1.
Vienna
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Vienna is the capital and largest city of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austrias primary city, with a population of about 1.8 million, and its cultural, economic and it is the 7th-largest city by population within city limits in the European Union. Today, it has the second largest number of German speakers after Berlin, Vienna is host to many major international organizations, including the United Nations and OPEC. The city is located in the part of Austria and is close to the borders of the Czech Republic, Slovakia. These regions work together in a European Centrope border region, along with nearby Bratislava, Vienna forms a metropolitan region with 3 million inhabitants. In 2001, the city centre was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, apart from being regarded as the City of Music because of its musical legacy, Vienna is also said to be The City of Dreams because it was home to the worlds first psycho-analyst – Sigmund Freud. The citys roots lie in early Celtic and Roman settlements that transformed into a Medieval and Baroque city and it is well known for having played an essential role as a leading European music centre, from the great age of Viennese Classicism through the early part of the 20th century. The historic centre of Vienna is rich in architectural ensembles, including Baroque castles and gardens, Vienna is known for its high quality of life. In a 2005 study of 127 world cities, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the city first for the worlds most liveable cities, between 2011 and 2015, Vienna was ranked second, behind Melbourne, Australia. Monocles 2015 Quality of Life Survey ranked Vienna second on a list of the top 25 cities in the world to make a base within, the UN-Habitat has classified Vienna as being the most prosperous city in the world in 2012/2013. Vienna regularly hosts urban planning conferences and is used as a case study by urban planners. Between 2005 and 2010, Vienna was the worlds number-one destination for international congresses and it attracts over 3.7 million tourists a year. The English name Vienna is borrowed from the homonymous Italian version of the name or the French Vienne. The etymology of the name is still subject to scholarly dispute. Some claim that the name comes from Vedunia, meaning forest stream, which produced the Old High German Uuenia. A variant of this Celtic name could be preserved in the Czech and Slovak names of the city, the name of the city in Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian and Ottoman Turkish has a different, probably Slavonic origin, and originally referred to an Avar fort in the area. Slovene-speakers call the city Dunaj, which in other Central European Slavic languages means the Danube River, evidence has been found of continuous habitation since 500 BC, when the site of Vienna on the Danube River was settled by the Celts. In 15 BC, the Romans fortified the city they called Vindobona to guard the empire against Germanic tribes to the north
2.
Austria
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Austria, officially the Republic of Austria, is a federal republic and a landlocked country of over 8.7 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, the territory of Austria covers 83,879 km2. The terrain is mountainous, lying within the Alps, only 32% of the country is below 500 m. The majority of the population speaks local Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, other local official languages are Hungarian, Burgenland Croatian, and Slovene. The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty, from the time of the Reformation, many northern German princes, resenting the authority of the Emperor, used Protestantism as a flag of rebellion. Following Napoleons defeat, Prussia emerged as Austrias chief competitor for rule of a greater Germany, Austrias defeat by Prussia at the Battle of Königgrätz, during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, cleared the way for Prussia to assert control over the rest of Germany. In 1867, the empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary, Austria was thus the first to go to war in the July Crisis, which would ultimately escalate into World War I. The First Austrian Republic was established in 1919, in 1938 Nazi Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss. This lasted until the end of World War II in 1945, after which Germany was occupied by the Allies, in 1955, the Austrian State Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state, ending the occupation. In the same year, the Austrian Parliament created the Declaration of Neutrality which declared that the Second Austrian Republic would become permanently neutral, today, Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy comprising nine federal states. The capital and largest city, with a population exceeding 1.7 million, is Vienna, other major urban areas of Austria include Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck. Austria is one of the richest countries in the world, with a nominal per capita GDP of $43,724, the country has developed a high standard of living and in 2014 was ranked 21st in the world for its Human Development Index. Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, joined the European Union in 1995, Austria also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, and adopted the euro currency in 1999. The German name for Austria, Österreich, meant eastern realm in Old High German, and is cognate with the word Ostarrîchi and this word is probably a translation of Medieval Latin Marchia orientalis into a local dialect. Austria was a prefecture of Bavaria created in 976, the word Austria is a Latinisation of the German name and was first recorded in the 12th century. Accordingly, Norig would essentially mean the same as Ostarrîchi and Österreich, the Celtic name was eventually Latinised to Noricum after the Romans conquered the area that encloses most of modern-day Austria, around 15 BC. Noricum later became a Roman province in the mid-first century AD, heers hypothesis is not accepted by linguists. Settled in ancient times, the Central European land that is now Austria was occupied in pre-Roman times by various Celtic tribes, the Celtic kingdom of Noricum was later claimed by the Roman Empire and made a province
3.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
4.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
5.
Italian language
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By most measures, Italian, together with Sardinian, is the closest to Latin of the Romance languages. Italian is a language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City. Italian is spoken by minorities in places such as France, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Crimea and Tunisia and by large expatriate communities in the Americas. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardized Italian and other regional languages, Italian is the fourth most studied language in the world. Italian is a major European language, being one of the languages of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It is the third most widely spoken first language in the European Union with 65 million native speakers, including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries and on other continents, the total number of speakers is around 85 million. Italian is the working language of the Holy See, serving as the lingua franca in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Italian is known as the language of music because of its use in musical terminology and its influence is also widespread in the arts and in the luxury goods market. Italian has been reported as the fourth or fifth most frequently taught foreign language in the world, Italian was adopted by the state after the Unification of Italy, having previously been a literary language based on Tuscan as spoken mostly by the upper class of Florentine society. Its development was influenced by other Italian languages and to some minor extent. Its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian, unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latins contrast between short and long consonants. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive, however, Italian as a language used in Italy and some surrounding regions has a longer history. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri, written in his native Florentine. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language, and thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the language of Italy. Italian was also one of the recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italy has always had a dialect for each city, because the cities. Those dialects now have considerable variety, as Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. Even in the case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages
6.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
7.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
8.
Switzerland
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Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
9.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
10.
