1.
Sweden
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Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe
2.
Member states of the United Nations
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The United Nations member states are the 193 sovereign states that are members of the United Nations and have equal representation in the UN General Assembly. The UN is the worlds largest intergovernmental organization, ahead of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. A recommendation for admission from the Security Council requires affirmative votes from at least nine of the fifteen members. The Security Councils recommendation must then be approved in the General Assembly by a majority vote. In principle, only states can become UN members. Although five members were not sovereign when they joined the UN and this is because the UN does not consider them to possess sovereignty, mainly due to the lack of international recognition or due to opposition from one of the permanent members. Observers are generally intergovernmental organizations and international organizations and entities whose statehood or sovereignty is not precisely defined, the other two original members, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, had been dissolved and their memberships in the UN not continued from 1992 by any one successor state. India was under British colonial rule, until gaining independence in 1947. The Philippines was a commonwealth with the United States, until gaining independence in 1946. New Zealand, while de facto sovereign at that time, only gained full capacity to enter into relations with states in 1947 when it passed the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act. This occurred 16 years after the British Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster Act in 1931 that recognised New Zealands autonomy, if judged by the Montevideo Convention criteria, New Zealand did not achieve full de jure statehood until 1947. The current members and their dates of admission are listed below with their official designations used by the United Nations, the member states can be sorted by their official designations and dates of admission by clicking on the buttons in the header of the columns. See related sections on former members by clicking on the links in the column See also, original members are listed with blue background. Both sides rejected compromise proposals to both states to participate in the UN, based on the One-China policy. By the 1970s, a shift had occurred in diplomatic circles. This effectively transferred the seat of China in the UN, including its permanent seat on the Security Council, from the ROC to the PRC, from the United Nations perspective the Republic of China is not a former member. No UN member was expelled in 1971, rather, the credentials of one Chinese delegation were rejected and the credentials of another Chinese delegation were accepted. In addition to losing its seat in the UN, the UN Secretary-General concluded from the resolution that the General Assembly considered Taiwan to be a province of China
3.
Mahatma Gandhi
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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was the preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India. Employing nonviolent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights, the honorific Mahatma —applied to him first in 1914 in South Africa—is now used worldwide. In India, he is also called Bapu and Gandhiji and he is unofficially called the Father of the Nation. After his return to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants, farmers, Gandhi famously led Indians in challenging the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in calling for the British to Quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned for years, upon many occasions, in both South Africa and India. Gandhi attempted to practise nonviolence and truth in all situations, and he lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn hand-spun on a charkha. He ate simple food, and also undertook long fasts as a means of both self-purification and social protest. Eventually, in August 1947, Britain granted independence, but the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. As many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out, especially in the Punjab, eschewing the official celebration of independence in Delhi, Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to provide solace. In the months following, he undertook several fasts unto death to promote religious harmony, the last of these, undertaken on 12 January 1948 when he was 78, also had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan. Some Indians thought Gandhi was too accommodating, among them was Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist, who assassinated Gandhi on 30 January 1948 by firing three bullets into his chest. Mahatma Gandhis birthday,2 October, is commemorated in India as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday and his father, Karamchand Uttamchand Gandhi, served as the diwan of Porbandar state. The Gandhi family originated from the village of Kutiana in what was then Junagadh State, in the late 17th or early 18th century, one Lalji Gandhi moved to Porbandar and entered the service of its ruler, the Rana. In 1831, Rana Khimojiraji died suddenly and was succeeded by his 12-year-old only son, as a result, Rana Khimojirajjis widow, Rani Rupaliba, became regent for her son. She soon fell out with Uttamchand and forced him to return to his village in Junagadh. While in Junagadh, Uttamchand appeared before its Nawab and saluted him with his hand instead of his right. In 1841, Vikmatji assumed the throne and reinstated Uttamchand as his diwan, in 1847, Rana Vikmatji appointed Uttamchands son, Karamchand, as diwan after disagreeing with Uttamchand over the states maintenance of a British garrison. Although he only had an education and had previously been a clerk in the state administration
4.
India
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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
5.
