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nrashkind

Norway says its new giant oil field is good for the planet. Critics call it climate hyp... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by nrashkind on 20 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • It's not a boast you usually hear about an oil field: Norway says its huge new facility is great for the environment.
  • The oil-rich nation claims the Johan Sverdrup field, which was opened with pomp by the Prime Minister last week, is helping to "reduce emissions" because it is completely powered by renewable energy.
  • "Norway has a schizophrenic relationship with climate and oil and gas
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Its critics, however, see Norway's third-biggest oil field ever as a perfect symbol of the Scandinavian country's climate hypocrisy.
  • The field, located around 87 miles off the Norwegian coast, is named after the country's first prime minister. It has reserves of 2.7 billion barrels of oil, enough to last half a century and bring more than $100 billion into Norway's pocket.
  • The operation is powered by energy brought from the shore, generated mainly from hydroelectric power
  • a rarity for offshore oil fields, most of which are powered by diesel generators.
  • "Johan Sverdrup is now open
  • On top of its significant fossil fuel reserves, Norway also has abundant renewable energy resources
  • "The big problem is the combustion, in sectors like transport and industry," he said.
  • For Norway, this means that it is not responsible for the emissions caused by the burning of its oil in other places around the world.
  • Norway's Minister of Climate and Environment Ola Elvestuen acknowledged that his country will need to change its ways in the future.
  • The Johan Sverdrup field operation is scheduled to run until 2070 -- 20 years after global emissions must be zero, according to a pledge signed by Norway's government.
  • "An expression often used by the largest parties in Norway is that the person who will 'switch the light off' on (oil production on) the Norwegian shelf has not yet been born," said Paarup Michelsen.
manhefnawi

Charles XIV John | king of Sweden and Norway | Britannica.com - 0 views

www.britannica.com/...Charles-XIV-John

Sweden Bernadotte Napoleon Gustave IV

shared by manhefnawi on 17 May 18 - No Cached
  • original name Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte
  • French Revolutionary general and marshal of France (1804), who was elected crown prince of Sweden (1810), becoming regent and then king of Sweden and Norway (1818–44).
  • formed Swedish alliances with Russia, Great Britain, and Prussia, which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig (1813)
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • he enlisted in the French army
  • supporter of the Revolution
  • Bernadotte first met Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797 in Italy. Their relationship, at first friendly, was soon embittered by rivalries and misunderstandings
  • In November 1799 Bernadotte refused to assist Bonaparte’s coup d’état that ended the Directory but neither did he defend it
  • When, on May 18, 1804, Napoleon proclaimed the empire, Bernadotte declared full loyalty to him and, in May, was named marshal of the empire
  • he was invited to become crown prince of Sweden. In 1809 a palace revolution had overthrown King Gustav IV of Sweden and had put the aged, childless, and sickly Charles XIII on the throne. The Danish prince Christian August had been elected crown prince but died suddenly in 1810, and the Swedes turned to Napoleon for advice.
  • he respected his military ability, his skillful and humane administration of Hanover and the Hanseatic towns, and his charitable treatment of Swedish prisoners in Germany
  • Bernadotte was elected Swedish crown prince. On October 20 he accepted Lutheranism and landed in Sweden; he was adopted as son by Charles XIII and took the name of Charles John (Karl Johan). The Crown Prince at once assumed control of the government and acted officially as regent during the illnesses of Charles XIII. Napoleon now tried to prevent any reorientation of Swedish foreign policy and moreover sent an immediate demand that Sweden declare war on Great Britain
  • Charles John was anxious to achieve something for Sweden that would prove his worth to the Swedes and establish his dynasty in power. He could, as many Swedes wished, have regained Finland from Russia, either by conquest or by negotiation
  • the conquest of Norway from Denmark, based on a Swedish alliance with Napoleon’s enemies. An alliance was signed with Russia in April 1812, with Great Britain in March 1813—with the British granting a subsidy for the proposed conquest of Norway—and with Prussia in April 1813. Urged by the allies, however, Charles John agreed to take part in the great campaign against Napoleon and to postpone his war with Denmark. The Crown Prince landed his troops at Stralsund, Ger., in May 1813 and soon took command of the allied army of the north
  • conserve his forces for the war with Denmark, and the Prussians bore the brunt of the fighting
  • After the decisive Battle of Leipzig (October 1813), Napoleon’s first great defeat, Charles John succeeded in defeating the Danes in a swift campaign and forced King Frederick VI of Denmark to sign the Treaty of Kiel (January 1814), which transferred Norway to the Swedish crown. Charles John now had dreams of becoming king or “protector” of France, but he had become alienated from the French people, and the victorious allies would not tolerate another soldier in charge of French affairs
  • Charles John conducted an efficient and almost bloodless campaign, and in August the Norwegians signed the Convention of Moss, whereby they accepted Charles XIII as king
  • At the Congress of Vienna (1814–15), Austria and the French Bourbons were hostile to the upstart prince, and the son of the deposed Gustav was a potential pretender to the throne. But, thanks to Russian and British support, the status of the new dynasty was undisturbed
  • Upon the death of Charles XIII on Feb. 5, 1818, Charles John became king of Sweden and Norway, and the former republican and revolutionary general became a conservative ruler.
  • His foreign policy inaugurated a long and favourable period of peace, based on good relations with Russia and Great Britain
blaise_glowiak

