title: Grady Martin

texts:
<mask> (January 17, 1929 – December 3, 2001) was an American session guitarist in country music and rockabilly. A member of The Nashville A-Team, he played guitar on hits such as Marty Robbins' "El Paso", Loretta Lynn's "Coal Miner's Daughter" and Sammi Smith's "Help Me Make It Through the Night". During a nearly 50-year career, <mask> backed such names as Hank WilliamsElvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Johnny Burnette, Don Woody and Arlo Guthrie, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline and Bing Crosby. He is a member of the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. Elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, March 2015

Biography
<mask> was born in Chapel Hill, Tennessee, United States. He grew up on a farm with his oldest sister, Lois, his older brothers, June and Bill, and his parents, Claude and Bessey; and had a horse he named Trigger. His mother played the piano and encouraged his musical talent.At age 15, <mask> was invited to perform regularly on WLAC-AM in Nashville, Tennessee, and made his recording debut two years later on February 15, 1946 with Curly Fox and Texas Ruby in Chicago, Illinois. That same year, he joined Paul Howard's Western swing-oriented Arkansas Cotton Pickers as half of Howard's twin guitar ensemble with Robert "Jabbo" Arrington and performed on the Grand Ole Opry. When Howard left, Opry newcomer Little Jimmy Dickens hired several former Cotton Pickers, including <mask>, as his original Country Boys road band. He later joined Big Jeff Bess and the Radio Playboys followed by a stint with the Bailes Brothers Band. By 1950, <mask> was a part of the rising Nashville recording scene as a studio guitarist and fiddler, and his guitar hooks propelled Red Foley's "Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy" and "Birmingham Bounce". In 1951, he signed with Decca Records with his own country-jazz band, <mask> and the Slew Foot Five. In addition to backing mainstream acts like Bing Crosby and Burl Ives, they began to record in their own right, with later sessions under the name <mask> and his Winging Strings when he introduced his twin-neck Bigsby guitar.The band, with Hank Garland, Bob Moore, Tommy Jackson and Bud Isaacs made regular appearances on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee in the mid-1950s. The Nashville A-Team
It was as a session musician starting in the late 1950s that <mask> made his greatest mark on country and rockabilly music. As a guitarist with The Nashville A-Team, he provided the guitar on the Marty Robbins hits  "El Paso" (1959) and "Don't Worry" (1961), on Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" (1964) and Lefty Frizzell's "Saginaw, Michigan" (1964). His guitar work was also displayed in Johnny Horton's "The Battle of New Orleans" (1959) and "Honky Tonk Man" (1956), and especially his pure rockabilly sound on "I'm Coming Home" (1957). He shaped countless other classics, including Brenda Lee's "I'm Sorry", Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again", Ray Price's "For the Good Times" and Jeanne Pruett's "Satin Sheets". <mask> is credited with accidentally stumbling onto the electric guitar "fuzz" effect during a recording session with Robbins; his guitar was run through a faulty channel in a mixing console, generating the fuzz sound on "Don't Worry". In the 1960s, he played on sessions with Joan Baez, J. J. Cale and others, and played on Sammi Smith's 1971 hit, "Help Me Make it Through the Night", among the most successful country singles of all time.In the early 1970s, <mask> played on many records by Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty, worked with Kris Kristofferson and produced the country-rock band Brush Arbor. With Patsy Cline
<mask> appeared on almost all of Cline's Decca sessions, from August 1961 to her last session in February 1962, during which time he backed her on songs such as:

"Crazy"
"She's Got You"
"Foolin' Around"
"Seven Lonely Days"
"You Belong to Me"
"Heartaches"
"True Love"
"Faded Love"
"Someday (You'll Want Me to Want You)"
"Sweet Dreams"
"Crazy Arms"
"San Antonio Rose"
"The Wayward Wind"
"A Poor Man's Roses (Or a Rich Man's Gold)"
"Have You Ever Been Lonely (Have You Ever Been Blue)?" "South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)"
"Walkin' After Midnight" (1961 recording)
"You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Want To Do It)"
"Your Cheatin' Heart"
"That's My Desire"
"Half As Much"
"I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You)"
"Leavin' On Your Mind"
"Someday (You'll Want Me To Want You)"
"Love Letters In The Sand"
"Blue Moon of Kentucky"

Later years
In 1978, with his studio career over, <mask> returned to the life of a touring musician, first with Jerry Reed and then as lead guitarist for Willie Nelson's band, appearing in Nelson's 1980 film Honeysuckle Rose. In 1994, deteriorating health forced him to retire, but he produced Nelson's 1995 honky tonk album, Just One Love. The Nashville Entertainment Association gave him its first Master Award in 1983, and he was the 83rd inductee into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. On April 5, 2000, he received a Chetty award for significant instrumental achievement at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium during the Chet Atkins Musician Days festival. Health problems prevented <mask> from attending; Nelson, Vince Gill and Marty Stuart presented the award—named after Atkins, who attended—to <mask>'s son, Joshua.<mask> was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2007. He was married three times and had three daughters, Alisa, Angie and Julie; and seven sons, <mask>., Joe, Tal, Jason, Joshua, Justin and Steve. <mask> died from a heart attack on December 3, 2001 in Lewisburg, Tennessee, and was interred at Hopper Cemetery in Marshall County, Tennessee. Selected discography

<mask> and the Slew Foot Five
Powerhouse Dance Party (Decca, 1956)
Juke Box Jamboree (Decca, 1956)
The Roaring Twenties (Decca, 1957)
Hot Time Tonight (Decca, 1959)
Big City Lights (Decca, 1960)
Swingin' Down the River (Decca, 1962)
Songs Everybody Knows (Decca, 1964)

<mask>
Instrumentally Yours (Decca, 1965)
A Touch of Country (Decca, 1967)
Cowboy Classics (Decca, 1977)

Slewfoot Five
The Happy Sound of the Slewfoot Five (Decca, 1967)
Man Alive! It's the Slew Foot Five (Decca, 1968)

As sideman

With Kai Winding
 Modern Country (Verve, 1964)

With John Prine
 Sweet Revenge (Atlantic Records, 1973)

With Ronnie Hawkins
 Rock and Roll Resurrection (Monument Records, 1972)
 Giant of Rock 'n' Roll (Monument Records, 1974)

With Roy Orbison
 Regeneration (Monument Records, 1976)

With Arlo Guthrie
 Last of the Brooklyn Cowboys (Reprise Records, 1973)

With Elvis Presley
 Pot Luck with Elvis (RCA Victor, 1962)
 Elvis for Everyone! (RCA Victor, 1965)

With Leon Russell
 Hank Wilson's Back Vol. I (Shelter Records, 1973)

With Joan Baez
 Any Day Now (Vanguard Records, 1968)
 David's Album (Vanguard Records, 1969)
 One Day at a Time (Vanguard Records, 1970)
 Come from the Shadows (A&M Records, 1972)
 Where Are You Now, My Son?(A&M Records, 1973)

With J. J. Cale
 Okie (Shelter Records, 1974)

References

External links

Watch and hear <mask> videos and music on son Tal <mask>'s MySpace page
<mask> biography at CMT.com
<mask> biography by son <mask> at Nashvillesound.com
<mask> tribute website
<mask> and Bob Moore tribute website

1929 births
2001 deaths
People from Chapel Hill, Tennessee
American country singer-songwriters
American country guitarists
American male guitarists
American session musicians
American rockabilly musicians
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
Decca Records artists
Monument Records artists
20th-century American singers
20th-century American guitarists
Guitarists from Tennessee
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Country musicians from Tennessee
20th-century American male musicians
American male singer-songwriters
Drifting Cowboys members

masks:
Thomas Grady Martin
Martin
Grady Martin
Martin
Martin
Martin
Grady Martin
Grady Martin
Martin
Martin
Martin
Martin
Martin
Martin
Martin
Grady Martin
Grady Jr
Martin
Grady Martin
Grady Martin
Grady Martin
Martin
Grady Martin
Grady Martin
Josh Martin
Grady Martin
Grady Martin


title: John VII Palaiologos

type: original

texts:
<mask> or Palaeologus (; 1370 – 22 September 1408) was Byzantine emperor for five months in 1390, from 14 April to 17 September. A handful of sources suggest that <mask> sometimes used the name Andronikos (Ἀνδρόνικος), possibly to honour the memory of his father, Andronikos IV Palaiologos, though he reigned under his birth name. Andronikos IV was the firstborn son of Emperor <mask>gos (), and had thus been the heir to the throne. After a failed rebellion in 1373, Andronikos IV was imprisoned and partially blinded, the same punishment possibly being carried out on <mask>, then only three years old. Andronikos IV escaped in 1376 and successfully took Constantinople, ruling as emperor until 1379. <mask> served as co-emperor during this time, possibly being appointed in 1377. Though deposed in 1379 by his brother <mask> and their father <mask>, Andronikos IV never renounced his claims.To prevent further conflict, it was agreed in 1381 that Andronikos IV was to succeed <mask>, making <mask> second-in-line to the throne. Upon Andronikos IV's death in 1385, <mask> inherited his claims. Despite the previous agreement, Manuel was seen by <mask> as the favoured successor. <mask> rebelled against <mask> and successfully seized Constantinople in 1390. After just five months, Manuel succeeded in deposing his nephew with the help of the Ottomans and the Knights Hospitaller. Upon <mask>'s death in 1391, Manuel succeeded him as emperor. Still possessing a powerful network of allies, <mask> never surrendered his claim to be the legitimate emperor, and the tense relationship between him and his uncle brought the empire close to civil war several times.Though they were only honoured to a limited extent by Manuel, several agreements in regards to status and the line of succession were made between the two in order to avoid conflict, certifying that <mask> remained co-emperor and was to succeed Manuel upon his death. In 1394, the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I besieged Constantinople. Manuel left the city in 1399 to travel around Western Europe in search for military aid, and entrusted <mask> with serving as regent in Constantinople, overseeing its defense. Despite allegations of conspiring with the Ottomans, <mask> held the city loyally for the entire duration of Manuel's three and a half years-long journey, refusing to surrender it to Bayezid. The threat to Constantinople ended with Bayezid's defeat against the Timurids at the Battle of Ankara in 1402. In the aftermath of this battle, <mask> negotiated a favourable treaty with one of Bayezid's sons, Süleyman Çelebi, which ensured that the important city of Thessalonica, lost to the Ottomans in 1387 due to the actions of Manuel, was returned to imperial control. Despite <mask>'s loyal service, Manuel sent him away in disgrace once he returned in 1403, and the two were once more enemies.This feud proved to be brief, as they were reconciled a few months later and a new agreement was made, in which <mask> was allowed to take possession of Thessalonica and was acknowledged with the full imperial title. From 1403 until his death in 1408, <mask> thus ruled in Thessalonica as "Emperor of All Thessaly", with his own separate imperial court. The Thessalonians considered him an able ruler, and his work with local church affairs and improving the city's defensive structures garnered him a positive remembrance. Biography

