1.
Kuwait City
–
Kuwait City is the capital and largest city of Kuwait. Kuwait City is the political, cultural and economic center of Kuwait, Kuwait City is considered a global city. Kuwait Citys trade and transportation needs are served by Kuwait International Airport, Mina Al-Shuwaik, in 1613, the town of Kuwait was founded in modern-day Kuwait City. In 1716, the Bani Utubs settled in Kuwait, at the time of the arrival of the Utubs, Kuwait was inhabited by a few fishermen and primarily functioned as a fishing village. In the eighteenth century, Kuwait prospered and rapidly became the commercial center for the transit of goods between India, Muscat, Baghdad and Arabia. By the mid 1700s, Kuwait had already established itself as the trading route from the Persian Gulf to Aleppo. During the Persian siege of Basra in 1775–1779, Iraqi merchants took refuge in Kuwait and were instrumental in the expansion of Kuwaits boat-building and trading activities. As a result, Kuwaits maritime commerce boomed, between the years 1775 and 1779, the Indian trade routes with Baghdad, Aleppo, Smyrna and Constantinople were diverted to Kuwait. The East India Company was diverted to Kuwait in 1792, the East India Company secured the sea routes between Kuwait, India and the east coasts of Africa. After the Persians withdrew from Basra in 1779, Kuwait continued to trade away from Basra. Kuwait was the center of boat building in the Persian Gulf region, during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, ship vessels made in Kuwait carried the bulk of trade between the ports of India, East Africa and the Red Sea. Kuwaiti ship vessels were renowned throughout the Indian Ocean, regional geopolitical turbulence helped foster economic prosperity in Kuwait in the second half of the 18th century. Kuwait became prosperous due to Basras instability in the late 18th century, in the late 18th century, Kuwait partly functioned as a haven for Basras merchants fleeing Ottoman government persecution. According to Palgrave, Kuwaitis developed a reputation as the best sailors in the Persian Gulf, during the reign of Mubarak Al-Sabah, Kuwait was dubbed the Marseilles of the Gulf because its economic vitality attracted a large variety of people. In the first decades of the century, Kuwait had a well-established elite, wealthy trading families who were linked by marriage. The elite were long-settled, urban, Sunni families, the majority of which claim descent from the original 30 Bani Utubi families, the wealthiest families were trade merchants who acquired their wealth from long-distance commerce, shipbuilding and pearling. They were an elite, they traveled extensively to India, Africa. The elite educated their sons more than other Gulf Arab elite
Kuwait City
–
The Skyline of Kuwait City
Kuwait City
–
Oil fires in Kuwait in 1990, which were a result of the
scorched earth policy of Iraqi
military forces retreating from Kuwait.
Kuwait City
–
Kuwait National Assembly Building
Kuwait City
–
Satellite image of Kuwait
2.
Kuwaiti dinar
–
The Kuwaiti dinar is the currency of Kuwait. It is sub-divided into 1,000 fils, the Kuwaiti dinar is the worlds highest-valued currency unit. The dinar was introduced in 1960 to replace the Gulf rupee and it was initially equivalent to one pound sterling. As the rupee was fixed at 1 shilling 6 pence, that resulted in a rate of 13 1⁄3 rupees to the dinar. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the Iraqi dinar replaced the Kuwaiti dinar as the currency, after liberation, the Kuwaiti dinar was restored as the countrys currency and a new banknote series was introduced, allowing the previous notes, including those stolen, to be demonetized. The following coins were first introduced in 1961,1 fils 2 fils 5 fils 10 fils 20 fils 50 fils 100 fils Six series of the Kuwaiti dinar banknote have been printed. The first series was issued following the pronouncement of the Kuwaiti Currency Law in 1960 and this series was in circulation from 1 April 1961 to 1 February 1982 and consisted of denominations of 1⁄4, 1⁄2,1,5 and 10 and 20 dinars. This second series was withdrawn on 1 February 1982, the third series was issued on 20 February 1980, after the accession to the throne of late Emir Jaber al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, in denominations of 1⁄4, 1⁄2,1,5 and 10 dinars. A20 dinars banknote was introduced later on 9 February 1986, as a result of the state of emergency after the Invasion of Kuwait, this series was ruled invalid with effect from 30 September 1991. Significant quantities of these notes were stolen by Iraqi forces and some had appeared on the numismatic market. This fourth series was legal tender until 16 February 1995, denominations were 1⁄4, 1⁄2,1,5,10 and 20 dinar. The fifth series of Kuwaiti banknotes were in use from 3 April 1994, denominations were as in the fourth series. Central Bank of Kuwait brought the series of Kuwaiti banknotes into circulation on 29 June 2014. Some of the bills are coarse so that the blind can identify them by touch. In both 1993 and 2001, the Central Bank of Kuwait issued commemorative 1-dinar polymer banknotes to celebrate its Liberation from Iraq, the first commemorative note, dated 26 February 1993, was issued to celebrate the second anniversary of the Liberation. The front features the map of the State of Kuwait, the emblem of Kuwait and on the left and right side of the note is the list of nations that assisted in its Liberation, in both English and Arabic. The second commemorative note, dated 26 February 2001, was issued to celebrate the anniversary of the Liberation. One feature from the note is an optically variable device patch that shows a fingerprint, even though they were denominated as 1 dinar, both of the commemorative notes state that they were not legal tender. 100 From 18 March 1975 to 4 January 2003, the dinar was pegged to a currency basket
Kuwaiti dinar
–
Average exchange rate of Kuwaiti dinar against US dollar (fils)
3.
Fiscal year
–
A fiscal year is the period used by governments for accounting and budget purposes, which vary between countries. It is also used for reporting by business and other organizations. Taxation laws generally require accounting records to be maintained and taxes calculated on an annual basis, the calculation of tax on an annual basis is especially relevant for direct taxation, such as income tax. Many annual government fees—such as Council rates, licence fees, etc. —are also levied on a year basis. The fiscal year end is the date marks the end of the fiscal year. Some companies—such as Cisco Systems—end their fiscal year on the day of the week each year. Under such a system, some years will have 52 weeks. Many universities have a year which ends during the summer. In the northern hemisphere this is July to the next June, in the southern hemisphere this is calendar year, January to December. Some media/communication-based organizations use a broadcast calendar as the basis for their fiscal year, the American football league NFL uses the term league year, which in effect forms the leagues fiscal year. In Afghanistan, the year was recently changed from 1 Hamal –29 Hoot to 1 Jadi –30 Qaus. The fiscal year runs with the Afghan calendar, thus resulting in difference of the Gregorian dates once in a four-year span, in Australia, a fiscal year is commonly called a financial year and starts on 1 July and ends on the next 30 June. Financial years are designated by the year of the second half of the period. For example, financial year 2017 is the 12-month period ending on 30 June 2017 and it is used for official purposes, by individual taxpayers and by the overwhelming majority of business enterprises. Business enterprises may opt to use a year that ends at the end of a week. All entities within the one group must use the financial year. The Commonwealth adopted the near-ubiquitous financial year standard since its inception in 1901, the reason given for the change was for convenience, as Parliament typically sits during May and June, while it was difficult for it to meet in November and December to pass a budget. In Austria the fiscal year is the year,1 January to 31 December
Fiscal year
–
Accounting
4.
