Russia to unveil new spaceship

Russia is ready to debut plans for a new model spaceship on Monday, a ship that could one day carry cosmonauts to the moon.

The as-yet unnamed spacecraft will replace the venerable Soyuz that has been the backbone of manned Russian/Soviet spaceflight since the late 1960's. The new ship would come in at least two versions - a six-seat model for flights in Earth orbit and a four-seater that could travel to the Moon, and possibly beyond. It will be designed to dock either with the International Space Station or a future Russian space station.

Unfortunately though its requirements like that last one, and the moon flight option, that show the International Space Station experiment has ultimately been a failure. Here's why - the whole idea of the ISS was to bring together the world's space-fairing nations (we'll count the European Space Agency as a 'national' program here for simplicity's sake) together on one common project. The rationale is simple, that by working together countries can achieve more than working individually. This is especially true for something as hugely expensive and complex as manned spaceflight.

But in recent years countries have talked less and less about collaborating. The United States has announced plans to return to the Moon, China also has their own lunar plans, so do (apparently) the Russians. The ESA has drawn up plans for its own manned space vehicle; India and even South Korea are working on their own designs as well.

It's a huge duplication of efforts, not to mention costs. A manned mission to Mars would be humankind’s next great step in exploration, and it would also be wildly expensive, likely costing far more than any one country would be willing to spend. It is the type of project that would require international cooperation on a broad scale, the type of cooperation looking less and less likely.

Palestinians could benefit as Israel-Turkey relations fade

If you need any evidence that relationships in the Mid-East are incredibly complex things, burdened by centuries of shared histories, then this is it.

Authorities in Israel are in the process of evicting 500 Palestinians from a neighborhood in East Jerusalem so that they can turn the land into an Israeli settlement. An organization allied with the settlers’ claims to have bought the land from its original owner, Sheikh Jarrah, way back in the 19th century when Jerusalem was part of the Ottoman Empire. But now Turkey has stepped into the dispute, presenting Israel with land ownership documents from their Ottoman Empire archives that refute the settlers' purchase claim.

In the past, the Palestinians have repeatedly asked for access to the Ottoman archives to find evidence to back up their land ownership claims, but Turkey has always refused. Turkey was one of the few Islamic countries to have good relations with Israel, something they didn’t want to sour by getting in the middle of Israeli-Palestinian land disputes. But that changed early this year when Israel launched their military operation into the Gaza Strip. Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israel's President Shimon Peres got into an angry public exchange over Gaza at the World Economic Forum in January that ended with Erdogan storming off the stage after calling Peres a murderer. Now it seems Turkey's willing to open the archives.

Despite agreeing to freeze settlement construction on disputed lands as part of the "Road Map to Peace" agreement, Israel has continued to build housing blocs on land claimed by the Palestinians, and has been moving aggressively in recent months to clear several Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem in order to build several thousand more units for Israeli settlers.

Whether the Turkish documents put a halt to these specific evictions remains to be seen - the Israeli courts said they would take several weeks to review the new information. There have been reports though of settlers previously using forged deed documents to evict Palestinians, including one where a Palestinian allegedly signed over land to a settlers group in 2004; the only problem was that the man in question actually died in 1961.

Israel's new Foreign Minister slams peace deal

Well that was fast.

There was a lot of concern when Avigdor Lieberman was tapped to be Israel’s new Foreign Minister that it would mean bad things for the Israel-Palestine Peace Process. Just one day into the job Lieberman, who has been described as an “ultra-nationalist” by some and an outright racist by others, rejected the Annapolis agreement forged by President George W. Bush back in 2007.

The Annapolis agreement committed the Israelis and Palestinians to “vigorous, ongoing and continuous” negotiations on a two-state solution that would create an independent Palestinian homeland in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Bush had hoped by the end of his term in 2008. Lieberman, though, said that the Annapolis agreement “has no validity,” a declaration that seemed to even catch members of the Foreign Ministry that he now heads, off guard. Lieberman said the only obligation Israel has is to the 2003 “Road Map” agreement for a two-state solution - an agreement Lieberman himself voted against while a member of Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset. Of course Israel has continuously failed to live up to one of the key elements of the Road Map, a freeze on building “settlements” for Israeli citizens within the occupied Palestinian lands.

