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illion. Daily conditions of life throughout the country and specifically Luanda population approximately 6 million mirror the collapse of administrative infrastructure as well as many social institutions. The ongoing grave economic situation largely prevents any government support for social institutions. Hospitals are without medicines or basic equipment, schools are without books, and public employees often lack the basic supplies for their daytoday work.
Executive branch
The 2010 constitution grants the President almost absolute power. Elections for the National assembly are to take place every five years, and the President is automatically the leader of the winning party or coalition. It is for the President to appoint and dismiss all of the following
The members of the government state ministers, ministers, state secretaries and viceministers;
The members of the Constitutional Court;
The members of the Supreme Court;
The members of the Court of Auditors;
The members of the Military Supreme Court;
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The Governor and ViceGovernors of the Nacional Angolan Bank;
The GeneralAttorney, the ViceGeneralAttorneys and their deputies as well as the military homologous;
The Governors of the provinces;
The members of the Republic Council;
The members of the National Security Council;
The members of the Superior Magistrates Councils;
The General Chief of the Armed Forces and his deputy;
All other command posts in the military;
The Police General Commander, and the 2nd in command;
All other command posts in the police;
The chiefs and directors of the intelligence and security organs.
The President is also provided a variety of powers, like defining the policy of the country. Even though it's not up to himher to make laws only to promulgate them and make edicts, the President is the leader of the winning party.
The only "relevant" post that is not directly appointed by the President is the VicePresident, which is the second in the winning party.
Jos Eduardo dos Santos stepped down as President of Angola after
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38 years in 2017, being peacefully succeeded by Joo Loureno, Santos' chosen successor.
Legislative branch
The National Assembly Assembleia Nacional has 223 members, elected for a fouryear term, 130 members by proportional representation, 90 members in provincial districts, and 3 members to represent Angolans abroad. The general elections in 1997 were rescheduled for 5 September 2008. The ruling party MPLA won 82 191 seats in the National Assembly and the main opposition party won only 10 16 seats. The elections however have been described as only partly free but certainly not fair. A White Book on the elections in 2008 lists up all irregularities surrounding the Parliamentary elections of 2008.
Political parties and elections
Judicial branch
Supreme Court or "Tribunal da Relacao" judges of the Supreme Court are appointed by the president. The Constitutional Court, with the power of judicial review, contains 11 justices. Four are appointed by the President, four by the National Assembly, two by the Superio
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r Council of the Judiciary, and one elected by the public.
Administrative divisions
Angola has eighteen provinces Bengo, Benguela, Bie, Cabinda, Cuando Cubango, Cuanza Norte, Cuanza Sul, Cunene, Huambo, Huila, Luanda, Lunda Norte, Lunda Sul, Malanje, Moxico, Namibe, Uige, Zaire
Political pressure groups and leaders
Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda or FLEC Henrique N'zita Tiago; Antnio Bento Bembe
note FLEC is waging a smallscale, highly factionalized, armed struggle for the independence of Cabinda Province
International organization participation
African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States, AfDB, CEEAC, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, FAO, Group of 77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, International Criminal Court signatory, ICFTU, International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, International Development Association, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, International Labour Organization, International Monetary Fund, International Maritime Organization, Interpol, IOC, International Organization for Mig
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ration, ISO correspondent, ITU, NonAligned Council temporary, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UPU, World Customs Organization, World Federation of Trade Unions, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrO
See also
References
Further reading
ANGOLA LIVRO BRANCO SOBRE AS ELEIES DE 2008. httpwww.kas.deprojhomepub82year2009dokumentid17396index.html
Bsl, Anton 2008. Angola's Parliamentary Elections in 2008. A Country on its Way to OnePartyDemocracy, KAS Auslandsinformationen 102008. httpwww.kas.dewfde33.15186
Amundsen, I. 2011 Angola Party Politics Into the African Trend. Angola Brief vol. 1 no. 9
External links
The Chr. Michelsen Institute The largest centre for development research in Scandinavia. In particular, see their collaborative Angola Programme.
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The economy of Angola remains heavily influenced by the effects of four decades of conflict in the last part of the 20th century, the war for independence from Portugal 196175 and the subsequent civil war 19752002. Despite extensive oil and gas resources, diamonds, hydroelectric potential, and rich agricultural land, Angola remains poor, and a third of the population relies on subsistence agriculture. Since 2002, when the 27year civil war ended, government policy prioritized the repair and improvement of infrastructure and strengthening of political and social institutions. During the first decade of the 21st century, Angola's economy was one of the fastestgrowing in the world, with reported annual average GDP growth of 11.1 percent from 2001 to 2010. High international oil prices and rising oil production contributed to strong economic growth, although with high inequality, at that time.
Corruption is rife throughout the economy and the country remains heavily dependent on the oil sector, which in 2017 acc
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ounted for over 90 percent of exports by value and 64 percent of government revenue. With the end of the oil boom, from 2015 Angola entered into a period of economic contraction.
History
The Angolan economy has been dominated by the production of raw materials and the use of cheap labor since European rule began in the sixteenth century. The Portuguese used Angola principally as a source for the thriving slave trade across the Atlantic; Luanda became the greatest slaving port in Africa. After the Portuguese Empire abolished the slave trade in Angola in 1858, it began using concessional agreements, granting exclusive rights to a private company to exploit land, people, and all other resources within a given territory. In Mozambique, this policy spawned a number of companies notorious for their exploitation of local labor. But in Angola, only Diamang showed even moderate success. At the same time, Portuguese began emigrating to Angola to establish farms and plantations fazendas to grow cash crops for export.
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Although these farms were only partially successful before World War II, they formed the basis for the later economic growth.
The principal exports of the postslave economy in the 19th century were rubber, beeswax, and ivory. Prior to the First World War, exportation of coffee, palm kernels and oil, cattle, leather and hides, and salt fish joined the principal exports, with small quantities of gold and cotton also being produced. Grains, sugar, and rum were also produced for local consumption. The principal imports were foodstuffs, cotton goods, hardware, and British coal. Legislation against foreign traders was implemented in the 1890s. The territory's prosperity, however, continued to depend on plantations worked by labor "indentured" from the interior.
Before World War II, the Portuguese government was concerned primarily with keeping its colonies selfsufficient and therefore invested little capital in Angola's local economy. It built no roads until the mid1920s, and the first railroad, the Benguela Rail
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way, was not completed until 1929. Between 1900 and 1940, only 35,000 Portuguese emigrants settled in Angola, and most worked in commerce in the cities, facilitating trade with Portugal. In the rural areas, Portuguese settlers often found it difficult to make a living because of fluctuating world prices for sugarcane and sisal and the difficulties in obtaining cheap labor to farm their crops. As a result, they often suspended their operations until the market prices rose and instead marketed the produce of Angolan farmers.
But in the wake of World War II, the rapid growth of industrialization worldwide and the parallel requirements for raw materials led Portugal to develop closer ties with its colonies and to begin actively developing the Angolan economy. In the 1930s, Portugal started to develop closer trade ties with its colonies, and by 1940 it absorbed 63 percent of Angolan exports and accounted for 47 percent of Angolan imports, up from 39 percent and 37 percent, respectively, a decade earlier. When the
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price of Angola's principal cropscoffee and sisaljumped after the war, the Portuguese government began to reinvest some profits inside the country, initiating a series of projects to develop infrastructure. During the 1950s, Portugal built dams, hydroelectric power stations, and transportation systems. In addition, Portuguese citizens were encouraged to emigrate to Angola, where planned settlements colonatos were established for them in the rural areas. Finally, the Portuguese initiated mining operations for iron ore, manganese, and copper to complement industrial activities at home, and in 1955 the first successful oil wells were drilled in Angola. By 1960 the Angolan economy had been completely transformed, boasting a successful commercial agricultural sector, a promising mineral and petroleum production enterprise, and an incipient manufacturing industry.
Yet by 1976, these encouraging developments had been reversed. The economy was in complete disarray in the aftermath of the war of independence and the
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subsequent internal fighting of the liberation movements. According to the ruling MPLAPT, in August 1976 more than 80 percent of the agricultural plantations had been abandoned by their Portuguese owners; only 284 out of 692 factories continued to operate; more than 30,000 mediumlevel and highlevel managers, technicians, and skilled workers had left the country; and 2,500 enterprises had been closed 75 percent of which had been abandoned by their owners. Furthermore, only 8,000 vehicles remained out of 153,000 registered, dozens of bridges had been destroyed, the trading network was disrupted, administrative services did not exist, and files and studies were missing.
Angola's economic ills can also be traced to the legacy of Portuguese colonial development. Many of the white settlers had come to Angola after 1950 and were understandably quick to repatriate during the war of independence. During their stay, however, these settlers had appropriated Angolan lands, disrupting local peasant production of cash an
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d subsistence crops. Moreover, Angola's industries depended on trade with Portugalthe colony's overwhelmingly dominant trade partnerfor both markets and machinery. Only the petroleum and diamond industries boasted a wider clientele for investment and markets. Most important, the Portuguese had not trained Angolans to operate the larger industrial or agricultural enterprises, nor had they actively educated the population. Upon independence Angola thus found itself without markets or expertise to maintain even minimal economic growth.
As a result, the government intervened, nationalizing most businesses and farms abandoned by the Portuguese. It established state farms to continue producing coffee, sugar, and sisal, and it took over the operations of all factories to maintain production. These attempts usually failed, primarily because of the lack of experienced managers and the continuing disruptions in rural areas caused by the UNITA insurgency. Only the petroleum sector continued to operate successfully, and
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by 1980 this sector had helped the gross domestic product reach US3.6 billion, its highest level up to 1988. In the face of serious economic problems and the continuing war throughout the countryside, in 1987 the government announced plans to liberalize economic policies and promote private investment and involvement in the economy.
