the term `` State '' includes the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and any possession of the United States ; ;

Membership in the Commonwealth of Independent States, as well as the 1996 treaty on the Union of Russia and Belarus and the Treaty of the Formation of a Union State in 1999, has confirmed a close partnership with Russia.

The Icelandic Commonwealth or the Icelandic Free State ( Icelandic: Þjóðveldið ) was the state existing in Iceland between the establishment of the Althing in 930 and the pledge of fealty to the Norwegian king in 1262.

Commonwealth government by a Council of State and Parliament, was divided in two by The Protectorate when the executive was vested in a Lord Protector, who governed under a written constitution that mandated that the Lord Protector summon triennial parliaments that should sit for several months each year.

On the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658, his son, Richard Cromwell, inherited the title Lord Protector, but internal divisions among the republican party lead to his resignation, the end of the Protectorate and a second period of Commonwealth government by a Council of State and Parliament.

* 1931 – The British Parliament enacts the Statute of Westminster 1931, establishing legislative equality between the self-governing dominions of the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of Canada, the Irish Free State, Dominion of Newfoundland, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa.

* 1909 – New South Wales Premier Charles Wade signed the Seat of Government Surrender Act 1909, formally completing the transfer of State land to the Commonwealth to create the Australian Capital Territory.

The constitution does permit the Governor to act without the consulting the Executive Council and even go against its instructions, but in both cases the Governor must immediately inform the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in the United Kingdom, who can overrule the Governor's actions.

When they are the longest serving State Governor, the Governor of New South Wales holds a dormant commission to act as the Administrator of the Commonwealth when the Governor-General of Australia is absent from Australia, a role held by the current Governor.

GCHQ is the responsibility of the UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, but it is not a part of the Foreign Office, and its Director ranks as a Permanent Secretary.

At the age of 21, Prince Harry was appointed as a Counsellor of State and began his royal duties by first serving in that capacity when the Queen was abroad to attend the 2005 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta.

The most contentious areas of the Treaty for the IRA were abolition of the Irish Republic declared in 1919, the status of the Irish Free State as a dominion in the British Commonwealth and the British retention of the so called Treaty Ports on Ireland's south coast.

Category: British Secretaries of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs

The trial on indictment of any offence against any law of the Commonwealth shall be by jury, and every such trial shall be held in the State where the offence was committed, and if the offence was not committed within any State the trial shall be held at such place or places as the Parliament prescribes.

Discussions began in March 1964 between Kenya and Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations Duncan Sandys on defence, and a formal agreement was signed on 3 June 1964.

Due to Latvia's strategic location and prosperous city, its territories were a frequent focal point for conflict and conquest between at least four major powers, the State of the Teutonic Order ( later Germany ), the Polish – Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sweden and Russia.

* 2003 – Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Robin Cook, resigns from the British Cabinet in disagreement with government plans for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

As Head of State, Queen Elizabeth II, styled Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Papua New Guinea and of Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, or simply Queen of Papua New Guinea, is represented in Papua New Guinea by a governor general who acts on the advice of the prime minister and the cabinet.

*" British and Foreign State Papers ", Foreign and Commonwealth Office, H. M. S. O., 1857

Das Reich meant the legal persona of the ( federal ) State, similar to The Crown designating the State ( and its treasury ) in Commonwealth countries, and The Union in the United States of America.

* The Irish Free State never formally adopted the Statute of Westminster, although motions of approval of the Report of the Commonwealth Conference were passed by the Dáil and Seanad in May 1931.

For example, in a referendum on secession in Western Australia in April 1933, 68 percent of voters voted that the State should leave the Commonwealth of Australia to become a separate Dominion of the British Empire.

The State government sent a delegation to Westminster to request that this result be enacted into law, but the British Government refused to intervene on the grounds that this was a matter for the Commonwealth of Australia to be concerned with.

The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, ( CHOGM ), is a biennial summit meeting of the heads of government from all Commonwealth nations.

They were also renamed the ' Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings ' to reflect the growing diversity of the constitutional structures in the Commonwealth.

In parliamentary systems the head of state may be merely the nominal chief executive officer of the state, possessing executive power ( hence the description of the monarch's governments in the UK Commonwealth realms as His / Her Majesty's Government ; a term indicating that all power belongs to the sovereign and the government acts on Her Majesty's behalf, not parliament's ).

In 1772, Rousseau was invited to present recommendations for a new constitution for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the Considerations on the Government of Poland, which was to be his last major political work.