Background and early life

<mask> Palaiologos was born in 1370 as the only son of Andronikos IV Palaiologos and Keratsa of Bulgaria, a daughter of Emperor Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria. Andronikos IV was the first-born son of Emperor <mask> Palaiologos () and thus the legitimate heir to the Byzantine throne. The Palaiologos dynasty, in power since 1259/1261, was often plagued by infighting, with the emperors and princes of the family often being unable to cooperate among themselves, to the detriment of the empire. The main enemy of the Byzantines at this time was the Ottoman Empire, which throughout the 14th century conquered vast swaths of former imperial territory.<mask> had even agreed to serve the Ottoman sultan Murad I () as a tributary vassal. At this time, despite geopolitical adversity, Byzantine and Ottoman aristocrats were in close contact with each other. While <mask> was serving on an Ottoman campaign in Anatolia, as per his vassalage agreement with Murad I, Andronikos and one of Murad I's sons, Savcı Bey, co-ordinated simultaneous revolts against their fathers. The two princes were defeated, captured and imprisoned within a few months, as their fathers joined forces to put down the revolts. Andronikos and Savcı suffered harsh punishment. Savcı was blinded and beheaded by Murad I, and though the sultan ordered <mask> to blind his son as well, the Byzantine emperor was reluctant, only partially following through. Andronikos was only partially blinded, apparently losing just one of his eyes.Some sources suggest that Andronikos's infant son <mask>, the later <mask>, only three years old at the time, was also partially blinded in the same way. Furthermore, Andronikos lost his right of succession to the throne, with his younger brother, Manuel II <mask>, being designated as heir by <mask> instead. Imprisoned with his family in the Prison of Anemas in Constantinople, Andronikos escaped in July 1376, together with his wife and son, to Galata, a colony of the Republic of Genoa on the other side of the Golden Horn, where he was enthusiastically received by the Genoese. The Genoese preferred Andronikos over <mask>, due to the latter having recently granted the island of Tenedos to their rival, the Republic of Venice, thus hurting their commercial interests. Andronikos also retained the support of a large fraction of Byzantine society, despite his rebellious actions, and successfully took Constantinople on 12 August that same year, with Genoese and Ottoman support. <mask> and Manuel were imprisoned, and Andronikos ruled as emperor for three years before they escaped and deposed him. During his father's reign (12 August 1376 – 1 July 1379), <mask> was proclaimed co-emperor, probably in 1377.Even after being deposed, Andronikos never renounced his claim to the throne, residing in Galata and openly declaring his intentions to retake the capital. The standoff between Andronikos and the emperors in Constantinople lasted until 1381, when an agreement was reached that Andronikos and his son <mask> were to be <mask>'s successors as emperors. Furthermore, Andronikos was once more recognised as junior co-emperor and was allowed to retain and use the title of basileus (emperor). Andronikos also received lands around Selymbria as an appanage in 1382. Andronikos predeceased <mask>, dying on 25 or 28 June 1385. <mask> inherited his father's lands around Selymbria and, as per the 1381 agreement, also inherited the right to use the title basileus, becoming a junior co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire. He also inherited his father's claim to be <mask>'s legitimate heir.From his position as junior emperor, <mask> received support from the Ottoman Empire, especially from the time of Bayezid I's accession (1389) onwards, and from the Genoese. The Genoese support did not escape the attention of <mask>. At some point between 1387 and 1391, <mask> is recorded as having complained to the Genoese that the inhabitants of Galata were acclaiming and saluting <mask> as if he were the senior emperor, while denying <mask> V the appropriate honours. Usurpation of the throne and reign

Despite the agreement of 1381, which explicitly stated that <mask> was the legitimate successor, and Manuel having shown some rebellious tendencies himself, Manuel remained <mask>'s favoured heir and represented <mask>'s main obstacle on the way to the throne. When Manuel was away campaigning in Anatolia in 1390, <mask>, twenty years old, seized the moment and proclaimed himself sole emperor, laying siege to Constantinople. According to the contemporary Russian chronicler Ignatius of Smolensk, 1390 had seen a strong current of opinion in <mask>'s favour. <mask> had secured the support of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I and the Genoese; shortly before the siege (probably in late 1389) he had even travelled to Genoa in person to rally support. As he travelled back to the Byzantine Empire by land, it is possible that <mask> passed through Bulgaria, where he might also have sought the assistance of Ivan Sratsimir and Ivan Shishman, Tsars of Bulgaria in Vidin and Tarnovo, respectively.In addition to his external allies, a large percentage of the population within Constantinople also supported <mask>, and might even have approved of subtle Ottoman intervention in the succession. <mask> entered the city on 14 April 1390, his brief siege having ended through a group of commoners opening the Gate of Charisius, without struggle, and letting him in. Though some coercion was used, before long everyone inside the city had recognised and acclaimed <mask> as emperor, submitting to his rule. There is some contemporary evidence that <mask> used the name Andronikos at the time of his usurpation. Ignatius of Smolensk, eyewitness to the event, wrote that the soldiers in <mask>'s service shouted the acclamation "Polla ta eti Andronikou! ", rather than the expected "Polla ta eti Ioannou!" and records of the registers of expenses in Galata in 1390 mention that the emperor in Constantinople at the time was Andronico Paleologo.It is possible that <mask> changed his name to Andronikos upon his father's death in 1385 to honour his memory, or adopted it only in 1390, in order to avoid confusion and facilitate his usurpation of the throne. If his soldiers and the people of Constantinople were to depose an emperor named <mask> and proclaim another of the same name, the entire affair could be conducted in bewilderment. By using the name Andronikos, any such issues would be avoided. During his actual reign as emperor, after successfully taking the throne, <mask> does not appear to have used the second name, reigning under his birth name. In treaties he signed he is referred to as <mask>, and contemporary Byzantine authors also consistently refer to him by his birth name, ignoring any second name for him. The few activities recorded to have been conducted during <mask>'s brief reign suggest that he believed that he was going to rule for a long time. In June, he signed a commercial treaty with Venice and throughout his time as emperor he issued prostagmata (imperial decisions/commands) and minted coins.<mask> is also recorded to have supported the restoration of Macarius to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Macarius had been Patriarch of Constantinople during the reign of <mask>'s father, in 1376–1379. <mask>'s reign ended in the same year as it had begun, when Manuel returned from his campaign. With the support of the Knights Hospitaller and the Ottomans, Manuel deposed <mask>, who had ruled just five months, on 17 September and restored the rule of <mask>. After helping Manuel retake the city for his father, sultan Bayezid I forced him to live at the Ottoman court, acting as a submissive vassal. Governor in Selymbria and pretensions

<mask> never gave up his claim to be emperor, and continued to be a powerful political player in the Byzantine Empire for years following his deposition. Sometime before 1397, possibly as early as 1390, <mask> married Irene Gattilusio, daughter of Francesco II Gattilusio, the lord of the island of Lesbos. After <mask> returned to the throne, Bayezid summoned both junior co-emperors, Manuel and <mask>, to join the sultan's campaigns in Anatolia.They were both forced to take part in the Ottoman subjection of Philadelphia, the last Christian city in western Anatolia. When <mask> died in 1391, Manuel, at Bayezid's court at the time, quickly made his way to Constantinople to pre-empt <mask> claiming the throne. <mask> continued to govern Selymbria following <mask>'s death and continued to aspire to become senior emperor following Manuel II's rise to the throne. He ruled Selymbria as a vassal of Bayezid I, which meant that he was forced to aid the sultan in further campaigns in Anatolia. According to historian <mask>. Barker, <mask> attempted to sell his claim to the Byzantine throne to Charles VI of France. In 1397 in Selymbria, <mask> supposedly entrusted the French nobles Henry of Bar and <mask> of Nevers with negotiating with Charles VI, with <mask> seeking a French castle and a generous pension in return for giving up the title. Barker's hypothesis is based on a real legal document signed on 15 July 1397, possibly at Saray rather than Selymbria, but the document itself contains no mentions of what rights <mask> entrusted the French nobles with or what his exact intentions in negotiating with Charles VI were.The idea that <mask> intended to sell his claims is based on premature interpretations of the document itself and notes by the nobles concerning a discussion with Francesco II Gattilusio on Lesbos, during which Gattilusio supposedly divulged what he believed <mask>'s intentions to be. <mask>'s hopes of claiming the throne continued to be supported by Bayezid I, who saw him as a more promising candidate than the staunchly anti-Ottoman Manuel II. By supporting <mask>, Bayezid hoped to turn the Byzantine Empire into a obedient vassal state, as it had nearly been under <mask>'s rule. Though Bayezid was a significant ally, his overt support for <mask> was used by Manuel II in his efforts to delegitimise <mask>'s claims. In some of Manuel II's early texts, he went as far as to claim that <mask>'s ultimate plan was to surrender Constantinople to the Ottomans. Despite Manuel's propaganda campaign, <mask> still enjoyed considerable support, both within the empire and among its allies. In addition to Bayezid, <mask> continued to be supported by the Republic of Genoa, with which he had commercial connections.In addition, <mask> was also backed by a wide network of rich Byzantine aristocrats. His wide support and wealth gave him a constant pool of resources that he could use in the feud with his uncle. In addition to his backing by certain aristocrats and his international allies, there was also a faction within Constantinople, mainly composed of commoners, who wished to restore <mask> as senior emperor, as late as 1399. This faction opposed Manuel II's rule, believing that he did not care about the empire's survival, and that he ruled as a tyrant. As <mask> had been constitutionally invested with the right to succeed to the throne in 1381, they saw him as the legitimate heir, not Manuel, who was viewed as a

masks:
John VII Palaiologos
John VII
John V Palaiolo
John VII
John VII
Manuel II Palaiologos
John V
John V
John VII
John VII
John V
John VII
John V
John V
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John V
John V
John
John V
John
John VII
Palaiologos
John V
John V
John V
John VII
John
John V
John V
John VII
John V
John VII
John V
John V
John VII
John
John VII
John V
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John
John VII
John
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John V
John VII
John
John V
John VII
John V
John VII
John VII
John V
John W
John VII
John VII
John
John VII
John VII
John VII
John
John VII
John VII
John V
John
John
John
John
John
John
John VII
John VII


title: John VII Palaiologos

texts:
 usurper more interested in his own power than anything else. This perception of Manuel was used by <mask> in his own propaganda. Reconciliation with Manuel II and tenure as regent

