In international relations, Françafrique is France’s sphere of influence over its former colonies in sub-Saharan Africa. The term was derived from the expression France-Afrique, used by the first President of Ivory Coast, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, in 1955 to describe his country's close ties with France, it was renamed Françafrique by François-Xavier Verschave in 1998 to criticise the alleged corrupt and clandestine activities of various Franco-African political and military networks. Following the decolonisation of its West African colonies, beginning in 1959, France continued to maintain a sphere of influence in Africa, critical to President Charles de Gaulle's vision of France as a global power and as a bulwark to British and American influence in a post-colonial world; the United States supported France's continuing presence in Africa to prevent the region from falling under Soviet influence during the Cold War. France kept close political, economic and cultural ties with it former African colonies that were multi-layered, involving institutional, semi-institutional and informal levels.

Françafrique has been characterised by several features that emerged during the Cold War, the first of, the African cell, a group that comprised the French President and his close advisors who made policy decisions on Africa in close collaboration with powerful business networks and the French secret service. Another feature was the franc zone, a currency union that pegged the currencies of most francophone African countries to the French franc. Françafrique was based, in large part, on the concept of coopération, implemented through a series of cooperation accords that allowed France to establish close political, economic and cultural ties with its former African colonies. France saw itself as a guarantor of stability in the region and therefore adopted an interventionist policy in Africa, resulting in military interventions that averaged once a year from 1960 to the mid-1990s. A central feature of Françafrique were the personal networks that underpinned the informal, family-like relationships between French and African leaders.

These networks lacked oversight and scrutinity, which led to corruption and state racketeering. After the Cold War, the Françafrique regime has weakened over the years due to France's budgetary constraints, greater public scrutiny at home, the deaths of pivotal Françafrique actors and the integration of France into the European Union. Economic liberalisation, high indebtedness and political instability of the former African colonies have reduced their political and economic attractiveness, leading France to adopt a more pragmatic and hard-nose approach to its African relations; the term Françafrique was derived from the expression France-Afrique, used in 1955 by President Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Ivory Coast, who advocated maintaining a close relationship with France, while acceding to independence. Close cooperation between Houphouët-Boigny and Jacques Foccart, chief advisor on African policy in the Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou governments is thought to have contributed to the "Ivorian miracle" of economic and industrial progress.

The term was subsequently renamed Françafrique by François-Xavier Verschave and was used as the title of his 1998 book, La Françafrique: le plus long scandale de la République, which criticises French policies in Africa. Verschave and the association Survie, of which he was president until his death in 2005, re-used the expression of Houphouët-Boigny to name and denounce the many concealed bonds between France and Africa, he defined Françafrique as "the secret criminality in the upper echelons of French politics and economy, where a kind of underground Republic is hidden from view". He said that it means "France à fric", that "Over the course of four decades, hundreds of thousands of euros misappropriated from debt, oil, cocoa... or drained through French importing monopolies, have financed French political-business networks, shareholders' dividends, the secret services' major operations and mercenary expeditions". When Charles de Gaulle returned to power as French President in 1958, France had been weakened by World War II and by the conflicts in Indochina and Algeria.

He proceeded to grant independence to France's remaining colonies in sub-Saharan Africa in 1960 in an effort to maintain close cultural and economic ties with them and to avoid more costly colonial wars. Compared to the decolonisation of French Indochina and Algeria, the transfer of power in sub-Saharan was, for the most part, peaceful. De Gaulle was keen on preserving France's status as a global power and as a bulwark to British and American influence in a post-colonial world. Thus, he saw close links with France's former African colonies as an opportunity to enhance France's image on the world stage, both as a major power and as a counterbalancing force between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War; the United States supported France's continuing presence in Africa to prevent the region from falling under Soviet influence. The United Kingdom had little interest in West Africa, which left France as the only major power in that region. To implement his vision of France's grandeur, de Gaulle appointed Jacques Foccart, a close adviser and former intelligence member of the French Resistance during World War II, as Secretary-General for African and Malagasy Affairs.