Lieberman has a long history of making very controversial statements about Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular. Even while campaigning ahead of Israel’s elections just this past February, Lieberman suggested that Israeli citizens of Arab descent (who make up about a quarter of Israel’s population) should have to swear ‘loyalty oaths’ to Israel or lose their citizenship.

For his part, new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel will “strive for peace” and said that they (the Israelis) did not want to rule over another people (the Palestinians). Yet Netanyahu has also backed away from supporting an independent Palestinian state, which would seem to contradict his ‘not wanting to rule’ statement. Netanyahu is also stressing the need to 'deal with' the threat he sees from Iran.

Former French colony Mayotte bucks the trend

The recent trend in world governance has been for small regions - like Kosovo, East Timor, even South Ossetia - to strive for independence. Then there's the small island of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, which on Sunday voted overwhelmingly to become the 101st ‘Department’ (a political division roughly like a county in the United States) of France.

Of course things are never that simple in international relations. Mayotte is one of four islands in the Comoros island chain. In 1975 the Comoros declared their independence from France, all of the islands that is except for Mayotte. Since then the country of Comoros and the African Union (culturally Comoros has close ties to Africa) have viewed Mayotte as part of their territory “occupied” by France. Both groups have condemned Sunday’s referendum.

But it’s hard to argue against the results of the referendum. Roughly 95% of those who voted on Mayotte supported the decision to become a French Department, the only group opposed were Muslim clerics on the island who fear a loss of influence over Mayotte's society as it becomes closer to France - for example, polygamy will become illegal and Islamic courts operating on the island will lose most of their influence.

It is interesting though that in a time when ethnic groups in territories around the world are pushing for independence that the citizens of Mayotte would feel the best move for their future is to become part of a larger country.

What is the G20 anyway?

You’ll hear a lot of talk this week about the G20 meeting, but just who are the G20 anyway?

Simply, it’s a meeting of the world’s 20 largest economies, the members are: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union (which itself is a group of 27 countries, the Czech Republic currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency and will represent the EU at this week’s summit).

Together the members of the G20 represent 85% of the world’s economy.

Meanwhile, the meetings haven’t started, but the drama has. French President Nicolas Sarkozy is threatening to walk out of the summit if the group doesn’t come out with a strong plan for a global system of financial regulations. Sarkozy recently has been slamming what he calls the “Anglo-Saxon economies” (read: the US and UK) for causing the global financial crisis in the first place. A spokesman for the French president said that Sarkozy wouldn’t sign on to any final statement at the summit unless it included “deliverables” – concrete ways to implement a global regulation system.

And according to a leading US economist, German Chancellor Angela Merkel “does not get basic economics.” Merkel has been a strong opponent to plans to increase government spending to stimulate world economies. But economist Adam Posen says that Merkel doesn’t understand the positive short term effect stimulus spending has on a nation’s economy and warns that Germany, which so far has weathered the global financial crisis fairly well, could suffer badly unless the global economic crisis eases.

The G20 summit opens on Wednesday.

Obama's whirlwind tour of Europe

All eyes are on President Obama this week as he embarks on his first major foreign trip. What's on the itinerary? Just the G20 economic forum in London; meetings with key European leaders, not to mention his first sit-down with Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev; and then a quick hop over to Istanbul where he’ll make good on a campaign promise - giving a policy speech in an Islamic country during his first 100 days as President. So all in all it’s just another week at the office...

The G20 meeting could provide a rough start to the trip for Obama. There’s a widespread feeling around the globe that the American economic model is to blame for the current global economic crisis. Obama wants the developed nations to spend more on stimulus plans to help get the world out of its financial doldrums, a move some European leaders, like Germany’s Angela Merkel, are dead set against. The Europeans will likely use the forum to propose a sweeping set of international economic regulations, something Wall Street doesn’t like. The developing nations are calling for aid to prevent economic-fueled catastrophes in countries across Africa and Asia; and then there’s China, which is the wildcard at the G20.

