浅谈新课程对农村中学外语教学所形成的挑战与思考

农村中学外语教学在新课程中将面临一系列新的挑战,如何认识与应对这些挑战,走出应试教学的阴影,适应课改新形势的发展需要,全面推行素质教育,大面积提高农村中学英语教学质量,有若干问题需要思考与解决。     

Resource nationalism or resource liberalism? Explaining Australia's approach to Chinese investment in its minerals sector

Since 2005, a burgeoning wave of Chinese investments has set off a new ‘minerals boom’ in the Australian iron ore and coal mining sectors. While normally a welcome development, the state-owned and strategic nature of the investors has raised concerns in Australia about how these should be regulated. As a result, in February 2008 the Australian government declared an intention to more closely screen foreign direct investment (FDI) from state-owned sources, which both supporters and detractors alike have claimed is evidence of ‘resource nationalism’ in Australia's approach towards its trade and investment relationships with China. This article challenges this understanding through an examination of the characteristics of Chinese mining FDI, the dilemmas these present to the Australian government, and the relatively restrained nature of its response. Through this, Australia's FDI policy is explained as a defensive move against the potential for strategic behaviour by Chinese investors resulting from their state ownership, rather than any national program to subject minerals trade and investment to political control. On this basis, the article argues that Australian government policy instead evidences a ‘resource liberalism’ approach, which intends to ensure that the governance of Australia's minerals trade and investment with China remain market-based processes.     

当代美国外来移民的学历构成分析:1965-2000年

自1965年以来迁入美国的外来移民日渐增多,并在20世纪末期达到了历史高潮。在入境移民中,整体学历结构呈两极化趋势:即接受1-11年教育的移民和在大学学习一年以上的移民比例相对较高,而高中毕业的移民数量较少。这种状况源于美国移民政策中强调移民家庭团聚条款,同时也因为美国在20世纪后半期吸纳了大量难民,赦免了数百万低学历的非法移民。在各民族群体中,墨西哥和拉丁美洲移民的学历整体较低,亚洲和欧洲移民的学历较高。另一方面,高学历移民呈逐渐提高的趋势,特别是在90年代更加明显,这主要归因于美国政府加大引进外国优秀人才的政策。大量优秀人才从中国等发展中国家的流失值得重视。     

麦克米伦政府与塞浦路斯独立

麦克米伦执政时期,塞浦路斯已成为英国的一种负担。岛内希腊族人要求归并希腊,为此与土耳其族人、英国殖民当局发生的武装冲突愈演愈烈。由于希腊和土耳其的介入,塞浦路斯问题日益复杂化和国际化。出于现实的考虑,麦克米伦政府不断修改对塞浦路斯的政策,最终在保留英国军事基地主权的前提下同意塞浦路斯独立。英国由此从塞浦路斯的泥淖中得以脱身,塞浦路斯岛内则获得了短暂的和平。     

The Global Economic Crisis and Foreign Investment in Russia from the EU: Empirical Evidence from Firm-Level Data

This paper empirically examines the impact of the recent global economic crisis on foreign investment from EU countries in Russia by estimating a location choice model for foreign firms' entry in Russian regions for the period 1997-2011. It also examines the relative importance of various determinants of location choice on the redistribution of foreign-owned firms among Russian regions before and after the crisis. Strong evidence during the post-crisis period (2008-2011) of a decrease in market-seeking foreign investment in manufacturing and resource-seeking foreign investment in trade is examined not only in light of the crisis but also (in the latter case) within the context of the new Russian law for foreign investment in strategic industries, which went into effect in 2008.     

British Diplomacy,Propaganda, and War Strategy and the Hungarian-Romanian Dispute over Transylvania in 1939–40

Abstract

Between 1914 and 1935, the cities of Vienna and Pressburg/Bratislava were linked by an electric railway known as the Pressburgerbahn. More than just a line of transportation, the railway became intertwined with the complex politics of identity in Pressburg. The Pressburgerbahn presented nationalists in the Habsburg Empire with a dilemma: it had the potential to contribute to the unification of the nation, but at the same time was transnational by definition. This paradox generated a heated controversy about the Pressburgerbahn between Magyar nationalists and the predominantly German-speaking Pressburg bourgeoisie. Using biologized rhetoric, Hungarian politicians and journalists portrayed their nation as a body politic that was disfigured by having a railway ‘vein’ cross the border into Austria, in particular from such a peripheral location as Pressburg. By contrast, the discourse of the German-speaking bourgeoisie was firmly anchored in an imperial, supra-ethnic landscape. This controversy was replayed following the incorporation of the renamed city of Bratislava into Czechoslovakia in 1919: the Prague-based Ministry of Railways employed the rhetoric of the railway as an integrating structure within the body politic, while the eventual closure of the Pressburgerbahn in 1935 was closely connected to the belated nationalization of Bratislava. The railway to Vienna thus became a symbol of the liminal status of the town as a whole, in terms of nation, geography, politics and culture.     

