Melchior Ndadaye
Melchior Ndadaye was a Burundian intellectual and politician. He was the first democratically elected and first Hutu president of Burundi after winning the landmark 1993 election. Though he moved to attempt to smooth the country's bitter ethnic divide, his reforms antagonised soldiers in the Tutsi-dominated army, he was assassinated amidst a failed military coup in October 1993, after only three months in office, his assassination sparked an array of brutal tit-for-tat massacres between the Tutsi and Hutu ethnic groups, sparked the decade-long Burundi Civil War. Ndadaye was born in the town of Murama in Muramvya Province, he began studying as a teacher, but his education was interrupted by the massacres of 1972, whereupon he was forced to flee to Rwanda to avoid being killed. He attended the Group Scolaire, he finished his degree in education at the National University of Rwanda, completed a second degree in banking at the National Academy of Arts and Trades in France. He was a lecturer in Rwanda from 1980 to 1983.
He worked as a banker thereafter, heading up a credit organisation from 1983 to 1988. Ndadaye had become involved in politics while in Rwanda, serving as the inaugural president of the Mouvement des Étudiants Progressistes Barundi au Rwanda, a movement of exiled Burundian students from 1976 to 1979, he was involved in the foundation of the Burundi Workers' Party in 1979, was involved in the party until his resignation in 1983 as a result of a dispute over party strategy. Ndadaye returned to Burundi in September of that year, by which time he was developing a political following of his own. Ndadaye had been a key leader of the Burundi Workers' Party, it subsequently fell into decline after his departure being disbanded in the mid-1980s. Although opposition parties were banned in Burundi itself under the rule of military dictator Jean-Baptiste Bagaza, in 1986, Ndadaye and his supporters founded a new underground political movement, the moderate Front for Democracy in Burundi, it remained underground until 1992, when Pierre Buyoya began a process of political liberalisation in advance of the country's first democratic elections and allowed the party to register.
The elections, held in June 1993, saw Ndadaye, endorsed by FRODEBU and three other predominately Hutu parties, the Rally for the People of Burundi, People's Party, the Liberal Party, face up against the ruling Tutsi-dominated government under Buyoya. With the Hutu the dominant population in Burundi, Ndadaye won a crushing victory, receiving 65% of the vote to Buyoya's 32%; the poll was certified by international observers as being free and fair, none of the candidates contested the poll. It was followed by success for his party in the legislative elections held that month, winning 65 of 81 seats. After surviving a failed coup attempt on July 3, Ndadaye was sworn in as President of Burundi on July 10, 1993; the victory made him both the first democratically first Hutu president of Burundi. Ndadaye took a cautious, moderate approach as President, attempted to resolve the deep ethnic divide in Burundian society, he named Sylvie Kinigi, a Tutsi, as the Prime Minister, gave one third of the Cabinet posts and two regional governorships to Buyoya's Union for National Progress.
He freed political prisoners, granted freedom of the press, granted amnesty to exiled former dictator Bagaza and moved to address the entrenched disadvantage of the Hutus that had resulted from many years of minority Tutsi rule to avoid exacerbating tensions. Despite his cautious approach to the presidency, some of his actions provoked tensions in the community, he questioned contracts and concessions approved under previous Tutsi governments, which threatened the economics of the powerful Tutsi elite and army. He began reforms to the military, shifting the national police to a separate command and changing the admission requirements for the military and police so as to reduce the entrenched Tutsi dominance; the dominance of FRODEBU caused problems at a local level, as Ndadaye's Hutu supporters took over many positions held by Tutsis in the public service, botched the resettlement of refugees returning after the 1972 massacres in such a way as to leave many Tutsi families homeless. The issues were exacerbated by the newly-free press, who began reporting in such a way as to inflame ethnic tensions.
