Senate

A Senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature or parliament. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: Senatus), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: senex meaning "the elder" or "the old one") and therefore allegedly wiser and more experienced members of the society or ruling class.

Thus, the literal meaning of the word "senate" is: Assembly of Elders.

Many countries have an assembly named a senate, composed of senators who may be elected, appointed, have inherited the title, or gained membership by other methods, depending on the country. Modern senates typically serve to provide a chamber of "sober second thought" to consider legislation passed by a lower house, whose members are usually elected.

Overview

The modern word senate is derived from the [Latin] word senātus (senate), which comes from senex, “old man”. The members or legislators of a senate are called senators. The Latin word senator was adopted into English with no change in spelling. Its meaning is derived from a very ancient form of social organization, in which advisory or decision-making powers are reserved for the eldest men. For the same reason, the word senate is correctly used when referring to any powerful authority characteristically composed by the eldest members of a community, as a deliberative body of a faculty in an institution of higher learning is often called a senate. This form adaptation was used to show the power of those in body and for the decision-making process to be thorough, which could take a long period of time. The original senate was the Roman Senate, which lasted until 580 (various efforts to revive it were made in Medieval Rome). In the Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine Senate continued until the Fourth Crusade, circa 1202–1204.

List of education ministries

An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, Ministry of Public Education, and so forth, and the head of such an agency may be a Minister of Education or Secretary of Education. Such agencies typically address educational concerns such as the quality of schools or standardization of curriculum. The first such ministry ever is considered to be the Commission of National Education (pl. Komisja Edukacji Narodowej, lt. Edukacinė komisija) founded in 1773 in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Following is a list of education ministries by country:

Africa

Betsy DeVos

Elisabeth "Betsy" DeVos (née Prince) is an American politician, businesswoman, philanthropist, and education activist from the state of Michigan. She has taken a leading role in a number of social, cultural, and political campaigns and organizations; sat on many boards; and served for several years as chairman of the Michigan Republican Party. She is chairman of the Windquest Group, the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation, and the American Federation for Children, and is a member of the board of the DeVos Institute for Arts Management at the Kennedy Center.

Early life and education

DeVos grew up in Holland, Michigan, the daughter of Elsa Zwiep Prince (later, Broekhuizen) and Edgar Prince, a self-made industrialist. Edgar was the founder of Prince Corporation, an automobile parts supplier based in Holland, Michigan, which at one time employed almost one-quarter of the population of the town. DeVos' mother has been a philanthropist and has been active in conservative social causes, including support of an anti-gay marriage ballot proposal in California. DeVos' brother, Erik Prince, founded Blackwater USA, a private security firm which had operations in Iraq.

GMA News and Public Affairs

GMA News and Public Affairs (commonly GMA News; formerly RBS News Department, GMA Radio-Television News and GMA Rainbow Satellite News) is the news and public affairs programming division of the media conglomerate, GMA Network Inc.

It produces news, public affairs, infotainment, and lately, entertainment programs for all GMA Network and GMA News TV owned and affiliated television and radio stations in the Philippines, and internationally through GMA Pinoy TV, GMA Life TV and GMA News TV International. GMA News and Public Affairs is currently headed by Marissa Flores. It is headquartered at the Ground Floor of GMA Network Center in Quezon City.

History

News division

The GMA News division traces its origin from the Republic Broadcasting System, established by Robert Stewart in 1959. Programming of its radio station, DZBB depended on mostly news reports. The station covered the eruption of Mt. Hibok-Hibok in 1951 and the election and death of the Former President Ramon Magsaysay. While RBS Channel 7 was established in 1961, it was in the 1970s that GMA became one of the most-watched television news source in the country. In 1983, Channel 7 was the first to break the news of Ninoy Aquino's death and later would be the only television station to broadcast his funeral. The channel also became the first station to broadcast the Ramos-Enrile break-away that led to the People Power Revolution (otherwise known as EDSA Revolution).

Attorney general

In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions they may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement, prosecutions or even responsibility for legal affairs generally. In practice, the extent to which the attorney-general personally provides legal advice to the government varies between jurisdictions, and even between individual office-holders within the same jurisdiction, often depending on the level and nature of the office-holder's prior legal experience.

The term was originally used to refer to any person who holds a general power of attorney to represent a principal in all matters. In the common law tradition, anyone who represents the state, especially in criminal prosecutions, is such an attorney. Although a government may designate some official as the permanent attorney general, anyone who comes to represent the state in the same way may, in the past, be referred to as such, even if only for a particular case. Today, however, in most jurisdictions the term is largely reserved as a title of the permanently appointed attorney general of the state, sovereign or other member of the royal family. The term is pluralized attorneys general or attorneys-general.