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Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.[23] The country is ranked 149th, of 182 countries, on the Human Development Index.[24] There is concern about the emergency services' ability to cope with a major disaster,[25] and the country is considered "economically vulnerable" by the Food and Agriculture Organization.[26]

The earthquake occurred inland, on 12 January 2010, approximately 25 kilometres (16 mi) WSW from Port-au-Prince at a depth of 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) at 16:53 UTC-5[6] on the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system.[2

The earthquake occurred inland, on 12 January 2010, approximately 25 kilometres (16 mi) WSW from Port-au-Prince at a depth of 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) at 16:53 UTC-5[6] on the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system.[

The United States Geological Survey recorded a series of at least 33 aftershocks , fourteen of them between magnitudes

destroyed, including the Presidential Palace (President René Préval survived), the National Assembly building, the

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere ,[22] ranked 149th of 182 countries on the Human Development Index

The main

The main

The main

prison in Port-au-Prince collapsed during the earthquake. Many prisoners escaped into the streets, and their whereabouts are unknown.[

The main

Amongst the widespread devastation and damage throughout Port-au-Prince and elsewhere, vital infrastructure to respond to the disaster, such as all hospitals in the capital, air, sea, and land transport facilities, and communications, was severely damaged or destroyed

The buildings of the finance ministry, the ministry of public works, the ministry of communication and culture, the Palace of Justice, the Superior Normal School, the National School of Administration, the Institut Aimé Césaire, Parliament , and Port-au-Prince Cathedral were damaged to varying degrees

The Haitian government reported that nearly 70,000 bodies had been recovered by official crews.[87] Some reports indicated 250,000 people sustained injuries, and as many as one million Haitians were left homeless

Amongst the large number of dead were several public figures including government officials, clergy members, and musicians, and foreign civilians and military personnel working with the United Nations.

The Dominican team sent food, bottled water and heavy machinery to remove the rubble.[103] The hospitals in Dominican Republic were made available, as well as the airport to receive aid that would be distributed to Haiti

people who needed emergency surgery . [41] [42] The state of medical care was severely limited; a parking lot served as a triage center and the wounded were forced to lie in tents for treatment

U.S. President Barack Obama announced that former presidents Bill Clinton, who also acts as the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, and George W. Bush will coordinate efforts to raise funds for Haiti's recovery.

between 100,000 and 200,000 would have died as a result of the disaster,[3] exceeding earlier Red Cross estimates of 45,000–50,000.[8] Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive announced on 18 January that over 70,000 bodies had been buried in mass graves.

Cold War prestige, monetary gain, and providing a distraction are some of the more notable motives which are give

A 1999 poll by The Gallup Organization found that 89% of the U.S. public believed the landings were genuine, while 6% did not, and 5% were undecided.[2][3]

Independently, in 1996, structures resembling nanobacteria were reportedly discovered in a meteorite, ALH84001, thought to be formed of rock ejected from Mars. This report is also controversial, and scientific debate continues.

Within Islam, the statement of the Qur'an "All praise belongs to God, Lord of all the worlds" indicates multiple universal bodies, and maybe even multiple universes, which may indicate extraterrestrial and even extradimensional life. Surat Al-Jinn also mentioned a statement from a Jinn regarding the current status and ability of his group in the heavens.

The other large moons of our system which have been visited appear similarly lifeless, though the interesting geothermic forces observed (Io's volcanism, Europa's ocean, Titan's thick atmosphere) have underscored how broad the range of potentially habitable environments may be.

After the decisive military defeat, the agreement to a ceasefire on February 28, and political maneuvering, the UN Security Council continued to press its demands that Hussein accept previous UN Security Council Resolutions, as stated in UNSCR 686. By April, UNSCR 687 recognized Kuwait's sovereignty had been reinstated, and established the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM). Two days later, UNSCR 688 added that Iraq must cease violent repression of ethnic and religious minorities. The aftermath of the war saw the Iraqi military, especially its air force, destroyed. In return for peace, Iraq was forced to dismantle all chemical and biological weapons it possessed, and end any attempt to create or purchase nuclear weapons, to be assured by the allowing UN weapons inspectors to evaluate the dismantlement of such weapons. Finally, Iraq would face sanctions if it disobeyed any of the demands. Shortly after the war ended in 1991, Shia Muslim and Kurdish Iraqis engaged in protests against Hussein's regime, resulting in an intifada. Hussein responded with violent repression against Shia Muslims, and the protests came to an end.[41] It is estimated that as many as 100,000 people were killed.[42] The US, UK, France and Turkey claiming authority under UNSCR 688, established the Iraqi no-fly zones to protect Kurdish and Shiite populations from attacks by the Hussein regime's aircraft.