Foccart played a pivotal role in maintaining Fran

This is a list of diplomatic missions of Turkey, including consulates-general. In 1793, the first permanent Turkish embassy was established by Ottoman Sultan Selim III in London; the Republic of Turkey, which had a total of 39 missions abroad in 1924, is now represented by 246 official missions, excluding honorary consulates, throughout the world. Of these missions, 142 are embassies, 13 are permanent representations, 89 are consulates-general and one is a trade office. According to the Global Diplomacy Index "2016 Country Ranking", Turkey is the sixth country, only after the P-5 members, in number of worldwide representations, it is the only country to have an embassy in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. It does not have an embassy in Armenia, a neighbouring country, because the two countries have not yet established diplomatic relations. Of the 236 Turkish ambassadors in service as of March 2016, 37 are women. Foreign relations of Turkey List of diplomatic missions in Turkey Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey

Paul Johannes George Tang is a Dutch politician and Member of the European Parliament for the Netherlands. He is a member of the Labour Party, part of the Progressive Alliance of Democrats. Between 2007 and 2010 Tang was member of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands, he has been a Member of the European Parliament since July 2014. Paul Johannes George Tang was born on 23 April 1967 in Haarlem in the Netherlands. Tang studied economics at the University of Amsterdam between 1991, graduating cum laude. Afterwards he worked as assistant at Tilburg University and as trainee researcher at the University of Amsterdam. Between 1995 and 2005 he was employee at the Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis. In 2001 he earned a doctorate in economic sciences from the University of Amsterdam, he moved on to the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs where he was deputy director of General Economic Policies between September 2005 and March 2007. In the Netherlands general election of 2006 he was on the candidate list of the Labour Party.

He was not directly elected, but after some Labour members of the House of Representatives moved towards the cabinet, Tang took up membership of the House. In the House he dealt with financial policies. Among them was the Icesave dispute and the role of the De Nederlandsche Bank in it. In 2008 Tang was verbally reprimanded by President of the House of Representatives, Gerdi Verbeet, after speaking publicly about the still secret Miljoenennota. In 2009 he leaked some of the financial prospect papers to RTL Nieuws; the Labour Party took away his speaking rights on his topics in the House for one month. In 2010 Tang chose not to be reelectable in the next elections. In the internal Labour Party elections Tang was chosen to be lijsttrekker in the European Parliament elections of 2014, he won 52% of the votes. In the May 2014 elections Tang was elected to the European Parliament. In Parliament, Tang has been serving of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs since 2014, he was a member of the Committee on Budgets and the Special Committee on Tax Rulings and Other Measures Similar in Nature or Effect.

He has been active on policies files related to the Common Consolidated Corporation Tax Base, sustainable finance and Digital Services Tax. In May 2019, after the failure of drafting EU-legislation to tax tech companies, Paul Tang presented together with Henk Nijboer, MP of the Dutch House of Representatives, an own-initiative bill for a Dutch Digital services tax; the proposal hasn't yet been discussed in Parliament. In addition to his committee assignments, Tang has served as vice-chair on the EU-Serbia Stabilisation and Association Parliamentary Committee and as member of the delegation for relations with the United States. In May 2019 Tang was re-elected to the European Parliament; the Labour Party obtained, with Frans Timmermans as top party candidate, six of the 26 Dutch seats in Parliament. Tang became again a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, but substitute member of the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties and Home Affairs. Since his re-election, he became a member of the European Internet Forum.

After being re-elected, Tang told a Dutch newspaper he wants to focus this mandate on taxation, sustainable finance and data. In the first months of the news mandate, Tang became shadow rapporteur on behalf of the S&D on the EU Taxonomy-proposal, part of the EU Action Plan on Sustainable Finance. Prior to being elected, in March 2014, Tang argued that top EU officials should not earn more than ten times the wage of the lowest paid EU employees, he argued that the EU was impeding the economic growth of Europe, argued for stricter supervision on banks in the EU and for reforms in the sector. Paul Tang is father of two children, he lives in Amsterdam and is a big fan of football club AZ. In his spare time, Tang is interim chairman of the local football club SDZ. Paul Tang at the website of the Labour Party Paul Tang at the website of the European Parliament

Werner Altegoer was a German entrepreneur. He headed the club from 1993 until 2010, was named honorary chairman of the supervisory board in 2011. Altegoer was born in Bochum in the Ruhrgebiet-area in western Germany; until the age of 15 he played in the youth sides of local club VfL Bochum. However, at that point he decided to not continue his football career and to commence an apprenticeship in the Bochumer Kohlenkontor, a subsidiary of the coal mine Zeche Vereinigte Constantin der Große. Subsequent career steps were the Stinnes AG and from 1964 on coal trading company Paul Roskothen GmbH, which he converted from a regional enterprise into a firm group with an international business network. Altegoer maintained his interest for the VfL Bochum and visited the home matches with family member as his parental house was only at a few hundred meters distance from the Stadion an der Castroper Straße, his godfather – Willi Altegoer - introduced him to VfL Bochum's president Ottokar Wüst. At the end of the 1970s Altegoer involved himself for the first time in the club and gave financial support to the transfer of goalgetter Jochen Abel from Westfalia Herne.

