1.
Religious text
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Religious texts are texts which religious traditions consider to be central to their religious practice or set of beliefs. It is not possible to create an exhaustive list of religious texts, one of the oldest known religious texts is the Kesh Temple Hymn of Ancient Sumer, a set of inscribed clay tablets which scholars typically date around 2600 BCE. For example, the content of a Protestant Bible may differ from the content of a Catholic Bible, the word canon comes from the Sumerian word meaning standard. Hierographology is the study of sacred texts, the following is an in-exhaustive list of links to specific religious texts which may be used for further, more in-depth study. The writings of Franklin Albert Jones a. k. a, some denominations also include the Apocrypha. For Protestantism, this is the 66-book canon - the Jewish Tanakh of 24 books divided differently, some denominations also include the 15 books of the Apocrypha between the Old Testament and the New Testament, for a total of 81 books. For Catholicism, this includes seven deuterocanonical books in the Old Testament for a total of 73 books, called the Canon of Trent. For the Eastern Orthodox Church, this includes the anagignoskomena, which consist of the Catholic deuterocanon, plus 3 Maccabees, Psalm 151, the Prayer of Manasseh,4 Maccabees is considered to be canonical by the Georgian Orthodox Church. Some Syriac churches accept the Letter of Baruch as scripture, christian Scientists The Bible Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. This textbook, along with the Bible, serves as the permanent impersonal pastor of the church, the Community of Christ uses the Joseph Smith Translation, which it calls the Inspired Version, as well as updated modern translations. Seventh-day Adventists The Bible The writings of Ellen White are held to a status, though not equal with the Bible. Also known as the Gospel of Mani and The Living Gospel the Treasure of Life the Pragmateia the Book of Mysteries The Book of Giants the Epistles the Psalms, the Shabuhragan The Arzhang The Kephalaia, Discourses, found in Coptic translation. Odù Ifá Jaap Verduijns Odu Ifa Collection Primary religious texts, that is, the Avesta collection, The Yasna, the Visperad, a collection of supplements to the Yasna. The Yashts, hymns in honor of the divinities, the Vendidad, describes the various forms of evil spirits and ways to confound them. Shorter texts and prayers, the Yashts the five Nyaishes, the Sirozeh, there are some 60 secondary religious texts, none of which are considered scripture. The Khordeh Avesta, Zoroastrian prayer book for lay people from the Avesta, religious full text online library Ancient texts library Internet Sacred Text Archive
2.
Sant'Egidio, Rome
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SantEgidio is a convent church in Trastevere, Rome. SantEgidio is the saint of hermits. The church was founded in 1630 and was abandoned by the nuns in 1971, in 1973, it was occupied by the Community of SantEgidio, which had been founded in 1968, and was still looking for a meeting place of its own. The community, which had not had a name before, then chose to name itself after its church, together with the adjacent former Carmelite monastery, the church forms the seat of the Community of SantEgidio. Pierre Anouilh, Des pauvres a la paix, aspects de laction pacificatrice de SantEgidio au Mozambique, _LFM. Sciences sociales et mmissions_, No.17, Dec.2005, pp. 11–40 Eric Morier-Genoud, interviews de Don Matteo Zuppi & Ricardo Cannelli, _LFM. Sciences sociales et mmissions_, Oct 2003, pp. 119–145 The Community of SantEgidio homepage DREAM programm - The Community of SantEgidio NO to the Death Penalty - The Community of SantEgidio
3.
Italian language
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By most measures, Italian, together with Sardinian, is the closest to Latin of the Romance languages. Italian is a language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City. Italian is spoken by minorities in places such as France, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Crimea and Tunisia and by large expatriate communities in the Americas. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardized Italian and other regional languages, Italian is the fourth most studied language in the world. Italian is a major European language, being one of the languages of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It is the third most widely spoken first language in the European Union with 65 million native speakers, including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries and on other continents, the total number of speakers is around 85 million. Italian is the working language of the Holy See, serving as the lingua franca in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Italian is known as the language of music because of its use in musical terminology and its influence is also widespread in the arts and in the luxury goods market. Italian has been reported as the fourth or fifth most frequently taught foreign language in the world, Italian was adopted by the state after the Unification of Italy, having previously been a literary language based on Tuscan as spoken mostly by the upper class of Florentine society. Its development was influenced by other Italian languages and to some minor extent. Its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian, unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latins contrast between short and long consonants. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive, however, Italian as a language used in Italy and some surrounding regions has a longer history. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri, written in his native Florentine. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language, and thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the language of Italy. Italian was also one of the recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italy has always had a dialect for each city, because the cities. Those dialects now have considerable variety, as Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. Even in the case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages
4.
Prayer
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Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with an object of worship through deliberate communication. Prayer can be a form of practice, may be either individual or communal. It may involve the use of words, song or complete silence, when language is used, prayer may take the form of a hymn, incantation, formal creedal statement, or a spontaneous utterance in the praying person. There are different forms of such as petitionary prayer, prayers of supplication, thanksgiving. Thus, people pray for many such as personal benefit, asking for divine grace, spiritual connection. Some anthropologists believe that the earliest intelligent modern humans practiced a form of prayer, scientific studies regarding the use of prayer have mostly concentrated on its effect on the healing of sick or injured people. Meta-studies of the studies in this field have been performed showing evidence only for no effect or a small effect. Some studies have indicated increased medical complications in groups receiving prayer over those without, the efficacy of petition in prayer for physical healing to a deity has been evaluated in numerous other studies, with contradictory results. There has been criticism of the way the studies were conducted. The act of prayer is attested in sources as early as 5000 years ago. Some anthropologists, such as Sir Edward Burnett Tylor and Sir James George Frazer, various spiritual traditions offer a wide variety of devotional acts. There are morning and evening prayers, graces said over meals, some Christians bow their heads and fold their hands. Some Native Americans regard dancing as a form of prayer, Jewish prayer may involve swaying back and forth and bowing. Muslims practice salat in their prayers, some pray according to standardized rituals and liturgies, while others prefer extemporaneous prayers. Friedrich Heiler is often cited in Christian circles for his systematic Typology of Prayer which lists six types of prayer, primitive, ritual, Greek cultural, philosophical, mystical, some forms of prayer require a prior ritualistic form of cleansing or purification such as in ghusl and wudhu. Prayer may be privately and individually, or it may be done corporately in the presence of fellow believers. Prayer can be incorporated into a daily life, in which one is in constant communication with a god. Some people pray throughout all that is happening during the day and this is actually regarded as a requirement in several Christian denominations, although enforcement is not possible nor desirable
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Bible