Shirin Ebadi
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Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer, a former judge and human rights activist and founder of Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. On 10 October 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially womens, childrens, and refugee rights. She was the first ever Iranian to receive the prize, in 2009, Ebadis award was allegedly confiscated by Iranian authorities, though this was later denied by the Iranian government. If true, she would be the first person in the history of the Nobel Prize whose award has been seized by state authorities. Ebadi lived in Tehran, but she has been in exile in the UK since June 2009 due to the increase in persecution of Iranian citizens who are critical of the current regime. In 2004, she was listed by Forbes magazine as one of the 100 most powerful women in the world and she is also included in a published list of the 100 most influential women of all time. Ebadi was born in Hamadan, Iran and her father, Mohammad Ali Ebadi, was the citys chief notary public and a professor of commercial law. Her family moved to Tehran in 1948 and she was admitted to the law department of the University of Tehran in 1965 and in 1969, upon graduation, passed the qualification exams to become a judge. After a six-month internship period, she became a judge in March 1969. She continued her studies in University of Tehran in the meantime to pursue a degree in law in 1971. In 1975, she became the first woman president of the Tehran city court and she and other female judges protested and were assigned to the slightly higher position of law expert. She eventually requested early retirement as the situation remained unchanged, as her applications were repeatedly rejected, Ebadi was not able to practice as a lawyer until 1993, while she already had a law office permit. She used this time to write books and many articles in Iranian periodicals. Ebadi lectured law at the University of Tehran and she is a campaigner for strengthening the legal status of children and women, the latter of which played a key role in the May 1997 landslide presidential election of the reformist Mohammad Khatami. As a lawyer, she is known for taking up pro bono cases of dissident figures who have fallen foul of the judiciary and she has represented the family of Dariush Forouhar, a dissident intellectual and politician who was found stabbed to death at his home. His wife, Parvaneh Eskandari, was killed at the same time. The couple were among several dissidents who died in a spate of murders that terrorized Irans intellectual community. Suspicion fell on extremist hard-liners determined to put a stop to the liberal climate fostered by President Khatami
6.
Nonviolence
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Nonviolence is the personal practice of being harmless to self and others under every condition. Mahavira, the twenty-fourth tirthankara of the Jain religion, was the torch-bearer of ahimsa and introduced the word to the world and he taught that to attain nirvana, one must abstain from violence. Nonviolence also has active or activist elements, in that believers accept the need for nonviolence as a means to political and social change. In modern times, nonviolent methods of action have been a tool for social protest. There are many examples of their use, fuller surveys may be found in the entries on civil resistance, nonviolent resistance and nonviolent revolution. The 1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia that saw the overthrow of the Communist government is considered one of the most important of the largely nonviolent Revolutions of 1989. Most recently the nonviolent campaigns of Leymah Gbowee and the women of Liberia were able to achieve peace after a 14-year civil war and this story is captured in a 2008 documentary film Pray the Devil Back to Hell. In an essay, To Abolish War, evolutionary biologist Judith Hand advocated the use of nonviolent direct action to dismantle the global war machine. The term nonviolence is often linked with or used as a synonym for peace, and despite being frequently equated with passivity and pacifism, this is rejected by nonviolent advocates and activists. Nonviolence refers specifically to the absence of violence and is always the choice to do no harm or the least harm, sometimes nonviolence is passive, and other times it isnt. For example, if a house is burning down with mice or insects in it, there is at times confusion and contradiction written about nonviolence, harmlessness and passivity. A confused person may advocate nonviolence in a specific context while advocating violence in other contexts, for example, someone who passionately opposes abortion or meat eating may concurrently advocate violence to kill an abortionist or attack a slaughterhouse, which makes that person a violent person. On a national level, the strategy of nonviolent action seeks to undermine the power of rulers by encouraging people to withdraw their consent, the forms of nonviolence draw inspiration from both religious or ethical beliefs and political analysis. Commonly, both of these dimensions may be present within the thinking of particular movements or individuals, nicolas Walter noted the idea that nonviolence might work runs under the surface of Western political thought without ever quite disappearing. Walter noted Étienne de La Boéties Discourse on Voluntary Servitude and P. B, shelleys The Masque of Anarchy contain arguments for resisting tyranny without using violence. In 1838, William Lloyd Garrison helped found the New England Non-Resistance Society, in modern industrial democracies, nonviolent action has been used extensively by political sectors without mainstream political power such as labor, peace, environment and womens movements. Lesser known is the role that nonviolent action has played and continues to play in undermining the power of political regimes in the developing world. Also of primary significance is the notion that just means are the most likely to lead to just ends
7.
