Geography of the USA

 

 

 

 

 

40. The USA political system. 3 branches of government.

The USA has the democratic political system. The constitution, laws and traditions of the USA give the people the right to determine who will be the leader, who will make the laws and what the laws will be. The constitution guarantees freedom to all. American political system is based on principles of representative government and individual freedom.

Under the constitution power is divided among the 3 branches of national government:  legislative (the Congress), executive (the President and his Administration) and judicial (the Supreme Court). These 3 powers established a so-called system of checks & balances.  This system gives each branch the means to restrain the other two.  The Constitution provided the election of a national leader, or president.

The President of the US is head of the executive power and his office is one of the most powerful in the world. Under the Constitution he must”take care, that the laws be faithfully executed”. In addition he has important legislative and judicial powers. The official residence and office of the President is in the White House. As head of the government (the executive branch), the president must carry out the government programmes. He has an important legislative role. He recommends laws to Congress and requests money for federal government operations. He can veto any bill passed by Congress. He is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the US. He has the authority to appoint the heads of all executive departments and agencies. Each appointment must be approved by the Senate. Under the Constitution the President is responsible for foreign relations with other nations.

Constitutional qualifications for the Presidency are – at least 35 years old, a resident of the country for at least 14 years and national born citizen. The President, together with the Vice president, is elected to a 4 years term. The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, in 1951, limited the Presidency to no more than 2 terms.

The president is succeeded by the Vice President (47th Joe Biden, 2009). The Constitution doesn’t delegate any specific executive powers to the Vice President.

The Congress is the supreme legislative organ. It consists of two Houses: The Senate and The House of Representatives. Its residence is on Capitol Hill, in the center of Washington.

The Senate, the smaller House, is composed of two members from each state, as provided by the Constitution. Membership in the House of Representatives is based on the number of population; therefore its size isn’t mentioned in the Constitution. The Senate and the House of Representatives have equal constitution rights. Each House has the power to introduce bills on any subjects. Important bills may be suggested by the President or other executive officials.

There are 100 senators (represent states), and 435 members of the House of Representatives (represents district in his home state).

Senators are elected for a term of 6 years, but 1/3 is elected every 2 years (2/3 of the Senators are always persons with some legislative experience). Members of the House of Representatives are elected for 2 years (may be reelected).

Congress meets in regular sessions, beginning with January 3.

The presiding officer of the House of Representatives is the Speaker (Nancy Peloci, 2007 D). By constitution the presiding officer of the Senate is the Vice President (Joe Biden, 2007 D).

The judicial brunch is headed by the Supreme Court, specifically created by constitution. The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States, and leads the federal judiciary. It consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices, who are nominated by the President and confirmed with the "advice and consent" (majority vote) of the Senate. Federal judges are appointed for life or voluntary retirement. The Court meets in Washington, D.C. in the United States Supreme Court Building. The Supreme Court is primarily an appellate court, but it has original jurisdiction over a small range of cases.

Today the United States has two major political parties.  One is the Democratic Party, whose origins go back to the nation’s third president, Thomas Jefferson and which formed before 1800. The other is the Republican Party, which was formed in the 1850s, by people in the states of the North and West, such as Abraham Lincoln, who wanted the government to prevent the expansion of slavery into new states than being admitted to the union. Party membership in any American party is rarely formal.  Members of the Democratic and Republican parties are not registered; they do not have cards and do not pay membership dues. There are no official formalities for admission. Any voter during elections may become a Republican or a Democrat by a simple declaration, that he is a member of this or that party.  He takes no responsibilities when he makes that declaration. Associating with a party is strictly and exclusively a matter of individual self-expression.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

41. America between the first and second World Wars.

Following World War I, the U.S. grew steadily in stature as an economic and military world power. The United States Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles imposed by its Allies on the defeated Central Powers; instead, the United States chose to follow unilateralism, if not isolationism. The aftershock of Russia's October Revolution resulted in real fears of communism in the United States, leading to a three-year Red Scare. In 1918 the U.S. lost 675,000 people to the Spanish flu pandemic.

In 1920, the manufacture, sale, import and export of alcohol was prohibited by the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Prohibition encouraged illegal breweries and dealers to make substantial amounts of money selling alcohol illegally. The Prohibition ended in 1933. In 1924 the U.S. government passed the Immigration Act of 1924 restricting foreign immigration.

The 1920s were known as the Roaring Twenties, due to the great economic prosperity during this period. Jazz became popular among the younger generation, that’s why that time was also called the Jazz Age.

