Mapping fears: the use of commercial high-resolution satellite imagery in international affairs

In October and November 2001, the Pentagon purchased the rights to all images of Afghanistan taken by the Ikonos remote sensing satellite, a high-resolution satellite owned and operated by Space Imaging, Inc. Ikonos is one of a growing number of privately owned and operated remote sensing satellites. It is suggested that Ikonos and other high-resolution satellites carry at least two challenges to national security policy makers. The first is a challenge to operational security – the ability to plan, prepare and carry out military operations in a controlled information environment. Second, commercial remote sensing presents a political challenge to policy makers. Policy makers today face a greater challenge in their efforts to maintain control over the content of debate concerning national and international security priorities and objectives. It is argued here that the nature of the security policy debate itself is in the midst of a fundamental shift in tone and quality as a result of remote sensing satellite technology. It was principally this latter challenge – and not a concern over operational security – that led to the Pentagon's purchase of all Ikonos images during the opening phases of the war in Afganistan.     

The Sacrifices of Micro-Borrowers in Ghana – A Customer-Protection Perspective on Measuring Over-Indebtedness

This article measures the over-indebtedness of micro-borrowers. It defines over-indebtedness from a customer-protection perspective, based on the borrowers' sacrifices. We analyse the sacrifices borrowers experience and find that 30 per cent of borrowers are over-indebted. We then test risk management indicators of debt problems as predictors of over-indebtedness. Over-indebtedness is strongly related to delinquency and the debt-to-income ratio but not to debt amounts or to multiple borrowing. Although our model correctly predicts 72.6 per cent of cases, even the best indicators identify only a few over-indebted borrowers. Risk management is not enough to protect customers against over-indebtedness but the industry needs to measure customer experiences directly.     

Raman Spectroscopy as a Simple,Rapid, Nondestructive Screening Test for Methamphetamine in Clandestine Laboratory Liquids

Raman spectroscopy has found increased use in the forensic controlled substances laboratory in recent years due to its rapid and nondestructive analysis capabilities. Here, Raman spectroscopy as a screening test for methamphetamine in clandestine laboratory liquid samples is discussed as a way to improve the efficiency of a laboratory by identifying the most probative samples for further workup among multiple samples submitted for analysis. Solutions of methamphetamine in ethanol, diethyl ether, and Coleman fuel were prepared in concentrations ranging from 0.5% to 10% w/v, and Raman spectra of each were collected. A concentration‐dependant Raman peak was observed at 1003 per cm in each solution in 4% w/v and greater solutions. Case samples were analyzed and also found to reliably contain this diagnostic peak when methamphetamine was present. The use of this diagnostic indicator can save the forensic controlled substances laboratory time and materials when analyzing clandestine laboratory liquid submissions.     

Justinian's Institutional Classification and the Class of Quasi-Delict

This article examines the records of free-standing proof-of-age hearings from their probable introduction around the mid thirteenth century to their formal consolidation by the beginning of the fourteenth. It traces the gradual establishment of a hybrid legal form, unique to proof hearings, whereby individual jurors were routinely questioned as to the basis of their knowledge of an heir's birth and replied with a statement of plausible personal connection with the birth. It shows in detail how a rationalising legal bureaucracy encountered the expectations and practices of local jurors and recorders and the compromises that resulted in an enduring legal form.     

“Another World is Possible”: Theorizing the Radical Politics of Democracy,North and South

This article examines the cultural politics of organizing in the Occupy LA movement. Utilizing ethnographic methods and the analysis of digital media sources produced by a variety of Occupy activists, this study focuses on how members of Occupy LA, in the post camp eviction period, made efforts to infuse a new kind of class politics among members of the newly and structurally dispossessed in the Los Angeles area. It focuses mainly on their efforts to build bridges among a variety of community based social movements during specific actions such as May Day 2012 and their efforts to ally themselves with organizations fighting the gentrification of Downtown Los Angeles and Skid Row in particular. Utilizing the theoretical lens of David Harvey's notion of “accumulation by dispossession” it concludes that Occupy LA has helped to open up new opportunities for rethinking the concept of “class consciousness” and its relationship to the structural dispossession of black and Latino communities. It also concludes that while this new politics is tentative and fragile, it has also opened up a creativity in thinking through the practical organizational issues of dealing with organizing across lines of race, class, and gender.     

Regulating the race: Aboriginal children in private European homes in colonial Australia

Abstract

This article focuses on the incorporation of Aboriginal children into European families on a private basis in the colonial era. While state-based missions and reserves were central sites where Aboriginal children were placed, other Aboriginal children were privately placed with European families during the colonial era. This article explores the shifting reasons for this practice. It finds that Aboriginal children who entered European families away from the control of the state came under the control of Europeans through a variety of ways. Initially, Aboriginal child removals were conducted during the course of violent frontier conflict or involved children who had been impacted by introduced European diseases. Smaller numbers of Indigenous children were taken as objects of curiosity. As the nineteenth century progressed, however, it became increasingly common for settlers to take Indigenous children for labour purposes. The article argues that the white middle-class family was positioned as a site for “civilising” children, where the moral regulation of childhood was conducted. This article adds a new dimension to colonial understandings about the role and structure of the family. It also expands understandings about Indigenous child removal in Australia's past.     

Prompting democratic transitions from abroad: International donors and multi‐partyism in Tanzania

It is generally accepted that the international donor community influences the politics of recipient states. In particular, donor calls for political liberalization are seen to have had, and continue to have, effects upon democratization in countries dependent upon international economic assistance. Such democratic contingency tied to aid suggests that the continuation of aid flows, and possibly an increase in aid transfer sums, occurs in response to political liberalization. It also implies the threat of decreases in, or even cessation of, foreign aid should the recipient state fail to implement political reform. This research assesses the role that the donor community plays in recipient states’ transition to democracy, focusing on Tanzania as a case study. Tanzania, a major recipient of foreign aid, underwent fundamental political reform in 1992. This study combines analysis of fluctuations in bilateral aid flows to Tanzania with interpretations of the causal role played by donor pressure from the perspectives of representatives of the donor community as well as from members of Tanzania's political elite. These perspectives are derived from original interviews conducted by the author. The findings indicate no correlation between fluctuations in aid transfers and Tanzania's implementation of multi‐party democracy. Rather, it was the perception among the Tanzanian leadership of a direct linkage between donor aid disbursements and political liberalization that prompted the political transition.