1.
Joint-stock company
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A joint-stock company is a business entity in which different stocks can be bought and owned by shareholders. Each shareholder owns company stock in proportion, evidenced by their shares and that allows for the unequal ownership of a business with some shareholders owning more of a company than others. Shareholders are able to transfer their shares to others without any effects to the existence of the company. In modern-day corporate law, the existence of a company is often synonymous with incorporation. Therefore, joint-stock companies are known as corporations or limited companies. Some jurisdictions still provide the possibility of registering joint-stock companies without limited liability, in the United Kingdom and other countries that have adopted its model of company law, they are known as unlimited companies. In the United States, they are simply as joint-stock companies. Ownership of stock refers to a number of privileges. The company is managed on behalf of the shareholders by a board of directors, the shareholders also vote to accept or reject an annual report and audited set of accounts. Individual shareholders can sometimes stand for directorships within the company if a vacancy occurs, the shareholders are usually liable for any of the company debts that extend beyond the companys ability to pay. Meanwhile, the limit of their liability extends only to the value of their shareholding. The concept of limited liability largely accounts for the success of this form of business organization, ordinary shares entitle the owner to a share in the companys net profit. It is calculated in the way, the net profit is divided by the total number of owned shares, producing a notional value per share. An individuals share of the profit is thus the dividend multiplied by the number of shares owned, finding the earliest joint-stock company is a matter of definition. The earliest records of joint stock company can be found in China during the Song Dynasty, the Swedish company Stora has documented a stock transfer for an eighth of the company as early as 1288. In more recent history, the earliest joint-stock company recognized in England was the Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands, muscovy Company, which had a monopoly on trade between Moscow and London, was chartered soon after in 1555. The Royal Charter effectively gave the newly created Honourable East India Company a 15-year monopoly on all trade in the East Indies. The Company transformed from a trading venture to one that ruled India and exploited its resources, as it acquired auxiliary governmental and military functions
2.
Ticker symbol
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A ticker symbol or stock symbol is an abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded shares of a particular stock on a particular stock market. A stock symbol may consist of letters, numbers or a combination of both, ticker symbol refers to the symbols that were printed on the ticker tape of a ticker tape machine. Stock symbols are unique identifiers assigned to each security traded on a particular market, for example, AAPL is for Apple Inc. OODH is for Orion DHC, Inc. and HD is for Home Depot, a stock symbol can consist of letters, numbers, or a combination of both, and is a way to uniquely identify that stock. The symbols were kept as short as possible to reduce the number of characters that had to be printed on the ticker tape, the allocation of symbols and formatting convention is specific to each stock exchange. In the US, for example, stock tickers are typically between 1 and 4 letters and represent the name where possible. In Europe, most exchanges use three-letter codes, for example Dutch consumer goods company Unilever traded on the Amsterdam Euronext exchange has the symbol UNA, while in Asia, numbers are often used as stock tickers to avoid issues for international investors when using non-Latin scripts. For example, the bank HSBCs stock traded on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has the ticker symbol 0005, symbols sometimes change to reflect mergers. Prior to the 1999 merger with Mobil Oil, Exxon used a spelling of the company XON as its ticker symbol. The symbol of the firm after the merger was XOM, symbols are sometimes reused, in the US the single-letter symbols are particularly sought after as vanity symbols. For example, since Mar 2008 Visa Inc. has used the symbol V that had previously used by Vivendi which had delisted. To fully qualify a stock, both the ticker and the exchange or country of listing needs to be known, on many systems both must be specified to uniquely identify the security. This is often done by appending the location or exchange code to the ticker, although stock tickers identify a security, they are exchange dependent, generally limited to stocks and can change. These limitations have led to the development of other codes in financial markets to identify securities for settlement purposes, the most prevalent of these is the International Securities Identifying Number. An ISIN uniquely identifies a security and its structure is defined in ISO6166, Securities for which ISINs are issued include bonds, commercial paper, stocks, and warrants. The ISIN identifies the security, not the exchange on which it trades, for instance, Daimler AG stock trades on twenty-two different stock exchanges worldwide, and is priced in five different currencies, it has the same ISIN on each, though not the same ticker symbol. ISIN cannot specify a particular trade in this case, and another identifier, following the introduction of the Sequence trading platform in 1996, EPICs were renamed Tradable Instrument Display Mnemonics, but they are still widely referred to as EPICs. Stocks can also be identified using their SEDOL number or their ISIN, in the United States, modern letter-only ticker symbols were developed by Standard & Poors to bring a national standard to investing
3.
Moscow Exchange
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Moscow Exchange, the largest exchange group in Russia, operates trading markets in equities, bonds, derivatives, the foreign exchange market, money markets and precious metals. The Moscow Exchange Group also operates Russias central securities depository and the countrys largest clearing service provider, the exchange is a result of December 2011 merger of the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange and the Russian Trading System. Both organisations had been formed in the 1990s and were the leading Russian exchanges for two decades with their MICEX Index and the RTS Index, the merger created a single entity and advanced Russias plans to turn Moscow into an international financial centre. The exchange rebranded in July 2012, the exchange completed its Initial Public Offering on 15 February 2013, raising 15 billion rubles. The IPO, at the time the largest ever held exclusively in Moscow, was more than twice oversubscribed, the Exchange’s shares were included in the MSCI Russia Index as of 26 November 2013. In July 2014 the Central Bank of Russia, the largest shareholder of the exchange, a Russian federal law requires the Central Bank to fully sell its stake in the exchange by 1 January 2016. and Da Vinci Capital Partners. Dmitry Shcheglov, COO, a veteran of Moscow Exchange and its predecessor MICEX, luis Vicente, Head of Risk & Clearing as of September 2013, former risk manager at Brazil’s BM&F Bovespa. Since 2016, the Supervisory Board consists of 12 instead of 15 members previously, alexei Kudrin, a former Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister was elected Chairman of the Moscow Exchange Supervisory Board in June 2014. The Equity & Bond Market is a key platform for Russian businesses to raise capital and for domestic and international investors to access equity, the marketplace is the main trading venue for Russian stocks as well as government, municipal, and corporate bonds. In 2013-2014,16 companies placed stock via Moscow Exchange, raising a total of approximately RUB200 bln, on the fixed income side, more than 400 bond issues were placed, raising more than RUB3.4 trln for issuers. Moscow Exchange includes shares of many of Russia’s largest companies including Gazprom, Sberbank, Rosneft, Lukoil, most global investment banks began to provide their clients with DMA to the Russian market in 2013. As a result of changes, the international central securities depositories Euroclear and Clearstream now offer settlement services for Russian stocks. In addition to attracting international investors to trade on its platform, recent changes to the regulation of pension funds, together with changes to the listing rules, allow more assets of non-state pension funds to be invested into the market. Other legislative changes incentivise retail investors through reduced taxation to invest into stocks, Moscow Exchanges FX and Money Market is a key element of the Russian financial system. The Bank of Russia uses the Exchanges infrastructure to implement monetary policy and provide liquidity to the market through repo transactions, for its domestic and international clients, including banks and corporates, Moscow Exchange offers a range of products to manage liquidity and FX exposure. It is the centre of pricing for RUB and offers many RUB currency pairs, FX Market All transactions on the FX market are centrally cleared by National Clearing Centre. In September 2014, average daily trading volume across all currency pairs was USD22.4 bln, while RUB/USD and RUB/EUR remain the most traded currency pairs, Moscow Exchange also actively promotes trading in other currencies. In particular the RUB/CNY pair has been received by the market and trading in the GBP
4.
Mining
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Mining is extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth usually from an orebody, lode, vein, seam, reef or placer deposits. These deposits form a mineralized package that is of economic interest to the miner, ores recovered by mining include metals, coal, oil shale, gemstones, limestone, chalk, dimension stone, rock salt, potash, gravel, and clay. Mining is required to obtain any material that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, Mining in a wider sense includes extraction of any non-renewable resource such as petroleum, natural gas, or even water. Mining of stones and metal has been a human activity since pre-historic times, Mining operations usually create a negative environmental impact, both during the mining activity and after the mine has closed. Hence, most of the nations have passed regulations to decrease the impact. Work safety has long been a concern as well, and modern practices have significantly improved safety in mines, levels of metals recycling are generally low. Unless future end-of-life recycling rates are stepped up, some rare metals may become unavailable for use in a variety of consumer products, due to the low recycling rates, some landfills now contain higher concentrations of metal than mines themselves. Since the beginning of civilization, people have used stone, ceramics and, later and these were used to make early tools and weapons, for example, high quality flint found in northern France, southern England and Poland was used to create flint tools. Flint mines have been found in areas where seams of the stone were followed underground by shafts. The mines at Grimes Graves and Krzemionki are especially famous, other hard rocks mined or collected for axes included the greenstone of the Langdale axe industry based in the English Lake District. The oldest-known mine on archaeological record is the Lion Cave in Swaziland, at this site Paleolithic humans mined hematite to make the red pigment ochre. Mines of an age in Hungary are believed to be sites where Neanderthals may have mined flint for weapons. Ancient Egyptians mined malachite at Maadi, at first, Egyptians used the bright green malachite stones for ornamentations and pottery. Later, between 2613 and 2494 BC, large building projects required expeditions abroad to the area of Wadi Maghareh in order to secure minerals and other resources not available in Egypt itself. Quarries for turquoise and copper were found at Wadi Hammamat, Tura, Aswan and various other Nubian sites on the Sinai Peninsula. Mining in Egypt occurred in the earliest dynasties, the gold mines of Nubia were among the largest and most extensive of any in Ancient Egypt. These mines are described by the Greek author Diodorus Siculus, who mentions fire-setting as one used to break down the hard rock holding the gold. One of the complexes is shown in one of the earliest known maps, the miners crushed the ore and ground it to a fine powder before washing the powder for the gold dust
5.
