The United Nations Children's Fund or UNICEF is an international organization. The United Nations established UNICEF on 11 December 1946. At that time, its name was United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund. Thus, UNICEF became its short name. In 1953, United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund dropped the words "Emergency "and "International" from its name. Its name became United Nations Children's Fund. But, in short, its name continued as UNICEF.
The current Executive Director of UNICEF is former United States National Security Advisor Anthony Lake since 2010.
UNICEF has its headquarters in New York, United States of America. UNICEF provides many types of assistance and help to children and mothers. It receives money from different governments and private persons. It works in almost 190 countries
UNICEF has decided the following 5 areas as priority or main areas:
Some other priority areas are the child in the family, and sports for development.
UNICEF has been working for over 60 years in different countries all over the world. In 1965, this organization received the Nobel Peace Prize for its work. But, many people and governments have not always praised the work of the UNICEF. They have pointed out some defects in the way UNICEF works. Still, it is the world’s leading organization for the development of children. It operates in 190 countries around the world.
German reunification
German reunification (German: "Deutsche Wiedervereinigung") is a term of history. Unification means making two or more parts as one. The German reunification is the unification of the two parts of Germany.
After the Second World War, Germany had been divided into two countries. One was the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), also called "West Germany". The other part was the German Democratic Republic (GDR), which was also called "East Germany". The German reunification was on 3 October 1990, when the East German states became a part of the Federal Republic of Germany.
After World War II, The winners made four Allied Occupation Zones in Germany. In 1949 the French, British and American zones were joined into the "Federal Republic of Germany", also known as "West Germany", while the Soviet zone was made into a separate state known as the "German Democratic Republic", or "East Germany".
During the Cold War, West Germany was a democratic country (Politicians were elected in free elections), was allied with the United States of America and had a capitalist economic system (Businesses were owned by citizens). East Germany was a communist country, a one-party state. The communist party ruled all the time, elections were only for show, and all businesses were owned by the state. Like other states in the Soviet bloc, it was controlled by the Soviet Union.
After West Germany's economy began to grow faster and faster in the 1950s, while East Germany's economy was not doing so well, many people moved from East to West Germany. To stop this emigration, the border between East and West Germany was closed in 1961 by East German forces. This border was part of the Iron Curtain. Between 1961 and 1989, leaving East Germany was very hard and extremely dangerous. Officially leaving East Germany took years to be approved, and people who applied were often spied on by East German police. Many people who tried to flee over the border were shot and killed there.
In 1989, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev started to open the Soviet Union to the west. Many of the communist countries followed his example. East Germany tried to ignore this trend, but during 1989, public protest grew inside the country. After some efforts to keep the country stable, the border was finally opened on 9 November 1989. Conversion of East Germany into a democratic country started almost immediately. During the following 11 months, the terms of unification were negotiated between East and West Germany, France, Great Britain, The United States of America and The Soviet Union, and the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany also called the Two Plus Four Treaty, signed by the two German states and the four wartime allies, opened the way towards reunification.
Two options for reunification were written in the West German constitution (the Grundgesetz):
The second option was chosen, and on 3 October 1990, at 00:01 the five new federal states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and reunified Berlin officially joined the Federal Republic of Germany. The German Democratic Republic ceased to exist at this moment.
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is a term used in history. They took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Three partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth took place:
The partitions were carried out by Prussia, Russia and Habsburg Austria dividing up the Commonwealth lands among themselves.
The less often used term "Fourth Partition of Poland" may refer to any later division of Polish lands, specifically:
Poland-Lithuania in its final period (mid-18th century), before the partitions was already not a completely sovereign state. It was almost a vassal, or a Russian satellite state, with Russian tsars effectively choosing Polish kings. This applies particularly to the last Commonwealth King Stanisław August Poniatowski, who for some time had been a lover of Russian Empress Catherine the Great.
In 1730 Commonwealth's neighbours, namely Prussia, Austria and Russia, signed a secret agreement in order to maintain the "status quo": specifically, to ensure that the Commonwealth laws would not change. Their alliance later became known in Poland as the "Alliance of the Three Black Eagles" (or "Löwenwolde's Treaty"), because all three states used a black eagle as a state symbol (in contrast to the white eagle, a symbol of Poland).
The Commonwealth had remained neutral in the Seven Years' War, though sympathizing with the alliance of France, Austria, and Russia. It allowed Russian troops access to its western lands as bases against Prussia. Frederick II of Prussia retaliated by ordering Polish currency counterfeited to affect the Polish economy.
The Poles tried to expel foreign forces in an uprising (the Confederation of Bar, 1768–1772), but the irregular and poorly commanded forces had litte chance in the face of the regular Russian army and suffered a defeat. Adding to the chaos was a Ukrainian peasant rebellion, the Koliyivschyna, which erupted in 1768 and resulted in massacres of noblemen (szlachta), Jews, Uniates, and Catholic priests before it was put down by Polish and Russian troops.
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and, after 1791, the Commonwealth of Poland, was a state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. The Commonwealth was an extension of the Polish-Lithuanian Union, a personal union between those two states that had existed from 1386. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th-century Europe. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth covered more lands than the present lands of Poland and Lithuania. The lands of the Commonwealth also covered all the lands of present-day Belarus; a large part of Ukraine and Latvia; and western part of present-day Russia.
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth had high levels of ethnic diversity and by religious tolerance. The amount of religious freedom varied over time.
After several decades of prosperity, it entered a period of political, military and economic decline. It ended with the final Partitions of Poland in 1795. Its growing weakness led to it being divided by its more powerful neighbors, Austria, Prussia and the Russian Empire.
Notes
Unification of Germany