Befitting a lush, tropical island stranded in the middle of the ocean, Madeira’s origins are shrouded in mystery and fanciful legend. Some claim that the archipelago is what remains of Plato’s lost Atlantis, or part of a landmass that once fused the continents of Europe and America. The Portuguese Step Ashore: Recorded history of the volcanic archipelago begins in relatively recent times: 1418, just as the golden age of Portuguese discovery was erupting. Under the leadership of Henry the Navigator, caravels set out from the westernmost point of the Algarve, in southern Portugal, in search of foreign lands, fame, and wealth. João Gonçalves Zarco, sailing in the service of Prince Henry, made the first of many famous Portuguese discoveries, which would culminate a century later in Magellan’s historic circumnavigation of the globe. Zarco happened upon a small volcanic archipelago 1,000 km from Lisbon. Perhaps Zarco knew precisely where he was heading, having learned of the existence of Madeira from a Castilian source. After all, the waters of the Canary Islands, only 445 km (275 miles) to the south, had occupied busy shipping lanes for very nearly a century, and Genovese maps from the mid-14th century depict both Madeira and Porto Santo. More likely, Zarco was heading for Guinea and storms forced him onto the beach of Porto Santo. If so, then he was extremely fortunate, for he managed to land on the only large, sandy beach for hundreds of miles around. Little wonder he subsequently named it Porto Santo (Holy Port). The following year Zarco returned to claim the larger island he had seen from Porto Santo, and with him went Tristão Vaz Teixeira and Bartolomeu Perestrelo. They officially became the first men to set foot on the heavily forested island, naming it Ilha da Madeira, “Island of Timber. ” The Portuguese Crown, delighted with its first important discovery, immediately embarked on a program of colonization. Zarco and Teixeira were appointed co-go­vern­ors of Madeira, while Perestrelo was awarded Porto Santo. 

Question: "Zarco happened upon a small volcanic archipelago near Lisbon following the orders of which leader?"

Answer: "Plato"

Response: no


Over the centuries, the living here has always been easy enough to attract a steady stream of immigrants. Bountiful food sources might have made Malaysia an inviting place for the contemporaries of Java Man — in 230,000 b.c. But thus far, the country's earliest traces of homo sapiens, found in the Niah Caves of northern Sarawak, are fragments of a skull dating to 40,000 b.c. On the peninsula, the oldest human-related relics (10,000 b.c. ) are Stone Age tools of the Negritos. These small, dark Melanesians are related in type to Australian aborigines and are confined today to the forests of the northern highlands. By 2,000 b.c. , these timid, gentle nomads hunting with bow and arrow were driven back from the coasts by waves of sturdy immigrants arriving in outrigger canoes equipped with sails. Mongolians from South China and Polynesian and Malay peoples from the Philippines and the Indonesian islands settled along the rivers of the peninsula and northern Borneo. They practiced a slash-and-burn agriculture of yams and millet, a technique that exhausted the soil and imposed a semi-nomadic existence from one jungle clearing to another. Families lived in wooden longhouses like those still to be seen today among the Iban peoples of Sarawak. Another unit was added on to the communal dwelling each time a marriage created a new family. Other tough migrants from the South Seas settled along the coasts — sailors, fishermen, traders (for the most part pirates) — known euphemistically as orang laut (sea people). 

Question: "Where can the Negritos be found today?"

Answer: "Forests of the northern highlands"

Response: yes


To say her face fell would do a disservice to Tasha and to literature. (Allow me my self-indulgences as you would those of a dying man -- when I convince my mindsmith to permit the wipe, there will be another Bernardo Flynn, one who knows no more of Tasha Cortez or Vega IV than he reads here.) Her brows drew together, creasing the lovely, caramel-colored skin around her eyes and showing the pattern for an old woman's wrinkles on her forehead. Her lower lip (a trifle too narrow for her face, perhaps her only physical flaw) thrust forward slightly as she started to speak. She caught herself, slid her jaw infinitesimally back into place, and said, "You don't like it?" I laughed. What could I do? I clapped her shoulder to show I was not laughing at her. "Like it? I hate it, despise it, abhor it! It's gaudy, graceless, pretentious -- That house is an affront to taste and intelligence. I should buy it to raze it, but I am not so kind-hearted. I might, however, rent it." I think she only heard the last words of my speech. "You will?" "It amuses me. Show me around, and then I shall decide." "Of course, Señor Flynn." "And stop calling me 'señor'. Not even Los Mundos is so polite. Call me Bernardo." 

Question: "What is Bernardo's last name?"

Answer: "Flynn"

Response: yes


After the 1998 embassy bombings, the U.S. government tried to develop a clearer picture of  Bin Laden's finances. A U.S. interagency group traveled to Saudi Arabia twice, in 1999 and 2000, to get information from the Saudis about their understanding of those finances. The group eventually concluded that the oft-repeated assertion that  Bin Laden was funding al Qaeda from his personal fortune was in fact not true. The officials developed a new theory: al Qaeda was getting its money elsewhere, and the United States needed to focus on other sources of funding, such as charities, wealthy donors, and financial facilitators. Ultimately, although the intelligence community devoted more resources to the issue and produced somewhat more intelligence, it remained difficult to distinguish al Qaeda's financial transactions among the vast sums moving in the international financial system. The CIA was not able to find or disrupt al Qaeda's money flows. The NSC staff thought that one possible solution to these weaknesses in the intelligence community was to create an all-source terrorist-financing intelligence analysis center. Clarke pushed for the funding of such a center at Treasury, but neither Treasury nor the CIA was willing to commit the resources. Within the United States, various FBI field offices gathered intelligence on organizations suspected of raising funds for al Qaeda or other terrorist groups. By 9/11, FBI agents understood that there were extremist organizations operating within the United States supporting a global jihadist movement and with substantial connections to al Qaeda. The FBI operated a web of informants, conducted electronic surveillance, and had opened significant investigations in a number of field offices, including New York, Chicago, Detroit, San Diego, and Minneapolis. On a national level, however, the FBI never used the information to gain a systematic or strategic understanding of the nature and extent of al Qaeda fundraising. Treasury regulators, as well as U.S. financial institutions, were generally focused on finding and deterring or disrupting the vast flows of U.S. currency generated by drug trafficking and high-level international fraud. Large-scale scandals, such as the use of the Bank of New York by Russian money launderers to move millions of dollars out of Russia, captured the attention of the Department of the Treasury and of Congress. Before 9/11, Treasury did not consider terrorist financing important enough to mention in its national strategy for money laundering. 

Question: "What types of activities did the Treasury Department focus on while missing the boat on terrorist funding?"

Answer: "Drug trafficing, international fraud and Russian money laundering"

Response:
yes