The Storting (English: Great thing) (Norwegian: Stortinget, literally "the great thing") is the supreme legislature of Norway, located in Oslo. The unicameral parliament has 169 members, and is elected every four years based on party-list proportional representation in nineteen plural member constituencies. The assembly is led by a presidium of a president and five vice presidents; since 2009 Dag Terje Andersen has been president. The members are allocated to twelve standing committees, as well as four procedural committees. Almost all public agencies of Norway are subordinate to the government, but three ombudsmen, the Parliamentary Intelligence Oversight Committee and the Office of the Auditor General are directly subordinate to parliament.

Parliament was established by the Constitution of Norway in 1814 and has since 1866 met in the Parliament of Norway Building, designed by Emil Victor Langlet. Parliamentarianism was established in 1884, and until 2009 practiced qualified unicameralism with two chambers: the Lagting and the Odelsting. Following the 2009 election, seven parties are represented in parliament: the Labour Party (64 representatives), the Progress Party (41), the Conservative Party (30), the Socialist Left Party (11), the Centre Party (11), the Christian Democratic Party (10) and the Liberal Party (2).

Norway ⁱ/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.

Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American politician who has been the U.S. Representative for Texas's 14th congressional district, which includes Galveston, since 1997, and a three-time candidate for President of the United States, as a Libertarian in 1988 and as a Republican in 2008 and currently 2012. He is an outspoken critic of American foreign and monetary policies, including the Military–industrial complex and the Federal Reserve, and is known for his libertarian-leaning views, often differing from his own party on certain issues.

A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Paul is a graduate of Gettysburg College and Duke University School of Medicine, where he earned his medical degree. He served as a medical officer in the United States Air Force from 1963 until 1968. He worked as an obstetrician-gynecologist from the 1960s to the 1980s, delivering more than 4,000 babies. He became the first Representative in history to serve concurrently with a child in the Senate when his son Rand Paul was elected to the United States Senate for Kentucky in 2010.

Saira Khan (born 15 May 1970 in Long Eaton, Derbyshire, England) is a British television personality and was the runner-up on the first UK series of reality TV show The Apprentice in 2005.

Khan has since become a regular face on British TV. In 2006 she presented on the BBC's Temper Your Temper, a programme dealing with anger management, and lifestyle show Desi DNA. She has presented several documentaries for the BBC and ITV, as well as appearing as a guest on a variety of shows such as Ready Steady Cook. She currently(2012) presents the cbbc show "Trade Your Way to the USA" and presented an edition of the BBC's Money Programme about entrepreneurial mothers. She is a columnist for the Daily Mirror, a regular panelist for BBC Radio 5 Live and has appeared on a number of other stations including BBC Radio 4 and the BBC Asian Network. She has also written a self-help book, P.U.S.H. For Success. In 2006 she set up a new campaign called OUR SAY to campaign for local and national referenda on issues of major public interest. Khan also runs her own baby-products business called Miamoo, and an orienteering business called "West Is East".

The Dalai Lama is a high lama in the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The name is a combination of the Sino-Mongolian word далай (dalai) meaning "Ocean" and the Tibetan word བླ་མ་ bla-ma (with a silent "b") meaning "chief, high priest".

In religious terms, the Dalai Lama is believed by his devotees to be the rebirth of a long line of tulkus who are considered to be manifestations of the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteśvara. Traditionally, the Dalai Lama is thought of as the latest reincarnation of a series of spiritual leaders who have chosen to be reborn in order to enlighten others. The Dalai Lama is often thought to be the leader of the Gelug School, but this position belongs officially to the Ganden Tripa, which is a temporary position appointed by the Dalai Lama who, in practice, exerts much influence. The line of Dalai Lamas began as a lineage of spiritual teachers; the 5th Dalai Lama assumed political authority over Tibet.

For certain periods between the 17th century and 1959, the Dalai Lamas sometimes directed the Tibetan government, which administered portions of Tibet from Lhasa. The 14th Dalai Lama remained the head of state for the Central Tibetan Administration ("Tibetan government in exile") until his retirement on March 14, 2011. He has indicated that the institution of the Dalai Lama may be abolished in the future, and also that the next Dalai Lama may be found outside Tibet and may be female. The Chinese government was very quick to reject this and claimed that only it has the authority to select the next Dalai Lama.