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Shana Thomas

International recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • Abkhazia and South Ossetia are two breakaway republics in the Caucasus with disputed status over whether they are a part of Georgia or sovereign states.[1] The Republic of Abkhazia and the Republic of South Ossetia were recognised following the 2008 South Ossetia War between Russia and Georgia
  • South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia during the 1991–1992 South Ossetia War on 29 May 1992, with its Constitution referring to the "Republic of South Ossetia".[6][7][8] Abkhazia declared its independence after its war with Georgia in 1992–1993. Its Constitution was adopted on 26 November 1994.[9][10
  • Kosovo's declaration of independence on 17 February 2008 and its divided international acceptance prompted speculation that there could be implications for the frozen South Caucasus situation.
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  • In April 2008, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1808 that reaffirmed "the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognised borders and supports all efforts by the United Nations and the Group of Friends of the Secretary-General, which are guided by their determination to promote a settlement of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict only by peaceful means and within the framework of the Security Council resolutions
  • South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity flew to Moscow on 23 August 2008 to address the Federation Council of Russia, and in his appeal stated "what the Georgian leadership has done in South Ossetia can only be described as a Caucasian Stalingrad." On 25 August 2008, President of Abkhazia Sergei Bagapsh also made a presentation to the Federation Council. In his address to the Council, Bagapsh stated "I can say for certain that Abkhazia and South Ossetia will never be part of Georgia."[15]
  • After hearing the aforementioned appeals from both the Abkhazian and South Ossetian leadership, on 25 August 2008, the Federation Council and State Duma passed motions calling upon President Dmitry Medvedev to recognise the independence of both states and establish diplomatic relations.[15][16]
  • President Medvedev stated that "Western countries rushed to recognise Kosovo's illegal declaration of independence from Serbia. We argued consistently that it would be impossible, after that, to tell the Abkhazians and Ossetians (and dozens of other groups around the world) that what was good for the Kosovo Albanians was not good for them. In international relations, you cannot have one rule for some and another rule for others."[21]
  • Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili considered Russia's move as an attempt to alter the borders of Europe by force. Below are some excerpts from his statement:[32] This is the first attempt on European territory ... since Hitler's regime and Stalin's Soviet Union where a large state is trying unilaterally, with the use of force, to completely crush a neighbouring country and openly annex its territory. This is inconceivable lawlessness and insolence ... Russia has done unthinkable damage to its place in the international community. The question of the re-establishment of the territorial integrity of Georgia and the protection of its freedom — this is not an internal Georgian problem, or a question of Georgia and Russia. This is now a question of Russia and the rest of the civilised world. Georgia's future, is not only the future of Georgia, this is the future of the whole civilised world...
    • Shana Thomas
       
      This section will be useful * debate card #3??
  • The European Union,[44] NATO,[45] the OSCE,[46] the United States[47] and other countries immediately voiced displeasure with Russia's decision
  • Comparisons with Kosovo
  • support Georgia's territorial integrity and sovereignty.
  • Ukraine categorically reprobates an adventurous decision of Russia to recognise the self-declared independence and calls for international community to combine efforts in relation to absolute confirmation and observance of territorial integrity of Georgia and implementation of the undertaken international obligations of Russia".
  • Ukraine does not support the decision of Russia to recognise the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. "We are sorry about [the] adoption of such a decision. For Ukraine it is unacceptable therefore we cannot support the position."[215] However, the parliament of Ukraine's Autonomous Republic of Crimea passed a resolution, supporting independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, backing Russia's actions in the regions, and urging the Ukrainian parliament to "accept" the independence of these states
  • October 2009, Ukrainian Ambassador to Russia Kostyantyn Hryshchenko said that "We must not recognize neither Kosovo nor Abkhazia, nor South Ossetia in no case"
  •  Kosovo President of Kosovo Fatmir Sejdiu said that Kosovo cannot serve as an example for Russia to recognise South Ossetia or Abkhazia. He said, "We have always stressed that Kosovo has special characteristics; that it is sui generis and it cannot be used as a precedent for other conflict zones, areas or regions"
  • UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stated that "the question of recognition of states is a matter for sovereign states to decide.
  • "this is in direct violation of numerous UN Security Council resolutions regarding Georgia's territorial integrity, resolutions that Russia itself has endorsed. Russia's actions in recent weeks call into question Russia's commitment to peace and security in the Caucasus. NATO firmly supports the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia and calls on Russia to respect these principles".[156] In December 2009, following NATO summit it was announced that NATO member states will not recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia and called on Russia to reverse its decision.[262]
Ellen Mischinski