Ndadaye's government was to be short-lived, however, as he was overthrown and killed in a military coup on October 21. The exact events have never been clarified, but it appears that Ndadaye, Pontien Karibwami, the president of the National Assembly and Gilles Bimazubute, the vice-president of the National Assembly, were taken to an army barracks before dawn by loyal soldiers under the guise that there had been a mutiny by sections of the army and that they needed protection; the three, along with a number of other officials and cabinet members, were executed, with Ndadaye bayonetted to death. Ndadaye's death sparked severe ramifications across the country; the attempted coup failed, as Francois Ngeze, the civilian politician installed as temporary head of state, refused to support the coup leaders and called for Prime Minister Kinigi, who had survived the coup and was in hiding at the French embassy to assume control, a move soon backed by key military chiefs. Kinigi was thus appointed as acting president while a resolution to the constitutional crisis caused by the assassination of both the president and the president of the assembly was found.
The United Nations Security Council condemned the assassination and coup, was soon followed in doing so by the Unit
Transport in Burundi
There are a number of systems of transport in Burundi, including road and water-based infrastructure, the latter of which makes use of Lake Tanganyika. Furthermore, there are some airports in Burundi. A great hindrance to Burundi's economic development is lack of adequate transportation; the country has limited ferry services on Lake Tanganyika, few road connections to neighboring countries, no rail connections, only one airport with a paved runway. Public transport is limited and private bus companies operate buses on the route to Kigali but not to Tanzania or the Democratic Republic of Congo. Roads total 12,322 kilometres as of 2004, only about 7 percent of them are paved and remain open in all weather. In 2003, there were 23,500 commercial vehicles. On paper there are 90 public buses in the country but few of these are operational. Transport is limited and private bus companies operate buses on the route to Kigali but not to Tanzania or the Democratic Republic of Congo. Lake Tanganyika is used with the major port on the lake being Bujumbura.
Most freight is transported down waterways. As of May 2015, MV Mwongozo, a passenger and cargo ferry, connects Bujumbura with Kigoma in Tanzania. Burundi possesses eight airports, of which one has paved runways, whose length exceeds 3,047m. Bujumbura International Airport is the country's primary airport any the country's only airport with a paved runway. There are a number of helicopter landing strips; as of May 2015 the airlines serving Burundi are: Brussels Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, Kenya Airways and RwandAir. Kigali is the city with the most daily departures. Burundi does not possess any railway infrastructure, although there are proposals to connect Burundi to its neighbours via railway. At a meeting in August 2006 with members of the Rwanda Patriotic Front, Wu Guanzheng, of the Communist Party of China, confirmed the intention of the People's Republic of China to fund a study into the feasibility of constructing a railway connecting at Isaka with the existing Tanzanian railway network, running via Kigali in Rwanda through to Burundi.
Tanzanian railways use 1,000 mm metre gauge, although TAZARA and other neighbouring countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo use the 3 ft 6 in gauge, leading to some potential difficulties. Another project was launched in the same year, which aims to link Burundi and Rwanda to the DRC and Zambia, therefore to the rest of Southern Africa. At a meeting to inaugurate the Northern Corridor Transit and Transport Coordination Authority, the governments of Uganda and Burundi backed the proposed new railway from the Ugandan western railhead at Kasese into the DRC. Additionally, Burundi has been added to a planned railway project to connect Rwanda. A project started in November 2013 to build a Standard Gauge line from Mombassa, Kenya, to Burundi, via Rwanda and Uganda; the main line from Mombasa will feature branches in other directions, including Ethiopia and DR Congo. East African Railway Master Plan UN Map of Burundi Map of railways in southern Africa This article incorporates public domain material from the CIA World Factbook website https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html
Centime
Centime is French for "cent", is used in English as the name of the fraction currency in several Francophone countries. In France the usage of centime goes back to the introduction of the decimal monetary system under Napoleon; this system aimed at replacing non-decimal fractions of older coins. A five-centime coin was known as a sou, shilling. In Francophone Canada 1⁄100 of a Canadian dollar is known as a cent in both English and French. However, in practice, the form of cenne has replaced the official cent. Spoken and written use of the official form cent in Francophone Canada is exceptionally uncommon. In the Canadian French vernacular sou, sou noir and cenne noire are all known and accepted monikers when referring to either 1⁄100 of a Canadian dollar or the 1¢ coin. In the European community cent is the official name for one hundredth of a euro. However, in French-speaking countries the word centime is the preferred term. Indeed, the Superior Council of the French language of Belgium recommended in 2001 the use of centime, since cent is the French word for "hundred".