1990s
United Nations Angola Verification Mission III and MONUA spent US1.5 billion overseeing implementation of the Lusaka Protocol, a 1994 peace accord that ultimately failed to end the civil war. The protocol prohibited UNITA from buying foreign arms, a provision the United Nations largely did not enforce, so both sides continued to build up their stockpile. UNITA purchased weapons in 1996 and 1997 from private sources in Albania and Bulgaria, and from Zaire, South Africa, Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Togo, and Burkina Faso. In October 1997 the UN imposed travel sanctions on UNITA leaders, but the UN waited until July 1998 to limit UNITA's exportation of diamonds and freeze
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UNITA bank accounts. While the U.S. government gave US250 million to UNITA between 1986 and 1991, UNITA made US1.72 billion between 1994 and 1999 exporting diamonds, primarily through Zaire to Europe. At the same time the Angolan government received large amounts of weapons from the governments of Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, and South Africa. While no arms shipment to the government violated the protocol, no country informed the U.N. Register on Conventional Weapons as required.
Despite the increase in civil warfare in late 1998, the economy grew by an estimated 4 in 1999. The government introduced new currency denominations in 1999, including a 1 and 5 kwanza note.
2000s
An economic reform effort was launched in 1998. Angola ranked 160 of 174 nations in the United Nations Human Development Index in 2000. In April 2000 Angola started an International Monetary Fund IMF StaffMonitored Program SMP. The program formally lapsed in June 2001, but the IMF remains engaged. In this context the Government of An
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gola has succeeded in unifying exchange rates and has raised fuel, electricity, and water rates. The Commercial Code, telecommunications law, and Foreign Investment Code are being modernized. A privatization effort, prepared with World Bank assistance, has begun with the BCI bank. Nevertheless, a legacy of fiscal mismanagement and corruption persists. The civil war internally displaced 3.8 million people, 32 of the population, by 2001. The security brought about by the 2002 peace settlement has led to the resettlement of 4 million displaced persons, thus resulting in largescale increases in agriculture production.
Angola produced over of diamonds in 2003, and production was expected to grow to per year by 2007. In 2004, China's Eximbank approved a 2 billion line of credit to Angola to rebuild infrastructure. The economy grew 18 in 2005 and growth was expected to reach 26 in 2006 and stay above 10 for the rest of the decade. By 2020, Angola had a national debt of 76 billion, of which 20 billion is to China
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.
The construction industry is taking advantage of the growing economy, with various housing projects stimulated by the government initiatives for example the Angola Investe program and the Casa Feliz or Mea projects. Not all public construction projects are functional. A case in point Kilamba Kiaxi, where a whole new satellite town of Luanda, consisting of housing facilities for several hundreds of thousands of people, was completely uninhabited for over four years because of skyrocketing prices, but completely sold out after the government decreased the original price and created mortgage plans at around the election time thus made it affordable for middleclass people.
ChevronTexaco started pumping from Block 14 in January 2000, but production decreased to in 2007 due to poorquality oil. Angola joined the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on January 1, 2007. Cabinda Gulf Oil Company found Malange1, an oil reservoir in Block 14, on August 9, 2007.
Overview
Despite its abundant natural
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resources, output per capita is among the world's lowest. Subsistence agriculture provides the main livelihood for 85 of the population. Oil production and the supporting activities are vital to the economy, contributing about 45 to GDP and 90 of exports. Growth is almost entirely driven by rising oil production which surpassed in late2005 and which is expected to grow to by 2007. Control of the oil industry is consolidated in Sonangol Group, a conglomerate owned by the Angolan government. With revenues booming from oil exports, the government has started to implement ambitious development programs to build roads and other basic infrastructure for the nation.
In the last decade of the colonial period, Angola was a major African food exporter but now imports almost all its food. Severe wartime conditions, including extensive planting of landmines throughout the countryside, have brought agricultural activities to a nearstandstill. Some efforts to recover have gone forward, however, notably in fisheries. Cof
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fee production, though a fraction of its pre1975 level, is sufficient for domestic needs and some exports. Expanding oil production is now almost half of GDP and 90 of exports, at . Diamonds provided much of the revenue for Jonas Savimbi's UNITA rebellion through illicit trade. Other rich resources await development gold, forest products, fisheries, iron ore, coffee, and fruits.
This is a chart of trend of nominal gross domestic product of Angola at market prices using International Monetary Fund data; figures are in millions of units.
The following table shows the main economic indicators in 19802017. Inflation below 5 is in green.
Agriculture
Angola produced, in 2018
8.6 million tons of cassava 8th largest producer in the world;
3.5 million tons of banana 7th largest producer in the world, or the 10th largest, if we consider together with plantain;
2.2 million tons of maize;
1.2 million tons of sweet potato 10th largest producer in the world;
806 thousand tons of potato;
597 thousand tons of pinea
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pple 13th largest producer in the world;
572 thousand tons of sugarcane;
355 thousand tons of cabbage;
314 thousand tons of beans;
280 thousand tons of palm oil;
154 thousand tons of peanut;
In addition to smaller productions of other agricultural products, like coffee 16 thousand tons.
Foreign trade
Exports in 2004 reached US10,530,764,911. The vast majority of Angola's exports, 92 in 2004, are petroleum products. US785 million worth of diamonds, 7.5 of exports, were sold abroad that year. Nearly all of Angola's oil goes to the United States, in 2006, making it the eighth largest supplier of oil to the United States, and to China, in 2006. In the first quarter of 2008, Angola became the main exporter of oil to China. The rest of its petroleum exports go to Europe and Latin America. U.S. companies account for more than half the investment in Angola, with ChevronTexaco leading the way. The U.S. exports industrial goods and services, primarily oilfield equipment, mining equipment, chemicals, aircraft,
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and food, to Angola, while principally importing petroleum. Trade between Angola and South Africa exceeded US300 million in 2007. From the 2000s, many Chinese have settled and started up businesses.
Resources
Petroleum
Angola produces and exports more petroleum than any other nation in subSaharan Africa, surpassing Nigeria in the 2000s. In January 2007 Angola became a member of OPEC. By 2010 production is expected to double the 2006 output level with development of deepwater offshore oil fields. Oil sales generated US1.71 billion in tax revenue in 2004 and now makes up 80 of the government's budget, a 5 increase from 2003, and 45 of GDP.
Chevron Corporation produces and receives , 27 of Angolan oil. Total S.A., ExxonMobil, Eni, Petrobras and BP also operate in the country.
Block Zero provides the majority of Angola's crude oil production with produced annually. The largest fields in Block Zero are Takula Area A, Numbi Area A, and Kokongo Area B. Chevron operates in Block Zero with a 39.2 share. SONANGO
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L, the state oil company, Total, and Eni own the rest of the block. Chevron also operates Angola's first producing deepwater section, Block 14, with .
The United Nations has criticized the Angolan government for using torture, rape, summary executions, arbitrary detention, and disappearances, actions which Angolan government has justified on the need to maintain oil output.
Angola is the thirdlargest trading partner of the United States in SubSaharan Africa, largely because of its petroleum exports. The U.S. imports 7 of its oil from Angola, about three times as much as it imported from Kuwait just prior to the Gulf War in 1991. The U.S. Government has invested US4 billion in Angola's petroleum sector.
Oil makes up over 90 of Angola's exports.
Diamonds
Angola is the third largest producer of diamonds in Africa and has only explored 40 of the diamondrich territory within the country, but has had difficulty in attracting foreign investment because of corruption, human rights violations, and diamond smuggli
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ng. Production rose by 30 in 2006 and Endiama, the national diamond company of Angola, expects production to increase by 8 in 2007 to 10 million carats annually. The government is trying to attract foreign companies to the provinces of Bi, Malanje and Uge.
The Angolan government loses 375 million annually from diamond smuggling. In 2003, the government began Operation Brilliant, an antismuggling investigation that arrested and deported 250,000 smugglers between 2003 and 2006. Rafael Marques, a journalist and human rights activist, described the diamond industry in his 2006 Angola's Deadly Diamonds report as plagued by "murders, beatings, arbitrary detentions and other human rights violations." Marques called on foreign countries to boycott Angola's "conflict diamonds". In December 2014, the Bureau of International Labor Affairs issued a List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor that classified Angola as one of the major diamondproducing African countries relying on both child labor and forced lab
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or. The U.S. Department of Labor reported that "there is little publicly available information on Angola's efforts to enforce child labor law". Diamonds accounted for 1.48 of Angolan exports in 2014.
Iron
Under Portuguese rule, Angola began mining iron in 1957, producing 1.2 million tons in 1967 and 6.2 million tons by 1971. In the early 1970s, 70 of Portuguese Angola's iron exports went to Western Europe and Japan. After independence in 1975, the Angolan Civil War 19752002 destroyed most of the territory's mining infrastructure. The redevelopment of the Angolan mining industry started in the late 2000s.
See also
Banco Esprito Santo Angola
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
References
Further reading
McCormick, Shawn H. The Angolan Economy Prospects for Growth in a Postwar Environment, 1994.
OECD, International Energy Agency. Angola Towards an Energy Strategy, 2006.
External links
MBendi overview of Angola
Angola latest trade data on ITC Trade Map
Exports to Angola Datasheet
Angola
Blood
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diamonds
Angola
Angola
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Transport in Angola comprises
Roads
Railways
There are three separate railway lines in Angola
Luanda Railway CFL northern
Benguela Railway CFB central
Momedes Railway CFM southern
Reconstruction of these three lines began in 2005 and they are now all operational. The Benguela Railway connects to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Waterways
1,300 km navigable 2008
country comparison to the world 36
Pipelines
gas, 2 km; crude oil 87 km 2008
In April 2012, the Zambian Development Agency ZDA and an Angolan company signed a memorandum of understanding MoU to build a multiproduct pipeline from Lobito to Lusaka, Zambia, to deliver various refined products to Zambia.
Angola plans to build an oil refinery in Lobito in the coming years.
Ports and harbors
The government plans to build a deepwater port at Barra do Dande, north of Luanda, in Bengo province near Caxito.
Merchant marine
total 6
country comparison to the world 128
by type cargo 1, passengercargo 2, petroleum tanker 2, roll onroll of
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f 1
foreign owned 1 Spain
registered in other countries 6 Bahamas 2008
Airports
211 2008
Airports with paved runways
total 30
over 3,047 m 5
2,438 to 3,047 m 8
1,524 to 2,437 m 12
914 to 1,523 m 4
under 914 m 1 2008
Airports with unpaved runways
total 181 2008
over 3,047 m 2
2,438 to 3,047 m 5
1,524 to 2,437 m 32
914 to 1,523 m 100
under 914 m 42 2008
Angolan Airlines
TAAG Angola Airlines
Sonair
Fly Angola
International and domestic services are maintained by TAAG Angola Airlines, Aeroflot, British Airways, Brussels Airlines, Lufthansa, Air France, Cubana, Ethiopian Airlines, Emirates, Delta Air Lines, Royal Air Maroc, Iberia, Hainan Airlines, Kenya Airways, South African Airways, TAP Air Portugal and several regional carriers. There are airstrips at Benguela, Cabinda, Huambo, Momedes, and Catumbela.
