1.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
2.
North Korea
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North Korea, officially the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, is a country in East Asia, constituting the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. Pyongyang is both the capital as well as its largest city. To the north and northwest the country is bordered by China and by Russia along the Amnok, the country is bordered to the south by South Korea, with the heavily fortified Korean Demilitarized Zone separating the two. Negotiations on reunification failed, and in 1948 two separate governments were formed, the communist Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea in the north, an invasion initiated by North Korea led to the Korean War. The Korean Armistice Agreement brought about a ceasefire, and no peace treaty was ever signed. North Korea officially describes itself as a self-reliant socialist state and formally holds elections, critics regard it as a totalitarian dictatorship. Various outlets have called it Stalinist, particularly noting the elaborate cult of personality around Kim Il-sung, International organizations have assessed human rights violations in North Korea as belonging to a category of their own, with no parallel in the contemporary world. Over time, North Korea has gradually distanced itself from the world communist movement, Juche, an ideology of national self-reliance, was introduced into the constitution as a creative application of Marxism–Leninism in 1972. The means of production are owned by the state through state-run enterprises, most services such as healthcare, education, housing and food production are subsidized or state-funded. From 1994 to 1998, North Korea suffered from a famine that resulted in the deaths of between 0.24 and 3.5 million people, and the continues to struggle with food production. North Korea follows Songun, or military-first policy and it is the country with the highest number of military and paramilitary personnel, with a total of 9,495,000 active, reserve, and paramilitary personnel. Its active duty army of 1.21 million is the fourth largest in the world, after China, North Korea is an atheist state with no official religion and where public religion is discouraged. The name Korea derives from the name Goryeo, the name Goryeo itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in the 5th century as a shortened form of its name. The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, and thus inherited its name, the modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Companys Hendrick Hamel. After the division of the country into North and South Korea, the two sides used different terms to refer to Korea, Chosun or Joseon in North Korea, in 1948, North Korea adopted Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea as its new legal name. After the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, Korea was occupied by Japan, Japan tried to suppress Korean traditions and culture and ran the economy primarily for its own benefit. Korean resistance groups known as Dongnipgun operated along the Sino-Korean border, some of them took part in allied action in China and parts of South East Asia. One of the leaders was the communist Kim Il-sung, who later became the leader of North Korea
3.
Qing dynasty
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It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the base for the modern Chinese state. The dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, in the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, originally a Ming vassal, began organizing Banners, military-social units that included Jurchen, Han Chinese, and Mongol elements. Nurhaci formed the Jurchen clans into an entity, which he renamed as the Manchus. By 1636, his son Hong Taiji began driving Ming forces out of Liaodong and declared a new dynasty, in 1644, peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing. The Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong Emperor from the 1750s to the 1790s extended Qing control into Central Asia, the early rulers maintained their Manchu ways, and while their title was Emperor, they used khan to the Mongols and they were patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. They governed using Confucian styles and institutions of government and retained the imperial examinations to recruit Han Chinese to work under or in parallel with Manchus. They also adapted the ideals of the system in dealing with neighboring territories. The Qianlong reign saw the apogee and initial decline in prosperity. The population rose to some 400 million, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate, corruption set in, rebels tested government legitimacy, and ruling elites did not change their mindsets in the face of changes in the world system. Following the Opium War, European powers imposed unequal treaties, free trade, the Taiping Rebellion and the Dungan Revolt in Central Asia led to the deaths of some 20 million people, most of them due to famines caused by war. In spite of disasters, in the Tongzhi Restoration of the 1860s, Han Chinese elites rallied to the defense of the Confucian order. The initial gains in the Self-Strengthening Movement were destroyed in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895, in which the Qing lost its influence over Korea, New Armies were organized, but the ambitious Hundred Days Reform of 1898 was turned back by Empress Dowager Cixi, a conservative leader. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries competed with reformist monarchists such as Kang Youwei, after the deaths of Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in 1908, the hardline Manchu court alienated reformers and local elites alike. The Wuchang Uprising on October 11,1911, led to the Xinhai Revolution, General Yuan Shikai negotiated the abdication of Puyi, the last emperor, on February 12,1912. Nurhaci declared himself the Bright Khan of the Later Jin state in both of the 12–13th century Jurchen Jin dynasty and of his Aisin Gioro clan. His son Hong Taiji renamed the dynasty Great Qing in 1636, there are competing explanations on the meaning of Qīng. The character Qīng is composed of water and azure, both associated with the water element and this association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water
4.
