So long as nearly 90% of councils' revenues come from central government, local autonomy will be something of a sham whoever is in charge.
All of today's difficult issues, such as Kurdish autonomy and the role of Islam, will resurface.
To help improve Autonomy's performance, Bill Veghte, HP's chief strategy officer and executive vice president of HP Software, will step in to lead Autonomy.
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Moderate Malay Muslims and Thais argue that if the conflict is ever to be resolved, the government in Bangkok will have to grant a measure of autonomy to the southernmost provinces.
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Both sides have signalled a desire to compromise on the first two of these areas, which will probably get limited autonomy.
Naved Hamid, senior strategist at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), says decentralization and greater local autonomy will be an important factor in the successful cities of the future.
In one of its trickiest cases, Spain's constitutional court will decide shortly whether to strike out parts of an autonomy charter, passed in 2006 by Spain's parliament and approved in a referendum by Catalonia's 5.5m voters.
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This sluggishness comes despite evidence that addressing the problems is more than worth the trouble (especially so with the approaching introduction of regional autonomy, when the country's 180-plus districts will have to survive on their own revenues).
The councils will be granted financial autonomy, and all decisions, including appointment of officials within that district, would be decided by a two-thirds majority.
Arguments that the Bank of England's sovereignty will be a mirage confuse sovereignty with complete autonomy.
The Welsh will have less autonomy (see article), somewhere between the power of a French regional council and a Spanish regional government.
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Head teachers are not, by nature, shrinking violets and many will no doubt be up for any extra autonomy they can wring out of the system.
Teachers and schools should retain as much autonomy on how to teach as possible, and will need to be a part of the reform effort if it is ever going to succeed.
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HP's hyperactive Thursday, which saw it dump WebOS, buy the UK's Autonomy and announce plans to hive off its personal computing division will have been even less of a concern in Cupertino.
H-P stockholders take a big hit, careers will be ruined (on both sides of the deal) and whatever marketplace promise Autonomy had may be destroyed.
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Even if the people of Scotland decide to turn down the offer of independence, the constitutional ramifications will still be significant, with much more power and autonomy likely to accrue to Holyrood.
The company may experience lower revenues related to software and services due to the alleged fraud by Autonomy, which may have misrepresented the size of its business and consequentially the potential growth opportunity for HP and we will keep a close watch on this division in 2013.
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To be sure, Autonomy will have to compete against Microsoft, which has bought FAST, a Norwegian rival, says Madan Sheina of Ovum, a market-research firm.
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