References
This article comes from the CIA World Factbook 2003.
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The Angolan Armed Forces or FAA is the military of Angola. The FAA include the General Staff of the Armed Forces and three components the Army Exrcito, the Navy Marinha de Guerra and the National Air Force Fora Area Nacional. Reported total manpower in 2013 was about 107,000. The FAA is headed by the Chief of the General Staff Antnio Egdio de Sousa Santos since 2018, who reports to the Minister of National Defense, currently Joo Ernesto dos Santos.
History
Roots
The FAA succeeded to the previous People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola FAPLA following the abortive Bicesse Accord with the Armed Forces of the Liberation of Angola FALA, armed wing of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola UNITA. As part of the peace agreement, troops from both armies were to be demilitarized and then integrated. Integration was never completed as UNITA and FALA went back to war in 1992. Later, consequences for FALA personnel in Luanda were harsh with FAPLA veterans persecuting their erstwhile oppon
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ents in certain areas and reports of vigilantism.
Founding
The Angolan Armed Forces were created on 9 October 1991. The institutionalization of the FAA was made in the Bicesse Accords, signed in 1991, between the Angolan Government and UNITA. The principles that would govern the FAA were defined in a joint proposal presented on September 24, 1991 and approved on 9 October. On 14 November 1991, Generals Joo Baptista de Matos and Ablio Kamalata Numa were appointed to the Superior Command of the Armed Forces. The ceremony took place at the Hotel Presidente Luanda, and was presided over by the thenminister Frana Vandnem.
Branches
Army
The Army Exrcito is the land component of the FAA. It is organized in six military regions Cabinda, Luanda, North, Center, East and South, with an infantry division being based in each one. Distributed by the six military regions infantry divisions, there are 25 motorized infantry brigades, one tank brigade and one engineering brigade. The Army also includes an artillery regi
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ment, the Military Artillery School, the Army Military Academy, an antiaircraft defense group, a composite land artillery group, a military police regiment, a logistical transportation regiment and a field artillery brigade. The Army further includes the Special Forces Brigade including Commandos and Special Operations units, but this unit is under the direct command of the General Staff of the FAA.
Air Force
The National Air Force of Angola FANA, Fora Area Nacional de Angola is the air component of the FAA. It is organized in six aviation regiments, each including several squadrons. To each of the regiments correspond an air base. Besides the aviation regiments, there is also a Pilot Training School.
The Air Force's personnel total about 8,000; its equipment includes transport aircraft and six Russianmanufactured Sukhoi Su27 fighter aircraft. In 2002, one was lost during the civil war with UNITA forces.
In 1991, the Air ForceAir Defense Forces had 8,000 personnel and 90 combatcapable aircraft, including
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22 fighters, 59 fighter ground attack aircraft and 16 attack helicopters.
Navy
The Angola Navy MGA, Marinha de Guerra de Angola is the naval component of the FAA. It is organized in two naval zones North and South, with naval bases in Luanda, Lobito and Momedes. It includes a Marines Brigade and a Marines School, based in Ambriz. The Navy numbers about 1,000 personnel and operates only a handful of small patrol craft and barges.
The Navy has been neglected and ignored as a military arm mainly due to the guerrilla struggle against the Portuguese and the nature of the civil war. From the early 1990s to the present the Angolan Navy has shrunk from around 4,200 personnel to around 1,000, resulting in the loss of skills and expertise needed to maintain equipment. In order to protect Angola's 1 600 km long coastline, the Angolan Navy is undergoing modernisation but is still lacking in many ways. Portugal has been providing training through its Technical Military Cooperation CTM programme. The Navy is requestin
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g procurement of a frigate, three corvettes, three offshore patrol vessel and additional fast patrol boats.
Most of the vessels in the navy's inventory dates back from the 1980s or earlier, and many of its ships are inoperable due to age and lack of maintenance. However the navy acquired new boats from Spain and France in the 1990s. Germany has delivered several Fast Attack Craft for border protection in 2011.
In September 2014 it was reported that the Angolan Navy would acquire seven Macaclass patrol vessels from Brazil as part of a Technical Memorandum of Understanding MoU covering the production of the vessels as part of Angola's Naval Power Development Programme Pronaval. The military of Angola aims to modernize its naval capability, presumably due to a rise in maritime piracy within the Gulf of Guinea which may have an adverse effect on the country's economy.
The navy's current known inventory includes the following
Fast attack craft
4 Mandume class craft Bazan Cormoran type, refurbished in 2009
P
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atrol Boats
3 18.3m long Patrulheiro patrol boats refurbished in 2002
5 ARESA PVC170
2 Namacurraclass harbour patrol boats
Fisheries Patrol Boats
Ngola Kiluange and Nzinga Mbandi delivered in September and October 2012 from Damen ShipyardsOperated by Navy personnel under the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries
28 metre FRV 2810 Pensador Operated by Navy personnel under the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries
Landing craft
LDM400 1 or 3 reportedly has serviceability issues
Coastal defense equipment CRTOC
SSC1 Sepal radar system
The navy also has several aircraft for maritime patrol
Specialized units
Special forces
The FAA include several types of special forces, namely the Commandos, the Special Operations and the Marines. The Angolan special forces follow the general model of the analogous Portuguese special forces, receiving a similar training.
The Commandos and the Special forces are part of the Special Forces Brigade BRIFE, Brigada de Foras Especia
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is, based at Cabo Ledo, in the Bengo Province. The BRIFE includes two battalions of commandos, a battalion of special operations and subunits of combat support and service support. The BRIFE also included the Special Actions Group GAE, Grupo de Aes Especiais, which is presently inactive and that was dedicated to long range reconnaissance, covert and sabotage operations. In the Cabo Ledo base is also installed the Special Forces Training School EFFE, Escola de Formao de Foras Especiais. Both the BRIFE and the EFFE are directly under the Directorate of Special Forces of the General Staff of the Armed Forces.
The marines fuzileiros navais constitute the Marines Brigade of the Angolan Navy. The Marines Brigade is not permanently dependent of the Directorate of Special Forces, but can detach their units and elements to be put under the command of that body for the conduction of exercises or real operations.
Since the disbandment of the Angolan Parachute Battalion in 2004, the FAA do not have a specialized paratr
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ooper unit. However, elements of the commandos, special operations and marines are parachute qualified.
Territorial troops
The Directorate of People's Defense and Territorial Troops of the Defence Ministry or ODP was established in late 1975. It had 600,000 members, having personnel in virtually every village by 1979. It had both armed and unarmed units dispersed in villages throughout the country. The People's Vigilance Brigades also serve a similar purpose.
Training establishments
Armed Forces Academy
The Military Academy is a military university public higher education establishment whos mission is to train officers of the Permanent Staff of the Army. It has been in operation since 21 August 2009 by presidential decree. Its headquarters are in Lobito. It trains in the following specialties
Infantry
Tanks
Land Artillery
AntiAir Defense
Military Engineering
Logistics
Telecommunications
Hidden Direction of Troops
Military Administration
Armament and Technique
Chemical Defense
Operational Military Inte
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lligence
Technical Repair and Maintenance Platoon of Auto and Armored Technique
Navy
Naval War Institute INSG
Naval Academy
Naval Specialist School
Air Force
Angolan Military Aviation School
Pilot Basic Training School Lobito
Institutionsother units
Museum of the Armed Forces
Military Hospitals
The Military hospital of the FAA is the Main Military Hospital. It has the following lineage
1961 Evacuation Infirmary
1962 Military Hospital of Luanda
1975 Military Hospital
1976 Central Military Hospital
1989 Main Military Hospital
It provides specialized medical assistance in accordance with the military health system; It also promotes postgraduate education and scientific research. Currently, the Main Military Hospital serves 39 special medical specialties. It is a headed by a Director General whose main supporting body is the Board of Directors.
Supreme Military Court
The Supreme Military Court is the highest organ of the hierarchy of military courts. The Presiding Judge, the Deputy Pr
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esiding Judge and the other Counselor Judges of the Supreme Military Court are appointed by the President of the Republic. The composition, organization, powers and functioning of the Supreme Military Court are established by law.
Military Bands
The FAA maintains Portuguesestyle military bands in all three branches and in individual units. The primary band is the 100member Music Band of the Presidential Security Household. The music band of the Army Command was created on 16 June 1994 and four years later, on 15 August 1998, the National Air Force created a music band within an artistic brigade. The navy has its own marching band, as well as a small musical group known as Banda 10 de Julho 10th July Band, based at the Luanda Naval Base.
Foreign deployments
The FAPLA's main counterinsurgency effort was directed against UNITA in the southeast, and its conventional capabilities were demonstrated principally in the undeclared South African Border War. The FAPLA first performed its external assistance mission
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with the dispatch of 1,000 to 1,500 troops to So Tom and Prncipe in 1977 to bolster the socialist regime of President Manuel Pinto da Costa. During the next several years, Angolan forces conducted joint exercises with their counterparts and exchanged technical operational visits. The Angolan expeditionary force was reduced to about 500 in early 1985.
The Angolan Armed Forces were controversially involved in training the armed forces of fellow Lusophone states Cape Verde and GuineaBissau. In the case of the latter, the 2012 GuineaBissau coup d'tat was cited by the coup leaders as due to Angola's involvement in trying to "reform" the military in connivance with the civilian leadership.
A small number of FAA personnel are stationed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Kinshasa and the Republic of the Congo Brazzaville. A presence during the unrest in Ivory Coast, 20102011, were not officially confirmed. However, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, citing Jeune Afrique, said that among President Gbagbo's gua
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rds were 92 personnel of President Dos Santos's Presidential Guard Unit. Angola is basically interested in the participation of the FAA operations of the African Union and has formed special units for this purpose.