In 1978, he became a member of the club. Altegoer served twice as chair of the club's economic committee – from 1980 to 1982 and again from 1990 to 1993. 1993 he succeeded Ottokar Wüst and became the club's president, just after the club had been relegated to the Second Bundesliga. He continued to be the club's president until 30 October 2002, when the club took on a more modern, professional structure including a professional executive board. Werner Altegoer continued to act as chair of the board until 2010. In Altegoer's 17 years at the top of the club VfL Bochum became a classic "yo-yo club", bouncing up and down between the first and second Bundesliga. Bochum relegated five times, but managed to return five times directly to the highest levels; the club's best Bundesliga spells felt in this time as 5th-place finishes in 1997 and 2004, which earned them appearances in the UEFA Cup tournament. In 1997, they advanced to the third round where they were put out by Dutch side Ajax Amsterdam, in 2004, they were eliminated early through away goals by Standard CL Liège of Belgium.

A priority of his presidency was the creation of modern club infrastructures. The construction of the stadium center in 2003, situated next to the stadium, provided new space for changing rooms, a catering area and club offices. In economic terms Altegoer promoted a conservative policy for the financially traditionally rather troubled club and the VfL Bochum was able to eliminate all its debts until the relegation at the end of the 2009–10 season. Altegoer was cited in the German press as spokesperson of the smaller clubs in the league and criticised the unfair competition due to the financial engagement of multinationals in football clubs and the alleged double standards towards bigger clubs regarding the financial licensing systems; when the local rivals Borussia Dortmund and FC Schalke 04 had severe financial problems in 2005 he stated polemically „for me what's happening there is bankruptcy, or inability to pay. Another frequent point of critic was the distribution of television revenues and Altegoer claimed that an unfair distribution of television revenues would prevent a fair competition between bigger and smaller clubs in the Bundesliga.

In particular at the end of his VfL chairmanship grew criticism inside the club about his supposed patriarchal and autocratic governing style. Various fan groups created an initiative to call for profound reform. In a turbulent annual general meeting of the club, on 4 October 2010, the members refused to discharge the board; this legal instrument had been created for cases in which the members feared e.g. that the advisory board had misappropriated club money. However, in this case, this tool was used to vocalize the strife among the members with Altegoer; as a consequence he decided to resign from his post, but continued his work until the appointment of his successor Ernst-Otto Stüber in the subsequent general meeting. Werner Altegoer election as honorary chair of the board was greeted with overwhelming applause from the members at the next annual general meeting of the club in 2011. Altegoer died on 9 January 2013 after a long disease at the age of 77 in the Dortmunder Knappschaftskrankenhaus.

Altegoer was married for more than 50 years with his wife Ursula and had two children and grandchildren. “It is not just me that says that there would not be a professional football club in Bochum today without Werner Altegoer – either in the first or the second Bundesliga.”.

Fushimi class gunboats were a class of riverine gunboats of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The class consisted of two ships and Sumida; the Fushimi class were 48.5 metres long, had a draft of 1.26 metres. The class weighed 304 tonnes at standard weight, 344 tonnes at trial weight, 368 tonnes at full weight; the class was propelled by a turbine powered, oil fired engine, which generated 2,200 shaft horsepower, giving them a top speed of 17 knots. Both ships were armed with one 8 centimetres anti-aircraft gun, two 2.5 millimetres machine guns. Both ships and Sumida, were laid down in 1939, were completed in 1939 and 1940, respectively. Evans, David. Kaigun: Strategy and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887–1941. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 9781612514253. Gardiner, Robert. Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1922–1946. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 9780851771465. Lindberg, Michael. Brown-, Green- And Blue- Water Fleets: The Influence Of Geography On Naval Warfare, 1861 To The Present. Praeger.

ISBN 9780275964863

Mount Nirvana, at 2,773 m is the unofficial name of the highest mountain in the Northwest Territories, Canada. The Canadian government is working to recognize the name Thunder Mountain, reflecting the local Deh Cho first nation name for the mountain. Today the name Mt. Nirvana is depicted in alpine literature. Part of the Mackenzie Mountains, it was first climbed by Bill Buckingham and Lew Surdam in July 1965. List of highest points of Canadian provinces and territories Mountain peaks of Canada List of mountain peaks of North America "Mount Nirvana, Northwest Territories" on Peakbagger