1{2 "document_id": "lb_hotpotqa_1df269c3eca341348a837f39c628f59aa40d663c07875d24",3 "family": "public_hotpotqa",4 "split": "test",5 "text": "Passage 1:\nDouglas Murray (author)\nDouglas Kear Murray (born 16 July 1979) is a British author and political commentator. He founded the Centre for Social Cohesion in 2007, which became part of the Henry Jackson Society, where he was associate director from 2011 to 2018. He is also an associate editor of the conservative-leaning British political and cultural magazine The Spectator. Murray has also written columns for publications such as The Wall Street Journal.\nMurray's books include Neoconservatism: Why We Need It (2005), Bloody Sunday: Truths, Lies and the Saville Inquiry (2011) about the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam (2017), The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity (2019), and The War on the West: How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason (2022).\nAyaan Hirsi Ali and Sohrab Ahmari have praised Murray's work and writing on Islam in Europe. French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy has said of Murray, \"Whether one agrees with him or not\" he is \"one of the most important public intellectuals today.\" Critics claim his views and ideology are linked to far-right political ideologies and accuse him of promoting far-right conspiracy theories such as Eurabia, the Great Replacement, and cultural Marxism. Murray has rejected descriptions of his politics as far-right.\n\nEarly life\nMurray was born in Hammersmith, London, to an English, school teacher mother, and a Scottish, Gaelic-speaking father who had been born on the Isle of Lewis and who worked as a civil servant. He has one elder brother. In an interview with The Herald Murray stated that his father had intended to be in London temporarily but stayed after meeting his mother and that they \"encouraged a good discussion around the dinner table\" when he was growing up but \"neither are political.\"Murray was educated at his local state primary and secondary schools, before going to a comprehensive which had previously been a grammar school. Recalling this experience in 2011, he wrote, \"My parents had been promised that the old grammar school standards and ethos remained, but none did. By the time I arrived the school was what would now be described as 'an inner-city sink school', a war zone similar to those many of the children's parents had escaped from.\" Murray's parents withdrew him from the school after a year. He was awarded scholarships to St Benedict's School, Ealing, and subsequently Eton College, before going on to study English at Magdalen College, Oxford.\n\nPublications\nAt age 19, while in his second year at the University of Oxford, Murray published Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas, which was described by Christopher Hitchens as \"masterly\". Bosie was awarded a Lambda Award for a gay biography in 2000. After leaving Oxford, Murray wrote a play, Nightfall, about the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.In 2006, Murray published a defence of neoconservatism – Neoconservatism: Why We Need It – and went on a speaking tour promoting the book in the United States. The publication was subsequently reviewed in the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat by the Iranian author Amir Taheri: \"Whether one agrees with him or not Murray has made a valuable contribution to the global battle of ideas.\" In 2007, he assisted in the writing of Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership by Gen. Dr. Klaus Naumann, Gen. John Shalikashvili, Field Marshal The Lord Inge, Adm. Jacques Lanxade, and Gen. Henk van den Breemen. His book Bloody Sunday was (jointly) awarded the 2011–2012 Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize. In June 2013, Murray's e-book Islamophilia: a Very Metropolitan Malady was published.In 2017, Murray published The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, which spent almost 20 weeks on The Sunday Times bestseller list and was a No. 1 bestseller in non-fiction. It has since been published in over 20 languages. In The Strange Death of Europe, Murray argued that Europe \"is committing suicide\" by allowing non-European immigration into its borders and losing its \"faith in its beliefs\". The book received a polarized response from critics. Juliet Samuel of The Telegraph praised Murray, saying that: \"His overall thesis, that a guilt-driven and exhausted Europe is playing fast and loose with its precious modern values by embracing migration on such a scale, is hard to refute.\" An academic review in the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs acclaimed the book as \"explosive\" and \"an elegantly written, copiously documented exposé of Europe's suicidal hypocrisy\". Rod Liddle of The Sunday Times called the book \"a brilliant, important and profoundly depressing book\".Other reviews of the book were highly negative. In The Guardian, the political journalist Gaby Hinsliff described Strange Death as \"gentrified xenophobia\" and \"Chapter after chapter circles around the same repetitive themes: migrants raping and murdering and terrorising\", also pointing out that Murray offers little definition of the European culture which he claims is under threat. Writing in The New York Times, Pankaj Mishra described the book as \"a handy digest of far-right clichés\". Mishra accused Murray of defending Pegida, of writing that the English Defence League \"had a point\", and of describing Viktor Orbán as a better sentinel of \"European values\" than George Soros. Writing in The Intercept, Murtaza Hussain criticised what he called the \"relentlessly paranoid tenor\" and \"apocalyptic picture of Europe\" portrayed in the book, while challenging the links Murray made between non-European immigration and large increases in crime. In Middle East Eye, Georgetown professor Ian Almond called the book \"a staggeringly one-sided flow of statistics, interviews and examples, reflecting a clear decision to make the book a rhetorical claim that Europe is doomed to self-destruction\".Murray wrote about social justice and identity politics in his 2019 book The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity which became a Sunday Times bestseller. It was also nominated as an audio book of the year for the British Book Awards. In the book, Murray points to what he sees as a cultural shift, away from established modes of religion and political ideology, in which various forms of victimhood can provide markers of social status. He divides his book into sections dealing with different forms of victimhood, including types of LGBT identity, feminism and racial politics. Murray criticises the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault for what he sees as a reduction of society to a system of power relations. Murray's book drew polarized responses from critics. Tim Stanley in The Daily Telegraph praised the book, calling Murray \"a superbly perceptive guide through the age of the social justice warrior\". Katie Law in the Evening Standard said that Murray \"tackled another necessary and provocative subject with wit and bravery\". Conversely, William Davies gave a highly critical review of Murray's work in The Guardian, describing the book as \"the bizarre fantasies of a rightwing provocateur, blind to oppression\".In 2021 Murray published The War on the West: How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason. The book was characterised by Gerard Baker as an examination of attempts to destroy Western civilisation from sources within.\n\nMedia career\nMurray is an associate editor of The Spectator.In 2016, Murray organised a competition through The Spectator in which entrants were invited to submit offensive poems about Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, with a top prize of £1,000 donated by a reader. This was in reaction to the Böhmermann affair, in which German satirist Jan Böhmermann was prosecuted under the German penal code for such a poem. His book Bloody Sunday: Truths, Lies and The Saville Inquiry, had been longlisted for the 2012 Orwell Book Prize. He announced the winner of the poetry competition as Conservative MP Boris Johnson (former editor of the magazine and former Mayor of London).In April, 2019, Murray spent weeks urging New Statesman journalist George Eaton and editor Jason Cowley to share the original recording of an interview between Eaton and Roger Scruton, with Murray branding the published interview – which attributed a number of controversial statements to Scruton – as \"journalistic dishonesty\". Murray eventually managed to acquire the recording, which formed the basis of an article in the Spectator defending Scruton, arguing that his remarks had been misinterpreted. It is unclear how Murray obtained the recording. The New Statesman subsequently apologized for Eaton's misrepresentation.Murray has written columns for The Daily Telegraph, National Review, The Wall Street Journal, UnHerd, and the New York Post. In February 2022, Murray became a Fox News contributor.