Using Force on Land to Suppress Piracy at Sea: The Legal Landscape of a Largely Untapped Strategy

On May 14, 2012, a combat helicopter operated by European Union Naval Forces (EUNAVFOR) struck a pirate base ashore in Somalia. The raid destroyed several fiberglass skiffs on the beach in Haradheere, a town on the coast of central Somalia. The attack represented a new tactic used in the protracted and evolving international effort to fight maritime piracy off the coast of Somalia. It was the first time that force ashore, first authorized by the United Nations Security Council in 2008, had been publicly acknowledged. Though recently receding, piracy off the coast of Somalia has had a destabilizing effect on maritime commerce since at least 2008. The problem has not suffered from lack of attention. Navies from across the globe patrol the seas off of Somalia, many multinational conferences have addressed the issue, and dozens of articles have analyzed and suggested solutions to the problem. Many observers have explained the recent drop by pointing to the increased use of private armed security teams on commercial vessels that transit pirate-infested waters. While that may be the case, this Article examines the legal framework for a strategy that has not been attempted on any great scale — the use of military force ashore in Somalia to disrupt and deter piracy off its coast. This analysis is important for at least two reasons. First, piracy might only be receding temporarily. Little has been done on land in Somalia to disrupt the pirates’ core infrastructure and capabilities. Indeed, as recently as August 2013, fifty-seven hostages and four vessels were still being held for ransom, though hostages continue to be released and the number has continued to drop. Second, piracy is not a new phenomenon. A close look at the legal framework for the use of force ashore that developed in this recent flare-up could yield important lessons for dealing more effectively with future problems

The fate of Zimbabwe's children: Insights from changes in nutrition outcomes, 1999-2006

The economic situation in Zimbabwe deteriorated significantly between 2000 and 2009. However, little empirical effort has been directed towards analysing changes in outcomes at micro levels during this challenging period. This paper therefore investigates changes in welfare during this period, with specific reference to child health outcomes. In addition to using height and weight for age as proxies for welfare, the analysis further overcomes the absence of consumption data expenditure by using a food variety score to proxy for access to food and an asset index based on principal component analysis to provide an alternative for economic ranking. Results from a comparative analysis of the 1999 and 2005/6 DHS data show that average height and weight for age z-scores for children aged 5 years or under worsened by 19% and 16% respectively while food consumption declined by 34%. These declines were across the entire wealth distribution but were more pronounced among children in middle quartile and the poorest households, but least for the rich. Multivariate regressions of height and weight for age show that a large part of their decline between 1999 and 2005/06 is explained by the deterioration in access to food over this period. Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions show that deterioration in access to food explains half the overall decline in mean height for age.Zimbabwe, Africa, Nutrition, Stunting, Food Variety Score, Diet Diversity Score, Height for age, Weight for age

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Modelling International Tourism Demand for Zimbabwe

This paper uses the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration to estimate the coefficients of the determinants of international tourism demand for Zimbabwe for the period 1998 to 2005. The results show that taste formation, transport costs, changes in global income and certain specific events have a significant impact on international tourism demand. This implies that the improvement of international tourism infrastructure (in order to reduce travel costs and enhance the quality of services to tourists) so as to reinforce taste formation are important for attracting more international tourists to Zimbabwe. Furthermore, the authorities can potentially increase international tourism demand for the country by promoting pleasant events in the country.International tourism demand, ARDL, Zimbabwe

Le voyage en orbite de Sisyphe: Cancroregina de Landolfi

International audienceDans Cancroregina, paru en 1950, Tommaso Landolfi s’essaie à la science-fiction et reprend le filon du voyage cosmique pour écrire une œuvre unique où réflexion sur l’écriture, sur le sens de la vie, sur la mort et l’au-delà se croisent, produisant différents types de voyage. L’angoisse profonde dont est pétrie toute la production de Landolfi se retrouve dans ce périple vers la lune où un personnage las de vivre se laissera séduire par la folie d’un inconnu. Nous montrerons comment l’auteur tisse entre eux les différents trajets pour donner une image de l’écriture comme peine éternelle qui enferme en son sein l’auteur, Sisyphe malheureux et condamné à jamais à pousser son œuvre.In Cancroregina, pubblicato nel 1950, Tommaso Landolfi sperimenta la fantascienza e riprende il filone del viaggio cosmico per scrivere un’opera unica in cui la riflessione sulla scrittura, sul senso della vita, sulla morte e sull’al di là si intersecano, producendo differenti tipi di viaggio. L’angoscia profonda di cui è impregnata tutta la produzione di Landolfi si ritrova in questo periplo verso la luna in cui un uomo stanco di vivere si lascerà sedurre dalla follia di uno sconosciuto. Mostreremo in che modo l’autore intreccia i differenti percorsi di questi due personaggi per offrire un’immagine della scrittura come pena eterna che rinchiude nel suo seno l’autore, Sisifo sofferente e condannato a perpetuare in eterno la sua opera

Is informality welfare-enhancing structural transformation ? evidence from Uganda

