1.
Environmental degradation
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It is defined as any change or disturbance to the environment perceived to be deleterious or undesirable. Environmental degradation is one of the ten threats officially cautioned by the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, environmental degradation is of many types. When natural habitats are destroyed or natural resources are depleted, the environment is degraded, efforts to counteract this problem include environmental protection and environmental resources management. One major component of environmental degradation is the depletion of the resource of water on Earth. Approximately only 2. 5% of all of the water on Earth is fresh water, 69% of the fresh water is frozen in ice caps located on Antarctica and Greenland, so only 30% of the 2. 5% of fresh water is available for consumption. Fresh water is an important resource, since life on Earth is ultimately dependent on it. Water scarcity is a problem due to many foreseen issues in the future, including population growth, increased urbanization, higher standards of living. Climate change affects the Earths water supply in a number of ways. Transpiration from plants can be affected by a rise in atmospheric CO2, which can decrease their use of water, warmer winter temperatures cause a decrease in snowpack, which can result in diminished water resources during summer. Sea-level rise may also consequently be caused by a depletion of groundwater, a rise in air temperature results in a rise in water temperature, which is also very significant in water degradation, as the water would become more susceptible to bacterial growth. It is generally expected that, on average, global precipitation will increase, with some areas receiving increases, naturally, the distribution of precipitation across the planet is very uneven, causing constant variations in water availability in respective locations. Changes in precipitation affect the timing and magnitude of floods and droughts, shift runoff processes, vegetation patterns and growth rates will be directly affected by shifts in precipitation amount and distribution, which will in turn affect agriculture as well as natural ecosystems. Groundwater reserves will be depleted, and the water has a greater chance of being of poor quality from saline or contaminants on the land surface. The human population on Earth is expanding rapidly which goes hand in hand with the degradation of the environment at large measures, humanitys appetite for needs is disarranging the environments natural equilibrium. Production industries are venting smoke and discharging chemicals that are polluting water resources, the smoke that is emitted into the atmosphere holds detrimental gases such as carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide. The high levels of pollution in the atmosphere form layers that are absorbed into the atmosphere. Organic compounds such as chlorofluorocarbons have generated an unwanted opening in the ozone layer, the available fresh water being affected by the climate is also being stretched across an ever-increasing global population. Even though some areas may see an increase in supply from an uneven distribution of precipitation increase
2.
Habitat destruction
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Habitat destruction is the process in which natural habitat is rendered unable to support the species present. In this process, the organisms that used the site are displaced or destroyed. Habitat destruction by human activity is mainly for the purpose of harvesting natural resources for production and urbanization. Clearing habitats for agriculture is the cause of habitat destruction. Other important causes of habitat destruction include mining, logging, trawling, habitat destruction is currently ranked as the primary cause of species extinction worldwide. Perhaps the greatest threat to organisms and biodiversity is the process of habitat loss, temple found that 82% of endangered bird species were significantly threatened by habitat loss. Endemic organisms with limited ranges are most affected by destruction, mainly because these organisms are not found anywhere else within the world. Many endemic organisms have very specific requirements for their survival that can only be found within a certain ecosystem, extinction may also take place very long after the destruction of habitat, a phenomenon known as extinction debt. Habitat destruction can also decrease the range of certain organism populations, one of the most famous examples is the impact upon Chinas giant panda, once found across the nation. Now it is found in fragmented and isolated regions in the southwest of the country. Biodiversity hotspots are chiefly tropical regions that feature high concentrations of species and. These hotspots are suffering from loss and destruction. Most of the habitat on islands and in areas of high human population density has already been destroyed. Islands suffering extreme habitat destruction include New Zealand, Madagascar, the Philippines, South and East Asia — especially China, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Japan — and many areas in West Africa have extremely dense human populations that allow little room for natural habitat. Marine areas close to highly populated coastal cities also face degradation of their coral reefs or other marine habitat and these areas include the eastern coasts of Asia and Africa, northern coasts of South America, and the Caribbean Sea and its associated islands. Regions of unsustainable agriculture or unstable governments, which may go hand-in-hand, central America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Amazonian tropical rainforest areas of South America are the main regions with unsustainable agricultural practices and/or government mismanagement. Areas of high agricultural output tend to have the highest extent of habitat destruction, in the U. S. less than 25% of native vegetation remains in many parts of the East and Midwest. Only 15% of land area remains unmodified by human activities in all of Europe, tropical rainforests have received most of the attention concerning the destruction of habitat
3.
Sodium fluoroacetate
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Sodium fluoroacetate, known in pesticide form as 1080, is the organofluorine chemical compound with the formula FCH2CO2Na. This colourless salt has a similar to that of sodium chloride and is used as a metabolic poison. Potassium fluoroacetate occurs naturally as a metabolite in various plants. It is a derivative of fluoroacetic acid, a carboxylic acid, the more common fluorinated acetic acid and its derivatives are far less toxic. The effectiveness of sodium fluoroacetate as a rodenticide was reported in 1942, the name 1080 refers to the catalogue number of the poison, which became its brand name. The salt is synthesized by treating sodium chloroacetate with potassium fluoride, potassium fluoroacetate occurs naturally in at least 40 plant species in Australia, Brazil, and Africa. It was first identified in Dichapetalum cymosum, commonly known as gifblaar or poison leaf, as early as 1904, colonists in Sierra Leone used extracts of Chailletia toxicaria, which also contains fluoroacetic acid or its salts, to poison rats. Several native Australian plant genera contain the toxin, including, Gastrolobium, Gompholobium, Oxylobium, Nemcia, Gastrolobium is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae. There are over 100 species in genus, and all. Gastrolobium growing in south western Australia are unique in their ability to concentrate fluoroacetate from low fluorine soils, similarly, following bushfires in north-western Queensland cattlemen have to move livestock before the poisonous Gastrolobium grandiflorum emerges from the ashes. Sodium fluoroacetate is toxic to all aerobic organisms, and highly toxic to mammals. The oral dose of sodium fluoroacetate sufficient to be lethal in humans is 2–10 mg/kg, the New Zealand Food Safety Authority established lethal doses for a number of species. Dogs, cats, and pigs appear to be most susceptible to poisoning, the enzyme fluoroacetate dehalogenase has been discovered in a soil bacterium, which can detoxify fluoroacetate in the surrounding medium. Fluoroacetate is similar to acetate, which has a role in cellular metabolism. This inhibition results in an accumulation of citrate in the blood, citrate and fluorocitrate are allosteric inhibitors of phosphofructokinase-1, a key enzyme in the breakdown of sugars. When PFK-1 is inhibited, cells are no longer able to metabolize carbohydrates, in humans, the symptoms of poisoning normally appear between 30 minutes and three hours after exposure. Initial symptoms typically include nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain, sweating, confusion, in significant poisoning, cardiac abnormalities including tachycardia or bradycardia, hypotension, and ECG changes develop. Neurological effects include muscle twitching and seizures, consciousness becomes progressively impaired after a few hours leading to coma, death is normally due to ventricular arrhythmias, progressive hypotension unresponsive to treatment, and secondary lung infections
4.
Human impact on the environment
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Human impact on the environment or anthropogenic impact on the environment includes impacts on biophysical environments, biodiversity, and other resources. The term anthropogenic designates an effect or object resulting from human activity, the atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen introduced the term Anthropocene in the mid-1970s. The term is used in the context of pollution emissions that are produced as a result of human activities but applies broadly to all major human impacts on the environment. Environmental impacts caused by the application of technology are often perceived as unavoidable for several reasons, third, according to the second law of thermodynamics, order can be increased within a system only by increasing disorder or entropy outside the system. Thus, technologies can create “order” in the economy only at the expense of increasing “disorder” in the environment. According to a number of studies, increased entropy is likely to be correlated to environmental impacts. The environmental impact of agriculture based on the wide variety of agricultural practices employed around the world. Ultimately, the impact depends on the production practices of the system used by farmers. The connection between emissions into the environment and the system is indirect, as it also depends on other climate variables such as rainfall. An example of a means-based indicator would be the quality of groundwater, an indicator reflecting the loss of nitrate to groundwater would be effect-based. The environmental impact of agriculture involves a variety of factors from the soil, to water, the air, animal and soil diversity, plants, and the food itself. Some of the issues that are related to agriculture are climate change, deforestation, genetic engineering, irrigation problems, pollutants, soil degradation. These conservation issues are part of conservation, and are addressed in fisheries science programs. There is a gap between how many fish are available to be caught and humanity’s desire to catch them, a problem that gets worse as the world population grows. The journal Science published a study in November 2006, which predicted that, at prevailing trends. Many countries, such as Tonga, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, the impacts stem from the changed hydrological conditions owing to the installation and operation of the scheme. An irrigation scheme draws water from the river and distributes it over the irrigated area. These may be called direct effects, effects on soil and water quality are indirect and complex, and subsequent impacts on natural, ecological and socio-economic conditions are intricate
5.
