Category: North and Central America

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

United States 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 USA. In early January, the new congress rallied, both chambers of which were dominated by Democrats after the November election. The President of the House of Representatives was elected Nancy Pelosi, who thus became the highest ranking woman to date in the country's history. Although the Democrats 'electoral victory was largely due to dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq, President George W. Bush decided in January to expand troops' presence in Iraq by more than 20,000 soldiers. The Democrats and some Republicans protested loudly and the House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution criticizing the decision. Later, both chambers of Congress decided to set up a troop retreat as a condition for granting a request for additional war grants from the president. According to the proposal, the majority…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Trinidad and Tobago 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 Trinidad and Tobago. When Trinidad and Tobago went to parliamentary elections on November 5, the ruling party People's National Movement (PNM) triumphed over the opposition Alliance United National Congress (UNC) with 26 seats against 15. Thus, Prime Minister Patrick Manning could remain as prime minister for another five years. The turnout was 66 percent. According to CountryAAH, Port-of-Spain is the capital city of Trinidad and Tobago. PNM's clear victory was primarily attributed to the country's good economy in recent years. The oil-producing country had benefited from high oil prices on the world market. In addition, a failed outburst attempt was made within the opposition, when a UNC politician jumped off and formed the new Party of the People's Congress (COP). While the PNM mainly has support among the…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 2007

North and Central America

According to CountryAAH, Kingstown is the capital city of St. Vincent and The Grenadines. The December 2005 parliamentary elections were won by the United Labor Party (ULP) and Gonsalves was able to begin his second term as prime minister. The opposition party NDP convened in June 2007 for a demonstration in the capital to protest what was perceived as planned election fraud during the upcoming elections. The NDP accused Gonsalves of giving Cuban workers in the country the right to vote for their support. St. Vincent was joined by Antigua in June 2009 in the Latin American ALBA collaboration. In November 2009, a referendum was held on whether the country should be transformed into a republic, thus finally breaking its connection with Britain. However, the proposal was voted down by…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Saint Lucia 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 Saint Lucia. After only four months in the post, Saint Lucia's new Prime Minister Sir John Compton, aged 81, suffered a series of strikes in April. He was then forced to hand over the helm to Stephenson King, who on May 1 became deputy head of government. According to CountryAAH, Castries is the capital city of St. Lucia. King had previously been Minister of Health. Later, King was also given responsibility for issues related to national security, government finances, foreign policy, domestic policy, the labor market and information and media. Compton sought care in the United States, but passed away September 7. Compton, the leader of the ruling United Workers' Party (UWP), was prime minister in the independent Saint Lucia for three periods: 1979, when the kingdom became…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Saint Kitts and Nevis 2007

