1.
Iran
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Iran, also known as Persia, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a sovereign state in Western Asia. Comprising a land area of 1,648,195 km2, it is the second-largest country in the Middle East, with 82.8 million inhabitants, Iran is the worlds 17th-most-populous country. It is the country with both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline. The countrys central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran is the countrys capital and largest city, as well as its leading economic and cultural center. Iran is the site of to one of the worlds oldest civilizations, the area was first unified by the Iranian Medes in 625 BC, who became the dominant cultural and political power in the region. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, under the Sassanid Dynasty, Iran again became one of the leading powers in the world for the next four centuries. Beginning in 633 AD, Arabs conquered Iran and largely displaced the indigenous faiths of Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism by Islam, Iran became a major contributor to the Islamic Golden Age that followed, producing many influential scientists, scholars, artists, and thinkers. During the 18th century, Iran reached its greatest territorial extent since the Sassanid Empire, through the late 18th and 19th centuries, a series of conflicts with Russia led to significant territorial losses and the erosion of sovereignty. Popular unrest culminated in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which established a monarchy and the countrys first legislative body. Following a coup instigated by the U. K. Growing dissent against foreign influence and political repression led to the 1979 Revolution, Irans rich cultural legacy is reflected in part by its 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the third-largest number in Asia and 11th-largest in the world. Iran is a member of the UN, ECO, NAM, OIC. Its political system is based on the 1979 Constitution which combines elements of a democracy with a theocracy governed by Islamic jurists under the concept of a Supreme Leadership. A multicultural country comprising numerous ethnic and linguistic groups, most inhabitants are Shia Muslims, the largest ethnic groups in Iran are the Persians, Azeris, Kurds and Lurs. Historically, Iran has been referred to as Persia by the West, due mainly to the writings of Greek historians who called Iran Persis, meaning land of the Persians. As the most extensive interactions the Ancient Greeks had with any outsider was with the Persians, however, Persis was originally referred to a region settled by Persians in the west shore of Lake Urmia, in the 9th century BC. The settlement was then shifted to the end of the Zagros Mountains. In 1935, Reza Shah requested the international community to refer to the country by its native name, opposition to the name change led to the reversal of the decision, and Professor Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, propagated a move to use Persia and Iran interchangeably
2.
Ba'athist Iraq
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Baathist Iraq, formally the Iraqi Republic, covers the history of Iraq between 1968 and 2003, during the period of the Arab Socialist Baath Partys rule. This period began with high growth and soaring prosperity, but ended with Iraq facing social, political. The average annual income decreased because of external factors. During al-Bakrs de jure rule, the economy grew. However, several factors were threatening the countrys stability, among them the countrys conflict with Iran. An external problem was the conflict with Iran, which would contribute to the Iran–Iraq War. The Baath Party, which was secular in nature, harshly repressed the protests, another policy change was Iraqs foreign policy towards Iran, a Shia Muslim country. Deteriorating relations eventually led to the Iran–Iraq War, which started in 1980 when Iraq launched an invasion of Iran. Following the 1979 Iranian revolution, the Iraqis believed the Iranians to be weak and this notion proved to be incorrect, and the war lasted for eight years. Iraqs economy deteriorated during the war, and the country dependent on foreign donations to fund their war effort. The war ended in a stalemate when a ceasefire was reached in 1988, when the war ended, Iraq found itself in the midst of an economic depression, owed millions of dollars to foreign countries, and was unable to repay its creditors. Kuwait, which had increased oil output following the war, reducing international oil prices. In response to this, Saddam threatened Kuwait that, unless it reduced its oil output, negotiations broke down, and on 2 August 1990, Iraq launched an invasion of Kuwait. The resulting international response led to the Persian Gulf War, which Iraq lost, the United Nations initiated economic sanctions in the wars aftermath to weaken the Baathist Iraqi government. The countrys economic conditions worsened during the 1990s, and at the turn of the 21st century, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks of 2001, the United States initiated a Global War on Terrorism, and labelled Iraq as a part of an Axis of Evil. In 2003, U. S. coalition forces invaded Iraq, in contrast to previous coups détat in Iraqs history, the 1968 coup, referred to as the 17 July Revolution, was, according to Con Coughlin, a relatively civil affair. All telephone lines were cut at 03,00, by which time several tanks had been commanded to halt in front of the Presidential Palace. Abdul Rahman Arif, the then-President of Iraq, first knew of the coup when jubilant members of the Republican Guard started shooting into the air in a premature triumph
3.
North Korea
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North Korea, officially the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, is a country in East Asia, constituting the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. Pyongyang is both the capital as well as its largest city. To the north and northwest the country is bordered by China and by Russia along the Amnok, the country is bordered to the south by South Korea, with the heavily fortified Korean Demilitarized Zone separating the two. Negotiations on reunification failed, and in 1948 two separate governments were formed, the communist Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea in the north, an invasion initiated by North Korea led to the Korean War. The Korean Armistice Agreement brought about a ceasefire, and no peace treaty was ever signed. North Korea officially describes itself as a self-reliant socialist state and formally holds elections, critics regard it as a totalitarian dictatorship. Various outlets have called it Stalinist, particularly noting the elaborate cult of personality around Kim Il-sung, International organizations have assessed human rights violations in North Korea as belonging to a category of their own, with no parallel in the contemporary world. Over time, North Korea has gradually distanced itself from the world communist movement, Juche, an ideology of national self-reliance, was introduced into the constitution as a creative application of Marxism–Leninism in 1972. The means of production are owned by the state through state-run enterprises, most services such as healthcare, education, housing and food production are subsidized or state-funded. From 1994 to 1998, North Korea suffered from a famine that resulted in the deaths of between 0.24 and 3.5 million people, and the continues to struggle with food production. North Korea follows Songun, or military-first policy and it is the country with the highest number of military and paramilitary personnel, with a total of 9,495,000 active, reserve, and paramilitary personnel. Its active duty army of 1.21 million is the fourth largest in the world, after China, North Korea is an atheist state with no official religion and where public religion is discouraged. The name Korea derives from the name Goryeo, the name Goryeo itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in the 5th century as a shortened form of its name. The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, and thus inherited its name, the modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Companys Hendrick Hamel. After the division of the country into North and South Korea, the two sides used different terms to refer to Korea, Chosun or Joseon in North Korea, in 1948, North Korea adopted Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea as its new legal name. After the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, Korea was occupied by Japan, Japan tried to suppress Korean traditions and culture and ran the economy primarily for its own benefit. Korean resistance groups known as Dongnipgun operated along the Sino-Korean border, some of them took part in allied action in China and parts of South East Asia. One of the leaders was the communist Kim Il-sung, who later became the leader of North Korea
4.
Cuba
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Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is a country comprising the island of Cuba as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean where the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and it is south of both the U. S. state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Haiti, and north of Jamaica. Havana is the largest city and capital, other cities include Santiago de Cuba. Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean, with an area of 109,884 square kilometres, prior to Spanish colonization in the late 15th century, Cuba was inhabited by Amerindian tribes. It remained a colony of Spain until the Spanish–American War of 1898, as a fragile republic, Cuba attempted to strengthen its democratic system, but mounting political radicalization and social strife culminated in the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1952. Further unrest and instability led to Batistas ousting in January 1959 by the July 26 Movement, since 1965, the state has been governed by the Communist Party of Cuba. A point of contention during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, a nuclear war broke out during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Culturally, Cuba is considered part of Latin America, Cuba is a Marxist–Leninist one-party republic, where the role of the vanguard Communist Party is enshrined in the Constitution. Independent observers have accused the Cuban government of human rights abuses. It is one of the worlds last planned economies and its economy is dominated by the exports of sugar, tobacco, coffee, according to the Human Development Index, Cuba is described as a country with high human development and is ranked the eighth highest in North America. It also ranks highly in some metrics of national performance, including health care, the name Cuba comes from the Taíno language. The exact meaning of the name is unclear but it may be translated either as where fertile land is abundant, authors who believe that Christopher Columbus was Portuguese state that Cuba was named by Columbus for the town of Cuba in the district of Beja in Portugal. Before the arrival of the Spanish, Cuba was inhabited by three distinct tribes of indigenous peoples of the Americas, the Taíno, the Guanajatabey, and the Ciboney people. The ancestors of the Ciboney migrated from the mainland of South America, the Taíno arrived from Hispanola sometime in the 3rd century A. D. When Columbus arrived they were the dominant culture in Cuba, having a population of 150,000. The name Cuba comes from the native Taíno language and it is derived from either coabana meaning great place, or from cubao meaning where fertile land is abundant. The Taíno were farmers, while the Ciboney were farmers as well as fishers and hunter-gatherers, Columbus claimed the island for the new Kingdom of Spain and named it Isla Juana after Juan, Prince of Asturias. In 1511, the first Spanish settlement was founded by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar at Baracoa, other towns soon followed, including San Cristobal de la Habana, founded in 1515, which later became the capital
5.
History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi
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Muammar Gaddafi became the de facto leader of Libya on 1 September 1969 after leading a group of young Libyan military officers against King Idris I in a bloodless coup détat. After coming to power, the RCC government initiated a process of directing funds toward providing education, health care, despite the reforms not being entirely effective, public education in the country became free and primary education compulsory for both sexes. Medical care became available to the public at no cost but providing housing for all was a task the RCC government was not able to complete. Under Gaddafi, per capita income in the rose to more than US $11,000, the fifth highest in Africa. The increase in prosperity was accompanied by a foreign policy. Gaddafis government was known to be or suspected of participating in or aiding terrorist acts by these. Additionally, Gaddafi undertook several invasions of neighboring states in Africa, all of his actions led to a deterioration of Libyas foreign relations with several countries and culminated in the US bombing of Libya in 1986. Gaddafi defended his actions by citing the need to support anti-imperialist and anti-colonial movements around the world, notably, Gaddafi supported anti-Zionist, pan-Africanist, and black civil rights movements. Gaddafis behavior, often erratic, led outsiders to conclude that he was not mentally sound, in early 2011, a civil war broke out in the context of the wider Arab Spring. The anti-Gaddafi forces formed a committee named the National Transitional Council and it was meant to act as an interim authority in the rebel-controlled areas. At the same time, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Gaddafi, the fall of the last remaining cities under pro-Gaddafi control and Sirtes capture on 20 October 2011, followed by the subsequent killing of Gaddafi, marked the end of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The name of Libya was changed several times during Gaddafis tenure as the leader, at first, the name was the Libyan Arab Republic. In 1977, the name was changed to Socialist Peoples Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Jamahiriya was a term coined by Gaddafi, usually translated as state of the masses. The country was renamed again in 1986 as the Great Socialist Peoples Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, the discovery of significant oil reserves in 1959 and the subsequent income from petroleum sales enabled the Kingdom of Libya to transition from one of the worlds poorest nations to a wealthy state. Although oil drastically improved the Libyan governments finances, resentment began to build over the concentration of the nations wealth in the hands of King Idris. This discontent mounted with the rise of Nasserism and Arab nationalism/socialism throughout North Africa, the coup was launched at Benghazi, and within two hours the takeover was completed. Army units quickly rallied in support of the coup, and within a few days firmly established control in Tripoli. Popular reception of the coup, especially by people in the urban areas, was enthusiastic
6.