Sustainability
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In ecology, sustainability is the property of biological systems to remain diverse and productive indefinitely. Long-lived and healthy wetlands and forests are examples of biological systems. In more general terms, sustainability is the endurance of systems, the organizing principle for sustainability is sustainable development, which includes the four interconnected domains, ecology, economics, politics and culture. Sustainability science is the study of development and environmental science. Sustainability can also be defined as a process characterized by the pursuit of a common ideal. An ideal is by definition unattainable in a time and space. However, by persistently and dynamically approaching it, the results in a sustainable system. Healthy ecosystems and environments are necessary to the survival of humans, ways of reducing negative human impact are environmentally-friendly chemical engineering, environmental resources management and environmental protection. Information is gained from green chemistry, earth science, environmental science, Ecological economics studies the fields of academic research that aim to address human economies and natural ecosystems. Moving towards sustainability is also a challenge that entails international and national law, urban planning and transport, local and individual lifestyles. The name sustainability is derived from the Latin sustinere, sustain can mean “maintain, support, or endure”. ”The 2005 World Summit on Social Development identified sustainable development goals, such as economic development, social development and environmental protection. This view has been expressed as an illustration using three overlapping ellipses indicating that the three pillars of sustainability are not mutually exclusive and can be mutually reinforcing, in fact, the three pillars are interdependent, and in the long run none can exist without the others. The three pillars have served as a ground for numerous sustainability standards and certification systems in recent years. Standards which today explicitly refer to the bottom line include Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade. Some sustainability experts and practitioners have illustrated four pillars of sustainability, one such pillar is future generations, which emphasizes the long-term thinking associated with sustainability. There is also an opinion that considers resource use and financial sustainability as two pillars of sustainability. Sustainable development consists of balancing local and global efforts to meet human needs without destroying or degrading the natural environment. The question then becomes how to represent the relationship between those needs and the environment, a study from 2005 pointed out that environmental justice is as important as sustainable development
6.
Exploitation of natural resources
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The exploitation of natural resources is the use of natural resources for economic growth, sometimes with a negative connotation of accompanying environmental degradation. It started to emerge on a scale in the 19th century as the extraction. During the 20th century, energy consumption rapidly increased, today, about 80% of the world’s energy consumption is sustained by the extraction of fossil fuels, which consists of oil, coal and gas. Another non-renewable resource that is exploited by humans is subsoil minerals such as precious metals that are used in the production of industrial commodities. As the world population rises and economic growth occurs, the depletion of natural resources influenced by the extraction of raw materials becomes an increasing concern. Increase in the sophistication of technology enabling natural resources to be extracted quickly and efficiently, E. g. in the past, it could take long hours just to cut down one tree only using saws. Due to increased technology, rates of deforestation have greatly increased A rapid increase in population that is now Population growth#Human population growth rate/increasing gradually, the current number of 7.132 billion humans consume many natural resources. Materialistic views lead to the mining of gold and diamonds to produce jewelry, unnecessary commodities for human life or advancement, excessive demand often leads to conflicts due to intense competition. Organizations such as Global Witness and the United Nations have documented the connection, advantageous factors are primarily in economic development so services that the government could not provide such as health centers, police departments and schools can be established. However, with development, money becomes a dominant subject of interest. This can bring about major conflicts that a community in a developing country has never dealt with before. These conflicts emerge by a change to more egocentric views among the locals influenced by consumerist values, the effects of the exploitation of natural resources in the local community of a developing country are exhibited in the impacts from the Ok Tedi Mine. After BHP, now BHP Billiton, entered into Papua New Guinea to exploit copper and gold, although their quality of life has improved, initially disputes were common among the locals in terms of land rights and who should be getting the benefits from the mining project. The consequences of the Ok Tedi environmental disaster illustrate the negative effects from the exploitation of natural resources. The resulting mining pollution includes toxic contamination of the water supply for communities along the Ok Tedi River. Sustainability List of environmental issues Myth of superabundance Over-consumption Overexploitation Spaceship Earth Environmental disaster Easter Island Human impact on the environment
7.
Anthropocene
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The Anthropocene is a proposed epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on the Earths geology and ecosystems. The Anthropocence thus includes, but also transcends, the duration of climate change. Scientists in the Soviet Union appear to have used the term anthropocene as early as the 1960s to refer to the Quaternary, in 2008, the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London considered a proposal to to make the Anthropocene a formal unit of geological epoch divisions. A majority of the decided the proposal had merit and should be examined further. Independent working groups of scientists from various geological societies have begun to determine whether the Anthropocene will be accepted into the Geological Time Scale. Scientists have begun to use the term anthropocene, and the Geological Society of America entitled its 2011 annual meeting, Archean to Anthropocene, the Anthropocene has no agreed start-date, but one proposal, based on atmospheric evidence, is to fix the start with the Industrial Revolution. Other scientists link the new term to earlier events, such as the rise of agriculture and the Neolithic Revolution. In January 2015,26 of the 38 members of the International Anthropocene Working Group published a paper suggesting the Trinity test on 16 July 1945 as the point of the proposed new epoch. However a significant minority supports one of several alternative dates, a March 2015 report suggested either 1610 or 1964 as the beginning of Anthropocene. The Anthropocene Working Group met in Oslo in April 2016 to consolidate evidence supporting the argument for the Anthropocene as a geologic epoch. Evidence was evaluated and the group voted to recommend Anthropocene as the new age in August 2016. The name Anthropocene is a combination of anthropo- from anthropos meaning human, as early as 1873, the Italian geologist Antonio Stoppani acknowledged the increasing power and effect of humanity on the Earths systems and referred to an anthropozoic era. Although the biologist Eugene Stoermer is often credited with coining the term anthropocene, Paul Crutzen is credited with independently re-inventing and popularizing it. Stoermer wrote, I began using the term anthropocene in the 1980s, Crutzen has explained, I was at a conference where someone said something about the Holocene. I suddenly thought this was wrong, the world has changed too much. So I said, No, we are in the Anthropocene, I just made up the word on the spur of the moment. But it seems to have stuck, in 2008, Zalasiewicz suggested in GSA Today that an anthropocene epoch is now appropriate. The human impact on biodiversity forms one of the attributes of the Anthropocene
8.
Prehistory
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Prehistory means literally before history, from the Latin word for before, præ, and Greek ιστορία. Neighbouring civilisations were the first to follow, most other civilisations reached the end of prehistory during the Iron Age. The period when a culture is written about by others, but has not developed its own writing is known as the protohistory of the culture. By definition, there are no records from human prehistory. Clear techniques for dating were not well-developed until the 19th century and this article is concerned with human prehistory as defined here above. There are separate articles for the history of the Earth. However, for the race as a whole, prehistory ends when recorded history begins with the accounts of the ancient world around the 4th millennium BC. For example, in Egypt it is accepted that prehistory ended around 3200 BC, whereas in New Guinea the end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently. The three-age system is the periodization of prehistory into three consecutive time periods, named for their respective predominant tool-making technologies, Stone Age Bronze Age Iron Age. The notion of prehistory began to surface during the Enlightenment in the work of antiquarians who used the word primitive to describe societies that existed before written records, the first use of the word prehistory in English, however, occurred in the Foreign Quarterly Review in 1836. The main source for prehistory is archaeology, but some scholars are beginning to more use of evidence from the natural and social sciences. This view has been articulated by advocates of deep history, human population geneticists and historical linguists are also providing valuable insight for these questions. Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology, restricted to material processes, remains and artifacts rather than written records, prehistory is anonymous. Because of this, reference terms that use, such as Neanderthal or Iron Age are modern labels with definitions sometimes subject to debate. Palaeolithic means Old Stone Age, and begins with the first use of stone tools, the Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age. The early part of the Palaeolithic is called the Lower Palaeolithic, evidence of control of fire by early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic Era is uncertain and has at best limited scholarly support. The most widely accepted claim is that H. erectus or H. ergaster made fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP in a site at Bnot Yaakov Bridge, Israel. The use of fire enabled early humans to cook food, provide warmth, Early Homo sapiens originated some 200,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Palaeolithic
9.
Greenhouse gas
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A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in Earths atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, without greenhouse gases, the average temperature of Earths surface would be about −18 °C, rather than the present average of 15 °C. In the Solar System, the atmospheres of Venus, Mars, human activities since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution have produced a 40% increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, from 280 ppm in 1750 to 400 ppm in 2015. This increase has occurred despite the uptake of a portion of the emissions by various natural sinks involved in the carbon cycle. Anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions come from combustion of fuels, principally coal, oil. Greenhouse gases are those that absorb and emit infrared radiation in the range emitted by Earth. The proportion of an emission remaining in the atmosphere after a time is the airborne fraction. The annual airborne fraction is the ratio of the increase in a given year to that years total emissions. Over the last 50 years the annual airborne fraction for CO2 has been increasing at 0.25 ±0. 21%/year, therefore, they do not contribute significantly to the greenhouse effect and usually are omitted when discussing greenhouse gases. Some gases have indirect radiative effects and this happens in two main ways. One way is that when they break down in the atmosphere they produce another greenhouse gas, for example, methane and carbon monoxide are oxidized to give carbon dioxide. Oxidation of CO to CO2 directly produces an increase in radiative forcing although the reason is subtle. The peak of the thermal IR emission from Earths surface is close to a strong vibrational absorption band of CO2. On the other hand, the single CO vibrational band only absorbs IR at much higher frequencies, where the ~300 K thermal emission of the surface is at least a factor of ten lower. Oxidation of methane to CO2, which requires reactions with the OH radical, produces a reduction, since CO2 is a weaker greenhouse gas than methane. As described below this is not the story, since the oxidations of CO. In any case, the calculation of the radiative effect needs to include both the direct and indirect forcing
10.
