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• 
  

• 
  China
  China (ⁱ/ˈtʃaɪnə/; Chinese: 中国; pinyin: Zhōngguó; see also Names of China), officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is the world's most-populous country, with a population of over 1.3 billion. Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometres, the East Asian state is the world's second-largest country by land area, and the third- or fourth-largest in total area, depending on the definition of total area.
  The People's Republic of China is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party of China. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). Its capital city is Beijing. The PRC also claims Taiwan—which is controlled by the Republic of China (ROC), a separate political entity—as its 23rd province, a claim controversial due to the complex political status of Taiwan and the unresolved Chinese Civil War. The PRC government denies the legitimacy of the ROC.
  
  wn.com/China
• 
  Egypt
  Egypt ⁱ/ˈiːdʒɪpt/ (Arabic: مصر, Miṣr, Egyptian Arabic: [mɑsˤɾ] ; Coptic: Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, Kīmi ; Sahidic Coptic: ⲕⲏⲙⲉ, Kēme), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic:  جمهوريّة مصر العربيّة (help·info), is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Covering an area of about 1,010,000 square kilometers (390,000 sq mi), Egypt is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west.
  Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa and the Middle East. The great majority of its over 81 million people live near the banks of the Nile River, in an area of about 40,000 square kilometers (15,000 sq mi), where the only arable land is found. The large areas of the Sahara Desert are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities in the Nile Delta.
  
  wn.com/Egypt
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  Iran
  Coordinates: 32°N 53°E / 32°N 53°E / 32; 53
  Iran (ⁱ/ɪˈrɑːn/ or /aɪˈræn/;Persian: ایران‎ [ʔiˈɾɒn] ( listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (Persian: جمهوری اسلامی ایران‎ Jomhuri-ye Eslāmi-ye Irān), is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran", which in Persian means "Land of the Aryans", has been in use natively since the Sassanian era. It came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia ( /ˈpɜrʒə/ or /ˈpɜrʃə/). Both "Persia" and "Iran" are used interchangeably in cultural contexts; however, "Iran" is the name used officially in political contexts.
  The 18th-largest country in the world in terms of area at 1,648,195 km² (636,372 sq mi), Iran has a population of around 79 million. It is a country of particular geopolitical significance owing to its location in the Middle East and central Eurasia. Iran is bordered on the north by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. As Iran is a littoral state of the Caspian Sea, which is an inland sea, Kazakhstan and Russia are also Iran's direct neighbors to the north. Iran is bordered on the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by Iraq and on the northwest by Turkey. Tehran is the capital, the country's largest city and the political, cultural, commercial and industrial center of the nation. Iran is a regional power, and holds an important position in international energy security and world economy as a result of its large reserves of petroleum and natural gas. Iran has the second largest proven natural gas reserves in the world and the fourth largest proven petroleum reserves.
  
  wn.com/Iran
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  Iraq
  Iraq (/ɪˈræk/ or ⁱ/ɪˈrɑːk/; Arabic: العراق‎ al-‘Irāq); officially the Republic of Iraq (Arabic:  جمهورية العراق (help·info) Jumhūriyyat al-‘Irāq), is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.
  Iraq borders Syria to the northwest, Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, Jordan to the southwest and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to the south. Iraq has a narrow section of coastline measuring 58 km (36 mi) on the northern Persian Gulf. The capital city, Baghdad is in the center-east of the country.
  Two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run through the center of Iraq, flowing from northwest to southeast. These provide Iraq with agriculturally capable land and contrast with the steppe and desert landscape that covers most of Western Asia.
  Historically, Iraq was the center of the Abbasid Arabic Islamic Empire. Iraq has been known to the west by the Greek toponym 'Mesopotamia' (Land between the rivers) and has been home to continuous successive civilizations since the 6th millennium BC. The region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is often referred to as the cradle of civilization and the birthplace of writing, law and the wheel. At different periods in its history, Iraq was the center of the indigenous Akkadian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Abbasid empires. It was also part of the Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sassanid, Roman, Rashidun, Umayyad, Mongol, Safavid, Afsharid, and Ottoman empires, and under British control as a League of Nations mandate.
  
  wn.com/Iraq
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  Kazakhstan
  Kazakhstan (ⁱ/ˌkɑːzəkˈstɑːn/ or /ˌkæzəkˈstæn/) (Kazakh: Қазақстан, Qazaqstan, pronounced [qɑzɑqstɑ́n]; Russian: Казахстан [kəzɐxˈstan]), officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Europe. The ninth largest country in the world by land area, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of 2,727,300 square kilometres (1,053,000 sq mi) is larger than Western Europe. It is neighbored clockwise from the north by Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and also borders on a significant part of the Caspian Sea. Although Kazakhstan does not share a border with Mongolia, its most easterly point is only 38 kilometres (24 mi) from Mongolia's western tip. The terrain of Kazakhstan ranges from flatlands, steppes, taigas, rock-canyons, hills, deltas, and snow-capped mountains to deserts. With 16.6 million people (2011 estimate) Kazakhstan has the 62nd largest population in the world, though its population density is less than 6 people per square kilometre (15 per sq. mi.). The capital was moved in 1998 from Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, to Astana.
  
  wn.com/Kazakhstan
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  Lebanon
  Lebanon (ⁱ/ˈlɛbənɒn/ or /ˈlɛbənən/; Arabic: لبنان‎ Libnān or Lubnān, Lebanese Arabic: [lɪbˈneːn]), officially the Lebanese Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية اللبنانية‎ al-Jumhūrīyah al-Libnānīyah, Lebanese Arabic: [elˈʒʊmhuːɾɪjje l.ˈlɪbneːnɪjje]), is a country in the East Mediterranean. It is bordered by Syria to the north and east, and Israel to the south. Lebanon's location at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian hinterland has dictated its rich history, and shaped a cultural identity of religious and ethnic diversity.
  The earliest evidence of civilization in Lebanon dates back more than 7,000 years—predating recorded history. Lebanon was the home of the Phoenicians, a maritime culture that flourished for nearly 2,500 years (3000–539 BC). Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the five provinces that comprise modern Lebanon were mandated to France. The French expanded the borders of Mount Lebanon, which was mostly populated by Maronite Catholics and Druze, to include more Muslims. Lebanon gained independence in 1943, and established a unique political system, known as confessionalism, a power-sharing mechanism based on religious communities – Bechara El Khoury who became independent Lebanon's first President and Riad El-Solh, who became Lebanon's first prime minister, are considered the founders of the modern Republic of Lebanon and are national heroes for having led the country's independence. French troops withdrew from Lebanon in 1946.
  
