EXAMINATION TOPICS

=1. Cultural diversity and cross cultural communication.

● Cultural diversity and cultural differences that influence communication (time, space, face-saving, body
language, etc.)
● High and low context cultures
● Tips for effective cross cultural communication

Cultural Diversity
Culture is the system of behaviour that shapes our identity. Culture is our “way of being,” more specifically,
it refers to the shared language, beliefs, values, norms, behaviors, and material objects that are passed down
from one generation to the next.
Diversity is the abundance of possible ways of living and communicating. Thus, cultural diversity
presupposes the variety of cultural and ethnic groups within a human society. Besides, it assists us in becoming
tolerant and respectful to those cultural models that differ from our “norm” and enables our building rapport
with people from different backgrounds and experience. Moreover, cultural diversity is the essential constituent
of repository of infinite human knowledge and provides the survival of our species through its multiformity.
Each culture displays their standards for social interaction keeping their own attitude to personal space, eye
contact, body language expressiveness, negotiating style. In some cultures, let us say, American, in a casual
conversation people would stand close to each other and make use of direct eye contact as a symbol of respect
and poser. The body lg is pretty explicit as well as their negotiating style. Other cultures, like Japanese keep
their correspondent further apart, considers direct eye contact to be rude, rarely express their emotions, and
prefer implicit restrained ways of negotiating. These features are attributed to the high context cultures, Asian,
African, Arab, central European and Latin American, where a plethora of attention is vested in the implicit
code and interpersonal relations and background are of the essence. These cultures leverage to a great extend
nonverbal elements such as face expressions, tone of voice, body space. Low context cultures, on the other
hand, are characterized as forthcoming and open., the information conveyed is explicit and overt. ommunication
is seen as a way of exchanging information, ideas, and opinions. Message is carried more by words than by
nonverbal means etc. (United States and Australia).
As long as cultural backgrounds differ sometimes radically, to establish solid relations, one should get
through the following tips that are sure to level up one’s communicative skills across cultures.
1. Speak clearly and slowly. Some people may not be fluent enough in the chosen, so pronounce words
distinctly.
2. Avoid using slang terms or abbreviations. They may have some adverse connotations in another
culture.
3. Be understanding, patient and tolerant with anyone. It might take some time to build mutual
understanding but the fruits will worth it/
4. Be respectful. Do some research on cultures you are to interact with. This will provide you with
valuable information and stop from doing something incongruous or insulting.
To interact effectively it’s only necessary to be a sympathetic human and think outside the box of
one’s own culture/
 =2. Stereotypes.
● Definition of a stereotype
● Positive sides of stereotypes, negative effects of stereotyping
● What can be done to avoid negative stereotypes?

A stereotype is a quality assigned to groups of people related to their race, nationality, sexual orientation,
etc. In their universal application stereotypes are generally inaccurate. Although some individuals within a
given group may fit a stereotype, others most certainly will not.
Stereotyping is a kind of simplification of our social world; since it reduces thinking during a conversation
and virtually flattens our mind and experience. While holding some stereotypes we infer a person has a range of
characteristics we assume all members of that group have. Stereotypes lead to social categorization, one of the
reasons for biased attitudes.
While all stereotypes are generalizations, not all generalizations are stereotypes. Stereotype is
oversimplification. In the United States, for example, some racial groups are linked to those definitions such as
accomplished, well-bred, athletic, broad-minded, and so forth. In short, when one holds stereotypes, one
perpetuates the cultural mythology present in a society. On the other hand, people tend generalize some
characteristics not yet embedded in a cultural system. Say, for instance, a woman finds a representative of some
culture to be an excellent parent. Based on her experience, she may oversimplify and conclude that anyone
from this group must be the same.
Although stereotypes generally have negative implications, it is not necessarily true. Stereotypes as
generalizations about groups are necessary: in order to interact effectively, we’d better have some idea of our
partner, their behaviours, acceptable words and gestures. For example, people in low-context cultures are said
to be more individualistic, their communication more overt, depending less on context and shared
understandings. High-context cultures are rather group-oriented. Their communication is contextually based,
depending on shared understandings and inferences.
Negative stereotypes are destructive because are aimed at oversimplification and maintaining notions of
inferiority. They breed Attributional ambiguity, Self-fulfilling prophecy самопрограммирование,
Discrimination, Self-stereotyping
The key to reversing those is to contradict them, in direct interactions between people, in the media, and
through education.
Between Individuals. Once people get to know a person, they often determine that the first impressions were
incomplete. A person appears to be better or just the devil incarnate. In that case, getting to know people helps
to break down negative images. Developing mutual understanding is the key to rapport between sides. Dialogue
groups people. So are joint projects.
The media also plays an huge role in both perpetuating and breaking down stereotypes. If they are influential
enough and characterize particular groups in certain ways, their followers are likely to do the same. The idea for
the media is to present unprejudiced notions as objective as possible. It is important that the media paint the
accurate picture of the issue/
Educational institutions can also affect stereotypes, and hence influence inter-group relations. Teaching
about different cultures and their history can help build a general understanding of the world and different
societies inhabiting it.
In spite of all those outer tools and means to reduce negative stereotypes, nevertheless it is largely the job of
individuals. Whenever we feel like some stereotype is about to pop up and stick to some person, we should ask
ourselves: why do I think so? Do I know the person well enough to conclude this way? Maybe it’s rumours?
Even in the most escalated conflicts, not all enemies are as vicious and immutable as assumed. Most groups
have moderates and extremists, people willing to listen and open to work, and those who are not. There is no
evidently correct or wrong ways to assume of people. The world is not either black or white. And interpersonal
relations is a more complex notion with the abundance of ways to establish, maintain, and sever those.
 =3. English out to conquer the world.
● The present standing of English
● Basic characteristics of the English language
● Factors that contributed to the spread of English
● The upsides & downsides of language globalization

English is the most widely used language of the world. It is the language of business and trade, science and
technology, the language of the Internet and much more. Without English proficiency, it is practically
impossible to find a good job, to communicate with people abroad, and sometimes even to understand some
word in your mother tongue.

The reasons for this universality are very well known. English first began its spread during the 16th century
with the British Empire and was strongly reinforced in 20th by the USA world domination in economy, politics
and military aspects as well as through the huge influence of media and entertainment. Another key aspect is its
grammar, voc, flexibility.

The concept of a universal language is more significant only now, in the era of world mass communication.
Before this era Greek, Latin, French were to some extent universal languages, though mainly in Europe.

By a lucky coincidence due to factors above, English, the Universal language is one of the simplest and
easiest natural languages in the world. The only other simple and easy languages are constructed ones. Of
course the concept of easiness is relative, and it depends on which language you know already. However the
concept of simplicity is undeniable: English in an easy language to learn, understand and speak. A complex
language such as Hungarian would be a very unlikely candidate for a universal language.

The English language uses Latin alphabet, the most universal, simple and short one (only the Greek alphabet
is shorter and simpler). In addition, in English there are great number of borrowings from other languages,
which also simplifies its learning for the representatives of different cultures.

It is scarcely possible to stop globalization nowadays. And, therefore, it is extremely difficult to prevent
English from further changes in Grammar, Vocabulary and Phonetics. So, isn’t English in danger? To my mind,
it is. It is just a different kind of “endangered species” among the world’s languages.

English will preserve its dominant position for a couple more centuries. But the danger is its rapid change
under the influence of globalization. Due to its worldwide spread, many rules are simplified to make the lg
applicable for effective communication among cultures/
 =4. The Englishes and the future of English.
● Varieties of the English language and the reasons for their emergence (territorial variants & dialects,
language fusions, international English)
● The upsides & downsides of language change

Of about 7,000 languages existing nowadays there are more than a half which can be treated as “endangered
species” as they are bound to die unless we do something to save them. English certainly doesn’t belong to this
group… On the one hand… But, on the other hand, it is quite a disputable question.
English is the most widely used language of the world. It is the language of business and trade, science and
technology, the language of the Internet and so on. Without knowing English it is practically impossible to find
a good job, to communicate with people when you are abroad, and sometimes even to understand this or that
word in your own language. So, English will definitely survive. But there is another danger it is facing now –
the language is changing rapidly under the influence of globalization, first of all, as English is one of its main
“motive forces”.
Languages are the reflection of cultures of different peoples. Languages preserve our knowledge to a certain
extent. So, when a language dies out, we lose some of the knowledge we could obtain. Applying the same
approach to the changing languages, such as English, I think we can also say that while changing the language,
we change the culture, and therefore lose part of it.
Nowadays there is a vivid tendency towards simplifying everything that is possible. Of course, it may be
rather convenient for the fast-developing world and makes it easier for the foreigners to learn English. But this
simplification of the magnificent, beautiful structures of the RP English inevitably leads to simplifying culture.
Using modern British English we can form our thoughts in many ways. The variety of its grammatical
constructions, the wide range of synonyms helps us not only to give some particular information, but also to
express our own attitude towards this or that thing. The modern process of simplification is depriving us
of this unique opportunity. The simplified language turns us into robots, unemotional and cold. So,
simplification is killing the society. We can hear everything, but at the same time, hear nothing. It’s dreadful.
Another thing happening to English nowadays is adding more and more borrowings to its vocabulary.
People speak English all over the world nowadays, whether as a mother tongue or a second language. But in
any case, they try to adjust English to their own languages, both in terms of Vocabulary, inventing new
“English words” on the basis of some words of their native languages, and in terms of Phonetics, pronouncing
English words in the manner most convenient for them, even if it is wrong. And the words from their languages
are often getting into the Oxford English Dictionary, “expanding the vocabulary”, but in fact, only spoiling it.
Why should it be so? British English is British English. It is not American, Singlish, or something else. It is
BRITISH. And it should be BRITISH.
But it is scarcely possible to stop globalization nowadays. And, therefore, it is extremely difficult to prevent
English from further changes in Grammar, Vocabulary and Phonetics.
Scottish English
Scottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland. It may or may not be considered
distinct from the Scots language, but it is always considered distinct from Scottish Gaelic. The main, formal
variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English, often abbreviated to SSE. SSE may be
defined as "the characteristic speech of the professional class [in Scotland] and the accepted norm in schools".
Scottish English results from language contact between Scots and the Standard English of England after the
17th century. King James VI of Scotland became James I of England in 1603. Since England was the larger and
richer of the two Kingdoms, James moved his court to London in England. The poets of the court therefore
moved south and "began adapting the language and style of their verse to the tastes
of the English market".

Phonology  a rhotic accent (/r/),

 a distinction between the vowels in herd, bird, and curd before /r/,
 /r/ before /l/ is strong,
  a distinction between /w/ and /hw/ in word pairs such as witch and which,
 the phoneme /x/ is common in names and in SSE's many Gaelic and
Scots borrowings,
 vowel length is generally regarded as non-phonemic

 the progressive verb forms are used rather more frequently than in other
varieties of standard English, for example with some stative verbs (I'm wanting a
drink),
Grammar  in some areas perfect aspect of a verb is indicated using "be" as auxiliary
with the preposition "after" and the present participle: for example "He is after
going" instead of "He has gone",
 the compound preposition off of is often used (Take that off of the table)

 scotticisms:
I'll see you up the road meaning "I'll come with you some of the way."
I'm going for the messages meaning "I'm going to shop for groceries."
Are you thinking of flitting? meaning "Are you thinking of moving house?"
Aye, right! meaning "definitely not!"
Vocabular It's your shot for "It's your turn."
y  general items are outwith, meaning "outside of"; wee, the Scots word for
“small”, haggis, ned, landward for “rural”
 the use of "How?" meaning "Why?". "Why not?" is often rendered as
"How no?"
 special terms in education, legal system, church of Scotland, such as
depute /ˈdɛpjut/ for deputy, proven /ˈproːvən/ for proved
 =5. Saving languages.
● Language hot spots
● The reasons for language extinction
● Language steamrollers
● Actions undertaken to save languages (by governments / linguists / local people)

Of about 7,000 languages existing nowadays there are more than a half which can be treated as “endangered
species” as they are bound to die unless we do something to save them. On average, there is a language dying
out somewhere in the world every 2 weeks or so. If there is a language with just a few speakers left, and nobody
is bothering to pass the language on to children, linguists conclude that languages bound to die out soon.

Languages are the reflection of cultures of different peoples. Languages preserve our knowledge to a certain
extent. So, when a language dies out, we lose some of the knowledge we could obtain.

It is too late to do anything to help many languages, where the speakers are too few or too old, and where the
community is too busy just trying to survive to care about their language. But many languages are not in such a
serious position. Often, where languages are seriously endangered, there are things that can be done to give new
life to them. It is called revitalization.

There are some famous cases which illustrate what can be done. Romansch in Switzerland is among them.
Romansch was facing a difficult situation, spoken in five very different dialects, with small and diminishing
numbers, as young people left their community for work in the German-speaking cities. The solution here was
the creation in the 1980s of a unified written language for all these dialects. Romansch Grischun, as it is now
called, has official status in parts of Switzerland, and is being increasingly used in spoken form on radio and
television.

It is too soon to predict the future of those many revived languages, but in some parts of the world they are
attracting precisely the range of positive attitudes and grass roots support which are the preconditions for
language survival. In such unexpected but heart-warming ways might we see the grand total of languages in the
world minimally increased.

- Language Steam Rollers. Language Steamrollers are the big languages of our world, which first spread
due to commerce and trade. These include but are not limited to: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic
and Chinese (Mandarin).

- The reasons for languages extinction. A language becomes extinct when the last person that speaks it dies.
On average two languages dies each week. Languages disappear in three stages
1. Assimilation.
2. Pressure on people to speak the dominant languages.
3. Period of bilingualism starts, where both languages is spoken.
4. Younger generation starts to find the old language obsolete (not usable).
But many languages are not in such a serious position. Often, where languages are seriously endangered,
there are things that can be done to give new life to them. It is called revitalization.

