1.
Elizabeth II
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Elizabeth II has been Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand since 6 February 1952. Elizabeth was born in London as the eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth and her father acceded to the throne on the abdication of his brother Edward VIII in 1936, from which time she was the heir presumptive. She began to undertake duties during the Second World War. Elizabeths many historic visits and meetings include a visit to the Republic of Ireland. She has seen major changes, such as devolution in the United Kingdom, Canadian patriation. She has reigned through various wars and conflicts involving many of her realms and she is the worlds oldest reigning monarch as well as Britains longest-lived. In October 2016, she became the longest currently reigning monarch, in 2017 she became the first British monarch to commemorate a Sapphire Jubilee. Elizabeth has occasionally faced republican sentiments and press criticism of the family, however, support for the monarchy remains high. Elizabeth was born at 02,40 on 21 April 1926, during the reign of her paternal grandfather and her father, Prince Albert, Duke of York, was the second son of the King. Her mother, Elizabeth, Duchess of York, was the youngest daughter of Scottish aristocrat Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and she was delivered by Caesarean section at her maternal grandfathers London house,17 Bruton Street, Mayfair. Elizabeths only sibling, Princess Margaret, was born in 1930, the two princesses were educated at home under the supervision of their mother and their governess, Marion Crawford, who was casually known as Crawfie. Lessons concentrated on history, language, literature and music, Crawford published a biography of Elizabeth and Margarets childhood years entitled The Little Princesses in 1950, much to the dismay of the royal family. The book describes Elizabeths love of horses and dogs, her orderliness, others echoed such observations, Winston Churchill described Elizabeth when she was two as a character. She has an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in an infant and her cousin Margaret Rhodes described her as a jolly little girl, but fundamentally sensible and well-behaved. During her grandfathers reign, Elizabeth was third in the line of succession to the throne, behind her uncle Edward, Prince of Wales, and her father, the Duke of York. Although her birth generated public interest, she was not expected to become queen, many people believed that he would marry and have children of his own. When her grandfather died in 1936 and her uncle succeeded as Edward VIII, she became second-in-line to the throne, later that year, Edward abdicated, after his proposed marriage to divorced socialite Wallis Simpson provoked a constitutional crisis. Consequently, Elizabeths father became king, and she became heir presumptive, if her parents had had a later son, she would have lost her position as first-in-line, as her brother would have been heir apparent and above her in the line of succession
2.
Nassau, Bahamas
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Nassau is the capital, largest city, and commercial centre of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. The city has an population of 274,400 as of 2016. The city is located on the island of New Providence, which much like a business district. Nassau is the site of the House of Assembly and various departments and was considered historically to be a stronghold of pirates. The city was named in honour of William III of England, nassaus modern growth began in the late eighteenth century, with the influx of thousands of American Loyalists and their slaves to the Bahamas following the American Revolutionary War. Many of them settled in Nassau and eventually came to outnumber the original inhabitants, as the population of Nassau grew, so did its populated areas. Today the city dominates the island and its satellite, Paradise Island. However, until the post-Second World War era, the outer suburbs scarcely existed, most of New Providence was uncultivated bush until Loyalists were resettled there following the American Revolutionary War, they established several plantations, such as Clifton and Tusculum. In addition, slaves freed from American ships, such as the Creole case in 1841, were allowed to settle there, Nassau was formerly known as Charles Town, it was burned to the ground by the Spanish in 1684 during one of their frequent wars with the English. The name Nassau derives from the House of Nassau and ultimately from the town of Nassau, due to a lack of effective Governors, Nassau fell on hard times. In 1703 Spanish and French allied forces briefly occupied Nassau, from 1703 to 1718 there was no governor in the colony and by 1713, the sparsely settled Bahamas had become a pirate haven. The Governor of Bermuda stated that there were over 1,000 pirates in Nassau and they proclaimed Nassau a pirate republic, establishing themselves as governors. Examples of pirates that used Nassau as their base are Charles Vane, Thomas Barrow, Benjamin Hornigold, Calico Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, in 1718, the British sought to regain control of the islands and appointed Captain Woodes Rogers as Royal governor. He successfully clamped down on the pirates, reformed the civil administration, Rogers cleaned up Nassau and rebuilt the fort, using his own wealth to try to overcome problems. In 1720 the Spanish made an attempt to capture Nassau. During the wars in the Thirteen Colonies, Nassau experienced an economic boom, with funds from privateering, a new fort, street lights and over 2300 sumptuous houses were built and Nassau was extended. In addition to this, mosquito breeding swamps were filled, in 1778 after an overnight invasion, American raiders led by Captain Rathburn, left with ships, gunpowder and military stores after stopping in Nassau for only two days. In 1782 Spain captured Nassau for the last time when Don Juan de Cagigal, governor-general of Cuba, attacked New Providence with 5000 men
3.