  wn.com/Lebanon
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  Marbella
  Marbella is a city and municipality in southern Spain, belonging to the province of Málaga in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is part of the region of the Costa del Sol and is the headquarters of the Association of Municipalities of the same; it is the head of the judicial district that bears its name.
  Marbella is situated on the Mediterranean Sea, between Málaga and the Gibraltar Strait, in the foothills of the Sierra Blanca. The municipality covers an area of 117 km² crossed by highways on the coast, these are its main entrances.
  In 2011 the population of the city was 138,662 inhabitants, making it the second most populous municipality in the province of Málaga and the eighth in Andalusia. It is one of the most important tourist cities of the Costa del Sol and throughout most of the year is an international tourist attraction, due mainly to its climate and tourist infrastructure. The city also has a significant archaeological heritage, many museums and performance spaces, and a cultural calendar with events ranging from reggae concerts to opera performances.
  
  wn.com/Marbella
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  Pakistan
  Pakistan (ⁱ/ˈpækɨstæn/ or ⁱ/pɑːkiˈstɑːn/; Urdu: پاکستان) (Urdu pronunciation: [paːkɪˈst̪aːn] ( listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Urdu: اسلامی جمہوریۂ پاکستان), is a sovereign country in South Asia. It sits at the crossroads of the strategically important regions of South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. It has a 1,046-kilometre (650 mi) coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west and north, Iran to the southwest and China in the far northeast. It is separated from Tajikistan by Afghanistan's narrow Wakhan Corridor in the north, and it shares a marine border with Oman.
  The territory of modern Pakistan was the site of several ancient cultures, including the Neolithic Mehrgarh and the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation, and has undergone invasions or settlements by Hindu, Persian, Indo-Greek, Islamic, Turco-Mongol, Afghan and Sikh cultures. Thus the area has been ruled by numerous empires and dynasties, including the Indian Mauryan Empire, the Persian Achaemenid Empire, the Arab Umayyad Caliphate, the Mongol Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Durrani Empire, the Sikh Empire and the British Empire. As a result of the Pakistan Movement led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and India's struggle for independence, Pakistan was created in 1947 as an independent nation for Muslims from the regions in the east and west of India where there was a Muslim majority. Initially a dominion, Pakistan adopted a new constitution in 1956, becoming an Islamic republic. A civil war in 1971 resulted in the secession of East Pakistan as the new country of Bangladesh.
  
  wn.com/Pakistan
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  Spain
  Spain (ⁱ/ˈspeɪn/ SPAYN; Spanish: España, pronounced: [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a sovereign state and a member of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar; to the north and north east by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the northwest and west by the Atlantic Ocean and Portugal.
  Spanish territory also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast, and two autonomous cities in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla, that border Morocco. Furthermore, the town of Llívia is a Spanish exclave situated inside French territory. With an area of 504,030 square kilometres (194,610 sq mi), it is the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union after France, and the fourth largest country in Europe after Russia, Ukraine and France.
  
  wn.com/Spain
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  Switzerland
  Switzerland (German: die Schweiz[ˈʃvaɪts]; French: Suisse [sɥis(ə)]; Italian: Svizzera [ˈzvit͡sːɛra]; Romansh: Svizra [ˈʒviːtsrɐ] or [ˈʒviːtsʁːɐ]), in its full name the Swiss Confederation (Latin: Confoederatio Helvetica, hence its abbreviation CH), is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western Europe, where it is bordered by Germany to the north, France to the west, Italy to the south, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east.
  Switzerland is a landlocked country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km² (15,940 sq mi). While the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, the Swiss population of approximately 8 million people is concentrated mostly on the Plateau, where the largest cities are to be found. Among them are the two global cities and economic centres of Zurich and Geneva.
  The Swiss Confederation has a long history of armed neutrality—it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815—and did not join the United Nations until 2002. It pursues, however, an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. Switzerland is also the birthplace of the Red Cross and home to a large number of international organizations, including the second largest UN office. On the European level, it is a founding member of the European Free Trade Association and is part of the Schengen Area – although it is notably not a member of the European Union, nor the European Economic Area.
  
  wn.com/Switzerland
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  Syria
  Syria (/ˈsɪriə/ ( listen) SIRR-ee-ə; Arabic: سورية‎ Sūriyya or سوريا Sūryā; Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܐ; Kurdish: Sûrî), officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية السورية‎ al-Jumhūriyyah al-‘Arabīyah as-Sūriyyah  Arabic pronunciation (help·info)), is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest.
  In English, the name Syria was formerly synonymous with the Levant, known in Arabic as Sham, while the modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization of the third millennium BC. In the Islamic era, its capital city, Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate, and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt.
  The population of Syria is 74% Sunni, 12% Alawi, 10% Christian, and 3% Druze. Combined, 87% of the Syrian population is Muslim, while the other 10% is Christian, which includes mainly Arab Christians but also Assyrians and Armenians. Major ethnic minorities in Syria include Kurds (9%), Assyrians, Armenians, Turkmens and Circassians. The majority of the population is Arab (90%).
  
  wn.com/Syria
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  Tehran
  Tehran ( pronunciation (help·info)) (Persian: تهران‎ Tehrān; pronounced [tehˈɾɒːn]), sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, the largest city in Western Asia, one of the largest in Southern Asia, and the 19th-largest city globally.
  In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to mass-migration of people from all around Iran. The city is home to many historic mosques, churches, synagogues and Zoroastrian fire temples. Contemporary Tehran is a modern city featuring many structures, of which the Azadi (Freedom) Tower and the Milad Tower have come to be symbols of Tehran itself. In 2008 Tehran was the least expensive capital in the world and the second-least expensive city globally based on the cost-of-living index presenting the best value for money in the world. Globally it stands 19th by city population, 56th by the size of its GDP and 29th by the population of its metropolitan area. Throughout Iran's history, the capital city has been relocated many times, with Tehran being the 32nd national capital of Iran. Persian is the city's native tongue, with roughly 98% of the population able to speak and understand it. The majority of people in Tehran identify themselves as Persians. In pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, Tehran was called Ray (which in the Avesta occurs in the form of Ragha)^{[citation needed]}.
  
  wn.com/Tehran
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  Texas
  Texas (ⁱ/ˈtɛksəs/) (Alibamu: Teksi ) is the second most populous and the second most extensive of the 50 United States, and the most extensive state of the 48 contiguous United States. The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in East Texas. Located in the South Central United States, Texas shares an international border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south, and borders the US states of New Mexico to the west, Oklahoma to the north, Arkansas to the northeast, and Louisiana to the east. Texas has an area of 268,820 square miles (696,200 km²), and a growing population of 25.7 million residents.
  During the Spanish colonial rule, the area was officially known as the Nuevo Reino de Filipinas: La Provincia de Texas. Antonio Margil de Jesús was known to be the first person to use the name in a letter to the Viceroy of Mexico in July 20, 1716. The name was not popularly used in daily speech but often appeared in legal documents until the end of the 1800s.
  