References
Further reading
Human Rights Watch, Angola Unravels The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peace Process, October 1999
Utz Ebertz and Marie Mller, Legacy of a resourcefueled war The role of generals in Angola's mining sector, BICC Focus, June 2013
Area Handbook for Angola, August 1967, Angola, A Country Study 1979 and 1991
Rocky Williams, "National defence reform and the African Union." SIPRI Yearbook 2004 231249.
Weigert, Stephen L. Angola a modern military history, 19612002. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
Martin Rupiya et al., 'Angola', in Evolutions and Revolutions
The TwentySeventh of May An Historical Note on the Abortive 1977 "coup" in Angola
David Birmingham, African Affairs, Vol. 77, No. 309 Oct. 1978, pp. 554564
Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African Society
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External links
Official site of the Angolan Ministry of National Defence
World Navies
Brinkman, Inge "Language, Names, and War The Case of Angola", African Studies Review
Military of Angola
Military history of Angola
Angolan Civil War
1991 establishments in Angola
Military units and formations established in 1991
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The foreign relations of Angola are based on Angola's strong support of U.S. foreign policy as the Angolan economy is dependent on U.S. foreign aid.
From 1975 to 1989, Angola was aligned with the Eastern bloc, in particular the Soviet Union, Libya, and Cuba. Since then, it has focused on improving relationships with Western countries, cultivating links with other Portuguesespeaking countries, and asserting its own national interests in Central Africa through military and diplomatic intervention. In 1993, it established formal diplomatic relations with the United States. It has entered the Southern African Development Community as a vehicle for improving ties with its largely Anglophone neighbors to the south. Zimbabwe and Namibia joined Angola in its military intervention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where Angolan troops remain in support of the Joseph Kabila government. It also has intervened in the Republic of the Congo Brazzaville to support the existing government in that country.
Since 1998
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, Angola has successfully worked with the United Nations Security Council to impose and carry out sanctions on UNITA. More recently, it has extended those efforts to controls on conflict diamonds, the primary source of revenue for UNITA during the Civil War that ended in 2002. At the same time, Angola has promoted the revival of the Community of PortugueseSpeaking Countries CPLP as a forum for cultural exchange and expanding ties with Portugal its former ruler and Brazil which shares many cultural affinities with Angola in particular. Angola is a member of the Port Management Association of Eastern and Southern Africa PMAESA.
Africa
Americas
Asia
Europe
Oceania
See also
List of diplomatic missions in Angola
List of diplomatic missions of Angola
Visa requirements for Angolan citizens
References
External links
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Albert Sidney Johnston February 2, 1803 April 6, 1862 served as a general in three different armies the Texian Army, the United States Army, and the Confederate States Army. He saw extensive combat during his 34year military career, fighting actions in the Black Hawk War, the Texas War of Independence, the MexicanAmerican War, the Utah War, and the American Civil War.
Considered by Confederate States President Jefferson Davis to be the finest general officer in the Confederacy before the later emergence of Robert E. Lee, he was killed early in the Civil War at the Battle of Shiloh on April 6, 1862. Johnston was the highestranking Confederate officer killed during the entire war. Davis believed the loss of General Johnston "was the turning point of our fate."
Johnston was unrelated to Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston.
Early life and education
Johnston was born in Washington, Kentucky, the youngest son of Dr. John and Abigail Harris Johnston. His father was a native of Salisbury, Connecticut. Although
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Albert Johnston was born in Kentucky, he lived much of his life in Texas, which he considered his home. He was first educated at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, where he met fellow student Jefferson Davis. Both were appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, Davis two years behind Johnston. In 1826, Johnston graduated eighth of 41 cadets in his class from West Point with a commission as a brevet second lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Infantry.
Johnston was assigned to posts in New York and Missouri and served in the brief Black Hawk War in 1832 as chief of staff to Bvt. Brig. Gen. Henry Atkinson.
Marriage and family
In 1829, he married Henrietta Preston, sister of Kentucky politician and future Civil War general William Preston. They had one son, William Preston Johnston, who became a colonel in the Confederate States Army. The senior Johnston resigned his commission in 1834 in order to care for his dying wife in Kentucky, who succumbed two years later to tuberculo
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sis.
After serving as Secretary of War for the Republic of Texas from 1838 to 1840, Johnston resigned and returned to Kentucky. In 1843, he married Eliza Griffin, his late wife's first cousin. The couple moved to Texas, where they settled on a large plantation in Brazoria County. Johnston named the property "China Grove". Here they raised Johnston's two children from his first marriage and the first three children born to Eliza and him. A sixth child was born later when the family lived in Los Angeles, where they had permanently settled.
Texian Army
In 1836, Johnston moved to Texas. He enlisted as a private in the Texian Army during the Texas War of Independence from the Republic of Mexico. He was named Adjutant General as a colonel in the Republic of Texas Army on August 5, 1836. On January 31, 1837, he became senior brigadier general in command of the Texas Army.
On February 5, 1837, he fought in a duel with Texas Brig. Gen. Felix Huston, who was angered and offended by Johnston's promotion. Johnston wa
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s shot through the hip and severely wounded, requiring him to relinquish his post during his recovery.
On December 22, 1838, Mirabeau B. Lamar, the second president of the Republic of Texas, appointed Johnston as Secretary of War. He provided for the defense of the Texas border against Mexican invasion, and in 1839 conducted a campaign against Indians in northern Texas. In February 1840, he resigned and returned to Kentucky.
United States Army
Johnston returned to Texas during the MexicanAmerican War 18461848, under General Zachary Taylor as a colonel of the 1st Texas Rifle Volunteers. The Polk administration's preference for officers associated with the Democratic Party prevented the promotion of those, such as Johnston, who were perceived as Whigs
The enlistments of Johnston's volunteers ran out just before the Battle of Monterrey. Johnston convinced a few volunteers to stay and fight as he served as the inspector general of volunteers and fought at the battles of Monterrey and Buena Vista. Future U
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nion general, Joseph Hooker, was with Johnston at Monterrey. Hooker wrote "It was through Johnston's agency, mainly, that our division was saved from a cruel slaughter... The coolness and magnificent presence that he displayed on this field... left an impression on my mind that I have never forgotten."
He remained on his plantation after the war until he was appointed by later 12th president Zachary Taylor to the U.S. Army as a major and was made a paymaster in December 1849. He served in that role for more than five years, making six tours, and traveling more than annually on the Indian frontier of Texas. He served on the Texas frontier at Fort Mason and elsewhere in the West.
In 1855, 14th president Franklin Pierce appointed him colonel of the new 2nd U.S. Cavalry the unit that preceded the modern 5th U.S., a new regiment, which he organized, his lieutenant colonel being Robert E. Lee, and his majors William J. Hardee and George H. Thomas. Other subordinates in this unit included Earl Van Dorn, Edmund Ki
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rby Smith, Nathan G. Evans, Innis N. Palmer, George Stoneman, R.W. Johnson, John B. Hood, and Charles W. Field, all future Civil War generals.
Utah War
As a key figure in the Utah War, Johnston took command of the U.S forces in November 1857. This army was sent to install Alfred Cummings as governor of the Utah territory, in place of Brigham Young. After the army wintered at Fort Bridger, Wyoming, a peaceful resolution was reached and in late June 1858 Johnston led the army through Salt Lake city without incident to establish Camp Floyd some 50 miles distant. He received a brevet promotion to brigadier general in 1857 for his service in Utah. He spent 1860 in Kentucky until December 21, when he sailed for California to take command of the Department of the Pacific.
Slavery
Johnston was a proponent of slavery and a slaveholder. In 1846, he owned a family of four slaves in Texas. In 1855, having discovered that a slave was stealing from the army payroll, Johnston refused to have him physically punished and i
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nstead sold him for 1,000 to recoup the losses. Johnston explained that "whipping will not restore what is lost and it will not benefit the culprit, whom a lifetime of kind treatment has failed to make honest." In 1856, he called abolitionism "fanatical, idolotrous, negro worshipping" in a letter to his son, fearing that the abolitionists would incite a servile insurrection in the South. Upon moving to California, Johnston sold one slave to his son and freed another, Randolph or "Ran," who desired to accompany the family, on the condition of a 12month contract for five more years of servitude. Ran accompanied Johnston throughout the Civil War, up until the latter's death. Johnston's wife, Eliza, celebrated the lack of black people in California, writing "where the darky is in any numbers it should be as slaves."
Civil War
At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Johnston was the commander of the U.S. Army Department of the Pacific in California. Like many regular army officers from the South, he was oppo
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sed to secession. But he resigned his commission soon after he heard of the secession of the Southern states. It was accepted by the War Department on May 6, 1861, effective May 3. On April 28 he moved to Los Angeles, the home of his wife's brother John Griffin. Considering staying in California with his wife and five children, Johnston remained there until May. A sixth child was born in the family home at Los Angeles, where his eldest son, Capt. Albert S. Johnston, Jr. was later killed in an accidental explosion on a steamer ship while on liberty, in 1863.
Soon, Johnston enlisted in the Los Angeles Mounted Rifles as a private, leaving Warner's Ranch May 27. He participated in their trek across the southwestern deserts to Texas, crossing the Colorado River into the Confederate Territory of Arizona on July 4, 1861. His escort was commanded by Alonzo Ridley, Undersheriff of Los Angeles, who remained at Johnston's side until he was killed.
Early in the Civil War, Confederate President Jefferson Davis decided
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that the Confederacy would attempt to hold as much of its territory as possible, and therefore distributed military forces around its borders and coasts. In the summer of 1861, Davis appointed several generals to defend Confederate lines from the Mississippi River east to the Allegheny Mountains.
The most sensitive, and in many ways the most crucial areas, along the Mississippi River and in western Tennessee along the Tennessee and the Cumberland rivers were placed under the command of Maj. Gen. Leonidas Polk and Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow. The latter had initially been in command in Tennessee as that State's top general. Their impolitic occupation of Columbus, Kentucky, on September 3, 1861, two days before Johnston arrived in the Confederacy's capital of Richmond, Virginia, after his crosscountry journey, drove Kentucky from its stated neutrality. The majority of Kentuckians allied with the Union camp. Polk and Pillow's action gave Union Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant an excuse to take control of the strate
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gically located town of Paducah, Kentucky, without raising the ire of most Kentuckians and the proUnion majority in the State legislature.
