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This research addresses the chaotic violence plaguing Syria, which has culminated from past violence and oppression, and the war's affect on the transnational identities of married first-generation Syrian-Americans living in America. As Bradatan et al. note, transnational identity is fitting for the postmodern idea of fluid identity that attempts to avoid the assumption that belonging to one group implies exclusion from other groups; as a result, the transnational individual embodies the split between state-imposed identity and personal identity, which is caused by political upheavals and propagates migration. By interviewing first-generation Syrian-American spouses, insight on the liminality between Western media coverage and Syrian legendry has been revealed through the participants' dynamic, multimodal acculturation of the English and Western media with the Arabic and Syrian legendry. The objective was that the participants frame the discourse with their respective spouses so that acculturation and code-switching came about naturally within their kitchen table conversation. This approach was intended to give support to the Syrians affected, by giving them the authority to frame and develop the discourse with one another within their homes. I followed a discourse-historical approach in analyzing the data provided by the participants, and this data shaped the historical background and further analyses.

The current Ebola outbreak, which is the first to affect West African countries, has been declared to have met the conditions for a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) by the World Health Organization (WHO). Thus, the Ministry of Health (MOH) of Malaysia has taken steps to strengthen and enhanced the five core components of preparedness and response to mitigate the outbreak. The National Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (CPRC) commands, controls and coordinates the preparedness and response plans for disasters, outbreaks, crises and emergencies (DOCE) related to health in a centralised way. Through standardised case definition and mandatory notification of Ebola by public and private practitioners, surveillance of Ebola is made possible. Government hospitals and laboratories have been identified to manage and diagnose Ebola virus infections, and medical staff members have been trained to handle an Ebola outbreak, with emphasis on strict infection prevention and control practices. Monitoring of the points of entry, focusing on travellers and students visiting or coming from West African countries is made possible by interagency collaborations. To alleviate the public's anxiety, effective risk communications are being delivered through various channels. With experience in past outbreak control, the MOH's preparedness and response plans are in place to abate an Ebola outbreak.

Глобализация остается определяющей тенденцией мирового развития, причем наиболее явно она проявляется в экономической сфере. Наряду с ней выделяются также политическая, информационная и культурно-цивилизационная глобализация. Стремительное развитие глобального хозяйства, инициированное Западом, привело к перераспределению экономического влияния все большую роль в нем играют незападные, прежде всего азиатские, страны. В этой связи показателен опыт участия в глобализационных процессах государств БРИКС, прежде всего Китая и Индии. Эти две страны достигли существенных успехов в развитии за счет интеграции в мировую экономику без отказа от активной роли государства в регулировании общественных и хозяйственных процессов. Изучение стратегий партнеров по БРИКС представляет существенный интерес для России. ; Globalization remains the crucial trend of global development, and it is especially evident in economic sphere. Apart from it, political, informational and cultural globalizations are actively discussed. The rapid development of global market, initiated by the West, paradoxically, fostered redistribution of economic influence towards the non-Western countries and primarily to Asia. Therefore, the record of participation of BRICS states (China and India, primarily) in global processes is instructive. These two countries achieve significant developmental successes due to their integration in world economy without abandoning active participation of their government in regulation of economic and social activities. Analysis of the strategies adopted of other BRICS countries could appear quite useful for Russia.

This article analyses the Muslim convert as portrayed in three post-communist Eastern European films: Vladimir Khotinenko's A Moslem (Мусульманин, Russia, 1996), Jerzy Skolimowski's Essential Killing (Poland/Norway/Ireland/Hungary/France, 2010), and Sulev Keedus's Letters to Angel (Kirjad Inglile, Estonia, 2011). Although set in different periods, the films have their origins in Afghanistan and then move to European countries. The conversion to Islam happens in connection to, or as a consequence of, different military conflicts that the country has seen. The authors examine the consequences the characters have on their environment, using Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's concept of deterritorialisation, understood as an opportunity to produce political and cultural change. Resettling from one religion and place into another means breaking up structures that need to be reassembled differently. However, these three films seem to desire deterritorialisation and resettlement for different reasons. In A Moslem, national structures need to be reset since foreign Western values have corrupted the post-communist Russian rural society. In Essential Killing, it is the Western military system of oppression that cannot uphold the convert and his values. Lastly, in Letters to Angel, the convert exposes the hollowness of post-communist capitalism. The Muslim converts in these films are subtle reminders that we can all reinvent ourselves.