  wn.com/Texas
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  United States
  The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
  At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.
  
  wn.com/United_States

• Akbar Kurtha
  Akbar Kurtha is an actor born in India, and living in the United Kingdom.
  Since 1993 Kurtha has played several roles in the United Kingdom, and in the United States. He first appeared in the 1993 film Bhaji on the Beach in the role of Majit, and then played the lead role of “Farid” in the film My Son the Fanatic, with Rachel Griffiths. He also played Prince Meshal in the Oscar-award winning film, Syriana, with George Clooney, and Kanel Hanna in the hit HBO mini-series House of Saddam. He played Farhad Hassan in the eighth season of 24
  Kurtha has appeared in leading roles in British soap operas, dramas and situation comedies, including Mr. White Goes to Westminster, The Bill, Heat of the Sun, Second Sight, Command Approved, Esther Kahn, Lloyd & Hill, Doctors, Casualty, Front Line,Keen Eddie, Eastenders, Waking the Dead, Holby City, Beneath the Skin, Syriana, The Last Detective, Forgiven, Bonekickers, and That’s for Me!
  Kurtha also produced the plays Baghdad Wedding and This isn't Romance at Soho Theatre in London's West End.
  
  wn.com/Akbar_Kurtha
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  Alexander Siddig
  Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abderrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim El Mahdi (Arabic: صدّيق الطاهر الفاضل الصدّيق عبدالرحمن محمد أحمد عبدالكريم المهدي‎ Ṣiddīq aṭ-Ṭāhir al-Fāḍil aṣ-Ṣiddīq ʿAbd ur-Raḥman Muḥammad ʾAḥmad ʿAbd ul-Karīm al-Mahdī; born 21 November 1965) is a Sudanese-born English actor, also known as Siddig El Fadil and his stage name Alexander Siddig. He is known for playing Dr. Julian Bashir in the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and for his performances as Prince Nasir Al-Subaai in Syriana (2005) and as Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani in Kingdom of Heaven (2005). He has also guest starred on 24 as Hamri Al-Assad. Siddig co-starred in the award-winning film Cairo Time (2009) as Tareq Khalifa.
  Siddig was born in Sudan but has spent most of his life in the United Kingdom. He was born to an English mother who worked as a theatrical consultant and a Sudanese father. His maternal uncle is English actor Malcolm McDowell, with whom he appeared in 2008 in Neil Marshall's Doomsday, and his paternal uncle is the former Sudanese Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi. He is also descended from Muhammad Ahmad Al-Mahdi. He attended St. Lawrence College, Ramsgate. He was credited under the shortened name Siddig El Fadil until October 1995, three seasons into his run on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, when he changed his stage name to the easier to pronounce (for English speakers) Alexander Siddig. On set, he became known as Sid. In 1996, Siddig and his co-star Nana Visitor started dating; their son, Django El Tahir El Siddig, was born on 16 September 1996, and the couple married on 14 June 1997. They divorced in 2001. In 2005, he briefly dated his Whose Life Is It Anyway? co-star (and fellow Star Trek alumna) Kim Cattrall.
  
  wn.com/Alexander_Siddig
• Alexandre Desplat
  Alexandre Michel Gérard Desplat (born 23 August 1961) is a French film composer. He has received four Academy Award nominations, five BAFTA nominations, five Golden Globe nominations, and two Grammy nominations. Desplat won his first Golden Globe for The Painted Veil in 2006, his first British Academy Film Award in 2011 and his first Grammy Award in 2012 for The King's Speech. Among various projects, Desplat has worked on a variety of Hollywood films including independent and commercial successes like The Queen, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, New Moon, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2.
  Desplat was born in Paris to a French father and a Greek mother who met at the University of California, Berkeley. After their marriage, they moved back to France, where Alexandre was born. Alexandre is the younger brother of Vic Desplat. At the age of five, he began playing piano. He also became proficient on trumpet and flute. He studied with Claude Ballif, Iannis Xenakis in France and Jack Hayes in the U.S. Desplat's musical interests were wide, and he was also influenced by South American and African artists and teachers, among whom were Carlinhos Brown and Ray Lema. Desplat swiftly became skilled, both as a performer and a composer.
  
  wn.com/Alexandre_Desplat
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  Amanda Peet
  Amanda Peet (born January 11, 1972) is an American actress, who has appeared on film, stage, and television. After studying with Uta Hagen at Columbia University, Peet began her career in television commercials, and progressed to small roles on television, before making her film debut in 1995. Featured roles in films such as the 2000 comedy film The Whole Nine Yards brought her to a much wider recognition.
  She has appeared in a variety of films, including the 2003 romantic comedy Something's Gotta Give, the 2003 psychological thriller film Identity, the 2005 action-thriller Syriana, the 2006 comedy-drama remake Griffin & Phoenix, the 2007 romantic comedy The Ex, the 2008 science fiction film The X-Files: I Want to Believe and the 2009 disaster adventure drama 2012. She has also appeared in the 1999 drama series Jack & Jill and the 2006 drama series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
  Amanda Peet was born in New York City, the daughter of Penny (née Levy), a social worker, and Charles Peet, a corporate lawyer. The two are now divorced. Her father is a Quaker and her mother is Jewish. Peet attended Friends Seminary, then studied history at and graduated from Columbia University,^{[dead link]} where she auditioned for acting teacher Uta Hagen and decided to become an actress after taking Hagen's class.^{[citation needed]} During her four-year period of study with Hagen, Peet appeared in the off-Broadway revival of Clifford Odets's Awake and Sing with Stephen Lang.
  
  wn.com/Amanda_Peet
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  Amr Waked
  Amr Waked (Arabic: عمرو واكد; born 1972) is an Egyptian film, television, and stage actor, known for his roles portraying Middle Eastern and Mediterranean characters. He is best known to international audiences and in Hollywood as the terrorist leader in the 2005 film Syriana (2005). He also played the role of Rafik in Steven Soderbergh's movie Contagion and Yemeni Sheikh Muhammad in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.
  Waked was born on August 7, 1972. He is a graduate of the American University in Cairo, and has performed in theatre from 1992 through 2002. He originally just moonlighted as an actor, and relied on his day job as a stock trader, before finally dedicating himself to a career as an actor. Waked joined the 2011 Egypt anti-government protests.
  Waked's first ever major role was in Ashab wallah business (2002), for which reviewer's offered that he portrayed the role of "Gehad " so well that many viewers left the theater believing he was actually a Palestinian actor, rather than Egyptian. His first lead role was as Ahmed in Deil el Samaka (The Fish's tail) (2003), and in 2005 he worked alongside George Clooney in the film Syriana, for which in 2006 he won a 'Special Award for Arabs in The International Cinema' at the Cairo International Film Festival. Waked joined the cast of the Egyptian television series "Lahazat Harega" "Critical Moments" in 2007, shooting 32 episodes for season one.
  