World Social Forum
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The World Social Forum is explicit about not being a representative of all of those who attend and thus does not publish any formal statements on behalf of participants. It tends to meet in January at the time as its great capitalist rival. This date is consciously picked to promote their alternative answers to world problems in opposition to the World Economic Forum. 2) The World Social Forum at Porto Alegre was an event localized in time, 3) The World Social Forum is a world process. All the meetings that are held as part of this process have an international dimension and they are designed to ensure that globalization in solidarity will prevail as a new stage in world history. 6) The meetings of the World Social Forum do not deliberate on behalf of the World Social Forum as a body. No one, therefore, will be authorized, on behalf of any of the editions of the Forum, neither party representations nor military organizations shall participate in the Forum. Government leaders and members of legislatures who accept the commitments of this Charter may be invited to participate in a personal capacity. 10) The World Social Forum is opposed to all totalitarian and reductionist views of economy, development and history and to the use of violence as a means of social control by the State. The World Social Forum first met in 2001, but it had its roots in Latin American activism, namely the encuentro, a meeting which emphasizes dialogue and exchange of ideas among activists. One of the originators of the World Social Forum, Oded Grajew, of the Ethos Institute for Business and Social Responsibility, said in an interview with InMotion Magazine in 2004, Then I had the idea. Why not create the World Social Forum, as we have the World Economic Forum, why not have the World Social Forum -- the social is more important than the economic -- to have a space to show that we can have an alternative. This is not the way you can see the world. We have another way to see it, and, at the same time, force people to look, to make a choice. What is your vision of the world, the assertion that another world is possible is now an absolute necessity. The WSF was sponsored, in part, by the Porto Alegre government, the town was experimenting with an innovative model for local government which combined the traditional representative institutions with the participation of open assemblies of the people. 12,000 people attended from around the world, at the time, Brazil was also in a moment of transformation that later would lead to the electoral victory of the PT candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The second WSF, also held in Porto Alegre from 31 January to 5 February 2002, had over 12,000 official delegates representing people from 123 countries,60,000 attendees,652 workshops, and 27 talks
8.
Indian National Congress
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The Indian National Congress is one of two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. Congress was founded in 1885 during the British Raj, its founders include Allan Octavian Hume, Dadabhai Naoroji, there have been seven Congress Prime Ministers, the first being Jawaharlal Nehru, and the most recent Manmohan Singh. The partys social liberal platform is considered to be on the centre-left of Indian politics. From 2004 to 2014, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, a coalition of regional parties. As of March 2017, the party is in power in five states, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Meghalaya, in Bihar, it is a part of the ruling coalition. The Congress has previously directly ruled Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, in the 2014 general election, the Congress had its poorest post-independence general election performance, winning only 44 seats of the 543-member house. The party primarily endorses social liberalism—seeking to balance individual liberty and social justice, the Congress was founded in 1885 by Indian and British members of the Theosophical Society movement, including Scotsman Allan Octavian Hume. It has been suggested that the idea was conceived in a meeting of 17 men after a Theosophical Convention held in Madras in December 1884. Hume took the initiative, and in March 1885 the first notice convening the first Indian National Union to meet in Poona the following December was issued. Its objective was to obtain a share in government for educated Indians and to create a platform for civic. The first meeting was scheduled to be held in Poona, Hume organised the first meeting in Bombay with the approval of the Viceroy Lord Dufferin. Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee was the first president of the Congress, the first session was held from 28–31 December 1885, representing each province of India, the Partys delegates comprised 54 Hindus and 2 Muslims, the rest were of Parsi and Jain backgrounds. It also included Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lala Lajpat Rai, Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Mohammed Ali Jinnah—later leader of the Muslim League and instrumental in the creation of Pakistan. The Congress was transformed into a movement by Surendranath Banerjea and Sir Henry Cotton during the partition of Bengal in 1905. Mahatma Gandhi returned from South Africa in 1915, in 1923 following the deaths of policemen at Chauri Chaura, Gandhi suspended the agitation. In protest, a number of leaders, Chittaranjan Das, Annie Besant, the Khilafat movement collapsed and the Congress was split. Although its members were predominantly Hindu, it had members from other religions, economic classes, at the Congress 1929 Lahore session under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, Purna Swaraj was declared as the partys goal, declaring 26 January 1930 as Purna Swaraj Diwas, Independence Day. The same year, Srinivas Iyenger was expelled from the party for demanding full independence, the British government allowed provincial elections in India in the winter of 1936–37 under the Government of India Act 1935
9.