Syria
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Syrias capital and largest city is Damascus. Religious groups include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Mandeans, Shiites, Salafis, Sunni Arabs make up the largest religious group in Syria. Its capital Damascus and largest city Aleppo are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, in the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The post-independence period was tumultuous, and a number of military coups. In 1958, Syria entered a union with Egypt called the United Arab Republic. Syria was under Emergency Law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, Bashar al-Assad has been president since 2000 and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad, who was in office from 1970 to 2000. Mainstream modern academic opinion strongly favours the argument that the Greek word is related to the cognate Ἀσσυρία, Assyria, in the past, others believed that it was derived from Siryon, the name that the Sidonians gave to Mount Hermon. However, the discovery of the inscription in 2000 seems to support the theory that the term Syria derives from Assyria. The area designated by the word has changed over time, since approximately 10,000 BC, Syria was one of centers of Neolithic culture where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. The following Neolithic period is represented by houses of Mureybet culture. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gyps, finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations. Cities of Hamoukar and Emar played an important role during the late Neolithic, archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth, perhaps preceded by only those of Mesopotamia. The earliest recorded indigenous civilisation in the region was the Kingdom of Ebla near present-day Idlib, gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Eblas contact with Egypt. One of the earliest written texts from Syria is an agreement between Vizier Ibrium of Ebla and an ambiguous kingdom called Abarsal c.2300 BC. The Northwest Semitic language of the Amorites is the earliest attested of the Canaanite languages, Mari reemerged during this period, and saw renewed prosperity until conquered by Hammurabi of Babylon. Ugarit also arose during this time, circa 1800 BC, close to modern Latakia, Ugaritic was a Semitic language loosely related to the Canaanite languages, and developed the Ugaritic alphabet. The Ugarites kingdom survived until its destruction at the hands of the marauding Indo-European Sea Peoples in the 12th century BC, Yamhad was described in the tablets of Mari as the mightiest state in the near east and as having more vassals than Hammurabi of Babylon. Yamhad imposed its authority over Alalakh, Qatna, the Hurrians states, the army of Yamhad campaigned as far away as Dēr on the border of Elam
7.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
8.
President of the United States
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The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The president is considered to be one of the worlds most powerful political figures, the role includes being the commander-in-chief of the worlds most expensive military with the second largest nuclear arsenal and leading the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP. The office of President holds significant hard and soft power both in the United States and abroad, Constitution vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The president is empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves. The president is responsible for dictating the legislative agenda of the party to which the president is a member. The president also directs the foreign and domestic policy of the United States, since the office of President was established in 1789, its power has grown substantially, as has the power of the federal government as a whole. However, nine vice presidents have assumed the presidency without having elected to the office. The Twenty-second Amendment prohibits anyone from being elected president for a third term, in all,44 individuals have served 45 presidencies spanning 57 full four-year terms. On January 20,2017, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th, in 1776, the Thirteen Colonies, acting through the Second Continental Congress, declared political independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution. The new states, though independent of each other as nation states, desiring to avoid anything that remotely resembled a monarchy, Congress negotiated the Articles of Confederation to establish a weak alliance between the states. Out from under any monarchy, the states assigned some formerly royal prerogatives to Congress, only after all the states agreed to a resolution settling competing western land claims did the Articles take effect on March 1,1781, when Maryland became the final state to ratify them. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies, with peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. Prospects for the convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washingtons attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia. It was through the negotiations at Philadelphia that the presidency framed in the U. S. The first power the Constitution confers upon the president is the veto, the Presentment Clause requires any bill passed by Congress to be presented to the president before it can become law. Once the legislation has been presented, the president has three options, Sign the legislation, the bill becomes law. Veto the legislation and return it to Congress, expressing any objections, in this instance, the president neither signs nor vetoes the legislation
9.
George W. Bush
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George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009. He was also the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000 and he is the eldest son of Barbara and George H. W. Bush. After graduating from Yale University in 1968 and Harvard Business School in 1975, Bush married Laura Welch in 1977 and ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives shortly thereafter. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team before defeating Ann Richards in the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election and he is the second president to assume the nations highest office after his father, following the lead of John Quincy Adams. He is also a brother of Jeb Bush, a former Governor of Florida who was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in the 2016 presidential election, the September 11 terrorist attacks occurred eight months into Bushs first term as president. Bush responded with what became known as the Bush Doctrine, launching a War on Terror, a military campaign that included the war in Afghanistan in 2001. He also promoted policies on the economy, health care, education, Social Security reform and his tenure included national debates on immigration, Social Security, electronic surveillance, and torture. In the 2004 Presidential race, Bush defeated Democratic Senator John Kerry in another close election. After his re-election, Bush received increasingly heated criticism from across the spectrum for his handling of the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina. Amid this criticism, the Democratic Party regained control of Congress in the 2006 elections, Bush left office in 2009, returning to Texas where he purchased a home in Crawford. He wrote a memoir, Decision Points and his presidential library was opened in 2013. His presidency has been ranked among the worst in historians polls published in the late 2000s and 2010s. George Walker Bush was born on July 6,1946, at Grace-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut, as the first child of George Herbert Walker Bush and his wife, the former Barbara Pierce. He was raised in Midland and Houston, Texas, with four siblings, Jeb, Neil, Marvin, another younger sister, Robin, died from leukemia at the age of three in 1953. His grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a U. S and his father, George H. W. Bush, was Ronald Reagans Vice President from 1981 to 1989 and the 41st U. S. President from 1989 to 1993. Bush has English and some German ancestry, along with more distant Dutch, Welsh, Irish, French, Bush attended public schools in Midland, Texas, until the family moved to Houston after he had completed seventh grade. He then spent two years at The Kinkaid School, a school in Houston. Bush attended high school at Phillips Academy, a school in Andover, Massachusetts
10.
State of the Union
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The State of the Union address is a speech presented by the President of the United States to a joint session of the United States Congress, except in the first year of a new presidents term. The address not only reports on the condition of the nation but also allows the President to outline his legislative agenda, during most of the countrys first century, the President primarily only submitted a written report to Congress. With the advent of radio and television, the address is now broadcast live across the country on most networks, although the language of this Section of the Constitution is not specific, by tradition, the President makes this report annually in late January or early February. Between 1934 and 2013 the date has been as early as January 3, before that time, most presidents delivered the State of the Union as a written report. When a presidential inauguration occurs in January, the date may be delayed until February, what began as a communication between president and Congress has become a communication between the president and the people of the United States. Since the advent of radio, and then television, the speech has been broadcast live on most networks, to reach the largest audience, the speech, once given during the day, is now typically given in the evening, after 9pm ET. George Washington delivered the first regular annual message before a joint session of Congress on January 8,1790, in New York City, in 1801, Thomas Jefferson discontinued the practice of delivering the address in person, regarding it as too monarchical. Instead, the address was written and then sent to Congress to be read by a clerk until 1913 when Woodrow Wilson re-established the practice despite some initial controversy, however, there have been exceptions to this rule. Presidents during the half of the 20th century have sent written State of the Union addresses. The last President to do this was Jimmy Carter in 1981, for many years, the speech was referred to as the Presidents Annual Message to Congress. The actual term State of the Union first emerged in 1934 when Franklin D. Roosevelt used the phrase, prior to 1934, the annual message was delivered at the end of the calendar year, in December. The ratification of the 20th Amendment on January 23,1933 changed the opening of Congress from early March to early January, since 1934, the message or address has been delivered to Congress in January or February. The Twentieth Amendment also established January 20 as the beginning of the presidential term, in years when a new president is inaugurated, the outgoing president may deliver a final State of the Union message, but none has done so since Jimmy Carter sent a written message in 1981. In 1953 and 1961, Congress received both a written State of the Union message from the president and a separate State of the Union speech by the incoming president. In 1936, President Roosevelt set a precedent when he delivered the address at night, only once before—when Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to order the U. S. into World War I—had a sitting president addressed Congress at night. Calvin Coolidges 1923 speech was the first to be broadcast on radio, harry S. Trumans 1947 address was the first to be broadcast on television. Johnsons address in 1965 was the first delivered in the evening, three years later, in 1968, television networks in the United States, for the first time, imposed no time limit for their coverage of a State of the Union address. Johnson, this address was followed by extensive televised commentary by, among others, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Ronald Reagans 1986 State of the Union Address is the only one to have been postponed
11.
Presidency of George W. Bush
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The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20,2001 at noon Eastern Standard Time, when George W. Bush was inaugurated as President of the United States. Bushs presidency ended on January 20,2009, a Republican, he took office following a very close win in the 2000 presidential election over Democratic nominee Al Gore, the then–incumbent Vice President. Bush, the 43rd United States president, is the son of the 41st president, Bush was re-elected in 2004, defeating his Democratic opponent John Kerry by a slim margin. He was succeeded in office by Democrat Barack Obama, who won the 2008 presidential election, upon taking office, Bush pushed through a $1.3 trillion tax cut program and the No Child Left Behind Act, a major education bill. He also pushed for socially conservative efforts, such as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and that same month, he signed into law the controversial Patriot Act in order to strengthen security and allow for greater surveillance. In 2003, Bush ordered an invasion of Iraq, asserting that Iraq possessed stockpiles of weapons of destruction in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1441. Later that year, he signed the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, Bush pushed for Social Security and immigration reform, but both efforts failed. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continued, and in 2007 he launched a surge of troops in Iraq. The Bush administrations response to Hurricane Katrina and the dismissal of U. S. attorneys controversy earned wide coverage, and his second term saw a drop in his approval ratings. The financial crisis of 2007–2008 dominated his last days in office as policymakers looked to avert a major economic disaster, Bushs presidency is frequently ranked by historians as among the worst in American history. W. Vice President Dick Cheney served as Secretary of Defense under George H. W. Bush, Bush placed a high value on personal loyalty and, as a result, his administration had high message discipline. He maintained a style of management. Im confident in my management style, Im a delegator because I trust the people Ive asked to join the team. That makes it easier to be President, he said in an interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC in December 2003, critics alleged, however, that Bush was willing to overlook mistakes made by loyal subordinates. There was only one non-Republican in Bushs cabinet, Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, Mineta resigned from Bushs cabinet on July 7,2006 to pursue other challenges. Mary Peters, a Republican, was nominated and confirmed to succeed him as Transportation Secretary, at least one other non-Republican was apparently offered a position in the administration but declined. CNN reported that in the transition to his term, Bush offered the positions of Ambassador to the United Nations. In 2006, Bush replaced long-time chief of staff Andrew Card with Joshua Bolten and made major staff, on November 8,2006, Bush announced plans to replace Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with former CIA Director Robert Gates
12.
State Sponsors of Terrorism
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Inclusion on the list imposes strict unilateral sanctions. The countries currently on the list are Iran, Sudan, Syria, the list began on December 29,1979, with Libya, Iraq, South Yemen, and Syria. Cuba was added to the list on March 1,1982, later North Korea in 1988 and Sudan on August 12,1993, were added. Iran was added to the list on January 19,1984, according to Country Reports on Terrorism 2013, Sudan was added to the list on August 12,1993. According to Country Reports on Terrorism 2013, Syria was added to the list on December 29,1979, according to Country Reports on Terrorism 2013, North Korea was added in 1988, following the 1987 bombing of a South Korean air flight landing near Myanmar. On June 26,2008, President George W. Bush announced that he would remove North Korea from the list, on October 11, the country was officially removed from the list for meeting all nuclear inspection requirements. The North was initially added because it sold weapons to terrorist groups, the country is also responsible for the Rangoon bombing and the bombing of Korean Air Flight 858. The DPRK continued to harbor four Japanese Red Army members who participated in a jet hijacking in 1970, in the February 13,2007 Initial Actions Agreement, the United States agreed to begin the process of removing the designation of the DPRK as a state-sponsor of terrorism. For example North Korea was at one time quite active in attacking South Korean interests. In November 1987, North Korean operatives apparently destroyed Korean Airlines Flight 858, in April 13,2009, Pyongyang agreed to dismantle the Yongbyon facility as part of an aid-for-disarmament deal, and in response, the US removed North Korea from its terrorism blacklist. However, following the incident, the Obama administration also stated that it would now closely monitor North Korea for signs for a return to international terrorism, US State Department spokesman P. J Crowley also said that returning North Korea to the list was under continual review. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that she was considering renaming North Korea on the List of State Sponsors of Terrorism. As of 2011, North Korea, unlike the other countries removed, in 2017, following the alleged state-sponsored murder of Kim Jong-nam using the nerve agent VX, pressure has been placed on the Trump administration to revoke Bushs lifting of sanctions. In 2017, the US House of Representatives voted 394-1 to reinstate North Korea as a sponsor of terror. Cuba was added to the list on March 1,1982, according to the United States of America, Cuba has a history of supporting revolutionary movements in Spanish speaking countries and Africa. Havana provides direct support in the form of training, arms, safe havens, many of these groups engage in terrorist operations. Obama announced on April 14,2015, that Cuba was being removed from the list, Cuba would not come off the list until after a 45-day review period, during which the U. S. Congress could try blocking Cubas removal via a joint resolution. Congress did not act, and Cuba was officially removed from the list on May 29,2015, the State Departments reason for including Iraq was that it provided bases to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, the Kurdistan Workers Party, the Palestine Liberation Front, and the Abu Nidal organization
13.
