A 'Week that Changed the World': Britain and Nixon's China Visit of 21-28 February 1972

British diplomats considered President Nixon's China visit of February 1972 a major political success. But while they admired the Realpolitik of Henry Kissinger, the President's National Security Adviser, they were irritated by his reticence regarding the initiative, and by the way in which this impeded their own efforts to raise the status of Britain's diplomatic mission in Peking. Initial American objections to any change in Britain's stance on the admission of the People's Republic to the UN weakened their negotiating position, and led to a protracted tussle with Peking over the status of Taiwan. Marginalized by Kissinger's conduct, the British drew some satisfaction from the fact that the State Department seemed equally by-passed     

《中国周边民族宗教概况》专题之十一——孟加拉民族宗教概况

孟加拉人民共和国(The People's Republic of Bangladesh)位于南亚次大陆东北部的恒河和布拉马普特拉河冲积而成的三角洲上,东、西、北部三面与印度相邻,东南部与缅甸接壤,南部濒临孟加拉湾.国土面积143998平方公里,首都达卡(Dhaka).据2002年7月统计,全国人口1.33亿①.伊斯兰教为国教,居民中穆斯林占全国人口总数的83%,印度教徒占16%,佛教徒和基督教徒等占1%②.孟加拉语为国语,英语为官方语言.     

Violence,politics and the state in Bangladesh

The politics and ideology of South Asia has been characterised by violence for a considerable time. Bangladesh is no exception, where violence is both widespread and multifaceted. It arises for political, economic, and socio-cultural reasons and is evidenced not only in the incidence of violence but also in the availability of small arms, in the evident political ties with violent organisations and criminal activities, in the prevalence of corruption and the effect which all this has on the forces of law and order. This poses enormous challenges for the state which urgently needs to introduce measures of reform in the judicial and police administration system. De-linking politics from the activities of criminals and terrorists is an important first step toward this goal.     

Implementing and evaluating microcredit in Bangladesh

Microcredit has been introduced to rural communities in Bangladesh as a means of economic and social development, but there are increasing doubts about its effectiveness and suggestions that it causes domestic abuse. A review of various studies indicates that microcredit can result in social disruption by exacerbating gender conflict. It is suggested that micro-level study is required before credit is introduced to local communities.     

孟加拉国的气候灾害及其治理

气候变化是当今世界面临的最大挑战之一。近年来,气候变化诱发灾害的密度和发生频率在急剧上升。地势低洼且靠海的孟加拉国是气候变化最易受害的国家之一。频繁的气候灾害诸如洪水、热带旋风给孟加拉国社会经济发展带来了严重影响。本文回顾了孟加拉国极端气候灾害的状况和特点,重点探讨其治理气候灾害的政策抉择及其缺失。     

孟加拉国伊斯兰极端势力发展历史及其根源

传统的伊斯兰宗教文化、经济上的贫困落后、不成熟的民主政治环境下的不良政党斗争、吏治腐败,再加上国际伊斯兰原教旨主义思潮和"革命"的影响,独立后经过30多年的政局演变,孟加拉国最终成为极端主义孳生的温床。     

Britain and the Kuwaiti crisis, 1961

The Kuwaiti crisis of 1961 has conventionally been accorded little attention in histories of Britain's role in the Middle East. In fact, the crisis was an important defining moment, focusing the minds of policymakers on British interests in the Gulf, and the question of the best means of preserving them. It was also the largest scale mobilization of British forces in the Middle East in the post-Suez era. This article sets the crisis in the context of longer term British relations with Kuwait, internal developments in the Emirate, the evolution of British strategy in the region since Suez and Kuwaiti-Iraqi relations in order to understand the significance of the episode.     

Urban children's work during and after the 1998 floods in Bangladesh

The 1998 floods, which inundated much of Bangladesh, had a major effect on the lives and work of urban slum children. Lack of work opportunities, and beliefs about appropriate roles for young children, meant that the floods did not lead to great increases in workforce entry and in some cases led to a reduction in the opportunities available. Children's domestic work was also affected. Children's paid and domestic work had an important impact on how well households survived during and after the floods. The findings highlight the simultaneously beneficial and harmful nature of much child labour, and are therefore relevant to the dilemmas that face policy makers in this area. The research reported on in this article also has implications for those involved in disaster relief policy making.     

Indian migrants in Britain

This article discusses the social linkages between Gujarati migrants in Britain and their family members in India. It considers the home and the migrant community in the same unit of analysis rather than as separate communities. It is based on fieldwork conducted in 1998 among members of the Patidar community in rural central Gujarat and among their relatives in London in 1999.This article is based on the data collected for our research project titled `Long-Distance Familism; Social Linkages between West India and Britain; The Case of the Patidars from Central Gujarat', sponsored by the Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development (IDPAD). An earlier version of the paper was presented at the conference on Asia in Europe, Europe in Asia, 7-8 December 2001, Singapore, organised by the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS).     

孟加拉国的政治民主化历程

孟加拉国的政治民主化历程可谓具有很强的自身特色。从建国初期的议会民主制到军人统治的总统制再到议会民主制 ,其经历犹如是一个圆圈 ,经过一段时间之后又回到了起始点。其一波三折的历程也显得异常地艰苦和漫长。同时孟加拉国又是南亚地区的大国 ,在南亚非常具有代表性 ,研究其政治民主化有助于我们理解其他南亚国家和发展中国家的民主化进程。所以本文拟就孟加拉国自建国之日起至 1991年的政治民主化发展历程和出现挫折的原因进行论述 ,并对孟加拉国当前的民主化现状和未来的前景进行分析和探讨。     

IAI Activities for the first quarter 1972

Responding to the increasing inadequacy of the UN and especially the Security Council (SC) in dealing with today's challenges and threats, Italy has actively taken part in the reform debate. Since the 1993 Memorandum and through the experience of the Coffee Club in the 1990s, the United for Consensus movement initiated in 2004 and its current mandate as non-permanent member of the SC for the 2007–08 period, Italy has campaigned against any increase in the number of individual permanent seats, which it feels would undermine its role and be an obstacle to a genuine European approach to SC issues. Yet, given the difficulties of SC reform, Italy cannot afford to limit itself to a merely obstructionist policy, which could prove sterile in the long run. Italy must promote and implement concrete initiatives that have the potential to re-establish the body's authority and relaunch multilateral dynamics at the international level, while reaffirming its own importance in the global arena.     

Intelligence culture and intelligence failure in Britain and the United States

This article argues for the value of a theory of ‘intelligence culture’ in understanding not only how national intelligence systems work but also how intelligence failures occur in those systems. A model of national intelligence cultures in the governments of the United Kingdom and United States of America is developed combining existing work on organisational culture in the two countries with the author's comparative analysis of different conceptions of intelligence culture in the two systems. This model is used to develop a failure mode analysis of the two systems, which is then tentatively assessed against representative examples from the two countries, culminating in application of the model to the failure of both intelligence systems to correctly estimate Iraqi weapons of mass destruction capabilities prior to March 2003.     

Customary and contemporary resources for women's empowerment in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, dramatic social and economic changes are transforming historical forms of patriarchy with various impacts on pathways to women's empowerment. We hypothesised contemporary resources would be more strongly associated with women's empowerment, as reflected in their influence in family decisions. In cross-sectional analysis, we found the contemporary resources of employment and membership in NGOs were most strongly and consistently associated with women's influence in family decisions. Education was only modestly associated, as were customary resources, including age and fertility. Programmatic efforts to enhance women's empowerment should consider the rapidly changing environment and the importance of women's economic participation.