The Bahamas
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The Bahamas, known officially as the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, is an archipelagic state within the Lucayan Archipelago. The capital is Nassau on the island of New Providence, the designation of the Bahamas can refer either to the country or to the larger island chain that it shares with the Turks and Caicos Islands. As stated in the mandate/manifesto of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, the Bahamas is the site of Columbus first landfall in the New World in 1492. At that time, the islands were inhabited by the Lucayan, although the Spanish never colonised the Bahamas, they shipped the native Lucayans to slavery in Hispaniola. The islands were mostly deserted from 1513 until 1648, when English colonists from Bermuda settled on the island of Eleuthera, the Bahamas became a British Crown colony in 1718, when the British clamped down on piracy. After the American War of Independence, the Crown resettled thousands of American Loyalists in the Bahamas, they brought their slaves with them, Africans constituted the majority of the population from this period. Slavery in the Bahamas was abolished in 1834, Today the descendants of slaves and free Africans make up nearly 90% of the population, issues related to the slavery years are part of society. The Bahamas became an independent Commonwealth realm in 1973, retaining Queen Elizabeth II as its monarch, in terms of gross domestic product per capita, the Bahamas is one of the richest countries in the Americas, with an economy based on tourism and finance. The name Bahamas is derived from either the Taino ba ha ma, alternatively, it may originate from Guanahani, a local name of unclear meaning. In English, the Bahamas is one of two countries whose self-standing short name begins with the word the, along with The Gambia. Taino people moved into the uninhabited southern Bahamas from Hispaniola and Cuba around the 11th century and they came to be known as the Lucayan people. An estimated 30,000 Lucayan inhabited the Bahamas at the time of Christopher Columbus arrival in 1492, Columbuss first landfall in the New World was on an island he named San Salvador. Some researchers believe this site to be present-day San Salvador Island, an alternative theory holds that Columbus landed to the southeast on Samana Cay, according to calculations made in 1986 by National Geographic writer and editor Joseph Judge, based on Columbuss log. Evidence in support of this remains inconclusive, on the landfall island, Columbus made first contact with the Lucayan and exchanged goods with them. The Spanish forced much of the Lucayan population to Hispaniola for use as forced labour, the slaves suffered from harsh conditions and most died from contracting diseases to which they had no immunity, half of the Taino died from smallpox alone. The population of the Bahamas was severely diminished, in 1648, the Eleutherian Adventurers, led by William Sayle, migrated from Bermuda. These English Puritans established the first permanent European settlement on an island which they named Eleuthera—the name derives from the Greek word for freedom and they later settled New Providence, naming it Sayles Island after one of their leaders. To survive, the settlers salvaged goods from wrecks, in 1670 King Charles II granted the islands to the Lords Proprietors of the Carolinas in North America
4.
University of Minnesota
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The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota. The Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses are approximately 3 miles apart, and it is the oldest and largest campus within the University of Minnesota system and has the sixth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 51,147 students in 2013–14. The university is the institution of the University of Minnesota system, and is organized into 19 colleges and schools, with sister campuses in Crookston, Duluth, Morris. Minnesota is one of Americas Public Ivy universities, which refers to top universities in the United States capable of providing a collegiate experience comparable with the Ivy League. Founded in 1851, The University of Minnesota is categorized as an R1 Doctoral University with the highest research activity in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, Minnesota faculty, alumni, and researchers have won 25 Nobel Prizes and three Pulitzer Prizes. Notable University of Minnesota alumni include two Vice Presidents of the United States, Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, and Bob Dylan, who received the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. The University of Minnesota Twin Cities is also a member of the Association of American Universities which is an association of the 62 leading research universities in the United States and Canada. In its 2017 edition, U. S. News & World Report ranked Minnesota 38th in their Best Global University Rankings, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2015 ranks Minnesota 46th in the world. In 2015, Academic Ranking of World Universities ranked the university 11th in the world for mathematics, the University of Minnesota is ranked 14 over-all among the nations top research universities by the Center for Measuring University Performance. The U. S. News & World Reports 2016 rankings placed the program of the University as the 69th-best National University in the United States. Additionally, nineteen of the Universitys graduate-school departments have been ranked in the nations top-twenty by the U. S. National Research Council, in both 2008 and 2012 U. S. News & World Report ranked the College of Pharmacy 2nd in the nation. 