Sonia Gandhi
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Sonia Gandhi is an Italian-born Indian politician, who has served as President of the Indian National Congress party since 1998. She is the widow of former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi who belonged to the Nehru–Gandhi family and she finally agreed to join politics in 1997, in 1998, she was elected President of the Congress party. She has served as the Chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance in the Lok Sabha since 2004, in September 2010, on being re-elected for the fourth time, she became the longest serving president in the 125-year history of the Congress party. Her foreign birth has been a subject of debate and controversy. Also controversial was her friendship with Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi. Although Sonia is the fifth person to be leader of the Congress Party. She spent her adolescence in Orbassano, a town near Turin, being raised in a traditional Roman Catholic family and her father, Stefano Maino, was a building mason, who owned a small construction business in Orbassano. Stefano fought against the Soviet military alongside Hitlers Wehrmacht on the front in World War II, he called himself a loyal supporter of Benito Mussolini. Her mother and two still live around Orbassano. In 1964, she went to study English at the Bell Educational Trusts language school in the city of Cambridge, in 1965 at a Greek restaurant she met Rajiv Gandhi, who was enrolled in Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi married in 1968, in a Hindu ceremony following which she moved into the house of her mother-in-law and then Prime Minister, the couple had two children, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra. Despite belonging to the influential Nehru family, Sonia and Rajiv avoided all involvement in politics, Rajiv worked as an airline pilot while Sonia took care of her family. When Indira Gandhi was ousted from office in 1977 in the aftermath of the Indian Emergency, Sonia Gandhis involvement with Indian public life began after the assassination of her mother-in-law and her husbands election as prime minister. As the prime ministers wife she acted as his official hostess, in 1984, she actively campaigned against her husbands sister-in-law Maneka Gandhi who was running against Rajiv in Amethi. At the end of Rajiv Gandhis five years in office, the Bofors scandal broke out, Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian business man believed to be involved, was said to be a friend of Sonia Gandhi, having access to the Prime Ministers official residence. The BJP has alleged that she appeared on the voters list in New Delhi prior to obtaining Indian citizenship in April 1983, former senior Congress leader and current President of India Pranab Mukherjee said that she surrendered her Italian passport to the Italian Embassy on 27 April 1983. Italian nationality law did not permit dual nationality until 1992, so, by acquiring Indian citizenship in 1983, she would automatically have lost Italian citizenship. After Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991 and Sonia Gandhi refused to become Prime Minister, over the next few years, however, the Congress fortunes continued to dwindle and it lost the 1996 elections
10.
