Sam Moyo 23 September 1954- 22 November 2015

The Department of International Development was saddened today to learn about the death of Sam Moyo. Professor Moyo was an expert in land and agrarian issues in Zimbabwe and well known at the LSE. In his memory the LSE IDEAs Team reflect upon his remarkable life

Africa’s quiet revolution

Long-standing French diplomat Stephane Gompertz recently visited LSE to talk about African revolutions and political transitions: the view from Paris and put forward some thought-provoking views. He was hosted by LSE IDEAS, the School’s diplomacy and strategy research centre. Mr Gompertz is a former French Ambassador to Ethiopia and has also served in Cairo. He is currently the head of the Africa and Indian Ocean desk at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Obama, Clinton and the future of US foreign policy

Today, one of the most polarizing figures in American politics went before the Senate for confirmation hearings on her suitability to serve as the next US Secretary of State. When Hillary Clinton was nominated back in November many on both sides of the political spectrum were outraged. But perhaps none were more disturbed by her selection than the die-hard, anti-war liberals that helped propel Obama to victory on November 4. While many might see this as a sign of politics as usual, the fact of the matter is Obama made a brilliant decision in choosing Clinton and she will be an excellent Secretary of State – if she is allowed to do her job

Changes in maternal and newborn health care in Gombe State, Nigeria

Interactions between families and frontline workers – their frequency, quality, and equity – and coverage of interventions for mothers and newborns This IDEAS report studies the interactions between families and frontline workers and coverage of critical interventions for mothers and newborns was conducted between June 2012 and June 2015 in Gombe State, Nigeria. IDEAS focuses on the changes in indicators that were expected to improve as a result of the specific implementation activities. The aim was to estimate changes in maternal and newborn health care in areas where Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation implementation projects were operating. In this region, the project was implemented by the Society for Family Health. This is one of three country-specific reports, along with Ethiopia and Uttar Preadesh, India. It follows from the 2013 Baseline findings from Gombe State, Nigeria. The survey results suggest that while coverage of routine care across the continuum did not increase, more women who needed emergency care at the time of birth were able to access it. Important improvements in the coverage of some newborn interventions were observed, especially those that relied on the behaviours of caregivers such as delayed bathing, although none became universal. The unfinished agenda for change in Gombe State needs the continued promotion of maternal and newborn health issues amongst communities, mechanisms to improve the care provided to mother and baby immediately after birth, enhancing the supply of quality care in facilities, and an urgent agenda to address the considerable and persistent inequity in the state. This publication was written by Tanya Marchant and produced by the IDEAS project led by Professor Joanna Schellenberg at the London School of Hygiene Tropical Medicine. The IDEAS team wishes to acknowledge the work of Health Hub Ltd and Data Research and Mapping Consult Ltd. who implemented the surveys in 2012 and 2015 respectively, and the cooperation and contributions by the implementing partners in the state, Society for Family Health and PACT throughout the development and implementation process. We are also grateful to state officials in Gombe for their input and support, and to all households, facilities and individuals surveyed. The short URL for this report is bit.ly/mnh-nigeri

Barack Obama’s Nobel Prize: A debate

Barack Obama’s award of the Nobel Peace Prize, with nominations having closed just a month into his Presidential term, has raised eyebrows. Here a number of Contributors discuss the award. Why was it made, and is it deserved? What’s the political thinking behind it? How will affect Obama’s ability to pursue his foreign policy objectives? What will be reaction domestically

The complete spectrum of the area from recoupling theory in loop quantum gravity

We compute the complete spectrum of the area operator in the loop representation of quantum gravity, using recoupling theory. This result extends previous derivations, which did not include the ``degenerate'' sector, and agrees with the recently computed spectrum of the connection-representation area operator.Comment: typos corrected in eqn.(21). Latex with IOP and epsf styles, 1 figure (eps postscript file), 12 pages. To appear in Class. Quantum Gra

Three Kinds of Special Relativity via Inverse Wick Rotation

Since the special relativity can be viewed as the physics in an inverse Wick rotation of 4-d Euclid space, which is at almost equal footing with the 4-d Riemann/Lobachevski space, there should be important physics in the inverse Wick rotation of 4-d Riemann/Lobachevski space. Thus, there are three kinds of special relativity in de Sitter/Minkowski/anti-de Sitter space at almost equal footing, respectively. There is an instanton tunnelling scenario in the Riemann-de Sitter case that may explain why \La be positive and link with the multiverse.Comment: 3 pages, no figures, to appear in Chin. Phys. Let

Community Ideas Factory: The Life Skills Project Year 2 Report

The project aims to develop quality, creative and applied virtual life skills programming that will enhance the lives of marginalized populations in Halton Region and its surrounding areas. The result of this project will be a virtual comprehensive, lived-experience and EDI- informed life skills program on a Learning Management System (LMS) shared across the Halton Region and surrounding areas