货币战争:近代中国对外国在华发行钞票的抵制北大核心CSSCI

外国银行在华发钞的走势与列强的侵华路线相一致,从通商口岸深入京畿堂奥,从边疆商埠渐及内地城乡。外钞在华泛滥成灾,引起中国官绅商民的抵制,东北是中外攻防激烈的地区。近代时段,伴随中华民族的觉醒,中国力谋收回金融主权,中外之间展开了没有硝烟的货币战争。中方采取的主要举措有:颁行统一币制的法令章程;建立中国的银行体系;积极发行中国纸钞;直接限禁外钞。1934年的法币改革后,外钞基本退出中国的发行市场。货币战争只有在中华人民共和国建立后才彻底取得最终胜利。     

Environmental Regulations and Multinational Corporations' Foreign Market Entry Investments

In this study, we examine how differences in environmental regulation characteristics are linked to multinational corporations' (MNCs) foreign market entry (FME) investments decisions around the world. We rely on a data set with 29,303 observations from 94 European Fortune Global 500 companies operating across 77 countries during the period 2001–2007. We found that MNCs are more likely to enter countries with more certain—i.e., clearer and more stable—environmental regulations than those of their home countries. Results also suggest that there is a higher level of MNC entry into foreign countries with environmental regulations that are more stringent than those of their home countries. This finding challenges the controversial but commonly held view that more stringent environmental regulations deter MNCs' FME investments. Notably, the magnitude of the regulatory certainty relationship with MNCs' FME investments is larger than that of regulatory stringency. Findings also indicate that the increased tendency of MNCs to enter countries with more stringent environmental regulations is higher in more democratic countries and for cleaner industry firms.     

Towards the Baghdad Pact: South Asia and Middle East Defence in the Gold War, 19477ndash;1955

This article illustrates US policy on European integration and the European Economic Community (EEC) by focusing on the General Agreement on Tarriff and Trade (GATT) Kennedy Round negotiations (1963–7). However underestimated in the history of international relations, GATT provides in fact an outstanding framework for analysing the foreign policy of its members. Whilst analyses of the Round per se already exist, no scholar thus far has focused on US policy towards European integration. Moreover, no previous author has utilised the European archives and has examined the stances of the EEC. This article shows that US support for European integration, which both Kennedy and Johnson followed at the behest of the ‘Europeanists’ in their respective administrations, conditioned the bargaining position of the United States in Geneva. The US negotiators tried to enhance US trade interests while at the same time attempting to encourage European regional integration. In so doing, the United States played a role in the strengthening of European regional integration by favouring the unity of the area. Moreover, contrary to previous accounts, this article shows that US negotiators were able to direct and move forward a complicated negotiation, showing Washington's leadership. The article concludes by showing that the Kennedy Round ended a period of about twenty years during which the United States acted to promote the unity of Western Europe. At the end of the 1960s, with the worsening of the US economic conditions, the tension in transatlantic relations over monetary and security issues, and the strength that the EEC demonstrated during the Kennedy Round, ‘the Europeanists’ were no longer able to prevail with their line in the internal discussions. This change became apparent when the Nixon administration shifted to a more detached and ambiguous policy towards European integration.     

The Failure of ‘Liberal Developmentalism’: The United States's Anti-Communist Showcase in Guatemala, 1954–1960

This article examines the British involvement in the reorganisation of the Ottoman Empire's customs service. The study focuses particularly on the role of Sir Richard Crawford, who was appointed as a consultant to the Ottoman customs administration in 1909. In doing so, the article sheds fresh light on the position of European advisers as well as on British commercial diplomacy in the Ottoman Empire during the years preceding the First World War. This topic warrants further historical research as previous studies have not considered Crawford's position and the progress of the customs reform in detail. He introduced some important reforms, but proved unable to solve the complex question over the porterage service or to increase customs revenue as much as had been anticipated. War and revolution as well as the consequent disruption of trade; the vast geographical scope of the Ottoman Empire; and opposition from local and international stakeholders to his reforms explain to some extent why Crawford was unable to modernise the customs service as effectively as had been planned. In addition, Crawford's professional background and his personal characteristics were in some ways incompatible with the requirements of the demanding diplomatic world of Constantinople.