- published: 05 Jan 2013
- views: 1894
- author: RussiaToday
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- Afghanistan
- Agriculture ministry
- Albania
- Angola
- Antonio Patriota
- Argentina
- Armenia
- Australia
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- Bangladesh
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- Benin
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Abkhazia
Abkhazia (Abkhaz: Аҧсны́ Apsny, IPA /apʰsˈnɨ/; Georgian: აფხაზეთი Apkhazeti; Russian: Абхазия Abkhaziya) is a disputed territory on the eastern coast of the Black Sea and the south-western flank of the Caucasus.
Abkhazia considers itself an independent state, called the Republic of Abkhazia or Apsny. This status is recognised by Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru, Tuvalu and Vanuatu and also by the partially recognised states of South Ossetia, Transnistria and Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Georgian government and the majority of the world's governments consider Abkhazia a part of Georgia's territory. Under Georgia's official designation it is an autonomous republic, called the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, whose government sits in exile in Tbilisi. On 28 August 2008, the Parliament of Georgia passed a resolution declaring Abkhazia a "Russian-occupied territory".
The status of Abkhazia is a central issue of the Georgian–Abkhazian conflict. The wider region formed part of the Soviet Union until 1991. As the Soviet Union began to disintegrate towards the end of the 1980s, ethnic tensions grew between Abkhaz and Georgians over Georgia's moves towards independence. This led to the 1992–1993 War in Abkhazia that resulted in a Georgian military defeat, de facto independence of Abkhazia and the mass exodus and ethnic cleansing of the Georgian population from Abkhazia. In spite of the 1994 ceasefire agreement and years of negotiations, the status dispute has not been resolved, and despite the long-term presence of a United Nations monitoring force and a Russian-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) peacekeeping operation, the conflict has flared up on several occasions. In August 2008, the sides again fought during the South Ossetia War, which was followed by the formal recognition of Abkhazia by Russia, the annulment of the 1994 cease fire agreement and the termination of the UN and CIS missions.[citation needed]
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Afghanistan
Afghanistan
i/æfˈɡænɨstæn/ (Persian/Pashto: افغانستان, Afġānistān), officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming part of South Asia, Central Asia, and Greater Middle East, it is also considered to be part of a broader West Asia. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of 647,500 km2 (250,001 sq mi), making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and the east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast.
Afghanistan has been an ancient focal point of the Silk Road and human migration. Archaeologists have found evidence of human habitation from as far back as 50,000 BC. Urban civilization may have begun in the area as early as 3,000 to 2,000 BC. Sitting at an important geostrategic location that connects the Middle East with Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, the land has been home to various peoples through the ages and witnessed many military campaigns, notably by Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and in modern era Western forces. The land also served as a source from which the Greco-Bactrians, Kushans, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Timurids, Mughals and many others have risen to form major empires.
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Albania
Albania (i/ælˈbeɪniə/ al-BAY-nee-ə, Albanian: Shqipëri/Shqipëria; Gheg Albanian: Shqipnia), officially known as the Republic of Albania (Albanian: Republika e Shqipërisë pronounced Albanian pronunciation: [ɾɛpuˈblika ɛ ʃcipəˈɾiːs]), is a country in Southern Europe. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the west, and on the Ionian Sea to the southwest. It is less than 72 km (45 mi) from Italy, across the Strait of Otranto which links the Adriatic Sea to the Ionian Sea.
Albania is a member of the UN, NATO, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Council of Europe, World Trade Organisation, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and one of the founding members of the Union for the Mediterranean. Albania has been a potential candidate for accession to the European Union since January 2003, and it formally applied for EU membership on 28 April 2009.
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Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola (Portuguese: República de Angola, pronounced: [ʁɨˈpublikɐ dɨ ɐ̃ˈɡɔla];Kikongo, Kimbundu, Umbundu: Repubilika ya Ngola), is a country in southern Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city. The exclave province of Cabinda has borders with the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Portuguese were present in some—mostly coastal—points of the territory of what is now Angola, from the 16th to the 19th century, interacting in diverse ways with the peoples that lived there. In the 19th century they slowly and hesitantly began to establish themselves in the interior. Angola as a Portuguese colony encompassing the present territory was not established before the end of the 19th century, and "effective occupation", as required by the Berlin Conference (1884) was achieved only by the 1920s. Independence was achieved in 1975, after a protracted liberation war. After independence, Angola was the scene of an intense civil war from 1975 to 2002. The country has vast mineral and petroleum reserves, and its economy has on average grown at a two-digit pace since the 1990s, especially since the end of the civil war. In spite of this, standards of living remain low for the majority of the population, and life expectancy and infant mortality rates in Angola are among the worst-ranked in the world. At the same time, a minority has reached comfortable life standards, and the dominant stratum has succeeded in accumulating considerable wealth, so that social inequality in Angola is one of the highest in the world.
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Argentina
Argentinai/ˌɑrdʒənˈtiːnə/, officially the Argentine Republic (Spanish: República Argentina [reˈpuβlika aɾxenˈtina]), is a country in South America, the continent's second largest by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth-largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations.
Argentina's continental area is between the Andes mountain range in the west and the Atlantic Ocean in the east. It borders Paraguay and Bolivia to the north, Brazil and Uruguay to the northeast, and Chile to the west and south. Argentine claims over Antarctica, as well as overlapping claims made by Chile and the United Kingdom, are suspended by the Antarctic Treaty of 1961. Argentina also claims the Falkland Islands (Spanish: Islas Malvinas) and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, which are administered by the United Kingdom as British Overseas Territories.
A recognised middle power, Argentina is Latin America's third-largest economy, with a "very high" rating on the Human development index. Within Latin America, Argentina has the fifth highest nominal GDP per capita and the highest in purchasing power terms. Analysts have argued that the country has a "foundation for future growth due to its market size, levels of foreign direct investment, and percentage of high-tech exports as share of total manufactured goods", and it is classed by investors as middle emerging economy. Argentina is a founding member of the United Nations, Mercosur, the Union of South American Nations, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the World Bank Group and the World Trade Organization, and is one of the G-15 and G-20 major economies.
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Armenia
Armeniai/ɑrˈmiːniə/ (Armenian: Հայաստան Hayastan [hɑjɑsˈtɑn]), officially the Republic of Armenia (Հայաստանի Հանրապետություն, Hayastani Hanrapetut’yun, [hɑjɑstɑˈni hɑnɾɑpɛtuˈtʰjun]), is a landlocked, mountainous country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the south.
A former republic of the Soviet Union, Armenia is a unitary, multiparty, democratic nation-state with an ancient and historic cultural heritage. The Kingdom of Armenia became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its religion, in the early years of the 4th century (the traditional date is 301 AD). The modern Republic of Armenia recognizes the Armenian Apostolic Church, the world's oldest national church, as the country's primary religious establishment. Armenians have their own unique alphabet invented by Mesrob Mashtots in 406 AD.
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Australia
Australia (
/əˈstreɪljə/), officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent as well as the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area. Neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea to the north; the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east.
For at least 40,000 years before European settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who belonged to one or more of roughly 250 language groups. After discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades; the continent was explored and an additional five self-governing Crown Colonies were established.
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Austria
Austria (i/ˈɒstriə/ or /ˈɔːstriə/; German: Österreich [ˈøːstɐˌʁaɪç] (
listen)), officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich (help·info)), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.47 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,855 square kilometres (32,377 sq mi) and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft), and its highest point is 3,798 metres (12,461 ft). The majority of the population speak local Austro-Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other local official languages are Burgenland Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene.
The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria became one of the great powers of Europe and, in response to the coronation of Napoleon I as the Emperor of the French, the Austrian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1804. In 1867, the Austrian Empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary.
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Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (
i/ˌæzərbaɪˈdʒɑːn/ AZ-ər-by-JAHN; Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan (Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan Respublikası) is the largest country in the Caucasus region located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south. The exclave of Nakhchivan is bounded by Armenia to the north and east, Iran to the south and west, while having a short borderline with Turkey to the northwest.
Azerbaijan has an ancient and historic cultural heritage. Aside from having been the first Muslim-majority country to have operas, theater and plays, Azerbaijan today is among the Muslim-majority countries where support for secularism and tolerance is the highest. The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, the first democratic and secular republic in the Muslim world, was established in 1918, but was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1920. Azerbaijan regained independence in 1991. Shortly thereafter, during the Nagorno-Karabakh War, neighboring Armenia occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, its surrounding territories and the enclaves of Karki, Yukhary Askipara, Barkhudarly and Sofulu. The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which emerged in Nagorno-Karabakh, continues to be not diplomatically recognized by any nation and the region is still considered a de jure part of Azerbaijan, despite being de facto independent since the end of the war. Azerbaijan has come under repeated international criticism for its record on human rights.
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Bangladesh
Coordinates: 23°N 90°E / 23°N 90°E / 23; 90
Bangladesh (i/ˈbɑːŋɡlədɛʃ/ or i/bæŋɡləˈdɛʃ/ (Anglicized pronunciation); Bengali: বাংলাদেশ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh (Bengali: গণপ্রজাতন্ত্রী বাংলাদেশ Gônoprojatontri Bangladesh) is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India and Burma and by the Bay of Bengal to the south. The capital (and largest city) is Dhaka, located in central Bangladesh. The official state language is Bengali. The name Bangladesh means "Land of Bengal" or "Country of Bengal" the in the Bengali language, from Bangla "Bengal" and desh holding a dual meaning of "land" and "country" as English "country," German land, French pays, etc.
The borders of present-day Bangladesh were established with the partition of Bengal during the reign and demise of the British India. Its map was chartered by Sir Cyril Radcliffe during the creation of Pakistan and India in 1947, when the region became East Pakistan, part of the newly formed nation of Pakistan. Due to political exclusion and economic exploitation by the politically dominant West Pakistan, popular agitation grew against West Pakistan and led to the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, after the Bangladeshi Declaration of Independence on 26 March 1971. With the intervention of the Indian Army, the war came to an end on 16 December 1971 with the surrender of the Pakistan Army at Ramna Race Course.
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Belarus
Belarus (i/bɛləˈruːs/ bel-ə-ROOSS; Belarusian: Беларусь, Russian pronunciation: [bʲɛlaˈrusʲ] Russian: Беларусь, Белоруссия, Belarus', Belorussiya), officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno (Hrodna), Gomel (Homiel), Mogilev (Mahilyow) and Vitebsk (Vitsebsk). Over forty percent of its 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) is forested, and its strongest economic sectors are agriculture and manufacturing.
Until the 20th century, the lands of modern-day Belarus belonged to several countries, including the Principality of Polotsk, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Empire. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Belarus became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union and was renamed as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). The borders of Belarus took their modern shape in 1939 when some lands of the Second Polish Republic were incorporated into it after the Soviet invasion of Poland. The nation and its territory were devastated in World War II, during which Belarus lost about a third of its population and more than half of its economic resources. The republic was redeveloped in the post-war years. In 1945 the Belorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR.
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Belgium
Belgium (i/ˈbɛldʒəm/ BEL-jəm), officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO. Belgium covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres (11,787 sq mi), and it has a population of about 11 million people. Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Latin Europe, Belgium is home to two main linguistic groups, the Dutch-speakers, mostly Flemish (about 60%), and the French-speakers, mostly Walloons (about 40%), plus a small group of German-speakers. Belgium's two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region, officially bilingual, is a mostly French-speaking enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in the political history and a complex system of government.
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Benin
Benini/bɨˈniːn/ (formerly, Dahomey), officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo to the west, by Nigeria to the east and by Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. A majority of the population live on its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin. The capital of Benin is Porto-Novo, but the seat of government is in Cotonou, the country's largest city. Benin covers an area of approximately 110,000 square kilometers (42,000 sq mi), with a population of approximately 9.05 million. Benin is a tropical, sub-Saharan nation, highly dependent on agriculture, with substantial employment and income arising from subsistence farming.
The official language of Benin is French, however, indigenous languages such as Fon and Yoruba are commonly spoken. The largest religious group in Benin is Roman Catholicism, followed closely by Islam, Vodun and Protestantism. Benin is a member of the United Nations, the African Union, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone, La Francophonie, the Community of Sahel-Saharan States, the African Petroleum Producers Association and the Niger Basin Authority.
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Brazil
Brazili/brəˈzɪl/ (Portuguese: Brasil, IPA: [bɾaˈziw]), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: República Federativa do Brasil, listen (help·info)), is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people. It is the only Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas and the largest lusophone country in the world.
Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7,491 km (4,655 mi). It is bordered on the north by Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and the French overseas region of French Guiana; on the northwest by Colombia; on the west by Bolivia and Peru; on the southwest by Argentina and Paraguay and on the south by Uruguay. Numerous archipelagos form part of Brazilian territory, such as Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Paul Rocks, and Trindade and Martim Vaz. It borders all other South American countries except Ecuador and Chile.
Brazil was a colony of Portugal from the landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500 until 1815, when it was elevated to the rank of kingdom and the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves was formed. The colonial bond was in fact broken in 1808, when the capital of the Portuguese colonial empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, after Napoleon invaded Portugal.Independence was achieved in 1822 with the formation of the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system. The country became a presidential republic in 1889, when a military coup d'état proclaimed the Republic, although the bicameral legislature, now called Congress, dates back to the ratification of the first constitution in 1824. Its current Constitution, formulated in 1988, defines Brazil as a Federal Republic. The Federation is formed by the union of the Federal District, the 26 States, and the 5,564 Municipalities.
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Bulgaria
Coordinates: 42°45′N 25°30′E / 42.75°N 25.5°E / 42.75; 25.5
Bulgariai/bʌlˈɡɛəriə/ (Bulgarian: България, IPA: [bɤ̞ɫˈɡarijɐ]), is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and the Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south and the Black Sea to the east. With a territory of 110,994 square kilometres (42,855 sq mi), Bulgaria is Europe's 14th-largest country. Its location has made it a historical crossroad for various civilisations and as such it is the home of some of the earliest metalworking, religious and other cultural artifacts in the world.
Prehistoric cultures began developing on Bulgarian lands during the Neolithic period. Its ancient history was marked by the presence of the Thracians, and later by the Greeks and Romans. The emergence of a unified Bulgarian ethnicity and state dates back to the First Bulgarian Empire, which dominated most of the Balkans and functioned as a cultural hub for Slavic peoples during the Middle Ages. With the downfall of the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1396, its territories came under Ottoman rule for nearly five hundred years. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 resulted in the Third Bulgarian State, recognised in 1908. The following years saw several conflicts with its neighbours, which prompted Bulgaria to align with Germany in both World Wars. In 1946 it became a Communist republic with a single-party system until 1989, when the Communist Party allowed multi-party elections. After 1990 Bulgaria transitioned to democracy and a market-based economy.
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Burma
Burmai/ˈbɜrmə/ BUR-mə, also known as Myanmar i/ˌmjɑːnˈmɑr/ MYAHN--MAR, is a country in South Asia and Southeast Asia. It is bordered by India, Bangladesh, China, Laos and Thailand. One-third of Burma's total perimeter of 1,930 kilometres (1,200 mi) forms an uninterrupted coastline along the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. At 676,578 km2 (261,227 sq mi), it is the 40th largest country in the world and the second largest country in Southeast Asia. Burma is also the 24th most populous country in the world with over 60.28 million people.
Burma is home to some of the early civilizations of Southeast Asia including the Pyu and the Mon. In the 9th century, the Burmans of the Kingdom of Nanzhao, entered the upper Irrawaddy valley and, following the establishment of the Pagan Empire in the 1050s, the Burmese language and culture slowly became dominant in the country. During this period, Theravada Buddhism gradually became the predominant religion of the country. The Pagan Empire fell due to the Mongol invasions (1277–1301), and several warring states emerged. In the second half of the 16th century, the country was reunified by the Taungoo Dynasty which for a brief period was the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia. The early 19th century Konbaung Dynasty ruled over an area that included modern Burma as well as Manipur and Assam. The country was colonized by Britain following three Anglo-Burmese Wars (1824–1885).
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Canada
Canada ( /ˈkænədə/) is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean. Spanning over 9,900,000 km2 (3,800,000 sq mi), Canada is the world's second-largest country by total area, and its common border with the United States is the longest land border in the world.
The land that is now Canada has been inhabited for millennia by various Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French colonial expeditions explored, and later settled, along the region's Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy; the Canada Act 1982 severed the vestiges of legal dependence on Britain.
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Chile
Chile (i/ˈtʃɪliː/ or /ˈtʃɪleɪ/), officially the Republic of Chile (Spanish: República de Chile [reˈpuβlika ðe ˈtʃile] ( listen)), is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow strip of land between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far south. Along with Ecuador, it is one of two countries in South America that do not border Brazil. Chilean territory includes the Pacific islands of Juan Fernández, Salas y Gómez, Desventuradas and Easter Island. Chile also claims about 1,250,000 square kilometres (480,000 sq mi) of Antarctica, although all claims are suspended under the Antarctic Treaty.
Chile's distinctive shape—4,300 kilometres (2,700 mi) long and on average 175 kilometres (109 mi) wide—makes it the longest country in the world, north to south, with the fifth lengthiest coastline at over 78 thousand kilometers. The diverse climate of Chile ranges from the world's driest desert in the north—the Atacama—through a Mediterranean climate in the centre, humid subtropical in Easter Island, to an Oceanic climate, including alpine tundra and glaciers in the east and south. The northern desert contains great mineral wealth, principally copper. The relatively small central area dominates in terms of population and agricultural resources, and is the cultural and political center from which Chile expanded in the late 19th century when it incorporated its northern and southern regions. Southern Chile is rich in forests and grazing lands, and features a string of volcanoes and lakes. The southern coast is a labyrinth of fjords, inlets, canals, twisting peninsulas, and islands.
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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.
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Colombia
Colombia (
/kəˈlʌmbiə/ kə-LUM-biə, or /kəˈlɒmbiə/ kə-LOM-biə), officially the Republic of Colombia (Spanish: República de Colombia [reˈpuβlika ðe koˈlombja]), is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the northwest by Panama; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; and to the west by the Pacific Ocean. Colombia has maritime borders with Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela, Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Colombia is the 26th largest country by area and the fourth largest in South America after Brazil, Argentina and Peru. With over 46 million people, Colombia is the 27th largest country in the world by population and has the second largest population of any Spanish-speaking country in the world, after Mexico. Colombia is a middle power, with the fourth largest economy in Latin America, and the third largest in South America. Colombia is famous for the production of coffee, flowers, emeralds, coal, and oil. All of these products make up the primary sector of economy.
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Croatia
Croatia (i/kroʊˈeɪʃə/ kroh-AY-shə; Croatian: Hrvatska pronounced [xř̩ʋaːtskaː]), officially the Republic of Croatia (Croatian: Republika Hrvatska listen (help·info)), is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of Central Europe, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers 56,594 square kilometres (21,851 square miles) and has diverse, mostly continental and Mediterranean climates. Croatia's Adriatic Sea coast contains more than a thousand islands. The country's population is 4.29 million, most of whom are Croats, with the most common religious denomination being Roman Catholicism.
In the early 7th century the Croats arrived in area of present-day Croatia. They organised the state into two dukedoms by the 9th century. Tomislav became the first king by 925 AD, elevating Croatia to the status of a kingdom. The Kingdom of Croatia retained its sovereignty for nearly two centuries, reaching its peak during the rule of Kings Peter Krešimir IV and Dmitar Zvonimir. Croatia entered a personal union with Hungary in 1102. In 1527, faced with Ottoman conquest the Croatian Parliament elected Ferdinand I of the House of Habsburg to the Croatian throne. In 1918, after World War I, Croatia was included in the short-lived State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs that declared independence from Austria–Hungary and co-founded the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. A Croatian state briefly existed during World War II as a fascist puppet state. After the war, Croatia became a founding member and a federal constituent of the Second Yugoslavia, a socialist state. In June 1991, Croatia declared independence, which came into effect on 8 October of the same year. The Croatian War of Independence was fought successfully during the four years following the declaration.
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Cuba
Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, (i/ˈkjuːbə/; Spanish: República de Cuba, pronounced: [reˈpuβlika ðe ˈkuβa] ( listen)) is an island country in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city. To the north of Cuba lies the United States (140 km or 90 mi away) and the Bahamas, Mexico is to the west, the Cayman Islands and Jamaica are to the south, and Haiti and the Dominican Republic are to the southeast.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on and claimed the island now occupied by Cuba, for the Kingdom of Spain. Cuba remained a territory of Spain until the Spanish–American War ended in 1898, and gained formal independence from the U.S. in 1902. A fragile democracy, increasingly dominated by radical politics eventually evolved, solidified by the Cuban Constitution of 1940, but was definitely quashed in 1952 by former president Fulgencio Batista, and an authoritarian regime was set up, intensifying and catalyzing already rampant corruption, political repression and crippling economic regulations.Batista was ousted in January 1959 by the July 26 movement, and a new administration under Fidel Castro established, which had by 1965 evolved into a single-party state under the revived Communist Party of Cuba, which holds power to date.
