- Surface elevation: 6,781' (2,067 m)
- Area: 1.861 mi² (4.82 km²)
- Length: 2.175 miles (3.5 km)
- Width: 1.181 miles (1.9 km)
posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM
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Labour has "rediscovered losing", former Prime Minister Tony Blair warned as a poll put left-winger Jeremy Corbyn ahead in the leadership contest.
Mr Blair said Labour could win again - but not from a "traditional leftist platform" and said it had to "move on"...
Blair
Addressing the Progress think tank, Mr Blair said the "debilitating feature" of the leadership contest was that it was being presented as a choice "between heart and head", adding that people who say their heart is with Mr Corbyn should "get a transplant"…
Since he became Labour leader 21 years ago, the party had "discovered winning successively" then "rediscovered losing successively", he said, adding: "Personally I prefer winning."…
May's election was "out of the playbook of the 1980s" with the Conservatives seen as the party of economic competence and Labour of compassion, he said, adding that the party should avoid repeating past defeats by occupying the centre ground of politics…
Lord Prescott has criticised Tony Blair's intervention in the Labour leadership contest, telling the former prime minister to "calm down".
Lord Prescott
Mr Blair urged against a lurch to the left and said people who said their heart was with Jeremy Corbyn should "get a transplant".
Ex-Deputy PM Lord Prescott said his comments were "unacceptable", saying Labour was all about heart and head.
He urged the party to "stop the abuse" and "get back to policy"…
And he was highly critical of Mr Blair over his comments on Wednesday warning that Labour would not win again if it shifted its policies leftwards…
He said Labour had lost a lot of support because of the 2003 Iraq War and said the former prime minister should reflect on that…
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.Labels: leadership, political parties, politics, UK
posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM
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Topics:
- Defining Culture
- Distinguishing Political Culture from the rest of culture
- Political Culture and Democracy
- Daniel Elazar's Typology of Political Cultures
- Roles of Citizens in four political cultures
- How does political culture explain American politics?
- Is statism compatible with democracy?
- Is democracy compatible with traditionalism?
- What do national symbols say about political culture?
- National Symbols of the United States
- National Symbols of Russia
- National Symbols of South Africa
- National Symbols of Mexico
- What are five dimensions of political culture?
- What do constitutional preambles tell us about political cuture?
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.Labels: civil society, concepts, political culture
posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:12 AM
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MPs have backed government plans for £12bn in welfare cuts amid a Labour revolt over its leadership's call for its MPs not to oppose the changes.
The Commons backed the Welfare Reform and Work Bill at Second Reading by 308 to 124 votes.
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| Announcing voting results |
But 48 Labour MPs defied orders to abstain and instead voted against the bill…
Acting Labour leader Harriet Harman has faced criticism for her stance on the issue, with many MPs saying she should have been more outspoken in her opposition to curbs on child tax credits and cuts to other in-work benefits…
In a passionate debate, Conservative MPs lined up to support the measures while many Labour MPs said they could not support the bill, which was also opposed by the SNP, the Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and the Greens…
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said: "Nearly 50 Labour MPs have defied their leadership and opposed our welfare reforms which will move our country from a low wage, high tax and high welfare economy to a higher wage, lower tax and lower welfare society… "
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.Labels: parties, political culture, UK
posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM
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Where the Andean foothills dip into the Amazon jungle, nearly 1,000 Chinese engineers and workers have been pouring concrete for a dam and a 15-mile underground tunnel. The $2.2 billion project will feed river water to eight giant Chinese turbines designed to produce enough electricity to light more than a third of Ecuador…
Ecuador, with just 16 million people, has little presence on the global stage. But China’s rapidly expanding footprint here speaks volumes about the changing world order, as Beijing surges forward and Washington gradually loses ground…
While China has been important to the world economy for decades, the country is now wielding its financial heft with the confidence and purpose of a global superpower…
China’s currency, the renminbi, is expected to be anointed soon as a global reserve currency, putting it in an elite category with the dollar, the euro, the pound and the yen. China’s state-owned development bank has surpassed the World Bank in international lending. And its effort to create an internationally funded institution to finance transportation and other infrastructure has drawn the support of 57 countries, including several of the United States’ closest allies, despite opposition from the Obama administration…
In many cases, China is going where the West is reluctant to tread, either for financial or political reasons — or both. After getting hit with Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, Russia, which is on the verge of a recession, deepened ties with China. The list of borrowers in Africa and the Middle East reads like a who’s who of troubled regimes and economies that may have trouble repaying Chinese loans, including Yemen, Syria, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe…
With its elevated status, China is forcing countries to play by its financial rules, which can be onerous. Many developing countries, in exchange for loans, pay steep interest rates and give up the rights to their natural resources for years. China has a lock on close to 90 percent of Ecuador’s oil exports, which mostly goes to paying off its loans.
