Political generations in Northern Ireland

Since the late 1980s, Northern Ireland has seen a radical electoral shift away from the historically dominant parties in the Catholic and Protestant blocs – the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), respectively – towards the traditionally more ‘extreme’ parties – Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). This change in aggregate support has been accompanied by increasing differences between generations as older cohorts of UUP and SDLP supporters have been replaced by newer cohorts of DUP and Sinn Fein partisans. This is not a result of increased polarisation in values and attitudes (whether overtly political or simply communal intolerance) among younger cohorts who are, if anything, slightly more moderate than their forbears. Rather, this results from the changing political context in which new generations have been socialised – in particular the expanded choice sets facing voters as they have reached voting age. This in turn has positive implications for the consolidation of devolved democratic governance.     

关于加快黑龙江省对俄合作战略升级的思考

近年来,黑龙江省对俄贸易在全国对俄贸易中的比重不断下滑,地缘优势逐渐丧失。进入2011年,虽然从贸易数量上看,对俄贸易大幅增长,但从贸易内容、贸易形式上来看,还存在着很多问题和不足。俄远东地区是黑龙江省传统的经贸伙伴,黑龙江省正面临着来自日韩和国内其他省市的挑战,形势日趋严峻。如何进一步挖掘潜能,发挥优势已成为黑龙江省开展对俄合作的重要课题。     

Suspect graveyard burial (South Armagh,N. Ireland): Combined search,forensic anthropology and radiocarbon dating

Geophysical investigation of a former convent graveyard for conversion to a community centre identified an unrecorded, unmarked burial below a later burial. Archaeological excavation confirmed the presence of skeletonized human remains, considered by police as a possible clandestine burial. Mortuary examination indicated the remains belonged to a mature adult female. To determine whether the deceased could be a recorded missing person, radiocarbon dating was undertaken on a femur and a rib bone. This is not always straightforward, and results showed two possible ages due to intercepts on either side of the nuclear weapons testing spike in atmospheric ¹⁴C; however, the later dated burial allowed us to constrain the date of a rib to CE 1959. This study demonstrates that dating a second tissue with a longer turnaround time, such as a femur, can help to constrain which side of the bomb spike is most probable. This paper documents in one work the search, scene and sample and then advances this to resolution by anthropological analysis and radiocarbon dating of human remains.