Angelino Alfano
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Angelino Alfano is an Italian politician who has served in the government of Italy as Minister of Foreign Affairs since 12 December 2016. He was the first and only secretary of the centre-right party The People of Freedom from 2011 to 2013, in November 2013 he became leader of the New Centre-Right party which is a split from the PdL. Alfano is the first Italian politician to held the office of Minister of Justice, Interior and Foreign Affairs, in 1996, Alfano was the youngest member elected to the Sicilian Regional Assembly. In 2001, he became a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, from 2005 to 2008 he also held the position of regional coordinator in Sicily of the Forza Italia party. After the 2008 elections victory by the Berlusconi-led centre-right coalition, Alfano was again elected to Parliament, in May 2008, aged 37, he became the youngest Minister of Justice in the history of the Italian Republic. The so-called Lodo Alfano, named him, was a piece of legislation in force between 2008 and 2009 that granted immunity from prosecution to the four highest political offices in Italy. It was widely criticised as a copy of the Lodo Schifani, declared unconstitutional in 2004, the Lodo Alfano was declared unconstitutional by the Italian Constitutional Court in October 2009. On 1 June 2011 Angelino Alfano was appointed Political Secretary of the People of Freedom by party President Silvio Berlusconi in order to reorganise and he was later elected to that post by the July 1 meeting of the partys National Council. The government became the first in the history of the Italian Republic to include representatives of all the major candidate-coalitions that had competed in the election, Alfano, as Secretary of the PdL, became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior. After the vote Alfano was confirmed as minister, all five PdL ministers, three under-secretaries,30 senators and 27 deputies immediately joined a new party called New Centre-Right. Most were Christian democrats and many came from the regions of Calabria. On 13 February 2014, following tensions with his rival and new Secretary of the Democratic Party, Matteo Renzi. On 22 February Renzi was sworn in as Prime Minister and Alfano was confirmed as Interior Minister, a major problem Alfano has faced, as Interior Minister, is illegal immigration to Italy, which emerged as a result of the Libyan and Syrian Civil Wars. On 8 August 2014, the Italian Cabinet approved a law-decree contrasting the phenomenon of lawlessness and violence at sporting events, in November 2014, the Italian-run rescue option Operation Mare Nostrum was replaced by Frontexs Operation Triton, due to the refusal by several EU governments to fund it. On 19 April 2015, a huge shipwreck took place in the Mediterranean Sea, in November 2015 six Sicilian Mafia bosses, close to Totò Riina, were arrested for allegedly planning the assassination of Alfano. In a phone-tapped conversations the gang said they wanted Alfano to meet the fate as John F. Kennedy. On 7 December 2016, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi announced his resignation, a few days later, on 11 December 2016, the Foreign Affairs Minister Paolo Gentiloni was asked by President Mattarella to form a new government. On the following day Gentiloni was officially sworn in as the new head of the government, angelini Alfano was appointed, by the new Prime Minister and by President Mattarella, new Minister of Foreign Affairs, succeeding Gentiloni
11.
Iceland
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Iceland is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean. It has a population of 332,529 and an area of 103,000 km2, the capital and largest city is Reykjavík. Reykjavík and the areas in the southwest of the country are home to over two-thirds of the population. Iceland is volcanically and geologically active, the interior consists of a plateau characterised by sand and lava fields, mountains and glaciers, while many glacial rivers flow to the sea through the lowlands. Iceland is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has a climate, despite a high latitude just outside the Arctic Circle. Its high latitude and marine influence still keeps summers chilly, with most of the archipelago having a tundra climate. According to the ancient manuscript Landnámabók, the settlement of Iceland began in the year 874 AD when the Norwegian chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson became the first permanent settler on the island. In the following centuries, Norwegians, and to a lesser extent other Scandinavians, emigrated to Iceland, the island was governed as an independent commonwealth under the Althing, one of the worlds oldest functioning legislative assemblies. Following a period of strife, Iceland acceded to Norwegian rule in the 13th century. The establishment of the Kalmar Union in 1397 united the kingdoms of Norway, Denmark, Iceland thus followed Norways integration to that Union and came under Danish rule after Swedens secession from that union in 1523. In the wake of the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars, Icelands struggle for independence took form and culminated in independence in 1918, until the 20th century, Iceland relied largely on subsistence fishing and agriculture, and was among the poorest in Europe. Industrialisation of the fisheries and Marshall Plan aid following World War II brought prosperity, in 1994, it became a part of the European Economic Area, which further diversified the economy into sectors such as finance, biotechnology, and manufacturing. Iceland has an economy with relatively low taxes compared to other OECD countries. It maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. Iceland ranks high in economic, political and social stability and equality, in 2013, it was ranked as the 13th most-developed country in the world by the United Nations Human Development Index. Iceland runs almost completely on renewable energy, some bankers were jailed, and the economy has made a significant recovery, in large part due to a surge in tourism. Icelandic culture is founded upon the nations Scandinavian heritage, most Icelanders are descendants of Germanic and Gaelic settlers. Icelandic, a North Germanic language, is descended from Old Norse and is related to Faroese
12.
France
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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
13.
Lamberto Zannier
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Lamberto Zannier is an Italian diplomat who currently serves as Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Zannier was appointed through a unanimous Ministerial Council decision by the 56 participating OSCE States and he was appointed to this position by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in June 2008. Zannier has served for the Foreign Service of Italy for more than 30 years, between 2002 and 2006, he was Director of the Conflict Prevention Centre of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Vienna. In this capacity, he managed more than 20 civilian field operations in Europe, from 2000 to 2002, he served as Permanent Representative of Italy to the Executive Council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague. From 1997 to 2000, he was chairperson of the negotiations on the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, from 1991 to 1997, he served as Head of Disarmament, Arms Control and Cooperative Security at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Previously, he served in Rome, Abu Dhabi and Vienna, mainly specialising in multilateral and he has authored several publications on security, conflict prevention and crisis management issues. He is a member of the Steering Committee of the Centre for International Negotiation and mediation of the Gorizia University and he routinely holds lessons and conferences on international relations and international security. Zannier obtained a law degree from the University of Trieste, united Nations Press Release SG/A/1139 http, //www. unmikonline. org/srsg/index. htm http, //www. osce. org/sg https, //picasaweb. google. com/106300276306639329741/TheBestOfOSCEBall2016
14.
Helsinki Accords
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Thirty-five states, including the USA, Canada, and all European states except Albania and Andorra, signed the declaration in an attempt to improve relations between the Communist bloc and the West. The Helsinki Accords, however, were not binding as they did not have treaty status, although the USSR was looking for a rapid resolution, none of the parties were quick to make concessions, particularly on human rights points. Throughout much of the negotiations, U. S. leaders were disengaged and uninterested with the process, T is meaningless—it is just a grandstand play to the left. We are going along with it, President Ford was concerned about this as well and sought clarification on this issue from the U. S. National Security Council. The U. S. Senate was also worried about the fate of the Baltic States, several Senators wrote to President Ford requesting that the final summit stage be delayed until all matters had been settled, and in a way favorable to the West. Shortly before President Ford departed for Helsinki, he held a meeting with a group of Americans of Eastern European background, according to Ford, The Helsinki documents involve political and moral commitments aimed at lessening tension and opening further the lines of communication between peoples of East and West. If it all fails, Europe will be no worse off than it is now, if even a part of it succeeds, the lot the people in Eastern Europe will be that much better, and the cause of freedom will advance at least that far. The speech, however, did not have much effect, the volume of mail against the Helsinki agreement continued to grow. The American public was unconvinced that U. S. policy on the incorporation of the Baltic States would not be changed by the Helsinki Final Act. Despite protests from all around, Ford decided to move forward, soon after the return from Helsinki, A. Denis Clift of the National Security Council urged Secretary Kissinger to support the creation of a report by the NSC Under Secretaries Committee on Helsinki Final Act compliance. Clift believed that the administration needed to be prepared for criticism from American Eastern European ethnic groups, Kissinger and President Ford agreed and an order was issued to the committee. Considering objections from Canada, Spain, Ireland and other states, U. S. President Gerald Ford also reaffirmed that US non-recognition policy of the Baltic states forced incorporation into the Soviet Union had not changed. Leaders of other NATO member states made similar statements, Soviet propaganda presented the Final Act as a great triumph for Soviet diplomacy and for Brezhnev personally. According to the Cold War scholar John Lewis Gaddis in his book The Cold War, A New History, Leonid Brezhnev had looked forward, Anatoly Dobrynin recalls, when the Soviet public learned of the final settlement of the postwar boundaries for which they had sacrificed so much. Gradually became a manifesto of the dissident and liberal movement, what this meant was that the people who lived under these systems — at least the more courageous — could claim official permission to say what they thought. The Helsinki Accords served as the groundwork for the later Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, established under the Paris Charter
15.