Weapon of mass destruction
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The scope and usage of the term has evolved and been disputed, often signifying more politically than technically. Who can think without horror of another widespread war would mean. At the time, nuclear weapons had not been developed, japan conducted research on biological weapons, and chemical weapons had seen wide battlefield use in World War I. They were outlawed by the Geneva Protocol of 1925, Italy used mustard gas against civilians and soldiers in Ethiopia in 1935–36. Following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II and during the Cold War, the application of the term to specifically nuclear and radiological weapons is traced by William Safire to the Russian phrase Оружие массового поражения – oruzhiye massovogo porazheniya. That exact phrase, says Safire, was used by Bernard Baruch in 1946. The resolution also created the Atomic Energy Commission, an exact use of this term was given in a lecture Atomic Energy as an Atomic Problem by J. Robert Oppenheimer. The lecture was delivered to the Foreign Service and the State Department, the lecture is reprinted in The Open Mind. The term was used in the introduction to the hugely influential U. S. government document known as NSC-68 written in April 1950. During a speech at Rice University on 12 September 1962, President John F. Kennedy spoke of not filling space with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding. The following month, during a presentation about the Cuban Missile Crisis on 22 October 1962. An early use of the phrase in an international treaty was in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. During the Cold War, the weapons of mass destruction was primarily a reference to nuclear weapons. This policy of action against real or perceived weapons of mass destruction became known as the Begin Doctrine. Reagans successor, George H. W. Bush, used the term in an 1989 speech to the United Nations, the end of the Cold War reduced U. S. reliance on nuclear weapons as a deterrent, causing it to shift its focus to disarmament. With the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and 1991 Gulf War, Iraqs nuclear, biological, following the war, Bill Clinton and other western politicians and media continued to use the term, usually in reference to ongoing attempts to dismantle Iraqs weapons programs. After the 11 September 2001 attacks and the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States, however, American forces found none in Iraq. Iraq, however, declared a chemical weapons stockpile in 2009, the stockpile contained mainly chemical precursors, but some warheads remained usable
14.
War on Terror
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The War on Terror, also known as the Global War on Terrorism, is a metaphor of war referring to the international military campaign that started after the September 11th attacks on the United States. U. S. President George W. Bush first used the term War on Terror on 20 September 2001 and it was originally used with a particular focus on countries associated with Islamic terrorist organizations including al-Qaeda and like-minded organizations. In 2013, President Barack Obama announced that the United States was no longer pursuing a War on Terror, in 2017 Donald Trump assumed presidency of the United States and vowed that the fight against ISIL is his number one priority. Trump has also agreed to work together and carry joint operations with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the war on terror. The phrase War on Terror has been used to refer to the ongoing military campaign led by the U. S. The conflict has also referred to by names other than the War on Terror. Author Shane Harris asserts this was a reaction to the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, Bush later apologized for this remark due to the negative connotations the term crusade has to people, e. g. of the Muslim faith. The word crusade was not used again, on 20 September 2001, during a televised address to a joint session of Congress, Bush stated that ur war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, in April 2007, the British government announced publicly that it was abandoning the use of the phrase War on Terror as they found it to be less than helpful. This was explained more recently by Lady Eliza Manningham-Buller, in her 2011 Reith lecture, the former head of MI5 said that the 9/11 attacks were a crime, not an act of war. So I never felt it helpful to refer to a war on terror. U. S. President Barack Obama has rarely used the term, in March 2009 the Defense Department officially changed the name of operations from Global War on Terror to Overseas Contingency Operation. In March 2009, the Obama administration requested that Pentagon staff members avoid the use of the term, basic objectives of the Bush administration war on terror, such as targeting al Qaeda and building international counterterrorism alliances, remain in place. Because the actions involved in the war on terrorism are diffuse, jackson cites among many examples a statement by John Ashcroft that the attacks of September 11 drew a bright line of demarcation between the civil and the savage. Administration officials also described terrorists as hateful, treacherous, barbarous, mad, twisted, perverted, without faith, parasitical, inhuman, Americans, in contrast, were described as brave, loving, generous, strong, resourceful, heroic, and respectful of human rights. The origins of al-Qaeda can be traced to the Soviet war in Afghanistan, a small number of Afghan Arab volunteers joined the fight against the Soviets, including Osama bin Laden, but there is no evidence they received any external assistance. On 7 August 1998, al-Qaeda struck the U. S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people, the plant produced much of the regions antimalarial drugs and around 50% of Sudans pharmaceutical needs. The strikes failed to kill any leaders of WIFJAJC or the Taliban, next came the 2000 millennium attack plots, which included an attempted bombing of Los Angeles International Airport
15.
2002 State of the Union Address
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George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States of America, delivered the 2002 State of the Union Address at the United States Capitol building on January 29,2002. In front of members of the 107th United States Congress, along with civilian and military guests. The speech covered the effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year, Bush gave a progress report on the Global War on Terrorism and detailed his plans to end terrorism and bring all terrorists to justice, either by legal prosecution or death. The issues inside the United States were also addressed by Bush, the speech was centered on foreign affairs and was well received by both Republicans and Democrats. In that statement, Bush referred to how the United States deposed the Taliban from its rule over Afghanistan and he stated that the U. S. deposed the Emirate of Afghanistan, because the Islamic regime did not respect the human rights of Afghan citizens. Since 1790, State of the Union addresses have been once a year. Vice President and U. S. Speaker of the House of Representatives sitting on a podium behind the president, as the U. S. president, Bush gave the 2002 State of the Union Address on January 29,2002. He addressed a joint session of the 107th U. S. Congress and special guests, as well as the U. S. the 2002 State of the Union address was the first to be delivered by Bush after the September 11 attacks of 2001. The oration addressed the attacks on the U. S. and his plan of action, as well as his goals for the remainder of his term as President. In the address, Bush first introduced the term axis of evil in referring to the countries of Iran, Iraq, Bush spoke about the September 11 attacks of the previous year that killed thousands of people in New York City, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. During the attack, two of the hijacked airplanes crashed into the portions of the twin towers of New York Citys World Trade Center. An axis of evil was a term first used by President Bush in this address, the so-called axis of evil was said to be made up of three countries, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. These countries were cited as countries pursuing chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, the president warned, States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. Bushs stated goal was to disarm these countries and destroy their terrorist training camps, Bush declared a Global War on Terrorism, saying that the U. S. would act against any country that was aiding or harboring terrorists. His goals for the war were to end terrorism and its threat on the United States and to bring all terrorists to justice, either by capturing them and prosecuting them legally, or by killing them. In the months before the speech, Bush claimed that the U. S. military freed Afghanistan and was the countrys allies against terrorism, the women in Afghanistan were freed and part of the new government and rebuilding of their country. The President felt the war in Afghanistan was just the beginning of the war against terror, the two main goals of the war were to shut down training camps and capture terrorists and prevent terrorists from obtaining weapons of mass destruction. The American troops were deployed on missions in the Philippines, Bosnia, Bush called for increased funding for the war to get precision weapons, replace aircraft, and increase pay raise for soldiers
16.
Supreme Leader of Iran
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The armed forces, judicial system, state television, and other key governmental organizations are under the control of the Supreme Leader of Iran. Khamenei also makes the decisions on the amount of transparency in elections in Iran. This post was established by the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran in accordance with the concept of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist. The title Supreme Leader is often used as a sign of respect, however, this terminology is not found in the Constitution, which simply referred to the Leader. The Supreme Leader is more powerful than the President of Iran and appoints the heads of many posts in the military, the civil government. Originally Irans constitution stated that the Supreme Leader must be a Marja-e taqlid, however, in 1989, the constitution was amended to require simply Islamic scholarship of the leader, i. e. the leader could be a lower ranking cleric. In theory, the Supreme Leader is appointed and supervised by the Assembly of Experts, all candidates to the Assembly of Experts, the President and the Majlis, are selected by the Guardian Council, whose members are selected by the Supreme Leader of Iran. As such, the Assembly has never questioned the Supreme Leader, there have been instances when the current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has publicly criticized members of the Assembly of Experts, resulting in their arrest and dismissal. For example, Khamenei publicly called then-member of the Assembly of Experts Ahmad Azari Qomi a traitor, resulting in Ahmad Azari Qomis arrest, there has also been instances where the Guardian Council reversed its ban for particular people after being ordered to do so by Khamenei. The Supreme Leader is the commander-in-chief of the forces and the provisional Head of the three branches of the state. He appoints and oversees the offices, the President and may also together with a two third majority of the Parliament impeach him. The Chief Justice for a term of 8 years, the members of the Expediency Discernment Council for a term of 5 years,6 of the 12 Members of the Guardian Council from among the members of the Council of Experts the other 6 are chosen by the Parliament. In March 1979, shortly after Ruhollah Khomeini’s return from exile and the overthrow of Irans monarchy, although some groups objected to the wording and choice and boycotted the referendum, 98% of those voting voted yes. The new constitution has been called a hybrid of theocratic and democratic elements with much of it based on the ideas Khomeini presented in his work Islamic Government, Governance of the Jurist. In it Khomeini argued that government must be run in accordance with traditional Islamic sharia, and for this to happen a leading Islamic jurist must provide political guardianship over the people. The leading jurist were known as Marja. ” and the importance of the Supreme Leader. ”Article 107 in the constitution mentions Imam Khomeini by name and praises him as the most learned and talented leader for emulation. The responsibilities of the Supreme Leader are vaguely stated in the constitution, as the rest of the clergy governed affairs on a daily basis, the Supreme Leader is capable of mandating a new decision as per the concept of Vilayat-e Faqih. Shortly before Imam Khomeinis death a change was made in the constitution allowing a lower ranking Shia cleric to become Supreme Leader, montazeri was demoted as a marja and Khomeini chose a new successor, a relatively low-ranking member of the clergy, Ali Khamenei
17.