An analogous decision was published in the Journal officiel in France. In Morocco, dirhams are divided into 100 centimes and one may find prices in the country quoted in centimes rather than in dirhams. Sometimes centimes are known in former Spanish areas, pesetas. A centime is one-hundredth of the following basic monetary units: Algerian dinar Burundian franc CFP franc CFA franc Comorian franc Congolese franc Djiboutian franc Ethiopian birr Guinean franc Haitian gourde Moroccan dirham Rwandan franc Swiss franc Algerian franc Belgian franc Cambodian franc French Camerounian franc French Guianan franc French franc Guadeloupe franc Katangese franc Latvian lats Luxembourgish franc Malagasy franc Malian franc Martinique franc Monegasque franc Moroccan franc New Hebrides franc Réunion franc Spanish Peseta Tunisian franc Westphalian frank
Tourism in Burundi
Tourism in Burundi refers to tourism in Burundi. Bujumbura, the largest city and former capital of Burundi, is a major tourist attraction of the country. In addition to this, Lake Tanganyika is a popular tourist attraction. Burundi has vast natural resources and wildlife, but the tourism industry of Burundi is underdeveloped. Tourism has a marginal share in GDP of the nation. Direct contributions of travel and tourism industry to the country's GDP was 2.1% in 2013 and 2% in 2014. According to World Bank data, the number of international tourists increased in the 2000s. In 2000, nearly 29,000 international tourists visited Burundi, the number increased to 148,000 in 2005. Number of tourists peaked at 214,000 in 2006. While the tourism sector is small but growing, ongoing unrest has decimated tourism in the country. Tourism infrastructure is poor in Burundi; the options for transport and accommodation for tourists are limited. In 2010, the Burundian government planned a 20-year infrastructure development plan in partnership with the African Development Bank to improve tourism infrastructure in the country.
The funding came from other donor nations and organizations. Yellow fever vaccination is necessary before visiting Burundi. Malaria is endemic in Burundi, while vaccination for cholera may be required when visiting Burundi. Ecotourism is one of the major areas of tourism in Burundi. Kibira National Park, Rurubu River and Lake Tanganyika are considered major natural habitats for wildlife. There are numerous wildfowl lakes, such as Rwihinda Lake Natural Reserve. Burudian drummers, locally known as Abatimbo, are one of the major cultural attractions. Wooden drums are part of ancient Burundi culture, their sound is known as "ancient" and "sacred" sound in Burundi and a symbol of unity. In 2014, the ritual Burundian drum dance was placed on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list. There is no UNESCO-recognized World Heritage Site in Burundi but there are 10 sites which are on UNESCO's tentative list; these 10 sites includes Gishora, Muramvya, Lake Rwihinda Natural Reserve, Lake Tanganyika, Rusizi National Park, Kibira National Park, Ruvubu National Park and the Kagera waterfalls.
Visa policy of Burundi Gary KrosinTheBartletts Travel tips Official website of Burundi Tourism
Franc
The franc is the name of several currency units. The French franc was the currency of France until the euro was adopted in 1999; the Swiss franc is a major world currency today due to the prominence of Swiss financial institutions. The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription francorum rex used on early French coins and until the 18th century, or from the French franc, meaning "frank"; the countries that use francs include Switzerland and most of Francophone Africa. Before the introduction of the euro, francs were used in France and Luxembourg, while Andorra and Monaco accepted the French franc as legal tender; the franc was used within the French Empire's colonies, including Algeria and Cambodia. The franc is sometimes Hispanicised as the franco, for instance in Luccan franco. One franc is divided into 100 centimes; the French franc symbol was an F with a line through it or, more only an F. For practical reasons, the banks and the financial markets used the abbreviation FF for the French franc in order to distinguish it from the Belgian franc, the Luxembourgish franc, et cetera.