North and Central America

According to CountryAAH, Basseterre is the capital city of St. Kitts and Nevis. The island of Liamuiga - "the fertile land" in the language of the Caribbean (the people who originally inhabited the island) - was christened San Cristóbal by Columbus during his second voyage to America in 1493. Yet, it was not until 1623 that Europeans colonized the island when adventurer Thomas Walker made it the first British settlement in the Caribbean. The neighboring island of Nevis was colonized 5 years later. The original Native American population was rapidly exterminated and the British set up plantation operations, in particular producing sugar cane with slave labor from Africa. After many conflicts between France and the UK over the rights to Kitts and Nevis, together with other Caribbean islands with the…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Panama 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 Panama. At the end of August, no less than five ministers resigned from the government, and President Martín Torrijos took the opportunity to present a fully re-formed government on the three-year anniversary of his take-over as president on September 1. According to CountryAAH, Panama City is the capital city of Panama. Such government transformations are fairly normal in Panama, but the five departed ministers had incurred a particularly massive popular dissatisfaction. Although Panama's economy is growing at a record level, crime, unemployment and corruption are still unsolved problems. To improve law enforcement, Torrijos appointed a new Minister of the Interior, but still criticized the cops militarization of the police system by simultaneously appointing Severino Mejía, one of the former dictator Manuel Noriega's closest men, as Deputy Interior Minister.…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Nicaragua 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 Nicaragua. On January 10, the newly elected President Daniel Ortega was installed in his office. Some of his first steps were to lower his own salary by two-thirds and set up a commission, led by the respected Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, who will provide assistance to 300,000 victims of the civil war in the 1980s. At the heart of the domestic political debate during the year, however, was Ortega's proposal to set up so-called Citizens' Council to strengthen democracy, an institution clearly inspired by Hugo Chávez's "Bolivarian circles" in Venezuela. Opposition to the proposal became massive in Congress because it was suspected that the councils would be an extension of the presidential power and thus of the FSLN (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional) ruling party that had…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Mexico 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 Mexico. The state of Tabasco was hit by the worst floods in Mexico in 50 years at the end of October/November. Miraculously, no deaths occurred there, but four people died in landslides in the southern state of Chiapas. Several important regional elections were held during the year and all were considered to be important barometers in the political climate, primarily before the 2009 congressional elections. end most of the governor's posts in the country, while the current government party PAN (Partido Acción Nacional) fared worst. Its only success was noted in Baja California, where on August 5, the party won the governorship and mayoral positions in several of the most important cities. PRI won great success in i.e. the states of Yucatán, Veracruz and Sinaloa where the party…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Jamaica 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 Jamaica. On March 18, the cricket-loving Jamaicans were shocked by the death of 58-year-old Briton Robert "Bob" Woolmer in a Kingston hotel room. Woolmer was coach of Pakistan cricket team and had previously played in England's national team. The first police investigation found that Woolmer had been strangled to death. The day before, the Pakistani cricket team had bitterly and surprisingly been knocked out of the World Cup, held on some of the Caribbean islands, including Jamaica. A wealth of speculation was raised that corruption, revenge or agreements on settled matches would be the motive for the murder. According to CountryAAH, Kingston is the capital city of Jamaica. The country's police were assisted by British detectives in the search for the killer. However, three later investigations indicated that…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Honduras 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 Honduras. According to CountryAAH, Tegucigalpa is the capital city of Honduras. A telephone interception scandal dominated the domestic policy of H. during the year. In February, it was revealed that high-ranking people, including President Manuel Zelaya, had been secretly intercepted on behalf of Marcelo Chimirri, head of state telecommunications company Hondutel. At the center of the scandal was a bill that rested for two years and aimed at increasing public transparency in the telecommunications sector. In one of the telephone conversations, the president's own chief of staff is heard discussing with the foreign minister a campaign of dirt targeting Congress President Roberto Micheletti, an outspoken supporter of the bill, and in another conversation, the president instructs an official to launch a press campaign against Congress via radio. In…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Haiti 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 Haiti. Haiti is still suffering from great political uncertainty and weak social institutions. President René Préval therefore announced in October his ambition to change the constitution in order to improve stability and thus strengthen democracy. The continued political instability in Haiti also led the UN Security Council in September to vote for UN Security Force MINUSTAH to remain until at least October 2008. In July, US and Haitian agents made an unsuccessful attempt to arrest Guy Philippe, leader of the uprising which in 2004 overthrew President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and who is then suspected to have been involved in cocaine smuggling. However, some successes in the fight against drugs were noted during the year; at a strike in May, 420 kilos of cocaine was seized, the largest seizure in…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Guatemala 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 Guatemala. According to CountryAAH, Guatemala City is the capital city of Guatemala. Álvaro Colom, candidate for the center-left alliance Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE), won the second round of the presidential election on November 4 with 53 percent against 47 percent for right-wing candidate Otto Pérez Molina. The turnout was low; only half of those eligible to vote. However, the election campaign was violent; inter alia the party secretary for Perez Molina's party Partido Patriota (PP) was murdered and one of the mayoral candidates for the Nobel laureate Rigoberta Menchús party Encuentro por Guatemala (EC). Incidentally, she received just over 3 percent of the presidential vote. Prior to the first round of elections on September 9, a total of 50 people died, many in connection with violent…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Grenada 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 Grenada. According to CountryAAH, Saint George’s is the capital city of Grenada. The many legal trips around "Grenada 17" continued during the year. In February, the country's highest court of appeal, the Privy Council in London, ruled that the trials against the 17 had violated the country's constitution. Therefore, Grenada's highest court was ordered to redo the trials against the 13 people who were still in jail. In 1986, 14 of "Grenada 17" were sentenced to death for having carried out the coup in 1983 which led to the assassinations of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and nine other government officials. The sentence was converted in 1991 to life imprisonment, and a prisoner was later released. The legal proceedings against the coup makers have received sharp criticism from, among…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Greenland 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 Greenland. The self-government government, the National Board, was dissolved in the spring after conflict within the coalition on the important shrimp fishery. The left-wing party Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) was forced to leave the tripartite cooperation, but the Social Democratic Siumut and Atassut bourgeois continued in a new coalition. Hans Enoksen (s) remained as Chairman of the National Board. In May, a ban was imposed on the sale and dispensing of alcohol in the city of Qaanaaq (Thule) in northern G. after a report of how the children there lived in misery due to the severe abuse of the adults. In another report during the year, 9 percent of all Greenlandic children live in so-called relative poverty, which means that they suffer from a shortage of life's emergency needs…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

