Detention centers are not under state control and often deal with organized crime syndicates who run human trafficking operations. The going rate for a migrant in Libya is between and US dollars. The UN has pushed for the issuance of temporary documentation to migrants in order to legally protect them. China took advantage of this shunning through economic investments, securing Chinese strategic interests.
India, too, invested in Myanmar, and often found itself in direct competition with China. While the international press has portrayed the coup as a triumph of tyranny over democracy, significant societal and economic causes, both domestic and external, have been glossed over. The US wants a strong centralized state in Yemen that can crush insurgents and exert control over the nation. Ironically, the insurgency has grown with increased US intervention.
Large parts of Yemen are already under local rule. This al-Jazeera article argues that Yemen needs to be unified and inclusive, not highly centralized. It has also increased its CIA backed special operations force, which often uses drones. The merge of special operations forces with drone technology has hidden US military operations from public scrutiny. Allowing US drones to cross boundaries is a step towards establishing a free reigning and literally dehumanized US military empire.
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States and Their Future. General Analysis Picture Credit: Slavoj Zizek argues that popular discontent over the economic crisis has brought about an effort to curtail and usurp democracy itself. While democracy was once heralded as a fundamental component of a prosperous modern society, political elites seem to feel that democracy, and by extension sovereignty, can be an intolerable threat to economic prosperity.
Zizek points to arguments that troubled or underdeveloped economies may need to be superintended undemocratically, so as to prevent disruptive populist politics from emerging. However, technocrats and political elites have revealed their own incapacity to effectively manage the eurozone crisis.
A Brighter Year Ahead for the Caribbean?
January 10, The Caribbean faces a great deal of political and economic uncertainty in the coming year. The eurozone crisis has gradually declined in intensity, but some policymakers and observers feel that important obstacles to economic recovery remain. Economist Costas Lapavitsas argues against those who contend that a fiscal union represents a realistic solution. Austerity exacerbates rather than solves the contradictions of this development model. As a result, Lapavitsas concludes that the crisis will continue through , with negative consequences for the regional economy.
The European Union has developed a reputation for political openness and integration, even as the economic crisis has drawn the future of the European Monetary Union into question. While the EU has employed the rhetoric of human rights since its inception, the immigration policies and procedures of its member states have been criticized for numerous instances of mistreatment.
Some EU states have detained migrants for extended periods in harsh conditions and have returned migrants to countries with poor human rights records.
Cyprus has agreed to the terms of a bailout agreement that, once given final approval, will allow it to receive emergency financial aid in exchange for severe austerity measures. New restrictions placed on the travel budgets of bureaucrats and political leaders are likely to attract media attention. However, the more consequential concerns relate to the imposition of higher taxes on the general public, potential cuts to healthcare and other social services, as well as new regulations governing working schedules in the public sector.
After becoming President of Egypt in June , Mohamed Morsi had to face the difficult tasks of appointing a new representative government, extricate the military from governing structures and stimulate the economy. To avoid future financial crises, national leaders should put into practice the ideas of the late economist John Maynard Keynes, regarding government intervention in the economy.
Governments must regulate banks and financial speculation and pursue fiscal policies that strengthen the role of the nation-state in the global economy. Transnational challenges such as pollution, terrorism and climate change undermine nation-states' status as principal actors in international relations. But this article argues that many university professors still base their curricula on the myth of the nation-state.
By focusing on the nation-state, they not only overlook global solutions, they further assume that the nation-state is a coherent and homogenous entity. The author calls for a stronger role for non-state actors, human rights, and ethics in the study of international relations. In this openDemocracy article, the author argues that the existence of nations is not a question of fate but the result of power-politics, accidents or wars.
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For example, the article describes Tibet and Palestine as victims of "post-colonial sequestration. In this OpenDemocracy article, the author puts the China-Tibet issue in a historic perspective, considering their respective notions of sovereignty. During the first half of the 20th century, Tibet was de facto independent as China did not seek absolute control.
But as China grew wary of Western Empires, the country's nationalistic ideas increased. This way, nationalism became a means of legitimizing full sovereignty over Tibet. Large oil companies, Western governments and ethnic minority groups all challenge Nigeria's sovereignty over the oil-rich Niger Delta. This paper explores how these actors' quest for oil wealth, land, water and self-determination have "redefined" state sovereignty. The Movement for Emancipation of the Niger Delta MEND is fighting the government and large oil companies to gain control over the delta, claiming their right to self-determination.
This Guernica article argues that, since the US occupation, Iraq has lost its sovereignty. Both the US and Iraqi government try to present the appearance of autonomy for the country. However, several US policy decisions, such as the building of a wall around Sunni districts, show that the US undermines Iraq's independent decision-making. Pointing out that a country's constitution is a key symbol of its sovereignty; the author criticizes the US controlled drafting of Iraq's constitution in He concludes that only complete withdrawal of occupation troops will give Iraq its independence back.
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States are constantly evolving and since the Cold War, globalization has accelerated the process of change. But the report warns that international donors should be careful not to undermine domestic policies by imposing a Western conception of the state. Though richer than it was six years ago, the Russian state has sacrificed political freedom and economic justice through the concentration of power and wealth.
According to Andrei Illarionov, former economic adviser to President Vladimir Putin, the "corporatization" of the Russian state has reinforced the power of wealthy "insiders" while marginalizing citizens and alienating Russia's neighbors. As with other corporate states, such as Libya, Angola, Chad, Iran, Syria, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, Russian citizens can only restore civil, political and economic freedoms by challenging the state from the bottom up.