Confederate command in Western Theater
On September 10, 1861, Johnston was assigned to command the huge area of the Confederacy west of the Allegheny Mountains, except for coastal areas. He became commander of the Confederacy's western armies in the area often called the Western Department or Western Military Department. Johnston's appointment as a full general by his friend and admirer Jefferson Davis already had been confirmed by the Confederate Senate on August 31, 1861. The appointment had been backdated to rank from May 30, 1861, making him the second highest ranking general in the Confederate States Army. Only Adjutant General and Inspector General Samuel Cooper ranked ahead of him. After his appointment, Johnston immediately headed for his new territory. He was permitted to call on governors of Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi for new troops, although this autho
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rity was largely stifled by politics, especially with respect to Mississippi. On September 13, 1861, Johnston ordered Brig. Gen. Felix Zollicoffer with 4,000 men to occupy Cumberland Gap in Kentucky in order to block Union troops from coming into eastern Tennessee. The Kentucky legislature had voted to side with the Union after the occupation of Columbus by Polk. By September 18, Johnston had Brig. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner with another 4,000 men blocking the railroad route to Tennessee at Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Johnston had fewer than 40,000 men spread throughout Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and Missouri. Of these, 10,000 were in Missouri under Missouri State Guard Maj. Gen. Sterling Price. Johnston did not quickly gain many recruits when he first requested them from the governors, but his more serious problem was lacking sufficient arms and ammunition for the troops he already had. As the Confederate government concentrated efforts on the units in the East, they gave Johnston small numbers of reinforce
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ments and minimal amounts of arms and material. Johnston maintained his defense by conducting raids and other measures to make it appear he had larger forces than he did, a strategy that worked for several months. Johnston's tactics had so annoyed and confused Union Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in Kentucky that he became paranoid and mentally unstable. Sherman overestimated Johnston's forces, and had to be relieved by Brig. Gen. Don Carlos Buell on November 9, 1861. However, in his Memoirs Sherman strongly refutes this account.
Battle of Mill Springs
East Tennessee a heavily proUnion region of the South during the Civil War was held for the Confederacy by two unimpressive brigadier generals appointed by Jefferson Davis Felix Zollicoffer, a brave but untrained and inexperienced officer, and soontobe Maj. Gen. George B. Crittenden, a former U.S. Army officer with apparent alcohol problems. While Crittenden was away in Richmond, Zollicoffer moved his forces to the north bank of the upper Cumberland River
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near Mill Springs now Nancy, Kentucky, putting the river to his back and his forces into a trap. Zollicoffer decided it was impossible to obey orders to return to the other side of the river because of scarcity of transport and proximity of Union troops. When Union Brig. Gen. George H. Thomas moved against the Confederates, Crittenden decided to attack one of the two parts of Thomas's command at Logan's Cross Roads near Mill Springs before the Union forces could unite. At the Battle of Mill Springs on January 19, 1862, the illprepared Confederates, after a night march in the rain, attacked the Union force with some initial success. As the battle progressed, Zollicoffer was killed, Crittenden was unable to lead the Confederate force he may have been intoxicated, and the Confederates were turned back and routed by a Union bayonet charge, suffering 533 casualties from their force of 4,000. The Confederate troops who escaped were assigned to other units as General Crittenden faced an investigation of his conduct
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.
After the Confederate defeat at the Mill Springs, Davis sent Johnston a brigade and a few other scattered reinforcements. He also assigned him Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard, who was supposed to attract recruits because of his victories early in the war, and act as a competent subordinate for Johnston. The brigade was led by Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd, considered incompetent. He took command at Fort Donelson as the senior general present just before Union Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant attacked the fort. Historians believe the assignment of Beauregard to the west stimulated Union commanders to attack the forts before Beauregard could make a difference in the theater. Union officers heard that he was bringing 15 regiments with him, but this was an exaggeration of his forces.
Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Nashville
Based on the assumption that Kentucky neutrality would act as a shield against a direct invasion from the north, circumstances that no longer applied in September 1861, Tennessee initially had sent men to Virg
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inia and concentrated defenses in the Mississippi Valley. Even before Johnston arrived in Tennessee, construction of two forts had been started to defend the Tennessee and the Cumberland rivers, which provided avenues into the State from the north. Both forts were located in Tennessee in order to respect Kentucky neutrality, but these were not in ideal locations. Fort Henry on the Tennessee River was in an unfavorable lowlying location, commanded by hills on the Kentucky side of the river. Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River, although in a better location, had a vulnerable land side and did not have enough heavy artillery to defend against gunboats.
Maj. Gen. Polk ignored the problems of the forts when he took command. After Johnston took command, Polk at first refused to comply with Johnston's order to send an engineer, Lt. Joseph K. Dixon, to inspect the forts. After Johnston asserted his authority, Polk had to allow Dixon to proceed. Dixon recommended that the forts be maintained and strengthened, altho
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ugh they were not in ideal locations, because much work had been done on them and the Confederates might not have time to build new ones. Johnston accepted his recommendations. Johnston wanted Major Alexander P. Stewart to command the forts but President Davis appointed Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman as commander.
To prevent Polk from dissipating his forces by allowing some men to join a partisan group, Johnston ordered him to send Brig. Gen. Gideon Pillow and 5,000 men to Fort Donelson. Pillow took up a position at nearby Clarksville, Tennessee and did not move into the fort until February 7, 1862. Alerted by a Union reconnaissance on January 14, 1862, Johnston ordered Tilghman to fortify the high ground opposite Fort Henry, which Polk had failed to do despite Johnston's orders. Tilghman failed to act decisively on these orders, which in any event were too late to be adequately carried out.
Gen. Beauregard arrived at Johnston's headquarters at Bowling Green on February 4, 1862, and was given overall command of
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Polk's force at the western end of Johnston's line at Columbus, Kentucky. On February 6, 1862, Union Navy gunboats quickly reduced the defenses of illsited Fort Henry, inflicting 21 casualties on the small remaining Confederate force. Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman surrendered the 94 remaining officers and men of his approximately 3,000man force which had not been sent to Fort Donelson before U.S. Grant's force could even take up their positions. Johnston knew he could be trapped at Bowling Green if Fort Donelson fell, so he moved his force to Nashville, the capital of Tennessee and an increasingly important Confederate industrial center, beginning on February 11, 1862.
Johnston also reinforced Fort Donelson with 12,000 more men, including those under Floyd and Pillow, a curious decision in view of his thought that the Union gunboats alone might be able to take the fort. He did order the commanders of the fort to evacuate the troops if the fort could not be held. The senior generals sent to the fort to command th
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e enlarged garrison, Gideon J. Pillow and John B. Floyd, squandered their chance to avoid having to surrender most of the garrison and on February 16, 1862, Brig. Gen. Simon Buckner, having been abandoned by Floyd and Pillow, surrendered Fort Donelson. Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest escaped with his cavalry force of about 700 men before the surrender. The Confederates suffered about 1,500 casualties with an estimated 12,000 to 14,000 taken prisoner. Union casualties were 500 killed, 2,108 wounded, 224 missing.
Johnston, who had little choice in allowing Floyd and Pillow to take charge at Fort Donelson on the basis of seniority after he ordered them to add their forces to the garrison, took the blame and suffered calls for his removal because a full explanation to the press and public would have exposed the weakness of the Confederate position. His passive defensive performance while positioning himself in a forward position at Bowling Green, spreading his forces too thinly, not concentrating his forces in th
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e face of Union advances, and appointing or relying upon inadequate or incompetent subordinates subjected him to criticism at the time and by later historians. The fall of the forts exposed Nashville to imminent attack, and it fell without resistance to Union forces under Brig. Gen. Buell on February 25, 1862, two days after Johnston had to pull his forces out in order to avoid having them captured as well.
Concentration at Corinth
Johnston had various remaining military units scattered throughout his territory and retreating to the south to avoid being cut off. Johnston himself retreated with the force under his personal command, the Army of Central Kentucky, from the vicinity of Nashville. With Beauregard's help, Johnston decided to concentrate forces with those formerly under Polk and now already under Beauregard's command at the strategically located railroad crossroads of Corinth, Mississippi, which he reached by a circuitous route. Johnston kept the Union forces, now under the overall command of the po
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nderous Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck, confused and hesitant to move, allowing Johnston to reach his objective undetected. This delay allowed Jefferson Davis finally to send reinforcements from the garrisons of coastal cities and another highly rated but prickly general, Braxton Bragg, to help organize the western forces. Bragg at least calmed the nerves of Beauregard and Polk, who had become agitated by their apparent dire situation in the face of numerically superior forces, before Johnston's arrival on March 24, 1862.
Johnston's army of 17,000 men gave the Confederates a combined force of about 40,000 to 44,669 men at Corinth. On March 29, 1862, Johnston officially took command of this combined force, which continued to use the Army of the Mississippi name under which it had been organized by Beauregard on March 5.
Johnston now planned to defeat the Union forces piecemeal before the various Union units in Kentucky and Tennessee under Grant with 40,000 men at nearby Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, and the now Maj
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. Gen. Don Carlos Buell on his way from Nashville with 35,000 men, could unite against him. Johnston started his army in motion on April 3, 1862, intent on surprising Grant's force as soon as the next day, but they moved slowly due to their inexperience, bad roads, and lack of adequate staff planning. Due to the delays, as well as several contacts with the enemy, Johnston's second in command, P. G. T. Beauregard, felt the element of surprise had been lost and recommended calling off the attack. Johnston decided to proceed as planned, stating "I would fight them if they were a million." His army was finally in position within a mile or two of Grant's force, and undetected, by the evening of April 5, 1862.
Battle of Shiloh and death
Johnston launched a massive surprise attack with his concentrated forces against Grant at the Battle of Shiloh on April 6, 1862. As the Confederate forces overran the Union camps, Johnston personally rallied troops up and down the line on his horse. One of his most famous moment
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s in the battle occurred when he witnessed some of his soldiers breaking from the ranks to pillage and loot the Union camps, and was outraged to see a young lieutenant among them. "None of that, sir," Johnston roared at the officer, "we are not here for plunder." Then, realizing he had embarrassed the man, he picked up a tin cup off a table and announced, "Let this be my share of the spoils today," before directing his army onward.
