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Action of and interactions between authorities and livestock farmers - in relation to animal welfare The many requirements related to animal welfare - generated by a combination of national and EU animal welfare legislation - are a part of daily life when running a livestock farm in Denmark and in the EU. Since 2004, the number of unannounced inspections of farm animal welfare made by the authorities in Denmark has gone up. In cases of noncompliance with the legislation, farmers today face not only the risk of being fined but also having their EU-subsidies reduced. With this growing concern for farm animal welfare in Denmark, the conflicts between farmers and authorities have increased. At the same time it is quite clear from these debates that what one group of people understands by the term 'animal welfare' can differ greatly from the opinions of other groups, or from one person to another. The overall aim of this thesis is to provide new insight into different aspects of the interaction between farmers and authorities in relation to animal welfare. I have examined the dilemmas, conflicts and paradoxes that have developed as part of the implementation of animal welfare in relation to animals, farmers and employees at the farms and authorities. By using an ethnographic approach and anthropological perspectives I have studied how animal welfare is constituted and communicated and how it shapes the lives of humans and animals. As its starting point, the thesis provides a description of the conflicts in the area of animal welfare and a description of the development of industrialised livestock farming. I also explore how agriculture and animals are seen in anthropology, and how the science of animal welfare – and with this the legislation – has developed. Furthermore, I describe how farmers understand animal welfare in daily practice and I explore if animal welfare, from an anthropological perspective, can be understood as a social technology. The methods used in the following four papers have been: 1.Ethnographic fieldwork, following inspectors on unannounced inspections of animal welfare. 2.Following this fieldwork semi-structured interviews were performed with inspectors and farmers from 12 selected inspections. 3.Fieldwork by working at four different farms, two pig farms and two farms with dairy cattle for one month at each site. 4.Following this fieldwork semi-structured interviews were performed with the people I met at the farms. 5.Semi-structured interviews with a group of farmers being charged for neglect of farm animals. The papers of this thesis address the following four issues: Paper 1 The experience of animal welfare inspections as perceived by Danish livestock farmers: A qualitative research approach The aim of the paper was to investigate and understand how a group of farmers experienced unannounced animal welfare inspections as a part of their daily life on the farm. Using an ethnographic approach, the meeting between the farmers and inspectors was observed at 22 farms. Twelve farmers were afterwards selected for interviews. The results are presented as three main themes: 1) Inspection seen as necessary, 2) the inspection process seen as unfair, and 3) farmer's explanations of a negative evaluation. A main finding is that farmers simultaneously perceive animal welfare inspections as necessary and as potentially unfair. Within the process of inspection, farmers ask for objectivity but also for room for interpretation. In the discussion we have used an anthropological approach based on the concept of the audit society, where inspection can be seen by the farmers as creating both a feeling of certainty but also of uncertainty. We discuss whether the challenges faced in this area are caused by tension created by the fact that the interaction between farmers and inspectors takes place in different languages of communication: The language of animal welfare legislation (here named as belonging to the domain of production) which is supposed to be known by the farmers, but the farmers in this investigation (with their language about animal welfare belonging to the private domain) express their experience as uncertainty, never knowing if they are able to get things right. We also discuss if it is possible to create space for farmers to reflect in a more open way on their own views of the welfare of their animals. Paper 2 To inspect, to motivate – or to do both? A dilemma for on-farm inspection of animal welfare The aim of the paper was to investigate and discuss how the points of view or strategies of the inspectors affected the outcome of animal welfare inspections on farms. Using an ethnographic approach, the meeting between the farmers and inspectors was observed at 22 farms. 11 inspectors were selected for interviews. The results are divided into two major themes: Themes of agreement among the inspectors and themes of disagreement among the inspectors. Together, they described the underlying dilemma among the inspectors and in the inspection process. The first theme focused on the preventive aspect, and the second theme focused on compliance and on avoiding engaging in discussion with the farmers about the reasons for the regulation. We have presented an analysis based on an anthropological approach illustrating a central dilemma in the work of the inspectors related to how inspectors can be seen as "street-level-bureaucrats" being policy-makers on different levels, and we discuss how the point of views or strategies of the inspectors may affect the outcome of animal welfare inspections. We argue that this study can initiate a necessary and more open discussion of the inspectors' dilemma: On the one side focusing on compliance, and on the other side having a wish to focus on more preventive aspects and on motivation. Paper 3 Farmers under pressure - Analysis of the social conditions of cases of animal neglect In this paper we aimed to shed new light on the stories behind cases where Danish farmers have been charged with neglect of livestock and discuss how these findings can contribute to prevent future cases from occurring. The analysis is based on statistical analyses of register data from Statistics Denmark and on qualitative interviews with farmers involved in court cases of neglect of livestock. The quantitative part of our analysis shows that while the average farmer has a low risk of ending up with animal neglect problems a small number of farmers face severe financial difficulties, divorce and psychiatric problems, all of which are events associated with an increased risk of being convicted of neglect of farm animals. Analysing the farmers' narratives, they do not present one main narrative but what we call 'narratives of disruption' - pressure from events connected to problems with finance, technology and the family, but also the pressure coming from the increasing numbers of inspections by the authorities. We stress in our discussion that neither a quantitative emphasis on risk groups nor a qualitative approach stressing the narratives, can produce one single explanation for the neglect of livestock. Although livestock neglect is a multi-causal phenomenon, we argue that it is possible to formulate initiatives for preventing future cases. Paper 4 Hybrids and profits: Circuits of Animals, Technology and Humans in Danish industrialised farming The aim of the paper is to explore a central paradox in industrialised farming. On one hand the separation of culture and nature that insists on a radical difference between the realm of animal and human. On the other hand a practical, but often denied, mixing of these realms continually occurs. Using examples from fieldwork at four farms, we argue that the creation of hybrids can be seen as absolutely necessary if one has to deal with the paradoxes that permeate industrialized animal farming in practice. Firstly, we follow how animals are turned into numbers, diagnoses, and regulations in the pursuit of both profit and animal welfare. Secondly, we show how farmers turn themselves into animals and technology and how technology is transformed into substitutes for humans in the pursuit of cost-efficient production. The paper suggests that the insights of anthropological approaches to human-animal relations shed new light on the complexities of modern hyper-technological, ethically ambivalent and debt-ridden farming. In the final discussion of the thesis the complexity and ambiguity that is associated with the term animal welfare are discussed as an overall paradox in relation to the life of farm animals in Denmark. The paradoxes seen in the four papers are discussed and I argue that dealing with paradoxes by increasing knowledge might be one possible way to overcome the tensions. However, since the farmers in my data do not ask for knowledge about animal welfare in the broader term, one could focus on what they do actually ask for: a request for more information about the legislation of animal welfare, as new times mean that farmers have to adjust to new ways of working ( e.g. management in relation to the legislation and control that is part of farm life today). Furthermore, I discuss if a different way of carrying out animal welfare inspections would be possible in the future not only focusing on compliance but also on e.g. motivation, perhaps by developing more responsive inspection processes paying attention to the differences among farmers. However, this raises dilemmas in relation to a control-system with a main focus on compliance and this might only make sense if the inspectors are given the time and skills to communicate with the farmers in a way that provides room for responsiveness. A future perspective could be to look into how animal welfare is linked to the management of the farms. I also find it relevant to conduct more research on the area of monitoring animal welfare by technologies and to include a social science focus here. Besides, it is important to discuss how animal welfare is integrated in the education of future farmers at the agricultural colleges in Denmark. Also, the possibility of developing inspections of animal welfare with a focus on responsiveness ought to be included in future research. Finally, I suggest that ethnographic fieldwork is a suitable method for studying production on modern industrialised farms, with the inter-entanglement of animals, humans and technology constituting as a fertile field for contemporary anthropology.

Last week, before a joint session of Congress that was televised in prime time, President Obama made what was arguably his most effective speech yet on health care reform. He outlined his main goals with clarity, provided details about funding and indicated his flexibility to include some Republican initiatives such as medical malpractice reform. He tried to reassure those have health insurance and are happy with it, that they would be able to keep it. He talked about coverage security and stability. He also hinted that he was ready to be flexible on the central tenet of his plan, the public option, which, he said, is "a means to an end", and therefore replaceable if that "end" (lowering costs by introducing competition) can be reached by other ways. By articulating his vision with determination, common sense and pragmatism, he seems to have reclaimed the debate that had slipped from his grip during the summer months, and gained new momentum in the approaching battle that will dominate the fall legislative agenda. He reminded Americans why he was elected, rebuked his enemies' arguments, dispelled their myths and reaffirmed his electoral mandate. However, he still faces significant opposition from the public. A new Washington Post-ABC poll taken after his speech shows 45% of Americans are in favor and 48% opposed to the President's plan.While his speech may have rallied all Democrats (Blue Dogs included) behind his effort, it did not at first look to have had much impact on the attitude of the opposition. During the address, TV cameras showed most Republican senators and representatives looking skeptical, shaking their heads, and in the case of the House Minority leader John Boehner, appearing extremely tense and dour, almost aggressive, especially during the strongest moments of the President's speech that drew the most applause. This negativity reached its peak with Representative Joe Wilson's clearly audible heckle of "You Lie!"in response to President Obama's claim that illegal immigrants would not be covered by his overhaul proposal. In a presidential system, this hostile outburst is both an unprecedented and unacceptable breach of protocol. The President is both the head of government and the head of state, and members of Congress are expected to respect the institution of the presidency, a separate and independent branch, most especially so when the President is visiting the House. Although at the behest of his party's leadership, Wilson later apologized to the White House, when interviewed by the media he wasted no time in reassuring his South Carolina constituency that his outburst had been both emotional and sincere, and refused to make a formal apology the next day on the floor of the House. He insisted that he "won't be muzzled" and that he will continue to speak "against a government takeover of health care." He has clearly decided to grab on to the excitement and mobilization of that 10 % of the Republican base.Such is the spirit of the times that incivility and disruption of the summer town hall meetings has spilled over to the Capitol itself. On the same week, the extreme right once again took the nation by surprise when they boisterously opposed the President's "Back to school" speech, an address on the first day of school that was televised at noon for all public schools to watch. In it, the President talked about the importance of studying hard, finishing school and making long-term plans to attend a university, hardly subversive or partisan material per se. Some of the protesting parents kept their children home so they would not be "forced to watch it."This brand of populism is not new in American politics but it remains dormant for some periods of time, only to resurface with virulence at times of economic crisis. Neither ideological nor partisan, it is part of the same movement that opposed the first President Bush in the early nineties because of his nonchalant attitude towards the deficit and his support of free trade. It then led to the formation of a third party under Ross Perot. It also led to the infamous bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma perpetrated by Timothy Mc Veigh who is now dead in fulfillment of his subsequent death sentence. These populists are anti-establishment and anti-elite, anti-immigrant and anti-free trade, anti-tax and anti-deficit. They cannot be labeled as conservative or libertarian because of their inner contradictions. They are difficult to organize because central control is what they loathe the most, so a party that decides to channel their frustrations should be wary, since they run the risk of alienating the moderate majorities, while at the same time not gaining consistent support from this unpredictable lot. And these Tea Party (anti-tax) Patriots are particularly bothered by a black President. They are overwhelmingly white, and tend to be older and less educated than the average American. While their zeal to protect their own privileges and benefits is understandable, their values are incongruous; for example, first among their most cherished benefits is Medicare, a government run program, and yet they are adamantly against any (other) government-run plan. On Sunday these groups loaded up buses and came to the Capitol to protest against the "advent of Socialism" and to celebrate early what they deem will be "Obama's Waterloo", namely, his inability to pass health care reform.They represent the reaction to the brand of pragmatic post-partisan politics Obama purports to embody. It is a fringe group, full of anger, fear and resentment, not in actuality represented by any party's ideology but used by some cynical politicians to fill the void of leadership and the lack of any serious proposals to offer as alternatives. This populism of the right has historically emerged during times of crisis, and systematically addressed their bile towards immigrants, people of other races or creeds, or whoever they considered outsiders according to their own parochial values and prejudices.Thankfully, those demagogues that gave them heed over the summer break are not fully representative of the Republican Party, and as of last Sunday, a change in the tone of the opposition has started registering. Some conservative legislators that understand the political dynamics because of their experience or their instincts seem to have realized, perhaps under the directive of party veterans such as Bob Dole and Howard Baker, that the time is ripe for some kind of compromise, especially after the President extended his olive branch by not insisting on a government-run plan. Republicans seem to have realized that they have made their point by obstructing the process long enough, and are signaling a new stance to compromise. Already this past Sunday on Meet the Press Republican Senator John Cronyn of Texas softened his message by saying that there is bipartisan agreement over 80% of the bill. He expects reform legislation to pass if Democrats affirm their commitment not to undermine private insurance companies by "dropping their insistence on a public option." The compromise seems to pivot around the notion of a "trigger" mechanism by which, after five years, if the implemented legislation has failed to control costs and extend coverage, then the government-run plan would be introduced. This trigger option is meant to appease the liberals to the left of the President, while at the same time get the vote of a few Republicans, among them Olympia Snowe of Maine, at present the most sought-after person in the Senate. A moderate and a problem-solver, Snowe has been working very hard for a bipartisan solution and has remained appalled at her own party's extreme behavior during the last few months. Harking from Maine, the only state in the North East that still elects Republicans to Congress, she is one of the few remaining deal-makers in the Senate, a breed that seems bound to become extinct after the passing of Senator Ted Kennedy and the retiring of Bob Dole and Howard Baker.The issue will be decided in the next two months. One of the most quoted statements of Obama's speech before Congress was that six presidents before him had tried health care reform but that he was "determined to be the last." It is clear Obama is ready to spend every penny of his political capital on health care reform. It is still too early to doubt the President's judgment, but his may well be a pyrrhic victory. In pursuing his brand of cold consensus at all cost and trying to bring all stakeholders (special interest groups on the right and left of the debate, namely, insurance and pharmaceutical industries and labor unions) to the table, Obama may have undermined his own effort at reform. Coming on the heels of the stimulus package, and the bailouts of the financial system and automakers, the health care debate this time more than ever, has focused people's attention on government's intrusions in their lives. The government has become the biggest lender, insurer, automaker and guarantor of investment risk. Government spending accounts for 26% of the economy a bigger share than at any time since WWII. An eloquent and very capable leader with an undeniable mandate and majority in both Houses is expected to deliver. The big irony is that populistopposition to his plan has succeeding in stirring the unease of a nation already in the grip of anxiety due to the recession, and has made him inclined to drop the most populist of his proposals, namely, the public option. But will his pragmatism succeed or is it already doomed by the typical Washington deadlock?By trying to make every group happy the President is seeing his public support slip away in the polls. There is still time for Obama to recover, use his mandate and his majorities to the full, and insist on a bill that brings about real reform and not a mere extension of the system we have today.Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science and Geography Director, ODU Model United Nations Program Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia

Over the last twenty years, there has been a large increase both in terms of number of interconnected hosts and in terms of link capacities. At the beginning of the ARPANET in 1969, more than forty years ago, there were four nodes, all located in the USA and connected with a link speed of 50 kilobits per second. In 1986, when the NSFNET, the network of the US universities, was created, the number of hosts was over a few thousands, but the backbone links' speeds were still of 56 kilobits per second. From that moment on, the growth in number of interconnected hosts and in link capacity has been exponential, thanks to the success of popular applications like the WWW and technological advances like SDH, SONET or DWDM in the fiber optics networks domain or like ATM and the DSL technologies derived from it. The current-day Internet interconnects billions of users (half a billion hosts in late 2006) all around the world, has a cumulated core links speed over several Terabits per second and access links up to 10 Gbps. Another fundamental technological change is also that nowadays, access links start having speeds in the same order of magnitude as the backbone link's speed. For instance, it is common to find data centers where the nodes are interconnected with 1 Gbps or 10 Gbps links and have a connection to the outside with a similar speed. This change is important as only a few connections would be necessary to cause saturation in the backbone. This situation is likely to spread as DSL technologies are gradually replaced by Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH). 5 Mbps connections aggregated on OC48 (2.5 Gbps) links will then be replaced by 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps links aggregated over 10 Gbps links or less depending on the actual optical technology used in the access network. In such environments, high congestion levels might not be rare and might cause disruption to high-end applications. Lots of promising applications have emerged and would benefit from this increase in capacity like Video On Demand (VoD) that allows end-users to host their own high-definition movie entertainment whenever they want or scientific experiments that gather huge volumes of data (e.g. LHC) that need to be transported to computational facilities scattered all around the globe. The interaction of users with remote objects through the use of communication networks, also known as Telepresence, starts to have a paramount role in a variety of domains ranging from medical or military applications to space exploration. But these applications are still built on top of the very successful softwares or protocols like TCP and IP that were designed a long time ago for a context of low-speed networks. Their design was dictated by one goal: providing a robust and fair interconnection between existing networks. Now put in a high-speed networks context, these extremely robust and scalable protocols are still able to deliver but they are starting to show their limits in terms of performance, security, functionalities and flexibility. The most typical example is the quasi ``one-size-fits-all'' TCP protocol at the transport layer. This protocol was designed to provide a connection-oriented ``virtual circuit'' service for applications like remote login or file transfer. These two applications have two nearly conflicting sets of requirements: the first one needs a low delay and has low requirements for bandwidth while the second one mostly requires high bandwidth. Both require reliable transmissions. TCP was designed as a ``one-size-fits-all'' protocol but as the capacity of the links increased in the wired networks, as the intrinsic characteristics changed for the wireless networks and as the application requirements diverged, TCP is no longer able to scale up in performance. Multiple solutions have been proposed over time, but today's protocol designers have a large disadvantage over those forty years ago: making four similar computers interact is not exactly the same thing as designing a communicating software or protocol fit to be used by billions of vastly heterogeneous computers. Introducing change in a system of such a scale is problematic: it makes it very improbable to make a complete overnight migration of every element in the network, especially if it requires an upgrade of all physical equipments. Thus the change can only be gradual and as software updates in the end-hosts at the very edge of the networks, as it would be easier than changing core hardware elements. The fear to see congestion collapse events in the Internet as in the late 80s is coming back. Caused by too much traffic on crowded links leading to poor performance for everybody over long periods of time, it had advocated for the introduction of a congestion control mechanism in the transport protocol. If the new solutions are behaving selfishly when sharing the common resources (the links), this fear is grounded. It is then necessary to provide ways to assert if a given solution has the appropriate properties before allowing it to roam freely over a large-scale shared system. ; Au cours des vingt dernières années, c'est une évolution très rapide non seulement en termes de nombre d'éléments inter-connectés mais surtout en termes de capacités des liens qui a pu être constatée au sein des réseaux de communications. A la création du réseau ARPANET en 1969, il y a plus de quarante ans, quatre ordinateurs, tous situés aux États-Unis étaient connectés avec des liens avec un débit de 50 kilobits par seconde. En 1986, à la création du réseau des universités américaines, le NSFNET, le nombre de machines dépassait déjà plusieurs milliers mais le débit des liens de coeur était encore de 56 kilobits par seconde. A partir de ce moment, la croissance à la fois en termes de nombre d'éléments inter-connectés et de capacités des liens a été exponentielle, grâce au succès de nouvelles applications populaires comme le WWW ou les avancées technologiques comme SDH, SONET ou DWDM dans le domaine des réseaux de fibres optiques et ATM et les protocoles DSL qui en dérivent. L'Internet actuel interconnecte des milliards d'utilisateurs (un demi-milliard de machines fin 2006) répartis partout dans le monde, pouvant utiliser des liens de coeur dont les débits cumulés sont supérieurs à plusieurs Térabits par seconde et dont les liens d'accès peuvent atteindre jusqu'à 10 Gigabits par seconde. Une autre évolution technologique fondamentale est que, aujourd'hui, certains liens d'accès ont des débits du même ordre de grandeur que les débits des liens de coeur auxquels ils sont connectés. Il est aujourd'hui courant de trouver des fermes de serveurs où les noeuds sont interconnectés avec des liens à 1 Gbps ou 10 Gbps et qui ont une connexion vers l'extérieur avec un débit similaire. Cette modification est importante car désormais quelques connexions suffisent à provoquer une saturation des liens de coeur. Cette situation risque d'empirer au fur et à mesure du remplacement des technologies DSL par la Fibre-Jusqu'à-La-Maison (FTTH). Des connexions à 5 Mbps agrégées sur des liens OC48 (2.5 Gbps) vont alors être remplacées par des connexions à 100 Mbps, voire 1 Gbps, agrégées sur des liens à 10 Gbps, voire moins suivant la technologie optique utilisée sur le réseau d'accès. Il est fort probable que dans de tels environnements des niveaux de congestion élevés ne soient pas rares, engendrant des perturbations pour de nombreuses applications. Un grand nombre d'applications prometteuses ont émergé et pourraient bénéficier de capacités de communication accrues, comme par exemple la Vidéo-à-la-Demande (VoD) qui permet aux utilisateurs de regarder des films en haute définition chez eux quand ils le désirent ou les expériences scientifiques générant des quantités massives de données (comme le LHC) qui doivent être acheminées dans des centres de calcul répartis tout autour du globe. L'interaction d'utilisateurs avec des objets distants via un réseau de communication ou Téléprésence commence également à prendre un rôle prépondérant dans de nombreux domaines allant du médical au militaire en passant par l'exploration spatiale. Mais ces applications sont encore construites au dessus de logiciels ou de protocoles à succès comme TCP et IP, conçus il y a longtemps pour un contexte de réseaux bas-débit. Le conception était dirigé par un but principal: fournir une interconnexion robuste entre des réseaux existants. Plongés maintenant dans un contexte de réseaux très haut-débit, ces protocoles extrêmement robustes et capables de passer à l'échelle sont toujours en activité mais commencent à montrer leurs limites en termes de performance, sécurité, fonctionnalités et flexibilité. L'exemple le plus typique est TCP au niveau de la couche de transport. TCP a été conçu comme un protocole ``à tout faire'' mais à mesure que la capacité des liens augmente dans les réseaux fixes, que les caractéristiques intrinsèques changent pour les réseaux sans fils et que les besoins des applications divergent, TCP n'est plus capable de permettre une utilisation performante pour tous des capacités nominales des liens du réseau. De nombreuses solutions ont été proposées, mais les concepteurs de protocoles d'aujourd'hui ont un large désavantage par rapport à ceux d'il y a quarante ans. Faire fonctionner ensemble quatre machines identiques n'est pas exactement pareil que concevoir un logiciel de communication ou protocole susceptible d'être utilisé entre des milliards de machines hétérogènes. Apporter du changement dans un système d'une telle ampleur est problématique: il n'est pas possible d'envisager une migration massive du jour au lendemain surtout si des équipements physiques sont concernés. Le changement ne peut être que graduel et via des mises à jour logicielles dans les hôtes d'extrémité. La peur d'un effondrement de l'Internet dû à la congestion comme à la fin des années 80 resurgit. Causés par une surabondance de trafic réseau sur des liens saturés, ces troubles ont mis en avant la nécessité d'introduire un mécanisme de contrôle de congestion dans les protocoles de transport. Si les nouvelles solutions introduites se comportent de façon égoïste quand elles partagent une ressource commune (un lien), alors cette peur est fondée. Il est donc nécessaire de fournir des moyens de vérifier si une solution donnée possède les propriétés adéquates avant de l'introduire dans un système partagé à très large échelle.

While the nonviolent struggle of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi against the Burmese military government's continuing repression has captured the world's attention, the profound human rights and humanitarian crisis endured by Burma's ethnic minority communities has largely been ignored. ¶ Decades of armed conflict have devastated ethnic minority communities, which make up approximately 35 percent of Burma's population. The Burmese army, or Tatmadaw, has for many years carried out numerous and widespread summary executions, looting, torture, rape and other sexual violence, arbitrary arrests and torture, forced labor, recruitment of child soldiers, and the displacement and demolition of entire villages as part of military operations against ethnic minority armed opposition groups. Civilians bear the brunt of a state of almost perpetual conflict and militarization. ¶ Violations of international human rights and humanitarian law (the laws of war) by the Tatmadaw have been particularly acute in eastern Karen state, which runs along the northwestern border of Thailand. One woman described to Human Rights Watch more than twenty years of Tatmadaw brutality: . One result of the Tatmadaw's brutal behavior has been the creation of large numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees among Burma's ethnic minority communities. Conflict and its consequences have been going on for so long that in many ethnic minority-populated areas, continuous forced relocations and displacement–– interspersed with occasional periods of relative stability––have become a fact of life for generations of poor villagers. ¶ The scale of the IDP problem in Burma is daunting. Estimates suggest that, as of late 2004, as many as 650,000 people were internally displaced in eastern Burma alone. According to a recent survey, 157,000 civilians have been displaced in eastern Burma since the end of 2002, and at least 240 villages destroyed, relocated, or abandoned. The majority of displaced people live in areas controlled by the government, now known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), or by various ethnic armed groups that have agreed to ceasefires with the government. But approximately eighty-four thousand displaced people live in zones of ongoing armed conflict, where the worst human rights abuses continue. Many IDPs live in hiding in war zones. Another two million Burmese live in Thailand, including 145,000 refugees living in camps. ¶ Karen State is the location of some of the largest numbers of IDPs in Burma. Since 2002, approximately 100,000 people have been displaced from Karen areas, which include parts of Pegu and Tenasserim Divisions. Though a provisional ceasefire was agreed in December 2003 between the SPDC and the Karen National Union (KNU), sporadic fighting continues. Tatmadaw military operations against the KNU's army, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), in the first months of 2005 caused numerous deaths and injuries to civilians in poor villages along the Thai border. They also forced many civilians to flee internally or to Thailand. For example, at least 9,000 civilians were displaced in Toungoo District, in the far north of Karen State bordering Karenni State, and in Nyaunglebin District in northwest Karen State, during major Tatmadaw offensives between November 2004 and February 2005. ¶ The majority of Karen IDPs have been forced out of their homes as a direct result of the Tatmadaw's "Four Cuts" counter-insurgency strategy, in which the Burmese army has attempted to defeat armed ethnic groups by denying them access to food, funds, recruits, and information from other insurgent groups. H.T., a twenty-eight year-old Karen from Dooplaya District, described his experience with the Tatmadaw in January 2005: . ¶ This report describes the situation in government-controlled areas, including relocation sites, which are generally not accessible from across the Thailand border. The report identifies two main causes of displacement: • Displacement due to armed conflict as a direct result of fighting, or because armed conflict has undermined human and food security and livelihood options; and • Displacement due to human rights violations, particularly land rights caused by Tatmadaw and militia confiscation of land and other violations of land rights, especially in the context of natural resource extraction, such as logging and mining. Other rights violations, such as forced labor, killings, torture, and rape, also cause displacement. ¶ The report describes patterns of abuse and forced relocation over a period of many years. It documents how serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights abuses continue to occur in some parts of Karen State, such as Toungoo and Nyaunglebin Districts, while other areas are relatively quiet. It recommends a need to think of new and more realistic answers to the dilemmas faced by IDPs, many of whom may not be able––or may not want––to go home again. ¶ For this report, Human Rights Watch interviewed community leaders, representatives of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), staff at community-based organizations (CBOs), U.N. officials, and many others. Most important, we interviewed forty-six Karen IDPs living in the Papun hills, in mid-late 2003, and along the Thai border, in early 2005. These forty-six individuals altogether were displaced more than one thousand times. Incredibly, five individuals had been forcibly displaced more than one hundred times. One of these five, an elderly woman, first fled to the jungle during World War II, when Japanese soldiers came to her village. ¶ All the interviewees for this report had been farmers and continue to derive most of their food from working their own or others' rice fields. These fields remain susceptible to destruction by Tatmadaw patrols. Displacement often means that new land must be cleared for farming, rather than farmers being able to return to former swidden fields in sustainable rotation after fallow swiddens have regained their fertility. Over time, the disruption of traditional agricultural practices has seriously undermined livelihoods and caused encroachment by swidden farmers into primary forest, rather than rotating their plots in secondary forest customarily used for swidden agriculture. ¶ Many IDPs have been displaced for some time, and live alongside others who are not–– or have not recently been––displaced. Their needs may therefore be similar to those of other vulnerable populations in peri-urban and rural Burma. ¶ The main problems identified by interviewees were lack of consistent access to food; insufficient income and livelihood problems; human rights abuses and poor physical security related to displacement and fighting; lack of access to education and health services; and, finally, the problem of landmines, which destroy both land and their victims' lives. Their primary need is to be able to farm properly, without disturbance, and thus improve income and food security, as well as better access to education and health services. All wanted to, as one interviewee put it, "live in peace and with justice." Most of these problems are linked to longer-term structural problems, and can only be addressed in the context of socio-economic––and above all political––solutions to Burma's protracted ethnic conflicts. ¶ The findings of this report caution against assuming that all IDPs necessarily want to return "home." Returning home can be a problematic concept for people who have been on the move for long periods of time. Many IDPs may wish to return home, if it still exists, but others may want to stay put or resettle elsewhere. Some who have returned home or have otherwise resettled still face major problems, while others have not. Some have not moved and built new lives in the place to which they were displaced, often in the jungle hills or in a relocation site. ¶ Thus, those providing assistance should avoid taking a one-size-fits all approach to meeting the needs of IDPs. Instead, the focus should be on individual choice and the needs of specific communities. Indeed, the U.N. Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, which summarize existing international law as it applies to IDPs, make choice the touchstone. Competent authorities have a duty to "establish conditions, as well as provide the means" to allow voluntary resettlement and integration in the place to which people are displaced, if that is their choice. ¶ An understanding of long-term patterns of forced displacement should inform the design of humanitarian, development, and socio-political interventions on behalf of the displaced. One aspect that deserves careful consideration is the effect of ceasefires on the human rights situation and on displacement. Over the past decade many armed ethnic groups have entered into ceasefires with the military government in Rangoon. In some parts of the country, ceasefires have meant a reduction in the most severe forms of human rights abuses, though this has not usually led to greater respect for other basic rights, such as freedom of expression or the right to due process of law. But in many cases, ceasefires have been quietly accompanied by the reemergence of local civil society actors. This has been one of the most important, yet under-studied, aspects of the ceasefires in Burma. ¶ The SPDC and KNU agreed to an informal ceasefire in December 2003. In some parts of Karen State, the situation began to stabilize. Across the whole of Tenasserim Division, and much of lower and western Karen State, there has been less fighting and fewer of the most severe type of human rights violations, such as extrajudicial executions and torture, than before. Some IDPs are beginning to return from hiding places in the jungle and from relocation sites to build more permanent houses and grow crops other than swidden rice. However, the Tatmadaw continues its aggressive use of forced labor, especially on road-building projects, land confiscation, and arbitrary taxation in many areas. It has recently stepped up attacks on a variety of armed ethnic groups. Under the right conditions, a ceasefire between the SPDC and the KNU could deliver a substantial improvement in the human rights situation, creating the space in which local and international organizations can begin to address the urgent needs of Karen IDPs. But the situation may yet return to guerilla warfare and full-scale counterinsurgency. ¶ Many of the ceasefires are now under threat. Since the purging of General Khin Nyunt last October, hard-liners in the SPDC have attempted to undermine ceasefires agreed between Rangoon and several armed ethnic groups since 1989. In mid-2005, the future of these ceasefires looks more and more uncertain. .

