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Five months after Guyana's independence from the United Kingdom, Venezuela moved to occupy Ankoko Island from Guyana in October 1966, with Venezuelan troops building military installations and an airstrip on the island.
Venezuelan actions to acquire Guyanese territory intensified in 1968.
Days after Venezuela left a subcommittee discussing Guyana-Venezuela border disputes on 4 July 1968, President Leoni declared an annexation of of coastline in the Essequibo on 9 July 1968, stating that the Venezuelan Navy would enforce the area.
In January 1969, the Rupununi Uprising occurred in Guyana.
According to Venezuelan author Pedro González, "Venezuela lost in 1969 a great opportunity to regain the Esquiba territory".
The rebels were primarily ranch owners of European descent that were supported by Amerindians, who were mainly ranch employees.
Following the controversial 1968 Guyanese general election, a rancher and candidate of the conservative United Force party, Valerie Hart, declared herself president of the "Republic of the Rupununi", claiming control of the Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo region of Guyana.
The rebels stated that they would grant Venezuela control of Guyana's disputed Guayana Esequiba territory and called for support from Venezuela.
According to González, Venezuelan president Raúl Leoni supported the uprising during the final months of his presidency, writing that Leoni "undoubtedly inspired and encouraged" the Rupununi Uprising.
Valerie Hart, who had led the uprising, had met with Venezuelan ministers at the time.
According to Odeen Ishmael, rebels were transported into Venezuela by aircraft on 24 December 1968, days after the Guyanese general election, and that following their arrival, the Venezuelan Army flew the Rupununi rebels to one of their facilities on 25 December 1968 where they armed and trained them with automatic rifles and bazookas.
On 2 January 1969, rebels attacked Lethem, Guyana, killing five police officers and two civilians while also damaging buildings belonging to the Guyanese government.
Guyanese troops quickly put down the rebellion, with about thirty rebels being arrested.
Members of the failed uprising fled to Venezuela for protection after their planned unravelled, with Hart and her rebels being granted Venezuelan citizenship by birth since, according to the Venezuelan government, they were recognized as being born in "the Reclamation Zone", a term widely used by Venezuela.
At a press conference in Caracas on 8 January 1969 and with, rebel leader Hart stated "If Venezuela does not intervene right now with troops they would have in their hands a situation similar to the Bay of Pigs".
The Venezuelan government refused to further assist with the uprising and all support ended with the inauguration of Rafael Caldera.
During the tenure of President Hugo Chávez, it was stated that Venezuela's "imperialism" was beginning in Latin America, with Venezuela attempting to establish "a sort of hegemony" over smaller nations in the region.
Venezuela's geopolitical ambitions grew as oil profits increased with much of the country's foreign policy involving oil politics.
Noam Chomsky described Chávez's oil subsidies to Caribbean and South American countries as "buying influence, undoubtedly" and called Venezuela's social programs in neighboring countries as "just another example of Venezuelan imperialism".
Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez allegedly contributed to the election campaign of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner during the Argentine presidential elections of 2007 in an attempt to influence the election.
According to Rory Carroll, the incident "was one of multiple, clandestine payments to allies in the region".
The governments of Argentina and Venezuela denied the accusations.
On 4 August 2007, Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, a Venezuelan-US entrepreneur of close to President Chávez, arrived in Argentina on a private plane chartered from Royal Class by Argentine and Venezuelan state officials, carrying US$790,550 in cash.
Present on the flight were various Venezuelan and Argentine officials.
Antonini Wilson was successful as part of the Bolibourgeoisie during the Chávez administration.
He attended the 6 August 2007 oil deal signing ceremony between President Chávez and his Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, that took place in the Casa Rosada presidential palace.
As investigations of Antonini Wilson began, he fled to the United States and began to cooperate with investigations performed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
While wearing a covert listening device Wilson was approached by two Venezuelan businessmen; Carlos Kauffmann and Franklin Durán, Moisés Maiónica a Venezuelan lawyer and José Canchica of Venezuela's spy agency, the National Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services (DISIP).
The individuals were recorded attempting to coerce Antonini Wilson to not reveal details about the funding conspiracy.