- Actions undertaken so save language. The community itself must want to save its language. The culture of
which it is a part must respect minority languages. There needs to be funding, to support courses, materials, and
teachers. And there, need to be linguists, to get on with the basic task of putting the language down on paper.
That's the bottom line: getting the language documented — recorded, analyzed, written down. People must be
able to read and write if they and their language are to have a future in an increasingly computer literate
civilization.

How much does it cost, is it too expensive? Conditions vary so much that it is difficult to generalize, but a
figure of $100.000 a year per language cannot be far from the truth. Language acts such as in Wales. Welsh,
alone among the Celtic languages, is not only stopping its steady decline towards extinction but showing signs
of real growth. Two Language Acts protect the status of Welsh now.

On the other side of the world, Maori in New Zealand has been maintained by a system of so-called 'language
nests', first introduced in 1982. These are organizations which provide children under five with a domestic
setting in which they are intensively exposed to the language. The staff are all Maori speakers from the local
community. The hope is that the children will keep their Maori skills alive after leaving the nests and that as
they grow older they will in turn become role models to a new generation of young children.
 =6. The civil rights movement in the USA in the 19th-20th centuries.
● The Civil War: reasons and outcome (Emancipation proclamation, 13th amendment)
● Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but equal doctrine, segregation, Jim Crow)
● Sphere of education: Brown vs Board of education / Little Rock
● Students’ movement: sit-ins, freedom riders, SNCC
● The March on Washington and The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the goals & implications for the future
● Black Power, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers

The history of the subjugation of blacks in America began in the 17th century, when the first black slaves
were brought from Africa to work in the colonies of North America. Slaves were held throughout the colonies
and later the American states, especially in the South. The South, with its agricultural economy, relied heavily
on slave labor. In the North, where there was a growing industrial commercial base, slavery was a less mportant
factor in the economy.
A northern-based anti-slavery movement had emerged by the early 1800s. Although the importation of
slaves was banned by the U.S. Congress in 1808, slavery itself was not. Nineteen states (in the U.S. North and
the West) prohibited slavery by 1861 and 15 (primarily in the South) allowed it.
Eleven southern states had seceded from the Union by mid-1861 over the issue of slavery. They feared that
President Abraham Lincoln, who had been recently elected, would ban or restrict slavery in the entire nation.
(Many Southerners also believed that the powers of the U.S. Government did not supersede the rights of the
states.) Thus, viewing the elimination of slavery as a threat to their economic survival, they formed the Con-
federate States of America – and became a separate nation. When the Confederacy attacked a military post in
South Carolina's harbor, President Lincoln sent troops to recapture the fort. The South saw this as a declaration
of war. The "War Between the States" had begun.
Blacks saw the beginning of a brief period of hope for their enfranchisement in 1863, the middle of the Civil
War, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation – a presidential order freeing slaves in the Confed-
erate states.
In April 1865 the Civil War ended in a victory for the North, and slavery was abolished throughout the
United States with the ratification of the 13th amendment to the United States Constitution. Two additional
amendments soon followed: the 14th amendment, ratified in 1868, which made it clear that blacks were
citizens of the United States and attempted to defend the rights of all citizens; and the 15th amendment,
ratified in 1870, which prohibited voting discrimination on the basis of race or color.
But the last two amendments were speedily eclipsed by lack of enforcement, and passage of a series of
segregation laws, especially in the South, that came to be called "Jim Crow" laws – so named after a
derogatory term for blacks. Constant and consistent efforts by individuals and courts to deny rights to blacks
followed.
Event / Date Essence Consequences
Brown vs. Board Linda Brown was denied admission to the
of Education (1954) school. With the help of the NAACP
 the Supreme Court
(National Association for the Advancement of
ruled the segregation in
Colored People) her parents sued the school
public schools was
board
unconstitutional,
 “Southern
Manifesto”
Rosa Parks and Rosa Parks refused to give her seat Bus segregation
Montgomery Bus to a white person on a bus, which instigated announced unconstitutional
Boycott (1955) a bus boycott, which lasted for about a year
Crisis in Little 9 Afro-American students were to be The law about school
Rock (1957) admitted to central high school in Little Rock. desegregation was upheld
The Governor Orval Faubus was a defender
of whites superiority and sent troops from
National Guard to prevent the students from
entering the school. In response, president
 Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little
Rock. 1,000 soldiers remained in the city
to make sure the students were safe.
The Sit-In 4 Afro-American students went As Sit-Ins spread
Movement to a white-only lunch counter and ordered students from different
coffee. After being refused they stayed up states realized they had to
to the closure. By 1961 the Sit-In Movement cooperate. SNCC (Student
covered about 100 cities Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee) was formed
Freedom Riders 2 groups of Afro-Americans and whites The violence in Alabama
(1961) decided to travel into the South with the made shocked many
purpose to challenge segregation there. They Americans
were attacked by angry white mobs
James Meredith J.Meredith had a court order directing the The law about school
(1963) university to register him, but the governor of desegregation was upheld
Mississippi Ross Barnet blocked his pass.
President Kennedy dispatched 500 federal
marshals to escort Meredith to the campus,
but a white mob attacked the campus and a
riot erupted. 160 marshals were wounded.
Kennedy sent troops. James Meredith
attended classes under federal guard
Violence in Civil rights activists wanted to draw the Millions of people across
Birmingham (1963) attention of the government. They organized the country watched the
a peaceful demonstration in Birmingham. violence and President
Bull Corner (public safety commissioner) Kennedy ordered to prepare
responded with force, ordering the police to a new Civil rights bill
use clubs, dogs and high-pressure fire-hoses
March on On August 28, 1963 more than 200,000 King’s speech and the
Washington demonstrators gathered near the Lincoln demonstration built
(August, 1963) memorial in Washington, D.C. People heard momentum for the Civil
speeches, listened to songs. M.L.King gave Rights Bill (1964)
his “I have a dream…” speech
Selma March Voting rights movement Voting Rights Act of
(1964) 1965
 =7. Civil and human rights activists and their contribution to the advancement of human rights.
● M.L. King, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks
● Their accomplishments, goals and achievements
● Contemporary human rights activists (e.g. Malala Yousafzai, Liu Xiaobo, Greta Thunberg, Nadia
Murad, etc.)
● Who is the most prominent human rights activist (in your opinion)? Why?
Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist
who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1954 through 1968. He
is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using the tactics of nonviolence and civil
disobedience based on his Christian beliefs and inspired by the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi.
King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and helped
found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first president.
With the SCLC, he led an unsuccessful 1962 struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia, and helped
organize the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. He also helped to organize the 1963 March on
Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
On October 14, 1964, King received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial
inequality through nonviolent resistance. In 1965, he helped to organize the Selma to Montgomery marches,
and the following year he and the SCLC took the movement north to Chicago to work on segregated housing.
In the final years of his life, he expanded his focus to include opposition towards poverty and the Vietnam
War, alienating many of his liberal allies with a 1967 speech titled "Beyond Vietnam".
In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's
Campaign, when he was assassinated by James Earl Ray on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. King's death
was followed by riots in many U.S. cities. Ray, who fled the country, was arrested two months later at London
Heathrow Airport. Ray was sentenced to 99 years in prison for King's murder, and died in 1998 from hepatitis
while serving his sentence.
King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold
Medal. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in numerous cities and states beginning in
1971, and as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor,
and a county in Washington State was also rededicated for him.

Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam

By the early 1960s, a man named Malcolm X had become a symbol of the black power movement that was
sweeping the nation. Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, he experienced a difficult childhood and
adolescence. He drifted into a life of crime, and in 1946, he was convicted of burglary and sent to prison for six
years.
Prison transformed Malcolm. He began to educate himself, and he played an active role in the prison debate
society. Eventually he joined the Nation of Islam, commonly known as the Black Muslims, who were led
by Elijah Muhammad. Despite their name, the Black Muslims do not hold the same beliefs as mainstream
Muslims. The Nation of Islam preached Black Nationalism. Like Marcus Garvey in the 1920s, Black Muslims
believed that African Americans should separate themselves from whites and form their own self-governing
communities.
Shortly after joining the Nation of Islam, Malcolm Little changed his name to Malcolm X. The “X” stood as
a symbol for the family name of his African ancestors who had been enslaved. Malcolm argued that his true
family name had been stolen from him by slavery, and he did not intend to use the name white society had
given him.
The Black Muslims viewed themselves as their own nation and attempted to make them as economically
self-sufficient as possible. They ran their own businesses, organized their own schools, established
their own weekly newspaper (Muhammad Speaks), and encouraged their members to respect each other and to
strengthen their families. Although the Black Muslims did not advocate violence, they did advocate self-
defense.
Malcolm X was a powerful and charismatic speaker, and his criticisms of white society and the mainstream
civil rights movement gained national attention for the Nation of Islam.
By 1964 Malcolm X had broken with the Black Muslims. Discouraged by scandals involving the Nation of
Islam’s leader, he went to the Muslim holy city of Makkah (also called Mecca) in Saudi Arabia. After seeing
Muslims from many different races worshipping together, he concluded that an integrated society was possible.
In a revealing letter describing his pilgrimage to Makkah, he stated that many whites that he met during the
pilgrimage displayed a spirit of brotherhood that gave him a new, positive insight into race relations.
After Malcolm X broke with the Nation of Islam, he continued to criticize the organization and its leader,
Elijah Muhammad. Because of this, three organization members shot him in February 1965 while he was
giving a speech in New York. Although Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam before his death, his speeches and
ideas from those years with the Black Muslims are those for which he is most remembered. In Malcolm’s view,
African Americans may have been victims in the past, but they did not have to allow racism to victimize them
in the present. His ideas have influenced African Americans to take pride in their own culture and to believe in
their ability to make their way in the world.

ROSA PARKS
Rosa Parks, a pioneer of civil rights, was born on February 4, 1913 and died on October, 24th, 2005, aged 92.
On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks rejected bus driver James F. Blake's order to
relinquish her seat in the "colored section" to a white passenger, after the whites-only section was filled.
In Montgomery, Alabama in the 1950s, as in much of the South, the first four rows of seats were for whites
only.
Between the two worlds was a middle section. Blacks could sit there, but if a white needed their seat they
were expected to vacate not one seat, but the whole row, in order to spare the white the embarrassment of
sitting by a nigger. On December, 1st, 1955, Mrs. Parks sat in that section. After three stops, a white needed a
seat. The three other blacks in the row stood up meekly, but when the driver ordered Mrs. Parks out, she said
firmly, “No”.
In the mythology that came to gild this scene, Mrs. Parks, who was 42, was said to have complained that her
feet were tired. She herself denied it. Her job, as a seamstress in a department store, did not involve much
standing. On December 5th, on the day she was convicted of violating a city ordinance and behaving in a
disorderly manner, the young minister of the Dexter Street Baptist church in Montgomery, Martin Luther King,
summed it up: "We are tired, tired of being segregated and humiliated, tired of being kicked about by the brutal
feet of oppression."
Mrs. Parks had meant to do no more, she said, than show one rude bus-driver that blacks were being treated
unfairly. She was not the first black ever to refuse to give up her seat. But her action had unprecedented
consequences. King and other black leaders started a boycott of Montgomery's buses; it lasted for 382 days,
with blacks walking, cycling or going by mule instead. Other cities followed suit, Mrs. Parks’ case
went to the Supreme Court, which ruled that bus segregation was illegal. Most important, a movement of non--
violent protest had begun, with King as its extraordinary spokesman, which eventually recruited the courts, the
president and Congress to the cause of equal rights. And Mrs. Parks, small, pretty, bespectacled and soft-
spoken, was seen as its instigator.

Malala Yousafzai (Malālah Yūsafzai, born 12 July 1997) is a Pakistani activist for female education and

the youngest Nobel Prize laureate. She is known for human rights advocacy. Her advocacy has grown into an
international movement, and according to Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, she has become
"the most prominent citizen" of the country.
Yousafzai was born in Mingora, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Her family came to run a chain of schools
in the region. She was particularly inspired by her father's thoughts and humanitarian work. In early 2009,
when she was 11–12, she wrote a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC Urdu detailing her life during
the Taliban occupation of Swat. The following summer, journalist Adam B. Ellick made a New York
Times documentary about her life as the Pakistani military intervened in the region. She rose in prominence,
giving interviews in print and on television, and she was nominated for the International Children's Peace
Prize by activist Desmond Tutu.

Liu Xiaobo was a political activist, author, university professor and an annoyance to the Chinese
Communist Party. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for standing up to the Chinese government
and demanding political change - despite the government's fierce opposition.
 Outside the country of his birth, he is known as one of China's leading dissidents, winning awards and the
attention of the world's media. But few people inside China have heard his name. He has repeatedly faced
imprisonment and surveillance from the Chinese government.

He was serving an 11-year prison sentence for "subverting state power".That charge came after he helped
write a manifesto, called Charter 08, calling for political reforms.
 =8. The Ku-Klux-Klan: Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow?
● The reasons for the Klan’s creation
● 3 waves (1860-1880s, 1915-1920s, 1950-1960s) & the reasons for their emergence
● The underlying ideas
● The KKK at present (ideology, tactics, membership)

The Ku Klux Klan was founded as a “social club” in 1866, in Pulaski, Tennessee, but quickly became a
terrorist organization in the aftermath of the Civil War and legislation to free slaves. Dressed in sheets and
robes to frighten their victims, Klansmen set out on night raids, destroying crops, burning houses and barns and
lynching “uppity” negroes. In 1892 alone 169 blacks were lynched. Mass immigration at the turn of the century
and fears that America would be swamped by immigrants provided new impetus for the Klan. By the 1925 it
could boast 5 million members and another wave of lynchings, shootings and whippings swept the nation. By
this time the Klan has added Catholics, Jews, foreigners and organized labour to its list of enemies. Counter-
attacks by the media, the clergy and an increasing number of politicians put the Klan into decline until its
resurgence with the Civil Rights era. The brutal murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964
prompted a congressional investigation into Klan’s activities. During the 70-s Klan membership sank to its
lowest point, but it is now once again on the increase.

