Archive of articles
2009
Peru ( Spanish: Perú, Quechua: Piruw, Aymara: Piruw), officially the Republic of Peru ( Spanish: ⓘ, Spanish pronunciation: [reˈpuβlika del peˈɾu]), is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean.
Peruvian territory was home to the Norte Chico civilization, one of the oldest in the world, and to the Inca Empire, the largest state in Pre-Columbian America. The Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century and established a Viceroyalty, which included most of its South American colonies. After achieving independence in 1821, Peru has undergone periods of political unrest and fiscal crisis as well as periods of stability and economic upswing.
Peru is a
representative democratic
republic divided into
25 regions. Its geography varies from the arid plains of the Pacific coast to the peaks of the
Andes mountains and the tropical forests of the
Amazon Basin. It is a
developing country with a medium
Human Development Index score and a poverty level around 40%. Its main economic activities include agriculture
Yosemite National Park ( /joʊˈsɛmɪtiː/ yo-SEM-it-ee) is a national park located in the eastern portions of Tuolumne, Mariposa and Madera counties in east central California, United States. The park covers an area of 761,266 acres or 1,189 square miles (3,081 km²) and reaches across the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain chain. Yosemite is visited by over 3.5 million people each year, many of whom only spend time in the seven square miles (18 km²) of Yosemite Valley. Designated a World Heritage Site in 1984, Yosemite is internationally recognized for its spectacular granite cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, Giant Sequoia groves, and biological diversity. Almost 95% of the park is designated wilderness. Although not the first designated national park, Yosemite was a focal point in the development of the national park idea, largely owing to the work of people like John Muir and Galen Clark.
Yosemite is one of the largest and least fragmented
habitat blocks in the Sierra Nevada, and the park supports a diversity of
plants and
animals. The park has an elevation range from 2,000 to 13,114 feet (600 to 4,000 m) and contains five major
vegetation zones:
chaparral/
oak woodland, lower
montane, upper montane,
subalpine, and
alpine. Of California's 7,000 plant species, about 50% occur in the Sierra Nevada and more than 20% within Yosemite. There is suitable habitat or documentation for more than 160 rare plants in the park, with rare local geologic formations and unique
soils characterizing the restricted ranges many of these plants occupy.
West Bengal ( Bengali: পশ্চিমবঙ্গ Poshchim Bônggo Bengali pronunciation: [poʃtʃim bɔŋɡo]) is a state in eastern India. With Bangladesh, which lies on its eastern border, the state forms the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal. To its northeast lie the states of Assam and Sikkim and the country Bhutan, and to its southwest, the state of Orissa. To the west it borders the state of Jharkhand and Bihar, and to the northwest, Nepal.
The region that is now West Bengal was a part of a number of empires and kingdoms during the past two millennia. The
British East India Company cemented their hold on the region following the
Battle of Plassey in 1757 CE, and the city of
Kolkata, then Calcutta, served for many years as the capital of
British India. A hotbed of the
Indian independence movement through the early 20th century,
Bengal was
divided in 1947 into two separate entities, West Bengal—a state of India, and
East Pakistan belonging to the new nation of
Pakistan. Following India's independence in 1947, West Bengal's economic and political systems were dominated for many decades by
Marxism,
Naxalite movements and
trade unionism.
Washington, D.C.
/ˈwɒʃɪŋtən ˌdiːˈsiː/, formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the
capital of the
United States, founded on July 16, 1790. The City of Washington was originally a separate municipality within the Territory of Columbia until an
act of Congress in 1871 effectively merged the City and the Territory into a single entity called the District of Columbia. It is for this reason that the city, while legally named the District of Columbia, is known as Washington, D.C. The city is located on the north bank of the
Potomac River and is bordered by the states of
Virginia to the southwest and
Maryland to the other sides. The District has a resident population of 591,833; however, because of commuters from the surrounding suburbs, its population rises to over one million during the workweek. The
Washington Metropolitan Area, of which the District is a part, has a population of 5.3 million, the eighth-largest
metropolitan area in the country.
Bratislava is the capital of the Slovak Republic and, with a population of about 429,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two countries. It and Vienna are also two of Europe's closest national capitals, at less than 60 kilometres (37 mi) apart. Bratislava is the political, cultural and economic centre of Slovakia. It is the seat of the Slovak president, the parliament, and the executive branch of the government. It is home to several universities, museums, theatres, galleries and other important cultural, and educational institutions. Many of Slovakia's large businesses and financial institutions are also headquartered in Bratislava.
The history of the city, long known by the German name Pressburg and by the Hungarian Pozsony, has been strongly influenced by people of different nations, namely by
Austrians,
Czechs,
Germans,
Hungarians,
Jews and
Slovaks. The city was the capital of the
Kingdom of Hungary under the
Habsburg Monarchy from 1536 to 1783, and has been home to many
Slovak,
Hungarian and
German historical figures.