2016 U. S. News & Report now rank the College of Pharmacy 2nd in the nation. In 2011, U. S. News & World Report ranked the School of Public Health 8th in the nation, the University of Minnesota ranked 19th in NIH funding in 2008. Minnesota is listed as a Public Ivy in 2001 Greenes Guides The Public Ivies, the university developed Gopher, a precursor to the World Wide Web which used hyperlinks to connect documents across computers on the internet. However, the produced by CERN was favored by the public since it was freely distributed. The University also houses the Charles Babbage Institute, a research, the department has strong roots in early days of supercomputing with Seymour Cray of Cray supercomputers. Notable faculty of the department are Yousef Saad, Vipin Kumar, Jaideep Srivastava, John Riedl, some notable alumni of the department are Ed Chi, Imrich Chlamtac, Leah Culver, Jeff Dean, Mark P. McCahill, Arvind Mithal, and Calvin Mooers. Puffed rice - Alexander P. Anderson led to the discovery of puffed rice, transistorized cardiac pacemaker - Earl Bakken founded Medtronic, where he developed the first external, battery-operated, transistorized, wearable artificial pacemaker in 1957
5.
University of the West Indies
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The aim of the university is to help unlock the potential for economic and cultural growth in the West Indies, thus allowing for improved regional autonomy. The University was originally instituted as an independent external college of the University of London, since the Universitys inception, students and faculty have been recognized in fields ranging from the arts and sciences, to business, politics, and sports. Notable alumni and faculty include three U. W. I, nobel Laureates, sixty-one Rhodes Scholars,18 current or former Caribbean Heads of Government, and an Olympic medalist. The universitys cricket team participated in West Indian domestic cricket. This university consists of three campuses at Mona in Jamaica, St. Augustine in Trinidad and Tobago, Cave Hill in Barbados. There are satellite campuses in Mount Hope, Trinidad and Tobago and Montego Bay, Jamaica, the other contributing countries are served by the Open Campus which has a physical presence and Heads of Sites in each of the 18 countries. The university was founded in 1948, on the recommendation of the Asquith Commission through its sub-committee on the West Indies chaired by Sir James Irvine, the Asquith Commission had been established in 1943 to review the provision of higher education in the British colonies. Initially in a relationship with the University of London, the then University College of the West Indies was seated at Mona, about five miles from Kingston. The university was based at a used by evacuated Gibraltarians during the war. The University College achieved independent university status in 1962, the St Augustine Campus in Trinidad, formerly the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, was established in 1960, followed by the Cave Hill Campus in Barbados in 1963. Before the establishment of the Open Campus, University Centres, headed by a Resident Tutor, were established in each of the other thirteen contributing territories, each of the physical campuses has faculties common to all of the campuses, such as Humanities & Education and Social Sciences. Cave Hill, Barbados and Mona, Jamaica and St. Augustine, Trinidad, both Mona, Jamaica, and St. Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago, have the Faculty of Medicine. In 2008 Cave Hill accepted the first students at their Faculty of Medicine, previously, they only accommodated students in the final two years in the medical program at their School of Medicine which was located at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. St. Augustine also has the Faculty of Engineering, in 1950, HRH Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, the last surviving granddaughter of Queen Victoria, became the first Chancellor of the University College of the West Indies. Sir William Arthur Lewis was the first Vice-Chancellor under the UWI’s independent Charter, a native of St Lucia, he served as the first West Indian Principal of the UCWI from 1958 to 1960 and as Vice-Chancellor from 1960 to 1963. He was succeeded by Sir Philip Sherlock who served as Vice-Chancellor from 1963 to 1969, Sir Roy Marshall, a Barbadian, was the next Vice-Chancellor, serving from 1969 to 1974. He was succeeded by Dr Aston Zachariah Preston, a Jamaican, the fifth Vice-Chancellor was Sir Alister McIntyre, who served from 1988 to 1998, followed by alumnus and Professor Emeritus Rex Nettleford who served from 1998 to 2004. The current Vice-Chancellor is Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, who succeeded Professor E. Nigel Harris in May 2015, current enrollment across the four campuses is 56,000
6.