Guardian Council
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The Guardian Council of the Constitution is an appointed and constitutionally mandated 12-member council that wields considerable power and influence in the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is charged with interpreting the Constitution of Iran, supervising elections of, and approving of candidates to, the Assembly of Experts, the President and the Majlis, the compatibility of the legislation passed by the Islamic Consultative Assembly. With the criteria of Islam and the Constitution and it has also increased the influence the Islamic Revolutionary Guard has on the economic and cultural life of the country. There have been instances when the current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei publicly criticized members of the Assembly of Experts resulting in their arrest, there have been also instances where the Guardian Council reversed its ban for particular people after being ordered to do so by current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The Majlis has no legal status without the Guardian Council, any bill passed by the Majlis must be reviewed and approved by the Guardian Council to become law. According to Article 96 of the constitution, the Guardian Council holds veto power over all legislation approved by the Majlis and it can nullify a law based on two accounts, being against Islamic laws, or being against the constitution. While all the vote on the laws being compatible with the constitution. If any law is rejected, it will be passed back to the Majlis for correction, if the Majlis and the Council of Guardians cannot decide on a case, it is passed up to the Expediency Council for a decision. The Guardian Council is uniquely involved in the process, with equal oversight with regards to economic law and social policy. Chapter 6 of the Constitution explains its interworkings with the Islamic Consultative Assembly, articles 91-97 all fall in the legislative Chapter 6. The Council of Guardians also functions similar to a constitutional court, the authority to interpret the constitution is vested in the Council. Interpretative decisions require a three-quarters majority, the Council does not conduct a court hearing where opposing sides are argued. Since 1991, all candidates of parliamentary or presidential elections, as well as candidates for the Assembly of Experts, have to be qualified by the Guardian Council in order to run in the election. For major elections it typically disqualifies most candidates, for example in the 2009 election,476 men and women applied to the Guardian Council to seek the presidency, the Council is accorded supervision of elections. The Guardian Council interprets the term supervision in Article 99 as approbation supervision which implies the right for acceptance or rejection of elections legality and this interpretation is in contrast with the idea of notification supervision which does not imply the mentioned approval right. The evidentiary supervision, which requires evidences for acceptance or rejection of elections legality, on Monday, June 29,2009, the Guardian Council certified the results of the controversial election in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected. The Council had completed a recount of 10 percent of the votes in order to appease the citizens of Iran. As the final authority on the election, the Council has declared the election closed, the certification of the results set off a wave of protests, disregarding the Iranian governments ban on street marches
18.
Nerve agent
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Nerve agents are a class of phosphorus-containing organic chemicals that disrupt the mechanisms by which nerves transfer messages to organs. The disruption is caused by blocking acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme that catalyzes the breakdown of acetylcholine, some nerve agents are readily vaporized or aerosolized, and the primary portal of entry into the body is the respiratory system. Nerve agents can also be absorbed through the skin, requiring that those likely to be subjected to such agents wear a body suit in addition to a respirator. As their name suggests, nerve agents attack the system of the human body. All such agents function the way, by inhibiting the enzyme acetylcholinesterase. ACh gives the signal for muscles to contract, thus, if it cannot be broken down, initial symptoms following exposure to nerve agents are a runny nose, tightness in the chest, and constriction of the pupils. Soon after, the victim will then have difficulty breathing and will experience nausea, as the victim continues to lose control of their bodily functions, they will involuntarily salivate, lacrimate, urinate, defecate, and experience gastrointestinal pain and vomiting. Blisters and burning of the eyes and/or lungs may also occur and this phase is followed by initially myoclonic jerks followed by status epilepticus. Death then comes via complete respiratory depression, most likely via the excessive peripheral activity at the junction of the diaphragm. The effects of agents are long lasting and increase with continued exposure. Survivors of nerve agent poisoning almost invariably suffer chronic neurological damage and this neurological damage can also lead to continuing psychiatric effects. When a normally functioning motor nerve is stimulated, it releases the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, once the impulse is sent, the enzyme acetylcholinesterase immediately breaks down the acetylcholine in order to allow the muscle or organ to relax. Nerve agents disrupt the system by inhibiting the function of the enzyme acetylcholinesterase by forming a covalent bond where acetylcholine would break down. Acetylcholine thus builds up and continues to act so that any nerve impulses are continually transmitted and this same action also occurs at the gland and organ levels, resulting in uncontrolled drooling, tearing of the eyes and excess production of mucus from the nose. The structures of the complexes of soman with acetylcholinesterase from Torpedo californica have been solved by X-Ray crystallography, the mechanism of action of soman could be seen on example of 2wfz. Atropine and related anticholinergic drugs act as antidotes to nerve agent poisoning because they block acetylcholine receptors, while these drugs will save the life of a person affected with nerve agents, that person may be incapacitated briefly or for an extended period, depending on the amount of exposure. The endpoint of atropine administration is the clearing of bronchial secretions, atropine for field use by military personnel is often loaded in an autoinjector, for ease of use in stressful conditions. Pralidoxime chloride, also known as 2-PAM chloride, is used as an antidote
19.
Halabja chemical attack
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The attack was part of the Al-Anfal Campaign in northern Iraq, as well as part of the Iraqi attempt to repel the Iranian Operation Zafar 7. It took place 48 hours after the fall of the town to Iranian army, the attack killed between 3,200 and 5,000 people and injured 7,000 to 10,000 more, most of them civilians. Thousands more died of complications, diseases, and birth defects in the years after the attack, the Halabja attack has been recognized as a distinct event of the Anfal Genocide conducted against the Kurdish people by the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi High Criminal Court recognized the Halabja massacre as an act of genocide on March 1,2010, the attack was also condemned as a crime against humanity by the Parliament of Canada. The Kurdish rebellion was put down by mid-1980s. The Halabja event was part of Iraqi efforts to counter-attack Kurdish. The five-hour attack began in the evening of March 16,1988, Iraqi MiG and Mirage aircraft began dropping chemical bombs on Halabjas residential areas, far from the besieged Iraqi army base on the outskirts of the town. According to regional Kurdish rebel commanders, Iraqi aircraft, coordinated by helicopters, eyewitnesses told of clouds of white, black and then yellow smoke billowing upward and rising as a column about 150 feet in the air. It was a spring day. As the clock approached 11,00 in the morning, I felt a strange sensation, within minutes, artillery rounds began to explode in Halabja and planes began dropping bombs on the town. The bombing was concentrated on the neighborhoods, so we ran. At 2 oclock in the afternoon, as the intensity of the bombing wound down, I carefully sneaked out of the basement to the kitchen, when the bombing stopped, we began to hear noises that sounded like metal pieces falling on the ground. But I didn’t find an explanation, I saw things that I wont forget for as long as I live. It started with a strange noise that sounded like bombs exploding. We hurried into our car and closed its windows, I think the car was rolling over the bodies of innocent people. I saw people lying on the ground, vomiting a green-colored liquid, while others became hysterical, later, I smelled an aroma that reminded me of apples and I lost consciousness. When I awoke, there were hundreds of bodies scattered around me, after that I took shelter again in a nearby basement and the area was engulfed by an ugly smell. It was similar to rotting garbage, but then it changed to a smell similar to that of apples
20.
David Frum
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David J. Frum is a Canadian-American neoconservative political commentator. A speechwriter for President George W. Bush, Frum later became the author of the first insider book about the Bush presidency and he is a senior editor at The Atlantic and also a CNN contributor. Frum is the son of Canadian journalist Barbara Frum and his fathers parents immigrated from Poland to Toronto in 1930. Frums sister, Linda Frum, is a member of the Senate of Canada, Frum is married to the writer Danielle Crittenden, the stepdaughter of former Toronto Sun editor Peter Worthington. He is a distant cousin of economist Paul Krugman, at age 14, Frum was a campaign volunteer for an Ontario New Democratic Party candidate Jan Dukszta for the 1975 provincial election. My campaign colleagues jeered at the book — and by the end of the campaign and he graduated from the University of Toronto Schools in 1978 where he was the school captain. At Yale University, he simultaneously earned Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in history and he was in Directed Studies, a type of Great Books curriculum. Frum earned his Juris Doctor at Harvard Law School in 1987, after graduating from Harvard, Frum returned to Toronto as an associate editor of Saturday Night. He was an editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal from 1989 until 1992 and he worked also as a regular contributor for National Public Radio. In 1996, Frum helped organize the Winds of Change in Calgary, Alberta, an effort to unite the Reform Party of Canada. Following the 2000 election of George W. Bush, Frum was appointed to a position within the White House. He would later write that when he was first offered the job by chief Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, I had no connection to the Bush campaign or the Bush family. I had no experience in government and little of political campaigns, I had not written a speech for anyone other than myself. And I had been only a moderately enthusiastic supporter of George W. Bush … I strongly doubted he was the man for the job. While still a Canadian citizen, he was one of the few foreign nationals working within the Bush White House and he filed for naturalization and took the oath of citizenship on September 11,2007. Frum served as assistant to the president for economic speechwriting from January 2001 to February 2002. Conservative commentator Robert Novak described Frum as a supporter of Israel. Frum is credited with inventing the expression axis of evil which Bush introduced in his 2002 State of the Union address, shortly after the September 11 attacks, Frum hosted pseudonymous Muslim apostate and critic of Islam, Ibn Warraq at an hour-and-a-half lunch at the White House
21.
Michael Gerson
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He served as President George W. Bushs chief speechwriter from 2001 until June 2006, as a senior policy advisor from 2000 through June 2006, and was a member of the White House Iraq Group. Gerson was raised in an Evangelical Christian family in St. Louis and he attended Georgetown University for a year and then transferred to Wheaton College in Illinois, graduating in 1986. He resides with his wife and their two children in Alexandria, Virginia, before joining the Bush Administration, he was a senior policy advisor with The Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy research institution. S. Gerson also worked at one point as a ghostwriter for Charles Colson, in early 1999, Karl Rove recruited Gerson for the Bush campaign. Gerson was named by Time as one of The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals In America, the February 7,2005 issue listed Gerson as the ninth most influential. Gerson joined the Bush campaign before 2000 as a speechwriter and went on to head the White House speechwriting team, no one doubts that he did his job exceptionally well, wrote Ramesh Ponnuru in a 2007 article otherwise very critical of Gerson in National Review. On the other hand, he wrote, the speeches would announce new policies that were never implemented, on June 14,2006, it was announced that Gerson was leaving the White House to pursue other writing and policy work. He was replaced as Bushs chief speechwriter by The Wall Street Journal chief editor William McGurn, goodness, remembrance, and love have no end. And the Lord of life holds all who die, and all who mourn, Gerson is credited with coining such phrases as the soft bigotry of low expectations and the armies of compassion. His noteworthy phrases for Bush are said to include Axis of Evil, in an article by Matthew Scully published in The Atlantic Gerson is criticized for seeking the limelight, taking the credit for other peoples work and for creating a false image of himself. It was always like this, working with Mike, no good deed went unreported, and many things that never happened were reported as fact. For all of our chief speechwriter’s finer qualities, the adherence to factual narrative is not a strong point. Of particular note is the invention of the axis of evil. Scully claims that the axis of hatred was coined by David Frum. The word hatred was changed to evil by some one other than Gerson and was done because hatred seemed the more melodramatic word at the time. Scully also had this to say about Gerson, My most vivid memory of Mike at Starbucks is one I have labored in vain to shake. We were working on a State of the Union address in John’s office when suddenly Mike was called away for an unspecified appointment, after leaving the White House, Gerson wrote for Newsweek magazine for a time. On May 16,2007, Gerson began his tenure as a twice-weekly columnist for the Washington Post and his columns appear on Wednesdays and Fridays
22.