WTO
–
The World Trade Organization is an intergovernmental organization which regulates international trade. The WTO officially commenced on 1 January 1995 under the Marrakesh Agreement, signed by 123 nations on 15 April 1994, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, most of the issues that the WTO focuses on derive from previous trade negotiations, especially from the Uruguay Round. The WTO is attempting to complete negotiations on the Doha Development Round, as of June 2012, the future of the Doha Round remained uncertain, the work programme lists 21 subjects in which the original deadline of 1 January 2005 was missed, and the round is still incomplete. This impasse has made it impossible to launch new WTO negotiations beyond the Doha Development Round, as a result, there have been an increasing number of bilateral free trade agreements between governments. As of July 2012, there were various groups in the WTO system for the current agricultural trade negotiation which is in the condition of stalemate. The WTOs current Director-General is Roberto Azevêdo, who leads a staff of over 600 people in Geneva, a trade facilitation agreement, part of the Bali Package of decisions, was agreed by all members on 7 December 2013, the first comprehensive agreement in the organizations history. Seven rounds of negotiations occurred under GATT, the first real GATT trade rounds concentrated on further reducing tariffs. Then, the Kennedy Round in the mid-sixties brought about a GATT anti-dumping Agreement, because these plurilateral agreements were not accepted by the full GATT membership, they were often informally called codes. Several of these codes were amended in the Uruguay Round, only four remained plurilateral, but in 1997 WTO members agreed to terminate the bovine meat and dairy agreements, leaving only two. Well before GATTs 40th anniversary, its members concluded that the GATT system was straining to adapt to a new globalizing world economy. In response to the problems identified in the 1982 Ministerial Declaration, the GATT still exists as the WTOs umbrella treaty for trade in goods, updated as a result of the Uruguay Round negotiations. GATT1994 is not however the only legally binding agreement included via the Final Act at Marrakesh, the highest decision-making body of the WTO is the Ministerial Conference, which usually meets every two years. It brings together all members of the WTO, all of which are countries or customs unions, the Ministerial Conference can take decisions on all matters under any of the multilateral trade agreements. When agricultural export subsidies were agreed to be phased out and adoption of the European Unions Everything, the WTO launched the current round of negotiations, the Doha Development Round, at the fourth ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar in November 2001. This was to be an effort to make globalization more inclusive and help the worlds poor, particularly by slashing barriers. The initial agenda comprised both further trade liberalization and new rule-making, underpinned by commitments to strengthen substantial assistance to developing countries. Among the various functions of the WTO, these are regarded by analysts as the most important and it provides a forum for negotiations and for settling disputes. Another priority of the WTO is the assistance of developing, least-developed and low-income countries in transition to adjust to WTO rules and disciplines through technical cooperation and training
WTO
–
The economists
Harry White (left) and
John Maynard Keynes at the
Bretton Woods Conference. Both had been strong advocates of a central-controlled international trade environment and recommended the establishment of three institutions: the
IMF (for fiscal and monetary issues); the
World Bank (for financial and structural issues); and the
ITO (for international economic cooperation).
WTO
–
Official logo of WTO
WTO
–
During the
Doha Round, the
US government blamed
Brazil and
India for being inflexible and the EU for impeding agricultural imports. The then-
President of Brazil,
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (above right), responded to the criticisms by arguing that progress would only be achieved if the richest countries (especially the US and countries in the EU) made deeper cuts in
agricultural subsidies and further opened their markets for agricultural goods.
WTO
–
The
World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 1998, in the
Palace of Nations (
Geneva,
Switzerland).
5.
OPEC
–
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is an intergovernmental organization of 13 nations, founded in 1960 in Baghdad by the first five members, and headquartered since 1965 in Vienna. The organization is also a significant provider of information about the oil market. As of January 2017, OPECs members are Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. Two-thirds of OPECs oil production and reserves are in its six Middle Eastern countries that surround the oil-rich Persian Gulf, the effect can be particularly strong when wars or civil disorders lead to extended interruptions in supply. In the 1970s, restrictions in oil production led to a rise in oil prices and OPECs revenue. In December 2014, OPEC and the oil men ranked as #3 on Lloyds list of the top 100 most influential people in the shipping industry. As of January 2017, OPEC has 13 member countries, six in the Middle East, five in Africa, in October 2015, Sudan formally submitted an application to join, but it is not yet a member. Similar concerns prompted Gabon to suspend membership in January 1995, it rejoined in July 2016. In May 2008, Indonesia announced that it would leave OPEC when its membership expired at the end of year, having become a net importer of oil. It rejoined the organization in January 2016, but announced another suspension of its membership at year-end. Some commentators consider that the United States was a de facto member of OPEC during its occupation of Iraq. But this is not borne out by the minutes of OPEC meetings, since the 1980s, representatives from Egypt, Mexico, Norway, Oman, Russia, and other oil-exporting nations have attended many OPEC meetings as observers. This arrangement serves as a mechanism for coordinating policies. The OPEC Conference is the authority of the organization. The chief executive of the organization is the OPEC Secretary General, the Conference ordinarily meets at the Vienna headquarters, at least twice a year and in additional extraordinary sessions when necessary. It generally operates on the principles of unanimity and one member, one vote, at various times, OPEC members have displayed apparent anti-competitive cartel behavior through the organizations agreements about oil production and price levels. OPEC members strongly prefer to describe their organization as a modest force for market stabilization, despite popular sentiment against OPEC, legislative proposals to limit the organizations sovereign immunity, such as the NOPEC Act, have so far been unsuccessful. Indeed, over the course of market cycles, oil reserves can themselves become a source of conflict and instability
OPEC
–
Abdalla Salem El-Badri, Secretary General, OPEC
OPEC
–
Flag
OPEC
–
The OPEC headquarters in Vienna
OPEC
–
OPEC Swissotel,
Quito,
Ecuador December 2010
6.
Gross domestic product
–
Gross Domestic Product is a monetary measure of the market value of all final goods and services produced in a period. Nominal GDP estimates are used to determine the economic performance of a whole country or region. The OECD defines GDP as a measure of production equal to the sum of the gross values added of all resident and institutional units engaged in production. ”An IMF publication states that GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services - that is. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the population of the region is the per capita GDP. William Petty came up with a concept of GDP to defend landlords against unfair taxation during warfare between the Dutch and the English between 1652 and 1674. Charles Davenant developed the method further in 1695, the modern concept of GDP was first developed by Simon Kuznets for a US Congress report in 1934. In this report, Kuznets warned against its use as a measure of welfare, after the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, GDP became the main tool for measuring a countrys economy. The switch from GNP to GDP in the US was in 1991, the history of the concept of GDP should be distinguished from the history of changes in ways of estimating it. The value added by firms is relatively easy to calculate from their accounts, but the value added by the sector, by financial industries. GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should, in principle, give the same result and they are the production approach, the income approach, or the expenditure approach. The most direct of the three is the approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the factors must be equal to the value of their product. This approach mirrors the OECD definition given above, deduct intermediate consumption from gross value to obtain the gross value added. Gross value added = gross value of output – value of intermediate consumption, value of output = value of the total sales of goods and services plus value of changes in the inventories. The sum of the value added in the various economic activities is known as GDP at factor cost. GDP at factor cost plus indirect taxes less subsidies on products = GDP at producer price, for measuring output of domestic product, economic activities are classified into various sectors. Subtracting each sectors intermediate consumption from gross output gives the GDP at factor cost, adding indirect tax minus subsidies in GDP at factor cost gives the GDP at producer prices
Gross domestic product
–
Selection of GDP PPP data (top 10 countries and blocks) in no particular order
7.
