Negotiating a Korea – EU free trade agreement: easier said than done

A number of countries have chosen recently to shift away from an exclusive support to trade multilateralism and towards regional or bilateral trade agreements. Being no exceptions in this respect, the Republic of South Korea and the European Union have engaged in a bilateral FTA negotiation in early 2007. The objective of the paper is to account for the unexpected difficulties encountered in the negotiation. The paper starts with a brief overview of the trade and investment relations between the two partners and underlines the complementarity between the two partners, as well as their respective offensive and defensive interests. As a next step, the paper delves into the “politics” of the FTA negotiation with a view to highlighting the motivations and objectives of the various partners involved. It comes to the conclusion that the major reason why the negotiation turned out to be more complex than initially expected relates to the two partners’ diverging views as to what a discriminatory FTA should imply.     

Some aspects of science-based technological promotion

Scientific research car for scientific purposes. As such, scientific research will necessarily be evaluate scientific terms. However, scientific research can also be supported for such nonscientific purposes as economic development, industrialization, education, etc. In that case, evaluation of scientific research will be based on economic, educational, etc., yardsticks. This paper attempts to seek evaluation criteria for the public support of science for the purposes of technological promotion. Such a public investment is shown to be a risky process. The “riskiness” of the process is discussed within the framework of a model of science-based technology and expressed in stochastic terms. A decision-making framework is then developed on the basis of expected utility hypotheses.     

STR-genotyping from human medieval tooth and bone samples

We extracted the DNA contained in samples of bones and teeth from 10 skeletons excavated from the Gravette site (400-1000 AD, south of France). Ancient DNA was analysed by autosomal short tandem repeats (STRs). The DNA present in these ancient remains appeared very degraded, but nevertheless, better conserved in tooth than in bone samples. Moreover, we showed that the DNA extracted from ancient dental pulp was not exempt from polymerase chain reaction (PCR) inhibitors, which could result from extreme DNA fragmentation. An adapted protocol with a supplementary step of purification removed this inhibition.     

Echinococcal hydatid cyst at the right ventricle outlet with leakage to the pulmonary artery outflow causing follicular airway disease and sudden death

Postmortem examination of a 35-year-old parous woman who died suddenly revealed a hydatid cyst mass located at the right ventricular outlet, with a grossly discernible defect opening to the pulmonary outflow tract. Pulmonary hemorrhage, follicular bronchitis, and bronchiolitis also were present, with severe acute purulent exudation in the airways. Hydatid cyst complications must be kept in mind when dealing with sudden deterioration and death in patients who are residents of regions where echinococcosis is endemic.     

Inhalant abuse detection and evaluation in young Tunisians

Occupational exposure biological monitoring techniques were applied for the diagnosis of inhalation abuse and for the evaluation of the levels of exposure to benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes, and n-hexane, in 44 Tunisian adolescents and children suspected for volatile substance addiction. Urinary trans,trans-muconic acid, hippuric acid (HA), mandelic acid, and methylhippuric acids determinations were performed by high performance liquid chromatography with a photodiode array detector, and urinary o-cresol (o-Cr) and 2,5-hexanedione (HD) were extracted simultaneously and measured using gas chromatography with a flame ionization detector. Given the high linearity ranges, HD and o-Cr occupational exposure monitoring techniques could be applied without modification. However, urinary sample dilution was necessary before HA analysis. Concentrations were compared with the maxima of normal values (MNVs) in the general population and to the biological exposure indices (BEIs) used in occupational toxicology. Values as high as 6610-fold the MNV and 68 times the BEI were registered. The subjects showed high exposure to toluene and hexane. Measured metabolites HA and/or o-Cr and HD enabled the easy detection and evaluation of exposure levels. The problem of inhalant abuse should be given more attention and treated through an effective prevention strategy.     

The Oslo Talks: Revealing the Turkish Government's Secret Negotiations with the PKK

This article explores the extent to which the secret talks influenced the path of official negotiations toward ending Turkey's Kurdish conflict, which the scholarly literature has yet to assess. Utilizing interviews with key political actors, this article aims to close this gap by assessing the Oslo talks (2006–2011) as the most comprehensive secret contact between the Turkish government and Kurdistan Workers' Party. It demonstrates that the secret track is not merely a “pre-negotiation” stage aimed at de-escalating the violent conflict ahead of official talks, but also a crucial part of the negotiation stage aimed at establishing a final political agreement.     

Her Majesty's Protected Subjects: The Mishaqa Family in Ottoman Damascus

The protégé system that the Ottoman Empire encountered as the result of diplomatic relations with European powers later became a clear threat to the very existence of the empire. Among these powers, Britain, until the nineteenth century, executed its consular affairs via the Levant Company in the Middle East, but later employed local people, mostly non-Muslim Ottomans, as dragomans, consular agents and vice-consuls to execute its services in the region. The dragomans not only translated treaties and official documents, but also commented on the messages to and from the authorities and this gave them much more important roles. In this regard, members of the Mishaqa family served the British and later American interests under different posts ranging from dragoman, to consular agent and vice-consul. As they gained confidence, they were accorded British consular protection which provided them considerable privileges, and passed their duties to their sons. Unlike similar Levantine families who assumed dragomanship in the imperial centre as a household tradition, members of the Mishaqa family were deeply embedded in the local society and therefore could give insights on social and political changes in the Ottoman province of Damascus. After attaining British protection in 1840, members of the family served in British and American consulates until the beginning of the First World War. However, the protégé status of the family members paved the way for continued debates over their nationality and citizenship. This article attempts to present the basic codes of consular protection and Ottoman responses within the context of the story of Mishaqa family.     

Comparative lobbying research: advances,shortcomings and recommendations

This review article suggests that there is a new school of comparative lobbying emerging. However, this development is taking place only gradually. Unlike the earlier studies, which studied corporatism/pluralism, outside lobbying and lobbying regulations, the new comparativists are mainly focusing on inside lobbying strategies and success as a function of country‐level factors. Yet, the literature still suffers from underdeveloped theories. I stress that our knowledge can be improved with better theorizing. Better theories, in turn, can be formulated by improving the use of quantitative data gathering, qualitative research, formal models and better communication between researchers working with different methodologies in different disciplines. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.