Desmond Tutu
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Desmond Mpilo Tutu, CH is a South African social rights activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid. He was the first black Archbishop of Cape Town and bishop of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa. Tutus admirers see him as a man who, since the demise of apartheid, has been active in the defence of human rights. He has campaigned to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia and he has also compiled several books of his speeches and sayings. Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born in Klerksdorp, Transvaal, the second of four children of Zacheriah Zililo Tutu and his wife, Aletta Tutu, Tutus family moved to Johannesburg when he was twelve. His father was a teacher and his mother was a cleaner, here he met Trevor Huddleston, who was a parish priest in the black slum of Sophiatown. One day, said Tutu, I was standing in the street with my mother when a man in a priests clothing walked past. As he passed us he took off his hat to my mother, I couldnt believe my eyes—a white man who greeted a black working class woman. Although Tutu wanted to become a doctor, his family could not afford the training, Tutu studied at the Pretoria Bantu Normal College from 1951 to 1953, and went on to teach at Johannesburg Bantu High School and at Munsienville High School in Mogale City. However, he resigned following the passage of the Bantu Education Act, Tutu then attended Kings College London, where he received his bachelors and masters degrees in theology. During this time he worked as a curate, first at St Albans Church, Golders Green. He later returned to South Africa and became chaplain at the University of Fort Hare in 1967, from 1970 to 1972, Tutu lectured at the National University of Lesotho. In 1972, Tutu returned to the UK, where he was appointed vice-director of the Theological Education Fund of the World Council of Churches and he returned to South Africa in 1975 and was appointed Dean of St Marys Cathedral in Johannesburg. On 2 July 1955, Tutu married Nomalizo Leah Shenxane, a teacher whom he had met while at college and they had four children, Trevor Thamsanqa, Theresa Thandeka, Naomi Nontombi and Mpho Andrea, all of whom attended the Waterford Kamhlaba School in Swaziland. In 1975 he moved into what is now known as Tutu House on Sowetos well known Vilakazi Street which is also the location of a house in which the late Nelson Mandela once lived and he and his family were still living there in 2005. It is said to be one of the few streets in the world where two Nobel Prize winners have lived, in 1997, Tutu was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent successful treatment in the US. He subsequently became patron of the South African Prostate Cancer Foundation, beginning on his 79th birthday, Tutu entered a phased retirement from public life, starting with only one day per week in his office through February 2011. On 23 May 2011 in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, Tutu gave what was said to be his last major public speech outside of South Africa, Tutu honoured his commitments through May 2011 and added no more commitments
11.
United Nations General Assembly
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The United Nations General Assembly is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation. The General Assembly is the deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the UN. It has also established a number of subsidiary organs. It can also reconvene for special and emergency special sessions and its composition, functions, powers, voting, and procedures are set out in Chapter IV of the United Nations Charter. The first session was convened on 10 January 1946 in the Methodist Central Hall in London, other questions are decided by a straightforward majority. Each member country has one vote, apart from approval of budgetary matters, including adoption of a scale of assessment, Assembly resolutions are not binding on the members. The Assembly may make recommendations on any matters within the scope of the UN, except matters of peace, the one state, one vote power structure potentially allows states comprising just five percent of the world population to pass a resolution by a two-thirds vote. During the 1980s, the Assembly became a forum for the North-South dialogue and these issues came to the fore because of the phenomenal growth and changing makeup of the UN membership. In 1945, the UN had 51 members and it now has 193, of which more than two-thirds are developing countries. Because of their numbers, developing countries are able to determine the agenda of the Assembly, the character of its debates. For many developing countries, the UN is the source of much of their diplomatic influence, the Assembly can consider the matter immediately with a view to making recommendations to Members for collective measures to maintain or restore international peace and security. The first session of the UN General Assembly was convened on 10 January 1946 in the Methodist Central Hall in London, the next few annual sessions were held in different cities, the second session in New York, and the third session was in Paris. It moved to the permanent United Nations Headquarters in New York at the start of its seventh regular annual session, on 14 October 1952. In December 1988, in order to hear Yasser Arafat, the General Assembly organised its 29th session in the Palace of Nations, all 193 members states of the United Nations are members of the General Assembly. The agenda for each session is planned up to seven months in advance and this is refined into a provisional agenda 60 days before the opening of the session. Items on the agenda are numbered, the General Assembly votes on many resolutions brought forth by sponsoring states. These are generally statements symbolizing the sense of the community about an array of world issues. Most General Assembly resolutions are not enforceable as a legal or practical matter, the General Assembly has authority to make final decisions in some areas such as the United Nations budget