Inflation
–
In economics, inflation is a sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time resulting in a loss of value of currency. When the price rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods. Consequently, inflation reflects a reduction in the power per unit of money – a loss of real value in the medium of exchange. A chief measure of inflation is the inflation rate, the annualized percentage change in a general price index, usually the consumer price index. The opposite of inflation is deflation, Inflation affects economies in various positive and negative ways. Economists generally believe that high rates of inflation and hyperinflation are caused by a growth of the money supply. However, money supply growth does not necessarily cause inflation, some economists maintain that under the conditions of a liquidity trap, large monetary injections are like pushing on a string. Views on which factors determine low to moderate rates of inflation are more varied, low or moderate inflation may be attributed to fluctuations in real demand for goods and services, or changes in available supplies such as during scarcities. However, the view is that a long sustained period of inflation is caused by money supply growing faster than the rate of economic growth. Today, most economists favor a low and steady rate of inflation, the task of keeping the rate of inflation low and stable is usually given to monetary authorities. Rapid increases in quantity of the money or in the money supply have occurred in many different societies throughout history. By diluting the gold with other metals, the government could issue more coins without also needing to increase the amount of used to make them. When the cost of each coin is lowered in this way and this practice would increase the money supply but at the same time the relative value of each coin would be lowered. As the relative value of the coins becomes lower, consumers would need to give more coins in exchange for the same goods and these goods and services would experience a price increase as the value of each coin is reduced. Song Dynasty China introduced the practice of printing paper money in order to create fiat currency, during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, the government spent a great deal of money fighting costly wars, and reacted by printing more money, leading to inflation. Fearing the inflation that plagued the Yuan dynasty, the Ming Dynasty initially rejected the use of paper money, historically, large infusions of gold or silver into an economy also led to inflation. This was largely caused by the influx of gold and silver from the New World into Habsburg Spain. The silver spread throughout a previously cash-starved Europe and caused widespread inflation, demographic factors also contributed to upward pressure on prices, with European population growth after depopulation caused by the Black Death pandemic
Inflation
–
Two 20 kr gold coins from the
Scandinavian Monetary Union, a historical example of an international gold standard.
Inflation
–
Annual inflation rates in the United States from 1666 to 2004.
8.
Consumer price index
–
A consumer price index measures changes in the price level of market basket of consumer goods and services purchased by households. The CPI is a statistical estimate constructed using the prices of a sample of items whose prices are collected periodically. It is one of several price indices calculated by most national statistical agencies, the annual percentage change in a CPI is used as a measure of inflation. A CPI can be used to index the real value of wages, salaries, pensions, for regulating prices, in most countries, the CPI is, along with the population census one of the most closely watched national economic statistics. Basic types of data that are needed to construct the CPI, price data, the price data are collected for a sample of goods and services from a sample of sales outlets in a sample of locations for a sample of times. The weighting data are estimates of the shares of the different types of expenditure in the total expenditure covered by the index, therefore, the sampling variance cannot be calculated. In any case, an estimate is required in most of the purposes for which the index is used. These indices compare prices each month with prices in the price-reference month and it takes time to assemble and process the information used for weighting which, in addition to household expenditure surveys, may include trade and tax data. Ideally, the weights would relate to the composition of expenditure during the time between the month and the current month. There is a large technical economics literature on index formulae which would approximate this, such an index would show how consumer expenditure would have to move to compensate for price changes so as to allow consumers to maintain a constant standard of living. Approximations can only be computed retrospectively, whereas the index has to appear monthly and, preferably, the coverage of the index may be limited. Saving and investment are always excluded, though the prices paid for services provided by financial intermediaries may be included along with insurance. The index reference period, usually called the year, often differs both from the weight-reference period and the price reference period. This is just a matter of rescaling the whole time-series to make the value for the index reference-period equal to 100. Current Item Price = Base Year Price × Current CPI Base Year CPI or CPI2 CPI1 = Price 2 Price 1 Where 1 is usually the comparison year, alternatively, the CPI can be performed as CPI = updated cost base period cost ×100. The updated cost is divided by that of the initial year, many but not all price indices are weighted averages using weights that sum to 1 or 100. Example, The prices of 85,000 items from 22,000 stores, and 35,000 rental units are added together and averaged. They are weighted this way, Housing,41. 4%, Food and Beverage,17. 4%, Transport,17. 0%, Medical Care,6. 9%, Other,6. 9%, Apparel,6. 0%, Entertainment,4. 4%
Consumer price index
–
A graph of the
US CPI from 1913 to 2014 (in blue), and its percentage annual change (in red)
9.
Petroleum
–
Petroleum is a naturally occurring, yellow-to-black liquid found in geological formations beneath the Earths surface, which is commonly refined into various types of fuels. Components of petroleum are separated using a technique called fractional distillation and it consists of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other organic compounds. The name petroleum covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil and petroleum products that are made up of refined crude oil. A fossil fuel, petroleum is formed when large quantities of dead organisms, usually zooplankton and algae, are buried underneath sedimentary rock, Petroleum has mostly been recovered by oil drilling. Drilling is carried out studies of structural geology, sedimentary basin analysis. Petroleum is used in manufacturing a variety of materials. Concern over the depletion of the earths finite reserves of oil, the burning of fossil fuels plays the major role in the current episode of global warming. The word petroleum comes from Greek, πέτρα for rocks and Greek, the term was found in 10th-century Old English sources. It was used in the treatise De Natura Fossilium, published in 1546 by the German mineralogist Georg Bauer, Petroleum, in one form or another, has been used since ancient times, and is now important across society, including in economy, politics and technology. Great quantities of it were found on the banks of the river Issus, ancient Persian tablets indicate the medicinal and lighting uses of petroleum in the upper levels of their society. By 347 AD, oil was produced from bamboo-drilled wells in China, early British explorers to Myanmar documented a flourishing oil extraction industry based in Yenangyaung that, in 1795, had hundreds of hand-dug wells under production. The mythological origins of the oil fields at Yenangyaung, and its hereditary monopoly control by 24 families, Pechelbronn is said to be the first European site where petroleum has been explored and used. The still active Erdpechquelle, a spring where petroleum appears mixed with water has been used since 1498, Oil sands have been mined since the 18th century. In Wietze in lower Saxony, natural asphalt/bitumen has been explored since the 18th century, both in Pechelbronn as in Wietze, the coal industry dominated the petroleum technologies. In 1848 Young set up a small business refining the crude oil, Young eventually succeeded, by distilling cannel coal at a low heat, in creating a fluid resembling petroleum, which when treated in the same way as the seep oil gave similar products. The production of oils and solid paraffin wax from coal formed the subject of his patent dated 17 October 1850. In 1850 Young & Meldrum and Edward William Binney entered into partnership under the title of E. W. Binney & Co. at Bathgate in West Lothian, the worlds first oil refinery was built in 1856 by Ignacy Łukasiewicz. The demand for petroleum as a fuel for lighting in North America, edwin Drakes 1859 well near Titusville, Pennsylvania, is popularly considered the first modern well
Petroleum
–
Pumpjack pumping an oil well near
Lubbock, Texas
Petroleum
–
An oil refinery in Mina-Al-Ahmadi, Kuwait
Petroleum
–
Natural petroleum spring in
Korňa, Slovakia
Petroleum
–
Oil derrick in
Okemah, Oklahoma, 1922
10.