Tensions between <mask> and Manuel escalated as Bayezid began to threaten to conquer Constantinople.In 1394, Bayezid laid siege to the city. Encouraged by the French knight Boucicaut, who had been placed as the leader of Constantinople's defense and who had good relations with both <mask> and Manuel, the two emperors reached an agreement meant to end their dynastic feud in 1399. According to the Byzantine monk Symeon of Thessalonica, <mask>'s attitude towards Manuel had only changed because Bayezid had attacked his lands around Selymbria in 1397. The agreement was that Manuel adopted <mask> VII, and that <mask> VII in turn adopted Manuel's sons and daughters, uniting the two branches of the family. Manuel also formally acknowledged <mask> as the first co-emperor, outranking Manuel's own son, <mask> Palaiologos, who then became the second co-emperor. The agreement allowed Manuel to leave the city in a three-year long mission to travel around Europe in an attempt to secure military aid, while <mask> was entrusted to remain in Constantinople as regent, governing the city in Manuel's absence. Though in effect having become Emperor-regent, <mask>'s responsibility was mainly the defense of Constantinople, not other matters normally handled by the emperor.Due to a lack of sources, <mask>'s regency in Constantinople is not well documented, and the extent of his power and how he exercised it is not entirely clear. It does not appear that the 1399 agreement was honoured by Manuel, as he sent his family (now ostensibly <mask>'s family) to his brother Theodore Palaiologos in the Morea. The only textual records that survive of <mask>'s activities in Constantinople are treaties with the Venetians and Genose, and documentation of his decision to depose Patriarch Matthew I. Matthew I had many enemies in Constantinople, for reasons not entirely clear, and the anti-Matthew faction managed to persuade <mask> to depose him. He would later be restored by Manuel once he returned to Constantinople. In the Byzantine Empire, ultimate authority to appoint patriarchs rested with the emperor alone. While besieging the city, Bayezid attempted to appeal to <mask>'s supporters by posing as a defender of <mask>'s legitimacy and offering peace on the condition that <mask> was restored to the throne, terms that had been refused by Manuel before he left, a decision which prolonged the siege. Once Manuel had left the city, Bayezid tried to negotiate directly with <mask>.Perhaps overlooking that he had supported Manuel's deposition of <mask> in 1390, his own attack on <mask>'s lands in Selymbria in 1397, and the reconciliation between the two emperors, Bayezid seemed to still believe that he could rely on <mask> to do his bidding. Shortly after Manuel's departure from Constantinople, he sent the following message to <mask> from Adrianople:

<mask> refused to surrender the city and replied defiantly to Bayezid's messenger, recorded as having said the following:

The situation grew more grim as time went on and Manuel's absence dragged on. Though Venice had promised to send military aid to lift the siege, the promised forces never arrived. Despite his forces being exhausted and the Timurids appearing in the eastern parts of his empire, Bayezid refused to abandon the siege. Throughout the six-year-long siege, the citizens of Constantinople suffered. Many of them chose to escape from the walls to personally surrender to the Ottoman forces. Despite having refused to surrender the city, <mask> maintained some connections to Bayezid.Early in January 1401, <mask> was away from Constantinople, attempting to sign an agreement with Bayezid. Whatever he did, it appears to have worked momentarily as the siege was lifted for a brief period in the summer. In 1402, <mask> is recorded as present on an Ottoman military expedition in the Peloponnese. On 1 June 1402, as the siege was escalating, <mask> sent a letter to Henry IV of England, writing of the urgent danger threatening Constantinople. About a month after this letter was sent, Bayezid finally left the city, having to deal with the Timurids. Bayezid's defeat and capture at the Battle of Ankara on 20 July 1402, and the subsequent period of Ottoman civil war it sparked, ended the siege of Constantinople and saved the city. The Ottoman defeat at Ankara was used by <mask> to negotiate a treaty with one of Bayezid I's sons, Süleyman Çelebi, in which the city of Thessalonica, as well as substantial territories in Thrace and Macedonia, were returned to the Byzantine Empire.<mask> baptised and christianised two of Bayezid's sons in 1403: İsa Çelebi and Yusuf Çelebi. İsa may have been adopted by <mask>, and Yusuf is recorded to have continued to live in Constantinople, attested there as late as 1413. Upon Manuel's return to Constantinople in June 1403, <mask> returned power to him. Though some contemporary comments seem to suggest that everyone expected <mask> to refuse to surrender power, <mask> appears to have been content with letting go of his responsibilities after governing the Byzantine capital for three and a half years. Once Manuel returned, he reversed several of <mask>'s decisions, for instance disavowing a treaty <mask> had arranged with the Ottomans, in which he had granted them religious and financial privileges. Further tensions within the imperial family

After Manuel's return in 1403, relations between him and <mask> were tense once more. Since he knew that <mask> could no longer rely on the support of the Ottomans, Manuel attempted to completely exclude him from the imperial hierarchy, stripping him of the title basileus and depriving him of his promised lands in Selymbria and Thessalonica.The reasons for excluding <mask> was attributed by Manuel to rumours that <mask> had initiated negotiations in 1402 with Bayezid concerning the surrender of Constantinople. The contemporary Castilian traveller Ruy González de Clavijo wrote that <mask> and Bayezid had agreed that should Bayezid defeat the Timurids, <mask> would surrender the city. It is doubtful that such an agreement was ever made, especially since <mask> proved himself to be loyal for the duration of his tenure as regent and concluded a highly favourable treaty with the Ottoman prince Süleyman Çelebi. According to German historian Peter Wirth, it is possible that the reason for resentment again brewing up between <mask> and Manuel after Manuel's return could be that Manuel felt that he had been ignored and left out of these important negotiations. <mask> was sent to the island of Lemnos, apparently in disgrace, but fled to his father-in-law Francesco on nearby Lesbos. Soon thereafter, in September 1403, <mask> and Francesco launched a naval expedition against Thessalonica, though it appears to have had little to no result. The expedition was not some attempt to seize the city from Manuel's control, but rather to liberate it from the Ottomans, as an Ottoman garrison was still present.<mask> and Francesco returned to Lesbos, where Boucicaut was also residing at the time. Together with Boucicaut, they then travelled to Constantinople at the head of an army, planning to take the city from Manuel by force. Though they ultimately chose not to attack the city, <mask>'s drastic actions called for a new political agreement between the dynasts. The resulting 1403 agreement between <mask> and Manuel was similar to the one they had made in 1399. As Manuel's adoptive son, <mask> remained the first co-emperor and Manuel's actual son, <mask> VIII, continued being the second co-emperor. <mask>'s rights to Thessalonica were also affirmed. Clavijo, present in Constantinople at the time, writes that both Manuel and <mask> were designated as full emperors and that <mask> was to reign alone after Manuel's death, after which he was to be succeeded by Manuel's son <mask>, who in turn would be succeeded by <mask>'s newly born son, Andronikos V Palaiologos.Contemporary reactions to the resolution appear to have been bitter. Clavijo wrote that he did not believe that the agreement would be respected by either emperor. Emperor in Thessalonica

