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4992. My Time on the Line Examining the Afghan–Pakistan Border as a Factor in Counterinsurgency
- Author:
- Robert Kemp
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- A Foreign Service Officer looks back on the lessons learned from his time posted on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area between 2004 and 2009. Continued international assistance will be necessary to sustain the border-area's fragile ecosystem as troop levels are reduced.
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan and Afghanistan
4993. Fighting a Pandemic: The World's Effort to Control Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis
- Author:
- Alex Bozzette
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- "Sitienes el dinero, puedas hacer maravillas." If you have the money, you can do wonders. Those were some of the first words Dr. Clara Friele, coordinator of Ecuador's National Tuberculosis (TB) Control Program, said to me last summer. The disease she and so many others are fighting is fully curable. It has been documented for millennia-recorded in the bones of Egyptian mummies, the pages of the Hindu Vedas, and the scenes of countless films, plays, and operas (from Tombstone to La Traviata).TB claimed 1.4 million lives in 2010 and is the leading killer of people with AIDS. It infects the lungs before spreading throughout the body and, if untreated, kills almost two-thirds of those with the severe active disease. Supported by a generous travel-study grant, I spent June through August 2011 in South America, East Africa, and Southeast Asia learning from those who fight this TB pandemic firsthand.
- Political Geography:
- Africa, South America, Egypt, and Southeast Asia
4994. Kazakhstan's New Capital Its Importance and Implications
- Author:
- Dena Sholk
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- When I arrived in Astana at 7:30 AM, still half-asleep, on a rainy August morning, I was relieved to have survived the train ride. Three weeks earlier, I had visited Turkestan, a city in southern Kazakhstan that is home to the mausoleum of Sufi scholar Ahmed Yasawi. The Almaty-Turkestan train lasted some twenty-two hours. I shared a four-person sleeping compartment with my travel companion Roberto and two Kazakh men, a retired eighty-nine-year-old school principal from Turkestan and a forty-year-old Kazakh from Shymkent, another southern city. When the Shymkent gentleman entered the cabin, he was wearing a pistol on his belt to "scare people." Fortunately, he removed the belt at night.
- Political Geography:
- Turkey and Kazakhstan
4995. Securing the Olympic City
- Author:
- Christopher Gaffney
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- In anticipation of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympics, the implementation of Police Pacification Units (UPP) in select favelas of Rio de Janeiro has transformed the city's security dynamics. Is this security effort bringing benefits for some at the expense of others?
- Topic:
- Security
4996. Deciphering the Linkages between Organized Crime and Transnational Crime
- Author:
- Jay S. Albanese
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
- Abstract:
- Over the last twenty years, traditional depictions of organized crime as an ethnic, neighborhood phenomenon have given way to discoveries of emerging transnational criminal enterprises involving trafficking, fraud, and corruption on an international scale. The available evidence suggests that these are not two distinct types of criminal conduct. Instead they are overlapping in nature in terms of the crimes committed, the offenders involved, and in how criminal opportunities are exploited for profit. This article analyzes the similarities and differences between organized crime and transnational crime, concluding that they are in fact manifestations of the same underlying conduct and the same pool of criminal offenders. They involve exploitation of similar criminal opportunities, which have changed in form over time. Recommendations for more effective international prevention and responses are made in the context of assessing the remarkable transnational organized crime control efforts of the last decade.
4997. The Diverse Facilitators of Counterfeiting: A Regional Perspective
- Author:
- Louise I. Shelley
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
- Abstract:
- Counterfeits may be the least policed form of transnational crime, although the profits from their sale total in the billions of dollars annually. The counterfeits traded by transnational criminals can be subdivided into two categories: those that merely represent copyright infringement and those that cause harm to life and society. In the first category are such counterfeits as clothing, purses, other consumer goods, and DVDs and other forms of intellectual property. In the second category are counterfeit pharmaceuticals, food, wine, cigarettes, and spare parts. Both forms of counterfeit, however, can be exploited by terrorists because of the low risk and high profits associated with this commerce that makes this trade more dangerous. The article will focus on the actors associated with this illicit trade, as well as the supply, the demand, and the limited law enforcement response. Particular focus will be paid to the counterfeits that cause harm to human life.
4998. States, Frauds, and the Threat of Transnational Organized Crime
- Author:
- Michael Levi
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
- Abstract:
- Fraud and corruption are very serious threats to some states and are harmful to all; however, this threat is seldom connected to transnational organized crime (TOC). We cannot examine social problems in a vacuum; we have to construct images of threats through the lens of the social and political threats posed by different aspects of crime and its organization. Harm and threat are not just about their economic cost, but also about how different phenomena hurt our confidence that we can control our surroundings and our future expectations. This anxiety can affect entities such as nation states or even trans-state entities such as “Ummah Wahidah”—the Islamic global community. The aim of this article is threefold: to disentangle the real and imagined threats of fraud, detail the involvement of transnational organized crime groups in fraud, and determine who or what can be reasonably described as threatened by these phenomena. This article rejects the implicit binary view that states are either threatened or not threatened, referring rather to a scale of threat to both states and different sectors within the state. This article critiques the value of Moisés Naím's concept of 'mafia state' to explaining and understanding fraud.
- Topic:
- Islam
4999. Central American Gangs: Changing Nature and New Partners
- Author:
- Douglas Farah
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
- Abstract:
- This article will examine the changing roles of Central American gangs within the drug trafficking structures, particularly the Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs), operating in the region. This will include the emerging political role of the gangs (Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13 as well as Barrio 18), the negotiations between the gangs and Mexican DTOs for joint operational capacity, the interactions between the two sides, and the significant repercussions all this will likely have across the region as the gangs become both better financed and more politically aware and active. This article is based on field research in San Salvador, where the author was able to spend time with some members of the MS-13. It is also informed by his examination of the truce between the gangs and the Salvadoran government, as well as the talks between the gangs and the Sinaloa cartel.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- America and Mexico
5000. The Twenty-first Century Expansion of the Transnational Drug Trade in Africa
- Author:
- Ashley Neese Bybee
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
- Abstract:
- In the last decade, West Africa emerged as a major transit hub for Latin American Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTOs) transporting cocaine to Western Europe. Since that time, there has been cause for hope and despair. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and an array of international donors have made great strides in acknowledging the growing problem of drug trafficking and have implemented practical measures to stem this flow. All the while, the fears of many observers have been confirmed as the insidious effects of the drug trade have begun to take effect in many West African states. Consumption is on the rise and narco-corruption now undermines the rule of law and legitimate economic growth necessary for development and stability. One of the most alarming trends that place Africa and Africans on the radar of policy makers, law enforcement, and researchers alike is the number of new fronts on which the illicit drug trade is growing. Its geographic expansion beyond the relatively confined region of West Africa is now endangering East and Southern Africa. The arrival of new drugs to the region—heroin and Amphetamine-Type Stimulants (ATS, commonly referred to as synthetic drugs)—has been accompanied by the discovery of local manufacturing facilities to process them. Lastly, the growing level of involvement by Africans—who initially served as facilitators but now appear to be taking a more proactive role—raises concerns that a new generation of African DTOs is rising in the ranks. This paper examines how each of these trends are contributing to the twenty-first century expansion of the drug trade in Africa and summarizes some of the impacts they are having on the states and their populations.
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Latin America, and Western Europe