Hi!

This little article to tell you that on Friday 29 May, Her Majesty The Queen of England was in Lancaster! She arrived with the Royal Train and did a visit in car in the city and in the Castle!

Here are some pictures and videos of this event!

Thanks for reading me!

See you!

Emilie

Sources:
http://resize-parismatch.ladmedia.fr/r/940,628,center-middle/img/var/news/storage/images/paris-match/royal-blog/royaume-uni/la-reine-d-angleterre-elizabeth-ii-assortie-a-son-parapluie-a-lancaster-tandis-que-camilla-parker-bowles-est-a-londres-772838/la-reine-elizabeth-ii-a-lancaster-le-29-mai-20153/8171276-1-fre-FR/La-reine-Elizabeth-II-a-Lancaster-le-29-mai-2015.jpg
http://resize-parismatch.ladmedia.fr/r/940,628,center-middle/img/var/news/storage/images/paris-match/royal-blog/royaume-uni/la-reine-d-angleterre-elizabeth-ii-assortie-a-son-parapluie-a-lancaster-tandis-que-camilla-parker-bowles-est-a-londres-772838/la-reine-elizabeth-ii-a-lancaster-le-29-mai-20155/8171356-1-fre-FR/La-reine-Elizabeth-II-a-Lancaster-le-29-mai-2015.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUvmYXgGg00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkG1QvfuBW4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_NSDbPUTzc 

Hi!

Today I will present you one week of news in Lancaster, through 4 articles from the Lancaster Guardian!

Thursday 21 May 2015: All you need to know about The Queen’s visit to Lancaster

Her Majesty The Queen, which is also Duchess of the Duchy of Lancaster, is coming to visit the city on Friday, May 29th. It's one of the most important news of the week.

Indeed, Her Majesty last coming in Lancaster was in July 1999, 16 years ago. She came on the occasion of the celebration of the 600th anniversary of the Royal Charter. 

On Friday, she will, first of all, arrive to Lancaster Train Station with the Royal Train, then she will go by car to Lancaster Castle where there will be a ceremony for Her arrival and finally, she will see in the castle a performance of a play of Shakespeare.

Friday 22 May 2015: Lancaster author shortlisted for book of year award

Carys Davies, an author from Lancaster, has been nominated for two literary awards and mainly for the 2015 Wales Book of the Year, a very prestigious award.

The winner will be announced the 4th of June.

She already won the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize in May 2015 for her book, collection of short stories named The Redemption of Galen Pike.

Lancaster is proud of its author and wish that she will win other prestigious awards for her work.

Saturday 23 May 2015: Lancaster art shop pays tribute to OBE artist

Art is an important of the Culture in England. In Lancaster, it's the same as everywhere in England. That's why some exhibitions are always organised during the year. 

Until June, at Bellwood and Wrine Fine Art a gallery of Lancaster, there is an exhibition of the paintings of Albert Irvin (1922-2015). He was a very famous artist from London and he received in 2013 the OBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire). He was also part of the Royal Academy of Arts since 1998.

His paintings depict landscapes of cities made using color spots with brightness, superposed directly on the canvas.

Tuesday 26 May 2015: Lancaster win second team derby against Morecambe

I will finish this section of news with some sport, cricket. The second team of Lancaster was facing the team of Morecambe for the derby of the league, on 25th of May. They won with 118-7 against 117 for the second team of Morecambe. The team is now at the 8th place ranking of the second division league with 46 points.

Cricket is a famous sport in England. It is a team sport, with bats and balls, which is played with two teams of 11 players each. It is played on an oval grass field. Any match is divided into several rounds. Points are scored thanks to the runs of the players. In each round, one of the teams has the role to score points and the other to stop it. The winning team should have scored more points than his opponent during the rounds.

Here is the site of the Lancaster Cricket Club if you want more information about it.

We are at the end of this article about the news in Lancaster and what happened there at the end of my semester.

Thank you for reading me!

Emilie

Article sources:

http://www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/news/local/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-queen-s-visit-to-lancaster-1-7271372 
http://www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/what-s-on/book-club/lancaster-author-shortlisted-for-book-of-year-award-1-7274594
http://www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/news/lancaster-art-shop-pays-tribute-to-obe-artist-1-7271907
http://www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/sport/lancaster-win-second-team-derby-against-morecambe-1-7279366

Picture sources:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Queen_Elizabeth_II_March_2015.jpg
https://lane7.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/carys-side-on-colour.jpg
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51ipvbEoEXL._UY250_.jpg
http://www.artreserve.co.uk/catalogueimg/albert-irvin.jpg
http://images2.pitchero.com/club_logos/18129/1339601958.jpg

Hi!