The transfer of Thessalonica from Ottoman control to the Byzantines was overseen by Manuel's confidant, Demetrios Laskaris Leontares, who per the agreement between the two emperors handed it over to <mask>. According to preserved documents signed by <mask>, he probably first arrived in Thessalonica in late 1403. Though <mask> was accompanied on the initial journey by some of Manuel's staunchest supporters, such as Leontares and Demetrios Chrysoloras, who were ordered to keep an eye on his activities, <mask> immediately assumed autonomy from Constantinople. Despite their agreement and <mask>'s de facto autonomy, Manuel's texts state that <mask> was "given" Thessalonica by Manuel, a phrasing which suggests that Manuel still considered himself to be <mask>'s superior. Though no known surviving copies exist, a detailed oath was drawn up between Manuel and <mask>, which decided upon a well-defined border between the empires of Constantinople and Thessalonica.Some territories located nearer to Thessalonica than to Constantinople, such as Mount Athos, were kept as sworn to Constantinople. <mask> was invested as Despot of Thessalonica and was allowed to keep the full imperial title. While ruling Thessalonica, <mask> is attested as having used the title , variously translated as "Emperor of Thessaly", "Emperor of All Thessaly", "Emperor of all the Thessaly" or "Emperor of all of Thessaly". Though he had assumed this new title, <mask> never stopped asserting his right to be the legitimate Byzantine emperor, continuing to use the titles autokrator and basileus, identical to the titulature of Manuel. In foreign correspondence, he was addressed in the same way as his uncle. Preserved treaties with the Italian republics refer to <mask> as imperador di Griesi ("Emperor of the Greeks") and lo gran imperator Caloiani imperador di Griesi ("The great emperor Kalojoannes, Emperor of the Greeks"). <mask>'s entry into Thessalonica was commemorated in a Byzantine ivory pyxis (a cylindrical box with a lid).This pyxis, today held at Dumbarton Oaks, depicts both the imperial family of <mask> (including his wife Irene and his son Andronikos V) and the imperial family of Manuel II (including his wife Helena Dragaš and his son, <mask> VIII). At Thessalonica, <mask> created his own treasury and issued his own coins with his own portrait rather than that of Manuel. He created his own imperial court and chancery, where documents were signed with his name rather than the name of Manuel. Throughout <mask>'s reign in Thessalonica, which lasted until his death in 1408, the Byzantine Empire thus experienced a period of dual rule, essentially divided into two. <mask>'s activities as emperor in Thessalonica consisted mainly of organising the city's defense and regulating local church property. He appears to have been content with his position; there are no further records of conflict between <mask> and Manuel after the events of 1403. <mask>'s arrival in Thessalonica meant more to the Thessalonians than simply the arrival of an emperor.Through his 1403 treaty, <mask> had liberated the city from the Ottomans and once more made it into the second city of the Byzantine Empire. Though Manuel had also been involved in some of the negotiations, the majority of the credit for ensuring Thessalonica's return to imperial control has to be given to <mask>. As such, his arrival in the city was not just the arrival of a new governor, but of the city's liberator. Throughout his reign in Thessalonica, the Thessalonians continued to view <mask> as an able ruler. According to Symeon of Thessalonica, <mask> "fortified [the city] on all sides with triremes and outer walls" and "adorned [it] with good regulations and institutions". Shortly after arriving in Thessalonica, <mask> had raised his son, Andronikos V, to co-emperor. <mask> viewed Andonikos V as not just his own legitimate successor, but the future legitimate successor to the Byzantine Empire.This can be gathered from the aforementioned pyxis depicting Andronikos V more prominently than Manuel's heir, <mask> VIII, as well as monodies composed after Andronikos V's death. One such monody states that Andronikos's parents had "regarded him gladly as their successor". Andronikos V, who was named after his grandfather Andronikos IV, was per the 1403 agreement the legitimate heir to the empire, set to be the heir to Manuel's son <mask> VIII. Any plans for Andronikos V's future fell through when he died in 1407 at the age of seven. Some time after Andronikos V's death, <mask> became a monk, assuming the monastic name Joseph. <mask> died in Thessalonica a year after Andronikos V, on 22 September 1408, at the relatively young age of 38. With the deaths of Andronikos V and <mask>, the rival imperial lineage that had been established by Andronikos IV died out.Legacy

<mask> was positively remembered in Thessalonica. The city was often not wholly obedient to Constantinople, with its leaders often going their own way in terms of administration. To the citizens of Thessalonica, <mask>'s death was a significant blow to their autonomy. <mask>'s reign in Thessalonica was the last time the city served as a counter-capital of sorts to Constantinople. Manuel visited the city in 1409 and installed his young son, Andronikos, as governor. While he was met with many approving citizens, there were also many who opposed a ruler from Constantinople being imposed upon them. That the Thessalonians had enjoyed the rule of a leader with a rebellious past, who just like Manuel bore the title basileus, had probably only stimulated the city's separatist tendencies.A praiseful passage in a eulogy of <mask>, from the Synodikon of Thessalonica, reads:

Another eulogy, this one probably written by Symeon of Thessalonica, contains this passage:

Other eulogies, as well as a similarly praiseful monody by the contemporary Byzantine author Theodore Potamios, almost give the impression that a cult of <mask> VII was beginning to develop in Thessalonica. Notes

References

Bibliography

Web sources

|-

<mask> 07
Eastern Orthodox monarchs
1370 births
1408 deaths
Byzantine regents
14th-century Byzantine emperors
Byzantine people of the Byzantine–Ottoman wars
People of Bulgarian-Jewish descent
Byzantine governors of Thessalonica
Sons of Byzantine

masks:
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John
John
John VII
John VIII
John
John
John VII
John
John
John VII
John VII
John VII
John
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John
John
John
John
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John
John
John
John
John
John
John
John
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VIII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John
John VII
John VII
John
John VII
John
John
John VII
John VII
John VII
John
John VII
John
John VII
John
John
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John VII
John
John
John
John VII
John VII
John VII
John
John VII
John
John
John


title: Paul Schuss

texts:
<mask> (born 23 July 1948 in Munzkirchen, Austria) is a French artist of the Ecole de Paris (School of Paris). Born after World War II, he is a part of "La Jeune Peinture" de l'Ecole de Paris ("The Young Painting" of the School of Paris ). Schuss came to France in 1949, and he has benefited from a Franco-Austrian cultural upbringing. His family dates its history back to the 12th century in the Cani della Scala family di Verona, Italy, and the Von Prack von Asch Family from Tyrol, Austria. Biography

Since his early childhood, as soon as he learned to hold a pencil and a brush, he started to draw and paint with passion. After different homes in Burgundy, Provence and the Côte d'Azur near Saint Tropez, his family setting up in Nièvre in 1953. At the age of 10, Schuss met the French painter Albert Drachkovitch-Thomas, who discovered his talent.He offered him his first professional paintings box and brushes and he introduced him succinctly to the tempera technique. But it is a self-taught artist that <mask> learned others pictural techniques like acrylic, watercolor, inkwashing, mixmedia and pastel. He exhibited for the first time at the age of 17 in the Chapelle Sainte Marie (Nevers, France) with Le Salon du Groupe Nivernais. He created these paintings at the age of 14, 15 and 16. All these paintings were bought by collectors. The Prefecture de Nevers bought the painting that he showed in his next exhibition in May in Nevers. He began to study law in Paris but eventually decided to devote himself entirely to art at the age of nineteen.As an adolescent, he discovers the mystical power of Light. He saw a warm, strange golden light – as if it was inhabited – glowing through the window of a fortified castle in ruins. This stream of light touched him deeply as he felt it was the Life of Light. Since then, this image has been part of him and has influenced his art in many ways. As he was living in Paris, he met Erté in 1968. In 1971 he left for Austria in search of his roots. He lived for two years in Salzburg and then for six years in Vienna.In 1972 he showed his art in the Palais Lobkowitz in Vienna, where Ludwig van Beethoven's Third Symphony was performed for the first time in Vienna in this hall with the composer as conductor in 1804. He met the Doctor Karl Kanzian who will become the most important collector of <mask>' paintings in Europe. In 1974 Prinz Otto zu Windisch-Graetz (born in 1928 and related to the family of Emperor Franz Josef von Habsburg-Lothringen and Elisabeth of Bavarian (Sissi) and their son Prinz Rudolf of Austria) and several relatives visited him in his studio in Vienna. Prinz Otto zu Windisch-Graetz shot photos of his important tempera paintings like "Dialog with the Eternal", "Power of Nature", "The Town without Soul", "Last Suns". In 1979 <mask> returned to France and resides since this time in Burgundy. Since 1980, he is part of one of the most important galleries of Paris: La Galerie d'Art de la Place Beauvau. The director, Jean Minet, said about <mask>: " He is one of our eminent painters, yes he is an eminent artist".In Paris in 1987 he met Marc Squarciafichi who became his manager in Japan. With artists like Bernard Buffet, Leonor Fini, Mac Avoy, Yves Brayer and others he belongs to the School of Paris ( Ecole de Paris) that Marc Squarciafichi exhibited for more than 15 years in the biggest cities of Japan, in important galleries like Daimaru Galleries, Bijutsu Sekai Gallery, Mori Art Gallery, Nikken Gallery. Schuss has used a great variety of techniques ranging from tempera to acrylic, watercolor, pastel, mixed techniques, drawing, tint, and lithography. In 1987 he learned lithography at the world-famous Atelier Mourlot in Paris, where artists like Salvador Dalí, Norman Rockwell, Matisse, Arno Breker or Picasso made their lithos in the past. He makes a point of destroying officially the plates used for his lithographs and sells each lithograph with an authenticity certificate signed by Jacques Mourlot. He made 11 editions until 1990: 5 editions in color and 6 in black and white (monochrome). <mask> wanted to create black and white lithographs at that time.Jacques Mourlot told him that no artists were making monochrome lithographs anymore and that only color ones were being produced. In 1989, <mask> was the first artist to create black and white lithographs again in France. This latter became as famous as his color lithographs in Japan. His works includes " The refuge Tree", "Untamed Passions", both in 1989, followed by " Waiting", " The old bridge", " The crows" and " The forgotten letter", in 1990. Since 1987, Doctor Sozo Hino, owner of the Hino Hospital and great collector begun to collect the art of <mask> to create a Schuss Museum in Osaka, in Japan. The project failed in 1991, after the French government restarted the nuclear tests in the Pacific. At this time all French items were boycotted.<mask> has exhibited his work at an international level, in France, Austria, Germany, Japan, England, Monaco, and in the United States (Hawaii) and New York. His work is found in public and private collections around the world. <mask> currently lives in Burgundy, France. He is married to Chantal Garceau and they have two children: Tatiana and Romain. His sister Elisabeth is married to the writer Tidiane Diakite. His passion for discovering new landscapes and new cultures leads him to travel around the world. -Annuaire National des Beaux-Arts, (1998) Edition Thibaud, France.-Dictionnaire des peintres, sculpteurs et graveurs nivernais du XVe au XXe siècle,(2002)Maurice Bardin, Edité par le Conseil Général de la Nièvre

-Visages de Bourgogne, (1999) Édition du Cherche Midi, France. -L’Yonne et les peintres, (2004) Roland Conilleau, Editions de Bagatelle. Japan

-Peintures Contemporaines Françaises, Bijutsu Sekaï Edition (1987)

-École de Paris, Daïmaru Edition (1989)

 Switzerland

-Who's Who in International Art, (1991–1992), (1993–1994), (1998–1999)

 Monaco

-Nice Matin (Juin 2005)(journal)( newspaper)

-Monaco Riviera Magazine (Printemps 2005) (article and reproduction)

-Résidences Côte d’Azur (Juillet 2005) (article and reproduction)

-Grand Sud (Mai-Juin 2005)

Television

 Germany

For the exhibition at the Centre Culturel Français de Munich ( Franzosisches Kultur Institut)(1972), Munich

 France

-FR3 (1984), Edition Régionale d'Orléans

-FR3 (1988), Edition Régionale d'Orléans

-France 3 (1998), Edition Régionale de Bourgogne

 Monaco

TMC (Télé Monte-Carlo) (2005) Video of the retrospective show in Monaco http://www.monaco.mc/actuVoirVideo.do?idMedia=63119&KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=630&width=6
Vidéos

 Japan Video

Portrait of the artist (1987) by Estel International. Radio

 France

-Radio France Auxerre (1998)

-Radio France Auxerre (2000)

 Austria

-The news, Salzburg (1971)

-The news, Salzburg (1972)

Collections

 Official Collections

– Préfecture de la Nièvre, Nevers (France)(1967)

-Salzburgland, Salzburg (Austria)(1971)

-Salzburg City (Austria)(1971) "Power of Passion" painted in 1969, Tempera on panel. -Monaco: SAS Prince Albert II of Monaco (2001)

 Private Collections, a few examples:

-USA, Hawaii: Dr Ph Temple...

