Search

After declaring the country's independence from Portugal in June 1975, the Mozambique Liberation Front focused its efforts on building a modern nationstate and implementing a development strategy to pave the way for a socialist society. The initial lack of cadres for building and managing a postcolonial national state and the new state economy led it to request the international cooperation and solidarity of the Global Left. The aim of this paper is to analyze the notions and practices of international solidarity among leftist Chilean and Argentine exiles who assumed the role of professional-technical cooperators in independent Mozambique between 1976 and 1986. The working method is based on a qualitative analysis of the information obtained from oral sources, documents of the period, and specialist literature. KEYWORDS: international solidarity; cooperation;South American exiles; Mozambique, INTRODUCTION In the international context of the Cold War during the 1970s and 1980s, those fleeing from the wave of repression in the countries of the Southern Cone of Latin [...]

Why do Southeast Asian states use regional mechanisms for disaster relief? From a conventional functionalist perspective, inadequate domestic-level responses to emergencies create a demand for scaled-up governance. This article offers an alternative interpretation of disaster cooperation in Southeast Asia. Drawing on theoretical insights from comparative regionalism and critical disaster studies, it argues that the raison d'etre of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre) is to empower ASEAN states vis-a-vis extraregional humanitarian actors. The AHA Centre works to enable Member States to gatekeep intrusive extraregional aid and, ultimately, to transform authority relations in the international humanitarian system in favor of state actors that have traditionally found themselves in a peripheral and passive role. Keywords Southeast Asia--regionalism--functionalism--humanitarian assistance--AHA Centre--governance, 1 Introduction (1) Why do Southeast Asian states use regional mechanisms for disaster relief? From a conventional functionalist perspective, the logic of regional cooperation in this policy field may at [...]

In international politics, governments may tend to favor countries with which they share some degree of cultural affinity. Moreover, international organizations can strengthen solidarity among their members. Not surprisingly, Muslim countries, which came together under the umbrella of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), frequently state that they pursue Muslim solidarity in international politics. By looking at voting preferences of OIC member Muslim countries in the UN General Assembly about the selection of nonpermanent UN Security Council members, this article aims to understand Muslim solidarity in international politics. For this, the article uses newspaper reports, political statements, secret intelligence reports, and interviews regarding the votes of Muslim countries in contested elections in which a Muslim country competed with its non-Muslim rival for the same Security Council seat. Keywords Muslim solidarity--UN Security Council--Organization of Islamic Cooperation--voting in the UN General Assembly, 1 Introduction After spending a week in New York in October 2014 with lobbying efforts for a Turkish seat in the UN Security Council (UNSC), Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlut [...]

1 Introduction 'Unconventional' is the word that may come to the mind of an outsider looking at the term of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (hereinafter SVG) on the UN [...]

Credibility has been used to explain theories of deterrence and cooperation in international relations. In the peacekeeping environment, for what purposes should credibility be built and how can it be signaled? Despite being listed by the UN as a success factor in peace operations, our understanding of credibility in peacekeeping remains limited and focused on deterrence. This article argues that credibility in peace operations must be built for both deterrence and cooperation purposes. Drawing on the international relations, civil war, and peacekeeping literatures, it conceptualizes credibility in peacekeeping by identifying the purposes for which credibility must be built and signaled: deterrence and cooperativeness. It contends that while a peace operation's ability to deter is limited, signaling cooperativeness - credibility in cooperation--enables a force to cultivate cooperation with national and subnational audiences. This helps to create a more predictable security environment by enabling the force to function on a daily basis. Keywords peacekeeping--United Nations--credibility--cooperation---deterrence, 1 Introduction (1) UN guidelines on peacekeeping identify credibility as a factor in the success of peace operations, yet it remains a fuzzy concept in an environment where deterrence and [...]