In the Luxembourgish language, the word for franc is plural form Frangen. The franc was a French gold coin of 3.87 g minted in 1360 on the occasion of the release of King John II, held by the English since his capture at the Battle of Poitiers four years earlier. It was equivalent to one livre tournois; the French franc was the name of a gold coin issued in France from 1360 until 1380 a silver coin issued between 1575 and 1641. The franc became the national currency from 1795 until 1999. Though abolished as a legal coin by Louis XIII in 1641 in favor of the gold louis and silver écu, the term franc continued to be used in common parlance for the livre tournois; the franc was minted for many of the former French colonies, such as Morocco, French West Africa, others. Today, after independence, many of these countries continue to use the franc as their standard denomination; the value of the French franc was locked to the euro at 1 euro = 6.55957 FRF on 31 December 1998, after the introduction of the euro notes and coins, ceased to be legal tender after 28 February 2002, although they were still exchangeable at banks until 19 February 2012.
Fourteen African countries use the franc CFA worth 1.7 French francs and from 1948, 2 francs but after January 1994 worth only 0.01 French franc. Therefore, from January 1999, 1 CFA franc is equivalent to €0.00152449. A separate circulates in France's Pacific territories, worth €0.0084. In 1981, The Comoros established an arrangement with the French government similar to that of the CFA franc. 50 Comorian francs were worth 1 French franc. In January 1994, the rate was changed to 75 Comorian francs to the French franc. Since 1999, the currency has been pegged to the euro; the conquest of most of western Europe by Revolutionary and Napoleonic France led to the franc's wide circulation. Following independence from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the new Kingdom of Belgium in 1832 adopted its own Belgian franc, equivalent to the French one, followed by Luxembourg adopting the Luxembourgish franc in 1848 and Switzerland in 1850. Newly unified Italy adopted the lira on a similar basis in 1862. In 1865, Belgium and Italy created the Latin Monetary Union: each would possess a national currency unit worth 4.5 g of silver or 0.290322 g of gold, all exchangeable at a rate of 1:1.
In the 1870s the gold value was made the fixed standard, a situation, to continue until 1914. In 1926 Belgium as well as France experienced depreciation and an abrupt collapse of confidence, leading to the introduction of a new gold currency for international transactions, the belga of 5 francs, the country's withdrawal from the monetary union, which ceased to exist at the end of the year; the 1921 monetary union of Belgium and Luxembourg survived, forming the basis for full economic union in 1932. Like the French franc, the Belgo-Luxemburgish franc ceased to exist on 1 January 1999, when it became fixed at 1 EUR = 40.3399 BEF/LUF, thus a franc was worth €0.024789. Old franc coins and notes lost their legal tender status on 28 February 2002. 1 Luxembourgish franc was equal to 1 Belgian franc. Belgian francs were legal tender inside Luxembourg, Luxembourgish francs were legal tender in the whole of Belgium; the equivalent name of the Belgian franc in Dutch, Belgium's other official language, was Belgische Frank.
As mentioned before, in Luxembourg the franc was called Frang. The Swiss franc, which appreciated against the new European currency from April to September 2000, remains one of the world's strongest currencies, worth today around five-sixths of a euro; the Swiss franc is used in Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein retains the ability to mint its own currency, the Liechtenstein franc, which it does from time to time for commemorative or emergency purposes; the name of the c
Currency
A currency, in the most specific sense is money in any form when in use or circulation as a medium of exchange circulating banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a system of money in common use for people in a nation. Under this definition, US dollars, pounds sterling, Australian dollars, European euros, Russian rubles and Indian Rupees are examples of currency; these various currencies are recognized as stores of value and are traded between nations in foreign exchange markets, which determine the relative values of the different currencies. Currencies in this sense are defined by governments, each type has limited boundaries of acceptance. Other definitions of the term "currency" are discussed in their respective synonymous articles banknote and money; the latter definition, pertaining to the currency systems of nations, is the topic of this article. Currencies can be classified into two monetary systems: fiat money and commodity money, depending on what guarantees the currency's value.
