Posts matching tags 'geopolitics'
2008/3/12
Great news on the human rights front: China is no longer one of the most systematic human rights violators, according to the US State Department's annual human rights report. This is the first time in many years that China has been removed from the list, now containing Iran, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Belarus, Sudan, Uzbekistan and, from this year, Syria.
Which raises the question: is China really that much less repressive than Iran, or is it just a more valuable trading partner? And where's Saudi Arabia?
2008/1/27
As the receding polar ice caps expose land and shipping lanes, setting the scene for the next great international land grab, Iceland's University of Akureyri is offering a course in Polar Law, to prepare a generation of lawyers uniquely equipped to deal with the resulting issues:
Emphasis is placed upon relevant areas of public international law, such as environmental law, the law of the sea, questions of sovereignty and boundary disputes on land and sea, natural resources law, the rights of indigenous peoples in the north, self-government and good governance, and land and resources claims in the polar regions.
(via Boing Boing) ¶ [no comments]
2007/12/21
At the stroke of midnight last night, nine new countries joined the Schengen Zone, the area in Europe without any internal borders. The zone now extends well into eastern Europe, encompassing the former Eastern bloc nations and ex-Soviet Baltic states which joined the EU in 2004, and going right up to borders with Russia and the Ukraine.
The other side of this has been a fortification of the Schengen zone's new easternmost frontier, with intensive patrols and high-tech sensors being deployed to prevent illegal immigration from (or through) their eastern neighbours.
2007/9/21
Venezuela's increasingly autocratic socialist president Hugo Chavez's latest act has been to change Venezuela's time zone by half an hour. The announcement was made suddenly, and takes effect on Sunday. Chavez says that the shift will improve the "metabolism" of Venezuela's workers and allow children to go to school in sunlight. There may be geopolitical symbolism in the act, though: the majority of the Capitalist-Imperialist world's time zones are in one hour increments from Greenwich, whereas time zones breaking away from the Greenwich-imperialist tyranny include ideologically sound holdouts against the Washington consensus, such as Iran, Afghanistan and Burma. (And, oddly enough, South Australia.)
It has not been recorded whether Chavez intends to rename the months, seasons or ages of man. Rumours that Ken Livingstone is planning to shift London's time zone by half an hour in solidarity have not been confirmed.
2007/6/7
WIRED has a photo gallery of Soviet video games; these were arcade machines, sometimes inspired by American or Japanese ones, manufactured in the Soviet Union (often at military manufacturing facilities; presumably because civilian electronics manufacturers in the USSR weren't up to scratch). They often were more primitive than western counterparts (some feature mechanical score counters and lack controls that western equivalents had), cost 15 kopecks per game (not enough for most Soviet youth to be able to play more than a game a week), and thematically avoided the zapping-space-aliens themes of the capitalist world, instead combining a sort of earnest socialist benignness (there were Russian folk games adapted for the arcade, games simulating socially worthy occupations such as firefighting), with the odd bit of ideologically-sound militarism (sinking Nazi submarines during the Great Patriotic War, and shooting down enemy fighters (presumably of a capitalist persuasion, though the article didn't say)). Interestingly enough, a common feature of all the games was the lack of a high score table; the idea of such an individualistic, competitive feature was, for obvious reasons, frowned upon.
Compared to western games, they looked a bit shabby and lacklustre. So as soon as Communism collapsed and Nintendos and PCs started flooding in, they pretty much disappeared. Most were destroyed, though a few survived; and now, four collectors in Moscow are finding and restoring these machines, for display in a Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines, which they have set up in a bomb shelter under a university dormitory.
(via Boing Boing) ¶ [no comments]
2007/5/21
The former Communist state of East Germany, which disappeared from Europe in 1990, still exists in the Caribbean; well, sort of. There is an unpopulated island off the coast of Cuba which Fidel Castro gave to East Germany in 1972, naming it "Cayo Ernesto Thaelmann", after a Communist politician executed by the Nazis. During the Communist era, it was apparently effectively East German territory; a Party-approved pop singer made a record there in 1975. It's not known how much the DDR used the island other than that, though by the time the Berlin Wall came down, it was apparently uninhabited, to the point where those negotiating the reunification treaty forgot it existed. This state of affairs continued until 2001, when a German newspaper discovered it and attempted to sell it, upon which, the Cubans, not wanting any more capitalist running-dog lackeys in their neighbourhood, swiftly declared that the transfer was "symbolic" only.