While Africa's recent decade of growth and poverty reduction performance has been lauded, concern has been expressed regarding the structure of this growth. In particular, questions have been raised about whether the growth is based on a commodities boom, or whether it is the beginning of a structural transformation that will lift workers from low-productivity jobs into higher-productivity ones. Macro evidence has suggested that the structural transformation has not started. But macro analysis misses the evidence that the process of transformation has started, because this process begins at the household level. Household livelihoods do not move from ones based on subsistence farming and household level economic activities into livelihoods based on individual wage and salary employment away from the household in one leap -- this process takes generations. The intermediate step is the productive informal sector. It is income gains at the household level in this sector that fuel productivity increases, savings, and investment in human capital in this sector. Ensuring that most households are able to diversify their livelihoods into the non-farm sector through productive informality not only increases growth, but also allows the majority of the population to share in the growth process. This paper illustrates this point with the case of Uganda which followed this path and experienced two decades of sustained growth and poverty reduction.Rural Poverty Reduction,Achieving Shared Growth,Labor Policies,Regional Economic Development,Economic Theory&Research

Cultivation Theory And Violence In Media: Correlations And Observations

Cultivation Theory represents the idea that people’s perceptions of the real world are unconsciously influenced by their consumption of media. As technology has improved and increased, so too has the amount of information various platforms are able to spread. However, there is an imbalance between the amount of violence depicted in media and the amount that occurs in real life, leading to unrealistic perceptions of a mean world. Most cultivation research is not experimental. For my thesis, I decided to conduct an experiment of my own using YouTube clips emphasizing violent or fearful content, using a variety of established practices and questions, as well as some of my own. Although result were not conclusive, a few patterns consistent with Cultivation Theory were observed in this online context

Implementasi Metode K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) dalam Pengelompokan Status Ekonomi Warga

Pengelompokan data berdasarkan keputusan yang telah ditetapkan sangat penting karena akan sangat berpengaruh terhadap hasil akhir dari pengelompokan yang di lakukan. Contoh kasus salah satunya adalah Semakin meningkatnya jumlah masyarakat di dalam suatu wilayah akan disertai dengan Perubahan jumlah penduduk maupun status ekonominya. Semakin banyaknya data yang akan di kelompokkan maka akan membutuhkan waktu yang lebih banyak, untuk mempermudah dan mempercepat proses tersebut maka diperlukan suatu metode yang mampu mengolah data banyak dengan hasil yang akurat salah satu caranya adalah dengan data mining. Data mining merupakan mengelompokkan data yang terdiri dari berbagai macam metode pengelompokkan dengan harapan dapat mempermudah proses pengolahan data hingga pengelompokkan data. Salah satu metode dari data mining yaitu K-Nearest Neighbor atau biasa di sebut algoritma KNN. Pada penelitian ini penulis membuat aplikasi pengelompokan status ekonomi warga dengan mengimplementasikan metode KNN di dalamnya. Aplikasi yang di buat ini dapat melakukan input data, panggil data dan perbandingan data hingga memperoleh hasil berupa keterangan status ekonomi warga

Strategy of ‘Parallels’ : China in the South Sudanese armed conflict

For China, South Sudan assays its long-standing foreign policy principles and development ideologies in Africa - the non-interference principle and the idea that economic development brings peace and security. But beyond that, it ostensibly unveils the intricacies of Beijing’s foreign policy strategies, especially the efficacy of its non-interference principle when faced with intrastate armed conflicts in Africa. In a space of three years, China’s position in the South Sudanese civil war revolved around strict adherence to its non-interference principle, urging parties in the conflict to seek political solutions, direct mediation and deployment of combat troops under the auspices of the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in South Sudan. At face value, the shift from one strategy to the other suggests the absence of a coherent strategy, implying that Beijing is being opportunistic, crafting its strategies as it goes. Although it might be the case that Beijing is ‘learning on the job’, its strategy in South Sudan is not linear but rather a deliberately convoluted strategy of ‘parallels’. This article, accordingly, explores this strategy of ‘parallels’ and the implications it may have on Beijing’s future engagement with civil wars in Africa

Design of a small folding Table for a wheelchair

Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2011.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Cataloged from student submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 29).At receptions, parties, networking events, or other social functions, able-bodied people move around the room from conversation to conversation carrying a drink and/or a little plate of food. People who use wheelchairs for mobility are limited by their need to use their hands to push their wheelchair about the room. This thesis addresses this need through the design of a table that can attach to a manual wheelchair to hold food and drink. The table is engineered to be lightweight, small enough to fit in a backpack, hold a wine glass, and prevent food from sliding off its surface when the wheelchair goes over bumps. The thesis documents the design of the table- it is a simple, contemporary design made primarily of aluminum and vinyl. Preliminary mockups were built to test and refine the table concept and key details, while a detailed digital model for the final design was developed. Because the market for such a product is very small, the table will be manufactured by CNC machining and it will cost upwards of $100.by Emily Obert.S.B