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Blair Peterson

UN human rights chief criticises security council over global conflicts | World news | ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-council-over-global-conflicts

International Relations United Nations UN world news

shared by Blair Peterson on 28 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • “These crises hammer home the full cost of the international community’s failure to prevent conflict,” Pillay said. “None of these crises erupted without warning.”
  • Pillay said Syria’s conflict “is metastasing outwards in an uncontrollable process whose eventual limits we cannot predict”. She also cited conflicts in Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Congo, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza.
  • The resolution acknowledged that the United Nations has not always used the tools in its charter for preventing conflict. It prescribed several steps for improvement, focusing on addressing human rights violations earlier and recognizing that such abuses are often warning signs of looming conflicts.
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    • Blair Peterson
      Blair Peterson on 28 Aug 14
       
      What are the tools in the charter that can be used to prevent conflicts? Why have they decided to not use them in the past?
  • The resolution said little about the political differences that often paralyze the security council, where sharp divisions between veto-holding members Russia and the United States have often thwarted action on Syria and Ukraine.
  • “Short-term geopolitical considerations and national interest, narrowly defined, have repeatedly taken precedence over intolerable human suffering and grave breaches of and long-term threats to international peace and security,”
  • The human rights chief said the use of veto power on the security council “to stop action intended to prevent or defuse conflict is a short-term and ultimately counter-productive tactic”.
  • And she suggested building on the Arms Trade Treaty by requiring that, in countries where there are human rights concerns, governments accept a small human rights monitoring team as a condition of purchasing weapons.
Blair Peterson

Glossary of Terms for IR - 1 views

www.peace.ca/glossaryoftermsforir.htm

International Relations glossary terms

shared by Blair Peterson on 27 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • non-governmental organization (NGO): any private organization involved in activities that have transnational implications
  • state: an organized political entity that occupies a definite territory, has a permanent population, and enjoys stable government, independence and sovereignty
Blair Peterson

Israel Kills 3 Top Hamas Leaders as Latest Fighting Turns Its Way - NYTimes.com - 7 views

www.nytimes.com/...israel-gaza-strip.html

International Relations gaza Israel Palestine

shared by Blair Peterson on 22 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • But the latest round of fighting appears to have given Israel the upper hand in a conflict that has already outlasted all expectations and is increasingly becoming a war of attrition.
  • Israel’s advantage has never looked more lopsided. In contrast to the earlier phase of the war, Israel this week deployed its extensive intelligence capabilities and overwhelming firepower in targeted bombings with limited civilian casualties less likely to raise the world’s ire.
  • “There’s a longstanding conventional wisdom that Israel doesn’t do well in wars of attrition,” said Michael B. Oren, an Israeli historian and a former ambassador to the United States. “That overlooks a broader historical view that Israel’s entire existence has been a war of attrition, and we’ve won that war.”
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  • Even more significant would be the death of Mohammed Deif, the shadowy figure who has survived several previous Israeli assassination attempts with severe injuries and was the target of Tuesday night’s attack. Mr. Deif’s fate remained unknown Thursday, though the body of his 3-year-old daughter, Sara, was recovered from the rubble of the Gaza City home where five one-ton bombs also killed Mr. Deif’s wife, baby son and at least three others.
  • Amos Yadlin, a former Israeli chief of military intelligence, called the killing of Mr. Deif’s three deputies “a very important operational achievement” and said that if Mr. Deif also turns up dead, “this will badly hurt Hamas’s military wing.”
  • “We’re now going to a war of attrition that was a threat of Hamas. Israel basically turned it upside down and said, ‘You want attrition? You are welcome. You lost your strategic military tools against Israel. Our firepower and our intelligence and our capability to sustain more days is much bigger than yours.’ This is the strategy.
  • The Gaza Health Ministry said Israeli airstrikes had killed at least 60 people since the collapse on Tuesday of cease-fire negotiations in Cairo and the resumption of violence after nearly nine days of quiet, bringing the Palestinian death toll in the operation that began July 8 close to 2,100.
  • As the conflict grinds on, Israelis see time as on their side. Experts estimate that Hamas began the summer with a stockpile of about 10,000 rockets. It has fired nearly 4,000, according to the Israeli military, which says it has taken out at least 3,000 more. So it cannot keep launching at this pace for long.
  • With Israel and the Palestinians apparently still far apart on terms for a durable truce, analysts suggested settling in for days or even weeks more of cross-border air exchanges, after what is already the longest Israeli military operation in decades. Diplomatic pressure appeared to be easing, if only because the world’s attention seems focused on other crises including the rise of Islamic extremists in Iraq and Syria, the Ebola outbreak in Africa and civil unrest in Ferguson, Mo.
    • Blair Peterson
      Blair Peterson on 22 Aug 14
       
      Look at how other events around the world impact this major conflict.
  • Israel has much vaster resources, though its politicians and people are increasingly fractured over the prosecution of the campaign. There are growing calls for a more aggressive ground invasion, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted, and intense opposition to the idea of making concessions in a cease-fire agreement that might seem to reward Hamas.
    • Blair Peterson
      Blair Peterson on 22 Aug 14
       