(via cos) ¶ [no comments]
2007/5/17
The Grauniad has a photographic piece on the first railway crossing between North and South Korea in 57 years:
The last time a train attempted to cross was on New Year's Eve in 1950, when the line was used by thousands of refugees fleeing an advance by Chinese and North Korean troops. Their journey came to an abrupt halt when US soldiers riddled the steam water tank with bullet holes. The tracks were destroyed to slow the progress of the communist forces.
Today's test run is seen as a step towards closer economic ties between rich, open South Korea and the poor, isolated North. It is hoped that the lines will eventually link to the Trans-Siberian railway and allow connections spanning more than 5,000 miles from London to Seoul.
2007/1/30
Sweden expands its soft power yet further, by becoming the first country with official diplomatic representation in Second Life. The Swedish embassy in the multiplayer environment won't actually issue passports or visas, but will tell people where to get them in the real world First Life, and provide information about Sweden.
(via Boing Boing) ¶ [no comments]
2004/2/16
Nuclear weapon designs handed over by Libya to US authorities have been found to have originated in China. Could this mean that the proliferation of nuclear weapons to rogue states/terrorist groups is part of a US/Chinese proxy war? If so, that suggests a few other possibilities: what if, for example, the movement known as al-Qaeda is funded behind the scenes by China; what if, say, 9/11 was intended as a stern warning from China in some acrimonious underground negotiation (would the gerontocrats who ordered the Tienanmen massacre have any qualms about killing thousands of innocent foreigners to make a point?), and the invasion of Iraq (whose WMDs and terrorist links remain elusive) was intended as the reply? Or is that too far-fetched? (Paging Mitch...)
2003/5/7
The German State Secretary, Jürgen Chrobog, is reported to have told Foreign Ministry colleagues that the US is turning into a "police state". (Mind you, if any country knows what a police state looks like, Germany does, having seen several examples in the last century.)
Meanwhile, German Defence Minister Peter Struck is apparently having delusions of grandeur:
However, Herr Struck told reporters before the meeting that he had no intention of begging for forgiveness for Germany's stance against the US-led war in Iraq. "It's not for a German Defence Minister to show regret or guilt feelings towards his American counterpart. We have an equal relationship," he said.
No, Pete, you're a branch-office state in McWorld. You take orders from Washington. (Or perhaps from London, which takes orders from Washington.) Got it? Ignore this reality and there'll be Consequences. You don't want to end up like Libya or someone, do you?
2003/4/20
After regime change in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, it was only a matter of time before Blair and Bush turned their attention to France. The detested Jacques Chirac, a past friend of Saddam Hussein, refused to disband his force de frappe weapons of mass destruction; the coalition acted in preemptive self-defence; though it was a pity about the Louvre.
The toppling of the Chirac regime was the inevitable application of this ideology. It was not imperialism. Washington had no desire to stick around when the cameras had already been directed to a new rogue. It was rather adventurism. American foreign policy did mergers and acquisitions, not management. They could topple but, as they found in Kabul and Baghdad, they had no clue about rebuilding. They just wanted to make a point. Upset Uncle Sam and you will lose your power, your palace, your art treasures and bring death and destruction to your cities.
Tony Blair cheered the fall of France. He, too, had his reasons. He had longed to see M Chirac with a bloody nose. Since 2002 he had supported Americas new coercive diplomacy and grown hugely popular as a result. Not since Palmerston had nations quaked when a British leader said he had no plans to attack them. Now Mr Blair might be Americas chosen candidate for president of Europe. Anyway, Britain was in bed with America and could hardly climb out now. Washington would not like that. Mr Blair would not want a nasty hole at the end of The Mall, would he?
(via FmH)
2003/3/25
The EU's expansion gains steam: Former Yugoslav republic Slovenia votes yes to joining the EU, and by a landslide too. (89.61% voted for joining the EU, with 10.3% against.) This is a more dramatic result than the close majority in the Maltese referendum some weeks ago. Slovenes also voted for their country joining NATO, with a 2/3 majority. Next up: Cyprus (the Greek half) on Saturday, and then Hungary on the 12th of April.