Refugee crisis: Norway tells 5,500 foreigners who arrived on bikes to ride back across ... - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...ss-the-border-to-a6812966.html

refugee crisis norway

shared by blaise_glowiak on 15 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • blaise_glowiak on 15 Jan 16
     
    Norway is preparing to send over 5,500 refugees who crossed into the country from Russia on bicycles last year back across the border by the same mode of transport. "We asked that the bikes which were left behind or claimed by the police to be gathered up for use by the foreigners who will be returned to Russia," Jan Erik Thomassen, a section head from Norway's National Police Directorate, said. "I can understand that it feels a bit awkward and odd." Norwegian authorities said they hope Russia will allow the refugees to re-enter its Russian territory by bus, which would reduce costs and provide safer passage for those making the journey. But Russia, which has remained hostile to refugees despite the influx of migrants into Europe last year, seems unlikely to comply.
Javier E

Former Norway PM held at Washington airport over 2014 visit to Iran | US news | The Gua... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...dulles-airport-2014-visit-iran

norway trump crisis policy immigration

shared by Javier E on 04 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Kjell Magne Bondevik, who served as prime minister of Norway from 1997-2000 and 2001-05, flew into the US from Europe on Tuesday afternoon to attend this week’s National Prayer Breakfast.
  • “Of course I fully understand the fear of letting terrorists come into this country,” he told ABC7. “It should be enough when they found that I have a diplomatic passport, [that I’m a] former prime minister.
  • “That should be enough for them to understand that I don’t represent any problem or threat to this country and [to] let me go immediately, but they didn’t.”
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  • Speaking to the TV2 channel, Bondevik expressed further concern about the Trump administration’s tactics. “I understand the fear of terror, but one should not treat entire ethnic groups in such a way,”
  • “I must admit that I fear the future. There has been a lot of progress over the last 10 years, but this gives great cause for concern, in line with the authoritarian leaders we see controlling other major countries.”
manhefnawi

Frederick II | king of Denmark and Norway | Britannica.com - 0 views

www.britannica.com/...-II-king-of-Denmark-and-Norway

Denmark Poland Sweden Baltic Sea Control

shared by manhefnawi on 10 Jun 18 - No Cached
  • failed in his attempt to establish complete Danish hegemony in the Baltic Sea area in the Seven Years’ War of the North
  • After joining his uncles John and Adolphus, dukes of the Danish provinces of Schleswig and Holstein, in June 1559 in conquering the peasant republic of Dithmarschen (now in Germany), Frederick succeeded his father, Christian III, in 1559 as king of Denmark and Norway.
  • Frederick hoped to take over Sweden and resurrect the Kalmar Union of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
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  • Sweden remained independent and shared control of Baltic coastal territories with Denmark.
liamhudgings

A Mayor In Norway's Arctic Looks To China To Reinvent His Frontier Town : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...-to-reinvent-his-frontier-town