Petrochemicals
–
Petrochemicals, also called petroleum distillates, are chemical products derived from petroleum. Some chemical compounds made from petroleum are also obtained from fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas. The two most common classes are olefins and aromatics. Oil refineries produce olefins and aromatics by fluid catalytic cracking of petroleum fractions, chemical plants produce olefins by steam cracking of natural gas liquids like ethane and propane. Aromatics are produced by catalytic reforming of naphtha, Olefins and aromatics are the building-blocks for a wide range of materials such as solvents, detergents, and adhesives. Olefins are the basis for polymers and oligomers used in plastics, resins, fibers, elastomers, lubricants, global ethylene and propylene production are about 115 million tonnes and 70 million tonnes per annum, respectively. Aromatics production is approximately 70 million tonnes, the largest petrochemical industries are located in the USA and Western Europe, however, major growth in new production capacity is in the Middle East and Asia. There is substantial inter-regional petrochemical trade, primary petrochemicals are divided into three groups depending on their chemical structure, Olefins includes ethylene, propylene, and butadiene. Ethylene and propylene are important sources of chemicals and plastics products. Butadiene is used in making synthetic rubber, aromatics includes benzene, toluene, and xylenes. Benzene is a raw material for dyes and synthetic detergents, manufacturers use xylenes to produce plastics and synthetic fibers. Synthesis gas is a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen used to make ammonia, ammonia is used to make the fertilizer urea and methanol is used as a solvent and chemical intermediate. The prefix petro- is an abbreviation of the word petroleum, since petro- is Ancient Greek for rock. Therefore, the correct term would be oleochemicals. However, the term oleochemical is used to describe chemicals derived from plant, benzene, toluene and xylenes, as a whole referred to as BTX and primarily obtained from petroleum refineries by extraction from the reformate produced in catalytic reformers. Methane and BTX are used directly as feedstocks for producing petrochemicals, the output ethylene capacity of large steam crackers ranged up to as much as 1.0 –1.5 Mt per year. Steam crackers are not to be confused with steam reforming plants used to produce hydrogen, like commodity chemicals, petrochemicals are made on a very large scale. Petrochemical manufacturing units differ from commodity chemical plants in that often produce a number of related products
Petrochemicals
–
Petrochemical plant in the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
11.
Cement
–
A cement is a binder, a substance used in construction that sets, hardens and adheres to other materials, binding them together. Cement is seldom used solely, but is used to bind sand, Cement is used with fine aggregate to produce mortar for masonry, or with sand and gravel aggregates to produce concrete. Non-hydraulic cement will not set in wet conditions or underwater, rather, it sets as it dries and it is resistant to attack by chemicals after setting. Hydraulic cements set and become adhesive due to a reaction between the dry ingredients and water. The chemical reaction results in mineral hydrates that are not very water-soluble and so are quite durable in water and this allows setting in wet condition or underwater and further protects the hardened material from chemical attack. The chemical process for hydraulic cement found by ancient Romans used volcanic ash with added lime, the word cement can be traced back to the Roman term opus caementicium, used to describe masonry resembling modern concrete that was made from crushed rock with burnt lime as binder. The volcanic ash and pulverized brick supplements that were added to the burnt lime, to obtain a hydraulic binder, were referred to as cementum, cimentum, cäment. In modern times, organic polymers are used as cements in concrete. Non-hydraulic cement, such as slaked lime, hardens by carbonation in the presence of carbon dioxide which is present in the air. The carbonation reaction requires the dry cement to be exposed to air and this whole process is called the lime cycle. Conversely, hydraulic cement hardens by hydration when water is added, Hydraulic cements are made of a mixture of silicates and oxides, the four main components being, Belite, Alite, Tricalcium aluminate, Brownmillerite. The chemistry of the above listed reactions is not completely clear and is still the object of research, Cement, chemically speaking, is a product that includes lime as the primary curing ingredient, but is far from the first material used for cementation. The Babylonians and Assyrians used bitumen to bind together burnt brick or alabaster slabs, in Egypt stone blocks were cemented together with a mortar made of sand and roughly burnt gypsum, which often contained calcium carbonate. Lime was used on Crete and by the ancient Greeks, there is evidence that the Minoans of Crete used crushed potshards as an artificial pozzolan for hydraulic cement. A kind of powder which from natural causes produces astonishing results and it is found in the neighborhood of Baiae and in the country belonging to the towns round about Mt. Vesuvius. This substance when mixed with lime and rubble not only lends strength to buildings of other kinds, the Greeks used volcanic tuff from the island of Thera as their pozzolan and the Romans used crushed volcanic ash with lime. This mixture was able to set under water increasing its resistance, the material was called pozzolana from the town of Pozzuoli, west of Naples where volcanic ash was extracted. In the absence of ash, the Romans used powdered brick or pottery as a substitute
Cement
–
Cement is usually a grey powder before being mixed with other materials and water. Typically, cement powder causes allergic reactions at skin contact and is irritating to skin, eyes, and lungs, so handlers should wear a
dust mask,
goggles, and protective
gloves
Cement
–
The National Cement Share Company of
Ethiopia 's new plant in
Dire Dawa.
12.
