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Knut Vollebæk
Knut Vollebæk (born 11 February 1946 in Oslo) is a former Norwegian diplomat to the United States, (2001–2007, and centrist politician ( Norwegian Christian Democratic Party). He is currently a member of the International Commission on Missing Persons Board of Commissioners and heads a government commission investigating the situation of Norwegian Travellers. Education He was educated at the Norwegian School of Economics. He also attended the University of Oslo and the University of California, Santa Barbara, as well as completing studies in the French language and culture at Institut Catholique de Paris and in the Spanish language and culture at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid. Career In September 2013, he was elected to the Board of Commissioners of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP). Vollebæk was the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities from 2007 until 2013. Prior to that, Vollebæk served as Ambassador to the United States betwee ...
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Kjell Magne Bondevik
Kjell Magne Bondevik (; born 3 September 1947) is a Norway, Norwegian Lutheranism, Lutheran Religious minister, minister and Politics of Norway, politician. As leader of the Christian Democratic Party (Norway), Christian Democratic Party, he served as the 33rd prime minister of Norway from 1997 to 2000, and from 2001 to 2005, making him, after Erna Solberg, Norway's longest serving non-Labour Party (Norway), Labour Party prime minister since World War II. Currently, Bondevik is president of the Oslo Centre for Peace and Human Rights. Family and early life Bondevik was born in Molde, the son of Johannes Bondevik, a principal at the Christian folk high school Rauma folkehøyskole who also was a local politician for the Christian Democratic Party, and Margit, née Hæreid. He became a theological candidate from MF Norwegian School of Theology in 1975. Because Bondevik was active in Norwegian Politics at a young age, he did not serve in the military. In 1979 he was ordained as pastor ...
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OSCE
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is the world's largest regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization with observer status at the United Nations. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, promotion of human rights, freedom of the press, and free and fair elections. It employs around 3,460 people, mostly in its field operations but also in its secretariat in Vienna, Austria, and its institutions. It has its origins in the mid-1975 Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) held in Helsinki, Finland. The OSCE is concerned with early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management, and post-conflict rehabilitation. Most of its 57 participating countries are in Europe, but there are a few members present in Asia and North America. The participating states cover much of the land area of the Northern Hemisphere. It was created during the Cold War era as a forum for discussion between the Western Bloc and Eastern Bl ...
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Astrid Thors
Astrid Gunilla Margareta Thors (born 6 November 1957) has been a Member of the Finnish Parliament 19 March 2003 – 4 September 2013. A Finnish-Swedish politician, formerly of the Swedish People's Party, Thors is a Candidate of Law and held several senior jobs before becoming a Member of the European Parliament in 1996 where she worked until 2004. From 2005–2007 she chaired the Swedish Assembly of Finland. After the 2007 elections she was chosen to be the new Minister of Migration and European Affairs in Matti Vanhanen's second cabinet. During 2007 and 2011 Thors became a target of the increasing anti-immigration and anti-European Union sentiment. She received death threats that were consequently investigated by the police, and faced a lot of criticism, in parliament and especially on chat and blogging sites. This regardless of the fact that during her term, the Finnish immigration policy continued to tighten outside the EU directives. The critique Minister Thors faced subseq ...
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Rolf Ekéus
Carl Rolf Ekéus (born 7 July 1935 in Kristinehamn, Sweden) is a Swedish diplomat. From 1978 to 1983, he was a representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, and he has worked on various other disarmament committees and commissions. Between 1991 and 1997 he was director of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq, the United Nations disarmament observers in Iraq after the Gulf War. In late July 2002 he reportedly said in the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper that during his time in this position he attempted to resist attempts by the United States to use the commission to perform espionage. His successor as director was Richard Butler. The journalist Andrew Cockburn reported in ''The First Post'' that Ekéus told him how the former US President Bill Clinton attempted to prevent Saddam Hussein's Iraq from being certified as free of weapons of mass destruction. Despite Ekéus' belief that Iraq was nearly certifiable as being free of such weapons, US Secretary of Stat ...
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Minister Of Foreign Affairs
A foreign affairs minister or minister of foreign affairs (less commonly minister for foreign affairs) is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations. The formal title of the top official varies between countries. The foreign minister typically reports to the head of government (such as prime minister or president). Difference in titles In some nations, such as India, the foreign minister is referred to as the minister for external affairs; or others, such as Brazil and the states created from the former Soviet Union, call the position the minister of external relations. In the United States, the secretary of state is the member of the Cabinet who handles foreign relations. Other common titles may include minister of foreign relations. In many countries of Latin America, the foreign minister is colloquially called " chancellor" (''canciller'' in the Spanish-speaking countries and ''chanceler'' in the Portuguese-speaking Brazil). Diplomats ...
