KIA Literary Agency was founded in 2002 in Tehran with the aim of promoting and supporting fine literary works in all forms throughout the world. It brings about opportunities for authors, illustrators, publishers, translators, and those involved in this field to meet their counterparts. And at the same time, it introduces them to the world and will inform them of all the related events which take place in the world of art and literature.
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False profits of ethical capital is a thought-provoking approach to understanding stakeholder capitalism. Rather than focusing on the inadequacies of corporate responsibility, sustainable investment and consumer politics, this book grapples with the technical and rhetorical functions of ethical capital for profit and accumulation. It provides a unique and eclectic analysis of the political dynamics between finance, capital and labour, offering a refreshing perspective on struggles interlocking social, ecological and economic crises, and suggesting new ways of thinking about sustainability politics.
This new edition considers the unifying legal attributes that span vastly differing inter-governmental organisations, from the UN to the EU. A law of international organisations has become established in certain areas, such as legal personality, powers, membership, finance, and decision-making. In other, newer, areas - accountability, responsibility and democracy - politics is still much rawer, and has not yet been fully converted into legal concepts and principles. As with the first edition, there are plenty of examples of organisations given in the text. Individual organisations dealing with issues such as security, health, civil aviation, finance and trade are scrutinised by way of example, to illustrate how different they can be, but also to show how it is possible to debate a set of legal principles that transcend each institution. This new edition of an established text will appeal to students and academics as well as individuals seeking a legal and political insight into international organisations.
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This book examines the Thatcher government's attempt to revolutionise Britain's pensions system in the 1980s and create a nation of risk-taking savers with an individual stake in capitalism. Drawing upon recently-released archival records, it shows how the ideas motivating these reforms journeyed from the writings of neoliberal intellectuals into government and became the centrepiece of a plan to abolish significant parts of the UK's welfare state and replace these with privatised personal pensions. Revealing a government that veered between political caution and radicalism, the book explains why this revolution failed and charts the malign legacy left by the evolutionary changes that ministers salvaged from the wreckage of their reforms. The book contributes to understanding of policy change, Thatcherism, and international neoliberalism by showing how major reforms to social security could reflect neoliberal thought and yet profoundly disappoint their architects.
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Schistosomiasis is Africa's second most prevalent infectious disease, but in many high-risk areas the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI) has helped achieve up to a 75% reduction in its prevalence. Exploring the work and experiences involved in forming, establishing and managing a health intervention such as the SCI, this book divulges important lessons for anyone looking to replicate its success. Widely recognised as a cost-effective and successful intervention, its knock-on effects include improving overall physical health, school attendance and future prospects. Evaluating the SCI's development, implementation and results through an engaging personal story and written in an approachable style, this book covers: - Key strategic challenges faced and how the SCI overcame them to achieve and maintain low infection rates; - Methods used for raising funding for control and drug donations; - Mobilisation and mechanics of partnerships to facilitate supply and access to drugs; - Nature of working relationships and implementation across Africa; - Ways in which schistosomiasis control can be integrated into, and serve as a model for, other Neglected Tropical Disease programmes (NTD). Written from Professor Alan Fenwick's unique perspective as Director of the SCI, The Schistosomiasis Control Initiative is an essential resource for researchers, policymakers, health professionals and students in the fields of NTD control and global health.
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Commodity futures prices exploded in 2007-08 and concerns about a new type of participant in commodity futures markets began to emerge. Market participants, regulators, and civic organizations began raising concerns that inflows from new "commodity index" investments were driving the increases in commodity prices instead of economic fundamentals. The main argument was that unprecedented buying pressure from these speculative long-only futures traders created massive bubbles that resulted in prices substantially exceeding fundamental value. At the time, it was not uncommon to link concerns about speculation and high prices to world hunger, food crises, and civil unrest. Naturally, this outcry resulted in numerous regulatory proposals to restrict speculation in commodity futures markets through transaction taxes, speculative position limits, and even the bizarre idea of a "virtual reserve" whereby a public agency would take futures positions opposite speculators. At the core, these assertions raised major economic questions about the efficiency of price discovery in commodity futures markets. Moreover, these so-called remedies did not come without a potential cost. Burdensome regulations would increase compliance and risk sharing costs across the global food system-lowering prices for producers and increasing costs to consumers. To guide this debate, a rigorous approach was needed to understand the dynamics between prices and commodity index activity. This book documents a curated selection of papers on the impact of index investment on commodity futures prices. The chronology of the papers roughly follows the timeline of our involvement in the world-wide debate about commodity speculation as it evolved after 2007. The 10 papers follow the evolving speculation debate with new author forwards highlighting the contribution and impact. Policy-makers, researchers, and market participants will find this not only as useful documentation of the debate; but, also a natural starting point when high commodity prices inevitably create the next speculation backlash.