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The Bible is a collection of sacred texts or scriptures that Jews and Christians consider to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans. Many different authors contributed to the Bible, what is regarded as canonical text differs depending on traditions and groups, a number of Bible canons have evolved, with overlapping and diverging contents. The Christian Old Testament overlaps with the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Septuagint, the New Testament is a collection of writings by early Christians, believed to be mostly Jewish disciples of Christ, written in first-century Koine Greek. These early Christian Greek writings consist of narratives, letters, among Christian denominations there is some disagreement about the contents of the canon, primarily the Apocrypha, a list of works that are regarded with varying levels of respect. Attitudes towards the Bible also differ amongst Christian groups and this concept arose during the Protestant Reformation, and many denominations today support the use of the Bible as the only source of Christian teaching. With estimated total sales of over 5 billion copies, the Bible is widely considered to be the book of all time. It has estimated sales of 100 million copies, and has been a major influence on literature and history, especially in the West. The English word Bible is from the Latin biblia, from the word in Medieval Latin and Late Latin. Medieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra holy book, while biblia in Greek and it gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as a singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe. Latin biblia sacra holy books translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια ta biblia ta hagia, the word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of paper or scroll and came to be used as the ordinary word for book. It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos, Egyptian papyrus, possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece, the Greek ta biblia was an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books. Christian use of the term can be traced to c.223 CE, bruce notes that Chrysostom appears to be the first writer to use the Greek phrase ta biblia to describe both the Old and New Testaments together. The division of the Hebrew Bible into verses is based on the sof passuk cantillation mark used by the 10th-century Masoretes to record the verse divisions used in oral traditions. The oldest extant copy of a complete Bible is an early 4th-century parchment book preserved in the Vatican Library, the oldest copy of the Tanakh in Hebrew and Aramaic dates from the 10th century CE. The oldest copy of a complete Latin Bible is the Codex Amiatinus and he states that it is not a magical book, nor was it literally written by God and passed to mankind. In Christian Bibles, the New Testament Gospels were derived from traditions in the second half of the first century CE. Riches says that, Scholars have attempted to reconstruct something of the history of the oral traditions behind the Gospels, the period of transmission is short, less than 40 years passed between the death of Jesus and the writing of Marks Gospel. This means that there was time for oral traditions to assume fixed form
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Gospel
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A gospel is an account describing the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Christianity places a value on the four canonical gospels, which it considers to be revelations from God. This position however, requires a view of Biblical inerrancy. The word gospel derives from the Old English gōd-spell, meaning good news or glad tidings, the gospel was considered the good news of the coming Kingdom of Messiah, and of redemption through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, the central Christian message. The Greek word euangelion is also the source of the terms evangelist, the authors of the four canonical Christian gospels are known as the Four Evangelists. Paul the Apostle used the term εὐαγγέλιον when he reminded the people of the church at Corinth of the gospel I preached to you, the earliest extant use of gospel to denote a particular genre of literature dates to the 2nd century. Justin Martyr in the Apology wrote of. the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, more generally, gospels compose a genre of early Christian writings. Gospels that did not become canonical also circulated in Early Christianity, many, such as the work known today as Gospel of Thomas, lack the narrative framework typical of a gospel. Scholars hold a wide spectrum of views on the origins and composition of the gospels, for example, the vast majority of material in Mark is also present in either Luke or Matthew or both, suggesting that Mark was a source for Matthew and Luke. He writes that the four gospels were probably all written by the end of the first century. But they did not yet at that time have a consistent narrative, in 170 Tatian sought to find a solution by composing a single narrative out of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, with some additional oral material. Richies concludes that the gospel passages themselves can be unclear, and some of the messages within are straightforwardly ambiguous, the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are considered synoptic gospels on the basis of many similarities between them that are not shared by the Gospel of John. Synoptic means here that they can be seen or read together, the fourth gospel, the Gospel of John, presents a very different picture of Jesus and his ministry from the synoptics. Of the many gospels written in antiquity, only four came to be accepted as part of the New Testament. An insistence upon there being a canon of four gospels, and no others, was a theme of Irenaeus of Lyons. Irenaeus was ultimately successful in declaring that the four gospels collectively and he also supported reading each gospel in light of the others. This canon, which corresponds to the modern Catholic canon, was used in the Vulgate, Gospel of Matthew Gospel of John Gospel of Luke Gospel of Mark This order is found in the following manuscripts, Bezae, Monacensis, Washingtonianus, Tischendorfianus IV, Uncial 0234. Although there is no set order of the four gospels in patristic lists or discussions, moody Smith suggests that the standard order of Matthew-Mark-Luke-John projects a kind of intention that can scarcely be ignored
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Poverty
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Poverty is general scarcity or the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money. It is a concept, which includes social, economic. Absolute poverty or destitution refers to the lack of necessary to meet basic needs such as food, clothing. Absolute poverty is meant to be about the independent of location. After the industrial revolution, mass production in factories made producing goods increasingly less expensive, of more importance is the modernization of agriculture, such as fertilizers, to provide enough yield to feed the population. Strategies of increasing income to make basic needs more affordable typically include welfare, economic freedoms, Poverty reduction is a major goal and issue for many international organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank. The World Bank forecasts that 702.1 million people, down from 1.75 billion in 1990, of these, about 347.1 million people lived in Sub-Saharan Africa and 231.3 million lived in South Asia. According to the World Bank, between 1990 and 2015, the percentage of the population living in extreme poverty fell from 37. 1% to 9. 6%. Nevertheless, given the current economic model, built on GDP, extreme poverty is a global challenge, it is observed in all parts of the world, including developed economies. UNICEF estimates half the children live in poverty. It has been argued by some academics that the policies promoted by global financial institutions such as the IMF. Another estimate places the true scale of poverty much higher than the World Bank, with an estimated 4.3 billion people living with less than $5 a day and unable to meet basic needs adequately. In 2012 it is estimated that, given a poverty line of $1.25 a day 1.2 billion people lived in poverty, the word poverty comes from old French poverté, from Latin paupertās from pauper. The English word poverty via Anglo-Norman povert, there are several definitions of poverty depending on the context of the situation it is placed in, and the views of the person giving the definition. Income Poverty, a familys income fails to meet a federally established threshold that differs across countries, United Nations, Fundamentally, poverty is the inability of having choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of capacity to participate effectively in society. It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and it means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living in marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or sanitation. World Bank, Poverty is pronounced deprivation in well-being, and comprises many dimensions and it includes low incomes and the inability to acquire the basic goods and services necessary for survival with dignity
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Ecumenism
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Ecumenism refers to efforts by Christians of different church traditions to develop closer relationships and better understandings. The term is often used to refer to efforts towards the visible. The terms ecumenism and ecumenical come from the Greek οἰκουμένη, which means the inhabited world. The ecumenical vision comprises both the search for the unity of the Church and the whole inhabited earth as the concern of all Christians. Used in this sense, the term carries no connotation of re-uniting the historically separated Christian denominations. Historically, the word was used in the context of large ecumenical councils that were organized under the auspices of Roman Emperors to clarify matters of Christian theology. These Ecumenical Councils brought together bishops from around the world as they knew it at the time. There were a total of seven ecumenical councils accepted by both Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism held before the Great Schism, thus, the modern meaning of the world ecumenical and ecumenism derives from this pre-modern sense of Christian unity, and the impulse to recreate this unity again. Ecumenism and nondenominational or postdenominational movements are not necessarily the same thing, while some of these can be ecumenical in intent, normally nondenominationalism seeks no common organizing principle nor works toward the unity of Christians. If ecumenism is the quest for Christian unity, it must be understood what the divisions are which must be overcome, Christianity is the largest religion in the world and the various divisions have commonalities and differences in tradition, theology, church government, doctrine, and language. The exact number of denominations is disputed, based on differing definitions used. The largest number often quoted is approximately 45,000 from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, the World Christian Encyclopedia lists approximately 33,000 in 2001. Yet, at the time, the World Council of Churches counts only 348 member churches. This, with the Catholic Churchs 1.25 billion Christians indicates that 349 churches/denominations already account for nearly 80% of the worlds Christian population, One problem with the larger numbers is that single denominations can be counted multiple times. For example, the Catholic Church is a church, or communion. Further, the Catholic Church presence in each country is counted as a different denomination - though this is in no way an ecclesiologically accurate definition and this can result in the one Catholic Church being counted as 242 distinct denominations, as in the World Christian Encyclopedia. Other denominations may be very small remnants of once larger churches, the United Society of Believers in Christs Second Appearing have only three full members, for example, yet are a distinct denomination. Most current divisions are the result of historical schisms - a break in the communion between previously united Churches, bishops, or communities
