Alliance (New Zealand political party)

The Alliance was a left-wing political party in New Zealand. It was formed in 1991, and was influential in the 1990s, but has since declined and has no representation in Parliament. It suffered a major setback after Jim Anderton, the party's leader, left the party in 2002, taking several of the party's MPs. After the remaining MPs lost their seats in the 2002 election, some commentators predicted the demise of the party. The Alliance stood candidates in the 2005 election but won less than 1% of the party vote. The Alliance contested Auckland City Council elections under the City Vision banner, in concert with the New Zealand Labour Party and Green Party. The Alliance ran 15 electorate candidates and a total of 30 candidates on the party list in the 2008 election, increasing its party vote marginally from 2005.

Policies

A strongly left-wing party, the Alliance supports free education, free healthcare, the elimination of unemployment, and the maintenance of the welfare state. It also has an emphasis on women's rights, environmentalism, and Māori rights. It supports New Zealand's nuclear-free policy and believes that New Zealand should not participate in military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Alliance stands for proportional representation.

Alliance (1905 automobile)

The Alliance was a short-lived French automobile manufactured in Paris from 1905 to 1908. Also known as the Aiglon, the marque had a similar radiator to that used on the Mass. The company listed an 18hp four with Tony Huber engine in 1908; this car sold in England for £450.

Alliance Party of Northern Ireland

The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (APNI) (Irish: Páirtí Comhghuaillíochta Thuaisceart Éireann; Ulster Scots: Alliance Pairtie o Norlin Airlann) is a political party in Northern Ireland. It is Northern Ireland's fifth-largest party overall, with eight seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Founded in 1970 from the New Ulster Movement, the Alliance Party originally represented moderate and non-sectarian unionism. However, over time, particularly in the 1990s, it moved towards neutrality on the Union, and has come to represent wider liberal and non-sectarian concerns. It opposes the consociational power-sharing mandated by the Good Friday Agreement as deepening the sectarian divide, and, in the Northern Ireland Assembly, it is designated as neither unionist nor Irish nationalist, but 'Other'.

In May 2010 the Alliance Party won their first House of Commons seat in a UK-wide general election, in the Belfast East constituency, unseating Peter Robinson, First Minister of Northern Ireland and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Naomi Long was the first MP from the Alliance Party since Stratton Mills, who joined the party from the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) in 1973. However, the DUP regained the seat at the 2015 general election, leaving the Alliance Party with no representation in the House of Commons.

USA (disambiguation)

USA or U.S.A. usually refers to the United States of America, a country in North America.

USA or U.S.A. may also refer to:

Places

Business

Universities

Other uses

American Revolution

The American Revolution was a political upheaval that took place between 1765 and 1783 during which colonists in the Thirteen American Colonies rejected the British monarchy and aristocracy, overthrew the authority of Great Britain, and founded the United States of America.

Starting in 1765, members of American colonial society rejected the authority of the British Parliament to tax them without colonial representatives in the government. During the following decade, protests by colonists—known as Patriots—continued to escalate, as in the Boston Tea Party in 1773 during which patriots destroyed a consignment of taxed tea from the Parliament-controlled and favored East India Company. The British responded by imposing punitive laws—the Coercive Acts—on Massachusetts in 1774, following which Patriots in the other colonies rallied behind Massachusetts. In late 1774 the Patriots set up their own alternative government to better coordinate their resistance efforts against Great Britain, while other colonists, known as Loyalists, preferred to remain aligned to the British Crown.

USA-193

USA-193, also known as NRO launch 21 (NROL-21 or simply L-21), was a U.S. military reconnaissance satellite (radar imaging) launched on December 14, 2006. It was the first launch conducted by the United Launch Alliance. Owned by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the craft's precise function and purpose were classified.

The satellite malfunctioned shortly after deployment, and was intentionally destroyed 14 months later on February 21, 2008, by a modified SM-3 missile fired from the warship USS Lake Erie, stationed west of Hawaii. The event highlighted growing distrust between the U.S. and China, and was viewed by some to be part of a wider "space race" involving the U.S., China, and Russia.

Design

USA-193 was part of the NRO's Future Imagery Architecture, which was begun in 1997 to produce a fleet of inexpensive reconnaissance satellites, but has become the agency's most spectacular failure. USA-193 was initially developed by Boeing, which won the contract in 1999, beating out Lockheed Martin with proposals for innovative electro-optics and radar. But after cost overruns, delays, and parts failures, NRO sent the contract to Lockheed, which built USA-193 around the Boeing radar design. Lockheed Martin and Boeing both supported the launch, the first in the joint effort known as the United Launch Alliance.