Marriott International
Marriott International is an American multinational diversified hospitality company that manages and franchises a broad portfolio of hotels and related lodging facilities. Founded by J. Willard Marriott, the company is now led by his son, Executive Chairman Bill Marriott, President and Chief Executive Officer Arne Sorenson. Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, in the Washington, D. C. metropolitan area, Marriott International is the largest hotel chain in the world. It has more than 6,500 properties in 127 countries and territories around the world, over 1.2 million rooms, an additional 195,000 rooms in the development pipeline. In 2017, Marriott was ranked #33 on Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work For" list, its twentieth appearance on the list. Marriott was founded by John Willard Marriott in 1927 when he and his wife, Alice Sheets Marriott, opened a root beer stand in Washington, D. C; as a Latter-day Saint missionary in the humid summers in Washington, D. C. Marriott was convinced; the Marriotts expanded their enterprise into a chain of Hot Shoppes restaurants and the company went public in 1953 as Hot Shoppes, Inc.
The company opened its first hotel, the Twin Bridges Marriott Motor Hotel, in Arlington, Virginia, in 1957. Their second hotel, the Key Bridge Marriott in the Rosslyn neighborhood of the same city, is Marriott International’s longest continuously operating hotel, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2009, their son, J. W. Marriott, Jr. led the company to spectacular worldwide growth during his more than 50-year career. In March 2012, at age 80, he turned the CEO responsibilities over to Arne Sorenson, while he assumed the title of Executive Chairman. Hot Shoppes, Inc. was renamed the Marriott Corporation in 1967. The company opened two theme parks in 1976. One Marriott's Great America was located outside Chicago, the other Marriott's Great America was located outside San Francisco. Marriott sold both properties in 1984. Marriott International was formed in 1993 when the Marriott Corporation split into two companies, Marriott International and Host Marriott Corporation. In 1995, Marriott was the first hotel company worldwide to offer guests the option to book reservations online, via the company's implementation of MARSHA.
In April 1995, Marriott International acquired a 49% interest in Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company LLC. Marriott International believed that it could increase sales and profit margins for The Ritz-Carlton, a troubled chain with a significant number of properties either losing money or breaking even; the cost to Marriott assumed debt. The next year, Marriott spent $331 million to take over The Ritz-Carlton and buy a majority interest in two properties owned by William Johnson, a real estate developer who had purchased The Ritz-Carlton, Boston in 1983 and expanded his Ritz-Carlton holdings over the next twenty years; the Ritz-Carlton began expansion into the lucrative timeshare market and undertook other new initiatives made financially possible by the deep pockets of Marriott, which lent its own in-house expertise in certain areas. There were other benefits for Ritz-Carlton flowing from its relationship with Marriott, such as being able to take advantage of the parent company's reservation system and buying power.
The partnership was solidified in 1998 when Marriott acquired a majority ownership of The Ritz-Carlton. Today, there are 91 Ritz-Carlton properties around the world; the Marriott World Trade Center was destroyed during the attacks. In 2002 Marriott International began a major restructuring by spinning off many Senior Living Services Communities and Marriott Distribution Services, so that it could focus on hotel ownership and management; the changes were completed in 2003. Marriott International owned Ramada International Hotels & Resorts until its sale on September 15, 2004 to Cendant. In 2005, Marriott International and Marriott Vacation Club International comprised two of the 53 entities that contributed the maximum of $250,000 to the second inauguration of President George W. Bush. On July 19, 2006, Marriott announced that all lodging buildings it operated in the United States and Canada would become non-smoking beginning September 2006. "The new policy includes all guest rooms, lounges, meeting rooms, public space and employee work areas."
There were bombings at the Islamabad Marriott in 2008 and at the Jakarta Marriott in 2009. On November 11, 2010, Marriott announced plans to add over 600 hotel properties by 2015; the bulk of the additions will be in emerging markets: India, where it plans to have 100 hotel properties and Southeast Asia. On January 21, 2011, Marriott said that pornography would not be included in the entertainment offered at new hotels, which will use an Internet-based video on demand system. On December 13, 2011, J. W. Marriott, Jr. announced he would be stepping down as CEO of the company, while assuming the role of executive chairman. It was announced that Arne Sorenson would be taking over as CEO as of March 2012. U. S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney released his 2011 federal income taxes on September 21, 2012, showing that he declared $260,390 in director's fees from Marriott International, despite the fact that news was released on January 13, 2011, that he had stepped down from the Marriott International board to run for president.
