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The spectre of a food security crisis has raised important questions about future directions for agriculture and given fresh impetus to a long-standing debate about the potential contribution of agricultural biotechnology to food security. This paper considers the discursive foundations for promotion of agricultural biotechnology, arguing that notions of progress and "science-based" risk assessment act as "anti-political" strategies to remove consideration of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) from the cut and thrust of politics, while the concept of "food security" reconstitutes agricultural biotechnology as a moral imperative. We argue that a debate ostensibly focussed on developing countries in fact largely arises from discordant views about the future of farming and rural areas in the developed countries where these arguments are taking place. These debates are examined through a comparative study of the UK and Australia. Whereas acceptance of GM crops and foods at government and industry level has not led to commercial adoption in the UK due to consumer resistance and the influence of EU regulations, Australian governments at federal and state level have increasingly embraced GM crops, potentially locking Australia into a food and farming trajectory based on agricultural biotechnology. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

In this paper we examine the failure of the zero carbon homes agenda in the UK and argue that it represents a case of policy dismantling, where a range of policies and programmes have been introduced, revised and then removed by government. We bring together the sustainability transitions literature with the literature on policy dismantling, regime resistance and regime detractors, and suggest that the zero carbon housing agenda in the UK offers useful insights into the politics of sustainability transitions. We identify three phases of policy change, from policy expansion, symbolic dismantling and eventual active policy dismantling. In the conclusions we offer some suggestions on processes of policy dismantling and what this might mean for future sustainability transitions given the significant contributions of buildings to greenhouse gas emissions and the urgent need for rapid low carbon transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If any of your board members are nominated or elected by others, you will be interested in this article on the resulting potential for conflicts of interest from David Gibbs, Lecturer in Company and Commercial Law at the University of Hertfordshire School of Law in the United Kingdom. He explores the implications from the perspective of boards in the UK corporate sector, but the basic principles and lessons are relevant for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Making the transition to a green economy is a major policy driver in the UK and other countries. Entrepreneurs are suggested as being at the forefront of this transition and as a driving force for sustainability. These “green entrepreneurs” may represent a new type of entrepreneurial behaviour combining economic, environmental and social aims. In this paper, we present empirical work conducted with green entrepreneurs in the UK green building sector. Buildings have significant impacts on the environment, both in terms of materials and post-construction energy demands. Drawing on sustainability transitions theory, we examine the role of green entrepreneurs in affecting change and suggest that green building niches are less consensual than previously theorised. In theorising green entrepreneurs, we also point to the need to consider them within wider networks of activity rather than as lone actors and the implications this has for policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the discourses and practices of pedigree livestock breeding, focusing on beef cattle and sheep in the UK, concentrating on an under-examined aspect of this-the deselection and rejection of some animals from future breeding populations. In the context of exploring how animals are valued and represented in different ways in relation to particular agricultural knowledge-practices, it focuses on deselecting particular animals from breeding populations, drawing attention to shifts in such knowledge-practices related to the emergence of 'genetic' techniques in livestock breeding which are arguably displacing 'traditional' visual and experiential knowledge's of livestock animals. The paper situates this discussion in the analytical framework provided by Foucault's conception of 'biopower,' exploring how interventions in livestock populations aimed at the fostering of domestic animal life are necessarily also associated with the imperative that certain animals must die and not contribute to the future reproduction of their breed. The 'geneticization' of livestock breeding produces new articulations of this process associated with different understandings of animal life and the possibilities of different modes of intervention in livestock populations. Genetic techniques increasingly quantify and rationalize processes of selection and deselection, and affect how animals are perceived and valued both as groups and as individuals. The paper concludes by emphasizing that the valuation of livestock animals is contested, and that the entanglement of 'traditional' and 'genetic' modes of valuation means that there are multiple layers of valuation and (de)selection involved in breeding knowledge-practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper explores some of the key institutional transformations in livestock breeding associated with the increasing significance of genetic techniques, situating this within an assessment of an emerging agricultural bioeconomy. Focusing on beef cattle and sheep breeding in the United Kingdom, the paper examines how a move towards the involvement of international and corporate interests in livestock breeding is restructuring the network of institutional interests affecting the knowledge and decision making of individual breeders. The paper suggests that the structural transformation of beef cattle and sheep breeding is complicated by the need for negotiation between breeders’ ‘traditional’ knowledge-practices and the ‘geneticised’ techniques being made available to them. We are thus seeing the emergence of new and complex interactions between the major actors which are reconfiguring power relationships in the UK livestock breeding sector. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Demands for increased levels of protection for species and ecosystems are being translated into new modes of spatial governance at national, regional, and local scales. As part of this, new ways of analysing and representing ecological systems are leading to qualitatively different treatment of the (time) spaces of nature conservation. In this paper we explore what happens when the land-use demands of new paradigms of nature conservation collide with preestablished modes of spatial regulation, taking as our focus the implementation of the European Union Habitats Directive in estuary spaces in the United Kingdom. We provide evidence of the ways in which ecological regulation is reshaping political-economic landscapes and offer insights into the direction of ‘postmodern’ nature conservation practice, including the extent to which theoretical notions of hybrid and nonequilibrium systems have become absorbed into conflicts around ecological regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two substantive bodies of research have developed in recent years, both of which have a focus upon local and regional scales. First, there has been the development of work on changing forms of local and regional governance. This has drawn on a range of theoretical perspectives, including notions of institutional capacity, urban regime theory and neo-regulationalist accounts. Second, a body of research has developed into environmental policy and sustainable development, but this has largely been normative and undertheorized. While these two bodies of literature have developed separately, we believe there is merit in bringing the insights from each together. A focus on local environmental policy helps to broaden our understanding of local governance and problems of after-Fordist regulation. Such a project also helps to illuminate problems in implementing policy on the environment and sustainability. The examination of changing local and regional forms of governance allows us to identify new state spaces, which may provide opportunities for the strategic insertion of environmental objectives into economic development policies. This paper seeks to theorize such environment-economy relations and emerging multi-scalar forms of environmental governance, drawing upon case study research work in six UK local authority areas. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research on local and regional economic development has focused upon transformations in local governance and institutional capacity. It has been argued that local authorities have ceded power to other actors and institutions involved in economic development and regeneration, and that the success of local and regional economic development is closely related to the strength of ‘institutional capacity’ within an area. In this paper, we examine these claims with reference to the operation of EU Structural Funds in the Humber Sub-region of the UK. Previous research on local governance and institutional capacity has had a limited empirical focus, drawing conclusions from studies of either economically ‘successful’ regions or regions undergoing regulatory and institutional transformation and precluding analysis of the nature and conditions of local governance and institutional capacity in less developed regions. Our case study evidence not only suggests that arguments about the declining influence of the local state are overdrawn, but also indicates a need for more nuanced accounts of the role of institutional capacity in regional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the potential role of local authorities in integrating economic development and the environment, using survey evidence from urban local authorities in England and Wales. Internal organization of local authorities; Economic development policy and initiatives; Limits to local authority actions.

The article presents information on a separate legal status for the holding companies and subsidiaries with reference to the decision made by the Great Britain Court of Appeals in the case of Chandler v Cape PLC. It informs that the relationship between the parent and subsidiary originally began with the parent as tenant at the site of the subsidiary. It further informs that the court dismissed the petition of the parent company.

The article presents information on company law stating the power of courts in ordering company meetings in Great Britain. It states that under the Companies Act 2006 the court has the power to order the meetings of companies for overcoming the difficulties due to quoracy. It further states that this power is not for interfering with the company policies or shareholder rights. Information on the design with reference to legal cases regarding the same context is also presented.