Saddam Hussein
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Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. In the early 1970s, Saddam nationalized oil and other industries, the state-owned banks were put under his control, leaving the system eventually insolvent mostly due to the Iran–Iraq War, the Gulf War, and UN sanctions. Through the 1970s, Saddam cemented his authority over the apparatuses of government as oil money helped Iraqs economy to grow at a rapid pace, positions of power in the country were mostly filled with Sunni Arabs, a minority that made up only a fifth of the population. Saddam formally rose to power in 1979, although he had been the de facto head of Iraq for several years prior. He suppressed several movements, particularly Shia and Kurdish movements, seeking to overthrow the government or gain independence, and maintained power during the Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War. Whereas some in the Arab world lauded Saddam for his opposition to the United States, the total number of Iraqis killed by the security services of Saddams government in various purges and genocides is unknown, but the lowest estimate is 250,000. Saddams Baath party was disbanded and elections were held, following his capture on 13 December 2003, the trial of Saddam took place under the Iraqi Interim Government. On 5 November 2006, Saddam was convicted of charges of crimes against humanity related to the 1982 killing of 148 Iraqi Shiites and his execution was carried out on 30 December 2006. His mother, Subha Tulfah al-Mussallat, named her newborn son Saddam and he is always referred to by this personal name, which may be followed by the patronymic and other elements. He never knew his father, Hussein Abd al-Majid, who disappeared six months before Saddam was born, shortly afterward, Saddams 13-year-old brother died of cancer. The infant Saddam was sent to the family of his maternal uncle Khairallah Talfah until he was three and his mother remarried, and Saddam gained three half-brothers through this marriage. His stepfather, Ibrahim al-Hassan, treated Saddam harshly after his return, at about age 10, Saddam fled the family and returned to live in Baghdad with his uncle Kharaillah Talfah. Later in his relatives from his native Tikrit became some of his closest advisors and supporters. Under the guidance of his uncle he attended a high school in Baghdad. After secondary school Saddam studied at an Iraqi law school for three years, dropping out in 1957 at the age of 20 to join the revolutionary pan-Arab Baath Party, during this time, Saddam apparently supported himself as a secondary school teacher. Revolutionary sentiment was characteristic of the era in Iraq and throughout the Middle East, in Iraq progressives and socialists assailed traditional political elites. Moreover, the nationalism of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt profoundly influenced young Baathists like Saddam. The rise of Nasser foreshadowed a wave of revolutions throughout the Middle East in the 1950s and 1960s, with the collapse of the monarchies of Iraq, Egypt, and Libya
23.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt, commonly known as FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd President of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. A Democrat, he won a record four presidential elections and emerged as a figure in world events during the mid-20th century. He directed the United States government during most of the Great Depression and he is often rated by scholars as one of the three greatest U. S. Presidents, along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Roosevelt was born in 1882 to an old, prominent Dutch family from Dutchess County and he attended the elite educational institutions of Groton School, Harvard College, and Columbia Law School. At age 23 in 1905, he married Eleanor Roosevelt, and he entered politics in 1910, serving in the New York State Senate, and then as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson. In 1920, Roosevelt was presidential candidate James M. Coxs running mate and he was in office from 1929 to 1933 and served as a reform governor, promoting the enactment of programs to combat the depression besetting the United States at the time. In the 1932 presidential election, Roosevelt defeated incumbent Republican president Herbert Hoover in a landslide to win the presidency, Roosevelt took office while in the United States was in the midst of the worst economic crisis in its history. Energized by his victory over polio, FDR relied on his persistent optimism and activism to renew the national spirit. He created numerous programs to support the unemployed and farmers, and to labor union growth while more closely regulating business. His support for the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 added to his popularity, the economy improved rapidly from 1933–37, but then relapsed into a deep recession in 1937–38. The bipartisan Conservative Coalition that formed in 1937 prevented his packing the Supreme Court, when the war began and unemployment ended, conservatives in Congress repealed the two major relief programs, the WPA and CCC. However, they kept most of the regulations on business, along with several smaller programs, major surviving programs include the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Wagner Act, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Social Security. His goal was to make America the Arsenal of Democracy, which would supply munitions to the Allies, in March 1941, Roosevelt, with Congressional approval, provided Lend-Lease aid to Britain and China. He supervised the mobilization of the U. S. economy to support the war effort, as an active military leader, Roosevelt implemented a war strategy on two fronts that ended in the defeat of the Axis Powers and initiate the development of the worlds first atomic bomb. His work also influenced the creation of the United Nations. Roosevelts physical health declined during the war years, and he died 11 weeks into his fourth term. One of the oldest Dutch families in New York State, the Roosevelts distinguished themselves in other than politics. One ancestor, Isaac Roosevelt, had served with the New York militia during the American Revolution, Roosevelt attended events of the New York society Sons of the American Revolution, and joined the organization while he was president
24.
Infamy Speech
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The Infamy Speech was a speech delivered by United States President Franklin D. The name derives from the first line of the speech, Roosevelt describing the day as a date which will live in infamy. The speech is also referred to as the Pearl Harbor Speech. Within an hour of the speech, Congress passed a declaration of war against Japan. The address is one of the most famous of all American political speeches, the Infamy Speech was brief, running to just a little over seven minutes. However, Roosevelt kept the short in the belief that it would have a more dramatic effect. His revised statement was all the stronger for its insistence that posterity would forever endorse the American view of the attack. It was intended not merely as a response by the President. The first paragraph of the speech was carefully worded to reinforce Roosevelts portrayal of the United States as the innocent victim of unprovoked Japanese aggression, rather than taking the active voice—i. e. Japan attacked the United States—Roosevelt chose to put in the foreground the object being acted upon, namely the United States, wilson laid out the strategic threat posed by Germany and stressed the idealistic goals behind Americas participation in the war. During the 1930s, however, American public opinion turned strongly against such themes and was wary of, if not actively hostile to, Roosevelt therefore chose to make an appeal aimed more at the gut level—in effect, an appeal to patriotism rather than to idealism. The infamy framework adopted by Roosevelt was given additional resonance by the fact that it followed the pattern of earlier narratives of great American defeats. The Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 and the sinking of the USS Maine in 1898 had both been the source of national outrage and a determination to take the fight to the enemy. Defeats and setbacks were on each occasion portrayed as being merely a springboard towards an eventual, Roosevelt expertly employed one of the three terms defined by the ancient Sophists as essential to their definition of rhetoric. Coming from over two years ago, the idea of kairos, which relates to speaking in a timely manner, makes this speech powerful. Delivering his speech on the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt presented himself as immediately ready to face this issue, indicating its importance to both him and the nation. In this sense, the timing of the speech in coordination with Roosevelt’s powerful war rhetoric allowed the immediate, essentially, Roosevelt’s speech and timing extended his executive powers to not only declaring war but also making war, a power that constitutionally belongs to Congress. The overall tone of the speech was one of determined realism, Roosevelt made no attempt to paper over the great damage that had been caused to the American armed forces, noting that very many American lives have been lost in the attack
25.
Empire of Japan
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The Empire of Japan was the historical Japanese nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 to the enactment of the 1947 constitution of modern Japan. Imperial Japans rapid industrialization and militarization under the slogan Fukoku Kyōhei led to its emergence as a world power, after several large-scale military successes during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War, the Empire also gained notoriety for its war crimes against the peoples it conquered. A period of occupation by the Allies followed the surrender, Occupation and reconstruction continued well into the 1950s, eventually forming the current nation-state whose full title is the State of Japan or simply rendered Japan in English. The historical state is referred to as the Empire of Japan or the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan in English. In Japanese it is referred to as Dai Nippon Teikoku, which translates to Greater Japanese Empire and this is analogous to Großdeutsches Reich, a term that translates to Greater German Empire in English and Dai Doitsu Teikoku in Japanese. This meaning is significant in terms of geography, encompassing Japan, due to its name in kanji characters and its flag, it was also given the exonym Empire of the Sun. After two centuries, the policy, or Sakoku, under the shoguns of the Edo period came to an end when the country was forced open to trade by the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. The following years saw increased trade and interaction, commercial treaties between the Tokugawa shogunate and Western countries were signed. In large part due to the terms of these Unequal Treaties, the Shogunate soon faced internal hostility, which materialized into a radical, xenophobic movement. In March 1863, the Emperor issued the order to expel barbarians, although the Shogunate had no intention of enforcing the order, it nevertheless inspired attacks against the Shogunate itself and against foreigners in Japan. The Namamugi Incident during 1862 led to the murder of an Englishman, Charles Lennox Richardson, the British demanded reparations but were denied. While attempting to exact payment, the Royal Navy was fired on from coastal batteries near the town of Kagoshima and they responded by bombarding the port of Kagoshima in 1863. For Richardsons death, the Tokugawa government agreed to pay an indemnity, shelling of foreign shipping in Shimonoseki and attacks against foreign property led to the Bombardment of Shimonoseki by a multinational force in 1864. The Chōshū clan also launched the coup known as the Kinmon incident. The Satsuma-Chōshū alliance was established in 1866 to combine their efforts to overthrow the Tokugawa bakufu, in early 1867, Emperor Kōmei died of smallpox and was replaced by his son, Crown Prince Mutsuhito. On November 9,1867, Tokugawa Yoshinobu resigned from his post and authorities to the Emperor, however, while Yoshinobus resignation had created a nominal void at the highest level of government, his apparatus of state continued to exist. On January 3,1868, Satsuma-Chōshū forces seized the palace in Kyoto. On January 17,1868, Yoshinobu declared that he would not be bound by the proclamation of the Restoration, on January 24, Yoshinobu decided to prepare an attack on Kyoto, occupied by Satsuma and Chōshū forces
26.