Importance: Limited empirical research has examined the extent to which cohort-level prevalence of substance use is associated with the onset of drug use and transitioning into greater involvement with drug use. Objective: To use cross-national data to examine time-space variation in cohort-level drug use to assess its associations with onset and transitions across stages of drug use, abuse, dependence, and remission. Design, setting, and participants: The World Health Organization World Mental Health Surveys carried out cross-sectional general population surveys in 25 countries using a consistent research protocol and assessment instrument. Adults from representative household samples were interviewed face-to-face in the community in relation to drug use disorders. The surveys were conducted between 2001 and 2015. Data analysis was performed from July 2017 to July 2018. Main outcomes and measures: Data on timing of onset of lifetime drug use, DSM-IV drug use disorders, and remission from these disorders was assessed using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Associations of cohort-level alcohol prevalence and drug use prevalence were examined as factors associated with these transitions. Results: Among the 90 027 respondents (48.1% [SE, 0.2%] men; mean [SE] age, 42.1 [0.1] years), 1 in 4 (24.8% [SE, 0.2%]) reported either illicit drug use or extramedical use of prescription drugs at some point in their lifetime, but with substantial time-space variation in this prevalence. Among users, 9.1% (SE, 0.2%) met lifetime criteria for abuse, and 5.0% (SE, 0.2%) met criteria for dependence. Individuals who used 2 or more drugs had an increased risk of both abuse (odds ratio, 5.17 [95% CI, 4.66-5.73]; P < .001) and dependence (odds ratio, 5.99 [95% CI, 5.02-7.16]; P < .001) and reduced probability of remission from abuse (odds ratio, 0.86 [95% CI, 0.76-0.98]; P = .02). Birth cohort prevalence of drug use was also significantly associated with both initiation and illicit drug use transitions; for example, after controlling for individuals' experience of substance use and demographics, for each additional 10% of an individual's cohort using alcohol, a person's odds of initiating drug use increased by 28% (odds ratio, 1.28 [95% CI, 1.26-1.31]). Each 10% increase in a cohort's use of drug increased individual risk by 12% (1.12 [95% CI, 1.11-1.14]). Conclusions and relevance: Birth cohort substance use is associated with drug use involvement beyond the outcomes of individual histories of alcohol and other drug use. This has important implications for understanding pathways into and out of problematic drug use. ; The World Health Organization World Mental Health (WMH) Survey Initiative is supported by the United States National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH; R01 MH070884), the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Pfizer Foundation, the United States Public Health Service (R13-MH066849, R01-MH069864, and R01 DA016558), the Fogarty International Center (FIRCA R03-TW006481), the Pan American Health Organization, Eli Lilly and Company, Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, and Bristol-Myers Squibb. This work was supported by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) project grant (no. 1081984). Dr Degenhardt is supported by a NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellowship (no. 1135991) and NIDA NIH grant R01 DA044170–02. We thank the staff of the WMH Data Collection and Data Analysis Coordination Centres for assistance with instrumentation, fieldwork, and consultation on data analysis. None of the funders had any role in the design, analysis, interpretation of results, or preparation of this paper. The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of the authors and should not be construed to represent the views of the World Health Organization, other sponsoring organizations, agencies, or governments. The 2007 Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. The Argentina survey -- Estudio Argentino de Epidemiología en Salud Mental (EASM) -- was supported by a grant from the Argentinian Ministry of Health (Ministerio de Salud de la Nación). The São Paulo Megacity Mental Health Survey is supported by the State of São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) Thematic Project Grant 03/00204–3. The Bulgarian Epidemiological Study of common mental disorders EPIBUL is supported by the Ministry of Health and the National Center for Public Health Protection. The Chinese World Mental Health Survey Initiative is supported by the Pfizer Foundation. The Colombian National Study of Mental Health (NSMH) is supported by the Ministry of Social Protection. The Mental Health Study Medellín – Colombia was carried out and supported jointly by the Center for Excellence on Research in Mental Health (CES University) and the Secretary of Health of Medellín. The ESEMeD project is funded by the European Commission (Contracts QLG5–1999-01042; SANCO 2004123, and EAHC 20081308), (the Piedmont Region (Italy)), Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spain (FIS 00/0028), Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología, Spain (SAF 2000–158-CE), Departament de Salut, Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain, DIUE de la Generalitat de Catalunya (2017 SGR 452; 2014 SGR 748), Instituto de Salud Carlos III (CIBER CB06/02/0046, RETICS Degenhardt et al. Page 12 JAMA Psychiatry. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2019 August 05. Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author Manuscript RD06/0011 REM-TAP), and other local agencies and by an unrestricted educational grant from GlaxoSmithKline. Implementation of the Iraq Mental Health Survey (IMHS) and data entry were carried out by the staff of the Iraqi MOH and MOP with direct support from the Iraqi IMHS team with funding from both the Japanese and European Funds through United Nations Development Group Iraq Trust Fund (UNDG ITF). The Israel National Health Health Services Research and the National Insurance Institute of Israel. The World Mental Health Japan (WMHJ) Survey is supported by the Grant for Research on Psychiatric and Neurological Diseases and Mental Health (H13- SHOGAI-023, H14-TOKUBETSU-026, H16-KOKORO-013, H25-SEISHIN-IPPAN-006) from the Japan Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. The Lebanese Evaluation of the Burden of Ailments and Needs Of the Nation (L.E.B.A.N.O.N.) is supported by the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health, the WHO (Lebanon), National Institute of Health / Fogarty International Center (R03 TW006481–01), anonymous private donations to IDRAAC, Lebanon, and unrestricted grants from, Algorithm, AstraZeneca, Benta, Bella Pharma, Eli Lilly, Glaxo Smith Kline, Lundbeck, Novartis, OmniPharma, Pfizer, Phenicia, Servier, UPO. The Mexican National Comorbidity Survey (MNCS) is supported by The National Institute of Psychiatry Ramon de la Fuente (INPRFMDIES 4280) and by the National Council on Science and Technology (CONACyT-G30544- H), with supplemental support from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Te Rau Hinengaro: The New Zealand Mental Health Survey (NZMHS) is supported by the New Zealand Ministry of Health, Alcohol Advisory Council, and the Health Research Council. The Nigerian Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing (NSMHW) is supported by the WHO (Geneva), the WHO (Nigeria), and the Federal Ministry of Health, Abuja, Nigeria. The Northern Ireland Study of Mental Health was funded by the Health & Social Care Research & Development Division of the Public Health Agency. The Peruvian World Mental Health Study was funded by the National Institute of Health of the Ministry of Health of Peru. The Polish project Epidemiology of Mental Health and Access to Care –EZOP Project (PL 0256) was supported by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through funding from the EEA Financial Mechanism and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism. EZOP project was co-financed by the Polish Ministry of Health. The South Africa Stress and Health Study (SASH) is supported by the US National Institute of Mental Health (R01-MH059575) and National Institute of Drug Abuse with supplemental funding from the South African Department of Health and the University of Michigan. The Psychiatric Enquiry to General Population in Southeast Spain – Murcia (PEGASUSMurcia) Project has been financed by the Regional Health Authorities of Murcia (Servicio Murciano de Salud and Consejería de Sanidad y Política Social) and Fundación para la Formación e Investigación Sanitarias (FFIS) of Murcia. The Ukraine Comorbid Mental Disorders during Periods of Social Disruption (CMDPSD) study is funded by the US National Institute of Mental Health (RO1-MH61905). The US National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R) is supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH; U01-MH60220) with supplemental support from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF; Grant 044708), and the John W. Alden Trust. Dr Andrade is supported by the Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq Grant # 307784/2016–9). Dr Stein is supported by the Medical Research Council of South Africa (MRC). In the past three years, Dr Degenhardt has received investigator-initiated untied educational grants for studies of opioid medications in Australia from Indivior, Mundipharma and Seqirus. Dr Kessler received support for his epidemiological studies from Sanofi Aventis; was a consultant for Johnson & Johnson Wellness and Prevention, Sage Pharmaceuticals, Shire, Takeda; served on an advisory board for the Johnson & Johnson Services Inc. Lake Nona Life Project; and being a co-owner of DataStat, Inc., a market research firm that carries out healthcare research. Dr Demyttenaere has served on advisory boards for Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, Lundbeck, Johnson&Johnson, Livanova, Servier, and has research grants from Eli Lilly, foundation 'ga voor geluk', Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen. Dr Stein has received research grants and/or consultancy honoraria from AMBRF, Biocodex, Cipla, Lundbeck, National Responsible Gambling Foundation, Novartis, Servier, and Sun. The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and should not be construed to represent the views or policies of the WHO, other sponsoring organisations, agencies, or governments, and do not necessarily represent the views, official policy, or position of the US. Department of Health and Human Services or any of its affiliated institutions or agencies. Dr Glantz's role on this study is through his involvement as a Science Officer on U01- MH60220. He had no involvement in the other cited grants.

All ACP Agricultural Commodities Program, European Commission, ACP Group of States ; Despite losing global market share over the last 20 years, Uganda remains a major coffee producer, accounting for approximately 2.5 percent of global coffee production. In 2008-2009, coffee exports accounted for almost a quarter of Uganda's formal export earnings and were estimated to generate income and employment for up to 1.3 million Ugandan households. As such, the coffee industry is extremely important to both the rural population and the Ugandan economy. However, the sector exhibits significant levels of production volatility, caused in part by unmanaged risks. Despite the occurrence of numerous risks, the sector has always managed to produce significant, albeit variable, volumes of coffee for export, but the historic resilience of the sector does not automatically imply that the industry will avoid longer-term decline if it fails to proactively manage potential risks going forward. The government of Uganda and the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) has already implemented a number of initiatives and programs to mitigate some of the above-mentioned risks. However, many of the existing initiatives need to be strengthened, and some new activities added, to ensure insofar as possible the comprehensive management of all key risks facing the coffee supply chain. An in-depth evaluation of individual solutions was beyond the scope of this exercise; an exhaustive listing of potential risk management solutions, and an assessment of the cost-benefit ratio of different risk management options, needs to be undertaken by the government of Uganda and UCDA.

