The Australian Defence Force is the military organisation responsible for the defence of Australia. It consists of the Royal Australian Navy, Australian Army, Royal Australian Air Force and several "tri-service" units; the ADF has a strength of just over 82,000 full-time personnel and active reservists and is supported by the Department of Defence and several other civilian agencies. During the first decades of the 20th century, the Australian Government established the armed services as separate organisations; each service had an independent chain of command. In 1976, the government made a strategic change and established the ADF to place the services under a single headquarters. Over time, the degree of integration has increased and tri-service headquarters and training institutions have supplanted many single-service establishments; the ADF is technologically sophisticated but small. Although the ADF's 58,206 full-time active-duty personnel and 21,694 active reservists make it the largest military in Oceania, it is smaller than most Asian military forces.
Nonetheless, the ADF is supported by a significant budget by worldwide standards and can deploy forces in multiple locations outside Australia. The ADF's legal standing draws on the executive government sections of the Australian Constitution. Section 51 gives the Commonwealth Government the power to make laws regarding Australia's defence and defence forces. Section 114 of the Constitution prevents the States from raising armed forces without the permission of the Commonwealth and Section 119 gives the Commonwealth responsibility for defending Australia from invasion and sets out the conditions under which the government can deploy the defence force domestically. Section 68 of the Constitution sets out the ADF's command arrangements; the Section states that "the command in chief of the naval and military forces of the Commonwealth is vested in the Governor-General as the Queen's representative". In practice, the Governor-General does not play an active part in the ADF's command structure, the elected government controls the ADF.
The Minister for Defence and several subordinate ministers exercise this control. The Minister acts on most matters alone, though the National Security Committee of Cabinet considers important matters; the Minister advises the Governor-General who acts as advised in the normal form of executive government. The Commonwealth Government has never been required by the Constitution or legislation to seek parliamentary approval for decisions to deploy military forces overseas or go to war; the ADF's current priorities are set out in the 2016 Defence White Paper, which identifies three main areas of focus. The first of these is to defend Australia from direct coercion; the second priority is to contribute to the security of the South Pacific. The third priority is to contribute to stability across the Indo-Pacific region and a "rules-based global order which supports our interests"; the white paper states that the government will place equal weight on the three priorities when developing the ADF's capabilities.
Australia has maintained military forces since federation as a nation in January 1901. Shortly after Federation, the Australian Government established the Australian Army and Commonwealth Naval Force by amalgamating the forces each of the states had maintained. In 1911, the Government established the Royal Australian Navy, which absorbed the Commonwealth Naval Force; the Army established the Australian Flying Corps in 1912, separated to form the Royal Australian Air Force in 1921. The services were not linked by a single chain of command, as they each reported to their own separate Minister and had separate administrative arrangements; the three services saw action around the world during World War I and World War II, took part in conflicts in Asia during the Cold War. The importance of'joint' warfare was made clear to the Australian military during World War II when Australian naval and air units served as part of single commands. Following the war, several senior officers lobbied for the appointment of a commander in chief of the three services.
The government rejected this proposal and the three services remained independent. The absence of a central authority resulted in poor coordination between the services, with each service organising and operating on the basis of a different military doctrine; the need for an integrated command structure received more emphasis as a result of the inefficient arrangements which at times hindered the military's efforts during the Vietnam War. In 1973, the Secretary of the Department of Defence, Arthur Tange, submitted a report to the Government that recommended the unification of the separate departments supporting each service into a single Department of Defence and the creation of the post of Chief of the Defence Force Staff; the government accepted these recommendations and the Australian Defence Force was established on 9 February 1976. Until the 1970s, Australia's military strategy centred on the concept of'forward defence', in which the role of the Australian military was to co-operate with allied forces to counter threats in Australia's region.