The main thesis in this article is that the Axis of Resistance, at the center of which is the Palestinian struggle for liberation against the settler-colonial entity (Zionist entity) in Palestine, leads the fight against imperialism in West Asia. This struggle must be situated in its regional and global context. West Asia (and North Africa) is a region in which rivalry and animosity among regional and global state and non-state actors have accelerated since the beginning of the twenty-first century. The US, in collaboration with NATO, has sought to dominate the region, beginning with the demise of the USSR in 1990, but increasingly so since 2000. A critical point in the discussion is the organic relationship between the US and the Zionist entity in Palestine, which was created to keep the Arab East and West Asia, in general, within the Western imperialist fold. Multiple wars, uprisings and instability have transpired that can best be explained in the context of global capitalism dominated by the US as a singular player leading a pliable Europe and more often than not succeeding in arranging the political map of the world in its own image. Challenges to a unilateral globalizing world soon followed complicating the international scene militarily, politically, and economically. A consequence of this development has been an increasingly unstable international situation. This confluence of events compelled state and non-state actors in West Asia that belong to the Axis of Resistance to tread gingerly and weigh their moves so as not to come, at least prematurely, into direct conflict with US hegemony. In this milieu, the Zionist entity in Palestine stepped up the oppression of the Palestinian people and ramped up their ethnic cleansing and confiscation of Palestinian lands. While the Palestinian liberation movement had benefited from the relationship between it and the regional front against US global hegemony, considerations and calculations of this front often compelled it to readjust its tactical (and sometimes strategic) considerations to maintain the global alliance opposing US hegemony. Taking advantage of this reality the Zionist entity continues to increase the pressure on the Palestinians while attempting to degrade the capabilities of the Resistance front in clear support of US regional strategy. In May 2021 the Palestinian Resistance forced the settler-colonial entity to temporarily retreat from effecting its settler-colonial machinations in Palestine. In May 2022 the Palestinians, building on the successes of their confrontation with the existential enemy have thwarted imperialist, Zionist, and reactionary Arab calculations to defeat them. A plethora of recent examples demonstrated this point. Currently, facts on the ground show that the Palestinian Resistance has opposed regional compromise and capitulation to Western imperialism by some state actors. This opposition to US imperial strategy is the sine qua non for a dynamic confrontation by the Axis of Resistance in West Asia to defeat the US hegemon. Keywords: Palestinian struggle for liberation, Ethnic cleansing, West Asia, global capitalism, Zionist settler-colonial entity, US hegemon, Introduction In May 2021 the Palestinian liberation struggle took center stage in the fight against the Zionist settler-colonial entity (Zionist entity) in Palestine, which is backed by US imperialism and [...]

During pandemics, in which harm is universal, states find themselves under an obligation to cooperate within a global solidarity framework. However, because they do not have the same set of capabilities, their obligations should be differentiated and based on equity and distributive justice. As an effective tool of States' foreign policy, health diplomacy is being used by developing countries according to different priorities and interests. After a few months of relative calm, COVID-19 still poses a major challenge for African and Middle Eastern economies and societies where the vaccination rates are low across the board with healthcare systems in poor shape. If some Gulf countries can be considered exceptions due to active lockdowns, mobility restrictions, and considerable testing, their engagement abroad to help contain the pandemic, especially in North Africa, shows that, if the spirit of cooperation and justice is well taken care of at the regional level, this is not the case at the international level, where global health cooperation would clearly benefit from the application of a type of differentiated treatment such as the one provided by the Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) principle. Keywords: Health diplomacy, Vaccines, CBDR, Principle, Cooperation, Introduction Contrary to a global public good (2), a so-called 'global public harm (3)' is linked to a damage and not to the consumption of a good. To constitute a [...]

The outbreak of the coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis in early 2020 took the whole world by surprise. The world witnessed its horrific spread in Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Brazil in utter disbelief and helplessness. The Greater Middle East (GME) region too faced the pandemic-induced misfortune in no small measure. Governments and non-governmental organizations scrambled to articulate a response equivalent to the challenges. While the crisis clearly posed an unprecedented set of challenges in human history, it did provide some opportunities as well. If nothing else, the crisis brought home the importance of pandemic-preparedness, biosecurity, health security, food security, social cohesion, public compliance, and regional and international cooperation as succinctly as possible. While a few countries in the GME region did succeed in stepping up to the challenge in the early six months of the crisis well into the end of 2021, a few others fell considerably short in their response and are still struggling to provide even basic anti-virus measures. This article provides a general overview of the GME's response to the Covid-19 pandemic and highlights some of the major challenges faced by the states and society in the region and the opportunities thereof. The article also touches upon the policies, efforts, opportunities, struggles, and challenges in the sub-regions of the GME: the Levant, the Gulf, North Africa, and Central Asia. Keywords: Greater Middle East, Coronavirus pandemic, Crisis management, Preparedness, Health security, Economic growth, China, Wuhan, Response to the corona pandemic, The Greater Middle East: An Overview The GME region extends from Western Sahara in North Africa to Tajikistan in Central Asia at the Western borders of China. This region shares [...]