Bahamian general election, 2012
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A general election was held in the Bahamas on 7 May 2012. Elections in the Bahamas take place in the framework of a parliamentary democracy and this was the first general election in which a third party offered a full slate of candidates along with the two major parties. The opposition Progressive Liberal Party won a majority in the election making Perry Christie prime minister, an opinion poll was carried out by Public Domain, a market research and public opinion polling company, between 2 and 12 March 2012 that involved 501 respondents. A sample of this only represented a maximum margin of error of 4.4 per cent. A total of 12.2 per cent of the sample were undecided voters, also the poll revealed that the PLPs swing voters constituted 6.6 per cent of the sample, the largest swing voter percentage. They were followed by the DNA and the FNM, therefore, the total support for the FNM was around 34.2 per cent, which was followed by the PLPs 30.3 per cent and the DNAs 21.7 per cent. It should be noted that if any of the two leading parties were to win the support of the entire 12.2 per cent undecided voters, a question was asked during the polling process that went, According to you, which party will win the next election. The results were that the FNM would, the PLP would, the poll also reported that 52% of the electorate was against reelecting the incumbent Free National Movement, while 55. 9% opposed electing the PLP and 64. 5% rejected electing the DNA. The opposition Progressive Liberal Party won a majority in an election victory. PLP leader Perry Christie, who had served as Prime Minister, was sworn into office on 8 May 2012. Outgoing Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham announced his retirement from politics following the defeat of his Free National Movement and he had served in Parliament for thirty-five years, winning re-election seven times, including 2012. Ingraham told supporters, I gave it the best I could, Ingraham then confirmed his retirement, saying, I am going to go back to my little law office and enjoy life with my family. The Democratic National Alliance lost the seat it held in the prior parliament. All percentages are rounded to the nearest tenth of a percent, source = http, //www. bahamaselections. com/BahamasElections2012ResultsSummary. pdf Nassau Guardian,2012 Election results map of the Bahamas
7.
Commonwealth Secretary-General
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The Commonwealth Secretary-General should not be confused with the Head of the Commonwealth, who is currently Queen Elizabeth II. However, as the building cannot house all of the Secretariats staff in London, the Secretary-General receives a salary of nearly £160,000 and a four‑storey mansion in Mayfair as their official residence. The Secretary-General leads the Commonwealth Secretariat, and all Secretariat staff are responsible and answerable to him or her and he or she is supported by three Deputy Secretaries-General, which are elected by the Heads of Government via the members High Commissioners in London. Currently, the three Deputy Secretaries-General are Deodat Maharaj, Gary Dunn and Josephine Ojiambo, until 2014, only two Deputy Secretaries-General were appointed along with an Assistant Secretary-General for Corporate Affairs. Formally, the Secretary-General is given the rank as a High Commissioner or ambassador. However, in practice, his or her rank is considerably higher, at CHOGMs, he or she is the equal of the Heads of Government, except with preference deferred to the longest-serving Head of Government. At other ministerial meetings, he or she is considered primus inter pares, the Secretary-General is held responsible by the Commonwealths Board of Governors in London. Since the 1993 CHOGM, it has decided that the Secretary-General is elected to a maximum of two four-year terms. The election is held by the assembled Heads of Government and other ministerial representatives at every other CHOGM, nominations are received from the member states governments, who sponsor the nomination through the election process and are responsible for withdrawing their candidate as they see fit. The election is held in a Restricted Session of the CHOGM, the Chair of the CHOGM is responsible for ascertaining which candidate has the greatest support, through the conduct of negotiations and secret straw polls. There is usually a convention that an incumbent seeking a term in office is elected unopposed for his or her second term. However, this was broken by a Zimbabwe-backed bid for Sri Lankan Lakshman Kadirgamar to displace New Zealands Don McKinnon in 2003, at the vote, however, Kadirgamar was easily defeated by McKinnon, with only 11 members voting for him against 40 for McKinnon. At the 2011 CHOGM, Indias Kamalesh Sharma was re-elected to his second term unopposed, Sharma had won the position at the 2007 CHOGM, when he defeated Maltas Michael Frendo to replace McKinnon, who had served the maximum two terms. She took office on 1 April 2016
8.
