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Sifis Valirakis
Iosif (Sifis) Valirakis ( el, Ιωσήφ (Σήφης) Βαλυράκης, 12 March 1943 – 24 January 2021) was a Greek politician of the historic Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) cadre. His first name, the Greek form of Joseph, is commonly represented in its Cretan diminutive ''Sifis'' ("Joe"), by which he is popularly known. Life He was born in 1943 in Chania on the island of Crete. His father, Ioannis Valirakis, was an officer in the Hellenic Army and a member of the Centre Union party. He studied electrical engineering in Germany and Sweden, with a specialization in industrial automation. He spoke English, German and Swedish in addition to Greek. Anti-junta activity As a leading member of the anti-junta resistance and of the armed branch of the Panhellenic Liberation Movement, Valirakis was wanted by the Greek military regime for three years for bombings and was finally apprehended in 1971 and jailed by the Special Investigative Section (ETA) of the Greek Mi ...
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Cretan Greek
Cretan Greek, or the Cretan dialect ( el, Κρητική Διάλεκτος, ), is a variety of Modern Greek spoken in Crete and by the Cretan diaspora. Geographic distribution The Cretan dialect is spoken by the majority of the Cretan Greeks on the island of Crete, as well as by several thousands of Cretans who have settled in major Greek cities, most notably in Athens. The dialect also survives in the major centers of the Greek diaspora, mainly in the United States, Australia, and Germany. In addition, the descendants of many Cretan Turks, who left the island during the 19th and early 20th century, continue to use it rarely today. They constitute the majority of the overall population in Ayvalık and Cunda Island as a result of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923. There is another grouping of Cretan Turks in the coastal town of al-Hamidiyah, Syria, and in the neighboring territory of Lebanon. Some of these Cretan-speaking families moved to Cr ...
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Greek Military Police
The Greek Military Police ( el, Ελληνική Στρατιωτική Αστυνομία), generally known in Greek by the acronym ESA ( el, ΕΣΑ), was the military police branch of the Hellenic Army in the years 1951–1974. It developed into a powerful paramilitary organization and a stronghold of right-wing, conservative Army officers. It became the main security (secret police) and intelligence organization during the Greek military junta of 1967–1974. After the fall of the junta and the restoration of democracy in 1974, it was disbanded because of its brutal practices, which included the widespread use of torture. Since 1974, the Hellenic Army maintains a military police section called Stratonomia (), but its powers are far less extensive than those of ESA. Establishment The ESA was established in 1951, as Greece was preparing to join NATO. Up until then, the Greek Army did not have a specialized military police force. Being posted in the ESA was a major bonus for Army ...
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Improvised Explosive Device
An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action. It may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery shell, attached to a detonating mechanism. IEDs are commonly used as roadside bombs, or homemade bombs. IEDs are generally done in these terrorism operations or in asymmetric unconventional warfare by insurgent guerrillas or commando forces in a theatre of operations. In the Iraq War (2003–2011), insurgents used IEDs extensively against U.S.-led forces and, by the end of 2007, IEDs were responsible for approximately 63% of coalition deaths in Iraq. They were also used in Afghanistan by insurgent groups, and caused over 66% of coalition casualties in the 2001–2021 Afghanistan War. IEDs were also used frequently by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka during the Sri Lankan Civil War. Background An IED is a bomb fabricated in an improvised ma ...
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Greek Military Junta Of 1967–74
The Greek junta or Regime of the Colonels, . Also known within Greece as just the Junta ( el, η Χούντα, i Choúnta, links=no, ), the Dictatorship ( el, η Δικτατορία, i Diktatoría, links=no, ) or the Seven Years ( el, η Επταετία, i Eptaetía, links=no, ). was a right-wing military dictatorship that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. On 21 April 1967, a group of colonels overthrew the caretaker government a month before scheduled elections which Georgios Papandreou's Centre Union was favoured to win. The dictatorship was characterised by right-wing cultural policies, anti-communism, restrictions on civil liberties, and the imprisonment, torture, and exile of political opponents. It was ruled by Georgios Papadopoulos from 1967 to 1973, but an attempt to renew its support in a 1973 referendum on the monarchy and gradual democratisation was ended by another coup by the hardliner Dimitrios Ioannidis, who ruled it until it fell on 24 July 1974 under the ...
