title: TPP Kostolac

text:
TPP Kostolac is a coal fired thermal power plant complex operated by Elektroprivreda Srbije, located on the right bank of Danube river, in Kostolac, Požarevac. It is the second largest power plant in Serbia after TPP Nikola Tesla. Within the complex, there are 4 operational units as of October 2020. It makes around 10% of the total available capacity of the electric power system of Serbia and almost 11 percent of the total electric power production in EPS's (Elektroprivreda Srbije) system.

History
The complex has 4 operational units, grouped in Kostolac A and Kostolac B. Kostolac A consists of one 100 MW unit and one 210 MW unit, commissioned in 1967 and 1980, respectively. Kostolac B comprises two 350 MW units (total of 700 MW), B1 and B2, commissioned in 1987 and 1991. In addition to electric power, TPP "Kostolac A" produces heating energy for heating of Kostolac and Požarevac.

Kostolac B3 planned
Also, additional Kostolac B3 unit is planned with installed capacity of 350 MW. For the purposes of running the new plant, expansion of an open pit mine Drmno from 9 to 12 tons of coal annually is planned. There are already existing units Kostolac A1, A2, B1 and B2 and Drmno and Cirikovac open cast mines at the site.

On 20 November 2013, Elektroprivreda Srbije, "Tеrmoеlеktranе i kopovi" Kostolac and Chinese corporation CMEC signed an agreement on construction. Authorities announced that the construction of the power plant is expected to begin by the end of 2014 and to be finished by 2019. Together with the existing blocks B1 and B2 the new plan will satisfy about 20% of Serbia's electricity needs. Zhang Chun, president and CEO of CMEC said that the new thermal power plant will have a positive impact on the environment, because it will comply with the emissions requirements of the European Union scheduled for 2018.

The project depends on financing from the China Exim Bank and unnamed commercial banks, and on a state guarantee from the Government of Serbia for these loans. The 2014 Serbian state budget allocates two guarantees for the project – US$107 million for unnamed commercial banks and US$608 million for the China Exim Bank.  Total value of the project amounts to US$715.6 million.

Ownership
Company "Tеrmoеlеktranе i kopovi" Kostolac is a subsidiary of Elektroprivreda Srbije which is 100% owned by the state of Serbia.

Controversial issues about Kostolac B3

Inadequate environmental impact assessment
NGOs are of the opinion that the Environmental impact assessment for the TPP Kostolac B3 is inadequate since it excludes the expansion of the Drmno open-cast mine, does not mention expected levels of emissions to air from heavy metals and does not consider alternative locations or alternative technologies. There is also no mentioning of transboundary impacts even though the site is just around 15 km from the Romanian border and even nearer to the River Danube. NGOs also stress that data sources cited in the study for environmental and health information are outdated (from 2006) and very limited.

On June the 2nd 2014 Serbian NGO CEKOR (Centre for Ecology and Sustainable Development) submitted a formal complaint in front of the Serbian national administrative court against the government’s decision to approve the Environmental Impact Assessment study for the construction of a new unit at the TPP Kostolac B. The complaint, in which the CEKOR exposes failings in the EIA process, is the first of its kind to reach Serbian courts.

Absence of the public procurement procedure
The signing of a contract with CMEC on 20 November 2013 was done without public tender. This is justified by the Serbian government on the basis of Public procurement act, article 2, which says that projects signed under inter-state agreements with other states do not need tender processes. Given the fact that Serbia has the obligation of aligning itself with the EU legislation, the question arises if the law is in accordance with the EU public procurement and state aid legislation.

Events

2014 Floods
Floods in May 2014 threatened to reach Kostolac B thermo power plant, however plant workers, fire-fighters and civilian volunteers managed to contain the water by building embankments. Given the fact that during floods RB Kolubara suffered huge damages, losing Kostolac would mean another big hit for Serbia’s energy production. Environmental impact assessment for TPP Kostolac B3 doesn’t assess the vulnerability of the new power plant to flooding.

See also
 Kostolac coal mine
 List of power stations in Serbia

References

Elektroprivreda Srbije
Coal-fired power stations in Serbia
Electric power companies of Serbia
Government-owned companies of Serbia
Companies based in Požarevac


title: Efficient cake-cutting

text:
Efficient cake-cutting is a problem in economics and computer science. It involves a heterogeneous resource, such as a cake with different toppings or a land with different coverings, that is assumed to be divisible - it is possible to cut arbitrarily small pieces of it without destroying their value. The resource has to be divided among several partners who have different preferences over different parts of the cake, i.e., some people prefer the chocolate toppings, some prefer the cherries, some just want as large a piece as possible, etc. The allocation should be economically efficient. Several notions of efficiency have been studied:

 The most common notion is Pareto-efficiency. It means that no other allocation is better for at least one participant and at least as good for everyone.
 A weaker notion is non-wastefulness. An allocation is non-wasteful if no agent receives a piece of cake that is worth 0 for him/her, and worth more than 0 for another agent.

Most often, efficiency is studied in connection with fairness, and the goal is to find a division which satisfies both efficiency and fairness criteria.

Definitions
There is a cake . It is usually assumed to be either a finite 1-dimensional segment, a 2-dimensional polygon or a finite subset of the multidimensional Euclidean plane .

There are  partners. Each partner  has a subjective value function  which maps subsets of  to numbers.

 has to be divided into  disjoint subsets, such that each person receives a disjoint subset. The piece allocated to person  is called , so that .

In the following lines we consider a cake with four parts: chocolate, vanilla, lemon and sugar, and two agents: Alice and George, with the following valuations:

An allocation is called wasteful if it allocates to some agent a piece that is worth 0 to that agent but worth more than 0 to another agent. In symbols:

 and .

Otherwise it is called non-wasteful (NW). In the example cake, an allocation giving all the cake to Alice is NW, but an allocation giving all the cake to George is wasteful since the lemon part is "wasted". There are many other NW allocations, for example, giving the chocolate to George and the remaining cake to Alice is NW.

An allocation  Pareto-dominates an allocation , if at least one person feels that  is better than , and no person feels that  is worse than . In symbols:

 and

An allocation is called Pareto optimal (PO) if it is not Pareto-dominated by any other division, i.e., it cannot be improved without objection. In the example cake, giving the entire cake to Alice is PO, but giving the entire cake to Bob is Pareto-dominated by the allocation where the lemon part is given to Alice. In general (when there are no connectivity requirements on the pieces), every wasteful allocation is Pareto-dominated, therefore every PO allocation is NW. However, the opposite is not true. For example, the allocation giving the chocolate to George and the remaining cake to Alice is NW but it is not PO - it is Pareto-dominated by the allocation giving to George the vanilla and half the chocolate. This is because, in the original allocation the utilities of (Alice, George) are (3, 6), while in the alternative allocation the utilities are (5.5, 7).

Existence and computation
Efficient allocations always exist. For example, every utilitarian-optimal cake-cutting is PO, hence also NW.

However, finding such allocations may be hard. It may be impossible to find a NW cake-allocation using a finite number of "mark" and "eval" queries, even if there are only two agents with piecewise-uniform valuations. This is because, after any finite number of such queries, the algorithm has information regarding only a finite number of intervals, and thus it cannot prevent waste inside the intervals: for any allocation of an interval to an agent, it is possible that this agent values a part of this interval at 0 while the other agent values the same part at 1.  Hence, PO too is not attainable by a finite protocol.

The problem becomes easy under the assumption of strict positivity (each agent values each point of the cake at strictly more than 0): every allocation is trivially NW, and every allocation that gives all the cake to a single agent is trivially PO (since every other allocation gives this agent strictly lower utility).

The problem is also easy for an algorithm that uses direct revelation instead of queries. In a direct revelation algorithm, each agent reveals his/her entire valuation function to the algorithm; this is possible, for example, with piecewise-constant valuations. With direct revelation, it is easy to find a utilitarian-optimal allocation (by giving each piece to an agent who values it the most), and such an allocation is also PO and NW.

Combining efficiency with fairness
Often, it is required to find an allocation that is not only efficient but also fair according to various fairness notions. Existence still holds:

 A PO allocation that is also proportional always exists. For example, an allocation maximizing the sum of values subject to proportionality always exists (since the set of all proportional allocations is compact), and it is PO (since proportionality is preserved by Pareto improvements).
 Moreover, a PO allocation that is also envy-free always exists. This does not follow directly from the above argument, since envy-freeness is not preserved by Pareto improvements. However, it is proved explicitly as Weller's theorem.

Finding such allocations may be hard even with strictly-positive valuations, depending on the computational model:

 In the query model, no finite algorithm that gives each agent a positive fraction of the cake can be PO, even with only two agents with strictly-positive valuations. This is because a finite algorithm always knows the values of finitely many intervals, so it cannot avoid inefficiencies inside intervals: for any allocation of the intervals, there may be a profitable exchange of sub-intervals that the algorithm cannot detect.
 In the direct revelation model (with piecewise-constant valuations), the Market Equilibrium Algorithm yields a PO and envy-free (hence proportional) allocation in polynomial time for any number of agents.

Combining efficiency with fairness and connectivity
Often, in addition to efficient and fairness, there are geometric constraints on the pieces. For example, if the cake is an interval, then each agent may require a piece that is a contiguous interval. With this additional requirement:

 A PO allocation that is also proportional still always exists. This is because the set of all proportional contiguous allocations is still compact, and proportionality is still preserved by Pareto improvements.
 A PO allocation that is also envy-free might not exist when there are at least three agents, even if they have piecewise-constant valuations.