economics China Norway Arctic

shared by liamhudgings on 18 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Rune Rafaelsen has a bold plan that could raise the profile of his remote Arctic town — with a little help, he hopes, from China.
  • He is the mayor of Sor-Varanger, a municipality in the far northeast corner of Norway, close to the Russian border. His office is in the small town Kirkenes — population a little over 3,500 — which overlooks the icy gray Barents Sea.
  • "Now you can go from Asia to Europe through the Northern Sea Route.
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  • The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere on the planet. While the melting sea ice has alarmed scientists and residents, newly accessible waterways mean commercial ships are increasingly plowing along polar lanes.
  • A binational working group study concluded in late 2018 that the project, estimated to cost more than $3 billion, will not be "financially feasible."
  • Rafaelsen wants to turn his tiny town into a major logistical hub, including a massive port and train line to Finland.
  • He envisions building a massive new container terminal and a 300-mile railway to the city of Rovaniemi in neighboring Finland, which would key to moving cargo into Western Europe.
  • "Our plan is that you should [have] 10 trains from Kirkenes every day ... and we should handle about 1 million containers [per year]," he says.
  • The Norwegian government drew up a concept study for a mega-port for the area. That idea is on hold amid doubts that there would be enough cargo to warrant the cost.
  • Kirkenes is the first western harbor you meet when you start from Shanghai and go along the Russian sub-Siberian coast,"
  • There has also been pushback from the Sami, an indigenous people who herd reindeer across northern Finland. A rail line could harm their livelihoods and culture, Sami leaders and the working group said
  • The lack of interest and financing have done little to dampen Rafaelsen's enthusiasm.
  • "I have promoted it a lot in China, and the Chinese [have] been here to look at the possibility,"
  • About a year ago, the Chinese government launched an Arctic white paper, considered its first formal articulation of policies for the region. It emphasized the region's strategic economic importance — calling China a "Near-Arctic State" — and elaborated on a plan to include a "Polar Silk Road" in its broad Belt and Road Initiative to build trade links across several continents.
  • In February 2019, the Norwegian town's annual winter festival was themed "The World's Northernmost Chinatown."
  • "People get angry. Now they think Kirkenes should not be Chinese at all. But it's engaged people. That's the best," he says.
  • "The issue here is population, especially in the eastern part of northern Norway," Stokvik says. "We need jobs — we need the youth to stay, not going away."
  • But Thomas Nilsen, a journalist who covers Arctic issues for the Independent Barents Observer, says he doesn't see Kirkenes ever becoming the new Singapore.
katieb0305

NATO bolsters presence in Eastern Europe as Russia tension rises - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

nato europe russia

shared by katieb0305 on 27 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • The UK has deployed hundreds of troops to Eastern Europe as NATO continues to bolster its presence in the face of perceived Russian provocation.
  • "Russia has tripled defense spending," Stoltenberg told reporters.
  • "Russia has invested heavily in a modern military equipment. They are conducting a large-scale, no-notice exercises close to NATO borders, but perhaps most importantly Russia has been willing to use military force against neighbors.
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  • said Russia withdrew the request after the ministry had asked the Russian Embassy in Madrid to clarify reports the flotilla might participate in military operations against the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo.
  • On Wednesday, Russia withdrew a request for a flotilla of warships, including its flagship aircraft carrier the Admiral Kuznetsov, to refuel in the Spanish port of Ceuta as the ships head toward Syria.
  • The UK has deployed hundreds of troops to Eastern Europe as NATO continues to bolster its presence in the face of perceived Russian provocation.
  • "Russia has tripled defense spending," Stoltenberg told reporters.
  • NATO defense ministers met Wednesday in Brussels, Belgium, to discuss the situation as well as the fight against ISIS.
  • Poland's paramilitary defense has grown rapidly, with more than 35,000 people signing up and undergoing military training. They range from high school students to lawyers and doctors.
  • n July, the UK said it would deliver one of four battalions to NATO's enhanced forward presence in the Baltic states and Poland.
  • Belgium, Croatia, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway will join a German-led battalion in Lithuania, while Denmark and France will contribute to the UK-led battalion in Estonia.
  • In February, the US Department of Defense announced it was spending $3.4 billion for the European Reassurance Initiative to deter Russian aggression against NATO allies.
  • A limited rotational force of 330 Marines are set to be located at the Vaernes military base in Norway, according to a statement from the Norwegian Defense Ministry.
ethanshilling

AstraZeneca Vaccine Under More Scrutiny After Denmark Death - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-astrazeneca-side-effects.html

vaccine world pandemic

shared by ethanshilling on 21 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Denmark reported on Saturday that two people had experienced brain hemorrhages after receiving the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, one of whom died.
  • A spokesperson for the Capital Region of Denmark confirmed the death, and the Danish Ritzau news agency reported that the other person, a female civil servant in her 30s, was critically ill.
  • Millions of people in dozens of countries have received the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine with few reports of ill effects, but the European Medicines Agency, the continent’s top drug regulator, conducted a review after several countries paused the use of the vaccine.
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  • On Thursday, the agency said that it considered the vaccine safe, although it would continue to watch for any connections to blood disorders.
  • “Right now we are examining whether this is the exact same disease picture with multiple blood clots, a low count of platelets and hemorrhages,” Tanja Erichsen, a director at the Danish Medicines Agency
  • This is the second death in Denmark after a person was given the AstraZeneca vaccine. Norway is examining the deaths of two people who received the vaccine.
  • Some of the continuing caution has been driven by preliminary findings from medical experts in Norway and Germany that suggested a possible link between the vaccine and the extremely rare blood disorders.
  • Dr. James Bussel, an expert on platelet disorders and a professor emeritus at Weill Cornell Medicine, said the occurrence of abnormal clotting and low platelets in people under 50 is uncommon.
  • Researchers in both Germany and Norway will continue investigating and in Germany, where the vaccine is again being administered, doctors are now warning anyone receiving an AstraZeneca shot to see a doctor immediately if they have headaches, dizziness or blurred vision more than three days afterward.
Javier E