Attack on Pearl Harbor
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The attack, also known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor, led to the United States entry into World War II. The Japanese military leadership referred to the attack as the Hawaii Operation and Operation AI, Japan intended the attack as a preventive action to keep the U. S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions they planned in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. Over the next seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U. S. -held Philippines, Guam and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, the attack commenced at 7,48 a. m. The base was attacked by 353 Imperial Japanese fighter planes, bombers, all eight U. S. Navy battleships were damaged, with four sunk. All but the USS Arizona were later raised, and six were returned to service, the Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, and one minelayer. 188 U. S. aircraft were destroyed,2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 others were wounded. Important base installations such as the station, shipyard, maintenance. Japanese losses were light,29 aircraft and five midget submarines lost, one Japanese sailor, Kazuo Sakamaki, was captured. The surprise attack came as a shock to the American people. The following day, December 8, the United States declared war on Japan, the U. S. responded with a declaration of war against Germany and Italy. Domestic support for non-interventionism, which had been fading since the Fall of France in 1940, Roosevelt to proclaim December 7,1941, a date which will live in infamy. Because the attack happened without a declaration of war and without explicit warning, over the next decade, Japan continued to expand into China, leading to all-out war between those countries in 1937. Japan spent considerable effort trying to isolate China and achieve sufficient resource independence to attain victory on the mainland, from December 1937, events such as the Japanese attack on USS Panay, the Allison incident, and the Nanking Massacre swung public opinion in the West sharply against Japan. Fearing Japanese expansion, the United States, the United Kingdom, in 1940, Japan invaded French Indochina in an effort to control supplies reaching China. The United States halted shipments of airplanes, parts, machine tools, and aviation gasoline to Japan, an invasion of the Philippines was also considered necessary by Japanese war planners. War Plan Orange had envisioned defending the Philippines with a 40 and this was opposed by Douglas MacArthur, who felt that he would need a force ten times that size, and was never implemented. By 1941, U. S. planners anticipated abandonment of the Philippines at the outbreak of war and orders to that effect were given in late 1941 to Admiral Thomas Hart, commander of the Asiatic Fleet
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Nazi Germany
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Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed, recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943
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Axis powers
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The Axis powers, also known as the Rome–Berlin–Tokyo Axis, were the nations that fought in World War II against the Allied Powers. The Axis agreed on their opposition to the Allies, but did not completely coordinate their activity, the Axis grew out of the diplomatic efforts of Germany, Italy, and Japan to secure their own specific expansionist interests in the mid-1930s. The first step was the treaty signed by Germany and Italy in October 1936, Mussolini declared on 1 November that all other European countries would from then on rotate on the Rome–Berlin axis, thus creating the term Axis. The almost simultaneous second step was the signing in November 1936 of the Anti-Comintern Pact, Italy joined the Pact in 1937. At its zenith during World War II, the Axis presided over territories that occupied parts of Europe, North Africa. There were no three-way summit meetings and cooperation and coordination was minimal, the war ended in 1945 with the defeat of the Axis powers and the dissolution of their alliance. As in the case of the Allies, membership of the Axis was fluid, at the time he was seeking an alliance with the Weimar Republic against Yugoslavia and France in the dispute over the Free State of Fiume. The term was used by Hungarys prime minister Gyula Gömbös when advocating an alliance of Hungary with Germany, when Mussolini publicly announced the signing on 1 November, he proclaimed the creation of a Rome–Berlin axis. Italy under Duce Benito Mussolini had pursued an alliance of Italy with Germany against France since the early 1920s. He believed that Italy could expand its influence in Europe by allying with Germany against France, in early 1923, as a goodwill gesture to Germany, Italy secretly delivered weapons for the German Army, which had faced major disarmament under the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. General Hans von Seeckt supported an alliance between Germany and the Soviet Union to invade and partition Poland between them and restore the German-Russian border of 1914. The discussions concluded that Germans still wanted a war of revenge against France but were short on weapons, however at this time Mussolini stressed one important condition that Italy must pursue in an alliance with Germany, that Italy must. Tow them, not be towed by them, the French government warned Italy that it had to choose whether to be on the side of the pro-Versailles powers or that of the anti-Versailles revanchists. Grandi responded that Italy would be willing to offer France support against Germany if France gave Italy its mandate over Cameroon, France refused Italys proposed exchange for support, as it believed Italys demands were unacceptable and the threat from Germany was not yet immediate. In 1932, Gyula Gömbös and the Party of National Unity rose to power in Hungary, Gömbös sought to alter Hungarys post–Treaty of Trianon borders by forming an alliance with Austria and Italy, knowing that Hungary alone was not capable of challenging the Little Entente powers. At the meeting between Gömbös and Mussolini in Rome on 10 November 1932, the question came up of the sovereignty of Austria in relation to the rise to power in Germany of the Nazi Party. Mussolini was worried about Nazi ambitions towards Austria, and indicated that at least in the term he was committed to maintaining Austria as a sovereign state. Italy had concerns over a Germany which included Austria laying land claims to German-populated territories of the South Tyrol within Italy, Mussolini said he hoped the Anschluss could be postponed as long as possible until the breakout of a European war that he estimated would begin in 1938
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Al-Qaeda
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It operates as a network made up of Islamic extremist, Salafist jihadists. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countries, including the 1998 U. S. embassy bombings, the September 11 attacks, the U. S. government responded to the September 11 attacks by launching the War on Terror. Characteristic techniques employed by al-Qaeda include suicide attacks and the bombing of different targets. Al-Qaeda ideologues envision a complete break from all foreign influences in Muslim countries, among the beliefs ascribed to al-Qaeda members is the conviction that a Christian–Jewish alliance is conspiring to destroy Islam. Al-Qaeda also opposes what it regards as man-made laws, and wants to replace them with a form of sharia law. Al-Qaeda has carried out attacks on targets it considers kafir. Al-Qaeda is also responsible for instigating violence among Muslims. Al-Qaeda leaders regard liberal Muslims, Shias, Sufis and other sects as heretics and have attacked their mosques, examples of sectarian attacks include the Yazidi community bombings, the Sadr City bombings, the Ashoura massacre and the April 2007 Baghdad bombings. Since the death of bin Laden in 2011, the group has been led by the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaedas management philosophy has been described as centralization of decision and decentralization of execution. Many terrorism experts do not believe that the global jihadist movement is driven at every level by al-Qaedas leadership, marc Sageman, a psychiatrist and former Central Intelligence Agency officer, said that al-Qaeda is now just a loose label for a movement that seems to target the west. We like to create an entity called in our minds. This view mirrors the account given by Osama bin Laden in his October 2001 interview with Tayseer Allouni and this matter isnt about any specific person and. is not about the al-Qaidah Organization. We are the children of an Islamic Nation, with Prophet Muhammad as its leader, and all the true believers are brothers. So the situation isnt like the West portrays it, that there is an organization with a specific name and that particular name is very old. It was born without any intention from us, created a military base to train the young men to fight against the vicious, arrogant, brutal, terrorizing Soviet empire. So this place was called The Base, as in a base, so this name grew. We arent separated from this nation, and so we discuss the conscience of this nation. Bruce Hoffman, however, sees al-Qaeda as a network that is strongly led from the Pakistani tribal areas
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Hezbollah
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Hezbollah —also transliterated Hizbullah, Hizballah, etc. —is a Shia Islamist militant group and political party based in Lebanon. Hezbollahs paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its wing is Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese parliament. After the death of Abbas al-Musawi in 1992, the group has been headed by Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah was conceived by Muslim clerics and funded by Iran primarily to harass the Israeli occupation. Hezbollah waged a campaign in South Lebanon and as a result, Israel withdrew from Lebanon on May 24,2000. Backed by Iran, Hezbollah fighters fought against Serbian forces during the Bosnian War, Hezbollahs military strength has grown so significantly that its paramilitary wing is considered more powerful than the Lebanese Army. Hezbollah is part of the March 8 Alliance within Lebanon, in opposition to the March 14 Alliance, Hezbollah maintains strong support among Lebanons Shia population, while Sunnis have disagreed with the groups agenda. Hezbollah receives military training, weapons, and financial support from Iran, Hezbollah and Israel fought each other in the 2006 Lebanon War. It has deployed its militia in both Syria and Iraq to fight or train local forces to fight against ISIS, Hezbollahs status as a legitimate political party, a terrorist group, a resistance movement, or some combination thereof is a contentious issue. The Arab League, United States, France, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, the European Union, New Zealand and the United Kingdom have proscribed Hezbollahs military wing as a terrorist organization, while making a distinction with Hezbollahs political wing. Russia considers Hezbollah a legitimate sociopolitical organization, the Peoples Republic of China remains neutral, and maintains contacts with Hezbollah. After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Israel occupied a strip of south Lebanon, which was controlled by the South Lebanon Army, Hezbollah was conceived by Muslim clerics and funded by Iran primarily to harass the Israeli occupation. Scholars differ as to when Hezbollah came to be a distinct entity, another version states that it was formed by supporters of Sheikh Ragheb Harb, a leader of the southern Shia resistance killed by Israel in 1984. These designations are considered to be synonymous with Hezbollah by the US, Israel, Hezbollah emerged in South Lebanon during a consolidation of Shia militias as a rival to the older Amal Movement. Hezbollah played a significant role in the Lebanese civil war, opposing American forces in 1982–83 and opposing Amal, however, Hezbollahs early primary focus was ending Israels occupation of southern Lebanon following Israels 1982 invasion and siege of Beirut. Amal, the main Lebanese Shia political group, initiated guerrilla warfare, in 2006, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak stated, When we entered Lebanon … there was no Hezbollah. We were accepted with perfumed rice and flowers by the Shia in the south and it was our presence there that created Hezbollah. Hezbollah waged a war using suicide attacks against the Israel Defense Forces. Hezbollah also employed more conventional military tactics and weaponry, notably Katyusha rockets, in the 1990s, Hezbollah transformed from a revolutionary group into a political one, in a process which is described as the Lebanonisation of Hezbollah
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Tehran
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Tehran is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. It is ranked 29th in the world by the population of its metropolitan area, in the Classical era, part of the present-day city of Tehran was occupied by a Median city that in the Avesta occurs as Rhaga. It was destroyed by the Mongols in the early 13th century, the capital has been moved several times throughout the history, and Tehran is the 32nd national capital of Iran. The city was the seat of the Qajars and Pahlavis, the two last imperial dynasties of Iran. It is home to historical collections, such as the royal complexes of Golestan, Sadabad. Large scale demolition and rebuilding began in the 1920s, and Tehran has been a destination for the migrations from all over Iran since the 20th century. Tabiat Bridge, which was completed in 2014, is considered the third symbol of the city. There have been plans to relocate Irans capital from Tehran to another area, due mainly to air pollution, to date, no definitive plans have been approved. A2016 survey of 230 cities by consultant Mercer ranked Tehran 203rd for quality of living, according to the Global Destinations Cities Index in 2016, Tehran is among the top ten fastest growing destinations. The origin of the name Tehran is uncertain, the settlement of Tehran dates back over 7,000 years. The present-day city of Tehran was a suburb of an important Median city that was known as Rhaga in Old Persian, in the Avestas Videvdat, Rhaga is mentioned as the twelfth sacred place created by the Ohrmazd. In Old Persian inscriptions, Rhaga appears as a province and it was a major area for the Iranian tribes of Medes and Achaemenids. From Rhaga, Darius the Great sent reinforcements to his father Hystaspes, in some Middle Persian texts, Rhaga is given as the birthplace of Zoroaster, although modern historians generally place the birth of Zoroaster in Khorasan. Derived into Modern Persian as Rey, it now as a city located towards the southern end of the modern-day city of Tehran. Mount Damavand, the highest peak of Iran, which is located near Tehran, is an important location in Ferdowsis Shahname, the long Iranian epic poem that is based on the ancient epics of Iran. It appears in the epics as the birthplace of Manuchehr, the residence of Keyumars, the place where Freydun binds the dragon fiend Aži Dahāka, during the Sassanid era, in 641, Yazdgerd III issued his last appeal to the nation from Rey, before fleeing to Khorasan. Rey was dominated by the Parthian Mihran family, and Siyavakhsh—the son of Mihran the son of Bahram Chobin—who resisted the Muslim Invasion, because of this resistance, when the Arabs captured Rey, they ordered the town to be destroyed and ordered Farrukhzad to rebuild the town anew. In the 9th century, Tehran was a well known village, but less known than the city of Rey, the medieval writer Najm od Din Razi declared the population of Rey about 500,000 before the Mongol Invasion
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Baghdad
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Baghdad is the capital of the Republic of Iraq. The population of Baghdad, as of 2016, is approximately 8,765,000 making it the largest city in Iraq, the second largest city in the Arab world, and the second largest city in Western Asia. Located along the Tigris River, the city was founded in the 8th century, within a short time of its inception, Baghdad evolved into a significant cultural, commercial, and intellectual center for the Islamic world. This, in addition to housing several key institutions, garnered the city a worldwide reputation as the Centre of Learning. Throughout the High Middle Ages, Baghdad was considered to be the largest city in the world with a population of 1,200,000 people. The city was destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, resulting in a decline that would linger through many centuries due to frequent plagues. With the recognition of Iraq as an independent state in 1938, in contemporary times, the city has often faced severe infrastructural damage, most recently due to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the subsequent Iraq War that lasted until December 2011. In recent years, the city has been subjected to insurgency attacks. As of 2012, Baghdad was listed as one of the least hospitable places in the world to live, the site where the city of Baghdad developed has been populated for millennia. By the 8th century AD, several villages had developed there, including a Persian hamlet called Baghdad, the name is of Indo-European origin and a Middle Persian compound of Bagh god and dād given by, translating to Bestowed by God or Gods gift. In Old Persian the first element can be traced to boghu and is related to Slavic bog god, a similar term in Middle Persian is the name Mithradāt, known in English by its Hellenistic form Mithridates, meaning gift of Mithra. There are a number of locations in the wider region whose names are compounds of the word bagh, including Baghlan. The name of the town Baghdati in Georgia shares the same etymological origins, when the Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur, founded a completely new city for his capital, he chose the name Madinat al-Salaam or City of Peace. This was the name on coins, weights, and other official usage. By the 11th century, Baghdad became almost the exclusive name for the world-renowned metropolis, after the fall of the Umayyads, the first Muslim dynasty, the victorious Abbasid rulers wanted their own capital whence they could rule. They chose a site north of the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon, on 30 July 762, the caliph Al-Mansur commissioned the construction of the city, mansur believed that Baghdad was the perfect city to be the capital of the Islamic empire under the Abbasids. Mansur loved the site so much he is quoted saying, This is indeed the city that I am to found, where I am to live, and where my descendants will reign afterward. The citys growth was helped by its excellent location, based on at least two factors, it had control over strategic and trading routes along the Tigris, the abundance of water in a dry climate
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Damascus
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Damascus is the capital and likely the largest city of Syria, following the decline in population of Aleppo due to the ongoing battle for the city. It is commonly known in Syria as ash-Sham and nicknamed as the City of Jasmine, in addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major cultural and religious centre of the Levant. The city has an population of 1,711,000 as of 2009. Located in south-western Syria, Damascus is the centre of a metropolitan area of 2.6 million people. The Barada River flows through Damascus, first settled in the second millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. After the victory of the Abbasid dynasty, the seat of Islamic power was moved to Baghdad, Damascus saw a political decline throughout the Abbasid era, only to regain significant importance in the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. Today, it is the seat of the government and all of the government ministries. The name of Damascus first appeared in the geographical list of Thutmose III as T-m-ś-q in the 15th century BC, the etymology of the ancient name T-m-ś-q is uncertain, but it is suspected to be pre-Semitic. It is attested as Dimašqa in Akkadian, T-ms-ḳw in Egyptian, Dammaśq in Old Aramaic, the Akkadian spelling is found in the Amarna letters, from the 14th century BC. Later Aramaic spellings of the name include a intrusive resh, perhaps influenced by the root dr. Thus, the English and Latin name of the city is Damascus which was imported from originated from the Qumranic Darmeśeq, and Darmsûq in Syriac, meaning a well-watered land. In Arabic, the city is called Dimašqu š-Šāmi, although this is shortened to either Dimašq or aš-Šām by the citizens of Damascus, of Syria and other Arab neighbours. Aš-Šām is an Arabic term for Levant and for Syria, the latter, the Anti-Lebanon mountains mark the border between Syria and Lebanon. The range has peaks of over 10,000 ft. and blocks precipitation from the Mediterranean sea, however, in ancient times this was mitigated by the Barada River, which originates from mountain streams fed by melting snow. Damascus is surrounded by the Ghouta, irrigated farmland where many vegetables, cereals, maps of Roman Syria indicate that the Barada river emptied into a lake of some size east of Damascus. Today it is called Bahira Atayba, the hesitant lake, because in years of severe drought it does not even exist, the modern city has an area of 105 km2, out of which 77 km2 is urban, while Jabal Qasioun occupies the rest. The old city of Damascus, enclosed by the city walls, to the south-east, north and north-east it is surrounded by suburban areas whose history stretches back to the Middle Ages, Midan in the south-west, Sarouja and Imara in the north and north-west. These neighbourhoods originally arose on roads leading out of the city and these new neighbourhoods were initially settled by Kurdish soldiery and Muslim refugees from the European regions of the Ottoman Empire which had fallen under Christian rule
34.