Israeli PM: 'No going back' to 1967 borders - politics - White House - msnbc.com - 0 views

  • Obama and Netanyahu, meanwhile, appear to have reached an impasse after two and a half years of rocky relations. The Obama White House was angered when Netanyahu refused a U.S. demand to halt building Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
  • The brewing crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations dimmed even further the prospect for resuming peace talks that collapsed late last year when Palestinians walked away in a dispute over Israeli settlement building in the West Bank.
  • The Democratic president has quickly come under fire from Republican critics, who accuse him of betraying Israel, the closest U.S. ally in the region. Pushing Netanyahu could alienate U.S. supporters of Israel as Obama seeks re-election.
Shana Thomas

How many people are incarcerated for drug related offenses? - Stephannie Behrens - Open... - 0 views

  • Approximate number of people incarcerated for drug related crimes: 108,000 people in federal prisons as of April 2010 280,000 people in state prisons across the country as of June 2007 31,500 people in California state prisons as of December 2008 
  • So that means around half of all inmates in federa
  • So that means around half of all inmates in federal
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  • 31,529 people were in prison in California for drug offenses at the end of 2008.
Caroline Yevak

Israeli-United States Relations - 0 views

  • Israel and the United States share the view that the United States has a predominant role
Caroline Yevak

Russia and Georgia: South Ossetia is not Kosovo | The Economist - 0 views

  • WITH a flourish, Russia this week recognised the “independ
  • ence” of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the enclaves that gave it a casus belli for its war on Georgia
  • The Russians saw it as a logical outcome of their victory, a further stage in their confrontation with the West—and a copy of what happened in Kosovo. As Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, argued, “you cannot have one rule for some and another rule for others.”
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  • Never mind that Russia is itself being incoherent in continuing to insist that Kosovo’s independence from Serbia is still illegal
  • NATO’s air war on Kosovo and Serbia in 1999 was, like the Iraq war in 2003, conducted without the legal approval of the United Nations.
  • Last February’s recognition by many Western countries of Kosovo’s independence from Serbia again lacked formal UN blessing (thanks to Russia’s threatened veto).
  • Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic long oppressed the Kosovo Albanians, as well as perpetrating war and ethnic cleansing right across former Yugoslavia. But it was the Georgians who ended up as the bigger victims of ethnic cleansing in Abkhazia in the 1990s, and have been again in South Ossetia in the past three weeks.
  • Motive provides an even clearer difference. Throughout the 1990s the Americans and Europeans were extremely reluctant to get involved in the Balkans.
  • After Milosevic’s withdrawal from Kosovo in 1999, the main role of the UN and NATO forces in the province was to protect the Serb minority and Serb religious sites. The Western powers devoted years to negotiations over the province’s future, culminating in UN-led talks under Martti Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president. Only when these failed, again thanks mainly to Russian intransigence, did Kosovo’s unilateral independence become inevitable.
  • Russia has nakedly pursued its own interests in the Caucasus. It did its utmost to provoke Mr Saakashvili into a fight. Its “peacekeepers” have made no pretence of protecting minorities in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
  • The difference between Kosovo and South Ossetia has been starker still in the war’s aftermath.
  • The Russians invaded Georgia in a fever of war enthusiasm; have refused to pull out and rejected attempts to internationalise the dispute; and have now recognised the enclaves’ independence less than three weeks after the war began.
  • bringing in the UN and international peacekeepers.
  •  
    Loading recommended tags...
Austin Buben

