The regional consequences of a dualistic industrial structure: the case of Australia

This article is a preliminary attempt to consider the spatial consequences of business organisation segmentation in the Australian economy. The first section outlines a framework that can be employed in an analysis of business organisation segmentation. The second section applies this framework in the context of the Australian economy. This section is in three parts. First, it is shown that conventional sectoral data can be used to approximate business organisation segmentation. Second, the labour market consequences of this empirical exercise are documented. Finally, the spatial consequences of the exercise are shown by way of a series of maps.     

China's oil diplomacy in Africa

Within the next five years, Chinese trade with Africa is predicted to reach $100 billion per year. Much of this springs from China's growing expansion into Africa's oil markets. It is argued that Chinese oil diplomacy in Africa has two main goals: in the short-term to secure oil supplies to help feed growing domestic demand back in China; and in the long-term, to position China as a global player in the international oil market. Yet at the same time, this oil safari is being accompanied by an explicit stance that emphasizes state sovereignty and 'non-interference' in domestic affairs and is wholly disinterested in transparency or human rights. Consequently, Beijing has increasingly been accused of turning a blind eye to autocracy and corruption. China is also threatening to undercut efforts by the African Union and its western partners to make government and business more accountable. While China is providing investment where little was previously forthcoming, concerns about Beijing's engagement with Africa's oil industries need to be resolved, not least by African leaders themselves.     

EUROPEAN BRIEFING

This article explores alternative interpretations of the meaning and method of urban policy evaluation within the European Union (EU) Structural Funds. Using the EU URBAN Community Initiative Programme 1994-1999 it draws a distinction between 'instrumental' techniques that are primarily concerned with performance and efficiency measures and 'interpretative' approaches that stress the need to explore power relationships in the development and delivery of spending programmes. Empirically, it reflects on the interpretation of EU guidance and the MEANS (Means for Evaluating Actions of a Structural Nature) Collection to evaluate the Derry/Londonderry (UK) URBAN Sub-programme 1994-1999. The analysis concludes by emphasizing the need to ensure that urban policy evaluation is consistent with the broader social turn in the scope and content of regeneration programmes.     

The second generation of human security: lessons from the UN and EU experience

The concept of human security, while much contested in both academic and policy debates, and highly fragmented across different meanings and forms of implementation, offers a potential locus around which global security discourse might converge, particularly in light of current shifts in US security thinking. However, key pioneers of human security, such as the United Nations and Canada, appear to be losing their enthusiasm for the concept, just at the moment when others such as the European Union, are advancing a human security agenda. This article examines the divergence of human security narratives between the UN and the EU. It argues that the UN's use of the concept ran aground owing to a triple problematic of lack of clarity, confusion between previously distinct policy streams on human rights and human development and conceptual overstretch. After assessing the EU experience with the concept to date, the article argues that future use of human security will require greater focus on how it deepens ideas of individual security, rather than treating it as an agenda for broadening security. As well as a need to project clarity on the conceptual definition of human security, there is also a need to associate human security with greater clarity of intent. If successful, this would contribute to establishing second generation human security as a new policy paradigm.     

Private security companies in Iraq and beyond

The numerical and functional prominence of armed and unarmed contractors on deployed operations has attracted analysis from a range of perspectives, as this collection of works illustrates. In addition to studies which seek to explain the growth in private security contractors' activities in terms of governmental needs, the books examined here consider the possible regulation of this sector and implications for the fundamentals of both national and international political systems. There are also works that throw light on the supply side, looking at the driving personalities behind the growth of Blackwater and the backgrounds of individual contractors. The review also includes an analytical framework for classifying different areas of contractor activities. The books include a range of research approaches and it is clear that the evolving political and managerial reasoning behind the outsourcing of security functions in general means that debate in this area will continue.     

AN INVESTIGATION OF THE PROVENANCE OF THE ROMAN AMPHORA CARGO FROM THE PLEMMIRIO B SHIPWRECK

Eighty-six Roman amphora sherds from the Plemmirio B shipwreck, off Sicily, have been analysed by neutron activation analysis. A large group representative of the amphora cargo, mainly of forms Africana 1 and Africana 2A (from the area of modern Tunisia), was subsequently defined. No differences between Africana 1 and Africana 2A samples were observed, thus implying a similar origin for both forms. The provenance of this cargo group was then investigated by comparison with a Roman amphora kiln data base. After elimination of the more mobile elements it was shown that the cargo amphorae were more likely to have been manufactured at kilns around Sullecthum rather than Leptis Minor. The analytical conclusions are thoroughly consistent with the known archaeological information.     

URANIUM VARIATIONS IN A DATED FOSSIL BONE SERIES FROM OLDUVAI GORGE,TANZANIA

Of twelve elements analyzed in a series of bovid teeth from the Olduvai Gorge, uranium is the only element which varies appreciably with the ages of the samples. Uranium concentrations increase at first, then decrease with increasing age, and therefore cannot be used by themselves to obtain absolute or even relative ages of the samples. A model accounting for the behaviour of uranium is proposed in which uranium is absorbed in the samples during the decay of organic material and is lost after this decay ceases. If one accounts for uranium losses, the concentrations of uranium and its decay products may be used to accurately date skeletal material from the Olduvai gorge.