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Women's empowerment is good for, among many other things, economic development, global health, and the advancement of human rights. Now research shows that it's also good for medal counts. A study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, due out in early 2015, looks at the connection between gender equality and how well a country's athletes -- both male and female -- have fared in the Olympics. Equality in education was an especially good predictor of performance by a country's athletes. Adapted from the source document.

Women's empowerment is good for, among many other things, economic development, global health, and the advancement of human rights. Now research shows that it's also good for medal counts. A study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, due out in early 2015, looks at the connection between gender equality and how well a country's athletes -- both male and female -- have fared in the Olympics. Equality in education was an especially good predictor of performance by a country's athletes. Adapted from the source document.

It has been argued that "knowledge is power." This short essay in two parts will review looking at ideas about power through the lens of Hannah Arendt, we hope to offer some thoughts about how actions and words inform the way power manifests. In particular, about the way that power in reproducing knowledge can be aided by design that shapes intentions in action , choosing either to assist democracy or to erode it --- Building on the revival of interest in Hannah Arendt, and on the increasing turn in design towards the expanded field of the social, this unique book uses insights and quotations drawn from Arendt's major writings (The Human Condition; The Origins of Totalitarianism, Men in Dark Times) to assemble a new kind of lexicon for politics, designing and acting today. Taking 56 terms – from Action, Beginnings and Creativity through Mortality, Natality, and Play to Superfluity, Technology and Violence – and inviting designers and scholars of design world-wide to contribute, Designing in Dark Times: An Arendtian Lexicon, offers up an extraordinary range of short essays that use moments and quotations from Arendt's thought as the starting points for reflection on how these terms can be conceived for contemporary design and political praxis.

Intro -- Introduction -- Powering Up -- Acknowledgements -- The Cover Image -- Forum · Powerful Words, Powerful People -- Constantly Strive to Become Stronger -- Mao and Xi: Story of the Man, Story of the People -- 1. Immunity to Temptation - 'Power' in Chinese Language -- Forum · Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely -- Power Surge: China's New National Supervisory Commission -- 2. Talking (Up) Power -- Forum · Power and Influence -- Power in Chinese Foreign Policy -- China's Korea Diplomacy -- 3. Technology: Rapid Ascent and Global Backlash -- Forum · The Power of Money -- Calling the Tunes in Cambodia -- Buying Power: Alibaba in South-East Asia -- 4. Internment and Indoctrination - Xi's 'New Era' in Xinjiang -- Forum · Directing the Way -- Raising the Flag: Loving Religion, Loving the State -- Rapprochement with the Vatican -- 5. Girl Power -- Forum · Power and the Patriarchy -- The Story of Yanxi Palace -- 6. Australia's China Debate in 2018 -- Forum · Politics with Taiwanese Characteristics -- Disenchantment in Taiwan -- Sharp Power, Youth Power, and the New Politics in Taiwan -- 7. China's Power in Africa: Rhetoric and Reality -- Forum · Who's in Charge Here? -- China's Base in Djibouti: Who's Got the Power? -- Chinese Engagement in Africa: Fragmented Power and Ghanaian Gold -- 8. Towards a 'World Class' Military: Reforming the PLA under Xi Jinping -- Forum · Softly Does It -- Soft Power, Hard Times -- Sinology as Spectacle -- Passing Marx -- 9. The Anthropomorphic City - Power and -- Forum · (Im)mortality -- Power Over Life and Death -- Towards a Healthier Future -- 10. The State Advances, the Private Sector Retreats -- Forum · With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility -- The Power of Giving: China Deepens Involvement in Refugee Affairs -- Protecting Citizens Overseas: The Policy, the Power, and Now the Movie … -- Chronology -- Notes.

R. J. Johnston produces two striking and counter-intuitive results on bargaining power in a European Union Council of Ministers expanded by the addition of the four states applying for entry in 1994. One is that the 'big four' member states, including the United Kingdom, have more power if the minority with power to block a proposal is set at 27 rather than 23. UK Prime Minister John Major damaged himself politically by first insisting that he would veto a proposal to increase the blocking threshold from 23 to 27 and then being forced to climb down from this position. As Johnston notes, this episode 'led to several calls for his resignation from among his own party's MPs, including one in the House itself'. If British interests, as seen by the Euro-sceptics whom Mr Major was vainly trying to appease, were actually better served by a threshold of 27 than of 23, his actions appear doubly futile. This is apparent by reading across Johnston's Table 1, using either of the indices he proposes.