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PurposeMobile phone adoption and diffusion in low economic development countries (LEDCs) may provide for greater information access using open educational resources to support large‐scale teacher education programmes. The purpose of this paper is to explore this.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on evaluations of the current basic services provision in South Sudan and the identified needs for improving English language teaching, this conceptual paper presents an analysis of the nature and extent of teacher training needs in South Sudan, and the capacity of the current system to deliver against those needs.FindingsThe education system in South Sudan is ranked among the lowest in the world for primary and secondary enrollment. South Sudan is faced with the almost impossible task of tripling its teacher work force, but the quantity and quality of training required cannot be delivered through existing teacher training institutes.Research limitations/implicationsThe immediate post‐conflict situation in the new nation state, transitioning from humanitarian relief to international development activities, means that hard national data are tentative and emergent.Practical implicationsThe author puts forth an argument for a radically different approach to teacher professional development capable of operating at sufficient scale to enable the government of South Sudan to meet its ambitious target of adequately educating 3.5 million students.Originality/valueThere is very little in the literature that examines the use of mobile phones to support professional learning within the educational domain, particularly in the context of LEDCs; equally, there is little in the literature that addresses how LEDC governments might meet the challenges of scale and access through appropriate models of school based teacher development (SBTD).

Arbatov comments on Stalin's immediate post-WWII intentions; the Russian military-industrial complex; why Gorbachev failed; Western-Russian relations &, specifically, British-Russian relations; Russian nuclear security; Russian & US presidential candidates; Islamic fundamentalism as the US's new enemy to justify defense spending; Iranian nuclear aspirations; & the People's Republic of China's military buildup. Adapted from the source document.

Part of a 2002 panel debate on a book by Joanne P. Sharp, Condensing the Cold War: Reader's Digest and American Identity (2000), which is praised for its insightful & original contributions to popular geopolitics. Though Sharp's arguments concerning the uniqueness of the Reader's Digest in disseminating geopolitical knowledge to the US population are clear, she devotes little attention to the interrelationships between that periodical & other forms of popular media, particularly Cold War-era films & TV. Further research is also needed on the interactions between such discourses & their audiences, as well as on ways that the "nexus of values" identified by Sharp as comprising a unique form of citizenship in the US impacted popular understandings of Cold War geopolitics. K. Hyatt Stewart

This article reviews recent attempts to create integrated pan-European stock markets and draws on extensive qualitative research carried out on London-based financial services firms and institutions between 1996 and 2000. The article uses the example of stock market integration and the creation of electronic trading platforms to examine the question of why it is that despite advances in technology and telecommunications financial agglomerations in inner urban areas continue to dominate financial markets. It is suggested that a variety of explanations hold the key to this question but that in terms of European stock market integration the agency on the part of institutional players, in particular the larger exchanges, is setting the pace for change but that technology issues are the framework within which they work as well as often the battlefield upon which they compete. Despite the prevalence of technologies capable of producing geographically disaggregated markets, it is shown that in order to best work these markets there are still advantages to be had from locating finance firms'trading operations in the midst of financial agglomerations. It is concluded that as the future of market structures and operation are the result of embedded human and institutional agency, inter-urban rivalries will continue to be crucial to the shape and location of European financial markets and activities.