Theresa May
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Theresa Mary May is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party, having served as both since July 2016. She has been the Member of Parliament for Maidenhead since 1997, may identifies as a one-nation conservative and has been characterised as a liberal conservative. She is the second female Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader after Margaret Thatcher, the daughter of a vicar, May grew up in Oxfordshire. From 1977 until 1983, she worked for the Bank of England, after unsuccessful attempts to be elected to the House of Commons in 1992 and 1994, she was elected as the MP for Maidenhead in the 1997 general election. She was also Chairman of the Conservative Party from 2002 to 2003, after the formation of a coalition government following the 2010 general election, May was appointed Home Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities, giving up the latter role in 2012. Reappointed after the Conservative victory in the 2015 general election, she went on to become the longest-serving Home Secretary since James Chuter Ede over 60 years previously. She won the first and second ballot of Conservative MPs by a significant margin and was due to face a vote of Conservative Party members in a contest with Andrea Leadsom, leadsoms withdrawal from the election on 11 July led to Mays appointment as party leader the same day. She was appointed Prime Minister on 13 July, as Prime Minister, Mays focus has primarily been on withdrawing the UK from the European Union. Born on 1 October 1956 in Eastbourne, Sussex, May is the child of Zaidee Mary. Her father was a Church of England clergyman who was chaplain of an Eastbourne hospital and he later became vicar of Enstone with Heythrop and finally of St Marys at Wheatley, to the east of Oxford. Mays mother was a supporter of the Conservative Party. May was educated primarily in the sector but with a short spell at an independent Catholic school. She initially attended Heythrop Primary School, a school in Heythrop, followed by St. Julianas Convent School for Girls, a Roman Catholic independent school in Begbroke. At the age of 13, May won a place at the former Holton Park Girls Grammar School, during her time as a pupil, the Oxfordshire education system was reorganised and the school became the new Wheatley Park Comprehensive School. May then attended the University of Oxford where she read geography at St Hughs College, between 1977 and 1983 May worked at the Bank of England, and from 1985 to 1997 as a financial consultant and senior advisor in International Affairs at the Association for Payment Clearing Services. Both Mays parents died during this period, her father in a car accident in 1981, may served as a councillor for Durnsford ward on the London Borough of Merton from 1986 to 1994, where she was Chairman of Education and Deputy Group Leader and Housing Spokesman. May then stood at the 1994 Barking by-election, which was prompted by the death of Labour MP Jo Richardson. The seat had been held by Labour since it was created in 1945 and Labour candidate Margaret Hodge was expected to win easily
9.
Antigua and Barbuda
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Antigua and Barbuda is a twin-island country in the Americas, lying between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It consists of two inhabited islands, Antigua and Barbuda, and a number of smaller islands. The permanent population numbers about 81,800 and the capital and largest port and city is St. Johns, on Antigua. Separated by a few miles, Antigua and Barbuda are in the middle of the Leeward Islands, part of the Lesser Antilles. The countrys name was given by Christopher Columbus in 1493 after discovering the island, the country is nicknamed Land of 365 Beaches due to the many beaches surrounding the islands. Its governance, language, and culture have all been influenced by the British Empire. Antigua is Spanish for ancient and Barbuda is Spanish for bearded, the island of Antigua, originally called Waladli by Arawaks, is today called Wadadli by locals. Christopher Columbus, while sailing by in 1493 may have named it Santa Maria la Antigua, Antigua was first settled by archaic age hunter-gatherer Amerindians called the Siboney or Ciboney. Carbon dating has established the earliest settlements started around 3100 BC and they were succeeded by the ceramic age pre-Columbian Arawak-speaking Saladoid people who migrated from the lower Orinoco River. The Arawaks introduced agriculture, raising, among crops, the famous Antigua black pineapple, corn, sweet potatoes, chiles, guava, tobacco. The indigenous West Indians made excellent seagoing vessels which used to sail around on the Atlantic. As a result, Caribs and Arawaks were able to much of South America. Their descendants still live there, notably in Brazil, Venezuela, most Arawaks left Antigua around 1100 AD, those who remained were later raided by the Caribs. The Catholic Encyclopedia makes it clear that the European invaders had difficulty differentiating between the groups of the native peoples they encountered. As a result, the number and types of groups in existence at that time may have been much more varied. European and African diseases, malnutrition, and slavery eventually killed most of the Caribbeans native population, smallpox was probably the greatest killer. Some historians believe that the stress of slavery may also have played a part in the massive number of deaths amongst enslaved natives. Others believe the reportedly abundant but starchy, low-protein diet may have contributed to their severe malnutrition as they were used to a diet fortified with protein from the sea, the Spaniards did not colonise Antigua because it lacked fresh water but not aggressive Caribs
10.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
11.
