The economy of Azerbaijan has completed its post-Soviet transition into a major oil based economy, from one where the state played the major role. The transition to oil production led to remarkable growth figures; the real GDP growth rate for 2011 was expected at 3.7% but had dropped to 0.1%. Large oil reserves are a major contributor to Azerbaijan's economy; the national currency, the Azerbaijani manat, was stable in 2000, depreciating 3.8% against the dollar. The budget deficit equaled 1.3% of GDP in 2000. Progress on economic reform has lagged behind macroeconomic stabilization; the government has undertaken regulatory reforms in some areas, including substantial opening of trade policy, but inefficient public administration in which commercial and regulatory interests are co-mingled limit the impact of these reforms. The government has completed privatization of agricultural lands and small and medium-sized enterprises. In August 2000, the government launched a second-stage privatization program, in which many large state enterprises will be privatized.

Since 2001, the economic activity in the country is regulated by the Ministry of Economic Development of Azerbaijan Republic. Through the Soviet period, Azerbaijan had always been less developed industrially than Armenia and Georgia, two neighboring Transcaucasia countries - but less diversified, as a result of slow investment in non-oil sector. With a history of industrial development of more than 100 years, Azerbaijan proved to be a leading nation in Southern Caucasus throughout the turmoil of Soviet Union collapse in early 1990s until nowadays. Oil remains the most prominent product of Azerbaijan's economy with cotton, natural gas and agriculture products contributing to its economic growth over the last five years. More than $60 billion was invested into Azerbaijan's oil by major international oil companies in AIOC consortium operated by BP. Oil production under the first of these PSAs, with the Azerbaijan International Operating Company, began in November 1997 and now is about 500,000 b/d.

People visit petroleum spas to bathe in the local crude in Naftalan A leading caviar producer and exporter in the past, Azerbaijan's fishing industry today is concentrated on the dwindling stocks of sturgeon and beluga in the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan shares all the problems of the former Soviet republics in making the transition from a command to a market economy, but its energy resources brighten its long-term prospects. Azerbaijan has begun making progress on economic reform, old economic ties and structures are being replaced. An obstacle to economic progress, including stepped up foreign investment, is the continuing conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. In 1992, Azerbaijan became member of the Economic Cooperation Organization. In 2002, the Azerbaijani merchant marine had 54 ships. In March 2001, Azerbaijan concluded a gas agreement with Turkey, providing a future export market for Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan has concluded 21 production-sharing agreements with various oil companies.

An export pipeline that transports Caspian oil to the Mediterranean from Baku through Tbilisi, Georgia to Ceyhan, Turkey became operational in 2006. The pipeline is expected to generate as much as $160 billion in revenues for the country over the next 30 years; the recent high price of oil is beneficial to Azerbaijan's economy as the nation is in the midst of an oil boom. Eastern Caspian producers in Kazakhstan have expressed interest in accessing this pipeline to transport a portion of their production. In 2010, Azerbaijan entered into the top eight biggest oil suppliers to EU countries with €9.46 billion. In 2011, the amount of foreign investments in Azerbaijan was $20 billion, a 61% increase from 2010. According to Minister of Economic Development of Azerbaijan, Shahin Mustafayev, in 2011, "$15.7 billion was invested in the non-oil sector, while the rest - in the oil sector." In 2012, because of its economic performance after the Soviet breakup, Azerbaijan was predicted to become "Tiger of Caucasus".

In 2012, Globalization and World Cities Research Network study ranked Baku as a Gamma-level global city. In 2015, Turkey and Azerbaijan agreed to boost mutual trade to US$15 billion by 2023; the following is a chart of trend of gross domestic product of Azerbaijan at market prices with figures in USD. For purchasing power parity comparisons, the US dollar was exchanged at 1,565.88 Manats only. The new Manat is in use, with an exchange rate of about 1 manat = $1.10. Mean graduate pay was $5.76 per manhour in 2010. The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980–2017. Source: IMFFor more than a century the backbone of the Azerbaijani economy has been petroleum, which represented 50 percent of Azerbaijan's GDP in 2005, is projected to double to 125 percent of GDP in 2007. Now that Western oil companies are able to tap deepwater oilfields untouched by the Soviets because of poor technology, Azerbaijan is considered one of the most important areas in the world for oil exploration and development.