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Cyprus
Cyprusi/ˈsaɪprəs/ (Greek: Κύπρος, Kýpros, IPA: [ˈcipɾos]; Turkish: Kıbrıs, IPA: [ˈkɯbɾɯs]), officially the Republic of Cyprus (Greek: Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία, Kypriakī́ Dīmokratía, IPA: [cipɾiaˈci ðimokɾaˈtia]; Turkish: Kıbrıs Cumhuriyeti, IPA: [ˈkɯbɾɯs dʒumhuɾijeˈti]), is an island country in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria, Lebanon, northwest of Israel and north of Egypt. Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and the Republic of Cyprus is a member state of the European Union.
The earliest known human activity on the island dates back to around the 10th millennium BC. Archaeological remains from this period include the well-preserved Neolithic village of Khirokitia, which has been declared a World Heritage Site with an "enhanced protection" status in the event of armed conflict by UNESCO, along with the archaeological sites of Paphos and the Painted Churches of the Troodos Region. Cyprus is home to some of the oldest water wells in the world.
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Czech Republic
The Czech Republic (i/ˈtʃɛk/ CHEK;Czech: Česká republika, pronounced [ˈtʃɛskaː ˈrɛpuˌblɪka] ( listen), short form Česko Czech pronunciation: [ˈtʃɛskɔ]) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the north, Germany to the west, Austria to the south and Slovakia to the east. Its capital and largest city, with 1.3 million inhabitants, is Prague.
It is a pluralist multi-party parliamentary representative democracy, a member of the European Union, NATO, the OECD, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the Visegrád Group.
The Czech state, formerly known as Bohemia, was formed in the late 9th century as a small duchy around Prague, at that time under dominance of the powerful Great Moravian Empire (which reached its greatest territorial extent during the reign of Svatopluk I from the House of Mojmír). After the fall of the Empire in 907, the centre of power was transferred from Moravia to Bohemia, under the Přemyslids. During the rule of Přemyslid dukes/kings and their successors, the Luxembourgs, the country reached its greatest territorial extent (13th–14th century). Life in the country was significantly affected by the Hussite wars, during which it faced economic embargo and crusades from all over Europe. Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the Crown of Bohemia was gradually integrated into the Habsburg monarchy as one of its three principal parts alongside the Archduchy of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary. The Bohemian Revolt (1618–20) led to the further centralization of the monarchy including forced recatholization and Germanization. During radical reforms in the 18th century the Bohemian Crown was even de facto abolished (1749). In the 19th century the Czech lands became the industrial powerhouse of the monarchy and the core of the Republic of Czechoslovakia which was formed in 1918, following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire after World War I.
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Denmark
The Kingdom of Denmark (Danish: Kongeriget Danmark, pronounced [ˈkɔŋəʁiːəð ˈdanmɑɡ̊] ( listen)) is a constitutional monarchy and sovereign state consisting the country of Denmark in northern Europe and two autonomous constituent countries, the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic and Greenland in North America. The kingdom is a unitary state with some power being devolved from Denmark proper to Greenland and the Faroe Islands; this polity is referred to as the Danish Realm. Denmark proper is the hegemonial area, where judicial, executive, and legislative power resides. The Faroe Islands are defined to be a community of people within the kingdom, and the Greenlandic people are defined as a separate people with the right to self-determination.
Denmark is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, located southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. The country consists of a large peninsula, Jutland and many islands, most notably Zealand, Funen, Lolland, Falster and Bornholm, as well as hundreds of minor islands often referred to as the Danish Archipelago.
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East Germany
The German Democratic Republic (GDR; German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik [ˈdɔʏtʃə demoˈkʀaːtɪʃə ʀepuˈbliːk] or DDR), informally known as East Germany (German: Ostdeutschland), was a socialist state established by the USSR in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city. The GDR had an area of 107,771 km2 (41,610 mi2), bordering Czechoslovakia to the south, West Germany to the south and west, Poland to the east, and the Baltic Sea to the north. East Germany was dissolved upon joining the institutions of West Germany in the German reunification, on 3 October 1990.
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Ecuador
Ecuador (i/ˈɛkwədɔr/ E-kwə-dawr), officially the Republic of Ecuador (Spanish: República del Ecuador [reˈpuβlika ðel ekwaˈðor], which literally translates to the "Republic of the Equator") is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, (along with Chile), that do not have a border with Brazil. The country also includes the Galápagos Islands in the Pacific, about 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) west of the mainland.
The main spoken language in Ecuador is Spanish. Ecuador straddles the equator, from which it takes its name, and has an area of 275,830 km2 (106,500 sq mi). Its capital city is Quito, which was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in the 1970s for having the best preserved and least altered historic center in Latin America. The country's largest city is Guayaquil. The historic center of Cuenca, the third largest city in the country, was also declared a World Heritage Site in 1999, for being an outstanding example of a planned inland Spanish style colonial city in the Americas. Ecuador is also home—despite its size—to a great variety of species, many of them endemic, like those of the Galápagos islands. This species diversity makes Ecuador one of the 17 megadiverse countries in the world. The new constitution of 2008 is the first in the world to recognize legally enforceable Rights of Nature, or ecosystem rights.
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Egypt
Egypti/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.
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Estonia
Estoniai/ɨsˈtoʊniə/ (Estonian: Eesti), officially the Republic of Estonia (Estonian: Eesti Vabariik), is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia (343 km), and to the east by Lake Peipus and the Russian Federation (338.6 km). Across the Baltic Sea lies Sweden in the west and Finland in the north. The territory of Estonia covers 45,227 km2 (17,462 sq mi), and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. The Estonians are a Finnic people, and the official language, Estonian, is closely related to Finnish.
Estonia is a democratic parliamentary republic divided into 15 counties. The capital and largest city is Tallinn. With a population of 1.29 million, it is one of the least-populous members of the European Union, Eurozone and NATO. Estonia has the highest GDP per person among former Soviet republics. Estonia is listed as a "High-Income Economy" by the World Bank and as an "advanced economy" by the International Monetary Fund; the country is an OECD member. The United Nations lists Estonia as a developed country with a Human Development Index of "Very High". The country is also ranked highly for press freedom, economic freedom, democracy and political freedom and education.
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Ethiopia
Ethiopia ( /ˌiːθiˈoʊpiə/) (Ge'ez: ኢትዮጵያ ʾĪtyōṗṗyā), officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2. Ethiopia is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, Sudan and South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. With its capital at Addis Ababa, it is also the most populous landlocked nation in the world.
Ethiopia was a monarchy for most of its history, and the Ethiopian dynasty traces its roots to the 2nd century BC. Ethiopia is also one of the oldest sites of human existence known to scientists today, having yielded some of humanity's oldest traces. It may be the region from which Homo sapiens first set out for the Middle East and points beyond. Alongside Rome, Persia, China and India, the Ethiopian Aksum Empire was considered one of the great world powers of the 3rd century. During the Scramble for Africa, Ethiopia was the only African country beside Liberia that retained its sovereignty as a recognized independent country, and was one of only four African members of the League of Nations. After a brief period of Italian occupation, Ethiopia became a charter member of the United Nations. When other African nations received their independence following World War II, many of them adopted the colors of Ethiopia's flag, and Addis Ababa became the location of several international organizations focused on Africa.
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Fiji
Fijii/ˈfiːdʒiː/ (Fijian: Viti; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी), officially the Republic of Fiji (Fijian: Matanitu ko Viti; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी गणराज्यFijī Gaṇarājya), is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about 1,100 nautical miles (2,000 km; 1,300 mi) northeast of New Zealand's North Island. Its closest neighbours are Vanuatu to the west, France's New Caledonia to the southwest, New Zealand's Kermadec to the southeast, Tonga to the east, the Samoas, France's Wallis and Futuna to the northeast and Tuvalu to the north.
The majority of Fiji's islands were formed through volcanic activity started around 150 million years ago. Today, some geothermal activity still occurs on the islands of Vanua Levu and Taveuni. Fiji has been inhabited since the second millennium BC. The country comprises an archipelago of more than 332 islands, of which 110 are permanently inhabited, and more than 500 islets, amounting to a total land area of circa 18,300 square kilometres (7,100 sq mi). The two major islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, account for 87% of the population of almost 850,000. The former contains Suva, the capital and largest city. Most of Fijians live on Viti Levu's coasts, either in Suva or in smaller urban centres. Viti Levu's interior is sparsely inhabited due to its terrain.
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Finland
Coordinates: 65°N 27°E / 65°N 027°E / 65; 027
Finlandi/ˈfɪnlənd/ ( Finnish: Suomi; Swedish: Finland (help·info)), officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.
Around 5.4 million people reside in Finland, with the majority concentrated in the southern region. It is the eighth largest country in Europe in terms of area and the most sparsely populated country in the European Union. Finland is a parliamentary republic with a central government based in Helsinki and local governments in 336 municipalities, and an autonomous region of the Åland Islands. About one million residents live in the Greater Helsinki area, which consists of Helsinki, Espoo, Kauniainen and Vantaa, and a third of the country's GDP is produced there. Other larger cities include Tampere, Turku, Oulu, Jyväskylä, Lahti and Kuopio.
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France
France (Englishi/ˈfræns/ FRANSS or /ˈfrɑːns/ FRAHNSS; French: [fʁɑ̃s] ( listen)), officially the French Republic (French: République française [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is often referred to as l’Hexagone ("The Hexagon") because of the geometric shape of its territory. It is the largest western European country and it possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, covering 11,035,000 km2 (4,260,000 sq mi), just behind that of the United States (11,351,000 km2 / 4,383,000 sq mi).
Over the past 500 years, France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and around the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America and Southeast Asia; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built the second largest colonial empire of the time, including large portions of North, West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands.
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Gabon
Gabon ( /ɡəˈbɒn/; French pronunciation: [ɡabɔ̃]), officially the Gabonese Republic (French: République Gabonaise) is a state in west central Africa sharing borders with Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, and with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. The Gulf of Guinea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean is to the west. It covers a land area of nearly 270,000 km² and has an estimated population of 1,500,000. Its capital and largest city is Libreville.
Since its independence from France on August 17, 1960, Gabon has been ruled by three presidents. In the early 1990s, Gabon introduced a multi-party system and a new democratic constitution that allowed for a more transparent electoral process and reformed many governmental institutions. Gabon is also a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for the 2010-2011 term.
Low population density together with abundant natural resources and foreign private investment have helped make Gabon one of the most prosperous countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, with the highest HDI and the third highest GDP per capita (PPP) (after Equatorial Guinea and Botswana) in the region.
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Germany
Germany (i/ˈdʒɜrməni/), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, pronounced [ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant] ( listen)), is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 81.8 million inhabitants, it is the most populous member state and the largest economy in the European Union. It is one of the major political powers of the European continent and a technological leader in many fields.
A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, was documented before AD 100. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward, and established successor kingdoms throughout much of Europe. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation while southern and western parts remained dominated by Roman Catholic denominations, with the two factions clashing in the Thirty Years' War, marking the beginning of the Catholic–Protestant divide that has characterized German society ever since. Occupied during the Napoleonic Wars, the rise of Pan-Germanism inside the German Confederation resulted in the unification of most of the German states into the German Empire in 1871 which was Prussian dominated. After the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and the subsequent military surrender in World War I, the Empire was replaced by the Weimar Republic in 1918, and partitioned in the Treaty of Versailles. Amidst the Great Depression, the Third Reich was proclaimed in 1933. The latter period was marked by Fascism and World War II. After 1945, Germany was divided by allied occupation, and evolved into two states, East Germany and West Germany. In 1990 Germany was reunified.
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Ghana
Ghanai/ˈɡɑːnə/ is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south. The word Ghana means "Warrior King" and is derived from the ancient Ghana Empire.
Ghana was inhabited in pre-colonial times by a number of ancient predominantly Akan kingdoms, including the inland Ashanti Empire, the Akwamu, the Akyem, the Bonoman, the Denkyira, and the Fante among others. Non-Akan states created by the Ga also existed as did states by the Dagomba. Prior to contact with Europeans trade between the Akan and various African states flourished due to Akan's gold wealth. Trade with European states began after contact with the Portuguese in the 15th century, and the British established the Gold Coast Crown colony in 1874 over parts but not all of the country.
The Gold Coast achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1957, becoming the First sub-Saharan African nation to do so from European Colonialism. The name Ghana was chosen for the new nation to reflect the ancient Empire of Ghana, which once extended throughout much of west Africa.
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Greece
Greecei/ˈɡriːs/ (Greek: Ελλάδα, Ellada, IPA: [eˈlaða] ( listen) historically in Katharevousa and Ancient Greek: Ἑλλάς, Hellas, IPA: [eˈlas] and [helːás] respectively), officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία, Elliniki Dimokratia, IPA: [eliniˈci ðimokraˈtia]), is a country in Southern Europe, politically considered part of Western Europe.Athens is the capital and the largest city in the country (its urban area also including Piraeus). The population of the country is around 11 million.
Greece has land borders with Albania, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the east. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of mainland Greece, the Ionian Sea to the west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km (8,498 mi) in length, featuring a vast number of islands (approximately 1,400, of which 227 are inhabited), including Crete, the Dodecanese, the Cyclades, and the Ionian Islands among others. Eighty percent of Greece consists of mountains, of which Mount Olympus is the highest at 2,917 m (9,570 ft).
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Haiti
Haitii/ˈheɪti/ (French: Haïti [aiti]; Haitian Creole Ayiti [ajiti]), officially the Republic of Haiti (République d'Haïti; Repiblik Ayiti), is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti (land of high mountains) was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island. The country's highest point is Pic la Selle, at 2,680 metres (8,793 ft). The total area of Haiti is 27,750 square kilometres (10,714 sq mi) and its capital is Port-au-Prince. Haitian Creole and French are the official languages.
Haiti's regional, historical, and ethno-linguistic position is unique for several reasons. It was the first independent nation of Latin America and the Caribbean, the first black-led republic in the world, and the second republic in the Americas when it gained independence in 1804 as part of a successful slave revolution lasting nearly a decade. In 2012, Haiti announced its intention to seek associate membership status in the African Union. Haiti is the only predominantly Francophone independent nation in the Americas. It is one of only two independent nations in the Americas (along with Canada) to designate French as an official language; the other French-speaking areas are all overseas départements, or collectivités, of France.
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Hong Kong
Coordinates: 22°16′42″N 114°09′32″E / 22.27833°N 114.15889°E / 22.27833; 114.15889
Hong Kong (Chinese: 香港) is one of two special administrative regions (SARs) of the People's Republic of China (PRC), the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is known for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour. With a land mass of 1,104 km2 (426 sq mi) and a population of seven million people, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Hong Kong's population is 95 percent ethnic Chinese and 5 percent from other groups. Hong Kong's Han Chinese majority originate mainly from the cities of Guangzhou and Taishan in the neighbouring Guangdong province.
Hong Kong became a colony of the British Empire after the First Opium War (1839–42). Originally confined to Hong Kong Island, the colony's boundaries were extended in stages to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 and then the New Territories in 1898. It was occupied by Japan during the Pacific War, after which the British resumed control until 1997, when China resumed sovereignty. The region espoused minimum government intervention under the ethos of positive non-interventionism during the colonial era. The time period greatly influenced the current culture of Hong Kong, often described as "East meets West", and the educational system, which used to loosely follow the system in England until reforms implemented in 2009.
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Hungary
Hungaryi/ˈhʌŋɡəri/ (Hungarian: Magyarország [ˈmɒɟɒrorsaːɡ] ( listen)) is a country, which is located in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The country's capital, and largest city, is Budapest. Hungary is a member of the European Union, NATO, the OECD, the Visegrád Group, and is a Schengen state. The official language is Hungarian, also known as Magyar, which is part of the Finno-Ugric group and is the most widely spoken non-Indo-European language in Europe.
Following a Celt (after c. 450 BC) and a Roman (AD 9 - c. 430) period, the foundation of Hungary was laid in the late 9th century by the Hungarian prince Árpád, whose great-grandson Saint Stephen I was crowned with a crown sent by the pope from Rome in 1000 AD. The Kingdom of Hungary lasted for 946 years, and at various points was regarded as one of the cultural centres of the Western world. After about 150 years of partial Ottoman occupation (1541–1699), Hungary was integrated into the Habsburg Monarchy, and later constituted half of the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy (1867–1918).
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Iceland
Icelandi/ˈaɪslənd/ (Icelandic: Ísland, IPA: [ˈislant]) is a Nordic European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The country has a population of about 320,000 and a total area of 103,000 km2 (40,000 sq mi). The capital and largest city is Reykjavík, with the surrounding areas in the southwestern region of the country being home to two-thirds of the country's population. Iceland is volcanically and geologically active. The interior mainly consists of a plateau characterised by sand fields, mountains and glaciers, while many glacial rivers flow to the sea through the lowlands. Iceland is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has a temperate climate despite a high latitude just outside the Arctic Circle.
According to Landnámabók, the settlement of Iceland began in AD 874 when the chieftain Ingólfur Arnarson became the first permanent Norse settler on the island. Others had visited the island earlier and stayed over winter. Over the following centuries, Norsemen settled Iceland, bringing with them thralls (slaves) of Gaelic origin. From 1262 to 1918 Iceland was part of the Norwegian and later the Danish monarchies. Until the 20th century, the Icelandic population relied largely on fisheries and agriculture, and the country was one of the poorest and least developed in the world. Industrialisation of the fisheries and aid from the Marshall Plan brought prosperity in the years after World War II, and by the 1990s it was one of the world's wealthiest countries. In 1994, Iceland became party to the European Economic Area, which made it possible for the economy to diversify into economic and financial services.
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India
India (i/ˈɪndiə/), officially the Republic of India (Bhārat Gaṇarājya), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west;China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Burma and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; in addition, India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.
Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four of the world's major religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism—originated here, whereas Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived in the 1st millennium CE and also helped shape the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by and brought under the administration of the British East India Company from the early 18th century and administered directly by the United Kingdom from the mid-19th century, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by non-violent resistance led by Mahatma Gandhi.
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Indonesia
Indonesia (i/ˌɪndəˈniːʒə/ IN-də-NEE-zhə or /ˌɪndoʊˈniːziə/ IN-doh-NEE-zee-ə), officially the Republic of Indonesia (Indonesian: Republik Indonesia Indonesian pronunciation: [rɛpʊblɪk ɪndɔnɛsɪa]), is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 17,508 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an elected legislature and president. The nation's capital city is Jakarta. The country shares land borders with Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Malaysia. Other neighboring countries include Singapore, Philippines, Australia, and the Indian territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Indonesia is a founding member of ASEAN and a member of the G-20 major economies. The Indonesian economy is the world's 17th largest economy by nominal GDP.
The Indonesian archipelago has been an important trade region since at least the 7th century, when Srivijaya and then later Majapahit traded with China and India. Local rulers gradually absorbed foreign cultural, religious and political models from the early centuries CE, and Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms flourished. Indonesian history has been influenced by foreign powers drawn to its natural resources. Muslim traders brought Islam, and European powers brought Christianity and fought one another to monopolize trade in the Spice Islands of Maluku during the Age of Discovery. Following three and a half centuries of Dutch colonialism, Indonesia secured its independence after World War II. Indonesia's history has since been turbulent, with challenges posed by natural disasters, corruption, separatism, a democratization process, and periods of rapid economic change.
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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.
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Iraq
Iraq (/ɪˈræk/ ori/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.
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Israel
Coordinates: 31°N 35°E / 31°N 35°E / 31; 35
Israel, officially the State of Israel ( /ˈɪzriːəl/ or /ˈɪzreɪəl/; Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, Medīnat Yisrā'el, IPA: [me̞diˈnät jisʁäˈʔe̞l] ( listen); Arabic: دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل, Dawlat Isrāʼīl, IPA: [dawlat ʔisraːˈʔiːl]), is a parliamentary republic in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan and the West Bank in the east, Egypt and the Gaza Strip on the southwest, and the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea to the south, and it contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Israel is defined as a Jewish and Democratic State in its Basic Laws and is the world's only Jewish-majority state.
Following the adoption of a resolution by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption and implementation of the United Nations plan to partition Palestine, on 14 May 1948 David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization and president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel, a state independent from the British Mandate for Palestine. Neighboring Arab states invaded the next day in support of the Palestinian Arabs. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states, in the course of which it has occupied the West Bank, Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. Portions of these territories, including east Jerusalem, have been annexed by Israel, but the border with the neighboring West Bank has not yet been permanently defined.[neutrality is disputed] Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, but efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have so far not resulted in peace.
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Italy
Italyi/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic or the Republic of Italy (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in south-central Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia–the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea–and many other smaller islands. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some 301,338 km2 (116,347 sq mi) and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.6 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.
Rome, the capital of Italy, was for centuries a political and religious centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Holy See. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy endured numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and later, the Normans, among others. Centuries later, Italy became the birthplace of Maritime republics and the Renaissance, an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.
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Japan
Japani/dʒəˈpæn/ (Japanese: 日本 Nihon or Nippon; formally 日本国 Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, literally the State of Japan) is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun".
Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū and Shikoku, together accounting for ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with over 127 million people. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes the de facto capital city of Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents.
Archaeological research indicates that people lived in Japan as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other nations followed by long periods of isolation has characterized Japan's history. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since adopting its revised constitution in 1947, Japan has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an emperor and an elected parliament called the Diet.
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Jordan
Jordan ( /ˈdʒɔr.dən/;Arabic: اَلأُرْدُنّ, Al-'Urdunn), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Arabic: اَلمَمْلَكَة اَلأُرْدُنِيَّة اَلهَاشِمِيَّة), Al-Mamlakah Al-Urdaniyyah Al-Hashimiyyah) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing control of the Dead Sea with the latter. Jordan's only port is at its south-western tip, at the Gulf of Aqaba, which is shared with Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Over half of Jordan is covered by the Arabian Desert. However, the western part of Jordan is arable land and forests. Jordan is part of the Fertile Crescent. The capital city is Amman. According to the CIA World Factbook, Jordan has the second highest life expectancy in the Middle East, after Israel. The average life expectancy is one position behind the United Kingdom, although the age remains exactly the same (80.05 years).
The precursor to modern Jordan was founded in 1921 as the Hashemite Emirate, and it was recognized by the League of Nations as a state under the British mandate in 1922 known as The Emirate of Transjordan. In 1946, Jordan became an independent sovereign state officially known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan. After capturing the West Bank area of Cisjordan during the 1948–49 war with Israel, Abdullah I took the title King of Jordan and Palestine, and he officially changed the country's name to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in April 1949.
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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.
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Kenya
Kenya ( /ˈkɛnjə/ or /ˈkiːnjə/), officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator. With the Indian Ocean to its south-east, it is bordered by Tanzania to the south, Uganda to the west, South Sudan to the north-west, Ethiopia to the north and Somalia to the north-east. Kenya has a land area of 580,000 km2 and a population of nearly 41 million, representing 42 different peoples and cultures. The country is named after Mount Kenya, a significant landmark and second among Africa's highest mountain peaks. Kenya's capital and largest city is Nairobi.
Kenya has a warm and humid climate along its coastline on the Indian Ocean which changes to wildlife-rich savannah grasslands moving inland towards the capital Nairobi. Nairobi has a cool climate that gets colder approaching Mount Kenya, which has three permanently snow-capped peaks. The warm and humid tropical climate reappears further inland towards lake Victoria, before giving way to temperate forested and hilly areas in the western region. The North Eastern regions along the border with Somalia and Ethiopia are arid and semi-arid areas with near-desert landscapes. Lake Victoria, the world's second largest fresh-water lake (after Lake Superior in the US and Canada) and the world's largest tropical lake, is situated to the southwest and is shared with Uganda and Tanzania. Kenya is famous for its safaris and diverse world-famous wildlife reserves such as Tsavo National Park, the Maasai Mara, Nakuru National Park, and Aberdares National Park.
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Liberia
Liberiai/laɪˈbɪəriə/, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Ivory Coast on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open to a plateau of drier grasslands. The country possesses 40% of the remaining Upper Guinean rainforest. Liberia has a hot equatorial climate, with significant rainfall during the May to October rainy season and harsh harmattan winds the remainder of the year. Liberia covers an area of 111,369 km2 (43,000 sq mi) and is home to about 3.7 million people. English is the official language, while over 30 indigenous languages are spoken within the country.
Along with Ethiopia, Liberia is one of the two modern countries in Sub-Saharan Africa without roots in the European colonization of Africa. Beginning in 1820, the region was colonized by freed American slaves with the help of the American Colonization Society, a private organization that believed ex-slaves would have greater freedom and equality in Africa. Slaves freed from slave ships were also sent there instead of being repatriated to their countries of origin. In 1847, these colonists founded the Republic of Liberia, establishing a government modeled on that of the United States and naming the capital city Monrovia after James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States and a prominent supporter of the colonization. The colonists, known as Americo-Liberians, led the political and economic sectors of the country.
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Libya
Libya (Arabic: ليبيا Lībyā), Berber: ⵍⵉⴱⵢⴰ) is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west.
With an area of almost 1.8 million square kilometres (700,000 sq mi), Libya is the third largest country in Africa by area, and the 17th largest in the world. The largest city, Tripoli, is home to 1.7 million of Libya's 6.4 million people. The three traditional parts of the country are Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica.
In 2009 Libya had the highest HDI in Africa and the fourth highest GDP (PPP) per capita in Africa, behind Seychelles, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. Libya has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world and the 17th-highest petroleum production.
As a result of the Libyan civil war, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, which had at that time been in existence for 34 years, collapsed and Libya entered a period of governance by a transitional administration called the National Transitional Council. The NTC has stated its intention to oversee the first phase of a transition to constitutional democracy, after which it claims it will dissolve in favor of a representative legislature.
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Lithuania
Lithuania (i/ˌlɪθuːˈeɪniə/ or /ˌlɪθjuːˈeɪniə/; Lithuanian: Lietuva), officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Respublika) is a country in Northern Europe, the largest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark. It borders Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and a Russian exclave (Kaliningrad Oblast) to the southwest. Lithuania has an estimated population of 3.2 million as of 2011, and its capital and largest city is Vilnius. The Lithuanians are a Baltic people, and the official language, Lithuanian, is one of only two living languages (together with Latvian) in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family.
For centuries, the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea was inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In the 1230s the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, who was crowned as King of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the first Lithuanian state, on 6 July 1253. During the 14th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the largest country in Europe: present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia were territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. With the Lublin Union of 1569, Lithuania and Poland formed a voluntary two-state union, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth lasted more than two centuries, until neighboring countries systematically dismantled it from 1772 to 1795, with the Russian Empire annexing most of Lithuania's territory.
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Luxembourg
Luxembourg (i/ˈlʌksəmbɜrɡ/ LUKS-əm-burg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (Luxembourgish: Groussherzogtum Lëtzebuerg, French: Grand-Duché de Luxembourg, German: Großherzogtum Luxemburg, Dutch: Groothertogdom Luxemburg), is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland ("good country") in the south. Luxembourg has a population of over half a million people in an area of approximately 2,586 square kilometres (998 sq mi). A representative democracy with a constitutional monarch, it is ruled by a grand duke. It is now the world's only remaining sovereign grand duchy. The country has a highly developed economy, with the world's highest GDP (nominal) per capita according to the IMF. Its historic and strategic importance dates back to its founding as a Roman era fortress site and Frankish count's castle site in the Early Middle Ages. It was an important bastion along the Spanish Road when Spain was the principal European power influencing the whole western hemisphere and beyond in the 16th–17th centuries.
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Malaysia
Malaysia (i/məˈleɪʒə/ mə-LAY-zhə or i/məˈleɪsiə/ mə-LAY-see-ə) is a federal constitutional monarchy in Southeast Asia. It consists of thirteen states and three federal territories and has a total landmass of 329,847 square kilometres (127,350 sq mi) separated by the South China Sea into two similarly sized regions, Peninsular Malaysia and Malaysian Borneo. Land borders are shared with Thailand, Indonesia, and Brunei, and maritime borders exist with Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government. In 2010 the population exceeded 27.5 million, with over 20 million living on the Peninsula.
Malaysia has its origins in the Malay Kingdoms present in the area which, from the 18th century, became subject to the British Empire. The first British territories were known as the Straits Settlements, whose establishment was followed by the Malay kingdoms becoming British protectorates. The territories on Peninsular Malaysia were first unified as the Malayan Union in 1946. Malaya was restructured as the Federation of Malaya in 1948, and achieved independence on 31 August 1957. Malaya united with Sabah, Sarawak, and Singapore on 16 September 1963, with si being added to give the new country the name Malaysia. However, less than two years later in 1965, Singapore was expelled from the federation. Since independence, Malaysia has had one of the best economic records in Asia, with GDP growing an average 6.5% for almost 50 years. The economy has traditionally been fuelled by its natural resources, but is expanding in the sectors of science, tourism, commerce and medical tourism.
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Malta
Maltai/ˈmɒltə/, officially known as the Republic of Malta (Maltese: Repubblika ta' Malta), is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, 80 km (50 mi) south of Sicily, 284 km (176 mi) east of Tunisia and 333 km (207 mi) north of Libya, with Gibraltar 1,755 km (1,091 mi) to the west and Alexandria 1,508 km (937 mi) to the east. Malta covers just over 316 km2 (122 sq mi) in land area, making it one of the world's smallest states. It is also one of the most densely populated countries worldwide. The de facto capital city of Malta is Valletta; the largest town, Birkirkara. The main island comprises many towns, which together form one Larger Urban Zone (LUZ) with a population of 368,250 according to Eurostat. The country has two official languages, Maltese (constitutionally the national language) and English.
Throughout history, Malta's location has given it great strategic importance, and a succession of powers including the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Aragonese, Habsburg Spain, Knights of St John, French and the British ruled the islands. Malta gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1964 and became a republic in 1974, whilst retaining membership in the Commonwealth of Nations. Malta was admitted to the United Nations in 1964 and to the European Union in 2004. Malta is also party to the Schengen Agreement and in 2008 it became part of the eurozone.
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Mauritania
Mauritaniai/mɔrɪˈteɪniə/ (Arabic: موريتانيا Mūrītānyā; Berber: Muritanya / Agawej; Wolof: Gànnaar; Soninke: Murutaane; Pulaar: Moritani; French: Mauritanie), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country in West Africa and in the Maghreb. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara (controlled by Morocco) in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest. It is named after the ancient Berber Kingdom of Mauretania, which later became a province of the Roman Empire, even though the modern Mauritania covers a territory far to the south of the old Berber kingdom that had no relation with it. The capital and largest city is Nouakchott, located on the Atlantic coast.
The government of Mauritania was overthrown on 6 August 2008, in a military coup d'état led by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. On 16 April 2009, General Aziz resigned from the military to run for president in the 19 July elections, which he won. In Mauritania about 20% of the population live on less than US$1.25 per day.
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Mexico
Mexico (i/ˈmɛksɨkoʊ/; Spanish: México, IPA: [ˈmexiko] ( listen)), officially the United Mexican States (Spanish: Estados Unidos Mexicanos (help·info)), is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States of America; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometres (over 760,000 sq mi), Mexico is the fifth largest country in the Americas by total area and the thirteenth largest independent nation in the world. With an estimated population of over 113 million, it is the eleventh most populous country and the most populous Spanish-speaking country. Mexico is a federation comprising thirty-one states and a Federal District, the capital city.
In Pre-Columbian Mexico many cultures matured into advanced civilizations such as the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacan, the Zapotec, the Maya and the Aztec before the first contact with Europeans. In 1521, Spain conquered and colonized the territory from its base in México-Tenochtitlan, which was administered as the Viceroyalty of New Spain. This territory would eventually become Mexico as the colony's independence was recognized in 1821. The post-independence period was characterized by economic instability, the Mexican-American War and territorial cession to the United States, a civil war, two empires and a domestic dictatorship. The latter led to the Mexican Revolution in 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the country's current political system. Elections held in July 2000 marked the first time that an opposition party won the presidency from the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
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Moldova
Moldovai/mɒlˈdoʊvə/, officially the Republic of Moldova (Moldovan/Romanian: Republica Moldova pronounced [reˈpublika molˈdova]) is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991 as part of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. On 29 July 1994, the new constitution of Moldova was adopted. A strip of Moldova's internationally recognized territory on the east bank of the river Dniester has been under the de facto control of the breakaway government of Transnistria since 1990.
The nation is a parliamentary republic with a president as head of state and a prime minister as head of government. Moldova is a member state of the United Nations, Council of Europe, WTO, OSCE, GUAM, CIS, BSEC and other international organizations. Moldova currently aspires to join the European Union, and has implemented the first three-year Action Plan within the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP).
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Montenegro
Montenegro (i/ˌmɒntɨˈneɪɡroʊ/ or /ˌmɒntɨˈniːɡroʊ/; or /ˌmɒntɨˈnɛɡroʊ/; Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора [tsr̩̂ːnaː ɡɔ̌ra] ( listen), meaning "Black Mountain") is a country in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the southeast. Its capital and largest city is Podgorica, while Cetinje is designated as the Prijestonica (Пријестоница), meaning the former Royal Capital City.
In the 10th century, there existed three Slavic principalities on the territory of Montenegro: Duklja, roughly corresponding to the southern half, Travunia, the west, and Rascia, the north. In 1042, archon Stefan Vojislav led a revolt that resulted in independence of Duklja and the establishment of the Vojislavljević dynasty. Duklja reached its zenith under Vojislav's son, Mihailo (1046–81), and his son Bodin (1081–1101). By the 13th century, Zeta had replaced Duklja when referring to the realm, which at the time was part of the Serbian Grand Principality of the Nemanjić dynasty.
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Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia (Afrikaans: Republiek van Namibië, German: Republik Namibia (help·info)), is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990, following the Namibian War of Independence. Its capital and largest city is Windhoek. Namibia is a member state of the United Nations (UN), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU), and the Commonwealth of Nations.
The dry lands of Namibia were inhabited since early times by Bushmen, Damara, and Namaqua, and since about the 14th century AD by immigrating Bantu who came with the Bantu expansion. It became a German Imperial protectorate in 1884 and remained a German colony until the end of World War I. In 1920, the League of Nations mandated the country to South Africa, which imposed its laws and, from 1948, its apartheid policy.
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Nepal
Nepal (नेपाल) (i/nɛˈpɔːl/ ne-PAWLNepali: नेपाल [neˈpal] ( listen)), officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India. Specifically, the Indian states of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, and Sikkim border Nepal, while across the Himalayas lies the Tibetan Autonomous Region. With an area of 147,181 square kilometres (56,827 sq mi) and a population of approximately 27 million (and 2 million absentee workers living abroad), Nepal is the world's 93rd largest country by land mass and the 41st most populous country. Kathmandu is the nation's capital and the country's largest metropolis. Kathmandu Valley itself has estimated population of 5 million.
Nepal has a rich geography. The mountainous north has eight of the world's ten tallest mountains, including the highest point on Earth, Mount Everest, called Sagarmatha in Nepali. It contains more than 240 peaks over 20,000 ft (6,096 m) above sea level. The fertile and humid south is heavily urbanized.
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Netherlands
The Netherlands (i/ˈnɛðərləndz/; Dutch: Nederland [ˈneːdə(r)lɑnt] or [ˈneɪ̯də(r)lɑnt] (
listen); West Frisian: Nederlân; Papiamento: Hulanda) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with some islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders with Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. It is a parliamentary democracy organised as a unitary state. The country capital is Amsterdam and the seat of government is The Hague. The Netherlands in its entirety is often referred to as Holland, although North and South Holland are actually only two of its twelve provinces (a case of pars pro toto; see terminology of "the Netherlands").
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New Zealand
New Zealand (Māori: Aotearoa) is an island country located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses ‒ that of the North and South Islands ‒ as well as numerous smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 1,500 kilometres (900 mi) east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres (600 mi) south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. Because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans.
During its long isolation, New Zealand developed a distinctive biodiversity of both animal and plant life. Most notable are the large number of unique bird species, many of which became extinct after the arrival of humans and introduced mammals. With a mild maritime climate, the land was mostly covered in forest. The country's varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions caused by the Pacific and Indo-Australian Plates clashing beneath the earth's surface.
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Niger
Niger (French pronunciation: [niʒɛʁ], but occasionally pronounced as /niːˈʒɛər/ ori/ˈnaɪdʒər/), officially the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east. Niger covers a land area of almost 1,270,000 km2, making it the largest nation in West Africa, with over 80 percent of its land area covered by the Sahara desert. The country's predominantly Islamic population of just above 15,000,000 is mostly clustered in the far south and west of the nation. The capital city is Niamey, located in the far southwest corner of Niger.
Niger is a developing country, and consistently ranks as one of the lowest ranks of the United Nations' Human Development Index (HDI), 186th of 187 countries in 2011. Much of the non-desert portions of the country are threatened by periodic drought and desertification. The economy is concentrated around subsistence and some export agriculture clustered in the more fertile south, and the export of raw materials, especially uranium ore. Niger remains handicapped by its landlocked position, desert terrain, poor education and poverty of its people, lack of infrastructure, poor health care, and environmental degradation.
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Nigeria
Nigeriai/naɪˈdʒɪəriə/, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in the north. Its coast in the south lies on the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean. The three largest and most influential ethnic groups in Nigeria are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba.
In terms of religion Nigeria is roughly split half and half between Muslims in the North and Christians in the South; a very small minority practice traditional religion. Since 2002 there have been a spate of clashes, particularly in the North of the country, between government forces and the Islamists Boko Haram, militant jihadists who seek to establish sharia law.
The people of Nigeria have an extensive history. Archaeological evidence shows that human habitation of the area dates back to at least 9000 BCE. The area around the Benue and Cross River is thought to be the original homeland of the Bantu migrants who spread across most of central and southern Africa in waves between the 1st millennium BC and the 2nd millennium.
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Norway
Norwayi/ˈnɔrweɪ/ (Norwegian: Norge (Bokmål) or Noreg (Nynorsk)), officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and the subantarctic Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres (148,747 sq mi) and a population of about 5 million. It is the second least densely populated country in Europe. The majority of the country shares a border to the east with Sweden; its northernmost region is bordered by Finland to the south and Russia to the east; in its south Norway borders the Skagerrak Strait across from Denmark. The capital city of Norway is Oslo. Norway's extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea, is home to its famous fjords.
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Oman
Oman (i/oʊˈmɑːn/ oh-MAAN; Arabic: عمان ʻUmān), officially called the Sultanate of Oman (Arabic: سلطنة عُمان Salṭanat ʻUmān), is an Arab state in southwest Asia on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to the northwest, Saudi Arabia to the west, and Yemen to the southwest. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the southeast and the Gulf of Oman on the northeast. The Madha and Musandam enclaves are surrounded by the UAE on their land borders, with the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman forming Musandam's coastal boundaries.
For a period, Oman was a moderate regional power, formerly having a sultanate extending across the Strait of Hormuz to Iran, and modern day Pakistan, and far south to Zanzibar on the coat of south-east Africa. Over time, as its power declined, the sultanate came under heavy influence from the United Kingdom, though Oman was never formally part of the British Empire, or a British protectorate. The Omani royal family claim that Oman has been ruled by the Al Said dynasty since 1744, although without substantial proof. Oman has long-standing military and political ties with the United Kingdom and the United States, although it maintains an independent foreign policy.
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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.
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Peru
Perui/pəˈruː/ (Spanish: Perú; Quechua: Perú;Aymara: Piruw), officially the Republic of Peru (Spanish: República del Perú, pronounced: [reˈpuβlika ðel peˈɾu] ( listen)), is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean.
Peruvian territory was home to ancient cultures, spanning from the Norte Chico civilization, one of the oldest in the world, to the Inca Empire, the largest state in Pre-Columbian America. The Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century and established a Viceroyalty, which included most of its South American colonies. After achieving independence in 1821, Peru has undergone periods of political unrest and fiscal crisis as well as periods of stability and economic upswing.
Peru is a representative democratic republic divided into 25 regions. Its geography varies from the arid plains of the Pacific coast to the peaks of the Andes Mountains and the tropical forests of the Amazon Basin. It is a developing country with a high Human Development Index score and a poverty level around 31%. Its main economic activities include agriculture, fishing, mining, and manufacturing of products such as textiles.
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Philippines
The Philippinesi/ˈfɪlɨpiːnz/ FI-lə-peenz (Filipino: Pilipinas [ˌpɪlɪˈpinɐs]), officially known as the Republic of the Philippines (Filipino: Republika ng Pilipinas) is a sovereign country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam. The Sulu Sea to the southwest lies between the country and the island of Borneo, and to the south the Celebes Sea separates it from other islands of Indonesia. It is bounded on the east by the Philippine Sea. Its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire and its tropical climate make the Philippines prone to earthquakes and typhoons but have also endowed the country with natural resources and made it one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world. An archipelago comprising 7,107 islands, the Philippines is categorized broadly into three main geographical divisions: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Its capital city is Manila.
With an estimated population of about 98 million people, the Philippines is the 7th most populated Asian country and the 12th most populated country in the world. An additional 12.5 million Filipinos live overseas. Multiple ethnicities and cultures are found throughout the islands. In prehistoric times, Negritos were some of the archipelago's earliest inhabitants. They were followed by successive waves of Austronesian peoples who brought with them influences from Malay, Hindu, and Islamic societies. Trade introduced Chinese cultural influences which remain to this day.
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Poland
Polandi/ˈpoʊlənd/ (Polish: Polska), officially the Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska; Kashubian: Pòlskô Repùblika; Silesian: Polsko Republika), is a country in Central Europe, bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north. The total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres (120,726 sq mi), making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. Poland has a population of over 38 million people, which makes it the 34th most populous country in the world and the sixth most populous member of the European Union, being its most populous post-communist member. Poland is a unitary state made up of 16 voivodeships. Poland is a member of the European Union, NATO, the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), European Economic Area, International Energy Agency, Council of Europe, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, International Atomic Energy Agency, G6, Council of the Baltic Sea States, Visegrád Group, Weimar Triangle and Schengen Agreement.