Disarmament crisis Main article: Iraq disarmament crisis While Iraq had agreed to UNSCR 687, the Iraqi government sometimes worked with inspectors, but ultimately failed to comply with disarmament terms, and as a result, economic sanctions against Iraq continued. After the war, Iraq was accused of breaking its obligations throughout the 1990s, including the discovery in 1993 of a plan to assassinate former President George H. W. Bush, and the withdrawal of Richard Butler's UNSCOM weapon inspectors in 1998 after the Iraqi government claimed some inspectors were spies for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.[43] On multiple occasions throughout the disarmament crisis, the UN passed further resolutions (see United Nations Resolutions concerning Iraq) compelling Iraq to comply with the terms of the ceasefire resolutions. It is estimated more than 500,000 Iraqi children died as a result of the sanctions.[44][45] With humanitarian and economic concerns in mind, UNSCR 706 and UNSCR 712 allowed Iraq to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian aid. This was later turned into the Oil-for-Food Programme by UNSCR 986. Over the years, U.S. land forces were deployed to the Iraq border, and U.S. bombings were carried out to try to pressure Hussein to comply with UN resolutions. As a result of these repeated violations, US Secretary of State Madeline Albright, US Secretary of Defense William Cohen, and US National Security Advisor Sandy Berger held an international town hall meeting to discuss possible war with Iraq, which seemed to have little public support. In October 1998, U.S. President Bill Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act, calling for "regime change" in Iraq, and initiated Operation Desert Fox. Following Operation Desert Fox, and end to partial cooperation from Iraq prompted UNSCR 1284, disbanding UNSCOM and replacing it with United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC).

The Bush administration made a number of allegations against Iraq, including that Iraq was acquiring uranium from Niger and that Iraq had secret weapons laboratories in trailers and isolated facilities throughout Iraq;[citation needed] none of these allegations have proven true. Saddam Hussein, under pressure from the U.S. and the U.N., finally agreed to allow weapons inspectors to return to Iraq in 2002, but by that time the Bush administration had already begun pushing for war. In June 2002, Operation Southern Watch transitioned to Operation Southern Focus, bombing sites around Iraq. The first CIA team entered Iraq on July 10, 2002. This team was composed of elite CIA Special Activities Division and the U.S. Military's elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) operators. Together, they prepared the battle space of the entire country for conventional U.S. Military forces. Their efforts also organized the Kurdish Peshmerga to become the northern front of the invasion and eventually defeat Ansar Al-Islam in Northern Iraq before the invasion and Saddam's forces in the north. The battle led to the killing of a substantial number of terrorists and the uncovering of a chemical weapons facility at Sargat.[46][47] In October 2002, the U.S. Congress passed the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq, and in November the UN Security Council passes UNSCR 1441.

Invasion and civil war Main article: 2003 invasion of Iraq Further information: Iraq War On March 20, 2003, a United States-organized coalition invaded Iraq, with the stated reason that Iraq had failed to abandon its nuclear and chemical weapons development program in violation of U.N. Resolution 687. The United States asserted that because Iraq was in material breach of Resolution 687, the armed forces authorization of Resolution 678 was revived. The United States further justified the invasion by claiming that Iraq had or was developing weapons of mass destruction and stating a desire to remove an oppressive dictator from power and bring democracy to Iraq. In his State of the Union Address on January 29, 2002, President George W. Bush declared that Iraq was a member of the "Axis of Evil", and that, like North Korea and Iran, Iraq's attempt to acquire weapons of mass destruction posed a serious threat to U.S. national security. These claims were based on documents that were provided to him by the CIA and the government of the United Kingdom.[48] Bush added, Iraq continues to flaunt its hostilities toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade... This is a regime that agreed to international inspections — then kicked out inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world... By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes [Iran, Iraq and North Korea] pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred.[49] However, according to a comprehensive U.S. government report, no complete, fully functional weapons of mass destruction have been found since the invasion.[50] There are accounts of Polish troops obtaining antiquated warheads, dating from the 1980s, two of which contained trace amounts of the nerve gas cyclosarin, but U.S. military tests found that the rounds were so deteriorated that they would "have limited to no impact if used by insurgents against coalition forces." [51][52][53][54][55][56] Iraq was also home to 1.8 tons of low-enriched uranium, miscellaneous other nuclear materials, and chemical weapons paraphernalia; the nuclear material was under the supervision of the IAEA until the beginning of the war.