Fossil fuel
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Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms, containing energy originating in ancient photosynthesis. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, Fossil fuels contain high percentages of carbon and include petroleum, coal, and natural gas. Other commonly used derivatives include kerosene and propane, Fossil fuels range from volatile materials with low carbon, hydrogen ratios like methane, to liquids like petroleum, to nonvolatile materials composed of almost pure carbon, like anthracite coal. Methane can be found in hydrocarbon fields either alone, associated with oil, non-fossil sources in 2006 included nuclear 8. 5%, hydroelectric 6. 3%, and others amounting to 0. 9%. World energy consumption was growing about 2. 3% per year, the use of fossil fuels raises serious environmental concerns. The burning of fossil fuels produces around 21.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year and it is estimated that natural processes can only absorb about half of that amount, so there is a net increase of 10.65 billion tonnes of atmospheric carbon dioxide per year. Carbon dioxide is a gas that increases radiative forcing and contributes to global warming. A global movement towards the generation of energy is underway to help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Over geological time, this matter, mixed with mud. Despite these heat driven transformations, the energy is still photosynthetic in origin. There is a range of organic, or hydrocarbon, compounds in any given fuel mixture. The specific mixture of hydrocarbons gives a fuel its characteristic properties, such as boiling point, melting point, density, viscosity, some fuels like natural gas, for instance, contain only very low boiling, gaseous components. Others such as gasoline or diesel contain much higher boiling components, terrestrial plants, on the other hand, tend to form coal and methane. Many of the coal fields date to the Carboniferous period of Earths history, terrestrial plants also form type III kerogen, a source of natural gas. Fossil fuels are of importance because they can be burned. The use of coal as a fuel predates recorded history, coal was used to run furnaces for the melting of metal ore. Semi-solid hydrocarbons from seeps were also burned in ancient times, commercial exploitation of petroleum, largely as a replacement for oils from animal sources, for use in oil lamps began in the 19th century. Natural gas, once flared-off as an byproduct of petroleum production, is now considered a very valuable resource
11.
Chlorofluorocarbon
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A chlorofluorocarbon is an organic compound that contains only carbon, chlorine, and fluorine, produced as volatile derivative of methane, ethane, and propane. They are also known by the DuPont brand name Freon. The most common representative is dichlorodifluoromethane, many CFCs have been widely used as refrigerants, propellants, and solvents. As in simpler alkanes, carbon in the CFCs bonds with tetrahedral symmetry, because the fluorine and chlorine atoms differ greatly in size and effective charge from hydrogen and from each other, the methane-derived CFCs deviate from perfect tetrahedral symmetry. The physical properties of CFCs and HCFCs are tunable by changes in the number, in general they are volatile, but less so than their parent alkanes. The decreased volatility is attributed to the molecular polarity induced by the halides, thus, methane boils at −161 °C whereas the fluoromethanes boil between −51.7 and −128 °C. The CFCs have still higher boiling points because the chloride is even more polarizable than fluoride, because of their polarity, the CFCs are useful solvents, and their boiling points make them suitable as refrigerants. The densities of CFCs are higher than their corresponding alkanes, in general the density of these compounds correlates with the number of chlorides. CFCs and HCFCs are usually produced by halogen exchange starting from chlorinated methanes and ethanes, the chlorine atom, written often as Cl. behaves very differently from the chlorine molecule. The radical Cl. is long-lived in the atmosphere, where it catalyzes the conversion of ozone into O2. Ozone absorbs UV-B radiation, so its depletion allows more of high energy radiation to reach the Earths surface. Bromine atoms are more efficient catalysts, hence brominated CFCs are also regulated. Applications exploit the low toxicity, low reactivity, and low flammability of the CFCs and HCFCs, every permutation of fluorine, chlorine, and hydrogen based on methane and ethane has been examined and most have been commercialized. Furthermore, many examples are known for higher numbers of carbon as well as related compounds containing bromine, uses include refrigerants, blowing agents, propellants in medicinal applications, and degreasing solvents. Billions of kilograms of chlorodifluoromethane are produced annually as precursor to tetrafluoroethylene, chlorofluorocarbons, when derived from methane and ethane these compounds have the formulae CClmF4−m and C2ClmF6−m, where m is nonzero. Hydrofluorocarbons, when derived from methane, ethane, propane, and butane, these compounds have the respective formulae CFmH4−m, C2FmH6−m, C3FmH8−m, and C4FmH10−m, a numbering system is used for fluorinated alkanes, prefixed with Freon-, R-, CFC-, and HCFC-. The rightmost value indicates the number of atoms, the next value to the left is the number of hydrogen atoms plus 1. Thus, Freon-12 indicates a methane derivative containing two fluorine atoms and no hydrogen, another, easier equation that can be applied to get the correct molecular formula of the CFC/R/Freon class compounds is this to take the numbering and add 90 to it
12.
Environmental crime
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Environmental crime is an illegal act which directly harms the environment. These crimes are liable for prosecution, interpol facilitates international police cooperation and assists its member countries in the effective enforcement of national and international environmental laws and treaties. Interpol began fighting crime in 1992. International criminal gangs and militant groups profit from the plunder of natural resources, terrorism and even civil wars are consequences of environmental crime. More than half of this amount can be attributed to illegal logging, on September 2016 it was announced that the International Criminal Court located in The Hague will prosecute government and individuals for environmental crimes. Abandoned or little used areas are common dumping places in America -especially railroads, over $10 million a year are used to remove illegal dumping from polluting towns and the environment. A small organization, CSXT Police Environment Crimes Unit, has started to stop railroad dumping specifically. Ever since the Environmental Protection Agencys Office of Criminal Enforcement was founded in 1982 and this includes the prosecution of companies that have illegally dumped or caused oil spills. The effective enforcement of laws is vital to any protection regimes that are designed to protect the environment. In the early days of environmental legislation, violations carried largely insignificant civil fines and penalties, initial environmental laws and regulations had little or no deterrent effect on corporations, individuals, or governments to comply with environmental laws. Indeed, a source of failure of US environmental protection legislation was the civil character of federal enforcement actions. Their chief sanction was fines, which many corporations took in stride as a cost of doing business, Environmental criminal law covers narrower ground. Its core consists of the provisions of eight federal statutes passed mainly in the 1970s. The inclusion of criminal sanctions, significant increases in fines coupled with possible imprisonment of corporate officers changed the face of law enforcement. Enforcing environmental laws and regulations is an important ingredient in protecting the environment and this is generally achieved by various environmental law enforcement agencies operating at an International, Regional, National, State and Local level. For instance, to some extent environmental law enforcement agencies operate only at an international level whereas others operate at the local level. Furthermore, environmental law enforcement agencies utilise various enforcement methods to ensure compliance to environmental legislation, moreover, it has increased the need for cooperation between different policing institutions. However, ostensibly it is the legislative instruments implemented by governments that determine many of the strategies utilised by services in protecting the environment
13.
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
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The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court. It was adopted at a conference in Rome on 17 July 1998. As of March 2016,124 states are party to the statute, among other things, the statute establishes the courts functions, jurisdiction and structure. The Rome Statute established four core international crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and those crimes shall not be subject to any statute of limitations. Under the Rome Statute, the ICC can only investigate and prosecute the four core international crimes in situations where states are unable or unwilling to do so themselves. The Rome Statute established four core international crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, on 17 July 1998, the Rome Statute was adopted by a vote of 120 to 7, with 21 countries abstaining. Because the way each delegation voted was officially unrecorded, there is dispute over the identity of the seven countries that voted against the treaty. The treaty entered force on 1 July 2002, the ICC can only prosecute crimes committed on or after that date. The statute was modified in 2010 after the Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda, the Rome Statute is the result of multiple attempts for the creation of a supranational and international tribunal. At the end of 19th century, the community took the first steps towards the institution of permanent courts with supranational jurisdiction. With the Hague International Peace Conferences, representatives of the most powerful nations made an attempt to harmonize laws of war, the Nuremberg trials marked a crucial moment in legal history, and after that, some treaties that led to the drafting of the Rome Statute were signed. In the resolution there was a hope for an effort from the Legal UN commission in that direction, the General Assembly, after the considerations expressed from the commission, established a committee to draft a statute and study the related legal issues. The geopolitical tensions of the Cold War also contributed to the delays, trinidad and Tobago asked the General Assembly in December 1989 to re-open the talks for the establishment of an international criminal court and in 1994 presented a draft Statute. The General Assembly created an ad hoc committee for the International Criminal Court and, after hearing the conclusions, a Preparatory Committee that worked for two years on the draft. As of March 2016,124 states are parties to the Statute of the Court, including all the countries of South America, nearly all of Europe, most of Oceania, a further 31 countries have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute. The law of treaties obliges these states to refrain from acts which would defeat the object,41 United Nations member states have neither signed nor acceded to the Rome Statute. Some of them, including China and India, are critical of the Court, ukraine, a non-ratifying signatory, has accepted the Courts jurisdiction for a period starting in 2013. A state party which has not ratified such an amendment may withdraw with immediate effect, any amendment to the list of crimes within the jurisdiction of the court will only apply to those states parties that have ratified it
14.
