Relevance of The Fatwa of The Indonesian Ulema Council to The Renewal of Islamic Family Law in Indonesia (Study of MUI Fatwa Number: 4/Munas VII/MUI/8/2005 on Marriage of Different Religions)

Fatwa is a practical law similar to fiqh (al-ahkām al-'amaliyah). Therefore, the fatwa must be context-bound; context of time (tempus), place (locus), context of natural conditions, social context, demographic context, and other contexts. In the Indonesian context, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) is the official state-recognized institution to issue fatwas as guidelines for Indonesian Muslims. This paper answers two questions: how is the MUI fatwa related to the legal status of interfaith marriages? Furthermore, is the MUI fatwa on interfaith marriage relevant to the reform of Islamic family law in Indonesia? As a result, although many scholars allow interfaith marriages because Muslim men and women are experts of the book, the MUI fatwa forbids interfaith marriages based on sadd al-dzari'ah to prevent negative impacts. This is a family law product with a renewal side, because it is responsive to social dynamics and changing times, by prioritizing the benefit based on maqasid shari'ah

Key Areas to Economic Takeoff from Demographic Dividend: A Case of Nepal

Rapid demographic change in the context of age structure and basic demographic indicators have created opportunity to accelerate economic growth and development in Nepal. At the time of favorable demographic context, it is required to qualify and mobilize currently existing large volume of active years population to fulfill the mission of sustained economic development. For this, it is necessary to invest on health, education, infrastructure along with creating employment opportunities but such opportunity period is missing out due low attention on social, economic, political and cultural sectors, which may misfortune for Nepal. Focusing on the key areas of economic take off in the declined fertility context, this paper reviews literature related to reaping demographic dividend. Based on secondary data from journal articles, census and Nepal Demographic Health Survey (NDHS) results, descriptive and content analysis method is applied. National Census data from Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) and Nepal Demographic Health Survey (NDHS) is taken as reference and some estimation from United Nations (UN) are also taken as requirement. To identify vital areas and situation to support economic take off and support to formulate and implement proper future population policy in Nepal are the main objectives of this article. Coping with socio-economic challenges need to focus on primary area of social development like education, productivity of labor, proper use of remittance to economic take off. Need to open gate for secondary demographic dividend with appropriate policy formulation in the recent context.

The Demography of Slavery in the Coffee Districts of Angola, c. 1800–70

This article uses demographic data from nineteenth-century Angola to evaluate, within a West Central African setting, the widely accepted theory that sub-Saharan Africa's integration within the Atlantic world through slave and commodity trading caused significant transformations in slavery in the subcontinent. It specifically questions, first, whether slaveholding became more dominant in Angola during the last phase of the transatlantic slave trade; second, whether Angolan slave populations were predominantly female; and third, whether slavery in Angola expanded further during the cash crop revolution that accompanied the nineteenth-century suppression of the Atlantic slave trade. Besides making a significant contribution to understanding the demographic context of slavery in the era of abolition, the article aims to display ways in which historians can use the population surveys the Portuguese Empire carried out in Africa from the late eighteenth century.

Serenoa repens (Saw Palmetto) for Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms (LUTS): The Evidence for Efficacy and Safety of Lipidosterolic Extracts. Part II

Part I of this 3-part series provided the groundwork for understanding the role of a standardized lipidosterolic extract of Serenoa repens (LSESr) in the treatment of LUTS. It documented that a treatment having a high therapeutic index (i.e., a ratio of benefit to adverse reactions) is a critical need in the demographic context of a rapidly growing elder population. Part I described the clinical symptomatology of LUTS and how it is quantified. A critique of the reports from four authoritative bodies: the European Scientific Cooperative on Phytotherapy (ESCOP), Cochrane 2012, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and the AUA (American Urological Association) was presented. The foundation above then fine-tuned our search to require (a) consistent evaluability criteria, (b) the quantification of clinical findings, (c) the need to focus on studies employing a standardized LSESr product meeting the fatty acid profile set forth by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the US Pharmacopeia and (d) a global assessment of scientific investigations published in all languages and not limited to only English. Part II details the following “new” findings when LSESr vs. LUTS is examined with the above constraints.