  wn.com/Amr_Waked
• Andrew Sarris
  Andrew Sarris (born 31 October 1928, Brooklyn, New York City) is an American film critic and a leading proponent of the auteur theory of criticism.
  Sarris is generally credited with popularizing the auteur theory in the U.S. and coining the term itself in his 1962 essay, "Notes on the Auteur Theory," which was inspired by critics writing in Cahiers du Cinéma.
  Sarris wrote the highly influential book The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968 (1968), an opinionated assessment of films of the sound era, organized by director. The book was to influence many other critics and helped raise an awareness of the role of the film director and, in particular, of the auteur theory. In The American Cinema, Sarris lists what he terms the 'pantheon' of the fourteen greatest film directors who had worked in the United States. The list includes the Americans Robert Flaherty, John Ford, D. W. Griffith, Howard Hawks, Buster Keaton, and Orson Welles; the Germans Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch, F. W. Murnau, Max Ophuls, and Josef von Sternberg; the British Charles Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock; and the French Jean Renoir. He also created second and third tiers of directors, downplaying the work of some such as Billy Wilder, David Lean, and Stanley Kubrick. In his 1998 book You Ain't Heard Nothing Yet: The American Talking Film, History and Memory 1927-1949, Sarris upgraded the status of Billy Wilder to pantheon level and apologized for his earlier harsh opinion of the director in The American Cinema.
  
  wn.com/Andrew_Sarris
• Charles Krauthammer
  Charles Krauthammer (pronounced /ˈkraʊt.hæmər/; born March 13, 1950) is an American Pulitzer Prize–winning syndicated columnist, political commentator, and physician. His column is syndicated to more than 275 newspapers and media outlets. He is a contributing editor to the Weekly Standard and The New Republic. He is also a weekly panelist on the PBS news program Inside Washington and a nightly panelist on Fox News's Special Report with Bret Baier.
  Krauthammer was born on March 13, 1950, in New York City. He was raised in Montreal, Quebec, where he attended McGill University and obtained an honors degree in political science and economics in 1970. He was a Commonwealth Scholar in politics at Balliol College, Oxford, 1970–1971. He later moved back to the United States, where he attended Harvard Medical School. Suffering a paralyzing accident in his first year of medical school, he was hospitalized for a year, during which time he continued his medical studies. He graduated with his class, earning a Doctor of Medicine from Harvard Medical School in 1975, and went on to complete a residency in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1984 he became board certified in Psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology
  
  wn.com/Charles_Krauthammer
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  Christopher Plummer
  Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer, CC (born December 13, 1929) is a Canadian theatre, film and television actor. He made his film debut in 1958's Stage Struck, and notable early film performances include The Night of the Generals, The Return of the Pink Panther, and The Man Who Would Be King.
  In a career that spans seven decades and includes substantial roles in each of the dramatic arts, Plummer is probably best known to audiences as the autocratic widower Captain Georg Ludwig von Trapp in the hit 1965 musical film The Sound of Music alongside Julie Andrews. Plummer has also ventured into various television projects, including the legendary miniseries The Thorn Birds.
  His most recent film roles include the The Insider as Mike Wallace, the Disney-Pixar 2009 film Up as Charles Muntz, the Shane Acker production 9 as 1, The Last Station as Leo Tolstoy, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus as Doctor Parnassus, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as Henrik Vanger, and Beginners as Hal.
  Plummer has won numerous awards and accolades for his work, including an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a SAG Award, and a BAFTA Award. With his win at the age of 82 in 2012 for Beginners, Plummer is the oldest actor ever to win an Academy Award.
  
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  Costa Gavras
  Costa-Gavras, (short for Constantinos Gavras or Κωνσταντίνος Γαβράς; born 12 February 1933) is a Greek filmmaker, who lives and works in France, best known for films with overt political themes, most famously the fast-paced thriller, Z (1969). Most of his movies were made in French; starting with Missing (1982), several were made in English.
  Gavras was born in Loutra Iraias (Λουτρά Ηραίας), Arcadia. His family spent the Second World War in a village in the Peloponnese, and moved to Athens after the war. His father had been a member of the left-wing EAM branch of the Greek Resistance, and was imprisoned after the war as a suspected communist. His father's record made it impossible for him to attend university or emigrate to the United States, so after high school Costa Gavras went to France, where he began his studies of law in 1951. His father's political blacklisting not only barred him from Greek university, but, in the McCarthyite 50s, denied Gavras a visa for US film school.
  In 1956, he left his university studies to study film at the French national film school, IDHEC. After film school, he apprenticed under Yves Allégret, and became an assistant director for Jean Giono and René Clair. After several further positions as first assistant director, he directed his first feature film, Compartiment Tueurs, in 1965.
  
  wn.com/Costa_Gavras
• David Clennon
  David Clennon (born May 10, 1943) is an American actor perhaps best known for his portrayal of Miles Drentel in the ABC series Thirtysomething, a role he reprised on Once and Again.
  Clennon was born in Waukegan, Illinois, the son of Virginia, a homemaker, and Cecil Clennon, an accountant. Clennon is well known for his political activism.^{[citation needed]}
  In 1980, David Clennon provided the voice for Admiral Motti in NPR's Star Wars The Original Radio Drama. He was a regular on the TV shows Almost Perfect, The Agency and Saved. Most recently, Clennon played Carl Sessick (a.k.a. Carl the Watcher) on Ghost Whisperer.
  In 1993 he won an Emmy award for his guest appearance on the series Dream On.
  
  wn.com/David_Clennon
• 
  George Clooney
  George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter. For his work as an actor, he has received three Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award. Clooney is also noted for his political activism, and has served as one of the United Nations Messengers of Peace since January 31, 2008.
  Though he made his acting debut on television in 1978, Clooney gained fame and recognition by portraying Dr. Douglas "Doug" Ross on the long-running medical drama ER from 1994 to 1999. While working on ER, he started attracting a variety of leading roles in films including Batman & Robin (1997) and Out of Sight (1998), in which he first teamed with long-term collaborator Steven Soderbergh. 1999 saw the release of Three Kings, a well-received war satire set during the Gulf War featuring Clooney in another lead role. In 2001, Clooney's fame widened with the release of his biggest commercial success, Ocean's Eleven, the first of a profitable film trilogy, a remake of the film from 1960 with the members of The Rat Pack with Frank Sinatra as Danny Ocean. He made his directorial debut a year later with the 2002 biographical thriller Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and has since directed Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), Leatherheads (2008), and The Ides of March (2011). He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in the Middle East thriller Syriana (2005) and subsequently fetched Best Actor nominations for such films as Michael Clayton (2007), Up in the Air (2009) and The Descendants (2011).
  