Diamond
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Diamond is a metastable allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at standard conditions. Diamond is renowned as a material with superlative physical qualities, most of which originate from the covalent bonding between its atoms. In particular, diamond has the highest hardness and thermal conductivity of any bulk material and those properties determine the major industrial application of diamond in cutting and polishing tools and the scientific applications in diamond knives and diamond anvil cells. Because of its extremely rigid lattice, it can be contaminated by very few types of impurities, such as boron, small amounts of defects or impurities color diamond blue, yellow, brown, green, purple, pink, orange or red. Diamond also has relatively high optical dispersion, most natural diamonds are formed at high temperature and pressure at depths of 140 to 190 kilometers in the Earths mantle. Carbon-containing minerals provide the source, and the growth occurs over periods from 1 billion to 3.3 billion years. Diamonds are brought close to the Earths surface through deep volcanic eruptions by magma, Diamonds can also be produced synthetically in a HPHT method which approximately simulates the conditions in the Earths mantle. An alternative, and completely different growth technique is chemical vapor deposition, several non-diamond materials, which include cubic zirconia and silicon carbide and are often called diamond simulants, resemble diamond in appearance and many properties. Special gemological techniques have developed to distinguish natural diamonds, synthetic diamonds. The word is from the ancient Greek ἀδάμας – adámas unbreakable, the name diamond is derived from the ancient Greek αδάμας, proper, unalterable, unbreakable, untamed, from ἀ-, un- + δαμάω, I overpower, I tame. Diamonds have been known in India for at least 3,000 years, Diamonds have been treasured as gemstones since their use as religious icons in ancient India. Their usage in engraving tools also dates to early human history, later in 1797, the English chemist Smithson Tennant repeated and expanded that experiment. By demonstrating that burning diamond and graphite releases the same amount of gas, the most familiar uses of diamonds today are as gemstones used for adornment, a use which dates back into antiquity, and as industrial abrasives for cutting hard materials. The dispersion of light into spectral colors is the primary gemological characteristic of gem diamonds. In the 20th century, experts in gemology developed methods of grading diamonds, four characteristics, known informally as the four Cs, are now commonly used as the basic descriptors of diamonds, these are carat, cut, color, and clarity. A large, flawless diamond is known as a paragon and these conditions are met in two places on Earth, in the lithospheric mantle below relatively stable continental plates, and at the site of a meteorite strike. The conditions for diamond formation to happen in the mantle occur at considerable depth corresponding to the requirements of temperature and pressure
6.
Mirny, Sakha Republic
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Mirny is a town and the administrative center of Mirninsky District in the Sakha Republic, Russia, located on the Irelyakh River,820 kilometers west of Yakutsk, the capital of the republic. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 37,188, Mirny was founded in 1955 after the discovery of a nearby kimberlite pipe by an expedition led by Yury Khabardin. Town status was granted to it in 1959, within the framework of administrative divisions, Mirny serves as the administrative center of Mirninsky District. As an inhabited locality, Mirny is classified as a town under republic jurisdiction, as an administrative division, it is incorporated within Mirninsky District as the Town of Mirny. As a municipal division, the Town of Mirny is incorporated within Mirninsky Municipal District as Mirny Urban Settlement, the Mir mine is located within the town. It is a pit mine, which, with the depth of 525 meters. Production was stopped in 2004, and the mine was closed in 2011, due to reduced recovery. The town is served by the Mirny Airport, safety concerns have been raised about aircraft operations near to the open diamond mine, helicopters are forbidden to pass over the abandoned workings. The Mirny Polytechnic Institute, a branch of the North-Eastern Federal University, Official website of Mirny Official website of the Sakha Republic. Registry of the Administrative-Territorial Divisions of the Sakha Republic, Закон №172-З №351-III от30 ноября2004 г. «Об установлении границ и о наделении статусом муниципального района муниципальных образований Республики Саха », в ред, Закона №1535-З №597-V от27 ноября2015 г. «О внесении изменений в статьи1 и2 Закона Республики Саха Об установлении границ и о наделении статусом муниципального района муниципальных образований Республики Саха », Вступил в силу со дня официального опубликования. Опубликован, Якутия, №245,31 декабря2004 г, Закон №173-З №353-III от30 ноября2004 г. «Об установлении границ и о наделении статусом городского и сельского поселений муниципальных образований Республики Саха », в ред, Закона №1058-З №1007-IV от25 апреля2012 г. «О внесении изменений в Закон Республики Саха Об установлении границ и о наделении статусом городского и сельского поселений муниципальных образований Республики Саха », Вступил в силу со дня официального опубликования. Опубликован, Якутия, №245,31 декабря2004 г
7.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
8.
Anton Siluanov
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Anton Germanovich Siluanov is a Russian politician and economist. On 27 September 2011 appointed Acting Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, in 1985 Siluanov graduated from the Moscow Finance Institute with a degree in Finance and credit. In 1994 he obtained a PhD degree in economics, from August 1985 to March 1987 Siluanov served as a senior economist for the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. From March 1987 to May 1989 he was drafted and served in the Soviet Army, from May 1989 to January 1992 he was a senior economist, a department head and a chief consultant and adviser for the Ministry of Finance. In February 1992 he was appointed as Deputy Head of the Ministry of Economics, from February 1992 to October 1997 he was the Deputy Head of Budget Office and Deputy Head of Budget Department of the Russian Ministry of Finance. From October 1997 to July 2003 Siluanov led macro-economic policy and banking activities at the Russian Ministry of Finance, on March 22,2001 he became a member of the Board of the Ministry of Finance. On September 27,2011 the Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin, appointed him as Acting Minister of Finance of Russia, replacing in office the long-term minister, Alexei Kudrin. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who announced the appointment at a government meeting in September 27,2011 after it was approved by Medvedev, said Siluanov was a “good, solid specialist. ”First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov will take over the responsibilities Kudrin had as the deputy prime minister in charge of the economy. Alexey Kudrin will be replaced by Anton Siluanov in International Monetary Fund, World Bank, on 26 March 2014, the IMF secured an $18bn bailout fund for the provisional government of the Ukraine in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. It remains unclear whether Siluanov approved the use of Russian monies for this purpose, Russia has a seat to itself amongst 24 on the Executive Board of the IMF, whereas its monetary contribution to the IMF is inferior to two countries who have no such seat. Diploma of the Ministry of Finance Prize of the Minister of Finance Order For Merit to the Fatherland IV degree Meet Russias New Finance Minister Profile, Anton Siluanov
9.
Net income
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In business, net income is an entitys income minus cost of goods sold, expenses and taxes for an accounting period. In the context of the presentation of financial statements, the IFRS Foundation defines net income as synonymous with profit, net income is a distinct accounting concept from profit but the same as net profit. Net income can also be calculated by adding a companys operating income to non-operating income, net income can be distributed among holders of common stock as a dividend or held by the firm as an addition to retained earnings. As profit and earnings are used synonymously for income, net earnings, often, the term income is substituted for net income, yet this is not preferred due to the possible ambiguity. Net income is called the bottom line because it is typically found on the last line of a companys income statement. The items deducted will typically include tax expense, financing expense, likewise, preferred stock dividends will be subtracted too, though they are not an expense. For a merchandising company, subtracted costs may be the cost of goods sold, sales discounts, for a product company advertising, manufacturing, and design and development costs are included
10.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
11.
Sakha Republic
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The Sakha Republic is a federal subject of Russia. It has a population of 958,528, consisting mainly of ethnic Yakuts and it is larger than Argentina and just smaller than India which covers an area of 3,287,590 square kilometers. Its capital is the city of Yakutsk, the Sakha Republic is one of the ten autonomous Turkic Republics within the Russian Federation. The hypercontinental tendencies also result in warm summers for much of the republic. Borders, internal, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Magadan Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai, Amur Oblast, Zabaykalsky Krai, Irkutsk Oblast, Krasnoyarsk Krai. water, Arctic Ocean. These waters, the coldest and iciest of all seas in the Northern Hemisphere, are covered by ice for 9–10 months of the year, new Siberian Islands are a part of the republics territory. Sakha can be divided into three great vegetation belts, about 40% of Sakha lies above the Arctic circle and all of it is covered by permafrost which greatly influences the regions ecology and limits forests in the southern region. Arctic and subarctic tundra define the region, where lichen. In the southern part of the belt, scattered stands of dwarf Siberian pine. Below the tundra is the vast taiga forest region, larch trees dominate in the north and stands of fir and pine begin to appear in the south. Taiga forests cover about 47% of Sakha and almost 90% of the cover is larch, Sakha spans three time zones, Yakutsk Time Zone. Covers the republics territory to the west of the Lena River as well as the territories of the located on the both sides of the Lena River. Covers most of the territory located between 127°E and 140°E longitude. Covers most of the territory located east of 140°E longitude. Districts, Abyysky, Allaikhovsky, Momsky, Nizhnekolymsky, Srednekolymsky, Verkhnekolymsky, the Chersky Range runs east of the Verkhoyansk Range and has the highest peak in Sakha, Peak Pobeda. The second highest peak is Peak Mus-Khaya reaching 3,011 m, the Stanovoi Range borders Sakha in the south. Sakha is well endowed with raw materials, the soil contains large reserves of oil, gas, coal, diamonds, gold, silver, tin, tungsten and many others. Sakha produces 99% of all Russian diamonds and over 25% of the diamonds mined in the world, Sakha is known for its climate extremes, with the Verkhoyansk Range being the coldest area in the Northern Hemisphere
12.