Arthur Galston
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Arthur W. Galston was an American botanist and bioethicist. When chairman of Yales botany department, his ethical objections led President Nixon to end its use, Galston grew up in a Jewish family in Brooklyn, impoverished during the depression. He was the youngest child of Hyman and Freda Galston and he abandoned his ambition for medical school, and enrolled at Cornells Agricultural College because it was free. He could play saxophone to earn living expenses, under the influence of a botany professor, he came to love botany, turned down admission to Cornell Veterinary School, and earned a B. S. in botany in 1940. University of Illinois offered him an assistant position, so he took the bus to Champaign-Urbana, to study botany. Galstons research and 1943 Ph. D. dissertation focused on finding a means to make soybeans flower. He discovered both that 2,3, 5-triiodobenzoic acid would speed up the flowering of soybeans and that in higher concentrations it would defoliate the soybeans, the U. S. achieved success in synthetic rubber instead, and the project ended. He was drafted into the U. S. Navy as an enlisted man, air Force during the Vietnam War. During this time, Galston taught as a professor at the California Institute of Technology before moving to Yale University where he taught from 1955 onwards. Beginning in 1965, Galston lobbied both his colleagues and the government to stop using Agent Orange. Galston and U. S. geneticist Matthew S. Meselson appealed to the U. S. Department of Defense to investigate the human toxicology of Agent Orange, the research conducted by the Department of Defense led to the discovery that Agent Orange caused birth defects in laboratory rats. In 1971 this information led to U. S. President Richard M. Nixon banning the use of the substance. Galston made numerous trips to Vietnam and China, including, with Ethan Signer of MIT, in 1971, he met Chou En-lai, then Prime Minister, as well as King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia, who then resided in Shanghai. After his retirement as a biologist in 1990, he affiliated with Yales Institution for Social & Policy Studies. He also taught bioethics to Yale undergraduates, in 2003-2004 his introductory bioethics course attracted 460 students, making it one of the most popular courses in Yale College. Galston authored more than 300 papers on plant physiology and co-edited two books on bioethics and he also co-founded the Gray Is Green, The National Senior Conservation Corps, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping older Americans lead more sustainable lives. Galston died on June 15,2008, in Hamden, Connecticut, principles of Plant Physiology, W. H. Freeman,1952. The Life of the Green Plant, Prentice-Hall,1961, 3rd edition,1980, control Mechanisms in Plant Development, Prentice-Hall,1970
15.
Olof Palme
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Sven Olof Joachim Palme was a Swedish Social Democratic politician, statesman and prime minister. Electoral defeats in 1976 and 1979 marked the end of Social Democratic hegemony in Swedish politics and he returned as Prime Minister after electoral victories in 1982 and 1985. Palme was a pivotal, renowned, and polarizing figure domestically as well as in politics since the 1960s. Most famously, he was the first Western head of government to visit Cuba after its revolution and his 1972 condemnation of the Hanoi bombings, notably comparing the tactic to the Treblinka extermination camp, resulted in a temporary freeze in Sweden–United States relations. It had an impact across Scandinavia. Local convict and addict Christer Pettersson was convicted of the murder in the first instance court tingsrätten, Palme was born into an middle class, conservative Lutheran family in Östermalm, Stockholm, Sweden. Palme family was originally of Dutch ancestry, the family is related to several other prominent Swedish families such as the von Sydow family and the Wallenberg family. His father Gunnar Palme, was a businessman, son of Sven Theodore Palme, through her Olof Palme can claim ancestry from King Frederik I of Denmark. His mother, Elisabeth von Knieriem, was of a Baltic German tradesmen descent and she had arrived in Sweden from Russia as a refugee in 1915. Elisabeths great-great-great grandfather Johann Melchior von Knieriem had been ennobled by the Emperor Alexander I of Russia in 1814 and her great-grandfather Alexander von Knieriem was an attorney general of the Senate of Russian Empire, senator and member of the State Council of Imperial Russia. The von Knieriem do not count as members of the Baltische Ridderschaft. Palmes father died when he was six years old, despite his background, his political orientation came to be influenced by Social Democratic attitudes. His travels in the Third World, as well as the United States, a sickly child, Olof Palme received his education from private tutors. Even as a child he gained knowledge of two foreign languages – German and English and he studied at the Sigtuna School of Liberal Arts, one of Swedens few residential high schools, and passed the university entrance examination with high marks at the age of 17. He was called up into the Army in January 1945 and did his military service at A1 between 1945 and 1947, became in 1956 a reserve officer with the rank of Captain in the Artillery. After he was discharged from service in March 1947, he enrolled at the University of Stockholm. On a scholarship, he studied at Kenyon College, a liberal arts school in central Ohio from 1947–1948. Inspired by radical debate in the student community, he wrote an essay on Friedrich Hayeks The Road to Serfdom. Palme wrote his senior thesis on the United Auto Workers union
16.
Sweden
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Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe
17.
Vietnam War
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It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and the government of South Vietnam. The war is considered a Cold War-era proxy war. As the war continued, the actions of the Viet Cong decreased as the role. U. S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, in the course of the war, the U. S. conducted a large-scale strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong were fighting to reunify Vietnam and they viewed the conflict as a colonial war and a continuation of the First Indochina War against forces from France and later on the United States. The U. S. government viewed its involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam and this was part the domino theory of a wider containment policy, with the stated aim of stopping the spread of communism. Beginning in 1950, American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina, U. S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and again in 1962. Regular U. S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965, despite the Paris Peace Accord, which was signed by all parties in January 1973, the fighting continued. In the U. S. and the Western world, a large anti-Vietnam War movement developed as part of a larger counterculture, the war changed the dynamics between the Eastern and Western Blocs, and altered North–South relations. Direct U. S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973, the capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese Army in April 1975 marked the end of the war, and North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities, estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from 966,000 to 3.8 million. Some 240, 000–300,000 Cambodians,20, 000–62,000 Laotians, and 58,220 U. S. service members died in the conflict. Various names have applied to the conflict. Vietnam War is the most commonly used name in English and it has also been called the Second Indochina War and the Vietnam Conflict. As there have been several conflicts in Indochina, this conflict is known by the names of its primary protagonists to distinguish it from others. In Vietnamese, the war is known as Kháng chiến chống Mỹ. It is also called Chiến tranh Việt Nam, France began its conquest of Indochina in the late 1850s, and completed pacification by 1893. The 1884 Treaty of Huế formed the basis for French colonial rule in Vietnam for the seven decades
18.
Colonialism
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Colonialism is the establishment of a colony in one territory by a political power from another territory, and the subsequent maintenance, expansion, and exploitation of that colony. The term is used to describe a set of unequal relationships between the colonial power and the colony and often between the colonists and the indigenous peoples. The European colonial period was the era from the 16th century to the century when several European powers established colonies in Asia, Africa. At first the countries followed a policy of mercantilism, designed to strengthen the economy at the expense of rivals. By the mid-19th century, however, the powerful British Empire gave up mercantilism and trade restrictions and introduced the principle of free trade, collins English Dictionary defines colonialism as the policy and practice of a power in extending control over weaker peoples or areas. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary offers four definitions, including something characteristic of a colony, in the book, Osterhammel asks, How can colonialism be defined independently from colony. He settles on a definition, Colonialism is a relationship between an indigenous majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the people are made. Rejecting cultural compromises with the population, the colonizers are convinced of their own superiority. Historians often distinguish between two overlapping forms of colonialism, Settler colonialism involves large-scale immigration, often motivated by religious, political, exploitation colonialism involves fewer colonists and focuses on access to resources for export, typically to the metropole. Surrogate colonialism involves a settlement project supported by a colonial power, internal colonialism is a notion of uneven structural power between areas of a state. The source of exploitation comes from within the state, as colonialism often played out in pre-populated areas, sociocultural evolution included the formation of various ethnically hybrid populations. In fact, everywhere where colonial powers established a consistent and continued presence, notable examples in Asia include the Anglo-Burmese, Anglo-Indian, Burgher, Eurasian Singaporean, Filipino mestizo, Kristang and Macanese peoples. In the Dutch East Indies the vast majority of Dutch settlers were in fact Eurasians known as Indo-Europeans, the Other, or othering is the process of creating a separate entity to persons or groups who are labelled as different or non-normal due to the repetition of characteristics. Othering is the creation from those who discriminate, to distinguish, label, several scholars in recent decades developed the notion of the other as an epistemological concept in social theory. For example, postcolonial scholars, believed that colonizing powers explained an ‘other’ who were there to dominate, civilize, political geographers explain how colonial/ imperial powers othered places they wanted to dominate to legalize their exploitation of the land. During the rise of colonialism and after, post colonialism, the Western powers perspectives of the East as the other, different and this viewpoint and separation of culture had divided the Eastern and Western culture creating a dominant/ subordinate dynamic, both being the other towards themselves. The word metropole comes from the Greek metropolis —mother city, the word colony comes from the Latin colonia—a place for agriculture
19.
