Comments by "Stella Maris" (@SuperGreatSphinx) on "euronews"
channel.
-
Germany is the largest national economy in Europe, the fourth-largest by nominal GDP in the world, and fifth by GDP (PPP).
The country is a founding member of the European Union and the Eurozone.
The economic model of Germany is based on the concept of the social market economy.
In 2014, Germany recorded the highest trade surplus in the world worth $285 billion, making it the biggest capital exporter globally.
Germany is the third largest exporter in the world with 1.13 trillion euros ($1.28 trillion) in goods and services exported in 2014.
The service sector contributes around 70% of the total GDP, industry 29.1%, and agriculture 0.9%.
Exports account for 41% of national output.
The top 10 exports of Germany are vehicles, machineries, chemical goods, electronic products, electrical equipments, pharmaceuticals, transport equipments, basic metals, food products, and rubber and plastics.
Germany is rich in timber, iron ore, potash, salt, uranium, nickel, copper and natural gas.
Energy in Germany is sourced predominantly by fossil fuels (50%), followed by nuclear power second, then gas, wind, biomass (wood and biofuels), hydro and solar.
Germany is the first major industrialized nation to commit to the renewable energy transition called Energiewende.
Germany is the leading producer of wind turbines in the world.
Renewables now produce over 27% of electricity consumed in Germany.
99 percent of all German companies belong to the German "Mittelstand," small and medium-sized enterprises, which are mostly family-owned.
Of the world's 2000 largest publicly listed companies measured by revenue, the Fortune Global 2000, 53 are headquartered in Germany, with the Top 10 being Volkswagen, Allianz, Daimler, BMW, Siemens, BASF, Munich Re, E.ON, Bayer, and RWE.
Germany is the world's top location for trade fairs.
Around two thirds of the world's leading trade fairs take place in Germany.
The largest annual international trade fairs and congresses are held in several German cities such as Hanover, Frankfurt, Cologne and Düsseldorf.
46
-
45
-
38
-
23
-
21
-
14
-
13
-
On 3 December 1963, US President Lyndon B. Johnson posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian award, in recognition of the good relationship between Pope John XXIII and the United States of America. In his speech on 6 December 1963, Johnson said: "I have also determined to confer the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously on another noble man whose death we mourned 6 months ago: His Holiness, Pope John XXIII. He was a man of simple origins, of simple faith, of simple charity. In this exalted office he was still the gentle pastor. He believed in discussion and persuasion. He profoundly respected the dignity of man. He gave the world immortal statements of the rights of man, of the obligations of men to each other, of their duty to strive for a world community in which all can live in peace and fraternal friendship. His goodness reached across temporal boundaries to warm the hearts of men of all nations and of all faiths".
The citation for the medal reads:
His Holiness Pope John XXIII, dedicated servant of God. He brought to all citizens of the planet a heightened sense of the dignity of the individual, of the brotherhood of man, and of the common duty to build an environment of peace for all human kind.
12
-
The history of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people (LGBT) in Russia and its historical antecedents (i.e., the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire) has largely been influenced by the political leanings and levels of liberalism or tolerance of the rulers.
It has also been influenced by the historically prohibitive nature of Russian Orthodox religiosity regarding sexuality.
Homosexuality has been documented in Russia for centuries.
The earliest documented bans on homosexuality date to the early-mid 17th century.
Gregory Karpovich Kotoshikhin recorded during the reign of Czar Alexis Mikhailovich that male homosexuals were put to death, and also states that female homosexuals were also put to death by burning.
Government attempts at preventing homosexual practices began in the 18th century, with Tsar Peter the Great banning homosexual relations in the armed forces in 1716, as a part of his attempt to modernise the country.
In 1832 further laws were enacted criminalising certain sexual acts between two males; however, an LGBT subculture developed in Russia during that century, with many significant Russians being openly homosexual or bisexual.
In 1917, the Russian Revolution saw the overthrow of the Tsarist government, and the subsequent foundation of the Russian SFSR, the world's first socialist state, followed by the founding of the Soviet Union after the end of the civil war in 1922.