FT.com / Comment / Opinion - Why I had to recognise Georgia's breakaway regions - 0 views

  • Meanwhile, ignoring Russia’s warnings, western countries rushed to recognise Kosovo’s illegal declaration of independence from Serbia. We argued consistently that it would be impossible, after that, to tell the Abkhazians and Ossetians (and dozens of other groups around the world) that what was good for the Kosovo Albanians was not good for them. In international relations, you cannot have one rule for some and another rule for others.
    • Austin Buben
       
      Basically sums up my Tagline saying that Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia and the International Court of Justice's decision to recognize it as an independent state has heightened the debate over whether Abkhazia and South Ossetia should be considered independent states from Georgia.
Kevin Gregor

NATO's relations with Georgia - 0 views

  •  
    -Kevin Gregor
Shana Thomas

Georgia Is Warned by Russia Against Plans to Join NATO - NYTimes.com - 1 views

    • Shana Thomas
       
      So- I'm guessing that Russia would not approve of Abkhazia being known as independent? Wouldn't this also "threaten" Russia? since Russia borders Abkhazia?
  • President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia warned the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, on Friday that Georgia’s joining NATO would deepen the conflict between the former Soviet states.
  • Mr. Medvedev told Mr. Saakashvili that his quest for NATO membership would not help resolve the simmering tensions in the separatist Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
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  • Russian troop buildup in Abkhazia could destabilize the region,
  • German leaders had expressed their concern to him about relations between Russia and Georgia
  • Russia wanted to resolve the conflicts, but not with outside help,
  • Mr. Saakashvili, however, did not back away from his long-term goal of joining NATO. Georgia has applied for membership, and NATO has promised that it will eventually be accepted.
  • Mr. Medvedev has argued that NATO membership for Georgia or Ukraine, which has also sought membership, would threaten Russian security.
  • Abkhazia borders the Krasnodar region of Russia
  •  
    -Kevin Gregor
Kevin Gregor

No Comparison Between Kosovo And South Ossetia - 0 views

  • Under the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution, Kosovo was granted the status of an autonomous province with virtually the same rights and responsibilities as the six Yugoslav republics, granting Kosovo an implied right of secession. Kosovo's autonomy included its own identity, territory, international-relations powers, and representation in all organs of the Yugoslav Federation. As a result, Serbian actions to deprive Kosovo of its autonomy, beginning in 1989, were clearly inconsistent with the existing Yugoslav Constitution and law and with accepted international practice.South Ossetia had no such right under the Soviet Union. According to Article 72 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution only the 15 republics possessed the right to secede from the union. Georgia emerged from the Soviet Union as an internationally recognized, independent state, and South Ossetia was considered part of its territory.
Ellen Mischinski

http://publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu/policy-review/2011v4/content/merida-initiative.pdf - 1 views

    • Ellen Mischinski
       
      The United States has five percent of the world's population, yet it has seventeen percent of the world's drug addicts
    • Ellen Mischinski
       
       the closure of methamphetamine labs in the United States has led to significant increases of methamphetamine production in Mexico
    • Ellen Mischinski
       
      after President Calderon's declaration of a war on drugs, an estimated 28,228 drug trade related deaths have been reported.
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    • Ellen Mischinski
       
      A paradigm shift will be necessary to lessen violence in Mexico. The Obama administration's approach of collaboration and shared responsibility is a welcome departure from that of past administrations, but insufficient attention is given by it to the problem of US demand for drugs. The United States has five percent of the world's population, yet it has seventeen percent of the world's drug addicts. US drug policy should reflect these numbers. The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reported that the closure of methamphetamine labs in the United States has led to significant increases of methamphetamine production in Mexico. Rather than a decline in the quantity of methamphetamines, production has simple moved to a new location.40 Counterdrug programs must focus on and fund drug addiction eradication programs and anti-drug education with the zeal demonstrated by counternarcotics military operations in order to effectively reduce drug demand and drug violence. This approach would meet the criteria of lessening demand and reducing supply in the long run; by attacking drug demand, drug supply would be significantly affected over time
Ellen Mischinski

http://www.wcl.american.edu/hrbrief/16/3brewer.pdf?rd=1 - 0 views

    • Ellen Mischinski
       
      p.11, paragraph 2 and on. Survey of Mexican residents says that military stuff isn't working
    • Ellen Mischinski
       
