Most Favoured Nation

In international economic relations and international politics, MFN is a status or level of treatment accorded by one state to another in international trade. The term means the country, which is the recipient of this treatment must, nominally, receive equal trade advantages as the “most favoured nation” by the country granting such treatment. (Trade advantages include low tariffs or high import quotas.) In effect, a country that has been accorded MFN status may not be treated less advantageously than any other country with MFN status by the promising country. The members of the WTO agree to accord MFN status to each other. Exceptions allow for preferential treatment of developing countries, regional free trade areas and customs unions. Together with the principle of national treatment, MFN is one of the cornerstones of WTO trade law.

Rover

Meaning: One that roves; a wanderer or a crewed or uncrewed vehicle, used especially in exploring the terrain of a planet and its satellites.

Definition: A rover (or sometimes planetary rover) is a space exploration vehicle designed to move across the surface of a planet or other astronomical body. Some rovers have been designed to transport members of a human spaceflight crew; others have been partially or fully autonomous robots. Rovers usually arrive at the planetary surface.

Comparison with space probes of other types: Rovers have several advantages over stationary landers — They examine more territory, they can place themselves in sunny positions to weather winter months if they are solar powered and they can advance the knowledge of how to perform very remote robotic vehicle control which is necessarily semi-autonomous due to the finite speed of light. Their advantages over orbiting spacecraft are that they can make observations to a microscopic level and can conduct physical experimentation. Disadvantages of rovers compared to orbiters are the higher chance of failure, due to landing and other risks, and that they are limited to a small area around a landing site which itself is only approximately anticipated.

Red Ribbon Express

Red Ribbon Express is an AIDS/HIV awareness campaign train by the Indian Railways. The motto of the Red Ribbon Express is “Embarking on the journey of life”. The Red Ribbon Express was launched in India on World AIDS Day, December 1, 2007. Initial talk of the HIV/AIDS awareness train began over two years before its launch. The Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, the National AIDS Control Organisation and Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan developed the idea of the Red Ribbon Express in 2004. Sonia Gandhi flagged off the Red Ribbon Express’ second phase on World AIDS Day in 2009. This second phase aimed to reach out to a larger portion of the rural poor and the government hoped that more people would get tested and treated.

Madame Tussauds

Madame Tussauds is a wax museum in London with branches in a number of major cities. It was founded by wax sculptor Marie Tussaud and was formerly known as Madame Tussauds, but the apostrophe is no longer used. Madame Tussauds is a major tourist attraction in London, displaying waxworks of historical and royal figures, film stars, sports stars and famous murderers.

The Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire, which lasted from July 27, 1299, to October 29, 1923, is one of 16 Turkish empires established throughout history. The Ottoman Empire was one of the largest and longest lasting empires in history. It was an empire inspired and sustained by Islam, and Islamic institutions.

At the height of its power, in the 16th and 17th centuries, it controlled territory in southeast Europe, western Asia, and North Africa. The Ottoman Empire contained 29 provinces and numerous vassal states, some of which were later absorbed into the empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries.^]

With Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) as its capital city and vast control of lands around the eastern Mediterranean during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566), the empire was at the center of interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds for six centuries.

The Ottoman Empire came to an end, as a regime under a monarchy, on November 1, 1922. It formally ended as a de jure state on July 24, 1923, under the Treaty of Lausanne. The Republic of Turkey, which was officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923, became one of the successor states of the Ottoman Empire as part of the treaty.

Breakup of Yugoslavia

The breakup of Yugoslavia refers to a series of conflicts and political upheavals resulting in the dissolution of Yugoslavia. It was a country that occupied a strip of land stretching from Central Europe to the Balkans – a region with a history of ethnic conflict. The country was a conglomeration of six regional republics and two autonomous provinces that was roughly divided on ethnic lines and split up in the 1990s into several independent countries. These eight federal units were the six republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and two autonomous provinces within Serbia: Kosovo and Vojvodina.

Historiography

Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic. Scholars discuss historiography topically – such as the "historiography of Catholicism," the "historiography of early Islam," or the "historiography of China" – as well as specific approaches and genres, such as political history and social history. Beginning in the nineteenth century, with the ascent of academic history, a corpus of historiographic literature developed.

The research interests of historians change over time, and in recent decades there has been a shift away from traditional diplomatic, economic and political history toward newer approaches, especially social and cultural studies. From 1975 to 1995, the proportion of professors of history in American universities identifying with social history rose from 31% to 41%, while the proportion of political historians fell from 40% to 30%. In the history departments of British universities in 2007, of the 5723 faculty members, 1644 (29%) identified themselves with social history while political history came next with 1425 (25%).

In the early modern period, the term historiography tended to be used in a more basic sense, to mean simply "the writing of history". Historiographer therefore meant "historian".

Arab Spring

The Arab Spring is a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in the Arab world that began on December 18, 2010. To date, there have been revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt; a civil war in Libya resulting in the fall of its government; civil uprisings in Bahrain, Syria, and Yemen; major protests in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, and Oman; and minor protests in Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Western Sahara.

The protests have shared techniques of civil resistance in sustained campaigns involving strikes, demonstrations, marches and rallies, as well as the use of social media to organize, communicate, and raise awareness in the face of state attempts at repression and Internet censorship. Many demonstrations have met violent responses from authorities, as well as from pro-government militias and counter-demonstrators. A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world has been ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam (“the people want to bring down the regime”).