His released. In February 2012, Bloomberg reported on Romney's years overseeing tax matters for Marriott, which had included several "scams" (quoting S
Kuwait
Kuwait the State of Kuwait, is a country in Western Asia. Situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, it shares borders with Iraq and Saudi Arabia; as of 2016, Kuwait has a population of 4.5 million people: 1.3 million are Kuwaitis and 3.2 million are expatriates. Expatriates account for 70% of the population. Oil reserves were discovered in commercial quantities in 1938. From 1946 to 1982, the country underwent large-scale modernization. In the 1980s, Kuwait experienced a period of geopolitical instability and an economic crisis following the stock market crash. In 1990, Kuwait was invaded, annexed, by Saddam's Iraq; the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait came to an end in 1991 after military intervention by a military coalition led by the United States. Kuwait is a major non-NATO ally of the United States, it is a major ally of ASEAN, while maintaining a strong relationship with China. Kuwait is a constitutional sovereign state with a semi-democratic political system.
Kuwait has a high-income economy backed by the world's sixth largest oil reserves. The Kuwaiti dinar is the highest valued currency in the world. According to the World Bank, the country has the fourth highest per capita income; the Constitution was promulgated in 1962. Kuwait is home to the largest opera house in the Middle East; the Kuwait National Cultural District is a member of the Global Cultural Districts Network. In 1613, the town of Kuwait was founded in modern-day Kuwait City. Administratively, it was a sheikhdom, ruled by local sheikhs. In 1716, the Bani Utub settled in Kuwait, which at this time was inhabited by a few fishermen and functioned as a fishing village. In the eighteenth century, Kuwait prospered and became the principal commercial center for the transit of goods between India, Muscat and Arabia. By the mid 1700s, Kuwait had established itself as the major trading route from the Persian Gulf to Aleppo. During the Persian siege of Basra in 1775–79, Iraqi merchants took refuge in Kuwait and were instrumental in the expansion of Kuwait's boat-building and trading activities.
As a result, Kuwait's maritime commerce boomed, as the Indian trade routes with Baghdad, Aleppo and Constantinople were diverted to Kuwait during this time. The East India Company was diverted to Kuwait in 1792; the East India Company secured the sea routes between Kuwait and the east coasts of Africa. After the Persians withdrew from Basra in 1779, Kuwait continued to attract trade away from Basra. Kuwait was the center of boat building in the Persian Gulf region. During the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, vessels made in Kuwait carried the bulk of trade between the ports of India, East Africa and the Red Sea. Kuwaiti ships were renowned throughout the Indian Ocean. Regional geopolitical turbulence helped foster economic prosperity in Kuwait in the second half of the 18th century; the biggest catalyst for much of Kuwait becoming prosperous was due to Basra's instability in the late 18th century. In the late 18th century, Kuwait functioned as a haven for Basra's merchants, who were fleeing Ottoman government persecution.
Kuwaitis developed a reputation as the best sailors in the Persian Gulf. In the 1890s, Kuwait began to feel threatened by the Ottoman empire. In a bid to address its security issues, the ruler, Sheikh Mubarak Al Sabah signed an agreement with the British government in India, subsequently known as the Anglo-Kuwaiti Agreement of 1899 and became a British protectorate; the Sheikhdom of Kuwait remained a British protectorate from 1899. Following the Kuwait–Najd War of 1919–20, Ibn Saud imposed a trade blockade against Kuwait from the years 1923 until 1937; the goal of the Saudi economic and military attacks on Kuwait was to annex as much of Kuwait's territory as possible. At the Uqair conference in 1922, the boundaries of Kuwait and Najd were set. Ibn Saud persuaded Sir Percy Cox to give him two-thirds of Kuwait's territory. More than half of Kuwait was lost due to Uqair. After the Uqair conference, Kuwait was still subjected to a Saudi economic blockade and intermittent Saudi raiding; the Great Depression harmed Kuwait's economy.