What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success - Anu Partanen - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...250564

education Finland pedagogy school teaching equality equity reform

shared by Javier E on 19 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • in recent years Finnish students have been turning in some of the highest test scores in the world.
  • The survey compares 15-year-olds in different countries in reading, math, and science. Finland has ranked at or near the top in all three competencies on every survey since 2000, neck and neck with superachievers such as South Korea and Singapore.
  • Compared with the stereotype of the East Asian model -- long hours of exhaustive cramming and rote memorization -- Finland's success is especially intriguing because Finnish schools assign less homework and engage children in more creative play
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  • "Oh," he mentioned at one point, "and there are no private schools in Finland."
  • Only a small number of independent schools exist in Finland, and even they are all publicly financed. None is allowed to charge tuition fees. There are no private universities, either. This means that practically every person in Finland attends public school, whether for pre-K or a Ph.D.
  • From his point of view, Americans are consistently obsessed with certain questions: How can you keep track of students' performance if you don't test them constantly? How can you improve teaching if you have no accountability for bad teachers or merit pay for good teachers? How do you foster competition and engage the private sector? How do you provide school choice?
  • Finland has no standardized tests. The only exception is what's called the National Matriculation Exam, which everyone takes at the end of a voluntary upper-secondary school, roughly the equivalent of American high school.
  • Instead, the public school system's teachers are trained to assess children in classrooms using independent tests they create themselves. All children receive a report card at the end of each semester, but these reports are based on individualized grading by each teacher.
  • "There's no word for accountability in Finnish," he later told an audience at the Teachers College of Columbia University. "Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted."
  • what matters is that in Finland all teachers and administrators are given prestige, decent pay, and a lot of responsibility. A master's degree is required to enter the profession, and teacher training programs are among the most selective professional schools in the country. If a teacher is bad, it is the principal's responsibility to notice and deal with it.
  • "Real winners do not compete." It's hard to think of a more un-American idea, but when it comes to education, Finland's success shows that the Finnish attitude might have merits. There are no lists of best schools or teachers in Finland. The main driver of education policy is not competition between teachers and between schools, but cooperation.
  • Finally, in Finland, school choice is noticeably not a priority, nor is engaging the private sector at all.
  • Decades ago, when the Finnish school system was badly in need of reform, the goal of the program that Finland instituted, resulting in so much success today, was never excellence. It was equity.
  • Since the 1980s, the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.
  • this means that schools should be healthy, safe environments for children. This starts with the basics. Finland offers all pupils free school meals, easy access to health care, psychological counseling, and individualized student guidance.
  • In fact, since academic excellence wasn't a particular priority on the Finnish to-do list, when Finland's students scored so high on the first PISA survey in 2001, many Finns thought the results must be a mistake. But subsequent PISA tests confirmed that Finland -- unlike, say, very similar countries such as Norway -- was producing academic excellence through its particular policy focus on equity.
  • the number of foreign-born residents in Finland doubled during the decade leading up to 2010, and the country didn't lose its edge in education. Immigrants tended to concentrate in certain areas, causing some schools to become much more mixed than others, yet there has not been much change in the remarkable lack of variation between Finnish schools in the PISA surveys across the same period.
  • Like Finland, Norway is small and not especially diverse overall, but unlike Finland it has taken an approach to education that is more American than Finnish. The result? Mediocre performance in the PISA survey. Educational policy, Abrams suggests, is probably more important to the success of a country's school system than the nation's size or ethnic makeup.
  • there were 18 states in the U.S. in 2010 with an identical or significantly smaller percentage of foreign-born residents than Finland
  • the goal of educational policy in the U.S. -- as articulated by most everyone from President Obama on down -- is to preserve American competitiveness by doing the same thing. Finland's experience suggests that to win at that game, a country has to prepare not just some of its population well, but all of its population well, for the new economy.
  • Finland's experience shows that it is possible to achieve excellence by focusing not on competition, but on cooperation, and not on choice, but on equity
  • The problem facing education in America isn't the ethnic diversity of the population but the economic inequality of society, and this is precisely the problem that Finnish education reform addressed. More equity at home might just be what America needs to be more competitive abroad.
Javier E

