Research Briefing
In July 2013, the United Nations estimated that more than 100,000 people had been killed in the conflict in Syria. Since then the UN no longer makes estimates. More than 9 million Syrians need help in the country, 6.5 million of whom are internally displaced. 2.4 million Syrians have fled abroad. 2 million Syrian children
Research Briefing
The fourth and final tranche of the Armed Forces Redundancy Programme was announced on 23 January 2014. Over 11,000 personnel have made redundant since 2011 with a further 1,500 expected in 2014.
Research Briefing
Mrs Sheryll Murray MP came fourth in the ballot for Private Members’ Bills and has introduced the Deep Sea Mining Bill 2013/14 which will receive its have its Report Stage on the 24 January 2014..
Research Briefing
The European Commission's Work Programme for 2014 sets out four priority areas in which it intends to act: economic and monetary union, sustainable growth, justice and security and external action. The UK Government broadly supports the programme but has some specific concerns and reservations.
Research Briefing
Ever since the success of the acronym “BRICs” – coined at the beginning of the 2000s to describe the large fast-growing economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China – economists and investment managers have been attempting to come up with another collection of large emerging economies with bright prospects that can be combined to form
Research Briefing
Jim O’Neill, the economist who first coined the term ‘BRICS’ in 2001, has announced that Nigeria (along with Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey [acronym: MINT) could become one of the next emerging ‘economic giants’. Yet there remain grounds for wondering whether Mr O’Neill’s view is overly rose-tinted. In sharp contrast to him, some recent observers have been talking instead of possible ‘revolution’ or the ‘disintegration’ of Nigeria. Perhaps, like pre-1914 Russia, it is precariously teetering between all three options.
Research Briefing
The Bill aims to approve two draft EU Council Regulations made under Article 352 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).
Research Briefing
What action has the EU taken to enforce freedom of movement throughout the EU?
Research Briefing
There has been a lot of controversy about the Prawer-Begin plan to relocate some of Israel’s semi-nomadic Bedouin population to approved towns, with the UN Human Rights Council saying that it violates Bedouin rights and is discriminatory. In December it was announced that the bill would be substantially amended after opposition from both left- and right-wing politicians in the Knesset.
Research Briefing
On 17 December 2013, Chancellor Angela Merkel formally begins another ‘grand coalition’ between her centre-right CDU/CSU and the centre-left SPD. Germany’s political system lends itself to coalition governments, both centrally and regionally. But despite often close cooperation between the main parties, grand coalitions between right and left are rare at the highest level.
Research Briefing
Where is Germany – the most influential country in Europe – heading, under its new grand coalition government?
Research Briefing
On the 24th of November, the world woke up to news that a deal had been reached between the Permanent Five plus One (the UK, US, France, China, Russia and Germany) and Iran. A Joint Plan of Action was the outcome of weeks of hard negotiations. The deal was indeed revealed to be the fruit of years of US-Iran secret negotiations alongside a decade of public Iranian diplomacy following the revelation of a wide scale Iranian enrichment programme. This note seeks to outline the terms of the deal and reactions to it, background information for context and give a sense of potential technical and geopolitical outcomes.
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