Plunketts Creek is an approximately 6.2 mile (10.0 km) long tributary of Loyalsock Creek in Lycoming and Sullivan counties in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Two unincorporated villages and a hamlet are on the creek, and its watershed drains 23.6 square miles (61.1 km²) in parts of five townships. The creek is a part of the Chesapeake Bay drainage basin via Loyalsock Creek and the West Branch Susquehanna and Susquehanna Rivers.
Plunketts Creek's unique name comes from the first owner of the land including the creek's mouth, and the creek has given its name to two townships (although one has since changed its name). The creek flows southwest and then south through the dissected Allegheny Plateau, through rock from the Mississippian and Devonian eras. Much of the Plunketts Creek valley is composed of various glacial deposits, chiefly alluvium.
Although the Plunketts Creek watershed was
clear-cut and home to a
tannery, sawmills, and a coal mine in the nineteenth century, today it is heavily wooded and known for its high water quality,
fishing, and other recreational opportunities. The watershed now includes parts of the
Loyalsock State Forest,
Pennsylvania State Game Lands, and a State Game Farm for raising
pheasant. Tourism, hunting, and fishing have long been important in the region, and its year-round population is increasing much faster than that of either Lycoming or Sullivan County.
Shaw and Crompton is a town and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the River Beal at the foothills of the Pennines, 2.3 miles (3.7 km) north of Oldham, 3.6 miles (5.8 km) southeast of Rochdale, and 8.7 miles (14 km) to the northeast of the city of Manchester. It is regularly referred to as Shaw.
Historically a part of Lancashire, Crompton (as it was originally known) and its surroundings have provided evidence of ancient British and Anglian activity in the area. During the Middle Ages, Crompton formed a small township of scattered woods, farmsteads, moorland, and swamp with a small and close community of families. The local lordship was weak or absent, and so Crompton failed to emerge as a manor with its own lord and court. Farming was the main industry of this broadly independent and self-supporting rural area, with locals supplementing their incomes by hand-loom woollen weaving in the domestic system. The introduction of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution initiated a process of rapid and unplanned urbanisation. By the late-19th century Crompton had emerged as a densely populated mill town.
Today, Shaw and Crompton, which covers 4.5 square miles (11.7 km2), is a predominantly residential area of mixed affluence with a population of 21,721. Its double name has been said to make it "distinctive, if not unique". The legacy of its industrial past can be seen in its six surviving
cotton mills.
Hamilton /ˈhæməltən/ ( 2006 population 504,559; UA population 647,634; CMA population 692,911) is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe. On January 1, 2001 the new City of Hamilton was formed through the amalgamation of the former city and the other constituent lower-tier municipalities of the Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth with the upper-tier regional government. Residents of the city are known as Hamiltonians. Since 1981, the metropolitan area has been listed as the ninth largest in Canada and the third largest in Ontario. Hamilton is located in Southern Ontario roughly 70 km southwest of Toronto.
Traditionally, the local economy has been led by the steel and heavy manufacturing industries. Within the last decade, there has been a shift towards the service sector, particularly health sciences. The Hamilton Health Sciences corporation employs nearly 10,000 staff and serves approximately 2.2 million people in the region.
Hamilton is home to the Royal Botanical Gardens, the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, the Bruce Trail, McMaster University and several colleges. The Canadian Football Hall of Fame can be found downtown right beside Hamilton City Hall and across town to the east, the Canadian Football League's Hamilton Tiger-Cats play at Ivor Wynne Stadium. The Erland Lee (Museum) Home (c. 1808) is a National Historic Site of Canada on the Canadian Register of Historic Places. An Ontario Historical Plaque in front of the Erland Lee Museum was erected by the province to commemorate the First Women's Institute's role in Ontario's heritage.
Partly because of its diverse locations, numerous
TV and film productions have been filmed in Hamilton, regulated by the Hamilton Film and Television Office. A growing arts and culture sector garnered media attention in a 2006
Globe and Mail news article, entitled "Go West, Young Artist," which focused on the growing art scene in Hamilton. The article highlighted local
art galleries,
recording studios and independent
film production.
Nauru ⓘ, officially the Republic of Nauru and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island nation in the Micronesian South Pacific. The nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in the Republic of Kiribati, 300 km due east. Nauru is the world's smallest island nation, covering just 21 km² (8.1 sq. mi), and the smallest independent republic.
Initially inhabited by Micronesian and Polynesian peoples, Nauru was annexed and designated a colony by Germany in the late 19th century, and after World War I became a mandate territory administered by Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. During World War II it was occupied by Japan, and after the war entered into trusteeship again. It achieved independence in 1968.