Periods:

1. post-Civil War,
2. 1920s-1930s,
3. 1960s,
4. now

FAQ to the KKK

1. abortion, is ALWAYS murder and murder most foul. We agree a woman has the right of her own body,
she can choose to be tattooed, pierced or branded (if she wants). She can marry or remain single; she can work
or be a stay at home parent, go to school or start a business, own property and run for public office. However,
once she becomes pregnant, she has no right of action against her un-born child, for it too as a living being
acquires certain rights, the mothers rights ends where the rights of the child begins and we believe in full faith
that the right to live is acquired at the moment of conception.
2. death penalty advocates.
3. 70% of all AIDS cases are in sub-Saharan, South Africa. 20% of all Africans suffer from some form of
the AIDS virus.
4. Many Klan styled organizations allow, and some even encourage the display of the Nazi flag. We of
The Ku Klux Klan LLC do not. Nazism has no common thread with Americanism, a cardinal principal of
Klankraft.

=9. Human Rights: What are the limits of rights enforcement?

● The Declaration of human rights: history of adoption & groups of rights included
● The principles of universality & indivisibility
● Human rights watchdogs
● Controversial issues
The Declaration of human rights
 Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, sex, colour, religion, or any
other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These rights are all
interrelated, interdependent and indivisible.
Universal human rights are often expressed and guaranteed by law, in the forms of treaties, customary
international law, general principles and other sources of international law. International bill of rights includes
UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 and the following Conventions:
• International covenant on civil and political rights 1966 with its 2 optional protocols
• Economic covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights 1966
• Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
• Convention on the Rights of the Child
• Convention against Torture
• The UN Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities

Born out of the atrocities and enormous loss of life during World War II, the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights was signed in 1948 to provide a common understanding of what everyone’s rights
are. It forms the basis for a world built on freedom, justice and peace. The Member States of the United Nations
pledged to work together to promote the thirty Articles of human rights that, for the first time in history, had
been assembled and codified into a single document. In consequence, many of these rights, in various forms,
are today part of the constitutional laws of democratic nations.
● Human rights watchdogs (комиссия по правам человека)
Human Rights Watch is a nonprofit, nongovernmental human rights organization made up of roughly 400
staff members around the globe. Its staff consists of human rights professionals including country experts,
lawyers, journalists, and academics of diverse backgrounds and nationalities. Established in 1978, Human
Rights Watch is known for its accurate fact-finding, impartial reporting, effective use of media, and targeted
advocacy, often in partnership with local human rights groups. Each year, Human Rights Watch publishes more
than 100 reports and briefings on human rights conditions in some 90 countries, generating extensive coverage
in local and international media. With the leverage this brings, Human Rights Watch meets with governments,
the United Nations, regional groups like the African Union and the European Union, financial institutions, and
corporations to press for changes in policy and practice that promote human rights and justice around the world.
 =Affirmative action
● History
● Goals
● Controversies
AFFIRMING THE PRINCIPLE OF EQUALITY

DURING the second half of the 20th century, the United States has made a historic effort to overcome
racial discrimination and secure equality for all its citizens. At the heart of the effort is a process
known as "affirmative action." Under U.S. laws all employers in both the public and private sector are
required to provide "equal employment opportunity," meaning that they cannot discriminate in their hiring
practices on the basis of race or sex. Affirmative action takes employment one step further, requiring that
employers take specific actions that work to the benefit of blacks and members of other racial and ethnic
minority groups, as well as women.

Implemented in a variety of contexts with different results, affirmative action has stirred controversy when it
has allocated benefits solely on the basis of race or gender, and most particularly when it has done so on a strictly
numerical basis, setting specific quotas and timetables. Few would deny that affirmative action has given
blacks access to areas that previously were closed to them, and has acсelerated integration in the workplace. But
it has done so at some social and psychic cost.
Whites – especially those who have been shunted aside in the quest for employment or promotion because
of the workings of affirmative action – are often stung by what they see as a form of reverse discrimination.
Blacks and other minority beneficiaries of affirmative action chafe at the assumption that any job
advancements are the result of special treatment rather than hard work. Despite these drawbacks, most Ameri-
cans would agree that some steps should be taken to assure that minorities have access to jobs and other
opportunities on the same basis as all other citizens. The broad societal direction in favor of equality which
affirmative action was originally designed to further will undoubtedly continue.
Affirmative action is historically related to the quest by blacks for equal treatment, a story that begins with
the founding of the United States. In the Declaration of Independence, Americans committed themselves to
the proposition that man is endowed with certain unalienable rights and that in the possession of these rights
"all men are created equal." As a theoretical matter, that proposition included blacks as well as whites – all
men. But the United States Constitution, written 11 years later to secure those basic rights, did not fully
embrace blacks, who were held as slaves in many Southern states. Not until Americans had fought the Civil
War was the United States Constitution changed so that slavery was outlawed and the equal protection of the
law was accorded to all citizens.
Still, a new day of equality did not dawn in the latter part of the 19th century. Relevant constitutional
amendments and new laws protecting the right of blacks were effectively nullified by Supreme Court
decisions in the late 1800s. This contributed to the emergence in the South of a dual society. Blacks were
segregated from whites, restricted in their freedom of movement and even denied the vote. They were
“separate” – and obviously unequal.
In 1896 the Supreme Court sanctioned the South's dual society in a decision upholding a state law that
required "black" and "white" railcars.
After the turn of the century, the situation for black Americans only worsened as segregation extended into
more areas of American life. Yet at the same time several organizations devoted themselves to eradicating
racial prejudice and securing equal treatment for all citizens. One of the most important was the Legal Defense
and Educational Fund of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The fund pressed
the cause of equal rights for all, finally achieving a landmark victory in 1954 in one of the most famous cases in
American constitutional law, Brown v. Board of Education. Segregated public school systems, the Court said,
violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution.
In 1957, 1960, 1964, and 1965 the Congress of the United States enacted civil rights laws that reflected
this principle and strengthened the nation's commitment to equal rights for all.
It was in this context and at this time that the term "affirmative action" first came into general use.
Consistent with the colorblind principles urged by civil rights leaders during the 1950s and early '60s,
affirmative action was intended to ensure that the laws designed to end discrimination could actually do so.
Affirmative action required an employer to take steps to end discriminatory personnel practices and
henceforth to make all employment decisions on a race-neutral basis. These steps included dispensing with the
quasi-nepotism of "old-boy" recruiting networks, eliminating any racial bias from employment tests, searching
for qualified employees in black as well as white communities, and generally making employment and
promotion opportunities available and accessible to black applicants. It also required that compensatory
measures be taken on behalf of those whom an employer had discriminated against, by awarding jobs or
promotions or back pay. It was during the second half of the 1960s that affirmative action began to change
meaning, as the issue of equality for black Americans became far more complicated than had originally been
thought.
In 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson gave a famous commencement speech at Howard University in
Washington. Johnson said that it was not enough to give blacks freedom and "legal equity" and "equality as a
right." Rather, he said, blacks must have "equality as a fact" and "equality as a result."
In these words Johnson was echoing the sentiments of those civil rights leaders who were worried that the
erasure of the color line, accomplished over the previous decade, had not led to swift integration of blacks into
the American mainstream. Some found explanation in the special history of American blacks. Whitney Young,
head of the National Urban League, said that blacks had "serious disabilities resulting from historic handicaps."
Another prominent civil rights advocate said that the problems of blacks are rooted in their "systematic
exclusion from American society since slavery ended a century ago."
It was precisely because of this past that many black leaders thought race neutrality was nadequate.
"Special efforts" were needed in order to achieve "equality as a result." In their view, such efforts had to include
admitting and employing blacks on the basis of "numbers." In other words, for integration to occur there had
to be a certain number of blacks actually employed by a company or enrolled in a school. For many civil rights
supporters in the middle and late '60s, only numerical results could measure equality.
Requiring as it did the active use of race, this concept of equality was freighted with irony, since the civil
rights movement had aimed at a colorblind law and society, and the legal decisions and legislative acts of the
1950s and '60s enshrined race-neutral principles. Perhaps the most important of these, the Civil Rights Act of
1964, was very plainly a colorblind law. One of its parts specified, in fact, that no employer would be required
to hire on the basis of race in order to correct some racial imbalance – i.e., an insufficient number of blacks –
in the work force.
Nonetheless, because blacks did not appear to be moving ahead as rapidly as had been hoped, by the late
1960s color blindness had yielded to color consciousness, not only among most black leaders but also within
the American government. The only way to get beyond race, the new argument went, was to take race into
account. This reasoning produced a whole new understanding of affirmative action, a broad-based inter-
pretation which was employed to help not only black Americans, but also members of certain other racial and
ethnic minority groups – Hispanics, Asian-Americans, and American Indians – as well as women.
In 1965 President Johnson ordered "affirmative action" for most private employers who did business with
the U.S. Government. The Labor Department regulations implementing the order said that an "acceptable
affirmative action program must include an analysis of areas within which the contractor is deficient in the
utilization of minority groups and women, and, further, goals and timetables to which the contractor's good
faith efforts must be directed to correct the deficiencies and thus, to increase materially the utilization of
minorities and women, at all levels and in all segments of his work force where deficiencies exist." It was no
defense for an employer to say he had not discriminated or would not discriminate; if he had "deficiencies" –
i.e., too few minorities or women working for him for whatever reason – he was expected to overcome them
through hiring "goals." If a city had a work force that was 20 percent black, for example, an employer was
required to hire this percentage of blacks. That was his "goal."
Numerical "goals" – also called "quotas" – became shorthand for affirmative action in the early 1970s. Gov-
ernments on the federal, state, and local levels began to support this kind of affirmative action. In the private
sector, American universities and professional schools adopted hiring goals for faculty members, and then went
further to fashion admissions policies that gave minority applicants an extra boost. In the academy it was
widely thought, as one prominent university chancellor put it, that "to treat our black students equally, we have
to treat them differently."
Affirmative action did not go unchallenged. In 1972 a white Jewish student named Marco DeFunis sued the
University of Washington Law School, charging that it had discriminated against him by admitting minority
applicants with less distinguished qualifications. It was apparent that the issue would not go away and that at
some point the Supreme Court would have to address whether racial preferences violated the Constitution.
That moment came four years later in Regents of the University of California v. Allan Bakke. The issue again
was raised in the context of professional school admissions. Bakke, a white student, had been rejected by a
University of California medical school. He sued, charging that he was the victim of a special admissions
program that set aside 16 of the 100 places in each class for blacks, Asian-Americans, American Indians, and
Hispanics. Bakke had excellent credentials – high grades, high achievement test scores. In fact, he had far better
credentials than those actually admitted in the special process. Yet the medical school, which had no history of
discrimination, had developed the special admissions program in order to help minority individuals overcome
the past discrimination which it believed was evidenced in their low test scores.
 The case was regarded as so important that it attracted a record number of legal briefs and an extraordinary
amount of publicity. In its decision, the Court actually handed down two decisions, both by narrow 5-to-4
counts. On the one hand, the Court said the medical school must admit Allan Bakke. On the other, it said that it
was not unlawful for a professional school to take race into account in its admissions practices, so long as it did
not use rigid quotas, as the California school had done.
Since Bakke, the Court has had to decide a constant stream of affirmative action cases. Racial preferences
have been upheld and struck down, and lay persons, not to mention many lawyers, have a hard time seeing how
they cohere.
According to the Supreme Court, a state or local government may not justify an affirmative action goal
simply on the basis of generalized past discrimination, and any numerical goal it does adopt must be one that
does least damage to the rights of other parties. On the other hand, the Court has allowed affirmative action
plans that aim for proportional representation of minorities and women in a company's work force.
What does seem certain is that the Supreme Court will continue to have affirmative action cases on its
docket. If any prediction is worth making, it is that the Court will eventually take the law in the direction of
race neutrality. This is the only direction consistent with the Constitution and statutory guarantees, and the only
one likely to enjoy the support of a diverse people who are united not by race or religion or creed but by a devo-
tion to freedom and equal rights for all.
In 1989 the Court handed down several controversial decisions affecting affirmative action. In January the
Court held that broad patterns of societal discrimination were not enough to justify affirmative action programs
imposed by local governments on private businesses. In June the Court handed down one decision making it
harder to prove racial discrimination in hiring practices, and then another making it easier to challenge court
imposed affirmative action plans. These rulings, all by narrow 5 to 4 margins, drew criticism in the civil rights
community, emphatic evidence of the controversy that still surrounds this subject.
Affirmative action has not only proved legally controversial. Especially in recent years its morality has been
challenged. Racial preferences often benefit individuals who may not themselves have been the victims of any
actual discrimination. And questions have been raised about the unintended side effects on affirmative action's
beneficiaries. Glenn Lowry, a Harvard University professor who is himself black, says that affirmative action
can create uncertain perceptions about the qualifications of those minorities who benefit from it even as it
undermines their ability "to confidently assert, if only to themselves, that they are as good as their achievements
would seem to suggest."
In 1987 three black law students were about to win a spot on the school's law review in the traditional way –
through head-to-head competition with all others – when an affirmative action plan was adopted. "Making" law
review on the new basis, they weren't thrilled about it. As one of them told The Washington Post's William
Raspberry, "Affirmative action was a way to dilute our personal victory. It took the victory out of our hands."
Racial preferences can generate and perpetuate notions of inferiority and demean genuine accomplishments.
How can equality be achieved on this basis? The sad truth is that no one has yet designed an affirmative action
program that eliminates the very serious costs, especially those borne by its intended beneficiaries.
Theodore Edwards was hired under an affirmative action program by Illinois Bell Telephone, where he is
now a division manager. "I think affirmative action is necessary," he said, "but I don't think it should be
administered so that we say we have to have X number of minorities regardless of qualifications." His solution
is for employers to make stronger recruiting efforts to find qualified minorities, or to have quotas for entry-level
jobs, and thereafter promotion purely on a merit basis.
Others would prefer to move away completely from the system of quotas and timetables, and to have
government-sponsored integration plans concentrate on equality of education. Scriptwriter Julio Vera calls
affirmative action "a handout," and now refuses to apply for minority writing programs. "Martin Luther King's
dream was to erase color lines; affirmative action hasn't done that," he said. In his opinion, stressing education
for minorities would allow them to compete more effectively in the job market and lessen their dependency on
affirmative action programs.
Today there is no consensus on the economic impact of affirmative action. Studies do not yield a simple
picture. Some scholars believe that government-required affirmative action has resulted merely in a reshuffling
of black jobs in the labor force, with black employment increasing in the "covered" sector and declining in the
"non-covered" sector. Affirmative action's impact tends to be felt more strongly by those at the level of the
middle classes. The more desperate in the underclass are generally beyond the reach of affirmative action.
Individuals hobbled by illiteracy, for example, have a fundamental problem in filling out the employment form
that would put them in the hiring line where they have to be in order to benefit from affirmative action,
however it is conceived. Affirmative action cannot eliminate the effects of drug abuse, family deterioration,
teenage pregnancy, failure in school, and a host of other powerful, self-reinforcing obstacles.
Nonetheless, there is no denying that the anti-discrimination laws, if not affirmative action itself, have had a
profound impact on American life. As economic columnist Robert J. Samuelson has pointed out in The
Washington Post, many firms have changed their personnel policies. Recruitment has been broadened. Tests
unrelated to qualifications have been scrapped. Promotions are less formal. Vacancies are posted publicly.
Objective criteria are used in order to make formal evaluations. These changes work to the benefit of all Ameri-
cans, regardless of race. Furthermore, there is no question that preventing and punishing racial discrimination –
a central concern of the anti-discrimination laws – has been accepted by almost all Americans.
The kind and mix of public policies and private programs needed to make even further progress will require
more discussion and debate among all of those with a stake in improving the prospects for Americans on the
lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder. But there is littledoubt that such debate will transpire. Americans are
pioneers of opportunity, and it is in the American character to take steps into new territory, even one as
uncharted as this.
 =11. Children’s Rights: “in serving the best interests of children, we serve the best interests of all
humanity."
● The Declaration on the Rights of the Child
● Common violations of children’s rights (scale, reasons, solutions)