United States House of Representatives
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The United States House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the Senate, composes the legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the House are established by Article One of the United States Constitution, since its inception in 1789, all representatives are elected popularly. The total number of voting representatives is fixed by law at 435, the House is charged with the passage of federal legislation, known as bills, which, after concurrence by the Senate, are sent to the President for consideration. The presiding officer is the Speaker of the House, who is elected by the members thereof and is traditionally the leader of the controlling party. He or she and other leaders are chosen by the Democratic Caucus or the Republican Conferences. The House meets in the wing of the United States Capitol. Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress of the Confederation was a body in which each state was equally represented. All states except Rhode Island agreed to send delegates, the issue of how to structure Congress was one of the most divisive among the founders during the Convention. The House is referred to as the house, with the Senate being the upper house. Both houses approval is necessary for the passage of legislation, the Virginia Plan drew the support of delegates from large states such as Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, as it called for representation based on population. The smaller states, however, favored the New Jersey Plan, the Constitution was ratified by the requisite number of states in 1788, but its implementation was set for March 4,1789. The House began work on April 1,1789, when it achieved a quorum for the first time, during the first half of the 19th century, the House was frequently in conflict with the Senate over regionally divisive issues, including slavery. The North was much more populous than the South, and therefore dominated the House of Representatives, However, the North held no such advantage in the Senate, where the equal representation of states prevailed. Regional conflict was most pronounced over the issue of slavery, One example of a provision repeatedly supported by the House but blocked by the Senate was the Wilmot Proviso, which sought to ban slavery in the land gained during the Mexican–American War. Conflict over slavery and other issues persisted until the Civil War, the war culminated in the Souths defeat and in the abolition of slavery. Because all southern senators except Andrew Johnson resigned their seats at the beginning of the war, the years of Reconstruction that followed witnessed large majorities for the Republican Party, which many Americans associated with the Unions victory in the Civil War and the ending of slavery. The Reconstruction period ended in about 1877, the ensuing era, the Democratic and the Republican Party held majorities in the House at various times. The late 19th and early 20th centuries also saw an increase in the power of the Speaker of the House
35.
Gulf War
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The Iraqi Armys occupation of Kuwait that began 2 August 1990 was met with international condemnation, and brought immediate economic sanctions against Iraq by members of the UN Security Council. US President George H. W. Bush deployed US forces into Saudi Arabia, an array of nations joined the coalition, the largest military alliance since World War II. The great majority of the military forces were from the US, with Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia paid around US$32 billion of the US$60 billion cost, the war was marked by the introduction of live news broadcasts from the front lines of the battle, principally by the US network CNN. The war has also earned the nickname Video Game War after the daily broadcast of images from cameras on board US bombers during Operation Desert Storm. The initial conflict to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait began with an aerial and naval bombardment on 17 January 1991 and this was followed by a ground assault on 24 February. This was a victory for the coalition forces, who liberated Kuwait. The coalition ceased its advance, and declared a ceasefire 100 hours after the campaign started. Aerial and ground combat was confined to Iraq, Kuwait, Iraq launched Scud missiles against coalition military targets in Saudi Arabia and against Israel. The following names have been used to describe the conflict itself, Gulf War, a problem with these terms is that the usage is ambiguous, having now been applied to at least three conflicts, see Gulf War. The use of the term Persian Gulf is also disputed, see Persian Gulf naming dispute, with no consensus of naming, various publications have attempted to refine the name. Other language terms include French, la Guerre du Golfe and German, Golfkrieg, German, Zweiter Golfkrieg, French, most of the coalition states used various names for their operations and the wars operational phases. Operation Desert Storm was the US name of the conflict from 17 January 1991. Operation Desert Sabre was the US name for the offensive against the Iraqi Army in the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations from 24–28 February 1991, in itself. Operation Desert Farewell was the given to the return of US units and equipment to the US in 1991 after Kuwaits liberation. Operation Granby was the British name for British military activities during the operations, Opération Daguet was the French name for French military activities in the conflict. Operation Friction was the name of the Canadian operations Operazione Locusta was the Italian name for the operations, in addition, various phases of each operation may have a unique operational name. The US divided the conflict into three campaigns, Defense of Saudi Arabian country for the period 2 August 1990, through 16 January 1991
36.
John R. Bolton
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John Robert Bolton is an American lawyer and diplomat who has served in several Republican administrations. Bolton served as the U. S. ambassador to the United Nations from August 2005 until December 2006 as an appointee by President George W. Bush. C. law firm Kirkland & Ellis. He was a policy adviser to 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Bolton is also involved with a number of conservative think tanks and policy institutes, including the Institute of East-West Dynamics, the National Rifle Association. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the Council for National Policy and the Gatestone Institute, Bolton has been labeled as a neoconservative, though he personally rejects the term. Bolton was born on November 20,1948 in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Virginia Clara Ginny, a housewife, and Edward Jackson Jack Bolton, a fireman. He grew up in the neighborhood of Yale Heights and won a scholarship to the McDonogh School in Owings Mills, Maryland. He also ran the schools Students For Goldwater campaign in 1964 and he then attended Yale University and Yale Law School, where he shared classes with his friend Clarence Thomas, and was a contemporary of Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham at Yale Law School. He was a member of the Yale Political Union, and he earned a B. A. graduating summa cum laude in 1970, during the 1969 Vietnam War draft lottery, Bolton drew number 185. Bolton enlisted in the Maryland Army National Guard in 1970 rather than wait to find out if his number would be called. After serving in the National Guard for four years, he served in the United States Army Reserve until the end of his enlistment two years later and he wrote in his Yale 25th reunion book I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost, Boltons first wife was Christine Bolton, whom he married in 1972 and divorced in 1983. He is married to Gretchen Smith Bolton and she has degrees from Wellesley College and New York University. The couples home is currently in Bethesda, Maryland and they have one daughter, Jennifer Sarah Bolton. From 1974 to 1981, Bolton was an associate at the Washington office of Covington & Burling, Bolton was also a partner in the law firm of Lerner, Reed, Bolton & McManus, from 1993–1999. He is currently of counsel in the Washington office of Kirkland & Ellis, before joining the George W. Bush administration, Bolton was senior vice president for public policy research at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, from 1997 to 2001. Between 1997 and 2000, Bolton also worked pro bono as an assistant to James Baker in Bakers capacity as Kofi Annans personal envoy to the Western Sahara. During the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, he worked in positions within the State Department, the Justice Department
37.
Anne Applebaum
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She is the director of the Transitions Forum at the Legatum Institute in London. She has also been an editor at The Economist, and a member of the board of The Washington Post. Applebaum was born in Washington, D. C and her parents are Harvey M. Applebaum, a partner in the Covington and Burling law firm, and Elizabeth Applebaum, of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Applebaum has stated that she was brought up in a very reformed Jewish family and she graduated from the Sidwell Friends School. She earned a BA at Yale University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, as a Marshall Scholar at the London School of Economics she earned a masters degree in international relations. She studied at St Antonys College, Oxford, before moving to Warsaw, Poland, Applebaum was an editor at The Spectator, and a columnist for both The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph. She also wrote for The Independent, working for The Economist, she provided coverage of important social and political transitions in Eastern Europe, both before and after the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In 1992, she was awarded the Charles Douglas-Home Memorial Trust Award, Applebaum lived in London and Warsaw during the 1990s and was, for several years, a columnist for Londons Evening Standard newspaper. She wrote about foreign and domestic policy issues. Applebaums first book, Between East and West, is a travelogue, Gulag, A History, on the Soviet prison system, was awarded the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction writing. Iron Curtain, The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944–56, was published in 2012 by Doubleday in the USA and Allen Lane in the UK, on May 24,2006, she wrote that she was leaving Washington to live again in Poland. Applebaum was a George Herbert Walker Bush/Axel Springer Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, Germany, Applebaum was also an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank. In a blog post in September 2009, Applebaum called the arrest of film director Roman Polanski in Switzerland outrageous. S, in February 2008, she was awarded the Estonian Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, third class. In 2010, she was given the Hungarian Petőfi Prize in Budapests House of Terror Museum, in the 2012–2013 academic year, she was the LSE IDEAS Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Since 2011, she is the director of the Transitions Forum at the Legatum Institute, on February 21,2014, Applebaum wrote in The Daily Telegraph, documenting the breakdown in law and order in Ukraine over the previous fortnight. She concluded that it is not a war, or even a conflict which either side can win with weapons, Applebaum has been a vocal critic of Western conduct regarding the 2014 Crimean crisis. On March 7, in another Telegraph article, discussing an information war, at the end of August she asked whether Ukraine should prepare for total war with Russia and whether central Europeans should join them. Applebaum was one of the first American columnists to begin writing about the threat that populism posed to liberal democracy and the Western liberal world order
38.