Shipbuilding
–
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history, Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both commercial and military, are referred to as naval engineering. The construction of boats is an activity called boat building. The dismantling of ships is called ship breaking, the ancestors of Australian Aborigines and New Guineans also went across the Lombok Strait to Sahul by boat over 50,000 years ago. Evidence from Ancient Egypt shows that the early Egyptians knew how to assemble planks of wood into a ship hull as early as 3000 BC, the Archaeological Institute of America reports that some of the oldest ships yet unearthed are known as the Abydos boats. These are a group of 14 ships discovered in Abydos that were constructed of wooden planks which were sewn together, the ship dating to 3000 BC was about 25 m,75 feet long and is now thought to perhaps have belonged to an earlier pharaoh. According to professor OConnor, the 5, 000-year-old ship may have belonged to Pharaoh Aha. Early Egyptians also knew how to assemble planks of wood with treenails to fasten them together, early Egyptians also knew how to fasten the planks of this ship together with mortise and tenon joints. The oldest known tidal dock in the world was built around 2500 BC during the Harappan civilisation at Lothal near the present day Mangrol harbour on the Gujarat coast in India, other ports were probably at Balakot and Dwarka. However, it is probable that many small-scale ports, and not massive ports, were used for the Harappan maritime trade, ships from the harbour at these ancient port cities established trade with Mesopotamia. Shipbuilding and boatmaking may have been prosperous industries in ancient India, native labourers may have manufactured the flotilla of boats used by Alexander the Great to navigate across the Hydaspes and even the Indus, under Nearchos. The Indians also exported teak for shipbuilding to ancient Persia, other references to Indian timber used for shipbuilding is noted in the works of Ibn Jubayr. The ships of Ancient Egypts Eighteenth Dynasty were typically about 25 meters in length and they mounted a single square sail on a yard, with an additional spar along the bottom of the sail. These ships could also be oar propelled, the ocean and sea going ships of Ancient Egypt were constructed with cedar wood, most likely hailing from Lebanon. The ships of Phoenicia seem to have been of a similar design, the naval history of China stems back to the Spring and Autumn period of the ancient Chinese Zhou Dynasty. The Chinese built large rectangular barges known as ships, which were essentially floating fortresses complete with multiple decks with guarded ramparts. There is considerable knowledge regarding shipbuilding and seafaring in the ancient Mediterranean and this was dually met with the introduction of the Han Dynasty junk ship design in the same century
Shipbuilding
–
An expedition's shipwrights building a
brigantine, 1541
Shipbuilding
–
A two-masted Chinese junk, from the Tiangong Kaiwu of
Song Yingxing, published in 1637
Shipbuilding
–
Illustration of some shipbuilding methods in England, 1858
Shipbuilding
–
Babbitt's
rotary engine
13.
Desalination
–
Desalination is a process that extracts minerals from saline water. More generally, desalination refers to the removal of salts and minerals from a substance, as in soil desalination. Saltwater is desalinated to produce water suitable for consumption or irrigation. One by-product of desalination is salt, Desalination is used on many seagoing ships and submarines. Most of the modern interest in desalination is focused on cost-effective provision of water for human use. Along with recycled wastewater, it is one of the few rainfall-independent water sources, due to its energy consumption, desalinating sea water is generally more costly than fresh water from rivers or groundwater, water recycling and water conservation. However, these alternatives are not always available and depletion of reserves is a problem worldwide. Currently, approximately 1% of the population is dependent on desalinated water to meet daily needs. Desalination is particularly relevant in dry countries such as Australia, which traditionally have relied on collecting rainfall behind dams for water and this number increased from 78.4 million cubic meters in 2013, a 10. 71% increase in 2 years. Kuwait produces a higher proportion of its water than any other country, the traditional process used in these operations is vacuum distillation—essentially boiling it to leave impurities behind. In desalination, atmospheric pressure is reduced, thus lowering the temperature needed. Liquids boil when the pressure equals the ambient pressure and vapor pressure increases with temperature. Thus, because of the temperature, low-temperature waste heat from electrical power generation or industrial processes can be employed. Water is evaporated and separated from sea water through multi-stage flash distillation, each subsequent flash process utilizes energy released from the condensation of the water vapor from the previous step. Multiple effect distillation works through a series of steps called “effects”, incoming water is sprayed onto vertically or, more commonly, horizontally oriented pipes which are then heated to generate steam. The steam is used to heat the next batch of incoming sea water. To increase efficiency, the used to heat the sea water can be taken from nearby power plants. Although this method is the most thermodynamically efficient, a few limitations exist such as a max temperature, vapor compression distillation involves using either a mechanical compressor or a jet stream to compress the vapor present above the liquid
Desalination
–
Reverse osmosis desalination plant in Barcelona, Spain
Desalination
–
Plan of a typical
reverse osmosis desalination plant
Desalination
–
The Shevchenko BN350, a nuclear-heated desalination unit
Desalination
–
RO production train, North Cape Coral RO Plant
14.
Food processing
–
Food processing is the transformation of raw ingredients, by physical or chemical means into food, or of food into other forms. Food processing combines raw food ingredients to produce food products that can be easily prepared and served by the consumer. Salt-preservation was especially common for foods that constituted warrior and sailors diets until the introduction of canning methods and these tried and tested processing techniques remained essentially the same until the advent of the industrial revolution. Examples of ready-meals also date back to before the preindustrial revolution, both during ancient times and today in modern society these are considered processed foods. Modern food processing technology developed in the 19th and 20th centuries was developed in a part to serve military needs. Although initially expensive and somewhat hazardous due to the used in cans. Pasteurization, discovered by Louis Pasteur in 1864, improved the quality of preserved foods and introduced the wine, beer, in the late 20th century, products such as dried instant soups, reconstituted fruits and juices, and self cooking meals such as MRE food ration were developed. In western Europe and North America, the half of the 20th century witnessed a rise in the pursuit of convenience. Food processing companies marketed their products especially towards middle-class working wives, frozen foods found their success in sales of juice concentrates and TV dinners. Processors utilised the perceived value of time to appeal to the population. Benefits of food processing include toxin removal, preservation, easing marketing and distribution tasks, modern supermarkets would not exist without modern food processing techniques, and long voyages would not be possible. Processed foods are less susceptible to early spoilage than fresh foods and are better suited for long distance transportation from the source to the consumer. When they were first introduced, some processed foods helped to alleviate food shortages, processing can also reduce the incidence of food borne disease. Fresh materials, such as produce and raw meats, are more likely to harbour pathogenic micro-organisms capable of causing serious illnesses. The extremely varied modern diet is only possible on a wide scale because of food processing. Transportation of more exotic foods, as well as the elimination of much hard labour gives the modern eater easy access to a variety of food unimaginable to their ancestors. The act of processing can often improve the taste of food significantly, mass production of food is much cheaper overall than individual production of meals from raw ingredients. Therefore, a profit potential exists for the manufacturers and suppliers of processed food products
Food processing
–
Industrial
cheese production
Food processing
–
Michael Foods
egg -processing plant in Wakefield, Nebraska
Food processing
–
Grain silos in
Ardrossan,
Scotland
Food processing
–
A form of pre-made
split-pea soup that has become traditional
15.