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Interfaith dialogue
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Similarly, pluralistic rationalist groups have hosted public reasoning dialogues to transcend all worldviews, termed transbelief dialogue. Throughout the world there are local, regional, national and international initiatives, many are formally or informally linked. The often quoted There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions, There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions was formulated by Dr Hans Küng, a Professor of Ecumenical Theology and President of the Global Ethic Foundation. To some, the interreligious dialogue has the same meaning as interfaith dialogue. Neither are the same as Nondenominational Christianity, the World Council of Churches, though. To the WCC, interreligious refers to action between different Christian denominations, so, interfaith refers to interaction between different faith groups such as Muslim and Christian or Jew for example. In the dialogue of the hands, we all work together to make the world a place in which we must all live together. In the dialogue of the heart, we share the experience of the emotions of different from us. The historical effectiveness of interfaith dialogue is an issue of debate, friar James L. Heft, in a lecture on The Necessity of Inter-Faith Diplomacy, spoke about the conflicts among practitioners of the three Abrahamic religions. The sad reality has been that most of the time Jews, Muslims and Christians have remained ignorant about each other, or worse, especially in the case of Christians and Muslims, attacked each other. In contrast, The Pluralism Project at Harvard University says, Every religious tradition has grown through the ages in dialogue, Christians, Jews, and Muslims have been part of one anothers histories, have shared not only villages and cities, but ideas of God and divine revelation. The importance of Abrahamic interfaith dialogue in the present has been presented, We human beings today face a stark choice. Religious pluralism can also be observed in historical contexts, including Muslim Spain. Zarmanochegas was a monk of the Sramana tradition from India who journeyed to Antioch, disputation of Barcelona - religious disputation between Jews and Christians in 1263. The apostate Paulus Christiani proposed to King James I of Aragon that a public religious disputation on the fundamentals of faith should be held between him and R. Moses b. Nahman whom he had encountered in Gerona. The Dominicans Raymond de Peñaforte, Raymond Martini, and Arnold de Segarra, the single representative for the Jewish side was Naḥmanides. The four sessions of the disputation took place on July 20,27,30, Naḥmanides was guaranteed complete freedom of speech in the debate, he took full advantage of the opportunity thus afforded and spoke with remarkable frankness
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Rome
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Rome is a special comune and the capital of Italy. Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region, with 2,873,598 residents in 1,285 km2, it is also the countrys largest and most populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the center of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4.3 million residents, the city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio, along the shores of the Tiber. Romes history spans more than 2,500 years, while Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at only around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe. The citys early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans and it was first called The Eternal City by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy. Rome is also called the Caput Mundi, due to that, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, and then the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, in 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic. Rome has the status of a global city, Rome ranked in 2014 as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, and the most popular tourist attraction in Italy. Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, monuments and museums such as the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum are among the worlds most visited tourist destinations with both locations receiving millions of tourists a year. Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics and is the seat of United Nations Food, however, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was actually derived from Rome itself. As early as the 4th century, there have been alternate theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. There is archaeological evidence of occupation of the Rome area from approximately 14,000 years ago. Evidence of stone tools, pottery and stone weapons attest to about 10,000 years of human presence, several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the age and the beginning of the Iron age. However, none of them had yet an urban quality, nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city was gradually born through the aggregation of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine. All these happenings, which according to the excavations took place more or less around the mid of the 8th century BC. Despite recent excavations at the Palatine hill, the view that Rome has been indeed founded with an act of will as the legend suggests in the middle of the 8th century BC remains a fringe hypothesis. Traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves explain the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth
11.
Andrea Riccardi
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Andrea Riccardi is an Italian historian, professor, politician and activist, founder of the Community of SantEgidio. Since November 16,2011, he has served as Minister for International Cooperation without portfolio in the Monti Cabinet, in 1999, he received the Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. In November 2004, he was given the International Balzan Prize for Humanity, Peace and he has also taught at Sapienza University and the University of Bari. Andrea Riccardi is also a member of the Fondation Chiracs honour committee and he also participated as jury member in 2009 for the Prize for Conflict Prevention awarded every year by this foundation. From 4 January 2013 to 16 May 2013 Riccardi was the President of Civic Choice, a centrist political party
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Saint Giles
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Saint Giles, also known as Giles the Hermit, was a Greek, Christian, hermit saint from Athens, whose legend is centered in Provence and Septimania. Giles founded the abbey in Saint-Gilles-du-Gard whose tomb became a place of pilgrimage and it was a stop on the road that led from Arles to Santiago de Compostela, the pilgrim Way of St. James. Giles is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, Giles first lived in retreats near the mouth of the Rhône and by the River Gard in Septimania, todays southern France. The story that he was the son of King Theodore and Queen Pelagia of Athens is probably an embellishment of his early hagiographers, the two main incidents in his life were often depicted in art. This retreat was discovered by the kings hunters, who had pursued the hind to its place of refuge. An arrow shot at the wounded the saint instead, who afterwards became a patron of cripples. The king, who by legend was Wamba, an anachronistic Visigoth and he held the hermit in high esteem for his humility rejected all honors save some disciples. Wamba built him a monastery in his valley, Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, which Giles placed under the Benedictine rule and he died there in the early part of the 8th century, with the highest repute for sanctity and miracles. Several Latin and French texts, including the Legenda Aurea refer to hidden sin of Charlemagne. This legend, however, would be contradicted by generally accepted dates for the life of Charlemagne. A later text, the Liber miraculorum sancti Aegidii served to reinforce the flow of pilgrims to the abbey, around the abbey allegedly founded by him in the 7th century, the town of St-Gilles-du-Gard sprang up. The abbey remained the center of his cult, which was strong in Languedoc. In 1562, the relics of the saint were transferred to Toulouse to save them from the Huguenots. With the restoration of a part of the relics to the abbey of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard in 1862, and the publicized rediscovery of his former tomb there in 1865. In medieval art, he is depicted with his symbol, the hind and his emblem is also an arrow. Giles is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, and the only non-martyr and his feast day is September 1. Besides Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, nineteen other cities bear his name, cities that possess relics of St. Giles is also the patron saint of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, where St. Giles Cathedral is a prominent landmark. He is also the saint of, Graz, Nuremberg, Osnabrück, Sankt Gilgen, Brunswick, Wollaberg, Saint-Gilles
13.