Great Depression

During most of the 1920s, the United States enjoyed a period of unbalanced prosperity: farm prices and wages fell, while new industries and industrial profits grew. The boom was fueled by an inflated stock market, which later led to the Stock Market Crash on October 29, 1929. This, along with many other economic factors, initiated a worldwide depression known as the Great Depression. During this time, the United States experienced deflation; unemployment increased from 3% in 1929 to 25% in 1933, and manufacturing output collapsed by one-third.

In 1932, Democratic presidential nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt promised "a new deal for the American people". The desperate economic situation, along with the substantial Democratic victories in the 1932 elections, gave Roosevelt unusual influence over Congress at the beginning of his administration. He took a series of measures to create welfare programs and regulate the banking system, stock market, industry and agriculture, along with many other government efforts to end the Great Depression and reform the American economy. Some programs that were a part of Roosevelt's New Deal include the Works Progress Administration relief program, the Social Security Act, the Emergency Banking Act, and the Economy Act. The recovery was rapid in all areas except unemployment, which remained fairly high until 1940.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

42.Thepost World War II period. The fear for communism, McCarthyism, the Cold War.

The Cold War was the continuing state from about 1947 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World – primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies – and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States and its allies. Although the chief military forces never engaged in a major battle with each other, they expressed the conflict through military coalitions, strategic conventional force deployments, extensive aid to states deemed vulnerable, proxy wars, espionage, propaganda, conventional and nuclear arms races, appeals to neutral nations, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race.After the success of their temporary wartime alliance against Nazi Germany, the USSR and the US saw each other as profound enemies of their basic ways of life. The Soviet Union created the Eastern Bloc with the eastern European countries it occupied, annexing some and maintaining others as satellite states, some of which were later consolidated as the Warsaw Pact (1955–1991). The US financed the recovery of western Europe and forged NATO, a military alliance using containment of communism as a main strategy (Truman Doctrine).The US funded the Marshall Plan to effectuate a more rapid post-War recovery of Europe, while the Soviet Union would not let most Eastern Bloc members participate. Elsewhere, in Latin America and Southeast Asia, the USSR assisted and helped foster communist revolutions, opposed by several Western countries and their regional allies; some they attempted to roll back, with mixed results. Among the countries that the USSR supported in pro-communist revolt was Cuba, led by Fidel Castro. The proximity of communist Cuba to the United States proved to be a centerpoint of the Cold War; the USSR placed multiple nuclear missiles in Cuba, sparking heated tension with the Americans and leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, where full-scale nuclear war threatened. Some countries aligned with NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and others formed the Non-Aligned Movement.The Cold War featured periods of relative calm and of international high tension – the Berlin Blockade (1948–1949), the Korean War (1950–1953), the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the Vietnam War (1959–1975), the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–1989), and the Able Archer 83 NATO exercises in November 1983. Both sides sought detente to relieve political tensions and deter direct military attack, which would probably guarantee their mutual assured destruction with nuclear weapons.In the 1980s, under the Reagan Doctrine, the United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the nation was already suffering economic stagnation. In the late 1980s, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the liberalizing reforms of perestroika ("reconstruction", "reorganization", 1987) and glasnost ("openness" 1985). The Cold War ended after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, leaving the United States as the dominant military power. Russia rejected Communism and was no longer regarded as a threat by the U.S. The Cold War and its events have had a significant impact on the world today, and it is often referred to in popular culture, especially films and novels about spies.

 

 

 

 

 

43.The population of Great Britain: historical background, migration

The main stages in the formation of the population of Great Britain

In prehistoric times Britain was joined to the rest of Europe. The first people came there over dry land. Towards the end of the Ice Age the low-lying land areas became covered with water, and thus the present English Channel was formed. The hunters of the New Stone Age crossed the sea to Britain and settled along the western. First inhabitants of the island were the Iberian people, who lived mainly in the western part of the country. They are thought to have come from the region of the Mediterranean Sea somewhere after 3000 B.C. Soon after 2000 B.C. another people entered the country from the east of Europe. The two peoples intermixed.

The Celts arrived from Central Europe after 800 B.C. The name "Britain" comes from the name of a Celtic tribe known as the Britons who settled in the country. The Celts spoke the Celtic language. The influence of the Celts was greatest in Wales, Scotland and Ireland. They were driven to these parts by the invaders who followed them. Due to this, these parts of Britain are very different from England in language, custom, traditions.

In 43 A.D. the country was conquered by the Romans. This occupation of Britain continued to the beginning of the fifth century. In the south and south-eastern parts Roman influence was greatest, while in the north and west the country remained much untouched. Many towns were built by the Romans which were connected by good roads. Some of these roads still exist to this very day. Life in the south-east of Britain resembled life in Rome, and there was a lively trade between Britain and the continent. However, when the Romans left the country at the beginning of the 5th century, Britain became open to the attacks of newcomers from the continent that destroyed Roman civilization and culture.

