uganda's Yoweri Museveni.

A wave of democratization swept across Africa during the 1990s. Under substantial internal and external pressure for a democratic transition in Zaire, Mobutu promised reform. He officially ended the one-party system he had maintained since 1967, but ultimately proved unwilling to implement broad reform, alienating allies both at home and abroad. In fact, the Zairian state had all but ceased to exist. The majority of the Zairian population relied on an informal economy for their subsistence, since the official economy was not reliable. Furthermore, the Zairian national army, Forces Armées Zaïroises (FAZ), was forced to prey upon the population for survival; Mobutu himself allegedly once asked FAZ soldiers why they needed pay when they had weapons.

Mobutu's rule encountered considerable internal resistance, and given the weak central state, rebel groups could find refuge in Zaire's eastern provinces, far from the capital, Kinshasa. Opposition groups included leftists who had supported Patrice Lumumba (1925–1961), as well as ethnic and regional minorities opposed to the nominal dominance of Kinshasa. Laurent-Désiré Kabila, an ethnic Luba from Katanga province who would eventually overthrow Mobutu, had fought Mobutu's régime since its inception. The inability of the Mobutuist régime to control rebel movements in its eastern provinces eventually allowed its internal and external foes to ally.

Ethnic tensions
Tensions had existed between various ethnic groups in eastern Zaire for centuries, especially between the agrarian tribes of Congo and the Banyarwanda in the Eastern region of Congo of Kivu. When colonial boundaries were drawn in the late nineteenth century many Banyarwanda found themselves on the Congolese side of the Rwandan border, in Kivu province. The earliest of these migrants arrived before colonisation in the 1880s, followed by emigrants whom the Belgian colonizers forcibly relocated to Congo to perform manual labour (after 1908), and by another significant wave of emigrants fleeing the social revolution of 1959 that brought the Hutu to power in Kigali.

Tutsi who emigrated to Zaire before Congolese independence in 1960 are known as Banyamulenge, meaning "from Mulenge", and had the right to citizenship under Zairian law. Tutsi who emigrated to Zaire following independence are known as Banyarwanda, although the native locals often do not distinguish between the two, calling both Banyamulenge and considering them foreigners.

After coming to power in 1965, Mobutu gave the Banyamulenge political power in the east in hopes that they, as a minority, would keep a tight grip on power and prevent more populous ethnicities from forming an opposition. This move aggravated the existing ethnic tensions by strengthening the Banyamulenge's hold over important stretches of land in North Kivu that indigenous people claimed as their own. From 1963 to 1966 the Hunde and Nande ethnic groups of North Kivu fought against Rwandan emigrants — both Tutsi and Hutu – in the Kanyarwanda War, which involved several massacres.

Despite a strong Rwandan presence in Mobutu's government, in 1981, Zaire adopted a restrictive citizenship law which denied the Banyamulenge and Banyarwanda citizenship and therewith all political rights. Though never enforced, the law greatly angered individuals of Rwandan descent and contributed to a rising sense of ethnic hatred. From 1993 to 1996 Hunde, Nande, and Nyanga youth regularly attacked the Banyamulenge, leading to a total of 14,000 deaths. In 1995 the Zairian Parliament ordered all peoples of Rwandan or Burundian descent repatriated to their countries of origin, including the Banyamulenge. Due to political exclusion and ethnic violence, as early as 1991 the Banyamulenge developed ties to the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a mainly Tutsi rebel movement based in Uganda but with aspirations to power in Rwanda.

Rwandan genocide

The most deciding event in precipitating the war was the genocide in neighbouring Rwanda in 1994, which sparked a mass exodus of refugees known as the Great Lakes refugee crisis. During the 100-day genocide, hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and sympathizers were massacred at the hands of predominantly Hutu aggressors. The genocide ended when the Hutu government in Kigali was overthrown by the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).

Of those who fled Rwanda during the crisis, about 1.5 million settled in eastern Zaire. These refugees included Tutsi who fled the Hutu génocidaires as well as one million Hutus that fled the Tutsi RPF's subsequent retaliation. Prominent among the latter group were the génocidaires themselves, such as elements of the former Rwandan Army,  (FAR), and independent Hutu extremist groups known as Interahamwe. Often, these Hutu forces allied themselves with local Mai Mai militias, who granted them access to mines and weapons. Though these were initially self-defense organizations, they quickly became aggressors.