Inflation is back together with a new season of America's favorite sport: zero-contact, finger-pointing. I thought I'd sit back and share a few thoughts with you on the subject on this cold Saturday afternoon. Use the comments section below to let me know what you think.In one corner, I see some pundits somehow wanting to blame the 2021 inflation on workers. Workers are somehow forcing their improved bargaining positions on employers, raising the costs of production, with some or all of these costs passed on to consumers. Then, as workers see their real wages erode, the cycle begins anew begetting the dreaded "wage-price spiral." Those pesky workers. There's no doubt something to the idea that wage demands can lead to higher prices (and why shouldn't workers want cost-of-living adjustments?) But what is the evidence that this behavior was the impulse behind the 2021 inflation? While it's difficult to tell just by eye-balling the data, I think it's reasonable (under this hypothesis) to see wage growth precede (or at least be coincident with) inflation. Unfortunately (for this hypothesis), this is not what we see in the data. In the diagram below, use the Atlanta Fed's Wage Growth Tracker to construct nominal wage inflation for the bottom (green) and top (yellow) wage quintiles. This is plotted against CPI inflation (blue). Another problem for this hypothesis is that wage inflation is moving in the wrong direction for the top three wage quintiles over the Covid era. What we see here is a clear acceleration in the rate of inflation, followed by modest acceleration in wage inflation for the bottom quintile and a deceleration in wage inflation for the top quintile. In 2021, real wages across all quintiles declined (according to this data). So much for increased worker bargaining power. [Note: it is quite likely that net income for the bottom one or two quintiles increased, thanks to government transfers.] On the other side of the political spectrum, we see pundits and politicians blaming the 2021 inflation on "corporate greed." Framing the issue in terms of "corporate greed" is not especially helpful, in my humble opinion. The substantive part of this claim is that large firms were somehow able to leverage their pricing power in 2021 into higher profit margins and record corporate profits. There is, in fact, some evidence in support of this. The diagram below plots profit margins for firms in the Compustat database. Profit margin below is computed on an after tax basis (net income divided by sales). The data is divided between large and not-large firms. Large firms are those in the top 10% of sales volume. By this measure, profit margins seem remarkably stationary over long periods of time. There is some evidence of a modest secular increase in margins c. 2003. Large firms have higher margins. But the part I want to focus on here is near the end of the sample. Profit margins for 90% of firms seem close to their historical average. We see some evidence that profit margins for the top 10% of firms increased in 2021. But this increase peaked in Q3 and then declined back to historical norms in Q4. While the spike in profit-margins likely contributed to inflation, it hardly seems like a smoking gun. And the Q4 reversion to the mean suggests that "corporate greed" is not likely to be a source of inflationary pressure in 2022. Well, if workers and firms are not to blame, then who or what is left? There's the C-19 shock itself, of course, along with the effects it has had on the global supply chain. But the 19 in C-19 refers to the year 2019 (and 2020). We're talking about 2022 here. Sure, the supply chain issues are still with us. But at most, I think they account for a substantial change in relative prices (goods becoming more expensive than services) and an increase in the cost-of-living (an increase in the price-level--not a persistent increase in the rate of growth of the price-level). While the factors above no doubt contributed in some way to the 2021 inflation dynamic, let's face it--the size and persistence of the inflation was mainly policy-induced. The smoking gun here seems to be the sequence of the C-19 fiscal transfers. As we know, this had the unusual and remarkable effect of increasing personal disposable income throughout most of the pandemic. The Fed also had a role to play here because it accommodated the fiscal stimulus (normally, one might have expected a degree of monetary policy tightening to partially off-set the inflationary impulse of fiscal stimulus). Below I plot retail sales (actual vs trend) and the timing of the fiscal actions. I used retail sales here (I think I got this from Jason Furman), but the picture looks qualitatively similar using PCE (the path of nominal PCE went above trend in 2021 and not earlier in the way retail sales did). Just eye-balling the data above, I'd say the CARES Act was a major success (especially under the circumstances). The subsequent two programs might have been scaled back a bit and/or targeted in a more efficient manner. And, knowing what we know now, the Fed could have started its tightening cycle in 2021. Having said this, I wouldn't go so far as to say these were flagrant policy mistakes--given the circumstances. If there was a policy mistake, it was in not having a well-defined state-contingent policy beforehand equipped to deal with a global pandemic. Not having that plan in place beforehand, I think monetary and fiscal policy reacted reasonably well.Policymaking in real-time is hard. And policy, whether formulated beforehand or not, must necessarily balance risks. There was a risk of undershooting the support directed to households. We saw this during the foreclosure crisis a decade ago. And there was a risk of overdoing it in some manner. Keep in mind that it was not clear when the legislation was passed how 2021 would unfold. Similarly, for the Fed--perhaps still feeling the sting of having moved too soon and too fast in the past, hopeful that inflation would decline later in the year--delayed its tightening cycle to 2022. It wasn't perfect. But taken together, the economic policy responses had their intended effect of redistributing income to those who suffered disproportionate economic harm during the pandemic. Finally, what does all this mean for inflation going forward? Well, as I suggested above, I don't think we have to worry about a wage-price spiral (the fiscal policy I think is necessary to support such a phenomenon is not likely to be present). Profit margins appear to be declining (reverting to their long-run averages). The money transfers associated with the last fiscal package are gone for 2022. No big spending bills seem likely to pass in 2022. For better or worse, we're talking a considerable amount of "fiscal drag" here (although, some have pointed to how flush state government coffers are at the moment). Hopefully (fingers crossed), supply-chain problems will continue to be solved. If so, then all of this points to disinflation (a decline in the rate of inflation) going forward. Some recent promising signs as well: [1] month-over-month CPI inflation has declined for two consecutive months (November and December); and [2] the ECI (employment cost index) decelerated in Q4 of 2021. (These numbers are notoriously volatile, so don't put too much stock in the direction. But still, it's better than seeing them go the other way.)Some caveats are in order, of course. In December 2020, I suggested we prepare for a "temporary" burst of inflation in 2021. While this came to pass, the level of inflation surprised me (to be fair, I hadn't incorporated the ARP in my assessment, but even if I had, I think I still would have been surprised). Moreover, I was also surprised by the persistence of inflation--I thought it would decelerate more rapidly (even given the ARP). This just serves to remind me how bad I am at forecasting. Someone recently mentioned a great quote by Rudi Dornbusch: "In economics, things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then they happen faster you thought they could." I can relate to this. Inflation may turn out to be more persistent that I am suggesting. But how might this happen, given the disinflationary forces I cited above? One reason may have to do with the tremendous increase in outside assets the private sector has been compelled to absorb--the increase in the national debt has manifested itself as an increase in private sector wealth. Jason Furman sees this as "excess saving." The question going forward is whether the private sector will be compelled to spend this (nominal) wealth (it already has done so, as my chart above shows) or continue to save (not spend) it? It is possible that this "pent up demand" will be spent over a prolonged period of time. The effect of this would be to keep inflation elevated higher than it would otherwise be (serving to reduce real nominal wealth). How long this might take, I have no idea. But even so, it seems clear that the effect cannot persist indefinitely. At some point the debt-to-GDP ratio will decline to its equilibrium position (D/Y has already started to decline; see here). Another reason why inflation forecasts should be discounted is that it's very difficult to forecast future contingencies. What might happen, for example, if Russia invades the Ukraine this year? Events like these will create disruptions and there's not much monetary and fiscal policy can do about them. But whatever happens, I think the long-run fiscal position of the U.S. will remain anchored (Americans will demand this). And remember, the Fed is bound by its Congressional mandates to keep inflation "low and stable." The Fed's record on inflation since the Volcker years has been pretty good. I'm betting that the record will be equally good over the next 10 years.***PS. I see some people out there strongly asserting it is a "fact" that fiscal policy did not cause the 2021 inflation (see here, for example). The reason, evidently, is because inflation is a global phenomenon. There's something to this, of course. After all, C-19 is a global pandemic. But this reasoning nevertheless seems faulty to me. First, the USD is the global reserve currency. It's quite possible that the U.S. exported some of its inflation to the world (much in the way it did in the 1970s). Second, many other countries (like Canada, for example) adopted similar fiscal policies. Those countries with less expansive fiscal policies also displayed lower inflation, as far as I know. Rather than deflect the blame, we should own it here. Fiscal policy had a lot of positive effects too (e.g., lowering child poverty). The challenge, as always, is to develop ways to calibrate these policies in a more effective manner. 

Crisis Financiera mundial"El País" de Madrid:"Vía libre a la compra de Lehman por Barclays en sólo cinco días": http://www.elpais.com/articulo/economia/Via/libre/compra/Lehman/Barclays/solo/dias/elpepueco/20080921elpepieco_4/Tes"Crisis financiera mundial - La gestación del rescate: "Si el plan no se aprueba, que el cielo nos asista"":http://www.elpais.com/articulo/economia/plan/aprueba/cielo/nos/asista/elpepueco/20080921elpepieco_3/Tes"EE UU inyectará 485.000 millones para evitar el colapso financiero": http://www.elpais.com/articulo/economia/EE/UU/inyectara/485000/millones/evitar/colapso/financiero/elpepueco/20080921elpepieco_1/Tes "New York Times":"Shift for Goldman and Morgan Marks the End of an Era": http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/business/22bank.html?hp "Bush Urges Democrats to Act Quickly on Bailout Plan": http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/business/23paulson.html?hp"Skeptics in Washington, Sellers on Wall Street":http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/business/24markets.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1222207347-jKdB9jkUarOxtnUq15xrDg"CNN":"Fed boosts support for Goldman and Morgan: Central bank okays change in status for last two remaining investment banks":http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/21/news/companies/fed_investmentbanks.ap/index.htm?cnn=yes"Markets fall as fears grow over bailout plan": http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/09/23/world.markets/index.html"Bush urges Congress to rubberstamp bailout plan": http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/09/22/world.markets/index.html"BBC":"US banks make shock status switch: The last two major investment banks in the US have changed their status to become bank holding companies, allowing them to take deposits from investors.": http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7628578.stm"La Nación":"El fin de una era en Wall Street: adiós a los bancos de inversión: Goldman Sachs y Morgan Stanley se transformarán en bancos comerciales": http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1052652"Caen las bolsas ante las dudas por el plan: Pese a un fuerte llamado de Bush a aprobar el rescate cuanto antes, los demócratas presentaron una propuesta alternativa": http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1052651 "Time":"Japan to the Rescue of Ailing US Firms": http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1843534,00.html"El Universal" de México: "La ONU, más necesaria y más urgente que nunca: Bush: En su discurso ante la Asamblea General de la ONU, el último de su mandato, dijo que el organismo internacional debe aprobar más resoluciones que impidan que esos atentados se produzcan": http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/540630.html"MSNBC":"Bush to address country about bailout plan: Paulson reportedly compromises, will add limits on executive compensation": http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26871338/"Fed plows $30 billion in foreign money markets :Temporary 'swap' arrangements aim to tackle global credit crunch": http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26862762/"The Economist":"And then there were none: What the death of the investment bank means for Wall Street": http://www.economist.com/finance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12294688&source=features_box_main"The politics of despair: Wall Street's meltdown readjusts the race in unexpected ways": http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12262221"Wall Street's bad dream": http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12273023 AMERICA LATINA "La Nación" informa: "Fuerte crítica de Cristina Kirchner a Estados Unidos en la ONU": http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1052725"CNN" publica: "Russian navy ships head to Venezuela": http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/09/22/russia.venezuela.ap/index.html"China Daily" anuncia: "Russia sends ships on exercises in US 'backyard'":http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2008-09/22/content_7048551.htm"La Nación" publica: "Chávez inició en China una gira por Asia y Europa: El mandatario venezolano busca fortalecer la cooperación con el país asiático; "en este momento es mucho más importante estar en Pekín que en Nueva York", expresó":http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1052710"CNN": "Peace talks aim at easing Bolivia tension": http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/09/20/bolivia.talks/index.html"The Economist" analiza: "Bolivia: Now put it back together": http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12260915"La Nación" informa: "Antonini Wilson aseguró que en el vuelo había otros US$ 4.200.000 y que estuvo en la Casa Rosada": http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1052756"La Nación" anuncia: "México, ante un nuevo drama: el narcoterrorismo: Los carteles inician la "colombianización" del país":http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1052618"El Tiempo" de Colombia publica: "Haití, Venezuela y Ecuador entre los más corruptos de América Latina, según un estudio": http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/latinoamerica/home/haiti-venezuela-y-ecuador-entre-los-mas-corruptos-de-america-latina-segun-un-estudio_4548631-1 ESTADOS UNIDOS / CANADA "New York Times" informa: "2 Candidates Urge Greater Oversight in Bailout Plan": http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/us/politics/22campaign.html?ref=business"CNN" publica: "McCain 'deeply uncomfortable' with lack of bailout oversight": http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/22/campaign.wrap/index.html"BBC" analiza: "The US election nightmare scenario": http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7626471.stm"El Mercurio" de Chile informa: "Palin se reúne con varios mandatarios en apertura de la Asamblea de la ONU": http://diario.elmercurio.com/2008/09/23/internacional/_portada/noticias/1BCE1474-994A-47C6-A5FE-84CD8B379283.htm?id={1BCE1474-994A-47C6-A5FE-84CD8B379283}"The Economist" analiza: "The election campaign: Heard on the stump":http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12263226"Los Angeles Times": "Times poll shows Barack Obama has slight lead over John McCain": http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-poll25-2008sep25,0,4911734.stor"Los Angeles Times" informa: "McCain seeks to postpone debate because of financial crisis":http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-campaign25-2008sep25,0,766973.story"Time" publica sitio con links a artículos sobre las elecciones en los Estados Unidos:http://thepage.time.com/"La Nación" publica: "Bush busca tranquilizar a sus pares en la ONU: Hoy pronunciará su último discurso": http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1052654"El Tiempo" de Colombia anuncia: "George W. Bush afirma que la ONU es más necesaria y más urgente que nunca":http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/euycanada/home/george-w-bush-afirma-que-la-onu-es-mas-necesaria-y-mas-urgente-que-nunca_4548370-1 EUROPA "El País" de Madrid informa: "La duda es más grande que Brown: El primer ministro, agobiado por su mala imagen, es incapaz de remontar los sondeos - El laborismo debate si dejar que siga o designar otro líder para un cuarto mandato": http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/duda/grande/Brown/elpepuint/20080921elpepiint_1/Tes"CNN" publica: "Car bomb in northern Spain kills soldier":http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/09/22/spain.bombs.soldier/index.html"CNN" publica: "Funding crisis may ground Alitalia": http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/09/22/alitalia.license/index.html"Time" informa: "11 Dead in FinlandSchool Shooting": http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1843568,00.html"El Tiempo" de Colombia anuncia: "Estudiante asesinó a diez compañeros en un colegio profesional de Finlandia y luego se suicidó": http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/europa/home/estudiante-asesino-a-diez-companeros-en-un-colegio-profesional-de-finlandia-y-luego-se-suicido_4546222-1 Asia – Pacífico /Medio Oriente. "China Daily" informa: "China's quality chief steps down in milk scandal":http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-09/22/content_7048471.htm"The Economist" analiza: "China's baby-milk scandal: Formula for disaster": http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12262271"MSNBC" anuncia: "Typhoon hits southern China, Vietnam next: Hong Kong saw 58 injuries and disruption of schools and airport":http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26868696/"New York Times" informa: "Japanese Party Chooses Aso as Leader":http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/world/asia/23japan.html?ref=world"Le Monde" publica: "Taro Aso va devenir le premier ministre du Japón": http://www.lemonde.fr/asie-pacifique/article/2008/09/22/taro-aso-va-devenir-le-premier-ministre-du-japon_1097905_3216.html#ens_id=1097909"BBC" anuncia: "Aso picked to become new Japan PM": http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7628495.stm"La Nación" informa: "Un "halcón" será el nuevo primer ministro de Japón: Taro Aso reemplazará a Yasuo Fukuda": http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1052616"CNN" publica: "N. Korea seeks removal of nuke plant seals": http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/09/22/nkorea.nuclear.seals/index.html"BBC" informa: "N Korea wants nuclear seals off": http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7628955.stm"El Mercurio" de Chile informa: "Pakistán persigue a célula de Al Qaeda tras atentado": http://diario.elmercurio.com/2008/09/23/internacional/internacional/noticias/99E41C2A-5ED4-4AFA-BA25-4184BA2AD712.htm?id={99E41C2A-5ED4-4AFA-BA25-4184BA2AD712}"New York Times" publica: "Pakistan Leaders Barely Missed Attack": http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/world/asia/23pstan.html?ref=world"New York Times" anuncia: "Olmert Quits Post, and Political Maneuvering Begins": http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/world/middleeast/22olmert.html?ref=world"MSNBC": "Livni to form new Israeli government: Foreign minister has 42 days to form coalition": http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26839166/"MSNBC" informa: "Car plows into soldiers in Jerusalem; 19 hurt: Palestinian shot dead after ramming car into crowd of soldiers in OldCity": http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26841572/"El País" de Madrid publica: "Ahmadineyad vaticina el fin del "imperio americano" y el derrumbe de Israel": http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Ahmadineyad/vaticina/fin/imperio/americano/derrumbe/Israel/elpepuint/20080923elpepuint_5/Tes AFRICA "El País" de Madrid informa: "Mbeki, obligado a dejar la presidencia de Suráfrica: Las luchas internas en el partido del Gobierno desembocan en una crisis": http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Mbeki/obligado/dejar/presidencia/Surafrica/elpepuint/20080921elpepiint_7/Tes"New York Times" publica: "A South African of Charisma and Mystery": http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/world/africa/22zuma.html?ref=world"CNN" anuncia: "Sudan lobbies to avoid Darfur genocide arrest": http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/09/22/sudan.un.ap/index.html"BBC" informa: "Eleven tourists seized in Egypt": http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7629171.stm"CNN" publica: "11 tourists kidnapped in Egypt desert": http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/09/22/egypt.italians.kidnapped/index.html"CNN" analiza: "U.N.: Almost 10 million Ethiopians need food aid": http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/09/22/ethiopia.drought.ap/index.html ECONOMIA "The Economist" analiza: "Airlines and the credit crunch: Shredding money": http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12267383"La Nación" publica: "Fuerte alza de las materias primas; récord del crudo: Tuvo la mayor suba en un día, del 17,8%; la soja aumentó 5,3%":http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1052656"The Economist" publica su informe semanal: "Business this week": http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12274086"MSNBC" anuncia: "Oil near $108 as investors eye U.S. bailout: Investors await details of $700 billion plan to stabilize Wall Street": http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12400801/OTRAS NOTICIAS"New York Times" publica: "At U.N., Bush Reassures Leaders on Economy":http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/world/24nations.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin "El Universal" de México informa: "Inicia hoy la Asamblea General de la ONU: El secretario general de la ONU, Ban Ki-moon, y el presidente de la Asamblea General, el ex canciller nicaragüense Miguel D' Escoto, inauguran una sesión en la que se tratarán los Objetivos del Milenio y la pobreza": http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/540594.html"La Nación" informa: "Los discursos en la ONU se concentran en la crisis económica: La mayoría de los presidentes resaltaron en la apertura de la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas la delicada situación de los mercados mundiales; Ban Ki-Moon pidió "acción y liderazgo colectivo"": http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1052733"MSNBC" anuncia: "U.N. chief: Rich nations must help Africa: Secretary-General says $72 billion a year needed to fight hunger, poverty": http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26839643/"MSNBC" publica: "Russia, China block new Iran nuclear sanctions: Talks among six nations on Iranian program cancelled amid U.S.-Russia rift": http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26859796/

This chapter deals with the distortions to price incentives for agriculture that result from the trade, exchange rate and domestic policies in place in the four main South Asian countries, by summarizing and comparing the findings and themes of the more-detailed case studies on India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Attention is paid most to India, which accounts for around four fifths of South Asia's population, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and agricultural GDP. The principal focus is on the level of and trends in distortions for agriculture as a whole, and how these have changed over time relative to those for non-agricultural traded sectors in these countries. Previous studies have established that in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, policies strongly favored manufacturing over the principal agricultural crops, although the extent of anti agricultural bias diminished considerably between the 1970s to 1995. The new country studies extend the earlier estimates up to 2005 and back to 1965, and provide long term estimates of distortions to relative agricultural incentives in Bangladesh for the first time. As well, these new studies broaden the coverage of previous research by including estimates for the fresh fruit and vegetables sector in India, and the dairying sectors in India and Pakistan. In South Asia both of these sectors account for large shares of the rural economy as measured by their contributions to GDP.

Pri analizi dvaju suprotstavljenih narativa povezanih s temom uspostave vojske Europske unije (EU) u europskom medijskom i političkom prostoru u ovome radu upotrebljava se teorija sekrutizacije te se temeljem analize diskursa i javnog mnijenja dokazuje da suprotstavljeni narativi ispunjavaju uvjete da ih prema definiciji Kopenhagenske škole svedemo pod pojam sekuritizacije. Prema autorima Kopenhagenske škole, sekuritizacija je govorni čin kojim provoditelj sekuritizacije do tada nepolitizirani odnosno politizirani predmet debate prikazuje kao egzistencijalnu prijetnju prema referentnom objektu koja zahtijeva hitne mjere. Prvi narativ koji rad analizira je neizvjesna sigurnosna situacija u Europi i oko nje koja bi mogla prerasti u egzistencijalnu prijetnju društvu Europske unije i europskom identitetu zbog nepostojanja vojske Unije. Drugi, tome oprečni narativ pak interpretira uspostavu vojske Europske unije kao egzistencijalnu prijetnju NATO savezu i suverenitetu država članica Unije. Rad postavlja pitanje je li sekuritizacija upotrebljiva poluga u nastojanju provođenja odnosno blokiranja čvršće intergracije EU na području obrane. Analizom diskursa glavnih aktera, provoditelja sekuritizacije i sigurnosnih strategija EU, Velike Britanije i Sjedinjenih Američkih Država te analizom prihvaćanja narativa od strane publike, rad zaključuje da su ti oba narativa činovi sekuritizacije. Prvi narativ, sekuritiziran od strane europskih federalista na čelu s predsjednikom Europske komisije Jean-Claudeom Junckerom, kao referentne objekte koji se pod hitno moraju zaštiti postavlja društvo EU i europski identitet. Egzistencijalna prijetnja referentnim objektima dolazi od ruske politike, ali i neizvjesne sigurnosne situacije u neposrednom susjedstvu EU-a. Ovaj narativ kao rješenje nameće uspostavu vojske EU-a. Drugi narativ, sekuritiziran od strane euroskeptika, NATO saveza te političkih elita Velike Britanije, SAD-a i Rusije, kao referentne objekte koji se pod hitno moraju zaštititi postavlja suverenitet država članica EU i opstanak NATO saveza koji se nalaze u egzistencijalnoj prijetnji od strane uspostave vojske Europske unije, čija bi uspostava oduzela nacionalne vojske tj. suverenitet država članica u području obrane, a postojanje NATO saveza učinilo izlišnim ; The thesis proves that around the establishment of the European Union army, we can infer two opposing narratives in European Union's media and political space and that both meet the conditions to be called a securitization. The first narrative (positive securitization) that the thesis analyses argues that the precarious the security situation in and around Europe could become an existential threat to the society of European Union (EU) and European identity because of the paucity of the EU army. The second narrative (negative securitization) that the thesis analyses interprets the establishment of the EU army as an existential threat to the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) and the sovereignty of EU member states. Securitization is defined through the Theory of Securitisation by the scientists belonging to Copenhagen School (Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde) as a speech act by which an actor (securitizing actor) presents a specific issue, until then only politicised in the political or public space, as an existential threat to the referent object that requires extraordinary measures. For a speech act to be an act of securitization and not just an attempt of securitisation, public (or a target group) needs to accept the speech as such. Thus, the Theory of Securitization affirms that the chosen narratives are acts of securitizations through discourse analysis and public opinion analysis. Elements of securitization are before mentioned securitization actor, referent object and public, as well as functional actors, which indirectly affect security decisions by lobbing or directing the securitization actors, and context, as a speech act cannot be an independent factor in the securitization process but is dependent on historical, political, societal, economic, geographic, and other variables. The principal difference between Theory of Securitisation and the mainstream security theories: Traditional Security Studies (TSS) and Critical Security Studies (CSS), is that Theory of Securitization is not concerned if the issue that a speech act wants to present as a security issue, really is a security issue, but how a speech act presents the issue as a security issue. Unlike the Theory of Securitisation, TSS is a realistic security theory that examines is the issue a real security threat while CSS is a constructive security theory that examines the reality of security threat. Both, TSS and CSS, analyze already present security threat, while Theory of Securitisation analyses the creation of the security threat. Positive securitisation, the precarious security situation in and around Europe that could become an existential threat to the society of the EU because of the paucity of the EU army, is securitised by European federalists headed by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and HR/VP Federica Mogherini. Referent objects that are in urgent need of protection are the EU society and the European identity (values and principles) that are in the existential threat of Russia and uncertain security situation in the immediate neighbourhood of the EU. As a solution for the existential threat, securitising actors impose the establishment of the EU army. Functional actors of positive securitisation are stakeholders in the European defence industry who have a purely economic reason for the backing of positive securitisation, and European elite which advocates the federalisation of the European Union. The prime public, core target group, for the positive securitisation should be the Heads of 28 EU member states who make decisions concerning Common Security Defence Policy (CSDP). As the decisions concerning CSDP must be unanimous, and some member states, mostly United Kingdom (UK), steadily use the instrument of veto to block further development of the CSDP, the thesis assumes that the securitising actors of positive securitisation decided to expand the target group for their securitisation onto European Union society as a whole. Reasons behind the expansion of the target public, which thus makes the whole society of the European Union a the public is a pressure onto the Heads of EU member states since the citizens of the EU have a very favourable opinion about the further development of the CSDP and mostly positive opinion regarding the establishment of the EU army. Negative securitisation, which interprets the establishment of the EU army as an existential a threat to the NATO and the sovereignty of EU member states, is a complex form of securitisation. Instead of one securitising actor or one group of securitising actors with the same motive (European federalist with Juncker as champion in positive securitisation), negative securitisation is securitised by several securitising actors without the leading champion with sometimes the same and sometimes different motives: Eurosceptics, NATO, decision-makers in the United Kingdom, the United States (US) and Russia. Furthermore, negative securitisation accumulates the referent objects that are in urgent need of protection: the sovereignty of the EU member states and the survival of the NATO alliance. The only element of the negative securitisation that is unambiguous is the existential threat from the establishment of the EU army whose establishment would take away the national armies, i.e. the sovereignty of the EU member states and made the NATO alliance vulnerable. Hence, for the sake of simplicity of understanding the elements of negative securitisation and their synergy, the thesis uses the Classical Security Complex Theory (CSCT) for the proper consideration of the patterns of the security connections. Using discourse analysis of the speech acts and official documents the thesis shows how the decision-makers in the US (regardless of their political affiliation) securitise the establishment of the EU army as an existential threat to NATO and future of Atlantic security cooperation. Same is evident with the NATO as a securitising actor. The decision-makers in the UK (mostly conservatives) securitise the establishment of the EU army and further development of CSDP as an existential threat to the national sovereignty of EU member states. Russia too securitises the establishment of the EU army as an existential threat to the national sovereignty of EU member states but does the deed backstage financially supporting nationalist and Eurosceptic EU parties and via cyber-attacks and disinformation campaign. Functional actors of negative securitisation are stakeholders in the non-EU defence industry and other industries which prosper due to unstable global security situation, private military organisations, non-independent think thanks, etc. The public for the negative securitisation is the Eurosceptic part of the EU society, but the core target group are the citizens of the UK. Securitising actors of the negative securitisation narrowed the public of their securitisation for the same reason why the securitising actors of the positive securitisation broaden theirs – decisions concerning CSDP must be unanimous. Consequently, the securitising actors of the negative securitisation to be successful in their securitisation need to persuade only citizens of the UK that their narrative is correct. As already mentioned, the Theory of Securitisation analyses the creation of the security threat, so very important for the understanding of the results of discourse analysis is the context behind the construction of the securitisation. In the case of the securitisations analysed in the thesis, the contexts of both narratives have foundations in the conflict between neorealist and neoliberal doctrines in foreign politics, different security strategies of the countries, and change in a global security system, as well as historical, political, societal, economic, geographic and other variables. No EU member state can be a superpower on its own in today's world. This notion and aim to hinder the possibility of another armed conflict in Europe prompted the creation of the Union. After more than 60 years of enlargement and integration, the EU is an economic superpower. Nevertheless, to protect its economic superiority as well as to impose its doctrine in foreign politics and expand its multilateral security strategy, the EU needs to be and defence union. This idea is not a new one but exists and was attempted to be implemented from the beginning of the EU existence. The securitising actors of the positive securitisation believe that with the establishment of the EU army, the EU can keep the US hegemony in the global security system and the Russian renewal of bloc-system aspirations under control. Some securitising actors of the positive securitisation also believe that the further integration of the EU is necessary to prevent the disintegration. Above all, is the strong desire of the EU elite for the federation of the EU. Expectedly, not least because of the postulate of the security dilemma, the US and Russia are afraid of the military-strong EU which could change the current global security system, while the UK believes that with the strengthening of the EU its military and political strength will wane or disappear. As the UK is the EU member state and its citizens are the most Eurosceptic the public in the EU, both and the US and Russia focused most of their securitisation's efforts toward the UK's citizens. The US also uses the UK as a tool of disruption in the EU – it's right to veto decisions about the further development of CSDP, integration of the EU in the defence field and the establishment of the EU army. The thesis hypothesises that the two opposed narratives that the thesis considers to be securitisations have generated the status quo in the development of CSDP. Through the discourse analysis of speech acts and the official documents of securitising actors of both narratives as well as analysis of the acceptance of narratives by the audience (public opinion analysis), the thesis positively answers the research question: Is the securitisation theory usable the instrument in the effort to implement/block more effective EU integration?