\n\nPolitical views\nMurray has been described as a conservative, a neoconservative, and a regular critic of immigration and Islam. Murray's views have been described as \"anti-Muslim\" by British journalist Peter Oborne.Murray has argued that the term 'far right' is used far too often by the political left. He has also said that political parties previously identified as far-right should be recognised as being able to moderate their politics over time. Murray has argued that there is an effort by the left to destroy Western culture and has argued that criticisms of Western leaders and philosophers are motivated by attempts to hurt the west.\n\nIslam and Muslims\nIn February 2006, Douglas Murray said \"conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe must look like a less attractive proposition.\" Murray's former coworker James Brandon interpreted this comment as calling for the collective punishment of Muslims. After Murray refused Paul Goodman's offer to disown these comments, the Conservative Party frontbench severed formal relations with Murray and his Centre for Social Cohesion.According to Murray's former coworker at the Centre for Social Cohesion, James Brandon, Murray failed to distinguish Islam from Islamism. Brandon said he attempted to \"de-radicalise\" Murray to ensure that only Islamists were targeted and not \"Muslims as a whole\". Brandon writes that Murray has privately retracted some of his comments.In 2005 Murray said there is \"a creed of Islamic fascism – a malignant fundamentalism, woken from the Dark Ages to assault us here and now\". In 2010, during an Intelligence Squared US debate titled \"Is Islam a Religion of Peace?\" Murray argued \"[Islam's Prophet] Muhammad was a bad man\".In the wake of the 2017 London Bridge attack, Murray blamed Islam as a religion and called for reduced immigration.In 2008, Murray listed the cases of 27 writers, activists, politicians and artists – including Sir Salman Rushdie, Maryam Namazie and Anwar Shaikh, all three of whom had received death threats due to their criticism of Islam. Murray said that \"Unless Muslims are allowed to discuss their religion without fear of attack there can be no chance of reform or genuine freedom of conscience within Islam.\"In 2009, Murray was prevented from chairing a debate at the London School of Economics between Alan Sked and Hamza Tzortzis on the topic \"Islam or Liberalism: Which is the Way Forward?\", with the university citing security concerns following a week-long student protest against Israel's attacks on Gaza. The debate took place without Murray chairing. The move was criticised by the conservative press, such as The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator.In June 2009, Murray accepted an invitation to a debate with Anjem Choudary, leader of the banned group Al-Muhajiroun, on the subject of Sharia law and British law at Conway Hall. Members of Al-Muhajiroun acting as security guards tried to segregate men and women at the entrance of the event. Clashes broke out near the entrance between Choudary's and Murray's supporters and Conway Hall cancelled the debate because of the attempted forced separation of men and women. Outside the building, a confrontation between Choudary and Murray over the cancellation of the event occurred. Murray's Centre for Social Cohesion later published a study arguing that one in seven Islam-related terrorist cases in the UK could be linked to Al-Muhajiroun.Murray has argued in defence of Muslim reformers in his writing.\n\nBrexit\nMurray supported the 'Leave' side in the UK's 2016 EU referendum. In the wake of the Brexit vote, Murray expressed concern that the result \"has just not been accepted by an elite\" and said that the result \"should be celebrated by anybody who actually believes in democracy\".\n\nImmigration\nMurray is a vocal critic of immigration. In March 2013, Murray claimed that London was a \"foreign country\" due to \"white Britons\" becoming a minority in 23 of the 33 London boroughs. In Murray's book The Strange Death of Europe, he writes that Europe and its values are committing suicide due to mass immigration; in the opening pages, he calls for halting Muslim immigration. In the book, he also details crimes committed by immigrants in Europe and writes favourably of immigration hard liner Viktor Orbán.In 2018, Murray filmed a video for PragerU entitled \"The Suicide of Europe\". Writing in the news website Sludge, journalist Alex Koch described the video as \"evok[ing] the common white nationalist trope of white genocide with its rhetoric of 'suicide' and 'annihilation'.\" Koch interviewed a senior editor at the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, Mark Pitcavage, who stated that there was \"almost certainly prejudice in the video\" and that it was \"filled with anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric\". Similarly, the Southern Poverty Law Center described the video as a \"dog whistle to the extreme right\".In September 2016, Murray supported Donald Trump's proposal for a wall along the southern border of the United States. In January 2017, Murray defended Executive Order 13769 which banned entry to the U.S. by citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries.\n\nGender and sexuality\nMurray is gay, and he is a supporter of same-sex marriage. However, he has said that he believes that homosexuality \"is an unstable component on which to base an individual identity and a hideously unstable way to try and base any form of group identity\". In his book The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity, Murray defends conversion therapy, and asserts that homophobia has mostly been vanquished.Murray has said that it is a lie that a man can become a woman. In September 2020, during an appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast, Murray compared accepting trans people to \"late-empire sign of things falling apart\". He has stated that he thinks there is no such thing as non-binary gender.In September 2019, Murray said in an interview that women are held to a different standard than men when it comes to sexual behaviour, citing instances involving Drew Barrymore, Jane Fonda and Mayim Bialik behaving sexually towards men without backlash from the media.\n\nForeign policy\nIn his book Neoconservatism: Why We Need It, Murray argues that neoconservatism is necessary for fighting against dictatorships and human rights abuses. Murray has called for continuing the War on terror on Iran, Syria, and any regime which supports terrorism. He has also said that he believes that the political left or right have no desire for foreign interventions since John McCain's death.On June, 2013, Murray opposed U.S intervention in the Syrian civil war and wrote \"as the composition of the military opponents has become clearer—al Qaeda-linked Islamists dominating one side, Bashar al-Assad's forces and Hezbollah the other—it has become obvious that the window of opportunity for outside intervention is closed\". In 2021, Murray chastised the Biden administration for withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and for attempting to portray the withdrawal as a success.Murray supported the Iraq War and wrote in 2004, \"Iraq may be the big intervention of this generation. Success means the success of the Iraqi nation in a region of failing states and unprecedented freedom for a nation previously cowed by brutalism and ignored by pacifism. Failure means not only the failure of the Arab world to allow freedom and democracy to stick, and the failure of the civilized world to stand up to tyranny, but the failure and loss of many more lives in a country which finally found hope and a future.\" Murray also defended the war against critics on multiple occasions.In 2013, Murray condemned journalist Owen Jones for mistakenly saying that Israel had killed a 11 month old child in a military strike. Jones responded by criticising Murray for ignoring a UN report which reported an Israel airstrike had killed numerous innocent civilians. In 2014, Murray defended and supported Israel during 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict. Murray also defended Israel's right to defend itself, saying, \"If you don't believe that Israel has the right to stop a group that has proposed repeatedly since its existence that it wants to annihilate Israel, if you believe that Israel doesn't have the right to try and stop this enemy, then of course you don't believe Israel has the right to exist; you believe Israel has the right to die.\" During a visit to Israel in 2019, Murray praised Israeli society, saying that Israel \"has a healthier attitude towards nationalism than Europe\" and lauded Israel's restrictive approach to immigration. In 2019, Murray supported the Trump administration's decision to formally recognize Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights.In June 2019, Murray referred to Robert Mueller's investigation into Donald Trump and Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections as a \"nothing-burger\". Murray called the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine a war crime and a blunder. He has claimed that the Russian military are corrupt and inefficient, as well as praised the Ukrainians for attempting to defend their homeland. Murray has urged the Republican Party to support Ukraine, and has expressed disappointment in Republicans Matt Gaetz and Kevin McCarthy for not supporting Ukraine.Murray has said he believes that China is a threat to the west. In May 2020, he rebuked people labelling the COVID-19 lab leak theory – a theory which states that COVID-19 came from a lab in China – as a conspiracy theory. He has advocated for punishing China for their role in allowing COVID-19 into the United States and has expressed concern over China's influence on American universities. Murray has also criticised TikTok, referring to it as \"a piece of malware from China\", and accused the Chinese Communist Party of using it to corrupt society.