Trastevere
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Trastevere is the 13th rione of Rome, on the west bank of the Tiber, south of Vatican City, and within Municipio I. Its name comes from the Latin trans Tiberim, meaning literally beyond the Tiber and its logo is a golden head of a lion on a red background, the meaning of which is uncertain. To the north, Trastevere borders the XIV rione, Borgo, in Romes Regal period, the area across the Tiber belonged to the hostile Etruscans, the Romans named it Ripa Etrusca. Rome conquered it to control of and access to the river from both banks, but was not interested in building on that side of the river. In fact, the connection between Trastevere and the rest of the city was a small wooden bridge called the Pons Sublicius. By the time of the Republic c.509 BC, the number of sailors and fishermen making a living from the river had increased, immigrants from the East also settled there, mainly Jews and Syrians. The area began to be considered part of the city under Augustus, since the end of the Roman Republic the quarter was also the center of an important Jewish community, which inhabited there until the end of the Middle Ages. With the wealth of the Imperial Age, several important figures decided to build their villae in Trastevere, including Clodia, and Julius Caesar. The regio included two of the most ancient churches in Rome, the Titulus Callixti, later called the Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere, and the Titulus Cecilae, Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. In the Middle Ages Trastevere had narrow, winding, irregular streets, moreover, at the end of the 15th century these mignani were removed. Nevertheless, Trastevere remained a maze of narrow streets, there was a strong contrast between the large, opulent houses of the upper classes and the small, dilapidated houses of the poor. The streets had no pavement until the time of Sixtus IV at the end of the 15th century, at first bricks were used, but these were later replaced by sampietrini, which were more suitable for carriages. In 1744 Benedict XIV modified the borders of the rioni, giving Trastevere its modern limits, nowadays, Trastevere maintains its character thanks to its narrow cobbled streets lined by ancient houses. At night, natives and tourists flock to its many pubs and restaurants. The unique character of this neighborhood has attracted artists, foreign expats, in the sixties and seventies, the American musicians/composers Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, of the group Musica Elettronica Viva, lived in Via della Luce. Sergio Leone, the director of Spaghetti Westerns, grew up in Viale Glorioso, ennio Morricone, the film music composer, went to the same school, and for one year was in the same class as Sergio Leone. Public libraries in Trastevere include Casa della Memoria e della Storia
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Mozambique
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It is separated from Madagascar by the Mozambique Channel to the east. The capital and largest city is Maputo, between the 1st and 5th centuries AD, Bantu-speaking peoples migrated from farther north and west. Swahili commercial ports existed along the coasts until the arrival of Europeans, the area was explored by Vasco da Gama in 1498 and colonised by Portugal from 1505. The country was an important place where Somali merchants enslaved the local population, after over four centuries of Portuguese rule, Mozambique gained independence in 1975, becoming the Peoples Republic of Mozambique shortly thereafter. After only two years of independence, the country descended into an intense and protracted civil war lasting from 1977 to 1992, in 1994, Mozambique held its first multiparty elections and has remained a relatively stable presidential republic. However, since 2013, following more than 20 years of peace, Mozambique is one of the poorest and most underdeveloped countries in the world. Mozambique is endowed with rich and extensive natural resources, the countrys economy is based largely on agriculture, but industry is growing, mainly food and beverages, chemical manufacturing, and aluminium and petroleum production. The countrys tourism sector is also growing, South Africa is Mozambiques main trading partner and source of foreign direct investment. Belgium, Brazil, Portugal, and Spain are also among the countrys most important economic partners, since 2001, Mozambiques annual average GDP growth has been among the worlds highest. However, the ranks among the lowest in GDP per capita, human development, measures of inequality. The only official language of Mozambique is Portuguese, which is mostly as a second language by about half of the population. Common native languages include Makhuwa, Sena, and Swahili, the countrys population of around 24 million is composed overwhelmingly of Bantu people. The largest religion in Mozambique is Christianity, with significant minorities following Islam, the island-town was the capital of the Portuguese colony until 1898, when it was moved south to Lourenço Marques. Between the 1st and 5th centuries AD, waves of Bantu-speaking people migrated from the west and north through the Zambezi River valley and then gradually into the plateau and they established agricultural communities or societies based on herding cattle. They brought with them the technology for smelting and smithing iron, from the late first millennium AD, vast Indian Ocean trade networks extended as far south into Mozambique as the ancient port town of Chibuene. Connections are evident at sites including Manyikeni for 11–14th century ties with the inland Great Zimbabwe kingdoms, from about 1500, Portuguese trading posts and forts displaced the Arabic commercial and military hegemony, becoming regular ports of call on the new European sea route to the east. The voyage of Vasco da Gama around the Cape of Good Hope in 1498 marked the Portuguese entry into trade, politics, the Portuguese attempted to legitimise and consolidate their trade and settlement positions through the creation of prazos tied to Portuguese settlement and administration. Historically within Mozambique there was slavery, Human beings were bought and sold by African tribal chiefs, Arab Muslim traders and Portuguese and other European traders as well
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Mozambican Civil War
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The Mozambican Civil War began in 1977, two years after the end of the war of independence. It resembled the Angolan Civil War in that both were proxy wars of the Cold War that started soon after the countries gained independence from Portugal, fighting ended in 1992 and the countrys first multi-party elections were held in 1994. However, in 2013, after more than 20 years of peace, in the 1950s and 1960s Mozambican resistance to Portuguese colonial rule intensified, with gathering resentment of Portuguese authorities for centuries of exploitation, oppression and neglect. After a successful wave of movements in other African territories, Cold War powers. FRELIMOs first president was Eduardo Mondlane whose first objective was to forge a broad-based insurgent coalition that could challenge the colonial regime. On 25 September 1964, FRELIMO soldiers, with assistance from the surrounding population. This raid marked the beginning of the struggle against the Portuguese colonial government. At the wars outset, FRELIMO had little hope for a military victory, Portugal fought its own version of protracted warfare. Had the military succeeded with a minimum of expenditure and casualties, in the early 1970s, Operation Gordian Knot and the following Portuguese campaigns were militarily successful in destroying guerrilla forces and support bases in the territory. On 25 April 1974 the authoritarian regime of Estado Novo had been overthrown in Lisbon, the Armed Forces Movement in Portugal pledged a return to civil liberties and an end to the fighting in all colonies. The rapid chain of events within Portugal caught FRELIMO, which had anticipated a protracted guerrilla campaign and it responded quickly to the new situation, and on 7 September 1974 won an agreement from the Armed Forces Movement to transfer power to FRELIMO within a year. When this was known to the public, several thousand Portuguese colonials fled the newly independent country. As a result of the exodus, the economy and social organization of Mozambique collapsed, on 25 June 1975 Mozambique gained independence from Portugal, with Samora Machel as the Head of State. The independence of Mozambique and Angola in 1975 challenged white minority rule in southern Africa, the downfall of Portuguese rule gave hope to black resistance in South Africa and Rhodesia. Second, in both countries revolutionary socialist movements gained power, as President Machel put it in a speech in 1975, The struggle in Zimbabwe is our struggle. This was especially devastating for white-ruled Rhodesia, whose armed forces lacked the manpower to protect its 800-mile border with Mozambique against entering insurgents. At the same time, the government and the Smith regime lost Portugal as an ally. Thus South Africas and Rhodesias white minorities position were severely weakened by the events of 1974/75, subsequently, undermining the newly independent countries capacity to support their neighboring brothers in arms became South Africas and Rhodesias main strategy to counter this new threat
16.
FRELIMO
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The Mozambique Liberation Front, from the Portuguese Frente de Libertação de Moçambique is the dominant political party in Mozambique. Founded in 1962, FRELIMO began as a nationalist movement fighting for the independence of the Portuguese Overseas Province of Mozambique, Independence was achieved in June 1975 after the Carnation Revolution in Lisbon the previous year. At the partys 3rd Congress in February 1977, it became an officially Marxist–Leninist political party and it identified as the Frelimo Party. The Frelimo Party has ruled Mozambique since then, first as a one-party state and it struggled through a long civil war against an anti-Communist faction known as Mozambican National Resistance or RENAMO. The insurgents from RENAMO received support from the then white-minority governments of Rhodesia, the Frelimo Party approved a new constitution in 1990, which established a multi-party system. Since democratic elections in 1994 and subsequent cycles, Frelimo has been elected as the majority party in the parliament of Mozambique, calls for Mozambican independence developed rapidly, and in 1962 several anti-colonial political groups formed FRELIMO. In September 1964, it initiated a campaign against Portuguese colonial rule. Portugal had ruled Mozambique for more than four hundred years, not all Mozambicans desired independence, under the leadership of Eduardo Mondlane, elected president of the newly formed Mozambican Liberation Front, FRELIMO settled its headquarters in 1963 in Dar es Salaam. The Rev. Uria Simango was its first vice-president, the movement could not then be based in Mozambique as the Portuguese opposed nationalist movements and the colony was controlled by the police. Tanzania and its president, Julius Nyerere, were sympathetic to the Mozambican nationalist groups, convinced by recent events, such as the Mueda massacre, that peaceful agitation would not bring about independence, FRELIMO contemplated the possibility of armed struggle from the outset. It launched its first offensive in September 1964, during the ensuing war of independence, FRELIMO received support from China, the Soviet Union, the Scandinavian countries, and some non-governmental organisations in the West. In administering these zones, FRELIMO worked to improve the lot of the peasantry in order to receive their support and it freed them from subjugation to landlords and Portuguese-appointed chiefs, and established cooperative forms of agriculture. It also greatly increased peasant access to education and health care, often FRELIMO soldiers were assigned to medical assistance projects. Its members practical experiences in the liberated zones resulted in the FRELIMO leadership increasingly moving toward a Marxist policy, FRELIMO came to regard economic exploitation by Western capital as the principal enemy of the common Mozambican people, not the Portuguese as such, and not Europeans in general. Although it was an African nationalist party, it adopted a non-racial stance, numerous whites and mulattoes were members. The early years of the party, during which its Marxist direction evolved, were times of internal turmoil, the Second Party Congress, held in July 1968, approved the socialist goals. Mondlane was reelected party President and Uria Simango was re-elected vice-president, after Mondlanes assassination in February 1969, Uria Simango took over the leadership, but his presidency was disputed. In April 1969, leadership was assumed by a triumvirate, with Machel, after several months, in November 1969, Machel and dos Santos ousted Simango
17.