China proper
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China proper, Inner China or the Eighteen Provinces was a term used by Western writers on the Manchu Qing dynasty to express a distinction between the core and frontier regions of China. There is no fixed extent for China proper, as administrative, cultural. One definition refers to the area of Chinese civilization, the North China Plain. It is not clear when the concept of China proper in the Western world appeared and this would also apply to Great Britain proper versus the British Empire, which would encompass vast lands overseas. The same would apply to France proper in contrast to the French Empire of the time, according to Harry Harding, the concept can date back to 1827. But as early as in 1795, William Winterbotham adopted this concept in his book, when describing the Chinese Empire under the Qing dynasty, Winterbotham divided it into three parts, China proper, Chinese Tartary, and the States Tributary to China. He adopted the opinions of Du Halde and Grosier and suspected that the name of China came from Qin dynasty and he then said, China, properly so called. Comprehends from north to south eighteen degrees, its extent from east to west being somewhat less, however, to introduce China proper, Winterbotham still used the outdated 15-province system of the Ming dynasty, which the Qing dynasty used until 1662. This 15-province system was replaced by the 18-province system between 1662 and 1667. The concept of China proper also appeared before this 1795 book and it can be found in The Gentlemans Magazine, published in 1790, and The Monthly Review, published in 1749. In the nineteenth century, the term China proper was sometimes used by Chinese officials when they were communicating in foreign languages, for instance, the Qing ambassador to Britain Zeng Jize used it in an English language article, which he published in 1887. Dulimbai Gurun is the Manchu name for China, after conquering the Ming, the Manchu Qing identified their state as China, and referred to it as Dulimbai Gurun in Manchu. When the Qing conquered Dzungaria in 1759, they proclaimed that the new land was absorbed into China in a Manchu language memorial. Some Han Chinese Ming loyalists refused to use Zhongguo to refer to areas outside the borders of the Ming Empire such as outer Mongolia, in effect refusing to acknowledge the Qing state. Today, China proper is a concept in China itself, since the current official paradigm does not contrast the core. There is no widely used term corresponding to it in the Mandarin language. Also, he asks, if the boundaries of the Qing were considered illegitimate, one way of thinking about China proper is to refer to ancient Han Chinese dynasties. The Ming Dynasty was the last Han Chinese dynasty and second-last imperial dynasty to rule China and it governed fifteen administrative entities, which included thirteen provinces and two directly-governed areas
5.
Manchuria
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Manchuria is a modern name, first created by the Japanese, given to a large geographic region in Northeast Asia. Depending on the context, Manchuria can either refer to a region that falls entirely within the Peoples Republic of China, the definition of Manchuria can be any one of several regions of various size. These are, from smallest to largest, Northeast China, consisting of Heilongjiang, Jilin and this is the area referred to as Manchuria in the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions. Inner Manchuria, the above, plus parts of modern Inner Mongolia, The above, plus Outer Manchuria, the area from the Amur and Ussuri rivers to the Stanovoy Mountains, in Russian administrative terms, Ussuri krai, southern Harbin oblast, Primorskiy kray. The above, plus Sakhalin Island, which is included on Qing dynasty maps as part of Outer Manchuria even though it is not explicitly mentioned in the Treaty of Nerchinsk. The island was included in Manchuria on maps made by the Japanese Shogunate. Despite of lines on maps and empiress political claims, the island was inhabited by Ainu people until the Soviet Union enforced a policy after 1945. Three centuries and a half must now pass away before entering upon the act of the Manchu drama. During the ensuing two hundred years the Nü-chêns were scarcely heard of, the House of Ming being busily occupied in other directions and it may be noted here that Manchuria is unknown to the Chinese or to the Manchus themselves as a geographical expression. The present extensive home of the Manchus is usually spoken of as the Three Eastern Provinces, namely, Shêngking, or Liao-tung, or Kuan-tung, Kirin, and Heilungchiang or Tsitsihar. — Herbert A. Giles, China