\n\nDonald Trump\nIn November 2016, Murray questioned US Democrats calling Trump sexist, homophobic, and racist, as they had also attempted to portray Mitt Romney and John McCain in the same way. Murray also said that Trump's foreign policy plans were less provocative than Hillary Clinton's would have been. In response to Trump being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, Murray argued that were good reasons to nominate Trump for a prize, citing his attempts to negotiate peace with Kim Jong-un and his policy towards Israel.Ahead of the 2020 United States presidential election, Murray argued that while Trump had personality flaws and enacted certain policies he did not agree with, his re-election would be more beneficial for the United Kingdom in terms of foreign policy and Brexit than a Biden administration would be. Murray praised Trump for having brokered the Israel–United Arab Emirates normalization agreement, and wrote of the assassination of Qasem Soleimani: \"American forces took out Iran's leading general, a man who had overseen the deaths of countless numbers of British and American troops, not to mention Iraqi and other civilians in the area, and Iran took it. Not least because they seemed to fear that they were dealing with a madman.\"In 2021, Murray criticised the January 6 United States Capitol attack perpetrated by supporters of Trump, and said that Trump alone was responsible for stoking the riot.The following year, Murray reiterated his criticism of Trump's behaviour following the Capitol riot, but argued some Democratic Party politicians were contradictory in condemning the violence and claiming the riots were a danger to democracy after they had endorsed the rhetoric of the Black Lives Matter movement during the riots that followed the murder of George Floyd and Hillary Clinton's claims that the 2016 election had been stolen. Murray also argued that the Trump administration had enacted strong policies in regard to immigration, Iran, and China and it would be a strategic mistake of the Biden administration to reverse them. However, Murray has also asserted that the Republican Party should distance itself from Trump's stolen election theories and not seek 2024 primary candidates based on Trump's personal approval if it is to win the next presidential election.\n\nViktor Orbán\nIn March 2018, Viktor Orbán posted a photo on his official Facebook account of himself reading the Hungarian-language edition of The Strange Death of Europe. Murray has disputed the claim that Hungary is experiencing significant democratic backsliding under Orbán, and has called Freedom House's comparisons of Orbán's government to a dictatorship as \"increasingly off-kilter\". In May 2018, Murray was personally received by Orbán in Budapest as part of the \"Future of Europe\" conference, along with other conservative figures like Steve Bannon, and according to Hungarian state media had an individual discussion and photograph with Orbán.\n\nOther activities\nMurray is on the international advisory board of NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based NGO described as pro-Israel and right-wing, which was founded in 2001 by Gerald M. Steinberg. As of 2022, he is also one of the directors of the Free Speech Union, an organization established by Toby Young in 2020 which speaks out against cancel culture.Murray participates in the Intellectual Dark Web, a loosely affiliated group of commentators including Bret Weinstein, Dave Rubin, Joe Rogan, and Sam Harris.\n\nCriticism\nA number of academic and journalistic sources have linked Murray's ideology and political views to the far right, the alt-right, the Islamophobic right or some combination thereof. Murray has also been accused of being xenophobic, chauvinist and racist. His fans have described him as a defender of \"free speech\".Murray has been accused of putting a socially acceptable face on what would otherwise be considered fringe ideologies. In 2012, Arun Kundnani, who has written on radicalization, wrote in an article for Security and Human Rights that the \"counterjihadist\" ideology expressed by Murray and other conservative intellectuals was \"through reworking far-right ideology and appropriating official discourse... able to evade categorisation as a source of far-right violence\". Nafeez Ahmed argued in Middle East Eye that Murray's support for free speech in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shooting and the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks was \"really just a ploy for far-right entryism\". In 2019, an article in Social Policy Review described Murray's views as a kind of \"mainstreamist\" ideology that defies easy categorization as extremist while remaining \"entangled with the far right\".Murray has been accused of promoting far-right conspiracy theories, including the Great Replacement theory, the Eurabia conspiracy theory and the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory. However, he has indicated that he dislikes the term \"Cultural Marxism\".Murray has contended that he is frequently mislabelled politically, and that the mainstream right are unfairly conflated with the far-right in modern political discourse. In August 2019, Murray criticised what he perceived as the overuse of terms like \"far-right\", saying that since the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit vote \"there has been an acceleration in claimed sightings [of the far right] and a blurring of the definitions\".\n\nPersonal life\nMurray was a friend of the journalist Christopher Hitchens.Murray has described himself as atheist, having been an Anglican until his twenties. He has also described himself as a cultural Christian and a Christian atheist.\n\nWorks\nBrandon, James; Murray, Douglas (2007), Hate on the State: How British libraries encourage Islamic extremism (PDF), Westminster, UK: Centre for Social Cohesion.\nMurray, Douglas (2000), Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas, ISBN 0-340-76771-5.\n——— (2005), Neoconservatism: Why We Need It, ISBN 1-904863-05-1.\n——— (2007), Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership (PDF), archived from the original (PDF) on 25 September 2019, retrieved 21 December 2019\n———; Verwey, Johan Pieter (2008), Victims of Intimidation: Freedom of Speech Within Europe's Muslim Communities (PDF), London, UK: Centre for Social Cohesion.\n——— (2011), Bloody Sunday: Truths, Lies and the Saville Inquiry, London: Dialogue, ISBN 978-1-84954-149-7.\n——— (2013), Islamophilia: A Very Metropolitan Malady, emBooks, ISBN 978-1-62777050-7.\n——— (2017), The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, Bloomsbury, ISBN 978-1-47294224-1.\n——— (2019), The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity, Bloomsbury, ISBN 978-1-47295995-9.\n——— (2022), The War on the West: How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason, Harper Collins, ISBN 978-0063162020.\nPassage 2:\nPress TV controversies\nPress TV (stylised as PRESSTV) is an Iranian state-owned news network that broadcasts in the English and French languages owned by Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the only organization legally able to transmit radio and TV broadcasts in Iran. The 24-hour channel, which has headquarters in Tehran, was launched on 2 July 2007 and was intended to compete with western English language services.\n\nBackground and purpose\nIran's first international English-language TV channel was established in 1976. Later in 1997, Sahar TV was launched by IRIB, broadcasting in multiple languages including English.Press TV was created on 8 July 2007, for the purpose of presenting news, images and arguments, especially on Middle Eastern affairs, to counter the news coverage that appears on BBC World News, CNN International and Al Jazeera English. Press TV is state-funded and is a division of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the only organisation legally able to transmit radio and television broadcasts inside Iran. Based in Tehran, It broadcasts to North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and areas of Africa and Latin America.IRIB's head is appointed directly by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; according to The Guardian, it is close to the country's conservative political faction, especially the Revolutionary Guards.Press TV CEO Mohammad Sarafraz said in a June 2007 press conference that, \"Since September 11, Western bias has divided the media into two camps: those that favour their policies make up one group and the rest of the media are attached to radical Islamic groups like Al-Qaeda. We want to show that there is a different view. Iran, and the Shi'as in particular, have become a focal point of world propaganda. From the media point of view, we are trying to give a second eye to Western audiences.