At about 230 pm, while leading one of those charges against a Union camp near the "Peach Orchard," he was wounded, taking a bullet behind his right knee. The bullet clipped a part of his popliteal artery and his boot filled up with blood. There were no medical personnel on scene at the time, since Johnston had sent his personal surgeon to care for the wounded Confederate troops and Union prisoners earlier in the battle.
Within a few minutes, Johnston was observed by his staff to be nearly fainting. Among his staff was Isham G. Harris, the Governor of Tennessee, who had ceased
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to make any real effort to function as governor after learning that Abraham Lincoln had appointed Andrew Johnson as military governor of Tennessee. Seeing Johnston slumping in his saddle and his face turning deathly pale, Harris asked "General, are you wounded?" Johnston glanced down at his leg wound, then faced Harris and replied in a weak voice his last words "Yes... and I fear seriously." Harris and other staff officers removed Johnston from his horse and carried him to a small ravine near the "Hornets Nest" and desperately tried to aid the general, who had lost consciousness by this point. Harris then sent an aide to fetch Johnston's surgeon but did not apply a tourniquet to Johnson's wounded leg. A few minutes later, before a doctor could be found, Johnston died from blood loss. It is believed that Johnston may have lived for as long as one hour after receiving his fatal wound. Ironically, it was later discovered that Johnston had a tourniquet in his pocket when he died.
Harris and the other officers w
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rapped General Johnston's body in a blanket so as not to damage the troops' morale with the sight of the dead general. Johnston and his wounded horse, Fire Eater, were taken to his field headquarters on the Corinth road, where his body remained in his tent for the remainder of the battle. P. G. T. Beauregard assumed command of the army and resumed leading the Confederate assault, which continued advancing and pushed the Union force back to a final defensive line near the Tennessee river. With his army exhausted and daylight almost gone, Beauregard called off the final Confederate attack around 1900 hours, figuring he could finish off the Union army the following morning. However, Grant was reinforced by 20,000 fresh troops from Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Ohio during the night, and led a successful counterattack the following day, driving the Confederates from the field and winning the battle. As the Confederate army retreated back to Corinth, Johnston's body was taken to the home of Colonel William In
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ge, which had been his headquarters in Corinth. It was covered in the Confederate flag and lay in state for several hours.
It is possible that a Confederate soldier fired the fatal round, as many Confederates were firing at the Union lines while Johnston charged well in advance of his soldiers. Alonzo Ridley of Los Angeles commanded the bodyguard the Guides of Gen. A. S. Johnston, and was by his side when he fell.
Johnston was the highestranking fatality of the war on either side, and his death was a strong blow to the morale of the Confederacy. At the time, Davis considered him the best general in the country.
Legacy and honors
Johnston was survived by his wife Eliza and six children. His wife and five younger children, including one born after he went to war, chose to live out their days at home in Los Angeles with Eliza's brother, Dr. John Strother Griffin. Johnston's eldest son, Albert Sidney Jr. born in Texas, had already followed him into the Confederate States Army. In 1863, after taking home lea
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ve in Los Angeles, Albert Jr. was on his way out of San Pedro harbor on a ferry. While a steamer was taking on passengers from the ferry, a wave swamped the smaller boat, causing its boilers to explode. Albert Jr. was killed in the accident.
Upon his passing General Johnston received the highest praise ever given by the Confederate government accounts were published, on December 20, 1862, and thereafter, in the Los Angeles Star of his family's hometown. Johnston Street, Hancock Street, and Griffin Avenue, each in northeast Los Angeles, are named after the general and his family, who lived in the neighborhood.
Johnston was initially buried in New Orleans. In 1866, a joint resolution of the Texas Legislature was passed to have his body moved and reinterred at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. The reinterment occurred in 1867. Forty years later, the state appointed Elisabet Ney to design a monument and sculpture of him to be erected at the grave site, installed in 1905.
The Texas Historical Commission has
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erected a historical marker near the entrance of what was once Johnston's plantation. An adjacent marker was erected by the San Jacinto Chapter of the Daughters of The Republic of Texas and the Lee, Roberts, and Davis Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederate States of America.
In 1916, the University of Texas at Austin recognized several confederate veterans including Johnston with statues on its South Mall. On August 21, 2017, as part of the wave of confederate monument removals in America, Johnston's statue was taken down. Plans were announced to add it to the Briscoe Center for American History on the east side of the university campus.
Johnston was inducted to the Texas Military Hall of Honor in 1980.
In the fall of 2018, A.S. Johnston Elementary School in Dallas, Texas, was renamed Cedar Crest Elementary. Johnston Middle School in Houston, Texas was also renamed to Meyerland Middle School. Three additional elementary schools named for Confederate veterans were renamed at the same time.
See
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also
List of American Civil War generals Confederate
List of Confederate monuments and memorials
Notes
References
Beauregard, G. T. The Campaign of Shiloh. p. 579. In Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, vol. I, edited by Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence C. Buel. New York Century Co., 18841888. .
Dupuy, Trevor N., Curt Johnson, and David L. Bongard. Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography. New York HarperCollins, 1992. .
Hattaway, Herman, and Archer Jones. How the North Won A Military History of the Civil War. Urbana University of Illinois Press, 1983. .
Long, E. B. The Civil War Day by Day An Almanac, 18611865. Garden City, NY Doubleday, 1971. .
Further reading
External links
Eliza Johnston, Wife Of Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston
Albert Sidney Johnston at Handbook of Texas Online
1803 births
1862 deaths
Confederate States military personnel killed in the American Civil War
Deaths from bleeding
Burials at Texas State Cemetery
Confederate States Army
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full generals
People from Washington, Kentucky
People from Texas
People of California in the American Civil War
People of Texas in the American Civil War
American people of the Black Hawk War
Transylvania University alumni
United States Army generals
United States Military Academy alumni
People of the Texas Revolution
People of the Utah War
United States politicians killed during the Civil War
Preston family of Virginia
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An android is a humanoid robot or other artificial being often made from a fleshlike material. Historically, androids were completely within the domain of science fiction and frequently seen in film and television, but recent advances in robot technology now allow the design of functional and realistic humanoid robots.
While the term "android" is used in reference to humanlooking robots in general not necessarily malelooking humanoid robots, a robot with a female appearance can also be referred to as a gynoid. Besides one can refer to robots without alluding to their sexual appearance by calling them anthrobots merging the radical anthrpos and the word robot; see anthrobotics or anthropoids short for anthropoid robots; the term humanoids is not appropriate because it is already commonly used to refer to humanlike organic species in the context of scientific fiction, futurism and speculative astrobiology.
Etymology
The Oxford English Dictionary traces the earliest use as "Androides" to Ephraim Chambers' 17
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28 Cyclopaedia, in reference to an automaton that St. Albertus Magnus allegedly created. By the late 1700s, "androides", elaborate mechanical devices resembling humans performing human activities, were displayed in exhibit halls.
The term "android" appears in US patents as early as 1863 in reference to miniature humanlike toy automatons. The term android was used in a more modern sense by the French author Auguste Villiers de l'IsleAdam in his work Tomorrow's Eve 1886. This story features an artificial humanlike robot named Hadaly. As said by the officer in the story, "In this age of Realien advancement, who knows what goes on in the mind of those responsible for these mechanical dolls." The term made an impact into English pulp science fiction starting from Jack Williamson's The Cometeers 1936 and the distinction between mechanical robots and fleshy androids was popularized by Edmond Hamilton's Captain Future stories 19401944.
Although Karel apek's robots in R.U.R. Rossum's Universal Robots 1921the play tha
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t introduced the word robot to the worldwere organic artificial humans, the word "robot" has come to primarily refer to mechanical humans, animals, and other beings. The term "android" can mean either one of these, while a cyborg "cybernetic organism" or "bionic man" would be a creature that is a combination of organic and mechanical parts.
The term "droid", popularized by George Lucas in the original Star Wars film and now used widely within science fiction, originated as an abridgment of "android", but has been used by Lucas and others to mean any robot, including distinctly nonhuman form machines like R2D2. The word "android" was used in Star Trek The Original Series episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" The abbreviation "andy", coined as a pejorative by writer Philip K. Dick in his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, has seen some further usage, such as within the TV series Total Recall 2070.
Authors have used the term android in more diverse ways than robot or cyborg. In some fictional works
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, the difference between a robot and android is only superficial, with androids being made to look like humans on the outside but with robotlike internal mechanics. In other stories, authors have used the word "android" to mean a wholly organic, yet artificial, creation. Other fictional depictions of androids fall somewhere in between.
Eric G. Wilson, who defines an android as a "synthetic human being", distinguishes between three types of android, based on their body's composition
the mummy type made of "dead things" or "stiff, inanimate, natural material", such as mummies, puppets, dolls and statues
the golem type made from flexible, possibly organic material, including golems and homunculi
the automaton type made from a mix of dead and living parts, including automatons and robots
Although human morphology is not necessarily the ideal form for working robots, the fascination in developing robots that can mimic it can be found historically in the assimilation of two concepts simulacra devices that
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exhibit likeness and automata devices that have independence.
Projects
Several projects aiming to create androids that look, and, to a certain degree, speak or act like a human being have been launched or are underway.
Japan
Japanese robotics have been leading the field since the 1970s. Waseda University initiated the WABOT project in 1967, and in 1972 completed the WABOT1, the first android, a fullscale humanoid intelligent robot. Its limb control system allowed it to walk with the lower limbs, and to grip and transport objects with hands, using tactile sensors. Its vision system allowed it to measure distances and directions to objects using external receptors, artificial eyes and ears. And its conversation system allowed it to communicate with a person in Japanese, with an artificial mouth.
In 1984, WABOT2 was revealed, and made a number of improvements. It was capable of playing the organ. Wabot2 had ten fingers and two feet, and was able to read a score of music. It was also able to accompany a perso
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n. In 1986, Honda began its humanoid research and development program, to create humanoid robots capable of interacting successfully with humans.