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the first legally binding instrument designed to protect
and promote the rights of people under 18 years old. Its adoption by the UN General Assembly on 20
November 1989 is celebrated annually as Universal Children’s Day. It has now achieved near-universal
acceptance, with ratification by 193 parties.
The Convention sets out rights that children enjoy as human beings and also identifies special rights and
protections they require during this vulnerable phase of their lives.
The rights in the Convention are predicated on the principles of universality, non-discrimination and
accountability. This means that they apply equally to every child, including the most disadvantaged. The
Convention creates a moral imperative, determined by the world leaders and governments who drafted and
subsequently joined the Convention, to ensure that efforts to protect and promote children’s rights must be
equitable. Every child, no matter how disadvantaged by parental income or family circumstance, geography,
disability, race or gender, has an equal right to enjoy the protection of the Convention and the rights it sets out.
There are 54 articles in the CRC. These set out universal human rights, including the rights to:
 survival;
 develop to the fullest;
 protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation;
 participate fully in family, cultural and social life.

Common violations of children’s rights (reasons, solutions)

Children are the future and it is the responsibility of adults to protect them and ensure that they get the best footing
in life. Unfortunately this is not always the case in many nations around the world – including our own! This list looks at ten
of the worst situations that children today are forced to face. It is hard to believe that these situations still occur, but learning
about them is a good way to start trying to help.

10. Violence through Indoctrination

Palestinian children are taught to hate Jews, to glorify “jihad” (holy war), violence, death and child martyrdom almost
from birth, as an essential part of their culture and destiny. As captured on an Israeli video documentary produced in 1998,
a “Sesame Street”-like children’s program called the “Children’s Club” — complete with puppet shows, songs, Mickey
Mouse and other characters — focused on inculcating intense hatred of Jews and a passion for engaging in and celebrating
violence against them in a perpetual “jihad” until the day the Israeli flags come down from above “Palestinian land” and the
Palestinian flag is raised.
In Madrasas, Islamic schools for study of pure Islamic religion, the culprits are the religious teachers; and the victims
include helpless innocent underage students. The sacred teacher-student relationship is given a new definition in these
Islamic schools. Following is the bitter experience of a 12 years old madrasa student from Kenya who was rescued during
January 2003.
“It was a terrible place, they chain both legs and both arms, sometimes hands and feet together, They beat us at lunch
time, dinner time and grab both legs and hands and give us lashes on the buttocks. We sleep in chains, eat in chains, and
go to the toilets in chains. Sometimes we are hooked on the roof in chains and left hanging. We have to memorize the
Koran and get punished if we cannot recite the Koran in the classroom”.
Chaining incidents are rare in Bangladeshi madrasas. Child torture incidents in madrasas are reported mostly in
Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sudan. The number of students are estimated somewhere between eight hundred thousands to
one million. They are often run by religious organizations and lure young children mainly from poor families by providing
free food and lodging. Some of the schools even provide intensive political and armed training.

9. Poverty
According to UNICEF, 25,000 children die each day due to poverty. Around 27-28 percent of all children in developing
countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted. The two regions that account for the bulk of the deficit are South Asia
and sub-Saharan Africa. Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion
lack basic sanitation. Almost two in three people lacking access to clean water. Some 1.8 million child deaths each year as
a result of diarrhea. For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, there are: 640 million without adequate shelter (1
in 3), 400 million with no access to safe water (1 in 5) and 270 million with no access to health services (1 in 7). 10.6 million
died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (same as children population in France, Germany, Greece and Italy.) 1.4
million die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. 2.2 million children die each year
because they are not immunized. Millions of parents in developing countries must daily cope with the fact that their children
may not survive the first critical years of life; in many cases, the diseases that threaten their children’s lives are preventable.

8. Life as Refugees
Of the 50 million refugees and displaced people in the world, approximately half are children. War is the primary factor in
the creation of child refugees. It is also a principle cause of child death, injury, and loss of parents. In the last decade, war
has killed more than 2 million children, wounded another 6 million, and orphaned about 1 million. Children also flee their
homes because they fear various forms of abuse such as rape, sexual slavery, and child labor. Circumstances of birth also
play a role in depriving children of a legal home. Each year 40 million children are not registered at birth, depriving them of
nationality and a legal name.
The combined ravages of AIDS and war have created a large pool of orphan refugees and displaced children,
particularly in Africa. The toll of Rwanda’s civil war, for example, left orphan children to head some 45,000 Rwandan
households, with 90 percent of these headed by girls. “Separated Children” are those under age 18 and living outside their
country of origin without parents or legal guardians to care for or protect them. Every year, about 20,000 separated children
apply for asylum in Europe and North America. Overall, children account for approximately half of all individuals seeking
legal asylum in developed countries. Separated children are not often legally recognized as refugees in western countries.
In Europe, for example, where there may be as many as 50,000 separated children at any given time, only an estimated 1-5
percent of those who apply for asylum are granted refugee status.

7. Lack of Access to Education

More than 100 million children do not have access to school. Of the children who enroll in primary school, over 150
million drop out, while user fees, including levies, are still charged for access to education in 92 countries and that such
charges have impact on excluding girls. 77 million children worldwide are not able to go to school due to lack of funds. For
socially disadvantaged segments of the population like poor inhabitants of cities, AIDS orphans and the physically
challenged, any access to education is often particularly difficult to obtain. The consequence of this lack of access to
education is that 15 percent of those adolescents between 15 and 24 in third world countries are illiterate.
Location often contributes to a child’s lack of access and attendance to education. In certain areas of the world it is more
difficult for children to get to school. For example, in high-altitude areas of India, severe weather conditions for more than 7
months of the year make school attendance erratic and force children to remain at home. Gender also contributes to a
child’s lack of access and attendance to education. In 25 countries the proportion of boys enrolling in secondary school is
higher than girls by 10% or more, and in five; India, Nepal, Togo, Turkey and Yemen, the gap exceeds 20%. The worst
disparity is found in South Asia, where 52% of boys and only 33% of girls enroll; a gap of 10%. Enrollment is low for both
boys and girls in sub-Saharan Africa, with rates of just 27% and 22%. Girls trail respectively behind. It is generally believed
that girls are often discouraged from attending primary schooling, especially in less developed countries for religious and
cultural reasons.

6. Child Neglect
Neglect is an act of omission, or the absence of action. While the consequences of child neglect can be devastating, it
leaves no visible marks. Moreover, it usually involves infants and very young children who cannot speak for themselves.
James M. Gaudin Jr., in “Child Neglect: Short-Term and Long-Term Outcomes”, reported that, compared with non-
maltreated and abused children, neglected children have the worst delays in language comprehension and expression.
Psychologically neglected children also score lowest in IQ (Intelligence Quotient) tests.
Emotional neglect, in its most serious form, can result in the “non-organic failure to thrive syndrome,” a condition in
which a child fails to develop physically or even to survive. According to Gaudin, studies have found that, even with
aggressive intervention, the neglected child continues to deteriorate. The cooperation of the neglectful parents, which is
crucial to the intervention, usually declines as the child’s condition worsens. This shows that it is sometimes not that easy to
change the parental attributes that have contributed to the neglect in the first place.
Parental neglectful behaviors include not keeping the child clean, not providing enough clothes for keeping warm, not
making sure the child attended school, not caring if the child got into trouble in school, not helping with homework, not
helping the child do his best, not providing comfort when the child was upset, and not helping when the child had problems.
The prevalence of childhood neglect ranged from 3.2% in New Hampshire, United States, to 10% in Montreal, Quebec,
Canada, 19.4% in Singapore, and 36.4% in Pusan, Korea.

5. Child Labor
An estimated 211 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are working around the world, according to the
International Labor Organization. Of these, 120 million children are working full time to help support their impoverished
families.
 There are millions of children whose labor can be considered forced, not only because they are too young to choose to
work, but also because they are, in fact, actively coerced into working. These include child bonded laborers — children
whose labor is pledged by parents as payment or collateral on a debt — as well as children who are kidnapped or otherwise
lured away from their families and imprisoned in sweatshops or brothels. In addition, millions of children around the world
work unseen in domestic service — given or sold at a very early age to another family.
Forced child laborers work in conditions that have no resemblance to a free employment relationship. They receive little
or no pay and have no control over their daily lives. They are often forced to work beyond their physical capacity and under
conditions that seriously threaten their health, safety and development. In many cases their most basic rights, such as
freedom of movement and expression, are suppressed. They are subject to physical and verbal abuse. Even in cases
where they are not physically confined to their workplace, their situation may be so emotionally traumatizing and isolating
that once drawn into forced labor they are unable to conceive of a way to escape.

4. Child Prostitution
In Thailand, NGOs have estimated that up to a third of prostitutes are children under 18. A study by the International
Labor Organization on child prostitution in Vietnam reported that incidence of children in prostitution is steadily increasing
and children under 18 make up between 5 percent and 20 percent of prostitution depending on the geographical area. In
the Philippines, UNICEF estimated that there are 60,000 child prostitutes and many of the 200 brothels in the notorious
Angeles City offer children for sex. In India as many as 200,000 Nepali girls, many under the age of 14, have been sold into
red-light districts. Nepalese girls, especially virgins, are favored in India because of their fair skin and young looks. Every
year about 10,000 Nepalese girls, most between the age of nine and 16, are sold to brothels in India. In El Salvador, one-
third of the sexually exploited children between 14 and 17 years of age are boys. The median age for entering into
prostitution among all children interviewed was 13 years.

3. Internet Child Pornography

The internet is a virtual playground for child predators. It is a place that operates largely outside of the law. While trading
in pedophile pornography is illegal, lack of adequate funding means law enforcement officials are able to investigate just
two percent of their leads. Also, according to Interpol statistics, only one-half of one percent are ever prosecuted.
On a show that aired September 2, 2008, Oprah Winfrey showed a map that clearly conveyed how fast one
pornographic image of a child being molested can spread. From a computer in Washington, DC, the image spread within 24
hours, all across the United States. The demand for new images and videos is so high that authorities report they are
tracking increasingly brutal pornography with younger and younger victims.

2. Trafficking and Slavery

Trafficking is the fastest growing means by which people are forced into slavery. It affects every continent and most
countries. Currently, children are trafficked from countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sudan and Yemen to be used as
camel jockeys in the UAE. Furthermore, Anti-Slavery International also has evidence that children are also being trafficked
to be used as camel jockeys in other Gulf states including Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and also internally in Sudan. The use of
children as jockeys in camel racing is itself extremely dangerous and can result in serious injury and even death. Some
children are also abused by the traffickers and employers, for example by depriving them of food and beating them. The
children’s separation from their families and their transportation to a country where the people, culture and usually the
language are completely unknown leaves them dependent on their employers and de facto forced laborers.
According to UNICEF, over 200,000 children work as slaves in West and Central Africa. Boys are usually sold to work
on cotton and cocoa plantations while girls are used as domestic servants and prostitutes. In some cases, children are
kidnapped outright and sold into slavery while in others, families sell their children, mostly girls, for as little as $14.