Dig That Lick (DTL): Analyzing Large-Scale Data for Melodic Patterns in Jazz Performances. URL: http://dig-that-lick.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/ Dig That Lick (DTL) is a multidisciplinary research project that ran from 2017 through 2019 [...]

This paper considers publications devoted to the development and improvement of methods for the determination of markers and biomarkers of chemical warfare agents (CWAs) using various combinations and modifications of gas and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. Attention is focused on the importance of choosing an optimal analysis strategy and optimizing sample preparation procedures and operating modes of analytical instruments. Published data on the selection of characteristic markers of organophosphorus CWAs and sulfur mustard gas and methods for their determination are summarized., Author(s): I. V. Rybal'chenko [sup.1] [sup.2], T. M. Baigil'diev [sup.1], I. A. Rodin [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.14476.30, 0000 0001 2342 9668, Faculty of Chemistry, Moscow State University, , 119991, [...]

The emergence of global value chains not only leads to a magnification of trade in intermediate inputs but also to an extensive technology diffusion among the different production units involved in arms-length relationships. In this context, the lack of enforcement of intellectual property rights has recently become a highly controversial subject of debate in the context of the China-U.S. trade negotiations. This paper analyzes the strategic interaction of tariff policies and the enforcement of intellectual property rights within a quantitative general equilibrium framework. Results indicate that, in principle, tariffs could be an effective deterrent for weak protections for intellectual property. Moreover, weakening enforcement may be a strong deterrent for raising tariffs. These results combined indicate that there is scope for international cooperation on these fronts. JEL classification: F41, F42, F51, F21, F13 Key words: tariffs, intellectual property rights, technology capital transfers, international trade, 1 Introduction In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession, the world has seen a resurgence of protectionist policies. The Trump administration has pursued policies that [...]

Global Internet governance is unique in that it officially adopted a multi-stakeholder decision making procedure instead of a state-driven international cooperation modality. We focus on the role of the Internet epistemic community in Asia, which can explain the emergence of the current norms of Internet coordination and the Internet governance structure. By sharing the most advanced knowledge from global discussions and by organizing regional cooperation platforms starting from the early 1980s, Asian Internet technical professionals created Internet coordination norms based on open contribution and led the stewardship from the early stage of Internet development in the region. Based on a review of historical documents on the early development of the Internet in Asia, we show that the Internet epistemic community in Asia has played a critical role in designing and managing the current formation of regional Internet governance regimes, as well as their working norms starting from the early stage of Internet development in the region. Keywords Internet governance regime--Internet epistemic community--multistakeholder norm diffusion, 1 Introduction Internet governance has rapidly shifted from a nonpolitical issue area in the 1990s to one that is the focus of contention in high politics today. Because the Internet [...]

When states face a regulatory difference that impedes commerce between them, they have a range of options to choose from in how to pursue regulatory cooperation on that issue. They may attempt to unilaterally impose their position, attempt to negotiate binding agreements, promote mutual recognition, utilize networked governance, create private standards, rely on business self-regulation, or choose not to pursue cooperation. Each of these choices has implications for the commerce and international relations on that issue, and so the choice of policy route is of vital importance. This article builds on lobbying, regulation, and trade scholarship to advance a theory that explains how states choose a regulatory cooperation pathway. Keywords international political economy--regulation--trade--cooperation, 1 Introduction US and European Union (EU) competition officials have different sets of regulatory criteria by which they evaluate potential mergers between firms. (1) Given that many of the firms [...]