Article Details: Received: 2020-09-07 | Accepted: 2020-10-19 | Available online: 2020-12-31https://doi.org/10.15414/afz.2020.23.04.241-247The contents of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were determined in raw cow's milk, feed and soil samples from three regions of Slovak Republic (SR) depending on the environmental regional classification of SR. Total 60 pool milk samples from undisturbed environment (Novoť area), moderately disturbed environment (Tulčík area), and from strongly disturbed environment (Čečejovce area) collected in April, July and September were extracted, purified by gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and analyzed using the gas chromatography with electron capture detector method (GC-ECD). Thirty feed samples of total mixed ration (TMR) were collected in April and September and after the extraction and purification by GPC were analyzed using gas and liquid chromatography (GLC). Fifteen soil samples collected in April were analyzed using the GC-ECD. All samples of raw milk, feed and soil were under the limit of quantification (LOQ) from all regions and did not exceed the limits set by European Commission. There were no seasonal differences in the PCBs levels in the milk, feed and soil samples. The milk PCBs consumption from these locations has no negative impact on consumer's health. The results indicate the decreasing trend in PCBs occurrence in the environment and food sources. Despite this positive findings, there is a constant need to monitor environmental burden of PCBs in the different regions of Slovakia where mainly food of animal origin is produced and to recognize another sources of PCBs that may impact the food chain.Keywords: polychlorinated biphenyls, PCB, cow milk, cows, SlovakiaReferencesAHMADKHANIHA, R., NODEHI, R.N., RASTKARI, N. and AGHAMIRLOO, H.M. (2017). Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) residues in commercial pasteurized cows' milk in Tehran, Iran. 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Många självklarheter i vårt digitala samhälle är beroende av Internet för att fungera. Allt från smarta dörrar för hemtjänster, till självscanningsapparaterna på ICA, till nyare bilar, moderna tillverkningsrobotar, telefoner och affärssystem. Den här licentiatavhandlingen reder ut vad Internet är, hur det styrs och vad det har för praktiska konsekvenser. Tidigare forskning finns bland annat inom telekommunikation där Internet liknas vid andra telekommunikationstjänster, så som kabel-TV eller mobiltelefoni, och inom digitalisering både inom management och informationssystem där Internet i det närmaste tas för givet som teknisk infrastruktur. Här tar jag en ansatts där jag förklarar Internet ur ett kombinerat tekniskt och organisatoriskt perspektiv. Studien är principiellt uppdelad i tre delar. Den första delen fokuserar på att begreppsmässigt hitta ett sätt att diskutera Internet utan att essentiella aspekter faller bort, såsom styrningen eller konsekvenser av den tekniska designen. Jag landar i att Internet är både ett tekniskt och ett organisatoriskt fenomen. Tekniskt i bemärkelsen att det handlar om digital paketbaserad kommunikation (dvs att olika paket kan ta olika väg och att det inte finns ett beroende på en viss specifik väg, eller "krets"), vilket kan särskiljas från exempelvis kretskopplad kommunikation (dvs en specific väg från sändare till mottagare) eller rent analog kommunikation. I denna tekniska dimension är Internet förhållandevis likt klassisk telekommunikation såsom kabel-TV och mobiltelefoni, och förlitar sig på best-effort paketbaserad kommunikation. I den andra dimensionen, styrning och organisation, är Internet ett explicit bottom-up fenomen som styrs med andra principer och ideal än klassisk telekommunikation. Till sin utformning är denna minsta möjliga koordination som krävs för att möjliggöra koordinering av de tekniska unika identifierare som behövs för att Internet ska fungera (dvs idag DNS- och BGP-flororna av protokoll för användning av namn och nummer på Internet). Båda dimensionerna, de organisatoriska och tekniska, följer samma designprinciper, och generellt är det meningsfullt att se Internet som en ekologi av aktörer snarare än en organisation i strikt teoretiska termer (exempelvis finns ingen tydlig övergripande strategi, organisationsnummer eller löneutbetalare). Det är dessa designprinciper, som ligger väl i linje med systemarkitektursprinciper för datorsystem, som är orsaken till Internets lager-design där man (generellt) inte ska bry som om vad som händer på andra lager än sitt eget (beskrivet som "separation of concerns" eller i dubbel negation "high cohesion" i texten) samt att ha en minimalistisk ansatts till koordinering och enbart koordinera eller skapa beroenden mellan enheter (både tekniskt och organisatoriskt) när det verkligen behövs (beskrivet som "minimum coordination" eller "low coupling" i texten). Den andra delen fokuserar på hur Internet kan socialt påverkas eller förändras till något annat, eller till något med en annan funktion sett som en styrd organisation. Jag använder begreppet social robusthet, som motpol till teknisk robusthet som i hur man tekniskt kan förstöra Internet, för att diskutera dessa aspekter. Slutsatserna här mynnar ut i att Internets explicita bottom-up och problemsuppdelnings-design gör det märkbart svårt för någon att medvetet påverka Internet för att ändra dess beskaffenhet, och dessutom visar jag att även om man praktiskt lyckas ta över de formellt beslutande råden (exempelvis ICANNs och IETFs styrelser) så finns det inga formella eller praktiska hinder för att bara ignorera dem (dvs switching costs för just ICANN eller IETF är låga, om än tekniskt omständligt med att konfigurera om rötter och routing-tabeller, och betydligt enklare än att gå från IPv4 till IPv6 då utrustning kan behöva ersättas och därmed en betydligt högre switching cost). Med andra ord, det är enklare att byta ut Internets koordinerare än att byta ut Internet mot något som fungerar annorlunda. Däremot är den rådande politiska världsordningen ett hot mot Internet, eftersom den regelstyrda och koordinerade världsordningen inte längre är lika självklar som den varit tidigare. Den tredje och sista studien fokuserar på nätneutralitet, dvs rätten nätverksoperatörer har att fånga värde i andra dimensioner än trafikmängd, som en praktiskt effekt av hur Internet styrs och fungerar. Det primära praktiska bidraget är att nätneutralitet inte får ses som enbart en reglerings och lagstiftningfråga utan det är mer relevant att prata om i termer av nätneutralitet i praktiken. I den bemärkelsen är lagstiftningens vara eller inte vara mindre intressant än praktisk nätneutralitets vara eller inte vara och en tyngdpunktsförskjutning i den offentliga debatten hade fört diskussionen närmare hur Internet fungerar. Sammanfattningsvis ger Internets designprinciper att marknadskrafter, och ej direkt reglering, ska möjliggöra nätneutralitet. För att förtydliga, tanken är att det ska finnas konkurrens inom de flesta nivåer eller lager, och att det är av vikt att det finns konkurrens rakt igenom så att en kundvilja för paketneutralitet på tjänstenivå även påverkar nätägar- och infrastrukturnivå, så att det är användarnas efterfrågan som leder till nätneutralitet (om den användarviljan finns). Dock kan det mycket väl vara så att man som användare inte är intresserad av nätneutralitet och då ska tjänsteleverantörer, nätägare och infrastrukturoperatörer inte heller tvingas vara neutrala genom lagstiftning då det går stick i stäv med designprinciperna. Inte heller ska en grupps vilja kring nätneutralitet påverka andras möjligheter att välja. Genomgående identifierar jag två kolliderande världsbilder, den distribuerade regelstyrda och koordinerade ordningen i sitt perspektiv med sina förkämpar, och den mer integrerande och suveräna världsordningen med sitt perspektiv och sina förkämpar. Rent praktiskt uppfyller Internet en önskad funktion i den tidigare men ej i den senare, då Internet designmässigt är byggt för att tillåta snarare än kontrollera och bestämma. Exempelvis finns det inte inbyggda (tekniska) mekanismer i Internet för att till exempel möjliggöra statlig övervakning eller kontroll av material som finns tillgängligt, och då ligger det mer i statens intresse att ha kontrollerade telekommunikationstjänster, såsom kabel-TV, mobiltelefoni och liknande lösningar där man inte helt enkelt kan lägga på ett "extra lager" för att uppnå kryptering, anonymitet eller tillgång till andra tjänster. I texten använder jag perspektiven tillsammans med teknologi, marknader och byråkrati för att fånga upp dynamiken och strömningarna i Internet-ekologin och jämför med tekniska samhällsförändringar, som exempelvis järnvägsnät, postverk och finansiella marknader. Jag konstaterar att Internet har varit styrt av teknologiskt baserade värderingar, till skillnad från de andra exemplen som i huvudsak har utformats av dynamiken mellan byråkrati och marknad. I denna mån förelår jag att teknologi kan användas som strömning och motperspektiv till den klassiska uppställningen med byråkrati och marknad för att beskriva fenomen i digitaliseringens tidsålder. Avhandlingen sätter även pågående trender i ett bredare perspektiv mot både organisation och teknik, och trycker på vikten av att förstå delarna var för sig och tillsammans för att på ett rikare sätt måla upp helheten. ; The modern society is to a large extent Internet-dependent. Today we rely on the Internet to handle communication for smart doors, self-scanning convenience stores, connected cars, production robots, telephones and ERP-systems. The purpose of this thesis is to unbundle the Internet, its technology, its coordination, and practical and theoretical consequences. Earlier research has, in telecommunications, focused on the Internet as one of many potential telecommunications services, such as cellphones or cable-TV, and the management and information systems field has by and large treated the Internet as black-boxable infrastructure. This thesis explains the Internet from the combined perspectives of technology and coordination. This text contains three empirical studies. The first is focused on conceptualizing and discussing the Internet in a meaningful way using both technology and coordination frameworks. I unceremoniously conclude that the Internet is both a technological and a coordination phenomenon and neither of these aspects can be ignored. The Internet is technological in that it concerns digital packet switched digital communication (as opposed to circuit switched) or purely analog communications. The technological dimension of the Internet is similar in its constituency to classical telecommunications networks, and has best-effort mechanisms for packet delivery. In the other dimension, coordination, the Internet is an explicit bottom-up phenomenon minimally coordinated (or governed) by other ideals than classical telecommunications networks and systems. At its core this least necessary coordination concerns technical unique identifiers necessary for inter-network communication (in practice today manifested as naming with the DNS protocol suite, and numbering with the BGP protocol suite). Both dimensions follow similar design characteristics; the design of the technical Internet is similar to the design of the coordination of the Internet. These design principles, which are well aligned with software design principles, is the cause of the Internet's layered design ("separation of concerns" in practice) and minimal view of coordination (the "least coordinated Internet"). In general terms it is fruitful to view the Internet and involved actors as an ecology, rather than one organization or entity in need of governance or control. The second study looks at the social resilience of the Internet. That is, is it possible through social means to change what the Internet is or can be viewed as. I use social resilience as a counterpart to technical resilience, i.e. resilience to technical interference. In essence, the bottom-up and separations of concerns design of the coordination aspect of the Internet minimizes possible influence of actors intent on mission disruption. I also practically show that even a take-over of the central councils have little effect the constituency of the Internet, since these councils are not invested with formal powers of enforcement. This thesis suggests that the cost of switching from ICANN and IETF to another set of organizations is quite low due to the nature of the coordination of the Internet, compared to for example, switching all equipment to IPv6 capable equipment. However, the current political situation is a threat to the current Internet regime, since an international and rule-based world order is no longer on all states' agendas. The final empirical study focus on the practical and theoretical implications of the Internet on the case of net neutrality. The primary contribution is that de facto and de jure net neutrality differ in practice, and as such de facto net neutrality deserves more attention. Also, I suggest that any regulation, either for or against net neutrality, is problematic, since such regulation would interfere with the inherent coordination mechanisms of the Internet. As such regulation should focus on providing the necessary markets for Internet function given the coordination and design of the Internet. As a net neutrality example, net neutral Internet access options should exist as part of a natural service offering if wanted by customers, not due to direct regulation. Throughout the thesis I identify two colliding world orders, both in terms of digital communication networks and terms of organizing society in general: the rule-based and coordinating order with its champions, and the integrated or sovereign order with its champions. In practical terms, the Internet can be considered a want in the former (the distributed perspective), but not the later (the integrative perspective), since the Internet lacks inherent (technical) controls for surveillance and content control which are necessary in a world order where borders are important. Regardless of if that importance stems from state oversight or intellectual property rights legislation. I use these perspectives together with technology, markets and bureaucracy to catch the dynamics of the Internet ecology. I then compare these dynamics with other technological and societal phenomena, such as railway networks, postal services and financial markets. And conclude that the Internet (as conceptualized in this thesis) can best be explained by technological values, in opposite to the other examples which can best by explained by the dynamics of markets and bureaucracies without any real influence of the values of technology. As such, I suggest that the classical frame of markets and bureaucracy can fruitfully be expanded with technology to better explain the Internet and similar digitization phenomena. This thesis puts current trends in a broader perspective based on technology and organization, where the two perspectives together better can draw the full picture in a rich fashion.