\"By launching an English-language television network to promote an Iranian perspective of the world, together with an Arab-language station, the Al-Alam News Network, the Iranian government said it hoped \"to address a global audience exposed to misinformation and mudslinging as regards the Islamic Republic of Iran.\" The two networks focus on \"difficult issues in the Middle East such as the United States’ occupation of neighbouring Iraq and the Shia question.\" According to mediachannel.org, \"the government aims to use Press TV to counter what it sees as a steady stream of Western propaganda against Iran as well as offer an alternative view of world news\".Press TV began its activities in London during 2007. The network's website launched in late January 2007, and the channel itself on 2 July 2007. Roshan Muhammed Salih was Press TV's first London news editor and chief correspondent. In an article for The Guardian in July 2009, Salih wrote that Press TV was \"willing to give a platform to legitimate actors whom the western media will not touch, such as Hamas and Hezbollah\".The BBC journalist Linda Pressly described Press TV as pro-Palestinian and opposed to sanctions against Iran in December 2011. At the time Press TV Ltd in London sold programmes to Iran, principally talk shows, while Tehran's Press TV International produced the majority of the news and documentaries.As of 2009, the annual budget of Press TV is 250 billion rials (more than US$8.3 million). By then, the station was employing more than 400 throughout the world.\n\nControversies\nPro-Iranian government bias\nPress TV promotes Iranian foreign policy and has been described as Iranian government propaganda.It has aired the coerced confessions of multiple prisoners, the basis for the revocation of its license to broadcast in the UK after such an incident. Press TV has disputed accusations made against it.Press TV's news bulletins often feature Iranian ministers, diplomats or government officials, or guest commentators that express views consistent with the Iranian government's \"message of the day.\" In 2012, commentator Douglas Murray wrote that the station was the \"Iranian government’s propaganda channel\".In a post-election \"information offensive,\" reports the Associated Press, Press TV and Al-Alam have \"churned out a blitz of policy statements, negotiating points and news breaks as the main soapboxes for Iran's public diplomacy.\"In 2007, the Canadian weekly Maclean's, while observing that \"most of Press TV's news reports are factually accurate,\" alleged that Press TV also publishes \"intentional errors,\" citing a story on the Press TV website that contained the claim, based on \"no evidence, that the Lebanese government is trying to convert the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp into an American military base.\"In August 2009, Ofcom, the British broadcasting regulator, judged that two phone-in shows hosted by George Galloway on Press TV had broken its broadcasting code on impartiality in their coverage of the Gaza War by not including enough calls from pro-Israelis. Press TV said contributions to the show reflected the balance of opinion.The Sunday Times journalist Eleanor Mills walked out before a Press TV interview in 2010 after discovering she was not being interviewed by Sky News, as she had falsely believed. While she was reassured on editorial independence from Tehran, Mills doubted she would be able to talk about torture in Iran or Neda Agha-Soltan, who was shot dead in the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests.\n\nAntisemitism\nPress TV has been accused by the UK's The Jewish Chronicle of broadcasting \"the most disreputable of fringe causes\", such as Holocaust denial, and of antisemitic conspiracy theories by the Anti-Defamation League.It was accused in December 2011 by British journalist Nick Cohen of functioning as \"a platform for the full fascist conspiracy theory of supernatural Jewish power\". He wrote that \"If whites ran Press TV, one would have no difficulty in saying it was a neo-Nazi network\". Oliver Kamm in The Jewish Chronicle in 2009, of having an \"ability to insinuate into public debate the worst and most pernicious ideas around\", including Holocaust denial. Cohen mentioned that the station featured \"fascist ideologues such as Peter Rushton, the leader of the White Nationalist Party – an organisation that disproves the notion that the only thing further to the right of the BNP is the wall.\"In a September 2009, Press TV picked up and republished an antisemitic conspiracy theory that was circulating in Algeria and Morocco, accusing Jews of a conspiracy to kidnap Algerian children and harvest their organs. Moroccan journalist Hassan Masiky criticized Press TV for trafficking in a dangerous \"work of fantasy\" that is a \"nonsense, nightmarish tale\".In a May 2011 article reprinted on the website of Press TV, correspondent Mark Dankof wrote an article about how the prediction of the fabricated antisemitic text Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is \"only partially true\", and lauded Press TV as \"one of the few exceptions to the Lobby's control\" of the media.In 2012, a report from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) alleged that Press TV has broadcast what the ADL described as examples of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and opinions. The report says Press TV for interviewing individuals such as the American conspiracy theorist David Duke who said on the station that Israel was involved in 9/11 and of the Iraq War, he said: \"The Zionists orchestrated and created this war in the media, the government, and international finance\". The ADL reported in 2013 that in another appearance, Duke made \"anti-Semitic allegations that are consistent with his record and typical of the views often espoused on Press TV\". Mark Dankof has also backed claims on Press TV that 9/11 was an \"Israeli Mossad inside operation from start to finish\".In early 2015, Press TV claimed Jews or Israel were responsible for the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris. In a 20 January 2015 article by Kevin Barrett on the station's website he claimed that \"The Zionists created ISIL and sent it to fight Muslims and Christians in Syria and Iraq\" while \"New World Order Zionism is also targeting the USA for destruction\". In a 17 February 2015 article for the website, Barrett claimed 9/11 was a \"Zionist ‘coup d'etat’ to seize power in the country and launch a permanent war on Islam on behalf of Israel\" and falsely claimed the 2011 attacks in Norway was the responsibility of a \"team of Zionist-liked professional killers.\"In early March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Press TV broadcast an item claiming \"Zionist elements developed a deadlier strain of coronavirus against Iran\" and a few days later claimed Israel was responsible for the virus. Both claims are entirely false.\n\nPublication of Holocaust denial\nOn the subject of International Holocaust Remembrance Day (27 January), an editorial on the Press TV website in 2008 noted, \"On this anniversary, we all need to mull over the faking of history and the Greatest Lie Ever Told\". In 2008, The Jerusalem Post and the British Searchlight magazine criticized Press TV for reprinting on its website an article entitled \"The Walls of Auschwitz: A Review of the Chemical Studies\" by the British Holocaust denier Nicholas Kollerstrom which was first published by the denial group, the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH). The document claims that the Auschwitz gas chambers were used for \"benign\" purposes only and said \"the alleged massacre of Jewish people by gassing during World War II was scientifically impossible\". Press TV described Kollerstrom, by then removed as an honorary fellow of University College London (UCL) because of the article, as a \"distinguished academic\". Other Holocaust deniers to have appeared on the station include Michèle Renouf and Peter Rushton.In a 2014 article on the website, the Canadian writer Brandon Martinez described Auschwitz as having been an appealing place where Jews were able to participate in \"cultural and leisure activities\". He rejected the existence of gas chambers during The Holocaust and the use of Zyklon B for the mass killings of History of the Jews in Europe. To make his assertions he drew on claims made by Holocaust deniers Mark Webber and David Irving.In November 2013, the Press TV website reprinted an opinion piece in its 'Viewpoints' section, first written by M.I. Bhat for Veterans Today, although Bhat was a regular columnist for Press TV as well. The article blamed Jews for their fate in the Holocaust and accepted \"the Nazi regime’s anti-Jewish conspiracy theories as historical fact\". Bhat queried whether American Jews were \"incubating another Hitler\".