      The right wing position.
  • In Gaza, time is a liability. The number of displaced residents seeking shelter in United Nations schools swelled to nearly 300,000 as the violence resumed; officials have already given up any hope of classes starting Sunday as planned.
  • When Sergeant Shalit was exchanged for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in October 2011 after Hamas held him in captivity for five years, it was Mr. Attar seen in a video ushering him from a pickup truck. Mr. Abu Shamalah, the Israeli military said, was also involved in a 2004 tunnel attack that killed six soldiers, and the 1994 murder of an Israeli officer in Rafah.
  • “Israel can play that game for a long time, certainly longer than Hamas can. That’s true on a purely military level, but the fact is, as the war drags on, it’s going to be harder and harder for Netanyahu not to do one of those two things.”
  • In the Rafah refugee camp, a friend of Mr. Abu Shamalah’s said he had last seen him at the onset of the war, with Mr. Attar, and that he had said then he hoped to be a martyr.
luizapinto

Israel is bombing Gaza? Support the Jews | JPost | Israel News - 0 views

www.jpost.com/...g-Gaza-Support-the-Jews-363598

shared by luizapinto on 28 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • Hamas does – firing rockets from holy places and civilian areas toward Israel.
  • “We support Israel’s actions in Gaza. The only language terrorists understand is that of force. We urge the EU to recognize this simple fact.”
  • Lithuanians don’t get notifications about a daily dosage of rocket attacks, and not only because the airraid sirens don’t actually work in Lithuania.
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  • Jews themselves are launching missiles at their own people
  • Do you have another suggestion for how to deal with terrorists in short term?
Blair Peterson

BBC News - Ebola crisis: The economic impact - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...business-28865434

International Relations ebola Public Health Sierra Leone

shared by Blair Peterson on 03 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • He said President Ernest Bai Koroma revealed this staggering and depressing news to ministers at a special cabinet meeting. "The agricultural sector is the most impacted in terms of Ebola because the majority of the people of Sierra Leone - about 66% - are farmers," he said.
  • Rio Tinto, the world's third largest mining company, which owns a share in Simandou, has donated $100,000 to the World Health Organization's work in the area and is also making sanitation equipment available to local people there.
  • A smaller British company, London Mining, has moved out some its non-essential expatriate staff from Sierra Leone, where mining has accounted for much of the country's recent growth. According to the International Monetary Fund, Sierra Leone's output grew by 20% last year; excluding iron ore mining, it grew by 5.5%.
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  • Sierra Leone and Liberia have both emerged from horrific civil wars and managed to rebuild their economies.
smenegh Meneghini

Framing Health and Foreign Policy: lessons for global health diplomacy - 10 views

www.biomedcentral.com/...1744-8603-6-14.pdf

Ebola International Relations health_diplomacy

shared by smenegh Meneghini on 23 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • smenegh Meneghini on 23 Oct 14
     
    This article talks about how health is becoming part of diplomacy and how it is being discussed as part of security: "Several governments have issued specific foreign policy statements on global health and a new term, global health diplomacy , has been coined to describe the processes by which state and non-state actors engage to position health issues more prominently in foreign policy decision-making". "Security, alongside development, is the most recently encountered frame in the documents we reviewed, with the securitization of health now claimed to be a permanent feature of public health governance in the 21st century. Although "health security" is recent in coinage, its history dates back at least to the 14th century when epidemics threatened to destabilize sovereign power and to compromise the material interest of the elite groups".
  • smenegh Meneghini on 06 Nov 14
Blair Peterson

WHO | Global Public Goods - 2 views

www.who.int/...en

public goods Public Health Global Public Goods

shared by Blair Peterson on 06 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • he eradication of polio.
  • nternational Health Regulations
  • The promotion and protection of cultural diversity, core labour rights, and the environment through global cooperation are also regarded as global public goods. Health-specific global public goods fall into three broad categories:
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  • nformation and knowledge,
  • Control of infectious disease,
  • International rules and institutions,
  • One of the key questions about global public goods is: how can investment in them be encouraged?
  • he free-rider term describes a situation when no individual is prepared to pay the
  • There is little market incentive to develop such medicines, as those suffering from the disease typically have low purchasing power. In addition, countries worst affected by neglected diseases tend to have little capacity or resources to invest in R&D.
Blair Peterson

allAfrica.com: Liberia: Ebola Private Sector Mobilization Group Formed to Fight Ebola - 4 views