The Intelligent Robotics Lab, directed by Hiroshi Ishiguro at Osaka University, and the Kokoro company demonstrated the Actroid at Expo 2005 in Aichi Prefecture, Japan and released the Telenoid R1 in 2010. In 2006, Kokoro developed a new DER 2 android. The height of the human body part of DER2 is 165 cm. There are 47 mobile points. DER2 can not only change its expression but also move its hands and feet and twist its body. The "air servosystem" which Kokoro developed originally is used for the actuator. As a result of having an actuator controlled precisely with air pressure via a servosystem, the movement is very fluid and there is very little noise. DER2 realized a slimmer body than that of the former version by using a smaller cylinder. Outwardly DER2 has a more beautiful proportion. Compared to the previous model, DER2 has thinner arms and a wider repertoire of
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expressions. Once programmed, it is able to choreograph its motions and gestures with its voice.
The Intelligent Mechatronics Lab, directed by Hiroshi Kobayashi at the Tokyo University of Science, has developed an android head called Saya, which was exhibited at Robodex 2002 in Yokohama, Japan. There are several other initiatives around the world involving humanoid research and development at this time, which will hopefully introduce a broader spectrum of realized technology in the near future. Now Saya is working at the Science University of Tokyo as a guide.
The Waseda University Japan and NTT Docomo's manufacturers have succeeded in creating a shapeshifting robot WD2. It is capable of changing its face. At first, the creators decided the positions of the necessary points to express the outline, eyes, nose, and so on of a certain person. The robot expresses its face by moving all points to the decided positions, they say. The first version of the robot was first developed back in 2003. After that, a year
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later, they made a couple of major improvements to the design. The robot features an elastic mask made from the average head dummy. It uses a driving system with a 3DOF unit. The WD2 robot can change its facial features by activating specific facial points on a mask, with each point possessing three degrees of freedom. This one has 17 facial points, for a total of 56 degrees of freedom. As for the materials they used, the WD2's mask is fabricated with a highly elastic material called Septom, with bits of steel wool mixed in for added strength. Other technical features reveal a shaft driven behind the mask at the desired facial point, driven by a DC motor with a simple pulley and a slide screw. Apparently, the researchers can also modify the shape of the mask based on actual human faces. To "copy" a face, they need only a 3D scanner to determine the locations of an individual's 17 facial points. After that, they are then driven into position using a laptop and 56 motor control boards. In addition, the researc
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hers also mention that the shifting robot can even display an individual's hair style and skin color if a photo of their face is projected onto the 3D Mask.
Singapore
Prof Nadia Thalmann, a Nanyang Technological University scientist, directed efforts of the Institute for Media Innovation along with the School of Computer Engineering in the development of a social robot, Nadine. Nadine is powered by software similar to Apple's Siri or Microsoft's Cortana. Nadine may become a personal assistant in offices and homes in future, or she may become a companion for the young and the elderly.
Assoc Prof Gerald Seet from the School of Mechanical Aerospace Engineering and the BeingThere Centre led a threeyear RD development in telepresence robotics, creating EDGAR. A remote user can control EDGAR with the user's face and expressions displayed on the robot's face in real time. The robot also mimics their upper body movements.
South Korea
KITECH researched and developed EveR1, an android interpersonal communications
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model capable of emulating human emotional expression via facial "musculature" and capable of rudimentary conversation, having a vocabulary of around 400 words. She is tall and weighs , matching the average figure of a Korean woman in her twenties. EveR1's name derives from the Biblical Eve, plus the letter r for robot. EveR1's advanced computing processing power enables speech recognition and vocal synthesis, at the same time processing lip synchronization and visual recognition by 90degree microCCD cameras with face recognition technology. An independent microchip inside her artificial brain handles gesture expression, body coordination, and emotion expression. Her whole body is made of highly advanced synthetic jelly silicon and with 60 artificial joints in her face, neck, and lower body; she is able to demonstrate realistic facial expressions and sing while simultaneously dancing. In South Korea, the Ministry of Information and Communication has an ambitious plan to put a robot in every household by 2020
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. Several robot cities have been planned for the country the first will be built in 2016 at a cost of 500 billion won US440 million, of which 50 billion is direct government investment. The new robot city will feature research and development centers for manufacturers and part suppliers, as well as exhibition halls and a stadium for robot competitions. The country's new Robotics Ethics Charter will establish ground rules and laws for human interaction with robots in the future, setting standards for robotics users and manufacturers, as well as guidelines on ethical standards to be programmed into robots to prevent human abuse of robots and vice versa.
United States
Walt Disney and a staff of Imagineers created Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln that debuted at the 1964 New York World's Fair.
Dr. William Barry, an Education Futurist and former visiting West Point Professor of Philosophy and Ethical Reasoning at the United States Military Academy, created an AI android character named "Maria Bot". This Interface
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AI android was named after the infamous fictional robot Maria in the 1927 film Metropolis, as a wellbehaved distant relative. Maria Bot is the first AI Android Teaching Assistant at the university level. Maria Bot has appeared as a keynote speaker as a duo with Barry for a TEDx talk in Everett, Washington in February 2020.
Resembling a human from the shoulders up, Maria Bot is a virtual being android that has complex facial expressions and head movement and engages in conversation about a variety of subjects. She uses AI to process and synthesize information to make her own decisions on how to talk and engage. She collects data through conversations, direct data inputs such as books or articles, and through internet sources.
Maria Bot was built by an international hightech company for Barry to help improve education quality and eliminate education poverty. Maria Bot is designed to create new ways for students to engage and discuss ethical issues raised by the increasing presence of robots and artificial int
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elligence. Barry also uses Maria Bot to demonstrate that programming a robot with lifeaffirming, ethical framework makes them more likely to help humans to do the same.
Maria Bot is an ambassador robot for good and ethical AI technology.
Hanson Robotics, Inc., of Texas and KAIST produced an android portrait of Albert Einstein, using Hanson's facial android technology mounted on KAIST's lifesize walking bipedal robot body. This Einstein android, also called "Albert Hubo", thus represents the first fullbody walking android in history. Hanson Robotics, the FedEx Institute of Technology, and the University of Texas at Arlington also developed the android portrait of scifi author Philip K. Dick creator of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the basis for the film Blade Runner, with full conversational capabilities that incorporated thousands of pages of the author's works. In 2005, the PKD android won a firstplace artificial intelligence award from AAAI.
Use in fiction
Androids are a staple of science fictio
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n. Isaac Asimov pioneered the fictionalization of the science of robotics and artificial intelligence, notably in his 1950s series I, Robot. One thing common to most fictional androids is that the reallife technological challenges associated with creating thoroughly humanlike robotssuch as the creation of strong artificial intelligenceare assumed to have been solved. Fictional androids are often depicted as mentally and physically equal or superior to humansmoving, thinking and speaking as fluidly as them.
The tension between the nonhuman substance and the human appearanceor even human ambitionsof androids is the dramatic impetus behind most of their fictional depictions. Some android heroes seek, like Pinocchio, to become human, as in the film Bicentennial Man, or Data in Star Trek The Next Generation. Others, as in the film Westworld, rebel against abuse by careless humans. Android hunter Deckard in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and its film adaptation Blade Runner discovers that his targets appear
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to be, in some ways, more "human" than he is. Android stories, therefore, are not essentially stories "about" androids; they are stories about the human condition and what it means to be human.
One aspect of writing about the meaning of humanity is to use discrimination against androids as a mechanism for exploring racism in society, as in Blade Runner. Perhaps the clearest example of this is John Brunner's 1968 novel Into the Slave Nebula, where the blueskinned android slaves are explicitly shown to be fully human. More recently, the androids Bishop and Annalee Call in the films Aliens and Alien Resurrection are used as vehicles for exploring how humans deal with the presence of an "Other". The 2018 video game Detroit Become Human also explores how androids are treated as second class citizens in a near future society.
Female androids, or "gynoids", are often seen in science fiction, and can be viewed as a continuation of the long tradition of men attempting to create the stereotypical "perfect woman". Exa
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mples include the Greek myth of Pygmalion and the female robot Maria in Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Some gynoids, like Pris in Blade Runner, are designed as sexobjects, with the intent of "pleasing men's violent sexual desires", or as submissive, servile companions, such as in The Stepford Wives. Fiction about gynoids has therefore been described as reinforcing "essentialist ideas of femininity", although others have suggested that the treatment of androids is a way of exploring racism and misogyny in society.
The 2015 Japanese film Sayonara, starring Geminoid F, was promoted as "the first movie to feature an android performing opposite a human actor".
See also
References
Further reading
Kerman, Judith B. 1991. Retrofitting Blade Runner Issues in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Bowling Green, OH Bowling Green State University Popular Press. .
Perkowitz, Sidney 2004. Digital People From Bionic Humans to Androids. Joseph Henry Press. .
Shelde, Per 1993.
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Androids, Humanoids, and Other Science Fiction Monsters Science and Soul in Science Fiction Films. New York New York University Press. .
Ishiguro, Hiroshi. "Android science." Cognitive Science Society. 2005.
Glaser, Horst Albert and Rossbach, Sabine The Artificial Human, FrankfurtM., Bern, New York 2011 "The Artificial Human"
TechCast Article Series, Jason Rupinski and Richard Mix, "Public Attitudes to Androids Robot Gender, Tasks, Pricing"
Android, "Similar to the Android name"
Carpenter, J. 2009. Why send the Terminator to do R2D2s job? Designing androids as rhetorical phenomena. Proceedings of HCI 2009 Beyond Gray Droids Domestic Robot Design for the 21st Century. Cambridge, UK. 1 September.
Telotte, J.P. Replications A Robotic History of the Science Fiction Film. University of Illinois Press, 1995.
External links
Japanese inventions
South Korean inventions
Osaka University research
Science fiction themes
Humanmachine interaction
Robots
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Alberta is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Territories NWT to the north, and the U.S. state of Montana to the south. It is one of the only two landlocked provinces in Canada. The eastern part of the province is occupied by the Great Plains, while the western part borders the Rocky Mountains. The province has a predominantly continental climate but experiences quick temperature changes due to air aridity. Seasonal temperature swings are less pronounced in western Alberta due to occasional chinook winds.
