The dream of overcoming the huge technical challenges to make nuclear fusion commercially viable has so far eluded scientists in Europe, America and China, but they continue to try because the prize is so great: a cheap and abundant source of energy with little environmental impact. North Korea's claim that it has completed the fundamental research, putting the technology within its grasp, will be dismissed as highly unlikely unless concrete evidence is produced.
US President Barack Obama has revived a civilian nuclear energy pact with Moscow, which was shelved in the wake of Russia's 2008 conflict with Georgia... The agreement would allow the transfer of technology and equipment, including reactors... In his letter to Congress, Mr Obama said: "The level and scope of US-Russia co-operation on Iran are sufficient to justify resubmitting the proposed agreement to the Congress..." The pact had been signed in 2007 by Mr Bush and Vladimir Putin, who was Russian president at the time. But the conflict in Georgia meant the deal was never put to a Senate vote.
The oil industry is inherently more dangerous than many other industries, and oil companies, including BP, strive to reduce accidents and improve safety. But BP, the nation’s biggest oil and gas producer, has a worse health, environment and safety record than many other major oil companies... The industry standard for safety, analysts say, is set by Exxon Mobil, which displays an obsessive attention to detail... Analysts credit that focus, in part, to the aftermath of the 1989 Exxon Valdez grounding, which spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound in Alaska. “Whatever you think of them, Exxon is now the safest oil company there is,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy expert at Rice University.
Article 21.
- Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
- Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
- The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
The U.S. military has a long tradition of at least formal respect for the rule of law and the limits that the law of war places on soldiers. As far back as the U.S. Civil War, the U.S. Army published the Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field of 1863, known as the Lieber Code. The code set forth rules of conduct for U.S. military personnel that included limits on the use of force against civilians and requirements that detainees be treated humanely... Indeed, the Lieber Code helped spawn the branch of international humanitarian law that governs the law of hostilities, commonly known as Hague law. Following the Civil War, the U.S. Armed Forces embraced a culture of respect for law. The United States also played an active role in furthering the evolution of international humanitarian law from the Civil War to the period after World War II, which culminated in the adoption of the four Geneva Conventions in 1949 and the enactment of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (U.C.M.J.).
To summarize, we can define political authority along the lines suggested by one recent philosopher [Joseph Raz] as follows:
Person x has political authority over person y if and only if the fact that x requires y to perform some action p gives y a reason to do p, regardless of what p is, where this reason purports to override all (or almost all) reasons he may have not to do p.
Legitimacy has both a normative and a sociological meaning. To say that an institution is legitimate in the normative sense is to assert that is has the right to rule--where ruling includes promulgating rules and attempting to secure compliance with them by attaching costs to non-compliance and/or benefits to compliance. An institution is legitimate in the sociological sense when it is widely believed to have the right to rule.
P’s threat subjects Q to coercion only if
But P’s threat actually coerces Q’s (in)action only if two further conditions are met as well:
- P communicates to Q his intention to cause outcome X if Q undertakes action A.
- Q believes that X ∩ A is worse for her than (⌐X) ∩ (⌐A),’ such that X provides Q a reason not to do A.
- P’s reason for threatening X is his belief that X provides Q a reason not to do A.
- Q believes that P has the capacity to cause X and intends to do so if Q does A.
- Q does not do A.
- Part of Q’s reason for not doing A is to avoid X.
An explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig, operating in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, on April 20, 2010, resulted in a fire that sank the rig and caused a massive-scale oil spill. Eleven rig workers are currently missing and presumed dead, the explosion also injured 17 others. The oil spill covers a surface area of at least 2,500 square miles (6,500 km2) according to estimates reported on May 3, 2010 by CNBC. The oil spill, originating from a deepwater oil well 5,000 feet (1,500 m) below sea level, is currently discharging an estimated 5–25 thousand barrels (210,000–1,100,000 US gallons; 790,000–4,000,000 litres) of crude oil daily. The spill is expected to eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill as the worst US oil disaster in history.
A Russian warship is rushing to assist an oil tanker which has been hijacked by Somali pirates off East Africa. The Marshal Shaposhnikov was heading to assist the Moscow University, which was attacked 500 miles (800km) off the Somali coast... Shots were fired at the 96,000-tonne tanker from two speedboats... The 23 Russian crew on board are reported to have locked themselves in the ship's radar room.
