LATVIA

• While hundreds of thousands of British men did, indeed, volunteer to serve in the first flush of jingoistic patriotism in 1914, the manpower well soon began to run dry.
• Despite this, however, some form of conscription does still exist today in most European countries.
• But as the implications of Russia’s war against Ukraine come to be better understood, introducing or extending conscription is increasingly being discussed in European Nato states.

• But, over the past few months, political leaders in both countries have been discussing the reintroduction of forms of conscription or national service.
• In other countries in Europe, there has traditionally been a type of “conscription-lite” in operation.
• Sweden, which joined Nato in March, had dropped conscription in 2010 but reintroduced it in 2018 as the country prepared to join Nato.
• Finland, the other Nordic country that has recently joined Nato, could hardly expand its conscription net any further.

Conscription extended in Ukraine

• The country already has conscription for 18-26 year-olds but only those above 27 were actually asked to serve in combat roles (although many volunteers under 27 did as well).
• To replace those lost in the war and to maintain the ability to rotate troops in and out of the front lines, Ukraine needs a larger pool of military manpower.
• But casting the manpower net wider is a toxic issue in Ukraine, and as ever, such conscription is not popular.
• Accordingly, government spokespersons moved quickly to quash any notions that conscription was on any agenda.

Rod Thornton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• The "World Office Furniture Industry" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.
• The World Office Furniture Industry report offers a comprehensive picture of the global office furniture sector, providing basic data for production, consumption imports and exports for the time series 2014-2023, international trade and major trading partners, world tables and economic indicators, market prospects up to 2025, summary tables for the 60 most important countries for office furniture production, consumption and trade, profiles of the leading office furniture manufacturers on a global level and a focus on the Top 20 office furniture countries.
• The world market for office furniture presently amounts to approximately US$ 49 billion.
• Part I reviews the world office furniture industry: the major producing and consuming countries, the status and prospects of world trade of office furniture, world trade matrix, current data and forecasts for growth in office furniture demand in 2024-2025, by country and by regional groupings.

• Hult International Business School has broken the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ title for the “Most Nationalities in a Business Lesson.” Over 90 members of the Hult community came together at Hult’s Holborn campus in London on March 13, 2024, smashing the minimum of 50 nationalities in one business class to set the record.
• Students were thrilled to take part:
  “I feel like this was very representative of what’s normal at Hult.
• In my class alone, we’re represented by at least thirty different nations—and we only have a total of 60 people in our cohort,”—Tomaz Nicolai Diaz, US, Master’s in International Business.
• All attendees, which included undergraduate and postgraduate representatives, were required to stay for the entire 45-minute class to meet the requirements of Guinness World Records.

• With this expansion, Vexcel is set to become the only aerial imagery collection program operating on every continent, except Antarctica.
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