Algeria vs Haiti

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Algeria ( (listen) al-JEER-ee-ə, Arabic: الجزائر‎ al-Jazā'ir), officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. The capital and most populous city is Algiers, located in the far north of the country on the Mediterranean shore. With an area of 2,381,741 square kilometres (919,595 sq mi), Algeria is the tenth-largest country on earth, and the largest by area from the African Union and the Arab world. With an estimated population of over 44 million, it is the eighth-most populous country in Africa. Algeria is bordered to the northeast by Tunisia, to the east by Libya, to the southeast by Niger, to the southwest by Mali, Mauritania, and the Western Saharan territory, to the west by Morocco, and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea. The country has a semi-arid geography, with the majority of the populace living in the fertile north and the Sahara dominating the geography of the south. This arid geography makes the country very vulnerable to climate change.Pre-1962 Algeria has known many empires and dynasties, including early Numidians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Umayyads, Abbasids, Idrisid, Aghlabid, Rustamid, Fatimids, Zirid, Hammadids, Almoravids, Almohads, Zayyanids, Spaniards, Ottomans and finally, the French colonial empire. The majority of the populace is Arab-Berber, practicing Islam and using the official languages of Arabic and Berber. However, French functions as an administrative and education language in certain contexts, and Algerian Arabic is the primary spoken language. Algeria has a semi-presidential republic, with local constituencies comprising 58 provinces and 1,541 communes. Algeria is a regional and middle power. It has the highest human development index of all non-island African countries and one of the biggest economies on the continent, based mostly on energy exports. Algeria has the 16th largest oil reserves in the world and the second biggest in Africa, while it has the ninth largest reserves of natural gas. Sonatrach, the national oil company, is the largest company in Africa, supplying large amounts of natural gas to Europe. Algeria has one of the largest militaries in Africa and the largest defence budget. It is a member of the African Union, the Arab League, OPEC, the United Nations, and the Arab Maghreb Union, of which it is a founding member.

Source: Wikipedia

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Haiti ( (listen); French: Haïti [a.iti]; Haitian Creole: Ayiti [ajiti]), officially the Republic of Haiti (French: République d'Haïti; Haitian Creole: Repiblik d Ayiti) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, to the east of Cuba and Jamaica and south of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

It occupies the western three-eighths of the island which it shares with the Dominican Republic. To its south-west lies the small island of Navassa Island, which is maintained by Haiti but is disputed as a United States territory under federal administration. Haiti is 27,750 square kilometers (10,714 sq mi) in size and has an estimated population of 11.1 million, making it the most populous nation in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the second-most populous nation in the Caribbean after Cuba. The island was originally inhabited by the native Taíno people, who migrated from South America. The first Europeans arrived on 5 December 1492 during the first voyage of Christopher Columbus, who originally believed he had found India or China. Columbus subsequently founded the first European settlement in the Americas, La Navidad, on what is now the northeastern coast of Haiti. The island was claimed by Spain and called La Española, forming part of the Spanish Empire until the early 17th century. But, competing claims and settlements by the French led to the western part of the island being ceded to France in 1697, which was subsequently named Saint-Domingue. French colonists established lucrative sugarcane plantations, worked by enormous numbers of slaves brought from Africa, which made the colony among the richest in the world. In the midst of the French Revolution (1789--99), slaves and free people of color launched the Haitian Revolution (1791--1804), led by a former slave and the first black general of the French Army, Toussaint Louverture. After 12 years of battle, Napoleon Bonaparte's forces were defeated by Louverture's successor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines (later Emperor Jacques I), who declared Haiti's sovereignty on 1 January 1804--the first independent state of Latin America and the Caribbean, the second republic in the Americas, the first nation to abolish slavery, and the only state in history established by a successful slave revolt. Aside from Alexandre Pétion, the first President of the Republic, all of Haiti's first leaders were former slaves. After a brief period in which the nation was split in two, President Jean-Pierre Boyer united the nation and then tried to bring the whole of Hispaniola under Haitian control, precipitating a long series of wars that ended in the 1870s when Haiti formally recognized the independence of the Dominican Republic. Haiti's first century of liberty was characterised by political instability, ostracism by the global community and the payment of a crippling debt to France. Political volatility and foreign economic influence in the nation prompted the U.S. to inhabit the country from 1915 to 1934. Following a set of short lived presidencies, François'Papa Doc' Duvalier took power in 1956, ushering in a long period of autocratic rule that was continued by his son Jean-Claude'Baby Doc' Duvalier that lasted until 1986; the period was characterised by state-sanctioned violence against the opposition and civilians, corruption, and economic stagnation. Since 1986 Haiti has been attempting to establish a more democratic political system. Haiti is a founding member of the United Nations, Organization of American States (OAS), Association of Caribbean States, and the International Francophonie Organisation. In addition to CARICOM, It's a member of the International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization, and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. Historically weak and politically unstable, Haiti has the lowest Human Development Index in the Americas. Since the turn of the 21st century, the nation has suffered a coup d'état, which prompted a U.N. intervention, as well as a deadly earthquake that killed over 250,000.

Source: Wikipedia