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navigation satellite

(Encyclopedia)navigation satellite, artificial satellite designed expressly to aid the navigation of sea and air traffic. Early navigation satellites, from the Transit series launched in 1960 to the U.S. navy's Nav...

Adenauer, Konrad

(Encyclopedia)Adenauer, Konrad kônˈrät äˈdənouˌər [key], 1876–1967, West German chancellor. A lawyer and a member of the Catholic Center party, he was lord mayor of Cologne and a member of the provincial ...

Heath, Sir Edward Richard George

(Encyclopedia)Heath, Sir Edward Richard George, 1916–2005, British statesman. Educated at Oxford, he served in the Royal Artillery during World War II, rising to the rank of colonel. He was elected to Parliament ...

Nečas, Petr

(Encyclopedia)Nečas, Petr pĕtˈər nĕˈchäs [key], 1964–, Czech politician. Trained as a physicist, he graduated (1988) from Brno's Uherske Science Univ. and taught (1983–88) at Masaryk Univ., Brno. After w...

Cominform

(Encyclopedia)Cominform kŏmˈĭnfôrm [key] [acronym for Communist Information Bureau], information agency organized in 1947 and dissolved in 1956. Its members were the Communist parties of Bulgaria, Czechoslovaki...

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

(Encyclopedia)Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON or MEA), international organization active between 1956 and 1991 for the coordination of economic policy among certain nations then under Communist domi...

Davutoğlu, Ahmet

(Encyclopedia)Davutoğlu, Ahmet, 1959–, Turkish politician. Before entering politics, he taught political science and international relations at Marmara Univ., Beykent Univ., and other institutions. From 2003 to ...

Brazauskas, Algirdas Mykolas

(Encyclopedia)Brazauskas, Algirdas Mykolas, 1932–2010, Lithuanian political leader. A civil engineer and economist, he rose in the Soviet Communist party bureaucracy and Lithuanian SSR government, and in 1988 bec...

phthalates

(Encyclopedia)phthalates, family of chemical compounds made from alcohols and phthalic anhydride, C6H4(CO)2O. Oily, colorless, odorless liquids that do not evaporate readily, they are used primarily to make polyvin...

Vučić, Aleksandar

(Encyclopedia)Vučić, Aleksandar, 1970– Serbian political leader. First elected to Serbia's national assembly in 1993 as a member of the far-right Serbian Radical party (SRS), he was an advocate of a “Greater ...