The paper attempts to estimate chances for modernisation of the Byelorussian Energy system in the years 2011–2016. In accordance with the government strategy, in 2015 Byelorussia is to become an energy independent country. The ambitious government plan provides for modernisation of several tens of power facilities. It also aims at reducing the dependence of the domestic energy sector on Russian energy sources. However, the modernisation plans of the energy system include a significant risk, as their financing largely depends on obtaining foreign loans. The current implementation rate of the government strategy indicates that chances for modernising the outdated Byelorussian energy system are small. Only commissioning of a nuclear power plant will end Byelorussian problems with electric power shortages.

In 1725 Fontenelle, a French writer, philosopher and member of the Académie des sciences, wrote Éloge du Czar Pierre Ier to commemorate the recent death of Peter the Great and at the same time to glorify the reforms undertaken by the late Russian Czar to modernize his country. By virtue of this text Fontenelle succeeded in creating the Petrine myth, subsequently popularized in France by other outstanding figures of the French Enlightenment infatuated with Russia, which in the course of the eighteenth century was undergoing unprecedented socio-political transformation. Our article aims to show how Fontenelle constructed this myth and what rhetorical devices he employed to advance and later to promote it in France of his times.

This article attempts to reflect on three crucial issues concerning migration research. First of all, we seek the answer to the question: what is a specific problem of migration in sociology and in theoretical and methodological approach? For this purpose we reach to the roots of Polish researches of migrants, by Florian Znaniecki and Józef Chałasiński. Secondly, we try to reconstruct the map of current migration problems as is the effect of reviewing the literature of the subject. We pay particular attention to research on migration issues in the UK. Thirdly, we attempt to present our own research approach to Polish emigrants’ problems by using two basical categories: adaptation and integration. The subject of further empirical investigations will be the factors which facilitate or block these processes.

The thesis of this paper applies to the mediatization of politics process during American presidential campaign of 2008. It is entrenched in the theory of political communication. Because of the primary assumptions in the analysis below, political communication is considered mainly from perspective of the models of relations between the mass media and politics, which are treated as systems. It is justified because those relations influence the abovementioned systems and play the biggest role in affecting mass society and culture. In this thesis, the public is considered as having less influence on entire process of political communication. In order to clarify the subject of the research, the division into structural and functional mediatization was created. Structural mediatization, which is the main subject of the analysis, occurs when structures of the media and political systems come into dependence and subordination relation. Parts of the media system dominate over the analogical elements in the political system, internalizing media logic. Individual elements of the political world comply to the media logic and the media orders. Subjects of the political system implement political marketing methods to use the dominant role of the media in the process. Functional mediatization can be defined as a transfer of systemic relations at the smallest possible level – specific case in micro scale,when the medium controls a political actor. Here, the mediatization takes its most radical form. The medium on every stage of constructing the political reality can manipulate and deform a media political reality

Following its independence in 1956, Sudan confronted the tasks of constructing a distinct national identity, establishing effective governance and economic systems, and addressing internal ethnic conflicts stemming from the condominium era. In terms of ethnicity, the post-colonial history of Sudan can be segmented into two phases: sectarian politics, primarily observed in northern Sudan from 1956 to 1999, with the south not experiencing sectarianism in the same manner; and ethnic politics prevalent in South Sudan from 1955 to 2011 and in North Sudan from 1999 to the present. However, the postcolonial history of Sudan is actually a replay of a set of patterns that kept governing the politics of the country for centuries.

The influence of new media on the process of modernizing the content of teacher education is studied; the functions, principles and pedagogical conditions of using new media in the process of professional training of future teachers are revealed. A set of historiographical and historical- comparative methods and approaches is used. The source base consists of international scientific periodicals of pedagogical publications of the USA, articles from the ProQuest electronic database; and documents of international organizations (UNESCO, UN). The results prove that new media, under certain conditions (selection of relevant texts, reliance on vitagenic experience, motivation, stimulation, writing, etc.) contribute to the formation of pedagogical consciousness, ensuring the professional development and formation of the future teacher.