Seychelles

Coordinates: 4°35′S 55°40′E / 4.583°S 55.667°E / -4.583; 55.667

Seychelles (ⁱ/seɪˈʃɛlz/ say-SHELZ; French: [sɛʃɛl]), officially the Republic of Seychelles (French: République des Seychelles; Creole: Repiblik Sesel), is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean. The 115-island country, whose capital is Victoria, lies 1,500 kilometres (932 mi) east of mainland East Africa. Other nearby island countries and territories include Comoros, Mayotte, Madagascar, Réunion and Mauritius to the south.

Seychelles, with a population of 90,024, has the smallest population of any independent African state; however, it does have a larger population than the UK overseas territory Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.

History

The Seychelles were uninhabited throughout most of recorded history. Some scholars assume that Austronesian seafarers and later Maldivian and Arab traders were the first to visit the uninhabited Seychelles. The earliest recorded sighting by Europeans took place in 1502 by the Portuguese Admiral Vasco da Gama, who passed through the Amirantes and named them after himself (islands of the Admiral). The earliest recorded landing was in January 1609, by the crew of the "Ascension" under Captain Sharpeigh during the fourth voyage of the British East India Company.

Press Conference (TV series)

Press Conference was a public-affairs television series aired in the United States in the mid-1950s.

Press Conference was similar in format and content to the long-running Meet the Press and was moderated by one of that program's creators, pioneering female journalist Martha Rountree. On the program, a current newsmaker, generally but not always a politician, was questioned by a panel of newspersons in a typical press conference format. As usually done in a traditional press conference, the subject was allowed to make an opening statement (although not all chose to do so) prior to fielding questions.

Press Conference was launched on NBC in July 1956, but that fall moved to ABC. Initially shown in prime time, the program drew only a minimal, public-affairs oriented audience running against two high-profile Sunday night variety series, The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS and The Steve Allen Show on NBC; however, its appearance helped ABC to meet the public-interest requirements imposed on U.S broadcasters by the Federal Communications Commission. Press Conference was moved to Sunday afternoon for three months in early 1957, prior to returning to prime time in April of that year under a new title, Martha Rountree's Press Conference. The program ended in July 1957.

Press

Press may refer to:

Media

Machines

Machine

A machine is a tool containing one or more parts that uses energy to perform an intended action. Machines are usually powered by mechanical, chemical, thermal, or electrical means, and are often motorized. Historically, a power tool also required moving parts to classify as a machine. However, the advent of electronics has led to the development of power tools without moving parts that are considered machines.

A simple machine is a device that simply transforms the direction or magnitude of a force, but a large number of more complex machines exist. Examples include vehicles, electronic systems, molecular machines, computers, television, and radio.

Etymology

The word machine derives from the Latin word machina, which in turn derives from the Greek (Doric μαχανά makhana, Ionic μηχανή mekhane "contrivance, machine, engine", a derivation from μῆχος mekhos "means, expedient, remedy").

A wider meaning of "fabric, structure" is found in classical Latin, but not in Greek usage.

This meaning is found in late medieval French, and is adopted from the French into English in the mid-16th century.

Baling

Baling is a major town in the northern state of Kedah in Malaysia. It is also the name of a district in which Baling town is situated. It is south of Betong, the southernmost town in Thailand.

Origin of name

The name Baling can be traced to a series of events detailed in the story of Raja Bersiong (The Fanged King), a popular legend of Kedah, recorded in the Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa. Raja Bersiong was a ruthless vampire-like king with a taste for human blood who preyed on his subjects. His subjects finally rose against him and burned down the palace. When the fanged king fled his palace at the Old Kedah capital in Lembah Bujang, he fled to a place named Merbau and began removing his fangs by twisting them by hand. As a result of the twisting act, Merbau was renamed as Merbau Pulas where pulas in Malay means twisting.

After the king had successfully removed both his fangs, he threw them away to a faraway place. The place where he stood when he threw his fangs is known as Baling which means throw and the place believed to be the site where the fangs landed was named Siong, which means fang in Malay, one of the villages in Baling district.