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Portugal
Portugali/ˈpɔrtʃʉɡəl/ (Portuguese: Portugal, IPA: [puɾtuˈɣaɫ]), officially the Portuguese Republic (Portuguese: República Portuguesa) is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula . Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira are part of Portugal. The country is named after its second largest city, Porto, whose Latin name was Portus Cale.
The land within the borders of the current Portuguese Republic has been continuously settled since prehistoric times: occupied by Celts like the Gallaeci and the Lusitanians, integrated into the Roman Republic and later settled by Germanic peoples such as the Suebi, Swabians, Vandals and the Visigoths. In the 8th century most of the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Moorish invaders professing Islam, which were later expelled by the Knights Templar under the Order of Christ. During the Christian Reconquista, Portugal established itself as an independent kingdom from León in 1139, claiming to be the oldest European nation state.
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Republic of Ireland
Ireland (/ˈaɪərlənd/ or /ˈɑrlənd/; Irish: Éire, pronounced [ˈeːɾʲə] ( listen)) is a sovereign state in Europe occupying about five-sixths of the island of Ireland. Its capital is Dublin. The population of the state was 4.59 million in 2011. It is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy, with an elected president serving as head of state. In the 1937 constitution, the name of the state is given as simply "Ireland". The Constitution of Ireland (Article 4) and the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 provides that the "Republic of Ireland" (Irish: Poblacht na hÉireann) is "the description of the state".
Ireland is a member of the European Union, the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organisation and the United Nations. A developed country with the seventh highest Human Development Index, Ireland is also highly ranked for press freedom, economic freedom and democracy and political freedom.
The modern Irish state was established in 1922 as the Irish Free State, a dominion within the British Empire, following the Anglo-Irish Treaty which brought an end to the Irish War of Independence. The partition of Ireland had already been provided for in previous British legislation in 1921 in response to opposition to Irish Home Rule or independence by Unionists, who formed a majority in the north-eastern part of the country. Six of the nine counties in the northern province of Ulster were established under that legislation as Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, with which the Irish state shares its only land border. The state is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the Celtic Sea to the south, St George's Channel to the south east, and the Irish Sea to the east.
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Romania
Romania (i/roʊˈmeɪniə/ roh-MAY-nee-ə; dated: Roumania; or Rumania;Romanian: România [romɨˈni.a] ( listen)) is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Romania shares a border with Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraine and Moldova to the northeast and east, and Bulgaria to the south.
At 238,400 square kilometers (92,000 sq mi), Romania is the ninth largest country of the European Union by area, and has the seventh largest population of the European Union with over 19 million people. Its capital and largest city is Bucharest, the tenth largest city in the EU with about two million people.
The Kingdom of Romania emerged when the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia were united under Prince Alexander Ioan Cuza in 1859. Independence from the Ottoman Empire was declared on 9 May 1877, and was internationally recognized the following year. At the end of World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia united with the Kingdom of Romania. Greater Romania emerged into an era of progression and prosperity that would continue until World War II. By the end of the War, many north-eastern areas of Romania's territories were occupied by the Soviet Union, and Romania forcibly became a socialist republic and a member of the Warsaw Pact.
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Russia
Russiai/ˈrʌʃə/ or /ˈrʊʃə/ (Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈratsɨjə] ( listen)), is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both via Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It also has maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, and the US state of Alaska by the Bering Strait. At 17,075,400 square kilometres (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is also the eighth most populous nation with 143 million people. It extends across the whole of northern Asia and 40% of Europe, spanning nine time zones and incorporating a wide range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources and is the largest producer of oil and natural gas globally. Russia has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's fresh water.
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Senegal
Senegali/ˌsɛnɨˈɡɔːl/ (French: le Sénégal), officially the Republic of Senegal (République du Sénégal, IPA: [ʁepyblik dy seneɡal]), is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north. Senegal is externally bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Mauritania to the north, Mali to the east, and Guinea and Guinea-Bissau to the south; internally it almost completely surrounds The Gambia, namely on the north, east and south, exempting Gambia's short Atlantic Ocean coastline. Senegal covers a land area of almost 197,000 square kilometres (76,000 sq mi), and has an estimated population of about 13 million. The climate is tropical with two seasons: the dry season and the rainy season.
Dakar, the capital city of Senegal, is located at the westernmost tip of the country on the Cap-Vert peninsula. About 500 kilometres (300 mi) off the coast, in the Atlantic Ocean, lie the Cape Verde Islands. During the 17th and 18th centuries, numerous trading posts, belonging to various colonial empires, were established along the coast. The town of St. Louis became the capital of French West Africa (Afrique occidentale française, or AOF) before it was moved to Dakar in 1902. Dakar later became its capital in 1960 at the time of independence from France.
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Serbia
Serbiai/ˈsɜrbiə/, officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: Република Србија / Republika Srbija, pronounced [rɛpǔblika sř̩bija]), is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans. Serbia borders Hungary to the north; Romania and Bulgaria to the east; the Republic of Macedonia to the south; and Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro to the west; additionally, it borders Albania through Kosovo, whose status as part of Serbia is disputed. Serbia covers an area of 88,361 km2 and has a population of just over 7.1 million, while the capital and largest city is Belgrade.
The arrival of the Serbs to the Balkans in the 7th century, established several states, eventually forming the Serbian Empire in the 14th century. By the 16th century, Serbia was conquered and occupied by the Ottoman Empire, at times interrupted by the Habsburgs. In the early 19th century the Serbian revolution re-established the country as the region's first constitutional monarchy, which subsequently expanded its territory and pioneered the abolition of feudalism in the Balkans. The former Habsburg crownland of Vojvodina united with Serbia in 1918. Following World War I, Serbia formed Yugoslavia with other South Slavic peoples which existed in several forms up until 2006, when the National Assembly of Serbia declared independence and the legal succession to the former State Union. In February 2008 the parliament of UNMIK-governed Kosovo, Serbia's southern province, declared independence, with mixed responses from international governments.
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Seychelles
Seychelles (i/seɪˈʃɛlz/ say-SHELZ; French: [sɛʃɛl]), officially the Republic of Seychelles (French: République des Seychelles; Creole: Repiblik Sesel), is an island country spanning an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some 1,500 kilometres (932 mi) east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar.
Other nearby island countries and territories include Zanzibar to the west, Mauritius, Rodrigues, Agalega and Réunion to the south, Comoros and Mayotte to the southwest. Seychelles, with an estimated population of 86,525, has the smallest population of any African state. It also has the highest Human Development Index in Africa.
Scholars assume that Austronesian seafarers, and later Maldivian and Arab traders were the first to visit the uninhabited Seychelles. Remains of Maldivian mariner presence from the 12th century were found in Silhouette Island. The earliest recorded sighting by Europeans took place in 1502 by the Portuguese Admiral Vasco da Gama, who passed through the Amirantes and named them after himself (islands of the Admiral).
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Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone (i/siːˌɛrə liːˈoʊn/), officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the northeast, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest. Sierra Leone is a constitutional representative democratic republic and covers a total area of 71,740 km2 (27,699 sq mi) Sierra Leone has a tropical climate, with a diverse environment ranging from savannah to rainforests. As of 2011, Sierra Leone has an estimated population of 6 million[1] (2011 United Nations estimte). Freetown is the capital, largest city as well as its economic, commercial, educational, cultural and political centre. Bo is the country's second largest city and the second major economic and commercial centre.
Sierra Leone is divided into four geographical regions: the Northern Province, Eastern Province, Southern Province and the Western Area; which are subdivided into fourteen districts. The districts have their own directly elected local government known as district council, headed by a council chairman. The country's six municipalities of Freetown, Bo, Kenema, Makeni, Koidu Town and the coastal town of Bonthe have their own directly elected city councils headed by mayors.
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Singapore
Singapore (i/ˈsɪŋəpɔər/ SI-ngə-pohr), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, 137 kilometres (85 mi) north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the Singapore Strait to its south. Singapore is highly urbanised but almost half of the country is covered by greenery. More land is being created for development through land reclamation.
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Slovakia
The Slovak Republic (short form: Slovakiai/sloʊˈvɑːkiə/ or /sləˈvækiə/; Slovak: Slovensko (help·info), long form Slovenská republika (help·info)) is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about 49,000 square kilometres (19,000 sq mi). Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south. The largest city is the capital, Bratislava, and the second largest is Košice. Slovakia is a member state of the European Union, NATO, United Nations, OECD and WTO among others. The official language is Slovak, a member of the Slavic language family.
The Slavs arrived in the territory of present day Slovakia in the 5th and 6th centuries during the migration period. In the course of history, various parts of today's Slovakia belonged to Samo's Empire (the first known political unit of Slavs), Principality of Nitra (as independent polity, as part of Great Moravia and as part of Hungarian Kingdom), Great Moravia, Kingdom of Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Habsburg Empire, and Czechoslovakia. A separate Slovak state briefly existed during World War II, during which Slovakia was a dependency of Nazi Germany between 1939 and 1944. From 1945 Slovakia once again became a part of Czechoslovakia. The present-day Slovakia became an independent state on 1 January 1993 after the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia.
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Slovenia
Slovenia (i/sloʊˈviːniə/ sloh-VEE-nee-ə, Slovene: Slovenija), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Republika Slovenija, [reˈpublika sloˈveːnija]) is a Slavic nation state, situated in South-Central Europe, at the crossroad of main European cultural and trade routes. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Croatia to the south and southeast, and Hungary to the northeast. It covers 20,273 square kilometres (7,827 sq mi) and has a population of 2.05 million. It is a parliamentary republic, member of the European Union and NATO. Relative to its geography, history, economy, culture, and language, it is a very diverse country distinguished by a transitional character. It is characterised by a high economic and social level. Its capital and largest city is Ljubljana.
The territory of Slovenia is mainly hilly or mountainous and has an exceptionally high landscape and biological diversity and a mosaic structure, which are a result of natural attributes and the long-lasting presence of humans. Four major European geographic units interweave here: the Alps, the Dinaric Alps, the Mediterranean, with a small portion of coastline along the Adriatic Sea, and the Pannonian Plain. The climate is temperate and significantly influenced by the variety of territory, with a strong interaction of the continental climate, the sub-Mediterranean climate and Alpine climate across most of the country. The country is one of the water-richest in Europe, with a dense river network, a rich aquifer system, and significant karstic underground watercourses. Over half of the territory is covered by forest.
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South Africa
Coordinates: 30°S 25°E / 30°S 25°E / -30; 25
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is a country located at the southern tip of Africa. It is divided into nine provinces and has 2,798 kilometres (1,739 mi) of coastline. To the north of the country lie the neighbouring territories of Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe; to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland; while Lesotho is an enclave surrounded by South African territory.
South Africa is multi-ethnic and has diverse cultures and languages. Eleven official languages are recognised in the constitution. Two of these languages are of European origin: South African English and Afrikaans, a language which originated mainly from Dutch that is spoken by the majority of white and Coloured South Africans. Though English is commonly used in public and commercial life, it is only the fifth most-spoken home language. All ethnic and language groups have political representation in the country's constitutional democracy comprising a parliamentary republic; unlike most parliamentary republics, the positions of head of state and head of government are merged in a parliament-dependent President.
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South Korea
South Korea ( listen), officially the Republic of Korea (Hangul: 대한민국; Hanja: 大韓民國; Daehan Minguk listen), is a sovereign state in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The name "Korea" is derived from Goryeo, a dynasty which ruled in the Middle Ages (an initial "G" in Korean is pronounced like an English "K").
Its neighbors are China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the Korea Strait to the south. South Korea lies in the north temperate zone with a predominantly mountainous terrain. It covers a total area of 99,392 square kilometers and has a population of almost 50 million. The capital and largest city is Seoul, with a population of 9,794,304.
Archaeological findings show that the Korean Peninsula was occupied by the Lower Paleolithic period.Korean history begins with the founding of Gojoseon in 2333 BC by the legendary Dan-gun. Following the unification of the Three Kingdoms of Korea under Silla 668 AD, Korea went through the Goryeo Dynasty and Joseon Dynasty as one nation until the end of the Korean Empire in 1910, when it was annexed by Japan. After liberation and occupation by Soviet and U.S. forces at the end of World War II, the nation was divided into North and South Korea. The latter was established in 1948 as a democracy, though political turmoil and times of military rule and martial law characterized much of the period until the foundation of the Sixth Republic in 1987.
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South Ossetia
South Ossetia ( /əˈsɛtiə/ə-SET-ee-ə or /ɒˈsiːʃə/o-SEE-shə; Ossetic: Хуссар Ирыстон, Xussar Iryston; Georgian: სამხრეთ ოსეთი, Samxret Oseti; Russian: Южная Осетия, Yuzhnaya Osetiya) or Tskhinvali Region (Georgian: ცხინვალის რეგიონი, Tsxinvalis regioni; Russian: Цхинвальский регион, Tskhinvalskiy region) is a disputed region and partly recognized state in the South Caucasus, located in the territory of the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast within the former Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.
South Ossetians declared independence from Georgia in 1990, calling themselves the Republic of South Ossetia. The Georgian government responded by abolishing South Ossetia's autonomy and trying to retake the region by force. This led to the 1991–1992 South Ossetia War. Georgian fighting against those controlling South Ossetia occurred on two other occasions, in 2004 and 2008. The last conflict led to the 2008 South Ossetia war, during which Ossetian and Russian forces gained full, de facto control of the territory of the former South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast.
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Soviet Union
The Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз, tr. Sovetsky Soyuz), officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR; Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik; IPA: [sɐˈjus sɐˈvʲetskʲɪx sətsɨəlʲɪˈstʲitɕɪskʲɪx rʲɪsˈpublʲɪk] ( listen); abbreviated СССР, SSSR), was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.
The Soviet Union was a single-party state ruled by the Communist Party from its foundation until 1990. A union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, the Soviet state was structured under a highly centralized government and economy.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused the downfall of the Russian Empire. Following the Russian Revolution, there was a struggle for power between the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the anti-communist White movement. In December 1922, the Bolsheviks won the civil war, and the Soviet Union was formed with the merger of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
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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.
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Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (i/ʃriː ˈlɑːŋkə/, /sriːˈlɑːŋkə/, or /sriːˈlæŋkə/;Sinhala: ශ්රී ලංකාව, Tamil: இலங்கை), is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent in South Asia. Known until 1972 as Ceylon ( /sɨˈlɒn/, /seɪˈlɒn/, or /siːˈlɒn/), Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar, the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the Maldives.
As a result of its location in the path of major sea routes, Sri Lanka is a strategic naval link between West Asia and South East Asia. It was an important stop on the ancient Silk Road. Sri Lanka has also been a center of the Buddhist religion and culture from ancient times, being the nation where the Buddhist teachings were first written down as well as the oldest continually Buddhist country. Sri Lanka boasts a diverse range of cultures, languages and religions. The Sinhalese people form the majority of the population; Tamils, who are concentrated in the north and east of the island, form the largest ethnic minority. Other communities include Moors, Burghers, Kaffirs, Malays and the aboriginal Vedda people.
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Sweden
Sweden (i/ˈswiːdən/ SWEE-dən; Swedish: Sverige [ˈsværjɛ] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Sweden (Swedish: Konungariket Sverige (help·info)), is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland, and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Øresund.
At 450,295 square kilometres (173,860 sq mi), Sweden is the third largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of about 9.4 million. Sweden has a low population density of 21 inhabitants per square kilometre (54 /sq mi) with the population mostly concentrated to the southern half of the country. About 85% of the population live in urban areas. Sweden's capital city is Stockholm, which is also the largest city.
Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages. In the 17th century, the country expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire. The empire grew to be one of the great powers of Europe in the 17th and early 18th century. Most of the conquered territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were lost during the 18th and 19th centuries. The eastern half of Sweden, present-day Finland, was lost to Russia in 1809. The last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Sweden by military means forced Norway into a personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, practicing "non-participation in military alliances during peacetime and neutrality during wartime". However, Sweden has been a member of the European Union since 1 January 1995 and is a member of the OECD.
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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.
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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%).
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Taiwan
Taiwan (i/ˌtaɪˈwɑːn/ TY-WAHN; Chinese: 臺灣 or 台灣; pinyin: Táiwān; see below), officially the Republic of China (ROC; Chinese: 中華民國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Mínguó), is a state in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China now governs the island of Taiwan (formerly known as Formosa), which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and other minor islands. Neighboring states include the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east and northeast, and the Philippines to the south. Taipei is the capital city and economic and cultural centre of the country, and New Taipei is the most populous city.
The earliest evidence of inhabitation of Taiwan dates back to the late Paleolithic era. The island of Taiwan was mainly inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines before being colonized in the 17th century by the Dutch and the Spanish Empire. The first Han Chinese polity on Taiwan began when Koxinga's troops defeated Dutch forces and established the Kingdom of Tungning. The island was subsequently ruled by the Qing Dynasty after the kingdom's defeat in the Battle of Penghu in 1683, a period that lasted for over 200 years. Following Japan's victory over the Qing Dynasty in the first Sino-Japanese war, Taiwan was ceded to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895.
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Tajikistan
Tajikistan (i/tɑːˈdʒiːkɨstɑːn/, /təˈdʒiːkɨstæn/, or /tæˈdʒiːkiːstæn/; Тоҷикистон [ˈtɔjikɪsˈtɔn]), officially the Republic of Tajikistan (Tajik: Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Cumhuriyi Tocikiston; Persian: جمهوری تاجیکستان Jomhuri-ye Tajikestan; Russian: Республика Таджикистан, Respublika Tadzhikistan), is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. It borders Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east. Gilgit Baltistan as well as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan are separated from Tajikistan by the narrow Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan in the south.
Most of Tajikistan's population belongs to the Persian-speaking Tajik ethnic group, who share language, culture and history with Afghanistan and Iran. Once part of the Samanid Empire, Tajikistan became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union in the 20th century, known as the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic (Tajik SSR). Mountains cover over 90% of this Central Asian republic.
After independence, Tajikistan suffered from a devastating civil war which lasted from 1992 to 1997. Since the end of the war, newly established political stability and foreign aid have allowed the country's economy to grow. Trade in commodities such as cotton, aluminium and uranium has contributed greatly to this steady improvement.
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Thailand
Thailand ( /ˈtaɪlænd/ TY-land or /ˈtaɪlənd/;Thai: ประเทศไทย, RTGS: Prathet Thai), officially the Kingdom of Thailand (Thai: ราชอาณาจักรไทย, RTGS: Ratcha Anachak Thai; IPA: [râːt.tɕʰā ʔāːnāːtɕàk tʰāj] ( listen)), formerly known as Siam (Thai: สยาม; RTGS: Sayam), is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and the southern extremity of Burma. Its maritime boundaries include Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand to the southeast, and Indonesia and India in the Andaman Sea to the southwest.
The country is a constitutional monarchy, headed by King Rama IX, the ninth king of the House of Chakri, who, having reigned since 1946, is the world's longest-serving head of state and the longest-reigning monarch in Thai history. The king of Thailand is titled Head of State, Head of the Armed Forces, the Upholder of the Buddhist religion, and the Defender of all Faiths.
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The Bahamas
The Bahamasi/bəˈhɑːməz/, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is a country consisting of more than 3,000 islands, cays, and islets. It is located in the Atlantic Ocean north of Cuba and Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti), northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands, and southeast of the United States (nearest to the state of Florida). Its land area is 13,939 km2 (5,382 sq mi), with a population of 353,658. Its capital is Nassau. Geographically, the Bahamas lie in the same island chain as Cuba, Hispaniola and the Turks and Caicos Islands; the designation of Bahamas refers normally to the Commonwealth and not the geographic chain.
Originally inhabited by the Lucayans, a branch of the Arawakan-speaking Taino people, the Bahamas were the site of Columbus' first landfall in the New World in 1492. Although the Spanish never colonized the Bahamas, they shipped the native Lucayans to slavery in Hispaniola. The islands were mostly deserted from 1513 to 1648, when English colonists from Bermuda settled on the island of Eleuthera.
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Tonga
Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga (Tongan: Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a sovereign state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over 700,000 square kilometres (270,000 sq mi) of ocean in the South Pacific. Fifty-two of the islands are inhabited.
The Kingdom stretches over a distance of about 800 kilometres (500 mi) in a north-south line located at about a third of the distance from New Zealand to Hawaii.
Tonga also became known as the Friendly Islands because of the friendly reception accorded to Captain James Cook on his first visit there in 1773. He happened to arrive at the time of the ʻinasi festival, the yearly donation of the first fruits to the Tuʻi Tonga, the islands' paramount chief, and received an invitation to the festivities. According to the writer William Mariner, in reality the chiefs had wanted to kill Cook during the gathering, but could not agree on a plan.
Tonga is also the only island nation in the region to have avoided formal colonisation. In 2010, Tonga took a decisive step towards becoming a fully functioning constitutional monarchy after legislative reforms paved the way for its first ever fully representative elections which resulted in the election of Noble Sialeʻataongo Tuʻivakanō as its first democratically elected Prime Minister.