Arkhangelsk Oblast
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Arkhangelsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia. It includes the Arctic archipelagos of Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya, Arkhangelsk Oblast also has administrative jurisdiction over Nenets Autonomous Okrug. Including Nenetsia, Arkhangelsk Oblast has an area of 587,400 km2 and its population was 1,227,626 as of the 2010 Census. The city of Arkhangelsk, with a population of 348,716 as of the 2010 Census, is the center of the oblast. The second largest city is the nearby Severodvinsk, home to Sevmash, Plesetsk Cosmodrome is one of three spaceports in Russia. Arkhangelsk Oblast, which includes Nenets Autonomous Okrug, borders Kirov Oblast, Vologda Oblast, the Republic of Karelia, the Komi Republic, Cape Fligely in Franz Josef Land and Cape Zhelaniya in Novaya Zemlya are both located within Arkhangelsk Oblast. Arkhangelsk Oblast is located on the East European Plain, and most of it represents forested hilly landscape, the north-eastern part belongs to the Timan Ridge, a highland mostly situated east from the oblast. The Nenets Autonomous Okrug is essentially a flat tundra with several hill chains like Pay-Khoy Ridge, the Arctic islands including Novaya Zemlya and Franz Joseph Land are mountainous with glaciers and eternally snow-covered. This region has a distinct population of polar bears associated with the Barents Sea area. Almost all of the area of the Oblast belongs to the basin of the Arctic Ocean, with the rivers being Onega River, Northern Dvina River, Kuloy River, Mezen River. A minor area in the west of the Oblast, most notably the basin of the Ileksa River, drains into the Lake Onega and eventually to the Baltic Sea. A very minor area in Kargopolsky District in the south-west of the Oblast drains into the Kema River which belongs to the basin of the Caspian Sea. The area in the Onega River basin containing the biggest lakes in the oblast, such as Lake Lacha, Lake Kenozero, Lake Undozero, the tundra of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug also contains a number of bigger lakes. The river basin of the Pinega is characteristic of the karst, the White Sea coast within the Oblast is split into the Onega Bay, the Dvina Bay, and the Mezen Bay. Solovetsky Islands, as well as a number of islands, are located in the Onega Bay. The Onega Bay and the Dvina Bay are separated by the Onega Peninsula, the Mezen Bay is separated from the main body of the White Sea by Morzhovets Island. Almost all of the oblast is covered by taiga, the coniferous forest dominated by pine, spruce, large areas in the middle of taiga are devoid of trees and covered by swamps. In the floodplains of the rivers, there are meadows, a number of areas in Arkhangelsk Oblast have been designated as protected natural areas
13.
Africa
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Africa is the worlds second-largest and second-most-populous continent. At about 30.3 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earths total surface area and 20.4 % of its land area. With 1.2 billion people as of 2016, it accounts for about 16% of the human population. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos and it contains 54 fully recognized sovereign states, nine territories and two de facto independent states with limited or no recognition. Africas population is the youngest amongst all the continents, the age in 2012 was 19.7. Algeria is Africas largest country by area, and Nigeria by population, afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster – with the earliest Homo sapiens found in Ethiopia being dated to circa 200,000 years ago. Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas, it is the continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones. Africa hosts a diversity of ethnicities, cultures and languages. In the late 19th century European countries colonized most of Africa, Africa also varies greatly with regard to environments, economics, historical ties and government systems. However, most present states in Africa originate from a process of decolonization in the 20th century, afri was a Latin name used to refer to the inhabitants of Africa, which in its widest sense referred to all lands south of the Mediterranean. This name seems to have referred to a native Libyan tribe. The name is connected with Hebrew or Phoenician ʿafar dust. The same word may be found in the name of the Banu Ifran from Algeria and Tripolitania, under Roman rule, Carthage became the capital of the province of Africa Proconsularis, which also included the coastal part of modern Libya. The Latin suffix -ica can sometimes be used to denote a land, the later Muslim kingdom of Ifriqiya, modern-day Tunisia, also preserved a form of the name. According to the Romans, Africa lay to the west of Egypt, while Asia was used to refer to Anatolia, as Europeans came to understand the real extent of the continent, the idea of Africa expanded with their knowledge. 25,4, whose descendants, he claimed, had invaded Libya, isidore of Seville in Etymologiae XIV.5.2. Suggests Africa comes from the Latin aprica, meaning sunny, massey, in 1881, stated that Africa is derived from the Egyptian af-rui-ka, meaning to turn toward the opening of the Ka. The Ka is the double of every person and the opening of the Ka refers to a womb or birthplace
14.
Moscow
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Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits and 17.8 million within the urban area. Moscow has the status of a Russian federal city, Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city entirely on the European continent. Moscow is the northernmost and coldest megacity and metropolis on Earth and it is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe, the Federation Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and the Moscow International Business Center. Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, the city is well known for its architecture, particularly its historic buildings such as Saint Basils Cathedral with its brightly colored domes. Moscow is the seat of power of the Government of Russia, being the site of the Moscow Kremlin, the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are also one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament also sit in the city and it is recognized as one of the citys landmarks due to the rich architecture of its 200 stations. In old Russian the word also meant a church administrative district. The demonym for a Moscow resident is москвич for male or москвичка for female, the name of the city is thought to be derived from the name of the Moskva River. There have been proposed several theories of the origin of the name of the river and its cognates include Russian, музга, muzga pool, puddle, Lithuanian, mazgoti and Latvian, mazgāt to wash, Sanskrit, majjati to drown, Latin, mergō to dip, immerse. There exist as well similar place names in Poland like Mozgawa, the original Old Russian form of the name is reconstructed as *Москы, *Mosky, hence it was one of a few Slavic ū-stem nouns. From the latter forms came the modern Russian name Москва, Moskva, in a similar manner the Latin name Moscovia has been formed, later it became a colloquial name for Russia used in Western Europe in the 16th–17th centuries. From it as well came English Muscovy, various other theories, having little or no scientific ground, are now largely rejected by contemporary linguists. The surface similarity of the name Russia with Rosh, an obscure biblical tribe or country, the oldest evidence of humans on the territory of Moscow dates from the Neolithic. Within the modern bounds of the city other late evidence was discovered, on the territory of the Kremlin, Sparrow Hills, Setun River and Kuntsevskiy forest park, etc. The earliest East Slavic tribes recorded as having expanded to the upper Volga in the 9th to 10th centuries are the Vyatichi and Krivichi, the Moskva River was incorporated as part of Rostov-Suzdal into the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. By AD1100, a settlement had appeared on the mouth of the Neglinnaya River. The first known reference to Moscow dates from 1147 as a place of Yuri Dolgoruky. At the time it was a town on the western border of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality
15.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
16.
Kimberlite
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Kimberlite is an igneous rock best known for sometimes containing diamonds. Kimberlite occurs in the Earths crust in vertical structures known as kimberlite pipes as well as igneous dykes, Kimberlite also occurs as horizontal sills. Kimberlite pipes are the most important source of mined diamonds today, the consensus on kimberlites is that they are formed deep within the mantle. It is this depth of melting and generation which makes kimberlites prone to hosting diamond xenocrysts, despite its relative rarity, kimberlite has attracted attention because it serves as a carrier of diamonds and garnet peridotite mantle xenoliths to the Earths surface. Many kimberlite structures are emplaced as carrot-shaped, vertical intrusions termed pipes, Kimberlite classification is based on the recognition of differing rock facies. These differing facies are associated with a style of magmatic activity, namely crater, diatreme. The morphology of kimberlite pipes, and their classical carrot shape is the result of explosive volcanism from very deep mantle-derived sources. These volcanic explosions produce vertical columns of rock rise from deep magma reservoirs. The morphology of kimberlite pipes is varied but includes a sheeted dyke complex of tabular, within 1. 5–2 km of the surface, the highly pressured magma explodes upwards and expands to form a conical to cylindrical diatreme, which erupts to the surface. The surface expression is rarely preserved but is similar to a maar volcano. The diameter of a pipe at the surface is typically a few hundred meters to a kilometer. Two Jurassic kimberlite dikes exist in Pennsylvania, one, the Gates-Adah Dike, outcrops on the Monongahela River on the border of Fayette and Greene Counties. The other, the Dixonville-Tanoma Dike in central Indiana County, does not outcrop at the surface and was discovered by miners, similarly aged kimberlite is found in several locations in New York Both the location and origin of kimberlitic magmas are subjects of contention. The mechanism of enrichment has also been the topic of interest with models including partial melting, historically, kimberlites have been classified into two distinct varieties termed basaltic and micaceous based primarily on petrographic observations. This was later revised by Smith who renamed these divisions Group I and Group II based on the affinities of these rocks using the Nd, Sr. Mitchell later proposed that these group I and II kimberlites display such distinct differences and he showed that Group II kimberlites show closer affinities to lamproites than they do to Group I kimberlites. Hence, he reclassified Group II kimberlites as orangeites to prevent confusion, olivine lamproites were previously called Group II kimberlite or orangeite in response to the mistaken belief that they only occurred in South Africa. Their occurrence and petrology, however, are identical globally and should not be referred to as kimberlite
17.
Mir mine
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The Mir mine, also called the Mirny mine, is a former open pit diamond mine, now inactive, located in Mirny, Eastern Siberia, Russia. The mine is 525 meters deep and has a diameter of 1,200 m, the diamond-bearing deposits were discovered on June 13,1955 by Soviet geologists Yuri Khabardin, Ekaterina Elagina and Viktor Avdeenko during the large Amakinsky Expedition in Yakut ASSR. They found traces of the rock kimberlite, which is usually associated with diamonds. This finding was the success in the search for kimberlite in Russia. For this discovery, in 1957 Khabardin was given the Lenin Prize, the development of the mine started in 1957, in extremely harsh climate conditions. Seven months of winter per year froze the ground, making it hard to mine, during the brief summer months, the ground turned to slush. Buildings had to be raised on piles, so that they would not sink from the warmth of the building melting the permafrost, the main processing plant had to be built on better ground, found 20 km away from the mine. The winter temperatures were so low that car tires and steel would shatter, during the winter, workers used jet engines to thaw and dig out the permafrost or blasted it with dynamite to get access to the underlying kimberlite. The entire mine had to be covered at night to prevent the machinery from freezing, in the 1960s the mine was producing 10,000,000 carats of diamond per year, of which a relatively high fraction were of gem quality. The upper layers of the mine had very high content of 4 carats per tonne of ore. The yield decreased to about 2 carats per tonne and the rate slowed to 2,000,000 carats per year near the pit bottom. The largest diamond of the mine was found on 23 December 1980, the mine operation was interrupted in the 1990s at a depth of 340 m after the pit bottom became flooded, but resumed later. The rapid development of the Mir mine had worried De Beers company, De Beers had to buy Russian diamonds in order to control the market price, and therefore needed to know as much as possible about the Russian mining developments. In the 1970s, De Beers requested permission to visit the Mir mine, permission was granted under condition that Russian experts would visit De Beers diamond mines in South Africa. De Beers executive Sir Philip Oppenheimer and chief geologist Barry Hawthorne arrived in Moscow in the summer of 1976 and they were intentionally delayed in Moscow by the arrangement of a series of meetings and lavish banquets with Soviet geologists, mineralogists, engineers and mine managers. When Oppenheimer and Hawthorne finally reached the Mir mine, their visas were about to expire, even that short time was sufficient to get some important details. For example, the Russians did not use water during the ore processing at all, the reason was that water would freeze most of the year, and dry crushing was used instead. De Beers also overestimated the size of the mines pit, the Mir mine was the first developed and the largest diamond mine in the Soviet Union
18.
