Risk management for targeting customs controls in developing countries: a risky venture for revenue performance?

Customs authorities in developing countries are often reluctant to forget systematic inspections for fear of risking revenue loss. Such physical inspections however, impede rather than facilitate trade. Control selectivity is therefore a key issue in customs administration reform. This paper shows how a sophisticated risk management method can facilitate trade by automatically and rationally selecting transactions, with the end result of actually enhancing revenue performance. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Histological examination of carotid artery tissue in cases of ligature strangulation and hanging

Violence against the neck can result in a range of macromorphological and micromorphological findings. However, the forensic relevance of the carotid sinus in cases of violence against the neck remains controversial. In this follow-up study of 22 cases of suicidal and accidental strangulations, carotid bifurcations were examined histologically for morphological changes implying direct trauma, including haemorrhage and immunohistochemical expression of heat-shock proteins 27, 60, and 70 and aquaporin-3. These cases were compared with a control group (82 cases) without neck compression or head trauma and with variable causes of death. No relevant histopathological findings implying direct trauma of the carotid bifurcation were found. No cases showed positive aquaporin-3 staining and only five cases showed positive heat-shock protein-27 staining, all of which were hangings. Without massive trauma of the carotid bifurcation, histological alterations cannot be expected. Without signs of rapid death, findings of acute circulatory failure, macromorphological and micromorphological findings of neck compression, and reliable markers indicating relevant impact on the carotid bifurcation the diagnosis of a lethal reflex cannot be verified.

Key points

• Among 22 cases of strangulation causing death, there were 16 cases of hanging and 6 cases of ligature strangulation
• Few cases showed small haemorrhages located predominantly in the surrounding fat and connective tissues; however, the haemorrhages did not have any effects on the tissues
• Neck compression had minimal effects on heat shock protein 27 expression in carotid artery tissue
• Aquaporin-3 staining suggested it is not a useful marker for relevant neck pressure, or that there had not been any relevant neck impact
• Our findings suggested no direct evidence for reflex cardiac death resulting from a brief force against the neck

     

Giving Afghan Women a Voice: women's writing in Afghanistan

This article considers how far women's rights have improved in Afghanistan since the intervention by the international community in 2001. It examines this question through the author's experience of working with an Afghan women's writing group. It looks at the tension between allowing Afghan women to voice their experiences, and the danger of their writing embracing depictions of the female as ‘victim’. It concludes that while depictions of Afghan womanhood may appear to promote ‘negative’ images, the women themselves offer positive role models.     

Community,citizenship and the maligned state in modernising mexico

The fashion for ‘subaltern studies’ has taken researchers back to the archive and field in search of social agents both marginalised and forgotten. In Mexico this has entailed an exacting task of reconstructing the lives of Indians and peasants on the remote frontiers of state influence. The books reviewed here are worthy examples of this project. They offer illuminating glimpses of the ways in which such semi‐autonomous societies experienced the extension of state rule as modern Mexico emerged painfully as a nation. If they are to be faulted it is in the emphasis they place on ‘the People's’ resistance to assimilation, implicitly heroic, whilst casting a rather contemporary light, often explicitly pejorative, on to the efforts of those other agents whose efforts were directed at the creation of a uniform citizenship.

Wandering Peoples: Colonialism, Ethnic Spaces, and Ecological Frontiers in Northwestern Mexico, 1700–1850, by Cynthia Radding. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 1997. Pp.xx + 403. £57.50 (hardback); £17.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 8223 1907 1 and 1899 7

Thread of Blood: Colonialism, Revolution, and Gender on Mexico's Northern Frontier, by Ana Maria Alonso. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1995. Pp.xi + 303. $45 (hardback); $19.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 8165 1511 5 and 1574 3

Cultural Politics in Revolution: Teachers, Peasants, and Schools in Mexico, 1930–40, by Mary Kay Vaughan. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1997. Pp.xiii + 262. $45 (hardback); $17.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 8165 1675 8 and 1676 6