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Turkey
Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye), known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (help·info)), is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia (mostly in the Anatolian peninsula) and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan (the exclave of Nakhchivan) and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus are to the south; the Aegean Sea is to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north. The Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles (which together form the Turkish Straits) demarcate the boundary between East Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia.
Turkey is one of the six independent Turkic states. The vast majority of the population are Muslims. The country's official language is Turkish, whereas Kurdish and Zazaki languages are spoken by Kurds and Zazas, who constitute 18% of the population.
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Ukraine
Ukraine (i/juːˈkreɪn/ yew-KRAYN; Ukrainian: Україна, transliterated: Ukrayina, [ukrɑˈjinɑ]; Russian: Украина; Crimean Tatar: Ukraina) is a country in Central and Eastern Europe. Ukraine borders the Russian Federation to the east and northeast, Belarus to the northwest, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west, Romania and Moldova to the southwest, and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south and southeast, respectively. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after the Russian Federation.
According to a popular and well established theory, the medieval state of Kievan Rus was established by the Varangians in the 9th century as the first historically recorded East Slavic state which emerged as a powerful nation in the Middle Ages until it disintegrated in the 12th century. By the middle of the 14th century, Ukrainian territories were under the rule of three external powers—the Golden Horde, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Kingdom of Poland. After the Great Northern War (1700–1721) Ukraine was divided between a number of regional powers and, by the 19th century, the largest part of Ukraine was integrated into the Russian Empire with the rest under Austro-Hungarian control. A chaotic period of incessant warfare ensued, with several internationally recognized attempts at independence from 1917 to 1921, following World War I and the Russian Civil War. Ukraine emerged from its own civil war, and on December 30, 1922 Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic became one of the founding republics of the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian SSR's territory was enlarged westward during the civil war shortly before, and after World War II, and further south in 1954 with the Crimea transfer. In 1945, the Ukrainian SSR became one of the founding members of the United Nations.
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United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK, or Britain) is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe. The country includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea.
The United Kingdom is a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system, with its seat of government in the capital city of London. It is a country in its own right and consists of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There are three devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff, the capitals of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Associated with the UK, but not constitutionally part of it, are three Crown Dependencies. The United Kingdom has fourteen overseas territories. These are remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in 1922, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's land surface and was the largest empire in history. British influence can still be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former territories.
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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.
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Uruguay
Uruguayi/ˈjʊərəɡwaɪ/, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; (Spanish: República Oriental del Uruguay pronounced: [re̞ˈpuβ̞lika o̞ɾje̞n̪ˈt̪al̪ d̪e̞l uɾuˈɰwai̯]) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to 3.3 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area. An estimated 88% of the population are of European ancestry.
Except for the recent union of Timoteo Domínguez Island and Argentina's Martín García Island, Uruguay's only land border is with Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, to the north. To the west lies the Uruguay River and the estuary of the Río de la Plata to the southwest. To the southeast lies the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean. With an area of approximately 176,000 square kilometres (68,000 sq mi), Uruguay is the second-smallest nation in South America by area, after Suriname.
Colonia del Sacramento, one of the oldest European settlements in the country, was founded by the Portuguese in 1680. Montevideo was founded by the Spanish in the early 18th century as a military stronghold. Uruguay won its independence in 1811–28 following a three-way struggle between the claims of Spain, Argentina and Brazil. It is a constitutional democracy, with a president who is both the head of state and the head of government.
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Uzbekistan
Uzbekistani/ʊzˌbɛkɨˈstɑːn/, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan (Uzbek: O‘zbekiston Respublikasi, Ўзбекистон Республикаси) is the only doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of only two such countries worldwide. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south. Before 1991, it was part of the Soviet Union.
Uzbekistan is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia.
Once part of the Persian Samanid and later Timurid empires, the region was conquered in the early 16th century by Uzbek nomads, who spoke an Eastern Turkic language. Most of Uzbekistan’s population today belong to the Uzbek ethnic group and speak the Uzbek language, one of the family of Turkic languages.
Uzbekistan was incorporated into the Russian Empire in the 19th century, and in 1924 became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, known as the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (Uzbek SSR). It became independent on 31 August 1991 (officially, from the following day).
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Vatican City
Vatican Cityi/ˈvætɨkən ˈsɪti/, or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano (pronounced [ˈstaːto della t͡ʃitˈta del vatiˈkaːno]), is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of approximately 44 hectares (110 acres), and a population of just over 800. This makes Vatican City the smallest independent state in the world by both area and population.
Vatican City State was established in 1929 by the Lateran Treaty, signed by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri, on behalf of Pope Pius XI and by Prime Minister and Head of Government Benito Mussolini on behalf of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy. Vatican City State is distinct from the Holy See, which dates back to early Christianity and is the main episcopal see of 1.2 billion Latin and Eastern Catholic adherents around the globe. Ordinances of Vatican City are published in Italian; official documents of the Holy See are issued mainly in Latin. The two entities have distinct passports: the Holy See, not being a country, issues only diplomatic and service passports, whereas Vatican City State issues normal passports. In each case very few passports are issued.
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Venezuela
Venezuela (i/ˌvɛnɨˈzweɪlə/ VEN-ə-ZWAY-lə), officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (Spanish: República Bolivariana de Venezuela [repuˈβlika βoliβaˈɾjana ðe βeneˈswela]), is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south. Its northern coastline of roughly 2,800 kilometres (1,700 mi) includes numerous islands in the Caribbean Sea, and in the north east borders the northern Atlantic Ocean. Caribbean islands such as Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Curaçao, Bonaire, Aruba and the Leeward Antilles lie near the Venezuelan coast. Venezuela's territory covers around 916,445 square kilometres (353,841 sq mi) with an estimated population of 29,105,632. Venezuela is considered a state with extremely high biodiversity, with habitats ranging from the Andes mountains in the west to the Amazon Basin rainforest in the south, via extensive llanos plains and Caribbean coast in the center and the Orinoco River Delta in the east.
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Vietnam
Vietnam ( listen), formally the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Cộng hòa xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam; listen), is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. With an estimated 91.5 million inhabitants as of 2012, it is the world's 13th-most-populous country, and the eighth-most-populous Asian country. The name Vietnam translates as "South Viet", and was officially adopted in 1945. The country is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea to the east.
The Vietnamese became independent from Imperial China in 938 AD, following the Battle of Bạch Đằng River. Successive Vietnamese royal dynasties flourished as the nation expanded geographically and politically into Southeast Asia, until the Indochina Peninsula was colonized by the French in the mid-19th century. The First Indochina War eventually led to the expulsion of the French in 1954, leaving Vietnam divided politically into two states, North and South Vietnam. Conflict between the two sides intensified, with heavy foreign intervention, during the Vietnam War, which ended with a North Vietnamese victory in 1975.
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Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe (/zɪmˈbɑːbweɪ/ zim-BAHB-way; officially the Republic of Zimbabwe) is a landlocked country of southern Africa. It shares a 125-mile (200-kilometre) border on the south with the Republic of South Africa and is bounded on the southwest and west by Botswana, on the north by Zambia, and on the northeast and east by Mozambique. The capital is Harare (formerly called Salisbury). Zimbabwe achieved majority rule and internationally recognised independence in April 1980 following a long period of colonial rule and a 15-year period of white-dominated minority rule, instituted after the minority regime’s so-called Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in 1965.
Zimbabwe has three official languages: English, Shona and Ndebele. Zimbabwe began as the British self-governing colony of Southern Rhodesia, created from land held by the British South Africa Company. President Robert Mugabe is the head of State and Commander in Chief of the armed forces. Morgan Tsvangirai is the Prime Minister. Mugabe has been in power since the country's internationally recognised independence in 1980.
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Antonio Patriota
Antonio de Aguiar Patriota (Rio de Janeiro, April 27, 1954) is a Brazilian diplomat and current Minister of External Relations, succeeding Chancellor Celso Amorim. Patriota took office as foreign minister on January 1, 2011.
A graduate in philosophy from the University of Geneva and later international relations by the Rio Branco Institute, Patriota has taken prominent positions within the foreign service such as Brazil's ambassador to the United States between 2007 and 2009, Deputy Secretary General for Political Affairs of the Ministry of External Relations, Cabinet Chief of Foreign Minister Chancellor Celso Amorim and Secretary General of the Ministry of External Relations.
Antonio de Aguiar Patriota was born in Rio de Janeiro on April 27, 1954. He was Deputy Foreign Minister from October 2009 to December 2010; Ambassador of Brazil to the United States from 2007 to 2009; Under Secretary General for Political Affairs at the Foreign Ministry from 2005 to 2007; Chief of Staff to the Foreign Minister, in 2004; and Secretary for Diplomatic Planning at the Foreign Ministry, in 2003.
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Austria
Austria (i/ˈɒstriə/ or /ˈɔːstriə/; German: Österreich [ˈøːstɐˌʁaɪç] ( listen)), officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich (help·info)), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.47 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,855 square kilometres (32,377 sq mi) and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft), and its highest point is 3,798 metres (12,461 ft). The majority of the population speak local Austro-Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other local official languages are Burgenland Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene.
The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria became one of the great powers of Europe and, in response to the coronation of Napoleon I as the Emperor of the French, the Austrian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1804. In 1867, the Austrian Empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary.
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Eduard Nalbandyan
Eduard Nalbandyan (Armenian: էդվարդ Նալբանդյան) (born July 16, 1956) is an Armenian diplomat. He is the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia since April 2008.
Nalbandyan was sent in Egypt from 1992 to 1998, first as charge d'affaires and then as Ambassador. He was then appointed as Ambassador to France in 1999; while holding this post, he concurrently served as Ambassador to Vatican City, Israel, and Andorra.
After Serzh Sargsyan took office as President, he appointed Nalbandyan as Foreign Minister on April 14, 2008.
On October 16, 2009; Eduard Signed a concord with the Turkish Foreign Minister.
He is married and has a daughter.
His mother Vardanush Nalbandian died in 2010 at age 84.
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Ivaylo Kalfin
Ivaylo Georgiev Kalfin (Bulgarian: Ивайло Георгиев Калфин, born 30 May 1964) is a Bulgarian politician. A three-term deputy, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria and Deputy Prime Minister from 2005 to 2009. He is currently a member of European Parliament.
Born in Sofia, Kalfin received his higher education at the University of National and World Economy (1983–1988) and the Loughborough University (1998–1999). His foreign language skills include English, French, Russian and Spanish. He is married and has a daughter.
Kalfin founded the Social Democrats National Movement and served as the deputy president of the Common Parliamentary Committee Bulgaria-European Union between 1995 and 1998. A deputy in the 37th (1994-1997), 38th (2000-2001) and 40th (since 2005) National Assembly of Bulgaria, Kalfin has been part of the Bulgarian National Bank's Consultative Council since 2004. He observed the elections in Kosovo in 2001 and 2004 as part of Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe missions in the region and has also worked as a senior university lecturer and manager in several consulting companies.
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Nyan Win
Nyan Win (Burmese: ဉာဏ်ဝင်း, pronounced: [ɲàɴ wɪ́ɴ]; born 22 January 1953) is the Chief Minister of Bago Region. He won a Regional Hluttaw seat in an uncontested election in 2010, representing Zigon Township, and was appointed Chief Minister of the region on 30 March 2011. Prior to his election, he was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Myanmar, having been appointed on 18 September 2004. He is a Major General in the Burmese Army. He was Deputy Chief of Military Training for the Myanmar Armed Forces before he became a member of the SPDC. He also served as Commandant of CGSC (Command and General Staff College). He graduated from the 18th intake of Defence Services Academy (DSA). He is married to Myint Myint Soe.
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Rescuing the Rich? UK taxpayers funding foreign aid 'con job'
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:38
- Updated: 05 Jan 2013
Concerns are rising in Britain, where Prime Minister David Cameron's costly foreign aid programme has come under fire for not helping the poor around the world. A study by a center-right think-tank says that billions of taxpayers' money is being used as a tool to promote the good image of the coalition government. RT LIVE rt.com Subscribe to RT! www.youtube.com Like us on Facebook www.facebook.com Follow us on Twitter twitter.com Follow us on Google+ plus.google.com RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500 million YouTube views benchmark.
http://wn.com/Rescuing_the_Rich?_UK_taxpayers_funding_foreign_aid_'con_job'
Concerns are rising in Britain, where Prime Minister David Cameron's costly foreign aid programme has come under fire for not helping the poor around the world. A study by a center-right think-tank says that billions of taxpayers' money is being used as a tool to promote the good image of the coalition government. RT LIVE rt.com Subscribe to RT! www.youtube.com Like us on Facebook www.facebook.com Follow us on Twitter twitter.com Follow us on Google+ plus.google.com RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500 million YouTube views benchmark.
Foreign ministers in Helsinki (Dec 19 - 2012)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:37
- Updated: 02 Jan 2013
Foreign ministers of Turkey and Finland in a press conference in Helsinki 19. Dec, 2012 Q: Juha Rekola, Magazine Journalist: A question for both the ministers: Turkey today is the leading jailer of journalists in the world. What could the two countries together do to improve the situation of journalists in Turkey? A: Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, Finland: I can from Finland only express our concern of the situation. This is something we can also face quite frankly between us, because it does raise some questions. But of course my colleague is well aware that this is a concern for all of us in the European Union, we want to follow the general principles of freedom of the press everywhere. A: Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, Turkey: Yes, Freedom of the Press is the main principle for democracies, and European Union and Council of Europe, and we are fully committed to freedom of the press. But if you say that Turkey is a leading country in this sense, in arresting journalists, it is not the truth. We have to make the difference between journalistic activities and other activities. In many of this cases, and we can share this with Finnish Press of course, with all the things with press we can share, many of those who are being arrested there are arrested not because of journalistic activities. Some are arrested because of killing security policeman or killing some other civilians, but since they sometimes can get the press card easily, they are using this identity that ...
http://wn.com/Foreign_ministers_in_Helsinki_Dec_19_2012
Foreign ministers of Turkey and Finland in a press conference in Helsinki 19. Dec, 2012 Q: Juha Rekola, Magazine Journalist: A question for both the ministers: Turkey today is the leading jailer of journalists in the world. What could the two countries together do to improve the situation of journalists in Turkey? A: Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, Finland: I can from Finland only express our concern of the situation. This is something we can also face quite frankly between us, because it does raise some questions. But of course my colleague is well aware that this is a concern for all of us in the European Union, we want to follow the general principles of freedom of the press everywhere. A: Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, Turkey: Yes, Freedom of the Press is the main principle for democracies, and European Union and Council of Europe, and we are fully committed to freedom of the press. But if you say that Turkey is a leading country in this sense, in arresting journalists, it is not the truth. We have to make the difference between journalistic activities and other activities. In many of this cases, and we can share this with Finnish Press of course, with all the things with press we can share, many of those who are being arrested there are arrested not because of journalistic activities. Some are arrested because of killing security policeman or killing some other civilians, but since they sometimes can get the press card easily, they are using this identity that ...
- published: 02 Jan 2013
- views: 8
- author: livefrombrussels
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Syria
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 13:10
- Updated: 28 Dec 2012
Marc Perelman meets Ahmet Davutoglu, who is calling on the international community to act more firmly to usher in a transition in Syria without Assad. He accuses the Syrian leader of perpetrating crimes against humanity and warns Turkey will respond in kind to the recent plane downing. The Turkish Foreign Minister also expresses confidence relations between Turkey and France are back on the right track. THE INTERVIEW - An interview with a French or international personality from the world of economics, politics, culture or diplomacy. All shows: www.france24.com FRANCE 24 INTERNATIONAL NEWS 24/7 www.france24.com
http://wn.com/Turkish_Foreign_Minister_Ahmet_Davutoglu_on_Syria
Marc Perelman meets Ahmet Davutoglu, who is calling on the international community to act more firmly to usher in a transition in Syria without Assad. He accuses the Syrian leader of perpetrating crimes against humanity and warns Turkey will respond in kind to the recent plane downing. The Turkish Foreign Minister also expresses confidence relations between Turkey and France are back on the right track. THE INTERVIEW - An interview with a French or international personality from the world of economics, politics, culture or diplomacy. All shows: www.france24.com FRANCE 24 INTERNATIONAL NEWS 24/7 www.france24.com
- published: 05 Jul 2012
- views: 2746
- author: france24english
Turkey Foreign Minister and Mrs. Emine Erdoğan visit Arakan to see situation of Rohingya
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:28
- Updated: 25 Dec 2012
Turkey Foreign Minister and Mrs. Emine Erdoğan visit Arakan to see situation of Rohingya. Thanks to Brother Kardenizliyim Karadeniz for sending me this Video.
http://wn.com/Turkey_Foreign_Minister_and_Mrs_Emine_Erdoğan_visit_Arakan_to_see_situation_of_Rohingya
Turkey Foreign Minister and Mrs. Emine Erdoğan visit Arakan to see situation of Rohingya. Thanks to Brother Kardenizliyim Karadeniz for sending me this Video.
- published: 10 Aug 2012
- views: 61237
- author: shah hossain
Danny Ayalon, Israeli deputy Foreign Minister
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 11:55
- Updated: 03 Dec 2012
06/21/2012 THE INTERVIEW With tensions mounting on Israel's border with Gaza, Israeli deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon talks to Marc Perelman about peace talks and Israel's role in a changing Middle East. An interview with a French or international personality from the world of economics, politics, culture or diplomacy. All shows: www.france24.com FRANCE 24 INTERNATIONAL NEWS 24/7 www.france24.com
http://wn.com/Danny_Ayalon,_Israeli_deputy_Foreign_Minister
06/21/2012 THE INTERVIEW With tensions mounting on Israel's border with Gaza, Israeli deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon talks to Marc Perelman about peace talks and Israel's role in a changing Middle East. An interview with a French or international personality from the world of economics, politics, culture or diplomacy. All shows: www.france24.com FRANCE 24 INTERNATIONAL NEWS 24/7 www.france24.com
- published: 21 Jun 2012
- views: 611
- author: france24english
Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkish Foreign Minister
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 13:10
- Updated: 30 Jul 2012
THE INTERVIEW - An interview with a French or international personality from the world of economics, politics, culture or diplomacy. All shows: www.france24.com FRANCE 24 INTERNATIONAL NEWS 24/7 www.france24.com
http://wn.com/Ahmet_Davutoglu,_Turkish_Foreign_Minister
THE INTERVIEW - An interview with a French or international personality from the world of economics, politics, culture or diplomacy. All shows: www.france24.com FRANCE 24 INTERNATIONAL NEWS 24/7 www.france24.com
- published: 07 Jul 2012
- views: 485
- author: france24english
Turkish Foreign minister and First Lady in Arakan , Burma
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:24
- Updated: 22 Nov 2012
Attention: I have problem with my Audio-system, my apologies if you get annoyed by it. Turkish Foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu is in Arakan with the Turkish first lady and it's daughter and other humanitarian helpers. Turkish redcrescent (official/national) help system of Turkey They are helping Muslims in Arakan , aiding as much people as possible.
http://wn.com/Turkish_Foreign_minister_and_First_Lady_in_Arakan_,_Burma
Attention: I have problem with my Audio-system, my apologies if you get annoyed by it. Turkish Foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu is in Arakan with the Turkish first lady and it's daughter and other humanitarian helpers. Turkish redcrescent (official/national) help system of Turkey They are helping Muslims in Arakan , aiding as much people as possible.
- published: 10 Aug 2012
- views: 10011
- author: Dreamkillah1
American adoption in Russia: To ban or not to ban?
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:29
- Updated: 05 Jan 2013
Russia's Foreign minister believes it's wrong to ban Americans from adopting Russian children, but said the US should take responsibility for any that are sent there. The freeze could be part of Moscow's response to Washington's travel and financial restrictions on Russian officials, implicated in the death of lawyer Sergey Magnitsky in 2009. RT's Yegor Piskunov reports. RT LIVE rt.com Subscribe to RT! www.youtube.com Like us on Facebook www.facebook.com Follow us on Twitter twitter.com Follow us on Google+ plus.google.com RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500 million YouTube views benchmark.
http://wn.com/American_adoption_in_Russia_To_ban_or_not_to_ban?
Russia's Foreign minister believes it's wrong to ban Americans from adopting Russian children, but said the US should take responsibility for any that are sent there. The freeze could be part of Moscow's response to Washington's travel and financial restrictions on Russian officials, implicated in the death of lawyer Sergey Magnitsky in 2009. RT's Yegor Piskunov reports. RT LIVE rt.com Subscribe to RT! www.youtube.com Like us on Facebook www.facebook.com Follow us on Twitter twitter.com Follow us on Google+ plus.google.com RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500 million YouTube views benchmark.
