The view that the goddess Asherah was venerated by a considerable part of the ancient Israelite population up to the time of exile, enjoying the unique status of being Yahweh´s consort, appears to have been gaining ground among a number of students of the ancient Istraelite religion in recent years. They have compiled abundant evidence of various types, all of which is worth careful examination. I am aware that it is unrealistic to attempt to draw out the many complexities of the scholarly arguments, the aim of this short study is to examine the major data and consider it they are sufficient to aqward the goddess this "controversial" role, something which presents a serious challenge to the character of the ancient Israelite religion and has implicaitions for biblical theology.
This paper argues whether the Czech Constitutional Court should be the example of Activism, and whether the Japanese Supreme Court should be characterised as the example of Restraint in the context of constitutional justice. For instance, the former has declared numerous laws unconstitutional in the past two decades, while the latter has declared only a limited number unconstitutional in the past 68 years. We will examine the appropriateness of these characterisations by comparing and contrasting their brief histories, competences, and the nomination processes and precedents, in order to discuss their roles in the transitional period towards the new constitutionalism, paying specific attention to the extent politicisation has impacted each Courts.
The East-Central European post-socialist transformations have now reached a new stage, with the need to address the problems of further modernisation and maintenance in the context of the EU. The role of elites in this process is as intermediators between the influence of the European context and the needs and interests of differentiated internal social structures. Their attitudes and behaviour exhibit a high degree of internal fragmentation and division corresponding to various strategical orientations favouring various societal models. The post-socialist Czech economic elite was initially reproduced out of former state socialist managers and their cadre reserves. After the first phase of economic developments, inspired by neo-liberal radical privatisation and elements of 'shock therapy', and once the new, more European phase ushered in many new factors, there was a distinct decline in the number of 'old-new' economic elite on the scene. In the empirical part of the article the results of several surveys are used to briefly describe the changes in the composition of the Czech economic elite in the 1994-2005 period and to summarise their attitudes and behaviour. The analysis concludes that the current image of a liberal and pro-European Czech elite is consistent with the stable and remarkable progress of the Czech economy since 1999, the considerable wealth, strong profits, and high salaries enjoyed by top elites, and the enhancement of their role in the European economy. There are also some limitations and weak points that diverge from this general picture. The article's conclusions touch on the question of the role of the economic elite in the progress of arriving at more consensual attitudes and behaviour among societal elites as a whole, favouring further economic growth, modernisation and the strengthening of social cohesion in the context of the EU.
In the Czech Republic, there is no comprehensive special whistleblowing legislation. If the notificationis made within industrial relations, more precisely within private-law relations, then protection ofwhistleblowers as well as the ones who are notified, provides direct support especially the legislation on protectionof personal data and indirectly also the constitutional foundations of the Czech legal order. TheSupreme Court of the Czech Republic and the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic have commented,in the context of the principle of employee loyalty, on a practice which could be described as whistleblowingin the area of employment. The courts have in principle confirmed that even without an explicit legal basisit is possible in the legal order of the Czech Republic to found necessary normative basis for this practice.
This was the Opening Address at ''Fateful Eights in Czech History: Historical Anniversaries of 2008 and Their Signifi cance for the Czech Republic Today'', an international conference organized by the Czech Embassy in Washington, held at the George Washington University, Washington, D.C., on 23-24 October 2008. In this essay the author provides a basic overview of twentieth-century Czech history, weighing the gains and losses, the victories and defeats, the ups and downs of the Czechs, the Czech nation, Czech society, on the way from gaining independence in a democratic state to loosing it, and the German occupation, to the renewal of Czechoslovak independence and the destruction of democracy under the Communist regime, to the failed attempt at the reform of that regime, and the victory of the democratic revolution - all marked by the historical milestones of the years 1918, 1938/39, 1945-48, 1968, and 1989 - as well as the author’s refl ections on the long-term changes in the mentality of the country.
With Denmark faring reasonably well through the global financial crisis, the policy changes to the social housing sector caused by the crisis have been limited. Nevertheless, changes have taken place nonetheless both in terms of policy and in the residential composition of the sector which policies are trying to react upon. This means that the sector is at a cross-road as this paper will show. The future remains uncertain; depending to a large extent on the application of the policies already in place and policy reactions to the current challenges.
The Strahov Codex (PragP 47) is usually dated as 1480, or between 1460 and 1480 (Census-Catalogue). A more precise dating for the codex’s compilation can be gained by studying the watermarks. The author presents evidence showing that the codex’s fascicles were written at different times around the end of the 1460s and he offers a new perspective on the manuscript in the light of this information. Strahov can now be seen as chronologically (and repertorially) close to the oldest fascicles of the Leopold Codex (MunBS 3154), bridging what has hitherto been a temporal gap between the two ‘youngest’ of the Trent Codices (TrentC 89 and TrentC 91).