Bangladesh
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Bangladesh, officially the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It shares land borders with India and Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan and China are located near Bangladesh but do not share a border with it. The countrys maritime territory in the Bay of Bengal is roughly equal to the size of its land area, Bangladesh is the worlds eighth most populous country. Dhaka is its capital and largest city, followed by Chittagong which has the countrys largest port, Bangladesh forms the largest and eastern part of the Bengal region. Bangladeshis include people of different ethnic groups and religions, Bengalis, who speak the official Bengali, make up 98% of the population. The politically dominant Bengali Muslims make the nation the worlds third largest Muslim-majority country, most of Bangladesh is covered by the Bengal delta, the largest delta on Earth. The country has 700 rivers and 8,046 km of inland waterways, highlands with evergreen forests are found in the northeastern and southeastern regions of the country. Bangladesh has many islands and a coral reef and it is home to the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world. The countrys biodiversity includes a vast array of plant and wildlife, including critically endangered Bengal tigers, the Greeks and Romans identified the region as Gangaridai, a powerful kingdom of the historical subcontinent, in the 3rd century BCE. Archaeological research has unearthed several ancient cities in Bangladesh, which had trade links for millennia. The Bengal Sultanate and Mughal Bengal transformed the region into a cosmopolitan Islamic imperial power between the 14th and 18th centuries, the region was home to many principalities which had inland naval prowess. It was also a center of the worldwide muslin and silk trade. As part of British India, the region was influenced by the Bengali renaissance, the Partition of British India made East Bengal a part of the Dominion of Pakistan, and was renamed as East Pakistan. The region witnessed the Bengali Language Movement in 1952 and the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, after independence, a parliamentary republic was established. A presidential government was in place between 1975 and 1990, followed by a return to parliamentary democracy, the country has also been affected by poverty, natural disasters, hunger, dominant party systems and military coups. Bangladesh is a power and a major developing nation. Listed as one of the Next Eleven, it has the 46th largest economy and it is one of the largest textile exporters in the world. Its major trading partners are the European Union, the United States, China, India, Japan, Malaysia, with its strategically vital location between Southern, Eastern and Southeast Asia, Bangladesh is an important promoter of regional connectivity and cooperation
12.
Sheikh Hasina
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Sheikh Hasina Wazed is the current Prime Minister of Bangladesh, in office since January 2009. Hasinas political career has spanned more than four decades and she previously served as opposition leader from 1986 to 1990 and 1991 to 1995, Prime Minister from 1996 to 2001, and has been leading the Bangladesh Awami League since 1981. In 2008, she returned as Prime Minister with a landslide victory, in January 2014, she became the prime minister for the third term. Hasina is one of the most powerful women in the world, Hasina is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an International network of current and former women presidents and prime ministers. For the better part of the last two decades, Hasinas chief rival has been BNP leader Khaleda Zia and their rivalry is known as Battle of Begums. The two women have alternated as non-interim Prime Ministers since 1991, Sheikh Hasina was born in Tungipara, East Pakistan on 28 September 1947. She is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, first president of Bangladesh, as she said in many interviews that she had grown up in fear due to her fathers political works. During the peak of violence of the 1970 Elections in Pakistan as well as her fathers arrest she had lived in refuge with her grandmother, saying I was not allowed to go to the school. Because I had to cross the canal by a wooden bridge and she was active in the student politics of Dhaka University. Hasina was not in Bangladesh when her father was assassinated on 15 August 1975 and she was not allowed to return to the country until after she was elected to lead the Awami League Party in 16 February 1981 and arrived on 17 May 1981. While living in self-exile in India after her father and familys assassination in 1975, the Awami League has been described as a left-of-center party. Hasina was in and out of detention throughout the 1980s, in 1984, Hasina was put under house arrest in February and again in November. In March 1985, she was put under house arrest for three months, Hasina and the Awami League participated in the 1986 parliamentary elections held under President Ershad. She served as the leader of the opposition in 1986–1987, however, her supporters maintained that she used the platform effectively to challenge Ershads rule. During November and December in 1987, mass uprising happened in Dhaka, several people were killed including Noor Hossain, after several years of autocratic rule, widespread protests and strikes created so much unrest that the economy was not functioning. A huge mass protest in December 1990 ousted General Ershad from the power, the caretaker government, headed by Shahabuddin Ahmed, the Chief Justice of the Bangladesh Supreme Court, administered a general election for the parliament. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party led by Khaleda Zia won a general majority, among 3 constituencies Hasina fought, she lost in two and won in one. Accepting election defeat, Hasina offered resignation as the party president, politics in Bangladesh took a decisive turn in 1994, after Magura by-elections