      "wholesale illicit drug proceeds [in the US] reach tens of billions of dollars each year. As long as this demand exists, drugs will continue to flow north regardless of the level of deterrence that the security forces deploy."
    • Ellen Mischinski
       
      Clinton's words, "Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs [in the U.S.] fuels the drug trade."3
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    • Ellen Mischinski
       
      The U.S. must instead prioritize domestic demand reduction and halt the flow of assault weapons over the border if it is to cease exporting both the motive and the means for violent drug trafficking to Mexico.
    • Ellen Mischinski
       
      1 Yet an examination of the current Mexican and regional context leads to the conclusion that without a paradigm shift in design, the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars earmarked for the Mérida Initiative and other anti-drug aid to Mexico will fuel a dysfunctional approach to public security-one that is characterized by widespread human rights violations within the framework of an ineffective war against criminals that has not reduced drug-related violence.
    • Ellen Mischinski
       
      One could argue that the United States can avoid fueling human rights violations in Mexico by withholding funding from certain military or police units shown to be responsible for such abuses or by waiting to disburse assistance until Mexico has met certain human rights requirements.
    • Ellen Mischinski
       
      In addition to these concerns, the consistently ineffective track record of frontal-combat approaches to reducing drug trafficking leave little doubt that supporting such an approach now will not end the drug trade, despite any short-term increases in the number of arrests or amount of drugs seized
    • Ellen Mischinski
       
      In February 2009, the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, composed of leading political figures including former Presidents of Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil, issued its conclusions on this subject. It strongly criticized as ineffective the U.S.-led drug war paradigm of the past 30 years and called for a public health approach to drug policy centered on treatment and demand reduction.
Austin Buben

Hamas: Government or Terrorist Organization? : NPR - 1 views

  • "A democratically elected Hamas is still a terrorist organization."
  • Hamas has targeted and killed many civilians, and Israel's occupation has contributed to a violent political environment.
  • Steven A. Cook, a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, started off the evening by acknowledging several facts, which he immediately said were entirely irrelevant. Yes, he said, Hamas was legitimately elected freely and fairly. Yes, Israel has illegally occupied the West Bank and, until recently, Gaza. Yes, Hamas has done much good with its social programs. But, he said, none of that matters. Hamas' central charter calls for the violent overthrow of Israel. Hamas continues to kill innocent civilians. The group must lay down its arms and renounce its violent charter. Until then, Cook said, Hamas can only be labeled a terrorist group.
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  • "A terrorist is a man who murders indiscriminately, distinguishing neither between civilian and innocent and guilty nor soldier and civilian." Terrorism, O'Sullivan argued, is an issue of tactics, not ultimate goals. There can be pro-Nazi and anti-Nazi terrorists, he said; pro-Israel terrorists and anti-Israel ones. In other words, it doesn't matter what we think of Hamas' ultimate goals. All that is important, he argued, is that they employ indiscriminate violence. Until they stop, they should be labeled as terrorists and treated as international pariahs
  • He portrayed a powerful and vicious Israel that has indiscriminately killed many thousands of innocent Palestinians. Cohen argued that Hamas is not a terrorist group, but a nationalist resistance forced to resort to violence because it has so little power compared with Israel.
  • The audience was asked to vote before and after the speakers made their arguments. At the beginning of the evening, 60 percent voted that Hamas is, indeed, still a terrorist organization, 19 percent voted against that proposition and 21 percent didn't know. After the talk, 51 percent were in favor of the motion, 32 percent opposed it and 17 percent were undecided.
    • Austin Buben
       
      This is exactly the webpage that will help us to win.
  •  
    Agreement that hamas is a terrorist organization running a government.
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