Participation of CSOs/NGOs in Bangladeshi climate change policy formulation: co-operation or co-optation?

The Bangladesh government formulated the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategies and Action Plans (BCCSAP) in 2008 through a participatory process involving several CSOs/NGOs and others. This article discusses the participation of CSOs/NGOs in climate change policy-making, focusing on mapping their level of participation in policy-making. It demonstrates that state laws allow CSOs/NGOs to implement several projects voluntarily, but largely prohibit their participation in political decision-making processes. The state invites a few CSOs/NGOs as a condition to receive aid, but displays arbitrary and co-opting attitudes towards CSOs/NGOs that rarely ensure joint decisions in creating policy.     

Islamist militancy in Sierra Leone

This article examines the contemporary Islamic trends in post-conflict Sierra Leone (through 2009) against the background of international concerns that the country might become a haven for religiously-inspired violence. It argues that there is some evidence that prolonged economic impoverishment and foreign religious influences, especially from Saudi Arabia and Iran, have led to a reinvigoration of Islam in post-war Sierra Leone. Though this reinvigoration has resulted in the visibility of more purist strains of the religion, there are no indications that the Sierra Leonean Muslim groups are actively participating in any worldwide jihadist network or will engage in large-scale religiously-inspired extremism and violence. The recent history of the country indicates that attempts to mobilise religious sympathies for political ends in Sierra Leone have been short-lived and largely unsuccessful     

Morphology of bullet wounds when using police ammunition, type QD-P.E.P

6 years after introduction of the police ammunition QD-P.E.P. (9 mm caliber), 9 bullet wounds are presented from forensic investigations along with the results of experimental shots at pig carcasses. The evaluation reveals the characteristic pattern of such bullet wounds: a skin defect which is almost as large as the caliber and has a sharp-edged border thus looking like it has been punched out; the contusion ring ("abrasion ring") is conspicuously narrow. These findings can be explained by the shape and design of the projectile. In regular police work immediate incapacitation has not always been achieved, depending on the entry location of the bullet. Experimental shots at pig carcasses showed that in the case of shots at extremities, the residual energy of the exiting bullet may be sufficient to generate another penetrating bullet wound.