Post-invasion Main articles: Post-invasion Iraq, 2003–present, Insurgency in Iraq, Civil war in Iraq, and Humanitarian Crises of the Iraq War Occupation zones in Iraq after invasion. Following the invasion, the United States established the Coalition Provisional Authority to govern Iraq.[57] Government authority was transferred to an Iraqi Interim Government in June 2004, and a permanent government was elected in October 2005. More than 140,000 troops, mainly Americans, remain in Iraq. Some studies have placed the number of civilians deaths as high as 655,000 (see The Lancet study), although most studies estimate a lower number; the Iraq Body Count project indicates a significantly lower number of civilian deaths than that of The Lancet Study, though IBC organizers acknowledge that their statistics are an undercount as they base their information off of media-confirmed deaths. The website of the Iraq body count states, "Our maximum therefore refers to reported deaths – which can only be a sample of true deaths unless one assumes that every civilian death has been reported. It is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media."[58] After the invasion, al-Qaeda took advantage of the national resistance to entrench itself in the country. On December 30, 2006, Saddam Hussein was hanged.[59] Hussein's half-brother and former intelligence chief Barzan Hassan and former chief judge of the Revolutionary Court Awad Hamed al-Bandar were likewise executed on January 15, 2007;[60] as was Taha Yassin Ramadan, Saddam's former deputy and former vice-president (originally sentenced to life in prison but later to death by hanging), on March 20, 2007.[61] Ramadan was the fourth and last man in the al-Dujail trial to die by hanging for crimes against humanity. President of Iraq Jalal Talabani with U.S. President Barack Obama in 2009. At the Anfal genocide trial, Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid (aka Chemical Ali), former defense minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed al-Tay, and former deputy Hussein Rashid Mohammed were sentenced to hang for their role in the Al-Anfal Campaign against the Kurds on June 24, 2007.[citation needed] Al-Majid was sentenced to death three more times: once for the 1991 suppression of a Shi'a uprising along with Abdul-Ghani Abdul Ghafur on December 2, 2008;[62] once for the 1999 crackdown in the assassination of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad al-Sadr on March 2, 2009;[63] and once on January 17, 2010 for the gassing of the Kurds in 1988;[64] he was hanged over a week later on January 25.[65] Acts of sectarian violence have led to claims of ethnic cleansing in Iraq, and there have been many attacks on Iraqi minorities such as the Yezidis, Mandeans, Assyrians and others.[66] A U.S. troop surge to deal with increased violence and improve security became a contentious political issue in the United States. The surge in troops was enacted in early 2007; in his September 2007 testimony to Congress, General Petraeus stated that the surge's goals were being met.[67] Iraq also suffered a cholera outbreak in 2007.[68]

olence in Iraq began to decline from the summer of 2007.[69] The mandate of t

On June 29, 2009, U.S. troops formally withdrew from Baghdad streets, in accordance with former U.S. President George W. Bush's security pact with Iraq known as the Status of Forces Agreement. The SOFA pact stated, among other things, that U.S. troops will withdraw from Iraq's cities by June 30, 2009, and will leave the country on Dec. 31, 2011.[70] Throughout the country, as the citizens of Iraq celebrated with fireworks,[71] television programs declared June 30 as National Sovereignty Day.[72][73] However, crime and violence initially spiked in the months following the US withdra

last extended by UN resolution 1790, expired on December 31, 2008.

ssaults, and shootings increased dramatically.[74][78] According to the Associated Press, Iraqi military spokesman Major General Qassim al-Moussawi said investigations found that 60 to 70 percent of the criminal activ

As Iraqi security forces struggled to suppress the sudden influx of crime, the number of kidnappings, robberies, bomb

ity is carried out by former insurgent groups or by gangs affiliated with them — partly explaining the brutality of some of the crimes.[74] United States Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that the withdrawal caused a change of chemistry with “a real sense of empowerment on the part of the Iraqis.”[79] U.S. troops continue to work with Iraqi forces after the pullout.[80] Despite the initial increase in violence, on November 30, 2009, Iraqi Interior Ministry officials reported that the civilian death toll in Iraq fell to its lowest level in November since the 2003 invasion.[81]

The following section provides background information on the methods used to form, decorate, finish, glaze, and fire ceramic wares. Forming. The relatively low plasticity of the material used for making porcelain make shaping the clay difficult. In the case of throwing on a potters wheel it can be seen as pulling clay upwards and outwards into a required shape and potters often speak of pulling when forming a piece on a wheel, but the term is misleading; clay in a plastic condition cannot be pulled without breaking. The process of throwing is in fact one of remarkable complexity. To the casual observer, throwing carried out by an expert potter appears to be a graceful and almost effortless activity, but this masks the fact that a rotating mass of clay possesses energy and momentum in an abundance that will, given the slightest mishandling, rapidly cause the workpiece to become uncontrollable. Glazing. Unlike their lower-fired counterparts, porcelain wares do not need glazing to render them impermeable to liquids and for the most part are glazed for decorative purposes and to make them resistant to dirt and staining. Great detail is given in the glaze article. Many types of glaze, such as the iron-containing glaze used on the celadon wares of Longquan, were designed specifically for their striking effects on porcelain. Decoration. Porcelain wares may be decorated under the glaze using pigments that include cobalt and copper or over the glaze using coloured enamels. Like many earlier wares, modern porcelains are often bisque-fired at around 1000 degrees Celsius, coated with glaze and then sent for a second glaze-firing at a temperature of about 1300 degrees Celsius or greater. Another early method is once-fired where the glaze is applied to the unfired body and the two fired together in a single operation. A porcelain doll from the Czech Republic Firing. In this process, green (unfired) ceramic wares are heated to high temperatures in a kiln to permanently set their shapes. Porcelain is fired at a higher temperature than earthenware so that the body can vitrify and become non-porous.

