'The Aftermath of the Annan Plan Referendums' Cross-Voting Moderation for Cyprus

This article examines recent developments in the Cyprus negotiations and suggests a number of changes to the proposed electoral system. Specifically, cross-voting and other electoral methods that encourage coalition-building across ethnic communities might add significantly to the functionality of the Annan Plan. Combined with other innovative mechanisms already in the plan, cross-voting could force political parties to seriously take into account the interests and concerns of the two Cypriot communities, an element that is currently missing from both the Turkish Cypriot (TC) and Greek Cypriot (GC) political systems. Special conditions on the island, as well as the way most political parties operated in the critical pre-April 2004 referendum period, suggest the need for this amendment. Although this study respects the consociational logic of the Annan Plan, it supplements consociationalism with elements that foster integration and inter-dependence between the two communities and their voters. The article also reviews the postreferendum developments in Cyprus which might have worrisome future implications, not only for its two communities, but also for EU enlargement in general. Cyprus both holds one of the keys to Turkey's entrance into the EU and is a litmus test for the Euro-Atlantic nexus and its capacity to pacify and integrate ethnically divided societies in Europe and elsewhere.

An 8000-year history of landscape, climate and copper exploitation in the Middle East: the Wadi Faynan and the Wadi Dana National Reserve in southern Jordan

Investigations of geomorphology, geoarchaeology, pollen, palynofacies, and charcoal indicate the comparative scales and significance of palaeoenvironmental changes throughout the Holocene at the junction between the hyper-arid hot Wadi â??Arabah desert and the front of the Mediterranean-belt Mountains of Edom in southern Jordan through a series of climatic changes and episodes of intense mining and smelting of copper ores. Early Holocene alluviation followed the impact of Neolithic grazers but climate drove fluvial geomorphic change in the Late Holocene, with a major arid episode corresponding chronologically with the â??Little Ice Ageâ?? causing widespread alluviation. The harvesting of wood for charcoal may have been sufficiently intense and widespread to affect the capacity of intensively harvested tree species to respond to a period of greater precipitation deduced for the Roman-Byzantine period - a property that affects both taphonomic and biogeographical bases for the interpretation of palynological evidence from arid-lands with substantial industrial histories. Studies of palynofacies have provided a record of human and climatic causes of soil erosion, and the changing intensity of the use of fire over time. The patterns of vegetational, climatic change and geomorphic changes are set out for this area for the last 8000 years.

Can traditional harvesting methods for cockles be accommodated in a Special Area of Conservation?

The European Natura 2000 project attempts to balance conservation and exploitation by permitting activities that do not affect the conservation status of designated sites. Given the scale of Natura 2000, guidelines are needed to facilitate the drafting of simple site management plans. This need is particularly acute for traditional harvesting methods for which there is usually strong local opposition to the imposition of controls. These issues were examined in Strangford Lough, a special area of conservation where cockles have traditionally been harvested by hand-raking. Raking was found not to affect the ability of cockles to rebury. There were significant reductions in Zostera biomass when raking was carried out within eelgrass beds (a 90% reduction in biomass available to winter migrant birds from summer raking). Traditional harvesting methods could therefore be accepted in Strangford as long as Zostera beds are avoided. A relatively low intensity of harvesting activity in Strangford Lough probably reflects low cockle densities (average 91.8 m(-2)), with the most economically valuable individuals at some distance from points of access to the shore. An economically feasible management plan could sanction traditional harvesting and result in the implementation of more resource-intensive management only if increases in cockle stocks and market prices stimulate large increases in harvesting activity.

Influence of predominant patterns of coordination on the exploitation of interaction torques in a two-joint rhythmic arm movement

In this study we investigate the coordination between rhythmic flexion-extension (FE) and supination-pronation (SP) movements at the elbow joint-complex, while manipulating the intersegmental dynamics by means of a 2-degrees of freedom (df) robot arm. We hypothesized that constraints imposed by the structure of the neuromuscular-skeletal system would (1) result in predominant pattern(s) of coordination in the absence of interaction torques and (2) influence the capabilities of participants to exploit artificially induced interaction torques. Two experiments were conducted in which different conditions of interaction torques were applied on the SP-axis as a function of FE movements. These conditions promoted different patterns of coordination between the 2-df. Control trials conducted in the absence of interaction torques revealed that both the in-phase (supination synchronized with flexion) and the anti-phase (pronation synchronized with flexion) patterns were spontaneously established by participants. The predominance of these patterns of coordination is explained in terms of the mechanical action of bi-articular muscles acting at the elbow joint-complex, and in terms of the reflexes that link the activity of the muscles involved. Results obtained in the different conditions of interaction torques revealed that those neuromuscular-skeletal constraints either impede or favor the exploitation of intersegmental dynamics depending on the context. Interaction torques were indeed found to be exploited to a greater extent in conditions in which the profiles of interaction torques favored one of the two predominant patterns of coordination (i.e., in-phase or anti-phase) as opposed to other patterns of coordination (e.g., 90 degrees or 270 degrees). Those results are discussed in relation to recent studies reporting exploitation of interaction torques in the context of rhythmic movements.

UK Power Sector Challenge to National Allocation Plan Under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme Refused by the European Court of Justice

In Case T-130/06 Drax Power and others v European Commission, the Court of First Instance held that an application by Drax Power and others for annulment of Commission Decision (C(2006)426 final of 22 February 2006 concerning a proposed amendment to the National Allocation Plan notified by the UK in accordance with the EU Emissions Trading Directive was inadmissable. The Court ruled that the applicants could not be considered to be 'directly concerned' by the contested decision within the meaning of the fourth paragraph of Article 230 of the European Treaty, on legal standing: 'Any natural or legal person may, under the same conditions, institute proceedings against a decision addressed to that person or against a decision, which, although in the form of a regulation or a decision addressed to another persion, is of direct and individual concern to the former...'