Looking for Lessons in Newtown - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ng-for-lessons-in-newtown.html

gun control policy

shared by Javier E on 21 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • every two months, we lose more Americans to gun violence than we did in the 9/11 attacks
  • we lose some 2,800 children and teenagers to guns annually.
  • More than twice as many preschoolers die annually from gun violence in America as law enforcement officers are killed in the line of duty.
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  • It’s true that the 1994 assault weapons ban was not very effective, even before it expired (partly because it had trouble defining assault weapons, and partly because handguns kill more people than assault rifles). But if that law’s ban on the sale of high-capacity magazines had still been in effect, Adam Lanza, the gunman in Newtown, might have had to reload three times as often.
  • I’d like to see us take a public health approach that reduces the harm that guns cause. We could limit gun purchases to one a month to impede traffickers, make serial numbers harder to file off, ban high-capacity magazines, finance gun buybacks, require solid background checks even for private gun sales, require microstamping so that bullet casings can be traced back to a particular gun and mandate that guns be stored in gun safes or with trigger locks. And if you need to enter a code to operate your cellphone, why not to fire your gun?
  • f people want to kill, you can’t stop them. Even a fork can be deadly. On the same day as the Connecticut tragedy, a man attacked 23 schoolchildren in China with a knife. But, in the attack in China, not one of those children died. What makes guns different is their lethality. That’s why the military doesn’t arm our troops with forks.
  • We have the Second Amendment, which protects our right to bear arms. So don’t talk about gun control! There’s a reasonable argument that the Second Amendment confers an individual right — to bear a musket. Beyond that, it’s more complicated. Everybody agrees on a ban on fully automatic machine guns. The question isn’t whether to limit the right to bear arms, but where to draw the line.
  • s for Norway, its laws did not prevent the massacre there last year. But, in a typical year, Norway has 10 or fewer gun murders. The United States has more than that in eight hours.
  • Published research makes it clear that having a gun in the home simply makes it more likely that you will be shot — by your partner or by yourself. Americans are safer if they rely on 911 for protection rather than on a gun.
abbykleman

New Cold War: US Marines' Norway war games - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by abbykleman on 30 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • abbykleman on 30 Nov 16
     
    The troops' target? A bunker up ahead, manned by Norwegian soldiers. Shots ring out as the Marines advance, crunching through the snow beneath gray winter skies. It's all role-play, of course -- the maneuvers are part of a training exercise, but one jarringly imbued with the new reality along NATO's northernmost border with Russia.
lenaurick

International campaign finance: How do countries compare? - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...global-campaign-finance

international campaign finance politics US history crisis

shared by lenaurick on 29 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • The Center for Responsive Politics estimates $6 billion will be spent in the U.S. elections by campaigns, political parties and corporations hoping to propel their candidates into the White House and what writer Mark Twain once called the "best Congress money can buy."
  • The projected price tag of the 2012 U.S. election dwarfs that of other nations, but corruption monitors from Transparency International (TI) say it's not just how much will be spent but where the money is coming from that threatens the integrity of politics around the world.
  • While the trajectory for spending in U.S. elections is soaring, total party spending in the 2010 general election in the United Kingdom was actually 26% less than in 2005.
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  • the absence of limits on the amount individuals or corporations can donate has contributed to the ongoing erosion of public confidence in the political process in the UK, according to one watchdog organization. "When donors are making contributions exceeding £20,000 ($31,000) -- and some are making donations well over £250,000 ($390,000) -- it's perfectly understandable you don't give away that kind of money without expecting something in return,"
  • n Norway, government funding accounted for 74% of political parties' income in 2010, according to Statistics Norway. And unlike in the U.S., where candidates and their supporters can buy as much television time as they can afford, political ads are banned from television and radio.
  • Corruption monitors say the lack of public funding in India, the world's largest democracy, has contributed to a staggering influx of under the table corporate contributions to candidates that has undercut the integrity of recent elections.
  • Intelligence reports received by India's Electoral Commission suggested that upwards of $2 billion in so-called "black money" will be spent to influence the Uttar Pradesh state elections this year, according to Anupama Jha, executive director of TI India."Everybody knows about black money," Jha told CNN. "Corporations are expected to donate no more than 5 percent of their profits, but they pay more than that under the table. Those who donate funds also control the politicians, and the politicians (become) more accountable to their sponsors than to their constituents."
  • ut it's not just corporate black money that's a problem, but the buying of votes in poor areas with hard cash, and sometimes with smuggled liquor.
  • In the 2009 election in Tamil Nadu, a state with a population roughly the size of France, 33.4% of voters received money from candidates' supporters for their vote, according to a poll by India's Centre of Media Studies -- and in 2011, voters were lured to the polls with blenders, grinders and other household appliances.
  • "This is why good people don't want to contest elections ... so ultimately you vote for corrupt people, because those are the only people you have to choose from."
  • The parties try to hijack whatever they can hijack in Russia," Panfilova told CNN
  • "There are two sets of rules in Russia -- one set for parties who are paying out of their own pockets, and another for the party and candidates with access to public resources," says Elena Panfilova, head of TI Russia.
  • While there are no limitations on the amount U.S. political parties can spend on televison ads, broadcast time in Russia is doled out on a limited basis, and is proportionate to the results of the last election.
  • Roughly $2 billion was spent by parties and candidates in the 2010 presidential election, according to Claudio Weber Abramo, executive director of TI Brazil.
  • Nearly 98% of winner Dilma Rouseff's campaign donations -- and 95.5% of her main opponent's -- came from corporations, says Abramo.Abramo says corporations donated 99.04% of all money spent in Sao Paulo, Brazil's most populous state, during the 2010 election -- a reflection mainly of voters' apathy and politicians' failure to form relationships with their constituents.
  • "The distribution of money reveals something deeper in the Brazilian political landscape, which is that citizens are not very much concerned about supporting parties and having a political life."While some observers want to ban corporate spending outright, Abramo says that will only make it harder to track corporate influence on politics in the country."The interests are still there even if you prohibit corporations from donating to candidates above the board," he told CNN. "They will do it in a hidden way, and they will lose visibility."
  • no reliable information exists for how much money was spent during the 2011 presidential election in Nigeria.
  • While Nigerian law gives the country's election commission the right to set a maximum spending limit for parties, the commission neglected to do so before the 2011 election, according to Magnus Ohman."Parties can do whatever they want, there's no limit to the amount they can spend," Ohman told CNN. "Candidates do have limits, but the money they get from their parties is excluded from that limit."
  • 2011 elections were hailed as a step forward in Nigeria's evolution as a young democracy, the lack of restraint on political spending is a worrying development for election monitors."It really was an expensive election not only at a presidential level but also at the gubernatorial level, especially down in the south," said Ohman. "It's an electoral system where you need to spend."
  • UK corruption monitor Chandu Krishnan says an ever-increasing amount of money in elections is a global problem."In many countries across the world, the cost of elections is increasing," he told CNN. "If parties and politicians can't find the resources from the state, there is an increasing desperation to seek them from private sources -- and that is where the corruption comes in."
Javier E