Gross domestic product
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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
16.
Purchasing power parity
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Observed deviations of the exchange rate from purchasing power parity are measured by deviations of the real exchange rate from its PPP value of 1. PPP exchange rates help to minimize misleading international comparisons that can arise with the use of exchange rates. For example, suppose that two countries produce the same amounts of goods as each other in each of two different years. But if one countrys GDP is converted into the countrys currency using PPP exchange rates instead of observed market exchange rates. The idea originated with the School of Salamanca in the 16th century, the best-known purchasing power adjustment is the Geary–Khamis dollar. The real exchange rate is equal to the nominal exchange rate. If purchasing power parity held exactly, then the exchange rate would always equal one. However, in practice the exchange rates exhibit both short run and long run deviations from this value, for example due to reasons illuminated in the Balassa–Samuelson theorem. There can be marked differences between purchasing power adjusted incomes and those converted via market exchange rates. This discrepancy has large implications, for instance, when converted via the exchange rates GDP per capita in India is about US$1,965 while on a PPP basis it is about US$7,197. At the other extreme, Denmarks nominal GDP per capita is around US$62,100, the purchasing power parity exchange rate serves two main functions. PPP exchange rates can be useful for making comparisons between countries because they stay fairly constant from day to day or week to week and only change modestly, if at all, from year to year. The PPP exchange-rate calculation is controversial because of the difficulties of finding comparable baskets of goods to compare purchasing power across countries, people in different countries typically consume different baskets of goods. It is necessary to compare the cost of baskets of goods and this is a difficult task because purchasing patterns and even the goods available to purchase differ across countries. Thus, it is necessary to make adjustments for differences in the quality of goods, furthermore, the basket of goods representative of one economy will vary from that of another, Americans eat more bread, Chinese more rice. Hence a PPP calculated using the US consumption as a base will differ from that calculated using China as a base, additional statistical difficulties arise with multilateral comparisons when more than two countries are to be compared. Various ways of averaging bilateral PPPs can provide a stable multilateral comparison. These are all issues of indexing, as with other price indices there is no way to reduce complexity to a single number that is equally satisfying for all purposes
17.
Human rights
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Human rights are moral principles or norms, which describe certain standards of human behaviour, and are regularly protected as legal rights in municipal and international law. They are applicable everywhere and at time in the sense of being universal. They require empathy and the rule of law and impose an obligation on persons to respect the rights of others. They should not be taken away except as a result of due process based on circumstances, for example, human rights may include freedom from unlawful imprisonment, torture. The doctrine of human rights has been influential within international law. Actions by states and non-governmental organizations form a basis of public policy worldwide, the idea of human rights suggests that if the public discourse of peacetime global society can be said to have a common moral language, it is that of human rights. The strong claims made by the doctrine of human rights continue to provoke considerable skepticism and debates about the content, nature, ancient peoples did not have the same modern-day conception of universal human rights. Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the family is the foundation of freedom. All human beings are free and equal in dignity and rights. According to Jack Donnelly, in the ancient world, traditional societies typically have had elaborate systems of duties, conceptions of justice, political legitimacy, and human flourishing that sought to realize human dignity, flourishing, or well-being entirely independent of human rights. These institutions and practices are alternative to, rather than different formulations of, one theory is that human rights were developed during the early Modern period, alongside the European secularization of Judeo-Christian ethics. The most commonly held view is that the concept of human rights evolved in the West, for example, McIntyre argues there is no word for right in any language before 1400. One of the oldest records of rights is the statute of Kalisz, giving privileges to the Jewish minority in the Kingdom of Poland such as protection from discrimination. Samuel Moyn suggests that the concept of rights is intertwined with the modern sense of citizenship. The earliest conceptualization of human rights is credited to ideas about natural rights emanating from natural law, in particular, the issue of universal rights was introduced by the examination of extending rights to indigenous peoples by Spanish clerics, such as Francisco de Vitoria and Bartolomé de Las Casas. In Britain in 1689, the English Bill of Rights and the Scottish Claim of Right each made illegal a range of oppressive governmental actions, additionally, the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 encoded into law a number of fundamental civil rights and civil freedoms. These were followed by developments in philosophy of human rights by philosophers such as Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, hegel during the 18th and 19th centuries. Although the term had been used by at least one author as early as 1742, in the 19th century, human rights became a central concern over the issue of slavery
18.
Freedom of the press
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Freedom of the press or freedom of the media through various mediums, such as electronic media and published materials. Wherever such freedom exists mostly implies the absence of interference from an overreaching state, with respect to governmental information, any government may distinguish which materials are public or protected from disclosure to the public. Many governments are subject to sunshine laws or freedom of information legislation that are used to define the ambit of national interest. This philosophy is usually accompanied by legislation ensuring various degrees of freedom of research, publishing. The depth to which laws are entrenched in a countrys legal system can go as far down as its constitution. The concept of freedom of speech is often covered by the laws as freedom of the press, thereby giving equal treatment to spoken. This idea was famously summarized by the 20th century American journalist, A. J. Liebling, Freedom of the press gives the printer or publisher exclusive control over what the publisher chooses to publish, including the right to refuse to print anything for any reason. If the author cannot reach a agreement with a publisher to produce the authors work. CPJ shares information on breaking cases with other press freedom organizations worldwide through the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, CPJ also tracks journalist deaths and detentions. CPJ staff applies strict criteria for each case, researchers independently investigate, so the concept of independence of the press is one closely linked with the concept of press freedom. Every year, Reporters Without Borders establishes a ranking of countries in terms of their freedom of the press, the survey asks questions about direct attacks on journalists and the media as well as other indirect sources of pressure against the free press, such as non-governmental groups. RWB is careful to note that the only deals with press freedom. In 2016, the countries where press was the most free were Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and New Zealand, followed by Costa Rica, Switzerland, Sweden, Ireland and Jamaica. The country with the least degree of freedom was Eritrea, followed by North Korea, Turkmenistan, Syria, China, Vietnam. The problem with media in India, the worlds largest democracy, is enormous, India doesnt have a model for a democratic press. The report written by Ravi S Jha says Indian journalism, with its lack of freedom and self-regulation, cannot be trusted now—it is currently known for manipulation, levels of freedom are scored on a scale from 1 to 100. Depending on the basics, the nations are then classified as Free, Partly Free, in 2009 Iceland, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Sweden topped the list with North Korea, Turkmenistan, Myanmar, Libya, Eritrea at the bottom. According to Reporters Without Borders, more than a third of the people live in countries where there is no press freedom
19.
