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This article undertakes to outline the newly revised Japanese corporate legislation's practical importance for foreign investors, with a special focus on the corporate governance of Japanese stock corporations. Few of the new regulations require immediate attention from existing stock corporations, but the new legislation provides for more flexibility in general, such as abolition of the minimum capital requirement, flexibility in payment of dividends, or the option to replace the board of directors with a single director. The author shows, however, that in joint-venture corporations or other foreign-affiliated companies, the old system served the needs of foreign mother companies very well, while the new regulations do not necessarily provide major advantages. Additionally, the author gives some hints on why the newly introduced LLC and LLP may provide interesting alternatives at the start of an enterprise in Japan.

The author explores the external liquidity and solvency of Serbia in the 2002-2005 period. He analyses four main groups of indicators concerning the external liquidity and solvency of Serbia: (1) indicators of external liquidity, (2) indicators of external solvency, (3) indicators of exposure the financial risks, and (4) the economy openness degree, which consist of ten most important indicators in international statistics. Comparing them with the indicators for the selected group of nine countries from the broader neighborhood the author gives an insight into the relative external position and rank of Serbia, additionally explaining the factors of its external liquidity and solvency. The results of the comparative analysis do not correspond to the usual meaning of the weak Serbian external position, while the indicators of financial safety are surprising for many experts.

In this paper, the author compares the protest culture embodied by four social movement organisations which have each claimed to represent psychiatric "patients" within the UK at different times over the last thirty years: The Mental Patients Union, Survivors Speak Out, Reclaim Bedlam & Mad Pride. Although two of these groups appear to share a common protest culture, the authors identifies three distinct cultures, which are embodied by the different groups & which, the author claims, represent broader protest culture characteristics, respectively, of the three decades between 1970 & 2000. Having established this basic point the paper explores the reasons for these cultural differences & changes, looking both at specific aspects of the "field of psychiatric contention" & at its links to wider protest events & groups in the UK. Figures. Adapted from the source document.

This article offers two main arguments, both of which have important corollaries. First, the author argues that religion, & a specific form of religion, played a major role in the downfall of communism & the Soviet Union. A corollary is that religious motivations furnished important impetus to the development of democracy in former communist countries (FCC). Second, the author argues that courts, & more specifically constitutional courts in FCC, played a major role in promoting democracy in those nations. A corollary to that assertion is that constitution courts in most FCC have demonstrated considerable respect for & promotion of the role of religion in FCC. These assertions & their corollaries are discussed in light of scholarly studies on the place of religion in the modern constitutionalism movement in former colonial & communist countries. References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2006 The American Academy of Political and Social Science.]

Hans-Christof Kraus discusses Paul Nolte's Die Ordnung der Deutschen Gesellschaft. Selbstentwurf und Selbstbeschreibung im 20. Jahrhundert. Nolte's basic assumption is an interdependence of social, political, & intellectual development. A society's intellectual self-determination cannot be detached from political conditions under which it exists & develops. The author questions whether Nolte's thesis is not as one-sided as was Germany's cultural optimism before WWI. Altogether, it paints a far too harmonious picture of the recent past & the present. However, no era & generation is immune to the consequences of grave social & economic shifts. For Germany, the consequences of globalization are incalculable. The author doubts Nolte's optimism, but contends that Nolte has written a book that is a must for everyone wishing to discuss the genesis of intellectual & social fundamentals of post-war Germany. Adapted from the source document.

The author provides a descriptive and analytic examination of the nature, magnitude, and structure of U.S. trade with Muslim countries. From the U.S. point of view, two-way trade with Muslim countries is small in dollar terms: the U.S. is a more critical market to Muslim countries than the imports from Muslim countries are to the U.S., except for oil and gas. The U.S. imports roughly one-third of its petroleum from Muslim countries, whereas its non-petroleum trade deficit with Muslim countries is only about $15 billion. Although trade disputes with Muslim countries are rare, and several Muslim countries benefit from free or preferential trade agreements with the U.S., the author lists others whose exports cannot compete in the U.S. market against rival producers under present U.S. trade policies. Adapted from the source document.

This personalized editorial examines the decline in popularity of the printed newspaper. A short history is provided focusing on the large percentages of adults who read a newspaper daily and the sharp decline in recent years with only "19 percent of those eighteen and thirty-four reported consulting a daily paper" and some families even received two different papers at their home each day. Instead of reading a newspaper in the morning, people are increasingly getting their information from the internet and television, the "Daily Show" in particular. Author warns of the biases in internet blogs and sites, preferring the journalistic integrity of the newspaper. Author concludes, "little more can be said in their favor than they do not require batteries to operate, you can swat flies with them, and they can still be used to wrap fish."

In this article in the special section on Africa in Focus, the author examines the gendered nature of globalization African in a case study of cybersexual activity among Ghanian youth to argue that globalization & information-technology have created a transnational space of Internet-related sex that reproduce patterns of domination & inequality in Ghana & the larger global system. Using a qualitative political-economy-of-desire framework, the author examines the relationships among global forces, technological advances of transnational manifestations & their offline effects. The inequities of resource distribution in transactions between women & men is asserted to mirror transactions in larger society, & Ghanian women's ambitions reflect the condescending attitudes of privileged Westerners toward the exploited subaltern "other" is argued to be a transnational social space that has commodified women's bodies in a market of feminized poverty. References. J. Harwell

The paper deals with the tools of persuasion in the election campaign in Russia in 2003. The author analyses a corpus of texts produced within political discourses of three Russian parties (the United Russia, the Communist Party of Russia, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia) and focuses on the link of the common thesis «our party is better» to rational arguments aimed at the evidence of the declared thesis. ; The paper deals with the tools of persuasion in the election campaign in Russia in 2003. The author analyses a corpus of texts produced within political discourses of three Russian parties (the United Russia, the Communist Party of Russia, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia) and focuses on the link of the common thesis «our party is better» to rational arguments aimed at the evidence of the declared thesis.

Статья посвящена анализу основных подходов к определению понятия «экологическая политика». Автор рассматривает экологическую политику как средство политического контроля над состоянием окружающей среды в современном глобализирующемся мире. В статье освещается история становления и основные стадии развития экологической политики, определяются ее виды и сферы распространения, акцентируется внимание на политических и правовых основах этой деятельности в рамках концепции устойчивого развития. ; The article is devoted to consideration the main approaches to the definition such concept as «ecopolitics». The author is considering the ecopolitics as a mean of political control under environmental condition sound in the modern globalization world. In this article author is covering the history and main stages of the progress of ecopolics and is defined their types and spheres of spreading, accents the attention on political and law foundation of this activity in the framework of the stable development conception.

The author explores the operational capability of the European defense policy in the last 3 years. From the creation and adoption of the European Security Strategy, the European Union has made several specific steps in the development of the European Security and Defense Policy. Despite the disagreements with the United States about Iraq and the internal divisions in the "New and Old Europe" EU has shown the ability to set new military and civilian goals, make a small, but effective battle group concept for crisis management and conflict prevention as well as the European Defense Agency. The author also describes the main operations and missions of EU in the world, ranging from the Balkans and Africa to the Middle East and Eastern Asia. Finally, the paper analyses the Constitution for Europe and the articles concerning ESDP.