International trading was one of Kuwait's main sources of income before oil. Kuwaiti merchants were intermediary merchants; as a result of the decline of European demand for goods from India and Africa, Kuwait's economy suffered. The decline in international trade resulted in an increase in gold smuggling by Kuwaiti ships to India; some Kuwaiti merchant families became rich from this smuggling. Kuwait's pearl industry collapsed as a result of the worldwide economic depression. At its height, Kuwait's pearl industry had led the world's luxury market sending out between 750 and 800 ships to meet the European elite's desire for pearls. During the economic depression, luxuries like pearls were in little demand; the Japanese invention of cultured pearls contributed to the collapse of Kuwait's pearl industry. Historian Hanna Batatu explains how the British threatened to take the Kurdish area and Mosul out of Iraq provided that King Faisal granted Britain control of the oil in the region. In 1938 the Kuwaiti Legislative Council unanimously approved a request for Kuwait’s reintegration with Iraq.
A year an armed uprising which had raised the integration banner as its objective was put down by the British. With the end of the world war, increasing need for oil across the world, Kuwait experienced a period of prosperity driven by oil and its liberal atmosphere; the period
New York City
The City of New York called either New York City or New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2017 population of 8,622,698 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles, New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural and media capital of the world, exerts a significant impact upon commerce, research, education, tourism, art and sports; the city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.
Situated on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, each of, a separate county of the State of New York. The five boroughs – Brooklyn, Manhattan, The Bronx, Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898; the city and its metropolitan area constitute the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. New York City is home to more than 3.2 million residents born outside the United States, the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world. In 2017, the New York metropolitan area produced a gross metropolitan product of US$1.73 trillion. If greater New York City were a sovereign state, it would have the 12th highest GDP in the world. New York is home to the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world. New York City traces its origins to a trading post founded by colonists from the Dutch Republic in 1624 on Lower Manhattan.
The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790, it has been the country's largest city since 1790. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the U. S. by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is an international symbol of the U. S. and its ideals of liberty and peace. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance, environmental sustainability, as a symbol of freedom and cultural diversity. Many districts and landmarks in New York City are well known, with the city having three of the world's ten most visited tourist attractions in 2013 and receiving a record 62.8 million tourists in 2017. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world. Times Square, iconic as the world's "heart" and its "Crossroads", is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway Theater District, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, a major center of the world's entertainment industry.
The names of many of the city's landmarks and parks are known around the world. Manhattan's real estate market is among the most expensive in the world. New York is home to the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is the largest single-operator rapid transit system worldwide, with 472 rail stations. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, Rockefeller University, which have been ranked among the top universities in the world. Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York has been called both the most economically powerful city and the leading financial center of the world, the city is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. In 1664, the city was named in honor of the Duke of York.
James's older brother, King Charles II, had appointed the Duke proprietor of the former territory of New Netherland, including the city of New Amsterdam, which England had seized from the Dutch. During the Wisconsinan glaciation, 75,000 to 11,000 years ago, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth; the erosive forward movement of the ice contributed to the separation of what is now Long Island and Staten Island. That action left bedrock at a shallow depth, providing a solid foundation for most of Manhattan's skyscrapers. In the precolonial era, the area of present-day New York City was inhabited by Algonquian Native Americans, including the Lenape, whose homeland, known as Lenapehoking, included Staten Island; the first documented visit into New York Harbor by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown. He named it Nouvelle Angoulême. A Spanish expedition led by captain Estêvão Gomes, a Portuguese sailing for Emperor Charles V, arrived in New York Harbor in January 1525 and charted the mouth of the Hudson River, which he named Río de San Antonio.
The Padrón Rea
Caracas
Caracas Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, centre of the Greater Caracas Area. Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range. Terrain suitable for building lies between 760 and 1,140 m above sea level, although there is some settlement above this range; the valley is close to the Caribbean Sea, separated from the coast by a steep 2,200-metre-high mountain range, Cerro El Ávila. The Metropolitan Region of Caracas has an estimated population of 4,923,201. Speaking, the centre of the city is still "Catedral", located near Bolívar Square though it is assumed that it is Plaza Venezuela, located in the Los Caobos neighbourhood. Chacaíto area, Luis Brión Square and El Rosal neighborhood are considered the geographic center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas called "Greater Caracas". Businesses in the city include service companies and malls.