-Japan: Dr Sojo Hino...

-France: Seydoux de Clausonne, Albert Drachkovitch-Thomas, Jean Minet, Madame Follereau...

-Germany: Anna Spiegel von Stertz...

-Austria: Karl Kanzian, Dr Logman von Auen, Dr Thomas...

-France and USA: Mourlot collection ( Lithographs ). Honors and awards

 France

-Silver Medal Of Arts Sciences et Lettres (1988)

 Italy

-Professor Honoris Causa and Associeted Academician of the Accademia Internazionale Greci-Marino di Lettere, Arti, Sciencze (1999)

-Chevalier ( Knight)Académique Del Verbano (2000)

References

 Vidéos TMC (Télé Monte-Carlo) (2005)  Video of the retrospective show in Monaco

External links
 http://bi.adagp.fr
Le parcours de Paul Schuss
 http://www.monaco.mc/actuVoirVideo.do?idMedia=63119&KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=630&width=6 TMC
Télé Monte-Carlo (2005)  Video of the retrospective show in Monaco
 http://www.artcba/artist/si

1948 births
Living people
People from Schärding District
20th-century Austrian painters
20th-century male artists
Austrian male painters
21st-century Austrian painters
21st-century male artists

masks:
Paul Schuss
Paul Schuss
Paul Schuss
Paul Schuss
Paul Schuss
Paul Schuss
Paul Schuss
Paul Schuss
Schuss
Paul Schuss


title: J. P. Martin

texts:
<mask> (187924 March 1966) was an English author best known for his Uncle series of children's stories. <mask> was the son of <mask>, a Wesleyan Methodist minister, and his wife Ellen Fowler, daughter of the Rev. <mask>, another Wesleyan, and his wife Mary. <mask> was the brother of Mary Fowler, wife of the Pacific missionary <mask>. <mask>, known in the family as <mask>, was born in Scarborough in the North Riding of Yorkshire in the summer of 1879, the fifth of seven children of whom one died before he was born. His younger sister Dora (<mask>, 1882–1961) is also known as a writer, under the name <mask>. While his two elder brothers were sent to Kingswood School, founded by <mask>, <mask> was not.His elder sister Mary Calvert (May) went to Trinity Hall School, Southport, and then university. His parents feeling he was not suited to boarding school, he attended local day schools in the northern cities and towns where his father ministered to Methodist circuits. In 1898, the <mask> family was based in Dewsbury, and <mask> was working in the accounts department of the local steel works. He was asked to join the Wesleyan Leeds mission, which for some years had been reconstructed with the ministry of Samuel Chadwick. Shortly he became a candidate for the ministry, and was given a district missionary responsibility in Halifax and Bradford. <mask> became a Methodist minister in 1903, and then served as a missionary in South Africa: he chose reconstruction work after the Second Anglo-Boer War, over his father's wish that he should go to Fiji. His uncle <mask> Fowler had been posted to Kimberley, Northern Cape and the diamond mines.<mask> had met his future wife Nancy at the Leeds Mission, and before he left came to understanding that they would marry. In 1904 he was placed first in Ventersdorp. From there he was exchanged to Potchefstroom, and was then sent across the Transvaal to Pilgrim's Rest and Sabie, a gold-mining area, living first at Lydenburg since the Pilgrim's Rest church had been destroyed in the war. Now married, <mask> and <mask> moved to Roodepoort in 1907. They were transferred to the large Wesleyan church at Mafeking in 1910. Returning with his family to England in 1913, <mask> became a Wesleyan chaplain at Wycliffe College, Gloucestershire. He was an army chaplain in Palestine during the World War I.After World War II he lived in the village of Timberscombe in Somerset, where he died in March 1966. The Uncle series
The Uncle books are:

 Uncle (1964)
 Uncle Cleans Up (1965)
 Uncle and His Detective (1966)
 Uncle and the Treacle Trouble (1967)
 Uncle and Claudius the Camel (1970)
 Uncle and the Battle for Badgertown (1973)

The Uncle of the six books in the series is a very rich elephant living in a very large house called Homeward. He is plagued by a group of enemies concerned with puncturing his pretensions, and driving home the charge, true enough, that he once stole a bicycle. Homeward is hard to describe, but try to think of about a hundred skyscrapers all joined together and surrounded by a moat with a drawbridge over it, and you'll get some idea. The towers are of many colours, and there are bathing pools and gardens amongst them, also switchback railways running from tower to tower, and water-chutes from top to bottom. Uncle has friends and supporters, including the Old Monkey, the One-Armed Badger, the cat Goodman, Noddy Ninety, Cloutman, the King of the Badgers, and Butterskin Mute. He is the sworn enemy of the inhabitants of Badfort, an enormous derelict fortress that blights the landscape in front of Homeward.Living in there are the Badfort gang, nominally headed by the Hateman family, Beaver, Nailrod Snr, Nailrod Jnr, Filljug, and Sigismund, with the support of Flabskin, Oily <mask>, the dwarvish, cowardly, skewer-throwing Isidore Hitmouse, the scheming ghost Hootman, and <mask>llytussle, an animated mound of bluish jelly. Reception
Initial reviews of the series in the 1960s by <mask> and Geoffrey Moorhouse were favorable. In 1977 <mask> Townsend wrote in 25 Years of British Children's Books "There are several Uncle books , all inconsequentially episodic and hilariously illustrated by Quentin Blake". The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (1984) commented on its "wildest schoolboy-style inventions and implausibilities, narrated with dead-pan humour." The Economist noted in 2005 that  the stories "which focus on the doings of the eponymous hero, an elephant and benevolent dictator, were first published in the 1960s, and still enjoy a cult following." Imogen Russell Williams wrote in 2007 "If there was ever a children's series generating fanatical, "cult" adoration, this is it." Reprints

The first book was reprinted in paperback in 2000 by Red Fox: .See also . Hardcover reprints of the first two volumes were published by the New York Review of Books in 2007-8 ( and ). In March 2013, a Kickstarter campaign was announced to reprint all six Uncle books in an omnibus edition. The reprint had the support of — and contributions from — several authors and illustrators, including Neil Gaiman, <mask>, Garth Nix, <mask>, Andy Riley, Kate Summerscale, and Richard Ingrams. The campaign was fully funded in a little over four hours. The book was published on 31 October 2013 under the title of The Complete Uncle, . Family
In 1906 <mask> married Annie "Nancy" Mann (died 1944), daughter of Michael Urwin Mann, in Johannesburg.He later married as his second wife <mask> Sowerbutts née Mann, in 1947. He had four children, two girls and two boys, from his first marriage. <mask>'s Uncle stories were first told to his children before he wrote them down for a wider audience. The eldest child was Helen Estella <mask> (1907–1994), known as <mask>. She was to 1984 her father's official biographer, her work appearing in 2017 as <mask> Currey edited by <mask> Currey, under the title  <mask>. <mask>: Father of Uncle: A Master in the Great English Nonsense Tradition 1879–1966; and also editor of the three Uncle books that appeared after his death. <mask> worked from the early 1920s as a journalist on the Bristol Times and Mirror. At the end of the decade the Time and Mirror, owned by the Berry Group (at one point Allied Newspapers) was caught up in a circulation war with the Bristol Evening World (owned by national rivals the Rothermeres).It resulted in Stella being moved from writing aimed at a female audience, to being a "zoo correspondent". For a time she provided copy influenced by her father's juvenile fiction. In 1932 the Time and Mirror folded, and later that year Stella married Ralph Nixon Currey, a friend of the family. In 1934 the couple encouraged J. P<mask> to write down the "Uncle" stories. References

External links

Detailed Uncle bibliography

1879 births
1966 deaths
English children's writers
People from Scarborough, North Yorkshire

masks:
John Percival Martin
Life Martin
John Martin
Philip Fowler
Philip Fowler
James Calvert
John Percival
Percy
Theodora Fowler Martin
Dora Fowler Martin
John Wesley
John
Martin
John
Martin
James Calvert
Percy
John
Nancy Martin
Martin
Joe
Je
Penelope Mortimer
John Rowe
Justin Pollard
Martin Rowson
Martin
Jane Jenny
Martin
Martin
Stella Martin
Stella Martin
James Martin
J P
Martin
Stella Martin
. Martin


title: Tatsuji Nomura

texts:
M.D., Ph.D. (May 15, 1922 – January 11, 2013) was a pioneer in the development of laboratory animals with the aim of assuring reproducibility of experimental results in medical research. He was Director of the Central Institute for Experimental Animals (CIEA), Japan