And according to a report in Germany's Der Spiegel Obamamania, at least among Europe’s heads of state, is waning. A lot of it seems to boil down to their feeling that the Obama Administration isn’t taking Europe (in their opinion) seriously enough, though frankly, there also seems to be a measure of hurt feelings among the Europeans because Obama has recognized that Asia is starting to surpass Europe in terms of power and importance (as witnessed by Hillary Clinton’s choice of Asia rather than Europe for her first trip abroad as Secretary of State).

Then there’s the meeting with Medvedev, which will be closely watched since Obama has made such a point of saying he wants to ‘reset’ US-Russian relations. While both presidents have talked about wanting better relations they keep getting hung up on the same issues - missile defense, Iran and NATO expansion. And to make matters worse, not everyone on the US side seems to have gotten the reset memo.

Gen. John Craddock, NATO’s top commander and chief of U.S. forces in Europe, doesn’t seem to be in a compromise state of mind. Craddock said that relations with Russia were “turned upside down” by Russia's invasion of Georgia last August. The General seems to have missed this story last week, which provides more evidence that the Georgians actually started the conflict with their attack on South Ossetia.

This is the corner that we seem to have painted ourselves into in US/Russian relations - the Russians are dead set against having Georgia and Ukraine become members of NATO, feeling that it will threaten their security; while the US has staked so much in backing their membership that to not continue down that path would look like a sign of weakness, or if you believe the New York Times piece, the death of NATO itself.

It’s quite an agenda of issues, ones that have the potential to shape global politics and economics for years to come. Instead of Obama, maybe sending King Solomon would be a better choice.

Coming Cold War in the Far North?

I hate how the term ‘Cold War’ is thrown around anytime there’s the least bit of tension between the West and Russia, but this time it’s at least a somewhat apt description. A day after Russia announced plans to create a new Arctic military force, Canada replied that they “will not be bullied” in the Far North.

It’s an exchange that shows how tensions are rising over the Arctic region. It’s thought that a quarter of all the undiscovered oil and natural gas deposits left on the planet are under the Arctic ice. Now, thanks to global warming and the melting of the polar ice pack, these deposits may finally become commercially viable to explore.

That has the countries that ring the Arctic Ocean thinking about their policies towards the polar region. In 2007 Russia sent an expedition far into the Arctic Ocean. The expedition made news for planting a miniature Russian flag on the seabed at the exact spot of the North Pole, but the real focus of the expedition was gathering geological information to bolster a Russian claim that an undersea mountain chain called the Lomonosov Ridge is a geologic feature of the continental shelf. If proven true (a decision will be made by 2011), it would give Russia territorial rights to much of the Arctic Ocean and a potential windfall in oil and natural gas reserves.

But the Russians aren’t waiting for 2011. A new strategic paper says that by 2020 the Arctic will be Russia’s “top strategic resource base”, and with that in mind the Kremlin has announced the creation of a new military force to protect their Arctic interests. The strategy, published on the internet with no fanfare, suggests giving the Federal Security Service (FSB) responsibility for the region, drawing on a collection of Russian military units to provide security forces as-needed (in practice this would likely include elements of the Air Force and ships from Russia’s Northern Fleet).

This quiet announcement brought a very vocal response from Canada, with Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon making his ‘we won't be bullied’ remark on Friday. The view in Canada is that Russia will try to use military force to push other countries out of disputed areas in the Arctic; Cannon was following up earlier statements by Prime Minister Stephen Harper that the Arctic belongs to Canada too and that they intend to make their presence felt as well. Canada has previously announced plans to build a deep-water port in the Arctic and build a new, modern icebreaker that will be the flagship of their northern naval forces.

And while Canada and Russia are trading barbs, keep in mind that the United States and Denmark (Greenland is a territory of Denmark) also have claims on portions of the Arctic and NATO is saying that they intend to have a role in the Arctic as well. It seems like global warming isn’t the only thing heating up the Arctic.