1. Military Use of Children

Around the world, children are singled out for recruitment by both armed forces and armed opposition groups, and
exploited as combatants. Approximately 250,000 children under the age of 18 are thought to be fighting in conflicts around
the world, and hundreds of thousands more are members of armed forces who could be sent into combat at any time.
Although most child soldiers are between 15 and 18 years old, significant recruitment starts at the age of 10 and the use of
even younger children has been recorded.
Easily manipulated, children are sometimes coerced to commit grave atrocities, including rape and murder of civilians
using assault rifles such as AK-47s and G4s. Some are forced to injure or kill members of their own families or other child
soldiers. Others serve as porters, cooks, guards, messengers, spies, and sex slaves.
Juvenile Justice in Europe (*) (вопросы правосудия в отношении есовершеннолетних)
The European Union is a ceaselessly changing entity that was once qualified by Jacques Delors, a former
President of the European Commission, as an “unidentified political object”. As a matter of fact, keeping up
with the initiatives undertaken by European institutions or by other relevant stakeholders, such as NGOs or UN
bodies, like UNICEF, can easily get someone in a tangle. Thus, the International Juvenile Justice Observatory,
conjointly with its European branch, the European Juvenile Justice Observatory, took the initiative to compile a
series of relevant measures, policies and decisions developed or drafted by various actors (European Union
institutions, Council of Europe, UNICEF, NGOs, etc.) in order to underline the link between the work of the two
Observatories and the very topics discussed at a European level.
These will encompass any initiatives related to juvenile justice, but will also take into consideration decisions
developed in other related areas, such as the championing of children rights or the fight against social
exclusion.
 =12. Women’s rights. How the overall rights and status of women have changed in the last century.
● History of the women’s rights movement
● The current day situation (men-women presence in the political sphere; prominent feminists, ideology,
methods of achieving gender parity)
● Emma Watson and feminism (He for She)
● “#MeToo” movement (*)

Living the Legacy: The Women’s Rights Movement (1848-1998)

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only
thing that ever has.” That was Margaret Mead’s conclusion after a lifetime of observing very diverse cultures
around the world.
1998 marked the 150th Anniversary of a movement by women to achieve full civil rights in this country. Over
the past seven generations, dramatic social and legal changes have been accomplished that are now so
accepted that they go unnoticed by people whose lives they have utterly changed.
Women themselves made these changes happen, very deliberately. Women have not been the passive
recipients of miraculous changes in laws and human nature. Seven generations of women have come together
to affect these changes in the most democratic ways: through meetings, petition drives, lobbying, public
speaking, and nonviolent resistance. They have worked very deliberately to create a better world, and they
have succeeded hugely.
The Women’s Rights Movement marks July 13, 1848 as its beginning. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was invited to
tea with four women friends. When the course of their conversation turned to the situation of women, Stanton
poured out her discontent with the limitations placed on her own situation under America’s new democracy.
Within two days of their afternoon tea together, this small group had picked a date for their convention, found a
suitable location, and placed a small announcement in the Seneca County Courier. They called “A convention
to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman.” The gathering would take place at the
Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls on July 19 and 20, 1848.
In the history of western civilization, no similar public meeting had ever been called.
1848 - The first women's rights convention is held in Seneca Falls, New York. After 2 days of discussion and
debate, 68 women and 32 men sign a Declaration of Sentiments, which outlines grievances and sets the
agenda for the women's rights movement. A set of 12 resolutions is adopted calling for equal treatment of
women and men under the law and voting rights for women.
13 topic
The term feminism can be used to describe a political, cultural or economic movement aimed at establishing
equal rights and legal protection for women. The movement of feminism can be divided into 3 waves. The first
feminist wave was in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the second was in the 1960s and 1970s,
and the third extends from the 1990s to the present.
1 Wave- Originally it focused on the promotion of equal contract and property rights for women and the
opposition to chattel marriage and ownership of married women (and their children) by their husbands.
However, by the end of the nineteenth century, activism focused primarily on gaining political power,
particularly the right of women's suffrage.
1848- The first women's rights convention is held in Seneca Falls, New York. After 2 days of discussion and
debate, 68 women and 32 men sign a Declaration of Sentiments, which outlines grievances and sets the
agenda for the women's rights movement. A set of 12 resolutions is adopted calling for equal treatment of
women and men under the law and voting rights for women.
1890- the foundation of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
1893- Colorado is the first state to grant the right to vote for women.
In 1918 the Representation of the People Act 1918 was passed granting the vote to women over the age of 30
who owned houses. In 1928 this was extended to all women over twenty-one.
2 Wave- comparing first and second-wave feminism we may say that the first wave focused on rights such as
suffrage, whereas the second wave was largely concerned with other issues of equality, such as ending
discrimination.
The feminist activist and author Carol Hanisch coined the slogan "The Personal is Political" which became
synonymous with the second wave. Second-wave feminists saw women's cultural and political inequalities as
inextricably linked and encouraged women to understand aspects of their personal lives as deeply politicized
and as reflecting sexist power structures.
in 1948 the UN Commission on the Status of Women was established
3 WAVE Today the battle continues in a number of issues- women have faced the problem of the “glass
ceiling”. so subtle that it is transparent, yet so strong that it prevents women from moving up the corporate
hierarchy." From their vantage point on the corporate ladder, women can see the high-level corporate
positions but are kept from "reaching the top”. The attitude to the movement has been changed and seen as
less critical by wide audience.
In the 150 years since that first, landmark Women’s Rights Convention, women have made clear progress in
the areas addressed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in her revolutionary Declaration of Sentiments. Not only have
women won the right to vote but also we have conquered the world of work, large numbers of women have
entered the professions, the trades, and businesses of every kind. We have opened the ranks of the clergy,
the military, the newsroom. More than three million women now work in occupations considered
“nontraditional” until very recently. Women have accomplished so much, yet a lot still remains to be done.
In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender
Equality and the Empowerment of Women. In doing so, UN Member States took an historic step in
accelerating the Organization’s goals on gender equality and the empowerment of women.
Women in government in the modern era are under-represented in most countries worldwide. Even though
some progress has been made during the last two centuries, and women are increasingly being politically
elected to be heads of state and government, this tendency is still persistent. (As of January 2017, 10 women
are serving as Head of State and 9 are serving as Head of Government )
British actor Emma Watson was appointed UN Women Goodwill Ambassador in July 2014. The accomplished
actor, humanitarian and recent graduate of Brown University will dedicate her efforts towards the
empowerment of young women and will serve as an advocate for UN Women’s HeForShe campaign in
promoting gender equality.
At just 24 years of age, Emma has already been involved in the promotion of girls’ education for several years
and previously visited Bangladesh and Zambia as part of her humanitarian efforts. She has worked to promote
fair trade and organic clothing and served as an ambassador for Camfed International, a movement to
educate girls in rural Africa.
The actor Emma Watson has hit back at critics who say she has betrayed her feminist ideals by posing for a
revealing picture in Vanity Fair magazine, in which parts of her breasts were exposed. Feminism is about
giving women choice. Feminism is not a stick with which to beat other women with. It’s about freedom, it’s
about liberation, it’s about equality.
HeForShe (often referred to as He for She) is a solidarity campaign for the advancement of women initiated by
UN Women. Its goal is to engage men and boys as agents of change by encouraging them to take action
against negative inequalities faced by women and girls.[2][3] Grounded in the idea that gender equality is an
issue that affects all people—socially, economically and politically—it seeks to actively involve men and boys
in a movement that was originally conceived as "a struggle for women by women".
 =13. The American court system: an outline and guiding principles.
● Distinguishing features (federalism, the separation of powers and the doctrine of judicial review)
● Types & functions of courts

The United States has a federal system of government in which power is divided between a
central (national) authority and smaller local units of government (the system is called
“federalism”). Correspondingly, it has a dual system of federal and state courts that are
independent of one another. Because each state has its own system, there are essentially 52 court
systems in the United States (the federal system, 50 state systems, and the court system in the
District of Columbia).

The authority of a court to decide a case is called its jurisdiction. Courts have jurisdiction only
within geographical boundaries. Jurisdiction is also limited by types of cases. The authority of
some courts of limited jurisdiction is defined in monetary terms.

The federal judiciary and the fifty state judicial systems are each constructed like a pyramid. In
broad outline these systems are similar, but they vary in the details of their organization and
business. Across the base are the trial courts, the courts of first instance. At the apex is the court
of last resort, usually called the Supreme Court. In most states and in the federal system there is a
middle tier, the intermediate appellate courts. All of these courts draw their style and their
conceptions of judicial power from the English common-law and equity courts, the legal order
that was transplanted to North American shores by the British colonists in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. Louisiana, however, is a unique hybrid because of its roots in the French
civil-law system.

Two features distinguish American courts from the English courts and from those of any other
country:

 the separation of powers,

 the doctrine of judicial review.

The American concept of the separation of powers calls for all governmental authority to be
divided into three parts – legislative, executive, and judicial. Put in its simplest form, the
doctrine requires that the legislative branch make the law through the passage of statutes, the
executive branch enforce the law, and the judicial branch interpret and enunciate the meaning of
the law through the adjudication of disputes. By thus dividing power, the doctrine aims to
protect citizens from abuses of official authority.

The other distinctive feature is the doctrine of judicial review. Under this doctrine, a court has
power to hold a legislative act (a statute) to be contrary to either the Federal Constitution or a
state constitution and hence unenforceable. The Court has used its power to invalidate hundreds
of federal, state, and local laws that it found to conflict with the Constitution of the United
States. The Supreme Court also has used judicial review to order federal, state, and local
officials to refrain from behaving unconstitutionally. However, the power of judicial review
does not belong exclusively to the Supreme Court. State courts have the power to review state
government actions for compatibility with both state constitutions and the federal Constitution.
There are no special constitutional courts in the United States.

Judicial review and separation of powers are major elements in the American conception of the
“rule of law”. They guarantee an independent judiciary authorized to apply the basic charters of
government to control executive and legislative action.

The United States, with its English legal inheritance, is known as a “common-law country”.
This means that case law has traditionally formed a large part of the legal corpus administered in
American courts. This case law is the body of legal principles and rules derived from the written
opinions issued by intermediate appellate courts and courts of last resort to explain their
decisions. Under the doctrine of precedent, these decisions are binding in later cases unless they
can be distinguished or, as occasionally happens, overruled. Although case law remains a major
part of American jurisprudence, litigation is now as likely to involve enactments of federal and
state legislative bodies (statutory law) as it is to involve common-law rules (case law).
 =14. Let justice be rendered: the difference between civil and criminal law.
● Matters considered, purpose, parties involved, the burden of proof, procedure, outcome

The criminal justice system is a rather complicated one. Trial is only one of the last steps it
takes, and it is preceded by a number of procedures.
It’s interesting that the mare fact that a crime has taken place does not actually activate the
criminal justice system. First, it should be reported to the police. The police then classify the
crime and decide whether to investigate it or not. Generally, only the major crimes are
investigated because of heavy case loads. The police identify the suspects, question witnesses,
search for evidence. In order to arrest a suspect the arrest warrant is issued. The Miranda
warning is given to the person arrested. He is then booked (the police make his picture and take
his fingerprints). Then the suspect is questioned in order to gain more information about the
crime, the suspect’s role in it and whether some other people were involved.
Within 48 hours after the arrest the suspect is brought before a judge or a magistrate. He reads
the Miranda warning once again. The aim of the procedure is to decide whether the suspect may
be released on bail or not and if yes – what amount of money is to be paid.
The next step is preliminary hearing. Here, the prosecutor presents the evidence he has. It is
always up to him to decide whether the case proceeds to trial or not.
The defendant is then charged with a crime and the procedure known as the plea bargaining
takes place. The defendant may plead guilty or not guilty. If he does admit his guilt, no trial is
needed, if he doesn’t, the trial takes place.
In general, there are two types of trial: jury trial and bench trial (tried by a judge).
Prior to jury trial, a process of voir dire takes place, when the suitability and impartibility of the
jury members are seen upon.
The trial itself starts with the opening statements of the prosecutor and the defendant attorney.
It is always the prosecutor that starts. Then the evidence is presented and the witnesses to the
case are sworn in and give their evidence. At last the attorneys make their closing arguments.
The jury retire to consider the verdict and when they finally come to some decision, the verdict
is announced by the judge. The judge later imposes a sentence.
The convict has a right to appeal if he disagrees with something. The reviews by appellate
courts are generally restricted to procedural questions, such as inappropriate evidence and so
on. The courts of appeal seldom consider facts relating to guilt or innocence. Appellate courts
have 5 options in deciding an appeal:
1. affirm, or uphold, the lower-court ruling;
2. modify the lower-court ruling;
3. reverse the lower-court ruling;
4. remand the case, or send it back to the lower-court without overturning the original
ruling;
5. reverse and remand the case.

If not successful, the defendant may request review in the state supreme court or even in the
federal court, if some federal constitutional question is involved.
 =15. Law and morality.
● Death penalty
● Euthanasia
● The policeman’s dilemma
● Victimless crimes
● Legalisation of drugs and prostitution

Theoretically, law and morality should be inseparable. But practically, unfortunately, there are
quite a number of rather disputable issues that can be viewed by law and morality from
different ankles. Among the most debatable problems of this kind of modern life are capital
punishment and euthanasia.
Capital Punishment
One of the punishments that exist nowadays is capital punishment, or death penalty. Though it
is used not so widely nowadays as it was used in the Middle Ages, for instance, it is applied in
some cases in some places. Some people demand the abolition of capital punishment claiming
that it is anti-humane and that there may occur mistakes in delivering a verdict, others believe
that death penalty helps to keep the level of crimes lower, as it scares offenders.
As I see this particular problem, there may be quite a number of arguments both for and against
death penalty. Certainly, there are cases, when for the conducted crime no other punishment can
be enforced. For example, terrorism, which is one of the major problems of our time, is one of
these crimes. I don’t think there are many people who would like to know that a terrorist is
somewhere in prison behaving in a good manner, which may enable him to be released, or
something of that kind.
Still, it’s my strong belief that capital punishment should never become a regular practice.
Whatever way we look at it, it may be viewed only as an equivalent of judicial murder. So,
people, bringing in the verdict: “Guilty. Punishment – death penalty” become a kind of murders
themselves. That is why, the usage of this penalty should be largely restricted. People should
not be killed for having committed 3 or more robberies or burglaries, and even not every
murderer should be punished with murder. A heat-of-passion killing often doesn’t mean that the
person is completely lost for the society. We have to do everything to rehabilitate him, to help
him to return to normal life after having served his time. Most of the people, who commit
crimes, need psychological help, first hand. And that is the thing they get rarely nowadays, or
get it not in a proper way.
Furthermore, I don’t really think that stricter punishments will help us to improve the situation
in our society. Something should be done with the society itself. Let’s compare. Almost all
European countries have rather tough laws, but there are so many crimes committed every year,
and there is a constantly growing tendency. Then, let’s take Japan, for instance. The laws there,
in comparison with the rest of the world, are extremely mild. But, still, Japan is one of the
countries with the least number of crimes. And the reason for that lies not in the fear of capital
punishment or any other sentence, but in the psychology of the Japanese. From their childhood
they are taught that stealing, murdering, etc. is a sin; they are taught to respect elderly people;
they are taught not to leave children alone. They learn to be responsible for themselves and for
each other. And I do believe that for us the only way out is to change our attitude to life.
Otherwise, the situation with the crime-rate won’t change, and such strict laws as capital
punishment will be absolutely useless.

