by Leo Horn Phathanothai | May 14, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity, Conflict and security
Yesterday, May 13th, was a momentous – if little noticed – milestone in 21 century geopolitics: it marked the UN deadline for countries to submit their claims to seabed up to 350 miles from their coasts, in the last major redrawing of the world map that would fix maritime boundaries.
Unsurprisingly – given its vast mineral riches – the Arctic emerged as a major battleground, with competing claims over its seabed being filed with the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. The stakes are huge: the rapidly receding sea ice cover – 50% of which had disappeared in the two last summers – and technological advances in deep-sea drilling will open up a whole new frontier in oil and gas exploitation.
Russia was first to file with the UN in 2001, and in 2007 it reinforced its claim on a large swathe of Arctic prime property – a chunk of the Arctic shelf the size of Western Europe – with the theatrical planting of a titanium flag on the seabed beneath the North Pole (an area also claimed by Denmark).
In all, 48 countries submitted full claims and dozens more have made preliminary submissions under the deadline. Russia’s submission was contested by Canada, Denmark, Norway and the US (even though the US has not ratified the UN Law of the Sea Treaty, which governs these agreements).
In this connection it is interesting to note the timing of the release of a Kremlin document on Security Policy on the very same day. This document warns of the likelihood of future military conflicts over resources on Russia’s contested borders (including its maritime borders). The document predicts that the struggle over energy resources will dominate international relations, and clearly signals Russia’s readiness to use force to protect its resource claims, even against ‘allies’:
In a competition for resources, problems that involve the use of military force cannot be excluded that would destroy the balance of forces close to the borders of the Russian Federation and her allies […] the attention of international politics in the long-term perspective will be concentrated on the acquisition of energy resources.
This document signals a continuation of Mr. Putin’s energy grand plan: it was produced by a committee headed by Mr. Putin, and was signed of by Mr. Medvedev himself. An earlier Kremlin document sets a vital national objective to develop Arctic energy reserves by 2020, with plans to establish army bases along the Arctic frontier to ‘guarantee military security in different military-political situations’.
by Mark Weston | May 13, 2009 | Africa, Climate and resource scarcity, Global Dashboard
Further to recent Global Dashboard posts on the attempts by rich countries to buy up African agricultural land (here and here for example), an article I wrote for this month’s EMEA Finance magazine explores the subject in more detail.
The main problem with the deals, I argue, is the difficulty of valuing them in a rapidly-changing global food market. For African countries which lack expertise in such matters, there is a huge danger that they will be ripped off. But the risks are also great for investor countries, as the recent collapse of South Korea’s bid to buy up land in Madagascar has shown. For the deals to work, they will need to be radically different to those made so far – more transparent, properly regulated, beneficial to local people and shorter. More important still, however, is for Africa to realise its own potential for food production, which would in the long-term negate the need for these deals.
For the full article, see after the jump.
(more…)
by Jules Evans | May 13, 2009 | Latin America and the Caribbean
Watch this remarkable video from Guatemala, recorded by the lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg, in which he accuses president Colom of ordering his murder. He was gunned down in the street on May 10, and the video released to the media.
Rosenberg was investigating the murder of two clients, Khalil Musa and his daughter, and said he had documents proving that the murders were orchestrated by the president and his wife, after Musa refused to launder drug money for the government at state-owned bank Banrural, where he was recently appointed to the board.
The video has provoked a political crisis in Guatemala, with the president calling for an independent inquiry run by the FBI to clear his name.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC_ODpxMA10[/youtube]
by Charlie Edwards | May 13, 2009 | UK
SOCA’s recent claim (see Alex’s post ) that the world cocaine market is in retreat is looking more and more like a failed attempt to distract us from the news that the troubled agency is going to be overhauled – big time. The orphan of Whitehall‘s task was spectacularly grand – made all the worse by the launch of the agency in a blaze of glory a few years back. The simple truth is that not only do we not have a clear idea of the scale and nature of the problem(s) but we continue to take a primarily enforcement-led approach. This ain’t clever in the 21st century. Not least because such an approach is unliekly to succeed.
Obama and Clinton’s new approach to the ‘narco- insurgency’ in Mexico is a timely admission that a ‘war on drugs’ which doesn’t take account of the social and economic implications of organised crime is destined to fail. Unfortunately there are no simple solutions or answers to the problem of organised crime and drugs in particular. The resounding success of Portugal’s approach to decriminalising drugs is a triumph for the Portugese Government and should be carefully considered. However it is unclear whether the Portugese approach would work in the UK – which is different in context and scale – however that shouldn’t mean we don’t experiment with new approaches and initiatives.
SOCA’s failure was exacerbated by its secrecy. Given the very public nature of the challenge we face from organised crime, the decision by the senior management of Soca to operate under a veil of secrecy since its inception in 2006 has been not only misguided but potentially damaging. The tentacles of organised crime reach into cities, towns and villages across the UK. Unfortunately, one of the victims of the organisation’s secrecy has been SOCA itself.
As The Times reports:
The Prime Minister’s strategy unit at No 10 has been carrying out a review of Soca, which has been criticised for failing to halt the spread of organised crime from the cities to the shires. Soca, which is due to publish its annual report tomorrow, is seeking a new chairman to take over from Sir Stephen Lander, the former head of MI5, who retires in July.
I doubt whether the conclusions and recommendations in the PMSU report were very different from a previous report by the same unit on the subject a few years ago however it may provide some impetus for a much needed change in approach.
by Richard Gowan | May 13, 2009 | Europe and Central Asia
Living in the U.S., I had overlooked the fact that it’s the week of the Eurovision Song Contest – being held, for the first time ever, in Russia. A quick tour of the website suggests that the music is as reliably dreadful as ever, but the highlight must be the three-paragraph history of the host nation:
The history of Russia is long and complicated. Generally, it is believed that the cultural foundations of modern Russia were laid down a bit over 1000 years ago. After Kyiv lost its leading position within the empire, the Grand Duchy of Moscow laid down the political foundations for what we know as the Russian Federation. Between 1300 and 1800, the Russian influence stretched out from Eastern Europe all the way to Alaska.
As for many countries, the 20th century was a difficult period in history. After a bloody Civil War, Russia and three other territories formed the Soviet Union in 1922. In 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union with the largest invasion mankind had ever seen. The Union paid a high price and millions lost their lives, but the bond of countries emerged as a superpower.
Between the 1950s and the late 1980s, the Soviet Union and the United States entered into a tentious and competitive era also known as the Cold War. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Cold War ended.
Always good to mix a bit of imperial nostalgia with the Euro-pop…