RENAMO
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The Mozambican National Resistance is a militant organization and political movement in Mozambique. Sponsored by the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organisation, it was founded in 1975 as part of an anti-Communist backlash against the countrys ruling FRELIMO party. It is clear that RENAMOs ranks were bolstered by Mozambican political exiles who genuinely opposed FRELIMO in principle, on 4 October 1992, FRELIMO and RENAMO signed the Rome General Peace Accords, ending the Mozambican Civil War. Critics of RENAMO frequently decried the movement as an army of Rhodesia and later. It has been theorised that RENAMO was formed for the purpose of combating Mozambican support for Rhodesian insurgents. On the other hand, RENAMO was also reflective of FRELIMOs own splintering support base, following the war it has been responsible for promoting constitutional reform as well as a strong domestic private sector. The peace accord led to the disarmament of RENAMO, to the integration of some of its fighters into the Mozambican army and it is now the main opposition party in Mozambique. At the legislative elections on 1 and 2 December 2004, the party was the part of the Renamo-UE electoral alliance. The presidential candidate of this alliance, Afonso Dhlakama, won 31. 7% of the popular vote, RENAMO forces attacked an army base in Zimbabwe near Mukosa on 17 June 1987, killing seven soldiers and wounding 19. RENAMO attacked the Katiyo Tea Estate, destroying property, in July. On 30 November, RENAMO militants burned down 13 houses, between December 1987 and 21 January 1988 RENAMO performed 101 attacks near the Mozambique-Zimbabwe border. Following the end of the Mozambican Civil War, RENAMO remained linked to a Zimbabwean militant group, in October 2012, RENAMOs headquarters were relocated near Casa Banana in Gorongosa, where a training camp was set up for around 800 partially armed followers. Previously, the headquarters had moved from Maputo to Nampula in 2009. RENAMO leader Afonso Dhlakama threatened to destroy the country if his demands were not met. On 4 April 2013, one woman and four officers were killed. The leader of the attackers was also killed, RENAMOs security chief stated that the action was a response to previous police raids on RENAMO gatherings. Around 300 RENAMO members had remained armed since the 1992 peace deal, on 6 April 2013, two or three civilians were killed and two women were injured when alleged RENAMO militiamen attacked a truck and a bus in Chibabava District. RENAMO denied being involved in the attack, on 21 June, suspected RENAMO guerrillas attacked a bus in Machanga, Sofala Province, injuring an elderly woman
18.
Algeria
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Algeria, officially the Peoples Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a sovereign state in North Africa on the Mediterranean coast. Its capital and most populous city is Algiers, located in the far north. With an area of 2,381,741 square kilometres, Algeria is the tenth-largest country in the world, the country is a semi-presidential republic consisting of 48 provinces and 1,541 communes. Abdelaziz Bouteflika has been President since 1999, Berbers are the indigenous inhabitants of Algeria. Algeria is a regional and middle power, the North African country supplies large amounts of natural gas to Europe, and energy exports are the backbone of the economy. According to OPEC Algeria has the 16th largest oil reserves in the world, Sonatrach, the national oil company, is the largest company in Africa. Algeria has one of the largest militaries in Africa and the largest defence budget on the continent, most of Algerias weapons are imported from Russia, with whom they are a close ally. Algeria is a member of the African Union, the Arab League, OPEC, the countrys name derives from the city of Algiers. The citys name in turn derives from the Arabic al-Jazāir, a form of the older Jazāir Banī Mazghanna. In the region of Ain Hanech, early remnants of hominid occupation in North Africa were found, neanderthal tool makers produced hand axes in the Levalloisian and Mousterian styles similar to those in the Levant. Algeria was the site of the highest state of development of Middle Paleolithic Flake tool techniques, tools of this era, starting about 30,000 BC, are called Aterian. The earliest blade industries in North Africa are called Iberomaurusian and this industry appears to have spread throughout the coastal regions of the Maghreb between 15,000 and 10,000 BC. Neolithic civilization developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean Maghreb perhaps as early as 11,000 BC or as late as between 6000 and 2000 BC and this life, richly depicted in the Tassili nAjjer paintings, predominated in Algeria until the classical period. The amalgam of peoples of North Africa coalesced eventually into a native population that came to be called Berbers. These settlements served as market towns as well as anchorages, as Carthaginian power grew, its impact on the indigenous population increased dramatically. Berber civilization was already at a stage in which agriculture, manufacturing, trade, by the early 4th century BC, Berbers formed the single largest element of the Carthaginian army. In the Revolt of the Mercenaries, Berber soldiers rebelled from 241 to 238 BC after being unpaid following the defeat of Carthage in the First Punic War. They succeeded in obtaining control of much of Carthages North African territory, the Carthaginian state declined because of successive defeats by the Romans in the Punic Wars
19.
Balkans
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The Balkan Peninsula, or the Balkans, is a peninsula and a cultural area in Eastern and Southeastern Europe with various and disputed borders. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch from the Serbia-Bulgaria border to the Black Sea, the highest point of the Balkans is Mount Musala 2,925 metres in the Rila mountain range. In Turkish, Balkan means a chain of wooded mountains, the name is still preserved in Central Asia with the Balkan Daglary and the Balkan Province of Turkmenistan. A less popular hypothesis regarding its etymology is that it derived from the Persian Balā-Khāna, from Antiquity through the Middle Ages, the Balkan Mountains had been called by the local Thracian name Haemus. According to Greek mythology, the Thracian king Haemus was turned into a mountain by Zeus as a punishment, a reverse name scheme has also been suggested. D. Dechev considers that Haemus is derived from a Thracian word *saimon, a third possibility is that Haemus derives from the Greek word haema meaning blood. The myth relates to a fight between Zeus and the monster/titan Typhon, Zeus injured Typhon with a thunder bolt and Typhons blood fell on the mountains, from which they got their name. The earliest mention of the name appears in an early 14th-century Arab map, the Ottomans first mention it in a document dated from 1565. There has been no other documented usage of the word to refer to the region before that, there is also a claim about an earlier Bulgar Turkic origin of the word popular in Bulgaria, however it is only an unscholarly assertion. The word was used by the Ottomans in Rumelia in its meaning of mountain, as in Kod̲j̲a-Balkan, Čatal-Balkan, and Ungurus-Balkani̊. The concept of the Balkans was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808, during the 1820s, Balkan became the preferred although not yet exclusive term alongside Haemus among British travelers. Among Russian travelers not so burdened by classical toponymy, Balkan was the preferred term, zeunes goal was to have a geographical parallel term to the Italic and Iberian Peninsula, and seemingly nothing more. The gradually acquired political connotations are newer and, to a large extent, after the dissolution of Yugoslavia beginning in June 1991, the term Balkans again received a negative meaning, especially in Croatia and Slovenia, even in casual usage. A European Union initiative of 1999 is called the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, and its northern boundary is often given as the Danube, Sava and Kupa Rivers. The Balkan Peninsula has an area of about 470,000 km2. It is more or less identical to the known as Southeastern Europe. As of 1920 until World War II, Italy included Istria, the current territory of Italy includes only the small area around Trieste inside the Balkan Peninsula. However, the regions of Trieste and Istria are not usually considered part of the Balkans by Italian geographers, the Western Balkans is a neologism coined to describe the countries of ex-Yugoslavia and Albania
20.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
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The Democratic Republic of the Congo, also known as DR Congo, DRC, DROC, East Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo is a country located in Central Africa. From 1971 to 1997 it was named, and is still called, Zaire. It is the second-largest country in Africa by area and eleventh largest in the world, the Congolese Civil Wars, which began in 1996, brought about the end of Mobutu Sese Sekos 32-year reign and devastated the country. These wars ultimately involved nine African nations, multiple groups of UN peacekeepers and twenty armed groups, besides the capital, Kinshasa, the other major cities, Lubumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi, are both mining communities. DR Congos largest export is raw minerals, with China accepting over 50% of DRCs exports in 2012, as of 2015, according to the Human Development Index, DR Congo has a low level of human development, ranking 176 out of 187 countries. The country was known officially as the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1965 to 27 October 1971, in 1992, the Sovereign National Conference voted to change the name of the country to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but the change was not put into practice. The countrys name was restored by former president Laurent-Désiré Kabila following the fall of longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997, some historians think that Bantu peoples began settling in the extreme northwest of Central Africa at the beginning of the 5th century and then gradually started to expand southward. Their propagation was accelerated by the transition from Stone Age to Iron Age techniques, the people living in the south and southwest were mostly San Bushmen and hunter-gatherer groups, whose technology involved only minimal use of metal technologies. The development of tools during this time period revolutionized agriculture. This led to the displacement of the groups in the east and southeast. The 10th century marked the expansion of the Bantu in West-Central Africa. Rising populations soon made intricate local, regional and foreign commercial networks that traded mostly in salt, iron. Belgian exploration and administration took place from the 1870s until the 1920s and it was first led by Sir Henry Morton Stanley, who undertook his explorations under the sponsorship of King Leopold II of Belgium. The eastern regions of the precolonial Congo were heavily disrupted by constant slave raiding, mainly from Arab–Swahili slave traders such as the infamous Tippu Tip, Leopold had designs on what was to become the Congo as a colony. Leopold formally acquired rights to the Congo territory at the Conference of Berlin in 1885 and he named it the Congo Free State. Leopolds rėgime began various infrastructure projects, such as construction of the railway ran from the coast to the capital of Leopoldville. Nearly all such projects were aimed at making it easier to increase the assets which Leopold. In the Free State, colonists brutalized the local population into producing rubber, for which the spread of automobiles, rubber sales made a fortune for Leopold, who built several buildings in Brussels and Ostend to honor himself and his country
21.