Apartheid
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Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation and discrimination in South Africa between 1948 and 1991, when it was abolished. The countrys first multiracial elections under a universal franchise were held three years later in 1994, Apartheid as a policy was embraced by the South African government shortly after the ascension of the National Party during the countrys 1948 general elections. Apartheid was also enforced in South West Africa until it gained independence as Namibia in 1990, with the rapid growth and industrialisation of the British Cape Colony in the nineteenth century, racial policies and laws became increasingly rigid. Cape legislation that discriminated specifically against black Africans began appearing shortly before 1900, the policies of the Boer republics were also racially exclusive, for instance, the Transvaal constitution barred nonwhite participation in church and state. Places of residence were determined by racial classification, from 1960 to 1983,3.5 million nonwhite South Africans were removed from their homes, and forced into segregated neighbourhoods, in one of the largest mass removals in modern history. Most of these targeted removals were intended to restrict the population to ten designated tribal homelands, also known as bantustans. The government announced that relocated persons would lose their South African citizenship as they were absorbed into the bantustans, Apartheid sparked significant international and domestic opposition, resulting in some of the most influential global social movements of the twentieth century. It was the target of frequent condemnation in the United Nations, some reforms of the apartheid system were undertaken, including allowing for Indian and coloured political representation in parliament, but these measures failed in appeasing most activist groups. In 1990, prominent ANC leaders such as Nelson Mandela were released from detention, Apartheid legislation was abolished in mid-1991, pending multiracial elections set for April 1994. Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning separateness, or the state of being apart and its first recorded use was in 1929. The governors and assemblies that governed the process in the various colonies of South Africa were launched on a different and independent legislative path from the rest of the British Empire. In the days of slavery, slaves required passes to travel away from their masters, in 1797 the Landdrost and Heemraden of Swellendam and Graaff-Reinet extended pass laws beyond slaves and ordained that all Khoikhoi moving about the country for any purpose should carry passes. Ordinance No.49 of 1828 decreed that prospective black immigrants were to be granted passes for the purpose of seeking work. These passes were to be issued for Coloureds and Khoikhoi, but not for other Africans, the United Kingdoms Slavery Abolition Act 1833 abolished slavery throughout the British Empire and overrode the Cape Articles of Capitulation. To comply with the act the South African legislation was expanded to include Ordinance 1 in 1835 and this was followed by Ordinance 3 in 1848, which introduced an indenture system for Xhosa that was little different from slavery. The Glen Grey Act of 1894, instigated by the government of Prime Minister Cecil John Rhodes limited the amount of land Africans could hold, in 1905 the General Pass Regulations Act denied blacks the vote, limited them to fixed areas and inaugurated the infamous Pass System. The Asiatic Registration Act required all Indians to register and carry passes, one of the first pieces of segregating legislation enacted by Jan Smuts United Party government was the Asiatic Land Tenure Bill, which banned land sales to Indians. The United Party government began to move away from the enforcement of segregationist laws during World War II
20.
Waste
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Waste and wastes are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance which is discarded after use, or it is worthless, defective. Examples include municipal solid waste, hazardous waste, wastewater, radioactive waste, according to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal of 1989, Art. 2, Wastes are substance or objects, which are disposed of or are intended to be disposed of or are required to be disposed of by the provisions of national law. Wastes may be generated during the extraction of raw materials, the processing of raw materials into intermediate and final products, the consumption of final products, residuals recycled or reused at the place of generation are excluded. Under the Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC, Art,3, the European Union defines waste as an object the holder discards, intends to discard or is required to discard. For a more structural description of the Waste Directive, see the European Commissions summary and it is most commonly measured by size or weight, and there is a stark difference between the two. For example, organic waste is much heavier when it is wet, on a global scale it is difficult to report waste because countries have different definitions of waste and what falls into waste categories, as well as different ways of reporting. Based on incomplete reports from its parties, the Basel Convention estimated 338 million tonnes of waste was generated in 2001, for the same year, OECD estimated 4 billion tonnes from its member countries. Toxic waste materials can contaminate surface water, groundwater, soil, and air which causes problems for humans, other species. Waste treatment and disposal produces significant green house gas emissions, notably methane, Waste management is a significant environmental justice issue. Many of the environmental burdens cited above are often borne by marginalized groups, such as racial minorities, women. NIMBY is the opposition of residents to a proposal for a new development because it is close to them, however, the need for expansion and siting of waste treatment and disposal facilities is increasing worldwide. Environmental policies such as pay as you throw can reduce the cost of management, Waste recovery can curb economic costs because it avoids extracting raw materials and often cuts transportation costs. Economic assessment of municipal waste management systems – case studies using a combination of life-cycle assessment, the location of waste treatment and disposal facilities often reduces property values due to noise, dust, pollution, unsightliness, and negative stigma. The informal waste sector consists mostly of waste pickers who scavenge for metals, glass, plastic, textiles, and other materials and then trade them for a profit. This sector can significantly alter or reduce waste in a system, but other negative economic effects come with the disease, poverty, exploitation. Resource recovery is the retrieval of recyclable waste, which was intended for disposal and it is the processing of recyclables to extract or recover materials and resources, or convert to energy
21.
Hamilton Group
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The Devonian Hamilton Group is a mapped bedrock unit in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio and West Virginia. In Virginia, it is known as the laterally equivalent Millboro Shale, the group is named for the village of Hamilton, New York. These rocks are the oldest strata of the Devonian gas shale sequence, the Hamilton Group consists of the Mahantango Formation, a gray, dark gray, brown, and olive laminated shale, siltstone, and very fine-grained sandstone or claystone containing marine fossils. It overlies the Marcellus Shale, a fissile gray-black to black, thinly laminated, pyritic, carbonaceous thin shale with sparse marine fauna, the total thickness of the Hamilton Group in Pennsylvania runs about 970 feet. In New York State, it thickens from 250 feet near Lake Erie to over 2,500 feet in Ulster, depths ranging from outcrops to 8,000 feet below the surface of Sullivan County, in the southeastern part of the state. In the interior lowlands of New York, the Hamilton Group contains the Marcellus, Skaneateles, Ludlowville and these units are divided by the Stafford, Centerfield, and Tichenor limestones. The Mahantango Formation includes these members in descending order, Tully argillaceous limestone, Sherman Ridge, Montebello sandstone, Fisher Ridge, Dalmatia, in south-central Pennsylvania, it includes Clearville, Frame, Chaneysville, and Gander Run Members. Its thickness in Maryland ranges from 600 feet in the west, increasing to 1,200 feet in the east, the Marcellus Formation contains a local limestone Purcell Member and Tioga bentonite at the base in eastern Pennsylvania. Its thickness in Maryland ranges from 250 feet in east, increasing to 500 feet in the west, the Hamilton Group, Tioga Metabentonite Bed, and Needmore Shale were formerly called the Romney Formation. The Geneseo Shale is a grey to black shale that overlies the Tully Limestone. The Tully Limestone is a shallow-water carbonaceous unit, the Moscow Formation comprises grey to black shales interbedded with limestones and calcareous mudstones and usually bioturbated. The uppermost clay regions of the Mahantango Formation are rich in fossils, the distribution of the unit can be observed on this map of Hudson-Mohawk bedrock scans. Relative age dating of the Hamilton places it in the middle, the Hamilton is a good source of road material, riprap and building stone, that is used locally for shale aggregate and common fill
22.
European Commission
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Commissioners swear an oath at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, pledging to respect the treaties and to be completely independent in carrying out their duties during their mandate. The Commission operates as a government, with 28 members of the Commission. There is one member per state, but members are bound by their oath of office to represent the general interest of the EU as a whole rather than their home state. One of the 28 is the Commission President proposed by the European Council, the current Commission is the Juncker Commission, which took office in late 2014. The procedural languages of the Commission are English, French and German, the Members of the Commission and their cabinets are based in the Berlaymont building in Brussels. The first Commission originated in 1951 as the nine-member High Authority under President Jean Monnet, the High Authority was the supranational administrative executive of the new European Coal and Steel Community. It took office first on 10 August 1952 in Luxembourg, in 1958 the Treaties of Rome had established two new communities alongside the ECSC, the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community. However their executives were called Commissions rather than High Authorities, the reason for the change in name was the new relationship between the executives and the Council. Some states such as France expressed reservations over the power of the High Authority, louis Armand led the first Commission of Euratom. Walter Hallstein led the first Commission of the EEC, holding the first formal meeting on 16 January 1958 at the Château of Val-Duchesse, Hallstein notably began the consolidation of European law and started to have a notable impact on national legislation. The three bodies, collectively named the European Executives, co-existed until 1 July 1967 when, under the Merger Treaty, the Rey Commission completed the Communitys customs union in 1968 and campaigned for a more powerful, elected, European Parliament. Despite Rey being the first President of the communities, Hallstein is seen as the first President of the modern Commission. The Malfatti and Mansholt Commissions followed with work on monetary co-operation, with that enlargement the Commissions membership increased to thirteen under the Ortoli Commission, which dealt with the enlarged community during economic and international instability at that time. Following the Jenkins Commission, Gaston Thorns Commission oversaw the Communitys enlargement to the south, the Commission headed by Jacques Delors was seen as giving the Community a sense of direction and dynamism. Delors and his team are considered as the founding fathers of the euro. The International Herald Tribune noted the work of Delors at the end of his term in 1992. He arrived when Europessimism was at its worst, although he was a little-known former French finance minister, he breathed life and hope into the EC and into the dispirited Brussels Commission. The successor to Delors was Jacques Santer, the entire Santer Commission was forced to resign in 1999 by the Parliament as result of a fraud and corruption scandal, with a central role played by Édith Cresson
23.
