Glossary Term – Organization

The Group of Eight (or G-8 Nations) is the organization of leading inudstrialized nations (the US, Canada, China, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan) that holds periodic meetings to discuss political and economic issues that affect its members and the global community. The G-8 Nation meetings have met with intense scrutiny and protest from anti-globalization protestors as well as environmentalists and human-rights activists.

Glossary Term – Organization

The Taliban is an Islamic funamentalist political and religious organization that seized power in Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal in the mid-1990s. The Taliban established a strict government and social order and controlled almost all of Afghanistan by 2001. After the September 11th terrorist attacks, the Taliban became a target of the United States because it served as a refuge for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. The organization’s refusal to cooperate with the United States in bin Laden’s capture or extradition prompted the US...

Glossary Term – Organization

The World Trade Organization (WTO) was established in 1995 as an international body charged with supervising world trading systems. With more than 140 member nations, the WTO establishes and enforces international trade agreements and works to liberalize trade and resolve disputes, create cooperation with global economic institutions, and bring developing countries into global trade. The WTO has also been subjected to criticism from those who oppose globalization and view its purposes as cultural imperialism.

Glossary Term – Person

Glossary Term – Person

Alan Greenspan (1926– ) is an American economist who chaired the Federal Reserve through four presidential administrations. Greenspan was first appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve Board by President Ronald Reagan in 1987. He helped guide the US through times of economic crisis and expansion under Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. He retired from the Federal Reserve in 2006. In 2011 the bi-partisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission found that Greenspan’s support for deregulation and his failure to...

Glossary Term – Person

Bill Clinton (1946– ) was the forty-second president of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. Clinton was born and raised in Arkansas. He attended Georgetown University and earned a law degree from Yale, where he met his wife, Hillary Rodham. In 1978 he was elected governor of Arkansas after serving as the state’s attorney general. He was governor until 1981 and then again from 1983 to 1992. In 1992, Clinton was chosen as the Democratic nominee for president. With Al Gore as his running mate, Clinton defeated incumbent Republican...

Glossary Term – Person

Colin Powell (1937– ) is a US general who served as secretary of state to President George W. Bush. In 1989, as a career Army officer, Powell was the first African American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under George H. W. Bush. In 1993, he retired from the military. In 2001, he was appointed as the first African American secretary of state by George W. Bush, and in that position he sought support for the American war in Iraq. In February 2003, he delivered a speech before the United Nations supporting American action in Iraq,...

Glossary Term – Person

George H. W. Bush (1924– ) was the forty-first president of the United States, serving from 1989 to 1993. Bush began his political career after World War II. During the war, he flew fifty-eight combat missions and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery. At Yale, he excelled in sports and academics. Later he worked in the Texas oil business before being elected as a Republican to the US House of Representatives in 1966. He served as US ambassador to the United Nations in 1971–1972, and headed the CIA in 1976–1977. Bush...

Glossary Term – Person

Sandra Day O’Connor (1930– ) was the first female United States Supreme Court justice. After serving in various political and judicial capacities in her home state of Arizona, O’Connor was nominated to the Court in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan and was unanimously confirmed by the Senate. O’Connor was a moderate conservative justice, acting as a swing vote in major decisions. O’Connor split from her more conservative colleagues in several major cases, notably Webster v. Reproductive Services (1989) and Planned Parenthood...

Glossary Term – Person

Muammar Qaddafi (1942–2011) was the long-time leader of Libya who gained power in a military coup of the country’s government in 1969. Under Qaddafi, the Libyan government committed crimes against its own people and financed various terrorist organizations across the globe, earning the ire of the international community and the United States in particular. Although the US and the United Nations rescinded many sanctions against Libya when Qaddafi made some concessions regarding Libya’s weapons program and turned over suspected terrorists,...