  wn.com/George_Clooney
• Gillo Pontecorvo
  Gillo Pontecorvo (19 November 1919 – 12 October 2006) was an Italian filmmaker. He worked as a film director for more than a decade before his best known film La battaglia di Algeri (The Battle of Algiers, 1966) was released. For this he was nominated for the Best Director Oscar in 1969 and won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in that year.
  His other films include Kapò (1960), which takes place in a World War II concentration camp, and Burn! (Queimada, 1969), starring Marlon Brando and loosely based on the failed slave revolution in Guadeloupe. In 2000, he received the Pietro Bianchi Award at the Venice Film Festival. He was also a screenwriter and composer of film scores, and a close friend of the Italian President Giorgio Napolitano.
  Pontecorvo, born in Pisa, was the son of a wealthy non-observant Italian Jewish businessman, and the younger brother of Bruno Pontecorvo, an internationally acclaimed physicist, and Guido Pontecorvo, a geneticist.
  He attended chemistry at the University of Pisa, but dropped out after passing just two exams. It was there that he first became aware of opposing political forces, coming into contact with leftist students and professors for the first time. In 1938, faced with growing anti-Semitism, he followed his elder brother Bruno to Paris, where he was able to find work in journalism and as a tennis instructor.
  
  wn.com/Gillo_Pontecorvo
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  Harrison Ford
  Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) is an American film actor and producer. He is famous for his performances as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and as the title character of the Indiana Jones film series. Ford is also known for his roles as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, John Book in Witness and Jack Ryan in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. His career has spanned six decades and includes roles in several Hollywood blockbusters, including Presumed Innocent, The Fugitive, Air Force One, and What Lies Beneath. At one point, four of the top six box-office hits of all time included one of his roles. Five of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry.
  In 1997, Ford was ranked No. 1 in Empire's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. As of July 2008^[update], the United States domestic box office grosses of Ford's films total over US$3.5 billion, with worldwide grosses surpassing $6 billion, making Ford the third highest grossing U.S. domestic box-office star. Ford is the husband of actress Calista Flockhart.
  
  wn.com/Harrison_Ford
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  Ivan Reitman
  Ivan Reitman, OC (born October 27, 1946) is a Canadian film producer and director, best known for his comedy work, especially in the 1980s and 1990s.
  He is the owner of The Montecito Picture Company, founded in 2000.
  Reitman was born in Komárno, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), the son of Clara and Leslie Reitman. Reitman's parents were Jewish; his mother survived the Auschwitz concentration camp and his father was an underground resistance fighter. His family came to Canada as refugees in 1950. Reitman attended Oakwood Collegiate in Toronto and was a member of the Twintone Four singing group.^{[citation needed]} He is the father of film director Jason Reitman.
  Reitman's first producing job was with the then-new station CITY-TV in Toronto. CITY was also the home of the first announcing job of his later friend and collaborator Dan Aykroyd. However, Reitman's tenure at CITY was short and he was fired during his first year by station owner Moses Znaimer.^{[citation needed]}
  Spellbound (1972), directed by Ivan Reitman, with music by Howard Shore, magic by Doug Henning and co-starring actress Jennifer Dale, a musical that combined an intense storyline and Henning's magic tricks. The show opened in Toronto and broke box office ticket records in that city.
  
  wn.com/Ivan_Reitman
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  Jason Reitman
  Jason Reitman (born October 19, 1977) is a Canadian/Americanfilm director, screenwriter, and producer, best known for directing the films Thank You for Smoking (2005), Juno (2007), Up in the Air (2009), and Young Adult (2011). As of February 2, 2010, he has received three Academy Award nominations, two of which are for Best Director. Reitman is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States.
  Reitman was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the son of Geneviève Robert, an actress sometimes billed as Geneviève Deloir, and comedy director Ivan Reitman. He has two younger sisters, Catherine, an actress, and Caroline. His father is Jewish and was born in Czechoslovakia to Holocaust survivors, and his mother is Christian and of French-Canadian descent. When he was still a child, his family moved to Los Angeles. His father, Ivan, directed the successful films Ghostbusters, Stripes, and Kindergarten Cop. Jason described his childhood self as "a loser... a movie geek... [and] shy." In the late 1980s, Reitman began appearing in small acting parts and serving as a production assistant on his father's films. He spent time in the editing rooms of his father's movies, learning the process. Throughout his 20s, instead of accepting offers to make commercial feature films, Reitman began making his own short films and directing commercials. Although he was offered the opportunity to direct Dude, Where's My Car? on two separate occasions, he declined.
  
  wn.com/Jason_Reitman
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  Jeffrey Skoll
  Jeffrey Skoll, OC (born January 16, 1965) is a Canadian engineer and internet entrepreneur. He is currently based in Los Angeles, California. With an estimated net worth of $US 3.2 billion (as of March 2011), Skoll was ranked by Forbes as the 7th wealthiest Canadian and 347th in the world.
  He was the first employee and also first president of internet auction firm eBay, and used the wealth this gave him to become a philanthropist and found the independent movie production company Participant Media.
  Jeff Skoll was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada into a Jewish family, his mother a teacher and his father a chemical company owner who sold industrial chemicals. The family settled in Toronto in the late seventies.
  When Jeff Skoll was fourteen his father was diagnosed with cancer which prompted him to discuss with his son how much he regretted not having had the time to do everything he had planned in life. A keen reader, Skoll was influenced by authors such as Aldous Huxley and Ayn Rand and intended to become an author writing motivational books and books on tackling the world's problems.
  
