Banding together for mutual protection, the Cossacks by the mid-16th century had developed a military organization of a peculiarly democratic kind, with a general assembly (rada) as the supreme authority and elected officers, including the commander in chief, or hetman.
On Thursday August 24th a general assembly of the International Astronomical Union, the body with the authority to decide such matters, voted to remove Pluto from the list of planets.
On the national level they attended the general assembly of the gods, which was the highest authority in the cosmos, to vote on matters of national import such as election or deposition of kings.
The presence of Ali Akbar Velayati gave weight to Rouhani's insistence that he had the highest authority to pursue his diplomatic initiative at the UN general assembly, which culminated in a groundbreaking 15-minute phone conversation with Obama on Friday, conducted on a mobile phone while Rouhani was on the way to John F Kennedy airport.
He is an authority on war and democracy, he has addressed the UN general assembly and has given a seminar at 10 Downing Street.
Israel has seized more than $120m £75mm)in tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority in response to last week's overwhelming vote at the UN general assembly to recognise the state of Palestine.
Moreover, everything that Zarif and Rouhani have said suggests that he, unlike Jalili, has full authority to negotiate, while Rouhani will paint the bigger picture at the general assembly of an Iranian republic trying to break free of its pariah status.
Rajasthan has a skewed child sex ratio, and the authorities are concerned about the inadequate representation of women in the general, assembly and municipal elections in the state.
Pakistan's prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, has promised he will use a speech to the UN general assembly on Wednesday to "emphatically highlight" alleged human rights abuses against protesters by Indian authorities.
That is a sensible stand, if Iraqis agree, as seems likely, though the general assembly, less directly controlled by the invaders, is preferable to the security council as the responsible transitional authority.
By coincidence (not?), President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is due to address the UN general assembly today, his usual fiery anti-western rant, doubtless inflamed by persistent speculation that the clerical authorities who call the shots – and hangings – in Iran are getting fed up with his economic mismanagement.