Volcanic pipe
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Volcanic pipes are subterranean geological structures formed by the violent, supersonic eruption of deep-origin volcanoes. They are considered to be a type of diatreme, volcanic pipes are composed of a deep, narrow cone of solidified magma, and are usually largely composed of one of two characteristic rock types — kimberlite or lamproite. These rocks reflect the composition of the volcanoes deep magma sources and they are well known as the primary source of diamonds, and are mined for this purpose. Volcanic pipes form as the result of violent eruptions of deep-origin volcanoes, as the body of magma rises toward the surface, the volatile compounds transform to gaseous phase as pressure is reduced with decreasing depth. This sudden expansion propels the magma upward at rapid speeds, resulting in a shallow supersonic eruption, a useful analogy to this process is the uncorking of a shaken bottle of Champagne. Over time, the ring may erode back into the bowl. Kimberlite pipes are the source of most of the worlds diamond production, and also contain other precious gemstones and semi-precious stones, such as garnets, spinels. This broad cone is filled with volcanic ash and materials. Finally, the magma is pushed upward, filling the cone. The result is a martini-glass shaped deposit of material which appears mostly flat from the surface. Udachnaya pipe, a mine in Yakutia, Russia Elliott County Kimberlite Lake Ellen Kimberlite American Museum of Natural History. United States Geological Survey, Special Interest Publication
19.
Udachnaya pipe
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The Udachnaya pipe is a diamond deposit in the Daldyn-Alakit kimberlite field in Sakha Republic, Russia. It is a mine, and is located just outside the Arctic circle at 66°26′N 112°19′E. Udachnaya was discovered on June 15,1955, just two days after the discovery of the diamond pipe Mir by Soviet geologist Vladimir Shchukin and his team and it is more than 600 metres deep, making it the third deepest open-pit mine in the world. The nearby settlement of Udachny is named for the deposit, as of 2010, Udachnaya pipe is controlled by Russian diamond company Alrosa, which planned to halt open-pit mining in favor of underground mining in 2010. The mine has estimated reserves of 225.8 million carats of diamonds, Mir mine Volcanic pipe Satellite photo of the Udachnaya pipe Alexeev, Sergey V, Alexander V. Drozdov, Tatyana I. The First Experience of Saline Drainage Waters Disposal from the Udachnaya Pipe Quarry into Permaforest, institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado at Boulder
20.
Ore
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An ore is a type of rock that contains sufficient minerals with important elements including metals that can be economically extracted from the rock. The ores are extracted from the earth through mining, they are refined to extract the valuable element. The grade or concentration of an ore mineral, or metal, as well as its form of occurrence, will directly affect the costs associated with mining the ore. The cost of extraction must thus be weighed against the value contained in the rock to determine what ore can be processed. Metal ores are generally oxides, sulfides, silicates, or native metals that are not commonly concentrated in the Earths crust, the ores must be processed to extract the metals of interest from the waste rock and from the ore minerals. Ore bodies are formed by a variety of geological processes, the process of ore formation is called ore genesis. An ore deposit is an accumulation of ore and this is distinct from a mineral resource as defined by the mineral resource classification criteria. An ore deposit is one occurrence of a particular ore type, Ore deposits are classified according to various criteria developed via the study of economic geology, or ore genesis. Stratiform arkose-hosted and shale-hosted copper, typified by the Zambian copperbelt and this identifies, early on, whether further investment in estimation and engineering studies is warranted and identifies key risks and areas for further work. This is because the distribution of ores is unequal and dislocated from locations of peak demand. Other, lesser, commodities do not have international clearing houses and benchmark prices and this generally makes determining the price of ores of this nature opaque and difficult. Such metals include lithium, niobium-tantalum, bismuth, antimony and rare earths, most of these commodities are also dominated by one or two major suppliers with >60% of the worlds reserves. The London Metal Exchange aims to add uranium to its list of metals on warrant, the World Bank reports that China was the top importer of ores and metals in 2005 followed by the USA and Japan. Economic geology Mineral resource classification Ore genesis Petrology Froth Flotation Extractive metallurgy DILL, the “chessboard” classification scheme of mineral deposits, Mineralogy and geology from aluminum to zirconium, Earth-Science Reviews, Volume 100, Issue 1-4, June 2010, Pages 1-420
21.
Open-pit mining
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Open-pit, open-cast or open cut mining is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow. This form of mining differs from extractive methods that require tunneling into the earth, for minerals that occur deep below the surface—where the overburden is thick or the mineral occurs as veins in hard rock—underground mining methods are used to extract the valued material. Open-pit mines that produce building materials and dimension stone are commonly referred to as quarries, open-pit mines are typically enlarged until either the mineral resource is exhausted, or an increasing ratio of overburden to ore makes further mining uneconomic. When this occurs, the mines are sometimes converted to landfills for disposal of solid wastes. Open-cast mines are dug on benches, which describe vertical levels of the hole and these benches are usually on four to sixty meter intervals, depending on the size of the machinery that is being used. Many quarries do not use benches, as they are usually shallow, most walls of the pit are generally blast mined on an angle less than vertical, to prevent and minimize damage and danger from rock falls. This depends on how weathered the rocks are, and the type of rock, the inclined section of the wall is known as the batter, and the flat part of the step is known as the bench or berm. The steps in the walls help prevent rock falls continuing down the face of the wall. In some instances additional ground support is required and rock bolts, cable bolts, de-watering bores may be used to relieve water pressure by drilling horizontally into the wall, which is often enough to cause failures in the wall by itself. A haul road is situated at the side of the pit, forming a ramp up which trucks can drive, carrying ore. Waste rock is piled up at the surface, near the edge of the open pit and this is known as the waste dump. The waste dump is also tiered and stepped, to minimize degradation, ore which has been processed is known as tailings, and is generally a slurry. This is pumped to a dam or settling pond, where the water evaporates. This toxicity can harm the surrounding environment, after mining finishes, the mine area may undergo land rehabilitation. Waste dumps are contoured to flatten out, to further stabilise them. This is then covered with soil, and vegetation is planted to help consolidate the material. There are no long term studies on the success of these due to the relatively short time in which large scale open pit mining has existed. It may take hundreds to thousands of years for some waste dumps to become acid neutral, the dumps are usually fenced off to prevent livestock denuding them of vegetation
22.
De Beers
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The De Beers Group of Companies has a leading role in the diamond exploration, diamond mining, diamond retail, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. The company is active in open-pit, large-scale alluvial, coastal. The company operates in 28 countries and mining takes place in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, until the start of the 21st century, De Beers effectively had total control over the diamond market as both a monopoly and monopsony of diamonds. The company was founded in 1888 by British businessman Cecil Rhodes, who was financed by the South African diamond magnate Alfred Beit and the London-based N M Rothschild & Sons bank. In 1926, Ernest Oppenheimer, a German immigrant to Britain who had earlier founded mining giant Anglo American plc with American financier J. P. Morgan, was elected to the board of De Beers. He built and consolidated the companys global monopoly over the industry until his death in 1957. After they discovered diamonds on their land, the demands of the British government forced them to sell their farm on July 31,1871. Vooruitzicht would become the site of the Big Hole and the De Beer Mine and their name, which was given to one of the mines, subsequently became associated with the company. He invested the profits of this operation into buying up claims of small mining operators and he soon secured funding from the Rothschild family, who would finance his business expansion. The agreement soon proved to be very successful — for example during the slump of 1891–1892. The Second Boer War proved to be a time for the company. Kimberley was besieged as soon as war broke out, thereby threatening the companys valuable mines, in 1898, diamonds were discovered on farms near Pretoria, Transvaal. One led to the discovery of the Premier Mine, the Premier Mine was registered in 1902 and the Cullinan Diamond, the largest rough diamond ever discovered, was found there in 1905. However, its owner refused to join the De Beers cartel, instead, the mine started selling to a pair of independent dealers named Bernhard and Ernest Oppenheimer, thereby weakening the De Beers cartel. Francis Oats, who became chairman of De Beers in 1908, was dismissive of the threats from the Premier Mine, however, production soon equalled all of the De Beers mines combined. Ernest Oppenheimer was appointed the agent for the powerful London Syndicate. During World War I, the Premier Mine was finally absorbed into De Beers, when Rhodes died in 1902, De Beers controlled 90% of the worlds diamond production. Ernest Oppenheimer took over the chairmanship of the company in 1929, after buying shares, Oppenheimer was very concerned about the discovery of diamonds in 1908 in German South West Africa, fearing that the increased supply would swamp the market and force prices down
23.