  wn.com/Jeffrey_Skoll
• Kayvan Novak
  Kayvan Novak (Persian: کیوان نوک‎, born 23 November 1978, Cricklewood, North London) is an award-winning British Iranian television and film actor, voice artist, and comedian.
  He was privately educated at Highgate School.^{[citation needed]}
  Novak initially appeared as an extra on various British shows: soap opera Family Affairs, medical drama Holby City and spy series Spooks. In 2005 he and Ed Tracy created Fonejacker, a prank call-based show as part of Comedy Lab for Channel 4. After the pilot, he was given a Christmas special and a six-part series, which after a three month delay, began airing on 5 July 2007 on E4 and 7 September 2007 on Channel 4. His characters include an orphaned mouse; an electronics aficionado who seems to have no belief in initialisms; a swearing cockney, bald car salesman; overweight Chinese students trying to sell bootlegged DVDs; a salesman who claims to work for companies with rude names; a salesman working for an Indian ISP and a Ugandan asking for bank account details, amongst many others.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Kayvan_Novak
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  Mark Strong
  Mark Strong (born 30 August 1963) is an English actor, with a body of work in both films and television. He has performed in films as varied as Body of Lies, Syriana, The Young Victoria, Sherlock Holmes, RocknRolla, Stardust, Kick-Ass, and Green Lantern. He often depicts villains or antagonists, such as Lord Blackwood in Sherlock Holmes, Prince Septimus in Stardust, Frank D'Amico in Kick-Ass, and Sir Godfrey in Robin Hood. Most recently, he has appeared in the 2012 film John Carter, playing yet another villain, Matai Shang.
  Strong was born Marco Giuseppe Salussolia in London, to an Austrian mother, Waltraud D. (née Schrempf), and an Italian father, Giuseppe A. Salussolia. His father left the family soon after his birth, and he was raised by his mother, who worked as an au pair. He attended Wymondham College, where he sang in a punk band called Private Party. His English name is not a stage name; it was changed by deed poll by his mother when he was a boy to help him fit in with his peers. He was baptized a Catholic. He speaks fluent German and some Italian. Strong attended Wymondham College in Norfolk. His original ambition was to become a lawyer, but after studying at university in Munich, Germany, for 1 year he decided to change his direction in life and returned home to London. In London, he studied English and Drama at Royal Holloway, and later attended Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
  
  wn.com/Mark_Strong
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  Matt Damon
  Matthew Paige "Matt" Damon (born October 8, 1970) is an American actor, screenwriter, and philanthropist whose career was launched following the success of the film Good Will Hunting (1997) from a screenplay he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck. The pair won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and a Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay for their work. Damon alone received multiple Best Actor nominations, including an Academy Award for his lead performance in the film.
  Damon has since starred in commercially successful films such as Saving Private Ryan (1998), the Ocean's trilogy, and the Bourne series, while also gaining critical acclaim for his performances in dramas such as Syriana (2005), The Good Shepherd (2006), and The Departed (2006). He garnered a Golden Globe nomination for portraying the title character in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Invictus (2009). He is one of the top 40 highest grossing actors of all time. In 2007, Damon received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was named Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine. Damon has been actively involved in charitable work, including the ONE Campaign, H2O Africa Foundation, and Water.org.
  
  wn.com/Matt_Damon
• Mazhar Munir
  Mazhar Munir is a television and film actor. Before co-starring in the 2005 movie Syriana, he appeared in three British television shows: The Bill, Mile High, and Doctors.
  Munir was born in London to Kashmiri immigrant parents, a carpenter and a seamstress. He began his career by attending weekly drama workshops at the Theatre Royal Stratford East. He was then contacted by Hampstead Theatre in London, who offered them a stage role in Local Boy.
  After that, Munir appeared in several TV series before making his film debut in Syriana. Munir was well-received in Syriana, where he played Wasim Khan, an unemployed Pakistani immigrant living in the Middle East; the New York Times praised his "delicate, watchful sensitivity".
  Munir also earned his marketing degree from Middlesex Business School. He speaks several languages including Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Mazhar_Munir
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  Michael Douglas
  Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is an American actor and producer, primarily in movies and television. He has won three Golden Globes and two Academy Awards; as producer of 1975's Best Picture, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and as Best Actor in 1987 for his role in Wall Street. Douglas received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2009. He is the eldest of actor Kirk Douglas's four sons.
  Douglas was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the first child of actor Kirk Douglas and Bermudian-born actress Diana Dill. His paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Gomel in Belarus (at that time a part of the Russian Empire). His mother was from Devonshire Parish, Bermuda; Douglas's maternal grandfather, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Melville Dill, served as Attorney General of Bermuda and was commanding officer of the Bermuda Militia Artillery. Douglas has a younger brother, Joel Douglas (born 1947), and two paternal half-brothers, Peter Douglas (born 1955) and Eric Douglas (1958–2004), from stepmother Anne Buydens.
  
  wn.com/Michael_Douglas
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  Michael Nozik
  Michael Nozik is an American film producer. He won a BAFTA award for The Motorcycle Diaries in the category of 'Best Film Not In The English Language' in 2004. His credits also include Love in the Time of Cholera, Syriana, Quiz Show, and The Legend of Bagger Vance.
  
  wn.com/Michael_Nozik
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  Michelle Monaghan
  Michelle Lynn Monaghan (born March 23, 1976) is an American actress known for her roles in Mission: Impossible III, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Gone Baby Gone, Made of Honor, The Heartbreak Kid, Eagle Eye, and Source Code.
  Monaghan was born in Winthrop, Iowa. Her mother, Sharon (née Hammel), ran a day care center in the family's home, and her father, Robert Monaghan, was a factory worker and part time farmer. She has two older brothers, Bob and John, and her family also brought up twelve foster children over a period of twelve years. Monaghan is of Irish and German descent and was raised Catholic. She graduated from East Buchanan High School, Class of 1994, where she was class president and acted in several plays. After graduation, she moved to Chicago to study journalism at Columbia College Chicago. While studying, she began modeling: she worked in the United States, Milan, Singapore, Tokyo and Hong Kong. With one semester remaining in her journalism degree in 1999 she left for New York to pursue an acting career. Before her TV debut she appeared as a model in several magazines and catalogs.
  
  wn.com/Michelle_Monaghan
• Nicky Henson
  Nicholas Victor Leslie "Nicky" Henson (born 12 May 1945) is an English actor who has portrayed many roles since 1963. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1977.
  Born in London, son of comedian Leslie Henson, Henson attended St. Bede's Prep School, Eastbourne and Charterhouse School in Godalming. He trained as a stage manager at RADA, and first appeared on stage himself as a guitarist. As a member of the Young Vic Company he played Pozzo in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot.
  Some of Henson's most notable television roles include the Fawlty Towers episode The Psychiatrist, as ladies' man Mr. Johnson, playing DS Harry Finlay in A Touch of Frost and playing George in the episode "Bury my Half at Waltham Green" in Series 1 of the popular drama series Minder. He also played the eponymous hero in Shine On Harvey Moon when the series was revived in 1995; appeared in an episode of Police Drama; Heartbeat; Second Chances in 2002, Playing Alan Jones; The man who had disappeared 20 years previously. In February 2006, Henson joined the cast of the BBC1 soap opera EastEnders, playing "Jack Edwards". Henson left the production towards the end of the year due to health problems (see personal life).
  