In this article I will continue to talk about geopolitics as I did in my previous article. In this new one we will talk about the regional geopolitical political context in Lancashire (county where is located Lancaster) and the external regional conflicts or tensions in which the United Kingdom is involved.

Regional geopolitical political context in Lancashire

Lancashire County is located in northwest England. Its main town is Lancaster and its administrative center is Preston. Lancashire during the industrial revolution was a major commercial and industrial region of England. The largest manufacture of the County was that of cotton, Lancashire produced 85% of global manufactured cotton. Its biggest cities Manchester and Liverpool were dominating world trade in the nineteenth century. Blackpool was in turn a major tourist cities. A reform in 1974 removed the cities of Manchester and Liverpool of the County to insert them into new counties: Greater Manchester and Merseyside. The County lost two fifth of its original size. It is now surrounded by Cumbria, Merseyside, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire Counties. 

General elections in the United Kingdom were held on May 7th, 2015. They were won by the Conservative Party of David Cameron with 36.8% of votes, the Labour Party of Ed Miliband came second with 30.4% of votes. In Lancashire the results were pretty tight with 236,434 votes for the Labour Party and 236,020 votes for the Conservative party.

The county council of Lancashire, is based in Preston in the county hall since 1882. He is currently no overall control since 2013, meaning that no political party has a majority of seats in the council. The last local elections were held in 2013, they are held every four years.

Finally, Lancashire contains the Duchy of Lancaster which is one of the two last Royal Duchies that remains in England.

External conflicts or tensions in which the United Kingdom is involved

The main conflict in which the United Kingdom is involved is the international intervention against ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) since 2014. These actions occur through interventions of member countries in the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Libya or Nigeria. The goal is to stop the advance of ISIL and the human rights abuses they do. In Iraq, the British contribution are airstrikes since September 2014. The first one was conducted by the Royal Air Force in September 30th, 2014. In Syria, the role of the royal air force is a surveillance role done since October 2014. The UK is the only country with the United States to intervene simultaneously in Syria and Iraq. In January 2015, Prime Minister David Cameron stated that the UK was the second country to contribute as much to the coalition against the ISIL with more than 100 air strikes already undertaken. You can find more about his statements in this press conference held in January 16th of 2015 by Barack Obama and David Cameron at the White House.

Internal conflicts or tensions

I will present two of them.

The first one is its Eurosceptic position within the European Union. Indeed, the UK is one of them but without ratify all its laws and standards. So he did for example not adopted the Euro (the currency is the pound sterling) and is not part of the Schengen area. The country also has its own immigration policy and border controls. The question now is whether or not the United Kingdom will remain in the European Union. Indeed, David Cameron wants a referendum on membership the United Kingdom to the European Union. It would be held before the end of 2017. Here is an article from the Guardian of today, which gives some interesting information about this future referendum. One of the tensions of the moment is that the citizens of the European Union based in the United Kingdom and the British who had lived more than fifteen years in a European country, will not be able to vote in this referendum. This is a sensitive subject because they have the right to vote for all the other important elections taking place in the country (such as local governments or those of the European Parliament).  

The second one is the will of independence of Scotland. A referendum to know the Scottish position on the matter was held on October 18th, 2014 in Scotland. The question was: "Should Scotland be an independent country?" and they had to answer "yes" or "no." The "no" won with 55.3% against 44.7% of "yes". Scotland will remain for now in the United Kingdom. However, the question remains and the Scottish require a new referendum to be done after that the vote for or against the release of the UK from the European Union will be done. You can find in this article, from the BBC Scotland, why Scottish wanted their first referendum, and what a "no" answer could have meant for them and the United Kingdom.

We have now made the rounds of geopolitics in the United Kingdom. I hope these two articles I wrote have helped you to better understand the country. I hope also that you liked the fact I inserted some articles from BBC, The Guardian or White House to develop further this topic!

Thank you for reading me and see you soon!

Emilie

Pictures sources:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f0/Lancs-C-C-Logo-2009.jpg
Google maps

Articles sources:
http://www.lancashirebusinessview.co.uk/lancashire-general-election-results-2015-55481/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/18/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-cameron-united-kingdom-joint-
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/26/british-eu-referendum-when-what-who-answers-to-key-questions-brexit
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-26550736