Rule of law
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The rule of law is the legal principle that law should govern a nation, as opposed to being governed by arbitrary decisions of individual government officials. It primarily refers to the influence and authority of law within society, particularly as a constraint upon behaviour, including behaviour of government officials. The phrase can be traced back to 16th century Britain, John Locke defined freedom under the rule of law as follows, “Freedom is constrained by laws in both the state of nature and political society. Freedom of nature is to be no other restraint but the law of nature. Freedom of people under government is to be under no restraint apart from standing rules to live by that are common to everyone in the society and made by the lawmaking power established in it. Persons have a right or liberty to follow their own will in all things that the law has not prohibited and not be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, and arbitrary wills of others. ”The rule of law was further popularized in the 19th century by British jurist A. V. Dicey. The concept, if not the phrase, was familiar to ancient philosophers such as Aristotle, Rule of law implies that every citizen is subject to the law, including lawmakers themselves. In this sense, it stands in contrast to an autocracy, dictatorship, Government based upon the rule of law is called nomocracy. In the West, the ancient Greeks initially regarded the best form of government as rule by the best men, Plato advocated a benevolent monarchy ruled by an idealized philosopher king, who was above the law. More than Plato attempted to do, Aristotle flatly opposed letting the highest officials wield power beyond guarding and serving the laws, according to the Roman statesman Cicero, We are all servants of the laws in order that we may be free. During the Roman Republic, controversial magistrates might be put on trial when their terms of office expired, under the Roman Empire, the sovereign was personally immune, but those with grievances could sue the treasury. In contrast, the Huang-Lao school of Daoism rejected legal positivism in favor of a law that even the ruler would be subject to. There has recently been an effort to reevaluate the influence of the Bible on Western constitutional law, according to Professor Bernard M. Levinson, This legislation was so utopian in its own time that it seems never to have been implemented. The Deuteronomic social vision may have influenced opponents of the right of kings. In Islamic jurisprudence rule of law was formulated in the century, so that no official could claim to be above the law. However, this was not a reference to law. Alfred the Great, Anglo-Saxon King of the 9th century, reformed the law of his kingdom and created a law code with the biblical Mosaic law and he ruled that justice had to be equal between people, whether rich or poor, friends or enemies. This was likely inspired from Leviticus 19, You shall do no injustice in judgment and you shall not be partial to the poor, nor defer to the great
24.
Transparency International
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Transparency International e. V. is an international non-governmental organization which is based in Berlin, Germany, and was founded in 1993. Its nonprofit purpose is to take action to combat corruption and prevent criminal activities arising from corruption and it publishes for example the Global Corruption Barometer and the Corruption Perceptions Index. Transparency International has the status of a German registered voluntary association. Its members are besides a few more than 100 national chapters which engage in fighting corruption in their home countries. Transparency International states, Transparency International is the civil society organization leading the fight against corruption. It brings people together in a worldwide coalition to end the devastating impact of corruption on men, women and children around the world. TIs mission is to change towards a world free of corruption. The organization defines corruption as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain which eventually hurts everyone who depends on the integrity of people in a position of authority, Transparency International does not undertake investigations on single cases of corruption or expose individual cases. It develops tools for fighting corruption and works with other civil society organizations, companies, since 1995, Transparency International has issued an annual Corruption Perceptions Index, it also publishes a Global Corruption Report, a Global Corruption Barometer and a Bribe Payers Index. In 2013 Transparency International published the Government Defence Anti-corruption Index with which corruption in the sector of 82 countries was measured. Some governments expressed criticism towards the methodology of the report, mark Pyman defended the report in an interview and stressed the importance of transparency in the military sector. The plan is to publish the index every two years, the Corruption Perceptions Index ranks countries and territories based on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be. It is a composite index – a combination of polls – drawing on corruption-related data collected by a variety of reputable institutions, the CPI reflects the views of observers from around the world. The Corruption Perceptions Index has received criticism over the years, the main one stems from the difficulty in measuring corruption, which by definition happens behind the scenes. The Corruption Perceptions Index therefore needs to rely on third-party survey which have criticized as potentially unreliable. Data can vary depending on the public perception of a country, the completeness of the surveys. The second issue is that data cannot be compared from year to year because Transparency International uses different methodologies and samples every year and this makes it difficult to evaluate the result of new policies. The Corruption Perceptions Index authors replied to these criticisms by reminding that the Corruption Perceptions Index is meant to measure perception and they argue that perceptions matter in their own right, since
25.
Georgia (country)
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Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. The capital and largest city is Tbilisi, Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 square kilometres, and its 2016 population is about 3.72 million. Georgia is a unitary, semi-presidential republic, with the government elected through a representative democracy, during the classical era, several independent kingdoms became established in what is now Georgia. The kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia adopted Christianity in the early 4th century, a unified Kingdom of Georgia reached the peak of its political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar in the 12th and early 13th centuries. Thereafter the kingdom declined and eventually disintegrated under hegemony of various powers, including the Mongols, the Ottoman Empire. Russian rule over Georgia was eventually acknowledged in various treaties with Iran. Since the establishment of the modern Georgian republic in April 1991, post-communist Georgia suffered from civil, the countrys Western orientation soon led to the worsening of relations with Russia, culminating in the brief Russo-Georgian War in August 2008. Georgia is a member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and it contains two de facto independent regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which gained limited international recognition after the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. Georgia and a part of the international community consider the regions to be part of Georgias sovereign territory under Russian military occupation. Georgia probably stems from the Persian designation of the Georgians – gurğān, in the 11th and 12th centuries adapted via Syriac gurz-ān/gurz-iyān, starting with the Persian word gurğ/gurğān, the word was later adopted in numerous other languages, including Slavic and West European languages. This term itself might have established through the ancient Iranian appellation of the near-Caspian region. The self-designation used by ethnic Georgians is Kartvelebi, the medieval Georgian Chronicles present an eponymous ancestor of the Kartvelians, Kartlos, a great-grandson of Japheth. However, scholars agree that the word is derived from the Karts, the name Sakartvelo consists of two parts. Its root, kartvel-i, specifies an inhabitant of the core central-eastern Georgian region of Kartli, ancient Greeks and Romans referred to early western Georgians as Colchians and eastern Georgians as Iberians. Today the full, official name of the country is Georgia, before the 1995 constitution came into force the countrys name was the Republic of Georgia. The territory of modern-day Georgia was inhabited by Homo erectus since the Paleolithic Era, the proto-Georgian tribes first appear in written history in the 12th century BC. The earliest evidence of wine to date has found in Georgia. In fact, early metallurgy started in Georgia during the 6th millennium BC, the classical period saw the rise of a number of early Georgian states, the principal of which was Colchis in the west and Iberia in the east
26.
Armenia
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Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a sovereign state in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. The Republic of Armenia constitutes only one-tenth of historical Armenia, Armenia is a unitary, multi-party, democratic nation-state with an ancient cultural heritage. Urartu was established in 860 BC and by the 6th century BC it was replaced by the Satrapy of Armenia, in the 1st century BC the Kingdom of Armenia reached its height under Tigranes the Great. Armenia became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion, in between the late 3rd century to early years of the 4th century, the state became the first Christian nation. The official date of adoption of Christianity is 301 AD. The ancient Armenian kingdom was split between the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires around the early 5th century, under the Bagratuni dynasty, the Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia was restored in the 9th century. Declining due to the wars against the Byzantines, the fell in 1045. An Armenian principality and later a kingdom Cilician Armenia was located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea between the 11th and 14th centuries. By the 19th century, Eastern Armenia had been conquered by the Russian Empire, during World War I, Armenians living in their ancestral lands in the Ottoman Empire were systematically exterminated in the Armenian Genocide. By 1920, the state was incorporated into the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, in 1936, the Transcaucasian state was dissolved, transforming its constituent states, including the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, into full Union republics. The modern Republic of Armenia became independent in 1991 during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Republic of Armenia recognises the Armenian Apostolic Church, the worlds oldest national church, as the countrys primary religious establishment. The unique Armenian alphabet was invented by Mesrop Mashtots in 405 AD, Armenia is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, the Council of Europe and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Armenia supports the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which was proclaimed in 1991, the native Armenian name for the country is Հայք. The name in the Middle Ages was extended to Հայաստան, by addition of the Persian suffix -stan, the further origin of the name is uncertain. It is also postulated that the name Hay comes from one of the two confederated, Hittite vassal states—the Ḫayaša-Azzi. The exonym Armenia is attested in the Old Persian Behistun Inscription as Armina, the ancient Greek terms Ἀρμενία and Ἀρμένιοι are first mentioned by Hecataeus of Miletus. Xenophon, a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and he relates that the people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians. According to the histories of both Moses of Chorene and Michael Chamchian, Armenia derives from the name of Aram, a descendant of Hayk
27.
Ukraine
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Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014 but which Ukraine and most of the international community recognise as Ukrainian. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2, making it the largest country entirely within Europe and it has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC, during the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested, ruled and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, two brief periods of independence occurred during the 20th century, once near the end of World War I and another during World War II. Before its independence, Ukraine was typically referred to in English as The Ukraine, following independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. Nonetheless it formed a limited partnership with the Russian Federation and other CIS countries. In the 2000s, the government began leaning towards NATO, and it was later agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future. Former President Viktor Yanukovych considered the current level of co-operation between Ukraine and NATO sufficient, and was against Ukraine joining NATO and these events formed the background for the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, and the War in Donbass in April 2014. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine applied the economic part of the Deep, Ukraine has long been a global breadbasket because of its extensive, fertile farmlands and is one of the worlds largest grain exporters. The diversified economy of Ukraine includes a heavy industry sector, particularly in aerospace. Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate powers, legislative, executive. Its capital and largest city is Kiev, taking into account reserves and paramilitary personnel, Ukraine maintains the second-largest military in Europe after that of Russia. Ukrainian is the language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy, which has strongly influenced Ukrainian architecture, literature, there are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to the older and most widespread hypothesis, it means borderland, while more recently some studies claim a different meaning, homeland or region. The Ukraine now implies disregard for the sovereignty, according to U. S. ambassador William Taylor. Neanderthal settlement in Ukraine is seen in the Molodova archaeological sites include a mammoth bone dwelling
28.
