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China and the United Kingdom are countries which differ greatly, not least in traditional and new media. This paper will consider a number of structural and content issues around the output of mainstream multimedia journalism in these two very different news markets. Through a detailed comparative textual analysis of three major news web sites in each of the two countries, it will examine ways in which contemporary information technology and recently-evolved epistemological, linguistic and aesthetic conventions in communicating news and current affairs narratives affect multimedia reporting on mainstream online news websites. The paper presents the latest results of a detailed content analysis of interactive multimedia reporting in China and the UK on three randomly-chosen days over a period of two months. The data set was derived from a range of different media organisations exhibiting sufficient commonalities of objective and perspective to allow relevant comparisons to be made between practices in multimedia news journalism in the two countries. In China, Xinhua Wang is a state news agency whose main public presence is online, while Nandu Wang and Renming Wang are newspapers with identifiably left-leaning and right-leaning tendencies respectively in their political outlook. In the UK, the BBC is a public service broadcaster operating nonetheless at some distance from government, but which makes extensive use of its online presence to post journalistic content on domestic and international news web sites, while The Guardian and The Telegraph are both newspapers that are situated on the left and right of UK politics respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK Government's policy report (Cabinet Office, 2008) entitled "Excellence and Fairness in Public Services", sets out the new phase of reform which should enable public services to go from "good to great" focused on the needs of service users and citizens, who are empowered to express their needs and make informed choices, rather than around traditional professional structures of service provider hierarchies and organisational boundaries or "….moving to Dynamic capability - becoming more creative and more capably handling the wicked problems of leadership rather than working in the old familiar ways" (Clark cited in Public Servant (Thomas, 2008)). However, recent departmental capability reviews across the UK government (Barwise et al. 2007) identified improving leadership within the UK civil service, as key to achieving "world class" public services (Cabinet Office, 2008). In addition, Sutherland and Ley (2009), who interviewed senior civil servants responsible for leading the delivery of the UK government's strategic objectives, clearly identified the need to improve the quality of, and the skills required for, effective collaboration across the public service as one of their key challenges. In a new era of collaboration, public service leaders in the 21st century need to be able to work collaboratively across the whole public service system horizontally across organisational and sector boundaries, but also vertically across national, regional and local levels of governance (Seddon, 2008; Benington and Hartley, 2009). This will need to use traditional skills such as diplomat and specialist, but also move"towards using post conventional action logics (mindsets) such as individualist, strategist and alchemist, stepping beyond their existing frameworks into new and more integrative and inclusive action logics" (Mead, 2009). This provides a significant challenge to both public services and to their respective leadership academies. Such an alliance of sector based public service leadership academies is attempting to model collaborative working across organisational and sector boundaries, to co-create and deliver a new leadership development initiative. This collaboration build public service leaders capacity to work collaboratively across the whole public service system to improve outcomes for individuals, citizens and communities of place and interest. This working paper sets out an emerging approach for exploring two key issues arising from this work. Firstly, the challenges faced by the leaders of a disparate group of organisations, working within different business models, seeking to work together to create better public service leaders capable of responding to intractable, interdependent, socio-economic problems or "wicked issues" (Grint, 2008; Thomas, 2008). Secondly, whether in developing their new collaborative leadership initiative, the alliance is able to resist being drawn back into institutional silos and into delivering old models of leadership "teaching the right answers instead of co-creating new knowledge and theory about how to effectively lead across the public service system (Mead, 2008). This exploratory research will seek to build theory from observation and interpretation of people's experiences (Yin, 2003). It will use the development of the leadership initiative by the alliance as a case study, using quantitative as well as qualitative methods in a mixed methodology approach also known as the "pragmatic paradigm" (Tashakkori and Teddlie, 1998). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a speech entitled 'What future for Government Communications?' given in London on 20 January, 2005, Labour's newly appointed government communication head, Howell James, outlined his vision for the revamped 'Government Network'. He spoke of the need to 'move on from a culture of announcement to one of dialogue and debate,' to become 'more radar and less loud-hailer'. The declared shift from the heavy, and many critics would argue excessive, emphasis on presentation in the first years of Blair's prime ministership (see Barnett and Gaber, 2001; Pitcher, 2003 and Franklin, 2004), appeared to be a tacit acceptance that the approach to government communication epitomised by Alastair Campbell, former Press Secretary to the Prime Minister, had serious flaws.This paper examines key moments in the development of government communication in the Blair years (1997-2007) and the critical academic and journalistic response to them. It explores what lessons, if any, can be learnt for government communication. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scant literature on disabled entrepreneurship holds predominantly a deterministic view, where disabled people embark on a business-ownership career due to lack of any other employment option. While we do find push factors and a hierarchy of disability impairment conspicuous, we submit a more complex conceptualisation of disabled entrepreneurship, based on the diversity of experiences and intersectionalities scrutinised in this study. The findings highlight the interplay of the three forms of capital accessible to disabled entrepreneurs within a mainly inhibiting institutional framework, from a combinative perspective that promotes a much needed balancing of agency with structure. Notably, they cast some light onto how differential combinations of these forms of capital, in conjunction with disability type and extent, determine opportunity structure, enterprising and growthorientations amongst disabled people. Finally, the findings of this study have implications for public policy, disabled enterprise support and future research in this domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the apologies of the member States regarding the serious failure about the standards-related obligations at the 98th Session of the International Labour Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. The representative of the Great Britain expressed their apologies for unable to offer the reports requested under article 22 of the Constitution. A representative of Togo explained that the failure of his Government to supply reports is due to the hindrance on the country's development.

The concept of public service in the context of the media has all too often been seen in terms of either non-market, marginal exchanges or paternalistic state provision. We need to imagine a more robust form of public service based on the pursuit of a communicative relationship between citizens that is irreducible to both commercial and propagandistic principles. Instead, public service media must aim to engage ordinary people, irrespective of their purchasing power, geographical location or social position, in a dialogue about public life that contributes to public action. My presentation will assess the challenges facing UK public service media today and draw on historical policy proposals to sketch out a concept of public media suited to the digital age as well as to the current crisis of neo-liberalism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) has endorsed Michael Pitt's flooding review published in June 2008. Alongside the endorsement, the ICE urges the government to ensure a long-term view and to take necessary action to lessen and adapt to the expanding threat of floods.