Caracas has a service-based economy, apart from some industrial activity in its metropolitan area. The Caracas Stock Exchange and Petróleos de Venezuela are headquartered in Caracas. PDVSA is the largest company in Venezuela. Caracas is Venezuela's cultural capital, with many restaurants, theaters and shopping centers; some of the tallest skyscrapers in Latin America are located in Caracas. Caracas has been considered one of the most important cultural, tourist and economic centers of Latin America; the Museum of Contemporary Art of Caracas is one of the most important in South America. The Museum of Fine Arts and the National Art Gallery of Caracas are noteworthy; the National Art Gallery is projected to be the largest museum in Latin America, according to its architect Carlos Gómez De Llarena. Caracas is home to two of the tallest skyscrapers in South America: the Parque Central Towers, it has a nominal GDP of 91,988 million dollars, a nominal GDP per capita of 18,992 and a PPP GDP per capita of 32,710 dollars.
Being the seventh city in GDP and the seventh metropolitan area in population of Latin America. Caracas has the highest per capita murder rate in the world, with 111.19 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. At the time of the founding of the city in 1567, the valley of Caracas was populated by indigenous peoples. Francisco Fajardo, the son of a Spanish captain and a Guaiqueri cacica, attempted to establish a plantation in the valley in 1562 after founding a series of coastal towns. Fajardo's settlement did not last long, it was destroyed by natives of the region led by Guaicaipuro. This was the last rebellion on the part of the natives. On 25 July 1567, Captain Diego de Losada laid the foundations of the city of Santiago de León de Caracas; the foundation − 1567 – "I take possession of this land in the name of God and the King" These were the words of Don Diego de Losada in founding the city of Caracas on 25 July 1567. In 1577, Caracas became the capital of the Spanish Empire's Venezuela Province under Governor Juan de Pimentel.
During the 17th century, the coast of Venezuela was raided by pirates. With the coastal mountains as a barrier, Caracas was immune to such attacks. However, in 1595, around 200 English privateers including George Sommers and Amyas Preston crossed the mountains through a little-used pass while the town's defenders were guarding the more often-used one. Encountering little resistance, the invaders sacked and set fire to the town after a failed ransom negotiation; as the cocoa cultivation and exports under the Compañía Guipuzcoana de Caracas grew in importance, the city expanded. In 1777, Caracas became the capital of the Captaincy General of Venezuela. José María España and Manuel Gual led an attempted revolution aimed at independence, but the rebellion was put down on 13 July 1797. Caracas was the site of the signing of a Declaration of independence on 17 August 1811. In 1812, an earthquake destroyed Caracas; the independentist war continued until 24 June 1821, when Bolívar defeated royalists in the Battle of Carabobo.
Caracas grew in economic importance during Venezuela's oil boom in the early 20th century. During the 1950s, Caracas began an intensive modernization program which continued throughout the 1960s and early 1970s; the Universidad Central de Venezuela, designed by modernist architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva and declared World Heritage by UNESCO, was built. New working- and middle-class residential districts sprouted in the valley, extending the urban area toward the east and southeast. Joining El Silencio designed by Villanueva, were several workers' housing districts, 23 de Enero and Simon Rodriguez. Middle-class developments include Bello Monte, Los Palos Grandes, El Cafetal; the dramatic change in the economic structure of the country, which went from being agricultural to dependent on oil production, stimulated the fast development of Caracas, made it a magnet for people in rural communities who migrated to the capital city in an unplanned fashion searching for greater economic opportunity. This migration created the rancho belt of the valley of Caracas.
The flag of Caracas consists of a burgundy red field with the version of the Coat of Arms of the City. The red field symbolises the blood spilt by Caraquenian people in favour of independence and the highest ideals of the Venezuelan Nation. In the year 1994 as a result of the change of municipal authorities, it was decided to increase the size of the Caracas coat of arms and move it to the centre of the field; this version
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange is an American stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street, Lower Manhattan, New York City, New York. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at US$30.1 trillion as of February 2018. The average daily trading value was US$169 billion in 2013; the NYSE trading floor is located at 11 Wall Street and is composed of 21 rooms used for the facilitation of trading. A fifth trading room, located at 30 Broad Street, was closed in February 2007; the main building and the 11 Wall Street building were designated National Historic Landmarks in 1978. The NYSE is owned by Intercontinental Exchange, an American holding company that it lists, it was part of NYSE Euronext, formed by the NYSE's 2007 merger with Euronext. The NYSE has been the subject of several lawsuits regarding fraud or breach of duty and in 2004 was sued by its former CEO for breach of contract and defamation; the earliest recorded organization of securities trading in New York among brokers directly dealing with each other can be traced to the Buttonwood Agreement.