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Panhellenic Liberation Movement
The Panhellenic Liberation Movement ( el, Πανελλήνιο Απελευθερωτικό Κίνημα), also known by its acronym PAK (ΠΑΚ), was one of the many anti-dictatorial movement organisations that campaigned against the 1967–1974 military regime of Greece. It was established in 1968 in Sweden by the exiled Andreas Papandreou. History PAK toured the world rallying opposition to the military regime and aiming to create awareness about the political situation in Greece. Its campaign in Sweden was particularly successful. On February 28, 1968, Papandreou gave a famous speech at the Club of Greek Immigrants (Σύλλογος Ελλήνων Μεταναστών). Later on, a manifesto was published, entitled “A text-book and the Internal Political Net.” The leader of the PAK in Greece was Giannis Alevras. Its campaign in Sweden was particularly successful. PAK was also highly critical of the alleged dependence of Greece on foreign powers, namely the USA. Its s ...
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Swedish Language
Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic language spoken predominantly in Sweden and in parts of Finland. It has at least 10 million native speakers, the fourth most spoken Germanic language and the first among any other of its type in the Nordic countries overall. Swedish, like the other Nordic languages, is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish, although the degree of mutual intelligibility is largely dependent on the dialect and accent of the speaker. Written Norwegian and Danish are usually more easily understood by Swedish speakers than the spoken languages, due to the differences in tone, accent, and intonation. Standard Swedish, spoken by most Swedes, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional v ...
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German Language
German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also a co-official language of Luxembourg and Belgium, as well as a national language in Namibia. Outside Germany, it is also spoken by German communities in France ( Bas-Rhin), Czech Republic (North Bohemia), Poland ( Upper Silesia), Slovakia (Bratislava Region), and Hungary ( Sopron). German is most similar to other languages within the West Germanic language branch, including Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German, Luxembourgish, Scots, and Yiddish. It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group, such as Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. German is the second most widely spoken Germanic language after English, which is also a West Germanic language. German ...
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English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic ( Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in ...
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Industrial Automation
Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines. Automation has been achieved by various means including mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, electrical, electronic devices, and computers, usually in combination. Complicated systems, such as modern factories, airplanes, and ships typically use combinations of all of these techniques. The benefit of automation includes labor savings, reducing waste, savings in electricity costs, savings in material costs, and improvements to quality, accuracy, and precision. Automation includes the use of various equipment and control systems such as machinery, processes in factories, boilers, and heat-treating ovens, switching on telephone networks, steering, and stabilization of ships, aircraft, and other applications and vehicles with reduced human ...
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Sweden
Sweden, ; fi, Ruotsi; fit, Ruotti; se, Ruoŧŧa; smj, Svierik; sje, Sverji; sju, Sverje; sma, Sveerje or ; yi, שוועדן, Shvedn; rmu, Svedikko; rmf, Sveittiko. formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic country and the List of European countries by area, fifth-largest country in Europe. The Capital city, capital and largest city is Stockholm. Sweden has a population of 10.5 million, and a low population density of ; around 87% of Swedes reside in urban areas in the central and southern half of the country. Sweden’s urban areas together cover 1.5% of its land area. Because the country is so long, ranging from 55th parallel north, 55°N to 69th parallel north, 69°N, the climate of Sweden is diverse. Sweden has been inhabited since Prehistoric Sweden, prehistoric times, . T ...
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Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its 16 constituent states have a total population of over 84 million in an area of . It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and Czechia to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, and France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands to the west. The nation's capital and most populous city is Berlin and its main financial centre is Frankfurt; the largest urban area is the Ruhr. Settlement in what is now Germany began in the Lower Paleolithic, with various tribes inhabiting it from the Neolithic onward, chiefly the Celts. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity. A region named Germania was documented before AD 100. In 962, the Kingdom of Germany formed the ...
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