Tanzania is the oldest residential area of mankind. Mary and Louis Leakey discovered the skull of a 1.75 million-year-old human fossil in the Oldupai Gorge, which turned out to belong to the Southwestern Monkey. In the 7th century, Islam and Swahili-language culture came to the coast and islands with Arab merchants. When the race for…
Author: payhelpcenter
Tajikistan 2008
Yearbook 2008 Tajikistan. The coldest winter in the memory of the people caused a serious supply crisis in the poor and heavily indebted Tajikistan. In February, tens of thousands of people were found to be malnourished after food prices tripled in a few months. In the midst of the severe cold, many residents lacked electricity,…
Taiwan 2008
Yearbook 2008 Taiwan. The Taiwanese started the year with elections in January. The opposition party Guomindang won a big victory with 72 percent of the vote over the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) which gained 24 percent. Guomindang’s success was thought to be partly due to the new electoral system that had just been introduced,…
Syria 2008
Yearbook 2008 Syria. Syria’s relations with the western world thinned slightly during the year. President Bashar al-Asad visited France July 12-14. He met his colleague Nicolas Sarkozy and also negotiated with Lebanon’s new president Michel Suleiman. Sarkozy repaid the visit to Damascus in September, thus becoming the first Western leader to visit Syria since the…
Switzerland 2008
Yearbook 2008 Switzerland. The Swiss people in a referendum in June said no to a proposal to allow citizens in closed polls to grant or reject citizenship applications. The proposal was an initiative of the anti-immigrant right-wing party SVP (Swiss People’s Party). A dispute with Libya arose after Libyan leader Muammar al-Khadaffi’s son Hannibal and…
Sweden Engineering Industry
In 2018, the engineering industry accounted for half of the manufacturing industry’s production and just over 45 percent of Sweden’s total exports. Imports and exports of workshop products are almost the same, which characterizes countries with highly developed industries. The most important part of the Swedish engineering industry, in terms of both production and export,…
Suriname 2008
Yearbook 2008 Suriname. A new diplomatic crisis with neighboring Guyana broke out in mid-October when a Guyanese cargo boat was boarded by the Surinamese military on the Courantyne River, around which a border dispute has long prevailed between the two countries. Two days later, the boat was returned to a symbolic fine. In April 1997,…
Sudan 2008
Yearbook 2008 Sudan. The new United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), jointly led by the UN and the African Union (AU), began stationing in the troubled Darfur region in January. After some resistance, the Sudanese government gave the peace force full freedom of movement in the area but continued to oppose non-African troops. Sweden and…
Sri Lanka 2008
Yearbook 2008 Sri Lanka. In January, the government announced that it was suspending the ceasefire from 2002, which has in practice failed long ago. Hard fighting broke out immediately in the northern part of the country between the army and the Tamil guerrilla LTTE. The guerrillas, in their home districts, increasingly responded with a series…
Spain 2008
Yearbook 2008 Spain. Before the March parliamentary elections, immigration and the economic downturn with increasing unemployment were the focus. In the election, as expected, the ruling Socialist Party PSOE won with 44 percent of the vote. The Conservative PP got 40 percent. Both increased their mandate slightly; losers became regional small parties. In April, Parliament…