\n\nMaziar Bahari case\nOn 10 June 2010, the United Kingdom's Channel 4 News interviewed Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari, a documentary maker and Newsweek contributor, who was arrested while filming the protests following the contested Iranian presidential election in 2009.Held in Evin Prison, Bahari was accused of spying for the CIA, MI6 and Mossad, and was detained for 118 days. Bahari alleged that a 10-second Press TV interview and 'confession' that the western media was guilty of fomenting the protests had been preceded by torture, and was given under the threat of execution. The nature of the interview, that it was a forced confession, was not disclosed to viewers of the footage. Having to talk complete rubbish before a camera to save his life \"was like a rape”, he told The Sunday Times in 2012. \"It went against the very essence of me\". Bahari is not the only Iranian prisoner who has been coerced with a following broadcast of the supposed confession.\n\nAllegations about Canada\nFollowing the severing of diplomatic relations between Canada and Iran in September 2012, Press TV began to devote more attention to Canada.\nIn December 2012, Press TV aired a report entitled \"Alberta takes aboriginal kids from parents at high rate\" in which Joshua Blakeney, Press TV's Calgary correspondent, claimed that Alberta's child protective services were engaged in the human trafficking of First Nations children. Blakeney stated that \"Some upset parents allege that there is a profit motive behind what they refer to as Canada's so-called child protective services\" and asserted that an anti-terrorism squad, called INSET, was responsible for the abductions.One of the veiled women interviewed in the report (who was not identified) claimed that her \"aboriginal children were taken by a squad of 32 police officers.\" Another woman interviewed stated that \"It definitely is a money-making scheme, because a lot of native children have been sold into adoption, but it is also used as an assimilation program [and] a genocidal program.\" The report also showed written messages of \"Help me! Now!!\", which were allegedly written by abducted children.The allegations in the report were immediately denied by Government officials and Native leaders. Cindy Blackstock, an associate professor at the University of Alberta and executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada denied the report was true, stating that \"The factors driving aboriginal children into care have been well-known for 15 years; it's poverty, poor housing and substance abuse. ... The federal government provides significantly less funding on reserves than for all other Canadians ... but I have never in my life heard of any military undertones to this.\"Blakeney has also claimed in reports published or broadcast by Press TV, that the appearance of Canada's new $20 bill was evidence that Canada \"remained an imperialist nation\" and that \"90% of Canadian youth felt stressed about careers.\" Blakeney subsequently claimed that his reports for Press TV are \"defiantly illuminating the skeletons in Canada’s closet.\"Another report made several charges against the Canadian government, including:\n\nSecret plans to \"steal indigenous children\";\n\"Ignorance of the First Nation land rights\";\nJailing refugees without cause; and\nusing excessive force to suppress student protests.Another program interviewed Alfred Lambremont Webre, who was described as an \"international lawyer\" based in Vancouver. Webre stated Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is an \"out and out Zionist\" who is engaging in the \"same repressive policies within Canada that Israel follows within its own territories against the Palestinian people.\" Webre then described a conspiracy between Vancouver police and serial killer Robert Pickton \"to commit ritual Satanic murders with high-ranking politicians.\" Finally, Webre claimed that Queen Elizabeth II abducted 10 Aboriginal children in 1964. Concluding his comments, Webre described Canada as \"the ultimate Zionist state under the British Crown and under Israel.\"In response, Paul Heinbecker, a former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations and a distinguished fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation at the University of Waterloo, has stated that Press TV is highlighting Canada's First Nations in order to \"negate\" Canadian reports of human rights allegations against Iran. Heinbecker stated that \"The human rights situations in the two countries are scarcely comparable ... but our own very real shortcomings on Aboriginal issues ... are fodder for the Iranian efforts.\" Iranian native Payam Akhavan, a professor of international law at McGill University, stated that \"Canada's diplomatic posture has elevated its ranking in the regime's demonology charts.\" Ed Corrigan, an immigration lawyer and former councillor for London, Ontario, is a regular guest on Press TV. Corrigan, who has said that \"There's very few people in Canada who have more expertise on Middle East politics than I do,\" argues that Press TV is demonstrating the \"international opinion\" of Canada's treatment of its native peoples, explaining that \"We tend to forget about our conquest of North America ... but most countries in the world see it as a colonial exercise.\"\n\nCoverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine\nLike the Kremlin, Press TV used Moscow's term \"special operation\" to describe the early days of the 2022 war in Ukraine. It also used headlines describing massacred civilians in Bucha as \"fake attack\" and \"provocation\" aimed at Russia.\n\nStaff resignations\nNick Ferrari\nNick Ferrari, a British radio presenter on LBC, resigned from his show on Press TV on 30 June 2009, following the response of the country's authorities to protests over the disputed Iranian presidential election. Ferrari told The Times that Press TV's news coverage had been \"reasonably fair\" until the election—but was not any longer. Ferrari admitted joining Press TV \"was one of the dimmest career decisions of my life\", although he also said he had not been pressurized to adhere to any particular line.\n\nHassan Abdulrahman\nIn September 2009, The Times reported that Hassan Abdulrahman, born David Theodore Belfield, one of the chief editors of the Press TV website from the beginning of Press TV's news department, had stated that he left Press TV as chief online editor in July 2009 after the election in protest at its skewed coverage of that event. The Times quoted Abdulrahman as saying, \"No, I don't think Press TV is about [real journalism]. By its nature, state journalism is not journalism. They have some programmes on there that might be, but generally it's not.\" In the article the Times also reported that Abdulrahman, who has also used the alias Dawud Salahuddin, is wanted by the FBI for shooting dead Ali Akbar Tabatabai, a former press attache at the pre-revolutionary Iranian embassy in Washington, in 1980. The Iranian government provided Belfield money and airfare to Tehran after he committed the killing, which he admitted to in 1995. (However, he denied that it was \"murderous\", stating that it was \"an act of war...In Islamic religious terms, taking a life is sometimes sanctioned and even highly praised, and I thought that event was just such a time.\")\n\nSheena Shirani\nSheena Shirani worked for Press TV from 2007 to January 2016 as an editor, producer and news presenter. She said that her news director Hamid Reza Emadi and studio manager Payam Afshar sexually harassed her for years, and published a recorded phone conversation with her boss Emadi. Press TV suspended both managers following the incident.\n\nSanctions and restrictions\nIn 2010, the Jammu and Kashmir government banned Press TV for airing video on the 2010 Qur'an-burning controversy saying \"We have decided to impose a ban on the airing of Press TV broadcasts by local cable operators. We appeal to the people not to heed unverified reports about the alleged desecration of the Holy Koran which have only been aired by Press TV and no other television news channel in the world.\"On 3 April 2012, Munich-based media regulator Bayerische Landeszentrale für neue Medien (BLM), announced it was removing Press TV from the SES Astra satellite, as they did not have a licence to broadcast in Europe.In October 2012, Eutelsat stopped broadcasting Press TV on the order, the channel said, of the European Commission. The following month, the Hong Kong-based AsiaSat took Iranian channels off air in East Asia. The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting managed to resume broadcasts after striking deals with smaller companies that are based in other countries.Google blocked Press TV access to their Gmail and YouTube in April 2019; although the latter remained active no new content could be added. YouTube removed Press TV UK from its platform in January 2020. Press TV accused Google, which owns YouTube, of censorship. The Press TV UK channel appeared after the original was removed. In April 2019, Press TV reported that Google blocked their access (along with HispanTV) \"without prior notice, citing \"violation of policies,\" and that they received a message saying \"your Google Account was disabled and can’t be restored because it was used in a way that violates Google’s policies.