europe

December 22, 2011

The Turks are selling pasta to the Italians, educating Papua-New Guineans in their universities, building airports in Egypt...Turkey has not felt and acted like the confident global player it is today since the heyday of the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century.

The man responsible for Ukraine's Euro 2012 football championship has said Uefa is doing more than the EU institutions to modernise the country..."I think the image of the Ukrainian police will change during this tournament ... I think Europe will discover Ukraine."

On 28 November 2011, the NCCR North-South Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) based in Bern and the ETH North-South Center based in Zurich sponsored a half-day conference, “Water diplomacy: transboundary rivers and international politics” at the Museum of Natural History in Basel. It explored the theme of water as an instrument of diplomacy, in particular how water management can be used to solve diplomatic conflict and how diplomacy can solve water conflicts and improve resource management.

After a six-month study into water diplomacy in cooperation with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the Water Governance Centre, the Clingendael Diplomatic Studies Programme presents a final report with policy recommendations. The report examines the potential of water diplomacy for Dutch foreign policy and how involved actors can increase this potential. The focus is on water diplomacy, as seen from the Netherlands, in terms of niche diplomacy on transboundary water conflict prevention.

“I want to concentrate on public diplomacy,” he said. “We have to explain to people in Republika Srpska that NATO is not a military organisation, NATO is a civil organisation. Ambassadors in NATO are creating decisions, not soldiers. The military is only a part of NATO.”

"Governments must do everything they can to fully protect Jewish citizens from the oldest and most persistent form of prejudice"...Reporting on and combating anti-Semitism should be part of a full array of human rights and democracy programming, funding and public diplomacy efforts.

December 1, 2011

International paradigms, as realism and neoliberalism have historically defined the principles of international cooperation considering non-state actors as either negligent or influential. Hydro-politics, considers a new regime in which water can be considered by state and non-state actors as a new strategy to improve international cooperation. However, international law principles and the international water law framework seem to be working contradictory to the logics and schemes necessary for hydro-politics to become a successful platform for multilateral cooperation.

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