2003/3/10
The expansion of the European Union moves on: Malta has voted yes to joining the EU. The tiny Mediterranean island was the first nation to have its EU accession referendum, and the yes case won, albeit narrowly, despite concerns over jobs and loss of sovereignty. The next test will be Slovenia's referendum on the 23rd.
2003/2/5
The Pentagon declares that France is no longer an ally and must be "contained". Pentagon Policy Advisory Board Richard Perle also declared that the UN Security Council, on which France has a permanent seat, is irrelevant. Multilateralism, and the post-WW2 ideal of resolving conflicts through debate and consensus, edges one step closer to collapse. (via die puny humans)
(France is one of the small number of "legitimate" nuclear powers. Perhaps now that France is no longer worthy of trust (in the ways that, say, Israel and Pakistan, are) we can expect the USA and Britain demanding that France abandon its weapons of mass destruction or face military intervention? Won't Ann Coulter be pleased when that happens.)
2002/10/17
While ~40% of Britons want to invade Iraq, another poll shows that 40% of Americans want to annex Canada. Though the article stresses this isn't a manifestation of belief in America's God-given manifest destiny or desire to dominate the continent, but a gesture of friendship and good will to their friends up north. (Hmmm.. could it be something like "let's liberate our Northern brothers from the shackles of state-funded medicine and gun control and give them citizenship in a real country"?) Meanwhile, just under 20% of Canadians favour Canada joining the United States. (via rotten.com)
(Does anyone recall the proposals floating around during the dot-com boom for northern California, Oregon and Washington state to unite with British Columbia, all parties cutting loose Washington DC, the Bible Belt, Quebec and other such liabilities and making a new manifest destiny out of dot-com stock options?)
2002/7/14
It's official: according the the UN, American nationals cannot, by definition, be war criminals, and crimes against humanity can only be committed by non-US nationals. At least for the next 12 months, renewable annually. And so, justice comes from the barrel of the biggest gun.
(What happens when China comes into its own as a world superpower, and demands that Chinese nationals be exempted from prosecution, threatening to sabotage the UN process if it's unfairly denied this privilege that the US has (as would be the rational thing for China to do faced with such a snub); or when Israel pushes for exemption for its operations in the Palestinian territories, with US backing? Or when Indonesia (the world's third most populous nation, and a potential economic and military powerhouse) starts doing so, and pushing its weight around? Or when a dozen other countries do the same? The criterion for exemption from prosecution doesn't seem to be anything other than "might makes right" (unless you believe in the doctrine of America's God-given Manifest Destiny or some other system of teleological mumbo-jumbo, of course). So we'll end up with a club of powerful nations who are above the law, and a puppet kangaroo court existing solely to try their defeated enemies and keep the small fry from rising above their station in world affairs.)
2002/4/16
Recently East Timor, which attained independence after years of bloody repression, held presidential elections. A thought that occurred to me: would East Timor have had any chance of getting its independence today, had it not done so before the World Trade Center terrorist attack? Probably not; given how governments across the world have capitalised on the War On Terror to label domestic pro-autonomy movements (from Chechens to Uighurs) as "terrorists" ineligible for sympathy or human rights, I can imagine Indonesia being given carte blanche to pacify its recalcitrant province by all means necessary, with no interference from the Western media, in return for joining the coalition against al-Qaeda.
2001/10/12
Cool Britannia et al. In this postmodern age of designer style over generic substance, nation-states are learning from corporations and redefining themselves as brands:
The British management consultant Peter York has even argued that Nike's "swooshffitick logo means precisely what the crucifix meant to an earlier generation in ghettos -- it promises redemption, vindication and a way out."
In Belgium, for example, Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt has hired a team of image-makers to rebuild the country's reputation after years of scandals involving government corruption, child pornography, and dioxin-polluted chickens. In an attempt to clear the air, Belgium has decided to introduce a new logo and hip colors and will sport the cool Internet suffix ".be" as its international symbol. The overall aim of the campaign is to emulate Virgin, which, according to one Belgian advertising expert, "isn't big, but you see it everywhere you look."
(from the Council on Foreign Relations, who may or may not be a front for the Bavarian Illuminati and/or secretly controlling everything fnord from behind the scenes.)