The spotlight is no longer on German social systems, demographic development, or academic deficits, but focuses on the consequences of climatic change, energy policies, global economic relations, and Africa's suffering. The political elites are facing rapidly growing public sentiment & politically active movements concerning the global future. The present discussions are a reminder of the early 1980's when a fierce battle raged between the conflict of skeptical calculation & a world salvaging mission fed by fears of catastrophes. The attitude & the engagement, particularly by the younger generation are important driving powers of necessary change. Adapted from the source document.
A brief introduction to the thematic issue of this journal devoted to global warming & its political, economic, ecological, & social consequences. It is noted that the heat wave of 2003 & the hurricane Cyril that passed over Europe on 18 January 2007 moved the debate over global warming from the gothic halls of the academia to the households of average citizens. It is observed that the climatic change is man-made & its future consequences are difficult to predict, but political, economic, & social forces need to be mobilized right now to prevent or mitigate them. The global warming also changes the traditional meaning of a state's foreign policy as defending the national interest of its citizens: this interest can no longer be tight to the well-being of an individual nation but the planet as a whole & thus demands a concerted international & transnational actions. Sigmar Gabriel, the German minister of the environment, is quoted to illustrate the paradigm shift in business & industry which will have to create new solutions, & in the process, new economic opportunities, when searching for alternative energy sources. Z. Dubiel
This article addresses regional features of the food sector in Russia's subnational territories. The diverse geographic and climatic characteristics as well as policy measures during the socialist era have resulted in specialised patterns of agricultural production. Under central planning regional demand and supply of food products was balanced by public intervention. With the beginning of the transition period the federal Russian government lost power and lacked financial means to continue this balancing mechanism. The regionalisation of policy-making increased the sovereignty of the subnational units in Russia. Today many of the regions pursue strategies of autarky and self-sufficiency and have implemented corresponding agricultural and food policies. Against the background, the evolving patterns of the food economy in Russia's regions are analysed quantitatively. We use a set of socio-economic indicators as well as food supply and demand variables to identify regional classes. Cluster analysis and discriminant analysis are applied to test the significance of the chosen variables for the group composition. The resulting classification focuses on relationships between agricultural sector performance and the welfare situation of households. It highlights that policy increasingly matters for regional diversity: first, different agricultural and food policies at the oblast level change the relative position of the regions in terms of food sector performance; second, the administrative status of a region (oblast versus autonomous region or republic) has an impact on the performance of the food sector in the region. We conclude, that the transition period has increased the disintegration of food markets and therefore the regional heterogeneity of the food sector in Russia.
The Zittau Mountains -situated in the extreme south-eastern corner of the Federal Republic of Germany- is a countryside dominated by forests, whose geological foundations mainly consist of sandstone. Its weathering forms, such as towers, needles, massifs and crevices lend the mountains in many places an often bizarre nature. The beauties of the countryside and the ruins of the Monastery Church and Leipa Castle -both of which are located on Mount Oybin- were the decisive aspects in contributing to the fact that, since the 18th century, guests have been visiting the Zittau Mountains. These visitors first came from Zittau, but soon also from other regions of the Upper Lausitz and Dresden. The extension of the infrastructure, initiated during the first third of the 19th century, the construction of railway tracks between Löbau and Zittau in 1848 and finally the completion of the narrow-gauge railway connection between Zittau and Oybin, i.e. Jonsdorf in 1890 also played an essential role in helping tourism gain impetus. The higher numbers of visitors lead to an increase in capacity for guests in the local inns and guest houses. Owners of older half-timbered houses also started offering rental services for guests wishing to spend the night. The almost continual increase in bed-capacity reached its first pinnacle before the Second World War. An expression of this fact can be seen on the basis of the example that the villages of Oybin and Jonsdorf were named spa resorts and Lükkendorf was named a climatic health resort. A rich curriculum of cultural events and destinations for hiking or mountain climbing during the Summer season served to make the Zittau Mountains exceedingly attractive. An increased number of Winter guests also started making their way here. After having overcome the consequences of the Second World War, tourism soon established itself again. However, now it was the task of the State Holiday Services of the Free German Union Association, the State Travel Agents as well as State-Owned Companies, Organisations and Parties to arrange hotel rooms (so-called "quarters") and hotels (so-called "catering offices"). The number of guests' rooms reached its pinnacle during this period. The tourist industry was faced with completely new problems after 1989/90, which lead to drastic changes. The company-owned holiday homes were closed down. Only a handful of these institutions found new owners, i.e. tenants, who were capable of carrying out the necessary modernisation work on the buildings. At the same time, the rental of holiday apartments and houses, as well as of single rooms increased continually. Guests from Saxony and Brandenburg, but also from the Western States of the Federal Republic and the Western and Northern European States now dominate the tourists spending their vacations in the Zittau Mountains.