Proven oil reserves in the Caspian Basin, which Azerbaijan shares with Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, are comparable in size to the North Sea, although exploration is still in the early stages. Azerbaijan has the largest agricultural basin in the region. About 54,9 percent of Azerbaijan is agricultural lands. At the beginning of 2007 there were 4,755,100 hectares of utilized agricultural area. In the same year the total wood resources counted 13

Habib ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri was an Arab noble of the Oqbid or Fihrid family, ruler of Ifriqiya from 755 to 757. Habib ibn Abd al-Rahman was the son and designated heir of Ifriqiyan strongman and ruler Abd al-Rahman ibn Habib al-Fihri, who had ruled Ifriqiya semi-independently since 745. Habib had served as wali in Barqa on his father's behalf. In 755, in a palace coup, the emir Abd al-Rahman ibn Habib was murdered by his brothers Ilyas ibn Habib and Abd al-Wareth ibn Habib. Ilyas promptly proclaimed himself ruler of Ifriqiya; the young Habib fled Kairouan and took refuge in Tunis with his uncle Amran ibn Habib, appalled at the fratricide. Amran helped; the armies met south of Tunis in late 755, but before battle was enjoined, an agreement was reached to partition Ifriqiya between the Fihrids. Amran was to be assigned the government of Tunis and environs, the young Habib the government of southerly Gafsa and Nefzoua, leaving Ilyas with Kairouan and the remainder of Ifriqiya; the settlement made, Habib proceeded to Kairouan.

But once in Tunis, Ilyas ordered the arrest of Amran and his coterie and dispatched them in chains to al-Andalus. Ilyas bore down on Kairouan and pressured the young Habib to agree to depart for al-Andalus. A ship was outfitted, set out, but was forced back to port by contrary winds. During this farcical interlude, Habib was seized by partisans of his late father Abd al-Rahman, who promptly proclaimed Habib emir of Ifriqiya and raised an army in his name; the two armies met in the environs of Laribus. But before battle was enjoined, Habib challenged Ilyas to solve the quarrel in single combat. At first hesitant, Ilyas consented, at the urging of his own commanders. Habib killed Ilyas, carrying his head as a trophy in a procession back to Kairouan; this took place in December 755. Hearing of Ilyas's defeat, Abd al-Wareth and remaining partisans of Ilyas fled south and took shelter among the Warfajuma Berbers. A sub-tribe of the Nafzawa, the Warfajuma had been fired up by Kharijite and broken away during the Great Berber Revolt of 740s.

Abd al-Wareth set about plotting with their chieftain Asim ibn Jamil al-Warfajumi to take power in Kairouan and depose his nephew Habib. To rally support to their arms, the rebels declared for the Abbasid caliph Al-Mansur. In 756-57, heeding the danger, Habib ibn Abd al-Rahman set out south against the Warfajuma, leaving the qadi Abu Quraib in charge of Kairouan, but the Ifriqiyan army was roundly defeated by the Berber rebels. Habib proceeded to take shelter in Gabès and appealed to Abu Quraib to dispatch reinforcements from Kairouan, but these were intercepted by the Berber force and, hearing the rebels had declared for the Abbasids, decided to switch over to them. In early 757, the Warfajjuma under Asim ibn Jamil, marching under the black banner of the Abbasids, entered Kairouan unopposed; the Fihrid Abd al-Wareth disappears from the chronicles around this time. Habib, forced out of Gabès, regathered his forces in the Aures hills and made a dash to recover Kairouan but was defeated and killed by the Berbers in the outskirts of the city in May–June, 757.

What happened in the aftermath has been much debated. It is alleged by Arab chroniclers that upon seizing the city, the Warfajuma Berbers, possessed by a fanatical Kharijite fervor, set about plundering the city of Kairouan and undertaking great massacres of the civil population. In the meantime, profiting from the Fihrid family quarrel, the Ibadites that Abd al-Rahman ibn Habib had driven into the Tripolitan hills of Jebel Nafusa in 752 mounted a comeback. Rallied by their new imam Abu al-Khattab al-Ma'afiri, the Ibadites seized Tripoli sometime in 757. Although a Kharijite sect, the Ibadites were less fanatical than the Sufrites and were horrified to hear of the massacres in Kairouan. In 758, the Ibadites set out to defeat the Warfajuma and capture Kairouan, putting an end to the Sufrite terror and establishing an Kharijite imamate over Ifriqiya. History of early Islamic Tunisia History of medieval Tunisia Ibn Khaldun, Histoire des Berbères et des dynasties musulmanes de l'Afrique, 1852 transl.