and the Manchus,1912 Manchuria is a translation of the Japanese word Manshū, the Manchu and Chinese languages had no such word as Manchuria and the word has imperialist connotations. According to Bill Sewell, it was Europeans who first started using the name Manchuria to refer to the location, the historian Gavan McCormack agreed with Robert H. G. The Japanese had their own motive for deliberately spreading the usage of the term Manchuria, the historian Norman Smith wrote that The term Manchuria is controversial. Professor Mariko Asano Tamanoi said that she should use the term in quotation marks when referring to Manchuria, in his 2012 dissertation on the Jurchen people to obtain a Doctor of Philosophy degree in History from the University of Washington, Professor Chad D. In the 18th-century Europe, the later known as Manchuria was most commonly referred to as Tartary. However, the term Manchuria started appearing by the end of the century, in current Chinese parlance, an inhabitant of the Northeast, or Northeast China, is a Northeasterner. In China, the term Manchuria is rarely used today, and this usage is seen in the expression Chuǎng Guāndōng referring to the mass migration of Han Chinese to Manchuria in the 19th and 20th centuries. The name Guandong later came to be used more narrowly for the area of the Kwantung Leased Territory on the Liaodong Peninsula and it is not to be confused with the southern province of Guangdong
6.
Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
7.
Jiandao
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Jiandao or Chientao, known in Korean as Gando or Kando, refers to a small piece of marsh land between the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Helong in Jilin, Northeast China. The original Chinese name of Jiandao is Jiajiang, another way to define Jiandao was provided by the Imperial Japan in early 20th century. Most of the region defined by Japan in early 20th century as Jiandao is part of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, the area of the prefecture is approximately 42,000 square kilometers in size and home to about 810,000 ethnic Koreans. In China, Yanbian is the used, and Jiandao is not used. These groups claim what happened in Jiandao between 1907–1909 was a transfer of Korean territory between Japan and China. Many different states and tribes succeeded each other in ruling the area during ancient times and these included Buyeo, Goguryeo and Goguryeos successor state Balhae. Goguryeo was one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea and controlled northern Korea, Balhae was a state that existed in the area during the Tang Dynasty in China and the Unified Silla Period in Korea. China emphasizes Balhaes temporary tributary relationship to the Tang, while Korea emphasizes that Balhae was a successor state, Balhae was destroyed by the Khitan Liao Dynasty in 926, and was formally annexed in 936. Over the next nine to ten centuries the region was administered by the Liao Dynasty, Jin dynasty, Yuan Dynasty, Ming Dynasty and finally, the Qing Dynasty, eventually, the Qing dynasty succeeded in unifying China by replacing the Ming Dynasty. In 1712, the border between Qing and Joseon was formally demarcated, Joseon officials also did not allow its subjects to move to northeast China. Qing officials regularly inspected this region and occasional Korean intruders were detained, however, by the late 19th century, peasants in northern Korea migrated to northeast China to flee famine and poverty. Even more arrived as refugees when Japan invaded Korea in 1894, after the Russo-Japanese War, Japan began the process that led to the formal annexation of Korea. In 1905, the Korean Empire became a protectorate of Imperial Japan, effectively losing diplomatic rights, some local Chinese governments welcomed the Korean immigrants, as they were a source of labor and agricultural skill. In the meantime, Japan began to expand into northeast China, one of the regions the Japanese targeted was Jiandao. Rather than being a piece of marsh land, the Japanese claimed that Jiandao included territory of four counties of Jilin province. The Japanese further claimed ethnic Koreans living in this region should be placed under the influence of Imperial Japan, the Japanese first infiltrated Jiandao in April 1907 to collect information and data. On August 7,1907, Japanese troops invaded Jiandao and claimed that the Jiandao Issue was unsettled, Japan agreed to withdraw its invading troops back to Korea in two months. The treaty also contained provisions for the protection and rights of ethnic Koreans under Chinese rule, nevertheless, there were large Korean settlements and the area remained under significant Japanese influence
8.