After the departure of the Romans, the Celts remained independent for some time, but quite soon the country began to be attacked by Germanic tribes from the continent. The Jutes and the Angles came from the Jutland peninsula and the Saxons from the territory between the Rhine and Elbe rivers. The Anglo-Saxons and Jutes were close to each other in speech and customs, and they gradually formed into one people referred to as the Anglo-Saxons.

Although the German invaders occupied most of the British Isles, certain areas remained unconquered. The northern part of Britain was the home of the Picts and Scots. After the conquest of the Picts by the Scots in the 9th century this northern territory came to be called Scotland and a united Scottish kingdom was formed in the 11th century.

The Saxon kingdoms fought one against the other, at times one kingdom would become stronger, then another, but at the beginning of the 9th century Wessex became the leading kingdom and united the rest of England in the fight against the Danes, who came from present-day Denmark. Since 829 the greater part of the country was united under the name England.

Migration

The population of the UK now is more than 51 million people.

Recently, there have been many waves of immigration into Britain and movement within the U.K.  For example, many people from Wales, Scotland and Ireland have settled in England. Many foreigners settled in Britain since the beginning of the 20th century. Before the Second World Bar most of the Immigrants came from the old dominions: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa.  In the late 1930s many Jews came from Germany because of fascist persecution. After 1952 many immigrants came to Britain from the West Indies, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, from some countries of Africa.  At this time the British economy was developing rapidly and it needed cheap labour.  The immigrants were poor and out of work and had been told there were jobs for them in Britain.

Black and Asian people can be seen in every city of Britain, but there is a greater concentration of them in larger cities, where it is easier to find work. Today, more than 5 million people of non-white origin live in Britain and over 80 per cent of them were born in Britain.

With the movement of people among the countries of the European Union of which Britain is a member, more and more people enter Britain from continental Europe. Today there are many Italians, Greeks, Spaniards, and Portuguese living in Britain The arrival of many foreigners has changed life in present day Britain. British culture has been enriched through its contact with other cultures. Today Britain is a multiracial society which benefits from the influences of different peoples and cultures.

 

 

 

44. Scotland: historical background and contemporary situation

Scotland is one of four parts which form the United Kingdom. Scotland forms the northern part of the island of Great Britain.  It shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the southwest.

The recorded history of Scotland begins in the 1st century AD, when the Romans invaded Britain. The Romans added southern Britain to their empire as the province Britannia. They were unable, however, to subdue tribes in the north. To keep these tribes from invading Britannia, Emperor Hadrian had a massive wall built across the island from sea to sea. The Romans called the land north of the wall Caledonia, and they called the people Picts--from the Latin piclus, meaning "painted"--because they painted their bodies. Parts of Hadrian's Wall still stand on the Scottish border.

In the 5th century Celtic immigrants from Ireland, called Scots, settled north of the Clyde. The Scots were already Christians when they left Ireland. In the next century St. Columba converted the king of the Picts to Christianity. In about the 10th century the land came to be known as Scotland.

After the Normans conquered England in 1066, many Anglo-Saxons from England settled in the Lowlands of Scotland. Here the Scots gradually adopted English ways. Feudalism was established, and the chiefs of the clans became nobles. Towns grew, trade increased, and Scotland prospered.

In the later Middle Ages, Scotland suffered from weak kings and powerful nobles. For two centuries there was a constant struggle between the Crown and the barons. Border clashes with England also continued.

Meanwhile the Protestant Reformation had swept across Europe and into England. Scotland was still a Roman Catholic country. Its young queen, Mary Stuart, was in France when John Knox returned home to Scotland from Geneva, Switzerland. Knox was a follower of John Calvin, one of the leaders of the Reformation. Knox spread Calvin's Protestant doctrine. Knox and others drove Mary out. In 1560 Scotland's parliament established the Church of Scotland on a Presbyterian basis.

Mary Stuart's son, James VI, was brought up as a Presbyterian. When Queen Elizabeth of England died in 1603, James inherited the throne of England. The two nations were thus united under a single king, but Scotland remained a separate state with its own parliament and government.

The age-old rivalry between Scotland and England ended formally in 1707 when the parliaments of both nations agreed to the Act of Union. This act merged the parliaments of the two nations and established the Kingdom of Great Britain.

The end of the 18th century has been called Scotland's most creative period. David Hume won world fame in philosophy and history, Adam Smith in political economy, and Robert Burns in poetry. In the next generation Sir Walter Scott made the land and history of Scotland known throughout the world.

The territory of Scotland is divided into two roughly equal parts by so-called Highland Line. The area to the north of this line is mountainous and is called the Highlands. The area to the south is called the Lowlands.