Keyword: widening participation, non-traditional students, teacher strategies, postnational educational system According to Hickling-Hudson et al. (2004:6) 'Indigenous peoples and Indigenous knowledges are marginalized by a view of the world through 'imperial eyes', a view which (re)inscribes the dominant, exclusionary Western beliefs'. Other things being equal, teachers in general are said to draw on three main interrelated and changing knowledge bases: knowledge of content, knowledge of teaching processes and knowledge of their students (Shulman, 1987; Turner-Bisset, 1999). As a dimension of pedagogic practice, the management of non-compliant classroom behavior is varied and historically shaped, subject to ideological, legislative and policy shifts over time. The relation between university teachers and students has to all times been characterized as an asymmetric relation since the teachers have the power of definition of what counts as academic standards. We have seen considerable studies on student perspectives (Stuart, et al 2012). However, a review reveals scarce knowledge about how university teachers try to compensate and include the non-traditional and first-generational students. In this paper, we pay special attention to curricular and pedagogical traditions or management strategies in postnational educational systems, where the majority of students are first-generation and at higher risk of attrition. Assuming that the academic staff (Both Greenlandic and Danish) has bodily incorporated an awareness of these circumstances since they are part of common knowledge of Greenlandic history, an ideal of emancipatory approach derives from compensating both teacher- and postcolonial dominance. The research question asked is how university teachers navigate in this context, what are their experiences and how do they manage to integrate and make students participate more actively and achieve what they consider to be academic standards? The experiences of teachers working in these contexts have rarely been reported in the literature. Our aim is to highlight the ambiguous nature of change of a particular educational system, the Greenlandic University which can be considered a representative of a neocolonial university with Western conceptions of curriculum, pedagogy, and language. In this way the Greenlandic case can be seen as an institution struggling to match western/European standards and at the same time acknowledging the non-traditional behavior. The theoretical framework is based on Bourdieus theory of practice and selective concepts. To understand how the teachers act when teaching, the notion of strategy is used referring to something that rests on a practical 'feel for the game.' Strategies are the result of combining practical good sense with commonly accepted practices. Symbolic power is used to understand and explain the nature of the strategies. The structures of the field arise from differentiation, which is grounded in a defining principle of what is of value. Thus, teachers have the authority and the means to assess students, and do so based on a certain set of assumptions, expectations, and values that are not always explicit. The notion of cultural capital is therefore used to understand the experiences of teachers' strategies in higher education. (Bourdieu, 1986). Methods This study is based on classroom observations and interviews of teachers who joined a university requested pedagogic course to improve their teaching. 18 teachers participated in the course. The teacher participants (of both Danish and Greeenlandic origin) taught in their practices a range of subjects and used Danish, Greenlandic (and English) as the medium of instruction. In order to explore the types of knowledges taught, categories of teaching process knowledge, and the range of pedagogic identities made available to teachers and students, lectures focused on the teachers' descriptions of the learner characteristics of Greenlandic students, their professional roles whilst teaching at the university, and curriculum and pedagogic design. We were interested in understanding how the various teachers are actually working and exploring their various ethical and epistemological stands on the nature of 'true' knowledge, on the 'right' teacher and the 'right' student. To this end, our interviews focused on episodes of classroom trouble that provoked the respondent's intervention and what moral expectations the teachers invoked and legitimated in their efforts to regulate student behaviour (ex. increase participation or student activation). In the interviews, we also queried the two groups of teachers (Danish and Greenlandic) on the students they taught, their own role, professional and social identity, the knowledge transmitted, and their pedagogical strategies whilst teaching. Expected outcomes / results We have identified 4 teacher strategies which have not yet been refined. Here we present 3. Zero-fault on Greenlandic language-strategy in contrast to "teaching in the dark". A Greenlandic teacher expresses a distinct awareness of how she masters her Greenlandic language when teaching students in her mother tongue, Greenlandic. When she writes major pieces/instructions, she consults what she considers "language experts" within and outside the university. During lectures, she enhances her students to correct her if she uses "wrong" words or grammar. In contrast to this rigorous self-policing, we see how Danish teachers on the opposite are ready to give up on the use of understandable language. Several Danish teachers frame disciplinary discussions followed up by plenary sessions where the students are allowed to discuss and work in Greenlandic which is a language the teacher does not understand. The teachers argue that activating the students is crucial in spite of the fact that they are unable to validate or respond to the academic content. One teacher talks about "teaching in the dark". Teaching formalia-strategy A Greenlandic female teacher in her 50's tries to neutralize a classic problem with students not knowing what is expected from them by making an effort teaching in explaining the learning goals. She makes exercises on how to translate the Danish concepts of the learning goals and the key concepts. She makes a virtue out of the semantic translation of the concepts from Danish to Greenlandic, and argues within the framework of Biggs and Blooms taxonomy. She argues theoretically with the concept of "parallel languaging" where the idea is to use both mother tongue and the second language intertwined or parallel. References: A. Marshall, C. (2016). Barriers to accessing higher education. Widening participation, higher education and non-traditional students: Supporting transitions through foundation programmes (pp. 1-18). Macmillan Publishers Ltd. London: Springer Nature. Ball, S., Hoskins, K., Maguire, M., & Braun, A. (2011). Disciplinary texts: A policy analysis of national and local behaviour policies. Critical Studies in Education, 52(1), 1-14. Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice Cambridge university press. Bourdieu, P. (1990a). In other words: Essays towards a reflexive sociology Stanford University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1990b). The logic of practice Stanford University Press. Bowl, M. (2003). Non-traditional entrants to higher education: "They talk about people like me.". PO Box 605, Herndon, VA 20172-0605.: Stylus Publishing. Chen, X., & Carroll, C. D. (2005). First-generation students in postsecondary education: A look at their college transcripts. postsecondary education descriptive analysis report. NCES 2005-171. (). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Hemsley-Brown, J. (2012). 'The best education in the world': Reality, repetition or cliché? international students' reasons for choosing an english university. Studies in Higher Education, 37(8), 1005-1022. Hickling-Hudson, A., Matthews, J. M., & Woods, A. (2004). Education, postcolonialism and disruptions. Disrupting preconceptions: Postcolonialism and education (pp. 1-16). Flaxton: Post Pressed. Langgård, P. (2002). Greenland and the university of. In D. C. Nord, & G. R. Weller (Eds.), Higher education across the circumpolar north: A circle of learning (1st ed., pp. 77-99). New York: PALGRAVE MACMILLAN. greenland Scott, I. (2012). Access, success and curriculum: Aspects of their organic relationship. Alternative Access to Higher Education: Underprepared Students Or Underprepared Education, , 25-49. Shulman, L. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1-23. doi:10.17763/haer.57.1.j463w79r56455411 Shulman, L. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1-23. doi:10.17763/haer.57.1.j463w79r56455411 Skatte- og Velfærdskommissionen. (2010). Hvordan sikres (). Denmark: Skatte- og Velfærdskommissionen. vækst og velfærd i Grønland? Spiegler, T., & Bednarek, A. (2013). First-generation students: What we ask, what we know and what it means: An international review of the state of research. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 23(4), 318-337. doi:10.1080/09620214.2013.815441 Thomas, L. (2002). Student retention in higher education: The role of institutional habitus. Journal of Education Policy, 17(4), 423-442. Turner-Bisset, R. (1999). The knowledge bases of the expert teacher. British Educational Research Journal, 25(1), 39-55. doi:10.1080/0141192990250104 ; According to Hickling-Hudson et al. (2004:6) 'Indigenous peoples and Indigenous knowledges are marginalized by a view of the world through 'imperial eyes', a view which (re)inscribes the dominant, exclusionary Western beliefs'. Other things being equal, teachers in general are said to draw on three main interrelated and changing knowledge bases: knowledge of content, knowledge of teaching processes and knowledge of their students (Shulman, 1987; Turner-Bisset, 1999). As a dimension of pedagogic practice, the management of non-compliant classroom behavior is varied and historically shaped, subject to ideological, legislative and policy shifts over time. The relation between university teachers and students has to all times been characterized as an asymmetric relation since the teachers have the power of definition of what counts as academic standards. We have seen considerable studies on student perspectives (Stuart, et al 2012). However, a review reveals scarce knowledge about how university teachers try to compensate and include the non-traditional and first-generational students. In this paper, we pay special attention to curricular and pedagogical traditions or management strategies in postnational educational systems, where the majority of students are first-generation and at higher risk of attrition. Assuming that the academic staff (Both Greenlandic and Danish) has bodily incorporated an awareness of these circumstances since they are part of common knowledge of Greenlandic history, an ideal of emancipatory approach derives from compensating both teacher- and postcolonial dominance. The research question asked is how university teachers navigate in this context, what are their experiences and how do they manage to integrate and make students participate more actively and achieve what they consider to be academic standards? The experiences of teachers working in these contexts have rarely been reported in the literature. Our aim is to highlight the ambiguous nature of change of a particular educational system, the Greenlandic University which can be considered a representative of a neocolonial university with Western conceptions of curriculum, pedagogy, and language. In this way the Greenlandic case can be seen as an institution struggling to match western/European standards and at the same time acknowledging the non-traditional behavior. The theoretical framework is based on Bourdieus theory of practice and selective concepts. To understand how the teachers act when teaching, the notion of strategy is used referring to something that rests on a practical 'feel for the game.' Strategies are the result of combining practical good sense with commonly accepted practices. Symbolic power is used to understand and explain the nature of the strategies. The structures of the field arise from differentiation, which is grounded in a defining principle of what is of value. Thus, teachers have the authority and the means to assess students, and do so based on a certain set of assumptions, expectations, and values that are not always explicit. The notion of cultural capital is therefore used to understand the experiences of teachers' strategies in higher education. (Bourdieu, 1986).

Goodson, William H. et al. ; © The Author 2015. Lifestyle factors are responsible for a considerable portion of cancer incidence worldwide, but credible estimates from the World Health Organization and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) suggest that the fraction of cancers attributable to toxic environmental exposures is between 7% and 19%. To explore the hypothesis that low-dose exposures to mixtures of chemicals in the environment may be combining to contribute to environmental carcinogenesis, we reviewed 11 hallmark phenotypes of cancer, multiple priority target sites for disruption in each area and prototypical chemical disruptors for all targets, this included dose-response characterizations, evidence of low-dose effects and cross-hallmark effects for all targets and chemicals. In total, 85 examples of chemicals were reviewed for actions on key pathways/ mechanisms related to carcinogenesis. Only 15% (13/85) were found to have evidence of a dose-response threshold, whereas 59% (50/85) exerted low-dose effects. No dose-response information was found for the remaining 26% (22/85). Our analysis suggests that the cumulative effects of individual (non-carcinogenic) chemicals acting on different pathways, and a variety of related systems, organs, tissues and cells could plausibly conspire to produce carcinogenic synergies. Additional basic research on carcinogenesis and research focused on low-dose effects of chemical mixtures needs to be rigorously pursued before the merits of this hypothesis can be further advanced. However, the structure of the World Health Organization International Programme on Chemical Safety 'Mode of Action' framework should be revisited as it has inherent weaknesses that are not fully aligned with our current understanding of cancer biology. ; We gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Institute of Health-National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) conference grant travel support (R13ES023276); Glenn Rice, Office of Research and Development, United States Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati, OH, USA also deserves thanks for his thoughtful feedback and inputs on the manuscript; William H.Goodson III was supported by the California Breast Cancer Research Program, Clarence Heller Foundation and California Pacific Medical Center Foundation; Abdul M.Ali would like to acknowledge the financial support of the University of Sultan Zainal Abidin, Malaysia; Ahmed Lasfar was supported by an award from the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey; Ann-Karin Olsen and Gunnar Brunborg were supported by the Research Council of Norway (RCN) through its Centres of Excellence funding scheme (223268/F50), Amancio Carnero's lab was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity, ISCIII (Fis: PI12/00137, RTICC: RD12/0036/0028) co-funded by FEDER from Regional Development European Funds (European Union), Consejeria de Ciencia e Innovacion (CTS-1848) and Consejeria de Salud of the Junta de Andalucia (PI-0306-2012); Matilde E. Lleonart was supported by a trienal project grant PI12/01104 and by project CP03/00101 for personal support. Amaya Azqueta would like to thank the Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia ('Juande la Cierva' programme, 2009) of the Spanish Government for personal support; Amedeo Amedei was supported by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (2009FZZ4XM_002), and the University of Florence (ex6012); Andrew R.Collins was supported by the University of Oslo; Annamaria Colacci was supported by the Emilia-Romagna Region - Project 'Supersite' in Italy; Carolyn Baglole was supported by a salary award from the Fonds de recherche du Quebec-Sante (FRQ-S); Chiara Mondello's laboratory is supported by Fondazione Cariplo in Milan, Italy (grant n. 2011-0370); Christian C.Naus holds a Canada Research Chair; Clement Yedjou was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH-NIMHD grant no. G12MD007581); Daniel C.Koch is supported by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Postdoctoral Enrichment Award and the Tumor Biology Training grant: NIH T32CA09151; Dean W. Felsher would like to acknowledge the support of United States Department of Health and Human Services, NIH grants (R01 CA170378 PQ22, R01 CA184384, U54 CA149145, U54 CA151459, P50 CA114747 and R21 CA169964); Emilio Rojas would like to thank CONACyT support 152473; ; Ezio Laconi was supported by AIRC (Italian Association for Cancer Research, grant no. IG 14640) and by the Sardinian Regional Government (RAS); Eun-Yi Moon was supported by grants from the Public Problem-Solving Program (NRF-015M3C8A6A06014500) and Nuclear R&D Program (#2013M2B2A9A03051296 and 2010-0018545) through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) and funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) in Korea; Fahd Al-Mulla was supported by the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (2011-1302-06); Ferdinando Chiaradonna is supported by SysBioNet, a grant for the Italian Roadmap of European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) and by AIRC (Associazione Italiana Ricerca sul Cancro; IG 15364); Francis L.Martin acknowledges funding from Rosemere Cancer Foundation; he also thanks Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS trust and the patients who have facilitated the studies he has undertaken over the course of the last 10 years; Gary S.Goldberg would like to acknowledge the support of the New Jersey Health Foundation; Gloria M.Calaf was supported by Fondo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (FONDECYT), Ministerio de Educación de Chile (MINEDUC), Universidad de Tarapacá (UTA); Gudrun Koppen was supported by the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO), Belgium; Hemad Yasaei was supported from a triennial project grant (Strategic Award) from the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction (NC3Rs) of animals in research (NC.K500045.1 and G0800697); Hiroshi Kondoh was supported in part