Category Archives: United Nations

Russia, Syria, United Nations, United States

Aleppo is on the brink of annihilation…

SYRIA

Intro: The Syrian government has demonstrated time and again how little it cares for international humanitarian laws

Aleppo is now more at a critical juncture that it has ever been since the start of Syria’s internecine civil war five years ago. Aleppo’s worsening situation comes at a bad moment when western attention has been turned sharply on terrorism in Europe and the impending US presidential election. Syria, however, is now demanding immediate attention too. What has been happening recently in Aleppo could be a decisive turning point in the conflict; any diplomatic hopes of whatever remain in negotiating a solution is fast deteriorating. An estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people are trapped in Aleppo’s eastern neighbourhoods, which are now entirely surrounded by Syrian government forces of Bashar al-Assad.  These troops are being assisted in their offensive by Russian air power and Iranian-controlled militias. Alarmingly, no food, no medical aid, nor any humanitarian assistance has been able to reach the population of Aleppo’s rebel-held territory for several weeks, because of the magnitude and intensity of the ongoing military onslaught.

Aleppo is of historical significance. It was once Syria’s second largest city, and it has become one of the key symbols of rebel resistance to the Assad regime since 2012. It has been a long-held objective of government forces to crush and obliterate Aleppo, and, if nothing is done to stop Assad’s forces advancing such a disaster seems imminent. That would not just be a defeat for the rebels, many of whom which have received western support, but perhaps an irreversible defeat for the uprising. Aleppo is staring into the abyss with the prospect of a new, humanitarian catastrophe of unprecedented proportions unfurling in Syria.

Aleppo

Map depicting Aleppo in Syria and surrounding countries.

With Aleppo encircled, the tragedy is being exasperated following the tightening of the knot in recent days by government forces whose aim has been to starve or empty it. Aleppo has been so ruthlessly shelled and bombed that it has become an inferno for those desperate people struggling among the ruins. There are hardly any doctors left in the city, and the last remaining hospital has been destroyed. UN agencies say food stocks are barely sufficient to last for more than three weeks.

The Syrian government and its Russian allies have resorted to a tactic of siege and starvation that has been used previously in Syria, but they are now doing it on a much larger and openly deliberate and provocative way. Their announcement of “humanitarian corridors” for civilians and rebels who would want to flee the area must be exposed as a cynical ruse. No one should be surprised that Aleppo’s population has not rushed towards these exit corridors, which have not in any case materialised on the ground. The Syrian government has demonstrated time and again how little it cares for international humanitarian laws. Assad’s machine of repression makes no distinction whatsoever between armed combatants and civilians. Tens of thousands of civilians have died while being held in detention centres. The announcement by Syrian and Russian officials without consulting or even warning UN agencies in advance is implicit proof that they want no external witnesses to their misdeeds.

Aleppo is on the brink of annihilation and the siege must be urgently lifted. International pressure is void of any credibility and its responses to a dire and stricken situation has been pitifully pathetic. It must put proper pressure on Russia to force Syrian troops to retreat, so that lives can be saved. The fate of Aleppo’s inhabitants, however, may now depend to a large degree on how global public opinion can now be mobilised. Saving Aleppo from utter destruction is not only a humanitarian imperative, but also central to any thin chance of a settlement in Syria ever being salvaged.

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European Union, Iran, NATO, Russia, United Nations, United States

Moscow says the United States should drop its European Missile Shield…

EUROPEAN MISSILE SHIELD

Russia has urged the United States to scrap plans to station parts of its European missile shield system now that Iran has reached agreement with world powers to limit its nuclear program.

Moscow has long opposed the plan, which it sees as a threat to its nuclear deterrence, and has pledged to retaliate if the missile shield in Europe goes ahead. Washington has previously assured Moscow the shield was meant as a protection from ‘rogue’ states like Iran, and not directed against Russia.

Since the agreement in July was made, under which Tehran has agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for an easing of UN, US and EU sanctions, Moscow has stepped up its rhetoric against the missile shield.

The latest diplomatic spat threatens to further worsen relations between Moscow and Washington, now at their lowest point since the cold war because of the conflict in Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said in the last few days that Barack Obama ‘was not telling the truth’ in comments he made in 2009 linking the need for a missile shield to what the president called the ‘real threat’ from Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile activity.