In 1969, when the United States began the Guam Doctrine and the British withdrew'east of Suez', Australia developed a defence policy which emphasised self-reliance and the defence of the Australian continent. This was known as the Defence of Australia Policy. Under this policy, the focus of Australian defence planning was to protect Australia's northern maritime approaches against enemy attack. In line with this goal, the ADF was restructured to increase its ability to strike at enemy forces from Australian bases and to counter raids on continental Australia; the ADF achieved this b
Brussels the Brussels-Capital Region, is a region of Belgium comprising 19 municipalities, including the City of Brussels, the capital of Belgium. The Brussels-Capital Region is located in the central portion of the country and is a part of both the French Community of Belgium and the Flemish Community, but is separate from the Flemish Region and the Walloon Region. Brussels is the the richest region in Belgium in terms of GDP per capita, it covers 162 km2, a small area compared to the two other regions, has a population of over 1.2 million. The five times larger metropolitan area of Brussels comprises over 2.5 million people, which makes it the largest in Belgium. It is part of a large conurbation extending towards Ghent, Antwerp and Walloon Brabant, home to over 5 million people. Brussels grew from a small rural settlement on the river Senne to become an important city-region in Europe. Since the end of the Second World War, it has been a major centre for international politics and home to numerous international organisations, politicians and civil servants.
Brussels is the de facto capital of the European Union, as it hosts a number of principal EU institutions, including its administrative-legislative, executive-political, legislative branches. Its name is sometimes used metonymically to describe its institutions; the secretariat of the Benelux and headquarters of NATO are located in Brussels. As the economic capital of Belgium and one of the top financial centres of Western Europe with Euronext Brussels, it is classified as an Alpha global city. Brussels is a hub for rail and air traffic, sometimes earning the moniker "Crossroads of Europe"; the Brussels Metro is the only rapid transit system in Belgium. In addition, both its airport and railway stations are the busiest in the country. Dutch-speaking, Brussels saw a language shift to French from the late 19th century; the Brussels-Capital Region is bilingual in French and Dutch though French is now the de facto main language with over 90% of the population speaking it. Brussels is increasingly becoming multilingual.
English is spoken as a second language by nearly a third of the population and many migrants and expatriates speak other languages as well. Brussels is known for its cuisine and gastronomy, as well as its historical and architectural landmarks. Main attractions include its historic Grand Place, Manneken Pis and cultural institutions such as La Monnaie/De Munt and the Museums of Art and History. Due to its long tradition of Belgian comics, Brussels is hailed as a capital of the comic strip; the most common theory of the origin of the name Brussels is that it derives from the Old Dutch Bruocsella, Broekzele or Broeksel, meaning "marsh" and "home" or "home in the marsh". Saint Vindicianus, the bishop of Cambrai, made the first recorded reference to the place Brosella in 695, when it was still a hamlet; the names of all the municipalities in the Brussels-Capital Region are of Dutch origin, except for Evere, Celtic. In French, Bruxelles is pronounced and in Dutch, Brussel is pronounced. Inhabitants of Brussels are known in French in Dutch as Brusselaars.
In the Brabantian dialect of Brussels, they are called Brusseleirs. The written x noted the group. In the Belgian French pronunciation as well as in Dutch, the k disappeared and z became s, as reflected in the current Dutch spelling, whereas in the more conservative French form, the spelling remained; the pronunciation in French only dates from the 18th century, but this modification did not affect the traditional Brussels usage. In France, the pronunciations and are heard, but are rather rare in Belgium. See also: History of Brussels The history of Brussels is linked to that of Western Europe. Traces of human settlement go back to the Stone Age, with vestiges and place-names related to the civilisation of megaliths and standing stones. During late antiquity, the region was home to Roman occupation, as attested by archaeological evidence discovered on the site of Tour & Taxis. Following the decline of the Western Roman Empire, it was incorporated into the Frankish Empire; the origin of the settlement, to become Brussels lies in Saint Gaugericus' construction of a chapel on an island in the river Senne around 580.