From a computational perspective:

 With general valuations, when the value-densities are strictly positive, divide and choose is PO and proportional for two agents.  Suppose w.l.o.g. that Alice cuts, George chooses the leftmost piece and Alice gets the rightmost piece. Any alternative allocation where George gets the left and Alice gets the right cannot be a Pareto improvement, as (by the assumption of strict positivity) any movement of the cut location to the left hurts George, and any movement to the right hurts Alice. Any alternative allocation where George gets the right and Alice gets the left cannot be a Pareto improvement, since in any such allocation, at least one of them must get less than 1/2 of the total value, while in the original allocation both get at least 1/2.
 With piecewise-constant valuations, the Market Equilibrium Algorithm does not necessarily produce connected pieces, so it does not work. However, an algorithm similar to  can be used to find a proportional allocation that maximizes the sum of utilities for any number of agents, by solving  linear programs (where m is the number of pieces).

It is currently not known whether, for 3 or more agents with strictly-positive valuations, a connected proportional PO allocation can be found using a finite number of queries (in the query model) or using a polynomial algorithm (in the direct revelation model).

Non-additive valuations
If the cake is a 1-dimensional interval and each person must receive a connected interval, the following general result holds: if the value functions are strictly monotonic (i.e. each person strictly prefers a piece over all its proper subsets) then every EF division is also PO (note that this is not true if the agents may receive disconnected pieces). Hence, in this case, the Simmons–Su protocols create a PO+EF division.

If the cake is a 1-dimensional circle (i.e. an interval whose two endpoints are topologically identified) and each person must receive a connected arc, then the previous result does not hold: an EF division is not necessarily PE. Additionally, there are pairs of (non-additive) value functions for which no PO+EF division exists. However, if there are 2 agents and at least one of them has an additive value function, then a PO+EF division exists.

See also

 Utilitarian cake-cutting
 Fair cake-cutting
 Price of fairness

References

Cake-cutting
Pareto efficiency


title: Kilfree Junction railway station

text:
Kilfree Junction is a former station in County Sligo and was located on the Sligo line in the townland of Cloontycarn between  and  about  from the track summit though the Curlew Mountains.  It enabled connections on the branch line to  in County Roscommon.  The junction faced Ballymote and Sligo station and was a trailing junction in the Boyle and Dublin Connolly direction requiring a reversal.  The station was not located near any significant settlement, the nearest, Gorteen in County Sligo being over 6 km away.

The station had three platforms: two served a passing loop on the main line and the third was used by the branch line.  All main line trains usually used the island platform for easier transfers to the branch line.   The station had sidings and turntable for turning round engines coming up from the branch line together with a loop for running the branch line train.  There was a signal box and a house for the station master.

History

This railway station opened by the Sligo and Ballaghderreen Railway on 31 October 1874, becoming part of the Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR) in 1877.

The MGWR was joined with other railways companies to form Great Southern Railway company in 1924 and with a further merger in 1925 the station came under Great Southern Railways.

The station closed on 4 February 1963 with the closure of the branch line.  The last passenger train back to Ballaghaderreen at 13:00 set off a large number of denotators set on the track to mark the departure.

The passing loop has since been removed leaving the main line as single track.  Only part of the island platform and the station masters' house remain.  The embankment of the branch line is still visible from trains passing on the main line.

Etymology
Kilfree is the name of the civil parish covering both the location of Kilfree Junction and the area in County Sligo the branch line ran through.  Kilfree is also the name of the townland where the parish church once stood, the townland location is near the R293 road some way from both Kilfree Junction and the route of the branch line.

Incidents

Kilfree Junction was the scene of several incidents in the Irish War of Independence including carriages containing members of the British Army being shot at and Royal Irish Constabulary officers being overpowered and disarmed in January 1921.

On or about 8:00 am in June 1956 a freight train approaching downhill from Dublin North Wall to Sligo failed to halt at the signal box as directed and crashed through buffers at the end of a siding.  The body of the year old diesel-electric locomotive A44 sheered off from the bogies, somersaulting three times over 25 yards and ending up 50 feet below on the mainline.  The driver escaped with minor injuries and was discharged from hospital after one day.  The 12 wagons were wrecked and contents spread over a large area.  A cargo of gelignite was dealt with first, and cargo of carbide marked Dangerous when dry was handled next.  The fate of remaining cargo including whiskey and stout does not appear to be recorded.  Breakdown crews from Dublin, Galway and Athlone were rapidly on the scene with a breakdown crane and the wreckage quickly cleared.  Locomotive A44 was subsequently repaired and returned to service.

References

Railway stations opened in 1874
Disused railway stations in County Sligo
Railway stations in the Republic of Ireland opened in the 1870s
Railway stations in the Republic of Ireland closed in 1963


title: Firefly Aerospace

text:
Firefly Aerospace is an American private aerospace firm based in Cedar Park, Texas, that develops launch vehicles for commercial launches to orbit. The company completed its $75 million Series A investment round in May 2021, which was led by DADA Holdings. The current company was formed when the assets of the former company Firefly Space Systems were acquired by EOS Launcher in March 2017, which was then renamed Firefly Aerospace. Firefly's purported purpose is to increase access to space, similar to other private spaceflight companies.

Launch vehicles

Firefly Alpha

The Alpha vehicle developed by Firefly Aerospace is an expendable launch vehicle with  payload capability to low Earth orbit and  to Sun-synchronous orbit. The projected launch cost is US$15 million per launch. Alpha is designed to compete with vehicles like the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). It utilizes Reaver-1 and Lightning-1 engines and a lightweight carbon composite structure to reduce launch weight, resulting in an improved payload fraction. The rocket performed its first partially successful orbital launch on October 1, 2022, after an unsuccessful first attempt on September 3, 2021. The first fully successful launch of Alpha took place on 15 September 2023.

MLV

Previous designs
Firefly previously pursued a medium-lift launch vehicle design known as Firefly Beta, which consisted of three Alpha cores strapped together. In October 2019, Firefly announced a partnership with Aerojet Rocketdyne to develop a single core rocket potentially powered by Rocketdyne's AR1 engine. In 2020, the Beta was redesigned to be a scaled up Alpha. The first stage would be  in diameter with 5 Reaver engines capable of delivering 8000 kg to LEO or 5800 kg to SSO inside a  fairing. In October 2021, the first Beta launch was planned for the second half of 2024.

Current design
By August 2022, the concept had undergone another revision. Now known as the Medium Launch Vehicle, or MLV, the rocket is now 4.32 m (14.17 ft) in diameter with 7 Miranda engines, and capable of delivering 14,000 kg to LEO in a 5 m (16.4 ft) fairing. As of March 2023, the first MLV launch is scheduled for 2025.

Antares 300

Firefly is a subcontractor for the Northrop Grumman Antares series 300, contracted to provide the first stage booster for the Antares rocket. This booster rocket is based on the Firefly Beta first stage, but modified to fit the form factor of the Antares first stage configuration, to fit the same launch mounting and attachments, and the same upper (second) stage.

Firefly Gamma
Firefly Gamma is a concept of a winged rocket to launch small payloads into orbit. It would be a 2-stage rocket 75% reusable with its first stage landing horizontally at a runway. If built, its first test flights are expected to start in the 2020s.

Lunar landers

Genesis lunar lander
On June 9, 2019, Firefly Aerospace announced that it had signed an agreement with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), which owns the intellectual property of the Beresheet lunar lander design, to build a lunar lander named Genesis based on Beresheet. Genesis was proposed for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) to deliver payloads to the surface of the Moon. If selected, Firefly Genesis would have been launched on a Firefly Beta rocket, or a Falcon 9 rocket in late 2022. Due to changing CLPS specifications, Firefly determined that Genesis no longer fit NASA's requirements and started work on a new lunar lander design called Blue Ghost in 2021.

Blue Ghost lunar lander

Blue Ghost is a lunar lander designed at Firefly's Cedar Park facility to meet NASA's updated requirements for a CLPS lunar lander. The lander is named after the blue ghost firefly Phausis reticulata.

On February 4, 2021, NASA awarded a CLPS contract worth US$93.3 million to Firefly Aerospace to deliver a suite of 10 science investigations and technology demonstrations to the Moon in 2023. The award is part of the NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, in which NASA is securing the service of commercial partners to quickly land science and technology payloads on the lunar surface as part of the Artemis program.

Firefly Aerospace is the prime contractor responsible for end-to-end delivery services, including payload integration, launch from Earth, landing on the Moon, and mission operations. Subcontractors include SolAero By Rocket Lab, providing the solar panels, and ASI by Rocket Lab, providing the lander flight software, ground software, GN&C software, trajectory design, orbit determination, and avionics/flight software testbed integration. This is the sixth award for lunar surface delivery under the CLPS initiative, and the first delivery awarded to Firefly Aerospace. Firefly's Cedar Park facility will serve as the company's mission operations center for the 2023 delivery and the location of payload integration, with Rocket Lab serving as the backup mission operations center.

The mission is planned to land at Mare Crisium, a 500-km-wide basin. Instruments will gather data to provide insight into the Moon's regolith – loose, fragmented rock and soil – properties, geophysical characteristics, and the interaction of solar wind and Earth's magnetic field, helping to prepare for human missions to the lunar surface.