Some currencies are legal tender in certain political jurisdictions. Others are traded for their economic value. Digital currency has arisen with the popularity of the Internet. Money was a form of receipt, representing grain stored in temple granaries in Sumer in ancient Mesopotamia and in Ancient Egypt. In this first stage of currency, metals were used as symbols to represent value stored in the form of commodities; this formed the basis of trade in the Fertile Crescent for over 1500 years. However, the collapse of the Near Eastern trading system pointed to a flaw: in an era where there was no place, safe to store value, the value of a circulating medium could only be as sound as the forces that defended that store. A trade could only reach as far as the credibility of that military. By the late Bronze Age, however, a series of treaties had established safe passage for merchants around the Eastern Mediterranean, spreading from Minoan Crete and Mycenae in the northwest to Elam and Bahrain in the southeast.
It is not known what was used as a currency for these exchanges, but it is thought that ox-hide shaped ingots of copper, produced in Cyprus, may have functioned as a currency. It is thought that the increase in piracy and raiding associated with the Bronze Age collapse produced by the Peoples of the Sea, brought the trading system of oxhide ingots to an end, it was only the recovery of Phoenician trade in the 10th and 9th centuries BC that led to a return to prosperity, the appearance of real coinage first in Anatolia with Croesus of Lydia and subsequently with the Greeks and Persians. In Africa, many forms of value store have been used, including beads, ivory, various forms of weapons, the manilla currency, ochre and other earth oxides; the manilla rings of West Africa were one of the currencies used from the 15th century onwards to sell slaves. African currency is still notable for its variety, in many places, various forms of barter still apply; these factors led to the metal itself being the store of value: first silver both silver and gold, at one point bronze.
Now we have other non-precious metals as coins. Metals were mined and stamped into coins; this was to assure the individual accepting the coin that he was getting a certain known weight of precious metal. Coins could be counterfeited, but the existence of standard coins created a new unit of account, which helped lead to banking. Archimedes' principle provided the next link: coins could now be tested for their fine weight of metal, thus the value of a coin could be determined if it had been shaved, debased or otherwise tampered with. Most major economies using coinage had several tiers of coins of different values, made of copper and gold. Gold coins were the most valuable and were used for large purchases, payment of the military and backing of state activities. Units of account were defined as the value of a particular type of gold coin. Silver coins were used for midsized transactions, sometimes defined a unit of account, while coins of copper or silver, or some mixture of them, might be used for everyday transactions.
This system had been used in ancient India since the time of the Mahajanapadas. The exact ratios between the values of the three metals varied between different eras and places. However, the rarity of gold made it more valuable than silver, silver was worth more than copper. In premodern China, the need for credit and for a medium of exchange, less physically cumbersome than large numbers of copper coins led to the introduction of paper money, i.e. banknotes. Their introduction was a gradual process which lasted from the late Tang dynasty into the Song dynasty, it began as a means for merchants to exchange heavy coinage for receipts of deposit issued as promissory notes by wholesalers' shops. These notes were valid for temporary use in a small regional territory. In the 10th century, the Song dynasty government began to circulate these notes amongst the traders in its monopolized salt industry; the Song government granted several shops the right to issue banknotes, in the early 12th century the government took over these shops to produce state-issued currency.
Yet the banknotes issued w
Aluminium
Aluminium or aluminum is a chemical element with symbol Al and atomic number 13. It is a silvery-white, soft and ductile metal in the boron group. By mass, aluminium makes up about 8% of the Earth's crust; the chief ore of aluminium is bauxite. Aluminium metal is so chemically reactive that native specimens are rare and limited to extreme reducing environments. Instead, it is found combined in over 270 different minerals. Aluminium is remarkable for its low density and its ability to resist corrosion through the phenomenon of passivation. Aluminium and its alloys are vital to the aerospace industry and important in transportation and building industries, such as building facades and window frames; the oxides and sulfates are the most useful compounds of aluminium. Despite its prevalence in the environment, no known form of life uses aluminium salts metabolically, but aluminium is well tolerated by plants and animals; because of these salts' abundance, the potential for a biological role for them is of continuing interest, studies continue.