- published: 18 Dec 2012
- views: 11798
- author: RussiaToday
Iran War Would 'Be A Nightmare' - Israeli Foreign Minister
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:02
- Updated: 01 Jan 2013
Via The Huffington Post: "...Israel's foreign minister declared that a war with Iran would "be a nightmare," drawing in countries from around the region and leaving "no one...unscathed"...".* The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur shares his take. * www.huffingtonpost.com Subscribe to The Young Turks: bit.ly Find out how to watch The Young Turks on Current by clicking here: www.current.com The Largest Online New Show in the World. Google+: www.gplus.to Facebook: www.facebook.com Twitter: twitter.com
http://wn.com/Iran_War_Would_'Be_A_Nightmare'_Israeli_Foreign_Minister
Via The Huffington Post: "...Israel's foreign minister declared that a war with Iran would "be a nightmare," drawing in countries from around the region and leaving "no one...unscathed"...".* The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur shares his take. * www.huffingtonpost.com Subscribe to The Young Turks: bit.ly Find out how to watch The Young Turks on Current by clicking here: www.current.com The Largest Online New Show in the World. Google+: www.gplus.to Facebook: www.facebook.com Twitter: twitter.com
- published: 08 Apr 2012
- views: 37810
- author: TheYoungTurks
Interview with Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Hailemariam Desalegn
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 25:37
- Updated: 19 Dec 2012
Ethiopian Largest Video Sharing Site - diretube.com DireTube http - Your Online Entertainment Watch HD Ethiopian Moveis @ gojocinema.com
http://wn.com/Interview_with_Deputy_PM_and_Foreign_Minister_Hailemariam_Desalegn
Ethiopian Largest Video Sharing Site - diretube.com DireTube http - Your Online Entertainment Watch HD Ethiopian Moveis @ gojocinema.com
- published: 25 Apr 2012
- views: 53248
- author: EthiopianInterview
G20 Foreign Ministers Meet in Los Cabos, Mexico
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:01
- Updated: 16 Nov 2012
Finance and Economics Professor Shang-Jin Wei (on set at the Hub). This weekend, foreign ministers from the Group of Twenty Nations (G20) will meet in Los Cabos—the first such meeting in a group which has been dominated by finance ministers and central bank governors since its inception. With foreign ministers at the table will the G20, like the G7 and G8 before it, expand its remit to address a broader suite of global challenges? Two compelling issues for the G20 to take on would be advancing sustainable development and bolstering fragile states. Both represent a natural extension of its foray into development since the Seoul Summit of November 2010. As hosts of the G20, the Mexican government has an opportunity to forge major-power consensus on each front.
http://wn.com/G20_Foreign_Ministers_Meet_in_Los_Cabos,_Mexico
Finance and Economics Professor Shang-Jin Wei (on set at the Hub). This weekend, foreign ministers from the Group of Twenty Nations (G20) will meet in Los Cabos—the first such meeting in a group which has been dominated by finance ministers and central bank governors since its inception. With foreign ministers at the table will the G20, like the G7 and G8 before it, expand its remit to address a broader suite of global challenges? Two compelling issues for the G20 to take on would be advancing sustainable development and bolstering fragile states. Both represent a natural extension of its foray into development since the Seoul Summit of November 2010. As hosts of the G20, the Mexican government has an opportunity to forge major-power consensus on each front.
- published: 17 Feb 2012
- views: 6564
- author: WSJDigitalNetwork
Korea's First Female President: Park Geun-hye (KWOW #71)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:38
- Updated: 05 Jan 2013
"Like" us on FACEBOOK! www.facebook.com "Follow" us on TWITTER! twitter.com SUBSCRIBE to our channel: tinyurl.com INSTAGRAM: @sweetandtastyTV ******** Images "Moon Jae-in" - Sujin Kim "14-carat gold wedding rings" - Jeff Belmonte "Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas met at the Foreign Ministry on Wednesday, 4 May 2011, with Ms. Geun Hye Park, the Personal Envoy of the President of South Korea." - Greek Foreign Ministry
http://wn.com/Korea's_First_Female_President_Park_Geun-hye_KWOW_71
"Like" us on FACEBOOK! www.facebook.com "Follow" us on TWITTER! twitter.com SUBSCRIBE to our channel: tinyurl.com INSTAGRAM: @sweetandtastyTV ******** Images "Moon Jae-in" - Sujin Kim "14-carat gold wedding rings" - Jeff Belmonte "Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas met at the Foreign Ministry on Wednesday, 4 May 2011, with Ms. Geun Hye Park, the Personal Envoy of the President of South Korea." - Greek Foreign Ministry
- published: 03 Jan 2013
- views: 8290
- author: sweetandtasty
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu Remarks at CSIS, on Feb. 10, 2012
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 56:39
- Updated: 24 Dec 2012
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu delivered a foreign policy address at CSIS, Friday, February 10, 2012. He is in Washington this week to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other administration officials to discuss Turkey's Foreign Policy goals and regional issues. (video courtesy of CSIS)
http://wn.com/Turkish_Foreign_Minister_Ahmet_Davutoğlu_Remarks_at_CSIS,_on_Feb_10,_2012
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu delivered a foreign policy address at CSIS, Friday, February 10, 2012. He is in Washington this week to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other administration officials to discuss Turkey's Foreign Policy goals and regional issues. (video courtesy of CSIS)
- published: 11 Feb 2012
- views: 4346
- author: TurkishEmbassyDC
Nigel Farage reprimanded for criticising new EU president & foreign minister
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:15
- Updated: 03 Jan 2013
► For a version without music go to Europarl's sister site: www.youtube.com - - - - - - - ► European Parliament, Strasbourg, France, 25.11.2009 - ►Speaker: Nigel Farage MEP, UKIP Head of Delegation, Co-President of the Europe of Freedom and Democracy group in the European Parliament criticises Baroness Ashton, the newly selected EU foreign/security minister and vice-president of the Commission. This follows with a reprimand by the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek (EPP, Poland) for the "tone" Mr Farage used in criticising "important EU officials". "Mr Farage, I'd like to ask you to put your tone down. Certain expressions are not acceptable to everybody" - Jerzy Buzek, President of the European Parliament, 25.11.2009. Also intervening: Edit Herczog Hungarian MEP (European Socialists), who spoke about how good it is to watch monkeys' behinds when they climb trees. ► Debate: Council and Commission statement - Preparation of the European Council on 10 & 11 December 2009 .................................. ► Video Credits: European Parliament Audio Visual - Music: Kingmaker by Abbey Road; The Variag by the Red Army Choir .................................. EU Member States: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, United Kingdom
http://wn.com/Nigel_Farage_reprimanded_for_criticising_new_EU_president_foreign_minister
► For a version without music go to Europarl's sister site: www.youtube.com - - - - - - - ► European Parliament, Strasbourg, France, 25.11.2009 - ►Speaker: Nigel Farage MEP, UKIP Head of Delegation, Co-President of the Europe of Freedom and Democracy group in the European Parliament criticises Baroness Ashton, the newly selected EU foreign/security minister and vice-president of the Commission. This follows with a reprimand by the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek (EPP, Poland) for the "tone" Mr Farage used in criticising "important EU officials". "Mr Farage, I'd like to ask you to put your tone down. Certain expressions are not acceptable to everybody" - Jerzy Buzek, President of the European Parliament, 25.11.2009. Also intervening: Edit Herczog Hungarian MEP (European Socialists), who spoke about how good it is to watch monkeys' behinds when they climb trees. ► Debate: Council and Commission statement - Preparation of the European Council on 10 & 11 December 2009 .................................. ► Video Credits: European Parliament Audio Visual - Music: Kingmaker by Abbey Road; The Variag by the Red Army Choir .................................. EU Member States: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, United Kingdom
- published: 25 Nov 2009
- views: 373114
- author: europarl
Iceland FM: We don't force people to bailout banks
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 11:16
- Updated: 03 Jan 2013
The Foreign Minister Ossur Skarphedinsson of Iceland tells RT's Marina Portnaya how his country managed to pull itself away from the financial abyss - and offers up a few pointers as to how the Eurozone can do the same. RT LIVE rt.com Subscribe to RT! www.youtube.com Like us on Facebook www.facebook.com Follow us on Twitter twitter.com Follow us on Google+ plus.google.com RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500 million YouTube views benchmark.
http://wn.com/Iceland_FM_We_don't_force_people_to_bailout_banks
The Foreign Minister Ossur Skarphedinsson of Iceland tells RT's Marina Portnaya how his country managed to pull itself away from the financial abyss - and offers up a few pointers as to how the Eurozone can do the same. RT LIVE rt.com Subscribe to RT! www.youtube.com Like us on Facebook www.facebook.com Follow us on Twitter twitter.com Follow us on Google+ plus.google.com RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500 million YouTube views benchmark.
- published: 22 Oct 2012
- views: 12437
- author: RussiaToday
Talk to Al Jazeera - Talk to Al Jazeera - Zalmai Rassoul: The case for Afghanisation
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 24:57
- Updated: 19 Jun 2012
Afghanistan's foreign minister on building a new partnership with the US and peace talks with the Taliban.
http://wn.com/Talk_to_Al_Jazeera_Talk_to_Al_Jazeera_Zalmai_Rassoul_The_case_for_Afghanisation
Afghanistan's foreign minister on building a new partnership with the US and peace talks with the Taliban.
- published: 07 Apr 2012
- views: 1080
- author: AlJazeeraEnglish
Talk to Al Jazeera - John Baird
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 23:12
- Updated: 27 Dec 2012
Canada's foreign minister talks to Al Jazeera's Sami Zeidan about his country's foreign policy, and touches on issues involving Syria, Iran and Palestine-Israel.
http://wn.com/Talk_to_Al_Jazeera_John_Baird
Canada's foreign minister talks to Al Jazeera's Sami Zeidan about his country's foreign policy, and touches on issues involving Syria, Iran and Palestine-Israel.
- published: 31 Mar 2012
- views: 2182
- author: AlJazeeraEnglish
The Outsider: Special : India-Pakistan Relations - Part 1
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 22:10
- Updated: 31 Dec 2012
The Outsider With Tim Sebastian on Bloomberg TV India. The Motion of the special debate - India-Pakistan Relations. Debate between Jaswant Singh, Former Indian Foreign Minister and General Pervez Musharraf, Former President, Pakistan
http://wn.com/The_Outsider_Special_India-Pakistan_Relations_Part_1
The Outsider With Tim Sebastian on Bloomberg TV India. The Motion of the special debate - India-Pakistan Relations. Debate between Jaswant Singh, Former Indian Foreign Minister and General Pervez Musharraf, Former President, Pakistan
- published: 15 Nov 2012
- views: 17408
- author: BloombergUTV
The Outsider: Special : India-Pakistan Relations - Part 2
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 27:43
- Updated: 01 Jan 2013
The Outsider With Tim Sebastian on Bloomberg TV India. The Motion of the special debate - India-Pakistan Relations. Debate between Jaswant Singh, Former Indian Foreign Minister and General Pervez Musharraf, Former President, Pakistan
http://wn.com/The_Outsider_Special_India-Pakistan_Relations_Part_2
The Outsider With Tim Sebastian on Bloomberg TV India. The Motion of the special debate - India-Pakistan Relations. Debate between Jaswant Singh, Former Indian Foreign Minister and General Pervez Musharraf, Former President, Pakistan
- published: 15 Nov 2012
- views: 7820
- author: BloombergUTV
Thai-Cambodia Border Issue: Thai Foreign Minister Seeks Resolution Through Bilateral Talks
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:39
- Updated: 26 Dec 2012
For more news visit ☛english.ntdtv.com Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya says Cambodia border dispute should be solved on a bilateral level. He met with Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to discuss Thailand's stance ahead of ASEAN meeting in Jakarta this week. On Sunday, Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said the border dispute with Cambodia should be solved at a bilateral level. Kasit and Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva met to discuss Thailand's stance on the issue ahead of an Association of South East Asian (ASEAN) foreign ministers' meeting in Jakarta. [Kasit Piromya, Thai Foreign Minister] "At the meeting on Tuesday in Jakarta, I will insist that Thailand is ready to use the bilateral mechanism that already exists with Cambodia." The talks in Jakarta come after the UN Security Council said the issue should be resolved between the two neighbors. Last week, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen proposed that Thailand sign a ceasefire agreement at the ASEAN meeting. But Abhisit rejected the proposal, saying that Thailand had not fired first. Earlier on Sunday in his weekly TV program, Abhisit said that he had asked UNESCO not to accept Cambodia's development proposals for areas within the disputed territory. Both sides have been locked in a standoff since July 2008, when the 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple was granted UNESCO World Heritage status, which Thailand opposed on grounds that territory around the temple had never been demarcated.
http://wn.com/Thai-Cambodia_Border_Issue_Thai_Foreign_Minister_Seeks_Resolution_Through_Bilateral_Talks
For more news visit ☛english.ntdtv.com Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya says Cambodia border dispute should be solved on a bilateral level. He met with Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to discuss Thailand's stance ahead of ASEAN meeting in Jakarta this week. On Sunday, Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said the border dispute with Cambodia should be solved at a bilateral level. Kasit and Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva met to discuss Thailand's stance on the issue ahead of an Association of South East Asian (ASEAN) foreign ministers' meeting in Jakarta. [Kasit Piromya, Thai Foreign Minister] "At the meeting on Tuesday in Jakarta, I will insist that Thailand is ready to use the bilateral mechanism that already exists with Cambodia." The talks in Jakarta come after the UN Security Council said the issue should be resolved between the two neighbors. Last week, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen proposed that Thailand sign a ceasefire agreement at the ASEAN meeting. But Abhisit rejected the proposal, saying that Thailand had not fired first. Earlier on Sunday in his weekly TV program, Abhisit said that he had asked UNESCO not to accept Cambodia's development proposals for areas within the disputed territory. Both sides have been locked in a standoff since July 2008, when the 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple was granted UNESCO World Heritage status, which Thailand opposed on grounds that territory around the temple had never been demarcated.
- published: 21 Feb 2011
- views: 53179
- author: NTDTV
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini gets the Paxman treatment over Libya & PM Berlusconi
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:24
- Updated: 20 Aug 2012
www.facebook.com www.twitter.com The eloquently spoken Italian diplomat was treated to Paxman in full flow as he struggled to explain his government's position on Libya and Gaddafi. Apologies for the abrupt end of the video. You can see the last moments by following the link below. Also, you can watch the British Foreign Minister deal with similar questions. www.youtube.com
http://wn.com/Italian_Foreign_Minister_Franco_Frattini_gets_the_Paxman_treatment_over_Libya_PM_Berlusconi
www.facebook.com www.twitter.com The eloquently spoken Italian diplomat was treated to Paxman in full flow as he struggled to explain his government's position on Libya and Gaddafi. Apologies for the abrupt end of the video. You can see the last moments by following the link below. Also, you can watch the British Foreign Minister deal with similar questions. www.youtube.com
- published: 30 Mar 2011
- views: 49202
- author: media1512
'US not our daddy to punish us' - Ecuador FM Patino to RT (EXCLUSIVE)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:52
- Updated: 22 Dec 2012
Ecuador is still concerned over the UK's threat to storm its embassy in London. In an exclusive interview to RT, the country's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said that Ecuador will not tolerate what it sees as a clear breach of international law - READ FULL SCRIPT on.rt.com RT LIVE rt.com Subscribe to RT! www.youtube.com Like us on Facebook www.facebook.com Follow us on Twitter twitter.com Follow us on Google+ plus.google.com RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500 million YouTube views benchmark.
http://wn.com/'US_not_our_daddy_to_punish_us'_Ecuador_FM_Patino_to_RT_EXCLUSIVE
Ecuador is still concerned over the UK's threat to storm its embassy in London. In an exclusive interview to RT, the country's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said that Ecuador will not tolerate what it sees as a clear breach of international law - READ FULL SCRIPT on.rt.com RT LIVE rt.com Subscribe to RT! www.youtube.com Like us on Facebook www.facebook.com Follow us on Twitter twitter.com Follow us on Google+ plus.google.com RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500 million YouTube views benchmark.
- published: 23 Aug 2012
- views: 13266
- author: RussiaToday
euronews interview - Interview with Iran's Foreign Minister
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:19
- Updated: 29 Nov 2012
In an interview with euronews, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, makes a link between protests in Iran and manipulation from the outside world. Salehi reacts to foreign to concerns over Iranian ships off the coast of Syria and Iran's nuclear program. The government's hard stance against the opposition is clear at a time of revolution in some Arabic countries. euronews: "How do you read the events in Arab world? In Egypt, Tunisia, Libya where there have been a wave of revolutions and protests?" Salehi: ... www.euronews.net
http://wn.com/euronews_interview_Interview_with_Iran's_Foreign_Minister
In an interview with euronews, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, makes a link between protests in Iran and manipulation from the outside world. Salehi reacts to foreign to concerns over Iranian ships off the coast of Syria and Iran's nuclear program. The government's hard stance against the opposition is clear at a time of revolution in some Arabic countries. euronews: "How do you read the events in Arab world? In Egypt, Tunisia, Libya where there have been a wave of revolutions and protests?" Salehi: ... www.euronews.net
- published: 05 Mar 2011
- views: 1402
- author: Euronews
photo: AP / Juan Karita
04 Jan 2013
She accused Britain of taking part in an act of "blatant colonialism" in claiming the archipelago and called on UK Prime Minister David Cameron to honour UN resolutions that indicate both sides should sit at the negotiating table to discuss the sovereignty of the Falklands. ... Britain asserted control of the south Atlantic islands by placing a naval garrison there in 1833 ... "I think what the government has done is perfect ... Share ... ....(size: 19.6Kb)
photo: WN / Imran Nissar
03 Jan 2013
A gang of men accused of repeatedly raping a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi in a deadly crime that repulsed the nation are to appear in court today for the first time ... AP. 3.52AM GMT 03 Jan 2013 ... The men, mostly residents of New Delhi slums, will face the death penalty if convicted, India's Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde has said, amid public clamour for their execution ... AFP ... Foreign correspondents on Twitter » ... ....(size: 11.3Kb)
photo: US Navy / HMC Josh Ives
03 Jan 2013
Washington. Aiming to get cooperation through dialogue, the US said that it is working hard to create an environment within Afghanistan and also in the region to have support for Afghan-Afghan reconciliation ... Responding to questions, Nuland said the US supports an Afghan-led process of reconciliation ... Saying that Pakistan needs to engage with Afghanistan directly, Nuland said the US supports dialogue between the two ... PTI ... First Published....(size: 2.3Kb)
photo: WN / Bhaskar Mallick
05 Jan 2013
Tweet. New Delhi, Jan 5 (ANI). The male friend of the 23-year-old medical student, who was gang-raped and left unclothed and bleeding in the street and later died in hospital two weeks after she was attacked on December 16 on a private bus in New Delhi, has said that things would have gone differently if someone had stopped to help ... "It would have been a very different scenario today, had even one person come to our help that day ... (ANI)....(size: 3.8Kb)
photo: AP / Yadana Htun
04 Jan 2013
LAIZA, Myanmar (AP) — Ethnic Kachins living in makeshift camps in Myanmar described their terror at the army's use of air power during fighting with Kachin rebels seeking more autonomy as the government said Friday that it has exercised maximum restraint ... In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Friday that during armed clashes between Myanmar government forces and Kachin rebels on the night of Dec ... ....(size: 10.1Kb)
noodls
05 Jan 2013
Nizar bin Obaid Madani; Director General of the Office of Minister of Defense Lieutenant General Abdulrahman bin Saleh Al-Bunyan; Saudi Ambassador to Egypt and the Kingdom's Permanent Representative to the Arab League Ahmed bin Abdulaziz Qattan; Egyptian Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Afifi Abdulwahab, and Egyptian Assistant Foreign Minister for Arab Affairs Ambassador Nasser Kamel....(size: 2.8Kb)
Jakarta Globe
05 Jan 2013
Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, who presented the awards in a ceremony after his annual policy speech, said that the ministry and the media would continue to have a good partnership ... The award is named after a former foreign minister and vice president, who was a journalist before joining the government....(size: 1.5Kb)
Jakarta Post
05 Jan 2013
Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa says that the nation’s foreign policy must shift focus in 2013 to promote economic development, justice and peace in the region. The protection of Indonesian migrant workers was also among the nine points that the government would raise in its diplomacy in the region and across the globe this year, according to the foreign minister....(size: 3.3Kb)
photo: AP / Sebastian Scheiner, Pool
05 Jan 2013
He said Mr Netanyahu was “haunted” by the legacy of former prime ministers Menachem Begin and Ehud Olmert, who attacked the nuclear reactors in Iran and Syria (according to ... Former foreign minister Tzipi Livni called Mr Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman – who resigned as foreign minister last month – reckless and irresponsible....(size: 2.9Kb)
Jakarta Globe
05 Jan 2013
Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa on Friday spelled out foreign policy goals for the country in 2013 ... As the minister noted in his speech, the search for new markets for Indonesian exports will take on greater urgency in the coming year ... It is fair to say the country’s current foreign policy strategy is very much geared toward achieving this goal. ....(size: 2.0Kb)
Bloomberg
05 Jan 2013
“A peaceful exit is an Arab and international demand,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal told reporters today in Riyadh, after talks with his Egyptian counterpart, Mohamed Kamel Amr ... Saudi Arabia stayed away from a foreign ministers’ meeting on Syria held in September in Cairo at the invitation of Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi, with ......(size: 3.1Kb)
Jakarta Post
05 Jan 2013
Myanmar Ambassador to Jakarta U Min Lwin (right) talks to Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa during a ceremony to commemorate the 65th anniversary of Myanmar’s independence on Friday ... Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa congratulated both the people and the government of Myanmar on their Independence Day commemoration....(size: 3.4Kb)
The Star
05 Jan 2013
Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal gestures during a news conference at his office in Riyadh December 4, 2012 ... Until these issues are addressed, we don't think there will ever be stability in Iraq, which pains us," Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told a news conference in Riyadh....(size: 1.9Kb)
Xinhua
05 Jan 2013
GroundReport
05 Jan 2013
New Delhi/ammu, January 05 (Scoop News) –The Panthers Party Founder & Supremo, Prof ... Prof ... Prof ... miles of Territory in Karakoram region of Gilgit by an illegal agreement signed in 1963 between the then Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Mr. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the then Chinese Foreign Minister, Mr. Chou-en-Lai ... Prof ... Pakistan signed Tashkent Agreement in 1966 where India lost her heroic Prime Minister, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri ... ....(size: 2.5Kb)
CNTV
05 Jan 2013
had been accusing him of sending fighters to Afghanistan for attacks on foreign and Afghan forces ... Regarding the recent visit of Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar to Saudi Arabia, the spokesman said the foreign minister held in-depth discussions with the Saudi leadership on the expansion of bilateral relations in diverse fields ... 9 to 11, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said here on Friday....(size: 7.9Kb)
Middle East Online
05 Jan 2013
TEHRAN- Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi will visit Egypt next week for talks on bilateral ties and the crisis in Syria, the ISNA news agency reported Saturday quoting an Iranian diplomat ... Salehi was in Cairo in mid-September to attend the group's meeting, but as a foreign minister he has never visited Egypt for bilateral talks ... ....(size: 1.9Kb)
The Times of India
05 Jan 2013
TEHRAN.(AFP) - Iran's foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi will visit Egypt next week for talks on bilateral ties and the crisis in Syria, the ISNA news agency reported Saturday quoting an Iranian diplomat ... Salehi was in Cairo in mid-September to attend the group's meeting, but as a foreign minister he has never visited Egypt for bilateral talks ... ....(size: 2.0Kb)
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This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2011) |
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A Minister of Foreign Affairs, or foreign minister, is a cabinet minister who helps form the foreign policy of a sovereign state. The foreign minister is often regarded as the most senior ministerial position below that of the head of government (prime minister or president).[citation needed] It is often granted to the deputy prime minister in coalition governments. In some nations, such as India, the foreign minister is referred to as the Minister for External Affairs or, as in the case of Brazil and of the former Soviet Union, as the Minister of External Relations. In the United States the equivalent to the foreign ministry is called the Department of State, and the equivalent position is known as the Secretary of State.