At the time of making those comments, Mr Obama said: ‘As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defence system that is cost-effective and proven. If the Iranian threat is eliminated, we will have a stronger basis for security, and the driving force for missile defence construction in Europe will be removed.’

Moscow insists those comments mean that with the resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue, Washington should now walk away from the missile shield plan.

However, sceptics in America (and elsewhere) will argue that even if the agreement was fully implemented it did not annul the threat from Iranian ballistic missiles that Mr Obama referred to back in 2009. Under the July deal, UN sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missiles program will stay in place for eight years.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Government, said: ‘As long as Iran goes on developing and deploying ballistic missiles, the U.S. together with its allies and partners will be working to ensure protection from this threat, including through deploying the NATO missile shield system.’

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has ruled out the possibility of using mid-range ballistic missiles with non-nuclear warheads to target Europe. Mr Ryabkov said: ‘So I conclude that the U.S. administration is artificially stitching arguments together behind a decision to continue and increase the pace of creating the European missile shield that was in fact taken for different reasons.’

If the shield goes ahead, Russia has said it would retaliate, including by deploying short-range Iskander ballistic missiles in its enclave of Kaliningrad, on the border with NATO members Poland and Lithuania.

Mr Ryabkov also said Russia and Iran had agreed on two bilateral deals as part of implementing the wider nuclear agreement, and were now discussing the details.

He said Russia would take in some 8 tonnes of low-enriched uranium from Iran in exchange for supplies of natural uranium. Moscow and Tehran would also produce medical isotopes at Iran’s Fordow uranium enrichment facility.

NATO is constructing a missile defence system in the Mediterranean Sea and in the territories of several European member states.

NATO is constructing a missile defence system in the Mediterranean Sea and in the territories of several European member states.

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Canada, Climate Change, Environment, Russia, United Nations, United States

Russia renews its claim on vast amounts of Arctic territory…

RUSSIA AND THE ARCTIC

In an application to the United Nations, Russia has renewed its claim on 436,000 square miles of Arctic territory. Russia’s previous claim was rejected in 2002 by a UN commission on the grounds of insufficient evidence.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry now says it has ‘ample scientific data collected in years of scientific research.’ The area which Russia claims extends 350 nautical miles from beyond its shoreline.

The move is likely to be diplomatically fraught as it seems certain to provoke the ire of other Arctic-bordering nations. The United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark also have territorial ambitions in the Arctic region and have rejected Russian claims to the area, which is thought to hold up to a quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas reserves.

Reacting to Russia’s claim The Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade & Development, said: ‘All Arctic Ocean coastal states are committed to the orderly resolution of any overlaps of continental shelf and reaffirmed this commitment in the Ilulissat Declaration in May 2008.’

The declaration referred to by Canada was enacted to block any new comprehensive international legal regime to govern the Arctic Ocean, and contains an additional pledge and caveat for ‘the orderly settlement of any possible overlapping claims.’

There have been increasing rivalries in the region, exacerbated by climate change, as melting northern ice caps have allowed more opportunities for nations to explore and expand in contested areas.

These renewed territorial claims come in the midst of what has been described as the worst state of relations between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War, particularly with the ongoing conflict and tensions in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatist rebels and the pro-European Ukrainian government. NATO has openly accused Russia of actively sending troops to support the rebels.

Russia’s expansionist ambitions in the north are not new. In 2007, a Russian submarine dropped a canister containing a Russian flag on the ocean bed of the North Pole in what appeared to have been a provocative publicity stunt to rile its Arctic neighbours.

  • The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the treaty that delimits continental shelf claims, allows countries to claim an exclusive economic zone up to 200 miles from their coastline or as far as their land territory naturally extends from shore beneath the sea.
  • Russia is seeking to demonstrate that two underwater features, the Lomonosov Ridge and the Mendeleev ridge, are natural geological extensions of the Russian continental shelf.
  • Vladimir Putin has described the Arctic as a region of Russian “special interest,” and has expanded Russia’s military presence in the high north to secure its claims in the region.
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