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Critical theory and Independent Living explores intersections between contemporary critical theory and disabled people's struggle for self-determination. The book highlights the affinities between the Independent Living movement and studies of epistemic injustice, biopower, and psychopower. It discusses in depth the activists' critical engagement with welfare-state paternalism, neoliberal marketisation, and familialism. This helps develop a pioneering comparison between various welfare regimes grounded in Independent Living advocacy. The book draws on the activism of disabled people from the European Network on Independent Living (ENIL) by developing case studies of the ENIL's campaigning for deinstitutionalisation and personal assistance. It is argued that this work helps rethink independence as a form of interdependence, and that this reframing is pivotal for critical theorising in the twenty-first century.
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This book offers a coherent perspective on the transition to a market-based agri-food system in the Central and Eastern European Countries and the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union. It provides a formal analysis of the entire food chain from farm inputs to final consumers including imports and exports. Major components of the agribusiness sector (inputs, farm-level marketing, processing, distribution and retailing) are all dealt with in separate chapters. In addition there is coverage of food security, multinationals, commercial law, finance and building market institutions. Theoretical chapters are devoted to problems concerning prices, transactions costs and bilateral monopoly. This theoretical discussion gives an in depth discussion of the difficulties underlying the process of transition to a market-based agri-food system and forms a consistent focus for the book as a whole. Overall, the book makes a highly original contribution to the literature on this topical subject and will be indispensable for agricultural and food economists, as well as general economists and others interested in the topic of economies in transition.
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The story of The White Witch's Garden is about a white witch living in the sky wants to create into a garden, and she experimented three thousand years but has not been succeeded. Cannot see the sunlight and no air circulation, no warmth and love, only infinite expectations and a variety of radical experiments, so of course there not open a beautiful flower. The good is that the white witch finally figured it out. She opened the window, let the sun shine in, let the air flow, swept away the tension and anxiety, arrogance and greed in her heart, and the spring would come for the flowers. This picture book is full of children's philosophies and gives children good inspiration for their thoughts. The pictures are beautiful and enhance their aesthetic skills. It is lovely to be persistent, but sometimes it is possible to take a step back, let go of tension and anxiety, and open yourself up to more possibilities.
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Yang Peng's Award-winning Novels are a collection of the award-winning works of Yang Peng's many outstanding stories. Not only are the selected articles humorous, but also rich in imagination. They are also rich in profound educational philosophy that can enlighten the mind and help readers to reflect on themselves. There have been a lot of strange things happening in the classroom recently. Sometimes students' homeworks were lost. Other times some pencil sharpener or rubber may be missing. Is this because of someone who want to escape from writing homework or is there a thief in the classroom? When everyone talked about it, some people found out that there was actually a black hole in the classroom. The black hole sucked away all these things. Further, the more amazing thing is that not only can the black hole absorb substances, but also colors, viruses, selfish distractions and many other things. As a result, students would like to make a wish, asking the black hole to suck away what they didn't want ...
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What does money really stand for? How can the abstractions of high finance be made visible? Show me the money documents how the financial world has been imagined in art, illustration, photography and other visual media over the last three centuries in Britain and the United States. It tells the story of how artists have grappled with the increasingly intangible and self-referential nature of money, from the South Sea Bubble to our current crisis. Show me the money sets out the history and politics of representations of finance through five essays by academic experts and curators, and is interspersed with provocative think pieces by notable public commentators on finance and art. The book, and the exhibition on which it is based, explore a wide range of images, from satirical eighteenth-century prints by William Hogarth and James Gillray to works by celebrated contemporary artists such as Andreas Gursky and Molly Crabapple. It also charts the development of an array of financial visualisations, including stock tickers and charts, newspaper illustrations, bank adverts and electronic trading systems.
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Shanka is the king's gardener. He lived in a small house with his wife. One night, unable to sleep, Shanka sat up and looked out of the window, and saw a white elephant was eating grass in the silvery moonlight! Shanka never saw a white elephant before, where was it from? Shanka jumped out of his bed and tiptoed into the garden, grabbed the elephant by the tail and flew up to heaven.
