I –Introduction

As is customary, a press conference was held by Ambassador Vitaly Churkin to mark the beginning of the Russian Federation’s Presidency of the Security Council for the month of December 2011. Ambassador Churkin’s comments in this press conference provide insight into an important problem in the structure of the Security Council that became evident in the course of the implementation of the Security Council resolutions against Libya.

The press conference was held on December 2. There is video of the press conference for those who are interested in viewing the conference itself. (1)

Though other issues were brought up, many of the questions asked by journalists related to the Russian Federation’s views concerning Security Council action on Libya and Syria.

II– Critique of Implementation of SCR 1973 on Libya

During the press conference Ambassador Churkin revealed that NATO had been asked for a “final report…summing up… weiter lesen

I – Introduction

On Tuesday, October 4, the UN Security Council announced it would take up a draft resolution on Syria. This meeting was to be an instance, when the lessons some Security Council members had drawn from the experience with the resolutions on Libya could be reflected in their action on a draft resolution against Syria.

Several weeks earlier, journalists had been told that there were two different draft resolutions about Syria tabled at the Security Council.

One draft resolution on Syria had been proposed by Russia and China. Russia and China said their resolution had been designed to encourage a peaceful process to help the Syrian government deal both with its stated desire for reforms and with the extremist violence against the Syrian government that was making such reform difficult.

The other draft resolution was tabled by four of the European members of the Security Council –… weiter lesen

[Note: Update 2 – September 12 – There is now a website for the Concerned Africans Open Letter along with a list of the signatures to the letter thus far. The website url for the Open Letter is http://www.concernedafricans.co.za/ As of today, there are over 300 names of concerned Africans listed in support of the letter. In addition there are 5 organizational listings. For updates on the names of those in support of the letter, see the website url http://www.concernedafricans.co.za/index.php/support -R]

[Note: Update 1 – August 25, 2011 – I promised to post an update if there were further developments about the Statement of Concerned Africans. A press conference was held in Johannesburg yesterday, Wednesday, August 24. The letter with over 140 signatures was to be released to the press along with statements by some of the signatories. Among those signing the letter were former president of… weiter lesen

[Note:A version of this article was originally published in the English edition of Global Times on 4-18-2011]

Recently Joseph S. Nye, Jr spoke about his new book, “The Future of Power” at the Japan Society in New York City.

During his talk, Nye defined soft power as the ability to attract or persuade others to give you what you want without having to use coercion.

For Nye, it is not the facts that matter in “the information age”. Instead soft power, which includes how the narrative describing a situation is framed, is as important as, or even more important than military action, in gaining one’s objectives. As he says in an online article, “In a global information age, success is not determined just by who has the biggest army, but also by who has the best story.”

In the question period at the end of his talk, Nye was asked… weiter lesen