Pakistan and Afghanistan Essay -- Politics, War, Turmoil

From the 1980’s onwards, Pakistan and Afghanistan have been at the forefront of numerous socio-political events germane to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. The multifarious factors involved form a perplexing web of competing narratives that resist straightforward explanation. This essay will delve into the milieu, seeking alternative theories to construct a cogent thesis for the growth of fundamentalism. In doing so, it will examine the Islamisation policies of Pakistan’s Zia-ul-Haq administration and its congruence with United States interests at the time. Particular focus will be given to the Afghanistan – Pakistan dyad and how the recent return of international forces perpetuates the conditions that allow Islamic fundamentalism to prosper. As a state whose principal raison d'à ªtre is for the protection of Muslims, Pakistan had historically struggled with defining what its Islamic mandate entailed. Arriving in power via a coup d’à ©tat, Zia-ul-Haq employed religion to attain popular legitimacy, orchestrating Islamic reform as a deceitful pretence for securing power (Kennedy 1990: 73). Correspondingly, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan solidified the role of Islamic politics, with Zia-ul-Haq exhibiting a distinct preference for radical groups as a counterweight to communist ideology (Fuller 1991: 11). The most visible sign of creeping religiosity appeared in 1982 with the declaration that â€Å"national dress† and Islamic studies were mandatory for government employees (Cohen 1988: 314). Underlying this conversion, the government funded the expansion of an increasingly radical madrasa based education system - with the intention to transform the electoral landscape and boost support for Islamic parties ( Nasr 2000: 147). Through th... ...ndamentalists who demur at the state’s very existence, we can opine that Pakistan may already have crossed the Rubicon. This essay has elucidated that Pakistan and Afghanistan are a point of convergence for a litany of failed, arguably asinine policies by both the chief protagonists and outside interests. As such, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism represents the logical endpoint for an array of policies that mobilised extremist religious dogma to achieve geostrategic objectives. Crucially, the abject failure of all involved to disband and reintegrate those forces into a legitimate Afghan state has proved calamitous in its consequences. With recent international intervention bolstering the ideological sources of fundamentalism and with the nexus of instability spreading deep into Pakistan, the continued prominence of Islamic fundamentalism appears inevitable.

Game Rental Shop :: Video Games Consumerism Spreadsheets Essays

Game Rental Shop Spreadsheet Rent it!!!!!! Games rental Identification To start my project I have chosen that I would do a spreadsheet for a games rental shop. This shop would be renting out games for people to borrow over a period of 3 nights. If the games are brought back later than the due in date then there will be a fine of  £1 every night. I think choosing to do a games rental shop is quite a good choice because it would involve lots of calculations. I think that excel would be very suitable software to use for this games shop as it would give me all the calculations and results. I am going to have a stock sheet on excel and another sheet which involves the sales and late charges. I will be calculating things such as adding up sales and late charges and adding up. Excel is the best program to calculate because I would be using its features to calculate. Using formulas you can calculate the whole database in a second. These are the sorts of calculations that we can get from excel:  · Average sales per week  · Most rented game  · Adding up the number of rentals in a week  · Working out the profit  · Fine charges etc. I can use excel to get results such as the most rentals in the week of a single game using a bar chart. Get results for the fine charges of the week again using bar charts and I can also use a pie chart to see the best renting title. Excel also has a function called sort. If there is almost 200 games on my database and next to them it tells you how many times this title has been rented out then all you have to do is click sort and it would tell you in order of what the best renting title is. Rather than an ordinary database program people prefer spreadsheets because it’s good for storing and retrieving. It can do calculations very fast and efficient. Excel also with the use of formulas is better than word processor or a database program. My end user would use the spreadsheet that I will design. My end user would be the shop owner who is using this as a super calculator and would help them get good outcomes from the spreadsheet. The end user requirements should be: * Fast data search * Accurate calculations * Easy to use (user friendly) * Everything sorted out by using the Sort function * Get good results and easy to understand them To get from one sheet to another sheet I will be using macro buttons.

