Russia

Coordinates: 60°N 90°E / 60°N 90°E / 60; 90

Russia (ⁱ/ˈrʌʃə/; Russian: Росси́я, tr. Rossiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijə]), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Росси́йская Федера́ция, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈratsɨjə]), is a sovereign state in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic. At 17,125,200 square kilometres (6,612,100 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is the world's ninth most populous country with over 144 million people at the end of 2015.

Extending across the entirety of northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a wide range of environments and landforms. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares land borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both with Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk and the U.S. state of Alaska across the Bering Strait.

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Bill Browder

William Felix Browder (born 23 April 1964) is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of the investment fund Hermitage Capital Management and noted critic of Vladimir Putin.

Personal life

Bill Browder is the grandson of Earl Browder, the former leader of the Communist Party USA, and the son of Felix Browder, the mathematician. He grew up in Chicago, Illinois, and attended the University of Chicago where he studied economics. He received an MBA from Stanford Business School in 1989 where his classmates included Gary Kremen and Rich Kelley. In 1998, Browder gave up his US citizenship and became a British citizen. Prior to setting up Hermitage, Browder worked in the Eastern European practice of the Boston Consulting Group in London and managed the Russian proprietary investments desk at Salomon Brothers.

Hermitage Capital Management

Bill Browder and Edmond Safra founded Hermitage Capital Management in 1996 for the purpose of investing initial seed capital of $25 million in Russia. The business was very successful, profiting from the wave of privatizations occurring in Russia at that time, and increased its investor base substantially. Following the Russian financial crisis of 1998 Browder remained committed to Hermitage's original mission of investing in Russia, despite significant outflows from the fund. Hermitage became a prominent activist shareholder in the Russian gas giant Gazprom, the large oil company Surgutneftegaz, RAO UES, Sberbank, Sidanco, Avisma and Volzhanka. Browder exposed management corruption and corporate malfeasance in these partly state-owned companies. He has been quoted as saying: "You had to become a shareholder activist if you didn’t want everything stolen from you".

Financial Times

The Financial Times (FT) is an English-language international daily newspaper with a special emphasis on business and economic news.

The paper, published by Nikkei in London, was founded in 1888 by James Sheridan and Horatio Bottomley, and merged with its closest rival, the Financial News (which had been founded in 1884) in 1945.

The Financial Times has an average daily readership of 2.2 million people worldwide (PwC audited figures, November 2011). FT.com has 4.5 million registered users and over 285,000 digital subscribers, as well as 600,000 paying users. FT Chinese has more than 1.7 million registered users. The world editions of the Financial Times newspaper had a combined average daily circulation of 234,193 copies (88,000 for the UK edition), for January 2014. In February 2014 the world editions, combined, of the Financial Times sold 224,000 copies. In October 2013, the combined paid print and digital circulation of the Financial Times reached nearly 629,000 copies (282,000 for print and 387,000 for online sales), the highest circulation in its 125-year history.As of August 2014, print sales for the paper (all editions combined) stand at 210,182.

Rachel Maddow

Rachel Anne Maddow (ⁱ/ˈmædoʊ/, born April 1, 1973) is an American television host, political commentator, and author. She hosts a nightly television show, The Rachel Maddow Show, on MSNBC. Her syndicated talk radio program of the same name aired on Air America Radio. Maddow is the first openly gay anchor to host a major prime-time news program in the United States. She holds a doctorate in politics from Oxford University.

Asked about her political views by the Valley Advocate, Maddow replied, "I'm undoubtedly a liberal, which means that I'm in almost total agreement with the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform."

Early life and education

Maddow was born in Castro Valley, California. Her father, Robert B. "Bob" Maddow, is a former United States Air Force captain who resigned his commission the year before her birth and found civilian work as a lawyer for the East Bay Municipal Utility District. Her mother, Elaine Maddow (née Gosse), is a school program administrator. She has one older brother, David. Her paternal grandfather was from an Eastern European Jewish family (the original family surname being "Medwedof"), while her paternal grandmother was of Dutch (Protestant) background; her mother, originally from Newfoundland, Canada, is of English and Irish ancestry. Maddow has stated that her family is "very, very Catholic," and she grew up in a community that her mother has described as "very conservative." Maddow was a competitive athlete and participated in three sports in high school: volleyball, basketball, and swimming. Referencing John Hughes films, she has described herself as being "a cross between the jock and the antisocial girl" in high school.