“The problem is we are trying to replace American imperialism with Chinese imperialism,” said Alberto Acosta, who served as President Correa’s energy minister during his first term. “The Chinese are shopping across the world, transforming their financial resources into mineral resources and investments. They come with financing, technology and technicians, but also high interest rates.”…
Find out about the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/25/is-aiib-the-answer-to-asias-infrastructure-needs.html
Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
AIIB Home Page
Also check out the NYTimes interactive graphic of China's involvement in the world economy.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.Labels: China, economics, politics, soft power
posted by Ken Wedding @ 10:29 AM
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Westminster must decide whether it is a museum or a functional parliament, according to the UK's youngest MP.
Mhairi Black, aged 20, was elected as MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South in May amid a wave of SNP dominance in Scotland.
Her maiden speech in the House of Commons became a viral hit, racking up millions of views…
On the issue of the no clapping rule in the House of Commons she said: "So you're not allowed to clap like an ordinary person, but you're allowed to bray like a donkey?
"I mean, see PMQs, especially the Conservative side, they've got this weird noise they do. It actually sounds like a drunken mob." …
She also suggested the tradition of having to vote in person, rather than electronically, was outdated.
"Are we genuinely saying that the Underground can log millions of travellers, day in, day out, without a problem, and 650 of us can't hit a button?
"It's just stupid. A couple of Mondays ago, I didn't get home until half past midnight because we were voting. How is anybody with a family supposed to work those hours?"…
As in the US Congress when members give speeches, there were few people in Commons when Ms Black gave her first speech. Her SNP colleagues were the main audience. So there were few "bray" noises and many "Hear! Hear!" cheers that substitute for applause.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.Labels: legislature, parliament, political culture, politics, UK
posted by Ken Wedding @ 9:45 AM
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The Iranian rapper Amir Tataloo released a new music video… on 14
Amir Tataloo
July. It was called Nuclear Energy and took the Iranian web sphere by storm. The clip features members of the Islamic republic navy on a warship singing “This is our absolute right, to have an armed Persian Gulf”.
The video, with clear support from the regime and its military apparatus, has shocked many Iranians, given that officials have snubbed rappers as “westernised” thugs at best, and fomenters of evil, at worst…
Some in Iran’s pro-regime cultural centres felt they had a problem though: very few young people were interested in state-sponsored media. Media makers had spent… 20 years creating films, television series, and books about the “Sacred Defence”, the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. But, from the 1990s onwards, ticket and book sales were dipping, according to their own accounts.
“Frankly, we turned young people off with the propaganda we produced in the 1980s and 1990s,” one prominent pro-regime film producer… told me. “We have to learn to speak the language of youth and use their codes if we want them to like our work. In short, we have to entertain them.”
Observing an increasing trend in displays of nationalism in the general population, the regime’s cultural producers and the political elite sensed an opportunity…
A prominent example is the newly built multi-million dollar Museum of the Sacred Defence in northern Tehran…
One of the main exhibits… displays large maps that demonstrate the expanse of the Persian empire ruling swaths of Asia over 3,000 years ago. It juxtaposes it against shrinking Iranian territory throughout the centuries. Iran’s size today is minuscule in comparison to the glorified empire painted on the wall…
This museum, in line with the new strategy pursued by these cultural producers, moves away from celebrating martyrs to offering a narrative heavy on nationalism, dignity, and pride. “This youngest generation doesn’t understand our religious language,” a key filmmaker said at one meeting of pro-regime cultural producers where I was present. “We have to reframe our heroes for them - give them heroes they can relate to.”…
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.Labels: cleavages, Iran, leadership, political culture, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM
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HOW many rankings of global power have put Britain at the top and China at the bottom? Not many, at least this century. But on July 14th an index of “soft power”—the ability to coax and persuade—ranked Britain as the mightiest country on Earth. If that was unexpected, there was another surprise in store at the foot of the 30-country index: China, four times as wealthy as Britain, 20 times as populous and 40 times as large, came dead last.
