Britain loses UN vote over Chagos islands
Indian Ocean archipelago was at the centre of decades-long dispute over the UK's decision to separate it from Mauritius.
22 May 2019 19:05 GMT
Britain cut off the Chagos islands from Mauritius before granting it independence in 1968 and evicting an entire population of islanders [Reuters]
The 193 United Nations member states on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly to demand the hand over control of the Chagos islands to Mauritius "as soon as possible".
A total of 116 countries voted in favour of a non-binding resolution presented by African countries that urged Britain to "withdraw its colonial administration" from the Chagos Islands within six months.
Only six countries, including Britain and the , voted against the measure while 56 others abstained, including Canada, France and Germany.
The Indian Ocean archipelago has been at the centre of a decades-long dispute over 's decision to separate it from in 1965 and set up a joint military base with the on Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands.
Britain evicted about 2,000 people from the archipelago in the 1960s and '70s to make way for a huge US military base on Diego Garcia, which played a key strategic role in the Cold War before being used as a staging ground for US bombing campaigns against and in the 2000s. The facility was used as a interrogation centre after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
In February, the International Court of Justice handed Mauritius a victory when it said in a legal opinion that Britain had illegally split the islands and should give up control of the Chagos.
After Britain rejected that ruling, Mauritius turned to the UN General Assembly to press for action.
Mauritius argues the Chagos archipelago was part of its territory since at least the 18th century and was taken unlawfully by the UK in 1965, three years before the island nation gained independence.
However, Britain insists it has sovereignty over the archipelago, which it calls the British Indian Ocean Territory.
Wednesday's vote was the second time in two years that Britain had to defend its ownership of the Chagos islands at the United Nations.
In 2017, only 15 countries including Britain and the US voted to oppose a request for the ICJ ruling.
Non-binding measure
Before the vote, Britain and the US wrote to all UN missions, urging them to oppose the draft resolution, arguing the fate of the Chagos is a bilateral issue.
"This is not a matter of decolonisation for the General Assembly," wrote British Ambassador Karen Pierce. "It is a bilateral sovereignty dispute between the United Kingdom and Mauritius."
US acting Ambassador Jonathan Cohen argued the court opinion was non-binding and was in no way a legal ruling that decided on the dispute.
In 2016, Britain renewed a lease agreement with the US for the use of Diego Garcia until 2036.
Huh? What happened to the veto power over UN resolution by the US,UK, Russia Chain & France? Surely the US and UK will veto this decision? I think...maybe..dunno
I was stationed on Diego Garcia from July 1985 until July 1986.
A former Facebook adviser is urging governments around the world to shut down social media platforms until they can be reformed.
"If your goals are to protect democracy and personal liberty, you have to be bold. You have to force a radical transformation of the business model of internet platforms," venture capitalist Roger McNamee told the House of Commons privacy and ethics committee Tuesday morning.
"At the end of the day, though, the most effective path to reform would be to shut down the platforms at least temporarily …. Any country can go first. The platforms have left you no choice. The time has come to call their bluff."
This week, Canadian MPs on the committee are being joined by politicians from a handful of countries around the world — including the U.K., Ireland, France and Germany — in trying to figure out what should and can be done to protect citizens' privacy online and curb the spread of disinformation.
In his testimony, McNamee pointed to Sri Lanka, where authorities turned off the taps on most social media after last month's Easter Sunday attacks on churches and hotels killed hundreds of people.
The Sri Lankan government's official news portal said the actions, which included blocking Facebook and its WhatsApp and Instagram services, were needed to stop false news reports online.
"The people at Google and Facebook are not evil," said McNamee, an early investor in Facebook.
"They are the products of an American business culture with few rules, where misbehaviour seldom results in punishment. Smart people take what they can get and tell themselves they earned it. They feel entitled. Consequences are someone else's problem."
He added that "companies with responsible business models will emerge overnight to fill the void."
Dire warnings
McNamee, who wrote Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe, said "at a minimum" countries should ban the platforms' ability to perform web tracking, scan emails and documents and crack down on surveillance.
Centre for International Governance Innovation head Jim Balsillie, who became famous as one of the founders of Blackberry maker Research in Motion, also had dire words for the committee.
"Technology is disrupting governance and if left unchecked could render liberal democracy obsolete," he said.
"Data is not the new oil – it's the new plutonium: amazingly powerful, dangerous when it spreads, difficult to clean up and with serious consequences when improperly used."
Later Tuesday morning, representatives from Facebook, Twitter and Google were scheduled to be in the hot seat.
The high-profile players like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg are not in town. Instead the committee will hear from:
On Monday, just hours before the committee started, Facebook announced it will take down accounts that try to interfere with the upcoming Canadian election and make those attempts public.
- Kevin Chan, Facebook global policy director.
- Neil Potts, Facebook global policy director.
- Derek Slater, global director at Google.
- Colin McKay, head of government affairs and public policy at Google Canada.
- Carlos Monje, director of public policy at Twitter.
- Michele Austin, head of government public policy at Twitter Canada.
Google and Microsoft also announced that they support a Canadian initiative to protect the integrity of the election this fall — including removing hoax accounts and fake content.
Twitter had not signed on as of Tuesday morning.
Hi, this is not true. This was rejected categorically by Russia. The reality is that Russia offered Iran s-400, but Iran preferred to get s-300pmu2 straight away instead of waiting 5+ more years for s-400.Russia Rejected Iran S-400 Missile Request Amid Gulf Tension
By Zainab Fattah and Ilya Arkhipov
May 30, 2019, 9:46 AM CDT Updated on May 31, 2019, 7:26 AM CDT
Why does Iran even bother with Russia which is only committed to playing small ball?
Scientists in the U.S. and Japan Get Serious About Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions
It’s absolutely, definitely, seriously not cold fusion
It’s been a big year for low-energy nuclear reactions. LENRs, as they’re known, are a fringe research topic that some physicists think could explain the results of an infamous experiment nearly 30 years ago that formed the basis for the idea of cold fusion. That idea didn’t hold up, and only a handful of researchers around the world have continued trying to understand the mysterious nature of the inconsistent, heat-generating reactions that had spurred those claims.
Their determination may finally pay off, as researchers in Japan have recently managed to generate heat more consistently from these reactions, and the U.S. Navy is now paying close attention to the field.
In June, scientists at several Japanese research institutes in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy in which they recorded excess heat after exposing metal nanoparticles to hydrogen gas. The results are the strongest in a long line of LENR studies from Japanese institutions like ...... to read more
You know what is going to happen if the Soryu class and beyond is to be equipped with these!! Sayonara SSNs !!!!Looks as if cold fusion was real after all (with a bit of a twist in theory)
This is serious news with various applications.
You know what is going to happen if the Soryu class and beyond is to be equipped with these!! Sayonara SSNs !!!!