South Korea
–
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea, is a sovereign state in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The earliest Korean pottery dates to 8000 BC, with three kingdoms flourishing in the 1st century BC and its rich and vibrant culture left 19 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity, the third largest in the world, along with 12 World Heritage Sites. Annexed into Imperial Japan in 1910, Korea was divided after its surrender in 1945, peace has since mostly continued with the two agreeing to work peacefully for reunification and the South solidifying peace as a regional power with the worlds 10th largest defence budget. South Koreas tiger economy soared at an average of 10% for over 30 years in a period of rapid transformation called the Miracle on the Han River. A long legacy of openness and focus on innovation made it successful, today, it is the worlds fifth largest exporter with the G20s largest budget surplus and highest credit rating of any country in East Asia. It has free trade agreements with 75% of the economy and is the only G20 nation trading freely with China, the US. Since 1988, its constitution guarantees a liberal democracy with high government transparency, high personal freedoms led to the rise of a globally influential pop culture such as K-pop and K-drama, a phenomenon called the Korean Wave, known for its distinctive fashionable and trendy style. Home of the UN Green Climate Fund and GGGI, South Korea is a leader in low carbon growth, committed to helping developing countries as a major DAC. It is the third least ignorant country in the Index of Ignorance, ranking eighth highest for peaceful tolerance. It is the worlds largest spender on R&D per GDP, leading the OECD in graduates in science, the name Korea derives from the name Goryeo. The name Goryeo itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in the 5th century as a form of its name. The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, and thus inherited its name, the modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Companys Hendrick Hamel. After Goryeo was replaced by Joseon in 1392, Joseon became the name for the entire territory. The new official name has its origin in the ancient country of Gojoseon, in 1897, the Joseon dynasty changed the official name of the country from Joseon to Daehan Jeguk. The name Daehan, which means great Han literally, derives from Samhan, however, the name Joseon was still widely used by Koreans to refer to their country, though it was no longer the official name. Under Japanese rule, the two names Han and Joseon coexisted, there were several groups who fought for independence, the most notable being the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea. Following the surrender of Japan, in 1945, the Republic of Korea was adopted as the name for the new country. Since the government only controlled the part of the Korean Peninsula
South Korea
–
Flag
South Korea
–
Balhae and
Silla, 830 CE
South Korea
–
Jikji, the first known book printed with movable metal type in 1377. Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris
16.
China
–
China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
China
–
Yinxu, ruins of an ancient
palace dating from the
Shang Dynasty (14th century BCE)
China
–
Flag
China
–
Some of the thousands of life-size
Terracotta Warriors of the
Qin Dynasty, c. 210 BCE
China
–
The
Great Wall of China was built by several dynasties over two thousand years to protect the sedentary agricultural regions of the
Chinese interior from incursions by
nomadic pastoralists of the northern
steppes.
17.
India
–
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
India
–
Flag
India
–
The granite
tower of
Brihadeeswarar Temple in
Thanjavur was completed in 1010 CE by
Raja Raja Chola I.
India
–
Writing the will and testament of the Mughal king court in Persian, 1590–1595
18.
Japan
–
Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
Japan
–
The
Golden Hall and
five-storey pagoda of
Hōryū-ji, among the oldest wooden buildings in the world,
National Treasures, and a
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Japan
Japan
–
Samurai warriors face Mongols, during the
Mongol invasions of Japan. The
Kamikaze, two storms, are said to have saved Japan from Mongol fleets.
Japan
–
Samurai could
kill a commoner for the slightest insult and were widely feared by the Japanese population.
Edo period, 1798
19.
United States
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
United States
–
Native Americans meeting with Europeans, 1764
United States
–
Flag
United States
–
The signing of the
Mayflower Compact, 1620.
United States
–
The
Declaration of Independence: the
Committee of Five presenting their draft to the
Second Continental Congress in 1776
20.
Singapore
–
Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, sometimes referred to as the Lion City or the Little Red Dot, is a sovereign city-state in Southeast Asia. It lies one degree north of the equator, at the tip of peninsular Malaysia. Singapores territory consists of one island along with 62 other islets. Since independence, extensive land reclamation has increased its size by 23%. During the Second World War, Singapore was occupied by Japan, after early years of turbulence, and despite lacking natural resources and a hinterland, the nation developed rapidly as an Asian Tiger economy, based on external trade and its workforce. Singapore is a global commerce, finance and transport hub, the country has also been identified as a tax haven. Singapore ranks 5th internationally and first in Asia on the UN Human Development Index and it is ranked highly in education, healthcare, life expectancy, quality of life, personal safety, and housing, but does not fare well on the Democracy index. Although income inequality is high, 90% of homes are owner-occupied, 38% of Singapores 5.6 million residents are permanent residents and other foreign nationals. There are four languages on the island, Malay, Mandarin, Tamil. English is its language, most Singaporeans are bilingual. Singapore is a multiparty parliamentary republic, with a Westminster system of unicameral parliamentary government. The Peoples Action Party has won every election since self-government in 1959, however, it is unlikely that lions ever lived on the island, Sang Nila Utama, the Srivijayan prince said to have founded and named the island Singapura, perhaps saw a Malayan tiger. There are however other suggestions for the origin of the name, the central island has also been called Pulau Ujong as far back as the third century CE, literally island at the end in Malay. In 1299, according to the Malay Annals, the Kingdom of Singapura was founded on the island by Sang Nila Utama and these Indianized Kingdoms, a term coined by George Cœdès were characterized by surprising resilience, political integrity and administrative stability. In 1613, Portuguese raiders burned down the settlement, which by then was part of the Johor Sultanate. The wider maritime region and much trade was under Dutch control for the following period, in 1824 the entire island, as well as the Temenggong, became a British possession after a further treaty with the Sultan. In 1826, Singapore became part of the Straits Settlements, under the jurisdiction of British India, prior to Raffles arrival, there were only about a thousand people living on the island, mostly indigenous Malays along with a handful of Chinese. By 1860 the population had swelled to over 80,000, many of these early immigrants came to work on the pepper and gambier plantations
Singapore
–
Raffles Square around 1900.
Singapore
–
Flag
Singapore
–
Victorious Japanese troops marching through Singapore City after the British capitulation at the
Battle of Singapore in 1942.
Singapore
–
A cheering crowd welcome the return of British forces, 1945
21.
Saudi Arabia
–
Saudi Arabia is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast and Yemen to the south. It is separated from Israel and Egypt by the Gulf of Aqaba and it is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast and most of its terrain consists of arid desert and mountains. The area of modern-day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of four regions, Hejaz, Najd and parts of Eastern Arabia. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud and he united the four regions into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia has since been a monarchy, effectively a hereditary dictatorship governed along Islamic lines. The ultraconservative Wahhabi religious movement within Sunni Islam has been called the predominant feature of Saudi culture, with its global spread largely financed by the oil and gas trade. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called the Land of the Two Holy Mosques in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, the state has a total population of 28.7 million, of which 20 million are Saudi nationals and 8 million are foreigners. The states official language is Arabic, petroleum was discovered on 3 March 1938 and followed up by several other finds in the Eastern Province. Saudi Arabia has since become the worlds largest oil producer and exporter, controlling the second largest oil reserves. The kingdom is categorized as a World Bank high-income economy with a high Human Development Index and is the only Arab country to be part of the G-20 major economies. However, the economy of Saudi Arabia is the least diversified in the Gulf Cooperation Council, the state has attracted criticism for its treatment of women and use of capital punishment. Saudi Arabia is an autocracy, has the fourth highest military expenditure in the world. Saudi Arabia is considered a regional and middle power, in addition to the GCC, it is an active member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and OPEC. Following the unification of the Hejaz and Nejd kingdoms, the new state was named al-Mamlakah al-ʻArabīyah as-Suʻūdīyah by royal decree on 23 September 1932 by its founder, Abdulaziz Al Saud. Although this is translated as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in English it literally means the Saudi Arab kingdom. Its inclusion expresses the view that the country is the possession of the royal family. Al Saud is an Arabic name formed by adding the word Al, meaning family of or House of, in the case of the Al Saud, this is the father of the dynastys 18th century founder, Muhammad bin Saud. There is evidence that human habitation in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to about 125,000 years ago
Saudi Arabia
–
Abdul Aziz
Ibn Saud, the first king of Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
–
Flag
Saudi Arabia
–
Saudi Arabia political map
Saudi Arabia
–
Saudi Arabian administrative regions and roadways map.