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Council Of The Baltic Sea States
The Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) is a regional intergovernmental organisation working on three priority areas: Regional Identity, Safe & Secure Region and Sustainable & Prosperous Region. These three priority areas aim to address the themes of sustainable development, environment, sustainable maritime economy, education, labour, culture, youth engagement, civil security, children's rights and Human trafficking, trafficking in human beings. History The CBSS was established by the region's Foreign Ministers in Copenhagen in March 1992 as a response to the geopolitical changes that took place in the Baltic Sea region with the end of the Cold War. The CBSS founders were Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, Thorvald Stoltenberg, Lennart Meri, Jānis Jurkāns, Algirdas Saudargas, Henning Christophersen, Paavo Väyrynen, Andrei Kozyrev, Margaretha af Ugglas, and Krzysztof Skubiszewski. Since its founding, the CBSS has contributed to ensuring positive developments ...
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Primus Inter Pares
''Primus inter pares'' is a Latin phrase meaning first among equals. It is typically used as an honorary title for someone who is formally equal to other members of their group but is accorded unofficial respect, traditionally owing to their seniority in office. Historically, the ''princeps senatus'' of the Roman Senate was such a figure and initially bore only the distinction that he was allowed to speak first during debate. Also, Constantine the Great was given the role of ''primus inter pares''. However, the term is also often used ironically or self-deprecatingly by leaders with much higher status as a form of respect, camaraderie or propaganda. After the fall of the Republic, Roman emperors initially referred to themselves only as ''princeps'' despite having enormous power. Various modern figures such as the chair of the United States Federal Reserve System, the prime minister of parliamentary countries, the President of Switzerland, the Chief Justice of the US Supr ...
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International Conference On The Former Yugoslavia
The Arbitration Commission of the Conference on Yugoslavia (commonly known as Badinter Arbitration Committee) was an arbitration body set up by the Council of Ministers of the European Economic Community (EEC) on 27 August 1991 to provide the conference on Yugoslavia with legal advice. Robert Badinter was appointed to President of the five-member Commission consisting of presidents of Constitutional Courts in the EEC. The Arbitration Commission has handed down fifteen opinions on "major legal questions" raised by the conflict between several republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). Commission members * Robert Badinter, president of the Constitutional Council of France * Roman Herzog, president of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany * Aldo Corasaniti, president of the Constitutional Court of Italy * Francisco Tomás y Valiente, president of the Constitutional Court of Spain * Irène Pétry, president of the Constitutional Court of Belgium Opinion ...
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Costa Rica
Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, and Maritime boundary, maritime border with Ecuador to the south of Cocos Island. It has a population of around five million in a land area of . An estimated 333,980 people live in the capital and largest city, San José, Costa Rica, San José, with around two million people in the surrounding metropolitan area. The sovereign state is a Unitary state, unitary Presidential system, presidential Constitution of Costa Rica, constitutional republic. It has a long-standing and stable democracy and a highly educated workforce. The country spends roughly 6.9% of its budget (2016) on education, compared to a global average of 4.4%. Its economy, once heavily dependent on agricultu ...
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Harare
Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan area in 2019. Situated in north-eastern Zimbabwe in the country's Mashonaland region, Harare is a metropolitan province, which also incorporates the municipalities of Chitungwiza and Epworth. The city sits on a plateau at an elevation of above sea level and its climate falls into the subtropical highland category. The city was founded in 1890 by the Pioneer Column, a small military force of the British South Africa Company, and named Fort Salisbury after the UK Prime Minister Lord Salisbury. Company administrators demarcated the city and ran it until Southern Rhodesia achieved responsible government in 1923. Salisbury was thereafter the seat of the Southern Rhodesian (later Rhodesian) government and, between 1953 and 1963, th ...
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Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and its monocentric metropolitan area is the third-largest in the EU.United Nations Department of Economic and Social AffairWorld Urbanization Prospects (2007 revision), (United Nations, 2008), Table A.12. Data for 2007. The municipality covers geographical area. Madrid lies on the River Manzanares in the central part of the Iberian Peninsula. Capital city of both Spain (almost without interruption since 1561) and the surrounding autonomous community of Madrid (since 1983), it is also the political, economic and cultural centre of the country. The city is situated on an elevated plain about from the closest seaside location. The climate of Madrid features hot summers and cool winters. The Madrid urban agglomeration has the second-large ...
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Organization For Security And Co-operation In Europe
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is the world's largest regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization with observer status at the United Nations. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, promotion of human rights, freedom of the press, and free and fair elections. It employs around 3,460 people, mostly in its field operations but also in its secretariat in Vienna, Austria, and its institutions. It has its origins in the mid-1975 Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) held in Helsinki, Finland. The OSCE is concerned with early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management, and post-conflict rehabilitation. Most of its 57 participating countries are in Europe, but there are a few members present in Asia and North America. The participating states cover much of the land area of the Northern Hemisphere. It was created during the Cold War era as a forum for discussion between the Western Bloc and Eastern Bl ...
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