Britain,the united states and the control of nuclear weapons: The diplomacy of the Thor deployment 1956–58

The 'Tilea Affair' of March 1939 is among the most contentious of the short-term events leading to the Second World War. V.V. Tilea, the Romanian minister in London, brought information to the British Foreign Office, about an alleged German threat to his country. The guarantee to Poland soon followed and, in turn, the outbreak of the war. This article examines the evidence offered by contemporary British witnesses, the ensuing historical controversy - bringing to bear a variety of new revelations, including materials derived from the author's acquaintance with Tilea - and the present state of historical knowledge. It concludes that closure can be applied to most aspects of the 'Tilea Affair'.     

Anaphylaxis After the Injection of Buprenorphine

Cause of death rulings in cases when the concentration of a drug or drugs is higher than observed following therapeutic use are generally straightforward “drug deaths.” However, when toxicology testing identifies drug concentrations consistent with therapeutic use or detects no drugs at all, then the cause of death determination is more complicated. Given the rapidity and protean manifestations of anaphylaxis, it should be considered in deaths where no other cause of death is apparent in a suspected drug death. This article reports two cases where an anaphylactic reaction was observed following either the actual or alleged use of therapeutic formulations of buprenorphine intravenously.     

OMAN: A CENTURY OF OIL EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT

This is the history of the search for, and eventual discovery of, oil in Oman, from the first geological survey in 1925 by George Lees and his party through to modern times. For many years survey work was hampered by disputes between the tribes and the Sultan. Then bad luck with the Fahud-1 well in 1957 meant that it was not until 1963 that oil was finally struck in the Natih field. Oil quickly became the mainstay of the Omani economy. This is the slightly edited text of the lecture which he delivered to the Society on 20 February 2008.     

Green Grabbing: a new appropriation of nature?

Across the world, ‘green grabbing’ – the appropriation of land and resources for environmental ends – is an emerging process of deep and growing significance. The vigorous debate on ‘land grabbing’ already highlights instances where ‘green’ credentials are called upon to justify appropriations of land for food or fuel – as where large tracts of land are acquired not just for ‘more efficient farming’ or ‘food security’, but also to ‘alleviate pressure on forests’. In other cases, however, environmental green agendas are the core drivers and goals of grabs – whether linked to biodiversity conservation, biocarbon sequestration, biofuels, ecosystem services, ecotourism or ‘offsets’ related to any and all of these. In some cases these involve the wholesale alienation of land, and in others the restructuring of rules and authority in the access, use and management of resources that may have profoundly alienating effects. Green grabbing builds on well-known histories of colonial and neo-colonial resource alienation in the name of the environment – whether for parks, forest reserves or to halt assumed destructive local practices. Yet it involves novel forms of valuation, commodification and markets for pieces and aspects of nature, and an extraordinary new range of actors and alliances – as pension funds and venture capitalists, commodity traders and consultants, GIS service providers and business entrepreneurs, ecotourism companies and the military, green activists and anxious consumers among others find once-unlikely common interests. This collection draws new theorisation together with cases from African, Asian and Latin American settings, and links critical studies of nature with critical agrarian studies, to ask: To what extent and in what ways do ‘green grabs’ constitute new forms of appropriation of nature? How and when do circulations of green capital become manifest in actual appropriations on the ground – through what political and discursive dynamics? What are the implications for ecologies, landscapes and livelihoods? And who is gaining and who is losing – how are agrarian social relations, rights and authority being restructured, and in whose interests?