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41. Haiti After the Storms: Weather and Conflict

Author:
Robert M. Perito
Publication Date:
11-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
In September 2008, four hurricanes and tropical storms—Fay, Gustav, Hannah and Ike—slammed into Haiti with devastating force. Nearly 800 people were killed, 300 remain missing and more than 500 were injured. More than 150,000 people were displaced. Cities and towns were inundated with mud. Roads, bridges, crops and factories were destroyed. Damage to infrastructure was so great that helicopters and boats were required to reach parts of the island. Millions were left at risk of starvation. International aid officials warned that shortages could spark the kind of food riots that erupted in April of this year.
Topic:
Political Violence, Disaster Relief, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, and Third World
Political Geography:
Caribbean and Island

42. PolicyWatch #1402: The Persian Gulf's 'Occupied Territory': The Three-Island Dispute

Author:
Simon Henderson
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
Last month, Tehran announced it was building maritime offices on the Persian Gulf island of Abu Musa, reigniting the long-standing territorial dispute between Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Since 1970, the disagreement over the island and the neighboring Greater and Lesser Tunbs has been mired in legal uncertainty and historical claims and counterclaims, hindering diplomatic relations between Iran and the Gulf Arab states. The recent diplomatic intensity surrounding the issue, however, including the UAE's August 21 formal protest to UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon, is a significant break from the past, and may be a forerunner to a future escalation. Considering the importance of the islands -- all three are strategically located near the Strait of Hormuz, where 20 percent of the world's oil passes daily -- the dispute's outcome is deeply tied to the interests of the United States and the international community.
Topic:
Sovereignty
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, Middle East, Tehran, Arabia, Island, United Arab Emirates, and Persia

43. "Subaltern Nationalism" and the West Berlin Anti-Authoritarians

Author:
Jennifer Ruth Hosek
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
German Politics and Society
Institution:
German Politics and Society Journal
Abstract:
The West Berlin anti-authoritarians around Rudi Dutschke employed a notion of subaltern nationalism inspired by independence struggles in the global South and particularly by post 1959 Cuba to legitimate their loosely understood plans to recreate West Berlin as a revolutionary island. Responding to Che Guevara's call for many Vietnams, they imagined this Northern metropolis as a Focus spreading socialism of the third way throughout Europe, a conception that united their local and global aims. In focusing on their interpretation of societal changes and structures in Cuba, the anti-authoritarians deemphasized these plans' potential for violence. As a study of West German leftists in transnational context, this article suggests the limitations of confining analyses of their projects within national or Northern paradigms. As a study of the influence of the global South on the North in a non-(post)colonial situation, it suggests that such influence is greater than has heretofore been understood.
Topic:
Nationalism and Political Theory
Political Geography:
Europe, Germany, Cuba, Island, and Berlin

44. Japan-China Relations Chronology

Publication Date:
10-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
July 4, 2008: Japanese Supreme Court upholds lower court decision dismissing claims for compensation raised by wartime Chinese forced laborers in port of Niigata. The court, while acknowledging abuse occurred, cited expiration of statute of limitation. July 4, 2008: Taiwan National University Maritime Research ship intrudes into Japanese territorial waters in the vicinity of the Senkaku Islands.
Topic:
Development and Government
Political Geography:
Japan, China, and Island

45. Islands of Safety in a Sea of Guns: Gun-free Zones in South Africa

Author:
Adèle Kirsten
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Small Arms Survey
Abstract:
On 27 April 1994, millions of South Africans cast their votes in the country's first fully democratic general elections, signalling an end to more than 350 years of political rule by a white minority over the black majority. South Africa's history is one of colonial conquest, dispossession, segregation, and repression; one in which firearms played an important role in maintaining the border between the oppressed and the oppressor, between the colonized and the colonizer. With the state's implementation of apartheid policies after 1948, which further entrenched white rule, the military expanded its influence into all areas of social life, becoming a pervasive element in South African society. In response to the increased repression by the apartheid state, resistance organizations turned to armed violence as one strand in the strategy for national liberation. Many members of the military wing of the African National Congress (ANC) regarded themselves as soldiers fighting in a people's war. Although many held that South Africa was at war, it was generally accepted that the conflict was a low-level civil war, commonly referred to as 'low intensity conflict' (Cock and Nathan, 1989). As a result of several factors, such as internal mass mobilization against apartheid and increasing international pressure for a political solution to the South African conflict, negotiations for a new political dispensation started in 1990, culminating in a democratic constitution and the 1994 elections.
Topic:
International Relations, Arms Control and Proliferation, and War
Political Geography:
Africa and Island