What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success - Anu Partanen - National -... - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...250564

education policy US Finland equity goals competitiveness excellence

shared by Javier E on 01 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • there are certain things nobody in America really wants to talk about.
  • "Oh," he mentioned at one point, "and there are no private schools in Finland."
  • Only a small number of independent schools exist in Finland, and even they are all publicly financed. None is allowed to charge tuition fees. There are no private universities, either. This means that practically every person in Finland attends public school, whether for pre-K or a Ph.D.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • Americans are consistently obsessed with certain questions: How can you keep track of students' performance if you don't test them constantly? How can you improve teaching if you have no accountability for bad teachers or merit pay for good teachers? How do you foster competition and engage the private sector? How do you provide school choice?
  • The answers Finland provides seem to run counter to just about everything America's school reformers are trying to do.
  • Finland has no standardized tests
  • Instead, the public school system's teachers are trained to assess children in classrooms using independent tests they create themselves.
  • As for accountability of teachers and administrators, Sahlberg shrugs. "There's no word for accountability in Finnish," he later told an audience at the Teachers College of Columbia University. "Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted."
  • For Sahlberg what matters is that in Finland all teachers and administrators are given prestige, decent pay, and a lot of responsibility. A master's degree is required to enter the profession, and teacher training programs are among the most selective professional schools in the country. If a teacher is bad, it is the principal's responsibility to notice and deal with it
  • And while Americans love to talk about competition, Sahlberg points out that nothing makes Finns more uncomfortable.
  • There are no lists of best schools or teachers in Finland. The main driver of education policy is not competition between teachers and between schools, but cooperation
  • in Finland, school choice is noticeably not a priority, nor is engaging the private sector at all.
  • Decades ago, when the Finnish school system was badly in need of reform, the goal of the program that Finland instituted, resulting in so much success today, was never excellence. It was equity.
  • ince the 1980s, the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.
  • this means that schools should be healthy, safe environments for children. This starts with the basics. Finland offers all pupils free school meals, easy access to health care, psychological counseling, and individualized student guidance.
  • Samuel Abrams, a visiting scholar at Columbia University's Teachers College, has addressed the effects of size and homogeneity on a nation's education performance by comparing Finland with another Nordic country: Norway. Like Finland, Norway is small and not especially diverse overall, but unlike Finland it has taken an approach to education that is more American than Finnish. The result? Mediocre performance in the PISA survey
  • the goal of educational policy in the U.S. -- as articulated by most everyone from President Obama on down -- is to preserve American competitiveness by doing the same thing. Finland's experience suggests that to win at that game, a country has to prepare not just some of its population well, but all of its population well, for the new economy. To possess some of the best schools in the world might still not be good enough if there are children being left behind.
  • Finland's dream was that we want to have a good public education for every child regardless of where they go to school or what kind of families they come from, and many even in Finland said it couldn't be done." Clearly, many were wrong. It is possible to create equality
  • Finland's experience shows that it is possible to achieve excellence by focusing not on competition, but on cooperation, and not on choice, but on equity.
Javier E