Britain scored highly in its “engagement” with the world, its citizens enjoying visa-free travel to 174 countries—the joint-highest of any nation—and its diplomats staffing the largest number of permanent missions to multilateral organisations… Britain produces more internationally chart-topping music albums than any other country, and the foreign following of its football is in a league of its own… It did well in education, too… because its universities are second only to America’s…
Governance was the category that sank undemocratic China, whose last place was sealed by a section dedicated to digital soft-power—tricky to cultivate in a country that restricts access to the web…
The index will cheer up Britain’s government, which has lately been accused of withdrawing from the world. But many of the assets that pushed Britain to the top of the soft-power table are in play. In the next couple of years the country faces a referendum on its membership of the EU; a slimmer role for the BBC, its prolific public broadcaster; and a continuing squeeze on immigration… Much of Britain’s hard power was long ago given up. Its soft power endures—for now.
St. Edmund Hall, Oxford
Labels: China, soft power, UK
posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM
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According to Amnesty International, around 120 lawyers, as well as more than 50 support staff, family members and activists, have been rounded up [in China] since the pre-dawn hours of July 9th… as The Economist went to press at least 31 were still missing or were believed to remain in custody…
Teng Biao, a Chinese lawyer and activist currently in America, says it includes nearly all of China’s civil-rights lawyers…
The police have focused particular attention on Fengrui, a law firm in Beijing. It was set up in 2007 and is known for defending dissidents as well as suing on behalf of people forcibly evicted from their homes and victims of miscarried justice. The police have accused some Fengrui staff of being part of a “major criminal gang” whose members stirred up discontent about the government in more than 40 incidents of “public disorder” in the past three years…
Since taking office in 2012 Xi Jinping, China’s leader, has stressed the need for the “rule of law”, but has made it clear that he means something different: shoring up the party’s control, not holding it to account. Several years ago the party tolerated civil-rights lawyers…
This month a bill was passed which could provide a legal basis for the government to define almost anything as a threat to national security. Finding a good lawyer in China may become harder.
Labels: China, politics, rule of law
posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM
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Two MPs have won a High Court battle over laws which they say allow the police and security services to "spy on citizens" without proper safeguards…
David Davis and Tom Watson argued the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act was incompatible with human rights.
It was fast-tracked through Parliament last July, allowing security agencies to gather phone and internet data.
Two High Court judges have now found that the act is "inconsistent with EU law"…
Mr Davis, a former Conservative minister and Mr Watson, a civil liberties campaigner who is standing to be Labour's deputy leader, brought the case in conjunction with campaign group Liberty.
The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act permits Britain's security agencies and some other public bodies to gather information about who suspects contact by telephone or email…
The High Court… has now ruled that aspects of the bill are unlawful because they are in breach of Article 7 and 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and should be "disapplied"…
posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM
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A London resident since he was a year old, Andrew Chevis might seem an unlikely recruit to the Scottish National party. Yet at a time when the SNP is planning to spread its message beyond Scotland, the former Labour party activist is one of an increasing trickle of English people who have gone a step further and signed up as members.
“There are thousands of us in England for whom the SNP’s core message on the economy is a very attractive one,” says Chevis…
Nicola Sturgeon’s strong performances in election debates broadcast across the UK was regarded as a factor in raising the party’s profile outside of Scotland. Polls indicated that she was Britain’s most popular leader and that the SNP would get more votes than the Liberal Democrats if it fielded candidates across Britain…
Nicola Sturgeon
Another new English recruit, who preferred to remain anonymous, said he had joined the SNP because the Labour party was not brave enough to argue for a real political alternative. “I am aiming to move to Scotland next year and they’re the only ones advocating a social democratic alternative to the strands of neoliberalism advocated by LibLabCon,” said the young man, a former Green party member living in Leeds who is from a Tory-supporting family.