The Hutu set up camps in eastern Zaire from which they attacked both the newly arrived Rwandan Tutsi as well as the Banyamulenge and Banyarwanda. These attacks caused about one hundred deaths a month during the first half of 1996. Furthermore, the newly arrived militants were intent on returning to power in Rwanda and began launching attacks against the new regime in Kigali, which represented a serious security threat to the infant state. Not only was the Mobutu government incapable of controlling the former génocidaires for previously mentioned reasons but actually supported them in training and supplying for an invasion of Rwanda, forcing Kigali to act.

Banyamulenge rebellion
Given the exacerbated ethnic tensions and the lack of government control in the past, Rwanda took action against the security threat posed by génocidaires who had found refuge in eastern Zaire. The government in Kigali began forming Tutsi militias for operations in Zaire probably as early as 1995 and chose to act following an exchange of fire between Rwandan Tutsi and Zairian Green Berets that marked the outbreak of the Banyamulenge Rebellion on 31 August 1996.

While there was general unrest in eastern Zaire, the rebellion was probably not a grassroots movement; Uganda president Yoweri Museveni, who supported and worked closely with Rwanda in the First Congo War, later recalled that the rebellion was incited by Zairian Tutsi who had been recruited by the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA). The initial goal of the Banyamulenge Rebellion was to seize power in Zaire's eastern Kivu provinces and combat the extremist Hutu forces attempting to continue the genocide in their new home. However, the rebellion did not remain Tutsi-dominated for long. Mobutu's harsh and selfish rule created enemies in virtually all sectors of Zairian society. As a result, the new rebellion benefited from massive public support and grew to be a general revolution rather than a mere Banyamulenge uprising.

Banyamulenge elements and non-Tutsi militias coalesced into the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL) under the leadership of Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who had been a long-time opponent of the Mobutu government and was a leader of one of the three main rebel groups that founded the AFDL. While the AFDL was an ostensibly Zairian rebel movement, Rwanda had played a key role in its formation. Observers of the war, as well as the Rwandan Defense Minister and vice-president at the time, Paul Kagame, claim that the AFDL was formed in and directed from Kigali and contained not only Rwandan-trained troops but also regulars of the RPA.

Rwanda

According to expert observers, as well as Kagame himself, Rwanda played the largest role of a foreign actor, if not the largest role of all, in the First Congo War. Kigali was instrumental in the formation of the AFDL and sent its own troops to fight alongside the rebels. While its actions were originally sparked by the security threat posed by the Zairian-based génocidaires, Kigali was pursuing multiple goals during its invasion of Zaire.

The first and foremost of these was the suppression of génocidaires who had been launching attacks against the new Rwandan state from Zaire. Kagame claimed that Rwandan agents had discovered the plans to invade Rwanda with support from Mobutu; in response, Kigali began its intervention with the intention of dismantling the refugee camps in which the génocidaires often took refuge and destroying the structure of these anti-Rwandan elements.

A second goal cited by Kagame was the overthrow of Mobutu. While partially a means to minimize the threat in eastern Zaire, the new Rwandan state also sought to set up a puppet regime in Kinshasa. This goal was not particularly threatening to other states in the region because it was ostensibly a means to securing Rwandan stability and because many of them also opposed Mobutu. Kigali was further aided by the tacit support of the United States, which supported Kagame as a member of the new generation of African leaders.

However, the true intentions of Rwanda are not entirely clear. Some authors have proposed that dismantling refugee camps was a means of replenishing Rwanda's depleted population and workforce following the genocide; because the destruction of the camps was followed by forced repatriation of Tutsi regardless of whether they were Rwandan or Zairian. The intervention may also have been motivated by revenge; the Rwandan forces, as well as the AFDL, massacred retreating Hutu refugees in several known instances. A commonly cited factor for Rwandan actions is that the RPF, which had recently come to power in Kigali, had come to see itself as the protector of the Tutsi nation and was therefore partially acting in defense of its Zairian brethren.

