The Baden-Württemberg State Election of 2011: A Political Landslide

After 58 years in the position of dominant political party, the Christian Democrats suffered from an electoral defeat in the Baden-Württemberg state election of 27 March 2011 and, as a result of the election, the first Green prime minister was elected and headed a state government formed by the Green and the Social Democrat parties. The main reasons for this political landslide were the unique constellation of political issues and the voters' attitudes towards the candidates for the office of prime minister. Instead of economic issues traditionally ‘owned’ by the Christian Democrats, the nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima and the bitter conflict over the reconstruction of the Stuttgart railway station brought ‘new politics’ issues to the top of the agenda. Moreover, never before in the history of German state elections was a prime minister running for re-election as unpopular as the leading candidate of Christian Democrats. Finally, many voters were convinced that it was just time for a change.     

Drink,Drugs, and Rock'n'Roll: Financing Loyalist Terrorism in Northern Ireland — Part Two

Though the main loyalist groups have now been observing cease-fires for nearly five years, the fund-raising activities of these organizations has continued unabated. Following from the previous article on this subject, this paper gives an account of the various fund-raising methods which are currently being used by the loyalists. Particular attention is focused on the controversial topic of drug dealing. Related to this topic, the article considers in detail the emergence in 1996 of the splinter group, the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF). The rise and subsequent fall of this faction provides a telling case study in the importance of understanding the fund-raising methods and policies of terrorist groups. The article concludes that the financial dimension to terrorism in Northern Ireland presents an as yet unrecognized and extremely serious obstale to lasting peace.     

The devil is in the shadow. Do institutions affect income and productivity or only official income and official productivity?

This paper assesses the relationship between institutions, output, and productivity when official output is corrected for the size of the shadow economy. Our results confirm the usual positive impact of institutional quality on official output and total factor productivity, and its negative impact on the size of the underground economy. However, once output is corrected for the shadow economy, the relationship between institutions and output becomes weaker. The impact of institutions on total (“corrected”) factor productivity becomes insignificant. Differences in corrected output must then be attributed to differences in factor endowments. These results survive several tests for robustness.     

Forensic imaging of projectiles using cone-beam computed tomography

In patients with gunshot injuries, it is easy to detect a projectile within the body due to the high-density of the object, but artefacts make it difficult to obtain information about the deformation and the exact location of the projectile in surrounding tissues. Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) is a new radiological imaging modality that allows radio-opaque objects to be localised and assessed in three dimensions. The full potential of the use of CBCT in forensic medicine has not yet been explored.In this study, three different modern projectiles were fired into the heads of pig cadavers (n = 6) under standardised conditions. Tissue destruction and the location of the projectiles were analysed separately using CBCT and multi-slice computed tomography (MDCT).The projectiles had the same kinetic energy but showed considerable differences in deformation behaviour. Within the study groups, tissue destruction was reproducible. CBCT is less severely affected by metallic artefacts than MDCT. Therefore CBCT is superior in visualising bone destruction in the immediate vicinity of the projectile and projectile deformation, whereas MDCT allows soft tissue to be evaluated in more detail.CBCT is an improved diagnostic tool for the evaluation of gunshot injuries. In particular, it is superior to MDCT in detecting structural hard-tissue damage in the immediate vicinity of high-density metal projectiles and in identifying the precise location of a projectile in the body.     

Umfang und Grenzen der Einklagbarkeit von UVP-Fehlern nach Umwelt-Rechtsbehelfsgesetz

Zusammenfassung  Die Frage der Einklagbarkeit von Fehlern bei der Umweltvertr?glichkeitsprüfung (UVP) ist weiterhin ein rechtlich unsicheres Terrain und damit für komplexe Gro?vorhaben ein erheblicher Risikofaktor. Mit dem Umwelt-Rechtsbehelfsgesetz (UmwRG) hat der deutsche Gesetzgeber Regelungen erlassen, die zwar in gewissem Umfang eine Einklagbarkeit von UVP-Fehlern vorsehen, deren Auslegung jedoch umstritten ist. Der vorliegende Beitrag behandelt die Frage, ob und ggf. in welchem Umfang das UmwRG Drittbetroffenen ein subjektives Recht auf Einklagbarkeit von UVP-Fehlern einr?umt. Es wird aufgezeigt, dass insoweit zwischen Umweltschutzvereinigungen und sonstigen Beteiligten zu differenzieren ist und dass eine Erweiterung der Einklagbarkeit von UVP-Fehlern über die beiden in §4 Abs. 1 UmwRG genannten F?lle (Nichtdurchführung einer UVP bzw. Einzelfallvorprüfung) nach der klaren gesetzlichen Festlegung und der bisher ergangenen Rechtsprechung nicht in Betracht kommt.     

A Review of: “William Sheehan. British Voices: From the Irish War of Independence 1918–1921.”

This article has been retracted.     

Literatur

Ohne Zusammenfassung