European Union competition law
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Four main policy areas include, Cartels, or control of collusion and other anti-competitive practices, under article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Market dominance, or preventing the abuse of dominant market positions under article 102 TFEU. A2013 Civitas report lists some of the used by participants to skirt the state aid rules on procurement. The Directorates can mandate that improperly-given state aid be repaid, as was the case in 2012 with Malev Hungarian Airlines, one of the paramount aims of the founding fathers of the European Community - statesmen around Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman - was the establishment of a Single Market. To achieve this, a compatible, transparent and fairly standardised regulatory framework for Competition Law had to be created, the constitutive legislative act was Council Regulation 17/62. The wording of Reg 17/62 was developed in a pre Van Gend en Loos period in EC legal evolution, when the supremacy of EC law was not yet fully established. To avoid different interpretations of EC Competition Law, which could vary from one court to the next. The first major decision under Article 101 was taken by the Commission in 1964 and they found that Grundig, a German manufacturer of household appliances, acted illegally in granting exclusive dealership rights to its French subsidiary. Subsequent enforcement of Art 101 of the TFEU Treaty by the two institutions has generally regarded as effective. The Commission also received criticism from the academic quarters and these problems have been magnified by the increasingly unmanageable workload of the centralised corporate notification system. A further reason why a reform of the old Regulation 17/62 was needed, was the enlargement of the EU. Given the still developing nature of the east-central European new market economies, to all these challenges, the Commission has responded with a strategy to decentralise the implementation of the Competition rules through the so-called Modernisation Regulation. EU Council Regulation 1/2003 places National Competition Authorities and Member State national courts at the heart of the enforcement of Arts 101 &102, decentralised enforcement has for long been the usual way for other EC rules, Reg 1/2003 finally extended this to Competition Law as well. The Commission still retained an important role in the enforcement mechanism and this Network, made up of the national bodies plus the Commission, manages the flow of information between NCAs and maintains the coherence and integrity of the system. At the time, Competition Commissioner Mario Monti hailed this regulation as one that will revolutionise the enforcement of Arts 101 &102, since May 2004, all NCAs and national courts are empowered to fully apply the Competition provisions of the EC Treaty. Yet most recent developments shed doubt on the efficacy of the new arrangements, for instance, on 20 December 2006, the Commission publicly backed down from unbundling French and German energy giants, facing tough opposition from Member State governments. It remains to be seen whether NCAs will be willing to challenge their own national champion companies under EC Competition Law, because the logic of competition is most appropriate for private enterprise, the core of EU competition regulation targets profit making corporations. This said, regulation necessarily extends further and in the TFEU and this uncomfortable English word, which is essentially a literal translation of the German word Unternehmen, was discussed in Höfner and Elser v Macrotron GmbH
24.
European Commission
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Commissioners swear an oath at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, pledging to respect the treaties and to be completely independent in carrying out their duties during their mandate. The Commission operates as a government, with 28 members of the Commission. There is one member per state, but members are bound by their oath of office to represent the general interest of the EU as a whole rather than their home state. One of the 28 is the Commission President proposed by the European Council, the current Commission is the Juncker Commission, which took office in late 2014. The procedural languages of the Commission are English, French and German, the Members of the Commission and their cabinets are based in the Berlaymont building in Brussels. The first Commission originated in 1951 as the nine-member High Authority under President Jean Monnet, the High Authority was the supranational administrative executive of the new European Coal and Steel Community. It took office first on 10 August 1952 in Luxembourg, in 1958 the Treaties of Rome had established two new communities alongside the ECSC, the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community. However their executives were called Commissions rather than High Authorities, the reason for the change in name was the new relationship between the executives and the Council. Some states such as France expressed reservations over the power of the High Authority, louis Armand led the first Commission of Euratom. Walter Hallstein led the first Commission of the EEC, holding the first formal meeting on 16 January 1958 at the Château of Val-Duchesse, Hallstein notably began the consolidation of European law and started to have a notable impact on national legislation. The three bodies, collectively named the European Executives, co-existed until 1 July 1967 when, under the Merger Treaty, the Rey Commission completed the Communitys customs union in 1968 and campaigned for a more powerful, elected, European Parliament. Despite Rey being the first President of the communities, Hallstein is seen as the first President of the modern Commission. The Malfatti and Mansholt Commissions followed with work on monetary co-operation, with that enlargement the Commissions membership increased to thirteen under the Ortoli Commission, which dealt with the enlarged community during economic and international instability at that time. Following the Jenkins Commission, Gaston Thorns Commission oversaw the Communitys enlargement to the south, the Commission headed by Jacques Delors was seen as giving the Community a sense of direction and dynamism. Delors and his team are considered as the founding fathers of the euro. The International Herald Tribune noted the work of Delors at the end of his term in 1992. He arrived when Europessimism was at its worst, although he was a little-known former French finance minister, he breathed life and hope into the EC and into the dispirited Brussels Commission. The successor to Delors was Jacques Santer, the entire Santer Commission was forced to resign in 1999 by the Parliament as result of a fraud and corruption scandal, with a central role played by Édith Cresson
25.
President of Russia
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The President of the Russian Federation is the elected head of state, Supreme Commander-in-Chief and holder of the highest office within the Russian Federation. The current President of Russia is Vladimir Putin, in 1991, the office was briefly known as the President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic until 25 December 1991. According to the 1978 Russian Constitution, the President of Russia was head of the executive branch, according to the current 1993 Constitution of Russia, the President of Russia is not a part of the Government of Russia, which exercises executive power. In all cases where the President of the Russian Federation is unable to fulfill his duties, they shall be temporarily delegated to the Prime Minister, the Chairman of the Federation Council is the third important position after the President and the Prime Minister. In the case of incapacity of both the President and Prime Minister, the chairman of the house of parliament becomes acting head of state. The president is empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves. The president also directs the foreign and domestic policy of the Russian Federation, the president is elected directly through a popular vote to a six-year term. The law prohibits anyone from ever being elected to the presidency for a consecutive term. In all,3 individuals have served 4 presidencies spanning 6 full terms, on May 7,2012, Vladimir Putin became the 4th and current president. A candidate for office must be a citizen of the Russian Federation who is at least 35 years old and has resided in Russia for at least 10 years. The Constitution of Russia limits the election of one person to the Presidency to two consecutive terms, since the constitution contains no ruling on a total number of terms that a President may serve, a former president may seek re-election after sitting out one complete term. The election of the President is mainly regulated by the Presidential Election Law, the Federation Council calls the presidential elections. If it does not call an election that is due. The Election Day is the second Sunday of the month and the electoral constituency is the territory of the Russian Federation as a whole. Each faction in the State Duma, the house of the Russian parliament has the right to nominate a candidate for the presidential elections. The minimum number of signatures for a presidential candidate fielded by a party with no parliamentary representation is 100,000. Terms were extended from four to six years in 2008, during Dmitry Medvedevs administration, the President is elected in a two-round system every six years, with a two consecutive term limitation. If no candidate wins by an majority in the first round
26.
Financial market
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A financial market is a market in which people trade financial securities, commodities, and other fungible items of value at low transaction costs and at prices that reflect supply and demand. Securities include stocks and bonds, and commodities include precious metals or agricultural products, in economics, typically, the term market means the aggregate of possible buyers and sellers of a certain good or service and the transactions between them. The term market is used for what are more strictly exchanges, organizations that facilitate the trade in financial securities. This may be a location or an electronic system. Another common use of the term is as a catchall for all the markets in the financial sector, capital markets which to consist of, Stock markets, which provide financing through the issuance of shares or common stock, and enable the subsequent trading thereof. Bond markets, which provide financing through the issuance of bonds, commodity markets, which facilitate the trading of commodities. Money markets, which provide short term debt financing and investment, derivatives markets, which provide instruments for the management of financial risk. Futures markets, which provide standardized forward contracts for trading products at some future date, Foreign exchange markets, which facilitate the trading of foreign exchange. Spot market Interbanks market The capital markets may also be divided into primary markets, newly formed securities are bought or sold in primary markets, such as during initial public offerings. Secondary markets allow investors to buy and sell existing securities, the transactions in primary markets exist between issuers and investors, while secondary market transactions exist among investors. Liquidity is an aspect of securities that are traded in secondary markets. Liquidity refers to the ease with which a security can be sold without a loss of value, securities with an active secondary market mean that there are many buyers and sellers at a given point in time. Investors benefit from liquid securities because they can sell their assets whenever they want, Financial markets attract funds from investors and channel them to corporations—they thus allow corporations to finance their operations and achieve growth. Money markets allow firms to borrow funds on a term basis. Without financial markets, borrowers would have difficulty finding lenders themselves, intermediaries such as banks, Investment Banks, and Boutique Investment Banks can help in this process. Banks take deposits from those who have money to save and they can then lend money from this pool of deposited money to those who seek to borrow. Banks popularly lend money in the form of loans and mortgages, a good example of a financial market is a stock exchange. A company can raise money by selling shares to investors and its shares can be bought or sold
27.