Manchukuo
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Manchukuo was a puppet state in Northeast China and Inner Mongolia, which was governed under a form of constitutional monarchy. The area, collectively known as Manchuria by westerners and Japanese, was designated by Chinas erstwhile Qing Dynasty as the homeland of the familys ethnic group. In 1931, the region was seized by Japan following the Mukden Incident and a government was installed one year later with Puyi. Manchukuos government was abolished in 1945 after the defeat of Imperial Japan at the end of World War II, Manchus formed a minority in Manchukuo, whose largest ethnic group were Han Chinese. The population of Koreans increased during the Manchukuo period, and there were also Japanese, Mongols, White Russians, the Mongol regions of western Manchukuo were ruled under a slightly different system in acknowledgement of the Mongolian traditions there. The southern part of the Liaodong Peninsula was ruled by Japan as the Kwantung Leased Territory, Manchuria is a transcription of the Japanese reading of the Chinese word 滿洲 which means Manchuria, which in Japanese is Manshū, which in turn dates from the 19th century. The name Manzhou was invented and given to the Jurchen people by Hong Taiji in 1635 as a new name for their ethnic group. However, the name Manchuria was never used by the Manchus or the Qing dynasty itself to refer to their homeland, the name itself holding imperialistic connotation. According to Mark C. 满洲 then began to appear as a place names in more maps created by Japanese like Kondi Jūzō, Takahashi Kageyasu, Baba Sadayoshi and these maps were brought to Europe by the Dutch Philipp von Siebold. According to Bill Sewell, it was Europeans who first started using Manchuria as a name to refer to the location, the historian Gavan McCormack agreed with Robert H. G. Ordinary Manchus largely spurned Manchukuo which claimed to be established for their cause, the Japanese had their own motive for deliberately spreading the usage of the term Manchuria. The historian Norman Smith wrote that The term Manchuria is controversial, professor Mariko Asano Tamanoi said that she should use the term in quotation marks, when referring to Manchuria. Herbert Giles wrote that Manchuria was unknown to the Manchus themselves as a geographical expression, the Qing Dynasty, which replaced the Shun and Ming dynasties in China, was founded by Manchus from Manchuria. The Manchu emperors separated their homeland in Jilin and Heilongjiang from the Han Liaoning province with the Willow Palisade and this ethnic division continued until the Qing dynasty encouraged massive immigration of Han in the 19th century during Chuang Guandong to prevent the Russians from seizing the area from the Qing. After conquering the Ming, the Qing identified their state as China, the lands in Manchuria were explicitly stated by the Qing to belong to China in Qing edicts and in the Treaty of Nerchinsk. The area of Manchuria was then converted into three provinces by the late Qing government in 1907, as the power of the court in Beijing weakened, many outlying areas either broke free or fell under the control of Imperialist powers. In the 19th century, Imperial Russia was most interested in the lands of the Qing Empire. In 1858, Russia gained control over a tract of land called Outer Manchuria thanks to the Supplementary Treaty of Beijing that ended the Second Opium War
9.
Bill Clinton
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William Jefferson Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Prior to the Presidency he was the 40th Governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981, before that, he served as Arkansas Attorney General from 1977 to 1979. A member of the Democratic Party, Clinton was ideogically a New Democrat, Clinton is married to Hillary Clinton, who served as United States Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013 and U. S. Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009, and served the Democratic nominee for President in 2016, Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham both earned degrees from Yale Law School, where they met and began dating. As Governor of Arkansas, Clinton overhauled the states education system, Clinton was elected President of the United States in 1992, defeating incumbent George H. W. Bush. At age 46, he was the third-youngest president and the first from the Baby Boomer generation, Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history and signed into law the North American Free Trade Agreement. After failing to pass health care reform, the Democratic House was ousted when the Republican Party won control of the Congress in 1994. Two years later, in 1996, Clinton became the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to be elected to a second term, Clinton passed welfare reform and the State Childrens Health Insurance Program, providing health coverage for millions of children. Clinton was acquitted by the U. S. Senate in 1999, the Congressional Budget Office reported a budget surplus between the years 1998 and 2000, the last three years of Clintons presidency. In foreign policy, Clinton ordered U. S. Clinton left office with the highest end-of-office approval rating of any U. S. President since World War II, since then, Clinton has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. He created the William J. Clinton Foundation to address international causes, such as the prevention of AIDS, in 2004, Clinton published his autobiography, My Life. In 2009, Clinton was named the United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti, since leaving office, Clinton has been rated highly in public opinion polls of U. S. Presidents. Clinton was born on August 19,1946, at Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas and he was the son of William Jefferson Blythe Jr. a traveling salesman who had died in an automobile accident three months before his birth, and Virginia Dell Cassidy. His parents had married on September 4,1943, but this later proved to be bigamous. Soon after their son was born, his mother traveled to New Orleans to study nursing, leaving her son in Hope with her parents Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, who owned and ran a small grocery store. At a time when the Southern United States was segregated racially, in 1950, Bills mother returned from nursing school and married Roger Clinton Sr. who owned an automobile dealership in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with his brother and Earl T. Ricks. The family moved to Hot Springs in 1950, although he immediately assumed use of his stepfathers surname, it was not until Clinton turned fifteen that he formally adopted the surname Clinton as a gesture toward his stepfather. In Hot Springs, Clinton attended St. Johns Catholic Elementary School, Ramble Elementary School, and Hot Springs High School—where he was a student leader, avid reader
10.