The payloads, collectively expected to total  in mass, include:

 The Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC), which will determine how lunar regolith sticks to a range of materials exposed to the Moon's environment during landing and lander operations. Components will be derived from the Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE) facility currently on the International Space Station (ISS).
 The Next Generation Lunar Retroreflectors (NGLR), which will serve as a target for lasers on Earth to precisely measure the distance between Earth and the Moon. The retroreflector that will fly on this mission also will provide data that could be used to understand various aspects of the lunar interior and address fundamental physics questions.
 The Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI), which will capture images of the interaction of Earth's magnetosphere with the flow of charged particles from the Sun, called the solar wind.
 The Reconfigurable, Radiation Tolerant Computer System (RadPC), which aims to demonstrate a radiation-tolerant computing technology. Due to the Moon's lack of atmosphere and magnetic field, radiation from the Sun will be a challenge for electronics. This investigation also will characterize the radiation effects on the lunar surface.
 The Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS), which is designed to characterize the structure and composition of the Moon's mantle by studying electric and magnetic fields. The investigation will make use of a flight-spare magnetometer, a device that measures magnetic fields, originally made for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft currently orbiting Mars.
 The Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER), which is designed to measure heat flow from the interior of the Moon. The probe will attempt to drill  into the lunar regolith to investigate the Moon's thermal properties at different depths.
 The Lunar PlanetVac (LPV), which is designed to acquire lunar regolith from the surface and transfer it to other instruments that would analyze the material or put it in a container that another spacecraft could return to Earth.
 Stereo CAmeras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS 1.1), which will capture video and still images of the area under the lander from when the engine plume first disturbs the lunar surface through engine shutdown. Long-focal-length cameras will determine the pre-landing surface topography. Photogrammetry will be used to reconstruct the changing surface during landing. Understanding the physics of rocket exhaust on the regolith, and the displacement of dust, gravel, and rocks is critical to understanding how to best avoid kicking up surface materials during the terminal phase of flight/landing on the Moon and other celestial bodies.
 The Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS), which will generate a non-uniform electric field using varying high voltage on multiple electrodes. This traveling field, in turn, carries away the particles and has potential applications in thermal radiators, spacesuit fabrics, visors, camera lenses, solar panels, and many other technologies.
 The Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE), which is based on GPS. LuGRE will continue to extend the reach of GPS signals and, if successful, be the first to discern GPS signals at lunar distances.

On May 20, 2021, Firefly selected SpaceX's Falcon 9 as the launch vehicle for the first mission, as its own Alpha rocket does not have the performance or payload volume needed to launch Blue Ghost. Firefly's future Beta launch vehicle is expected to support future Blue Ghost missions.

On April 26, 2022, Firefly announced the completion of the Integration Readiness Review (IRR) for the first Blue Ghost lander, M1, with the launch now expected to occur in 2024.

On March 14, 2023, NASA awarded Firefly a $112 million task order for a mission to the far side of the Moon using the second Blue Ghost lander, which is expected to launch in 2026.

Engines
To date, Firefly is the only organization to develop an orbital-class rocket engine utilizing the combustion tap-off cycle, and the only organization to develop a kerolox tap-off cycle engine.

This engine type eliminates traditional gas generators and instead opts to "tap off" the main combustion chamber, utilizing the high heat and pressure within it to drive the pumps.

This provides a slight increase in specific impulse and results in a dramatically simpler and lighter engine, in exchange for increased engineering complexity and requiring more exotic materials in order to handle the high heat and pressure. The startup sequence is also more challenging.

As a result of these challenges, tap-off has been largely ignored, with the only other engines using it being the Rocketdyne J-2S and Blue Origin BE-3.

Firefly designed both Reaver and Lightning in close cooperation with Yuzhnoye State Design Office in Ukraine.

Reaver
Reaver is an expendable rocket engine designed for use on Firefly's Alpha rocket. It has a thrust of 184 kN and a specific impulse of 295.6 sec. It is powered by RP-1 and liquid oxygen as its fuel and oxidizer, respectively. Reaver is fixed-throttle, meaning it runs at full power from ignition to first stage shutdown (eschewing the typical throttle-down performed by many vehicles at Max-Q to reduce aerodynamic loads) and is ignited with the pyrophoric combination TEA-TEB (also used on the SpaceX Merlin and Rocketdyne F-1). It utilizes a pintle-type injector.

In 2021, The Verge reported that Astra Space had purchased up to 50 Reaver engines and a technology transfer to license-build their own version of Reaver in-house for their Rocket 4 vehicle. Astra refers to this engine as Chiron. It is largely the same as Reaver, but implements a two-axis hydraulic gimbal and a modified startup sequence.

Lightning
Lightning is a vacuum-optimized engine designed for use on the upper stage of Firefly's Alpha rocket. Lightning has a thrust of 70.1 kN and an ISP of 322 sec. Like Reaver, Lightning uses RP-1 and LOX as its propellants as well as the same combustion tap-off cycle. It is also re-lightable for missions requiring multiple upper stage burns. It uses Firefly's patented "Crossfire" injector design.

Miranda
Miranda is Firefly's next-generation rocket engine designed for use on the first stage of its upcoming MLV launch vehicle, in addition to Northrop Grumman's Antares 330. Miranda has a thrust of 1,023 kN and an ISP of 305 sec. Miranda uses the same RP-1 and LOX propellants as Firefly's Reaver and Lightning engines, as well as the combustion tap-off cycle.

Miranda was formerly known as "Reaver 2."

Miranda Vacuum
Miranda Vacuum is a vacuum-optimized version of Miranda designed for the upper stage of Firefly's MLV vehicle. It has a vacuum thrust of 890 kN and an ISP of 328 sec, and uses RP-1 and LOX as its propellants. It is re-lightable for missions requiring multiple upper stage burns.

Space Utility Vehicle

Firefly is developing the Space Utility Vehicle (SUV), a reusable electric spacecraft designed to move payloads and satellites from one orbit to another within LEO, GEO, and cislunar space. SUV would allow smaller rockets (such as Firefly's own Alpha) to deliver larger payloads to more difficult orbits, and enable satellite relocation, servicing, mission extension, and deorbiting.

Production
Firefly headquarters and factory are located in Cedar Park, Texas. The company has access to about 50,000 ft2 of manufacturing facilities for building composite and metallic components in-house. Firefly will use leased launch sites in California (Vandenberg Space Launch Complex 2) and in Florida (SLC-20).

History

Firefly Space Systems

Early growth
Firefly Space Systems began as a startup in January 2014 by Tom Markusic, P.J. King and Michael Blum and a small group of entrepreneurs who self-funded the company. In November 2014, Firefly moved its headquarters from Hawthorne, California to Austin-suburb Cedar Park, Texas. It grew to 43 employees by November 2014, and purchased  of land for an engine test and manufacturing facility in Briggs, Texas,  north of Austin.

In 2014, Firefly purchased fiber-winding equipment for manufacturing composite cryotanks that would be built using an out-of-autoclave process. Prototype tanks were tested at Marshall Space Flight Center of NASA in mid-2014.

The Firefly Alpha design was revealed in July 2014. Firefly's objective was to be cash-flow positive by 2018, based on anticipated small-satellite business. Firefly had signed an agreement with Space Florida to launch from the Florida "Space Coast".

Firefly performed its first hot-fire engine test of the "Firefly Rocket Engine Research 1" (FRE-R1) on September 10, 2015. The initial demonstration launch of the Firefly Alpha was planned to be as early as 2016.

Litigation and closure
In December 2014, Tom Markusic's former employer Virgin Galactic alleged he had illegally provided Virgin intellectual property to the Alpha development team. Virgin also alleged that Markusic had "destroyed storage devices, disposed of computers, and reformatted hard drives to cover the tracks of his misappropriation of Virgin Galactic information". In August 2016, an independent arbitrator confirmed that Markusic had destroyed evidence. Thereafter, a major European investor backed down, leaving Firefly without sufficient money to proceed. The company furloughed its entire staff in October 2016. According to Markusic, the investor's drawback was not related to the litigation but to Brexit. Within the same month, Virgin Orbit filed suit in Los Angeles County Superior Court against Firefly and two of its officers. By December 1, 2016, Firefly Space Systems had permanently ceased engineering work.

In March 2017, it was announced that "virtually all" of the assets of Firefly would be sold at auction, organized by EOS Launcher, Inc., who had previously bought a US$1 million promissory note issued by Firefly to Space Florida and induced a foreclosure.

Firefly Aerospace
After going bankrupt and being liquidated in March 2017, the company was re-created as Firefly Aerospace by Noosphere Ventures, who bought out the assets of former Firefly Space Systems. The owner of Noosphere Ventures, Max Polyakov, committed to fully fund Firefly through at least its first two launches. The plans for engine development were significantly altered by the new management, and the revised Alpha vehicle design featured a pump-fed engine and removed the aerospike configuration. The reorganization initially delayed development by approximately a year, with the first launch expected, , in 2019.

Development of engines and structures resumed in 2017 and Firefly Aerospace performed multiple hot-fire tests of its Lightning-1 second stage engine on its existing horizontal test stand. A vertical stage test stand was nearing completion and stage testing was expected to begin in the second half of 2018.

On May 17, 2018, Firefly Aerospace opened a Research and development (R&D) center in the city of Dnipro, Ukraine. The Firefly R&D center was announced to become, over time, a place of work for more than 150 employees, and is equipped with the largest 3D-printer in Ukraine, intended for industrial manufacturing of high-quality metal parts.

On October 10, 2018, Firefly Aerospace and smallsat developer York Space Systems announced a partnership to offer customers a combined package of satellite and launch services.

In November 2018, it was announced that NASA selected Firefly Aerospace as one of nine companies able to bid for Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS), where the company would propose a robotic lunar lander called Firefly Genesis.

In February 2019, the company announced that it would develop manufacturing facilities and a launch site at Cape Canaveral. They have leased a private launch pad in Florida — the former Space Launch Complex 20 (SLC-20) which had been used by the U.S. Air Force in the 1950s through 1996 — from the U.S. government and they also have a similar lease arrangement on the U.S. West Coast.

In December 2019, a group of primary shareholders of Firefly Space Systems filed a lawsuit alleging fraud and intentional bankruptcy of the company by Tom Markusic. According to the defendants, including Polyakov, the lawsuit was provocative and the plaintiffs' claims unfounded, three years after the updated Firefly Aerospace was a significant success. The lawsuit is pending.

In February 2021, NASA awarded approximately US$93.3 million to Firefly Aerospace to develop exploration technologies for Artemis Commercial Moon Delivery in 2023.

Firefly launched its first test flight on September 3, 2021. The Firefly Alpha rocket experienced an anomaly during ascent, and the Range terminated the flight using the explosive Flight Termination System (FTS).