A foreign minister's powers can vary from government to government. In a classic parliamentary system, a foreign minister can potentially exert significant influence in forming foreign policy but when the government is dominated by a strong prime minister the foreign minister may be limited to playing a more marginal or subsidiary role in determining policy. Similarly, the political powers invested in the foreign minister are often more limited in presidential governments with a strong executive. Since the end of World War II, it has been common for both the foreign minister and defense minister to be part of an inner cabinet (commonly known as a national security council) in order to coordinate defence and diplomatic policy. Although the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw many heads of government assume the foreign ministry, this practice has since become uncommon in most developed nations.
Along with their political roles, foreign ministers are also traditionally responsible for many diplomatic duties, such as hosting foreign world leaders and going on state visits to other countries. The foreign minister is generally the most well-traveled member of any cabinet.
In the United Kingdom, the minister responsible for foreign policy (as well as the British overseas territories) is the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Foreign Secretary). Before 1968, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs only handled relations with foreign (non-Commonwealth) countries, while relations with Commonwealth countries and colonies were handled by the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs. For the same reason, in Commonwealth countries other than the United Kingdom, the ministers responsible for handling relations with both Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth countries were formerly usually designated ministers for 'External Affairs'.
In the United States, the United States Secretary of State handles foreign policy and is the senior Cabinet officer. The name of the post comes from several domestic duties.
Although it is very rare for there to be any sub-national foreign minister post, although sometimes there is a minor external relations position, it can exist supranationally. The European Union has dealt with external relations in certain areas since its inception (see EU Trade Commissioner) and has a High Representative as its chief diplomat. However her duties are primarily to implement EU foreign policy, rather than formulate it.
Other common titles may include minister of foreign relations. In many Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America, the foreign minister is colloquially called canciller (chancellor) (in Brazil, a Portuguese-speaking country, is chanceler).
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See also[link]
External links[link]
- eDiplomat.com: Foreign Affairs Ministries
- Foreign Ministries: Adaptation to a Changing World A collection of papers and presentations from a conference which address the issues of performance management and accountability assessment in foreign ministries, diplomacy of small states, foreign services conduct of economic, cultural and public diplomacy.
- The Diplo Directory A detailed survey of websites of ministries of foreign affairs, embassies, and other diplomatic and consular missions.
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Emine Erdoğan (born Emine Gülbaran on February 21, 1955) is the wife of twenty-fifth Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Emine Erdoğan was born in Siirt, and grew up in Üsküdar, Istanbul. She is the youngest child of a family of five children. Erdoğan attended Mithat Paşa Akşam Art School, but left before graduation.
Emine Erdoğan joined the "Idealist Women's Association". During these activities she met Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at a conference. Recep and Emine married on July 4, 1978. The couple has four children: Ahmet Burak, Necmettin Bilal, Sümeyye and Esra.[1]
Honors and accolades[link]
On December 7, 2010, Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani conferred Hilal-e-Pakistan Award on Emine Erdoğan, in recognition of her personal efforts for the flood stricken people of Pakistan. In October 2010, Erdoğan visited Pakistan and the flood hit areas to personally witness the devastation caused by the floods and contributed significantly in the fund-raising campaign to help the country’s flood victims.[2]
On February 16, 2011, Emine Erdoğan was presented with the "Prix de la Fondation" by the Crans Montana Forum at a ceremony in Brussels. "We believe that all women in the world deserve the utmost social and political opportunities. Rights of women in our geography should not be sacrificed for balance of power and security concerns of some regimes. We have seen numerous women who were left destitute after natural disasters in Pakistan, who suffered from poverty in Bangladesh, who lost their children, husbands, hope or future in Palestine, Iraq, Bosnia or in Darfur. We have seen many women who were abused both in the West and in the East. They all have one thing in common which is being a human and a woman. Therefore, I believe that our struggle for peace, democracy and freedom should continue with a great determination. I want to reiterate once again that we reject double-standards and discrimination in this struggle," Erdoğan said after receiving the prize from the founder and chairman of the Crans Montana Forum.[3]
References[link]
- ^ "Emine Erdoğan" (in Turkish). biyografi.net. 2008-10-15. http://www.biyografi.net/kisiayrinti.asp?kisiid=4120. Retrieved 2008-10-15.
- ^ "PM confers Hilal-e-Pakistan award on Emine Erdogan". Associated Press of Pakistan. 16 February 2011. http://ftpapp.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=123994&Itemid=2. Retrieved 16 February 2011.
- ^ "Turkish PM's wife presented with women's award". Anatolian Agency. 16 February 2011. http://www.worldbulletin.net/?aType=haber&ArticleID=69893. Retrieved 16 February 2011.
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| Persondata | |
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| Short description | |
| Date of birth | February 21, 1955 |
| Place of birth | |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
| Danny Ayalon דני אילון |
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|---|---|
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| Date of birth | (1955-12-17) 17 December 1955 (age 56) |
| Place of birth | Tel Aviv, Israel |
| Knessets | 18 |
| Party | Yisrael Beiteinu |
| Ministerial posts (current in bold) |
Deputy Foreign Minister |
Daniel "Danny" Ayalon (Hebrew: דניאל "דני" אילון, born 17 December 1955) is an Israeli diplomat and politician who currently serves as Deputy Foreign Minister and as a member of the Knesset for Yisrael Beiteinu. Formerly he served as Israeli Ambassador to the United States from 2002 until 2006. He frequently writes in Israeli and international newspapers, notably in the Jerusalem Post and the Wall Street Journal.
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Early life and education[link]
Danny Ayalon was born in Tel Aviv in 1955 to Lily Ellon, a Polish Jew who immigrated to Israel in 1937 and Rafael Ayalon, an Algerian Jew. Ayalon was raised and educated in Tel Aviv and was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces where he rose to the rank of Captain in the Armored Corps. He received a BA in economics from Tel Aviv University and an MBA from Bowling Green University in Ohio.[1]
Prior to his career in public service, Ayalon was a partner at Gravitas Ltd., an international consulting group, past president of private investment firm Hod Ayalon Ltd, and a finance manager for Koor Industries.[2]
Ayalon is married. He and his wife, Anne, have two children.[1]
Foreign Service Career[link]
Ayalon was a member of the Israeli delegations to Sharm el-Sheikh (1997), Wye Plantation (1998) and Camp David (2000) summits. From 1993–1997, he served as the Director of the Bureau of Israel's Ambassador to the U.N. in New York. He was Israel’s Ambassador to Panama from 1991–1992.[3]
Israel's Ambassador to the United States[link]
Ayalon was appointed Israel’s Ambassador to the United States in 2002 by then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Before his appointment, Ayalon had served as a Deputy Foreign Policy Adviser to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and to Ehud Barak as well as Chief Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.[4]
Throughout his time in Washington, Ayalon cultivated a strong relationship with President George W. Bush and played a leading role in the Road Map for Peace negotiations between President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon .[5] He also secured the agreement for $9 billion in U.S. grants and loan guarantees to Israel beginning in 2003 which Israel needed in order to raise funds abroad at low interest rates. In early 2012, as Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Ayalon, met with his U.S. counterparts to secure another three-year, $3.8 billion extension of loan guarantees.[6]
Co-chairman of Nefesh B’Nefesh[link]
Upon retiring from the foreign service in 2006, Ayalon became the co-chairman of Nefesh B'Nefesh, an organization that encourages Aliyah by Jewish people to Israel from North America and other English-speaking areas.[7] Forming alliances with government bodies in Israel and Jewish organizations from around the world, he played a critical role in Israel’s decision to fund private Aliyah beginning in September 2007. On 31 December 2008, Ayalon left Nefesh B’Nefesh “to pursue an independent political career opportunity”.[8]
Deputy Foreign Minister[link]
Election and Appointment[link]
In August 2008, Ayalon joined Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu as chairman of World Yisrael Beiteinu,[8] opening branches of the party around the globe. Ayalon explained that Israel Beiteinu was a natural fit for him as he entered politics because he saw many problems, especially with Israeli foreign policy. Ayalon is working to reform the Israeli parliamentary style democracy into a more representative democratic government. Such change will allow Israel to have a greater unity of government and to take more uniformed political positions.[4]
Ayalon was placed seventh on the party's list for the 2009 elections to the Knesset,[9] and was elected in February 2009 after the party won 15 seats.[10] In April 2009, Ayalon was appointed Deputy Foreign Minister in Binyamin Netanyahu’s newly elected government.[11] According to the Jerusalem Post, “Ayalon's role is to serve as Lieberman's de-facto foreign minister, explaining and justifying his Lieberman's diplomatic plans to the world in a way that only a respected, seasoned diplomat can”.[4]
Government and Electoral Reform[link]
According to Ayalon, a major focus of Israeli diplomatic work involves branding: “We must brand Israel as a democratic Western society, productive and technologically advanced, one that contributes to the world and helps solve the major challenges facing humankind. Israeli democracy in general, and its political system in particular, are the best tools with which to showcase our brand”. However, Ayalon, who admires the American system, in conjunction with Lieberman, calls for political and electoral reform in Israel to create greater accountability and consistency within the government, stating: “In autocratic regimes you have maximum governability, because the leadership can make decisions without an opposition, and there are no checks or balances. Here, we are perhaps too far toward the other extreme; we have almost complete representation with little governability”.[12] In his opinion, “a homogenous government, comprised of like-minded ministers speaking with one voice and representing a singular policy framework is required to contribute to clear public diplomacy, the sort of diplomacy that Israel sorely needs now to combat the cohesive narrative and branding effort put forth by the Palestinians”.[13]
Foreign Policy[link]
Ayalon aims to develop and expand Israel’s diplomatic ties worldwide and to form new coalitions through economic and political cooperation and greater foreign aid.[14] In 2011, he embarked on a Latin American tour with an official visit to Mexico and a visit to El Salvador where he attended the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), addressing the ramifications of the Palestinian unilateral declaration of statehood and the mounting Iranian threat.[15] Earlier, Ayalon had worked with several nations in order to combat the Goldstone Report and its effects.[16]
- Israel-U.S. Strategic Dialogue
Ayalon maintains a strong relationship with the United States. He serves as Israel’s representative in the semi-annual Israel-U.S. Strategic Dialogue.[17]
- Israeli-Arab relations
In an appeal to the Arab world, Ayalon wrote a piece for the pan-Arab newspaper, Asharq Alawsat in 2009, explaining Israel’s past and ongoing partnerships within the Arab world such as Israel’s training of Jordanians in advanced agricultural techniques, calling them positive bridges on the road to peace and coexistence.[18]
At the sixth annual international WATEC-Israel exhibition in November 2011, Ayalon offered the Arab world to share Israel’s advanced water technologies. “Israel will benefit from a peace agreement, but you will also gain a genuine partner for development and the assured welfare of future generations in the region,” Ayalon said at the opening session.[19]
- Israeli settlements
Ayalon slammed the claims that settlements were the cause of violence, citing the pre-state 1929 Arab killing of Jews in Hebron.[20] He has criticized world leaders who accuse Israel of destroying the peace process by building in East Jerusalem neighborhoods such as Gilo.[21]
In 2005, as Israel’s representative to the United States, Ayalon suported Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, in which all Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip were evacuated.[22] However, as a Member of the Knesset, Ayalon explained that he feels the disengagement was a mistake and, “in hindsight we shouldn't have done it because it was excruciatingly painful“.[23]
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict
According to Ayalon, “the real obstacle to peace is Palestinian rejection of Israel and the self-determination of the Jewish people”. He has condemned Palestinian claims which “deny the Jewish people’s connection with its homeland”, and the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Information’s false claims that the Jews have no past connections to the Western Wall of the ancient Temple of Jerusalem and to the Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch.[24]
Ayalon called the Gaza flotilla raid of May 2010, in which nine activists were killed and many injured a “provocation”, stating: “On the deck we found weapons which were used against the forces. The organizers’ intent was violent and the results were unfortunate. Israel regrets the loss of life. We called the organizers once again the [sic] stop the provocations”.[25] He has criticized claims that the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip are in the midst of a humanitarian crisis as a result of Israel’s blockade citing that, “Gaza receives equivalent of 40% of goods imported by Israel. It's absurd for Israel to take care of Gazans while Hamas fires rockets.”[26]
- Iran
At the Munich Security Conference in February 2011, Ayalon, emphasizing Germany’s crucial part in crushing the Iranian threat, stated: “The Iranian regime today is just as dangerous to the world as Hitler was in the 1930s. We don't have the luxury of waiting for the results of the sanctions on Iran; we must immediately put heavy pressure on Iran until it cracks. Germany, as the strongest country in the European Union, must provide an answer to the needs of the European states that get oil from Iran, so that they will no longer be dependent on Iranian oil.”[27] He also made an appeal to Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay to cancel her plans to visit Iran, stating that the visit would legitimize a regime that “maliciously violates human rights, executes its citizens and openly calls for genocide”.[28]
- Refugees
Ayalon has appealed to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to end what he called the “morally and politically unacceptable” solution created for the Palestinian refugees, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), accusing it to perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by not finding permanent solutions for refugees. “While the UNHCR has found durable solutions for tens of millions of refugees, the agency created specifically for the Palestinian context, UNRWA, has found durable solutions for no one”, he stated at a conference in Geneva. He also called for redress for the aproximatly 850,000 Jews from Arab counties, who fled their homes after Israel was established. He said that while the refugee issue was a “core element” in solving the conflict, both Palestinian and Jewish refugees have to be taken into account.[29]
- Turkish Relations
Ayalon became internationally known in early 2010, after he summoned the Turkish ambassador to Israel, Ahmet Oğuz Çelikkol, to complain about a Turkish television series, Kurtlar Vadisi Pusu, which showed anti-Semitic motifs, including Mossad agents snatching a Muslim baby to convert to Judaism and shooting old men.[30] At the meeting, Ayalon did not display the Turkish flag, and pointed out to the waiting media that the Turkish Ambassador sat on a lower sofa. Ayalon later apologized to Çelikkol for any personal slight or insult, but not for the substance of the rebuke.[31]
- Holy See Negotiations
In December 2009, Ayalon led high-level diplomatic discussions with the Holy See concerning Church properties and taxes,[32] leading to an agreement in early 2012 between Israel and the Vatican in which the latter agreed to waive its demand to receive sovereignty over The Cenacle, the location of the Last Supper, on Jerusalem's Mount Zion. Israel, in return, agreed to consider giving the Church access to the site and is considering a leasing option. As part of the agreement, the Vatican will for the first time pay a reduced property tax for its large amount of assets in Israel.[33]
International aid[link]
Ayalon supports expanding Israel’s global initiatives through MASHAV, Israel's National Agency for International Development. Following the 2010 Earthquake, MASHAV deployed emergency medical services and polices forces to Haiti.[34] Israel was also the first country to set up a field hospital in Japan after the 2011 earthquake.[35] Through MASHAV Israel has partnered with the United States in Ethiopia, with Germany in Ethiopia and Ghana, with Italy in Senegal, and with Japan and Denmark in the Middle East.[36]
In January 2011, Ayalon and German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Dirk Niebel met and signed a joint Declaration of Intent aimed to increase bilateral cooperation in effort to assist developing nations, agreeing to work towards the rehabilitation of the contaminated Lake Victoria in Kenya, the main source of water for several states and one of the sources of the Nile River.[37] In February of the same year Ayalon and Niebel met again to examine aid to the new Republic of South Sudan.[27]
Also in February 2011, Ayalon signed a joint declaration of cooperation on water supply and sustainable energy technology management with Polish Minister of the Environment Bernard Blaszczyk. Israel and Poland will cooperate to promote investment, the exchanging of technologies, and the sharing of information.[38]
Videos[link]
In a video titled “The Truth About the West Bank” released by the Israeli foreign ministry in June 2011, Ayalon presents a historical narrative meant to help wage the public diplomacy battle about Israel’s ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. In the video made in cooperation with StandWithUs, which is very similar to one released earlier by the Yesha council, the organization of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Ayalon asks viewers to stop referring to Judea and Samaria as “occupied territories”. “It is time for Israel to return to a ‘rights-based diplomacy’ and talk about the facts, rights, history and international law which are little known but give a dramatically different viewpoint to what is currently accepted,” he said after the video’s release.[39] After the video was posted online, Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian Authority’s top negotiator, denounced the video as a “falsified account of history and international law”, but refused to participate in a public debate on the issues raised in the video proposed by Ayalon.[40]
Two more videos staring Ayalon were released: “The Truth About the Peace Process” in September 2011, and “The Truth About the Refugees” in December 2011.[41]
Social Media[link]
In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ayalon has worked to expand Israel’s social media diplomacy by helping the ministry maintain over 100 Facebook pages, including “Israel speaks Arabic”, a page written in Arabic.[42] After the initiatives launch, Ayalon explained that “it is vital that Israel's voice is heard in every corner of the world and even more so amongst its immediate neighbors”.[43] Ayalon has over 36,000 Facebook followers.[44] The Jewish Telegraphic Agency ranked him as the most influential Israeli Politician on Twitter and one of the 100 most influential Jews in 2010.[45] Ayalon has more than 18,100 Twitter followers.[46] He also has nearly 1,000,000 totally upload views on YouTube.[47] He has been recognized as one of the world’s leading politicians to utilize social media by web based policy center Dimpool and by Foreign Policy, surpassing President Barack Obama.[48][49]
Community Service and Involvement[link]
Ayalon has served as a member of the Executive Board at the University Center in Ariel, as Vice Chair of the Israel-America Chamber of Commerce, and as a Board Member of the America-Israel Friendship League.[50] He is a suporter of Aish HaTorah yeshiva and says he tries to make time each week to learn with Rabbi Ephraim Shore of the yeshiva.[51]
In partnership with “Latet,” Ayalon asked the workers at the Foreign Ministry as well as Green-Israel and Alma-Gilro to donate food to make over 100 Purim baskets for Holocaust survivors in Jerusalem.[52] In 2011, together with “United with Israel,” Ayalon helped launch another Purim basket campaign to give soldiers a special thank you during the holiday.[53] For Passover that same year, Ayalon and workers at the Ministry initiated the project, “Lending a (Diplomatic) Hand to the Community”, where they hand-picked over 2,000 Kg of beetroot that was donated to over 700 needy Israeli families.[54]
Ayalon has been a co-host on the English speaking Rusty Mike Radio station based in Jerusalem where he expressed his affection for the English speaking community and played some of his favorite music including the Beatles.[55]
Awards and Recognition[link]
In 2005, Ayalon received the Brandeis Award of the Jewish Community of Baltimore. He was the recipient of Aish Hatorah’s Builder of Jerusalem Award in 2008.[56]
References[link]
- ^ a b Ayalon, Danny. "On a Personal Note". http://www.dannyayalon.com/About%20Me/.
