Search

Since its announcement in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative has generated a prolific commentary in global news media and academia. Beyond merely chronicling China’s economic diplomacy in the developing world, a mixture of speculative analysis and ‘connectivity’ hyperbole has attempted to compensate for the lack of official guidance from Beijing. Hypotheses attempting to explain the proposed-scale and timing of the initiative have ranged from pragmatic evaluations of the domestic economic pressures facing the party leadership, to assumptions of geopolitical hegemony and the implied influence of the People’s Liberation Army. Chinese institutions have been key drivers of this media phenomenon but individual sub-narratives have also enjoyed their own impetus. Some of these build on pre-existing discursive trends that were globally-recognizable by the mid-2000s, some rely more on events unique to the Belt and Road Initiative and the international geopolitical context of the long decade that followed the Global Financial Crisis. This paper traces the evolution of this ‘Belt and Road Decade’ in media and academia, and presents the case for both its singularity, reliance on a broader zeitgeist and arguably, its expired utility for Beijing in the 2020s. The paper concludes by reconciling the optimism and scepticism of BRI punditry with the empirical markers for China’s development and foreign relations in the present day

In March, China and Iran signed a 25-year Strategic Cooperation Agreement in Tehran. The agreement reportedly provides for up to $400 billion of direct investment, reflecting earlier commitments made during Xi's landmark visit in 2016. This year’s ceremony, attended by Foreign Minster Wang, coincided with the half centenary of the establishment of bilateral relations, and some commentators have hailed the agreement as marking a major strategic re-alignment. The reality is more complex, but the trajectory of Sino-Iranian relations is a pivotal one, particularly for Central Asia, the region separating two states that routinely eulogize each other in 'civilizational' terms. Tangible markers for a Sino-Iranian 'axis' in the region are noticeably absent however and the shared 'New Silk Road' vision has been stifled by sanctions, poor connectivity and regional wariness towards Tehran's revolutionary agenda. This policy brief reviews the China-Iran strategic relationship and identifies four key vectors for its future development in the region.

This dissertation investigates the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP) as an intralingual translation. It gives an overview of the Samaritans and their version of the Pentateuch before presenting a model of intralingual translation. This model is then used to compare the SP to the Jewish Masoretic Text of the Pentateuch. The intralingual translational model is based on Peircean semiotics, which can be used to compare any two translations which share a common source. Translations are viewed as the product of a complex system – a trajectory of translational actions. Like many complex systems, translations generally follow a gradual, relatively stable path, but occasionally there are major changes in trajectory. When comparing two translations, often their translational trajectories will be similar, and they will be recognisably the same. However, where trajectories do differ significantly, on many occasions only one of them will have undergone a significant change in trajectory, while the other remains closer to the common source. This model is then used as an alternative to classical textual criticism, to compare the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP) and the Masoretic Text (MT) as a whole, and then the Song of Moses in particular (Deuteronomy 32:1-43). We see that on many occasions the SP has undergone a more significant change on its translational trajectory than the MT. These intralingual translational changes include: dialectical change, grammatical normalisation, and exegetical problem solving. There are also creative expansions, where scribes supplemented the text of the Pentateuch with text found elsewhere, with the aim of creating a more harmonised whole. Elsewhere there are translational changes linked to Samaritan theology and culture, many of which relate to the focus of their religious life: Mount Gerizim. Descriptive Translation Studies helps us to determine the skopos, that is, the aim or purpose behind these different kinds of translational changes. For example, some of

© The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Smith, G. C., Allard, R., Babin, M., Bertino, L., Chevallier, M., Corlett, G., Crout, J., Davidson, F., Delille, B., Gille, S. T., Hebert, D., Hyder, P., Intrieri, J., Lagunas, J., Larnicol, G., Kaminski, T., Kater, B., Kauker, F., Marec, C., Mazloff, M., Metzger, E. J., Mordy, C., O'Carroll, A., Olsen, S. M., Phelps, M., Posey, P., Prandi, P., Rehm, E., Reid, P., Rigor, I., Sandven, S., Shupe, M., Swart, S., Smedstad, O. M., Solomon, A., Storto, A., Thibaut, P., Toole, J., Wood, K., Xie, J., Yang, Q., & WWRP PPP Steering Grp. Polar ocean observations: A critical gap in the observing system and its effect on environmental predictions from hours to a season. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6, (2019): 429, doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00429., There is a growing need for operational oceanographic predictions in both the Arctic and Antarctic polar regions. In the former, this is driven by a declining ice cover accompanied by an increase in maritime traffic and exploitation of marine resources. Oceanographic predictions in the Antarctic are also important, both to support Antarctic operations and also to help elucidate processes governing sea ice and ice shelf stability. However, a significant gap exists in the ocean observing system in polar regions, compared to most areas of the global ocean, hindering the reliability of ocean and sea ice forecasts. This gap can also be seen from the spread in ocean and sea ice reanalyses for polar regions which provide an estimate of their uncertainty. The reduced reliability of polar predictions may affect the quality of various applications including search and rescue, coupling with numerical weather and seasonal predictions, historical reconstructions (reanalysis), aquaculture and environmental management including environmental emergency response. Here, we outline the status of existing near-real time ocean observational efforts in polar regions, discuss gaps, and explore perspectives for the future. Specific recommendations include a renewed call for open access to data, especially real-time data, as a critical capability for improved sea ice and weather forecasting and other environmental prediction needs. Dedicated efforts are also needed to make use of additional observations made as part of the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP; 2017–2019) to inform optimal observing system design. To provide a polar extension to the Argo network, it is recommended that a network of ice-borne sea ice and upper-ocean observing buoys be deployed and supported operationally in ice-covered areas together with autonomous profiling floats and gliders (potentially with ice detection capability) in seasonally ice covered seas. Finally, additional efforts to better measure and parameterize, The development of the new generation of floats (PRO-ICE) to be operated under ice was funded by the French project NAOS. Twelve PRO-ICE were funded by NAOS and nine by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (FCI-30124). The GreenEdge project is funded by the following French and Canadian programs and agencies: ANR (Contract #111112), CNES (project #131425), IPEV (project #1164), CSA, Fondation Total, ArcticNet, LEFE and the French Arctic Initiative (GreenEdge project). The INTAROS project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under grant agreement No. 727890. The setup of the ArcMBA system and the experiment described in section “Quantitative Network Design” were funded by the European Space Agency through its support to science element (contract #4000117710/16/I-NB). SSw was supported by a Wallenberg Academy Fellowship (WAF 2015.0186). The work at CLS (GL, PPr, and PT) has been funded by internal investment, in relation with on-going CNES and ESA funded studies making use of radar data over Polar regions. EMODNET (BK) is funded by the European Commission. NRL Funding (for RA, JC, DH, EM, PPo, OS) provided by NRL Research Option “Determining the Impact of Sea Ice Thickness on the Arctic’s Naturally Changing Environment (DISTANCE), ONR 6.2 Data Assimilation and under program element 0602435N (JC, RA, DH). JT’s Arctic research activities are supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and ONR. SG was funded by NSF grants/awards PLR-1425989 and OCE 1658001. IR is funded by contributors to the US IABP (including CG, DOE, NASA, NIC, NOAA, NSF, ONR). CAFS is supported by the NOAA ESRL Physical Sciences Division (AS and JI). LB and JX are funded by CMEMS. The WWRP PPP Steering Group is funded by a WMO trust fund with support from AWI for the ICO. The publication fee is provided by ECCC.