Capitalization - Abbreviations

Capitalize present titles immediately before name ... German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, US Vice President Dick Cheney, PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. This only applies to public offices (in governments, state administration, UN bodies, etc.), not those in corporate life or organizations (Ford, Amnesty International, etc.) Don't capitalize titles when used alone or set apart from the name by commas ... Angela Merkel, the German chancellor ... the late Indian prime minister, Indira Gandhi. We don't capitalize past or future titles ... former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, president-designate Hillary Clinton. Avoid putting too many titles before names, e.g. we do not write "Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf", but would call him president on first reference and general later on.

Use caps for full names of organizations, institutions and legislative or government bodies ... the French Foreign Ministry, the US Defence Department, the Bank of England, the South Korean National Assembly, the US Congress, the UN General Assembly, the UN Security Council. Government departments, cabinet posts, partial names of official bodies should be lower case when standing alone ... the finance ministry, the economics minister, the commission, etc. Note the following form in apposition: the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.

Capitalize geographical names ... Khuzestan province, the Gulf (not "Persian Gulf"). Capitalize North, South, East, West when they form proper names or refer to regions ... the former East Germany, Northern Ireland, South-East Asia, the Western World, the East Bloc. See also European Place Names and CIS Place Names.

Capitalize nationalities, races, religions, historical periods and holidays ... Arabs, Jews, French, Islam, Protestant, Middle Ages, Reformation, New Year's Day.

Capitalize all proper names: the Social Democratic Party, the Christian Democrats, but the Social Democratic and Christian Democratic parties. (See also the list of European Parties). Capitalize Olympic Games, Winter Olympics, World Cup.

Capitalize abbreviations, e.g., GMT and IBM, including acronyms like US, UN, EU, NATO, ASEAN, UNESCO, UNITA, OPEC, NASDAQ, and AIDS, (all without periods). Exception: dpa (lower case).

In general, spell out abbreviations on first reference, with the abbreviation following in parentheses. One abbreviation that never needs to be spelled out is GMT. Where a body is best known by its abbreviation - NASA, NATO, OPEC, CNN, the CIA, BBC, IMF, US, EU and UN - it is permissible to use this abbreviation on the first reference, e.g. the NATO alliance or the US space agency NASA, and spell out the full name later in the story. Selected World Organizations and their websites are listed separately in this Style Guide.

Do not abbreviate months or days of the week.