In November 2007, Antonini Wilson met with Maiónica, who was described as a member of Hugo Chávez's "team of fixers".
Maiónica said in a recording that money buying Antonini Wilson's silence could not be wired into the United States by PDVSA, so DISIP direct Henry Rangel Silva was using a "secret fund" to send a cash payment.
The lawyer also asked Antonini Wilson to sign for a $2 million receipt so Rangel Silva had proof that the cash was delivered and would not be accused of keeping the money for himself.
Finally, Maiónica said that Chávez asked PDVSA director Rafael Ramírez to manage the hush money, but later decided on Rangel Silva.
On 13 December 2007 the FBI arrested three Venezuelans and one Uruguayan, accusing them of being agents of the Venezuelan government who intended for Antonini to help cover up the scandal over the money that was intended for "a candidate" in the Argentine presidential elections of 2007.
Details of the case were explained by businessman Carlos Kauffmann and lawyer Moisés Maiónica, with both testifying against Durán and pleading guilty to conspiracy.
The two testified that the $800,000 was sent from Venezuela through PDVSA to fund Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's campaign, with the plot being orchestrated by Venezuela's National Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services.
Cube (talent agency)
In January 2020, one of the agency's talents, Ikimono-gakari's guitarist, Yamashita was reported by entertainment tabloid magazine "Friday" for non-consensual advances on a woman.
The president of Cube, Hiryoyuki Kitamaki made a statement regarding the news, declining all accusations made by the entertainment tabloid magazine as non factual.
Looking for Leonard
Looking for Leonard is a Canadian crime comedy-drama film, directed by Matt Bissonnette and Steven Clark and released in 2002.
The film stars Benjamin Ratner as Ted and Darcy Belsher as Johnny, an aimless pair of brothers in Montreal who regularly commit small-scale crimes with the help of Ted's girlfriend Jo (Kim Huffman).
Jo, however, is more ambivalent about the trio's lifestyle, and spends most of her time reading Leonard Cohen's novel "Beautiful Losers" while entertaining fantasies of meeting and running off with Cohen to lead a more fulfilling and interesting life.
Jo then meets Luka (Joel Bissonnette), an immigrant from the Czech Republic whom she becomes smitten with and begins to date; one day, however, a confrontation between Luka and Ted leaves Luka dead, forcing Ted into hiding while Jo has to protect him by lying to the police that Luka was the aggressor and Ted killed him in self-defense.
The film incorporates some footage from the 1965 documentary film "Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen".
Clark described the decision to incorporate a Cohen motif in the film as symbolic, stating that "It grew out of that urban myth, where you'd hear people say, 'I saw Leonard buying smokes at the corner store,' or 'I saw Leonard womanizing at the bar'.
It became an appropriate symbol for us.
He's an icon, and our film relies on a lot of icons."
Executive producers on the film included actress Molly Parker, Matt Bissonnette's wife, and filmmaker Lynne Stopkewich.
The film premiered on March 10, 2002 at South by Southwest, and had its Canadian premiere at the Montreal World Film Festival on August 28.
For the "Toronto Star", Geoff Pevere wrote that the film "trades in the kind of deadpan comic sullenness that's far closer to the mopey dopiness of Jim Jarmusch or Aki Kaurismaki than the romantic languor of Leonard Cohen."
He compared the film to Jarmusch's "Stranger Than Paradise", and concluded that "It's a case of the parts adding up to a hole: At its best (and it does have some very funny sequences) Looking for Leonard reminds you just how comically subversive silence can be."
For the "National Post", Jeet Heer gave the film two and a half stars, writing that " Looking for Leonard demonstrates how far a film can go on sheer charm.
Written and directed by Matt Bissonnette and Steven Clark, it looks like a movie financed entirely by over-strained credit cards.
During long static scenes shot in the back alleys and diners, you can vicariously feel the scrounging and penny-pinching that went into every shot.
Even though it is set in a big city, there are never any extras, so Montreal somehow becomes a ghost town.
Yet the total lack of any cinematic glamour doesn't hurt the film at all.
If anything, the scant budget contributes to the scruffy charm of the film.
The movie nicely captures a milieu of downtrodden bohemians and small-fry crooks.
