Speech by Gunsham Seeborun,Founder & President of F.A.L.C.O.N Association,Mauritius

正I present myself; Mr Gunsham Seeborun, Founder President of F.A.L.C.O.N Association.On behalf of F.A.L.C.O.N Association and other affiliated organizations in Mauritius, we would like to congratulate the Communist Party of China(CPC) for its 100 th anniversary. I would like to seize this opportunity to thank the Beijing NGO Network for our sustained friendship throughout these years.     

Congressional Communication: Content & Consequences,by Daniel Lipinski. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. 143 pp. $29.95 paper.

Television interviews with political candidates are pivotal moments in election campaigns. Previous studies in Anglo-American contexts have shown that adversarialism in television interviews can be predicted by the power of the politician and by the status of the interviewer. However, worldwide the structural conditions of the liberal media system are unique. This article studies how the Anglo-American watchdog model of interviews should be adapted to polarized television markets such as Italy, where broadcast organizations are politically, financially, and historically linked to different political blocks. A content analysis of the level of toughness in questions posed to politicians from different parties during the 2006 and 2008 Italian general elections showed that, in line with the watchdog model, journalists are more adversarial toward politicians who are likely to win the elections. Apart from this, interviews in polarized television markets follow a different model: Interviewers with high status are less adversarial, politicians from minor parties face more threatening questions, and partisan bias is more important than role bias. The generalizability of this model is discussed in the light of the polarization of television markets, partisan segregation, and the potential consequences for vote choice and election outcomes.     

Mexico's Southern Flank: The “Third” U.S. Border

Mexico's crime-ridden southern frontier has become a veritable third U.S. border, as a constant flow of Central Americans and others cross into Mexico, often en route to the United States. As the number of unlawful migrants surges, their characteristics are changing: recent apprehensions include nationals of Caribbean, Middle Eastern, and Asian nations, and foreigners linked to terrorism are using Mexico as a thoroughfare to the United States. Mexico's immigration department is hindered by a number of factors in stanching this flow, and Mexican officials have only begun to publicly recognize the severity of the problem. Washington, too, must wake up to the security threat posed by Mexico's soft underbelly.     

The Confluence of Domestic and International Interests: U.S. Policy Toward Cuba, 1998–2001

This article examines the confluence of forces at work to shape U.S. policy toward Cuba since the late 1990s. Our approach examines four key factors involved in policymaking toward Cuba in this period: (1) the entry of new interest groups into the Cuba policy process and an "entrepreneurial" Congress; (2) the executive's constitutionally based interests; (3) bureaucratic interests; and (4) pressure from outside the United States. We examine U.S.–Cuba policy by describing each determinant in isolation and then by looking at the dynamic interaction among them, showing how they are linked together. In doing so, we argue that an analysis including multiple factors better explains U.S. policy toward Cuba than one that focuses on a single factor such as the power of the Cuban-American community.