Helsinki
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Helsinki is the capital and largest city of Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland. Helsinki has a population of 629,512, a population of 1,231,595. Helsinki is located some 80 kilometres north of Tallinn, Estonia,400 km east of Stockholm, Sweden, Helsinki has close historical connections with these three cities. The Helsinki metropolitan area includes the core of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Kauniainen. It is the worlds northernmost metro area of one million people. The Helsinki metropolitan area is the fourth largest metropolitan area in the Nordic countries, Helsinki is Finlands major political, educational, financial, cultural, and research center as well as one of northern Europes major cities. Approximately 75% of foreign companies operating in Finland have settled in the Helsinki region, the nearby municipality of Vantaa is the location of Helsinki Airport, with frequent service to various destinations in Europe and Asia. In 2009, Helsinki was chosen to be the World Design Capital for 2012 by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, the city was the venue for the 1952 Summer Olympics and the 52nd Eurovision Song Contest 2007. In 2011, the Monocle magazine ranked Helsinki the most liveable city in the world in its Liveable Cities Index 2011, in the Economist Intelligence Units August 2015 Liveability survey, assessing the best and worst cities to live in globally, Helsinki placed among the worlds top ten cities. Helsinki is used to refer to the city in most languages, the Swedish name Helsingfors is the original official name of the city. The Finnish name probably comes from Helsinga and similar names used for the river that is known as the Vantaa River. Helsingfors comes from the name of the parish, Helsinge and the rapids, which flowed through the original village. As part of the Grand Duchy of Finland in the Russian Empire, one suggestion for the origin of the name Helsinge is that it originated with medieval Swedish settlers who came from Hälsingland in Sweden. Others have proposed that the name derives from the Swedish word helsing, other Scandinavian cities located at similar geographic locations were given similar names at the time, for example Helsingør and Helsingborg. The name Helsinki has been used in Finnish official documents and in Finnish language newspapers since 1819, the decrees issued in Helsinki were dated with Helsinki as the place of issue. This is how the form Helsinki came to be used in written Finnish, in Helsinki slang the city is called Stadi. Hesa, is not used by natives to the city, helsset is the Northern Sami name of Helsinki
20.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
21.
Asia
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Asia covers an area of 44,579,000 square kilometres, about 30% of Earths total land area and 8. 7% of the Earths total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Asia is notable for not only its large size and population. In general terms, Asia is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean, the western boundary with Europe is a historical and cultural construct, as there is no clear physical and geographical separation between them. The most commonly accepted boundaries place Asia to the east of the Suez Canal, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains, China and India alternated in being the largest economies in the world from 1 to 1800 A. D. The accidental discovery of America by Columbus in search for India demonstrates this deep fascination, the Silk Road became the main East-West trading route in the Asian hitherland while the Straits of Malacca stood as a major sea route. Asia has exhibited economic dynamism as well as robust population growth during the 20th century, given its size and diversity, the concept of Asia—a name dating back to classical antiquity—may actually have more to do with human geography than physical geography. Asia varies greatly across and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties, the boundary between Asia and Africa is the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez, and the Suez Canal. This makes Egypt a transcontinental country, with the Sinai peninsula in Asia, the border between Asia and Europe was historically defined by European academics. In Sweden, five years after Peters death, in 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published a new atlas proposing the Urals as the border of Asia, the Russians were enthusiastic about the concept, which allowed them to keep their European identity in geography. Tatishchev announced that he had proposed the idea to von Strahlenberg, the latter had suggested the Emba River as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until the Ural River prevailed in the mid-19th century, the border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects. The border between the Black Sea and the Caspian is usually placed along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, the border between Asia and the loosely defined region of Oceania is usually placed somewhere in the Malay Archipelago. The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several different geographic meanings since their inception. The chief factor in determining which islands of the Malay Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the possessions of the various empires there. Lewis and Wigen assert, The narrowing of Southeast Asia to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process, Asia is larger and more culturally diverse than Europe. It does not exactly correspond to the borders of its various types of constituents. From the time of Herodotus a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system on the grounds there is no or is no substantial physical separation between them
22.
Northern America
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Northern America is the northernmost subcontinent of North America. It lies directly north of the region of Middle America, consisting of Mexico, the Caribbean, the land border between the two regions coincides with the border between the United States and Mexico. Geopolitically, according to the scheme of geographic regions and subregions, Northern America consists of Bermuda, Canada, Greenland, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, maps using the term Northern America date back to 1755, when the region was occupied by France, Great Britain, and Spain. The Solemn Act of the Declaration of Independence of Northern America in 1813 applied to Mexico, Central America Middle America Americas Anglo-America
23.
Northern Hemisphere
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The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined as being in the celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the solar system as Earths North pole. Due to the Earths axial tilt, winter in the Northern Hemisphere lasts from the December solstice to the March Equinox, the dates vary each year due to the difference between the calendar year and the astronomical year. Its surface is 60. 7% water, compared with 80. 9% water in the case of the Southern Hemisphere, the Arctic is the region north of the Arctic Circle. Its climate is characterized by cold winters and cool summers, precipitation mostly comes in the form of snow. The Arctic experiences some days in summer when the Sun never sets, the duration of these phases varies from one day for locations right on the Arctic Circle to several months near the North Pole, which is the middle of the Northern Hemisphere. Between the Arctic Circle and the Tropic of Cancer lies the Northern Temperate Zone, the changes in these regions between summer and winter are generally mild, rather than extreme hot or cold. However, a temperate climate can have very unpredictable weather, tropical regions are generally hot all year round and tend to experience a rainy season during the summer months, and a dry season during the winter months. In the Northern Hemisphere, objects moving across or above the surface of the Earth tend to turn to the right because of the coriolis effect, as a result, large-scale horizontal flows of air or water tend to form clockwise-turning gyres. These are best seen in circulation patterns in the North Atlantic. For the same reason, flows of air down toward the surface of the Earth tend to spread across the surface in a clockwise pattern. Thus, clockwise air circulation is characteristic of high pressure weather cells in the Northern Hemisphere, conversely, air rising from the northern surface of the Earth tends to draw air toward it in a counterclockwise pattern. Hurricanes and tropical storms spin counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, the shadow of a sundial moves clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. When viewed from the Northern Hemisphere, the Moon appears inverted compared to a view from the Southern Hemisphere, the North Pole faces away from the galactic center of the Milky Way. The Northern Hemisphere is home to approximately 6.57 billion people which is around 90% of the total human population of 7.3 billion people
24.
Cold War
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The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and powers in the Western Bloc. Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but a common timeframe is the period between 1947, the year the Truman Doctrine was announced, and 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed. The term cold is used there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, although there were major regional wars, known as proxy wars, supported by the two sides. The Cold War split the temporary alliance against Nazi Germany, leaving the Soviet Union. The USSR was a Marxist–Leninist state ruled by its Communist Party and secret police, the Party controlled the press, the military, the economy and all organizations. In opposition stood the West, dominantly democratic and capitalist with a free press, a small neutral bloc arose with the Non-Aligned Movement, it sought good relations with both sides. The two superpowers never engaged directly in full-scale armed combat, but they were armed in preparation for a possible all-out nuclear world war. The first phase of the Cold War began in the first two years after the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Berlin Blockade was the first major crisis of the Cold War. With the victory of the communist side in the Chinese Civil War and the outbreak of the Korean War, the USSR and USA competed for influence in Latin America, and the decolonizing states of Africa and Asia. Meanwhile, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was stopped by the Soviets, the expansion and escalation sparked more crises, such as the Suez Crisis, the Berlin Crisis of 1961, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The USSR crushed the 1968 Prague Spring liberalization program in Czechoslovakia, détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979. The early 1980s were another period of elevated tension, with the Soviet downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, the United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the communist state was already suffering from economic stagnation. In the mid-1980s, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the reforms of perestroika and glasnost. Pressures for national independence grew stronger in Eastern Europe, especially Poland, Gorbachev meanwhile refused to use Soviet troops to bolster the faltering Warsaw Pact regimes as had occurred in the past. The result in 1989 was a wave of revolutions that peacefully overthrew all of the communist regimes of Central, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control and was banned following an abortive coup attempt in August 1991. This in turn led to the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. The United States remained as the only superpower. The Cold War and its events have left a significant legacy and it is often referred to in popular culture, especially in media featuring themes of espionage and the threat of nuclear warfare
25.