“Part of the reason I am moving to Scotland is because I want independence. I’m now firmly of the belief that long-term the only way to get the social democratic policies I want is for Scotland to be independent, as England to me seems too firmly wedded to neoliberalism, especially with Labour not being brave enough to argue for a proper alternative, and with the rise of Ukip.”…
Labels: political culture, political parties, politics, UK
posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM
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President Muhammadu Buhari has fired his top military chiefs as he scrambles to defeat Boko Haram militants…
Buhari appointed Major General Tukur Yusuf Buratai as the new army chief of staff and Major General Babagana Monguno as the new national security adviser. Both are from Borno state.
The new defense chief is Major General Abayomi Gabriel Olonisakin and the new navy chief Is Rear Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas. They are from the south of Nigeria. The chief of defense intelligence, Air Vice Marshal Morgan Monday Riku, is from the Middle Belt and the chief of air staff, Air Vice Marshal Sadique Abubakar, is from Bauchi state in the north.
By distributing the appointments evenly between Nigeria's mainly Muslim north and its mainly Christian south, Buhari has evidently sought to avoid allegations of partisanship leveled against his predecessor. Jonathan had named Christians to all but one of the positions…
Labels: cleavages, military, Nigeria, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM
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Ministers have defended plans to tighten the rules on strike ballots after unions said they would make legal strikes "almost impossible".
Under current rules all that is needed for a strike is a simple majority of those that take part in a ballot.
But the Trade Union Bill would impose a minimum 50% turnout - and public sector strikes would need the backing of at least 40% of those eligible to vote…
David Cameron and Harriet Harman clashed over the issue at Prime Minister's Questions, with the Labour leader accusing the government of "attacking the right of working people to have a say on their pay and conditions".
But the prime minister said Labour's opposition showed it was "utterly in hoc" to the trade unions. The public, he argued, were behind Conservative efforts to ensure strikes were only called as "a last resort" and "to sort this out for working families"…
The legislation could also cut the amount of money unions have to mount campaigns - or donate to parties such as Labour - with members actively having to "opt in" to pay the so-called political levy, which is currently automatic unless members opt-out…
These are some of the most sweeping and radical union reforms since the 1980s. The unions fear it will make effective industrial action pretty much impossible - and say it's unnecessary as the level of strikes is almost at its lowest ever.
But ministers argue that in the wake of strikes on London Underground, for example, where people have been severely inconvenienced, they need to find a fresh balance and look again at the power of the trade unions…
Labels: parties, politics, UK, unions
posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM
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Ministers shelved Wednesday's vote on relaxing hunting laws in England and Wales after the SNP said it would vote against the changes…
Downing Street said it was "disappointing" that the vote had to be postponed, and said new proposals on the Hunting Act would be introduced "in due course"…
The government now plans to tighten up restrictions on Scottish MPs voting on matters in England and Wales before holding a vote on hunting regulations.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's First Minister, said the decision to delay the hunting vote showed "David Cameron can't carry his own parliamentary group", and that he only had a "slender and fragile" majority.
She said he had also been forced to pull his English votes for English laws plans, showing that he was "not master of all he surveys in the House of Commons".
She said if he "had any sense", he would come back with proposals based on "fairness and reasonableness" that "work in both directions"…
With two strategic retreats in the space of a week, the intersection of Hunting and English Votes for English Laws (EVEL) is generating some really interesting politics.
Last week, the government paused its attempt to bring in EVEL, replacing a vote on Wednesday with a consultative debate…
The government plans to change Commons rules to allow English, or English and Welsh, MPs a "decisive say" on legislation only applying there.
However, the current proposals would not prevent SNP MPs from voting against the changes.
This is because the statutory instrument ministers want to use to change the law would require the support of the whole of the House of Commons…
Meanwhile, a poll for the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire show has suggested almost three in four British adults are against making fox hunting legal.
The poll, conducted by ComRes, asked 1,005 people if the practice "should or should not be made legal again?".
Labels: legislation, politics, UK
posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM
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