Ba'athism is an Arab political doctrine which combines elements of socialist thinking with pan-Arabism. This theory of Arab nationalism conceives of the 'Arab nation' as a single entity stretching from Morocco to Iraq which has been artificially divided by colonialism and imperialism.
Ba'athism originated in Syria, where the first Ba'ath Party was founded in 1953. Ba'athists have held power in Syria since 1963 and held power in Iraq from 1968 until they were overthrown in 2003 by a US led coalition of America, Britain and Australia which invaded Iraq in March 2003 under the pretence of disarming the regime of weapons of mass destruction. The Syrian and Iraqi branches of the movement were deeply divided. There have been further divisions between its civilian and military elements. While the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein employed the slogans of pan-Arabism to justify his invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the Ba'ath Party in Iraq was reduced to an instrument of state power. Research Ba'athism
A cento is a poem formed out of verses taken from one or more poets, so arranged as to form a distinct poem. CENTO (Central Treaty Organisation) was a defensive union of the 1950s to 1970s comprising the member states of the USA, UK, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Turkey with the aim of meeting a Communist attack on one of the member states. Iraq withdrew in 1958 and Pakistan in 1972 before the organisation was dissolved. Research Cento
The ISO (International Standards Organisation) assigns a two character code to each country name. These codes are used by Internet 'whois' databases (these two character abbreviations are the whois country codes) and also other applications.
A plain is an expanse of low and nearly level land. Some plains, such as the Fens of England, large parts of Holland, and extensive areas of Russia, are almost perfectly flat; but generally an extensive plain consists of wide, gently sloping valleys separated by low hills. Such a plain is termed ' rolling' or 'undulating'. Many plains look extremely flat when viewed from the top of the neighbouring hills, but on descending one finds numerous instances of steep gradients, the valley slopes of the streams which cross the plain.
Plains are not all of the same type. Some plains may have been formed by the wearing down of lands that were once much higher. Such areas are more correctly called 'peneplains', e.g. Finland, a lowland area of very old rock, the HudsonBaylowlands, and Anglesey. Secondly, where layers of rock have not been folded but remain almost horizontal, extensive plains also occur. The Central Plains of the United States and the great plains of European Russia are in this group. Thirdly, plains may have been formed by the gradual accumulation of silt brought down by rivers. These are usually called alluvial plains. Good examples are the plain of North China, the Indo-Gangetic plain, the plains of Iraq, and much of the Amazonlowland. Some plains are the beds of old lakes. Rivers entering a lake deposit silt which is spread by the movement of the water over the lake floor. Such plains, though not large in size, are usually very fertile. Much of the great wheat land of Southern Manitoba is the bed of an old lake -lake Agassiz. The fertile plains of Hungary are of similar origin. Finally, some plains, such as the coastal plains of the United States from ChesapeakeBay to Florida, have been formed by the uplift of part of the sea floor bordering a continent.
The plains of the world tend to be areas of most advanced development and densest settlement. They are easier to cultivate than highland areas as the soil is usually deeper and more fertile. Hence the great plains, except where covered with large tracts of uncleared forest or occasional deposits of infertile soil, are important agricultural lands. Some plains, such as portions of Central Asia or of the Murray-Darling Basin, are too dry for successful agriculture. Unless irrigation is a practical possibility such plains are occupied by pastoral farmers engaged in rearing animals, and even the pastoral farmers sometimes have to bore wells for water, as in Hungary and in Australia. Where coal is found in or near plains, densely populated industrial centres usually develop, as in the North-Central United States. Movement is easy in all directions over lowlands, and rivers are generally slow and easily navigable, so that they are used as commercial highways. This is well illustrated by the United States, where the Mississippi and its tributaries provided the main lines of communication before the period when railways were developed.
Propaganda (fully the Congregation of the Propaganda, College of the Propaganda) was originally an association established in Rome in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV for the purpose of diffusing a knowledge of Roman Catholicism throughout the world.
In modern times, the term 'propaganda' refers to the systematic dissemination of selected or incorrect information for the purpose of propagating a particular idea or doctrine. In this sense, propaganda was popularised by the Nazis during the Second World War and quickly adopted by western corporations to oppose the threat to their continued exploitation of the masses presented by Socialist thinking and particularly Communist revolutions that took place during the early 20th century. A popular example of disinformation propaganda spread by the west was of communist Russia's intention to invade the west. In reality, Russia had no such intentions, rather the west, notably Britain and America were keen to invadeRussia - Britain had already sent an army to fight the revolutionaries in Russia some years earlier. During the 1990's propaganda was used to persuade public opinion in Britain and America of the justification for removing Iraq's socialist government, claiming it's leader - Sadaam Hussein - to be a brutal and repressive dictator. In reality, Iraq had a better human rights record than many of the other Arab countries which were friendly to western corporations, and under Hussein Iraqi women enjoyed freedoms and equality unheard of in Muslim-led Arab countries.