Development of Comprehensive Animal Experimentation Systems
His most important achievement to date is the establishment of comprehensive animal experimentation systems using strictly defined laboratory animals to assure reproducibility of experimental results in medical research. Before his concepts were applied, it was generally considered to be very difficult or even impossible to obtain reproducible results in medical research using laboratory animals, mainly due to the traditional consensus that the animals are living organisms with individual differences. He has completely changed this out-dated paradigm in medical research by establishing comprehensive animal experimentation systems. One of the factors that affects the reproducibility of the results of animal experiments is the proximate environment in which the experiment is performed including the temperature and humidity of the animal room, the size of cages and caretakers. The concept of the dramatype, which refers to the effects of the proximate environment on the phenotype, was introduced. Russell and Burch proposed the term "dramatype" in 1959 from the standpoint of animal welfare (Reduction), but Dr. <mask> developed this concept to promote the importance of control of the environment to assure reproducibility of the results of animal experiments.Based on such systems, he has established international research collaborations to develop three animal models:
Transgenic Polio Mice - Widely used in polio vaccine neurovirulence testing as a replacement for monkeys. (Approved by World Health Organization in March 2003 )
Trangenic rasH2 Mice - Shortening of the carcinogenicity test period in drug development from two years to six months. (Approved by FDA, NTP, and EU in 2003)
NOD/Shi-scid/IL-2Rγnull Mice (NOG Mice) - New generation of extremely immunodeficient mice that are the best candidate for humanized mice to date. Application of animal ethics in CIEA
CIEA has developed animal experimentation systems based on the concept "scientific animal experiments with reproducible results can not be achieved unless the experiments are performed ethically with the animals maintained in a normal state." To this end, the 3R (Replacement, Refinement, and Reduction of Animals in Research) principle proposed by Russell and Burch in 1959 was adopted. By using animals under strict quality control and controlling the environment so that the animals are not subjected to stress, it is possible to reduce the number of animals used in experiments (Reduction among the 3Rs). It is also possible to prevent infections such as mouse hepatitis or Sendai virus through periodic monitoring of the microbiological status of animals for early diagnosis and quality assurance and to minimize discomfort of the animals (Refinement).These policies are intended to maintain the animals in a normal state by minimizing stress. If the animals are not maintained in a normal state, reproducibility of results of experiments on animals as "living measuring instruments" cannot be assured. A system has been established in which mice with the human polio virus receptor introduced (polio mice) replace monkeys, which are closest to humans, used in neurovirulence testing of live polio vaccine (Replacement). The number of animals used can also be reduced by using mice subject to stricter quality control than monkeys. "Replacement" refers to a "switch to research not using animals" but a "switch to a method not using phylogenetically higher animals such as monkeys" is a method of natural protection. Using this alternative we succeeded in reducing the zoonotic risks for investigators (Refinement). Central Institute for Experimental Animals (CIEA)
Dr. <mask> is currently Director of the Central Institute for Experimental Animals, Japan, that he founded in 1952, to improve the level of medical research.

masks: Nomura Nomura


title: Thaksin Shinawatra

texts:
<mask>tra (; ; ; Chinese: 丘達新; ; born 26 July 1949), also known by Thai netizens as Tony Woodsome,  is a Thai businessman, politician and visiting professor. He served in the Thai Police from 1973 to 1987, and was the Prime Minister of Thailand from 2001 to 2006. <mask> founded the mobile phone operator Advanced Info Service and the IT and telecommunications conglomerate Shin Corporation in 1987, ultimately making him one of the richest people in Thailand. He founded the Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT) in 1998 and, after a landslide electoral victory, became prime minister in 2001. He was the first democratically elected prime minister of Thailand to serve a full term and was re-elected in 2005 by an overwhelming majority. Thaksin declared a "war on drugs" in which more than 2,500 people were killed. <mask>'s government launched programs to reduce poverty, expand infrastructure, promote small and medium-sized enterprises, and extend universal healthcare coverage.Thaksin took a strong-arm approach against the separatist insurgency in the Muslim southern provinces. His decision to sell shares in his corporation for more than a billion tax-free dollars generated considerable controversy. A citizens' movement against <mask>, called People's Alliance for Democracy or "Yellow Shirts", launched mass protests, accusing him of corruption, abuse of power, and autocratic tendencies. Thaksin called snap elections that were boycotted by the opposition and invalidated by the Constitutional Court. <mask> was overthrown in a military coup on 19 September 2006. His party was outlawed and he was barred from political activity. Thaksin has since lived in self-imposed exile except for a brief visit to Thailand in 2008.He was sentenced in absentia to two years in jail for abuse of power. From abroad he has continued to influence Thai politics, through the People's Power Party that ruled in 2008, and its successor organisation Pheu Thai Party, as well as the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship or "Red Shirt" movement. His younger sister Yingluck <mask> was the prime minister of Thailand from 2011 to 2014. Heritage and early life
<mask>'s great-grandfather, Seng Saekhu, was an immigrant from Meizhou, Guangdong, China, who arrived in Siam in the 1860s and settled in Chiang Mai in 1908. His eldest son, Chiang Saekhu, was born in Chanthaburi in 1890 and married a Thai woman named Saeng Samana. Chiang's eldest son, Sak, adopted the Thai surname Shinawatra in 1938 because of the country's anti-Chinese movement, and the rest of the family also adopted it. Seng Saekhu had made his fortune through tax farming.Chiang Saekhu/Shinawatra later founded Shinawatra Silks and then moved into finance, construction, and property development. <mask>'s father, Loet, was born in Chiang Mai in 1919 and married Yindi Ramingwong. Yindi's father, Charoen Ramingwong (born: Wang Chuan Cheng), was a Hakka immigrant who married Princess Chanthip na Chiangmai, a minor member of the Lanna (Chiang Mai) royalty. In 1968, Loet <mask> entered politics and became an MP for Chiang Mai. Loet <mask> quit politics in 1976. He opened a coffee shop, grew oranges and flowers in Chiang Mai's San Kamphaeng District, and opened two cinemas, a gas station, and a car and motorcycle dealership. By the time <mask> was born, the Shinawatra family was one of the richest and most influential families in Chiang Mai.<mask> was born in San Kamphaeng, Chiang Mai Province. He is a Theravada Buddhist. He lived in the village of San Kamphaeng until he was 15, then moved to Chiang Mai to study at Montfort College. At 16, he helped run one of his father's cinemas. <mask> married Potjaman Damapong in July 1976. They have one son, Panthongtae and two daughters, Pinthongtha and Paethongtarn. They divorced in 2008.Thaksin's youngest sister, Yingluck Shinawatra (; ), is said to have entered politics in 2011 at her brother's request as leader of the pro-Thaksin Pheu Thai Party. She was later elected prime minister on 3 July 2011. Thaksin earned a doctorate in criminology at Sam Houston State University. Thaksin lectured at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of Mahidol University in 1979. Police career

Thaksin was a member of the 10th class of the Armed Forces Academies Preparatory School, and was then admitted to the Thai Police Cadet Academy. Graduating in 1973, he joined the Royal Thai Police. He received a master's degree in criminal justice from Eastern Kentucky University in the United States in 1975, and three years later was awarded a doctorate in criminal justice at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas.Returning to Thailand, he reached the position of Deputy Superintendent of the Policy and Planning Sub-division, General Staff Division, Metropolitan Police Bureau, before resigning his commission in 1987 as a Police Lieutenant Colonel and leaving the police. His former wife, Potjaman Damapong, is the sister of Police General Priewpan Damapong and now uses her mother's maiden name. He is a former university lecturer at Royal Police Cadet Academy in 1975–1976. Thaksin's police lieutenant colonel rank was revoked in September 2015.

Business career

Early ventures
Thaksin and his wife began several businesses while he was still in the police, including a silk shop, a cinema, and an apartment building. All were failures and left him over 50 million baht in debt, which is equal to £108318.11. In 1982, he established ICSI. Using his police contacts, he leased computers to government agencies with modest success.However, later ventures in security systems (SOS) and public bus radio services (Bus Sound) all failed. In April 1986, he founded Advanced Info Service (AIS), which started as a computer rental business. In 1987 Thaksin resigned from the police. He then marketed a romance drama called Baan Sai Thong, which became a popular success in theatres. In 1988, he joined Pacific Telesis to operate and market the PacLink pager service, a modest success, though <mask> later sold his shares to establish his own paging company. In 1989, he launched IBC, a cable television company. At that time, Thaksin had a good relationship with Chalerm Yoobumrung, the minister of the Prime Minister's Office, who was in charge of Thai press and media.It is a question whether Chalerm granted the right to Thaksin to establish IBC to benefit his close friend, seeing that the project had been denied by the previous administration. However, it turned out to be a money loser and he eventually merged the company with the CP Group's UTV. In 1989, Thaksin established a data networking service, Shinawatra DataCom, today known as Advanced Data Network and owned by AIS and TOT. Many of Thaksin's businesses were later consolidated as Shin Corporation. Advanced Info Service and later ventures

Advanced Info Service (AIS) was given a monopoly contract by Thaksin's military contacts in 1986 and used the GSM-900 frequency band. AIS grew rapidly and became the largest mobile phone operator in Thailand. The Shinawatra Computer and Communications Group was founded in 1987 and listed in 1990.In 1990, Thaksin founded Shinawatra Satellite, which has developed and operated four Thaicom communications satellites. In 1999, the Shinawatra family spent some one billion baht establishing Shinawatra University in Pathum Thani. It offers international programs in engineering, architecture, and business management, though it ranks quite low in international rankings. In 2000, Thaksin acquired the ailing iTV television station from the Crown Property Bureau, Nation Multimedia Group, and Siam Commercial Bank. Entry into politics