:( a ) personnel of the Armed Forces of the United States and of the Government of the Commonwealth Philippines and

For knowledge of this Shakespeare would have used Gasparo Contarini's The Commonwealth and Government of Venice, in Lewes Lewkenor's 1599 translation.

For later plays such as Othello, Shakespeare probably used the 1599 English translation of Gasparo Contarini's The Commonwealth and Government of Venice for some details about Venice's laws and customs.

The prime ministers of five members of the Commonwealth of Nations at the 1944 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting | Commonwealth Prime Ministers ' Conference.

With John Gorton becoming Prime Minister after Holt's death, Askin came into conflict with the Commonwealth Government over Gorton's determination to maintain federal command over taxation and in June 1968 declared that he could veto any form of state taxation.

* 14 – 22 January 1971-Singapore hosts the 18th Conference of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

The Government appealed to the Commonwealth Secretary General for assistance.

* The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting ( CHOGM ), with the Heads of Government of the Commonwealth of Nations to be held in Brisbane, the state capital of Queensland, Australia, was postponed.

Until 2005, the Lord Chancellor fused the Legislature, Executive and Judiciary, as he was the ex officio Speaker of the House of Lords, a Government Minister who sat in Cabinet and was head of the Lord Chancellor's Department which administered the courts, the justice system and appointed judges, and was the head of the Judiciary in England and Wales and sat as a judge on the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, the highest domestic court in the entire United Kingdom, and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the senior tribunal court for parts of the Commonwealth.

Prominent politicians of the Sikh Diaspora include the first Asian American to be elected as a Member of United States Congress Dalip Singh Saund, the current UK Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Parmjit Dhanda MP and the first couple to ever sit together in any parliament in the history of Commonwealth countries Gurmant Grewal and Nina Grewal, who sought apology by the Canadian Government for the historical Komagata Maru incident, and the Canadian Shadow Social Development Minister Ruby Dhalla MP.

Students who enrol in these undergraduate degree courses at TAFE are required to pay full fees and are not entitled to Commonwealth Government supported student fee loans, known as HECS loans, but may access a FEE-HELP loan scheme.

The heads of government of five members of the Commonwealth of Nations at the 1944 Commonwealth Prime Ministers ' Conference.

From the ashes of the Second World War, seventeen Commonwealth Prime Ministers ' Conferences were held between 1944 and 1969.

Imperial Conferences ( Colonial Conferences before 1911 ) were periodic gatherings of government leaders from the self-governing colonies and dominions of the British Empire between 1887 and 1937, before the establishment of regular Meetings of Commonwealth Prime Ministers in 1944.

The convention as to altering the " Royal Style and Titles " was altered by the Commonwealth Prime Ministers in 1953, when they agreed to pass individual Royal Style and Titles Acts to enact different royal styles in each realm.

During the abdication crisis in 1936, British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin consulted the Commonwealth Prime Ministers at the request of King Edward VIII.

The King later requested the Commonwealth Prime Ministers be consulted on a compromise plan, in which he would wed Simpson under a morganatic marriage pursuant to which she would not become Queen.

King, sitting left, at the 1944 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting | Commonwealth Prime Ministers ' Conference.

The prime ministers of Britain and the four major dominions at the 1944 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting | Commonwealth Prime Ministers ' Conference, 1 May 1944.

The heads of government of five members of the Commonwealth of Nations at the 1944 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting | Commonwealth Prime Ministers ' Conference.

Curtin with Douglas MacArthur preparing for war in 1942 Curtin, sitting right, at the 1944 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting | Commonwealth Prime Ministers ' Conference On 7 December 1941, the Pacific War broke out when Japan bombed Pearl Harbour.

Wreaths are laid by Queen Elizabeth, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, the Princess Royal, the Duke of Kent, the Earl of Wessex, the Duke of Cambridge, the Prime Minister, leaders of major political parties and former Prime Ministers, the Foreign Secretary, the Commonwealth High Commissioners and representatives from the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force, the Merchant Navy and fishing fleets and the civilian services.

On several occasions since 1954, non-British Ministers have served briefly as acting Lords President of the Council, solely to preside over a meeting of the Privy Council held in a Commonwealth realm.

Smuts, standing left, at the 1944 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting | Commonwealth Prime Ministers ' Conference.

Such persons generally include Prime Ministers and judges of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand, and several other Commonwealth prime ministers.

* In Australia s. 64 of the Commonwealth Constitution empowers the Governor-General, as the Queen's representative, to appoint Ministers of State ' to administer such departments of State of the Commonwealth as the Governor-General in Council may establish '.