World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

The US guided missile destroyer the USS William P. Lawrence sailed within 12 nautical miles of the Fiery Cross Reef, a built-up island claimed by China.  In response, China scrambled fighter jets and three Chinese warships shadowed the US vessel.   US President Obama is scheduled to visit Vietnam soon, a country that also claims the area around the Fiery Cross Reef.  The dispute between China, which claims the South China Sea as its national territory, and virtually every other state on the planet, which believe that the area should be demarcated according to the UN Conference on the Law of the Seas, continues.   China is clearly not backing down from its claim.

The Kew Botanic Gardens in Great Britain has issued its annual report on The State of the World’s Plants.   Its conclusions are stark:  one in 5 plant species is in danger of extinction.  The report indicates that”there are currently 390,900 plant species known to science, not including algae or moss” and that human activity is the greatest threat to the survival of many of these species.  Given the dependence of the human species on plants for food, medicine, and other uses, the loss of 20% of the world’s plants could be devastating.  On another front, the US Department of Agriculture reported today that more than a quarter of the bee colonies in the US were lost in the winter of 2015-16.  The loss of the pollinating bees could be another threat to the food chain.

The US and 28 other countries have signed on to the “Kigali Principles” under the auspices of the UN.  The Kigali Principles give UN peacekeeping forces the right to use armed force to protect civilians even without formal authorization from the UN or the country from which the peacekeepers hail.   The principles help the UN avoid the humiliation of having peacekeeping troops in a conflict region that cannot protect civilians because they are not authorized to do so.  The UN endured that humiliation in the conflicts in Bosnia in 1992-94 and in Rwanda in 1994 because members of the UN Security Council refused to authorize the use of force by the peacekeepers.