Alberta is the 4th largest province by area at , and the 4th most populous, being home to 4,262,635 people. Alberta's capital is Edmonton, while Calgary is its largest city. The two are Alberta's largest census metropolitan areas CMAs and both exceed one million people. More than half of Albertans live in either Edmonton
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or Calgary, which contributes to continuing the rivalry between the two cities. English is the official language of the province. In 2016, 76.0 of Albertans were anglophone, 1.8 were francophone and 22.2 were allophone.
The oil and gas industry is also a part of the province's identity. Alberta's economy is based on hydrocarbons, petrochemical industries, livestock, agriculture and frontier technologies. The oil industry has been a pillar of Alberta's economy since 1947, when substantial oil deposits were discovered at Leduc No. 1 well. Since Alberta is the province most rich in hydrocarbons, it provides 70 of the oil and natural gas exploited on Canadian soil. In 2018, Alberta's output was CDN338.2 billion, 15.27 of Canada's GDP.
In the past, Alberta's political landscape hosted parties like the leftwing Liberals and the agrarian United Farmers of Alberta. Today, Alberta is generally perceived as a conservative province. The rightwing Social Credit Party held office continually from 1935 to 1971 before the
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centreright Progressive Conservatives held office continually from 1971 to 2015, the latter being the longest unbroken run in government at the provincial or federal level in Canadian history.
Before becoming part of Canada, Alberta was home to several First Nations and was a territory used by fur traders of the Hudson's Bay Company. Canada acquired the lands that would become Alberta as part of the NWT on July 15, 1870. On September 1, 1905, Alberta was separated from the NWT as a result of the Alberta Act and designated the 8th province of Canada. From the late 1800s to early 1900s, many immigrants arrived, the biggest wave of which was pushed by Wilfrid Laurier, to prevent the prairies from being annexed by the United States. Massive oil resources were discovered in Alberta in 1947.
Alberta is renowned for its natural beauty, richness in fossils and for housing important nature reserves. Alberta is home to six UNESCO designated World Heritage Sites The Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks, Dinosaur Provincial
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Park, the HeadSmashedIn Buffalo Jump, WatertonGlacier International Peace Park, Wood Buffalo National Park and WritingonStone Provincial Park. Other popular sites include Banff National Park, Elk Island National Park, Jasper National Park, Waterton Lakes National Park, and Drumheller.
Etymology
Alberta was named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta 18481939, the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria. Princess Louise was the wife of John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne, Governor General of Canada 187883. Lake Louise and Mount Alberta were also named in her honour.
The name "Alberta" itself is a feminine Latinized form of Albert, the name of Princess Louise's father, the Prince Consort , masculine and its Germanic cognates, ultimately derived from the ProtoGermanic language Aalaberhtaz compound of "noble" "brightfamous".
Geography
Alberta, with an area of , is the fourthlargest province after Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia.
Alberta's southern border is the 49th parallel north, which separates it from the
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U.S. state of Montana. The 60th parallel north divides Alberta from the Northwest Territories. The 110th meridian west separates it from the province of Saskatchewan; while on the west its boundary with British Columbia follows the 120th meridian west south from the Northwest Territories at 60N until it reaches the Continental Divide at the Rocky Mountains, and from that point follows the line of peaks marking the Continental Divide in a generally southeasterly direction until it reaches the Montana border at 49N.
The province extends north to south and east to west at its maximum width. Its highest point is at the summit of Mount Columbia in the Rocky Mountains along the southwest border while its lowest point is on the Slave River in Wood Buffalo National Park in the northeast.
With the exception of the semiarid climate of the steppe in the southeastern section, the province has adequate water resources. There are numerous rivers and lakes in Alberta used for swimming, fishing and a range of water sp
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orts. There are three large lakes, Lake Claire in Wood Buffalo National Park, Lesser Slave Lake , and Lake Athabasca , which lies in both Alberta and Saskatchewan. The longest river in the province is the Athabasca River, which travels from the Columbia Icefield in the Rocky Mountains to Lake Athabasca.
The largest river is the Peace River with an average flow of . The Peace River originates in the Rocky Mountains of northern British Columbia and flows through northern Alberta and into the Slave River, a tributary of the Mackenzie River.
Alberta's capital city, Edmonton, is located at about the geographic centre of the province. It is the most northerly major city in Canada and serves as a gateway and hub for resource development in northern Canada. With its proximity to Canada's largest oil fields, the region has most of western Canada's oil refinery capacity. Calgary is about south of Edmonton and north of Montana, surrounded by extensive ranching country. Almost 75 of the province's population lives
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in the CalgaryEdmonton Corridor. The land grant policy to the railways served as a means to populate the province in its early years.
Most of the northern half of the province is boreal forest, while the Rocky Mountains along the southwestern boundary are largely temperate coniferous forests of the Alberta Mountain forests and AlbertaBritish Columbia foothills forests. The southern quarter of the province is prairie, ranging from shortgrass prairie in the southeastern corner to mixed grass prairie in an arc to the west and north of it. The central aspen parkland region extending in a broad arc between the prairies and the forests, from Calgary, north to Edmonton, and then east to Lloydminster, contains the most fertile soil in the province and most of the population. Much of the unforested part of Alberta is given over either to grain or to dairy farming, with mixed farming more common in the north and centre, while ranching and irrigated agriculture predominate in the south.
The Alberta badlands are locate
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d in southeastern Alberta, where the Red Deer River crosses the flat prairie and farmland, and features deep canyons and striking landforms. Dinosaur Provincial Park, near Brooks, showcases the badlands terrain, desert flora, and remnants from Alberta's past when dinosaurs roamed the then lush landscape.
Climate
Alberta extends for over from north to south; its climate, therefore, varies considerably. Average high temperatures in January range from in the southwest to in the far north. The presence of the Rocky Mountains also influences the climate to the southwest, which disrupts the flow of the prevailing westerly winds and cause them to drop most of their moisture on the western slopes of the mountain ranges before reaching the province, casting a rain shadow over much of Alberta. The northerly location and isolation from the weather systems of the Pacific Ocean cause Alberta to have a dry climate with little moderation from the ocean. Annual precipitation ranges from in the southeast to in the nor
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th, except in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains where total precipitation including snowfall can reach annually.
Northern Alberta is mostly covered by boreal forest and has a subarctic climate. The agricultural area of southern Alberta has a semiarid steppe climate because the annual precipitation is less than the water that evaporates or is used by plants. The southeastern corner of Alberta, part of the Palliser Triangle, experiences greater summer heat and lower rainfall than the rest of the province, and as a result, suffers frequent crop yield problems and occasional severe droughts. Western Alberta is protected by the mountains and enjoys the mild temperatures brought by winter chinook winds. Central and parts of northwestern Alberta in the Peace River region are largely aspen parkland, a biome transitional between prairie to the south and boreal forest to the north.
Alberta has a humid continental climate with warm summers and cold winters. The province is open to cold Arctic weather systems from
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the north, which often produce cold winter conditions. As the fronts between the air masses shift north and south across Alberta, the temperature can change rapidly. Arctic air masses in the winter produce extreme minimum temperatures varying from in northern Alberta to in southern Alberta, although temperatures at these extremes are rare.
In the summer, continental air masses have produced record maximum temperatures from in the mountains to over in southeastern Alberta. Alberta is a sunny province. Annual bright sunshine totals range between 1,900 up to just under 2,600 hours per year. Northern Alberta gets about 18 hours of daylight in the summer. The average daytime temperatures range from around in the Rocky Mountain valleys and far north, up to around in the dry prairie of the southeast. The northern and western parts of the province experience higher rainfall and lower evaporation rates caused by cooler summer temperatures. The south and eastcentral portions are prone to droughtlike conditions s
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ometimes persisting for several years, although even these areas can receive heavy precipitation, sometimes resulting in flooding.
In the winter, the Alberta clipper, a type of intense, fastmoving winter storm that generally forms over or near the province and, pushed with great speed by the continental polar jetstream, descends over the rest of southern Canada and the northern tier of the United States. In southwestern Alberta, the cold winters are frequently interrupted by warm, dry chinook winds blowing from the mountains, which can propel temperatures upward from frigid conditions to well above the freezing point in a very short period. During one chinook recorded at Pincher Creek, temperatures soared from in just one hour. The region around Lethbridge has the most chinooks, averaging 30 to 35 chinook days per year. Calgary has a 56 chance of a white Christmas, while Edmonton has an 86 chance.
After Saskatchewan, Alberta experiences the most tornadoes in Canada with an average of 15 verified per year.
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Thunderstorms, some of them severe, are frequent in the summer, especially in central and southern Alberta. The region surrounding the CalgaryEdmonton Corridor is notable for having the highest frequency of hail in Canada, which is caused by orographic lifting from the nearby Rocky Mountains, enhancing the updraftdowndraft cycle necessary for the formation of hail.
Ecology
Flora
In central and northern Alberta the arrival of spring is marked by the early flowering of the prairie crocus Pulsatilla nuttalliana anemone; this member of the buttercup family has been recorded flowering as early as March, though April is the usual month for the general population. Other prairie flora known to flower early are the golden bean Thermopsis rhombifolia and wild rose Rosa acicularis. Members of the sunflower Helianthus family blossom on the prairie in the summer months between July and September. The southern and east central parts of Alberta are covered by short prairie grass, which dries up as summer lengthens, to b
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e replaced by hardy perennials such as the prairie coneflower Ratibida, fleabane, and sage Artemisia. Both yellow and white sweet clover Melilotus can be found throughout the southern and central areas of the province.
The trees in the parkland region of the province grow in clumps and belts on the hillsides. These are largely deciduous, typically aspen, poplar, and willow. Many species of willow and other shrubs grow in virtually any terrain. North of the North Saskatchewan River, evergreen forests prevail for thousands of square kilometres. Aspen poplar, balsam poplar Populus balsamifera or in some parts cottonwood Populus deltoides, and paper birch Betula papyrifera are the primary large deciduous species. Conifers include jack pine Pinus banksiana, Rocky Mountain pine, lodgepole pine Pinus contorta, both white and black spruce, and the deciduous conifer tamarack Larix laricina.
Fauna
The four climatic regions alpine, boreal forest, parkland, and prairie of Alberta are home to many different species of
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