Helmut Schmidt
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Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt was a German statesman and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, who served as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1974 to 1982. Before becoming Chancellor, he had served as Minister of Defence, in the latter role he gained credit for his financial policies. He had also served briefly as Minister of Economics and as acting Foreign Minister, as Chancellor, he focused on international affairs, seeking political unification of Europe in partnership with the United States. He was a diplomat who sought European co-operation and international economic co-ordination. He was re-elected chancellor in 1976 and 1980, but his coalition fell apart in 1982 with the switch by his coalition allies and he retired from Parliament in 1986, after clashing with the SPDs left wing, who opposed him on defence and economic issues. In 1986 he was a proponent of European monetary union. Helmut Schmidt was born as the eldest of two sons of teachers Ludovica Koch and Gustav Ludwig Schmidt in Barmbek, a rough working-class district of Hamburg, Schmidt studied at Hamburg Lichtwark School, graduating in 1937. This was confirmed publicly by Schmidt in 1984, after Valéry Giscard dEstaing revealed the fact to journalists, Schmidt himself was a non-practising Lutheran. Schmidt was a leader in the Hitler Youth organization until 1936. On 27 June 1942, he married his childhood sweetheart Hannelore Loki Glaser and they had two children, Helmut Walter, and Susanne, who works in London for Bloomberg Television. Schmidt resumed his education in Hamburg after the war, graduating in economics, Schmidt was conscripted into military service in 1937, and began serving with an anti-aircraft battery at Vegesack near Bremen during World War II. During his service in World War II, Schmidt was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class, toward the end of the war, from December 1944 onwards, he served as an Oberleutnant in the Flakartillery on the Western Front during the Battle of the Bulge and the Ardennes Offensive. He was captured by the British in April 1945 on Lüneburg Heath, Schmidt joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1946, and from 1947 to 1948 was the leader of the Socialist German Student League, the student organisation of the SPD. Upon graduating from the University of Hamburg, where he read economics, he worked for the government of the city-state of Hamburg, beginning in 1952, under Karl Schiller, he was a senior figure heading up the Behörde für Wirtschaft und Verkehr. He was elected to the Bundestag in 1953, and in 1957 he became a member of the SPD parliamentary party executive, a vocal critic of conservative government policy, his outspoken rhetoric in parliament earned him the nickname Schmidt-Schnauze. In 1958, he joined the board of the SPD, and campaigned against nuclear weapons. He alarmed some in his party by taking part in manoeuvres as a officer in the newly formed Bundeswehr. In 1962, he gave up his seat in parliament to concentrate on his tasks in Hamburg, the government of the city-state of Hamburg is known as the Senate of Hamburg, and from 1961 to 1965, Schmidt was the Innensenator, the senator of the interior
26.
Erich Honecker
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From 1976 onward he was also the countrys official head of state as chairman of the State Council following Willi Stophs relinquishment of the post. Honeckers political career began in the 1930s when he became an official of the Communist Party of Germany, a position for which he was imprisoned during the Nazi era. Following World War II, he was freed and soon relaunched his political activities, founding the organisation the Free German Youth in 1946. Honeckers eighteen years at the helm of the soon-to-collapse German Democratic Republic came to an end. However, the proceedings were abandoned due to illness and he was freed from custody to travel to join his family in exile in Chile, where he died in May 1994 from liver cancer. Honecker was born in Neunkirchen, in what is now Saarland, as the son of Wilhelm Honecker, a miner and political activist. The couple had six children together, Katharina, Wilhelm, Frieda, Erich, Gertrud, after World War I, the Territory of the Saar Basin was occupied by France. After his tenth birthday in 1922, Erich Honecker became a member of the Spartacus Leagues childrens group in Wiebelskirchen, aged 14 he entered the KJVD, the Young Communist League of Germany, for whom he later served the organisations leader of Saarland from 1931. Honecker did not find an apprenticeship immediately after leaving school, there, sharing a room with Anton Ackermann, he studied under the cover name Fritz Malter. In 1930, aged 18, Honecker entered the KPD, the Communist Party of Germany and his political mentor was Otto Niebergall, who later represented the KPD in the Reichstag. After returning from Moscow in 1931 following his studies at the International Lenin School, Honecker was arrested in Essen, Germany but soon released. Following this he fled to the Netherlands and from there oversaw KJVDs activities in Pfalz, Hesse and he returned to the Saar in 1934 and worked alongside Johannes Hoffmann on the campaign against the region’s re-incorporation into Germany. A referendum on the future in January 1935 however saw 90. 73% vote in favour of reunifying with Germany. Like 4,000 to 8,000 others, Honecker then fled the region, on 28 August 1935 he illegally travelled to Berlin under the alias Marten Tjaden, with a printing press in his luggage. From there he worked together with the KPD official Herbert Wehner – later to become an SPD member - in opposition/resistance to the Nazi state. On 4 December 1935 Honecker was detained by the Gestapo and until 1937 remanded in Berlin’s Moabit detention centre, on 3 July 1937 he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment for the preparation of high treason alongside the severe falsification of documents. Honecker spent the majority of his incarceration in the Brandenburg-Görden Prison, in early 1945 he was moved to the Barnimstraße Women’s Prison in Berlin due to good behaviour and, as a trained roofer, in order to be put to work repairing the bomb-damaged building. During an Allied bombing raid on 6 March 1945 he managed to escape and hid himself at the apartment of Lotte Grund, after several days she persuaded him to hand himself back in and the escape was then covered up by the guard
27.
Gerald Ford
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Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. was an American politician who served as the 38th President of the United States from 1974 to 1977, following the resignation of Richard Nixon. Prior to this he served eight months as the 40th Vice President of the United States, before his appointment to the vice presidency, Ford served 25 years as U. S. Representative from Michigans 5th congressional district, the nine of them as the House Minority Leader. As President, Ford signed the Helsinki Accords, marking a move toward détente in the Cold War, with the conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam nine months into his presidency, U. S. involvement in Vietnam essentially ended. Domestically, Ford presided over the worst economy in the four decades since the Great Depression, with growing inflation, one of his most controversial acts was to grant a presidential pardon to President Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal. During Fords presidency, foreign policy was characterized in procedural terms by the increased role Congress began to play, in the Republican presidential primary campaign of 1976, Ford defeated former California Governor Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination. Arthur not to be elected in his own right, following his years as President, Ford remained active in the Republican Party. After experiencing health problems, he died at home on December 26,2006, Ford lived longer than any other U. S. president –93 years and 165 days – while his 895-day presidency was the shortest of all presidents who did not die in office. Gerald Rudolph Ford was born Leslie Lynch King Jr. on July 14,1913, at 3202 Woolworth Avenue in Omaha, Nebraska, where his parents lived with his paternal grandparents. His mother was Dorothy Ayer Gardner and his father was Leslie Lynch King Sr. a wool trader, Dorothy separated from King just sixteen days after her sons birth. She took her son with her to the Oak Park, Illinois, home of her sister Tannisse and brother-in-law, from there, she moved to the home of her parents, Levi Addison Gardner and Adele Augusta Ayer, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Dorothy and King divorced in December 1913, she gained custody of her son. Fords paternal grandfather Charles Henry King paid child support until shortly before his death in 1930, Ford later said his biological father had a history of hitting his mother. James M. Ford later told confidantes that his father had first hit his mother on their honeymoon for smiling at another man. After two and a half years with her parents, on February 1,1916, Dorothy married Gerald Rudolff Ford and they then called her son Gerald Rudolff Ford, Jr. The future president was never adopted, and did not legally change his name until December 3,1935. He was raised in Grand Rapids with his three half-brothers from his mothers marriage, Thomas Gardner Tom Ford, Richard Addison Dick Ford. Ford also had three half-siblings from the marriage of Leslie King, Sr. his biological father, Marjorie King, Leslie Henry King
28.
