Question: Write an article that answers the following question: Which time period had a higher percentage increase in PACS, 2001-2002 or 2002-2003?
Article: 266,000 civil marriages took place in 2004, a decline of 5.9% from 2003. However, the report found that the number of couples getting PACS had increased every year except 2001. There was a 29% increase in PACS between 2001 and 2002 and a 25% increase between 2002 and 2003. For the first 9 months of 2004, 27,000 PACS were signed compared to 22,000 in 2003. The report found that one PACS in 10 had been dissolved (less than divorces for couples married for the same period, for which one marriage in three will be dissolved by divorce or separation after the first 3 years during which most signed PACS are dissolved before becoming more stable than marriages).

Question: Write an article that answers the following question: What regions did the Germans finance wars for?
Article: Despite its gold reserves of 106.3 million pounds, Russia's pre-war financial situation was not enviable. The country had large budget deficits year after year, and was largely dependent on borrowed money. Russia's war effort was funded primarily by France, in a series of loans totalling 800 million francs ; another loan in the amount of 600 million francs was agreed upon, but later cancelled. These loans were extended within a climate of mass bribing of the French press . Although initially reluctant to participate in the war, the French government and major banks were co-operative since it became clear that Russian and French economic interests were tied. In addition to French money, Russia secured a loan in the amount of 500 million marks  from Germany, who also financed Japan's war effort. Conversely, Japan's pre-war gold reserves were a modest 11.7 million pounds; a major portion of the total cost of the war was covered by money borrowed from the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. During his canvassing expedition in London, the Japanese vice-governor of the Bank of Japan met Jacob Schiff, an American banker and head of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. Schiff, in response to Russia's anti-Jewish pogroms and sympathetic to Japan's cause, extended a critical series of loans to the Empire of Japan, in the amount of 200 million US dollars . Japan's total war expenditure was 2,150 million yen, of which 38%, or 820 million yen, was raised overseas.

Question: Write an article that answers the following question: What are thought to be the second most populated counties in Western Asia?
Article: The population of Western Asia was estimated at 272 million as of 2008, projected to reach 370 million by 2030 by Maddison . This corresponds to an annual growth rate of 1.4% , well above the world average of 0.9% .The population of Western Asia is estimated at about 4% of world population, up from about 39 million at the beginning of the 20th century, or about 2% of world population at the time. The most populous countries in the region are Turkey and Iran and, each with around 79 million people, followed by Iraq and Saudi Arabia with around 33 million people each. Numerically, Western Asia is predominantly Arab, Persian, Turkish, and the dominating languages are correspondingly Arabic, Persian and Turkish, each with of the order of 70 million speakers, followed by smaller communities of Kurdish, Azerbaijani, Hebrew, Armenian and Eastern Aramaic. The dominance of Arabic and Turkish is the result of the medieval Arab and Turkic invasions beginning with the Islamic conquests of the 7th century AD, which displaced the formerly dominant Aramaic and Hebrew in the Levant, and Greek in Anatolia, although Hebrew is once again the dominant language in Israel, and Aramaic  and Greek both remain present in their respective territories as minority languages. Other significant native minorities include Assyrians, Druze, Jews, Mandeans, Maronites, Shabaks, Syriac Arameans, Lurs and Yezidis.

Question: Write an article that answers the following question: Which location did the Burmese try to take first, Ayutthaya or Kamphaeng Phet?
Article: Back from Arakan, Tabinshwehti looked east to Siam, which had occupied what he considered his territory. His response to "Siamese incursions" would launch the centuries-long Burmese-Siamese Wars between Burma and Siam. Siamese sources deny that Siam began the hostilities; rather, it was Burma's attempt to expand its territory eastwards taking advantage of a political crisis in Ayutthaya that started the hostilities.  The Burmese king sent a sizeable force  led by Gen. Saw Lagun Ein of Martaban to drive out the Siamese forces from Ye and Tavoy in late 1547. Saw Lagun Ein's forces defeated Siamese forces led by the governor of Kanchanaburi, and retook down to Tavoy. Tabinshwehti was not satisfied, and planned an invasion of Siam itself. Next year, near the end of the rainy season on 14 October 1548, , 12,000 strong Toungoo forces led by Tabinshwehti and Bayinnaung invaded Siam via the Three Pagodas Pass. The Burmese forces overcame Siamese defences, and advanced to the capital city of Ayutthaya. But they could not take the heavily fortified city. One month into the siege, in January 1549, Siamese counterattacks broke the siege, and drove back the invasion force. On retreat, the Burmese tried to take Kamphaeng Phet, but it too was well defended by Portuguese mercenaries. Fortunately for the Burmese, they caught two important Siamese nobles  in some open fighting, and negotiated a safe retreat in exchange for the nobles in February 1549.