Traditionally, the Scottish economy has been dominated by heavy industry based on the shipbuilding in Glasgow, coal mining and steel industries. Petroleum related industries associated with the extraction of North Sea oil have also been important employers from the 1970s, especially in the north east of Scotland. Edinburgh, the country's capital and second largest city, is one of Europe's largest financial centres. Edinburgh was the hub of the Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th century, which transformed Scotland into one of the commercial, intellectual and industrial powerhouses of Europe.

As of 2006, the unemployment rate in Scotland stood at 5.1% - marginally above the UK average, but lower than in the majority of EU countries.

The Scottish education system has always remained distinct from education in the rest of United Kingdom, with a characteristic emphasis on a broad education. There are 14 Scottish universities, some of which are amongst the oldest in the world. These include the University of St Andrews, the University of Glasgow, the University of Edinburgh and others. The country produces 1% of the world's published research with less than 0.1% of the world's population, and higher education institutions account for nine per cent of Scotland's service sector exports.

Scotland's legal system continues to be separate from those of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland and Scotland still constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in public and in private law.

 

 

 

45. Wales: historical background and contemporary situation

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. Wales has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km2. Generally mountainous, its highest mountains are in the north and central areas, especially in Snowdonia.

During the Iron Age and early medieval period, Wales was inhabited by the Celtic Britons. A distinct Welsh national identity emerged in the centuries after the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, and Wales is regarded as one of the modern Celtic nations today. The castles and town walls erected to ensure its permanence are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Owain Glyndŵr briefly restored independence to what was to become modern Wales, in the early 15th century. Wales was subsequently annexed by England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 since when English law has been the legal system of Wales and England.

Wales lies within the north temperate zone, its changeable, maritime climate making it one of the wettest countries in Europe. It was an agricultural society for most of its early history; pastoral farming was the primary source of Wales' wealth. In the 18th century, the introduction of the slate and metallurgical industries, at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, began to transform the country into an industrial nation. The south Wales coalfield's exploitation in the Victorian era caused a rapid expansion of the Welsh population.

Two-thirds of Wales' population now live in south Wales, mainly in and around the cities of Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, and in the nearby valleys. Another concentration lives in eastern north Wales. Cardiff, Wales' capital, is the country's most populous city, with 317,500 residents, and for a period was the biggest coal port in the world. Today, with the country's traditional heavy industries (coal, steel, copper, tinplate and slate) either gone or in decline, Wales' economy depends on the public sector, light and service industries, and tourism.

For the purposes of local government, Wales has been divided into 22 council areas since 1996. These "unitary authorities" are responsible for the provision of all local government services.

Although Wales shares a close political and social history with the rest of Great Britain, it has retained a distinct cultural identity. Wales is officially bilingual, the Welsh and English languages having equal status. The Welsh language is an important element of Welsh culture, and its use is supported by national policy. Over 580,000 Welsh speakers live in Wales, more than 20% of the population.

Wales is often referred to as "the land of song", and is notable for its harpists, male choirs, and solo artists. The principal Welsh festival of music and poetry is the annual National Eisteddfod. Traditional music and dance in Wales is supported by a majority of societies. The Welsh Folk Song Society has published a number of collections of songs and tunes.

The largest religion in Wales is Christianity, with 71.9% of the population describing themselves as Christian in the 2001 census. The second largest attending faith in Wales is Roman Catholic, with an estimated 43,000 members. The patron saint of Wales is Saint David, with St David's Day celebrated annually on 1 March.

 

 

 

 

 

46. Northern Ireland: historical background, the roots of religious conflicts, contemporary situation

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west. At the time of the 2001 UK Census, its population was 1,685,000, constituting about 30% of the island's total population and about 3% of the population of the United Kingdom.

The region that is now Northern Ireland served as the base of Irish war of resistance against English programmes of colonialism in the late 16th century. The English-controlled Kingdom of Ireland had been declared by the English king, Henry VII, in 1542 but Irish resistance made English rule in Ireland impossible. In the century between 1610 and 1717 perhaps as many as 100,000 Lowlanders came across from Scotland, and by the latter date there were some five Scots to every three Irishmen and one Englishman in Ulster.

Between 1717 and 1775 some 250,000 people from Ulster emigrated to the American colonies. It is estimated that there are more than 27 million descendants of the Scots-Irish migration now living in the U.S.

Northern Ireland consists of six of the nine counties of the Irish province of Ulster. It was created as a distinct division of the United Kingdom on 3 May 1921 under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, though its constitutional roots lie in the 1800 Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland. For over 50 years it had its own devolved government and parliament. These institutions were suspended in 1972 and abolished in 1973. Repeated attempts to restore self-government finally resulted in the establishment of the present-day Northern Ireland Executive and Northern Ireland Assembly. The Assembly operates on democracy principles requiring cross-community support.