Managerial Finance Closing Essay

The company announces that it is not expanding, what do you think will happen to the price of the bonds? What will happen to the price of the bonds if the company does expand? I believe if the company announces that it is not expanding then the prices of the bonds would not change, however if the company decides to expand then the prices of the bonds would increase due to the increase in the value of the company and the return would be greater. 5. If the company opts not to expand, what are the implications for the companies future borrowing needs? What are the implications if the company does expand? If the company decides not to expand, I do not believe that the implication for the companies future borrowing needs would differ too much from if they decided to expand. However one variation is if the company decides to expand they will receive more equity as shown above by the calculations. If the company has an increase of equity, they have the opportunity for an increase of borrowing, if they needed. However, if the company opts not to expand, they can still borrow in the future, however, their equity will remain the same, which would give them less variation in regards to borrowing. 6. Because of the bond covenant, the expansion would have to be financed with equity. How would it affect your answer if the expansion were financed with cash on hand instead of new equity? From my perspective, I do not see an issue with the expansion being financed with equity rather than â€Å"cash on hand†. I believe it would be an easier wait to keep track of the finances. I thought the primary reason some companies use equity to finance new projects is because they do not have the â€Å"cash on hand† to begin with, and although they have equity, it would be far too much trouble to convert it over to cash. So, they would rather use equity to finance.

Kingshaw’s Misery in I’m the King of the Castle Essay

Throughout the novel I’m the King of the Castle by Susan Hill, we are constantly aware of the misery felt by twelve-year-old Charles Kingshaw. This, and the way it is shown, is very important in really understanding his character, and what eventually leads him to his own death. Charles Kingshaw has a series of irrational fears. Although this is normal for most children, his fears are so crippling that they go far beyond the typical childish nightmare. An example of one of these fears is swimming pools. Early on in the book, Kingshaw recalls being taken to an open-air swimming pool by his father as a much younger child. He remembers how he had feared the water, not only because he couldn’t swim, but also because of its â€Å"glassy, artificial blueness† and how â€Å"people’s limbs looked huge and pale and swollen underneath.† He also fears the â€Å"terrible† moths in the Red Room at Warings, and is afraid of touching their â€Å"furry bodies†. Another fear he has is of crows. Even before he is attacked by the crow in the cornfield outside Warings, Kingshaw notes that it has â€Å"ragged black wings† and â€Å"small, glinting eyes†. He has to tell himself that it is â€Å"stupid to be scared of a rotten bird†. Later on, when Hooper puts the stuffed crow on his bed, he is â€Å"faint with fear† and wishes for his own death – even though he knows immediately that it is not real. This is just one example of the way Hooper exploits Kingshaw’s fears during the novel. When he brings Kingshaw to the Red Room to show him the moths, it seems he just wants to show off. But he immediately recognises that Kingshaw is afraid when, upon seeing the moths, when he â€Å"sharply† draws his breath. Hooper mocks him and orders him to touch one, and Kingshaw’s instinct is to fight as hard as he can – anything to avoid having to feel them. Hooper watches him and sees this, and runs out of the room, locking the door behind him. Later on, Hooper locks Kingshaw in the dark shed, leaving him to fantasize about murderers lurking in the shadows. Kingshaw thinks of Hooper as â€Å"clever† and â€Å"cunning† and thinks he will never be able to escape his endless persecution. He is â€Å"unbalanced† by the open hostility Hooper treats him with, and doesn’t know how to beat him. However, it would be possible for Kingshaw to beat Hooper. Physically, he is taller and is strong enough to give Hooper a bruise when they have their only fistfight, on their very first meeting, and bites him hard enough to make him withdraw when Hooper tries to intimidate Kingshaw on the stairs. Kingshaw would also have the capacity to beat Hooper in his mind games, if he only knew it; Hooper finds Kingshaw â€Å"frustrating†, and is â€Å"at a loss† to get past his â€Å"dull, steady stare†. His insults are very childish (â€Å"stupid head†; â€Å"scaredy-baby†), and Kingshaw even recognises that Hooper is â€Å"not very used to being a bully†. Yet Kingshaw is too and fatalistic, to see his own potential. Kingshaw’s fatalism is important in understanding his misery. His description of himself is very telling of his outlook on life: â€Å"He had no good opinion of his own chances, against Hooper. Or against anyone. He was not cowardly. Just realistic, hopeless. He did not give into people, just went, from the beginning, with the assurance that he would be beaten. It meant that there was no surprise, and no disappointment, about anything†. At many points in the novel, Kingshaw has moments of genuine happiness, in which he feels untouchable and in control. This is reflected in the title of the book itself, and in a later chapter in the book in which he actually climbs to the top of an ancient ruin of a castle. However, this euphoria never lasts, and he falls from his â€Å"castle† every time- all because of his own refusal to fight against what he feels is inevitability; Hooper will always beat him, he will never win. We see these moments of happiness and his sudden snap back to reality multiple times: when he discovers his secret room in Warings and Hooper finds it, so he decided to just let him in; when he ventures on his own into the woods and Hooper follows him; when he climbs up onto the tractor in the cornfield, feeling on top of the world, and gets stuck when dismounting it so he fears it will roll back an crush him. In the chapter in which he fearlessly climbs the castle whilst Hooper begs for help on a wall below him, Kingshaw feels that surge of power again: â€Å"I am the King†¦I could kill him.† But Kingshaw knows that he will not, knowing that â€Å"any power he acquired would only be temporary†. So he tries to help Hooper, and we, as readers, feel frustrated with his helplessness. Kingshaw’s mother does nothing to save her son from Hooper, or from his own fear. In fact, she contributes to his misery by determinedly trying to satisfy her own needs for money and companionship, and ignoring Kingshaw’s declarations of his hate for Hooper along the way. She asks him to â€Å"tell Mummy† if he is upset about anything, but when he tells her how much he dislikes Hooper she tells him it is â€Å"wicked† to say such things. Kingshaw is deeply ashamed of his mother, of her airs and pretences and the fact that she behaves â€Å"altogether without pride†. He knows he â€Å"ought to care about†¦his mother† but doesn’t. This is quite disturbing for a child to say, but it is understandable, as â€Å"she had never known anything about him†. This is proved by her remark to Mr Hooper about how â€Å"Charles is settling down so happily† at Warings. Charles is disgusted but is in no way surprised at her complete l ack of understanding. Susan Hill is very particular in the way she uses language to show Charles Kingshaw’s misery. The book is in third person narrative, mostly told from Kingshaw’s point of view, and often uses slightly naà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ve, childish language: â€Å"He felt absolutely alone, there might be no other person in the whole world.† There is also some informal language which pulls the reader into this child’s world, and endears us to him. An example of this is his thought that, â€Å"It always took longer than you expected, walking.† This makes us feel Kingshaw’s misery more during his moments of extreme terror. During these times the sentences get longer, punctuated by a series of commas, indicating a panicked, frantic train of thought: â€Å"He sweated a little, twisting this way and that, and reaching his left arm round behind him, to try and unhitch the string.† This clearly shows us his raw, desperate fear. Rather than using lots of emotive, descriptive narration, which could detract focus from Kingshaw’s character, the writer has us experience I’m the King of the Castle through Charles Kingshaw’s feelings, experiences and memories. This is very effective as it lets us become more and more involved in Kingshaw’s character; our attachment to him builds up into a climax throughout the novel until he ultimately commits suicide. When this happens our hopes fall as Kingshaw did so many times before and does now, one final time.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Research Paper