Euthanasia
Arguments in favour of euthanasia can be broken down into a few main categories:
1. Arguments based on rights

 People have an explicit right to die

 A separate right to die is not necessary, because our other human rights imply the
right to die

 Death is a private matter and if there is no harm to others, the state and other people
have no right to interfere (a libertarian argument)

2. Practical arguments

 It is possible to regulate euthanasia

 Death is a private matter and if there is no harm to others, the state and other people
have no right to interfere (a libertarian argument)

 Allowing people to die may free up scarce health resources (this is a possible
argument, but no authority has seriously proposed it)

 Euthanasia happens anyway (a utilitarian or consequentialist argument)

3. Philosophical arguments

 Euthanasia satisfies the criterion that moral rules must be universalisable

 Euthanasia happens anyway (a utilitarian or consequentialist argument)

 Is death a bad thing?

 =16. US foreign policies: the Middle East (Iran & Syria)
● History of relations (major events)
● Contentious issues
● Comparison of different administrations’ approaches (B. Obama, D. Trump, Joe Biden)

Iran

As a result of the Iranian takeover of the American Embassy on November 4, 1979, the United
States and Iran severed diplomatic relations in April 1980. The United States and the Islamic
Republic of Iran have had no formal diplomatic relationship since that date. Switzerland is the U.S.
protecting power and provides limited consular services to U.S. citizens in Iran.

Iran has no embassy in Washington, D.C.

August 19, 1953

CIA Assists Coup
U.S. and British intelligence agencies help elements in the Iranian military overthrow Iran’s democratically
elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadeq. This follows Mossadeq’s nationalization of the Britain-owned
Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which led London to impose an oil embargo on Iran. The coup brings back to
power the Western-friendly monarchy, headed by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Deeply unpopular among
much of the population, the shah relies on U.S. support to remain in power until his overthrow in 1979.

November 1979 – January 1981

Iran Hostage Crisis
A group of radical Iranian college students takes fifty-two Americans hostage at the U.S. embassy in Tehran,
demanding that the United States extradite the shah. Washington severs ties with Tehran, sanctions Iranian oil
imports, and freezes Iranian assets. After 444 days, the hostages are released under the Algiers Accords
[PDF], which were signed just minutes after the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan, whose 1980
presidential campaign emphasized President Jimmy Carter’s failure to free the hostages. As part of the
accords, the United States promises not to intervene in Iranian politics.

September 1980 – August 1988

Iran-Iraq War
Iraq invades its neighbor and growing rival Iran amid fears of a Shiite revolt against Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein. The United States supports secular Iraq with economic aid, training, and dual-use technology until
the war ends in 1988, even after the CIA finds evidence that Iraqi forces used chemical weapons against
Iranians. An estimated one million Iranians and 250,000–500,000 Iraqis die in the conflict.

U.S. Intensifies Sanctions

The United States ramps up sanctions against Iran under the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton
administrations. In 1992, Congress passes the Iran-Iraq Arms Nonproliferation Act, which sanctions materials
that could be used to develop advanced weaponry. The White House expands sanctions with a complete oil
and trade embargo in 1995. The 1996 Iran and Libya Sanctions Act imposes an embargo against non-
American companies investing more than $20 million per year in Iran’s oil and gas sectors.

January 29, 2002

‘Axis of Evil’
During his 2002 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush describes Iran as part of an “axis of
evil,” along with Iraq and North Korea. He says Iran “aggressively pursues [weapons of mass destruction] and
exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom.” In response, the Iranian
government stops secret meetings with U.S. diplomats that are focused on capturing al-Qaeda operatives and
combating the Taliban.

March 20, 2003

Iraq War Begins
U.S. forces invade Iraq, aiming to end the threat posed by what Washington says are Saddam Hussein’s
revived WMD programs. Iran backs local Shiite militias in Iraq, some of which participate in attacks on U.S.
forces. Saddam’s dictatorship is toppled and he is executed in December. A 2019 U.S. Army study on the Iraq
War concludes that “an emboldened and expansionist Iran appears to be the only victor” in the conflict.

November 24, 2013

Interim Nuclear Deal
President Barack Obama calls newly elected Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in September to discuss
Iran’s nuclear program, the most direct contact since 1979. Two months later, Iran and the P5+1—the five
permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany—sign an initial nuclear agreement [PDF],
providing Iran with some sanctions relief. Obama praises the deal for cutting off Iran’s “most likely paths to a
bomb,” while Rouhani hails it as a “political victory” for Iran.

May 8, 2018
Trumps Pulls Out of JCPOA
President Donald Trump announces that the United States will withdraw from the JCPOA and mount a
sanctions campaign to place “maximum pressure” on Iran. Many arms control experts and European allies
condemn the move, while many Republican lawmakers, Israel, and Saudi Arabia applaud it. Iran responds by
boosting uranium enrichment in defiance of the agreement’s terms. The withdrawal marks the beginning of
rhetorical and military escalation with Iran under the Trump administration.

April 15, 2019

U.S. Designates IRGC a Terrorist Group
Trump designates the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—a branch of the Iranian army—a foreign
terrorist organization (FTO). It is the first time the United States designates part of another country’s
government as an FTO. A week earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweets that he personally
requested the move. Rouhani says the action will only increase the IRGC’s popularity at home and abroad.

December 31, 2019

Protests at U.S. Embassy in Baghdad
Iraqi demonstrators and Iran-backed militias attempt to seize the U.S. Embassy Baghdad in retaliation for an
air strike that killed militia members. Protesters chant “death to America” and demand that the United States
withdraw its troops from Iraq. In response, President Trump tweets that Iran will pay “a very big price” for any
lives lost or damage incurred at U.S. facilities.

January 3, 2020
Killing of Qasem Soleimani
The United States kills Qasem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC’s elite Quds Force, with a drone strike in
Baghdad. Soleimani was considered by some experts to be Iran’s second most powerful person after
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis is also killed, along with seven
other Iranian and Iraqi nationals. Iran promises revenge and announces that it will no longer commit to
restrictions under the nuclear deal. Soon after, Iran mistakenly shoots down a Ukrainian passenger plane as
Iranian forces are on high alert for possible U.S. attacks. It later attacks multiple U.S. bases in Iraq, wounding
dozens of U.S. and Iraqi personnel

October 2020 – December 2020

Trump’s Final Sanctions Surge
Trump ramps up his maximum-pressure campaign against Iran with a flurry of new sanctions targeting entities
in the oil and financial sectors and a leading charity, among others, as well as top officials. Washington cites
as reasons for the new measures the Iranian government’s alleged interference in the 2020 presidential
election, its suspected development of chemical weapons, and human rights abuses committed during a
crackdown on protesters in November 2019.

April 2021
Talks to Revive the JCPOA
The JCPOA’s signatories hold talks in Vienna aimed at bringing the United States and Iran back in compliance
with the agreement. U.S. and Iranian officials attend the so-called proximity meetings to exchange ideas on
sequencing a return to the deal. Each side insists that the other should be the first to resume its obligations,
and they try to downplay expectations for immediate progress. The talks persist even after an explosion at
Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility—which it blames on Israel—leads Iran to enrich uranium at a new high of 60
percent purity.

SYRIA

The United States established diplomatic relations with Syria in 1944 following the U.S. determination that
Syria had achieved effective independence from a French-administered mandate. Syria severed diplomatic
relations with the United States in 1967 in the wake of the Arab-Israeli War. Relations were reestablished in
1974. Syria has been on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism since the list’s inception in 1979 because
of its continued support of terrorism and terrorist groups, its former occupation of Lebanon, its pursuit of
weapons of mass destruction and missile programs and use of chemical weapons, and its ongoing efforts to
undermine U.S. and international stabilization activities in Iraq and Syria. Syria is subject to legislatively
mandated penalties, including export sanctions under the Syrian Accountability Act and ineligibility to receive
most forms of U.S. assistance or to purchase U.S. military equipment. Since conflict erupted in Syria in March
2011, subsequent Executive Orders have been issued in response to the ongoing violence and human rights
abuses taking place in Syria.

From 1990-2001, the United States and Syria cooperated to a degree on some regional issues, but relations
worsened from 2003 to early 2009. Issues of U.S. concern included the Syrian government’s failure to prevent
Syria from becoming a major transit point for foreign fighters entering Iraq, its refusal to deport from Syria
former Saddam Hussein regime elements supporting the insurgency in Iraq, its interference in Lebanese
affairs, its protection of the leadership of Palestinian rejectionist groups in Damascus, its human rights record,
and its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. In early 2009, the United States began to review its Syria
policy in light of changes in the country and the region, leading to an effort to engage with Syria to find areas of
mutual interest, reduce regional tensions, and promote Middle East peace.

In late February 2011, the Syrian government arrested a group of Syrian school children in the southern city of
Dara’a for writing political graffiti on walls that said, “It’s your turn, Doctor,” suggesting that Assad would meet
the fate of other leaders in the region. The government’s brutal response to the Syrian people’s call for
freedom and dignity sparked nation-wide demonstrations and escalating tensions, which descended into an
armed conflict that has lasted more than nine years, taken more than 500,000 lives, and displaced over 12
million people within the country and beyond its borders.

The United States supports the UN-facilitated, Syrian-led process mandated by UNSCR 2254. There is no
military solution to the Syrian conflict. As we have seen, the Syrian regime, Russian, and Iranian military
actions only offer more destruction and death.

Since the rise of ISIS in 2014, the U.S. government has worked closely with the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS
to achieve a lasting defeat of the terror group. Working by, with, and through local partners, the Coalition
achieved the territorial defeat of ISIS in Syria in March 2019. The Coalition remains committed to ISIS’s
enduring defeat through stabilization support to liberated areas, facilitating the return of displaced individuals,
finding long-term solutions for detained foreign ISIS fighters, and promoting justice and accountability efforts in
Syria and Iraq.

U.S. Assistance to Syria

The United States is the largest single donor to the humanitarian response in Syria, providing over $12.2
billion in humanitarian assistance for vulnerable individuals inside Syria and those displaced in the region
since the start of the crisis. The U.S. government supports emergency food assistance, shelter, safe drinking
water, urgent medical care, humanitarian protection activities, and other urgent relief. U.S. humanitarian aid
reaches 4.8 million people inside Syria’s 14 governorates every month, as well as more than five million of the
5.65 million refugees from Syria in the region.

The United States maintains comprehensive sanctions on Syria that broadly restrict the ability of U.S. persons
to engage in transactional dealings involving the Government of Syria. The Government of Syria and its
affiliated entities have been subject to U.S. economic sanctions since 2004 under the Syria Accountability Act,
which prohibits or restricts the export and re-export of most U.S. products to Syria. Sanctions in August 2008
prohibited the export of U.S. services to Syria and banned U.S. persons from involvement in the Syrian
petroleum sector, including a prohibition on importing Syrian petroleum products. In response to regime
brutality against peaceful protesters beginning in 2011, the U.S. Government imposed additional sanctions
beginning in April 2011, designating those complicit in human rights abuses or supporting the Assad regime. In
April and May 2012, the U.S. Government authorized additional sanctions for serious human rights abuse
against the Syrian people and for efforts and activities undertaken to evade sanctions. In 2019, the U.S.
government authorized a new sanctions program under Executive Order 13894 that allows for sanctions to be
levied on those preventing, disrupting, or obstructing a political solution to the Syrian conflict which includes
both Syrians and any foreign enablers. In June 2020, the sanctions provisions of the Caesar Syria Civilian
Protection Act came into full effect, allowing the U.S. government to sanction regime financiers, officials,
senior government figures around Bashar al Assad and their enablers, and military leaders who perpetuate the
conflict and obstruct a peaceful, political resolution of the conflict as called for by UNSCR 2254. The U.S.
Government is continuously identifying and designating individuals and entities subject to U.S. sanctions
related to Syria, including but not limited to the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons and other atrocities
against its own people.
 =17. US foreign policies: South-East Asia (China & North Korea)
● History of relations (major events)
● Contentious issues
● Comparison of different administrations’ approaches (B. Obama, D. Trump, Joe Biden)

North korea
The political and diplomatic relations between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the United
States of America have been historically hostile since the Korean War.

In recent years relations have been largely defined by heavy U.S. military presence in South Korea,[1] joint
U.S.-South Korea military exercises in the South China Sea,[2] US economic sanctions against North Korea[3]
for North Korea's nuclear program and North Korea's demand that the United States eliminate its nuclear
arsenal that could reach the Korean peninsula.[4]

North Korea's nuclear weapons program consists of six tests of nuclear weapons, its development of long-
range missiles capable of striking targets thousands of miles away, possibly as far away as the continental
United States,[5] and its ongoing threats to strike the United States[6] and South Korea with nuclear weapons
and conventional forces.

The United States' nuclear weapons program in nearby Guam consists of B1-B bombers and B2 Spirit
bombers capable of launching nuclear weapons "60 times more destructive than the bomb dropped on
Nagasaki."[7] From Guam, the U.S. conducts precision strike exercises to simulate a pre-emptive nuclear
strike on North Korea.[7][8]

Since the Korean War, the United States has maintained a strong military presence in South Korea with
28,500 troops, 90 Patriot missiles and five military bases.[9]

Neither the United States nor North Korea has adopted a No First Use nuclear weapons policy.[10]

In August 2003, China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea, and the United States engaged in six-party
talks, which led to North Korea in 2005 vowing to abandon “all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear
programs” and again become a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In 2008, the US removed
North Korea from the US "State Sponsors of Terrorism" list[11] after North Korea verbally agreed to allow
inspectors to conduct forensic tests of its nuclear materials. Six-party talks on verification, disablement, and
energy assistance reached an impasse, however, due to a failure to agree on verification protocols and a
North Korean rocket launch.[12][13]

During his presidency, George W. Bush referred to North Korea as part of "the Axis of Evil" because of the
threat of its nuclear capabilities.[14][15] Subsequently, the Arms Control Association referred to the Bush
administration's targeting of North Korea as a "failed" policy and welcomed the administration's "quiet reversal"
to conduct talks with North Korea.[16]

Recently, North Korea and the United States embarked on formal diplomatic efforts with the first Trump–Kim
Summit in 2018.