This article compares Michael Oakeshott and Hans-Georg Gadamer, in particular examining the different ways they conceptualise human practices and the relationship between theory and practice. First, I highlight where the two agree. Both are sceptical of causal explanations of human behaviour, and instead advocate understanding human conduct intersubjectively, using Aristotle's concept of 'practical wisdom'. Second, however, I also highlight important areas of disagreement. Oakeshott maintains that non-philosophical but non-practical theoretical disciplines are possible; by contrast, Gadamer stresses the intrinsically practical nature of all understanding. More practically, they also differ over how useful Aristotelian insights are politically. Gadamer claims (like Aristotle) that we can seek an objective common good; Oakeshott rejects this, due to his commitment to pluralism. Finally, I suggest that these divergences are due to different conceptualisations of 'experience' and the Western tradition. First, Oakeshott and Gadamer differ over how authentically we can know human experience, and therefore over how important the right discipline for investigation is. Second, they differ over the degree to which we can interrogate the Western tradition. For Oakeshott, we must accept its pluralist inheritance; for Gadamer a healthy dialogue with it is essential-only thus can we unearth the (Aristotelian) insights vital for us to live well. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

In 2009, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) challenged the European Union (EU)'s interpretation of Article XXIV GATT in bilateral trade talks. Based on a legal analysis that West African activists initially provided, ECOWAS established that the clause allowed for more flexibility on market opening than the EU expected. Since then, market access constitutes one unresolved issue slowing down negotiations between the trade power Europe and trade- and aid-dependent ECOWAS. The example challenges the political economy literature dealing with trade policy-making on at least two accounts, namely the role of typically sidelines actors such as poor countries and transnational activists; and the role of the law in mediating strategic and discursive aspects of trade political processes. To assess the evidence and its theoretical implications, I combine the analytical concept of political opportunity structure developed in the transnational studies literature with pluralist approaches to law. I argue that trade political actors can become aware of the pathways to influence that legal uncertainty opens, in particular under conditions of multi-level governance where national, regional and international legal orders are intertwined. Overall, the way in which the law mediates ideas and interests thus deserves scrutiny in political economy approaches to trade. Adapted from the source document.

The importance of status concerns on Russia's foreign policy agenda has been increasingly observed. This preoccupation with status is particularly visible in Russia's relations with the West. Although strong claims about status in Russian foreign policy are frequently made in public and private by researchers, journalists, politicians, diplomats and other commentators, such claims often lack any closer theoretical or empirical justification. The aim of this introductory article is, therefore, to outline the basic components that form the research agenda on status. Status, if properly examined, helps us understand not only Russian foreign policy, put also present-day international politics and its transformation in a broader sense. In a first part, we identify the theoretical voids concerning the study of international status. In a second part we outline the drivers and logic of status concerns, considering in particular identity theories, psychological approaches and existing research regarding emotions. The presented research agenda on status, derived from International Relations and related theories, provides a well-structured tool-box for investigating the link between status, identity and emotions in Russian foreign policy vis-a-vis the West. In a third part we present the key questions rose by the contributors to this Special Issue and summarize their main findings. [Copyright The Regents of the University of California; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

Michael Haneke's film Caché (Hidden) (2005) explores the psychological and social effects of the intrusion of the immigrant Other into privileged Western capitalist society. Caché allegorises the intrusion of the immigrant Other through a series of intrusive and threatening non-diegetic surveillance tapes delivered to a wealthy Parisian family's home, the subject of the surveillance. Haneke's film undertakes a significant critique of the increasing right-wing anti-immigrant sentiment driving neo-liberal politics and ideology in the capitalist West. Here, Caché confronts the viewer with their complicity in the disavowal and subjugation of the immigrant Other within their own social edifice. The significance of Caché is the film's potential to facilitate the viewers' confrontation with the disavowed and repressed truth of the social edifice. This confrontation enables the viewer to assume an emancipatory subjectivity which extends beyond Caché's cinematic frame into the viewers' own social edifice. I argue that Haneke's film has the potential to radically alter the way viewers relate to the diegetic reality and, through the figuration of cinema, to their own social edifice. Ultimately, Caché brings to the fore the disavowed truth of both capitalist society and of privileged subjectivities, demanding a new politics based on the excluded immigrant Other.