Peace offer won't last forever - Arab League

The members of the Arab League, which starts a summit meeting tomorrow, warned that time is running out for a proposed peace deal with Israel.

Back in 2002 Saudi Arabia put forward an idea - that the Arab nations of the Middle East would all recognize Israel’s right to exist and open diplomatic relations if Israel would withdraw from the occupied Palestinian lands and return to the borders that existed before the Six Day War in 1967. As recently as last November Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that Israel should seriously consider the Saudi offer.

But then Israel launched ‘Operation Cast Lead’, their military incursion into the Gaza Strip, and relations between Israel and the Arab world sunk. The Arab League is basically repeating a statement made by Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal in January, that the peace offer is not open-ended and that seven years of consideration is probably long enough.

Israel is still in the process of forming a new government following general elections in February and so far has not had a response either to the Saudi or Arab League statements, but there is a lot of concern that a new right-wing government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in the past has opposed an independent state for the Palestinians, will be far less open to peace negotiations.

On the lam? Then stay off Facebook

Here’s some advice, if you’re running from the law, you might want to not post ‘status updates’ on your Facebook page.

A judge in New Zealand ruled that lawyers could use a man’s Facebook page to serve him with court papers. Craig Axe is alleged to have taken more than $200,000 from his family’s business before skipping out of New Zealand. His father, who is suing him, doesn’t know the younger Mr. Axe’s current whereabouts, besides thinking he is hiding somewhere in England, making serving him with a lawsuit for the missing money impossible.

But Craig Axe has been posting updates to his Facebook page, and since he was regularly using the page, the judge in New Zealand ruled that Facebook would be a reliable way to inform Mr. Axe that he was being sued.

And though it’s a novel approach, this case is not the first time that Facebook has been used to serve legal notice - recently a court in Australia let a company inform a couple that their house was going into foreclosure via their Facebook page as well.

Facebook praised the Australian case, saying that it validates Facebook’s role as “a reliable, secure and private medium for communication.” Something to keep in mind if you happen to be on the lam.

Israel army punishes one Gaza soldier

The Israeli Defense Force has punished one soldier for “accidentally” shooting a Palestinian woman in the leg during January’s ‘Operation Cast Lead’ military incursion into the Gaza Strip. The solider in question has been demoted and put on probation.

It’s the first official punishment handed down by the IDF against its soldiers for causing civilian casualties during the Gaza operation. Though so far it looks like this soldier’s punishment will be the exception rather than the rule. Despite well-researched reports by the United Nations and other human rights groups recounting hundreds of incidents of Israeli soldiers deliberately causing harm to Palestinian civilians – including accounts of IDF snipers shooting women and children, and of a squad of soldiers using a Palestinian boy as a human shield – the Israelis are continuing to push the ‘few bad apples’ explanation: that any alleged abuses were caused by a small number of ‘rogue’ troops within a very ethical and professional army.

Richard Falk, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories in a report issued on Tuesday, accused Israel of wide-spread abuses in Gaza, and suggested their conduct rose to the level of a “crime against humanity” – a term first used against Nazi leaders during the Nuremburg war crimes trials following World War Two. Falk used the term in describing Israel’s policy of sealing the borders of the Gaza Strip – home to a million and a half people – before launching Operation Cast Lead, thus preventing civilians from leaving the combat zone.

Israel (and to a lesser degree the United States) have criticized Falk’s report and its findings. But if you look at the Israeli argument it boils down to this: since they were fighting terrorists who don’t respect the laws of war or the well-being of civilians, the Israelis didn’t have to either. Aharon Leshno Yar, Israel's ambassador to the UN rights council, said Falk’s report “[it] willfully ignores and downplays the terrorist and other threats we face,” before discussing how Hamas has no problem operating from urban areas, in effect using civilians as human shields.

But I would argue though that respecting human rights and striving to protect civilians is exactly the thing that separates civilized nations from the terrorists, and isn’t that the point of fighting terrorism in the first place?