Rwanda possibly also harbored ambitions to annex portions of eastern Zaire. Pasteur Bizimungu, president of Rwanda from 1994 to 2000, presented the then-US ambassador to Rwanda, Robert Gribbin, with the idea of a "Greater Rwanda." This idea purports that the ancient state of Rwanda included parts of eastern Zaire that should actually belong to Rwanda. However, it appears that Rwanda never seriously attempted to annex these territories. The history of conflict in the Congo is often associated with illegal resource exploitation but, although Rwanda did benefit financially by plundering Zaire's wealth, this is not usually considered their initial motivation for Rwandan intervention in the First Congo War.

Uganda
As a close ally of the RPF, Uganda also played a major role in the First Congo War. Prominent members of the RPF had fought alongside Yoweri Museveni in the Ugandan Bush War that brought him to power, and Museveni allowed the RPF to use Uganda as a base during the 1990 offensive into Rwanda and subsequent civil war. Given their historical ties, the Rwandan and Ugandan governments were closely allied and Museveni worked closely with Kagame throughout the First Congo War. Ugandan soldiers were present in Zaire throughout the conflict and Museveni likely helped Kagame plan and direct the AFDL.

Lt. Col. James Kabarebe of the AFDL, for example, was a former member of Uganda's National Resistance Army, the military wing of the rebel movement that brought Museveni to power, and French and Belgian intelligence reported that 15,000 Ugandan-trained Tutsi fought for the AFDL. However, Uganda did not support Rwanda in all aspects of the war. Museveni was reportedly much less inclined to overthrow Mobutu, preferring to keep the rebellion in the East where the former génocidaires were operating.

Angola
Angola remained on the sidelines until 1997, but its entrance into the fray greatly increased the already superior strength of anti-Mobutu forces. The Angolan government chose to act primarily through the original-Katanga Gendarmeries later called the Tigres, proxy groups formed from the remnants of police units exiled from Congo in the 1960s, fighting to return to their homeland. Luanda did also deploy regular troops. Angola chose to participate in the First Congo War because members of Mobutu's government were directly involved in supplying the Angolan rebel group, UNITA.

It is unclear exactly how the government benefited from this relationship, other than personal enrichment for several officials, but it is certainly possible that Mobutu was unable to control the actions of some members of his government. Regardless of the reasoning in Kinshasa, Angola entered the war on the side of the rebels and was determined to overthrow the Mobutu government, which it saw as the only way to address the threat posed by the Zairian-UNITA relationship.

UNITA
Due to its ties to the Mobutu government, UNITA also participated in the First Congo War. The greatest impact that it had on the war was probably that it gave Angola reason to join the anti-Mobutu coalition. However, UNITA forces fought alongside FAZ forces in at least several instances. Among other examples, Kagame claimed that his forces fought a pitched battle against UNITA near Kinshasa towards the end of the war.

Others
Numerous other external actors played lesser roles in the First Congo War. Burundi, which had recently come under the rule of a pro-Tutsi leader, supported Rwandan and Ugandan involvement in Zaire but provided very limited military support. Zambia, Zimbabwe, and the South Sudanese rebel army, the SPLA, also gave measured amounts of military support to the rebel movement. Eritrea, an ally of Rwanda under Kagame, sent an entire battalion of its army to support the invasion of Zaire. Likewise, Tanzania, South Africa and Ethiopia provided support to the anti-Mobutu coalition. Other than from UNITA, Mobutu also received some aid from Sudan, whom Mobutu had long supported against the SPLA, though the exact amount of aid is unclear and ultimately was unable to hinder the advance of opposing forces. Zaire also employed foreign mercenaries from several African and European countries, including Chadian troops. France also provided Mobutu's government with financial support and military aid, facilitated by the Central African Republic, and diplomatically advocated for international intervention to stop the AFDL's advance, but later backed down due to U.S. pressure. China and Israel provided the Mobutu regime with technical assistance, while Kuwait also reportedly provided $64 million to Zaire for the purchase of weapons, but later denied doing so.

In 1997 United States European Command supervised the U.S. Army's Southern Europe Task Force (SETAF) and elements of two Marine Expeditionary Units to carry out Operation Guardian Retrieval, to evacuate approximately 550 US citizens from the country. SETAF prepared Joint Task Force Guardian Retrieval to carry out the non-combatant evacuation (NEO). The Marine Corps supported the evacuation with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), special operations capable, which had initially been sent to Albania, to support Operation Silver Wake. The 26th MEU was relieved two weeks early by the USS Kearsarge (LHD-3) and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit.