22.
Germany
–
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
Germany
–
The
Nebra sky disk is dated to c. 1600 BC.
Germany
–
Flag
Germany
–
Martin Luther (1483–1546) initiated the
Protestant Reformation.
Germany
–
Foundation of the
German Empire in
Versailles, 1871.
Bismarck is at the center in a white uniform.
23.
France
–
France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
France
–
One of the
Lascaux paintings: a horse –
Dordogne, approximately 18,000 BC
France
–
Flag
France
–
The
Maison Carrée was a temple of the
Gallo-Roman city of Nemausus (present-day
Nîmes) and is one of the best preserved vestiges of the
Roman Empire.
France
–
With
Clovis ' conversion to Catholicism in 498, the
Frankish monarchy,
elective and
secular until then, became
hereditary and of
divine right.
24.
External debt
–
External debt is the total debt a country owes to foreign creditors, complemented by internal debt owed to domestic lenders. The debtors can be the government, corporations or citizens of that country, the debt includes money owed to private commercial banks, other governments, or international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Note that the use of gross liability figures greatly distorts the ratio for countries which contain major money centers such as the United Kingdom due to Londons role as a financial capital, contrast with net international investment position. In this definition, the IMF defines the key elements as follows, Outstanding, principal and interest When the cost of borrowing is paid periodically, as commonly occurs, it is known as an interest payment. All other payments of economic value by the debtor to the creditor that reduce the amount outstanding are known as principal payments. However, the definition of external debt does not distinguish between principal payments or interest payments, or payments for both, also, the definition does not specify that the timing of the future payments of principal and/or interest need be known for a liability to be classified as debt. Residence To qualify as external debt, the debt liabilities must be owed by a resident to a nonresident, residence is determined by where the debtor and creditor have their centers of economic interest—typically, where they are ordinarily located—and not by their nationality. Current and not contingent Contingent liabilities are not included in the definition of external debt and these are defined as arrangements under which one or more conditions must be fulfilled before a financial transaction takes place. Generally, external debt is classified into four heads, public and publicly guaranteed debt, private non-guaranteed credits, central bank deposits, however, the exact treatment varies from country to country. External-debt-sustainability analysis is conducted in the context of medium-term scenarios. In these analysis, macroeconomic uncertainties, such as the outlook for the current account, high external debt is believed to be harmful for the economy. There are various indicators for determining a sustainable level of external debt, while each has its own advantage and peculiarity to deal with particular situations, there is no unanimous opinion amongst economists as to a sole indicator. These indicators are primarily in the nature of ratios—i. e, comparison between two heads and the relation thereon and thus facilitate the policy makers in their external debt management exercise. Examples of debt burden indicators include the Debt-to-GDP ratio, foreign debt to exports ratio and this set of indicators also covers the structure of the outstanding debt, including, Share of foreign debt, Short-term debt, and Concessional debt in the total debt stock. A second set of indicators focuses on the short-term liquidity requirements of the country with respect to its service obligations. These indicators are not only useful early-warning signs of service problems. The dynamic ratios show how the debt-burden ratios would change in the absence of repayments or new disbursements, an example of a dynamic ratio is the ratio of the average interest rate on outstanding debt to the growth rate of nominal GDP
External debt
25.
List of countries by public debt
–
This is a list of countries by public debt to GDP ratio as listed by Eurostat for the EU and by CIAs World Factbook 2012 for the rest of the world. It is the total of all government borrowings less repayments that are denominated in a countrys home currency. Gross government debt is the most relevant data for discussions of government default and it is different from external debt, which includes the foreign currency liabilities of non-government entities. The figures here are represented as a percentage of gross domestic product. The public debt relative information provided by national sources is not always objective and true, note that net debt figures are included where gross debt figures are unavailable in the CIA set
List of countries by public debt
–
Total (gross) government debt as a percent of
GDP by IMF (2012)
List of countries by public debt
–
Public debt as a percent of
GDP by CIA (2012)
26.
List of countries by credit rating
–
The ratings of DBRS, China Chengxin Credit Rating Group, Dagong and JCR are also included. The list also includes all country subdivisions issuing sovereign bonds, but it excludes regions, for S&P, a bond is considered investment grade if its credit rating is BBB- or higher. Bonds rated BB+ and below are considered to be speculative grade, for Fitch, a bond is considered investment grade if its credit rating is BBB- or higher. Bonds rated BB+ and below are considered to be speculative grade, for Moodys, a bond is considered investment grade if its credit rating is Baa3 or higher. Bonds rated Ba1 and below are considered to be speculative grade, for DBRS, a bond is considered investment grade if its credit rating is BBB or higher. Bonds rated BB and below are considered to be speculative grade, Japan Credit Rating Agency is a credit rating agency based in Japan. JCR is a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization by the U. S. Securities, Dagong is a credit rating agency based in China. Bond credit rating United States federal government credit-rating downgrades
List of countries by credit rating
–
Financial ratings of European States by Standard & Poor's (foreign currency) on 14 July 2015
27.
Fitch Group
–
Fitch Ratings Inc. is one of the Big Three credit rating agencies, the other two being Moodys and Standard & Poors. It is one of the three nationally recognized statistical rating organizations designated by the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 1975, Fitch Ratings is dual-headquartered in New York, USA, and London, UK. Hearst owns 80% of the company following its acquisition of an additional 30 percent interest in global ratings agency Fitch Group on December 12,2014, the transaction was valued at $1.965 billion. Hearst’s previous equity interest was 50% following expansions on an acquisition on 2006. The remaining 20% of Fitch is owned by FIMALAC SA, fimalac will hold 50% of votes within that Board until 2020. Fitch Ratings and Fitch Solutions are part of the Fitch Group, the firm was founded by John Knowles Fitch on December 24,1914 in New York City as the Fitch Publishing Company. It merged with London-based IBCA Limited in December 1997, in 2000 Fitch acquired both Chicago-based Duff & Phelps Credit Rating Co. and Thomson Financial BankWatch. In September 2011, Fitch Group announced the sale of Algorithmics to IBM for $387 million, the deal closed on October 21,2011. Fitch Ratings long-term credit ratings are assigned on a scale from AAA to D, first introduced in 1924. Like S&P, Fitch also uses intermediate +/− modifiers for each category between AA and CCC, launched in 2008, Fitch Solutions offers a range of fixed-income products and professional development services for financial professionals. The firm also distributes Fitch Ratings proprietary credit ratings, research, financial data, for instance, losses on $340.7 million worth of collateralized debt obligations issued by Credit Suisse Group added up to about $125 million, despite being rated AAA by Fitch. However, differently from the agencies, Fitch has been warning the market on the constant proportion debt obligations with an early. FIMALAC Kroll Bond Rating Agency List of countries by credit rating Moodys Investors Service Spread Research Standard and Poors Fitch Ratings Fitch Solutions Fitch Learning U. S. Credit, Fitch Ratings
Fitch Group
–
Fitch Ratings Inc.