This work shows the results of the European Farmland Afforestation Scheme promoted by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) from 1994 to 2009. This Programme started in the nineties and it is based on subsidies to convert crop lands into forestlands. In Andalusia, the results obtained through this Programme can be considered as successful, although differences between West +++and East Andalusia can be noted. In West Andalusia, survival and growth of plantations were optimal (with some exceptions). However, in East Andalusia more irregular results were obtained. ; Informe que muestra los resultados de la aplicación de los programas europeos de forestación de tierras agrarias promovidos por la Política Agrícola Común (PAC) desde 1994 hasta 2009. A través de esta línea de ayudas se ha venido subvencionado la transformación de terrenos agrícolas en forestales desde los años noventa. En Andalucía, los resultados obtenidos de la aplicación de este programa de ayudas se califican como exitosos, aunque es necesario realizar una diferenciación entre Andalucía Oriental y Andalucía Occidental. En las provincias de Andalucía Occidental, presentan un balance positivo ya que el estado de desarrollo de sus forestaciones es óptimo (salvo excepciones). Sin embargo, Andalucía Oriental presenta una mayor problemática en el desarrollo de sus forestaciones y gran heterogeneidad en los resultados.

The existence of mass media that dominated by western has abig influence to spread the exploitation idea, especially to islamic country. Politicly, the western has willing to demage the muslim society with idea and culture war as replacing the physic war. The exploitation ideas has been recieved by muslimah and becomean instrumental to spread the idea in the society. The muslimah effort to exist in the world become without the religious norm. Sometimes they go aut from their house a porbidden purpose by religious thought and open the part of the body wich may not be visible by other, free sexual intercourse. Ironicly, this attitudes become a new life styale, and the religious thought was regarded as limitation to their life style.Now can be found muslimah in television station, advertising, commercialization of publications, and they are become the popular idol of today's modern muslimah.For the problem, islamic thought give best solution. Only back to Alquran and hadis can minimize the women axploitation. Alquran give guidence for muslimah to cover the part of body wich may not be visible by other and select the culture can accept ang suitable with islmic thought. From this, muslimash have to be given islamic thought orientation to increase their faith until they can free from the exploitation activity.

After several centuries of being colonised by European powers, East and Southeast Asian countries were struggling to come to terms with their post-colonial national identities. Post-independent dilemmas were rooted in the core issues of cultural fragmentation and individualistic alienation in which formerly-colonised citizens felt at loss spiritually within their newly-demarcated political borders. Not knowing which cultural direction their countries were going to take, people faced the quandary of straddling the opposite world of East and West. This alarming issue has become a focal point in a lot of contemporary literature from East and Southeast Asia, reflecting the people and countries' ongoing quests to find their places in the modern global society. This paper analyses such dilemmas and their unremitting search of identity through three contemporary novels from Macau, Indonesia and Singapore. The Bewitching Braid (Macau) by Henrique de Senna Fernandes explores the unknown fate of independence faced by the Chinese, Macanese and Portuguese alike. Abdoel Moeis's Never the Twain (Indonesia) is an allegory for Indonesia in a political transition and a struggle towards a national identity. Mammon Inc. by Hwee Hwee Tan deals vigorously with the Singaporean society, torn between the Taoist values of the Eastern world and the technological advance of its Western counterpart. DOI:10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n15p615