1996
With active support from Rwanda, Uganda, and Eritrea, Kabila's AFDL was able to capture 800 x 100 km of territory along the border with Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi by 25 December 1996. This occupation temporarily satisfied the rebels, because it gave them power in the east and allowed them to defend themselves against the former génocidaires. Likewise, the external actors had successfully crippled the ability of the same génocidaires to use Zaire as a base for attacks. There was a pause in the rebel advance following the acquisition of this buffer territory that lasted until Angola entered the war in February 1997.

During this time, Rwanda destroyed refugee camps the génocidaires had been using as safe-bases, and forcibly repatriated Tutsi to Rwanda. It also captured many lucrative diamond and coltan mines, which it later resisted relinquishing. Rwandan and aligned forces committed multiple atrocities, mainly against Hutu refugees. The true extent of the abuses is unknown because the AFDL and RPF carefully managed NGO and press access to areas where atrocities were thought to have occurred. However Amnesty International said as many as 200,000 Rwandese Hutu refugees were massacred by them and the Rwandan Defence Forces and aligned forces. The United Nations similarly documented mass killings of civilians by Rwandan, Ugandan and the AFDL soldiers in the DRC Mapping Exercise Report.

1997
Kabila's forces launched an offensive in March 1997, and demanded that the Kinshasa government surrender. The rebels took Kasenga on 27 March. The government denied the rebels' success, starting a long pattern of false statements from the Defense Minister on the progress and conduct of the war. Negotiations were proposed in late March, and on 2 April a new Prime Minister of Zaire, Étienne Tshisekedi—a longtime rival of Mobutu—was installed. Kabila, by this point in control of roughly one-quarter of the country, dismissed this as irrelevant and warned Tshisekedi that he would have no part in a new government if he accepted the post. There are two explanations for the restart of the rebel advance in 1997. The first, and most probable, is that Angola had joined the anti-Mobutu coalition, giving it numbers and strength far superior to the FAZ, and demanding that Mobutu be removed from power. Kagame presents another, possibly secondary, reason for the march on Kinshasa: that the employment of Serbian mercenaries in the battle for Walikale proved that "Mobutu intended to wage real war against Rwanda." According to this logic, Rwanda's initial concerns had been to manage the security threat in eastern Zaire but it was now forced to dispose of the hostile government in Kinshasa.

Whatever the case, once the advance resumed in 1997, there was virtually no meaningful resistance from what was left of Mobutu's army. Kabila's forces were only held back by the dilapitated state of Zaire's infrastructure. In some areas, no real roads existed; the only means of transport were infrequently used dirt paths. The AFDL committed grave human rights violations, such as the carnage at a refugee camp of Hutus at Tingi-Tingi near Kisangani, where tens of thousands of refugees were massacred.

Coming from the east, the AFDL advanced westward in two pincer movements. The northern one took Kisangani, Boende, and Mbandaka, while the southern one took Bakwanga, and Kikwit. Around this time, Sudan attempted to coordinate with remnants of the FAZ and White Legion that were retreating northward to escape the AFDL. This was to prevent Zaire from becoming a safe haven for the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and its allies, which were fighting the Sudanese government in the Second Sudanese Civil War at the time. The Mobutu-loyal forces were collapsing so quickly, however, that they could not prevent the AFDL, SPLA and Ugandan military from occupying northeastern Zaire. Sudan-allied Ugandan insurgent groups which had been based in the region were forced to retreat into southern Sudan alongside FAZ troops that had not yet surrendered and a smaller number of Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) soldiers. They attempted to reach the SAF base at Yei, not knowing that it had already been overrun by the SPLA. The column of about 4,000 fighters and their families was ambushed by the SPLA during Operation Thunderbolt on 12 March, and mostly destroyed; 2,000 were killed, and over 1,000 captured. The survivors fled to Juba. Meanwhile, the AFDL reached Kinshasa by the middle of May. Another AFDL group captured Lubumbashi on April 19 and moved on by air to Kinshasa. Mobutu fled Kinshasa on May 16, and the "libérateurs" entered the capital without serious resistance. The AFDL-allied Eritrean battalion had aided the rebels during the entire 1,500 km advance despite being not well equipped for the environment and lacking almost all logistical support. By the time the Eritreans arrived at Kinshasa along the AFDL, they were exhausted, starving and ill, having suffered heavy casualties as a result. They had to be evacuated from the country by the war's end.