Securities exchange had been intermediated by the auctioneers who conducted more mundane auctions of commodities such as wheat and tobacco. On May 17, 1792 twenty four brokers signed the Buttonwood Agreement which set a floor commission rate charged to clients and bound the signers to give preference to the other signers in securities sales; the earliest securities traded were governmental securities such as War Bonds from the Revolutionary War and First Bank of the United States stock, although Bank of New York stock was a non-governmental security traded in the early days. The Bank of North America along with the First Bank of the United States and the Bank of New York were the first shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1817 the stockbrokers of New York operating under the Buttonwood Agreement instituted new reforms and reorganized. After sending a delegation to Philadelphia to observe the organization of their board of brokers, restrictions on manipulative trading were adopted as well as formal organs of governance.
After re-forming as the New York Stock and Exchange Board the broker organization began renting out space for securities trading, taking place at the Tontine Coffee House. Several locations were used between 1865, when the present location was adopted; the invention of the electrical telegraph consolidated markets, New York's market rose to dominance over Philadelphia after weathering some market panics better than other alternatives. The Open Board of Stock Brokers was established in 1864 as a competitor to the NYSE. With 354 members, the Open Board of Stock Brokers rivaled the NYSE in membership "because it used a more modern, continuous trading system superior to the NYSE’s twice-daily call sessions." The Open Board of Stock Brokers merged with the NYSE in 1869. Robert Wright of Bloomberg writes that the merger increased the NYSE's members as well as trading volume, as "several dozen regional exchanges were competing with the NYSE for customers. Buyers and dealers all wanted to complete transactions as and cheaply as technologically possible and that meant finding the markets with the most trading, or the greatest liquidity in today’s parlance.
Minimizing competition was essential to keep a large number of orders flowing, the merger helped the NYSE to maintain its reputation for providing superior liquidity." The Civil War stimulated speculative securities trading in New York. By 1869 membership had to be capped, has been sporadically increased since; the latter half of the nineteenth century saw rapid growth in securities trading. Securities trade in the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was prone to panics and crashes. Government regulation of securities trading was seen as necessary, with arguably the most dramatic changes occurring in the 1930s after a major stock market crash precipitated the Great Depression; the Stock Exchange Luncheon Club was situated on the seventh floor from 1898 until its closure in 2006. The main building, located at 18 Broad Street, between the corners of Wall Street and Exchange Place, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978, as was the 11 Wall Street building; the NYSE announced its plans to merge with Archipelago on April 21, 2005, in a deal intended to reorganize the NYSE as a publicly traded company.
NYSE's governing board voted to merge with rival Archipelago on December 6, 2005, became a for-profit, public company. It began trading under the name NYSE Group on March 8, 2006. A little over one year on April 4, 2007, the NYSE Group completed its merger with Euronext, the European combined stock market, thus forming NYSE Euronext, the first transatlantic stock exchange. Wall Street is the leading US money center for international financial activities and the foremost US location for the conduct of wholesale financial services. "It comprises a matrix of wholesale financial sectors, financial markets, financial institutions, financial industry firms". The principal sectors are securities industry, commercial banking, asset management, insurance. Prior to the acquisition of NYSE Euronext by the ICE in 2013, Marsh Carter was the Chairman of the NYSE and the CEO was Duncan Niederauer. Presently, the chairman is Jeffrey Sprecher. In 2016, NYSE owner Intercontinental Exchange Inc. earned $419 million in listings-related revenues.
The exchange was closed shortly after the beginning of World War I, but it re-opened on November 28 of that year in order to help the war effort by trading bonds, reopened for stock tradin
Kuwait City
Kuwait City is the capital and largest city of Kuwait. Located at the heart of the country on the shore of the Persian Gulf, containing Kuwait's National Assembly, most governmental offices, the headquarters of most Kuwaiti corporations and banks, it is the indisputable political and economical centre of the emirate, it is considered a global city. Kuwait City's trade and transportation needs are served by Kuwait International Airport, Mina Al-Shuwaik and Mina Al Ahmadi. In 1613, the town of Kuwait was founded in modern-day Kuwait City. In 1716, the Bani Utubs settled in Kuwait. At the time of the arrival of the Utubs, Kuwait was inhabited by a few fishermen and functioned as a fishing village. In the eighteenth century, Kuwait prospered and became the principal commercial center for the transit of goods between India, Muscat and Arabia. By the mid 1700s, Kuwait had established itself as the major trading route from the Persian Gulf to Aleppo. During the Persian illegal siege of Basra in 1775–1779, Iraqi merchants took refuge in Kuwait and were instrumental in the expansion of Kuwait's boat-building and trading activities.