In late November 2021, Maxim Polyakov received a letter from the US Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS) asking Polyakov and his investment firm Noosphere Venture Partners to sell a stake in Firefly (nearly 50%) for national security reasons. Polyakov denied the threat to US national security, but agreed to comply. Noosphere Ventures has announced that it will hire an investment banking firm to sell. Even before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the future of the Firefly R&D center in Ukraine was uncertain; after the invasion started, the Dnipro factory was bombed and many of the Ukrainian engineers either joined the army or fled the country.

Even after Noosphere and Polyakov sold their controlling stake in the company, the US government continued to push them to sell all their remaining shares, blocking Firefly from launching their second rocket and denying them launch licenses until Polyakov was completely divested. The government did not give reasons beyond Polyakov was Ukrainian and Ukraine and Russia had once worked together on rockets. Despite Polyakov's anger, he agreed, and on February 24, 2022, it was announced that Polyakov and his company Noosphere would sell their stake in Firefly to AE Industrial Partners.

In August 2022, Northrop Grumman announced that it had contracted Firefly Aerospace to build the Antares rocket's new 300-series' first stage, which is similar to Firefly's in-development Beta launch vehicle, and features the same composite structures as well as seven Miranda engines producing  of thrust — substantially greater than the previous 200-series first stage. Northrop Grumman states that the new first stage substantially increases the mass capability of Antares.

On October 1, 2022, Firefly launched the Alpha rocket on its second test flight “To the Black” from Space Launch Complex 2 from Vandenberg Space Force Base. Alpha completed all objectives (that Firefly had itself placed) for the mission, becoming the first orbital rocket to be powered by a tap-off cycle engine. The mission was the first partially successful orbital launch for Alpha, carrying educational payloads. Alpha deployed 7 satellites, however, due to the lower than intended final deployment orbit, most of the satellites re-entered approximately a week after launch.

On September 14, 2023, Firefly successfully launched the Alpha rocket on its first mission for the United States Department of Defense, placing a spacecraft for Millenium Space into orbit and demonstrating rapid response launch for the United States Armed Forces.

See also

 Relativity Space
 Rocket Lab

References

External links

Aerospace companies of the United States
Companies based in Texas
Private spaceflight companies
Commercial launch service providers
Technology companies established in 2017
American companies established in 2017
2017 establishments in Texas
Commercial Lunar Payload Services


Basque National Liberation Movement prisoners are all those people who have been imprisoned, placed on remand, or otherwise kept in custody due to their illegal activity in support of the Basque National Liberation Movement (MLNV using its Spanish acronym).

Most individuals linked to the MLNV currently serving out their sentences in prisons of Spain, France and other countries were convicted for their involvement with Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) at the moment of their arrest, and for other offences such as murder, attempted murder, participating in terrorism and kidnapping. Some were convicted only for being a member of ETA, while others were not members of ETA but have been imprisoned for collaborating with it, or have been convicted of other offences such as belonging to illegal organizations like Gestoras pro Amnistía or SEGI, belonging to or trying to rebuild banned political parties such as Askatasuna and Batasuna, participating in Kale borroka, or for the "public glorification of terrorism", an offence incorporated into the Spanish Criminal Code in 1995.

Many supporters of the Basque nationalist left consider ETA and MLNV convicts currently in Spanish and French prisons to be political prisoners, the majority of whom are represented by the Basque Political Prisoners Collective (EPPK under its Basque acronym). Some organizations like Etxerat have spent many years campaigning for the rights of Basque prisoners, with a special focus on bringing dispersed prisoners back to the Basque Country and the release of seriously ill prisoners.

Since the late 1960s tens of thousands of MLNV activists have been detained, and several thousands of those imprisoned. Up until 2003 an estimated 30,000 activists had been arrested, 8,172 of whom were accused of being members of ETA, out of which 4,770 were convicted of a criminal offence and served a prison sentence. A notable convicted MLNV leader is former ETA-member Arnaldo Otegi, who was released in 2016 after six year in prisons for attempting to re-establish the outlawed party Batasuna, despite having received conviction in an unfair trial. In addition, Otegi had been previously convicted of a number of offences including kidnapping, glorifying terrorism, and being an ETA member.

History
The number of prisoners related to the Basque National Liberation Movement has varied over the years as can be seen in the following bar chart. It begins in 1978, after the amnesty of 1977, which made it illegal to bring to trial any Franco era crime, and also gave amnesty to all prisoners who had committed crimes with a political root during Franco's dictatorship and the Spanish transition to democracy.

The data for the bar chart comes from Etxerat, the association of family members of these prisoners, and the EPPK (Euskal Preso Politikoen Kolektiboa). However, some prisoners choose not to be part of Etxerat, or have been expelled, and so the number of Basque National Liberation Movement prisoners is approximately 7% more than these figures. For example, in 2005 Etxerat reported 507 prisoners were held in Spanish prisons, while the Spanish prison service stated that there were 544 related to ETA.

For consistency the Etxerat figures have been used in the bar chart.

Current situation
According to Etxerat, as of February 2023 there were 168 people imprisoned due their activities in support of ETA or organizations linked to ETA. 156 are imprisoned in Spain and 12 in France. 25 are women.

Dispersal policy

In 1989 the Spanish government began a policy of dispersal of Basque prisoners throughout Spain. The purpose was to restrict communication between ETA and its prisoners and to eventually reintegrate them into society. At the beginning some prisoners were even sent to North Africa and the Canary Islands, but during ETA's ceasefire in the late 1990s those prisoners were brought back to the mainland, and even after the ceasefire ended they were kept there. Several times prisoners have been brought nearer to the Basque Country as a response to an ETA ceasefire. For example, in September 1999, 105 prisoners were sent to prisons nearer the Basque Country in response to ETA maintaining its ceasefire for over a year. However, prisoners have also been sent further away in response to ETA violence.

The policy has been maintained over the years, generally sending the more dangerous or high ranking individuals to prisons furthest from the Basque Country. 2014 marked the 25th anniversary of this policy, which has been hailed as a great success by the Spanish government, especially in the light of the 2011 declaration by ETA of a permanent ceasefire. France has taken a similar approach, spreading the prisoners throughout the French prison system.

The families of the prisoners view this policy as punishing them, as they are forced to travel large distances to visit their imprisoned relatives. They argue that the distances they need to travel cause stress, is financially draining, and that every year there are accidents involving family members while traveling to or from prisons. There have been many demonstrations calling for all these prisoners to be moved to prisons in the Basque Country. Currently there is a highly publicised campaign calling for this. Its slogan is "Euskal presoak- Euskal Herrira" ("Basque prisoners to the Basque Country"). It has widespread support within the Basque Country. Ill prisoners also regularly ask to be transferred to prisons in the Basque country.

Most of the main political parties in Spain reject this idea, the exception being Podemos which wants to see an end to the dispersal policy. Mariano Rajoy, the Prime Minister of Spain, said in 2011 that he would not consider ending the policy until ETA declares its disbandment. Interior minister Jorge Fernández Díaz confirmed the possibility of changing the dispersal policy conditioned on ETA's dissolution. In 2017 this was re-emphasized by the Interior minister Juan Ignacio Zoido who stated that the Spanish government would not end dispersion while ETA still exists. By contrast, the European Parliament condemned on 5 October 2017 dispersal policies applied within Europe for their damaging effect on prisoners' family life, as well as urging member states to revise the sentences of seriously ill prisoners on humanitarian grounds; the act, passed by a large majority (474 votes), was opposed by the Spanish Conservatives, Ciudadanos, and UPyD.

However, in May 2019, the European Tribunal for Human Rights ruled against the appeal filed in 2016 by prisoner Gorka Fraile against his dispersal 700 km away from his family while undergoing cancer treatment; the tribunal stated that the dispersal policy is justified and sanctioned by Spanish law and interference with his family life would be justified by a higher end, i.e. "the prevention of disorder and crime and the protection of the rights and liberties of others", concluding next that Spanish Justice did not breach his fundamental rights. In March 2018, Etxerat reported the death of prisoner Xabier Rey in a Cadiz prison cell, 1050 km away from home, who was held 1st degree, i.e. incommunicado. The relatives' support association condemned the harsh conditions of his detention. It was followed by a rally in Pamplona mourning and denouncing his death attended by thousands.

Following ETA's disbandment [2017], a wide number of jurists consulted in Spain advocated for an end to the dispersal policy in May 2018; however, at that point, the Spanish government refused to change its policy on the matter. The same month that year, UPN, a regional party of Navarre, warned it would not endorse the Spanish government's national budget if it did not strongly commit to the dispersal policies of Basque prisoners. The topic of ETA prisoners was raised by Pablo Casado before and after his election in July 2018 as head of the Popular Party. The party used the victims of terrorism as a way of opposing the incoming Spanish premier Pedro Sanchez, PSOE, now in office, with Casado declaring they would "not put up with any prison transfer close home of ETA prisoners", and would not either accept "meddling with the memory of the victims"; the party secretary Javier Maroto stated that the party would rally ETA victims out to the streets to protest any attempt to transfer these prisoners close to the Basque Country.

EPPK

Euskal Preso Politikoen Kolektiboa (EPPK) is a collective which speaks and negotiates for, and has as members the majority of these prisoners.

Originally this role was played by La Comisión Pro Amnistía and La Gestora Pro Amnistía, both of which were dissolved after the general amnesty in 1978. In 1979 Gestoras pro Amnistía was created to take their place. After this was made illegal in 2001 Askatasuna took on the role, but was itself made illegal in 2002. In 2008 twenty-one members who had run Gestoras pro Amnistía were imprisoned for between 8 and 10 years each. In 2011 the former head of Askatasuna, Oihana Agirre was given a 12-year sentence.

Since the illegalization of Askatasuna the EPPK and Etxerat have spoken for the prisoners and campaigned for amnesty to be granted to them. The EPPK is said to control prisoners strictly and demand they follow its orders. Prisoners who refuse orders from the EPPK have been ostracized.

It is thought there are broadly 2 groups within the prisoner population. One group has long sentences yet to serve, who would prefer a group negotiation for amnesty. The other group consists of prisoners with less time to serve before being released, and they might be interested in applying for better conditions or for limited release.