\" Although their YouTube channels remain open, no new content can be published. Press TV claimed that Google \"has refused to offer an explanation for shutting down the accounts,\" and that they have not violated any of Google's listed policies.On 26 June 2008, Florida congressman Gus Bilirakis proposed to declare Press TV, Al-Alam News Network and several IRIB-affiliated channels as a \"Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity.\"\n\nUK license revocation\nMaziar Bahari, by then a British resident, complained to Ofcom, the regulatory authority for the telecommunication industries in the United Kingdom.In May 2011, Ofcom ruled that Press TV was responsible for a serious breach of UK broadcasting rules by airing a 10-second interview with Maziar Bahari, accepting that it had been obtained under duress while he was imprisoned. Ofcom held a hearing in July 2011; the Press TV delegation included two British politicians who have worked as presenters for the channel. A fine of £100,000 ($155,000 in January 2012) was eventually imposed in November 2011, reversing an initial decision to revoke Press TV's licence. The extent of the fine was partly due to Press TV continuing to run the interview after warnings from Ofcom that the station had broken the Broadcasting Code.Responding to the decision, Press TV said Ofcom was \"influenced by powerful pro-Israeli politicians and US sympathisers\" and \"members of the royal family and the government\". It maintained Bahari was an \"MI6 contact person\". Defenders of Press TV, such as Geoffrey Alderman and the broadcaster's legal representative, Farooq Bajwa, referred to a formerly secret American diplomatic cable dated 4 February 2010 which was released by WikiLeaks. The cable said the British government was then \"exploring ways to limit the operations of the IRIB's Press TV service\" in response to the jamming by the Iranian government of broadcasts by the BBC Persian Service and the Voice of America.On 20 January 2012, Press TV's licence to broadcast in the UK was revoked by Ofcom with immediate effect. The investigation into the Bahari case had revealed the applying company's direct connection to Tehran, and that editorial control came from there. An invitation to change this in the licence had not been taken up by Press TV. Geoffrey Alderman, who had appeared on Press TV to put the Zionist case, criticised the Ofcom decision, describing it as \"thoroughly deplorable as well as palpably cynical\" and \"an affront to freedom of expression\". He said the location of Press TV's editorial control had not changed since the licence was granted. Press TV said Ofcom's decision was a \"clear instance of censorship\". However, it continued to broadcast in the UK via its YouTube and Facebook pages.\n\nWebsite domain seizure\nOn 22 June 2021, the presstv.com domain was seized from a company based in the United States by the United States Department of Justice, shutting down Press TV's website and the websites of other Iranian media outlets. The Department of Justice said that these sites were sources of Iranian-linked disinformation and that proper licensing had not been acquired from the Office of Foreign Assets Control for the use of the domains. Soon thereafter, the broadcaster changed the domain name for its website to use the .ir top-level domain and was back online.\n\nSupport for Press TV\nIn 2009, responding to Peter Wilby, Dominic Lawson and other critics, Mehdi Hasan, writing for the New Statesman, argued that \"engaging with Iran, no matter who is in charge in Tehran, is a prerequisite for peace and progress in the region. The very fact that Press TV is Iranian-owned makes it the ideal English-language platform on which to do so.\"American conspiracy theorist James Fetzer, whose views have often been featured by PressTV and Fars News, has stated that \"Press TV, along with RT and Sputnik News, have become the gold standard for reporting on international events and developments\".\n\nSee also\nMedia in Iran\nNational Iranian Radio and Television\nPassage 3:\nFrancis J. Beckwith\nFrancis J. \"Frank\" Beckwith (born November 3, 1960) is an American philosopher, professor, scholar, speaker, writer, and lecturer.\nHe is currently Professor of Philosophy & Church-State Studies, Affiliate Professor of Political Science and Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Philosophy, at Baylor University, where he first served as Associate Director of Baylor's J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies.Beckwith works in the areas of ethics, legal and political philosophy, philosophy of religion, and church-state jurisprudence.Beckwith is well known for his legal and philosophical work on abortion, arguing in defense of the sanctity of life in several academic publications including his 2007 book Defending Life, published by Cambridge University Press, and his 1993 book, Politically Correct Death, published by Baker Publishing Group. He has also published multiple books examining current philosophical questions regarding religion, law and politics. His 2015 book, Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics and the Reasonableness of Faith, (Cambridge University Press), was the winner of the prestigious American Academy of Religion's 2016 Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the category of Constructive-Reflective Studies.In May 2007, he returned to the Catholicism of his youth, after decades as an Evangelical Protestant. This inspired him to write a book describing his faith journey, titled Return to Rome: Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic published by Brazos Press. It is compared with Scott Hahn's Rome Sweet Home, as a significant work of Catholic Apologetics.\n\nLife, education and academic appointments\nBeckwith was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is a graduate of Bishop Gorman High School, where he was a member of the 1978 AAA Basketball high school state championship team. His siblings include the writer, comic, and actress Elizabeth Beckwith.Francis Beckwith earned a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). He later earned his MA in apologetics from Simon Greenleaf University, Anaheim, which merged with Trinity International University, Illinois in 1996. Beckwith earned his doctorate from Fordham University (PhD. and M.A. in philosophy), and his MJS (Master of Juridical Studies) from the Washington University School of Law, St. Louis.A condensed version of Beckwith's 1984 M.A. thesis on the Baháʼí Faith was published by Bethany House, as Baha'i [sic]: A Christian Response in 1985.In 2001, Beckwith completed his Wash. U. M.J.S dissertation on the inclusion of intelligent design in public school science curricula. In 2003, Rowman and Littlefield published his dissertation in revised and expanded form as Law, Darwinism, and Public Education: The Establishment Clause and the Challenge of Intelligent Design.\nPrior to arriving at Baylor in July 2003, he was a Visiting Research Fellow (2002–2003) in the James Madison Program in the Politics Department at Princeton University. He has also held full-time academic appointments at UNLV (Lecturer in Philosophy, 1989–96), Whittier College (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, 1996–97), and Trinity International University (Associate Professor Philosophy, Culture, and Law, 1997-2002). Beckwith has also held two visiting endowed appointments: (2008-2009) Mary Anne Remick Senior Visiting Fellow in the de Nicola Center for Ethics & Culture at the University of Notre Dame, and (2016–2017) Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy in the Benson Center for Western Civilization, Thought, and Policy at the University of Colorado, Boulder.In November 2006, Beckwith became the 58th president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), only to resign both his presidency and membership in May 2007, a week after he returned to the Catholic Church. Over a decade later, he became the 90th president of the American Catholic Philosophical Association (ACPA). From 1995 to 2007, he was a fellow at The Center for Bioethics & Human DignityIn 2003, after his appointment as associate director of the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor, 29 members of the Dawson family called on Baylor University to remove Beckwith as associate director. The Dawson family members questioned the appointment, accusing Beckwith of holding church-state positions contrary to Dawson's beliefs on the separation of church and state, largely because of Beckwith's affiliation with the Discovery Institute (DI) and his work on \nintelligent design and public education. Beckwith argued that their concerns were not well founded and that they represented a fundamental misunderstanding of his positions. In summer 2007 Beckwith dropped his affiliation with Discovery. He has subsequently published works highly critical of intelligent design, including chapters in his award-winning 2015 book Taking Rites Seriously' and his 2019 book Never Doubt Thomas: The Catholic Aquinas as Evangelical and Protestant. He currently resides with his wife in Texas.