Bruno Kreisky
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Bruno Kreisky was an Austrian politician who served as Foreign Minister from 1959 to 1966 and as Chancellor from 1970 to 1983. He is considered perhaps Austrias most successful Socialist leader, and a figure who parlayed a small countrys neutrality into a moral and political role on the world stage. Aged 72 at the end of his chancellorship, he was the oldest acting Chancellor after World War II, Kreisky was born in Margareten, a district of Vienna, to a non-observant Jewish family. His parents were Max Kreisky and Irene Felix Kreisky and his father worked as a textile manufacturer. Shocked by the level of poverty and violence in Austria during the 1920s, in 1927, he joined the Young Socialist Workers against the wishes of his parents. In 1929, he began studying law at the University of Vienna at the advice of Otto Bauer and he remained politically active during this period. In 1931, he left the Jewish religious community, becoming agnostic, in 1934, when the Socialist Party was banned by the Dollfuss dictatorship, he became active in underground political work. He was arrested in January 1935 and convicted of high treason, in 1942, he married Vera Fürth. He returned to Austria in May 1946, but he was back in Stockholm. In 1951 he returned to Vienna, where Federal President Theodor Körner appointed him Assistant Chief of Staff, in 1953 he was appointed Undersecretary in the Foreign Affairs Department of the Austrian Chancellery. In this position he took part in negotiating the 1955 Austrian State Treaty, Kreisky was elected to the Austrian parliament, the Nationalrat as a Socialist during the 1956 election. He was elected to the Party Executive along with Bruno Pittermann, Felix Slavik, and Franz Olah, after the 1959 election, he became Foreign Minister in the coalition cabinet of Chancellor Julius Raab, a post he continued to hold under Raabs successors Alfons Gorbach and Josef Klaus. He played a role in setting up the European Free Trade Association, helped solve the South Tyrol question with Italy. In 1966, the ÖVP under Klaus won a majority in the Nationalrat. However, talks between Klaus and Kreisky broke down, Kreisky resigned from cabinet, and the ÖVP formed the first one-party government of the Second Republic. However, the Socialists were not completely out of power. In February 1967, Kreisky was elected chairman of the Socialist Party, at the March 1970 elections, the Socialists won a plurality of seats, and Kreisky became Chancellor of the first purely left-wing government in modern Austrian history. He was the first Jewish Chancellor of Austria, Kreiskys government was tolerated by the national-liberal Freedom Party of Austria in return for electoral reforms that were intended to give smaller parties a greater voice
29.
Dipoli
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Dipoli is a conference center located in Espoo, Finland as a part of the Otaniemi campus of the Aalto University. It was designed by architects Reima and Raili Pietilä and completed in 1966, the name of the building is a pun, it can mean dipole in Finnish, but also the second Poly, the second building of the polytechnic students. The original Polytechnic Students Union, now called the Old Poly, was a National Romantic building located on Lönnrotinkatu in Helsinki that was left behind when the university moved to Otaniemi. Due to the challenging rocky location and adaptability requirements none of the competition entries fulfilled all the jurys demands, the second prize was shared by the architect couple Reima and Raili Pietilä and Osmo Lappo who were asked to further develop their proposals. In the end the 1961 design by Pietiläs was used as the basis for the design of the Dipoli building, work began in 1965, and the building was ready for use in autumn 1966. In 1993 the building was transformed into a centre of the university due to high maintenance costs. Besides its primary role, Dipoli is still used for conventions, congresses. The building houses over 20 conference rooms and auditoriums, Dipoli was owned by the student union of Aalto University until 2013 when it was announced that the building would be sold to the university itself for an undisclosed sum. The building is currently under extensive renovations which will turn it into Aalto Universitys main building by late 2016, the building uses extensively materials from Finnish nature, such as pine wood, copper, and natural rocks. Dipoli has 500 windows of which four are identical. The architects originally planned for as little interference with the granite of the site as possible. The building is seen as a key example of organic architecture, Reima Pietilä himself said of the building, As in Samuel Becketts novels, there are no exposed trenchmarks of balance. The concept of a balance of composition is redundant in the design aesthetics of Dipoli. After the hill top was blasted the broken heaps of rocj gave an image which one could follow with the slow. The reptilian metaphoric image, the silhouetted dinosaur accentuating the rhythmic consistency of retardation
30.
Espoo
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Espoo is the second largest city and municipality in Finland. The population of the city of Espoo was 269,802 as of 1 January 2016. It is part of the Finnish Capital Region, and most of its population lives in the urban core of the Helsinki metropolitan area, along with the cities of Helsinki, Vantaa. Espoo shares its border with Helsinki and Vantaa, while enclosing Kauniainen. The city is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, other bordering municipalities of Espoo are Nurmijärvi and Vihti in the north, and Kirkkonummi in the west. The national park of Nuuksio is situated in northwestern Espoo, Espoo encompasses 312 square kilometres, of which 312 km2 is land. Espoo has several regional centers. Espoo is thus divided into seven areas, Vanha-Espoo, Suur-Espoonlahti, Pohjois-Espoo, Suur-Kauklahti, Suur-Leppävaara, Suur-Matinkylä. Aalto University is based in Otaniemi, Espoo, along with a thriving community that includes numerous startups. The city of Espoo is officially bilingual, the majority of the population,83. 6%, speaks Finnish as their mother tongue, while a minority of 8. 3% speaks Swedish. 8% of Espoos population has a first language other than Finnish or Swedish, the name was first mentioned in 1431. The banks of the River Espoo are even today heavily populated with aspen, the first inhabitants in the area arrived about 9,000 years ago. Physical evidence indicates agriculture from ca.1000 AD, but there are no historical records, up to the 13th century, the area was a borderland between the hunting grounds of Finnish Proper and Tavastian Finns, with a sparse population. Immigrants from Sweden established permanent agricultural settlements during the 12th and 13th centuries, Espoo was a subdivision of the Kirkkonummi congregation until 1486-7. The oldest known document referring to Kirkkonummi is from 1330, Espoo as a subchapter has been dated to the 1380s, the construction of the Espoo Cathedral, the oldest preserved building in Espoo, marks the independence of Espoo. Administratively, Espoo was a part of Uusimaa, when the province was split to Eastern and Western provinces governed from the Porvoo and Raasepori castles, respectively, the eastern border of the Raasepori province was in Espoo. The 13th century road connecting the most important cities in Finland at that time, in 1557, King Gustaf Wasa decided to stabilize and develop the region by founding a royal mansion in Espoo. The government bought the villages of Espåby and Mankby and transferred the population elsewhere, the royal mansion housed the kings local plenipotentiary, and collected royal tax in kind paid by labor on the mansions farm
31.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
32.