In 2012 the EPPK was criticized by former prisoners for insisting on amnesty for all prisoners and denying many prisoners the option of improving their own situation through other legal means. In December 2013 the EPPK announced that it was dropping its long standing demand for amnesty of all prisoners, and so opened the door for prisoners to negotiate individually for better conditions.

However, in July 2014 it was reported that no member of the EPPK had begun individual negotiations, and it was believed that the EPPK was still following an alternative strategy.

Hunger strikes
There have been many hunger strikes by Basque prisoners. None have led to the death of a prisoner.

Here is a list of some of them:
 In June 1974 thirteen prisoners in Basauri prison began a hunger strike. It lasted 13 days.
 In September 1974 one prisoner in Zaragoza prison took part in a 16-day hunger strike and was hospitalized.
 In October 1974 thirteen prisoners in Basauri prison began another hunger strike.
 In December 1974 six prisoners took part in a hunger strike in Zaragoza prison.
 In September 1976 twelve prisoners began a hunger strike in Burgos prison to protest at the conditions of the prison and their treatment.
 In December 1976 eleven prisoners began another hunger strike in Burgos prison.
 In August 1977 seven prisoners from Carabanchel and Martutene prisons took part in a hunger strike.
 In May 1978 nine prisoners held in Pamplona prison held a 17-day hunger strike. It was to support the Pro-Amnesty week, and demand a general amnesty.
 In October 1980, 43 prisoners took part in a hunger strike to complain about harsh treatment in the prisons of Soria and Zamora.
 In February 1981, 108 prisoners in Carabanchel prison began a hunger strike in protest at the torturing to death of fellow inmate Joxe Arregi.
 In September 1982, 74 prisoners in Puerto Santa Maria prison began a hunger strike.
 In February 1984, two prisoners in Fresnes prison, in France held a month-long hunger strike.
 In June 1986 almost 100 prisoners held in Herrera de la Mancha prison took part in a hunger strike to demand amnesty.
 In November 1987 over 100 prisoners from six prisons declared a hunger strike to protest "against the repression of the Basque people, and for political negotiations".
 In December 1988 three prisoners in French prisons took part in a month-long hunger strike, and were hospitalized.
 In April 1991 seventy prisoners in Herrera de la Mancha prison began a hunger strike to complain about being separated from each other within the prison.
 In June 1991, thirteen prisoners in El Salto del Negro Prison, in the Canary Islands began a hunger strike in protest at the "minimal living conditions" in the prison.
 In May 1992, twelve prisoners in El Salto del Negro Prison, in the Canary Islands, held a month-long hunger strike.
 In July 1992, nine prisoners in Puerto 2 prison, held a hunger strike to complain about conditions in the prison.
 In September 1994, 250 prisoners began a hunger strike.
 In July 1996 Iñaki Olaskoaga Múgica, imprisoned in Uzerche prison in France, undertook a hunger strike to demand that Basque prisoners be imprisoned together in a Basque prison. After 23 days he was transferred to hospital.
 In October 1998 four prisoners in La Sante prison in Paris went on hunger strike to protest against the planned extradition of one of them to Spain after completing his sentence in France.
 In May 2000, 300 prisoners ended a 7-month-long hunger strike.
 In August 2006 José Ignacio de Juana Chaos began his first hunger strike which lasted 63 days. It was to protest against him being accused of making terrorist threats in two letters written from prison just as he was about to be released after 17 years inside. In November of the same year he was given a 12½ year sentence for writing those letters. In protest at the sentence he began another hunger strike which ended on 1 March 2007 after 114 days. He began his third hunger strike in July 2008 in protest at the Spanish authorities confiscating the apartment his wife had bought from his mother, and where he was planning to live on leaving prison.
 In January 2010 Lorentxa Gimon began a hunger strike to protest against her isolation in the French prison where she was. It began before and independently of the mass hunger strike which began later in January.
 In January 2010 there was a mass hunger strike by all 742 prisoners belonging to the collective of Basque prisoners (EPPK). It was to complain about the policy of dispersion.
 In October 2010 six prisoners began a 15-day hunger strike in Murcia prison to demand that they all be kept in the same part of the prison, and to complain at the unhygienic conditions of the whole prison, including a plague of rats in the kitchen and dining room.
 In February 2012 Ibon Goieaskoetxea and Borja Gutiérrez began a hunger strike in protest of the imminent transfer of Goieaskoetxea to another prison in France.
 In August 2012 a hunger strike was begun to protest at the Spanish authorities refusal to let Josu Uribetxeberria, an imprisoned ETA member who had terminal cancer, from returning home to die. It began with 100 prisoners in Spain, including Arnaldo Otegi, and they were joined by 91 from French prisons. By 13 August 254 prisoners had joined the hunger strike.
 In October 2013 fifteen Basque prisoners in Seville prison began a hunger strike to protest against their incarceration so far from home and their families. Thirteen of the prisoners continued the hunger strike for 32 days.
 In June 2015 seven prisoners held in Fleury-Mérogis Prison went on hunger strike to protest at the reduction in the number of visits they can each receive, from four every month to two.
 In May 2016 a hunger strike was held for 19 days by several prisoners in Fresnes prison in France in protest at Itziar Moreno being placed in isolation.

'Via Nanclares'
'Via Nanclares' is a project to allow ETA prisoners to gain better conditions in prison and eventually to be released on condition they fulfill certain conditions. The core of these conditions is that they distance themselves from ETA, ask for forgiveness, and agree to pay compensation for their actions. Its purpose is to break the control the EPPK (Euskal Preso Politikoen Kolektiboa) has over these prisoners and the strict discipline it imposes. Part of this discipline for example, demanded that amnesty of all prisoners was to be sought, and that individuals could not seek ways to reduce their own sentences. Anyone doing so would be ostracized. The 'Via Nanclares' project was thought up by Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba and set in motion by the then Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero in 2009. It takes its name from the old Nanclares de Oca prison in the Basque Country, where these prisoners were to be sent. In 2011 that prison was replaced by the new 720 cell Zaballa prison, built close to it.

With the change of government in Madrid in November 2011 the 'Via Nanclares' was temporarily closed, but is now in use again.
It requires prisoners to:
 Distance themselves from ETA.
 Accept prison policy.
 Leave the collective of Basque prisoners (EPPK).
 Publicly denounce ETA and the use of violence.
 Ask for forgiveness from the families of their victims, if there are any.
 Agree to pay compensation, if damage has been caused.
 And lastly to collaborate with the Spanish judicial system in the fight against terrorism.

When ETA declared its permanent ceasefire in 2011 twenty two prisoners had opted for this option. However, Mikel Buesa claimed that 68 prisoners had started the 'Via Nanclares' by 2012, with 30 managing to be sent to Nanclares prison. The first to be released through the 'Via Nanclares' were José Manuel Fernández Pérez de Nanclares and Fernando de Luis Astarloa in 2012. Prisoners who have chosen this way to improve their conditions have all found themselves ostracized by the radical nationalist community they were formally part of. Many prisoners have been reluctant to pursue the 'Via Nanclares' for this reason.

The 'Via Nanclares' was closed at the end of 2011 when the Partido Popular won the general election. The new government initiated a different project to rehabilitate prisoners, but only one person used it.

In 2014 Spanish judges opened up the way for prisoners, who had been on the 'Via Nanclares' when the project was stopped, to continue the process. So far 3 have been given permission to leave prison during daytime, and a further 8 have been given permission to spend 18 days away from the prison in every 6-month period.

The Parot doctrine

In October 2013 the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) condemned Spain over its continued detention of Inés del Rio. She was due to be released in 2008 for good behaviour after 21 years in prison, but in 2006 Spain changed its rules to include what is now known as the Parot doctrine, and decided to postpone her release until 2017. The ECtHR declared that this was a violation of two articles (5 and 7) of the European Convention on Human Rights and ordered Spain to release her as soon as possible and to pay her compensation. The following day, on 21 October 2013, she was released from prison. The European court's ruling also banned the Spanish government from extending prison terms for Basque prisoners.

The Spanish government complained that this ruling would mean they would have to release dozens of ETA prisoners. In November 2013 Spain began releasing other prisoners, including one being held temporarily in a prison in the UK. Ahead of the European Court of Human Rights' ruling, the minister of interior Fernandez Díaz declared that its implementation to the inmates in similar circumstances may be skipped by means of "juridical engineering". The minister of justice Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón stated that "each inmate of Spain in similar circumstances will have to appeal to the European Cour if they want to have the Parot doctrine cancelled". There was a mass demonstration held in Madrid against the ruling by the ECtHR organised by the Association of Victims of Terrorism.

Torture
Generally speaking, torture almost always takes place in secret and so it is difficult to know if it has taken place or not. Members of the Spanish state apparatus have been convicted for mistreatment, torture and even murder of ETA members, the veracity of many torture allegations and the degree to which it occurs is subject to controversy in Spain. However, Amnesty International claims that torture is a reality in Spain; between 2004 and 2012 over 6,400 torture cases were reported, a figure in contrast to the number of convictions. Pau Pérez-Sales, activist and senior expert assisting both domestic and international tribunals has stressed the degree of impunity surrounding torture in Spain. On 13 September 2017, Amnesty International stated that during a long period, citing a Basque Government's 1978-1999 report, torture was applied extensively in Spain under anti-terrorist provisions, affecting to a large extent the Basque Country, and demanded that the Spanish government admit to its practice, as well as reminding it of its 'obligation' to investigate torture and make reparations to the victims. It also denounced Spain for continuing to evade the application of international standards against torture in its domestic legislation. In addition, it stated that convictions for torture are very infrequent, and highlighted the high number of pardons granted to the few people convicted of such crimes. The NGO also pointed out that torture victims are 'ostracized'.

