Whois & Analysis for zawya.com

The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, originally (and still colloquially) known as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), is a regional intergovernmental political and economic union consisting of all Arab states of the Persian Gulf, except for Iraq.

Its member states are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

The Charter of the Gulf Cooperation Council was signed on 25 May 1981, formally establishing the institution.

The Levant (Arabic: المشرق ') is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean.

In its widest historical sense, the Levant included all of the eastern Mediterranean with its islands, that is, it included all of the countries along the Eastern Mediterranean shores, extending from Greece to Cyrenaica.

The term Levant entered English in the late 15th century from French.

It derives from the Italian Levante, meaning "rising", implying the rising of the sun in the east.

As such, it is broadly equivalent to the Arabic term Mashriq, meaning "the land where the sun rises".

North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of Africa.

The United Nations's definition of "Northern Africa" is: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, and Western Sahara.

(Mauritania is included in the United Nations's definition of Western Africa and South Sudan in the definition of Eastern Africa) The countries of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya are often collectively referred to as the Maghreb, which is the Arabic word for "sunset".

Egypt lies to the northeast and encompasses part of West Asia, while Sudan is situated on the edge of the Sahel, to the south of Egypt.

The Middle East is a transcontinental region centered on Western Asia and Egypt.

The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the derived noun is Middle-Easterner.

The term has come into wider usage as a replacement of the term Near East (as opposed to Far East) beginning in the early 20th century.

The stock (also capital stock) of a corporation is constituted of the equity stock of its owners.

A single share of the stock represents fractional ownership of the corporation in proportion to the total number of shares.

In liquidation, the stock represents the residual assets of the company that would be due to stockholders after discharge of all senior claims such as secured and unsecured debt.

Stockholders' equity cannot be withdrawn from the company in a way that is intended to be detrimental to the company's creditors.