Have you ever looked closely at a globe? That continents look like a giant jig-saw puzzle. North America looks like it could fit next to Europe. The edge of South America matches Africa. Scientists noticed these same features. It caused them to start asking questions. They wanted to know if these continents were was connected? If so, how can something so large move so far? What could possibly have enough force to move such a giant slab of rock? Is there other evidence that can provide clues to the past positions of continents? How can answering these questions help us? A scientist named Alfred Wegener had these same questions. Wegener look at rocks on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. He noticed they were the same type and age. He thought that the rocks must have formed side by side. He proposed that the rocks then drifted apart. One part went with North America. The other part stayed with Europe.
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QUESTION: He proposed that the rocks formed side by side and then drifted where?

While this process moved along, diplomacy continued its rounds. Direct pressure on the Taliban had proved unsuccessful. As one NSC staff note put it, "Under the Taliban, Afghanistan is not so much a state sponsor of terrorism as it is a state sponsored by terrorists." In early 2000, the United States began a high-level effort to persuade Pakistan to use its influence over the Taliban. In January 2000, Assistant Secretary of State Karl Inderfurth and the State Department's counterterrorism coordinator, Michael Sheehan, met with General Musharraf in Islamabad, dangling before him the possibility of a presidential visit in March as a reward for Pakistani cooperation. Such a visit was coveted by Musharraf, partly as a sign of his government's legitimacy. He told the two envoys that he would meet with Mullah Omar and press him on Bin Laden. They left, however, reporting to Washington that Pakistan was unlikely in fact to do anything," given what it sees as the benefits of Taliban control of Afghanistan." President Clinton was scheduled to travel to India. The State Department felt that he should not visit India without also visiting Pakistan. The Secret Service and the CIA, however, warned in the strongest terms that visiting Pakistan would risk the President's life. Counterterrorism officials also argued that Pakistan had not done enough to merit a presidential visit. But President Clinton insisted on including Pakistan in the itinerary for his trip to South Asia. His one-day stopover on March 25, 2000, was the first time a U.S. president had been there since 1969. At his meeting with Musharraf and others, President Clinton concentrated on tensions between Pakistan and India and the dangers of nuclear proliferation, but also discussed Bin Laden. President Clinton told us that when he pulled Musharraf aside for a brief, one-on-one meeting, he pleaded with the general for help regarding Bin Laden." I offered him the moon when I went to see him, in terms of better relations with the United States, if he'd help us get Bin Laden and deal with another issue or two." The U.S. effort continued.
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QUESTION: What visit was coveted by Musharraf?

Tokhtakhounov, whose age was given by Comey as 53 or 62, is a "major figure in international Eurasian organized crime," Comey said. Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and now a Russian citizen, he is known as Taivanchik, or Little Taiwanese, for his Central Asian ethnic background. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, he has been implicated in arms trading and Russian art smuggling, and in the Russian news media he was accused of complicity in a plot to extort $10 million from the head of a Russian sports foundation. He appears to have moved to France in 1989, according to news media reports, and is reported to have Israeli citizenship also. Comey said Tokhtakhounov had three residences in Italy: Forte dei Marmi, Rome and Milan. The complaint against Tokhtakhounov's traces his contact with figure skating to 2000, when he proposed to Gailhaguet the creation of a professional hockey team in Paris that would provide revenue for the French Skating Federation. ( Gailhaguet and Anissina are not referred to by name in an accompanying FBI agent's affidavit, but by their descriptions their identities are obvious.) In return, Gailhaguet told the FBI on Feb. 23 as the Olympics were taking place, Tokhtakhounov asked for Gailhaguet's help in renewing his French visa, which was about to expire. But when Gailhaguet sought guidance from a French government official, he was told that "Tokhtakhounov's money is bad," the affidavit said. The federal complaint offers many details of the alleged conspiracy, including excerpts from a transcript of the Italian wiretaps. later suspended Le Gougne and Gailhaguet for three years. The federal complaint did not describe the possibility of a wider conspiracy or any contact between Tokhtakhounov, or his unnamed co-conspirators, with Le Gougne. "We have alleged no connection between this man with any officials other than with Russian federation officials," James B. Comey, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said at a news conference. He said that Tokhtakhounov "reached out to a co-conspirator, somebody connected to the Russian Skating Federation, who did the legwork for him."
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QUESTION: Did Comey say the FBI believes Tokhtakhounov is connected to the Russian Skating Federation?

Chinese Influences: The Japanese were forced out of the Korean peninsula in the sixth century, but not before the Koreans had bequeathed to the Yamato court copies of the sacred images and scriptures of Chinese Buddhism. Just as Christianity introduced Mediterranean culture into northern Europe, so Buddhism brought Chinese culture into Japanese society. Throughout the seventh and eighth centuries numerous Japanese monks, scholars, and artists made the perilous trip west across the Sea of Japan to study Chinese religion, history, music, literature, and paintinglater to be brought back for further development in Japan. An outstanding figure of this time was Prince Shotoku, who in 604 developed the "Seventeen-Article Constitution," outlining a code of human conduct and the ideals of state as a basic law for the nation. He also established relations with the Sui dynasty in China. Through him, the Japanese imperial court developed Chinese patterns of centralized government, with its formal bureaucracy of eight court ranks. The Chinese calendar was used to calculate the year of Japan's foundation by counting back the 1,260 years of the Chinese cosmological cycle. Thus, 660 b.c. is still the official date celebrated nationwide. At this early stage in its history Japan was already (for the most part) only nominally ruled by the emperor. De facto power was exercised by the militarily and economically strongest family. The Sogas had promoted Buddhism as an imperially sanctioned counterweight to the native Shinto religion, along with the new Chinese customs, to weaken the influence of their more conservative rivals. But they in turn were ousted in a.d. 645 by Nakatomi Kamatari, founder of the great Fujiwara clan, which was to rule Japanese affairs for hundreds of years and provide prominent advisers to the emperor even up to the 19th century.
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QUESTION:
Who helped the Japanese imperial court develop Chinese patterns of centralized government?