Between 1977 and 2002 there were approximately 5300 claims of torture having been carried out by police on ETA prisoners. Since then there have been hundreds more accusations. Allegations of torture are mostly related to threats and beatings, and then to lesser degrees to suffocation, forced body positions, undressing and physical exercises. A study of 112 Basques held incommunicado between 2000 and 2005, conducted by the Basque Institute for Legal Medicine and based on testimonies collected by an NGO, suggests that torture remains a serious problem in Spain. It detected different alleged torture patterns relating to different police forces. The group arrested by the Civil Guard accused this body of the most severe torture methods. In December 2018, the Spanish Parliament refused reparation and recognition to the victims of torture inflicted in the fight against ETA, or removing honour awards granted to members of the security forces convicted of torture; the proposal was turned down with the votes of the parties PSOE, Ciudadanos and PP.

According to former ETA members, the French police never submitted their prisoners to torture. ETA terrorism never targeted French civilians nor security forces and France had a long-standing policy of tolerating ETA presence on its territory since the times of Franco's dictatorship. This policy changed in the late 80s when French President Mitterrand decided that France would no longer be an ETA 'safe-haven' and began co-operation with Spanish authorities and extradition of ETA-members indicted for terrorism to Spain.

Torture cases and convictions
One example of an alleged incident is that of Martxelo Otamendi, the editor of a Basque language newspaper Egunkaria which was subject to a precautionary closure in 2004 by a Spanish judge due to alleged links with ETA, later found to be ungrounded. Otamendi, among other editors was arrested by the Guardia Civil as a result of the Court order and claims to have been stripped naked, blindfolded, touched with unidentified objects around his genitals and subject to sleep deprivation and simulated execution. Six colleagues who were detained at the same time also claimed to have experienced similar treatment. They were eventually absolved by the Spanish Audiencia Nacional (High Court) in 2010, which also criticized the Judge's decision to close the only newspaper at the time which was fully in the Basque language without more solid constitutional grounds. The Popular Party's government sued Otamendi for defamation but was eventually ordered by the European Court of Human Rights to pay Otamendi compensation for not taking his allegations seriously nor investigating them.

Another case is that of Fernando Elejalde Tapia, arrested minutes after murdering Francisco Javier Gomez Alósegui at the door of his house; Gomez Alósegui was the psychologist of Martutene prison and a public supporter of negotiation with ETA and bringing convicts to jails close to the Basque Country. Amnesty International reported concern about Elejalde Tapia as a suspected case of torture. After being arrested he was transferred to hospital with "a fractured ear drum, four broken vertebrae in his back, bruising all over his body, blackened eyes, a kidney malfunction and was in a state of semi-consciousness." Ms Leire Gallastegui claimed in 2001 to have been told to choose between "electrodes, her mother's arrest or a broom handle". In December 2010 four Civil Guard police officers were imprisoned for torturing two men suspected of terrorist activities. The police officers were released in 2011 after appealing to the Spanish High Court, which judged the injuries sustained by the suspects to have been caused by a violent arrest.

On the 13 of February 1981 Joxe Arregi, an alleged member of ETA, died of pneumonia in the hospital of Carabanchel prison after spending 9 days in police custody. The forensic report concluded that he was tortured; he showed second degree burns on the soles of his feet, as well as blows and traumas over his body. Two policemen involved in the interrogation were eventually given sentences of 3 months in prison and a two-year suspension for torturing the detainee. No judgment was made in court as to whether Arregi had died as a result of the torture he received because neither the prosecutor nor the Human Rights Organization party to the case asked the judge to do so. However, a first sentence establishing no connection between torture and death was later overturned on the grounds of the contradictions found on the judge's conclusion. It was reported in the Spanish press that Arregi may have died as a result of being submitted to a torture technique called la bañera in which the victim's head is placed in a container of dirty water until he or she is obliged to breathe in the liquid which then enters the victims lungs. Santiago Brouard, doctor and member of the political party HASI at the time, speculated that it may account for Arregi's broncopneumonia.

In September 2014, a Basque report commissioned by the human rights society Argituz and based on the Istanbul Protocol confirmed the veracity of the 45 torture testimonies analyzed spanning from 1982 to 2010 for detainees held incommunicado under the Antiterrorist Law. The report carried out by over 30 health professionals, especially psychotherapists and psychiatric doctors, hailing from 8 different organizations have stressed the difficulties found to obtain any records due to the incommunicado regime that "facilitates the commission of torture and mistreatment", as well as pointing to an ever-increasing use of psychological torture techniques."

An expert panel appointed by Mariano Rajoy's cabinet to evaluate the provisions in place for the prevention of torture underscored that "mistreatment cases are not exceptional, but symptoms of structural deficiencies", recommending as well to install CCTV cameras in all areas of the police stations. Unai Romano's is another case that may have been prevented with the use of CCTV. The Basque youth was arrested and transferred to Madrid in 2001, receiving severe injuries to his head while in custody; as stated by Romano, "on arrival in Madrid I was put in a cell, I was instructed not look at their eyes, then interrogations began. When my answer did not suit them, I got beaten on my head." He was taken to hospital, with Romano filing a report, but his claims went unheard, dismissed by the relevant Spanish tribunal. He then took the case to the European Court of Human Rights, where the case was being considered in early 2015. The images of Romano's swollen and deformed head were leaked, and showed on posters protesting against torture across the Basque Country.

In February 2018, in the midst of a political controversy, with the Basque Nationalist Party MP Aitor Esteban urging the Spanish government to condemn Civil Guard head Manuel Sanchez Corbí for targeting his party in the fight against ETA, labelled as 'the evil', Esteban disclosed that the law-enforcement official was condemned in 1997 for torture against a Basque, and pardoned subsequently by the Spanish government.

International criticism
Since 2002 Spain has been criticised several times by United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for not investigating properly allegations of torture made by ETA members and others suspected of having links to it. Specifically Spain has been found to have violated articles 2, 4 and 14 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. France was also criticised by CAT for having deported ETA member Josu Arkauz Arana to Spain in 1997 where he was "in a situation where he was particularly vulnerable to possible abuse". France was found to have violated article 3 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in that case. CAT investigated the case of Kepa Urra in 2002, who claimed to have been tortured by 4 members of the Guardia Civil in 1997 during an operation to dismantle part of ETA. Although the four guardia were initially convicted in a Spanish court of having tortured Urra they were later pardoned. Spain was found guilty of a violation of articles 2, 4 and 14 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Two years later, in 2004 a United Nations report written by Theo van Boven stated that the fact that detainees are held incommunicado for up to 5 days allows abuses to take place, and advised the Spanish government to make changes to this practice. In 2012, the UN Committee Against Torture ruled against Spain again, this time for not investigating accusations of torture made by Oskar Gallastegi, who had been sentenced to 26 years in jail for his role in the murder of a judge in the Basque Country in 2001.

Amnesty International has also condemned Spain for holding prisoners incommunicado. A report published in 1999 stated that it "believes it to be beyond question that incommunicado detention facilitates torture and ill-treatment." Again in 2002 Amnesty International released a report criticising the Spanish government for its policy of holding detainees incommunicado. The report states that it had "received some very serious and highly detailed reports, which appear to be corroborated by medical evidence. Many of the allegations referred to the practice of asphyxiation with plastic bags; repeated kicks and blows of the hand on the head or testicles; forced physical exercises for long periods of time; claims of sexual harassment or abuse; threats of execution, rape, miscarriage or injury to partners and relatives." In June 2014 Amnesty International reported on the 'impunity and denial' of the Spanish authorities regarding torture. The human rights organization stated that it had continued to receive allegations of torture and mistreatment inflicted by state security forces since 1987, the year when Spain ratified the United Nations Convention against Torture. The international organization goes on to say that "the Spanish authorities do not take seriously the gravity of torture as a crime of international law, and meanwhile, the victims of torture remain defenseless." In the same report Amnesty International says that successive Spanish governments "have not established sufficient measures and mechanisms necessary to prevent torture taking place while in the custody of its security forces, e.g. the suspension of the incommunicado regime, which remains in place, or the introduction of CCTV in all the places where detainees are held, nor have they implemented provisions leading to thorough, independent and impartial investigation of torture when it takes place."

In 2010 the ECtHR in Strasbourg made its first ruling against Spain for not investigating properly allegations of torture made by ETA member Mikel San Argimiro. In 2014 the ECtHR criticised Spain again for failing to protect prisoners from violence at the hands of the authorities. This time the cases of Ms Beatriz Etxebarria Caballero, and Mr Oihan Unai Ataun Rojo were examined. It was shown that the Spanish authorities did little to investigate their claims of torture and ordered Spain to pay each compensation. In 2015 the ECtHR found Spain guilty of violating the procedural aspects of article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in the case brought against it by Arratibel Garciandia. Most recently, in May 2016, the ECtHR ruled against Spain for not investigating properly allegations of torture made by Xabier Beorlegi. In January 2018, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against Spain for degrading and inhuman treatment inflicted by the Civil Guard to Mattin Sarasola and Igor Portu, two ETA members convicted of the T-4 bombings in Madrid. For the first time the tribunal ruled on content, and not just on form, i.e. Spain not investigating torture, for which Spain has been condemned 9 more times by the same court during the last years. The court thus supports a previous ruling by a Basque court which condemned 4 Civil Guard officers for torture, a sentence that was overturned by the Spanish High Court. It constitutes a violation of Article 3 of the Council of Europe's European Convention on Human Rights.