Political career

Thaksin entered politics in late 1994 through Chamlong Srimuang, who had just reclaimed the position of Palang Dharma Party (PDP) leader from Boonchu Rojanastien. In a subsequent purge of Boonchu-affiliated PDP cabinet ministers, Thaksin was appointed Foreign Minister in December 1994, replacing Prasong Soonsiri. Thaksin left Palang Dharma along with many of its MPs in 1996, and founded the populist Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party in 1998.After a historic election victory in 2001, he became prime minister, the country's first to serve a full term. <mask> introduced a range of policies to alleviate rural poverty. Highly popular, they helped reduce poverty by half in four years. He launched the country's first universal healthcare program, the 30-baht scheme, as well as a notorious drug suppression campaign. <mask> embarked on a massive program of infrastructure investment, including roads, public transit, and Suvarnabhumi Airport. Nevertheless, public sector debt fell from 57 percent of GDP in January 2001 to 41 percent in September 2006. Levels of corruption were perceived to have fallen, with Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index improving from 3.2 to 3.8 between 2001 and 2005.The Thai Rak Thai party won in a landslide in the 2005 general election, which had the highest voter turnout in Thai history. Twelve years later, after <mask> was removed from power, Chamlong Srimuang expressed regret at getting "such a corrupt person" into politics. The PDP soon withdrew from the government over the Sor Por Kor 4-01 land reform corruption scandal, causing the government of Chuan Leekpai to collapse. PDP leader and Deputy Prime Minister under Banharn
Chamlong, strongly criticised for mishandling internal PDP politics in the last days of the Chuan-government, retired from politics and hand-picked <mask> as new PDP leader. <mask> ran for election for the first time for the constitutional tribunal and lost. <mask> joined the government of Banharn Silpa-Archa and was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Bangkok traffic. In May 1996, he and four other PDP ministers quit the Banharn Cabinet (while retaining their MP seats), prompting a Cabinet reshuffle.Many have claimed that <mask>'s move was designed to help give Chamlong Srimuang a boost in the June 1996 Bangkok Governor elections, which Chamlong returned from retirement to contest. But Chamlong lost to Bhichit Rattakul, an independent. Chamlong's failure to buttress the PDP's failing power base in Bangkok amplified divisions in the PDP, particularly between Chamlong's "temple" faction and <mask>'s. Soon afterwards, Chamlong announced he was retiring again from politics. <mask> and the PDP pulled out of the Banharn-government in August 1996. In a subsequent no-confidence debate, the PDP gave evidence against the Banharn government, and in September 1996 Banharn dissolved Parliament. <mask> announced he would not run in the subsequent November 1996 elections but would remain as leader of the PDP.It suffered a fatal defeat in the elections, winning only one seat, and soon imploded, with most members resigning. Deputy Prime Minister under Chavalit
On 15 August 1997, <mask> became Deputy Prime Minister in Chavalit Yongchaiyudh's government, after the Thai baht was floated and devalued on 2 July 1997, sparking the Asian financial crisis. He held the position for only three months, leaving on 14 November when Chavalit resigned. During a censure debate on 27 September 1997, Democrat Suthep Thaugsuban accused Thaksin of profiting from insider information about the government's decision to float the baht, but the next Democrat party-led government did not investigate the accusations. During this period, <mask> also served on the Asia Advisory Board of the Washington, D.C. based Carlyle Group until he resigned upon becoming Prime Minister in 2001. The Thai Rak Thai Party and the 2001 elections
<mask> founded the Thai Rak Thai (TRT) ('Thais Love Thais') party in 1998 along with Somkid Jatusripitak, PDP ally Sudarat Keyuraphan, Purachai Piumsomboon, and 19 others. With a populist platform often attributed to Somkid, TRT promised universal access to healthcare, a three-year debt moratorium for farmers, and one million baht locally managed development funds for all Thai villages.After Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai dissolved parliament in November 2000, TRT won a sweeping victory in the January 2001 elections, the first held under the Constitution of 1997. At the time, some academics called it the most open, corruption-free election in Thai history. Thai Rak Thai won 248 parliamentary seats (more than any other party previously) and needed only three more seats to form a government. Nonetheless, <mask> opted for a broad coalition to gain total control and avoid a vote of no confidence, with the Chart Thai Party (41 seats) and the New Aspiration Party (36 seats), while absorbing the smaller Seritham Party (14 seats). <mask> became Prime Minister of Thailand on 9 February 2001. Prime Minister of Thailand, 2001–2006

<mask> <mask> was the first prime minister of Thailand to complete a full term in office, and his rule is generally agreed to have been one of the most distinctive in the country's modern history. He initiated many eye-catching policies that distinguished him from his predecessors.They affected the economy, public health, education, energy, social order, drug suppression and international relations. He gained one re-election victory. <mask>'s most effective policies were reducing rural poverty and the introduction of universal healthcare, allowing him to gather the hitherto-neglected support of the rural poor, especially in the populous northeast. His cabinet consisted of a broad coalition of academics, former student leaders, and former leaders of the Palang Dharma Party, including Prommin Lertsuridej, Chaturon Chaisang, Prapat Panyachatraksa, Surapong Suebwonglee, Somkid Jatusripitak, Surakiart Sathirathai, and Sudarat Keyuraphan. Traditional regional power brokers also flocked to his government. However, his government was increasingly accused of dictatorship, demagogy, corruption, conflicts of interest, human rights offences, acting undiplomatically, using legal loopholes and displaying hostility towards a free press. A highly controversial leader, he has also been the target of numerous allegations of lèse majesté, treason, usurping religious and royal authority, selling assets to international investors, and religious desecration.Economic policies
<mask>'s government designed its policies to appeal to the rural majority, initiating programs like village-managed microcredit development funds, low-interest agricultural loans, direct injections of cash into village development funds (the SML scheme), infrastructure development, and the One Tambon One Product (OTOP) rural, small, and medium enterprise development program. Thaksin's economic policies helped Thailand recover from the 1997 Asian financial crisis and substantially reduce poverty. GDP grew from 4.9 trillion baht in 2001 to 7.1 trillion baht in 2006. Thailand repaid its debts to the International Monetary Fund two years ahead of schedule. Income in the northeast, the poorest part of the country, rose by 46 percent from 2001 to 2006. Nationwide poverty fell from 21.3 to 11.3 percent. Thailand's Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, fell from .525 in 2000 to .499 in 2004 (it had risen from 1996 to 2000).The Stock Exchange of Thailand outperformed other markets in the region. After facing fiscal deficits in 2001 and 2002, Thaksin balanced the national budget, producing comfortable fiscal surpluses for 2003 to 2005. Despite a massive program of infrastructure investments, a balanced budget was projected for 2007. Public sector debt fell from 57 percent of GDP in January 2001 to 41 percent in September 2006. Foreign exchange reserves doubled from US$30 billion in 2001 to US$64 billion in 2006. Critics say Thaksinomics is little more than a Keynesian-style economic stimulus policy re-branded. Others claimed that the policies got the rural poor "hooked on Thaksin's hand-outs."Thaksin helped legalise Thailand's massive underground lottery system numbers game (Thai: หวย) to be run by the Government Lottery Office. Lottery sales of approximately 70 billion baht (US$2 billion) were used for social projects, including the "One District, One Scholarship" program. The Thaksin government also privatised MCOT, a large television and radio broadcaster. After the 2006 coup, many of Thaksin's economic policies were ended, the OTOP program was rebranded, the Government Lottery Office's program was deemed illegal, and the government nationalised several media outlets and energy companies. However, economists from the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI) published a report indicating that many of the populist

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title: Thaksin Shinawatra

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 policies had not boosted the economy and some were by coincidence. Educational policies
According to World Bank Thailand has recentralized rather than decentralized during his administration. One of Thaksin's educational reforms was school decentralisation, as mandated by the 1997 Constitution.It was to delegate school management from the over-centralized and bureaucratised Ministry of Education to Tambon Administrative Organizations (TAOs), but met with massive widespread opposition from Thailand's 700,000 teachers, who would be deprived of their status as civil servants. Teachers also feared that TAOs lacked the ability to manage schools. In the face of massive teacher protests and several threats of school closure, Thaksin compromised and gave teachers whose schools were transferred to TAO management two years to transfer to other schools. Other intended policy changes included learning reform and related curricular decentralisation, mostly through greater use of holistic education and less use of rote learning. To increase access to universities by lower income people, <mask> initiated the Student Loan Fund (SLF) and Income Contingency Loan (ICL) programs. He initiated the ICL program to increase access to higher education, whereby needy students could secure a loan to support their studies from vocational to university levels. Thai banks had traditionally not given educational loans.The ICL, however, required recipients to start repayments when their salaries reached 16,000 baht a month, with interest equivalent to inflation from the day the loan was granted. The SLF had an eligibility limit on family income, but interest was 1 per cent starting a year after graduation. The programs were merged and the income limit modified after <mask>'s government was overthrown. Thaksin was one of the first supporters of Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, with the Thai Ministry of Education committing to purchase 600,000 units. The junta later cancelled the project. Thaksin also initiated the controversial "One District, One Dream School" project, aimed at developing the quality of schools to ensure that every district had at least one high-quality school. It was criticised, with claims that the only beneficiaries were Thaksin and companies selling computers and educational equipment.Many schools fell deeply into debt in implementing the project, receiving inadequate financial support from the central government. In addition, he altered the state university entrance system, which had relied exclusively on nationally standardised exams. Thaksin pushed for greater weighting of senior high-school grades in the hope of focusing students on classroom learning rather than private entrance exam tutoring. Healthcare policies
Thaksin initiated two key healthcare policies: subsidised universal health care (UHC) in 2002 and low-cost universal access to anti-retroviral HIV medication (ARVs). Thaksin's 30 baht per visit UHC program won the praise of the general public, but was criticised by many physicians and officials. Prior to the program's introduction, a large portion of the population had no health insurance and only limited access to healthcare. The program helped increase healthcare access from 76% of the population to 96%.At its outset, UHC was reviled as a "populist" policy. Post-coup public health minister Mongkol Na Songkhla called the 30 baht program a "marketing gimmick". Nearly half of UHC patients were dissatisfied with the treatment they received. The program has downsides: excessive workloads for health care providers, crowded waiting rooms, and insufficient time spent diagnosing each patient, and costs have tripled from 56 million baht in 2006 to 166 million baht in 2019, but still remain below one percent of GDP. On balance, as a Bangkok Post columnist put it, "... the criticism was wrong. It has become the country's most valuable state welfare service,..."