Capital punishment
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Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is a government sanctioned practice whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime. The sentence that someone be punished in such a manner is referred to as a death sentence, etymologically, the term capital in this context alluded to execution by beheading. Fifty-six countries retain capital punishment,103 countries have abolished it de jure for all crimes, six have abolished it for ordinary crimes. Capital punishment is a matter of controversy in various countries and states. In the European Union, Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union prohibits the use of capital punishment, also, the Council of Europe, which has 47 member states, prohibits the use of the death penalty by its members. The United Nations General Assembly has adopted, in 2007,2008,2010,2012 and 2014, non-binding resolutions calling for a moratorium on executions. Although most nations have abolished capital punishment, over 60% of the population live in countries where executions take place, such as China, India. Execution of criminals and political opponents has been used by nearly all societies—both to punish crime, in most countries that practise capital punishment it is reserved for murder, terrorism, war crimes, espionage, treason, defection or as part of military justice. In many countries use the death penalty, drug trafficking is also a capital offence. In China, human trafficking and serious cases of corruption are punished by the death penalty, in militaries around the world courts-martial have imposed death sentences for offences such as cowardice, desertion, insubordination, and mutiny. The use of formal execution extends to the beginning of recorded history, most historical records and various primitive tribal practices indicate that the death penalty was a part of their justice system. Communal punishment for wrongdoing generally included compensation by the wrongdoer, corporal punishment, shunning, banishment, usually, compensation and shunning were enough as a form of justice. The response to crime committed by neighbouring tribes or communities included a formal apology, a blood feud or vendetta occurs when arbitration between families or tribes fails or an arbitration system is non-existent. This form of justice was common before the emergence of a system based on state or organized religion. It may result from crime, land disputes or a code of honour, acts of retaliation underscore the ability of the social collective to defend itself and demonstrate to enemies that injury to property, rights, or the person will not go unpunished. However, in practice, it is difficult to distinguish between a war of vendetta and one of conquest. Elaborations of tribal arbitration of feuds included peace settlements often done in a religious context, compensation was based on the principle of substitution which might include material compensation, exchange of brides or grooms, or payment of the blood debt. Settlement rules could allow for animal blood to replace human blood, the person offered for execution did not have to be an original perpetrator of the crime because the system was based on tribes, not individuals
22.
World Methodist Council
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The World Methodist Council, founded in 1881, is a consultative body and association of churches in the Methodist tradition. It comprises 80 member denominations in 133 countries which together represent about 80.5 million people, the highest organ of the World Methodist Council is the World Methodist Conference meeting every five years. The last conference, gathering under the theme Jesus Christ - for the Healing of the Nations, was held in August 2011 in Durban, South Africa. On 24 July 2006, Sunday Mbang stepped down as chairperson of the council, in 2006, it formally approved the historical Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. The World Methodist Council has offices in, Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, Nashville, Tennessee, New York City, current officers are, General Secretary, Bishop Ivan M. Abrahams President, Bishop Paulo Lockmann Vice-President, Gillian Kingston Treasurer, Kirby Hickey Jr. It is also working towards a dialogue with the Orthodox Church, Education is concerned with education in churches and with Methodist educational institutions. It has organized an international Association of Methodist Schools, Colleges, the association links representatives from over 700 Methodist related schools and colleges all over the world. It has worked out the World Methodist Social Affirmation which was approved in 1986 and is part of the literature of several Methodist denominations, theological Education focuses on training for ministry based on basic Christian beliefs and distinctive emphases from the Wesleyan tradition. The World Methodist Peace Award is the highest honor bestowed by Methodists around the world, since 1977, it is given annually by the World Methodist Council. This award is given to individuals or groups who have significant contributions to peace, reconciliation and justice, considering courage, creativity. One ministry of the World Methodist Council is the World Methodist Evangelism Institute in Atlanta and it is an educational institution committed to the task of world evangelization and connected to a major university, Candler School of Theology, Emory University
23.
UNESCO
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The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Paris. It is the heir of the League of Nations International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, UNESCO has 195 member states and nine associate members. Most of its offices are cluster offices covering three or more countries, national and regional offices also exist. UNESCO pursues its objectives through five major programs, education, natural sciences, social/human sciences, culture and it is also a member of the United Nations Development Group. UNESCO and its mandate for international cooperation can be traced back to a League of Nations resolution on 21 September 1921, on 18 December 1925, the International Bureau of Education began work as a non-governmental organization in the service of international educational development. However, the work of predecessor organizations was largely interrupted by the onset of World War II. On 30 October 1943, the necessity for an organization was expressed in the Moscow Declaration, agreed upon by China, the United Kingdom, the United States. This was followed by the Dumbarton Oaks Conference proposals of 9 October 1944, a prominent figure in the initiative for UNESCO was Rab Butler, the Minister of Education for the United Kingdom. At the ECO/CONF, the Constitution of UNESCO was introduced and signed by 37 countries, the Preparatory Commission operated between 16 November 1945, and 4 November 1946—the date when UNESCOs Constitution came into force with the deposit of the twentieth ratification by a member state. The first General Conference took place between 19 November to 10 December 1946, and elected Dr. Julian Huxley to Director-General and this change in governance distinguished UNESCO from its predecessor, the CICI, in how member states would work together in the organizations fields of competence. In 1956, the Republic of South Africa withdrew from UNESCO claiming that some of the organizations publications amounted to interference in the racial problems. South Africa rejoined the organization in 1994 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, UNESCOs early work in the field of education included the pilot project on fundamental education in the Marbial Valley, Haiti, started in 1947. This project was followed by missions to other countries, including, for example. In 1948, UNESCO recommended that Member States should make free primary education compulsory, in 1990, the World Conference on Education for All, in Jomtien, Thailand, launched a global movement to provide basic education for all children, youths and adults. Ten years later, the 2000 World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, UNESCOs early activities in culture included, for example, the Nubia Campaign, launched in 1960. The purpose of the campaign was to move the Great Temple of Abu Simbel to keep it from being swamped by the Nile after construction of the Aswan Dam, during the 20-year campaign,22 monuments and architectural complexes were relocated. This was the first and largest in a series of campaigns including Mohenjo-daro, Fes, Kathmandu, Borobudur, the organizations work on heritage led to the adoption, in 1972, of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The World Heritage Committee was established in 1976 and the first sites inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1978, since then important legal instruments on cultural heritage and diversity have been adopted by UNESCO member states in 2003 and 2005
24.