a player then has four to seven of the game's ten character classes to choose from

The game has three roles, DPS (damage dealer), tank and healer, a member of any class can be customized for the DPS role, while members of some classes, known as hybrids, can also be customized as healers, tanks or any of the three roles.

Azeroth

These are indicated by having yellow exclamation marks (!) above their heads, while yellow question marks (?) represent quests ready to hand back and complete.[26] Quests usually reward the player with experience points and in-game money

Characters can be resurrected by other characters that have the ability, or can self-resurrect by moving from the graveyard to the place where they died.

Enhancing a character's reputation can gain access to rare items, unique abilities and profession-based patterns and plans,[29] as well as lowering cost of items sold by NPCs belonging to that faction

Players are also able to customize their character through the use of talents, which are further abilities related to their character class.[9][10]

In one of the updates following the release of the Burning Crusade expansion, the rate at which characters gain experience from killing monsters was increased, along with reducing the amount of experience required to gain further skills and abilities.

Characters are also able to learn two primary professions from a list of ten. These can be gathering professions, such as mining, herb gathering, or animal skinning. Characters can also choose from crafting professions, such as blacksmithing, leatherworking, or enhancement professions such as enchanting or inscription.

This allows players to explore areas and defeat quests without other players outside the group interfering.

Gameplay of World of Warcraft

A typical dungeon will allow up to five characters to enter as part of a group.

As well as banding together to form groups, players can also band together to form guilds. These structures allow players several benefits, such as easier communication and an identifying guild name and tabard. Guild members can also be given access to a central pool of resources known as a guild bank.[13] Guilds can also make use of an in-game calendar, allowing guild members to view scheduled events, and respond to them with whether they can attend or not. This calendar can also be accessed without need to log-in to the game, using the Armory feature.[14]

As well as dungeon-based raid challenges, several creatures exist in the normal game environment that are designed for raids to attack.

Death Knights are a hero class, which means the player needs a level 55 (at least) and they start at level 55 with many skills, abilities, weapons and armor. While a character can be played on its own, players can also group up with others in order to tackle more challenging content. In this way, character classes are used in specific roles within a group

In common with many MMORPGs, World of Warcraft requires players to pay for a subscription, usually either by credit-card or by buying a card from a retailer to redeem for a pre-determined amount of subscription time.[15]

Players can discover 'flight masters' in newly discovered locations and then use those NPCs in order to fly to previously discovered locations in other parts of the world.[19

A number of facilities are available to characters when in towns and cities. In each major city characters can access a bank in order to deposit items, such as treasure or crafted items.

Although the game world remains reasonably similar from day to day, changes have been made over time. Seasonal events that reflect on real world events such as Halloween (as Hallow's End),[23] Christmas (as Winter Veil), Children's Week,[24] Easter (as Noblegarden) and Midsummer run for a period of a day or two up to several weeks.

First, some realms allow player versus player combat to take place almost anywhere in the game world outside of areas for new players.

A large amount of World of Warcraft revolves around questing.

These structures allow players several benefits, such as easier communication and an identifying guild name and tabard.

Each battleground has a set objective, such as capturing a flag or defeating an opposing general, that must be completed in order to win the battleground.

inding a difficult to locate object, or delivering an item from one place to another.

As well as gaining in-game money, items and experience points, many quests will also increase reputation with a faction.

These matches are among a small number of characters (between 2 and 5 per side) in two teams.

the rate at which characters gain experience from killing monsters was increased, along with reducing the amount of experience required to gain further skills and abilities.

These mods can help the player by automating simple tasks, grouping similar spells or abilities together and enhancing the way information about the game environment is presented to the player.

Some of the harder challenges in World of Warcraft require players to group together to defeat them.

These dungeons allow up to forty players to enter at a time in order to face some of the most difficult challenges.[3

The ability for players to communicate with each other using voice chat was added some time after the release of the Burning Crusade expansion.

In a change from the previous Warcraft games produced by Blizzard, World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) where thousands of players can interact with each other. Despite this change, the game draws many similarities with its predecessors.

However, most players prefer to use Ventrilo or Teamspeak, as they come with more customizable features and provide better sound quality than the voice service in-game.