The official founding of Brussels is situated around 979, when Duke Charles of Lower Lotharingia transferred the relics of Saint Gudula from Moorsel to Saint Gaugericus' chapel. Charles would construct the first permanent fortification in the city, doing so on that same island. Lambert I of Leuven, Count of Leuven, gained the County of Brussels around 1000, by marrying Charles' daughter; because of its location on the shores of the Senne, on an important trade route between Bruges and Ghent, Cologne, Brussels became a commercial centre specialised in the textile trade. The town grew quite and extended towards the upper town, where the
Österreichischer Rundfunk is an Austrian national public service broadcaster. Funded from a combination of television licence fee revenue and limited on-air advertising, ORF is the dominant player in the Austrian broadcast media. Austria was the last country in continental Europe after Albania to allow nationwide private television broadcasting, although commercial TV channels from neighbouring Germany have been present in Austria on pay-TV and via terrestrial overspill since the 1980s; the first unregulated test transmissions in Austria began on 1 April 1923 by Radio Hekaphon, run by the radio pioneer and enthusiast Oskar Czeija, who applied for a radio license in 1921. September 2, it aired a first broadcast address by Austrian President Michael Hainisch. One year a powerful transmitter, designed by the German Telefunken company, was installed on the roof of the former War Ministry building on Ringstraße in central Vienna, it was, the public Radio-Verkehrs-Aktiengesellschaft, a joint-venture of the Austrian Federal Government, the City of Vienna and several bank companies, which, in February 1924, was awarded the concession to begin broadcasting, with Czeja as its director-general.
Regular transmissions began on 1 October 1924 from provisional studios inside the War Ministry building that were to become known as Radio Wien. By the end of October 1924 it had 30,000 listeners, by January 1925 100,000. Relay transmitters, established across the country by 1934, ensured that all Austrians could listen to Radio Wien at a monthly fee of two schillings. Radio programmes aimed at an educated audience, featuring classical music and lectures. First live radio broadcasts aired in 1925, transmitted from the Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival. On the other hand, news broadcasts only played a minor part out of deference to the Austrian press and the "neutralism" policy of the federal government. Regular sportscasts began 1928 and in 1930 the Austrian legislative election was comprehensively covered. At that time, RAVAG registered about 500,000 listeners. In the course of the abolition of the First Austrian Republic and the implementation of the Austrofascist Ständestaat by Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß in 1934, the RAVAG studios were embattled during the Austrian Civil War in February, as well as by the protagonists of the Nazi July Putsch, when several insurgents entered the studio and had Dollfuß's resignation announced.
Dollfuß's successor Kurt Schuschnigg had the demolished broadcasting centre replaced by the new Radiokulturhaus building near the Theresianum academy in Vienna-Wieden, designed by Clemens Holzmeister and erected from 1935 to 1939. The Austrian government used RAVAG broadcasts for propaganda activities, defying massive cross-border Nazi propaganda broadcasts aired from German transmitters in the Munich region, but promoted the live transmission of mass celebrations. With the Austrian Anschluss to Nazi Germany and the invasion of Wehrmacht troops in 1938, RAVAG was dissolved and replaced by Reichssender Wien subordinate to the national Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft network in Berlin, were the programmes were produced. One of the last RAVAG transmissions was Schuschnigg's farewell address on 11 March 1938. Only hours live broadcasts featured the cheering devotees of his Nazi successor Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the triumphant entry of Adolf Hitler in Linz the next day, his speech on Vienna Heldenplatz.
In 1939, the former RAVAG transmission facilities were taken over by the German Reichspost. In World War II, listening to Feindsender became a capital offence, such stations such as the Swiss Radio Beromünster as well as the German language programmes of the BBC, Voice of America and Vatican Radio, were used information sources. Reichssender Wien transmissions were important for strategic bombing alerts; the Funkhaus broadcasting centre itself was damaged by Allied bombs in January and February 1945, followed by the Red Army Vienna Offensive. Reichssender Wien last aired 6 April. Following the Wehrmacht defeat, independent Austrian RAVAG radio broadcasting resumed in Allied-occupied Austria 24 April 1945, when it announced the formation of a provisional Austrian state government led by Karl Renner. A new Radio Wien station was founded, broadcasting from Funkhaus Wien by a provisional transmitter on the rooftop, once again under Oskar Czeija, ousted shortly afterwards on pressure by the Soviet military administration.
As the Funkhaus was located in the Soviet occupation sector of Vienna, the Western Allies established their own radio stations like the Alpenland network on British-occupied territory, Radio Rot-Weiß-Rot on US-occupied territory, Sendegruppe West on French-occupied territory, as well as the American English-speaking "Blue Danube" armed forces network and the British Forces Network, which became quite popular with younger Austrian listeners. The RAVAG/Radio Wien transmissions were limited to the Eastern Austrian Soviet occupation zone, as the Cold War progressed was considered Communist propaganda broadcasting. A number of other radio stations began broadcasting in the different occupation zones and radio become a popular mediu