The new Communist Party government eradicated the old laws regarding sexual relations, effectively legalising homosexual activity within Russia, although it remained illegal in other former territories of the Russian Empire.
Under Lenin's leadership, openly gay people were allowed to serve in government.
In 1933, the Soviet government, under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, recriminalised homosexual activity with punishments of up to five years' hard labor.
Following Stalin's death, there was a liberalisation of attitudes toward sexual issues in the Soviet Union, but homosexual acts remained illegal.
Nonetheless, homosexual culture became increasingly visible, particularly following the glasnost policy of Mikhail Gorbachev's government in the late 1980s.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the foundation of the Russian Federation in 1991, the Council of Europe pressured the new administration to legalize homosexuality, leading President Boris Yeltsin to do so in 1993.
However, there are several restrictions on activities related to homosexuality.
7
-
4
-
4
-
3
-
3
-
Bernard Francis Law (November 4, 1931 – December 20, 2017) was an American cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
He was Archbishop emeritus of Boston, former archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, and Cardinal Priest of Santa Susanna, which was the American Catholic church in Rome (until summer 2017, when the American community was relocated to another parish).
Law was the Archbishop of Boston from 1984 until his resignation on December 13, 2002, in response to the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, after church documents showed he had extensive knowledge of sexual abuse committed by dozens of Catholic priests within his archdiocese, and had failed to remove them from the ministry.
One priest alone was alleged to have raped or molested 130 children over several decades, while Law and other local officials moved him among churches rather than going to the authorities.
Two years after Law resigned from his position in Boston, which the Church called "an important step in the healing process", Pope John Paul II appointed him as Archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome in 2004.
He resigned from this position upon reaching the age of 80 in November 2011, and died in Rome on December 20, 2017, at the age of 86.
2
-
Standard Croatian is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian, more specifically on Eastern Herzegovinian, which is also the basis of Standard Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin. The other Serbo-Croatian dialects spoken by Croats are Chakavian, Kajkavian, and Torlakian (by the Krashovani). These four dialects, and the four national standards, are usually subsumed under the term "Serbo-Croatian" in English, though this term is controversial for native speakers, and paraphrases such as "Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian" are therefore sometimes used instead, especially in diplomatic circles.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Water is a transparent fluid which forms the world's streams, lakes, oceans and rain, and is the major constituent of the fluids of living things. As a chemical compound, a water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms that are connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at standard ambient temperature and pressure, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice; and gaseous state, steam (water vapor).
Water covers 71% of the Earth's surface. It is vital for all known forms of life. On Earth, 96.5% of the planet's water is found in seas and oceans, 1.7% in groundwater, 1.7% in glaciers and the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland, a small fraction in other large water bodies, and 0.001% in the air as vapor, clouds (formed of solid and liquid water particles suspended in air), and precipitation. Only 2.5% of the Earth's water is freshwater, and 98.8% of that water is in ice and groundwater. Less than 0.3% of all freshwater is in rivers, lakes, and the atmosphere, and an even smaller amount of the Earth's freshwater (0.003%) is contained within biological bodies and manufactured products.
Water on Earth moves continually through the water cycle of evaporation and transpiration (evapotranspiration), condensation, precipitation, and runoff, usually reaching the sea. Evaporation and transpiration contribute to the precipitation over land. Water used in the production of a good or service is known as virtual water.
Safe drinking water is essential to humans and other lifeforms even though it provides no calories or organic nutrients. Access to safe drinking water has improved over the last decades in almost every part of the world, but approximately one billion people still lack access to safe water and over 2.5 billion lack access to adequate sanitation. There is a clear correlation between access to safe water and gross domestic product per capita. However, some observers have estimated that by 2025 more than half of the world population will be facing water-based vulnerability. A report, issued in November 2009, suggests that by 2030, in some developing regions of the world, water demand will exceed supply by 50%. Water plays an important role in the world economy, as it functions as a solvent for a wide variety of chemical substances and facilitates industrial cooling and transportation. Approximately 70% of the fresh water used by humans goes to agriculture.
1
-
1