\n\nBibliography\nFrancis J. Beckwith in libraries (WorldCat catalog)\n\nBaha'i [sic]: A Christian Response to Baha'ism [sic] (Bethany House, 1985).\nDavid Hume's Argument Against Miracles: A Critical Analysis (Lanham: University Press of America, 1989).\nThe Mormon Concept of God: A Philosophical Analysis with Stephen E. Parrish (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1991).\nPolitically Correct Death: Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993).\nAre You Politically Correct?: Debating America's Cultural Standards with Michael E. Bauman, eds. (Buffalo: Prometheus, 1993).\nSee the gods fall: Four Rivals to Christianity with Stephen E. Parrish, (Joplin: College Press, 1997).\nAffirmative Action: Social Justice or Reverse Discrimination? with Todd E. Jones, eds. (Amherst: Prometheus, 1997).\nRelativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air with Gregory Koukl, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998).\nThe Abortion Controversy 25 Years After Roe v. Wade: A Reader 2nd ed. with Louis Pojman, eds. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1998).\nThe New Mormon Challenge with Carl Mosser and Paul Owen, eds. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002).\nDo the Right Thing: Readings in Applied Ethics and Social Philosophy editor, 2nd ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2002).\nLaw, Darwinism, and Public Education: The Establishment Clause and the Challenge of Intelligent Design (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).\nTo Everyone An Answer: A Case for the Christian Worldview with William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, eds. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004).\nDefending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007)\nReturn to Rome: Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2009\nPolitics for Christians: Statecraft as Soulcraft (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2010)\nA Second Look at First Things: A Case for Conservative Politics. The Hadley Arkes Festschrift (w/ R. P. George, S. McWilliams). (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine Press, 2013)\nTaking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015)\nNever Doubt Thomas: The Catholic Aquinas as Evangelical and Protestant (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2019)\nPassage 4:\nGeorge Weinstock\nGeorge M. Weinstock (born February 6, 1949) is an American geneticist and microbiologist on the faculty of The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, where he is a professor and the associate director for microbial genomics. Before joining The Jackson Laboratory, he taught at Washington University in St. Louis and served as associate director of The Genome Institute. Previously, Dr. Weinstock was co-director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center (HGSC) at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, and Professor of Molecular and Human Genetics there.[1] He received his B.S. degree from the University of Michigan in 1970 and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977. He has spent most of his career taking genomic approaches to study fundamental biological processes.\nWeinstock's parents met during the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and he grew up meeting many of the participants in the atomic bomb project and their colleagues. He performed his PhD thesis under David Botstein at MIT, studying the structure of phage P22 chromosome.\nAs a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. I. R. Lehman at Stanford University School of Medicine, Dr. Weinstock and Kevin McEntee discovered that the RecA protein of E. coli catalyzed strand transfer in genetic recombination. Later, as a faculty member at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), he led one of the first bacterial genome projects, collaborating with The Institute for Genomic Research to sequence the entire genome of a bacterium, Treponema pallidum, the organism that causes syphilis. In 1999 he joined Richard Gibbs at the HGSC as one of the five main centers to work on the Human Genome Project. The HGSC produced sequences of human chromosomes 3, 12 and X. Dr. Weinstock was a principal investigator in projects producing genome sequences for rat, mouse, macaque, bovine, sea urchin, honey bee, fruit fly and many microbial genomes, as well as one of the first personal genome projects, sequencing Dr. James Watson’s genome using next-generation sequencing technology.He was a leader of the Human Microbiome Project, studying the collection of microbes that colonize the human body.\n\nAwards and honors\nFellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science\nFellow, American Academy of Microbiology\nEditorial Board, Genome Biology\nEditorial Board, Genome Biology and Evolution\nEditorial Board, BMC Genomics\nPassage 5:\nRichard D. Cummings\nRichard D. Cummings is an American biochemist who is the S. Daniel Abraham Professor of Surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. He also the chief of the division of surgical sciences within the department of surgery. He is the director of the Harvard Medical School Center for Glycoscience, director of the National Center for Functional Glycomics, and also founder of the Glycomics Core at BIDMC. As of 2018 Cummings is also the scientific director of the Feihi Nutrition Laboratory at BIDMC. Before moving to BIDMC/HMS, Cummings was the William Patterson Timmie Professor and chair of the department of biochemistry at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia from 2006 to 2015. At Emory, Cummings was a founder in 2007 of the Emory Glycomics Center.\n\nEducation\nCummings graduated from Isabella High School near Maplesville, Alabama, and received his B.S. in biology and chemistry from the University of Montevallo in Montevallo, Alabama. He received his Ph.D. in biology (biochemistry) from The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, where he trained with Stephen A. Roth, and was a postdoctoral fellow in the division of hematology/oncology at Washington University School of Medicine, where he trained with Stuart A. Kornfeld.\n\nCareer and research\nCummings was professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Georgia in Athens from 1983-1992 and associate director of the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center.Cummings was the Ed Miller Endowed Chair in Molecular Biology, the George Lynn Cross Professor in Biochemistry, and professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, College of Medicine, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma from 1992-2006. He was the founder in 1999 of the Oklahoma Center for Medical Glycobiology.Cummings was a co-founder in 2002, along with Rodger P. McEver and Richard Alvarez, of Selexys Pharmaceuticals Corporation, where he initially served as president and chief scientific officer. Selexys was based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The emphasis of the company was in developing treatments for inflammatory disorders. On November 21, 2016, it was announced that Selexys was purchased by Novartis. The purchase occurred following receipt of results of the SUSTAIN study, a Phase II trial evaluating the use of SelG1, an anti-P-selectin antibody, in the reduction of vaso-occlusive pain crises in patients with sickle cell disease (SCD).Cummings was also a co-founder in 2014 of Tetherex Pharmaceuticals, a spinoff of Selexys in Oklahoma City, that is developing novel first-in-class therapeutics targeting cell adhesion proteins in inflammatory and oncologic diseases. In 1988 he was a founder of ELA Technologies, Inc. in Athens, Georgia, that specialized in developing uses of bioluminescent proteins in high-sensitivity detection assays.\n\nResearch\nCummings is a co-founder of the fields of glycomics and glycobiology. His research, which has been funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1984, has focused on the biochemical and molecular regulation of cellular metabolism and function. His work emphasizes the roles of glycoconjugates in cell adhesion and cell signaling. In his biochemical studies he is exploring the fundamental pathways of glycoconjugate biosynthesis and alterations in biosynthesis in human and animal diseases. He is also exploring the roles of proteins and lectins that recognize glycans, as well as anti-glycan antibodies, in biological pathways and disease, including inflammation, autoimmunity, infectious diseases, and cancer. Cummings has over 330 peer-reviewed publications in the field. Among his notable discoveries are the immunogenic glycans in parasitic helminths, the nature of the sulfated and glycosylated ligand PSGL-1 for selectins, the molecular chaperone COSMC (C1GalT1C1) that regulates T-synthase activity and consequently O-glycosylation pathways, and the roles of glycans in regulating leukocyte trafficking.