Throughout the rebel advance, there were attempts by the international community to negotiate a settlement. However, the AFDL did not take these negotiations seriously but instead partook so as to avoid international criticism for being unwilling to attempt a diplomatic solution while actually continuing its steady advance. The FAZ, which had been weak all along, was unable to mount any serious resistance to the strong AFDL and its foreign sponsors.

Mobutu fled first to his palace at Gbadolite and then to Rabat, Morocco, where he died on 7 September 1997. Kabila proclaimed himself president on 17 May, and immediately ordered a violent crackdown to restore order. He then attempted to reorganise the nation as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Aftermath
The new Congolese state under Kabila's rule proved to be disappointingly similar to Zaire under Mobutu. The economy remained in a state of severe disrepair and deteriorated further under Kabila's corrupt rule. He failed to improve the government, which continued to be weak and corrupt. Instead, Kabila began a vigorous centralisation campaign, bringing renewed conflict with minority groups in the east who demanded autonomy.

Kabila also came to be seen as an instrument of the foreign regimes that put him in power. To counter this image and increase domestic support, he began to turn against his allies abroad. This culminated in the expulsion of all foreign forces from the DRC on 26 July 1998. The states with armed forces still in the DRC begrudgingly complied although some of them saw this as undermining their interests, particularly Rwanda, which had hoped to install a proxy-regime in Kinshasa.

Several factors that led to the First Congo War remained in place after Kabila's accession to power. Prominent among these were ethnic tensions in eastern DRC, where the government still had little control. There the historical animosities remained and the opinion that Banyamulenge, as well as all Tutsi, were foreigners was reinforced by the foreign occupation in their defence. Furthermore, Rwanda had not been able to satisfactorily address its security concerns. By forcibly repatriating refugees, Rwanda had imported the conflict.

This manifested itself in the form of a predominantly Hutu insurgency in Rwanda's western provinces that was supported by extremist elements in eastern DRC. Without troops in the DRC, Rwanda was unable to successfully combat the insurgents. In the first days of August 1998, two brigades of the new Congolese army rebelled against the government and formed rebel groups that worked closely with Kigali and Kampala. This marked the beginning of the Second Congo War.

In addition, elements of Mobutu's army and loyalists as well as other groups involved in the First Congo War retreated into the Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), where they fought in the 1997–1999 civil war.

title: First Congo War


text:
Atar, Mauritania

Atar (أطار, Berber for mountain) is a town in northwestern Mauritania, the capital of the Adrar Region and the main settlement on the Adrar Plateau. Situated on the oued Seguellil, it is home to an airport, a museum and a historic mosque, constructed in 1674.

In 2013 it had a population of 25,190.

Geology and geography
The Adrar's mountains are from the primary era against the precambrian Tiris Zemmour. Near Atar, you can find stromatolites. In the North, you can find Choum with the train that comes from Nouadhibou and goes to Zouerate. East of Atar, through Amojjar Pass, is the difficult way to Chinguetti, Ouadane and the astonishing Richat Structure.

Climate
Atar has a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification BWh) typical of the Sahara Desert, south of the tropic of Cancer. The weather is usually very hot, very sunny and very dry but it can be overcast sometimes. The annual average temperature is close to 30 °C (86 °F), meaning that excessive heat persists year-round. The annual mean rainfall amount is very low, averaging no more than 35 mm and it mainly falls in August and in September while the sunshine duration is high, at over 3,540 h of bright sunshine yearly.

Tourism
Today, the Atar is best known to outsiders as an entryway for tourists to visit the ruins of the ancient Moorish cities of Ouadane and Chinguetti. It was a key stop in the world's longest off-road race, the Paris Dakar Rally, held every January.

Small business sector
The "samaras" (from Arab smela : sole) are made in Atar and well known in Mauritania. It's a leather sole with straps.

Military
In 2012, an air force school was founded in Atar to train pilots and crew for the Military of Mauritania.

Notable people

 * Med Hondo - film director (1936-2019)
 * Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya - 5th President of Mauritania (born 1941)

title: Atar, Mauritania