InternationalRelations

The issues are complex. Advocates and opponents cast the debate as preservation of the past challenging progress for the future, conservation versus energy, national interests versus minority Kurdish interests, nationalism versus the interests of neighboring countries. The government argues that the dam will bring irrigation and power to the region. Opponents maintain that much of the electricity generated will go to other parts of the country. Iraq has protested vehemently against Turkey damming the Tigris River just upstream and further restricting the water flow across the border. There is also the geopolitical drama of the European partnerships withdrawing and Turkey potentially pursuing other partners such as China and Russia.

I’ve lived all over the world, in countries that Americans often call “corrupt.” Peace Corps in The Philippines, journalism in Thailand, Argentina, China. But these days, the US is at least as, if not, more corrupt than any other nation I have lived or worked in.

The US has designed a corrupt political culture that undermines our meritocracy and makes a joke of the “public good.” Health care is the most glaring example.

Ditto for bank reform and Wall Street reform. Despite incredible irresponsibility that brought the US and the world to the brink of another Depression, the financial sectors have escape any serious re-regulation. Why? Lobbying. The World Economic Forum is starting a forum for designing large-scale social organizations. It should be with a case study of the US.

A "commons" is any resource used as though it belongs to all. In other words, when anyone can use a shared resource simply because one wants or needs to use it, then one is using a commons. For example, all land is part of our commons because it is a component of our life support and social systems. A commons is destroyed by uncontrolled use—neither intent of the user, nor ownership are important. An example of uncontrolled use is when one can use land (part of our commons) any way one wants.

Campfire Questions: 1)Its been over 40 years since Tragedy of the Commons appeared in Science. What has changed to avert us from this tragedy in the meantime? What might be done to avert it in the future? 2)Would awareness of a global commons, globally among every citizen, be enough to avert individual exploitation at a cost to the commons? 3)As events surrounding the battle between fiat based and biophysical economics accelerate, how can well intentioned volunteers combat free riders without burning out? What is the natural institution that can effort the common good as opposed to special interests? Will Gresham's Law apply to blogs?

The United States signed weapons agreements valued at $37.8 billion in 2008, or 68.4 percent of all business in the global arms bazaar, up significantly from American sales of $25.4 billion the year before. Italy was a distant second, with $3.7 billion in worldwide weapons sales in 2008, while Russia was third with $3.5 billion in arms sales last year — down considerably from the $10.8 billion in weapons deals signed by Moscow in 2007.

The United States was the leader not only in arms sales worldwide, but also in sales to nations in the developing world, signing $29.6 billion in weapons agreements with these nations, or 70.1 percent of all such deals.The study found that the larger arms deals concluded by the United States with developing nations last year included a $6.5 billion air defense system for the United Arab Emirates, a $2.1 billion jet fighter deal with Morocco and a $2 billion attack helicopter agreement with Taiwan. Other large weapons agreements were reached between the United States and India, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, South Korea and Brazil.

The top buyers in the developing world in 2008 were the United Arab Emirates, which signed $9.7 billion in arms deals; Saudi Arabia, which signed $8.7 billion in weapons agreements; and Morocco, with $5.4 billion in arms purchases.

About half of the chicken parts sold to China are wings and feet, which are worth only a few cents a pound in the United States. As delicacies in China, they fetch 60 cents to 80 cents a pound, a price that no other foreign market comes close to matching, according to industry experts.

“If we are playing a game of chicken with China we are going to be big losers.”

The trip did much to bolster Mr Chávez’s well-earned reputation for outrageous statements. But there is method to his madness. The foreign-policy section of Venezuela’s “First Socialist Plan—2007-2013” (dubbed the “Simón Bolívar National Project”) assigns an “integral political alliance” with Iran, Syria, Belarus and Russia the highest priority outside the Latin American and Caribbean region. The rationale for this curious hotchpotch of alliances is the “common anti-imperialist interests” of those five countries—the imperialist in question being America.

Mr Chávez is determined to play in the big leagues. His avowed calculation is that by helping to stir up trouble for America in many places simultaneously, he can bring about the collapse of “the empire”. The regimes he is so assiduously cultivating are, by this account, the nucleus of a new world order. Although this seems far-fetched perhaps the world should start to take him a little more seriously.

"Be nice to the Americans or they'll punish you with democracy."

Evidence shows that attempts to democratize the developed world have made internal tensions much worse.

why has a much more impatient, poorly planned approach been taken to the infinitely more complex problems of Africa and the Middle East?

