Seven Continents
The seventh continent has 93% of its length covered by
the Pacific Ocean and is inhabited by only five million
people.
 Africa, America, Asia, Europe, Oceania and
Antarctica. These are the six continents, right? Well, it
may not be so. A group of scientists claims that there are
actually seven continents and one sub-continent (India).
According to a study published in the scientific journal
Geology, there is a continent that is partly submerged
and that they named Zealand.
According to the study, to be considered a continent, the
piece of land must have more than one million square meters,
not be connected to other continents and be elevated above
the surrounding area. Now, "Zealand is a continent submerged
in the Pacific Ocean and from it we can only glimpse its
highest mountains, the islands of New Zealand and New
Caledonia", explains Laia Alegret, a paleontologist at the
University of Zaragoza and co- author of the study. "What
differentiates this continent from the remaining six is
that it has a very unusual geography since most of its
extension is under water, a kilometer deep."
Zealand has an extension of about 5 million square
kilometers and only 7% of its extension is above the water
line, in the form of thousands of islands. All of these
archipelagos are then mountain tops that rise to about 1,000
meters in altitude from the main piece of land.
The continent is inhabited by five million people, being
the second less populous, after Antarctica.
The study also reveals that about 60 or 85 million years
ago, the tectonic plates that constituted the super-continent
Gondwana separated and gave rise to Australia and
Antarctica. A few million years later, a new movement caused
part of the mass that gave rise to Oceania to sink a
kilometer. This activity took place in the Pacific Ring of
Fire, an area that encompasses a large cluster of tectonic
plates.
EU Commission
European Commission, Assembly (2014) of
28 independent Commissioners, one from each of the EU Member
States.
The commissioners are politicians, not civil servants,
and usually have a political background in their home
country. The Commissioners are elected by the governments of
the Member States, but after their appointment they are not
allowed to take instructions from their respective home
countries and must act in the best interests of the
Community.
The Commission shares the various responsibilities
between the individual Commissioners. The Commission has an
almost complete monopoly of initiative in addition to
significant control obligations towards the Member States.
According to
Countryaah.com, any country joining the EU has the right
to be a member of the Commission. By the Treaty of
Amsterdam, the European Parliament was given an important
role, with Parliament approving the Council of Ministers'
recommendation on the appointment of the President of the
Commission and the other Commission.
By the Treaty of Nice, the role of the President of the
Commission has been strengthened, with a Commissioner having
to resign if the President so requests, following the
approval of the College.
The Lisbon Treaty directly links the outcome of the
European elections to the election of the President of the
Commission. At the same time, a post of Vice-President of
the Commission responsible for external relations is
created. This title, entitled EU High Representative for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, must also be the
European Council's mandate for the EU's Common Foreign and
Security Policy.
The Commission was hit by a scandal in 1999 when an
independent expert committee published a report on fraud and
neglect. Since then, the Prodi Commission in 2000 has
adopted a code of conduct and initiated a reform program
covering key areas of the Commission's administration, which
has been continued by the Barroso Commission after 2005.
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