  wn.com/Nicky_Henson
• 
  Pakistani people
  Pakistani people or Pakistanis (Urdu: پاکستانی قوم) (Pakistani Qaum) are a nationality and pan-ethnic group who are the native citizens and residents of Pakistan. Pakistan's estimated population in 2011 is over 187 million making it the world's sixth most-populous country. Pakistan is in essence a multi-ethnic and multilingual nation that is home to people of diverse regional ethnicities and nationalities, reflecting the rich and complex demographics and history of Pakistan. As a result, Pakistanis do not consider their nationality as an ethnicity but as a citizenship of a Muslim state with various ethnicities comprising the "Pakistani people".
  Pakistan has one of the world's fastest growing populations. Being a land mass that is transitionally localed both in South Asian, the Greater Middle East and Central Asia, the Pakistani people are a mixture of various ethnic groups. Furthermore, various ethnic groups, invading armies and the migrations to the region by people passing through on their way to and from South Asia have left their imprint on the population.
  
  wn.com/Pakistani_people
• Peter Gerety
  Peter Gerety (born May 17, 1940) is an American actor.
  Gerety began acting while a student at Boston University, participating in productions at the Charles Playhouse. In 1965, he joined the Trinity Square Repertory Company, a resident theater company in Providence, Rhode Island where he appeared in over 125 productions.
  Gerety is a veteran of stage, screen and television. In early 1992, he performed to critical acclaim on Broadway in Conversations with My Father, starring Judd Hirsch, and in Harold Pinter's The Hothouse. He has since performed in many more plays both on and off-broadway, most recently in Martin McDonagh's " The Lieutenant of Inishmore".
  In the late 1990s, he joined the cast of the Barry Levinson produced NBC police drama Homicide: Life on the Street. Gerety has also been a regular guest star on Law & Order and HBO’s The Wire as Judge Daniel Phelan. He also played FBI Agent Franklin Morgan in the short-lived American television series Life on Mars. In the final season of Brotherhood, he played the corrupt land developer, Martin Kilpatrick. Most recently, Peter has been seen recurring on both Mercy and Brothers and Sisters. He appears in the 2011 NBC series Prime Suspect as Maria Bello's father.
  
  wn.com/Peter_Gerety
• Richard Perle
  Richard Norman Perle (born 16 September 1941) is an American political advisor, consultant, and lobbyist who began his career in government as a senior staff member to Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson on the Senate Armed Services Committee in the 1970s. Later he was heavily involved with the Reagan administration and served as the assistant Secretary of Defense and also worked on the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee from 1987 to 2004. He was Chairman of the Board in 2001 under the Bush Administration but eventually resigned in 2003 due to conflict of interests.
  He is a member of several think-tanks including the Hudson Institute, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) Board of Advisors, the Center for Security Policy (CSP), the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (as a resident fellow), the neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC), and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). He is also a patron of the Henry Jackson Society. Perle has written extensively on a number of issues; his cited research interests including defense, national security, and the Middle East. Aside from these engagements, Perle is the former co-chairman and director of Hollinger, Inc., a partner of Trireme Partners and a non-executive director of Autonomy Corporation.
  
  wn.com/Richard_Perle
• Robert Baer
  Robert "Bob" Booker Baer (born July 1, 1952) is an American author and a former CIA case officer who was primarily assigned to the Middle East. He is currently TIME.com's intelligence columnist and has contributed to Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Baer is a frequent commentator and author about issues related to international relations, espionage and U.S. foreign policy.
  Baer was born in Los Angeles, raised in Aspen, Colorado, and aspired to become a professional skier. He spent many years of his childhood with his mother in Europe before returning to the US. After a fairly poor academic performance during his freshman year at high school, his mother sent him to Indiana's Culver Military Academy. In 1976, after graduating from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and entering the University of California, Berkeley, Baer decided to join the CIA's Directorate of Operations (now the National Clandestine Service) as a case officer. Upon admittance to the CIA, Baer engaged in a year's training, which included a four-month paramilitary course and foreign language courses.
  
  wn.com/Robert_Baer
• Robert Elswit
  Robert Christopher Elswit, ASC (born April 22, 1950) is an American cinematographer. He has had multiple Oscar, BAFTA, and Independent Spirit nominations for several films, including There Will Be Blood. Elswit frequently works with director Paul Thomas Anderson.
  Elswit is a fierce defender of shooting with film, and whenever possible refuses to use digital cameras. Images shot digitally, he says, have "no texture, no grain."
  Elswit has also worked with director George Clooney several times. He shot Clooney's black and white, multiple-Oscar nominated film Good Night, and Good Luck. Notably, Elswit shot the film in color, then converted the film into black and white in post production. According to Elswit, this technique preserved the subtlety of the colors (as complex shades of blacks and greys) and made the overall look much richer in the final film.
  Elswit received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography in 2006 for his work on the movie Good Night, and Good Luck. He lost that Oscar to Dion Beebe for Memoirs of a Geisha. Two years later, Elswit would again be nominated and this time win the Oscar for Best Cinematography, for his work on There Will Be Blood.
  
  wn.com/Robert_Elswit
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  Roberto Rossellini
  Roberto Gastone Zeffiro Rossellini (8 May 1906 – 3 June 1977) was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Rossellini was one of the directors of the Italian neorealist cinema, contributing films such as Roma città aperta (Rome, Open City 1945) to the movement.
  Rossellini was born in Rome. His mother, Elettra (née Bellan), was a housewife, and his father, Angiolo Giuseppe "Beppino" Rossellini, owned a construction firm. His mother was of part French descent, from immigrants who had arrived in Italy during the Napoleonic Wars. He lived on the Via Ludovisi, where Benito Mussolini had his first Roman hotel in 1922 when Fascism obtained power in Italy.
  Rossellini's father built the first cinema in Rome, granting his son an unlimited free pass; the young Rossellini started frequenting the cinema at an early age. When his father died, he worked as a soundmaker for films and for a certain time he experienced all the accessory jobs related to the creation of a film, gaining competence in each field. Rossellini had a brother, Renzo, who later scored many of his films.
  
  wn.com/Roberto_Rossellini
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  Roger Ebert
  Roger Joseph Ebert ( /ˈiːbərt/; born June 18, 1942) is an American journalist, film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.
  Ebert is known for his film review column (appearing in the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, and later online) and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The Movies, all of which he co-hosted for a combined 23 years with Gene Siskel. After Siskel's death in 1999, Ebert teamed with Richard Roeper for the television series Ebert & Roeper & the Movies, which began airing in 2000. Although his name remained in the title, Ebert did not appear on the show after mid-2006 after he suffered post-surgical complications related to thyroid cancer, leaving him unable to speak. Ebert ended his association with the show in July 2008, but in February 2009 he stated that he and Roeper would continue their work on a new show. Ebert's current show, Ebert Presents: At the Movies, premiered on January 21, 2011, with Ebert contributing a review voiced by someone else in a brief segment called "Roger's Office".
  