The UN system was founded on state sovereignty and protection from foreign intervention. From human rights to the provision of peace, sovereign states provide most social services. Whether weak or strong, some states either cannot or do not perform these functions. In their place, NGOs represent popular sovereignty by conveying the will of "we the peoples" as set out in the UN Charter. As the US grants nominal independence to Iraq, Adam Hochschild takes a look at the phenomenon of countries "where most real power is in the hands of someone else.
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US pressure for resolution of "the Cyprus problem" appears less motivated by political goodwill than the possibility of using Cypriot reunification as a template for Iraq's reconstruction, and for mending diplomatic bridges with Europe. Political scientists often argue that globalization and multilateral institutions are undermining the importance of national sovereignty. But in this chapter from Sovereignty in Transition , author Michael Keating argues that these analysts fail to recognize that the sovereignty concept is changing and taking on new meanings. For example, many minority groups reaffirm the sovereignty concept to gain more autonomy - rather than full independence.
Keating advocates a "plurinational democracy" to accommodate the increasingly integrated world. The UN will present to Greeks and Turks the most comprehensive peace proposal in more than 10 years. Arguments include the claim that global Disarmament Treaties and Conventions are Western agendas which will directly or indirectly undermine national security and the sovereignty of the country. This argument is totally baseless and cannot be proven due to certain weapons being considered today as not only morally outlawed, but also unacceptable.
‘Disarmament’ for peace, sustainability and security | FT Online
Sri Lanka will never engage in a war in a neighbouring country. This argument has been proven in the past and it will hold for the future as well. This can be further proved on the basis of the current continuation of strong diplomatic and friendly relations with the region.
Under these circumstances, Sri Lanka should emerge from the region as an exemplary peace-maker and a supporter of peace initiatives throughout the region. This means Sri Lanka is not in a position to invade any country in the region by military means even should we wish to do so. The most powerful weapon for Sri Lanka should have is as a peace-maker in the region. This was the strategy employed by Japan after the Second World War and the country became the second largest economy in the world; furthermore Japan became a world peace-maker and supporter for many global peace initiatives such as disarmament.
In the past, some prominent Sri Lankan diplomats and a Judge were key figures behind such disarmament Treaties and Conventions and brought honour to the country. Palihakkara and Judge C.
Weeramantry were among them. Some of them were able to convince and advise the Sri Lankan Government of the need to accede and ratify such Treaties and Conventions. As a country, Sri Lanka should look back and analyze the clear reasons and motives for having neglected disarmament in the last decade.
Priorities for the 100 day programme
It may be that the wrong advice was given by certain parties for the government to refrain from such Treaties and Conventions or it may be that the officials who are responsible for work on such Treaties and Conventions did not have the proper knowledge of the subject matter. The President who will be elected to lead Sri Lanka in must look into this seriously and link Sri Lanka to the world disarmament map and take the country back to its past glory as a champion of disarmament.
The visit of Pope Francis in early January to Sri Lanka could be the occasion to announce a ban on landmines and cluster bombs. The Pope has been strongly advocating and supporting a ban on landmines. Sri Lanka would be the first country in to do so. Certainly this will help Sri Lanka to further strengthen and regain its image as supporter for global peace initiatives, multilateral relations and to further reduce its isolation from world disarmament map.
The writer is the Country Researcher Sri Lanka for Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor and a freelance researcher on socioeconomic development and disarmament. This will help Sri Lanka to become a less corrupt state. Currently it is ranked 85th in the Corruption Perception Index of Sri Lanka lost almost all the friendly Western and other nations in the last five years with an unethical foreign diplomacy. In the last five years, Sri Lanka has the worst diplomacy relationships in the history of the Foreign Service of Sri Lanka.
Post-war Sri Lanka needs to link with the world by peaceful means not neglecting them. The writer himself had undergone many hardships just to convince to the previous government of Sri Lanka attend certain disarmament and others conventions at least as an observer state. But that also failed to even a junior Foreign Service officer with a sufficient knowledge in the subject matter not attend at an important meeting at the UN.
SAARC Summit Should Discuss Disarmament
Sad state of affairs! This will be sufficient, there are some development projects recently started that need to be re-evaluated before they begin. Failure to carry out Environment Impact Assessments Surveys EIAS and impact on wildlife should be key considerations in any of this mega development projects. Otherwise Sri Lanka will lose its rich biodiversity as a hot spot in the global bio-diversity map. There are some urgent areas to be amended in the current Act of Flora and Fauna. This needs to be addressed immediately before any illegal constructions appear in the pipeline made by the previous government on proposed wildlife sanctuaries by the DWC.
It was a shame that the previous regime was using state media in an irresponsible manner. It is better to have public hearings over the state media that to show how they were abused, using university lecturers and others to mislead the general public with unethical mudslinging campaigns against opponents.
With the new government the media should behave responsibly and must present Opposition views in the same time-frame allocated for the government. Private media needs to be responsible and transparent when they enjoy freedom of expression. Media freedom is a must in Sri Lanka and should be protected through laws and media Ombudsperson. The day programme can make Sri Lanka history. Previous Presidents were unable to deliver such necessary reforms and fundamental and structural changes, paradigm shifts even though some of them have completed a second term as the Executive President.
Will President MS make it a reality? Tharaka Perera Sunday, 15 February The Other side of days. Many MPs are supporting days but there are severe side-effects are as follows. No Director Boards are appointed to all government entities, including banks, so no board decisions can be taken and some of the issues could be severe. For example, there are court cases pending against creditors, which are not taking place and there are enough time for wrong doers to get a way during this days.
For some, chairmen are appointed with no director boards most of them are busy doing nothing unless they are asked to perform particular tasks, such as fraud searching.