\n\nAppointments and awards\nCummings is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2014), member of Sigma Xi (2020) and a past President of the Society for Glycobiology (2001). In 2008 he received the Karl Meyer Award from the Society for Glycobiology and in 2019 he received the IGO Award from the International Glycoconjugate Organization, all in recognition of his contributions to glycosciences. Cummings is the chair of the Steering Committee for the Consortium of Functional Glycomics, a worldwide organization that is a comprehensive resource for functional glycomics. Cummings is the director of the National Center for Functional Glycomics, which relocated in 2015 from Emory to BIDMC/HMS, and develops and offers a variety of glycan microarray technologies for researchers in the field. Cummings is also co-Director of the Human Glycome Project, a world-wide effort to identify and functionally characterize the components of the human glycome.\n\nPublications\nCummings is a co-Editor of the 1st Edition of Essentials of Glycobiology (1999), the 2nd Edition (2009) of Essentials of Glycobiology, the 3rd Edition (2017) of Essentials of Glycobiology, and now the 4th Edition (2022) of Essentials of Glycobiology, the first textbook in the field of glycobiology. Cummings was also the artwork editor for the textbook and prepared most of the illustrations. This textbook in 2003 became one of the pioneering textbooks to be distributed electronically by the National Library of Medicine. Cummings is also a co-editor of Handbook of Glycomics, which provides a comprehensive overview of the emerging field of glycomics, and a co-editor of Galectins: Methods and Protocols. In addition, Cummings currently has 32 US Patents in the field of biotechnology and glycobiology.\nPassage 6:\nJeanetta Laurence\nJeanetta Christine Laurence OBE (born December 1949) is the former associate director of The Royal Ballet. She was artistic administrator from 1990, assistant director from 2003 and associate director from 2009 to 2014.Jeanetta Laurence was born in Oxford, trained at The Royal Ballet School. She rose to be a soloist with The Royal Ballet and created roles in works by Jack Carter, Ronald Hynd, Joe Layton, Lynn Seymour and others.Laurence received an OBE in the 2015 New Year Honours, \"for services do dance\".\nPassage 7:\nCarole Hayman\nCarole Hayman is an English writer, broadcaster, actor and director. She was born in Kent, and attended Leeds University and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. She has been an actress and theatre director and was an associate director at the Royal Court Theatre in the late eighties. She was married to Max Stafford-Clark, the director of the theatre during some of that period. During that time she appeared in many of Caryl Churchill's plays including, Cloud Nine and Top Girls. As Associate Director, she directed plays by Sarah Daniels, Andrea Dunbar, G.E. Newman, Fay Weldon and Sue Townsend, including Ripen our Darkness and Byrthrite by Sarah Daniels and Bazaar and Rummage and The Great Celestial Cow by Sue Townsend. She has published many comic and satirical novels and written radio and TV series for the BBC, ITV and Channel Four. These include Ladies of Letters (co-written with Lou Wakefield) and The Refuge and The Spinney (co-written with Sue Townsend).\n\nNovels\nThe Warfleet Chronicles, consisting of:\nMissing (1998) Gollancz\nGreed, Crime, Sudden Death (1998) Gollancz\nConnections (2002), published online at http://www.sealit.org\nHard Choices (2001) published online. Later published in hard copy by Aurora Metro.\nCuddling Sharks (2001) published online\nOne to Watch (2001) published online\nLadies of Letters (series of books and BBC Radio 4 eleven comedy series. ITV three TV series)\nLadies of Letters (2000) Granada Media\nMore Ladies of Letters (2000) Granada Media\nLadies of Letters.com (2001, Little, Brown)\nLadies of Letters Log On (2002)\nThe Rashomon Principle (2000)\nCiaou Kim (1989)\nAll The Best Kim (1988) HarperCollins\n\nTelevision\nShe played Mrs Godber in \"The Veiled Lady\", S2:E2 of ITV's Agatha Christie's Poirot, January 14, 1990.\nPassage 8:\nMurray Esler\nProfessor Murray David Esler, AM (born in 1943 in Geelong, Australia) is a clinical cardiologist and medical scientist, based at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute and the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, where he is the Associate Director of the Heart Centre. He is a Professor of Medicine at Melbourne's Monash University. As Associate Director of the Baker, Professor Esler leads the Institute’s research into the relationship between the brain and heart health. He studied medicine at the University of Melbourne and received a PhD from the Australian National University (Department of Clinical Science). His chief research interests are the causes and treatment of high blood pressure and heart failure, the effects of stress on the cardiovascular system, and monoamine transmitters of the human brain.\nHis research on the sympathetic nerves of the kidneys in essential hypertension provided the theoretical basis for the development of a revolutionary treatment of high blood pressure, involving silencing these nerves with a radio wave emitting catheter placed in the kidney arteries. This treatment, called Renal Sympathetic Denervation, is now used clinically in Europe and Australia for severe drug-resistant hypertension, and is in Stage 3 trials in the United States.\nHe is the father of actor Ben Esler.\n\nAwards\nProfessor Esler has received the following awards for his research:\n\nExcellence Award in Hypertension Research, awarded by the American Heart Association in (2013).\nBjorn Folkow Award of the European Society of Hypertension (2012).\nEureka Prize for Translational Research, shared with Professor Markus Schlaich (2011).\nVictoria Prize, State Government of Victoria (2009)\nOrder of Australia; AM (2007)\nHamdan Award for Medical Research Excellence, awarded by Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Medical Sciences, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (2006).\nCentenary Medal (2003) of the Government of Australia.\nElected a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (2002).\nHartnett Medal of the Royal Society of the Arts (2002).\nMerck Sharpe & Dohme Award of the International Society of Hypertension (2000).\nRamaciotti Medal (1997), for excellence in biomedical research.\nRT Hall Prize (1996), for research in cardiology, awarded annually by the Cardiac Society of Australasia.\nWellcome (Australia) Medal (1989), awarded annually for \"the most outstanding biomedical research in Australia\".\nSusman Prize, Royal Australasian College of Physicians (1983), awarded annually for \"the best original contribution to internal medicine by a Fellow or Member of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians\".\nPassage 9:\nJulie Huber\nJulie Huber is a Senior Scientist in the Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry department at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She previously was an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Brown University, an associate scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and the associate director of the MBL's Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution. She also serves as the associate director of the Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations, a National Science Foundation-supported program headquartered at the University of Southern California.\n\nEarly life and education\nHuber spent her youth in Chicago and has cited frequent visits to the local Shedd Aquarium as part of her inspiration to pursue a career in oceanography. Huber was an undergraduate student at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, and received her B.S. in marine science in 1998. She received her Ph.D. in biological oceanography from the University of Washington in 2004 for work with oceanographer and astrobiologist John Baross on the microbial ecology of underwater volcanoes.\n\nAcademic career\nHuber began work as a postdoctoral fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory, a facility in Woods Hole, Massachusetts affiliated with the University of Chicago, in 2005; she became an assistant scientist there in 2007. She joined the faculty at Brown University as an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in 2008. She became an associate scientist at MBL and the associate director of the Josephine Bay Paul Center in 2013, and an associate professor at Brown in 2014. She moved her laboratory to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in June 2017.\nSince 2015 Huber has served on the editorial board of the scientific journal Environmental Microbiology and as a senior editor of mSystems, an open-access journal published by the American Society for Microbiology. Huber is also active in public outreach and science communication.\n\nResearch\nHuber's research group studies the microbial ecology of the deep ocean, particularly the habitat formed beneath the sea floor and the contributions of microbes to marine biogeochemistry.",6 "char_len": 72238,7 "document_hash": "c56eab26c24eaabee83cd2d74169662ee19de8aa392610bab2c724ae4c3115d5",8 "questions": [9 {10 "question_id": "q00",11 "qtype": "hotpotqa",12 "question": "For what ogranization does a commentator of Press TV serve as associate director?"13 }14 ]15}