- ^ "Ambassador Danny Ayalon". American Friends of Hebrew University. http://www.afhu.org/ambassador-danny-ayalon.
- ^ "Ambassador Ayalon Assumes Post at Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C.". The Jewish Federation of North America. http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?id=82480.
- ^ a b c Hoffman, Gil (22 December 2008). "Avigdor Lieberman's New Foreign Minister". Jerusalem Post. http://www.jpost.com/Features/Article.aspx?id=125707. Retrieved 24 December 2008.
- ^ Danan, Deborah (13 January 2011). "Exclusive interview with Danny Ayalon". Jerusalem Post. http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/Article.aspx?id=203457.
- ^ Ravid, Barak (14 January 2012). "U.S. to grant three-year extension of loan guarantees to Israel". http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/u-s-to-grant-three-year-extension-of-loan-guarantees-to-israel-1.409037.
- ^ "Ambassador Danny Ayalon Resigns As Co-Chairman Of Nefesh B'Nefesh". The Five Towns Jewish Times. 23 October 2008. http://www.5tjt.com/recipes/3585-ambassador-danny-ayalon-resigns-as-co-chairman-of-nefesh-bnefesh.
- ^ a b Levi Julian, Hana (19 October 2008). "Danny Ayalon Resigns as Nefesh B'Nefesh Co-Chairman". Arutz 7. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/128001#.TyZsvZjIHyB.
- ^ Branovsky, Yael (22 December 2008). "Lieberman to approve Yisrael Beiteinu roster". Ynetnews. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3642639,00.html. Retrieved 23 December 2008.
- ^ Ilan, Shahar (12 February 2009). "Final election results: Kadima 28 seats, Likud 27, Yisrael Beiteinu 15". Haaretz. http://www.haaretz.com/news/final-election-results-kadima-28-seats-likud-27-yisrael-beiteinu-15-1.270020.
- ^ "Daniel Ayalon, MK". Ministry of Foreign Affairs. http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Personalities/From+A-Z/Daniel_Ayalon.htm.
- ^ Ayalon, Danny (12 February 2011). "Desperately Seeking Political Courage". Jerusalem Post. http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=207952. Retrieved 12 February 2011.
- ^ Ayalon, Danny (30 January 2012). "Branding for Change". Israel Hayom. http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1292.
- ^ Ayalon, Danny. "Jerusalem Finally Has a Foreign Policy". http://www.dannyayalon.com/A%20Personal%20Note/166/.
- ^ Ronen, Gill (1 June 2011). "Dep. Foreign Minister to Address Org. of American States". Arutz 7. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/144676#.TzuNxJjIHyA.
- ^ "DFM Ayalon meets with DFM Arrocha of Panama". Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 1 March 2010. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-220023904.html.
- ^ "Joint Statement on the U.S.-Israel Strategic Dialogue". U.S. Department of State. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/10/149599.htm.
- ^ Danny, Ayalon (16 December 2009). "An Open Letter to the Arab World". Asharq Alawsat. http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=2&id=19176.
- ^ Udasin, Sharon (16 November 2011). "Officials stress water cooperation at conference". The Jerusalem Post. http://www.jpost.com/Sci-Tech/Article.aspx?id=245749.
- ^ Ayalon, Danny (29 March 2011). "Israel and the Occupation Myth". The Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704517404576222891152718656.html.
- ^ Lidman, Melanie. "Ayalon defends Gilo plan despite Quartet condemnation". Jerusalem Post. http://www.jpost.com/VideoArticles/Video/Article.aspx?ID=240240&R=R1. Retrieved 2 October 2011.
- ^ "In Gaza, a Test Case for Peace". Washington Post. 20 July 2005. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/19/AR2005071901552.html.
- ^ "Ayalon: "Israel had to end Freeze to avoid seeming weak."". The Philadelphia Jewish Voice. October 5, 2010. http://blog.pjvoice.com/diary/105/ayalon-israel-had-to-end-settlement-freeze-to-avoid-seeming-weak.
- ^ Ayalon, Danny (27 November 2010). "Palestinian revisionism is the only obstacle to peace". The Jerusalem Post. http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=196981.
- ^ "Ayalon: Gaza flotilla was a 'provocation'". Jerusalem Post. http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=176986. Retrieved 31 May 2010.
- ^ Sofi, Roni (1 July 2010). "Ayalon: Gazans are provided for". YnetNews. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3913707,00.html.
- ^ a b "DFM Ayalon met with German Min. Niebel; attended Munich Security Conference". Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/About%20the%20Ministry/Deputy_Foreign_Minister/Press/DFM_Ayalon_met_German_Min_Niebel_3-Feb-2012.htm.
- ^ Keinon, Herb (9 February 2011). "Ayalon urges UN human rights chief to cancel Iran trip". Jerusalem Post. http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=207537.
- ^ Keinon, Herb (12 September 2011). "Ayalon blasts UNRWA, saying it perpetuates conflict". Jerusalem Post. http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=248739.
- ^ Fleisher, Malkah (13 January 2010). "Ayalon Apologizes to Turkish Ambassador". Arutz 7. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/135523#.T0aiNZjIHyA.
- ^ Ravid, Barak (13 January 2010). "Peres: Humiliation of Turkey envoy does not reflect Israel's diplomacy". http://www.haaretz.com/news/peres-humiliation-of-turkey-envoy-does-not-reflect-israel-s-diplomacy-1.261381.
- ^ Sofer, Roni (10 December 2009). "Israel's talks with Vatican fail". YnetNews. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3818264,00.html.
- ^ Eichner, Itamar (31 January 2012). "Vatican to pay property tax in Israel". YnetNews. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4182802,00.html.
- ^ Ki-moon, Ban. "Remarks with Israeli Deputy Minister Daniel Ayalon, Mashav (Israel's National Agency for International Development) and members of the Government of Israel Haiti Medical Team". UN News Centre. http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocus/sgspeeches/search_full.asp?statID=758.
- ^ "Israel first to set up field hospital in Japan". The Jerusalem Post. 21 March 2011. http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=213123.
- ^ Ayalon, Danny (7 February 2011). "Israel" Partnering in Global Development". Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danny-ayalon/israel-partnering-in-glob_b_819202.html.
- ^ Eichner, Itamar (1 February 2011). "Israel, Germany to save Lake Victoria". http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4021168,00.html.
- ^ Ronen, Gill (24 February 2011). "Poland, Israel to Cooperate on Water, Energy". Arutz 7. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142521#.Tz_xlZjIHyA.
- ^ Hartman, Ben. "Ayalon launches campaign to tell 'truth about W. Bank'". The Jerusalem Post. http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=229967. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
- ^ Ronen, Gill. "Erekat Chickens Out of Duel with Ayalon". http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/146248#.T0VQOZjIHyA. Retrieved July 31, 2011.
- ^ "Ayalon's Youtube Channell". http://www.youtube.com/user/DannyAyalon.
- ^ "Israel Speaks Arabic". https://www.facebook.com/IsraelMFA?sk=app_4949752878.
- ^ "Israel speaks Arabic". Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/About+the+Ministry/MFA+Spokesman/2011/Israel_speaks_Arabic_Facebook_13-Apr-2011.htm?DisplayMode=print.
- ^ "Ayalon's Facebook Page". https://www.facebook.com/DannyAyalon.
- ^ JTA Twitter 100: Return of the Jewish Twitter List' [The Jewish Telegraph Agency, 30 December 2010
- ^ Ayalon, Danny. "Danny Ayalon's Official Twitter Page". http://twitter.com/#!/dannyayalon.
- ^ Ayalon, Danny. "The Truth About the Refugees: Israel Palestinian Conflict". http://www.youtube.com/user/DannyAyalon.
- ^ 'The FP Twitterati 100' The Foreign Policy, 20 June 2011
- ^ 'The most successful politicians on the internet' Dimpool – Web Based Policy Center, 19 May 2011
- ^ "IAN Teleconference: Amb. Danny Ayalon". The Jewish Federation of North America. http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?id=245081.
- ^ Levi Julian, Hana (11 October 2009). "Ayalon Celebrates Torah Learning, Sukkot at Aish HaTorah". Arutz 7. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/133791#.TzPYD5jIHyB%253.
- ^ "Reaching out to Holocaust survivors". dannyayalon.com. http://www.dannyayalon.com/News/371/.
- ^ "Israel Turns "Sadness into Joy" on Purim". United with Israel: The Global Movement for Israel. http://unitedwithisrael.org/idf-purim-baskets/.
- ^ "Project "Lending a (Diplomatic) Hand to the Community"". dannyayalon.com. http://www.dannyayalon.com/A%20Personal%20Note/376/.
- ^ "Co-Hosting on the Rusty Mike Radio Show". dannyayalon.com. http://www.dannyayalon.com/News/332/.
- ^ "Daniel Ayalon, MK". Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Personalities/From+A-Z/Daniel_Ayalon.htm.
External links[link]
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Daniel Ayalon |
- Ayalon's Official English Website
- Ayalon's Official Hebrew Website
- Ayalon's Official English Knesset Website
- Ayalon's Official Hebrew Knesset Website
- Ayalon's Official Facebook Page
- Ayalon's Official Youtube Channel
- Yisrael Beiteinu's Official English Website
- Yisrael Beiteinu's Official Hebrew Website
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs Official English Website
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs Official Hebrew Website
- All Ministers in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Ayalon, Daniel |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | Politician |
| Date of birth | 17 December 1955 |
| Place of birth | Tel Aviv, Israel |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/Danny_Ayalon
Related pages:
http://ru.wn.com/Аялон, Даниэль
http://fr.wn.com/Danny Ayalon
http://cs.wn.com/Danny Ajalon
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Ayalon
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
Haile-Mariam Desalegne is an Ethiopian politician who has served in the government of Ethiopia as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2010.
Born in the Wolaita Zone Boloso Sore District of Southern Ethiopia, he studied and spent most of his youth in Wolaita.
He was President of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region (SNNPR) from November 2001 to March 2006 and was promoted as Deputy Prime Minister[1] and Minister of Foreign Affairs in October 2010.[2] He has been performing leadership roles as deputy Chairman of EPRDF, Chairman of SEPDM, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs.[3] His service term has been as follows: Public Offices: V/President of SNNPR (2000–2002); President of SNNPR(2002–2005); Member of House of People’s Representatives (2005-now); Social Affairs Special Advisor to the PM, then Public Mobilization & Participation Special Advisor to the Prime Minister (2005–2008); Government Chief Whip, with a Ministerial portfolio (2008–2010). Party Posts: Member of the Executive Committee EPRDF and SEPDM (2000-now); Chairman of SEPDM (2002-now); Dep. Chairman of EPRDF(since Sept 2010).
Haile Mariam obtained a bachelor degree in civil engineering from the Addis Ababa University in 1988. He subsequently worked as a graduate assistant in the Arba Minch Water Technology Institute (now Arba Minch University). After two years of working in this capacity, he won a scholarship to Tampere University of Technology in Finland and obtained a masters degree in sanitation engineering. Upon his return to Ethiopia he served in different academic and administrative capacities, including the dean of the Water Technology Institute, for 13 years.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, he became seriously involved in politics as member of the EPRDF (Ethiopia's ruling party) and became the deputy president of SNNPR. He replaced Abate Kisho who was removed from power on corruption charges, but it is believed that Abate was demoted for supporting the anti-Meles Zenawi faction when the TPLF (the core of the EPRDF) split in 2000.[citation needed] Another widely accepted belief about Abate was that he was less educated and exercised poor leadership while he was in power.
After his tenure as President of the SNNPR, Haile Mariam worked in the Prime Minister's Office as the advisor on Social Affairs and Civic Organizations and Partnerships for two years. In 2010 Haile Mariam was sworn in to dual ministerial positions as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs.
See also[link]
References[link]
- ^ Information Center Published in Aug 10, 2011 (accessed 13 Sep, 2011)
- ^ "Opposition dismiss new 'one party' Ethiopian government", Sudan Tribune, published 6 October 2010 (accessed 17 November 2010)
- ^ Oromiya, Published 13,10, 2010. (accessed in 13, 09, 2011)
External links[link]
- "A New Leader in Office", Ethiopia News interview with Haile Mariam Desalegne, published 9 November 2010
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Haile Mariam Desalegne |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | |
| Date of birth | |
| Place of birth | |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/Haile_Mariam_Desalegne
Related pages:
http://fr.wn.com/Haile Mariam Dessalegn
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Mariam_Desalegne
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
| Ahmet Davutoğlu | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Minister of Foreign Affairs | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 1 May 2009 |
|
| President | Abdullah Gül |
| Prime Minister | Recep Tayyip Erdoğan |
| Preceded by | Ali Babacan |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1959-02-26) February 26, 1959 (age 53) Taşkent, Konya, Turkey |
| Political party | Justice and Development Party |
| Spouse(s) | Sare Davutoğlu (m. 1984) |
| Children | Sefure, Meymune, Mehmet, Hacer Büke |
| Alma mater | Boğaziçi University |
| Religion | Sunni Islam |
Professor Ahmet Davutoğlu (Turkish pronunciation: [ahˈmet ˈdavutoːɫu]) is the Foreign Minister of Turkey. He is also a political scientist, an academic and an ambassador at large and was formerly chief advisor to the Prime Minister.
Contents |
Life and career[link]
Ahmet Davutoğlu was born in Konya, Turkey. He graduated from İstanbul Erkek Lisesi, which is a Deutsche Auslandsschule (German International school) and studied at the Department of Economics and Political Science of the Boğaziçi University, İstanbul. He holds a masters degree in Public Administration and a PhD degree in Political Science and International Relations from Boğaziçi University. Between 1993 and 1999 he worked at Marmara University and became a full professor in 1999. He was the chairman of the Department of International Relations at Beykent University in Istanbul, Turkey.
He is a father of four and his wife is a medical doctor.
Ahmet Davutoğlu was granted a title of ambassador in 2003 by the joint decision of President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Prime Minister Abdullah Gül.[1]
His publications include Alternative Paradigms: The Impact of Islamic and Western Weltanschauungs on Political Theory, The Civilizational Transformation and The Muslim World in English, Stratejik Derinlik (Strategic Depth), and Küresel Bunalım (The Global Crisis) in Turkish. Especially his book Strategic Depth is a very influential book in Turkey's foreign policy orientation. He is very influential in the military, academic, and government triangle shaping Turkish foreign policy.[2]
Ambassador Davutoğlu was one of the leading actors on behalf of the Turkish government during the shuttle diplomacy for the settlement of 2008 Israel–Gaza conflict. Davutoğlu was appointed as the Foreign Minister of Turkey on 1 May 2009. He has since called for Turkey to become more than just a regional power within Europe and the Middle East and desires Ankara to have a far more influential role in world politics.[3] Davutoğlu is generally linked to the notion of Turkish neo-Ottomanism, which favours a commonwealth with its neighbours and old Ottoman connections.[4] Although his foreign policies have been regarded as neo-Ottomanist by Western and especially U.S. media, Davutoğlu does not accept such a characterization. He stated in an interview with Turkish daily Sabah that "as much as we don't use this conceptualization, the fact that it is being used against us is either because of misunderstanding or lack of goodwill." He argued against the idea that Turkey is trying to establish a neo-Ottoman imperial order: "I have said that Turkey as a nation-state is equal with any other nation-state of our region whether it is small in population or area. We don't have any hegemony on anyone. Rather what we are trying to do is to contribute to the establishment of a permanent peace in our region. If by order they mean is Pax Ottomana, Pax in the meaning of order, we are trying to establish a order, it is not wrong to say such thing".[5]
He was listed in Foreign Policy magazine as one of the "Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2010" for "being the brains behind Turkey's global reawakening".[6] In an interview, he talked about his "Zero Problems Policy" and said "It is possible to have zero problems if the other actors respect our values. It doesn't mean that we will be silent in order to have good relations with all parties."[7] In 2011's Foreign Policy magazine's list of "Top 100 Global Thinkers" he was listed together with Recep Tayyip Erdogan for "imagining a new role for Turkey in the world- and making it happen". [8]
Selected works[link]
- Alternative Paradigms: The Impact of Islamic and Western Weltanschauungs on Political Theory. University Press of America, 1993
- Civilizational Transformation and the Muslim World. Quill, 1994
- Stratejik derinlik: Türkiye'nin uluslararası konumu. Küre Yayınları, 2001
- Osmanlı Medeniyeti: Siyaset İktisat Sanat. Klasik, 2005
- Küresel Bunalım. Küre, 2002.
Gallery[link]
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Secretary Hillary Clinton and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu following their bilateral meeting at the United States Department of State,February 13, 2012.
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Davutoglu with U.S. Secretary Clinton and other foreign ministers.
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Davutoglu with the former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou.
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Davutoglu with Brazilian President Lula da Silva and Foreign Minister Celso Amorim.
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Davutoglu with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
See also[link]
References[link]
- ^ T.C Resmî Gazete, 18 January 2008, Ankara, http://rega.basbakanlik.gov.tr/eskiler/2003/01/20030118.htm#13
- ^ Biyografi Net, http://www.biyografi.net/kisiayrinti.asp?kisiid=2063
- ^ Turkey FM Davutoglu embraces mediation role , (in English), bbc.co.uk, 31 Dec 2009
- ^ Simsek, Ayhan. "The changes and challenges of Turkey's foreign policy". http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2009/06/10/feature-03. Retrieved 14 December 2010.
- ^ Batur, Nur. "New Ottomans is not a goodwilled description". Sabah Newspaper. http://sabah.com.tr/Siyaset/2009/12/04/yeni_osmanlilar_sozu_iyi_niyetli_degil. Retrieved 14 December 2010.
- ^ "The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers 7. Ahmet Davutoglu". Foreign Policy. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/11/29/the_fp_top_100_global_thinkers?page=0,6. Retrieved 14 December 2010.
- ^ Hounshell, Blake. "Mr. 'Zero Problems'". Foreign Policy. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/11/29/mr_zero_problems?page=0,1. Retrieved 14 December 2010.
- ^ "16 Ahmet Davutoglu, Recep Tayyip Erdogan". Foreign Policy. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/11/28/the_fp_top_100_global_thinkers?page=0,15#thinker16. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
External links[link]
|
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ahmet Davutoğlu |
- Profile at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- Ahmet Davutoğlu on Charlie Rose
- Column archive at Aljazeera
- Column archive at The Guardian
- Works by or about Ahmet Davutoğlu in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Ahmet Davutoğlu collected news and commentary at Al Jazeera English
- A Shift in Turkish Foreign Policy: Turkey's Strategic Depth, Qantara
- Interview with Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu: "Turkey Creates Balance in the Middle East", Qantera
- "Turkey's new visionary", Aljazeera, May 13, 2010
- "Turkey's Zero-Problems Foreign Policy", a Foreign Policy Magazine article from Davutoğlu, MAY 20, 2010
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Ali Babacan |
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey May 1, 2009–present |
Succeeded by Incumbent |
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Davutoglu, Ahmet |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | |
| Date of birth | 26 February 1959 |
| Place of birth | Konya, Turkey |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/Ahmet_Davutoğlu
Related pages:
http://fr.wn.com/Ahmet Davutoğlu
http://nl.wn.com/Ahmet Davutoğlu
http://pt.wn.com/Ahmet Davutoğlu
http://ru.wn.com/Давутоглу, Ахмет
http://de.wn.com/Ahmet Davutoğlu
http://cs.wn.com/Ahmet Davutoğlu
http://pl.wn.com/Ahmet Davutoğlu
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmet_Davutoğlu
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
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Wiki Summary
A Minister of Foreign Affairs, or foreign minister, is a cabinet minister who helps form the foreign policy of a sovereign state. The foreign minister is often regarded as the most senior ministerial position below that of the head of government (prime minister or president).[citation needed] It is often granted to the deputy prime minister in coalition governments. In some nations, such as India, the foreign minister is referred to as the Minister for External Affairs or, as in the case of Brazil and of the former Soviet Union, as the Minister of External Relations. In the United States the equivalent to the foreign ministry is called the Department of State, and the equivalent position is known as the Secretary of State.
A foreign minister's powers can vary from government to government. In a classic parliamentary system, a foreign minister can potentially exert significant influence in forming foreign policy but when the government is dominated by a strong prime minister the foreign minister may be limited to playing a more marginal or subsidiary role in determining policy. Similarly, the political powers invested in the foreign minister are often more limited in presidential governments with a strong executive. Since the end of World War II, it has been common for both the foreign minister and defense minister to be part of an inner cabinet (commonly known as a national security council) in order to coordinate defence and diplomatic policy. Although the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw many heads of government assume the foreign ministry, this practice has since become uncommon in most developed nations.