Belarus
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Its capital and most populous city is Minsk. Over 40% of its 207,600 square kilometres is forested and its strongest economic sectors are service industries and manufacturing. In the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Belarus declared independence as the Belarusian Peoples Republic, the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922 and was renamed as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. Belarus lost almost half of its territory to Poland after the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921, during WWII, military operations devastated Belarus, which lost about a third of its population and more than half of its economic resources. The republic was redeveloped in the post-war years, in 1945 the Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR. The parliament of the declared the sovereignty of Belarus on 27 July 1990. Alexander Lukashenko has served as the president since 1994. Belarus has been labeled Europes last dictatorship by some Western journalists, Lukashenko continued a number of Soviet-era policies, such as state ownership of large sections of the economy. Though not directly espousing communism like the five remaining communist countries of China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea, in 2000 Belarus and Russia signed a treaty for greater cooperation, with some hints of forming a Union State. Over 70% of Belaruss population of 9.49 million resides in urban areas, more than 80% of the population is ethnic Belarusian, with sizable minorities of Russians, Poles and Ukrainians. Since a referendum in 1995, the country has had two official languages, Belarusian and Russian, the Constitution of Belarus does not declare any official religion, although the primary religion in the country is Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Belarus is the only European country to retain capital punishment in both law and practice, the name Belarus is closely related with the term Belaya Rus, i. e. White Rus. There are several claims to the origin of the name White Rus, an alternate explanation for the name comments on the white clothing worn by the local Slavic population. A third theory suggests that the old Rus lands that were not conquered by the Tatars had been referred to as white, other sources claim that, before 1267, the land not conquered by the Mongols was considered White Rus. The name Rus is often conflated with its Latin forms Russia and Ruthenia, in some languages, including German and Dutch, the country is generally called White Russia to this day. The Latin term Alba Russia was used again by Pope Pius VI in 1783 to recognize the Society of Jesus there, exclaiming Approbo Societatem Jesu in Alba Russia degentem, approbo, approbo. The first known use of White Russia to refer to Belarus was in the century by Englishman Sir Jerome Horsey. During the 17th century, the Russian tsars used White Rus to describe the lands added from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
29.
Kazakhstan
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Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in northern Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Kazakhstan is the worlds largest landlocked country, and the ninth largest in the world, Kazakhstan is the dominant nation of Central Asia economically, generating 60% of the regions GDP, primarily through its oil/gas industry. It also has vast mineral resources, Kazakhstan is officially a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. Kazakhstan shares borders with Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, the terrain of Kazakhstan includes flatlands, steppe, taiga, rock canyons, hills, deltas, snow-capped mountains, and deserts. Kazakhstan has an estimated 18 million people as of 2014, Given its large area, its population density is among the lowest. The capital is Astana, where it was moved in 1997 from Almaty, the territory of Kazakhstan has historically been inhabited by nomadic tribes. This changed in the 13th century, when Genghis Khan occupied the country as part of the Mongolian Empire, following internal struggles among the conquerors, power eventually reverted to the nomads. By the 16th century, the Kazakh emerged as a distinct group, the Russians began advancing into the Kazakh steppe in the 18th century, and by the mid-19th century, they nominally ruled all of Kazakhstan as part of the Russian Empire. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, and subsequent civil war, the territory of Kazakhstan was reorganised several times, in 1936, it was made the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, part of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan was the last of the Soviet republics to declare independence during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan has worked to develop its economy, especially its dominant hydrocarbon industry. Kazakhstans 131 ethnicities include Kazakhs, Russians, Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Germans, Tatars, the Kazakh language is the state language, and Russian has equal official status for all levels of administrative and institutional purposes. The name Kazakh comes from the ancient Turkic word qaz, to wander, the name Cossack is of the same origin. The Persian suffix -stan means land or place of, so Kazakhstan can be translated as land of the wanderers. Kazakhstan has been inhabited since the Neolithic Age, the regions climate, archaeologists believe that humans first domesticated the horse in the regions vast steppes. Central Asia was originally inhabited by the Scythians, the Cuman entered the steppes of modern-day Kazakhstan around the early 11th century, where they later joined with the Kipchak and established the vast Cuman-Kipchak confederation. Under the Mongol Empire, the largest in history, administrative districts were established. These eventually came under the rule of the emergent Kazakh Khanate, throughout this period, traditional nomadic life and a livestock-based economy continued to dominate the steppe. Nevertheless, the region was the focus of ever-increasing disputes between the native Kazakh emirs and the neighbouring Persian-speaking peoples to the south, at its height the Khanate would rule parts of Central Asia and control Cumania
30.
Kyrgyzstan
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Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic, is a country in Central Asia. Landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west and southwest, Tajikistan to the southwest and its capital and largest city is Bishkek. Kyrgyzstans recorded history spans over 2,000 years, encompassing a variety of cultures and empires, ethnic Kyrgyz make up the majority of the countrys 5.7 million people, followed by significant minorities of Uzbeks and Russians. Kyrgyz is closely related to other Turkic languages, although Russian remains widely spoken and is the official language, the majority of the population are non-denominational Muslims. In addition to its Turkic origins, Kyrgyz culture bears elements of Persian, Mongolian and Russian influence. Kyrgyz is believed to have derived from the Turkic word for forty, in reference to the forty clans of Manas. Literally, Kyrgyz means We are forty, at the time, in the early 9th century AD, the Uyghurs dominated much of Central Asia, Mongolia, and parts of Russia and China. King, Scythians were early settlers in present-day Kyrgyzstan, the Kyrgyz state reached its greatest expansion after defeating the Uyghur Khaganate in 840 A. D. From the 10th century the Kyrgyz migrated as far as the Tian Shan range, in the twelfth century the Kyrgyz dominion had shrunk to the Altay Range and Sayan Mountains as a result of the Mongol expansion. With the rise of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century, the Kyrgyz peacefully became a part of the Mongol Empire in 1207. The descent of the Kyrgyz from the autochthonous Siberian population is confirmed on the hand by the recent genetic studies. Issyk Kul Lake was a stopover on the Silk Road, a route for traders, merchants. Kyrgyz tribes were overrun in the 17th century by the Mongols, in the century by the Manchurian Qing Dynasty. In the late century, the majority part of what is today Kyrgyzstan was ceded to Russia through two treaties between China and Russia. The territory, then known in Russian as Kirghizia, was incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1876. The Russian takeover was met with numerous revolts against Tsarist authority, in addition, the suppression of the 1916 rebellion against Russian rule in Central Asia caused many Kyrgyz later to migrate to China. Soviet power was established in the region in 1919. On 5 December 1936, the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic was established as a republic of the Soviet Union
31.
Moldova
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Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova (Romanian, Republica Moldova, listen, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. In 1856, southern Bessarabia was returned to Moldavia, but Russian rule was restored over the whole of the region in 1878, Bessarabia remained a province of the Russian Empire until 1917, when during the Russian Revolution it became an autonomous and then nominally independent Moldavian Democratic Republic. In 1918, following a vote of its assembly, Bessarabia united with the Kingdom of Romania, the decision was disputed by Soviet Russia, which in 1924, created within the Ukrainian SSR, on a territory east of Bessarabia, a so-called Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1940, as a consequence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Romania was compelled to cede Bessarabia to the Soviet Union, the Soviets decided to split the region between a newly established Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Ukrainian SSR. The Moldavian SSR included two-thirds of the territory of Bessarabia, on 27 August 1991, as part of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Moldavian SSR declared independence and took the name Moldova. The current Constitution of Moldova was adopted in 1994, the strip of the Moldovan territory on the east bank of the Dniester river has been under the de facto control of the breakaway government of Transnistria since 1990. Its economy is the poorest in Europe in per capita terms, Moldova is a parliamentary republic with a president as head of state and a prime minister as head of government. The name Moldova derives from the Moldova River, the valley of this served as a political centre at the time of the foundation of the Principality of Moldavia in 1359. The origin of the name of the river remains unclear, the dogs name, given to the river, extended to the Principality. For a short time in the 1990s, at the founding of the Commonwealth of Independent States, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country began to use the Romanian name, Moldova. Officially, the name Republic of Moldova is designated by the United Nations, in 2010, Oldowan flint tools were discovered at Bayraki that are 800, 000–1.2 million years old. This demonstrates that humans were present in Moldova during the early Paleolithic era. The inhabitants of this civilization, which lasted roughly from 5500 to 2750 BC, practiced agriculture, raised livestock, hunted, in antiquity, Moldovas territory was inhabited by Dacian tribes. Between the 1st and 7th centuries AD, the south was intermittently under the Roman, and then Byzantine Empires. The Principality of Moldavia, established in 1359, was bounded by the Carpathian Mountains in the west, the Dniester River in the east, and the Danube River and Black Sea to the south. Its territory comprised the territory of the Republic of Moldova, the eastern eight counties of Romania. Like the present-day republic and Romanias north-eastern region, it was known to the locals as Moldova, Moldavia was invaded repeatedly by Crimean Tatars and, beginning in the 15th century, by the Turks. In 1538, the principality became a tributary to the Ottoman Empire, the title used in the document of 6 July 1600 was The King of the country of Romania, Ardeal and of all of Moldavia
32.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
33.
