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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

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

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

An analysis of factors affecting implementation of SAP in South Africa public sector.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations in the South African public sector have faced many challenges and the majority of them have failed to achieve their intended purposes. They have failed to be finished within the project plan, and within the budgeted time, and are largely unable to meet the expectations of the users to the extent that the real value and returns on the IT investments have not been realised. SAP ERP implementation failure is defined in many ways; a project that is abandoned is a clear example of a failed project, a system implementation that has been delivered exceeding its budget and planned time is also classified as a failed project as it can lead to serious financial consequences for the company. A SAP ERP project that does not deliver the intended benefits to the users is also defined as failed. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore impacts of success factors on SAP ERP implementation in KwaZulu-Natal. The Technology-Organisational-Environment (TOE) framework was used and nine success factors were classified into these three domains and measured against the dependent variable, Implementation Success. A quantitative, cross-sectional survey was carried out and data was gathered data from forty-seven SAP-system users from three state-owned entities in KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. Tests of reliability and validity were done, and the data analysis was carried out using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), version 22. The findings of the research showed that technological factors have a significant influence on implementation success. Lack of thorough data migration through various iterations of cleansed master and transactional data will lead to a new system with incorrect data. The degree of ERP flexibility was identified as a measure of implementation success, the higher the flexibility the higher the level of success. Systems that are largely inflexible and which require a high degree of customisation cause a lot of inefficiencies. Organisational factors such as change management, training, or business-process re-engineering showed a significant influence on the successful implementation of SAP systems. Respondents indicated that these factors are critical in ensuring that the SAP ERP system implementation is successful. The research findings for environmental factors showed that there is a positive relationship between vendor support and implementation success. Experienced vendors who have deep and specific knowledge of their systems, and are continuously involved with their clients, have evidenced successful implementations. However, top management support and project governance did not show any significant influence on the success of an SAP ERP implementation

Rising powers and foreign intrastate armed conflicts : trends and patterns of China’s intervention in African civil wars

What influences one state to intervene in another’s intrastate armed conflict? In answering this question, existing scholarship has tended to emphasise the position of the intervening state in the international system; suggesting that, that is the main determinant factor of a state’s external intervention behaviour. As a result, existing research on intervention in foreign intrastate armed conflicts is dominated by a focus on great powers and their intervention methods. Employing the neoclassical realist causal logic, this thesis argues, on the contrary, that whether a state intervenes in a foreign intrastate armed conflict is a factor of both systemic and state level factors. A state’s intervention behavior is therefore determined, first, by the increase in its relative economic power, then by its changing perception of threat to its interests abroad. What it means is that a state’s position in the international system, rising power, great power or small power, is not the only determinant factor in exploring its intervention behavior, unit level factors also matter. In advancing that argument, this thesis significantly challenges the prevailing assumption that intervention in foreign intrastate armed conflicts is a preserve of great powers, and an instrument of their foreign policy; and thus, broadens the intervention discourse to include the intervention behavior of rising powers. Yet, still there exist, in current literature, a lack of research which systematically connects the above neoclassical realist theoretical reasoning with empirical analysis of intervention in foreign conflicts by rising powers vis-à-vis the 21st century global order recalibrations. By exploring the intervention behaviour of China, a rising global power, in intrastate armed conflicts in three countries, Libya, Mali and South Sudan; and by using the comparative case study method to assess trends and patterns in its intervention behaviour, as its relative economic power increases and its perception of threat evolves, this thesis highlights a more systematic interlink between theoretical and empirical analysis that takes into consideration the changing status of rising powers in the global system and its effect on their intervention behaviour. It therefore makes a case for an empirical study of China’s intervention in intrastate armed conflicts in Africa that considers the interactive dynamics between systemic and domestic variables in its causal explanation of China’s foreign intervention behaviour. In doing that, it points out that understanding intervention in terms of great powers and military action limits our exploration of the emerging re-conceptualization of intervention, its practice and methods as employed by rising powers in foreign intrastate armed conflicts. The thesis therefore makes a case for an innovative (re-)definition of intervention that enables an analytical assessment of the emerging intervention practices

Unravelling the tensions:exploring the interplay of paid care work, family obligations, and transnational care among Zimbabwean migrant care workers in the UK

An increasing number of studies have examined the impact of migration on reconciling familial care obligations with demanding paid care work. However, much of this research focuses on women who employ migrant care workers and ignores the experiences of migrant care workers balancing their jobs with their own familial responsibilities. As a result, little is known about how migrant care workers navigate local contexts, form families, and manage work and childcare in destination countries while maintaining commitments at home. This paper explores the family dynamics and transnational lives of Zimbabwean migrant care workers in the UK. It draws on qualitative interviews with 10 participants to elaborate on the additional challenges they face in reconciling paid care work with localized and transnational family care. The analysis highlights that migrant workers must simultaneously respond to the care demands of their families and employers, often causing tensions as gendered care expectations are challenged. To manage these difficulties in balancing work and family, Zimbabwean care workers employ various strategies that sometimes strain familial relationships. This study provides insight into the intersection of migrant care workers’ paid labour and familial care obligations across borders

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