28.
United States dollar
–
The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its insular territories per the United States Constitution. It is divided into 100 smaller cent units, the circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars. The U. S. dollar was originally commodity money of silver as enacted by the Coinage Act of 1792 which determined the dollar to be 371 4/16 grain pure or 416 grain standard silver, the currency most used in international transactions, it is the worlds primary reserve currency. Several countries use it as their currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. Besides the United States, it is used as the sole currency in two British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. A few countries use the Federal Reserve Notes for paper money, while the country mints its own coins, or also accepts U. S. coins that can be used as payment in U. S. dollars. After Nixon shock of 1971, USD became fiat currency, Article I, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution provides that the Congress has the power To coin money, laws implementing this power are currently codified at 31 U. S. C. Section 5112 prescribes the forms in which the United States dollars should be issued and these coins are both designated in Section 5112 as legal tender in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar, the pure silver dollar is known as the American Silver Eagle. Section 5112 also provides for the minting and issuance of other coins and these other coins are more fully described in Coins of the United States dollar. The Constitution provides that a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and that provision of the Constitution is made specific by Section 331 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The sums of money reported in the Statements are currently being expressed in U. S. dollars, the U. S. dollar may therefore be described as the unit of account of the United States. The word dollar is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution, there, dollars is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U. S. Congress passed a Coinage Act, Section 20 of the act provided, That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units. And that all accounts in the offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation. In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States, unlike the Spanish milled dollar the U. S. dollar is based upon a decimal system of values. Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the form is significantly more common
United States dollar
–
Series of 1917
$1 United States bill
United States dollar
–
Federal Reserve Notes
United States dollar
–
Spanish silver real or
peso of 1768
United States dollar
–
Obverse of rare 1934 $500 Federal Reserve Note, featuring a portrait of President
William McKinley.
29.
Kuwait
–
Kuwait /kuːˈweɪt/, officially the State of Kuwait, is a country in Western Asia. Situated in the edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, it shares borders with Iraq. As of 2016, Kuwait has a population of 4.2 million people,1.3 million are Kuwaitis and 2.9 million are expatriates, expatriates account for 70% of the population. Oil reserves were discovered in 1938, from 1946 to 1982, the country underwent large-scale modernization. In the 1980s, Kuwait experienced a period of geopolitical instability, in 1990, Kuwait was invaded by Iraq. The Iraqi occupation came to an end in 1991 after military intervention by coalition forces, at the end of the war, there were extensive efforts to revive the economy and rebuild national infrastructure. Kuwait is a constitutional emirate with a political system. It has an income economy backed by the worlds sixth largest oil reserves. The Kuwaiti dinar is the highest valued currency in the world, according to the World Bank, the country has the fourth highest per capita income in the world. The Constitution was promulgated in 1962, making Kuwait the most democratic country in the region, in the Arab world, Kuwait is frequently dubbed the Hollywood of the Gulf due to the popularity of its soap operas and theatre. During the Ubaid period, Kuwait was the site of interaction between the peoples of Mesopotamia and Neolithic Eastern Arabia, mainly centered in As-Subiya in northern Kuwait. The earliest evidence of habitation in Kuwait dates back 8000 B. C. where Mesolithic tools were found in Burgan. As-Subiya in northern Kuwait is the earliest evidence of urbanization in the whole Persian Gulf basin area, mesopotamians first settled in the Kuwaiti island of Failaka in 2000 B. C. Traders from the Sumerian city of Ur inhabited Failaka and ran a mercantile business, the island had many Mesopotamian-style buildings typical of those found in Iraq dating from around 2000 B. C. The Neolithic inhabitants of Kuwait were among the worlds earliest maritime traders, one of the worlds earliest reed-boats was discovered in northern Kuwait dating back to the Ubaid period. In 3rd century BC, the ancient Greeks colonized the bay of Kuwait under Alexander the Great, according to Strabo and Arrian, Alexander the Great named Failaka Ikaros because it resembled the Aegean island of that name in size and shape. Remains of Greek colonization include a large Hellenistic fort and Greek temples, in 224 AD, Kuwait became part of the Sassanid Empire. At the time of the Sassanid Empire, Kuwait was known as Meshan, Akkaz was a Partho-Sassanian site, the Sassanid religions tower of silence was discovered in northern Akkaz
Kuwait
–
Oil fires in Kuwait in 1991, which were a result of the
scorched earth policy of
Iraqi military forces retreating from Kuwait.
Kuwait
–
Flag
Kuwait
–
Kuwait National Assembly Building
Kuwait
–
Satellite image of Kuwait
30.
Economics
–
Economics is a social science concerned chiefly with description and analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work, consistent with this focus, textbooks often distinguish between microeconomics and macroeconomics. Microeconomics examines the behaviour of elements in the economy, including individual agents and markets, their interactions. Individual agents may include, for example, households, firms, buyers, macroeconomics analyzes the entire economy and issues affecting it, including unemployment of resources, inflation, economic growth, and the public policies that address these issues. Economic analysis can be applied throughout society, as in business, finance, health care, Economic analyses may also be applied to such diverse subjects as crime, education, the family, law, politics, religion, social institutions, war, science, and the environment. At the turn of the 21st century, the domain of economics in the social sciences has been described as economic imperialism. The ultimate goal of economics is to improve the conditions of people in their everyday life. There are a variety of definitions of economics. Some of the differences may reflect evolving views of the subject or different views among economists, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue for the publick services. Say, distinguishing the subject from its uses, defines it as the science of production, distribution. On the satirical side, Thomas Carlyle coined the dismal science as an epithet for classical economics, in this context and it enquires how he gets his income and how he uses it. Thus, it is on the one side, the study of wealth and on the other and more important side, a part of the study of man. He affirmed that previous economists have usually centred their studies on the analysis of wealth, how wealth is created, distributed, and consumed, but he said that economics can be used to study other things, such as war, that are outside its usual focus. This is because war has as the goal winning it, generates both cost and benefits, and, resources are used to attain the goal. If the war is not winnable or if the costs outweigh the benefits. Some subsequent comments criticized the definition as overly broad in failing to limit its subject matter to analysis of markets, there are other criticisms as well, such as in scarcity not accounting for the macroeconomics of high unemployment. The same source reviews a range of included in principles of economics textbooks. Among economists more generally, it argues that a particular definition presented may reflect the direction toward which the author believes economics is evolving, microeconomics examines how entities, forming a market structure, interact within a market to create a market system
Economics
–
Economists study trade, production and consumption decisions, such as those that occur in a traditional
marketplace.
Economics
–
World GDP (PPP) per capita by country (2014)
Economics
–
In
Virtual Markets, buyer and seller are not present and trade via intermediates and electronic information. Pictured:
São Paulo Stock Exchange, Brazil.
Economics
–
A map showing the main
trade routes for goods within
late medieval Europe.
South Korea 14.6%
China 12.1%
India 12.1%
Japan 10.4%
United States 7.6%
Pakistan 5.9%
Singapore 4.3% (2015)[5]
Saudi Arabia 7.6%
Germany 5%
France 4.3%