September 11 attacks
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The September 11 attacks were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda on the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11,2001. The attacks killed 2,996 people, injured over 6,000 others, two of the planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, were crashed into the North and South towers, respectively, of the World Trade Center complex in New York City. A third plane, American Airlines Flight 77, was crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia and it was the deadliest incident for firefighters and law enforcement officers in the history of the United States, with 343 and 72 killed respectively. Suspicion for the attack fell on al-Qaeda. The United States responded to the attacks by launching the War on Terror and invading Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, many countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation and expanded the powers of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to prevent terrorist attacks. Although al-Qaedas leader, Osama bin Laden, initially denied any involvement, al-Qaeda and bin Laden cited U. S. support of Israel, the presence of U. S. troops in Saudi Arabia, and sanctions against Iraq as motives. Having evaded capture for almost a decade, bin Laden was located and killed by SEAL Team Six of the U. S. Navy in May 2011. S. many closings, evacuations, and cancellations followed, out of respect or fear of further attacks. Cleanup of the World Trade Center site was completed in May 2002, on November 18,2006, construction of One World Trade Center began at the World Trade Center site. The building was opened on November 3,2014. The origins of al-Qaeda can be traced to 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden traveled to Afghanistan and helped organize Arab mujahideen to resist the Soviets. Under the guidance of Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden became more radical, in 1996, bin Laden issued his first fatwā, calling for American soldiers to leave Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden used Islamic texts to exhort Muslims to attack Americans until the stated grievances are reversed, Muslim legal scholars have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries, according to bin Laden. Bin Laden, who orchestrated the attacks, initially denied but later admitted involvement, in November 2001, U. S. forces recovered a videotape from a destroyed house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. In the video, bin Laden is seen talking to Khaled al-Harbi, on December 27,2001, a second bin Laden video was released. In the video, he said, It has become clear that the West in general and it is the hatred of crusaders. Terrorism against America deserves to be praised because it was a response to injustice, aimed at forcing America to stop its support for Israel, the transcript refers several times to the United States specifically targeting Muslims. He said that the attacks were carried out because, we are free, and want to regain freedom for our nation. As you undermine our security we undermine yours, Bin Laden said he had personally directed his followers to attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
39.
Geneva
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Geneva is the second most populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situated where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the capital of the Republic, the municipality has a population of 198,072, and the canton has 484,736 residents. In 2014, the compact agglomération du Grand Genève had 946,000 inhabitants in 212 communities in both Switzerland and France, within Swiss territory, the commuter area named Métropole lémanique contains a population of 1.25 million. This area is essentially spread east from Geneva towards the Riviera area and north-east towards Yverdon-les-Bains, Geneva is the city that hosts the highest number of international organizations in the world. It is also the place where the Geneva Conventions were signed, Geneva was ranked as the worlds ninth most important financial centre for competitiveness by the Global Financial Centres Index, ahead of Frankfurt, and third in Europe behind London and Zürich. A2009 survey by Mercer found that Geneva has the third-highest quality of life of any city in the world, the city has been referred to as the worlds most compact metropolis and the Peace Capital. In 2009 and 2011, Geneva was ranked as, respectively, the city was mentioned in Latin texts, by Caesar, with the spelling Genava, probably from a Celtic toponym *genawa- from the stem *genu-, in the sense of a bending river or estuary. The medieval county of Geneva in Middle Latin was known as pagus major Genevensis or Comitatus Genevensis, the name takes various forms in modern languages, Geneva /dʒᵻˈniːvə/ in English, French, Genève, German, Genf, Italian, Ginevra, and Romansh, Genevra. The city in origin shares its name, *genawa estuary, with the Italian port city of Genoa, Geneva was an Allobrogian border town, fortified against the Helvetii tribe, when the Romans took it in 121 BC. It became Christian under the Late Roman Empire, and acquired its first bishop in the 5th century, having been connected to the bishopric of Vienne in the 4th. In the Middle Ages, Geneva was ruled by a count under the Holy Roman Empire until the late 14th century, around this time the House of Savoy came to dominate the city. In the 15th century, a republican government emerged with the creation of the Grand Council. In 1541, with Protestantism in the ascendancy, John Calvin, by the 18th century, however, Geneva had come under the influence of Catholic France, which cultivated the city as its own. France also tended to be at odds with the ordinary townsfolk, in 1798, revolutionary France under the Directory annexed Geneva. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, on 1 June 1814, in 1907, the separation of Church and State was adopted. Geneva flourished in the 19th and 20th centuries, becoming the seat of international organizations. Geneva is located at 46°12 North, 6°09 East, at the end of Lake Geneva. It is surrounded by two chains, the Alps and the Jura
40.
Taliban
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Until his death in 2013, Mullah Mohammed Omar was the supreme commander and spiritual leader of the Taliban. Mullah Akhtar Mansour was elected as his replacement in 2015, and following Mansours killing in a May 2016 U. S. drone strike, Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada became the groups leader. The Taliban emerged in 1994 as one of the prominent factions in the Afghan Civil War, under the leadership of Mohammed Omar, the movement spread throughout most of Afghanistan, sequestering power from the Mujahideen warlords, whose corruption and despotism Afghans had tired of. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was established in 1996 and the Afghan capital transferred to Kandahar and it held control of most of the country until being overthrown by the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in December 2001 following the September 11 attacks. At its peak, formal recognition of the Talibans government was acknowledged by only three nations, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The group later regrouped as a movement to fight the American-backed Karzai administration. The Taliban have been condemned internationally for the enforcement of their interpretation of Islamic Sharia law. In its post-9/11 insurgency, the group has accused of using terrorism as a specific tactic to further their ideological and political goals. According to the United Nations, the Taliban and their allies were responsible for 76% of Afghan civilian casualties in 2010, 80% in 2011, Pakistan states that it dropped all support for the group after the September 11 attacks. Al-Qaeda also supported the Taliban with fighters from Arab countries and Central Asia, hundreds of thousands of people were forced to flee to United Front-controlled territory, Pakistan, and Iran. The word Taliban is Pashto, طالبان ṭālibān, meaning students and this is a loanword from Arabic طالب ṭālib, using the Persian plural ending -ān ان. In Arabic طالبان ṭālibān means not students but two students, as it is a form, the Arabic plural being طلاب ṭullāb—occasionally causing some confusion to Arabic speakers. Since becoming a loanword in English, Taliban, besides a plural noun referring to the group, has also used as a singular noun referring to an individual. For example, John Walker Lindh has been referred to as an American Taliban, in the English language newspapers of Pakistan, the word Talibans is often used when referring to more than one Taliban. The spelling Taliban has come to be predominant over Taleban in English, in the meantime, the United States and Saudi Arabia joined the struggle against the Soviet Union by providing all the funds. Zia-ul-Haq aligned himself with Pakistans Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and later picked General Akhtar Abdur Rahman to lead the insurgency against the Soviet Union inside Afghanistan, about 90,000 Afghans, including Mohammed Omar, were trained by Pakistans ISI during the 1980s. After the fall of the Soviet-backed regime of Mohammad Najibullah in 1992, several Afghan political parties agreed on a peace and power-sharing agreement, the accord created the Islamic State of Afghanistan and appointed an interim government for a transitional period. With the exception of Gulbuddin Hekmatyars Hezb-e Islami, all of the parties, were ostensibly unified under this government in April 1992
41.
Shaul Mofaz
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Lieutenant General Shaul Mofaz is an Israeli former soldier and politician. He joined the Israel Defense Forces in 1966 and served in the Paratroopers Brigade and he fought in the Six-Day War, Yom Kippur War,1982 Lebanon War, and Operation Entebbe with the paratroopers and Sayeret Matkal, an elite special forces unit. In 1998 he became the sixteenth IDFs Chief of the General Staff and he is of Iranian Jewish ancestry. After leaving the army, he entered politics and he was appointed Minister of Defense in 2002, holding the position until 2006 when he was elected to the Knesset on the Kadima list. He then served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transportation, Kadima was reduced to just two seats in the 2013 elections, and Mofaz retired from politics shortly before the 2015 elections. Shaul Mofaz was born Shahrām Mofazzazkār on 4 November 1948 in Tehran, Mofaz immigrated to Israel with his parents in 1957. Upon graduating from school in 1966, he joined the Israel Defense Forces. He served in the Six-Day War, Yom Kippur War,1982 Lebanon War, and Operation Entebbe with the paratroopers and Sayeret Matkal, Mofaz was then appointed an infantry brigade commander for the 1982 Lebanon War. Afterwards he attended the US Marine Corps Command and Staff College in Quantico, Virginia, on his return he was briefly appointed commander of the Officers School, before returning to active service as commander of the Paratroop Brigade in 1986. Mofaz served in a series of military posts, having been promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. In 1993 he was commander of the IDF forces in the West Bank. In 1994, he was promoted to Major General, commanding the Southern Corps and his rapid rise continued, in 1997 Mofaz was appointed Deputy Chief of the General Staff and in 1998 he was appointed Chief of the General Staff. His term of Chief of Staff was noted for financial and structural reforms of the Israeli Army, but the most significant event in his tenure was the eruption of the Second Intifada in September,2000. The tough tactics undertaken by Mofaz drew widespread concern from the community but were broadly supported by the Israeli public. Controversy erupted over the offensive in Jenin, intermittent raids in the Gaza Strip, Mofaz foresaw the wave of violence coming early as 1999 and prepared the IDF for intense guerrilla warfare in the territories. He fortified posts at the Gaza Strip and kept Israel Defense Forces casualties low, following a government crisis in 2002, Shaul Mofaz was appointed Defense Minister by Ariel Sharon. Although he supported an agreement with the Palestinians, he was willing to make no compromise in the war against militant groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Tanzim, and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The fact that he had recently left his position as IDF Chief of Staff prevented him from participating in the 2003 election
42.
Tel Aviv
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Tel Aviv-Yafo is a major city in Israel, located on the countrys Mediterranean coastline. It is the center and the technology hub of Israel, with a population of 432,892. Tel Aviv is the largest city in the Gush Dan region of Israel, Tel Aviv is also a focal point in the high-tech concentration known as the Silicon Wadi. Tel Aviv is governed by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, headed by Ron Huldai, Tel Aviv is a global city, and is the thirty eighth most important financial center in the world. Tel Aviv is known to have the third-largest economy of any city in the Middle East after Abu Dhabi and Kuwait City, the city receives over a million international visitors annually. Known as The City that Never Sleeps and a party capital, it has a lively nightlife, the city was founded in 1909 by Jewish immigrants on the outskirts of the ancient port city of Jaffa. It is named after the Hebrew translation of Theodor Herzls 1902 novel, Altneuland, the modern citys first neighbourhoods had already been established in 1886, the first being Neve Tzedek. Immigration by mostly Jewish refugees meant that the growth of Tel Aviv soon outpaced Jaffas, Tel Aviv and Jaffa were merged into a single municipality in 1950, two years after the establishment of the State of Israel. Tel Avivs White City, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003, Tel Aviv is the Hebrew title of Theodor Herzls Altneuland, translated from German by Nahum Sokolow. The name was chosen in 1910 from several suggestions, including Herzliya and it was found fitting as it embraced the idea of a renaissance in the ancient Jewish homeland. Aviv is Hebrew for spring, symbolizing renewal, and tel is a man-made mound accumulating layers of civilization built one over the other and symbolizing the ancient. Although founded in 1909 as a settlement on the sand dunes North of Jaffa. The marketing pamphlets advocating for its establishment in 1906, wrote, In this city we will build the streets so they have roads and sidewalks and electric lights. Every house will have water wells that will flow through pipes as in every modern European city. Since 1886, Jewish settlers had founded new neighborhoods outside Jaffa on the current territory of Tel Aviv, the first was Neve Tzedek, built on lands owned by Aharon Chelouche and inhabited primarily by Mizrahi Jews. Other neighborhoods were Neve Shalom, Yafa Nof, Achva, Ohel Moshe, Kerem HaTeimanim, once Tel Aviv received city status in the 1920s, those neighborhoods joined the newly formed municipality, now becoming separated from Jaffa. The Second Aliyah led to further expansion, in 1906, a group of Jews, among them residents of Jaffa, followed the initiative of Akiva Aryeh Weiss and banded together to form the Ahuzat Bayit society. The societys goal was to form a Hebrew urban centre in an environment, planned according to the rules of aesthetics