English Proficiency Falters Among the French - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ency-falters-among-french.html

English foreign language France international

shared by Javier E on 17 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Marseille’s new Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations opened in June, part of the city’s celebration of its status as this year’s European Capital of Culture.
  • Education First, an international education company, found that while English proficiency among European adults is generally increasing, proficiency in France is both low and declining.
  • According to the third EF English Proficiency Index, released last week, France ranked 35th among 60 nations where English is not the main language. The study put the country’s average English language skills in the “low proficiency” bracket, between China and the United Arab Emirates — and last among European nations.
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  • France was one of only two European countries where proficiency had decreased over the past six years. Norway was the other; but there, proficiency remained at such a high level that the change was insignificant.
  • “English is the de facto language of communication today between people who don’t share a native language,” Ms. Bell. said “Measuring English proficiency is in many ways a proxy measurement of international integration.”
  • the level of English proficiency among French adults suffers both from inadequate teaching at high school level and the reality that — despite fears of French culture’s being overwhelmed by American pop culture, very little English is actually used in everyday life.
  • France’s secondary school system, which has only recently started testing English oral skills as part of the Baccalaureate, is a major reason for poor language skills
  • Unlike its smaller northern European neighbors, France dubs most American films and television shows into French. The top English speakers in continental Europe — Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands — all tend to use subtitling.
  • Turkey, though still a “low proficiency” nation, ranked 41st in the index, was the country showing the biggest improvement in the past six years. EF researchers point to Turkey as a perfect example of economic development and international engagement that go hand-in-hand with English proficiency.
  • “The Middle East and North Africa are the weakest regions in English,” the study said, with Iraq ranked 60th, at the bottom of the list.
  • “Poor English remains one of the key competitive weaknesses of Latin America,” it added, with more than half the countries in the region in the lowest proficiency band.
Javier E

In PISA Test, Top Scores From Shanghai Stun Experts - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...07education.html

test international comparative education China US

shared by Javier E on 10 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • On the math test last year, students in Shanghai scored 600, in Singapore 562, in Germany 513, and in the United States 487. In reading, Shanghai students scored 556, ahead of second-place Korea with 539. The United States scored 500 and came in 17th, putting it on par with students in the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and several other countries. In science, Shanghai students scored 575. In second place was Finland, where the average score was 554. The United States scored 502 — in 23rd place — with a performance indistinguishable from Poland, Ireland, Norway, France and several other countries.
Javier E

Trump Puts the Purpose of His Presidency Into Words - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...550454

trump racism policies tribal white supremacy politics history culture crisis

shared by Javier E on 13 Jan 18 - No Cached
  • These remarks reflect scorn not only for those who wish to come here, but those who already have. It is a president of the United States expressing his contempt for the tens of millions of descendants of Africans, most of whose forefathers had no choice in crossing the Atlantic, American citizens whom any president is bound to serve.
  • And it is a public admission of sorts that he is incapable of being a president for all Americans, the logic of his argument elevating not just white immigrants over brown ones, but white citizens over the people of color they share this country with.
  • The racist pseudoscience underpinning Walker’s belief that immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe were incapable of responsible self-government is out of vogue today, but the both the sentiment and logic are now applied by the descendants of those very same “beaten races” who now work for Trump in the White House, who craft arguments defending his prejudice, and who cast ballots bearing his name.
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  • they are all now a part of Trump’s only sincere ideological project, the preservation of white political and cultural dominance.
  • Trump has adopted policies that would be responsible for the displacement of nearly a million people of color in less than 12 months in office.  
  • The benefit of this history is that we know how the story ended then; with the adoption of racist immigration laws, and the immigrants from the “shithole countries” of the turn of the century defending the country in two world wars. But their children and grandchildren, having assimilated into the very whiteness Walker and his ilk saw as endangered, now repeat the same slander laid upon their ancestors against a new generation of immigrants looking for a better life in America. The old lies are now again embraced by the descendants of those who once suffered because of them.
  • The president was not making an assessment of the relative quality of life in Haiti or Norway, he was condemning entire populations of people of as undesirable because of where they were born. Trump’s remarks do not merely express contempt for foreigners; but also for every American who shares their origins.
  • The president’s focus on the nationality, rather than on the personal merits, of immigrants suggests what he means by “merit-based” immigration: Not accepting those immigrants who have mastered science or engineering or some other crucial skill, but instead a standard that finds white Scandinavians acceptable, while ruling out Haitians, Salvadorans, and Africans. The only “merits” here are accidents of birth and geography, owing to no individual accomplishment at all.
  • Trump’s is not a logic that employs facts, it is one that employs tribe. It is the logic of “us” being better than “them,” with white Scandinavians reflecting a self-definition of “us,” that excludes blacks and latinos regardless of their relationship to this country.
  • To describe the issue here, as many media outlets have, as one of coarse or vulgar language, is itself an obscenity. The president’s remarks reflect a moral principle that has guided policy while in office, a principle that is obvious to all but that some simply refuse to articulate.
manhefnawi