Tajikistan
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Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a mountainous, landlocked country in Central Asia with an estimated 8 million people in 2013, and an area of 143,100 km2. It is bordered by Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the south, the Republic of Uzbekistan to the west, the Kyrgyz Republic to the north, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan lies to the south, separated by the narrow Wakhan Corridor. Traditional homelands of Tajik people included present-day Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, a civil war was fought almost immediately after independence, lasting from 1992 to 1997. Since the end of the war, newly established political stability, Tajikistan is a presidential republic consisting of four provinces. Most of Tajikistans 8 million people belong to the Tajik ethnic group, many Tajiks also speak Russian as their second language. Mountains cover more than 90% of the country and it has a transition economy that is highly dependent on remittances, aluminium and cotton production. Tajikistan means the Land of the Tajiks, the suffix -stan is Persian for place of or country and Tajik is, most likely, the name of a pre-Islamic tribe. Tajikistan appeared as Tadjikistan or Tadzhikistan in English prior to 1991 and this is due to a transliteration from the Russian, Таджикистан. In Russian, there is no single letter j to represent the phoneme /ʤ/ and дж, Tadzhikistan is the most common alternate spelling and is widely used in English literature derived from Russian sources. Tadjikistan is the spelling in French and can occasionally be found in English language texts, the way of writing Tajikistan in the Perso-Arabic script is. The earliest recorded history of the dates back to about 500 BCE when much, if not all. After the regions conquest by Alexander the Great it became part of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, northern Tajikistan was part of Sogdia, a collection of city-states which was overrun by Scythians and Yuezhi nomadic tribes around 150 BCE. The Silk Road passed through the region and following the expedition of Chinese explorer Zhang Qian during the reign of Wudi commercial relations between Han China and Sogdiana flourished. Sogdians played a role in facilitating trade and also worked in other capacities, as farmers, carpetweavers, glassmakers. Later the Hephthalite Empire, a collection of tribes, moved into the region. Central Asia continued in its role as a crossroads, linking China, the steppes to the north. It was temporarily under the control of the Tibetan empire and Chinese from 650–680, the Samanid Empire,819 to 999, restored Persian control of the region and enlarged the cities of Samarkand and Bukhara which became the cultural centres of Iran and the region was known as Khorasan. The Kara-Khanid Khanate conquered Transoxania and ruled between 999–1211, during Genghis Khans invasion of Khwarezmia in the early 13th century the Mongol Empire took control over nearly all of Central Asia
34.
Uzbekistan
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Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan, is one of only two doubly landlocked countries in the world. Located in Central Asia, it is a unitary, constitutional, presidential republic, comprising twelve provinces, one autonomous republic and a capital city. Uzbekistan is bordered by five landlocked countries, Kazakhstan to the north, Tajikistan to the southeast, Kyrgyzstan to the northeast, Afghanistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest. Once part of the Turkic Khaganate and later Timurid Empires, the region that includes the Republic of Uzbekistan was conquered in the early 16th century by Eastern Turkic-speaking nomads. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, it declared independence as the Republic of Uzbekistan on 31 August 1991, Uzbekistan is officially a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. The countrys official language is Uzbek, a Turkic language written in the Latin alphabet and spoken natively by approximately 85% of the population, however, Uzbeks constitute 81% of the population, followed by Russians, Tajiks, Kazakhs, and others. A majority of Uzbeks are non-denominational Muslims, Uzbekistan is a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, UN, and the SCO. While officially a republic, non-governmental human rights organizations define Uzbekistan as an authoritarian state with limited civil rights. Uzbekistans economy relies mainly on commodity production, including cotton, gold, uranium, despite the declared objective of transition to a market economy, its government continues to maintain economic controls which imports in favour of domestic import substitution. Uzbekistan has an area of 447,400 square kilometres and it is the 56th largest country in the world by area and the 42nd by population. Among the CIS countries, it is the 4th largest by area, Uzbekistan lies between latitudes 37° and 46° N, and longitudes 56° and 74° E. It stretches 1,425 kilometres from west to east and 930 kilometres from north to south, Uzbekistan also shares a short border with Afghanistan to the south. Uzbekistan is a dry, landlocked country and it is one of two doubly landlocked countries in the world, the other being Liechtenstein. In addition, due to its location within a series of endorheic basins, less than 10% of its territory is intensively cultivated irrigated land in river valleys and oases. The rest is vast desert and mountains, the climate in the Republic of Uzbekistan is continental, with little precipitation expected annually. The average summer high temperature tends to be 40 °C, while the winter low temperature is around −23 °C. Uzbekistan has a rich and diverse natural environment, the Aral Sea used to be the fourth-largest inland sea on Earth, acting as an influencing factor in the air moisture and arid land use. Since the 1960s, the decade when the misuse of the Aral Sea water began, it has shrunk to less than 50% of its former area, reliable, or even approximate data, have not been collected, stored or provided by any organization or official agency
35.
Vietnam
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Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. With an estimated 92.7 million inhabitants as of 2016, it is the worlds 14th-most-populous country, and its capital city has been Hanoi since the reunification of North and South Vietnam in 1976, with Ho Chi Minh City as a historical city as well. The northern part of Vietnam was part of Imperial China for over a millennium, an independent Vietnamese state was formed in 939, following a Vietnamese victory in the Battle of Bạch Đằng River. Following a Japanese occupation in the 1940s, the Vietnamese fought French rule in the First Indochina War, thereafter, Vietnam was divided politically into two rival states, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam. Conflict between the two sides intensified in what is known as the Vietnam War, the war ended with a North Vietnamese victory in 1975. Vietnam was then unified under a communist government but remained impoverished, in 1986, the government initiated a series of economic and political reforms which began Vietnams path towards integration into the world economy. By 2000, it had established relations with all nations. Since 2000, Vietnams economic growth rate has been among the highest in the world and its successful economic reforms resulted in its joining the World Trade Organization in 2007. It is also a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, Vietnam remains one of the worlds four remaining one-party socialist states officially espousing communism. The name Việt Nam is a variation of Nam Việt, a name that can be traced back to the Triệu Dynasty of the 2nd century BC. The word Việt originated as a form of Bách Việt. The form Vietnam is first recorded in the 16th-century oracular poem Sấm Trạng Trình, the name has also been found on 12 steles carved in the 16th and 17th centuries, including one at Bao Lam Pagoda in Haiphong that dates to 1558. Then, as recorded, rewarded Yuenan/Vietnam as their nations name, to also show that they are below the region of Baiyue/Bach Viet. Between 1804 and 1813, the name was used officially by Emperor Gia Long and it was revived in the early 20th century by Phan Bội Châus History of the Loss of Vietnam, and later by the Vietnamese Nationalist Party. The country was usually called Annam until 1945, when both the government in Huế and the Viet Minh government in Hanoi adopted Việt Nam. Archaeological excavations have revealed the existence of humans in what is now Vietnam as early as the Paleolithic age, Homo erectus fossils dating to around 500,000 BC have been found in caves in Lạng Sơn and Nghệ An provinces in northern Vietnam. The oldest Homo sapiens fossils from mainland Southeast Asia are of Middle Pleistocene provenance, teeth attributed to Homo sapiens from the Late Pleistocene have also been found at Dong Can, and from the Early Holocene at Mai Da Dieu, Lang Gao and Lang Cuom. The Hồng Bàng dynasty of the Hùng kings is considered the first Vietnamese state, in 257 BC, the last Hùng king was defeated by Thục Phán, who consolidated the Lạc Việt and Âu Việt tribes to form the Âu Lạc, proclaiming himself An Dương Vương
36.
Ecotage
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Ecotage is direct action by extreme environmentalist groups in the Western world. All damage figures below are in United States dollars, some well-known acts of ecotage have included,1998 – Arson of buildings at Vail Mountain in the United States by the Earth Liberation Front. March 11,1999 – Genetically engineered potatoes uprooted at Crop, december 25,1999 – In Monmouth, Oregon, fire destroys the main office of the Boise Cascade logging company costing over $1 million. A 12-foot banner at the scene read If you build it, we will burn it, signed, ecotage was popularized in 1975 by Edward Abbeys book The Monkey Wrench Gang. It has also treated in novels by T. Coraghessan Boyle, Carl Hiaasen, Neal Stephenson, and Richard Melo. Ecotage. is also the title of a 1972 humor book by Sam Love, ecotage is mentioned in Mars trilogy of science fiction novels by Kim Stanley Robinson as a means of protest shown by the Red political party. Typically the Reds would destroy terraforming ventures in an effort to slow the terraforming of Mars, the Concrete mini series Think Like a Mountain is centred about ecotage aimed to protect first growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. Radical environmentalism Environmental movement Billboarding Sabotage Operation Backfire Green Scare Ecodefense, A Field Guide To Monkeywrenching - Online text
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