46. Silencing Guns: Local Perspectives on Small Arms and Armed Violence in Rural Pacific Islands Communities

Author:
Emile LeBrun and Robert Muggah
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Small Arms Survey
Abstract:
At a time when the funding for weapons reduction and armed conflict prevention work is at an all-time high and still growing, the lack of accessible, standard evaluative tools is becoming more and more conspicuous. Though this partly stems from a debate within the disarmament community as to what the right set of measures should be, it is also a reaction to the practical difficulty—in some cases, outright impossibility—of collecting quantitative data on armed violence, especially in rural areas. Clearly, there is a great need for alternative means of assessing and reporting on the impacts of both small arms availability and misuse, and efforts to reduce those impacts.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, and Arms Control and Proliferation
Political Geography:
Australia/Pacific and Island

47. Freedom, Prosperity, and Security

Author:
J. Brian Atwood, Robert S. Browne, and Princeton N. Lyman
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The United States will host the G8 Summit at Sea Island, Georgia, in June 2004. Many urgent and critical international issues need to be discussed at the summit, especially developments in the Middle East and in the worldwide war on terrorism. It will be important, however, that the summit also maintain the momentum of the past three years in the G8-Africa partnership. This will reinforce the work of African leaders who are championing democracy, human rights, and good governance. Africa, moreover, figures prominently in the three global issues the United States has selected for the summit: freedom, security, and prosperity.
Topic:
Security and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, Middle East, Georgia, and Island

48. Taiwan's Approach to Cross-Strait Relations

Author:
Ying-jeou Ma
Publication Date:
01-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Civil war broke out between the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) Government of China and the Chinese Communist forces shortly after Japan surrendered to the Allied forces in 1945. Having occupied most of the country by mid-1949, the Chinese Communists proclaimed in Beijing the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) on October 1, 1949. The Nationalist Government retreated to Taiwan, an island of 13,969 square miles just 90 miles off the coast of the Chinese Mainland, in December that year and continued to call itself the Republic of China (ROC). Sporadic battles continued in coastal areas of the Chinese Mainland.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Government
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, Israel, Taiwan, Beijing, East Asia, Asia, and Island

49. Small Arms in the Pacific

Author:
Philip Alpers and Conor Twyford
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Small Arms Survey
Abstract:
This study examines a wide range of small arms-related issues in 20 nations of the southern Pacific. It investigates the status of existing firearm legislation, the extent of legal stockpiles and illicit trade, and the socio-economic impacts of armed conflict on Pacific communities. Case histories examine more closely the disarmament process in Bougainville and the Solomon Islands, along with the widespread disruption wrought with small arms in Fiji and Papua New Guinea. Current initiatives to combat small arms trafficking in the region are also examined.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, and Arms Control and Proliferation
Political Geography:
Australia/Pacific, Island, and Guinea

50. Avoiding a Cyprus Crisis

Author:
Philip H. Gordon and Henri Barkey
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
The resumption of negotiations between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders has led to renewed hopes that the divided island of Cyprus can be reunified ahead of its likely invitation to join the European Union (EU) in December 2002. In fact, however, there is no guarantee that the renewed talks will produce a deal. Americans and other interested observers should support the process and encourage the leaders to compromise. But they should also be prepared for a scenario in which the parties cannot overcome their differences and the EU extends an invitation to join that would only apply to the Greek portion of the island.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
America, Europe, and Island