Sweden acts as the protecting power of United States interests in North Korea[17][18] for consular matters
and an office inside North Korea's mission to the United Nations also addresses issues between the two
countries.[19]

The United States has considered, de jure, South Korea as the sole legitimate representative of all of Korea.
[20]
In 2017, there was a significant rise of tensions and amplified rhetoric from both sides as Donald Trump
assumed the presidency, after it appeared that North Korea's nuclear weapons program was developing at a
faster rate than previously thought. North Korean missile testing,Trump's designation of North Korea as a state
sponsor of terrorism, angry rhetoric with Trump threatening to unleash “fire and fury like the world has never
seen,” and increased U.S. military presence on the Korean Peninsula sparked speculation of a nuclear
conflict.

On June 12, 2018, Trump and Kim met at the summit in Singapore, in the first summit meeting between the
leaders of the two countries.[33] Over the course of the summit, the two leaders engaged in several
discussions and signed a joint statement calling for security, stability, and lasting peace.[34] Following the
meeting, Trump announced he would suspend the next round of joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises
aimed at North Korea.[35]

Between summits, on February 22, 2019 an armed commando assaulted the North Korean embassy in
Madrid, Spain; Spanish media alleged that two of the members were CIA operatives, but this has not been
substantiated, and is denied by the CIA.[36]

Hanoi summit
A second summit between Trump and Kim occurred on February 27 and 28, 2019 in Vietnam regarding North
Korea's nuclear program, but the Hanoi summit ended abruptly without an agreement.[37] According to U.S.
officials, Kim insisted all crippling economic sanctions be lifted but was only willing to dismantle one nuclear
facility, falling short of Trump's definition of denuclearization.

Following World War II the United Nations divided Korea along the 38th parallel, intending this as a temporary
measure. A breakdown in relations between the U.S. and USSR, however, prevented a reunification.[41] As a
result, in August 1945, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. divided control over the Korean Peninsula, with the Soviet Army
and its proxies supporting a communist government in the North and the U.S. supporting a capitalist
government in the South.[42]

Cold War
Pre-Korean War (1948–1950)
On September 9, 1948, Kim Il-sung declared the Democratic People's Republic of Korea; he promptly received
diplomatic recognition from the Soviet Union, but not the United States. The U.S. did not extend, and has
never extended formal diplomatic recognition to the DPRK.

Korean War (1950–1953) - the Korean War was a fight between the Koreas (north and south)

In 1953, the United Nations Command, North Korea, and China signed the Korean War Armistice Agreement
for exchanging prisoners of war, marking a north–south boundary within a demilitarized zone, and suspending
fighting.[53] A formal peace treaty, however, was never signed.[53]

In 1953, the U.S. signed a mutual security treaty, promising to defend South Korea from North Korean
aggression by stationing U.S. troops along the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and including South Korea under the
U.S. nuclear umbrella. The U.S. pledged to use nuclear weapons to deter and, if necessary, prevail in an
attack on the South.[54] In 1991, the U.S. removed its tactical nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula[55]
after North Korea conditioned international inspections on their removal.

2018 Singapore Summit

During the meeting, a historic agreement was signed between the two countries calling for North Korea to
reaffirm its commitment to the 2017 Panmunjom Declaration signed between North and South Korean to work
towards completely denuclearizing the entire Korean Peninsula.[154] The agreement declared a new start to
US-DPRK relations between the two countries to achieve "peace and prosperity" through cooperation on
issues such as the recovery of POW/MIA remains.[155] Trump subsequently announced that war game
exercises between the US and South Korean militaries would end.[156]
Biden Administration (2021–)
In early 2021, the United States under the presidency of Joe Biden attempted a new outreach to North Korea,
[206] to which they were unresponsive.[207] On 18 March, the Korean Central News Agency put out a
statement by North Korean first vice minister of Foreign Affairs Choe Son Hui acknowledging attempts at
contact, and stating that North Korea would continue to ignore such attempts in the future.[208] In it, she also
criticized the United States for continuing military drills and maintaining sanctions against North Korea,[208]
and said that "no dialogue would be possible until the United States rolled back its hostile policy toward North
Korea and both parties were able to exchange words on an equal basis."[209]

Starting in late August 2008, North Korea allegedly resumed its nuclear activities at the Yongbyon nuclear
facility, apparently moving equipment and nuclear supplies back onto the facility grounds. Since then, North
Korean activity at the facility has steadily increased, with North Korea threatening Yongbyon's possible
reactivation.

North Korea has argued that the U.S. has failed to fulfill its promises in the disarmament process, having not
removed the country from its "State Sponsors of Terrorism" list or sent the promised aid to the country. The
U.S. has recently stated that it will not remove the North from its list until it has affirmed that North Korea will
push forward with its continued disarmament. North Korea has since barred IAEA inspectors from the
Yongbyon site, and the South has claimed that the North is pushing for the manufacture of a nuclear warhead.
The North has recently conducted tests on short-range missiles. The U.S. is encouraging the resumption of
six-party talks.

Removal from terror list

On October 11, 2008, the U.S. and North Korea secured an agreement in which North Korea agreed to
resume disarmament of its nuclear program and once again allowed inspectors to conduct forensic tests of its
available nuclear materials. The North also agreed to provide full details on its long-rumored uranium program.
These latest developments culminated in North Korea's long-awaited removal from America's "State Sponsors
of Terrorism" list on the same day.

CHINA
October 1949 - People’s Republic of China Established

June 1950
Korean War Breaks Out
The Soviet-backed North Korean People’s Army invades South Korea on June 25. The United Nations and the
United States rush to South Korea’s defense. China, in support of the communist North, retaliates when U.S.,
UN, and South Korean troops approach the Chinese border. As many as four million people die in the three-
year conflict until the United Nations, China, and North Korea sign an armistice agreement in 1953

Formal Ties and One China Policy

U.S. President Jimmy Carter grants China full diplomatic recognition, while acknowledging mainland China’s
One China principle and severing normal ties with Taiwan. Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping, who leads
China through major economic reforms, visits the United States shortly thereafter. However, in April, Congress
approves the Taiwan Relations Act, allowing continued commercial and cultural relations between the United
States and Taiwan. The act requires Washington to provide Taipei with defensive arms, but does not officially
violate the U.S.’s One China policy.

October 2000
Normalized Trade Relations
President Clinton signs the U.S.-China Relations Act of 2000 in October, granting Beijing permanent normal
trade relations with the United States and paving the way for China to join the World Trade Organization in
2001. Between 1980 and 2004, U.S.-China trade rises from $5 billion to $231 billion. In 2006, China surpasses
Mexico as the United States’ second-biggest trade partner, after Canada.
September 2008
China Becomes Largest U.S. Foreign Creditor
In September 2008, China surpasses Japan to become the largest holder of U.S. debt—or treasuries—at
around $600 billion. The growing interdependence between the U.S. and Chinese economies becomes
evident as a financial crisis threatens the global economy, fueling concerns over U.S.-China economic
imbalances.

August 2010
China Becomes World’s Second-Largest Economy

March 22, 2018

Trump Tariffs Target China
The Trump administration announces sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports, worth at least $50 billion, in
response to what the White House alleges is Chinese theft of U.S. technology and intellectual property.
Coming on the heels of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, the measures target goods including clothing,
shoes, and electronics and restrict some Chinese investment in the United States. China imposes retaliatory
measures in early April on a range of U.S. products, stoking concerns of a trade war between the world’s
largest economies. The move marks a hardening of President Trump’s approach to China after high-profile
summits with President Xi in April and November 2017.

U.S.-China Trade War Escalates

The Trump administration imposes fresh tariffs totaling $34 billion worth of Chinese goods. More than eight
hundred Chinese products in the industrial and transport sectors, as well as goods such as televisions and
medical devices, will face a 25 percent import tax. China retaliates with its own tariffs on more than five
hundred U.S. products. The reprisal, also valued around $34 billion, targets commodities such as beef, dairy,
seafood, and soybeans. President Trump and members of his administration believe that China is “ripping off”
the United States, taking advantage of free trade rules to the detriment of U.S. firms operating in China. Beijing
criticizes the Trump administration’s moves as “trade bullying” and cautions that tariffs could trigger global
market unrest.

October 4, 2018
Pence Speech Signals Hard-Line Approach
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence delivers a speech marking the clearest articulation yet of the Trump
administration’s policy toward China and a significant hardening of the United States’ position. Pence says the
United States will prioritize competition over cooperation by using tariffs to combat “economic aggression.”

January 31, 2020

Tensions Soar Amid Coronavirus Pandemic
The Trump administration bars all non-U.S. citizens who recently visited mainland China from entering the
United States amid an outbreak of a new coronavirus that was first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan. By
March, the World Health Organization (WHO) designates the outbreak a pandemic, after it spreads to more
than one hundred countries. Leading officials in both China and the United States blame the other side for the
pandemic.

July 14, 2020

Trump Ends Hong Kong’s Special Status
Two weeks after Beijing passes a new national security law for Hong Kong, President Trump signs an
executive order ending the city’s preferential trade status with the United States. He also signs legislation to
sanction officials and businesses that undermine Hong Kong’s freedoms and autonomy.

U.S., China Close Consulates in Diplomatic Escalation

The United States orders China to close its consulate in Houston, Texas, alleging that it was a hub of
espionage and intellectual property theft. China condemns the order and retaliates by closing the U.S.
consulate in Chengdu. In the same week, Washington indicts two Chinese hackers for allegedly stealing
coronavirus vaccine research and sanctions eleven Chinese companies for their reported role in human rights
abuses in Xinjiang. Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi blames the United States for tensions.
January 21, 2021
U.S. Designates China’s Abuses of Uyghurs as Genocide
On Trump’s last day in office, Pompeo declares that China is committing crimes against humanity and
genocide against Uyghurs, a Muslim ethnic group primarily from China’s Xinjiang region. The United States is
the first country to apply those terms to abuses the Chinese government has committed over the past few
years, which include the arbitrary detention of more than one million people in Xinjiang, forced sterilizations,
and a crackdown on religious freedom. President Joe Biden used the term genocide while campaigning and
raises concerns about the abuses during his first call as president with Xi. Biden’s secretary of state, Antony
Blinken, also affirms Pompeo’s declaration. The Chinese government denies genocide is taking place. After
Trump’s term ends, Beijing imposes sanctions on twenty-eight of his administration’s former officials, including
Pompeo, for what the foreign ministry calls “crazy actions” that “seriously disrupted U.S.-China relations.
 =18. US foreign policies: Russia
● History of relations (major events)
● Contentious issues
● Comparison of different administrations’ approaches (B. Obama, D. Trump, Joe Biden)
For nearly thirty years, successive U.S. administrations have struggled to come up with a sustainable policy
toward Russia. Throughout this period, the U.S.-Russian relationship has experienced a familiar pattern of
boom-bust cycles: a new administration comes in dissatisfied with the state of the relationship and promises to
do better. It launches a policy review that generates a reset aimed at developing a partnership. A period of
optimism follows, but obstacles to better relations emerge, and optimism gradually gives way to pessimism. By
the end of the administration, the relationship is at the lowest point since the end of the Cold War.

Changing the trajectory of U.S.-Russian relations will be difficult. Russia’s image is toxic in the current U.S.
political climate, and as a result there will be few opportunities for cooperation even where Washington and
Moscow have common interests. Russia is vitally important to the United States, however, and managing this
relationship responsibly—even if not necessarily making it better or solving problems—is a task that U.S.
policymakers can ill afford to neglect. Yet the difficulty of managing the relationship is compounded by the fact
that both countries are set in their respective approaches to each other and will find it hard to change course.

Russian leaders see their country as a great power in charge of its own destiny. They do not accept American
primacy and want to accelerate the transition from a unipolar to a multipolar world; they reject democracy
promotion as a cover for U.S.-sponsored regime change; they believe they are entitled to a sphere of influence
and will resist perceived U.S. intrusions; and they rely on anti-Americanism to legitimize their unpopular
policies with domestic audiences.
The post–Cold War consensus in the United States—its primacy in a unipolar world, insistence on no spheres
of influence, and commitment to democracy promotion—is baked into its foreign policy DNA. In today’s
poisoned climate, where Russia is seen as the cause of many problems in the world, changing that consensus
will be an uphill struggle.

To break out of this impasse, the United States will have to—for its part—make several key adjustments to its
Russia policy, including:

prioritize U.S. interests vis-à-vis Russia and focus on the essentials—the nuclear relationship and strategic
stability;
leave Russia’s internal affairs for Russians to untangle;
halt NATO’s eastward expansion and refocus on the alliance’s core mission of collective defense;
be clear with Ukraine and Georgia that they should not base their foreign policies on the assumption that they
will join NATO, but sustain robust programs of security cooperation with them; and
rethink the sanctions policy toward Russia and use them with restraint.
These changes will not, by themselves, guarantee a different U.S. relationship with Russia, since the Kremlin
would also have to make major changes in Russia’s foreign policy behavior. But pursuing the same policy and
expecting different results is not a sound approach for the United States.

At present, the broad bipartisan consensus in Washington is that Russia is entirely responsible for the
breakdown in the U.S.-Russia relationship. Among its transgressions, it has invaded Georgia and Ukraine and
annexed a portion of Ukrainian territory, interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections and in the elections of the United
States’ democratic allies in Europe, violated the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, backed Bashar al-
Assad’s regime in Syria and Nicolás Maduro’s regime in Venezuela, and assassinated or attempted to
assassinate former Russian officials on foreign soil. These Russian activities are well documented and widely
understood. What is less clear is the extent to which U.S. policy has been a contributing factor in the
deterioration of the bilateral relationship. Without a careful and critical analysis of the United States’ own
record, there is little chance of doing better in the future and stabilizing one of the United States’ most
important foreign relationships.

