Around the Bloc: Tbilisi Botanical Garden for Sale?
Protests grow in Georgia over former prime minister’s suspected land grabs.
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Protests grow in Georgia over former prime minister’s suspected land grabs.
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Bullets fired after car refuses to stop at checkpoint, drawing ire of human rights activists.
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In an annual rite of spring, thousands of spawning fish are attempting to jump over the country’s famous waterfall Venta Rapid.
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Allowed to enter the Czech Republic, Night Wolves leave without major incident.
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Civic activists appear to have a better chance at effecting change than traditional parties.
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A new Russian brand is only the latest in a line of controversial usages of the U.S. president’s image.
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Tensions between pro-American and pro-Russian supporters are running high ahead of Victory Day parades.
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Destroyed during the war, historic mosque finally welcomes worshippers as dignitaries hope for greater religious tolerance.
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Symbolic concert honors victims of terrorism, as Russian and Syrian dignitaries look on.
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Security service says arrested Central Asians had been planning major attacks.
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One of the last projects of the late architect Zaha Hadid is a big step closer to reality.
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How a nuclear error hundreds of miles away helped start a war of the worlds in Bulgaria.
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In yet another sign of Russians’ greater acceptance of the brutal Soviet leader, local Communist Party plasters Novosibirsk with sympathetic billboards.
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New EU proposal for asylum reform includes fines for those who do not comply and elicits predictable response from region’s politicians.
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The aim of this paper is to show how politics, culture and ethnicity interweave in the context of the Rushdie Affair in both the real‑life dimension of the historical events taking place in the late 1980s, as well as the literary dimension of the novel by Hanif Kureishi entitled The Black Album. The paper briefly outlines the Rushdie Affair as it unfolded in the British public sphere with particular emphasis placed on the process of consolidation of the Muslim identity among the representatives of different ethnic groups in Great Britain in the political and cultural context of the event which is deemed to be defining from the point of view of British Muslims. The author of the paper presents the profile of Hanif Kureishi, to indicate why he is ideally positioned to look critically at both sides of the conflict. The paper analyses the novel itself insofar as it examines the implications of the Rushdie Affair depicted in The Black Album, the reactions of the second‑generation immigrants of Pakistani descent in the face of the controversy, the influence this event exerted on the process of their searching for identity as well as their integration into British society. Two opposing identity options taken up by the protagonists of The Black Album are analysed by the author of the paper.
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Today, approximately 15% of the total Norwegian population of 5 million are immigrants, and this number is growing. This article investigates how public social service institutions and local policies are challenged by the new realities of migration and how they attempt to meet them in Norway, by identifying and discussing tensions between policies and practices. The article exemplifies these tensions through focusing on the Education sector and the Health and Care sector, and their respective treatment of two groups, labour migrants and refugees. Interviews were conducted with immigrants and public service providers in three municipalities. In the analysis of various white papers on migration and integration issues, we use the concepts of group pluralism and individual pluralism as analytical tools. In the empirical analysis, we have searched for critical issues arising in the relationship between providers and receivers of services. We find that when national policies meet practice at the municipal level, the municipal context and economic incentives are important factors. Other central aspects include the history, traditions and functions of the social service institutions that are responsible for carrying out national policies at the municipal level. Here, the main professional bodies appear to exercise their own particular logic in regards to the integration and inclusion of migrants into the Norwegian society.
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The present work concerns an anthropological outlook on the political consequences of corporate and economic migration to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and labour market segregation. The complexity of cultural codes and the clash of customs are discussed in the paper, which is based on a two‑year period of sociological field research conducted in the KSA by the author. The ethnographic materials are enriched by discourse from daily Saudi papers and other international publications. The study contains an insight into race and ethnicity as seen by Saudis themselves and also allows a deeper understanding of the power distribution in this particular modern Islamic society. In the climate of the European economic crisis, the sustained demand for highly qualified migrant workers in the KSA provides a lucrative alternative for specialists across market sectors and this often involves their families. In light of the globalised market, many corporations run multi‑billion dollar contracts inside the Kingdom and relocate their own work force to achieve business goals. The need for specialists and for cheap manual labour from abroad is a direct result of the Saudi education system, together with the work ethic amongst the majority of Saudi nationals, which is heavily influenced by the cultural and sociological consequences of the Wahhabi interpretation of the Quran. This interpretation has a major impact on Saudi society and on migrants, particularly women. The social order is widely supported and successfully reproduced through a united message present in education, the national media and local mosques. Concerns over ethnic divisions are focused on conflicting ideologies, represented in the interactions between newcomers and the indigenous population.
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In order to understand and resolve internal armed conflicts one must comprehend why and how people revolt, and under what conditions they brutalise i.e. increasingly resort to terrorism, banditry, brigandry, “gangsterism” and other forms of violence that violate contemporary local and/or present‑day international norms that I believe are, in the final analysis, all based on the principles of conscience, empathy and honour. Contemporary “global” or regional norms distinct from those of the rebelling community, and the norms of the regime community and/or colonial power, are also considered. My pessimistically formulated and thereby quite testable brutalisation theory combines theorising elements of disciplines ranging from cultural anthropology to military psychology, so as to better explain rebellions or any armed conflicts and their morally corrosive effects. The theory’s main variables are: violence‑values (my composite term) on proper and improper violence; conflict‑inducing motivations, in particular grievances, avarices, interests and ideologies, that bring about i.e. cause or trigger the conflict; combat‑stresses like fear, fatigue and rage resulting from or leading to traumas (and hypothetically to brutalities as well); and conflict‑induced motivations, in particular grievances, avarices, interest and ideologies, that happen by, through and during the conflict. The present paper is an exploratory introduction to an ambitious research project, succinctly titled “Brutalisation in Anti‑Imperial Revolts”, with advice and support from Professor Tomasz Polanski. The paper addresses the project’s relevance and its epistemological and methodological challenges. The project seeks to explain rebellion, banditry and other forms of violence that may or may not be inherently brutal. It seeks to ascertain the causes and degrees of any brutalisations i.e. increasing violations of norms during rebellions by peripheral, marginalised ethnic (indigenous) communities against their overlords in classical, medieval and “modern” (industrial) times. It introduces seven selected cases of “peripheral‑ethnic revolts” by indigenous communities – as (semi‑) state actors, non‑state actors or both (yet possessing at least residual ruling capabilities) – against Imperial powers across the ages, with a special focus on banditry, “brigandry” (brigandage), guerrilla and other forms of irregular warfare. The first stage of the research will analyse and compare the causes i.e. motivations and involved norms, sorts of violence and degrees of brutalisation in these seven cases.
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The aim of the paper is to analyse the English riots of summer 2011 and reflect on the questions of race and ethnicity – will they add significantly to our understanding of these events? The paper presents the timeline of social unrest, its dominant actors and events (starting from the manifestation organized by Mark Duggan’s family and friends), as well as the main theoretical themes and analytical perspectives present in British debate on the riots. The author argues that while the ethnocultural perspective cannot be seen as a leading one, in order to properly understand the events of August 2011 the links to previous riots and the history of racial tensions between police and members of certain communities should be unfolded and explored.
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