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This book goes back to the historical scene of the late Qing Dynasty with meticulous writing to tell the history of Zuo Zongtang's youthful growth and restore the struggle of Zuo Zongtang to serve the country with his body in spite of the hardships and dangers. The book consists of twenty chapters, which are about the following contents: Zuo Zongtang came from a humble background and was in a troubled times, but he was a scholar and a soldier and he made many wonderful achievements; he founded such industries as Fuzhou Shipbuilding and Gansu Manufacturing Bureau, and contributed to the modernization of China; he defeated Agubert, who had occupied in Xinjiang for thirteen years, and carried the coffin to the expedition to recover Ili, so that all the territory of 1.66 million square kilometers was returned to China; he resisted the French and protected Taiwan, and contributed to the establishment of a province; he served as the Minister of Military Affairs and the Minister of the two rivers, and he was a member of the National People's Congress. He served as the Minister of Military Affairs and the Governor of the two rivers, and he was a clean and honest man who promoted water conservancy and rebuilt the book bureau to promote the country through culture.
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Half of the Quilt(Youth Edition) is based on the movie Heart for Heart (produced by Xiaoxiang Film Group and directed by Meng Qi). In October 1934, the fifth anti-encirclement failed, the Central Red Army evacuated the Soviet Union and began the Long March. The Red Army field hospital was bombed by enemy planes and suffered heavy casualties. Dong Xiuyun, a female soldier who stayed at the field hospital to look after the wounded, decided to take the wounded with her and chase the troops. Dong Xiuyun took in the soldiers of the various units who were left alone along the road, forming a special team. After the team came to Shazhou Village, the three female Red Army lived in Xu Xiexiu's house. When parting, Dong Xiuyun cut the only one quilt in half to Xu Xiexiu. This book nourishes the young people's spiritual world with red culture, inherits the red gene, and allows the spirit of the Long March to be passed on from generation to generation among children.
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While there is a story of "Three Little Pigs" in the western world, there is another story "A Little Pig and Ten Wolves" in China. An evil old wolf wanted to eat a piglet living alone but he was taught a lesson. The angry wolf found another nine wolves to take a revenge. The piggy was brave and scheming, and he repelled those wolves again.
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This book mainly introduces the origin of the She ethnic group's Black Rice Festival. While areas of the She ethnic group suffered from pests, the land owners increased rents and fees. As a result, the She people were in shortage of food. Lan Tianfeng led people to the land owner's house to steal food. After being found out, Lan Tianfeng stepped forward to protect others and was imprisoned on March 3rd. There was no food in the prison for him. Later, some She people used black rice leaves to cook rice. The jailers did not dare to eat the black rice and passed the rice to Tianfeng. Over time, Lan Tianfeng slowly recovered. Three years later, again on March 3rd, Lan Tianfeng was rescued. In order for future generations to commemorate the feat of Lan Tianfeng and remember how hard to have rice, the Black Rice Festival is celebrated every year.
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The story of The Nine-Colored Deer is originated from the story of the Deer King in the Dunhuang frescoes, where the divine deer saves people’s lives in contrast with the greed and cruelty of mankind. The pictures have a touch of the Dunhuang frescoes style.
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Are there a lot of fancy ideas in your brain? In this regard, many people in the world are like you, even those intelligent and unique Nobel laureates are like you! With wisdom, knowledge and perseverance, those Laureates have put fantasy and imagination into practice again and again. Eventually, they made great discoveries and inventions in human history, from the insulin that brings the dawn to the century disease, to the nuclear fusion hidden in the sun; from the "human guardian" —our immune system, to the basic particle model; from the first Chinese Nobel Prize — the Parity violation, to the first scientific Nobel Prize in China... This book selects more than 30 subjects with high scientific and social values so that readers can experience the thrilling moments of discoveries and comprehensively learn the untold stories of Nobel laureates.
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The Picture Book of Philosophical Stories for Children inspired by four Chinese and foreign literary classics (Tales from a Carefree Studio, Moby Dick, Don Quixote, and A Midsummer Night's Dream), this book carefully retells the works of four famous writers - Pu Songling, Herman Melville, Cervantes, and Shakespeare - all set in the context of modern children's lives, containing profound philosophical ideas, and skillfully incorporating the true meaning of wisdom and discernment. The form of this book is children's favorite picture books style, so that children can talk to literary classics and understand the philosophy in the stories. According to Pu Songling's "Liao Zhai Zhiyi", the persona of Pu Songling is preserved and taken from the autobiography of "Liao Zhai Zhiyi" as well as part of the storyline. A lonely child with a world of his own. Showing a journey of waves, a history of retrospection and reflection, a future that should be even better. A lonely child, in need of friendship, a friend in trouble, in need of help. When the individual fights against power, the whole of nature comes to help, and the plant grows wildly, both in anger and in ecstasy.