Prime Minister of Russia
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The official residence of the prime minister is Gorki-9 in Odintsovsky District, Moscow Oblast, but his working residence is in Moscow. Under Article 24 of the Federal Constitutional Law On the Government of the Russian Federation, the Russian Prime Minister is considered the second highest position in the government, after the President. Due to the role of the President of Russia in the political system. The use of the term Prime Minister is strictly informal and is never used by the Russian Constitution, Federal Laws, the current prime minister is Dmitry Medvedev of United Russia, who was appointed on May 8,2012. Since the office evolved rather than being created, it may not be totally clear-cut who was the first Prime Minister. However, these bodies had been only Advisory functions, and had no independence, the office of Chairman of those bodies were more decorative and do not bear any responsibility, besides, simultaneously the position of Chairman could hold several people. For example, from 1726 to 1727, the government headed by six people simultaneously, Alexander Menshikov, Fyodor Apraksin, Gavriil Golovkin, Andrey Osterman, Dmitry Golitsyn and Pyotr Tolstoy. From 1905 to 1917, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, the modern post of Prime Minister appeared in 1905, after the transformation of the Committee of Ministers to the Council of Ministers. 6 November 1905, Sergei Witte was appointed the first Prime Minister of Russia, the position of Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Empire, lasted 12 years, during this time,7 people took this post. The position was abolished after the Russian revolution, the abdication of Nicholas II from the throne, during the Russian Provisional Government in 1917, the official title of the prime minister was Minister-Chairman of the Russian Provisional Government. This position was held by two people, Georgy Lvov and Alexander Kerensky. The position lasted about six months, and after the October Revolution, was replaced by Chairman of the Council of peoples Commissars of the Russian SFSR. In the era of the Soviet Union, the head of government was the Chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars, people who held those positions are sometimes referred to as the prime ministers. They may have also referred to as Premier of Ministers. Currently, the title is the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation. After the election of Boris Yeltsin, President of Russia, the head of the government was personally Yeltsin and he headed the Russian SFSR Council of Ministers about six months. In fact, Yeltsin was the first Head of Government of Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, after Yeltsin, Acting Prime Minister became Yegor Gaidar, but the Russian Supreme Soviet refused to approve him as Prime Minister. 14 December 1992, the Prime Minister was appointed Viktor Chernomyrdin, in general, the Prime Minister serves more of an administrative role, nominating members of the Cabinet and implementing domestic policy
28.
Vladimir Putin
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Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a Russian politician. Putin is the current President of the Russian Federation, holding the office since 7 May 2012 and he was Prime Minister from 1999 to 2000, President from 2000 to 2008, and again Prime Minister from 2008 to 2012. During his second term as Prime Minister, he was the Chairman of the ruling United Russia Party, born in Leningrad, Putin studied German in high school and speaks the language fluently. He studied Law at the Saint Petersburg State University, graduating in 1975, Putin was a KGB Foreign Intelligence Officer for 16 years, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before retiring in 1991 to enter politics in Saint Petersburg. He moved to Moscow in 1996 and joined President Boris Yeltsins administration, rising quickly through the ranks and becoming Acting President on 31 December 1999, when Yeltsin resigned. Putin won the subsequent 2000 Presidential election by a 53% to 30% margin, thus avoiding a runoff with his Communist Party of the Russian Federation opponent and he was re-elected President in 2004 with 72% of the vote. During Putins first presidency, the Russian economy grew for eight straight years, the growth was a result of the 2000s commodities boom, high oil prices, and prudent economic and fiscal policies. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits, Putin was ineligible to run for a third presidential term in 2008. The 2008 Presidential election was won by Dmitry Medvedev, who appointed Putin Prime Minister, in September 2011, after presidential terms were extended from four to six years, Putin announced he would seek a third term as president. He won the March 2012 Presidential election with 64% of the vote, under Putins leadership, Russia has scored poorly on both the Democracy index and the Corruption index. Putin has enjoyed high approval ratings during his career. In 2007, he was the Time Person of the Year, in 2015, he was #1 on the Times Most Influential People List. Forbes ranked him the Worlds Most Powerful Individual every year from 2013 to 2016, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was born on 7 October 1952 in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, the youngest of three children of Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin and Maria Ivanovna Putina. His birth was preceded by the death of two brothers, Viktor and Albert, born in the mid-1930s, Albert died in infancy and Viktor died of diphtheria during the Siege of Leningrad. Putins mother was a worker and his father was a conscript in the Soviet Navy. Early in World War II, his father served in the battalion of the NKVD. Later, he was transferred to the army and was severely wounded in 1942. On 1 September 1960, Putin started at School No.193 at Baskov Lane and he was one of a few in the class of approximately 45 pupils who was not yet a member of the Young Pioneer organization
29.
Government of Russia
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The Government of the Russian Federation exercises executive power in the Russian Federation, also known as the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. The members of the government are the Prime Minister, the deputy ministers. It has its basis in the Constitution of the Russian Federation. According to the 1991 amendment to the 1978 Russian Constitution, the President of Russia was the head of the executive branch, according to the current 1993 Constitution of Russia, the President is not a part of the Government of Russia, which exercises executive power. But, the President does appoint the Prime Minister, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian Council of Ministers had become the main executive body. At some points it contained over 69 state committees, 16–17 ministers,5 federal services, after the 2004 reform, government duties were split between 17 ministries,5 federal services, and over 30 governmental agencies. The Russian Federation practices asymmetrical federalism and this means that not all regions are treated fairly and that some regions have been given more autonomy than others. There are 7 super regions with a governor that answers to the President. Those super regions include the South, Central, North-West, Far East, Siberia, Ural, Volga and they were established in May of 2000. The prime minister, currently Dmitry Medvedev, is appointed by the president and he or she succeeds to the presidency if the current president dies, is incapacitated, or resigns. Corruption is common and widespread in the government, according to 2016 results of Corruption Perception Index of Transparency International, Russia ranked 131th place out of 176 countries with score 29. Multiple anti-corruption campaigns have launched to try to curb corruption. One of the biggest stances taken against corruption is the formation of the Anti-Corruption Council in 2008, the large body was preceded by Government of the Soviet Union. Since the Russian Federation emerged in 1991 to 1992, the structure has undergone several major changes. In the initial years, an amount of government bodies, primarily the different ministries. On 28 November 1991, President of the RSFSR Boris Yeltsin signed presidential decree No.242 On reorganization of the government bodies of the RSFSR, Yeltsin officially declared the end of the Soviet Union and became the President of the Russian Federation. Yeltsin was a reformer and promised Western-styled democracy, in 1993 the new Russian Constitution was adopted. The new Constitution gained legitimacy through its legislature, independent judiciary, the position of the president and the prime minister
30.
United States dollar
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The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its insular territories per the United States Constitution. It is divided into 100 smaller cent units, the circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars. The U. S. dollar was originally commodity money of silver as enacted by the Coinage Act of 1792 which determined the dollar to be 371 4/16 grain pure or 416 grain standard silver, the currency most used in international transactions, it is the worlds primary reserve currency. Several countries use it as their currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. Besides the United States, it is used as the sole currency in two British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. A few countries use the Federal Reserve Notes for paper money, while the country mints its own coins, or also accepts U. S. coins that can be used as payment in U. S. dollars. After Nixon shock of 1971, USD became fiat currency, Article I, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution provides that the Congress has the power To coin money, laws implementing this power are currently codified at 31 U. S. C. Section 5112 prescribes the forms in which the United States dollars should be issued and these coins are both designated in Section 5112 as legal tender in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar, the pure silver dollar is known as the American Silver Eagle. Section 5112 also provides for the minting and issuance of other coins and these other coins are more fully described in Coins of the United States dollar. The Constitution provides that a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and that provision of the Constitution is made specific by Section 331 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The sums of money reported in the Statements are currently being expressed in U. S. dollars, the U. S. dollar may therefore be described as the unit of account of the United States. The word dollar is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution, there, dollars is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U. S. Congress passed a Coinage Act, Section 20 of the act provided, That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units. And that all accounts in the offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation. In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States, unlike the Spanish milled dollar the U. S. dollar is based upon a decimal system of values. Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the form is significantly more common
31.
Initial public offering
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Through this process, a privately held company transforms into a public company. Initial public offerings are used by companies to raise the expansion of capital, possibly to monetize the investments of early private investors. A company selling shares is never required to repay the capital to its public investors, after the IPO, when shares trade freely in the open market, money passes between public investors. The IPO process is known as going public. Details of the offering are disclosed to potential purchasers in the form of a lengthy document known as a prospectus. Most companies undertake an IPO with the assistance of an investment banking firm acting in the capacity of an underwriter, underwriters provide several services, including help with correctly assessing the value of shares and establishing a public market for shares. Alternative methods such as the dutch auction have also been explored, in terms of size and public participation, the two most notable examples of this method is the Google IPO and Snapchats parent company Snap Inc. China has recently emerged as a major IPO market, with several of the largest IPOs taking place in that country, the earliest form of a company which issued public shares was the case of the publicani during the Roman Republic. Like modern joint-stock companies, the publicani were legal bodies independent of their members whose ownership was divided into shares, there is evidence that these shares were sold to public investors and traded in a type of over-the-counter market in the Forum, near the Temple of Castor and Pollux. The shares fluctuated in value, encouraging the activity of speculators, mere evidence remains of the prices for which partes were sold, the nature of initial public offerings, or a description of stock market behavior. Publicanis lost favor with the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire, the first modern IPO occurred in March 1602 when the Dutch East India Company offered shares of the company to the public in order to raise capital. All the shares were tradable, and the shareholders received receipts for the purchase, a share certificate documenting payment and ownership such as we know today was not issued but ownership was instead entered in the companys share register. In the United States, the first IPO was the offering of Bank of North America around 1783. An IPO, therefore, allows a company to tap into a pool of potential investors to provide itself with capital for future growth, repayment of debt. A company selling shares is never required to repay the capital to its public investors. Those investors must endure the unpredictable nature of the market to price. After the IPO, when shares trade freely in the open market, for early private investors who choose to sell shares as part of the IPO process, the IPO represents an opportunity to monetize their investment. This type of offering is not dilutive, since no new shares are being created, once a company is listed, it is able to issue additional common shares in a number of different ways, one of which is the follow-on offering
32.