Communism
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Communism includes a variety of schools of thought, which broadly include Marxism, anarchism, and the political ideologies grouped around both. The primary element which will enable this transformation, according to analysis, is the social ownership of the means of production. Likewise, some communists defend both theory and practice, while others argue that historical practice diverged from communist principles to a greater or lesser degree, according to Richard Pipes, the idea of a classless, egalitarian society first emerged in Ancient Greece. At one time or another, various small communist communities existed, in the medieval Christian church, for example, some monastic communities and religious orders shared their land and their other property. Communist thought has also traced back to the works of the 16th-century English writer Thomas More. In his treatise Utopia, More portrayed a society based on ownership of property. In the 17th century, communist thought surfaced again in England, criticism of the idea of private property continued into the Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century, through such thinkers as Jean Jacques Rousseau in France. Later, following the upheaval of the French Revolution, communism emerged as a political doctrine, in the early 19th century, Various social reformers founded communities based on common ownership. But unlike many previous communist communities, they replaced the emphasis with a rational. Notable among them were Robert Owen, who founded New Harmony in Indiana, in its modern form, communism grew out of the socialist movement in 19th-century Europe. As the Industrial Revolution advanced, socialist critics blamed capitalism for the misery of the new class of urban factory workers who labored under often-hazardous conditions. Foremost among these critics were Marx and his associate Friedrich Engels, in 1848, Marx and Engels offered a new definition of communism and popularized the term in their famous pamphlet The Communist Manifesto. The 1917 October Revolution in Russia set the conditions for the rise to power of Lenins Bolsheviks. The revolution transferred power to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, in which the Bolsheviks had a majority, the event generated a great deal of practical and theoretical debate within the Marxist movement. Marx predicted that socialism and communism would be built upon foundations laid by the most advanced capitalist development, Russia, however, was one of the poorest countries in Europe with an enormous, largely illiterate peasantry and a minority of industrial workers. Marx had explicitly stated that Russia might be able to skip the stage of bourgeois rule, the moderate Mensheviks opposed Lenins Bolshevik plan for socialist revolution before capitalism was more fully developed. The Great Purge of 1937–1938 was Stalins attempt to destroy any possible opposition within the Communist Party and its leading role in the Second World War saw the emergence of the Soviet Union as a superpower, with strong influence over Eastern Europe and parts of Asia. The European and Japanese empires were shattered and Communist parties played a role in many independence movements
33.
Eastern Europe
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Eastern Europe, also known as East Europe, is the eastern part of the European continent. There is no consensus on the area it covers, partly because the term has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, cultural. There are almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region, a related United Nations paper adds that every assessment of spatial identities is essentially a social and cultural construct. One definition describes Eastern Europe as an entity, the region lying in Europe with main characteristics consisting in Byzantine, Orthodox. Another definition was created during the Cold War and used more or less synonymously with the term Eastern Bloc, a similar definition names the formerly communist European states outside the Soviet Union as Eastern Europe. Historians and social scientists generally view such definitions as outdated or relegating, several definitions of Eastern Europe exist today, but they often lack precision or are extremely general. These definitions vary both across cultures and among experts, even scientists, recently becoming more and more imprecise. The Ural Mountains, Ural River, and the Caucasus Mountains are the land border of the eastern edge of Europe. Eurovoc, a multilingual thesaurus maintained by the Publications Office of the European Union, provides entries for 23 EU languages, of these, those in italics are classified as Eastern Europe in this source. Other official web-pages of the European Union classify some of the countries as strictly Central European. The East–West Schism is the break of communion and theology between what are now the Eastern and Western churches which began in the 11th century and lasts until this very day and it divided Christianity in Europe, and consequently the world, into Western Christianity and Eastern Christianity. Since the Great Schism of 1054, Europe has been divided between Roman Catholic and Protestant churches in the West, and the Eastern Orthodox Christian churches in the east, due to this religious cleavage, Eastern Orthodox countries are often associated with Eastern Europe. A cleavage of this sort is, however, often problematic, for example, Greece is overwhelmingly Orthodox, the fall of the Iron Curtain brought the end of the East–West division in Europe, but this geopolitical concept is sometimes still used for quick reference by the media. The Baltic states have seats in the Nordic Council as observer states and they also are members of the Nordic-Baltic Eight whereas Eastern European countries formed their own alliance called the Visegrád Group. Estonia Latvia Lithuania The Caucasus nations may be included in the definitions of Eastern Europe, the extent of their geographic or political affiliation with Europe varies by country and source. All three states are members of the European Unions Eastern Partnership program and the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, on 12 January 2002, the European Parliament noted that Armenia and Georgia may enter the EU in the future. Georgia — in modern geography, Georgia has been classified as part of Eastern Europe. Under the European Union’s geographic criteria, Georgia is viewed as part of Eastern Europe and is the only Caucasus country to be actively seeking EU membership and it is a member of Council of Europe and Eurocontrol
34.
President of Finland
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The President of the Republic of Finland is the nations head of state. Under the Finnish constitution, executive power is vested in the president, the president is elected directly by the people of Finland for a term of six years. Since 1991, no president may be elected for more than two consecutive terms, the president must be a native-born Finnish citizen. The office was established by the Constitution Act of 1919, the current office-holder is Sauli Niinistö. Officially the head of state is known as the President of the Republic of Finland or, more often and this is in contrast to the former presidents, who retain the title President. In other contexts, the term for president is puheenjohtaja – except for appeals courts. Candidates for president can be nominated by registered parties which have received at least one seat in the parliamentary election. A candidate may also be nominated by 20,000 enfranchised citizens, between 1919 and 1988, the president was elected indirectly by an electoral college made up of electors chosen by voters in the presidential election. Since 1994, the president has been elected by a popular vote. If only one candidate is nominated, he or she becomes president without an election, otherwise, the first round of balloting takes place on the third Sunday of January in the election year. If one of the candidates receives more than half of the votes cast, if no candidate wins a majority in the first stage, the top two candidates rerun in the second stage three weeks later. The candidate who receives more votes is elected. In the event of a tie, the election is resolved by lot, the Council of State confirms the outcome of the election and, if necessary, conducts the drawing of lots. The president assumes office on the first day of the following the election. There have been several presidential elections. The first president, Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg, was chosen by the Finnish parliament due to the rule of the constitution. In 1940 and 1943, the 1937 electoral college chose the president, as it was felt that an election could not be arranged due to the martial law. In 1944 special legislation directly stipulated that Marshal Mannerheim be elected president for six years after Risto Ryti had resigned mid-term, in 1946, special legislation empowered the Parliament to choose a successor for the remainder of Mannerheims term, the latter having resigned
35.