Progressive Pension Formula and Life Expectancy Heterogeneity

An increasing number of empirical studies have shown a positive relationship between lifetime income and life expectancy at retirement. One’s income during the active part of one’s career translates into the amount of retirement benefits one might receive, leading to actuarial unfairness inside cohorts of retirees. In order to discuss unfairness and sustainability issues, the Belgium pension reform committee issued a proposal for a point system designed to be both sustainable and adequate. In this paper, we use a similar defined benefit framework in order to set out a compensation mechanism linked to life expectancy heterogeneity during the active part of the career, aiming to reduce unfairness once reaching retirement. This method is based on the progressivity of pension benefit formulae. We implement these ideas in a simple demographic context in order to capture the constraints related to the model.

The Effect of Weather on Assault

This paper examines the role of local weather conditions in explaining variations in assault, in sub-tropical Brisbane, Australia. It details the extent to which local variations in weather are important in shaping the necessary preconditions for assault to take place. Results suggest that higher daily temperatures are associated with an increased propensity for assault at the neighborhood level after controlling for seasonal effects. Assaults occur significantly less frequently in summer than in spring and there is a greater propensity for assaults to occur on weekends compared to weekdays. Neighborhood disadvantage, ethnic diversity, and the presence of risky facilities such bars, schools, or shops increased the propensity for assault above and beyond the effect of temperature. Findings are important in their capacity to isolate the effect of the prevailing local weather conditions whilst controlling for seasonal variations, land use, and the socio-economic and demographic context within which assaults took place.

The “Europeanization” of Secessionist Programs: A Study of Montenegro and Catalonia

In 2006, the EU encouraged, facilitated and supervised the secession referendum of Montenegro. In 2014, the EU officials refused to facilitate a similar referendum in its member state Spain, and have so far denied any claims that Catalonia, when independent, would retain its membership of the EU. The paper argues that the EU policy towards secession referenda significantly affected the outcome of secessionist mobilization in these two cases.In spite of these sharp differences in the EU response, secessionist programs in both countries were ‘Europeanised’ in a similar way: in Montenegro, secession was aiming to facilitate the EU accession, and in Catalonia, to increase the benefits of retained EU membership. This paper explores the political and demographic context of the Europeanisation of secessionist programs.The majority of citizens in Catalonia and Montenegro do not identify as Catalan or Montenegrin only. The paper argues that the Europeanization of secessionist programs was, in part, an attempt to widen the appeal of secession to those who are not only Catalan or only Montenegrin.

Racial Projections in Perspective: Public Reactions to Narratives about Rising Diversity

Threatened reactions to news about the approach of a racial majority-minority society have profoundly influenced Americans’ political attitudes and electoral choices. Existing research casts these reactions as responses to changing demographic context. We argue instead that they are driven in large part by the dominant majority-minority narrative framing of most public discussion about rising racial diversity. This narrative assumes the long-run persistence of a white-nonwhite binary in which the growing number of Americans with both white and non-white parents are classified exclusively as non-white, irrespective of how they identify themselves. Alternative narratives that take stock of trends toward mixed-race marriage and multiracial identification also reflect demographic fundamentals projected by the Census Bureau and more realistically depict the country’s twenty-first century racial landscape. Using three survey experiments, we examine public reactions to alternative narratives about rising diversity. The standard majority-minority narrative evokes far more threat among whites than any other narrative. Alternative accounts that highlight multiracialism elicit decidedly positive reactions regardless of whether they foretell the persistence of a more diverse white majority. Non-white groups respond favorably to all narratives about rising diversity, irrespective of whether they include the conventional majority-minority framing.