Of aluminium isotopes, only 27Al is stable. This is consistent with aluminium having an odd atomic number, it is the only aluminium isotope that has existed on Earth in its current form since the creation of the planet. Nearly all the element on Earth is present as this isotope, which makes aluminium a mononuclidic element and means that its standard atomic weight equates to that of the isotope; the standard atomic weight of aluminium is low in comparison with many other metals, which has consequences for the element's properties. All other isotopes of aluminium are radioactive; the most stable of these is 26Al and therefore could not have survived since the formation of the planet. However, 26Al is produced from argon in the atmosphere by spallation caused by cosmic ray protons; the ratio of 26Al to 10Be has been used for radiodating of geological processes over 105 to 106 year time scales, in particular transport, sediment storage, burial times, erosion. Most meteorite scientists believe that the energy released by the decay of 26Al was responsible for the melting and differentiation of some asteroids after their formation 4.55 billion years ago.
The remaining isotopes of aluminium, with mass numbers ranging from 21 to 43, all have half-lives well under an hour. Three metastable states are known, all with half-lives under a minute. An aluminium atom has 13 electrons, arranged in an electron configuration of 3s23p1, with three electrons beyond a stable noble gas configuration. Accordingly, the combined first three ionization energies of aluminium are far lower than the fourth ionization energy alone. Aluminium can easily surrender its three outermost electrons in many chemical reactions; the electronegativity of aluminium is 1.61. A free aluminium atom has a radius of 143 pm. With the three outermost electrons removed, the radius shrinks to 39 pm for a 4-coordinated atom or 53.5 pm for a 6-coordinated atom. At standard temperature and pressure, aluminium atoms form a face-centered cubic crystal system bound by metallic bonding provided by atoms' outermost electrons; this crystal system is shared by some other metals, such as copper. Aluminium metal, when in quantity, is shiny and resembles silver because it preferentially absorbs far ultraviolet radiation while reflecting all visible light so it does not impart any color to reflected light, unlike the reflectance spectra of copper and gold.
Another important characteristic of aluminium is its low density, 2.70 g/cm3. Aluminium is a soft, lightweight and malleable with appearance ranging from silvery to dull gray, depending on the surface roughness, it is nonmagnetic and does not ignite. A fresh film of aluminium serves as a good reflector of visible light and an excellent reflector of medium and far infrared radiation; the yield strength of pure aluminium is 7–11 MPa, while aluminium alloys have yield strengths ranging from 200 MPa to 600 MPa. Aluminium has stiffness of steel, it is machined, cast and extruded. Aluminium atoms are arranged in a face-centered cubic structure. Aluminium has a stacking-fault energy of 200 mJ/m2. Aluminium is a good thermal and electrical conductor, having 59% the conductivity of copper, both thermal and electrical, while having only 30% of copper's density. Aluminium is capable of superconductivity, with a superconducting critical temperature of 1.2 kelvin and a critical magnetic field of about 100 gauss.
Aluminium is the most common material for the fabrication of superconducting qubits. Aluminium's corrosion resistance can be excellent due to a thin surface layer of aluminium oxide that forms when the bare metal is exposed to air preventing further oxidation, in a process termed passivation; the strongest aluminium alloys are less corrosion resistant due to galvanic reactions with alloyed copper. This corrosion resistance is reduced by aqueous salts in the presence of dissimilar metals. In acidic solutions, aluminium reacts with water to form hydrogen, in alkaline ones to form aluminates—protective passivation under these conditions is negligible; because it is corroded by dissolved chlorides, such as common sodium chloride, household plumbing is never made from aluminium. However, because
Burundi
