The geopolitical overlay of the hydropolitics of the Harirud River Basin

This paper explores the geopolitical overlay that is shaping dynamic hydropolitical interactions of the Harirud River Basin, which is a basin that spans Afghanistan, Iran and Turkmenistan. This paper argues that the control and capture of water resources are not solely for economic development but rather for geopolitical reasons that serve the security interests of the actors involved, particularly outside-basin powers like the US and India. The Afghan Government similarly views dams as symbols of nation-building and a way of staying in power. In the absence of a lasting trilateral agreement, the existing nature of the geopolitical dynamics of the basin has led upstream Afghanistan and downstream Iran and Turkmenistan to unilaterally establish their rights to control the “rules of the game”. This paper suggests that sustainable solutions will not be reached unless the geopolitical nature of the basin and outside interventions can center on a normative understanding of the regional interests, identities, and commonalities of all the riparian states.     

The most common method of suicide in Tehran 2000-2004: implications for prevention

The likelihood of completing suicide depends to some extent on knowledge of effective means and also on the availability and/or acceptability of such methods. Since studying suicide methods may have an implication for prevention, the focus of this study was on the most favored method of suicide in Tehran, Iran. The study uses confirmed suicide data provided by the Beheshet Zahra Organization (BZO), which gathers all mortality data within Tehran and enters them into a computerized database, from which the relevant information for all the recorded suicide cases during the year 2000 to 2004 were obtained and analyzed. There were 703 cases of suicide (632 males and 71 females) in the BZO database, with a sex ratio of 8.9. The mean (standard deviation) of age at suicide for those who chose hanging and for those who have chosen other methods of suicide were 33.93 (14.2) and 34.60 (13.4) years, respectively. Hanging was the method favored by 572 (85.9%) of cases. Use of hanging was higher in females (61, 85.9%) than in males (511, 80.9%), and higher among the married (304, 53.6%) than among singles (268, 46.4%). The high proportion of persons using hanging as a method of suicide in Tehran may reflect the fact that this method is more acceptable and/or easily available and/or less likely to be misclassified as accidental or undetermined death. The prevention of such suicides is extremely difficult in the general population. Therefore, it is suggested that, to prevent suicide by hangings, the authorities should focus on the causal factors of suicide rather than on the acceptability and/or the availability of this method.     

Fiscal variables and growth: A cross-sectional analysis

This paper examines the impact of the key fiscal variables — taxes, expenditures, and deficits — on economic growth performance, using a reduced-form model and cross-sectional data for a sample of 76 developed and developing countries for the period 1972–81. Its simultaneous consideration of fiscal variables overturns the results of some existing studies. While taxes seem negatively associated with GDP growth, they are concommitant with a higher rate of growth when their benefits in terms of reducing deficits are taken into account. The positive association of government expenditures with GDP growth is rendered negative when their impact on deficits are factored in. Deficits are contractionary, and deficit-reducing tax increases and expenditure cuts are positively associated with growth. A balanced budget expansion of taxes and expenditures is negatively associated with growth. When separating the sample into low-, middle- and high-income countries, these results hold only for the second group indicating that the level of development influences the linkages between fiscal variables and GDP growth.The views expressed herein are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the World Bank or its affiliated organizations.     

On the link between Chinese currency and its inpayments from and outpayments to trading partners: an asymmetric analysis

Economic Change and Restructuring - A country devalues or allows its currency to depreciate so that it can export more and increase its inpayments and import less to reduce its outpayments. Since...     

Iran's active neutrality during the Kuwaiti crisis: Reasons and ramifications

Abstract

Since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, Iranian foreign policy has become increasingly moderate. Iran's active neutrality during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait is symptomatic of this moderation. The policy of active neutrality became possible because Rafsanjani centralized the foreign policy decision‐making process before the start of the crisis and introduced his “new‐thinking” in the Persian Gulf. This new thinking was a part of his strategy to rebuild Iran's shattered economy and to improve relations with the West and with the Arabs of the Persian Gulf.

Without a single shot and without any casualty, Iran benefited enormously from the Kuwaiti war. Rafsanjani's domestic opponents were weakened. Iranian financial gains were significant. Iran's negative image improved. Relations improved with the West and with the Arab nations of the region. And the military and economic infrastructures of Iraq, Iran's archenemy, were seriously damaged, making Iran the region's most powerful indigenous force.

This article is partially based on interviews with Iranian policy‐makers conducted in 1991.     

Counter-revolution by Ideology? Law and development's vision(s) for post-revolutionary Egypt

Law and development, as both movement and practice, has led a tumultuous life: a hurried zenith cut short by a fatal critique followed by an opportunistic resurrection. The name alone is sufficient to trigger a range of reactions, extending from the complimentary to the condemnatory. In this article I track law and development's evolution via an examination of its role in the remodelling of Egyptian society in the post-Nasser era. While the 2011 revolution has encouraged institutions such as usaid to hasten their legal reform efforts, I argue that these are more akin to counter-revolution by ideology than genuine revolution by law. Nevertheless, rather than relegate the movement to the annals of imperial intrigue, I conclude by proposing the use of legal pluralism to revive, and possibly ignite, law and development's emancipatory potential.     

Towards an Emancipatory International Law: the Bolivarian reconstruction

In this article, we argue that a unique South American treaty known as ALBA—the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas—puts forward a cohesive counter-vision of international law rooted in notions of complementarity and human solidarity. We further argue that Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) scholars might use this initiative as a springboard to push forward a long-overdue reform of the international legal regime. While, on its own, ALBA is unlikely to pose much of a challenge to the structural imbalances that permeate global society, when juxtaposed alongside the many initiatives of the Bolivarian Revolution, it appears to possess significant democratic potential. With both scholarly and popular support, ALBA may even have the capability of sparking a renewal of a united Third World movement.     

Profile of Hospital Admissions due to Self‐Inflicted Harm in Los Angeles County from 2001 to 2010

We aimed to describe the demographic profile of self‐inflicted harm (SIH) in Los Angeles County between 2001 and 2010 and to investigate trends over this 10‐year period. We used the California Hospital Discharge Data to investigate all cases of hospital admission due to SIH, including suicide attempts and if they had a concurrent psychiatric diagnosis based on ICD‐9 codes. African‐Americans (AA) had the highest 10‐year SIH admission rates. SIH admission rates remained steady throughout the 10‐year study period. Median age of SIH was significantly lower in Latinos. Episodic mood disorders were the most common psychiatric comorbidity. The use of solid/liquid poisoning was the most common SIH method among all racial/ethnic groups. We found major disparities in SIH admissions across racial/ethnic subgroups. The importance of programs to identify, prevent, and treat SIH in these groups is discussed.     

A Multimodal Fusion Approach for Bullet Identification Systems

In the field of forensic science, bullet identification is based on the fact that firing the cartridge from a barrel leaves exclusive microscopic striation on the fired bullets as the fingerprint of the firearm. The bullet identification methods are categorized in 2‐D and 3‐D based on their image acquisition techniques. In this study, we focus on 2‐D optical images using a multimodal technique and propose several distinct methods as its modalities. The proposed method uses a multimodal rule‐based linear weighted fusion approach which combines the semantic level decisions from different modalities with a linear technique that its optimized modalities weights have been identified by the genetic algorithm. The proposed approach was applied on a dataset, which includes 180 2‐D bullet images fired from 90 different AK‐47 barrels. The experimentations showed that our approach attained better results compared to common methods in the field of bullet identification.