Nauruans are among the most obese people in the world; 90% of adults have a higher BMI than the world average. Nauru has the world's highest level of type 2 diabetes, with more than 40% of the population affected. Other significant diet-related problems on Nauru include renal failure and heart disease. Life expectancy in 2006 was 58.0 years for males and 65.0 years for females.
Nauru is a
phosphate rock
island, and its primary economic activity since 1907 has been the export of phosphate mined from the island. For this reason, Nauru briefly boasted the highest per-capita income enjoyed by any
sovereign state in the world during the late 1960s and early 1970s. But when the phosphate reserves were exhausted, and the environment had been severely degraded by mining, the trust established to manage the island's wealth significantly reduced in value. To obtain income, the government resorted to unusual measures. In the 1990s, Nauru briefly became a
tax haven and
money laundering centre. From 2001 to 2008, it accepted aid from the Australian government in exchange for housing a
detention centre that held and processed
asylum seekers trying to enter Australia.
Balch Creek is a 3.5-mile (5.6 km) tributary of the Willamette River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Beginning at the crest of the Tualatin Mountains (West Hills), the creek flows generally east down a canyon along Northwest Cornell Road in unincorporated Multnomah County and through the Macleay Park section of Forest Park, a large municipal park in Portland. At the lower end of the park, the stream enters a pipe and remains underground until reaching the river. Danford Balch, after whom the creek is named, settled a land claim along the creek in the mid-19th century. After murdering his son-in-law, he became the first person legally hanged in Oregon.
Basalt, mostly covered by silt in the uplands and sediment in the lowlands, underlies the Balch Creek watershed. The upper part of the watershed includes private residential land, the Audubon Society of Portland nature sanctuary, and part of Forest Park. A small population of cutthroat trout resides in the stream, which in 2005 was the only major water body in Portland that met state standards for bacteria, temperature, and dissolved oxygen.
Although nature reserves cover much of the upper and middle parts of the watershed, industrial sites dominate the lower part. Historic Guild's Lake occupied part of the lower watershed through the 19th century, and in 1905 city officials held the
Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition there on an artificial island. After the exposition, developers converted the lake and its surrounds to industrial use, and in 2001 the Portland City Council declared the site to be an "industrial sanctuary".
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about 190 miles (310 km) south west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound. Since 1967 the unitary authority of Plymouth has included the suburbs of Plympton and Plymstock, which are on the east side of the River Plym.
Plymouth's history goes back to the Bronze Age, when its first settlement grew at Mount Batten. This settlement continued to grow as a trading post for the Roman Empire, until the more prosperous village of Sutton, the current Plymouth, surpassed it. In 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers left Plymouth for the New World and established Plymouth Colony — the second English settlement in what is now the United States of America. During the English Civil War the town was held by the Parliamentarians and was besieged between 1642 and 1646.
Throughout the Industrial Revolution Plymouth grew as a major shipping port, handling imports and passengers from the Americas and the construction of ships for the Royal Navy. The county boroughs of Plymouth and Devonport, and the urban district of East Stonehouse were merged to form a single county borough of Plymouth collectively referred to as The Three Towns. The city's naval importance later led to its targeting and partial destruction during World War II, an act known as the Plymouth Blitz. After the war the city centre was completely rebuilt.
Today the city is home to over 250,000 people, making it the
15th most populous city in England. It has its own city council and is represented nationally by three
MPs. Plymouth's economy is still strongly influenced by shipbuilding, but has become a more service-based economy since the 1990s. It has the 11th largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students, the
University of Plymouth, and the largest operational naval base in Western Europe —
HMNB Devonport. Plymouth has ferry links to France and Spain and an airport with international services. (
more...)
Quneitra (also Al Qunaytirah, Qunaitira, or Kuneitra; Arabic: القنيطرة) is the largely destroyed and abandoned capital of the Quneitra Governorate in south-western Syria. It is situated in a high valley in the Golan Heights at an elevation of 1,010 metres (3,313 feet) above sea level. Quneitra was founded in the Ottoman era as a way station on the caravan route to Damascus and subsequently became a garrison town of some 20,000 people, strategically located near the ceasefire line with Israel. Its name is Arabic for "the little bridge".
On 10 June 1967, the last day of the
Six-Day War, Quneitra came under Israeli control. It was briefly recaptured by Syria during the 1973
Yom Kippur War, but Israel regained control in its subsequent counter-offensive. The city was almost completely destroyed before the Israeli withdrawal in June 1974. It now lies in the demilitarized
United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) Zone between Syria and Israel, a short distance from the de facto border between the two countries. Israel was heavily criticized by the
United Nations for the city's destruction, while Israel has also criticized Syria for not rebuilding Quneitra.