allafrica.com/...201410100773.html

International Relations Ebola Public Health private sector

shared by Blair Peterson on 02 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • s such our platform is comprised of the following: 1. To remain in the region and be apart of the nation’s long-term economic and social recovery and development. 2. To ensure employees, families and communities are aware of the disease and are taking the best precautions to avoid infection and stigma. 3. To share experiences and resources, including trained personnel and practices, to assist governments and partners to mobilize quickly to control the spread of the disease. 4. To offer loan or gift-appropriate assets and resources essential to the deployment of an integrated response by donors, militaries, host governments, NGOs and community-based organizations. 5. To make available information about needs of various organizations and first responders, so that they may be connected with corporate giving. 6. To commit to learning from this outbreak and working together to support a strong healthcare system in the affected counties. 7. To raise international awareness and advocate for a larger global coordinated effort to combat Ebola. 8. To advocate for open trade and humanitarian corridors by air, land and sea.
  • · African Mining Services · Kinkross · Alcoa · KRL International · ArcelorMittal · London Mining · Aureus Mining · MonuRent · BHP Billiton · Newcrest Mining · Chevron · Newmont · Dawnus · Pricewater-House Coopers · Diago · Putu Iron Ore · Equatarial Palm Oil · Rangold · Firestone · Rio Pinto · Golden Veroleum · Semato · Heineken · Shell · Hummingbird Resources · Tawana Resources · IAMGOLD Corporation · Teranga Gold · International Finance Corp · Western Cluster
Blair Peterson

The Ebola Outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone - 0 views

www.e-ir.info/...uinea-liberia-and-sierra-leone

strategy Ebola International Relations

shared by Blair Peterson on 22 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • The Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) created a ‘solidarity fund’ to contain and manage the outbreak, [17] and the World Health Organisation convened an emergency meeting of regional health ministers in Accra to strengthen surveillance operations and facilitate cross-border consultations. [18] The World Health Organisation also opened a Sub-Regional Outbreak Coordinating Center in Conakry. [19] Doctors Without Borders has deployed 300 personnel to assist in health care facilities, and both the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the European Union have provided scientific personnel and resources to assist with laboratory testing and government coordination. [20]
  • The World Health Organisation fulfilled its coordinating mission by organising a meeting of regional health officials in Accra in early July—but that was three-and-a-half months after the first report of the disease. WHO’s Sub-Regional Outbreak Coordination Center has the potential to be a useful resource, but it took nearly four months from the outbreak’s beginning until WHO began such operations. Given how quickly Ebola spreads and its virulence, such a delay helped the disease gain a foothold in the region. Arresting the spread of infectious diseases requires quicker action.
  • First, the current response needs to be ratcheted up. Opening sub-regional command centers, deploying personnel from governmental and nongovernmental sources, and providing financial resources are all important—but they need to be done in greater number and with greater urgency. The initial efforts are not necessarily failures; they are just too small and slow in response to the overwhelming nature of this unprecedented outbreak.
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  • Second, efforts to provide health care services and outreach to affected communities need to take concerted efforts to integrate local cultural contexts and health care measures into Ebola control.
  • Third, there need to be serious long-term efforts to improve the health care systems, disease surveillance capabilities, and laboratory resources in all three states.
Blair Peterson

A Brief Introduction to Theories on International Relations and Foreign Policy - 4 views

www.people.vcu.edu/...468theory.htm

International Relations theories theory

shared by Blair Peterson on 07 Oct 14 - Cached
  • System level analysis examines state behavior by looking at the international system. 
  • State level analysis examines the foreign policy behavior of states in terms of state characteristics.
  • Organizational level analysis examines the way in which organizations within a state function to influence foreign policy behavior. 
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  • Individual level analysis focuses on people.  People make decisions within nation states and therefore people make foreign policy. 
  • Classical realism is a state level theory that argues that all states seek power.
  • However, it sees the cause of all the power struggles and rivalries not as a function of the nature of states, but as a function of the nature of the international system.
  • States don’t just seek power and they don’t just fear other powerful states, there are reasons that states seek power and there are reasons that states fear other states.
  • Liberalism adds values into the equation.  It is often called idealism. It is a state level theory which argues that there is a lot of cooperation in the world, not just rivalry. 
  • Neo-liberals might focus on the role of the United Nations or World Trade Organization in shaping the foreign policy behavior of states.  Neo-liberals might look at the cold war and suggest ways to fix the UN to make it more effective.
  • Constructivism is a theory that examines state behavior in the context of state characteristics.  All states are unique and have a set of defining political, cultural, economic, social, or religious characteristics that influence its foreign policy. 
  • Each author is developing a theory to explain the behavior of all states, not just one state.
  • Can you find universal patterns of activity, universal rules that can used to explain how any state behaves?
  • So you use historical data to test your theories. That’s what you’re examining in your papers.  An author has developed a theory or tested two theories.  How well does the author’s argument hold up when tested against the historical data?
  • The US has always had an idealist streak in its foreign policy (some disagree with this) and sees “bad guys” out there in the international system. 
  • How did these organizations create US foreign policy would be the key question at this level of analysis.
  • People are greedy, insecure, and aggressive, so the states they govern will have those same characteristics.
  • The world is anarchy and states do what they can get away with to gain power and they do what they must to protect themselves.
  • States try to build a more just world order.
  • It is a system level version of liberalism and focuses on the way in which institutions can influence the behavior of states by spreading values or creating rule-based behavior.
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