James' World 2

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Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea and Djibouti to the north, Somalia to the east and northeast, Kenya to the south, South Sudan to the west, and Sudan to the northwest. Ethiopia has a total area of 1,100,000 square kilometers (420,000 sq mi). It is home to 117 million inhabitants and is the 12th-most populous country in the world and the 2nd-most populous in Africa after Nigeria. The national capital and largest city, Addis Ababa, lies several kilometers west of the East African Rift that splits the country into the African and Somali tectonic plates.

Anatomically modern humans emerged from modern-day Ethiopia and set out to the Near East and elsewhere in the Middle Paleolithic period. Prehistoric Ethiopia was the home of various Afroasiatic and Nilotic tribes and cultures. In antiquity, the Kingdom of D’mt was established in the north frontier of Ethiopia, while the Kingdom of Aksum maintained a unified civilization in the region. Christianity arrived in the 4th-century and Islam was introduced in the 7th-century. After the collapse of Aksum, a variety of kingdoms thrived in what is known as Ethiopia. The Zagwe dynasty ruled the north-central parts until being overthrown by Yekuno Amlak in 1270; inaugurating the Ethiopian Empire and its Solomonic line dynasty claimed descent from the Biblical Solomon and Queen of Sheba under their son Menelik I. By the 14th century, the empire grew in prestige through territorial expansion until the mid-18th century decentralization known as Zemene Mesafint, and Ethiopia was reunified and modernized by Emperor Tewodros II in 1855.^[24]

Ethiopia in its current border and multinational state was formed under conquests of Emperor Menelik II. Externally, Menelik defeated the Italian colonists in 1896 during the Scramble for Africa, leaving Ethiopia and Liberia as independent African nations. In 1935, Ethiopia was occupied by Fascist Italy and annexed with Italian-possessed Eritrea and Somaliland, later forming Italian East Africa. In 1941, the British army together with the Ethiopian Arbegnoch unit liberated Ethiopia amidst the Second World War. The Derg, a Soviet-backed military junta, took power in 1974 after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie and the Solomonic dynasty, ruled the country nearly 17 years with a vicious civil war. After the collapse of Derg in 1991, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) dominated the country with a new constitution and ethnic-based federalism. Since then, Ethiopia suffered from prolonged and unsolved inter-ethnic clashes and political instability marked by democratic backsliding.

Ethiopia is a multi-ethnic state with over 80 different ethnic groups. Christianity and Islam are the main faiths observed in Ethiopia. This sovereign state is a founding member of the UN, the Group of 24 (G-24), the Non-Aligned Movement, the G77, and the Organisation of African Unity. Addis Ababa is the headquarters of the African Union, the Pan African Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the African Standby Force, and many of the global NGOs focused on Africa. Ethiopia is considered an emerging power and developing country. It experienced 9.4% economic growth from 2010 to 2020. The country is regarded as poor in terms of per capita income and the Human Development Index, with high rates of poverty, poor respect for human rights, and a literacy rate of only 49%. Agriculture is the largest sector in Ethiopia; it accounted for nearly half of the national GDP and over 80% of the nation’s workforce as of 2015. Wikipedia

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Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Lake Peipus and Russia. The territory of Estonia consists of the mainland, the larger islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, and over 2,200 other islands and islets on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, covering a total area of 45,339 square kilometres (17,505 sq mi). The capital city Tallinn and Tartu are the two largest urban areas of the country. The Estonian language is the autochthonous and the official language of Estonia; it is the first language of the majority of its population, as well as the world’s second most spoken Finnic language.

The land of what is now modern Estonia has been inhabited by humans since at least 9,000 BC. The medieval indigenous population of Estonia was one of the last “pagan” civilisations in Europe to adopt Christianity following the Papal-sanctioned Livonian Crusade in the 13th century. After centuries of successive rule by the Teutonic Order, Denmark, Sweden, and the Russian Empire, a distinct Estonian national identity began to emerge in the mid-19th century. This culminated in the 24 February 1918 Estonian Declaration of Independence from the then warring Russian and German Empires, and, after the end of World War I, in the 1918–1920 War of Independence where Estonians were able to repel the Bolshevik Russian invasion and successfully defended their newborn freedom. Democratic throughout most of the interwar period, Estonia declared neutrality at the outbreak of World War II, but the country was repeatedly contested, invaded and occupied, first by Stalinist Soviet Union in 1940, then by Nazi Germany in 1941, and ultimately reoccupied in 1944 by, and annexed into, the USSR as an administrative subunit (Estonian SSR). After the loss of its de facto independence to the Soviet Union, Estonia’s de jure state continuity was preserved by diplomatic representatives and the government-in-exile. Following the bloodless Estonian “Singing Revolution” of 1988–1990, the nation’s de facto independence was restored on 20 August 1991.

Estonia is a developed country, with a high-income advanced economy; ranking very high in the Human Development Index. The sovereign state of Estonia is a democratic unitary parliamentary republic, administratively subdivided into 15 maakond (counties). With a population of just over 1.3 million, it is one of the least populous members of the European Union, the Eurozone, the OECD, the Schengen Area, and NATO. Estonia has consistently ranked highly in international rankings for quality of life, education, press freedom, digitalisation of public services and the prevalence of technology companies. Wikipedia

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Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It occupies a long, narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Chile covers an area of 756,096 square kilometers (291,930 sq mi), with a population of 17.5 million as of 2017. Chile is the southernmost country in the world, the closest to Antarctica, and shares land borders with Peru to the north, Bolivia to the north-east, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far south. Chile also controls the Pacific islands of Juan Fernández, Isla Salas y Gómez, Desventuradas, and Easter Island in Oceania. It also claims about 1,250,000 square kilometers (480,000 sq mi) of Antarctica under the Chilean Antarctic Territory. The country’s capital and largest city is Santiago, and its national language is Spanish.

Spain conquered and colonized the region in the mid-16th century, replacing Inca rule, but failing to conquer the independent Mapuche who inhabited what is now south-central Chile. In 1818, after declaring independence from Spain, Chile emerged in the 1830s as a relatively stable authoritarian republic. In the 19th century, Chile saw significant economic and territorial growth, ending Mapuche resistance in the 1880s and gaining its current northern territory in the War of the Pacific (1879–83) after defeating Peru and Bolivia. In the 20th century up to the 1970s, Chile saw a process of democratization, rapid population growth, urbanization, and increasing reliance on exports from copper mining for its economy. During the 1960s and 1970s, the country experienced severe left-right political polarization and turmoil. This development culminated with the 1973 Chilean coup d’état that overthrew Salvador Allende’s democratically elected left-wing government and instituted a 16-year right-wing military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet that left more than 3,000 people dead or missing. The regime ended in 1990 after a referendum in 1988 and was succeeded by a center-left coalition which ruled until 2010.

Chile is a developing country^[ with a high-income economy and ranks 43rd in the Human Development Index. It is among the most economically and socially stable nations in South America, leading Latin America in rankings of competitiveness, per capita income, globalization, state of peace, and economic freedom. Chile also ranks high regionally in sustainability of the state, democratic development, and has the lowest homicide rate in the Americas after Canada. It is a founding member of the United Nations, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and the Pacific Alliance, and joined the OECD in 2010. Wikipedia

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