Treasury stock
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A treasury stock or reacquired stock is stock which is also bought back by the issuing company, reducing the amount of outstanding stock on the open market. Stock repurchases are used as a tax efficient method to put cash into shareholders hands, rather than paying dividends, sometimes, companies do it when they feel that their stock is undervalued on the open market. Other times, companies do it to reduce dilution from incentive compensation plans for employees, another motive for stock repurchase is to protect the company against a takeover threat. The United Kingdom equivalent of treasury stock as used in the United States is treasury share, Treasury stocks in the UK refers to government bonds or gilts. If not canceled, such shares are referred to as treasury shares, technically, a repurchased share is a companys own share that has been bought back after having been issued and fully paid. The possession of treasury shares does not give the company the right to vote, to exercise rights as a shareholder, to receive cash dividends. Treasury shares simply reduce ordinary share capital, in an efficient market, a company buying back its stock should have no effect on its price per share valuation. Additionally, buying back shares will improve price/earnings ratios due to the number of shares. If the market is not efficient, the shares may be underpriced. In that case a company can benefit its other shareholders by buying back shares, if a companys shares are overpriced, then a company is actually hurting its remaining shareholders by buying back stock. One other reason for a company to buy back its own stock is to reward holders of stock options, call option holders are hurt by dividend payments, since, typically, they are not eligible to receive them. A share buyback program may increase the value of remaining shares, if so and this does not apply to unscheduled dividends since the strike prices of options are typically adjusted to reflect the amount of the special dividend. Finally, if the sellers into a corporate buyback are actually the call option holders themselves, the company can either retire the shares or hold the shares for later resale. Buying back stock reduces the number of outstanding shares, accompanying the decrease in the number of shares outstanding is a reduction in company assets, in particular, cash assets, which are used to buy back shares. On the balance sheet, treasury stock is listed under shareholders equity as a negative number, the accounts may be called Treasury stock or equity reduction. One way of accounting for treasury stock is with the cost method, in this method, the paid-in capital account is reduced in the balance sheet when the treasury stock is bought. When the treasury stock is sold back on the open market, another common way for accounting for treasury stock is the par value method. In the par value method, when the stock is purchased back from the market, therefore, common stock is debited and treasury stock is credited
33.
Oppenheimer Holdings
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The company, which once occupied the One World Financial Center building in Manhattan, now bases its operations at 85 Broad Street and world headquarters at 125 Broad Street in New York City. The 1960s and 1970s were a time of prosperity for the company. Oppenheimer & Co. formed three operating subsidiaries, Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. a retail brokerage firm Oppenheimer Capital Corporation, in the 1980s, OpCo founding partners began looking for a buyer. Mercantile House Holdings, PLC, a publicly owned British corporation, made an offer in 1982, a year later, British & Commonwealth Holdings, PLC, acquired Mercantile. The 1990s brought another separation of the firm when Oppenheimer Capitals senior personnel acquired a majority interest in the subsidiary. In 1995, Robert and Gantcher, who controlled about 40 percent of OpCos equity, at first, OpCo explored options of forming a possible alliance with ING Groep NV that eventually fell through. Carrying on with this goal, management set out to merge with a bulge bracket bank that had access to the foreign markets, Robert and Gantcher entertained offers from the second-largest private German financial institution and retail bank, Bayerische Vereinsbank. On Thursday, May 8,1997, the Wall Street Journal announced that Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank Corp. was in talks to buy Oppenheimer & Co. for about $500 million in cash, stock, and options. The articles source warned that PNC and Oppenheimer hadnt arrived at a price and that chatter could break the formal agreement. Analysts speculated that PNC would be paying too much for a house that no longer carried the brand recognition it once did in the securities industry. Only 13 days following the announcement, the Bloomberg News desk announced that for the time in two years, OpCo had been abandoned by a prospective buyer. Fourth time being the charm, CIBC closed on Oppenheimer Holdings, the purchase was made through CIBCs existing US-based investment banking arm, CIBC Wood Gundy. However, with the deal having been closed, the name was changed to CIBC Oppenheimer Holdings. CIBC Wood Gundy continued to act as the name in Canada. In 2003, CIBC made the decision to sell Oppenheimer’s retail brokerage business and name for $257 million to Fahnestock Viner Holdings and this separation was a sore wound among the institutional employees. Upon this sale, CIBC unified all CIBC Wood Gundy and CIBC Oppenheimer operations under the CIBC World Markets name, Fahnestock Viner traces its lineage back to Harris C. Fahnestock, an investment banker who was a member of one of Citigroups predecessors. In 1881, Harris son William formed his own investment bank at Two Wall Street, the new company, Fahnestock Viner Holdings, would eventually change its name in 2003 upon the acquisition of CIBC Oppenheimers retail brokerage business
34.
Lazard
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Lazard is a leading financial advisory and asset management firm that engages in investment banking, asset management, and other financial services primarily with institutional clients. Its principal executive offices are in New York City, Paris, Lazard was founded in 1848 and operates from 42 cities across 27 countries in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Central and South America. On July 12,1848, three Jewish French brothers, Alexandre, Lazare, and Simon Lazard, founded Lazard Frères & Co. as a dry goods merchant store in New Orleans, Louisiana. By 1851, Simon and two brothers, Maurice and Elie, had all moved to San Francisco, California. Lazard Frères began to serve miners engaged in the California Gold Rush, in 1854, Alexandre Lazard moved to Paris, France, where he opened an office to complement the U. S. business. The firm began advising the French government on gold buying, in 1870, the firm continued to expand its international operations, opening an office in London. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the firm evolved into three “Houses of Lazard” in the United States, France, and England, separately managed but allied, the Lazard partners advised clients on financial matters and built a cross-border network of high-level relationships in business and government. Noted financial advisor George Blumenthal rose to prominence as the head of the U. S. branch of Lazard Frères and was a partner of Lazard Frères in France. In the economic boom following World War II, the American operations of Lazard expanded significantly under the leadership of the financier André Meyer, Meyer and Lazard partner Felix Rohatyn have been credited with virtually inventing the modern mergers and acquisitions market. In 1953, Lazard Investors Ltd began a management business in London. In 1977, as the health of Meyer began to deteriorate, under his leadership, the three houses of Lazard were formally united in 2000 as Lazard LLC. In 2002, David-Weill hired Bruce Wasserstein to be CEO, Lazard became a public company, with nearly two-third of its shares owned by current and former employees in 2005. Wasserstein became its first Chairman and CEO, in connection with the initial public offering, Lazard spun off its broker-dealer business, Lazard Capital Markets. Following Wasserstein’s sudden death in 2009, Lazards Board of Directors elected Kenneth M. Jacobs Chairman, Lazard advises clients on a wide range of strategic and financial issues. These may include advising on the acquisition of another company, business or certain assets, or on the sale of certain businesses. The firm also advises on alternatives to a such as recapitalizations, spin-offs, carve-outs. For companies in financial distress, Lazard advises on all aspects of restructuring, the firm has advised on many of the largest restructuring assignments in the wake of the global financial crisis that began in mid-2007. Lazard also advises on capital structure and capital raising, Capital structure advice includes reviewing and analyzing structural alternatives and assisting in long-term planning
35.
Alluvium
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Alluvium is loose, unconsolidated soil or sediments, which has been eroded, reshaped by water in some form, and redeposited in a non-marine setting. Alluvium is typically made up of a variety of materials, including fine particles of silt and clay and larger particles of sand, when this loose alluvial material is deposited or cemented into a lithological unit, or lithified, it is called an alluvial deposit. The term alluvium is not typically used in situations where the formation of the sediment can clearly be attributed to another process that is well described. This includes, lake sediments, river sediments, or glacially-derived sediments, sediments that are formed or deposited in a perennial stream or river are typically not referred to as alluvial. Most alluvium is very young, and is often referred to as cover because these sediments obscure the underlying bedrock. Most sedimentary material that fills a basin that is not lithified is typically lumped together as alluvial, alluvium of Pliocene age occurs, for example, in parts of Idaho. Alluvium of late Miocene age occurs, for example, in the valley of the San Joaquin River, alluvium can contain valuable ores such as gold and platinum and a wide variety of gemstones. Such a concentration of ores is termed a placer deposit
36.
Mineral resource classification
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Mineral resource classification is the classification of mineral resources based on an increasing level of geological knowledge and confidence. Mineral deposits can be classified as, Mineral resources that are potentially valuable, classification, because it is an economic function, is governed by statutes, regulations and industry best practice norms. G. Dill are the general standards, Mineral Resources are further sub-divided, in order of increasing geological confidence, into inferred, Indicated and measured Categories. Inferred Mineral Resource is the part of a resource for which tonnage, grade. It is inferred from geological evidence and assumed but not verified geological or grade continuity, Mineral reserves are resources known to be economically feasible for extraction. Reserves are either Probable Reserves or Proved Reserves, a Probable Ore Reserve is the part of indicated, and in some circumstances, measured mineral resources that can be mined in an economically viable fashion. It includes diluting material and allowances for losses which may occur when the material is mined, a Probable Ore Reserve has a lower level of confidence than a Proved Ore Reserve but is of sufficient quality to serve as the basis for decision on the development of deposit. A Proved Ore Reserve is the part of Measured resources that can be mined in a viable fashion. It includes diluting materials and allowances for losses which occur when the material is mined, a Proved Ore Reserve represents the highest confidence category of reserve estimate. The style of mineralization or other factors could mean that Proved Ore Reserves are not achievable in some deposits. S
37.