El Salvador 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 El Salvador. The year was news-dominated by El Salvador's foreign policy relations. A minor diplomatic crisis first broke out between El Salvador and Guatemala in February as three Salvadoran parliamentarians visited Guatemala City murdered by four Guatemalan police officers. President Antonio ("Tony") Saca indignantly demanded immediate action to investigate the background. In October, he also accused Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez of intervening in El Salvador's internal affairs by encouraging Venezuelan model formation of so-called Bolivarian circles intended to strengthen grassroots democracy. According to CountryAAH, San Salvador is the capital city of El Salvador. President Saca took a tour of the Middle East to greet the 380 Salvadoran soldiers participating in peacekeeping and humanitarian missions in Iraq. The opposition has been strongly critical of El Salvador being the only…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Dominican Republic 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 Dominican Republic. According to CountryAAH, Santo Domingo is the capital city of Dominican Republic. President Leonel Fernández won the primary elections on May 6 with 72 percent of the vote, which means he can stand for re-election to the ruling party Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD) in May 2008. Fernández won many votes for having overcome the high inflation that the previous administration left behind. His opponent Danilo Medina is Fernández's closest associate but the nomination campaign became bitter and in many respects resembled a fight between two different parties. In April, President Fernández announced a plan to reform and modernize the armed forces. Among other things, a new national security and defense directorate will be established and, more controversially, the military will have increased influence over…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Dominica 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 Dominica. According to CountryAAH, Roseau is the capital city of Dominica. The banana industry, the country's by far the most important economic sector, suffered a disaster in August when virtually all of the harvest was destroyed in Hurricane Dean. The industry had been fighting headwinds for several years as the EU gradually abandoned its favorable trade agreements with former colonies such as Dominica. In recent years, the country has strived to reduce its dependence on banana production revenue by replacing it with revenues from tourism in particular. Poorly developed infrastructure, e.g. the absence of a major airport, however, has put spikes in the wheel for that development. Country data Area: 750 km2 (world ranking: 175) Population: 74,000 Population density: 99 per km2 (as of 2017, world ranking: 187)…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Cuba 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 Cuba. The question of Fidel Castro's possible return to power, which has occupied both Cubans and the outside world ever since he became ill and resigned temporarily in the summer of 2006, was also not decided in 2007. The first round of the municipal elections was held on October 21. According to CountryAAH, Havana is the capital city of Cuba. Municipal elections are the only open direct elections in Cuba, but the municipal council does not exercise any real power. Their only task is to elect delegates to the National Assembly, who in turn elect members of the Cabinet and the country's president. As Fidel did not run in the October elections, it was thereby indicated that Brother Raúl's takeover of power will be final. However, Fidel has…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Costa Rica 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 Costa Rica. On November 7, the government won by a marginal majority a referendum on the free trade agreement with the United States that President Oscar Arias pledged to allow Costa Rica to join. The agreement means, among other things, that Costa Rica can join the Central American Customs Union and that the monopoly in the telecommunications and insurance industries must be broken, creating strong protests among employees in these governmental sectors to date. The main opposition to the agreement, the center-left party Partido Acción Ciudadana (PAC), first threatened to block a series of government proposals in Congress but later withdrew. According to CountryAAH, San Jose is the capital city of Costa Rica. Vice President and Minister of Justice Laura Chinchilla launched a campaign during the year, Puentes…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Canada 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 Canada. According to CountryAAH, Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. The Supreme Court ruled on February 23 that legislation that made it possible to keep terror suspected foreign nationals in prison indefinitely or to expel them by referring to secret evidence contravened the Constitution. The court did not agree. However, the Conservative minority government was given a year to change the legislation. Economy Inflation rate 1.60% Unemployment rate 6.3% Gross domestic product (GDP) $ 1,774,000,000,000 GDP growth rate 3.00% GDP per capita $ 48,400 GDP by sector Agriculture 1.60% Industry 28.20% Service 70.20% State budget Revenue 510.6 billion Expenditure 501 billion Proportion of the population below the national poverty line 9.4% Distribution of household income Top 10% 8th Lower 10% 2.6 Industrial production growth rate -0.30% Investment…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Belize 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 Belize. The area around Corozal in northern Belize was declared a disaster area since Hurricane Dean pulled over the country at the end of August. Residential housing and agriculture were severely affected by the hurricane, but no casualties were required and floods were of minor magnitude. In early September, according to CountryAAH, Belmopan is the capital city of Belize. Belize was also hit by the tropical storm Felix with limited damage as a result. Belize weather in March, April and May According to Bridgat.com, daily temperatures averaging 30 to 32 ° C can be expected over the next three months. The temperatures hardly fluctuate during this time. Do you want to go on a beach holiday? The water temperatures are in March, April and May 27-28 ° C.…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Barbados 2007