Urho Kekkonen
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Urho Kaleva Kekkonen was a Finnish politician who served as Prime Minister of Finland and later as the eighth and longest-serving President of Finland. The son of Juho Kekkonen and Emilia Pylvänäinen, Kekkonen was born in Pielavesi, in the Savo region of Finland and his father was originally a farm-hand and forestry worker who rose to become a forestry manager and stock agent at Halla Ltd. Claims made that Kekkonens family had lived in a farmhouse with no chimney were later proved to be false—a photograph of Kekkonens childhood home had been retouched to remove the chimney. His school years did not go smoothly, in independent Finland, Kekkonen first worked as a journalist in Kajaani then moved to Helsinki in 1921 to study law. While studying he worked for the security police EK between 1921 and 1927, where he acquainted with anti-communist policing. During this time he met his future wife, Sylvi Salome Uino. They had two sons, Matti and Taneli, Matti Kekkonen served as a Centre Party member of Parliament from 1958 to 1969. In 1927 Kekkonen became a lawyer and worked for the Association of Rural Municipalities until 1932 and he was also an athlete whose greatest achievement was to become Finnish high jump champion in 1924 with a jump of 1.85 metres. He was best at the standing jump, a nationalist at heart, Kekkonens ideological roots lay in the student politics of newly independent Finland and in the radicalism of the right-wing. According to Johannes Virolainen, a longtime Agrarian and Centrist politician, some Finnish right-wingers hated and mocked Kekkonen for the decision, Kekkonen chaired Suomalaisuuden Liitto, another nationalist organisation, from 1930 to 1932. In 1933, Kekkonen joined the Agrarian League and in the year also became a civil servant at the Ministry of Agriculture. During his time there Kekkonen made his first unsuccessful attempt at getting elected to the Finnish Parliament, Kekkonen successfully stood for parliament a second time in 1936 whereupon he became Justice Minister, serving from 1936 to 1937. During his term, he enacted the Tricks of Kekkonen, an attempt to ban the right-wing, in the end this effort was found illegal and halted by the Supreme Court. Kekkonen was also Minister of the Interior from 1937 to 1939 and he was not a member of the cabinets during the Winter War or the Continuation War. In March 1940, in a meeting of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Finnish Parliament, by that time, he had become one of the leading politicians within the so-called Peace opposition. In 1944, he again became Minister of Justice, serving until 1946, Kekkonen was a Deputy Speaker of the Parliament 1946–1947, and was Speaker from 1948 to 1950. In the 1950 Presidential election, Kekkonen was the candidate of the Finnish Agrarian Party, after the election, Paasikivi appointed Kekkonen Prime Minister where in all his five cabinets, he emphasised the need to maintain friendly relations with the Soviet Union. Known for his personality, he was ousted in 1953
36.
Western Europe
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Western Europe, or West Europe, is the region comprising the western part of Europe. Below, some different geographic and geopolitical definitions of the term are outlined, prior to the Roman conquest, a large part of Western Europe had adopted the newly developed La Tène culture. This cultural and linguistic division was reinforced by the later political east-west division of the Roman Empire. The division between these two was enhanced during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages by a number of events, the Western Roman Empire collapsed, starting the Early Middle Ages. By contrast, the Eastern Roman Empire, mostly known as the Greek or Byzantine Empire, survived, in East Asia, Western Europe was historically known as taixi in China and taisei in Japan, which literally translates as the Far West. The term Far West became synonymous with Western Europe in China during the Ming dynasty, the Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci was one of the first writers in China to use the Far West as an Asian counterpart to the European concept of the Far East. In his writings, Ricci referred to himself as Matteo of the Far West, the term was still in use in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Post-war Europe would be divided into two spheres, the West, influenced by the United States, and the Eastern Bloc. With the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain, behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Although some countries were neutral, they were classified according to the nature of their political. This division largely defined the popular perception and understanding of Western Europe, the world changed dramatically with the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. The Federal Republic of Germany peacefully absorbed the German Democratic Republic, COMECON and the Warsaw Pact were dissolved, and in 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Several countries which had part of the Soviet Union regained full independence. Although the term Western Europe was more prominent during the Cold War, it remains much in use, in 1948 the Treaty of Brussels was signed between Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. It was further revisited in 1954 at the Paris Conference, when the Western European Union was established and it was declared defunct in 2011, after the Treaty of Lisbon, and the Treaty of Brussels was terminated. When the Western European Union was dissolved, it had 10 member countries, six member countries, five observer countries. The CIA divides Western Europe into two smaller subregions, regional voting blocs were formed in 1961 to encourage voting to various UN bodies from different regional groups. The European Union is an economic and political union of 28 member states that are located primarily in Europe, some Western and Northern European countries of Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein are members of EFTA, though cooperating to varying degree with the European Union
37.
Eastern Bloc
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The Eastern Bloc was the group of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact. The terms Communist Bloc and Soviet Bloc were also used to denote groupings of states aligned with the Soviet Union, although these terms might include states outside Central and Eastern Europe. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who viewed the Soviet Union as a socialist island, Eastern Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Bessarabia in northern Romania were recognized as parts of the Soviet sphere of influence. Lithuania was added in a secret protocol in September 1939. During the Occupation of East Poland by the Soviet Union, the Soviets liquidated the Polish state, Soviet authorities immediately started a campaign of sovietization of the newly Soviet-annexed areas. Soviet authorities collectivized agriculture, and nationalized and redistributed private and state-owned Polish property, the international community condemned this initial annexation of the Baltic states and deemed it illegal. In June 1941, Germany broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact by invading the Soviet Union, from the time of this invasion to 1944, the areas annexed by the Soviet Union were part of Germanys Ostland. Thereafter, the Soviet Union began to push German forces westward through a series of battles on the Eastern Front, from 1943 to 1945, several conferences regarding Post-War Europe occurred that, in part, addressed the potential Soviet annexation and control of countries in Central Europe. I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask for nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he wont try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace. While meeting with Stalin and Roosevelt in Tehran in 1943, Churchill stated that Britain was vitally interested in restoring Poland as an independent country, Britain did not press the matter for fear that it would become a source of inter-allied friction. In February 1945, at the conference at Yalta, Stalin demanded a Soviet sphere of influence in Central Europe. Stalin eventually was convinced by Churchill and Roosevelt not to dismember Germany, after resistance by Churchill and Roosevelt, Stalin promised a re-organization of the current pro-Soviet government on a broader democratic basis in Poland. He stated that the new primary task would be to prepare elections. In addition to reparations, Stalin pushed for war booty, which would permit the Soviet Union to directly seize property from conquered nations without quantitative or qualitative limitation, a clause was added permitting this to occur with some limitations. At first, the Soviets concealed their role in other Eastern Bloc politics, as a young communist was told in East Germany, its got to look democratic, but we must have everything in our control. Moscow-trained cadres were put into crucial power positions to fulfill orders regarding sociopolitical transformation, elimination of the bourgeoisies social and financial power by expropriation of landed and industrial property was accorded absolute priority. These measures were publicly billed as reforms rather than socioeconomic transformations, the bloc system permitted the Soviet Union to exercise domestic control indirectly. Crucial departments such as responsible for personnel, general police, secret police
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Thomas Greminger
Angelino Alfano
Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir
Harlem Désir
Albania
Andorra
Armenia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Belgium
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bulgaria
Canada
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
Georgia
Germany
East Germany
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Latvia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macedonia[Note 2][8]
Malta
Moldova
Monaco
Mongolia
Montenegro
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia (as 
Soviet Union)
San Marino
Serbia (as 
FR Yugoslavia)
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Tajikistan
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Ukraine
United Kingdom
United States
Uzbekistan
Wilhelm Höynck (1993–1996)
Giancarlo Aragona (1996–1999)
Ján Kubiš (1999–2005)
Marc Perrin de Brichambaut (2005–2011)
Thomas Greminger (2017–)
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