Industries also use propaganda. The pharmaceutical corporations have successfully used disinformation and misleading 'science' to persuade a gullible public away from natural health and into a dependence upon expensive drugs. So effective is propaganda, that in the 1980's people world wide were persuaded to take drugs already banned for their lethal toxicity to counteract a supposed virus which had never been proved to exist, which in turn people were persuaded did exist, even though it had never been proven and its effects were obviously caused by other factors, mostly excessive use of commercial pharmaceutical drugs and narcotics. Research Propaganda
Respect, the Unity Coalition, is a British left-wing political party formed directly out of the anti-war movement in the UK which followed the invasion of Iraq in 2002. Some of those involved in the anti-war movement felt that a political movement was needed to further the aims of those millions who marched against the war. A public meeting was called in January 2004 in London at Friend's House and from that meeting, which was attended by more than 1500 people, an executive was formed. Among those instrumental in founding Respect were George Galloway MP (who had been expelled from the ruling Labour party for revealing truths about the illegality of the invasion of Iraq), Lindsey German, Convenor of the Stop the War Coalition, Ken Loach the film maker and Salma Yaqoob, of the Birmingham Stop the War group. Many British political observers see Respect as an attempt to recreate the true Socialist Labour party which had become a party - renamed 'New Labour' - with almost identical aims to the Tory party, and in so doing had misled and cheated its supporters who traditionally believed in values such as the national ownership of railways and public services and which they had thought would be re-nationalised by the Tony Blair led Labour government.
Terrorism is the systematic use of violence and intimidation to coerce a government or a community into adopting certain specific political ends, such as national independence for a region, or reunification or self-government, or even the adoption of a political system more sympathetic to another country's economic interests. The term terrorism was first coined in England referring to the French revolution, the agents of which were called 'terrorists' by the hostile English press, particularly the Daily Telegraph. Terrorism is so called because of the employment of 'terror' tactics, typically the bombing of property and the murder of civilians which leads to general unrest and pressure from the public onto a government or encourages the public to remove a leader. Within this definition, resistance fighters - civilians who take up arms against another country's uniformed soldiers occupying their country - are not terrorists, but a country which bullies another country with threats of war unless political changes occur within the country, perhaps the adoption of a government more sympathetic to the bullying country's economic interests, clearly is an example of terrorism. Recent examples of terrorism included the Republican terrorists of northern Ireland which sought reunification with the Republic of Ireland through making attacks on the British people in an attempt to coerce the British government into agreeing to their terms. The Islamic fundamentalist attack on the Twin Towers on September the 11th 2001 were not seeking a stated political end, and as such were not a terrorist attack, but were a criminal act of murder and destruction. America's threats to the country of Iraq unless they change their leader - President Saddam Hussein - could be construed as terrorism as the alternative for the Iraqi people is clearly all out war, in which many civilians would be killed and lose their property. A clear use of intimidation for political ends. Research Terrorism
The Arabi is a breed of sheep found in south-western Iran, southern Iraq and north-eastern Arabia, the Arabi is a meat breed of the Near Easter Fat- Tailed type. The wool is of carpet quality. The breed is usually black, pied, or white with a black head. The males are horned and the females are hornless (polled). The Arabi is the foundation breed of the Wooed Persian of South Africa. Research Arabi
A gall (also known as a gall-nut or nut-gall) is a growth caused on plants of various kinds by parasitic mites (Phytoptidae). The galls of commerce are produced by a species of Cynips (Gall-fly) in the tender shoots of the Quercus infectoria, a species of oak abundant in Asia Minor, Syria, Iraq, etc. They are spherical and tubercular, and vary in magnitude from the size of a pea to that of a hazel-nut. White, green, and blue varieties are recognized, the latter kinds being the best. They are inodorous, but are strongly astringent from the tannin and gallic acid which they contain, and which are their chief products. Gall-nuts were extensively used in dyeing and in the manufacture of ink, and they were also frequently used in medicine. They were chiefly imported from Aleppo, Tripoli, and Smyrna. The Chinese galls, or woo-pei-tsze, differ from the foregoing in that they are really an unusually massive kind of crust or cocoon, such as the aphides form on the surface of a plant; the tissues of the plant are not affected. After the opening of the Japanese ports these were imported in considerable quantities to Britain. Research Gall
The gazelle (Gazella dorcas) is the type of a sub-family of antelopes (the Gazellinae), which includes some 23 species of small, mostly desert-living forms. The gazelle is a light fawn colour upon the back, deepening into dark-brown in a wide band which edges the flanks and forms a line of demarcation between the colour of the upper portions of the body and the pure white of the abdomen. The eye of the gazelle is large, soft, and lustrous. Both sexes are provided with horns, round, black, and lyrated, about 33 cm long. The gazelle is found to the north side of the Atlas Mountains, in Egypt, Ethiopia, Syria, Arabia, and South Iraq. Research Gazelle
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Ba'athism