New York City Council
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The New York City Council is the lawmaking body of the City of New York. It has 51 members from 51 council districts throughout the five boroughs, the Council serves as a check against the mayor in a strong mayor-council government model. The council monitors performance of city agencies and makes land use decisions as well as legislating on a variety of other issues. The City Council also has responsibility for approving the city budget. The head of the City Council is called the Speaker, and is currently Melissa Mark-Viverito, the Speaker sets the agenda and presides at meetings of the City Council. Proposed legislation is submitted through the Speakers Office, there are 47 Democratic council members led by Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer. The three Republican council members are led by Minority Leader Steven Matteo, the Council has 35 committees with oversight of various functions of the city government. Each council member sits on at least three standing, select or subcommittees, the standing committees meet at least once per month. The Speaker of the Council, the Majority Leader, and the Minority Leader are all ex members of every committee. Council members are elected every four years, except for two consecutive two year terms every twenty years to allow for redistricting between the terms due to the national census. Council Members currently receive $148,500 a year in base salary, Members receive no additional compensation for serving as a committee chairperson or other officer under the new salary raise. The New York City Charter is the law of the government of New York City including the Council. The New York City Administrative Code is the codification of the laws promulgated by the Council and is composed of 29 titles, the regulations promulgated by city agencies pursuant to law are contained in the Rules of the City of New York in 71 titles. A local law has an equivalent with a law enacted by the Legislature. Each local government must designate a newspaper of notice to publish or describe its laws, the Secretary of State is responsible for publishing local laws as a supplement to the Laws of New York, but they have not done so in recent years. The history of the New York City Council can be traced to Dutch Colonial times when New York City was known as New Amsterdam. On February 2,1653, the town of New Amsterdam, a Council of Legislators sat as the local lawmaking body and as a court of inferior jurisdiction. During the 18th and 19th centuries the local legislature was called the Common Council, in 1898 the amalgamation charter of the City of Greater New York renamed and revamped the Council and added a New York City Board of Estimate with certain administrative and financial powers
25.
Human rights
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Human rights are moral principles or norms, which describe certain standards of human behaviour, and are regularly protected as legal rights in municipal and international law. They are applicable everywhere and at time in the sense of being universal. They require empathy and the rule of law and impose an obligation on persons to respect the rights of others. They should not be taken away except as a result of due process based on circumstances, for example, human rights may include freedom from unlawful imprisonment, torture. The doctrine of human rights has been influential within international law. Actions by states and non-governmental organizations form a basis of public policy worldwide, the idea of human rights suggests that if the public discourse of peacetime global society can be said to have a common moral language, it is that of human rights. The strong claims made by the doctrine of human rights continue to provoke considerable skepticism and debates about the content, nature, ancient peoples did not have the same modern-day conception of universal human rights. Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the family is the foundation of freedom. All human beings are free and equal in dignity and rights. According to Jack Donnelly, in the ancient world, traditional societies typically have had elaborate systems of duties, conceptions of justice, political legitimacy, and human flourishing that sought to realize human dignity, flourishing, or well-being entirely independent of human rights. These institutions and practices are alternative to, rather than different formulations of, one theory is that human rights were developed during the early Modern period, alongside the European secularization of Judeo-Christian ethics. The most commonly held view is that the concept of human rights evolved in the West, for example, McIntyre argues there is no word for right in any language before 1400. One of the oldest records of rights is the statute of Kalisz, giving privileges to the Jewish minority in the Kingdom of Poland such as protection from discrimination. Samuel Moyn suggests that the concept of rights is intertwined with the modern sense of citizenship. The earliest conceptualization of human rights is credited to ideas about natural rights emanating from natural law, in particular, the issue of universal rights was introduced by the examination of extending rights to indigenous peoples by Spanish clerics, such as Francisco de Vitoria and Bartolomé de Las Casas. In Britain in 1689, the English Bill of Rights and the Scottish Claim of Right each made illegal a range of oppressive governmental actions, additionally, the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 encoded into law a number of fundamental civil rights and civil freedoms. These were followed by developments in philosophy of human rights by philosophers such as Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, hegel during the 18th and 19th centuries. Although the term had been used by at least one author as early as 1742, in the 19th century, human rights became a central concern over the issue of slavery
26.
Italian Parliament
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The Italian Parliament is the national parliament of the Italian Republic. The Parliament is the body of Italian citizens and is the successor to the Parliament of the Kingdom of Sardinia. It is a legislature with 950 elected members and a small number of unelected members. The two houses are independent from one another and never meet jointly except under circumstances specified by the Constitution, on the other hand, no distinction is made between deputies and senators. The Chamber of Deputies has 630 elected members, while the Senate has 315 elected members, the Senate of the Republic also includes a small number of unelected members. There are two categories of senators for life, former Presidents of the Republic are senators for life by law, unless they renounce this privilege. Furthermore, Presidents of the Republic can appoint up to five Italian citizens as senators for life for outstanding merits in the social, scientific, artistic or literary field. Similarly, the two houses have a different age of candidacy, deputies are required to be 25 or older, no explicit age limit is required to be appointed senator for life. The main prerogative of the Parliament is the exercise of legislative power, for a bill to become law, it must receive the support of both houses independently in the same text. A bill is first introduced in one of the houses, amended, and then approved or rejected, if approved, it is passed to the other house, if approved without amendments, the bill is then promulgated by the President of the Republic and becomes law. If approved with amendments, it is back to the other house. The process continues until the bill is approved in the text by both houses or is rejected by one house. The Council of Ministers, which is led by the Prime Minister and is the executive of Italy. If the President of the Republic is unable to find a new Prime Minister able to receive the support of both houses, he or she can dissolve one or both houses and new elections are held. The process by which the Italian Parliament makes law, the iter legis, is as follows, proposals can be made by the Government, individual Members of Parliament, private citizens, individual Regional Councils, and the National Council for Economics and Labour. Once a proposal is introduced in one of the two Chambers, it is assigned to a committee to carry out preliminary inspection of the proposal. At this point, two different procedures can be taken and this must be completed in no more than four months for the Chamber of Deputies and two months for the Senate. Once the bill has come before one of the chambers, a discussion takes place, followed by the review article by article, and finally a vote on the whole bill
27.
Nobel Peace Prize
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Per Alfred Nobels will, the recipient is selected by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, a five-member committee appointed by the Parliament of Norway. Since 1990, the prize is awarded on 10 December in Oslo City Hall each year, the prize was formerly awarded in the Atrium of the University of Oslo Faculty of Law, the Norwegian Nobel Institute, and the Parliament. Due to its nature, the Nobel Peace Prize has, for most of its history. Alfred Nobels will further specified that the prize be awarded by a committee of five chosen by the Norwegian Parliament. Nobel died in 1896 and he did not leave an explanation for choosing peace as a prize category, as he was a trained chemical engineer, the categories for chemistry and physics were obvious choices. The reasoning behind the peace prize is less clear, some Nobel scholars suggest it was Nobels way to compensate for developing destructive forces. His inventions included dynamite and ballistite, both of which were used violently during his lifetime, ballistite was used in war and the Irish Republican Brotherhood, an Irish nationalist organization, carried out dynamite attacks in the 1880s. Nobel was also instrumental in turning Bofors from an iron and steel producer into an armaments company and it is unclear why Nobel wished the Peace Prize to be administered in Norway, which was ruled in union with Sweden at the time of Nobels death. The Norwegian Nobel Committee speculates that Nobel may have considered Norway better suited to awarding the prize, the Norwegian Parliament appoints the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which selects the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Each year, the Norwegian Nobel Committee specifically invites qualified people to submit nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize, the statutes of the Nobel Foundation specify categories of individuals who are eligible to make nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. Nominations by committee members can be submitted up to the date of the first Committee meeting after this deadline. In 2009, a record 205 nominations were received, but the record was again in 2010 with 237 nominations, in 2011. Nominations from 1901 to 1956, however, have released in a database. Nominations are considered by the Nobel Committee at a meeting where a short list of candidates for review is created. Advisers usually have some months to complete reports, which are considered by the Committee to select the laureate. The Committee seeks to achieve a decision, but this is not always possible. The Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee presents the Nobel Peace Prize in the presence of the King of Norway on 10 December each year, the Peace Prize is the only Nobel Prize not presented in Stockholm. The Nobel laureate receives a diploma, a medal, and a document confirming the prize amount, as of 2013, the prize was worth 10 million SEK
28.