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas - Research Paper Example He later proceeded to Yale Law School where he helped establish the Black student Union while at the same time developing a conservative approach to issues. After his legal training, Thomas moved back to the South in 1974 where he worked as the assistant to the Attorney General of Missouri Mr. John Danforth before later on taking up the job of being a lawyer to Monsanto, an agricultural firm. In 1981, he was appointed the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Education majorly due to his past in the civil rights movement and to balance the composition of this important part of the US government. He is now a conservative and controversial judge though initially he had wanted to pursue a religious life having had seminary education stints at the St. John Vianney Minor Seminary and Immaculate Conception Seminary in order to become a catholic priest or cleric. He however left the seminary and decided to fight for civil rights after he overheard a fellow student at the seminary make fun of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jnr. In the year 1982, President Ronald Reagan appointed Thomas as the Chairman of the EEOC, a position in which he held til the year 1990 when President George H.W Bush nominated him to serve as a Judge in the U.S Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. On July 1, 1991, after sixteen months as a judge of appeal, he was nominated to fill the position left vacant by Mr. Marshall who was almost similar with his views on civil rights at the Supreme Court. However, his nomination was opposed by critics who attacked him due to his views that were largely deemed conservative for the highest court of the land while others had the view that he had little experience as a judge of the superior courts. At the confirmation hearings, Thomas decided to remain quiet on a number of issues including rights on abortion and faced a difficult moment explaining himself out about suggestions that he had made unwelc ome sexual comments on a colleague both at the Department of Education and at the EEOC. However, he was confirmed by the United States Senate through a vote of fifty-two votes for him against forty-eight who opposed him. Thomas’s views at the Supreme Court have been the interpretation of the United States constitution from the original meaning by following from a conservative point of view (Totenberg). He has argued that the powers of the federal government must be limited and the states empowered as well as having a strong executive branch within the federal government. Clarence Thomas’s Legal Career and the Supreme Court Thomas was admitted to the Missouri bar on the 13th day of September 1974 from where he practised as an assistant Attorney General of the State of Missouri under Attorney General Danforth whom he had met at the Yale Law School. At the AG’s office, he worked at the criminal appeals section before being assigned duties at the taxation and revenu e division. After the election of Danforth to the United States senate, Thomas joined Monsanto as an attorney before moving to Washington to work with his former colleague Danforth where he worked as a legislative attorney attached to the Senate Commerce Committee. Later on Dansforth played a key role in the confirmation and appointment of Thomas as a judge of the Supreme Court. After a one year stint as Assistant Secretary of Education for the Office for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education from 1981-1982, he became the Chairman of the United