From 2001 to 2004, the number of people living with HIV/AIDS as well as the overall prevalence rate "noticeably declined". The War on Drugs

On 14 January 2003, Thaksin launched a campaign to rid "every square inch of the country" of drugs in three months.It consisted of changing the punishment policy for drug addicts, setting provincial arrest and seizure targets including "blacklists", awarding government officials for achieving targets and threatening punishment for those who failed to make the quota, targeting dealers, and "ruthless" implementation. In the first three months, Human Rights Watch reports that 2,275 people were extrajudicially executed. The government claimed that only around 50 of the deaths were at the hands of the police, the rest being drug traffickers who were being silenced by their dealers and their dealers' dealers. Human rights critics claimed a large number were extrajudicially executed. King Bhumibol, in a 2003 birthday speech, praised Thaksin:

Bhumibol also asked the commander of the police to investigate the killings. Police Commander Sant Sarutanond reopened investigations into the deaths, and again claimed that few of the deaths were at the hands of the police. The war on drugs was widely criticised by the international community.<mask> requested that the UN Commission on Human Rights send a special envoy to evaluate the situation, but said in an interview, "The United Nations is not my father. I am not worried about any UN visit to Thailand on this issue." After the 2006 coup, the military junta appointed a committee to investigate the anti-drug campaign. Former Attorney General Kanit Na Nakorn led the committee. Concerning the committee's results The Economist reported in January 2008: "Over half of those killed in 2003 had no links to the drugs trade. The panel blamed the violence on a government 'shoot-to-kill' policy based on flawed blacklists. But far from leading to the prosecutions of those involved, its findings have been buried.The outgoing interim prime minister, Surayud Chulanont, took office vowing to right Mr <mask>'s wrongs. Yet this week he said there was insufficient evidence to take legal action over the killings. It is easy to see why the tide has turned. Sunai Phasuk, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, a lobbying group, says that the panel's original report named the politicians who egged on the gunmen. But after the PPP won last month's elections, those names were omitted." While he was opposition leader, Abhisit Vejjajiva accused <mask> of crimes against humanity for his alleged role in the campaign. After being appointed Prime Minister, Abhisit opened an investigation into the killings, claiming that a successful probe could lead to prosecution by the International Criminal Court.Former attorney-general Kampee Kaewcharoen led the investigation and the investigation committee was approved by Abhisit's Cabinet. Abhisit denied that the probe was politically motivated. Witnesses and victims were urged to report to the Department of Special Investigation, which operated directly under Abhisit's control. Energy policies

In energy policy, the Thaksin government continued the Chuan Leekpai government's privatisation agenda, but with important changes. Whereas the Chuan government's post-Asian financial crisis policies sought economic efficiency through industry fragmentation and wholesale power pool competition, Thaksin's policies aimed to create national champions that could reliably support stronger economic growth and become important players in regional energy markets. Thaksin also initiated a policy to encourage renewable energy and energy conservation. Many Thaksin-era energy policies were reversed following the 2006 coup.South Thailand insurgency

A resurgence in violence began in 2001 in the three southernmost provinces of Thailand with their Muslim, ethnic Malay majority. There is much controversy about the causes of this escalation. Attacks after 2001 concentrated on police, the military, and schools, but civilians (including Buddhist monks) are also regular targets. <mask> was widely criticised for his management of the situation. Of three key controversial incidents, the first was the Army's storming of the Krue Se Mosque, where protesters had holed up and were killed. The second, in October 2004, was the killing of 84 Muslim demonstrators at Tak Bai, when the Army broke up a peaceful protest. Hundreds of detainees were forced at gunpoint to lie shackled and prone in Army trucks, stacked like cordwood.The trucks were delayed from moving to the detainment area for hours. The 84 victims were reported to have been asphyxiated, crushed or died of overheating. The precise nature and cause of death have been subject to controversy and doubt because of lack of transparency and absence of depth in investigations made. There are other reports of many more deaths but these have not been substantiated. In a third incident, Muslim lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit disappeared, allegedly abducted and killed by police for his role in defending alleged insurgents who claimed to have been tortured. Despite witness testimony and forensic evidence during the court of police investigations and court trials, all allegations against police said to be involved were dropped and the enforced disappearance case closed. Thaksin announced an escalation of military and police activity in the region.In July 2005, Thaksin enacted an Emergency Decree to manage the three troubled provinces. Several human rights organisations expressed their concerns that the decree might be used to violate civil liberties. In March 2005, Thaksin established the National Reconciliation Commission, chaired by former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun to oversee efforts to bring peace to the troubled South. In its final report in June 2006, the commission proposed introducing elements of Islamic law and making Pattani-Malay (Yawi) an official language in the region along with Thai. The Thaksin administration assigned a government committee to study the report, but nothing came of it. Thaksin blamed Malaysia's jungle that has occasionally been used to train Islamic militants to cause violence in the south and Indonesia for being an inspiration to the militants. Administrative reform
One of the most visible of Thaksin's administrative reforms was the restructuring of government department and ministries, labelled the "big bang."It was hailed as a "historic breakthrough" and "the first major reorganization of ministries since King Chulalongkorn set up Thailand's modern system of departmental government in 1897." Plans had been studied for years to loosen perceived rigidities and inertia of the old system but were not implemented until the Thaksin government. https://web.archive.org/web/20071016205115/http://etna.mcot.net/query.php?nid=19066

The restructuring was designed to streamline the bureaucracy and focus it on performance and results. New ministries were carved out in Social and Human Security Development, Tourism and Sports, Natural Resources and Environment, Information and Communication Technology, and Culture. Thaksin transformed the role of provincial governors to that of active policy managers. Historically, central government ministries operated in the provinces through field offices headed by senior officials who reported back to Bangkok, while the Interior Ministry appointed provincial governors whose role was largely ceremonial. A key component of Thaksin's administrative reform policy, the "CEO-governors" epitomised what was called his "transformation of the operating style of the traditional bureaucracy into a more results-oriented instrument that would be responsive."Piloted in 2001 and introduced in all provinces in October 2003, CEO-governors were put in charge of planning and co-ordinating provincial development and became accountable for overall provincial affairs. The "CEO governors" were assisted by "provincial CFOs" from the Ministry of Finance who reported directly to each governor. Governors were authorised to raise funds by issuing bonds and were given an intensive training course. After the coup, the junta reverted the role of governors. The Thaksin era also saw the opening of a number of government one-stop service centres to reduce red tape for anything from investment to utilities and ID-card processing. Foreign policies

Thaksin initiated negotiations for several free trade agreements with China, Australia, Bahrain, India, and the US. The latter especially was criticised, with claims that high-cost Thai industries could be wiped out.Thailand joined the US-led invasion of Iraq, sending a 423-strong humanitarian contingent. It withdrew its troops on 10 September 2004. Two Thai soldiers died in Iraq in an insurgent attack. <mask> announced that Thailand would forsake foreign aid, and work with donor countries to assist in the development of neighbours in the Greater Mekong Sub-region. <mask> was repeatedly attacked for acting undiplomatically with foreign leaders and the international community. Besides his famous swipe at the UN (see The 'war on drugs' above), there were also allegations of gaffes at international meetings. <mask> was keen to position Thailand as a regional leader, initiating various development projects in poorer neighbouring countries like Laos.More controversially, he established close, friendly ties with the Burmese dictatorship, including extending the impoverished country a 4 billion baht credit line so it could conclude a satellite telecom deal with his family business. <mask> energetically supported his former foreign minister Surakiart Sathirathai's somewhat improbable campaign to become UN Secretary General. Suvarnabhumi Airport
Despite debate and long abandonment of the plan due to the stability of the ground for the location of the airport, the Thaksin government pushed to complete the construction of the new Suvarnabhumi International Airport. The airport was opened a week after <mask>'s government was overthrown. Members of <mask>'s government were accused of corruption in the Suvarnabhumi Airport project. These allegations were used by the military junta to justify the 2006 coup. The junta initiated several investigations into the airport.Nevertheless, investigative panels found that damage to the airport was "minute" and "common." The cost of repairing the damage was estimated at less than one percent of the total airport cost. The junta was accused by its opponents of delaying airport repairs and intensifying the airport's problems to pin further blame on the Thaksin government. Criticism

Corruption
Thaksin was accused of "policy corruption", such as infrastructure and liberalisation policies that, while legal "...abuse the public's interest,..." Supannee Chai-amporn and Sirinthip Arun-rue of the National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA) claimed that policy corruption caused the state to spend 5 to 30 percent more than it otherwise should have spent, costing the state an additional 400 billion baht. Thaksin critics point to more examples of corruption: the Thailand Board of Investment's (BOI) granting tax breaks worth a total of 16.4 billion baht to Shin Satellite for its iPSTAR project in 2003, and the Transport Ministry's decision the same year to abolish the minimum air fare of 3.8 baht per kilometre when Shin Corporation was about to consummate a joint venture with low-cost carrier AirAsia. After the 2006 coup, the military junta-appointed Assets Examination Committee froze Thaksin's assets based on charges of policy corruption. Thaksin denied the allegations."They just made up a beautiful term to use against me. There's no such thing in this government. Our policies only serve the interests of the majority of the people", he said. From 2002 to 2006, the stock price of Shin Corporation increased from 38 to 104 baht, up 173 percent, while the stock price of Shin Satellite fell. In the same period, the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) index rose 161 per cent, and the price of other major SET blue chip companies increased vastly more. Industry deregulation caused the market share of AIS to fall from 68 percent to 53 percent. Transparency International reported that Thailand's reputation for transparency among business executives improved somewhat during the years of the Thaksin government.In 2001, Thailand's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) score was 3.2 (ranked 61), whilst in 2005, the CPI was 3.8 (ranked 59). A study of governance indicators worldwide by the World Bank gave Thailand a lower score

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