Algiers. Julien, Charles-André, Histoire de l'Afrique du Nord, des origines à 1830, édition originale 1931, réédition Payot, Paris, 1961 Mercier, E. Histoire de l'Afrqiue septentrionale, V. 1, Paris: Leroux. Repr. Elibron Classics, 2005

The Gallifrey Chronicles is a BBC Books original novel written by Lance Parkin and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was the last of the Eighth Doctor Adventures range and features the Eighth Doctor, Fitz Kreiner, Trix MacMillan; the Eighth Doctor, accompanied by Fitz Kreiner and Trix MacMillan, overthrows the tyrant Mondova on an alien world, prevents a time-travelling alien from interfering in Ancient Roman history, stops a Dalek invasion of Mars. Against this backdrop and Trix have begun a relationship and decide to leave the TARDIS; the Doctor returns to Earth in 2005. When the Doctor claims not to remember his former companion, Fitz becomes angry and leaves with Trix; as the pair attempt to readjust to normal life, it is revealed that Trix has been secretly passing information gained on their travels to another former companion, Anji Kapoor, who has used the information to manipulate the stock market and thus built up a considerable fortune.

The Doctor discovers that another Time Lord, had survived the destruction of Gallifrey, has been living for the past hundred years as a human science-fiction writer. Marnal, who claims to be the original owner of the Doctor's TARDIS, blames the Doctor for the cataclysm, takes him and the TARDIS captive while the insectoid alien Vore invade the Earth; the Vore attack leaves millions dead or missing, including Fitz, who dies trying to save Trix. After a cold fusion explosion guts the interior of the TARDIS, the Doctor discovers that K-9 Mark II has been aboard since Gallifrey's destruction, hidden behind a false wall, with orders from Lady President Romana of Gallifrey to kill him. However, K-9 pauses once it scans the Doctor's mind and discovers the reason why the Doctor has lost his memory, it transpires that, just prior to destroying Gallifrey, the Doctor had downloaded the entire contents of the Gallifreyan Matrix — the massive computer network containing the mental traces of every Time Lord living and dead, more than 140,000 Time Lords – into his brain, with his own memories suppressed to make room for the data.

Gallifrey had not been erased from history, but an event horizon in relative time prevented anyone from Gallifrey's past from travelling beyond Gallifrey's destruction, vice versa. Both the planet and the Time Lords could be restored, along with the Doctor's memory, if a sufficiently sophisticated computer could be found to reconstruct them. Before that could be done, the problem of the Vore must be dealt with. Marnal is wounded while fighting the Vore, being on his last regeneration, he dies; the Doctor tells him that he is his hero, Marnal dies in peace, confident that the Time Lords will be reborn. The Doctor reveals that the Vore have not killed their victims, but sprayed them with a chemical that makes them invisible to humans; the Doctor, Fitz and his allies travel to Africa with a Royal Navy Battle Group to confront the threat of the Vore. The novel and the Eighth Doctor Adventures end uncertainly, as the Doctor leaps into the heart of the Vore hive; this is the last novel of its series.

Fear Itself, a novel published subsequently featuring the Eighth Doctor but set before The Gallifrey Chronicles, came out as part of the Past Doctor Adventures line. The use of the seal of Rassilon on the cover mirrors its use on the cover of the first Eighth Doctor Adventures novel, The Eight Doctors. References are made in this novel to the Timewyrm, former companion Samantha Jones, various events that have occurred during the course of the Eighth Doctor Adventures. Marnal was mentioned in The Infinity Doctors and The Taking of Planet 5. One of Marnal's written works is titled "The Giants", the opening passage of "The Giants" in The Gallifrey Chronicles is identical to the prologue of Death Comes to Time; the plot of another book resembles that of The Infinity Doctors written by Parkin. Other unused Doctor Who story titles referenced in the book include The Witch Lords and The Red Fort. Possible threats to Gallifrey mentioned by Marnal include the Klade, the Tractites, Tannis and the Ongoing.

Marnal gives a list of some of the Eighth Doctor's companions, including some not mentioned before: Delilah, Deborah, Jemima-Katy and Beatrice. Larna speaks of a prophecy; these include Omega, the Sontarans, Varnax and the Timewyrm. The TARDIS interior from the 1996 telemovie is destroyed by a cold fusion device, leaving the way clear for the redesigned interior seen from "Rose" onwards; when Marnal is looking through the various timestreams for the Eighth Doctor, he observes that the Doctor has "three ninth incarnations". At one point in the novel, Marnal mentions. At the novel's end, the Doctor, Trix MacMillan and Fitz Kreiner a