In May 2019, fifteen independent experts making up the UNO Committee against Torture resolved that Gorka Lupiañez, condemned for ETA membership and other related offences by Spanish tribunals, was subjected to torture by the Civil Guard in 2007 during incommunicado detention, using methods such as bag suffocation, battering, sleep deprivation, and death threats, as denounced by the victim; following Lupiañez's denouncement, the Spanish authorities accused him of "following ETA's agenda". The Committee once more urges Spanish authorities to stop incommunicado detentions for their relation to torture, reminds them that nothing justifies it, as well as demanding that they  "pursue diligent, immediate and impartial investigations". Following a long process pursued by Spanish authorities to extradite Iratxe Sorzabal, an ETA member, the Paris Court of Appeal rejected in December 2020 a 4th European Arrest Warrant on the grounds that Spain did not make the efforts necessary to investigate evidence of torture inflicted on her. The tribunal bases its resolution on the report presented by the IRCT, International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, and IFEG on the risks of ignoring torture. In January 2021, the ECtHR condemned again Spain for the passivity shown in conducting proper investigation on serious torture allegations denounced in by Íñigo González, member of the disbanded organization Ekin, following his detention in 2011 by the Civil Guard in Pamplona on orders of the judge Fernando Grande-Marlaska, so breaching the article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights; a report confirmed he suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome. The Audiencia Nacional demanded to launch an investigation, but the judge did not act accordingly, "for absence of leads"; the Constitutional Court did not endorse González. The tribunals refused to name the Civil Guard officers identified by the detainee, a position the ECtHR criticizes in the sentence. Spain is liable to a €20,000 compensation to González for damages. ECtHR has ruled ten times against Spain for not investigating torture since 2010.

Claims of false torture allegations
Successive Spanish Governments have consistently stated that, in general terms, torture claims by Basque detainees are part of a tactic by ETA to gain political capital and sympathy as well as to bog down the legal process, rather than a systematic practice of torture by Spanish authorities. As stated by El País, there is no evidence to show that the Spanish security forces have systematically used torture against ETA suspects. According to Secretary General of the Unified Police Syndicate José Manuel Sánchez-Fornet, there exist 'absolutely exceptional cases of mistreatment' with a small number of trials and convictions of members of the Police and Guardia Civil, but he also avows that anti-terrorist legislation 'helps cases of torture' happen. Just the opposite, the Coordinating Committee for the Prevention of Torture has underscored the obstacles set by the successive Spanish governments to carry out proper investigation, failing to meet the most basic requirements expected for investigations on torture allegations, with only two severe cases leading to an effective conviction of police officials, both condemnations warranted by judges in the Basque Country, and not Madrid tribunals.

In 2008 a manual produced by ETA for its members was found by the Guardia Civil in the hands of ETA members Igor Portu and Mattin Sarasola, when they were arrested in the house of a third ETA member Mikel Sebastian. This manual, written entirely in the Basque language and eventually leaked to the press, was named Atxiloketari Aurre Eginez, 2º zkia (Facing Detention, Volume 2). It detailed what ETA members should do once detained by the police. According to the press, the three main directives of this document were firstly, "do not make a statement", secondly, "deny everything", and thirdly, "report torture". Starting with a first hand account of a detention process, the manual highlights the comfort of court jail cells, and says a forensic doctor will visit detainees before they appear before a judge. ETA members are told that once in a court jail they need not worry about threats and blackmails made during their interrogation in the police station because they cannot be returned there. As reported by El País, once in the court jail, the documents directs members to tell the forensic doctor that they have been tortured mentally as well as physically, and to tell that the statements they made in the police station were extracted under torture. Official court papers make no mention of these details.

A similar manual was confiscated from the ETA cell "Commando Araba" in 1998, recommending all ETA detainees to allege torture, reminding them that "standing behind you are the press, local, youth and international collectives and, with a bit of luck, some opportunist and doubtful political party." However, the NGO  (TAT) has pointed out that this document is totally different in style, tone and language to other 'manuals' found in the possession of the "Commando Araba". TAT has stated that they suspect the document was created by the police.

Solidarity

The Basque Country has seen many actions and events in solidarity of the Basque prisoners with political motivation. Solidarity has materialized in gatherings, demonstrations, and other events. During the inauguration of the 1999 IAAF World Championships held in Seville two activists disguised as mascots of the games, the Giraldillas, made it onto the stage and remained there during the presentation wearing the logo and slogans for Basque prisoners' repatriation, with another activist showing a placard.

Following the permanent truce by ETA in 2011, the echo of events against the Spanish dispersal policy and in support of the prisoners' rights have gained momentum and a more central position in the Basque political agenda. Sare is a major movement advocating for the rights of Basque prisoners. It calls a mass demonstration each early January in Bilbao with a turnout of tens of thousands. On 9 January 2016, tens of thousands also march in Bilbao, while between 7,500 and 10,000 took to the streets in Bayonne with the same demand.

On 15 January 2017, 80,000 demonstrators according to organizers rallied through the streets of Bilbao to demand an end to the dispersal policies implemented on 350 Basque prisoners scattered all over Spain and France, and the release of seriously ill prisoners. Sare denounced that prisoners are being irregularly retained in captivity beyond the conviction term. On 9 December 2017, thousands arriving from the Basque Country marched through central Paris with demands for an end to the dispersal policy and the special, emergency regime implemented on Basque prisoners. It was supported by the near totality of the French Basque representatives, including Jean-René Etchegaray, mayor of Bayonne and the Basque agglomeration. On 13 January 2018, this demonstration took place again under bleak weather conditions with the same demands.

On her address in the Spanish Congress during the votation for the inauguration of the Spanish premier Pedro Sanchez on 3 January 2020, the MP of EH Bildu Mertxe Aizpurua donned a pin for the transfer of the Basque prisoners back to their homeland, demanding also an end to "the revenge and emergency prison policy against the Basque prisoners" amidst an atmosphere of high tension in which she was subject to verbal abuse. The following day, the society Dignidad y Justicia filed a report before the Supreme Court against her for "humiliation of the victims of terrorism" on the grounds that supporting the rapprochement of these prisoners to the Basque Country is "a long-running demand of the ETA terrorists", also stating that ETA's disbanding is 'fake'. A week later, 65,000 thousands turned out to the streets of Bilbao to demand an end to the dispersal policies; a further 10,00 took to the streets of Bayonne the same day.

Escapes
There have been a number of attempts at escaping from custody. Of the 10 successful escapes, 2 have been from hospitals, undertaken during Franco's dictatorial regime and early Transition. The biggest, the Segovia prison break, involved 29 prisoners who dug a tunnel to escape Segovia prison in 1976. A film has been made based on it. The most recent escape was by Ibon Fernández Iradi who managed to flee the police station where he was being held in France in 2002.

Reintegration into society
When prisoners are released they are currently offered help by Harrera Elkartea, an organisation created in 2012, which helps them looking for work, sorting out their finances, paperwork and other issues. Some politicians have called for this organisation to be made illegal.

In its first 2 years Harrera Elkartea has helped 18 ex-prisoners back into work, 45 to get their driving license, and about 40 to get dental treatment and sort out eye problems.

Publications
In 2002 the Ataramiñe cultural association was set up to promote and publish literary work of these prisoners. Each year since then a book has been published compiling shorter works, and many other longer works have also been published.

Recent developments
In December 2013 the EPPK, which is the collective organisation negotiating on behalf of the prisoners, dropped its long standing demand for amnesty for all the prisoners, leaving the way open for individuals to negotiate individually for their release. Also in December 2013, ETA declared that they recognised the "suffering and damage" caused by their actions, and also acknowledged the Spanish legal system. These two declarations were key demands from Madrid before any talks could start over the conditions of the prisoners. In May 2014 the Minister of the Interior, Jorge Fernández Díaz said that the government would not consider the ending of the policy of dispersion unless ETA disbanded completely, or until the individual prisoners ask for forgiveness. In July 2014 France agreed for the first time to transfer 2 prisoners to a prison near the Basque Country. The Spanish government agreed in October 2014 to let members of ETA with Spanish nationality who are imprisoned in France, be transferred to prisons in Spain.

In August 2017, the minister of interior Juan Ignacio Zoido declared he would not undertake any measures in order to change the prison policy until ETA disbands. In April 2018, ETA announced its dissolution, a move staged in an international conference held in Cambo (Kanbo), French Basque Country. All the same, UPN, a strategic ally of PP in Navarre, overtly refused to support Rajoy's national budget for 2018 with its two MPs if the prime minister allowed a transfer of Basque prisoners to internment centres closer to the Basque Country, a political stance echoing the staunch opposition showed by Ciudadanos to "a negotiation by Rajoy's cabinet of privileges with Basque nationalists", including measures to bring ETA prisoners closer home.

On 11 January 2020, the judge of the National Court of Spain José Luis Calama ordered the police a close scrutiny of the demonstration against the dispersal policy taking place in Bilbao to watch out for possible "humiliation of the victims" or "praise or justification of terrorism". On the same grounds, the party Vox demanded a ban to the demonstration, while the party PP labelled the demonstration as 'derisory' to the victims of ETA, and the support of Podemos to the rally as 'appaling', demanding the incoming president of Spain Pedro Sanchez to take sides; on the rally, an ETA victim and a GAL victim urged that they not be used for political purposes. On 8 January, the association of relatives of Basque prisoners Etxerat denounced on a press release that 19 incurable prisoners and undergoing severe disease were being held imprisoned, demanding the release of those with death prognosis and risk. The association raised the figure of Basque prisoners of political motivation to approximately 250.

On 20 October 2020, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against Spain for not accepting four Basque prisoners'  appeal to the Constitutional Court, breaching their right to a fair trial and lack of legal certainty; however, the European Tribunal confirmed its refusal to accept computing time done in France on their prison terms in Spain. In January 2022, the European Tribunal of Humans Rights condemned Spain for lack of access to the lawyer chosen by Javier Atristain, accused of offences related to ETA, and inability to consult legal-aid lawyer during questioning by the police while in incommunicado detention, depriving him of the right to have a fair trial, as stated and confirmed by the European court in May. The European Tribunal's ruling set a precedent that initiated the Atristain doctrine for all like cases. In February, the Civil Guard released a report to the Audiencia Nacional stating that the Spanish General Secretary of  Penitentiary Institutions were holding contacts with the support circles of the Basque prisoners, prompting Pablo Casado, PP's opposition leader in Spain, to demand the resignation of the minister of Interior Grande-Marlaska; the association Sare cited in the report denounced threats and insults to his spokesperson Joseba Azkarraga as a result.