George V: How To Keep Your Crown | History Today - 0 views

www.historytoday.com/...george-v-how-keep-your-crown

1917 Nicholas II Wilhelm Prussia Russia Britain George V Monarchy

shared by manhefnawi on 03 Jun 18 - No Cached
  • In May 1910 seven kings (of Belgium, Greece, Norway, Spain, Bulgaria, Denmark and Portugal), one emperor (of Germany) and some 30 princes and archdukes gathered in London for the funeral of Edward VII
  • Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, also at the funeral, was murdered at Sarajevo in 1914; the new heir Karl abdicated in 1918
  • George’s favourite cousin Nicholas, Tsar of Russia, abdicated in 1917 and was murdered a year later. George’s other cousin Wilhelm II, German Kaiser, was forced from the throne into exile. By 1918 George wasn’t the only king left in Europe, but he was the only emperor
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  • The reason essentially was because he didn’t have any power.
  • Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas, both to differing degrees autocratic monarchs, had gone to strenuous lengths to ignore aspects of the political landscape they didn’t like or found offensively modern
  • Nicholas, meanwhile, did everything he could to avoid having to engage with the modern world in any shape or form, terrified that any change would threaten his control over Russia. He regarded autocracy as a sacred trust handed down to him that must be kept intact whatever.
  • As for the workers and peasants
  • Nicholas simply never encountered them
  • The king and his secretaries believed the British royal family must sell itself to the nation, justify its existence and seem entirely unthreatening.
  • Of the seven kings at Edward’s funeral, only three others kept their thrones: Belgium, Norway and Denmark. All three were constitutional monarchies.
manhefnawi

Erik XIV | king of Sweden | Britannica.com - 0 views

www.britannica.com/...Erik-XIV

Sweden Monarch Erik XIV

shared by manhefnawi on 10 Jun 18 - No Cached
  • expanded the powers of the monarchy and pursued an aggressive foreign policy that led to the Seven Years’ War of the North (1563–70) against Denmark.
  • Erik’s major foreign policy objective was to free Sweden’s Baltic Sea trade from Danish control.
  • his half brother John, duke of Finland, also sought a foothold in the east and signed a treaty with Sigismund II Augustus, king of Poland, agreeing to marry the king’s daughter against Erik’s wishes.
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  • Erik’s acquisitions in Estonia alarmed Frederick II, king of Denmark and Norway, who allied with Lübeck and Poland and declared war in 1563, initiating the Seven Years’ War of the North.
  • Duke John (later King John III), who was liberated in 1567, joined with his brother, the future Charles IX, and deposed Erik in 1568. Erik died in prison.
Javier E

'Spectacular' artefacts found as Norway ice-patch melts | Archaeology | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ound-as-norway-ice-patch-melts

archaeology Europe scandinavia viking history

shared by Javier E on 17 Apr 20 - No Cached
  • The pass, at Lendbreen in Norway’s mountainous central region, first came to the attention of local archaeologists in 2011, after a woollen tunic was discovered that was later dated to the third or fourth century AD. The ice has retreated significantly in the years since, exposing a wealth of artefacts including knitted mittens, leather shoes and arrows still with their feathers attached.
  • Though carbon dating of the finds reveals the pass was in use by farmers and travellers for a thousand years, from the Nordic iron age, around AD200-300, until it fell out of use after the Black Death in the 14th century, the bulk of the finds date from the period around AD1000, during the Viking era, when trade and mobility in the region were at their zenith.
  • Described as a “dream discovery” by glacial archaeologists, the finding was also a “poignant and evocative reminder of climate change”
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  • “One is talking about artefacts that were put in the deep freeze 1,000 years ago, and later and earlier, and were taken out when we found them. So a textile is almost perfectly preserved, one might find arrows with the fletching perfectly preserved, with the sinew still in place, the glue that glued the feathers to the shaft. These are quite remarkable finds.”
  • While the objects are frequently “extraordinary”, he said, “what is really important archaeologically about them isn’t the individual objects, it’s the story that putting together all of the objects can tell you” about the pass and the people who travelled it.
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