Methamphetamine
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Methamphetamine is a strong central nervous system stimulant that is mainly used as a recreational drug and less commonly as a treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obesity. Methamphetamine was discovered in 1893 and exists as two enantiomers, levo-methamphetamine and dextro-methamphetamine, Methamphetamine properly refers to a specific chemical, the racemic free base, which is an equal mixture of levomethamphetamine and dextromethamphetamine in their pure amine forms. Dextromethamphetamine is a much stronger CNS stimulant than levomethamphetamine, both methamphetamine and dextromethamphetamine are illicitly trafficked and sold owing to their potential for recreational use. Levomethamphetamine is available as a drug for use as an inhaled nasal decongestant in the United States. While dextromethamphetamine is a potent drug, racemic methamphetamine is sometimes illicitly produced due to the relative ease of synthesis. In low doses, methamphetamine can elevate mood, increase alertness, concentration and energy in fatigued individuals, at higher doses, it can induce psychosis, breakdown of skeletal muscle, seizures and bleeding in the brain. Chronic high-dose use can precipitate unpredictable and rapid mood swings, prominent delusions, Methamphetamine is known to have a high addiction liability and dependence liability. Heavy recreational use of methamphetamine may lead to a post-acute-withdrawal syndrome, unlike amphetamine, methamphetamine is neurotoxic to human midbrain dopaminergic neurons. It has also shown to damage serotonin neurons in the CNS. This damage includes adverse changes in structure and function, such as reductions in grey matter volume in several brain regions. Methamphetamine belongs to the phenethylamine and substituted amphetamine chemical classes. It is related to the other dimethylphenethylamines as an isomer of these compounds. Methamphetamine is sometimes prescribed off label for narcolepsy and idiopathic hypersomnia, in the United States, methamphetamines levorotary form is available in some over-the-counter nasal decongestant products. As methamphetamine is associated with a potential for misuse, the drug is regulated under the Controlled Substances Act and is listed under schedule II in the United States. Methamphetamine hydrochloride dispensed in the United States is required to include a warning regarding its potential for recreational misuse. Methamphetamine is often used recreationally for its effects as a potent euphoriant and stimulant as well as aphrodisiac qualities, according to a National Geographic TV documentary on methamphetamine, an entire subculture known as party and play is based around methamphetamine use. Members of this San Francisco sub-culture, which consists almost entirely of gay male methamphetamine users, due to its strong stimulant and aphrodisiac effects and inhibitory effect on ejaculation, with repeated use, these sexual encounters will sometimes occur continuously for several days on end. The crash following the use of methamphetamine in this manner is often severe
11.