While much has been written recently about the increasing geo-political and economic impact of Chinese 'soft power' on neighbouring countries to the West, relatively few studies explore local people's reflections of China's rise in its north-western borderlands. In this paper, I argue that people in Kazakhstan oriented in their commercial activities at China due to experiences of enduring interaction within business networks stretching to Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou often support affirmative views towards Chinese modernity. This perspective, while defying widespread sinophobia in Kazakhstan's society, has partly triggered concerns among the involved actors vis-á-vis the post-Soviet state's capability in providing socio-economic development and has, at the same time, enabled them to strengthen their agency in cross-border commercial exchange. Based on recent ethnographical research on Bolashak Bazaar in Almaty and in a Dungan village cluster near the border with Kyrgyzstan, this working paper elaborates how trade actors both articulate their positioning and become situated in development discourses and how state-endorsed principles of Chinese modernity are utilised and accommodated with established representations of social change. By so doing, the working paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the dynamic impact of translocal connections and flows of ideas on the everyday negotiation of development and social change.

Background. The incidence of cervical cancer in South Africa (SA) remains high, and the current screening programme has had limited success. New approaches to prevention and screening tactics are needed.Objectives. To investigate acceptance of school-based human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, as well as the information provided, methods of obtaining consent and assent, and completion rates achieved.Methods. Information on cervical cancer and HPV vaccination was provided to 19 primary schools in Western Cape and Gauteng provinces participating in the study. Girls with parental consent and child assent were vaccinated during school hours at their schools.Results. A total of 3 465 girls were invited to receive HPV vaccine, of whom 2 046 provided written parental consent as well as child assent. At least one dose of vaccine was delivered to 2 030 girls (99.2% of the consented cohort), while a total of 1 782 girls received all three doses. Sufficient vaccination was achieved in 91.6% of the vaccinated cohort. Of all invited girls, 56.9% in Gauteng and 50.7% in the Western Cape were sufficiently vaccinated.Conclusion. This implementation project demonstrated that HPV vaccination is practical and safe in SA schools. Political and community acceptance was good, and positive attitudes towards vaccination were encountered. During the study, which mimicked a governmental vaccine roll-out programme, high completion rates were achieved in spite of several challenges encountered.

In his essay 'The internationalization of capital and trends in income inequality in western societies' (in Don Kalb, et al., eds. The Ends of Globalization, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000, pp. 187–200) contended that the decrease in socio-economic inequality in Western societies during the larger part of the twentieth century was connected with the strengthening of networks of interdependence at the national level. He hypothesized that the increase in inequality evident since about 1980 was connected to the strengthening of international interdependencies and a corresponding weakening of the ties of interdependence within nation-states. That appears to be true, but appears to be only part of the explanation; political and institutional differences are also important in explaining variations between countries. Or, to put it another way, the key internal power ratios within each country have to be taken into account; the narrowing of economic inequality went along with more even balances of power between upper and lower strata in many countries. Those balances appear to be tipping back in favour of the more privileged, and global interdependences are increasingly interwoven with countries' internal power ratios. Research by both economists and sociologists continues; it is clear, though, that the degree of socio-economic inequality may have implications for social cohesion within nation states, and particularly for the viability of the American Dream.

This article responds to the five forum pieces that critically engage my 2012 book The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics, the central argument of which is that ever since 1760 international theory has not provided ideologically neutral, universalist explanations of world politics but has been charged, or even mandated, with the provincial objective of defending, promoting or celebrating Western civilization as the highest referent of the world. The first section defends the book's claim that pre-1945 realism was founded largely on various scientific racist bases (specifically between 1889 and 1945) – what I call 'racist realism' – while the second section defends my claim that classical realism and neorealism are not culturally neutral, universal approaches but are grounded in an underlying Western provincialism. The third section defends my reading of three pioneering figures of IR, John Burgess, Paul Reinsch and J.A. Hobson, while the fourth section reframes my non-Eurocentric reading of international theory in the last 250 years through a gendered lens so as to flesh out how gender/patriarchy and racism/Eurocentric institutionalism are mutually embedded, polymorphous discourses. Finally, the conclusion tackles the dual criticism that the book is limited by its Anglo-centric focus, on the one hand, and its situation within a critical tradition that is inherently European, if not Eurocentric, on the other.