Balzan Prize
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Each year the foundation chooses the fields eligible for the next years prizes, and determines the prize amount. These are generally announced in May, with the announced the September the following year. Since 2001 the prize money has increased to 1 million Swiss Francs per prize, the Balzan Prize committee comprises twenty members of the prestigious learned societies of Europe. He left an inheritance to his daughter Angela Lina Balzan. Before her death, she left instructions for the foundation and since then it has two headquarters, the Prize administered from Milan, the Fund from Zurich, the first award was in fact 1 million Swiss francs to the Nobel foundation in 1961. After 1962 a gap of 16 years followed when prizes recommenced with an award of half a million Swiss francs to Mother Teresa, award ceremonies alternate between Bern and the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, and frequently winners have later won a Nobel Prize. The amount of each of the four Balzan Prizes will be 750,000 Swiss francs, all awards are decided by a single committee. Four prizes have been awarded annually since 1978, the award fields vary each year and can be related to either a specific or an interdisciplinary field. The prizes go beyond the traditional subjects both in the humanities and in the sciences, with an emphasis on innovative research, every 3 to 7 years the foundation also awards the Prize for humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples. It was last awarded in 2014 to Vivre en Famille, see, List of Balzan Prize recipients The Balzan Foundation – Official site The Balzan Foundation - List of Balzan prizewinners Prizes named after people
29.
Charlemagne Prize
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The Charlemagne Prize is one of the most prestigious European prizes. It has been awarded annually since 1950 by the German city of Aachen to people who contributed to the ideals upon which it was founded. It commemorates Charlemagne, ruler of the Frankish Empire and founder of what became the Holy Roman Empire, traditionally the award is given to the recipient on Ascension Day in a ceremony in the town hall of Aachen. This contribution may be in the field of literary, scientific, economic or political endeavour, the first Charlemagne Prize was awarded to Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, the founder of the Pan-European Movement, and the founder of the Coudenhove-Kalergi plan. The award sponsors assert that the list of Charlemagne Prize winners reflects the history of the European process of unification and they quote Kurt Pfeiffer, the Charlemagne Prize reaches into the future, and at the same time it embodies an obligation - an obligation of the highest ethical value. The Lord Mayor of the City of Aachen
30.
Seven Stories Press
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Seven Stories Press is an independent American publishing company. Centered in New York City, the company was founded by editor Dan Simon in 1995, Seven Stories Press publishes works of the imagination and political titles by voices of conscience. Seven Stories believes publishers have a responsibility to defend free speech. And Andri Snær Magnasons LoveStar and The Story of the Blue Planet, upcoming translations include Operation Massacre by Rodolfo Walsh and The Body Where I Was Born by Guadalupe Nettel. Launched in 2000, Seven Stories’ Spanish-language imprint, Siete Cuentos Editorial, upcoming Spanish translations include Charles C. The new imprint from Seven Stories Press was launched in 2012 and combines social justice and good storytelling to an audience of young adults. Triangle Square supports the struggle for justice and restoration of the environment, kids rights. Triangle Square titles include The Story of the Blue Planet by Andri Snær Magnason, Trevor by James Lecesne, kennedy Journalism Award in Cartoon for The Beginning of the American Fall and Code Green. Originally commissioned by the Cartoon Movement, The Beginning of the American Fall is now available through Seven Stories,2001 — Firecracker Alternative Book Award for Independent Press of the Year Seven Stories Press official site Book Depository article naming Seven Stories Independent Publisher of the Week
31.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
32.
The Washington Post
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The Washington Post is an American daily newspaper. It is the most widely circulated newspaper published in Washington, D. C. and was founded on December 6,1877 and its current slogan is Democracy Dies in Darkness. Located in the city of the United States, the newspaper has a particular emphasis on national politics. Daily editions are printed for the District of Columbia, Maryland, the newspaper is published as a broadsheet, with photographs printed both in color and in black and white. The newspaper has won 47 Pulitzer Prizes and this includes six separate Pulitzers awarded in 2008, the second-highest number ever awarded to a single newspaper in one year, second only to The New York Times seven awards in 2002. Post journalists have also received 18 Nieman Fellowships and 368 White House News Photographers Association awards, in years since, its investigations have led to increased review of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. In 2013, its owners, the Graham family, sold the newspaper to billionaire entrepreneur. The newspaper is owned by Nash Holdings LLC, a holding company Bezos created for the acquisition, the Washington Post is generally regarded as one of the leading daily American newspapers, along with The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. The Post has distinguished itself through its reporting on the workings of the White House, Congress. It is one of the two daily broadsheets published in Washington D. C. the other being its smaller rival The Washington Times, unlike The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post does not print an edition for distribution away from the East Coast. In 2009, the newspaper ceased publication of its National Weekly Edition, the majority of its newsprint readership is in District of Columbia and its suburbs in Maryland and Northern Virginia. The Sunday Style section differs slightly from the weekday Style section, it is in a tabloid format, and it houses the reader-written humor contest The Style Invitational. Additional weekly sections appear on weekdays, Health & Science on Tuesday, Food on Wednesday, Local Living on Thursday, the latter two are in a tabloid format. In November 2009, it announced the closure of its U. S. regional bureaus—Chicago, Los Angeles and New York—as part of a focus on. political stories. The newspaper has bureaus in Maryland and Virginia. While its circulation has been slipping, it has one of the highest market-penetration rates of any metropolitan news daily, for many decades, the Post had its main office at 1150 15th Street NW. This real estate remained with Graham Holdings when the newspaper was sold to Jeff Bezos Nash Holdings in 2013, Graham Holdings sold 1150 15th Street for US$159 million in November 2013. The Washington Post continued to lease space at 1150 L Street NW, in May 2014, The Washington Post leased the west tower of One Franklin Square, a high-rise building at 1301 K Street NW in Washington, D. C
33.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
34.
Philip Potter (church leader)
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Philip Alford Potter was a leader in the Methodist Church and the third General Secretary of the World Council of Churches. Potter was born at Roseau, Dominica, West Indies into a Christian family with a Protestant mother and he was active in church matters from an early age, and then became a lay pastor and ordained minister. He worked on the island of Nevis and with Creole-speaking people of rural Haiti, in 1984 Potter received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University, Sweden. Potter moved to Geneva in 1954 to work in the WCC’s youth department and he was the chairperson of the World Student Christian Federation from 1960 to 1968. From 1972 to 1984, he served as the WCC’s General Secretary and he was the first president of WSCFs Centennial Fund. He is considered a leader in world ecumenism, in November 2009 the WSCF launched the Philip Potter Fund. This Fund is to support Ecumenical Leadership Formation of young people through the WSCF, in conjunction with the WSCF event in November the WCC renamed its library The Philip Potter Library. Potters first wife, Doreen, the daughter of a Jamaican Methodist minister, in 1985, Potter married Bärbel Wartenberg, later Bishop of Lübeck, Germany 2001-2008. He died on 31 March 2015 in Lübeck, Germany, a tribute to Philip Potter on his 85th birthday. Archived from the original on 2006-12-12, media related to Philip Potter at Wikimedia Commons