It helps that all the actors are good, with Huffman putting in a particularly endearing performance."
Rick Groen of "The Globe and Mail" also rated the film two and a half stars, calling the decision to incorporate footage from "Ladies and Gentlemen" distracting but asserting that "Stay put, however, and you'll be treated to a lovely pensée where a character distinguishes between the "good and bad" people of the world: The good people wonder if they're bad, while the bad people know they're good.
Judged by that standard, Looking for Leonard is good people -- its vices are as modest as its virtues."
Ratner won the Vancouver Film Critics Circle award for Best Supporting Actor in a Canadian Film at the Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards 2002.
Zeami (crater)
Zeami is a crater on Mercury.
Its name was adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1976, after the Japanese dramatist and playwright Motokiyo Zeami.
The crater Stevenson is to the northeast of Zeami.
Sophocles is to the south, and Goya is to the southwest.
Phosphorus monoxide
Phosphorus monoxide is an unstable radical inorganic compound with molecular formula PO.
Phosphorus monoxide is notable as one of the few molecular compounds containing phosphorus, detected outside of Earth.
Other phosphorus containing molecules found in space include PN, PC, PC, HCP and PH.
It was detected in the circumstellar shell of VY Canis Majoris and in the star forming region catalogued as AFGL 5142.
The compound has been found to have been initially produced in star-forming regions, and speculated to be carried by interstellar comets throughout outer space, including to the early Earth.
Phosphorus monoxide plays a role in the phosphorescence of phosphorus.
In 1894 W. N. Hartley was the first to report an observation of ultraviolet emission from a phosphorus compound, that was later expanded on by Geuter.
The source of the spectral lines and bands were known to be related to phosphorus, but the exact nature was unknown.
In 1927 H. J. Emeléus and R. H. Purcell determined that the cause was a phosphorus oxide.
But it was in 1921 that P. N. Ghosh and G. N. Ball determined that the oxide was phosphorus monoxide.
Phosphorus monoxide is believed to be the most abundant phosphorus-containing molecule found in interstellar clouds.
Phosphorus was identified as a cosmically abundant element in 1998 after researchers found a cosmic ratio of phosphorus to hydrogen (P/H) of about 3×10.
Even with the prevalence of phosphorus in interstellar clouds, very few phosphorus bearing molecules had been identified and found in very few sources; phosphorus nitride, PN, and the free radical CP were found in a carbon rich envelope of IRC +10215 in 1987.
This suggested that more phosphorus containing molecules had to be found in interstellar space.
While examining the oxygen-rich shell of the supergiant star VY Canis Majoris (VY CMa) the presence of PO was detected.
VY CMa was studied using the Submillimeter Telescope (SMT) of the Arizona Radio Observatory (ARO).
The telescope was able to observe the rotational frequencies of PO.
ARO's 10 m SMT was able to measure the rotational transitions of PO showing J=5.5→4.5 at 240 GHz and J=6.5→5.5 at 284 GHz toward the evolved star, each consisting of well-defined lambda-doublets.
Since the detection of PO towards the envelope of the VY CMa supergiant in 2001, PO has been found in many more interstellar clouds and is found in abundance around oxygen-rich shells.
PO is formed when phosphorus is burnt in oxygen or ozone.
It is a transient molecule observed in hot flames, or can be condensed into noble gas matrix.
PO can be formed in an inert gas matrix in the photolysis of PSO, a phosphorus oxysulfide.
On Earth, phosphorus monoxide can be prepared for study by spraying phosphoric acid into a flame.
Because commercial acetylene gas contains some phosphine, an oxy-acetylene flame will have weak PO emission bands in its spectrum also.
In the flame, PO oxidises back to PO.
As white phosphorus oxidises it gives out a greenish-white glow.
The glow happens as PO is oxidised by one of these reactions: PO + O → PO; or PO + O →PO + O.
The possible ways that PO appears in this process is by breakup of the PO molecule which in turn may come from PO.
Phosphorus monoxide can act as a ligand on transition elements such as molybdenum, ruthenium and osmium.
The phosphorus forms a triple bond with the metal.
The first to be discovered was on a nickel-tungsten cluster.