Brookings Institution
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The Brookings Institution is a century-old American research group on Think Tank Row in Washington, D. C. It conducts research and education in the sciences, primarily in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy. Brookings has five research programs at its Washington, D. C. campus and three international centers based in Doha, Qatar, Beijing, China, and New Delhi, India. In the University of Pennsylvanias 2015 Global Go To Think Tanks Report, Brookings states that its staff represent diverse points of view and describes itself as non-partisan, while the media sometimes describes Brookings as liberal. The same study found Brookings to be the most frequently cited think tank by the US media, as a 501 non-profit organization, Brookings describes itself as independent and non-partisan. The New York Times has referred to the organization as liberal, liberal-centrist, centrist, the Washington Post has described Brookings as centrist and liberal. The Los Angeles Times has described Brookings as liberal-leaning and centrist before opining that it did not believe such labels mattered, in 1977, Time Magazine described it as the nations pre-eminent liberal think tank. Newsweek has described Brookings as centrist while Politico has used the term center-left, the left-wing, media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting describes it as conservative. Some liberals argue, however, that despite its left-of-center reputation, similarly, Brookings fellow and research director Benjamin Wittes is a member of the conservative Hoover Institutions Task Force on National Security and Law. Brookings scholars have served in Republican and Democratic administrations, including Mark McClellan, Ron Haskins, aside from political figures, the board of trustees includes leaders in business and industry, including Philip H. Knight, Chairman of Nike, Inc. Brookings was founded in 1916 as the Institute for Government Research, the Institutions founder, philanthropist Robert S. Louis. The three were merged into the Brookings Institution on December 8,1927, during the Great Depression economists at Brookings embarked on a large scale study commissioned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to understand the underlying causes of the depression. With the entry into World War II in 1941, Brookings researchers turned their attention to aiding the administration with a series of studies on mobilization, in 1948, Brookings was asked to submit a plan for the administration of the European Recovery Program. The resulting organization scheme assured that the Marshall Plan was run carefully, in 1952, Robert Calkins succeeded Moulton as president of the Brookings Institution. He secured grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation that put the Institution on a financial basis. He reorganized the Institution around the Economic Studies, Government Studies, in 1957, the Institution moved from Jackson Avenue to a new research center near Dupont Circle in Washington, D. C. Kermit Gordon assumed the presidency of Brookings in 1967 and he began a series of studies of program choices for the federal budget in 1969 entitled Setting National Priorities. He also expanded the Foreign Policy Studies Program to include research in national security, yet throughout the 1970s, Brookings was offered more federal research contracts than it could handle
12.
Metropolitan area
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As social, economic and political institutions have changed, metropolitan areas have become key economic and political regions. The Greater São Paulo is a term for one of the multiple definitions the large metropolitan area located in the São Paulo state in Brazil. A metropolitan area combines an urban agglomeration with zones not necessarily urban in character and these outlying zones are sometimes known as a commuter belt, and may extend well beyond the urban zone, to other political entities. For example, El Monte, California is considered part of the Los Angeles metro area in the United States, in practice, the parameters of metropolitan areas, in both official and unofficial usage, are not consistent. Population figures given for one area can vary by millions. A polycentric metropolitan area is one not connected by continuous development or conurbation, in defining a metropolitan area, it is sufficient that a city or cities form a nucleus that other areas have a high degree of integration with. The Australian Bureau of Statistics defines statistical divisions as areas under the influence of one or more major towns or a major city. However, this definition has become obsolete with the conurbation of several statistical divisions into a larger metropolitan areas. In Brazil, metropolitan areas are called metropolitan regions, each State defines its own legislation for the creation, definition and organization of a metropolitan region. The creation of a region is not intended for any statistical purpose, although the Brazilian Institute of Geography. Their main purpose is to allow for a management of public policies of common interest to all cities involved. They dont have political, electoral or jurisdictional power whatsoever, so living in a metropolitan region do not elect representatives for them. Statistics Canada defines a metropolitan area as an area consisting of one or more adjacent municipalities situated around a major urban core. To form a CMA, the area must have a population of at least 100,000. To be included in the CMA, adjacent municipalities must have a degree of integration with the core. As of the Canada 2011 Census, there were 33 CMAs in Canada, including six with a population over one million—Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton. In Denmark the only area is Greater Copenhagen, consisting of the Capital Region of Denmark along with the neighboring regions Region Zealand. Greater Copenhagen has an population of 1.25 million people
Yanji travel guide from Wikivoyage
Media related to Yanji at Wikimedia Commons
