International Times (it or IT) is an underground newspaper founded in London in 1966 and relaunched as a web journal in 2011. Editors included Hoppy, David Mairowitz, Pete Stansill, Barry Miles, Jim Haynes and playwright Tom McGrath. Jack Moore, avant-garde writer William Levy and Mick Farren, singer of The Deviants, also edited at various periods. The current editorial team include Mike Lesser, Niall McDevitt, Robert Tascher and others.

Within a short time of the first issue, the name International Times was changed to IT after litigation threats from the London Times.^{[citation needed]} The paper's logo was a black-and-white image of Theda Bara, vampish star of silent films. The founders' intention had been to use an image of actress Clara Bow, 1920s It girl, but a picture of Theda Bara was used by accident and, once deployed, not changed. Paul McCartney donated to the paper.

International Times was launched on 14 October 1966 at The Roundhouse at a gig featuring Pink Floyd. The event promised a 'Pop/Op/Costume/Masque/Fantasy-Loon/Blowout/Drag Ball and featured Soft Machine, steel bands, strips, trips, happenings, movies. The launch was described as "one of the two most revolutionary events in the history of English alternative music and thinking. The IT event was important because it marked the first recognition of a rapidly spreading socio-cultural revolution that had its parallel in the States" by Daevid Allen of Soft Machine.

Transglobal Underground (sometimes written as Trans-Global Underground or simply as TGU) is a London-based music collective who specialise in a fusion of western, oriental and African music styles (sometimes labelled as "world fusion" or "ethno-techno"). Their first four albums featured Natacha Atlas as lead singer and their single "Temple Head" was used in a Coca-Cola advertising campaign for the 1996 Olympic Games. In 2008 they won the BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music after the release of their seventh official album, Moonshout. Their eighth album, The Stone Turntable, was released in May 2011 and their most recent release is an EP of remixes from the album, titled We Come To Tear Your Wall Down.

Although Transglobal Underground has always had a fluid line-up, the two core members of the group are Tim Whelan (keyboards, guitar, flute, melodica, programming, vocals) and Hamilton Lee (percussion, drums, keyboards, programming). Throughout the group's history, Whelan and Lee have deliberately clouded their identities via multiple pseudonyms and obscure credits - Whelan generally operating under the alias of "Alex Kasiek" and Lee under the alias of "Hamid Mantu" (also "Man Tu" or "Chris Hamilton"). Whelan has also used his "Alex Kasiek" pseudonym outside TGU work (sometimes combining it with his real name, as he did for his guest appearance on the 2002 Project Dark album Gramophone De Luxe) and has sometimes implied that Kasiek is a separate person. (For the purposes of this article, Whelan and Lee will be predominantly referred to by their main pseudonyms of Alex Kasiek and Hamid Mantu.)

Jill Ellen Abramson (born March 19, 1954) is the executive editor of The New York Times. Assuming the position in September 2011, she became the first woman in this role in the paper's 160-year history.

A native of New York City, Abramson received her high school diploma from Ethical Culture Fieldston School and a B.A. in History and Literature from Harvard University in 1976.

While an undergraduate, she was the Arts Editor of The Harvard Independent, and worked at Time magazine from 1973 to 1976. Subsequently, she spent nearly a decade as a senior staff reporter for The American Lawyer. In 1986, she was appointed as editor in chief of Legal Times in Washington, D.C., serving for two years. From 1988 to 1997, she was a senior reporter in the Washington bureau of The Wall Street Journal, eventually rising to deputy bureau chief. She became the chief of The New York Times Washington bureau upon her move to the newspaper in 1997.

Abramson was the Times' Washington Bureau chief during the turbulent period of Spring 2003 during the run-up to the war in Iraq and the Jayson Blair scandal, which led to the resignation of Executive Editor Howell Raines and Managing Editor Gerald Boyd. Abramson was named to the news Managing Editor position (with co-Managing Editor John M.Geddes) by Raines' successor Bill Keller.

Bill Keller (born January 18, 1949) is a writer for the The New York Times, of which Keller was the executive editor from July 2003 until September 2011. On June 2, 2011, Keller announced that he would step down from the position to become a full-time writer. Jill Abramson replaced him as executive editor.

Keller is the son of former chairman and chief executive of the Chevron Corporation, George M. Keller. Bill Keller attended the Roman Catholic schools St. Matthews and Junípero Serra High School in San Mateo, California. After graduating from Pomona College in 1970, where he began his journalistic career as a reporter for the campus newspaper called The Collegian (later called The Collage), he was a reporter in Portland with The Oregonian, the Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, and at The Dallas Times Herald. Keller is married to Emma Gilbey Keller and has two daughters named Alice and Molly.

Keller joined The New York Times in 1984 and served in the following capacities:

Keller won a Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for his reporting on the breakup of the former Soviet Union (USSR).

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (Xhosa pronunciation: [xoˈliːɬaɬa manˈdeːla]; born 18 July 1918) is a South African politician who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, the first ever to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before being elected President, Mandela was a militant anti-apartheid activist, and the leader and co-founder of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of sabotage and other charges, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Mandela went on to serve 27 years in prison, spending many of these years on Robben Island. Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, Mandela led his party in the negotiations that led to the establishment of democracy in 1994. As President, he frequently gave priority to reconciliation, while introducing policies aimed at combating poverty and inequality in South Africa.

In South Africa, Mandela is often known as Madiba, his Xhosa clan name; or as tata (Xhosa: father). Mandela has received more than 250 awards over four decades.