The conclusion to which those arguments point...is that there is (for most persons in most states) no moral duty to obey the law. This is the position commonly referred to as philosophical anarchism. Most nontheorists, I've suggested, are probably initially disinclined to accept such a conclusion, perhaps because they think it implies that legal disobedience is routinely or always morally justifiable. And in one technical sense this is correct. If "disobedience" means literally "not obeying the law"--that is, not doing what the law commands because the law commands it--then the denial of a duty to obey does in fact entail that disobedience... is normally justified. But if by "legal disobedience"we mean simply "not performing the act (or forbearance) identified by the law as obligatory," then nothing so dramatic about the moral justification for disobedience to law in fact follows from my conclusion.
Article 39
The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.
Article 40
In order to prevent an aggravation of the situation, the Security Council may, before making the recommendations or deciding upon the measures provided for in Article 39, call upon the parties concerned to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable. Such provisional measures shall be without prejudice to the rights, claims, or position of the parties concerned. The Security Council shall duly take account of failure to comply with such provisional measures.
Article 41
The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.
Article 42
Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.
It remains to be seen how far the USA is deliberately posing a challenge to the whole UN system and the existing international legal order, or whether it is operating within the system, even if manipulating the rules for its own ends. The apparently cynical manipulation of legal rules is nothing new; disingenuous rhetoric is certainly not unique to the international legal system. Thus the question arises whether US lip service to international law on the use of force is meaningless or to be welcomed as indicating continued adherence to the Charter system? Or is the US actually claiming special rights exercisable only by it as the only remaining super power?
A commission has begun investigating last year's military-backed overthrow of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. It was set up by newly-elected President Porfirio Lobo in an attempt to restore some of the country's international standing.
Greek public sector workers have stormed the Acropolis and scuffled with riot police after launching a 48-hour strike against austerity measures... Their action comes ahead of a nationwide general strike on Wednesday. The austerity measures were outlined in a draft bill submitted to the Greek parliament and will be voted on by the end of the week. They have been introduced in return for a 110bn euro (£95bn) international rescue package agreed for the country. The measures include wage freezes, pension cuts and tax rises. They aim to achieve fresh budget cuts of 30bn euros over three years, with the goal of cutting Greece's public deficit to less than 3% of GDP by 2014. It currently stands at 13.6%. Union leaders say the cuts target low-income Greeks.
Tehran's foreign policy has its own strategic logic. Formulated not by mad mullahs but by calculating ayatollahs, it is based on Iran's ambitions and Tehran's perception of what threatens them. Tehran's top priority is the survival of the Islamic Republic as it exists now. Tehran views the United States as an existential threat and to counter it has devised a strategy that rests on both deterrence and competition in the Middle East.
Iran will do whatever it can to divert attention away from its own record in an attempt to evade accountability... Iran is the only country represented in this hall that has been found by the [International Atomic Energy Agency] board of governors to be currently in non-compliance with its nuclear safeguard obligations... It has defied the UN Security Council and the IAEA and placed the future of the non-proliferation regime in jeopardy, and that is why it is facing increasing isolation and pressure from the international community.
Among the competing aims are these:
- The United States and its allies want much tougher inspections of all states signed up to the NPT and penalties for those (like North Korea in 2003) which leave it.
- Non-aligned members are calling for a plan of action to implement the vision of worldwide nuclear disarmament laid out in the treaty, which was opened for signature in 1968.
- Some Middle East countries are calling for action to set up a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East.
- Iran's determination to continue enriching uranium against the orders of the UN Security Council is likely to dominate the opening session of the conference, with an appearance by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
One year after the International Criminal Court accused Sudan's president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, of war crimes for the genocidal rampage in Darfur, he was re-elected in a blatantly manipulated election. Mr. Bashir has no legitimacy and he must stand trial for his crimes. But those facts must not divert the world's attention from another potential crisis: the very real danger of renewed civil war between Arab Muslim northern Sudan and the south, which is largely Christian and animist. The last conflict — from 1983 to 2005 — left about two million people dead. Under a United States-backed peace agreement, the semi-autonomous southern region will hold a referendum in January to decide its future. Voters are expected to choose independence. Leaders in both the north and the south pledged to respect the results. But there is so much oil involved that they can't be depended on to keep their word — without strong encouragement from the United States and other major players.
Under a new Constitution adopted in 2008, the military that has ruled Myanmar, formerly Burma, since 1962 is preparing to replace itself with a civilian government that includes a 440-member House of Representatives...The new legislature will set aside 25 percent of its seats for serving military officers, a number that could be augmented by former officers in civilian clothes...Many foreign analysts, as well as Myanmar's opposition party, the National League for Democracy, have called the elections a false front intended to put a civilian face on the military's continued grip on power.