As a result, Kuwait's maritime commerce boomed. Between the years 1775 and 1779, the Indian trade routes with Baghdad, Aleppo and Constantinople were diverted to Kuwait; the East India Company was diverted to Kuwait in 1792. The East India Company secured the sea routes between Kuwait and the east coasts of Africa. After the Persian Magii withdrew from Basra in 1779, Kuwait continued to attract trade away from Basra. Kuwait was the center of boat building in the Persian Gulf region. During the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, ship vessels made in Kuwait carried the bulk of trade between the ports of India, East Africa and the Red Sea. Kuwaiti ship vessels were renowned throughout the Indian Ocean. Regional geopolitical turbulence helped foster economic prosperity in Kuwait in the second half of the 18th century. Kuwait became prosperous due to Basra's instability in the late 18th century. In the late 18th century, Kuwait functioned as a haven for Basra's merchants fleeing Ottoman government persecution.
According to Palgrave, Kuwaitis developed a reputation as the best sailors in the Persian Gulf. During the reign of Mubarak Al-Sabah, Kuwait was dubbed the "Marseilles of the Gulf" because its economic vitality attracted a large variety of people. In the first decades of the twentieth century, Kuwait had a well-established elite: wealthy trading families who were linked by marriage and shared economic interests; the elite were long-settled, urban and Shia families.the majority of which claim descent from the original 30 Bani Utubi families. The wealthiest families were trade merchants who acquired their wealth from long-distance commerce and pearling, they were a cosmopolitan elite, they traveled extensively to India and Europe. The elite educated their sons abroad more than other Gulf Arab elite. Western visitors noted that the Kuwaiti elite used European office systems and followed European culture with curiosity; the richest families were involved in general trade. The merchant families of Al-Ghanim and Al-Hamad were estimated to be worth millions before the 1940s.
In 1937, Freya Stark wrote about the extent of poverty in Kuwait at the time:Poverty has settled in Kuwait more since my last visit five years ago, both by sea, where the pearl trade continues to decline, by land, where the blockade established by Saudi Arabia now harms the merchants. Some prominent merchant families left Kuwait in the early 1930s due to the prevalence of economic hardship. At the time of the discovery of oil in 1937, most of Kuwait's inhabitants were impoverished. From 1946 to 1982, Kuwait experienced a period of prosperity driven by oil and its liberal atmosphere. In popular discourse, the years between 1946 and 1982 are referred to as the "Golden Era". In 1950, a major public-work programme began to enable Kuwaitis to enjoy a modern standard of living. By 1952, the country became the largest oil exporter in the Persian Gulf region; this massive growth attracted many foreign workers from Palestine and India. In June 1961, Kuwait became independent with the end of the British protectorate and the sheikh Abdullah Al-Salim Al-Sabah became an Emir.
Under the terms of the newly drafted constitution, Kuwait held its first parliamentary elections in 1963. Kuwait was the first Persian Gulf country to establish a parliament. In the 1960s and 1970s, Kuwait was the most developed country in the region. Kuwait was the pioneer in the Middle East in diversifying its earnings away from oil exports; the Kuwait Investment Authority is the world's first sovereign wealth fund. From the 1970s onward, Kuwait scored highest of all Arab countries on the Human Development Index. Kuwait University was established in 1966. Kuwait's theatre industry was well-known throughout the Arab world. In the 1960s and 1970s, Kuwait's press was described as one of the freest in the world. Kuwait was the pioneer in the literary renaissance in the Arab region. In 1958, Al Arabi magazine was first published, the magazine went on to become the most popular magazine in the Arab world. Many Arab writers moved to Kuwait for freedom of expression because Kuwait had greater freedom of expression than elsewhere in the Arab world.