North and Central America

According to CountryAAH, Bridgetown is the capital city of Barbados. The dispute over fishing rights between Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago was further intensified at the end of 2000, when two Barbados fishing boats were raided by the Trinidad Coast Guard. Prime Minister Arthur threatened Trinidad & Tobago with economic reprisals, declaring that he would apply the Immigration Act to expel illegal immigrants from Trinidad out of the country. At the same time, he suggested that the agreements on flights for Trinidad's national airline BWIA be revised. The episode took place shortly after Arthur and Trinidad's Prime Minister Basdeo Panday drafted a plan for fisheries negotiations. Barbados exports to Trinidad fell from $ 39.5 million. US $ 1982 to $ 30 million in 2000. In return, Trinidad had exported goods…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Bahamas 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 Bahamas. According to CountryAAH, Nassau is the capital city of Bahamas. US scandal model Anna Nicole Smith's death on February 8 on an island in the Bahamas had political consequences for the country. Ten days after the death, Immigration and Labor Minister Shane Gibson was forced to leave his post when he was accused of speeding up the process of Smith's residence permit in exchange for sex and gifts. The charges came after one of Bahamas newspapers published pictures of Smith and Gibson tightly wrapped in a bed, fully clothed. Gibson called the charges a "gross lie". Anna Nicole Smith lived in the Bahamas during the last months of her life. When elections were held in Parliament on May 2, the bourgeois and market-liberal opposition party The Free…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

Antigua and Barbuda 2007

North and Central America

Yearbook 2007 Antigua and Barbuda. In March, the World Trade Organization joined Antigua and Barbuda in the drawn-out dispute between the US and the US over foreign Internet gaming companies' access to the US domestic market. The WTO then ruled that the United States had not followed the organisation's 2005 decision that it must ease a number of restrictions against foreign-based Internet gaming companies. As a result, in December the WTO granted Antigua and Barbuda the right to impose trade sanctions on the United States at a value equivalent to USD 21 million per year. According to CountryAAH, Saint John’s is the capital city of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua and Barbuda have become increasingly dependent on foreign currency from Internet casinos based in the country as a result of reduced…

05Mar 2021 by extrareference

North America Wildlife

North and Central America

North America - Wildlife To the north, in Canada and Alaska, there are many circumpolar species that are also known from Europe and Siberia, such as polar bears, brown bears, wolves, wolves, elk, and reindeer and red deer, which in North America are called respectively. caribou and wapiti. Further south, the North American fauna is reminiscent of the European and temperate Asian faunas: although they are often different species, they are closely related. This similarity is the reason why all these northern areas are considered to be the same animal geographic region, the Holarctic region (see also the Nearctic region). However, North America also houses species that have immigrated from South America via the Panama Sea, and that do not have close relatives in Europe and Asia, such as punk…