Angola
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Angola /æŋˈɡoʊlə/, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country in Southern Africa. It is the seventh-largest country in Africa and is bordered by Namibia to the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Zambia to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean to west. The exclave province of Cabinda has borders with the Republic of the Congo, the capital and largest city of Angola is Luanda. In the 19th century, European settlers slowly and hesitantly began to themselves in the interior. As a Portuguese colony, Angola did not encompass its present borders until the early 20th century, following resistance by groups such as the Cuamato, the Kwanyama and the Mbunda. Independence was achieved in 1975 under a communist one-party state backed by the Soviet Union, however, the country soon descended into an even lengthier civil war that lasted until 2002. It has since become a relatively stable presidential republic. Angola has vast mineral and petroleum reserves, and its economy is among the fastest growing in the world, Angolas economic growth is highly uneven, with the majority of the nations wealth concentrated in a disproportionately small sector of the population. Angola is a state of the United Nations, OPEC, African Union, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, the Latin Union. A highly multiethnic country, Angolas 25.8 million people span various tribal groups, customs, Angolan culture reflects centuries of Portuguese rule, namely in the predominance of the Portuguese language and the Catholic Church, combined with diverse indigenous influences. The name Angola comes from the Portuguese colonial name Reino de Angola, the toponym was derived by the Portuguese from the title ngola held by the kings of Ndongo. Ndongo was a kingdom in the highlands, between the Kwanza and Lukala Rivers, nominally tributary to the king of Kongo but which was seeking greater independence during the 16th century, modern Angola was populated predominantly by nomadic Khoi and San prior to the first Bantu migrations. The Khoi and San peoples were neither pastoralists nor cultivators, following a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and they were displaced by Bantu peoples arriving from the north, some of whom likely originated in northwestern Nigeria. Bantu speakers introduced the cultivation of bananas and taro, as well as large herds, to Angolas central highlands. During this time, the Bantu established a number of entities in most of what today comprises Angola. To its south lay the Kingdom of Ndongo, from which the area of the later Portuguese colony was known as Dongo. The region now known as Angola was reached by the Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão in 1484, the year before, the Portuguese had established relations with the Kongo, which stretched at the time from modern Gabon in the north to the Kwanza River in the south. The Portuguese established their primary trading post at Soyo, which is now the northernmost city in Angola apart from the Cabinda exclave
38.
Botswana
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Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. The citizens refer to themselves as Batswana, formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966. Since then, it has maintained a tradition of stable representative democracy. Botswana is topographically flat, with up to 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahari Desert and it is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, and Zimbabwe to the northeast. Its border with Zambia to the north near Kazungula is poorly defined, a mid-sized country of just over 2 million people, Botswana is one of the most sparsely populated nations in the world. Around 10 percent of the lives in the capital and largest city. The economy is dominated by mining, cattle, and tourism, Botswana boasts a GDP per capita of about $18,825 per year as of 2015, which is one of the highest in Africa. Its high gross national income gives the country a modest standard of living, Botswana is a member of the African Union, the Southern African Development Community, the Commonwealth of Nations, and the United Nations. The country has been among the hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the death rate due to AIDS or AIDS-related causes has fallen sharply from 2005 to 2013, and the number of new infections in children has also fallen. As of 2014, Botswana has the third-highest prevalence rate for HIV/AIDS, the history of Botswana starts more than 100,000 years ago, when the first humans inhabited the region. The original inhabitants of southern Africa were the Bushmen and Khoi peoples, both speak Khoisan languages and lived as hunter-gatherers. About a thousand years ago, large chiefdoms emerged that were later eclipsed by the Great Zimbabwe empire, around 1300 CE, peoples in present-day Transvaal began to coalesce into three main linguistic and political groups, including the Batswana. The Batswana, a term used also to all citizens of Botswana. Prior to European contact, the Batswana lived as herders and farmers under tribal rule, as groups broke off and moved to new land, new tribes were created. Some human development occurred before the colonial period, during the 1700s, the slave and ivory trades were expanding. To resist these pressures, Shaka, the king of the Zulu Empire, conquered tribes began to move northwest into Botswana, destroying everything in their path. In their efforts to re-establish themselves at the end of period, tribes began to exchange ivory and skins for guns with European traders. Christian missionaries sent from Europe also spread to the interior, often at the invitation of tribal chiefs who wanted guns, by 1880 every major village had a resident missionary, and their influence became permanent
39.
Catoca diamond mine
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The Catoca diamond mine is the fourth largest diamond mine in the world, and is located in Angola. The mine is owned by a consortium of international mining interests, including Endiama, Alrosa of Russia, Odebrecht of Brazil, the mine is located on a kimberlite pipe. The mine had production of 1.8 million carats in 2000 and 2.6 million carats in 2001, Catoca management has been actively expanding capacity at the mine, such that the owners plan to extract as much as 5 million carats in 2005. The mines production is 35% gem quality, compared to an average of 20%. Estimated reserves are 60 million carats, the diamonds from Catoca Mining Society topped the sales of 2009, with a net profit of 70 million US Dollar, resulting from a gross production of 122.6 million US Dollar, Angop. The information is contained in a report from the company released in September 2011. The note states that as a result of the processing of the ore, in 2012 the mine produced 6.5 million carats out of 10 million metric tons of ore production. Geologically, the Catoca kimberlite pipe is among the world’s largest primary diamond deposits, the Catoca volcanic edifice is only slightly eroded. Kimberlitic rocks of various facies compose a crater of about 1 km in diameter, the structure of the pipe and mining conditions of the deposit are complicated by intense intrapipe tectonic processes related to large-amplitude subsidence. MBendi Catoca Diamond Mine в энциклопедии Карьеры мира
40.
Central Africa
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Central Africa is the core region of the African continent which includes Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda. All of the states in the UN subregion of Middle Africa, plus those otherwise commonly reckoned in Central Africa, since its independence in 2011, South Sudan has also been commonly included in the region. The Central African Federation, also called the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, was made up of what are now the nations of Malawi, Zambia and these states are now typically considered part of Southern Africa. Archeological finds in Central Africa have been discovered dating back over 100,000 years, according to Zangato and Holl, there is evidence of iron-smelting in the Central African Republic and Cameroon that may date back to 3000 to 2500 BCE. Extensive walled settlements have recently found in Northeast Nigeria, approximately 60 km southwest of Lake Chad dating to the first millennium BCE. Trade and improved agricultural techniques supported more sophisticated societies, leading to the civilizations of Sao, Kanem, Bornu, Shilluk, Baguirmi. Around 1000 BCE, Bantu migrants had reached the Great Lakes Region in Central Africa, halfway through the first millennium BCE, the Bantu had also settled as far south as what is now Angola. The Sao civilization flourished from ca. the sixth century BCE to as late as the sixteenth century CE in northern Central Africa, the Sao lived by the Chari River south of Lake Chad in territory that later became part of Cameroon and Chad. They are the earliest people to have clear traces of their presence in the territory of modern Cameroon. Today, several groups of northern Cameroon and southern Chad. Sao artifacts show that they were skilled workers in bronze, copper, finds include bronze sculptures and terra cotta statues of human and animal figures, coins, funerary urns, household utensils, jewelry, highly decorated pottery, and spears. The largest Sao archaeological finds have been south of Lake Chad. The Kanem-Bornu Empire was centered in the Chad Basin and it was known as the Kanem Empire from the 9th century CE onward and lasted as the independent kingdom of Bornu until 1900. The history of the Empire is mainly known from the Royal Chronicle or Girgam discovered in 1851 by the German traveller Heinrich Barth, Kanem rose in the 8th century in the region to the north and east of Lake Chad. The Kanem empire went into decline, shrank, and in the 14th century was defeated by Bilala invaders from the Lake Fitri region, the Kanuri people led by the Sayfuwa migrated to the west and south of the lake, where they established the Bornu Empire. By the late 16th century the Bornu empire had expanded and recaptured the parts of Kanem that had been conquered by the Bulala, satellite states of Bornu included the Damagaram in the west and Baguirmi to the southeast of Lake Chad. The Shilluk Kingdom was centered in South Sudan from the 15th century from along a strip of land along the bank of White Nile. The capital and royal residence was in the town of Fashoda, the kingdom was founded during the mid-fifteenth century CE by its first ruler, Nyikang
41.
Pink diamond
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Pink diamond is a type of diamond which has all the same elements as more commonly known diamonds except that they also exhibit pink color. The source of their color is greatly debated in the gemological world. Pink diamonds belong to a subcategory of diamonds called fancy color diamonds, Pink diamonds range from Flawless to Included, just like white diamonds. Several pink diamonds with internally flawless clarity have been discovered, but only one is known to be completely flawless, numerous theories have been posited as to how the pink is formed in pink diamonds. The prevailing theory is that the pink is caused when the diamond is subjected to pressure during its formation. A similar theory is being tested on pink diamonds that originated in the Argyle Mine in Kimberley and this theory posits that a seismic shock propelled colorless diamonds to the surface and altered their molecular structure, causing them to appear pink. The same four parameters that govern the grading of all gemstones are used to grade pink diamonds–the four Cs of Connoisseurship, Color, Clarity, Cut. Color is considered the absolute most important criterion in grading a pink diamond, however, size is an important consideration in a pink diamond’s value. The larger a pink diamond, and the better its color, the Daria-i-Noor diamond and the Noor-ul-Ain diamond are the oldest known pink diamonds, and both belong to the Iranian crown jewels. Several other famous pink diamonds exist as well, just like the color in all fancy color diamonds, the color in pink diamonds is assessed according to its hue, saturation and tone. The hue refers to the primary and secondary colors, the saturation refers to the distribution of color, Pink diamonds can occur in hues ranging from brown-pink to purple-pink, although pink can also be a modifying color in other diamond colors. The ideal pink diamonds are considered to be those which exhibit pure pink color although purple-pink diamonds are generally very highly regarded as well. Generally speaking, a pink diamond will be more valuable than a larger lighter pink diamond. Pink diamonds can occur in 8 intensities, Faint Pink, Very Light Pink, Light Pink, Fancy Light Pink, Fancy Pink, Fancy Intense Pink, Fancy Vivid Pink, Fancy Deep/Dark Pink. Just like in all fancy color diamonds, the more vivid intensity pink diamonds are far rarer than the less vivid, the same cause in nature which is the course of the pink in pink diamonds can be more or less concentrated depending on the specimen. That is why it is so rare to find the most concentrated diamonds in each color, there is no perfect consensus as to what defines each color intensity grade, even though the GIA keeps a master catalog of each diamond color. Therefore, each color intensity also has a subscale of 1-10, Pink diamonds fall under the category of Type IIa diamonds, meaning that they form under remarkably high pressure for longer time periods, and tend to have an irregular shape. They have no visible absorption, no nitrogen impurities that may cause a yellow or brown tint, the Argyle Mine, the world’s current main source for pink diamonds, has developed their own pink diamond color classification system separate from that of the GIA
RUB 317.1 billion (2016)[1]