Kuwait was a haven for journalists from all parts of the Middle East. The Iraqi poet Ahmed Matar left Iraq in the 1970s to take refuge in the more liberal environment of Kuwait. Kuwaiti society embraced Western attitudes throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Most Kuwaiti women did not wear the hijab in the 1970s. At Kuwait University, mini-skirts we
Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa is the capital and largest city of Ethiopia. According to the 2007 census, the city has a population of 2,739,551 inhabitants; as a chartered city, Addis Ababa has the status of a state. It is where the African Union is headquartered and where its predecessor the Organisation of African Unity was based, it hosts the headquarters of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, as well as various other continental and international organizations. Addis Ababa is therefore referred to as "the political capital of Africa" for its historical and political significance for the continent; the city lies a few miles west of the East African Rift. The city is populated by people from different regions of Ethiopia, it is home to Addis Ababa University. Entoto is one of a handful of sites put forward as a possible location for a medieval imperial capital known as Barara; this permanent fortified city was established during the early-to-mid 15th century, it served as the main residence of several successive emperors up to the early 16th-century reign of Lebna Dingel.
The city was depicted standing between Mounts Zikwala and Menegasha on a map drawn by the Italian cartographer Fra Mauro in around 1450, it was razed and plundered by Ahmed Gragn while the imperial army was trapped on the south of the Awash River in 1529, an event witnessed and documented two years by the Yemeni writer Arab-Faqih. The suggestion that Barara was located on Mount Entoto is supported by the recent discovery of a large medieval town overlooking Addis Ababa located between rock-hewn Washa Mikael and the more modern church of Entoto Maryam, founded in the late 19th century by Emperor Menelik. Dubbed the Pentagon, the 30-hectare site incorporates a castle with 12 towers, along with 520 meters of stone walls measuring up to 5-meter high; the site of Addis Ababa was chosen by Empress Taytu Betul and the city was founded in 1886 by Emperor Menelik II. Menelik, as a King of the Shewa province, had found Mount Entoto a useful base for military operations in the south of his realm, in 1879 he visited the reputed ruins of a medieval town and an unfinished rock church that showed proof of the medieval empire's capital in the area before the campaigns of Ahmad ibn Ibrihim.
His interest in the area grew when his wife Taytu began work on a church on Mount Entoto, Menelik endowed a second church in the area. However, the immediate area did not encourage the founding of a town for lack of firewood and water, so settlement began in the valley south of the mountain in 1886. Taytu built a house for herself near the "Filwoha" hot mineral springs, where she and members of the Showan Royal Court liked to take mineral baths. Other nobility and their staff and households settled in the vicinity, Menelik expanded his wife's house to become the Imperial Palace which remains the seat of government in Addis Ababa today; the name changed to Addis Ababa and became Ethiopia's capital when Menelik II became Emperor of Ethiopia. The town grew by bounds. One of Emperor Menelik's contributions that are still visible today is the planting of numerous eucalyptus trees along the city streets. Following all the major engagements of their invasion, Italian troops from the colony of Eritrea entered Addis Ababa on 5 May 1936.
Along with Dire Dawa, the city had been spared the aerial bombardment practiced elsewhere and its railway to Djibouti remained intact. After the occupation the city served as the Duke of Aosta's capital for unified Italian East Africa until 1941, when it was abandoned in favor of Amba Alagi and other redoubts during the Second World War's East African Campaign; the city was liberated by Major Orde Wingate and negus Haile Selassie for Ethiopian Gideon Force and Ethiopian resistance in time to permit Emperor Haile Selassie's return on 5 May 1941, five years to the day after he had left. Following reconstruction, Haile Selassie helped form the Organisation of African Unity in 1963 and invited the new organization to keep its headquarters in Addis Ababa; the OAU was dissolved in 2002 and replaced by the African Union, headquartered in the city. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa has its headquarters in Addis Ababa. Addis Ababa was the site of the Council of the Oriental Orthodox Churches in 1965.
Ethiopia has been called the original home of mankind because of various humanoid fossil discoveries like the Australopithecine Lucy. Northeastern Africa, the Afar region in particular, was the central focus of these claims until recent DNA evidence suggested origins in south central Ethiopian regions like present-day Addis Ababa. After analysing the DNA of 1,000 people around the world and other scientists claimed people spread from what is now Addis Ababa 100,000 years ago; the research indicated that genetic diversity decreases the farther one's ancestors traveled from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Addis Ababa lies at an elevation of 2,200 metres and is a grassland biome, located at 9°1′48″N 38°44′24″E; the city forms part of the watershed for the Awash. From its lowest point, around Bole International Airport, at 2,326 metres above sea level in the southern periphery, Addis Ababa rises to over 3,000 metres in the Entoto Mountains to the north; the city is divided into 10 boroughs, called subcities, 99 wards.
The 10 subc