Russian petroleum industry and globalization Dissertation

Russian petroleum industry and globalization - Dissertation Example 4.Functional Structure of Organizations 11 In the petroleum industry, organizations grouped their employees based on their specialization together: Reservoir Engineers together, Production Technologist together, etc., which resulted in a Functional structure. Figure 1 presents an example of a Functional structure in case of an Operating Unit in the petroleum industry (in an oversimplified situation). Because of the grouping of functional activities into specialized departments, the organization is able to support in-depth skill development, which is considered to be one of the key strengths of the functional organization. However, functional grouping also has its drawbacks; as the environment becomes more uncertain and dynamic, many decisions are pushed to higher hierarchical levels, which slows down the process of decision-making. Price shocks of oil and gas in the 1980s resulted in major cost cuttings between 1982 and 1986, major petroleum companies (except for Shell) announced rad ical restructuring programs, which included a reformulation of business strategies within core oil and gas businesses and reduction of staff. Shell did not major restructure its organization, but did reduce staff for ~20%. Although petroleum companies reduced a great number of their staff, the actual amount of work remained the same. 11 5.Russian Petroleum and the Global Scenario 12 5.1.FDI of Russian Companies Globally 13 5.2.Energy as a Strategic Asset 13 5.3.Opportunities for Russia 14 III.Investigation to Support Model 15 1.Sample for Investigation 15 2.Investigation Results in Tabular Form 16 IV.Results of Investigation 21 1.Power distribution on â€Å"Exploration processes† and â€Å"Business development† 21 2.Power distribution on â€Å"Project Planning† and â€Å"Project execution† 22... Over the years, this strategy has been successful and beneficial for the country. Presently, various other factors have come into play such as the need for efficiency, reducing costs and the role of international market forces. The oil prices which reached the peak in 2008 have stabilized over past 3 years. This fact affects the financial results of Russian petroleum companies and Russia GDP. For example EBITDA of the LUK oil has decreased up to 14% since 2008. Russia government faces new challenges to provide GDP growth. One of the major steps is to find new projects which should be developed. These projects can be in Russian territory or abroad. With the help of secondary research it has been proposed that Russian energy can be used as a strategic resource in establishing a notable presence in the global markets. This paper investigates the path of multinational (MNCs) petroleum companies from national to international markets. My research proposes that the organizational structure of some MNCs operating from Russia can adapt techniques of their global counterparts. The research describes the variety of models that companies use to manage their international assets. The common models and solutions are recommended to use in case of Russian petroleum companies with respect to cultural differences and administrative heritage. 1.Introduction Russia is the largest country in the world in terms of area; it is also the second largest producer of energy of which about 40% of the production is exported-making Russian the largest exporter of energy in the world. Thus Russia plays a pivotal role in the international oil market with their production of upto 9.96 million barrels per day (Locatelli & Rossiaud, 2011).

Taxation Law in the UK Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Taxation Law in the UK - Essay Example VAT system is a type of indirect tax. According to the canons of taxation, an indirect tax must not be levied on basic necessities. Adam Smith made a distinction between goods that are necessities and the goods that are luxuries. He advocated the levying of taxes on luxuries. Necessities are mostly exempt under the VAT system in modern times. Adam Smith might have applauded this aspect of the VAT. His argument in favor of low indirect tax was just not related to the welfare of the poor; it was also due to the fact that the rich can also suffer from high indirect taxes as they become less productive as a result. VAT system’s definition of ‘necessaries’, however, seems to be a tad different from that of Adam Smith’s. According to Smith, â€Å"†¦necessaries†¦[include] not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without. A linen shirt, for example, is, strictly speaking, not a necessary of life. The Greeks and Romans lived†¦ very comfortable, though they had no linen. But in present times†¦a creditable day-laborer would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt, the want of which would be supposed to denote that disgraceful degree of poverty, which it is presumed, nobody can well fall into without extreme bad conduct.† According to the canon of equality, the tax should be linked to an individual’s ability to pay. VAT is generally similar for all the individuals. As the marginal utility of money is more for the poor than for the rich, poor suffer more. This means that VAT is regressive in nature. This is why it can have a significant impact on the distribution of income.