  wn.com/Roger_Ebert
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  Saddam Hussein
  Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (Arabic: صدام حسين عبد المجيد التكريتي Ṣaddām Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Maǧīd al-Tikrītī; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organisation Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region, which espoused ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup, later referred to as the 17 July Revolution, that brought the party to long-term power of Iraq.
  As vice president under the ailing General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, and at a time when many groups were considered capable of overthrowing the government, Saddam created security forces through which he tightly controlled conflict between the government and the armed forces. In the early 1970s, Saddam nationalized oil and other industries. The state-owned banks were put under his control, leaving the system eventually insolvent mostly due to the Iran–Iraq War, the Gulf War, and UN sanctions. Through the 1970s, Saddam cemented his authority over the apparatuses of government as oil money helped Iraq's economy to grow at a rapid pace. Positions of power in the country were filled with Sunnis, a minority that made up only a fifth of the population.
  
  wn.com/Saddam_Hussein
• Stephen Gaghan
  Stephen Gaghan (born May 6, 1965) is an American screenwriter and director. He is noted for writing the screenplay for Steven Soderbergh's film Traffic, based on a Channel 4 series, for which he won the Academy Award, as well as Syriana which he wrote and directed.
  Born in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of the former Elizabeth Jane Whorton and her first husband, Stephen Gaghan (d. 1980), and a stepson of Tom Haag, Gaghan attended Kentucky Country Day School, a college preparatory school in Louisville. He was an All-State soccer player where he held the assist record at the school for nearly three decades. He is a grandson of Jerry Gaghan, a newspaper columnist and drama critic for Variety and the Philadelphia Daily News, whose career inspired Gaghan's own professional pursuits. As he wrote in a 2001 article in Newsweek, "I also wanted to be a writer, like my grandfather, who carried a card in his wallet that read, "If you find me, call my son [my father] at this number..."
  
  wn.com/Stephen_Gaghan
• 
  Steven Soderbergh
  Steven Andrew Soderbergh (/ˈsoʊdərbɜrɡ/; born January 14, 1963) is an American film producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, and an Academy Award-winning film director. He is best known for directing critically acclaimed commercial Hollywood films like Out of Sight, Erin Brockovich and Traffic, and the remake of Ocean's Eleven. He has also directed smaller, less conventional works, such as Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Schizopolis, Bubble, The Girlfriend Experience and Che. His most recent works are Contagion and Haywire.
  Soderbergh was born in Atlanta, the son of Mary Ann (née Bernard) and Peter Andrew Soderbergh, who was a university administrator and educator. His paternal grandfather was a Swedish immigrant, from Stockholm. When he was a child, his family moved from Atlanta to Charlottesville, Virginia, where he lived during his adolescence, then moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where his father became Dean of Education at Louisiana State University (LSU). There he discovered filmmaking as a teenager, directing short Super 8 mm films with equipment borrowed from LSU students.
  
  wn.com/Steven_Soderbergh
• Tim Blake Nelson
  Tim Blake Nelson (born May 11, 1964) is an American director, writer, singer, and actor.
  Nelson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Ruth Kaiser Nelson, who is a noted social activist and philanthropist in Tulsa, and a geologist father. Nelson is Jewish. His maternal grandparents escaped the Nazis shortly before World War II, fleeing to the UK in 1938 and immigrating to the United States in 1940. His father's family had immigrated from Russia. His maternal uncle is businessman George Kaiser.
  Nelson attended the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute at Quartz Mountain Resort Arts and Conference Center in Lone Wolf, Oklahoma. He is a 1982 graduate of Holland Hall School in Tulsa, and a graduate of Brown University, where he was a Classics major as well as Senior Orator for his class of 1986. Additionally, Nelson won the Workman/Driskoll award for excellence in Classical Studies. He graduated from Juilliard in 1990.
  Nelson's debut play, Eye of God was produced at Seattle Repertory Theatre in 1992. The Grey Zone premiered at MCC Theater in New York in 1996 where his 1998 work Anadarko was also produced.
  
  wn.com/Tim_Blake_Nelson
• Tim Squyres
  Timothy S. “Tim” Squyres (born on March 29, 1959 in Wenonah, New Jersey) is an American film editor with about 30 film credits. Squyres has had an extended collaboration with the Taiwanese director Ang Lee, having edited all but one of Lee's feature films.
  Squyres is the brother of Steve Squyres, professor of astronomy at Cornell University. Both brothers attended Cornell after attending Gateway Regional High School in New Jersey.^{[citation needed]}
  Squyres has edited all of Ang Lee's films except for Brokeback Mountain, including The Wedding Banquet (1993), Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Ride with the Devil (1999), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), The Hire: Chosen (2001), Hulk (2003), Lust, Caution (2007) and, most recently, Taking Woodstock (2009).
  Squyres' work on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) earned nominations for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing, the BAFTA Award for Best Editing, the American Cinema Editors Eddie Award, among other awards. His work on Gosford Park (directed by Robert Altman - 2001) was also nominated for an Eddie.
  
  wn.com/Tim_Squyres
• 
  William Hurt
  William McChord Hurt (born March 20, 1950) is an American stage and film actor. He received his acting training at the Juilliard School, and began acting on stage in the 1970s. Hurt made his film debut as a troubled scientist in the science-fiction feature Altered States (1980), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination for New Star of the Year. He subsequently played a leading role, as a lawyer who succumbs to the temptations of Kathleen Turner, in the well-received neo noir Body Heat (1981).
  In 1985, Hurt garnered substantial critical acclaim and multiple acting awards, including an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Actor, for portraying an effeminate gay man in Kiss of the Spider Woman. He received another two Academy Award nominations for his lead performances in Children of a Lesser God (1986) and Broadcast News (1987). Hurt remained an active stage actor throughout the 1980s, appearing in Off-Broadway productions, including Henry V, Fifth of July, Richard II, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Hurt received his first Tony Award nomination in 1985 for the Broadway production of Hurlyburly.
  
  wn.com/William_Hurt

Syriana (2005)

Actors

• George Clooney
• Matt Damon
• Jeffrey Wright
• Chris Cooper
• William Hurt
• Tim Blake Nelson
• Amanda Peet
• Christopher Plummer
• Alexander Siddig
• Mazhar Munir

Director

• Stephen Gaghan

• The Road to Damascus
• Black Zil
• Mount Qasioun
• Galatian Bridge At Dawn
• Checkpoint Charlie
• Ana Araby
• Sahet Al Tahrir
• Gharibb / Stranger
• Zain Al Shabab

• timeline:
• 2012
• 2011
• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005
• 2004
• 2003
• 2002
• 2001

• timeline:
• 2012
• 2011
• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005
• 2004
• 2003
• 2002
• 2001