References

External links
 Etxerat website in Basque and Spanish
 EPPK website in Basque
 Press Release: Atristrain Gorosabel vs Spain (2022)

Basque conflict
Basque history
Basque politics


title: Mugoyo

text:
Mugoyo is a traditional main course dish in Uganda. It is served in most regions in Uganda and is defined as mingled. The main ingredients of the dish are sweet potatoes and beans.

Origins

Mugoyo is popular in some communities in Uganda. The Iteso call it “emugoyo”, the Baganda refer to it as Mugoyo or Omugoyo which means it is mingled.

In Buganda, omugoyo has been associated with aging women because it is assumed only old women have the patience to prepare it due to the straining process. The common myth about omugoyo in Buganda is that two lovers are not supposed to serve each other omugoyo. It is believed that such an act would extinguish the fire and may even result in a failed relationship.

Recipes
The recipe for mugoyo consists of red kidney beans also known as Nambale and sweet potatoes.

Cooking Method
The cooking process is started by boiling  dried red kidney beans known as Nambale with salt till tender. The dark purple sweet potatoes are then peeled and steamed in banana leaves till tender. The beans and sweet potatoes are  mashed together to form one dish.

Mugoyo is  prepared  over firewood where the smoke from the firewood adds a great taste to the mugoyo during the baking moment known as kubobeeza. Mugoyo can also be served with coffee or tea for breakfast. One would have cover it in plantains and momentarily roast it on the traditional Kiganda stove known as ekyoto.

See also
 Sweet Potatoes
 Beans
 Cuisine of Uganda
 List of African dishes
 List of porridges

References

Kumusha
Ugandan cuisine
Legume dishes
Potato dishes
Breakfast dishes


title: Vitaliy Bort

text:
Vitaliy Bort is a former People's Deputy of Ukraine and a member of the Party of Regions (since May 2006).

Biography

Vitaliy Petrovych Bort was born on 1 September 1972 in Donetsk. In 1994, Bort graduated from Donetsk Polytechnic University (Horlovka branch) in the faculty of the Construction of Roads and Bridges.

Career

 1995–2000 - Commercial agent at Donetskelectrotorg LLC
 2005 - Manager at Trading House Yasinovatskiy Machine Building Plant
 2005–2006 - Commercial Director at Trading House Yasinovatskiy Machine Building Plant
 2006–2007 - People's Deputy of Ukraine from the Party of Regions of the 5th convocation
 Since 2006 - Chairman of the Subcommittee of the roads and road management of the Committee on Communications and Transport
 Since 2007 - People's Deputy of Ukraine from the Party of Regions of the 6th convocation (No. 101 in the electoral list)
 Since December 2007 - Member of the Committee on Agrarian Policy and Land Relations
 Since December 2012 - Chairman of the Subcommittee on pipelines of the Committee on Communications and Transport
 Since March 2013 - Member of the Parliamentary group of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on Interparliamentary Relations with the Kingdom of Norway
 Since March 2013 - Member of the Parliamentary group of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on Interparliamentary Relations with the Russian Federation
 Since April 2013 - Member of the Parliamentary group of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on Interparliamentary Relations with the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
 Since May 2013 - Member of the Parliamentary group of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on Interparliamentary Relations with the Republic of Kazakhstan

In the 2014 parliamentary election, Bort sought re-election to parliament for a constituency seat in Makiyivka; this time as a non-partisan candidate. At that time, the constituency was held by pro-Russian insurgents during the War in Donbass and the elections did not take place.

Family

Bort is married; his wife Olga (born 1973) is a housewife. They have one daughter, Yana, born in 1996.

References

1972 births
Businesspeople from Donetsk
Politicians from Donetsk
Living people
Party of Regions politicians
Fifth convocation members of the Verkhovna Rada
Sixth convocation members of the Verkhovna Rada
Seventh convocation members of the Verkhovna Rada


title: Taken at Midnight

text:
Taken At Midnight is a 2014 play by Mark Hayhurst on the life of Hans Litten, his cross-examination of Adolf Hitler in court in 1931 and his mother's attempts to secure his release after his arrest by the Nazis in 1933. Hayhurst also produced a television drama on the same topic in 2011, entitled The Man Who Crossed Hitler. Taken At Midnight is Hayhurst's theatre debut.

Production history

It premiered in the Minerva Theatre at the Chichester Festival Theatre from 2 October 2014 (previews from 26 September) to 1 November 2014, directed by Jonathan Church and starring Penelope Wilton. It transferred to the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London, opening on 26 January 2015 (previews from 15 January) until 14 March 2015.

Characters and original cast

Hans Litten - Martin Hutson
Irmgard Litten - Penelope Wilton
Carl von Ossietzky - Mike Grady
Erich Mühsam - Pip Donaghy
Dr. Conrad -John Light
Fritz Litten - Allan Corduner
Gustav Hammerman - Marc Antolin
Lord Clifford Allen - David Yelland
SA Officer - Dermot McLaughlin
Hotelier - Christopher Hogben
Hitler's Voice - Roger Allam

Other parts were played by members of the company.

References

External links
https://web.archive.org/web/20140810162059/http://www.cft.org.uk/takenatmidnight

Fiction set in 1931
Fiction set in 1933
2014 plays
Cultural depictions of Adolf Hitler
Plays about Nazi Germany


title: Neil Claassen

text:
Neil Claassen (born  in Pretoria, South Africa) is a South African rugby union player who last played for the . His regular position is lock or flanker.

Career

Youth and Varsity Cup rugby

He was a member of the Eastern Province side that participated at the Under-16 Grant Khomo Week in 2008. His performance in the tournament also earned him an inclusion in an Under-16 Elite Squad in the same year.

He played for youth sides for Bloemfontein-based side, the . He played for the  side in the 2011 Under-19 Provincial Championship, also captaining the side. He progressed to the  squad and started 25 matches for them during the 2012 and 2013 Under-21 Provincial Championships, also scoring six tries for them during the 2013 competition to make him his side's top try scorer for the competition. This six-try haul also included a brace against eventual champions .

In 2014, he represented Varsity Cup side , scoring three tries in seven starts for the university side.

Free State Cheetahs

Claassen's first class debut came during the 2012 Vodacom Cup competition. He started two matches for the  during the competition, a 34–30 victory over the  and a 30–32 defeat to the  in Bredasdorp a week later. He made a further seven first class appearances during the 2013 Vodacom Cup and also scored his first try in their match against the .

After his spell with  in the 2014 Varsity Cup, he returned to the  side to make three appearances towards the end of the 2014 Vodacom Cup competition, weighing in with one try in their 54–17 win against the .

He was included in their Currie Cup squad for the first time prior to the 2014 Currie Cup Premier Division season.

References

South African rugby union players
Living people
1992 births
Rugby union players from Pretoria
Rugby union locks
Rugby union flankers
Free State Cheetahs players


title: TSV Bogen

text:
The TSV Bogen is a German association football club from the town of Bogen, Bavaria.

The club's greatest success came in 2013 when it qualified for the southern division of the Bayernliga, the fifth tier of the German football league system.

History
TSV Bogen was formed in 1883 and, for most of its history, has been a non-descript amateur side in local Bavarian football. Formed as a gymnastics club TSV started operating a football department in 1926. For a short time, after the Second World War, the club was renamed ASV Bogen but soon reverted to its original name. The club briefly rose to the tier four 2. Amateurliga for a season in 1953–54 but was promptly relegated again. After this the club continued, for a time, to be a force in the local A-Klasse but was eventually relegated to the B-Klasse in 1961. Only in 1970 did the club return to the A-Klasse, followed by promotion to the Bezirksliga in 1972.

TSV played in one of the two divisions of the Bezirksliga Niederbayern from 1972 to 1985, on occasion coming close to Landesliga promotion without quite succeeding. After 1985 a lengthy decline followed, lasting until 2008 when the club once more won promotion to the Bezirksliga, where it played for two seasons from 2008 to 2010. It finished runners-up on both occasions, earning promotion to the Bezirksoberliga in 2010.

In its first Bezirksoberliga Niederbayern season the club finished sixth, followed by a third place in 2012. With the league disbanded at the end of that season and the Landesligas expanded from three to five divisions Bogen qualified for the new Landesliga Bayern-Mitte. In this league the club came first in the inaugural 2012–13 season and won promotion to the Bayernliga.

In its first season in the southern division of the Bayernliga the club finished in sixth place, followed by a fourth place the year after. Bogen was relegated two seasons later.

Honours
The club's honours:
 Landesliga Bayern-Mitte
 Champions: 2013
 Bezirksliga Niederbayern-West
 Runners-up: 2009, 2010
 Kreisliga Straubing
 Champions: 2008

Recent seasons
The recent season-by-season performance of the club:

With the introduction of the Bezirksoberligas in 1988 as the new fifth tier, below the Landesligas, all leagues below dropped one tier. With the introduction of the Regionalligas in 1994 and the 3. Liga in 2008 as the new third tier, below the 2. Bundesliga, all leagues below dropped one tier. With the establishment of the Regionalliga Bayern as the new fourth tier in Bavaria in 2012 the Bayernliga was split into a northern and a southern division, the number of Landesligas expanded from three to five and the Bezirksoberligas abolished. All leagues from the Bezirksligas onwards were elevated one tier.

Key

References

External links
  Official team site
 Das deutsche Fußball-Archiv  historical German domestic league tables
 Manfreds Fussball Archiv  Tables and results from the Bavarian amateur leagues
 TSV Bogen at Weltfussball.de

Football clubs in Germany
Football clubs in Bavaria
Football in Lower Bavaria
Association football clubs established in 1926
Sports clubs and teams established in 1883
1883 establishments in Germany
Straubing-Bogen