WHY RUSSIA MATTERS

Over the past decade, Russia has returned as both a major European and, increasingly, global power.1 Its
relationship with the United States, antagonistic or cooperative, is consequential for U.S. interests. Specifically,
Russia:

remains a nuclear superpower, and is the only country that poses an existential threat to the United States and
its major treaty allies;
is endowed with vast natural resources and has weaponized this asset to achieve its political objectives in
Europe;2
has veto power on the United Nations (UN) Security Council, which it has frequently used to thwart U.S.-
supported initiatives toward Syria, Venezuela, and North Korea, to name a few;3
is capable of projecting military power well beyond its borders in pursuit of a competing vision of global order
and its own great power aspirations;4 and
pursues geopolitical ambitions inimical to U.S. interests—notably, the creation of an exclusive sphere of
influence in the former Soviet space and opposition to a unified transatlantic community, as well as American
efforts to maintain a liberal international order.5
A military confrontation between the two countries could have profoundly destabilizing and even catastrophic
effects on global order and security. In contrast, a more cooperative U.S.-Russian relationship could yield
progress on threats to U.S. national security and prosperity—challenges that the United States cannot tackle
effectively alone.

The breakdown of the U.S.-Russian relationship at the end of George W. Bush’s term set the stage for its
rebound during the Obama presidency. The relationship, it seemed, had nowhere to go but up. Indeed, the
election of Dmitry Medvedev as president of Russia in 2008 seemed to present U.S. policymakers with the
opening for a fresh start with a new, seemingly more progressive and reform-oriented president in the Kremlin.
The reset of U.S.-Russian relations launched by Obama and his Russian counterpart set forth an ambitious
agenda not only for improved diplomatic relations but also for a partnership for modernization—an effort to
support Medvedev’s flagship initiative to reform the Russian economy and political system.19 During the so-
called tandem rule, with Medvedev as president and Putin as prime minister, the tone of the relationship
between the two countries improved and they were able to conclude the New Strategic Arms Reduction
Treaty.

But once again, the thaw in U.S.-Russian relations did not last long. Frictions arose in 2011 as the Arab Spring
rocked the Middle East. The U.S.-led overthrow of the Muammar Qaddafi regime in Libya and Washington’s
support for the opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were especially neuralgic for the Russian
leadership. When Vladimir Putin returned to the presidency in 2012, his abrupt change of course on domestic
policy was another major blow to the reeling relationship. Medvedev’s efforts to modernize and reform the
Russian economy and politics were largely abandoned, and the relaxation of the domestic political climate was
abruptly reversed with the introduction of measures to clamp down on public protests, media freedoms, and
activities of foreign and Russian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to promote Russian civil society. In
2014, U.S.-Russia relations plummeted to their lowest since the end of the Cold War when Russia responded
to the U.S.-welcomed revolution in Ukraine by annexing Crimea and sponsoring a separatist insurgency in
eastern Ukraine. Inside Russia, the breakdown was accompanied by further constraints on weakened
democratic institutions and civil society. Animosity in the United States toward Russia in the wake of its
aggression against Ukraine was further inflamed by the revelation of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S.
presidential election.

On the whole, relations between the United States and Russia during the Trump presidency have followed the
familiar boom-bust cycle of its predecessors. From the outset of his administration, President Donald Trump
expressed an almost preternatural desire to improve relations with Russia. His attempts at a reset with Putin—
apparently without preconditions and guided largely by transactional considerations—represented yet another
effort by a new U.S. administration to repair the relationship. It ran into strong resistance from Trump’s
congressional critics, who codified and added to already existing sanctions on Russia designed to punish it for
a range of transgressions, from interference in U.S. elections and aggression against Ukraine to violations of
human rights and corruption in Russia. This was done to prevent Trump from lifting the sanctions in order to
pursue a rapprochement with Russia without congressional approval.20 Congressional opposition to improving
U.S. ties with Russia intensified in the aftermath of the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki in July 2018, when
Trump publicly questioned the findings of U.S. intelligence concerning Russian interference in the 2016
election.21 The relationship once again hit rock bottom, with some commentators describing it as a New Cold
War or even Warm War.22
 =19. Home reading. What, if any, prejudices do African Americans face in today's world? Have the
issues that Lee discusses in To Kill a Mockingbird been resolved or are they ongoing? (based on the book
by H. Lee “To Kill a Mocking Bird”).
To Kill a Mockingbird is primarily a novel about growing up under extraordinary circumstances in the 1930s
in the Southern United States. The story covers a span of three years, during which the main characters undergo
significant changes.
A good part of this story's brilliance lies in the fact that it's told from a child's point-of-view. Through
Scout's eyes, Lee is able to present the story objectively. By having an innocent little girl make racial remarks
and regard people of color in a way consistent with the community, Lee provides an objective view of the
situation.
When Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, her home state of Alabama was a hotbed of civil rights
activity. Throughout the South, blacks and whites were segregated.
They also had to sit on the back of public buses and were expected to move if a white person wanted their
seat. In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Her momentous decision
sparked a yearlong bus boycott, giving new life to the civil rights movement and propelling Martin Luther
King, Jr. to national prominence. Civil rights issues were heating up across the nation, too, and so the subject of
To Kill a Mockingbird was quite timely upon its publication.
Lee, however, chose to set her story in the Great Depression of the 1930s. Scout, the story's protagonist and
narrator, is a semi-autobiographical character, and Lee was roughly the same age as Scout in the 1930s. Also,
writers often choose to place a story about a current issue in the past or in the future to give readers an objective
place from which to ponder the issue.
At the time Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, white people had control over the communities they lived in,
but many members of the elite class feared that African Americans would make inroads into the white world by
marrying and having children with whites. Thus, interracial marriage was outlawed in many states.
Biracial children were referred to as "mulatto," a word derived from "mule," these children were thought to
be the offspring of an unnatural union. Ironically, biracial children born to black mothers were not seen as a
threat to white superiority, so most people looked the other way when a white man — like Dolphus Raymond in
the novel — chose to marry a black woman.
The fear of interracial unions reached its apex, unrealistic fear that African American men would rape and
impregnate white women as a means of penetrating white society and, worse, white power.
the following social problems in the book and their relevance in the 20th century america?
1.poverty
2.injustice
3.racial segregation
4.discrimination(gender,racial,social,etc..)
5.injustice
5.crime and violence
6.child abuse
7.mental illness
Discrimination is one of the major themes of the book. Tom is discriminated against: he's convicted simply
because he is black despite the overwhelming evidence of his innocense. The jury is all men because women
were discriminated against. Crime and violence is seen in the abuse of Mayella which was both criminal and
violent. The vigilante group's attempt to lynch Tom is criminal and violent. Bob Ewell's attack on Scout and
Jem is another major example. Child abuse is primarily shown in how Boo Radley was treated by his father.
The way his father shut him away was nothing but abuse. Bob Ewell's neglect of his children was abuse, too.
Mental illness is mostly seen in the character of Boo Radley due to his father's treatment of him.
 =20. Independent reading. The reverse side of the American dream (based on the book by J. Belfort
“The Wolf of Wall Street”)
● What is “The American Dream”?
● Is there an American Dream in The Wolf of Wall Street?
● Was the narrator’s dream worth chasing?

The American dream is the belief that anyone, regardless of where they were born or what class they were born
into, can attain

Summary
To give you a short summary, Jordan Belfort turned trading penny stocks into a lucrative business by
breaking the law and making millions as a result. Belfort tells us his account of how he climbed to the top of
Wall Street and how he ultimately ended up falling down and ending up in jail.
Many people may have seen the movie and yes, Leonardo DiCaprio was amazing. But he is acting a part.
Unlike him, Belfort actually lived it. And his account is even crazier than the movie. Belford was living like he
was in a movie with all the drugs, money, crime, and absurd and improbable rise to fame.
But like all Hollywood movies, the movie must end and end big. We hear Belfort’s account of how it all
came crashing down and it is unbelievable. Belfort almost got away with it and would have to if it wasn’t for
his drug addiction and a crazy childhood friend.
A lot of stereotypes that people have from Wall Street are proven right in this book. But in the end, we have
to remember Belfort had humble beginnings and wanted to make a living. He stumbled onto a for-sure get
quick scheme and could not say no.
The great thing about this novel is that we all get to decide if Belfort is fully to blame or the system in place.
Belfort is not the first person to abuse the rules of Wall Street but his braggadocios nature and recklessness
made the FBI take action. Hearing his account sheds light on what goes on Wall Street and makes for a great
read at the same time.

It should be noted up front that the author, Jordan Belfort is not a professional writer, and that this is his
memoir. His brokerage firm, Stratton Oakmont, was not really “Wall Street,” at least not in the traditional
sense. First of all, the offices were in Long Island, secondly, his brokers were not the usual Harvard educated
MBAs, (which other memoirs I have read state as almost a requirement), but the brokers were employees that
probably would not have even made it as far as the interview process on Wall Street. These were salespeople
going by a script selling cheap stock picks over the phone. Belfort would purchase large sums of these cheap
shares and would run up the price and then dump it. He would make the fortune while his customers were the
losers.

Belfort begins his memoir with a brief story of how within six years, he rose from an entry level apprentice
at a brokerage house to the founder of his own investment firm. We do not read much about how his rapid
ascent was accomplished, and that could have been quite interesting for ladder climbers. Though he started with
less advantage than other Wall Street types, readers will not discover an American success story to be proud of.
Belfort becomes the most narcissistic, immoral, crude, adulterous, drug induced, foul-mouthed, self-indulgent,
and self-destructive ego-maniac that I have ever read about! Whatever the average person might consider
morally or physically corrupt, you can be sure that Belfort was addicted to it.

This man’s life was beyond dysfunctional. In many of his stories we learn of his wild promiscuity and his
love of prostitutes (which he would charge to his corporate credit card). He even used a grading level for them
and his favorites were the most expensive “blue chips.” Perhaps he found prostitutes easier to deal with than
his manipulative wife who used sexual favors in order to temporarily modify his behavior to her liking. Belfort
spends much of his time high – in fact he risked countless lives by preferring to fly his helicopter while
overloaded on a cocktail of drugs. The manner in which he writes about the different episodes of his life make
it seem as if we as readers are supposed to cheer him on and root for him.

In an apparent attempt to impress readers, he often details his extravagant spending and here readers will see
his braggart side with the list of price tags for everything around him (as well as how he overpays for drugs).
He sleeps under a silk bedspread that cost him $12,000 . He took his wife, mother-in-law and aunt out one night
and spent over $10,000 on the dinner. There are many other such instances of extreme extravagance
throughout the book if you are interested and all details are given in overly boastful manner.
 The book is disturbing, and I was often surprised at the level of detail and personal information he gave out
regarding other people who were in his life at the time. I am sure they had some explaining to do to their own
loved ones when this book came out. Though the book is tough to take, it might make for some great
entertainment on the big screen and I am looking forward to Leonardo DeCaprio’s portrayal of Jordan Belfort
in the upcoming movie release.

You may know The Wolf of Wall Street by the risqué stories from the book or because of the leading man,
Leonardo DiCaprio, in the movie, but have you given much consideration to the real business lessons found by
paying attention to the main character, Jordan Belfort? When you examine with a more critical eye, there are
numerous tactics, strategies, and methods of doing business – and doing business well – to be learned from The
Wolf of Wall Street.

Simplify your style. Jordan Belfort was able to develop a successful team from largely uneducated and
inexperienced individuals because he used a simplified style. His directions were clear and direct.
Know your audience. Belfort understood his investors, and knew which kinds of stocks would attract their
attention. When you develop a clear understanding of who your audience is and what their needs are, you can
develop a clear strategy for meeting their needs.
Set clear goals for yourself. Just like Belfort knew he wanted to get rich, you need to know what you want
from your business. The more specific you can be, the greater the likelihood that you will reach your goals.
Separate your goals by both size and timelines (i.e. own 3 chain stores in 10 years). Outline the steps you
believe you will need to make these goals into realities.
Be your own best salesman. It is true that you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
Consider how your customers and clients perceive you – from what you wear to how you style (or don’t style)
your hair, to how you shake hands and maintain eye contact during conversations. When you present yourself
with confidence, even if a certain measure of it is falsely contrived at first, others will see you as capable.
Provide amazing training to your employees. Belfort was adept at training staff to sound as intelligent and
capable as possible – even if their backgrounds were as plain as could be. Take the time to develop and
implement a simple, logical, and succinct training program for your employees or contractors. This investment
in your time and perhaps resources will come back to you multiple times in both saved money and time.
Gather a loyal team. To run a successful business, develop a group of loyal team members who have the
common goal of helping you achieve your business goals. This is done in part by the amazing training, but also
by treating your employees like they are irreplaceable.
Keep trying. Jordan Belfort is a perfect example of imperfection. His small business went bankrupt – but that
didn’t deter him. It just gave him the resolve to succeed on Wall Street.
Don’t accept NO for an answer.Getting a “No” for an answer should not stop you, it should just tell you to
find another way. So whether this is for gaining additional financing or signing contracts with suppliers, take a
simple “No” and think of it as “No, not this way or time.” Then find the way, the time, and the source.
Be real. So while Belfort didn’t exemplify this, he did demonstrate why you need to be authentic and remain
on the “right side” of the line. Being real includes following laws and representing yourself and your business
with integrity.
Dream big – and look through a realistic lens. Perhaps the biggest lesson an entrepreneur can learn from The
Wolf of Wall Street is that dreams are the sparks for business. And when you start looking for ways to make
your dreams come true, use sound, honest, and responsible ways to make that happen.
The popular tale told in The Wolf of Wall Street is filled with business lessons for entrepreneurs. Some of
the tactics that Belfort used are lessons for what to avoid, but the passion with which he chased his goals is
something to embrace