by grants from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan, Japan Science and Technology Agency and by JST, CREST; Hsue-Yin Hsu was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan (NSC93-2314-B-320-006 and NSC94-2314-B-320-002); Hyun Ho Park was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2012R1A2A2A01010870) and a grant from the Korea Healthcare Technology R&D project, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea (HI13C1449); Igor Koturbash is supported by the UAMS/NIH Clinical and Translational Science Award (UL1TR000039 and KL2TR000063) and the Arkansas Biosciences Institute, the major research component of the Arkansas Tobacco Settlement Proceeds Act of 2000; Jan Vondráček acknowledges funding from the Czech Science Foundation (13-07711S); Jesse Roman thanks the NIH for their support (CA116812); ; John Pierce Wise Sr. and Sandra S.Wise were supported by National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (ES016893 to J.P.W.) and the Maine Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health; Jonathan Whitfield acknowledges support from the FERO Foundation in Barcelona, Spain; Joseph Christopher is funded by Cancer Research UK and the International Journal of Experimental Pathology; Julia Kravchenko is supported by a philanthropic donation by Fred and Alice Stanback; Jun Sun is supported by a Swim Across America Cancer Research Award; Karine A.Cohen-Solal is supported by a research scholar grant from the American Cancer Society (116683-RSG-09-087-01-TBE); Laetitia Gonzalez received a postdoctoral fellowship from the Fund for Scientific Research–Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen) and support by an InterUniversity Attraction Pole grant (IAP-P7-07); Laura Soucek is supported by grant #CP10/00656 from the Miguel Servet Research Contract Program and acknowledges support from the FERO Foundation in Barcelona, Spain; Liang-Tzung Lin was supported by funding from the Taipei Medical University (TMU101-AE3-Y19); Linda Gulliver is supported by a Genesis Oncology Trust (NZ) Professional Development Grant, and the Faculty of Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand; Louis Vermeulen is supported by a Fellowship of the Dutch Cancer Society (KWF, UVA2011-4969) and a grant from the AICR (14–1164); Mahara Valverde would like to thank CONACyT support 153781; Masoud H. Manjili was supported by the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs (USA) through the Breast Cancer Research Program under Award No. W81XWH-14-1-0087 Neetu Singh was supported by grant #SR/FT/LS-063/2008 from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India; Nicole Kleinstreuer is supported by NIEHS contracts (N01-ES 35504 and HHSN27320140003C); P.K. Krishnakumar is supported by the Funding (No. T.K. 11-0629) of King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Paola A.Marignani is supported by the Dalhousie Medical Research Foundation, The Beatrice Hunter Cancer Institute and CIHR and the Nova Scotia Lung Association; Paul Dent is the holder of the Universal Inc.Chair in Signal Transduction Research and is supported with funds from PHS grants from the NIH (R01-CA141704, R01-CA150214, R01-DK52825 and R01-CA61774); Petr Heneberg was supported by the Charles University in Prague projects UNCE 204015 and PRVOUK P31/2012, and by the Czech Science Foundation projects P301/12/1686 and 15-03834Y; Po Sing Leung was supported by the Health and Medical Research Fund of Food and Health Bureau, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Ref. No: 10110021; Qiang Cheng was supported in part by grant NSF IIS-1218712; R. Brooks Robey is supported by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs; Rabindra Roy was supported by United States Public Health Service Grants (RO1 CA92306, RO1 CA92306-S1 and RO1 CA113447); Rafaela Andrade-Vieira is supported by the Beatrice Hunter Cancer Research Institute and the Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation; ; Renza Vento was partially funded by European Regional Development Fund, European Territorial Cooperation 2007–13 (CCI 2007 CB 163 PO 037, OP Italia-Malta 2007–13) and grants from the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) ex-60%, 2007; Riccardo Di Fiore was a recipient of fellowship granted by European Regional Development Fund, European Territorial Cooperation 2007–2013 (CCI 2007 CB 163 PO 037, OP Italia-Malta 2007–2013); Rita Dornetshuber-Fleiss was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF, project number T 451-B18) and the Johanna Mahlke, geb.-Obermann-Stiftung; Roberta Palorini is supported by a SysBioNet fellowship; Roslida Abd Hamid is supported by the Ministry of Education, Malaysia-Exploratory Research Grant Scheme-Project no: ERGS/1-2013/5527165; Sabine A.S.Langie is the beneficiary of a postdoctoral grant from the AXA Research Fund and the Cefic-LRI Innovative Science Award 2013; Sakina Eltom is supported by NIH grant SC1CA153326; Samira A.Brooks was supported by National Research Service Award (T32 ES007126) from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the HHMI Translational Medicine Fellowship; Sandra Ryeom was supported by The Garrett B. Smith Foundation and the TedDriven Foundation; Thierry Massfelder was supported by the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale INSERM and Université de Strasbourg; Thomas Sanderson is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR; MOP-115019), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC; 313313) and the California Breast Cancer Research Program (CBCRP; 17UB-8703); Tiziana Guarnieri is supported by a grant from Fundamental Oriented Research (RFO) to the Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy and thanks the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Bologna and the Fondazione Banca del Monte di Bologna e Ravenna for supporting the Center for Applied Biomedical Research, S.Orsola-Malpighi University Hospital, Bologna, Italy; W.Kimryn Rathmell is supported by the V Foundation for Cancer Research and the American Cancer Society; William K.Decker was supported in part by grant RP110545 from the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas; William H.Bisson was supported with funding from the NIH P30 ES000210; Yon Rojanasakul was supported with NIH grant R01-ES022968; Zhenbang Chen is supported by NIH grants (MD004038, CA163069 and MD007593); Zhiwei Hu is grateful for the grant support from an institutional start-up fund from The Ohio State University College of Medicine and The OSU James Comprehensive Cancer Center (OSUCCC) and a Seed Award from the OSUCCC Translational Therapeutics Program. ; Peer Reviewed

 I once contemplated getting my favorite Spinoza proposition as a Vanity Plate In the past few months, longer even, but before the recent wave of student occupations (more on that later), I have found myself in the grips of a kind of depression that stems in part from what can only be described as a gap between theory and practice. How this works is like this, all day, or at least part of it, I read books, and get into discussions understanding how the world works, and what could be done to change it and yet the world goes on unchanged, or, more to the point, it just seems to get worse and worse. (I will let the reader fill this in with whatever ecological, political, or economic calamity that comes to mind) The disconnect between the classroom and the world creates not just division but despair.This has brought me to think about the limitations of philosophy. Perhaps the most famous statement about the limitations of philosophy comes from Karl Marx. The eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach states, "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it." Philosophy, philosophical interpretation, and action, change are positioned on either sides of a great divide. Many have read Marx's own work across this divide, placing the early texts, 1844 Manuscripts, The German Ideology, etc., on one side, as interpretations, and The Communist Manifesto and Capital on the other, as attempts to change the world. The result of this is that Marx is not really Marx when he is philosophical, if you except the standard reading that Marx's early work is heavily influenced by Feuerbach and Hegel, and when he is Marx, he is no longer writing philosophy, but I digress. More to the point, Marx's formulation articulates a division between interpretation and action that is pervasive, shared by many who have never read Marx or care to. It is the divide between theory and practice, thinking and doing. At the same time Marx's formulation is easily critiqued, the very opposition it erects is unstable and seems to almost unravel itself. Is it not also an interpretation, of philosophy, the world, and what it means to transform something? Where does Marx's own formulation fall on the divide it erects between interpretation and transformation Moreover, can transformation take place without interpretation? As André Tosel writes, "It is not enough to transform the world. We still need to understand this transformation to prevent it from following its course blindly. A transformation of the world and of oneself without understanding this transformation is blind. An understanding of the world and of oneself without transformation is empty." Tosel corrects Marx by invoking, or parodying Kant (which explains but does not justify his use of the terms "blind"), it is not a matter of interpreting or changing, but of informing one by the other.Tosel's correction is framed in light of another element of Marx's thought, one more often associated with the second side of the divide, the historical or practical side. It is in Marx's writing on the history of capitalism that he puts forward the important idea that under capitalism not changing, staying the same, is not an option. Whereas previous societies, previous modes of production sought to stay the same, to reproduce themselves, capitalism is in the paradoxical position of reproducing itself while constantly revolutionizing everything else. I am referring of course to Marx's formulation that capitalism is defined by ruthless transformation of everything, as Marx puts it famously in the Manifesto, "Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind."Tosel has a lot to say about this formulation both in terms of its claim as theory, of the idea of capital as a transformation of social meaning, but also what this means for thinking about capitalism in practice, what this ruthless modernization has done to society. With respect to the latter, he often uses the term, from Gramsci, "passive revolution" to describe the way in which capital has remade the world, reduced every value to exchange value, and every relation to market relations. Capitalism is very much a "blind transformation" to use Tosel's formulation. This is something that Alain Badiou puts well in his little book The Century. The twentieth century was in part marked by grand utopian projects, by the idea of creating a "new man," these projects announced themselves as transformations that were also interpretations. In their wake we now have transformations without interpretations. To use Badiou's example, genetic engineering offers a massive change on what it means to be human but one that is without any utopian promise. As Badiou writes, "This is because such a change does not correspond to any kind of project. We learn of its possibility from newspapers; that we could have five limbs, or be immortal...In short, we are living through the revenge of what is most blind and objective in the economic appropriation of technics over what is most subjective and voluntary in politics."I am reading Badiou more for the polemic than the ontology here, and would argue that what he and Tosel offer to Marx's famous formulation is that the task of changing the world has to be understood in relation not to some static and fixed reality, but an ongoing transformation that is all the more pernicious in that it takes place without a plan or project. Seems like an appropriate clip: Dr. Malcolm as BadiouThis brings us to my second formulation of the limits of philosophy, one of my favorite propositions from the Ethics, IVP1. "Nothing positive which a false idea has is removed by the presence of the true insofar as it is true."What this means can be clarified (as is often the case) by the Scholium that follows. Spinoza begins by talking about the longstanding image of enlightenment and understanding, the sun, "For example, when we look at the sun, we imagine it to be about two hundred feet away from us. In this we are deceived so long as we are ignorant of its true distance; but when its distance is known, the error isremoved, not the imagination, that is, the idea of the sun, which explains its nature only so far as the body is affected by it. And so, although we come to know the true distance, we shall nevertheless imagine it as near us. For as we said in IIP35S, we do not imagine the sun to be so near because we are ignorant of its true distance, but because the mind conceives the sun's size insofar as the body is affected by the sun. Thus, when the rays of the sun, falling on the surface of the water, are reflected to our eyes, we imagine it as if it were in the water, even if we know its true place."It always seems strange to me that Spinoza does not mention another more important division between the sun as an object of knowledge and as an object of the imagination, namely the idea that the sun orbits the Earth, appearing to rise and set. This was not only the contested object of Spinoza's lifetime (shaping Descartes thought), but perhaps the best example of the persistence of an imagination past the knowledge that would dispell it. To this day we still talk about sunrise and sunset. (which is maybe why flat Earthers never went away. They are simply asserting what the imagination, the effect of the sun on the body tells them.) As Spinoza goes onto clarify: "And so it is with the other imaginations by which the mind is deceived, whether they indicate the natural constitution of the body, or that its power of acting is increased or diminished: they are not contrary to the true, and do not disappear on its presence. It happens, of course, when we wrongly fear some evil, that the fear disappears on our hearing news of the truth. But on the other hand, it also happens, when we fear an evil which is certain to come, that the fear vanishes on our hearing false news. So imaginations do not disappear through the presence of the true insofar as it is true, but because there occur others, stronger than them, which exclude the present existence of the things we imagine, as we showed in lIP 17."That imaginatry images and representations persist long after they have been intellectually unmasked is in some sense the central ethical problem of the Ethics, it is why "we see the better but do the worse." What we know or think is often not as powerful as what we imagine. The political problem of Spinoza could be understood as the question as to how do we make the true not just an object of contemplation, something we think but do not do, but make it as something actually lived, an ideal which is embodied in our practices and our institutions.  Spinoza's idea of the limited efficacy of the true, or the need for an idea to become something not just thought but lived, is not without its corollary in Marx. As Marx writes in the Introduction to the Philosophy of Right, "The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses." This is a different understanding of the role and limitation of philosophy, less a stark divide between interpreting and changing than the beginning of a question of how do ideas become material, become effective.Our society does not much believe in ideas, let alone ideals. The modern university is in some sense an education in the ineffectivity of ideas. There is plenty of exposure to ideas, but the unwritten subtext of this exposure and education, is "do not take any of this seriously." Any teacher of philosophy is asked how will these ideas apply to real world, and every student in philosophy is asked what are you going to do with that? These questions are framed against a world in which what really matters, what really governs, is the ceaseless and unthinking transformation of capital, a transformation that takes place without ideas, or with only one, with the idea that anything makes a profit is good. All ideas that deviate from this are at best distractions and at worse harmful.Which brings me to perhaps the only thing to break me from this despair of the ineffectivity of thinking, the recent wave of actions and occupations in protest of the bombing and extermination of Palestinians in Gaza. Before the crackdowns on protests at Columbia, Emory, UT Austin, and elsewhere, there was USC's decision to cancel the graduate speech of Valedictorian Asna Tabassum. I remember learning that she minored in resistance to genocide. It seems absurd to expect students to study genocide and not speak out in the face of genocide. I wonder how many students at the occupations all over the nation are in some sense seeking the same thing, to translate what they have come to think into an action that is consistent with it, refusing the university's imperative "to argue, but obey the dictates of the endowment, donors, and corporate interests," an imperative that reduces all arguments and debates to bullshit because they are disconnected from any realization. Such an interpretation probably gives too much credit to the right's position that universities are dominated by critical race theory, Marxism, and other intellectual bogeymen. All those students at the occupations are probably not minoring in genocide studies. More importantly it overlooks an important aspect of occupations, a thread connection 2010 and 2011 to the current wave of occupations, the occupation library and teach in. The occupations are not just sites of practice, attempts to put theory into practice, but also attempts to understand the world, and most importantly to wrestle with ideas and histories excluded from the curriculum. I wonder how many people at the occupation are trying to just make sense of the images they have seen on various screens, namely, the destruction and death in Gaza that has gone on for months now, not just unhindered but aided by most of the world. It seems to me that the occupations are not some disruption of the university's normal function, but an attempt to fulfill what should be the mission of university: to think and live critically. At this moment in time, they are the university.