These women work toward a sustainable peace as committee members, as demonstrators, and as mothers raising and educating their children despite occupation. But their representation in formal negotiations is inadequate. Because Israeli and Palestinian women are disproportionately affected by occupation and the threat of violence, their input into the national security debate – and international negotiations for peace – is essential.

The suffering that women face under increased militarization should translate into a large presence in the security sector. But the Haifa Feminist Center reports that men are overwhelmingly the central decisionmakers in matters of formal conflict resolution, while female politicians largely address socioeconomic issues within the "private" sphere.

For years, women's organizations in Israel and Palestine have worked to increase female participation in the peace process. Groups like the Haifa Feminist Center have organized conferences and lobbied legislators, while the Palestinian section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom has met with Palestinian leadership about increasing the number of high-level posts held by women. Such grass-roots efforts should be supported and recognized by US diplomats and the Obama administration, both politically and financially. One simple step for major players to take could be to facilitate increased information-sharing between these organizations, the Israeli government, the Palestinian Authority, and members of the Quartet. That alone could bring a spotlight to this issue.

The study objective is to represent geographic and territorial concepts with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The paper describes the challenges and potential opportunities for creating an integrated GIS model of security.

The literature review is a good introduction for anyone interested in the application of GIS to the spatial analysis of conflict. As a colleague mentioned, however, the authors of the study do not cite more recent work in this area, which is rather surprising and unfortunate. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the academic peer-review process can seemingly take forever.

In terms of geopolitics, it was a zero sum game: empower NATO at the expense of Russia and convey a message to Iran that the U.S. was serious about protecting its allies from their developing threats.

There's also an illogic to the appeasement charge: because Russia opposed the missile sites, it does not follow that the U.S. decided to remove them to "appease" Russia's concern. Obama's premise is that the missiles -- leaving aside the open question about whether the technology works and whether it's cost effective -- were an irritant and a way for Russia to gum up negotiations on more important, more consequential decisions, like the stringency of economic sanctions against Iran, missile sales to Iran, and treaty negotiations.

The gamble here is that enough of the missile defense shield will be in place before Iran gets its act together. From a geopolitical perspective, poking Russia and Iran in the eye isn't worth the hassle.

Efforts to lock up nuclear materials scattered around the globe are still underway. This week, at the U.N. Security Council, President Obama will chair a high-level meeting on the continuing dangers of proliferation

From Pakistan to Angola to Kyrgyzstan, China is using its enormous pool of foreign currency savings to cement diplomatic alliances, secure access to natural resources and drum up business for its flagship companies. Foreign aid — typically cut-rate loans, sometimes bundled with more commercial lines of credit — is central to this effort.

Leaders of developing nations have embraced China’s sales pitch of easy credit, without Western-style demands for political or economic reform, for a host of unmet needs. The results can be clearly seen in new roads, power plants, and telecommunications networks across the African continent — more than 200 projects since 2001, many financed with preferential loans from the Chinese government’s Exim Bank.

“We know more about China’s military expenditures than we do about its foreign aid,” said David Shambaugh, an author and China scholar at George Washington University. “Foreign aid really is a glaring contradiction to the broader trend of China’s adherence to international norms. It is so strikingly opaque it really makes one wonder what they are trying to hide.”

I lost track of what the narrator was saying and was drawn into the strangest scenes a child might have ever encountered. A classroom of students just like ours was shown taking instructions from their teacher who told them to do something like "drop, roll, and curl" under their desks. A siren wailed in the background and then there was a mushroom cloud rising darkly from the earth. I did not sleep much for many days.

The movies and the newscasts about Russia and film of the nuclear explosions in Japan convinced my impressionable mind that every plane over our house feathering its engines was a Soviet bomber that had slipped undetected across the border and was about to drop a deadly explosive into our hillbilly neighborhood. "I'm scared, Ma," I told my mother one groggy morning. "What about, son?" "The airplanes at night when I'm in bed. They might be carrying bombs from the Russians." "Oh son, that's nothing to worry about. Nobody will drop a bomb here."

Israel, according to published reports by many defense industry analysts, has the fifth largest nuclear arsenal in the world, but has refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty or even formally admit to possession of such technology, even though it is widely-known that the Dimona Reactor in the Negev Desert has been on-line since the 60s. Pakistan and India, sharing a border and contempt for each other, have also refused to be signatories of the treaty. North Korea was once a party to non proliferation, but has since withdrawn and threatens to develop and launch a thermonuclear device. There are also reportedly weapons missing from former Soviet satellite nations.

Global leaders will institutionalize the G20 as the world's main economic governing council, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said

"It's never really happened before. We've had the G8, we've had all these organizations - we've got this one chance to make a huge success of international economic cooperation."