Gears of the Globe

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Is Taiwan on the Map?

Looking at a map if the world, at least in the US will most likely have Taiwan as a different color than that of China. Problem with this is that the Chinese government, the People's Republic of China (PRC) claims that the island of Taiwan and any other islands are under the rule of the PRC and is supported by all of the nations in the UN expect 23 of them. Taiwan and other neighboring islands under the rule of the Republic of China (ROC) and claim to have rule over mainland China. So how is it that there are two different governments that claim to have jurisdiction of the same lands? The ROC was established in 1911 and was exiled to the island of Taiwan after being defeated in a civil war in 1949 and in the PRC taking over. And in 1971 the ROC lost its seat in the United Nations as the government of China and was replaced with the PRC and other nations started to recognize the PRC capital of Beijing as the capital of China, instead of the ROC capital of Taipei located in Taiwan.

Only 23 nations recognize the ROC as the legitimate government of China and keep diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Because of the PRC's One China policy, the PRC will cut off all diplomatic relations that recognizes Taiwan and the ROC. Because of the tension between China and Taiwan other origination and nations must be careful about their wording and actions when regarding China or Taiwan. For an goverenment to publicly regard Taiwan as country or simply leaving the word People's out of the People's Republic of China will get a reaction from the PRC.

The US and The ROC have an odd relationship. After the ROC was exiled out the China, the communist party in China gained more influenced, which did not sit well the US government and till 1979 the US supported the ROC as the government of China. The US supported the ROC because the PRC were communists and supported other communists in wars like the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Since the ROC's exile to Taiwan, the US has given weapons and military training to Taiwan in hopes of them taking power back from the PRC, but no such power shifts have happened. In 1979 the US recognized the PRC as the sole legal government of China and cut diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The US embassy that was in Taiwan is now replaced with the American Institute in Taiwan. The US government does not support Taiwan independence, but both are close business partners and allies and there unofficial relationship is dictated by the Taiwan Relation Act of 1979.

China and Taiwan is a rocky subject to debate. It seems now there is no way possible for the Republic of China to ever take power away from the People's Republic of China, which leaves only three options. Taiwan is reunified completely either peacefully or by force, which if by force the US would most likely get involved, Taiwan declares independence which would probably be meet with Chinese retaliation, or the relationships remain the same.

More on Taiwan
http://eng.taiwan.net.tw/
http://www.taiwanembassy.org/US/ct.asp?xItem=266456&CtNode=2297&mp=12&xp1=12
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Taiwan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China-United_States_relations#1945-1949
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_the_Republic_of_China
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35855.htm
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=32177#axzz2iISHhuI4
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/united-states-announces-that-it-will-recognize-communist-china

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Stateless people

Almost every person is the world is born with some type of citizenship. When someone is born they will get the citizenship of their parapets and in some cases the nation they are born. So everyone in the world should be a citizen of some country in the world. But some people in the world are do not have a citizenship and are stateless. Being stateless comes with many difficulties and hardships. The person is unable to obtain healthcare, public education, have no property-rights and can't move freely.

There are two types of stateless people, there is de jure stateless people and de facto stateless people.

De jure stateless people are not considered to be a national by any state according to their laws, while de facto stateless people is someone outside of their country and is unwilling or unable to receive the protection of their country. A person can become stateless when their nationality is no longer valid because the nation does not exist any more and a completely new government gains power and excludes groups of people from being citizens or does not recognize them as one of them. Someone can become stateless if the country does not have the same laws for nationality for women and men. The women could give birth to a child and not be able the obtain the nationality of the father to give to the child. There is also state succession, when a territory is handed over to a different government and the people of the acquired territory can slip past and do not gain the new nationality and become stateless. Another way someone can become stateless is by unregistered birth, because birth certificates are used to document and determine someones nationality. And there are many examples of stateless people across the world. When the Soviet Union fell many of the former citizens did not have a nationality that was recognized, In Kenya Nubian people do not receive citizen rights. And in the case of Sudam Hussein he and his regime stripped the nationalities of Feili Kurds, which was later repealed in 2006.

There are groups and agreements to help reduce statelessness and help those who are stateless. There is the UN Refugee Agency, the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness of 1961 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The convention set ground rules in order to reduce the chances of someone being stateless. Some of these included the right for a nation to grant nationality to any one with any reason and that someone born on a sea vessel or aircraft will be granted the nationality of the flag the craft is under.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that every person has the right to citizenship and that no one can have their citizenship stripped or denied to change citizenship.

Being stateless can cause many problems for those who are effected by it and it is best to reduce the chances of someone becoming stateless, either because of their birth or because of governments not recognizing the nationality of certain groups of people.

Create Your Own Nation - Micronations

Fed up with the government? Think you can do better? Or just want to have your own nation? Well just create one and declare independence and become a Micronation. Just get your flag and claim your land. Go from to your back to your front yard or just claim the land the size of the entire state of Texas. Now you and your followers can now live in peace the newly created Kingdom of Tacos, or the Republic of Jamborees, or the Empire of French Fries, or what ever you choose to name it because it is your nation. However micronaitons have almost no legitimacy and are never recognized at all by the international community. There are probably at least hundreds to thousands of proclaimed micronations, but it is hard to keep track of them all. You would think these micronations declaring independence and land within an existing country would spark some type of concern by the government. But most governments don't act or simply don't care because these nations are no treat, have no power and in some cases are kind of ridiculous and amusing.

Many micronations have the title of republics, kingdoms, federations, empires and even issued their own stamps and currency, but most are just composed of one family or a small group of people, which is not enough people to be legitimate. According to the Micronation wiki, the largest amount of citizens in a micronation is the Free land of Dodoa with 274 registered citizens and the largest amount of unregistered citizens is the New Republic of Texas with 25,000,000+, because they claim almost all of the state of Texas as part of their nation. Other micronations do not get any legitimacy because the material of the land they claim. The most well known micronation is the Principality of Sealand that is located 6 miles off the coast of England. Sealand is not an island nation, but a nation that has claimed a retired sea fort from the Second World War. The United Kingdom has addressed the legitimacy of Sealand and has stated that Sealand can not be a nation because the United Kingdom claims that a nation must have some type of territory claim and not be man made structure.

Some micronations might be started by people for real reasons, but a good amount seem to made just for the fun of it, a experiment or out of protest. The Republic of Awesome seems to be the best example of people just having fun, located in Australia. The Republic of Awesome has many misters that are in charge of affairs in the their country, just to name a few there is the Minister of Visual Arts and Pancakes, the Minister of Nostalgia and 42, the Minister of Magic and many more. The Republic of Awesome has two police forces, the Federal police, who enforce laws and the Fun police, who allow anything that promotes fun, but if the fun infringes on the rights or hurts other citizens the Fun police must step in and stop the fun. Other micronations are started out of political protest. The Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands in Australia for example was declared in 2004 to protest the Australian's government not recognize same-sex marriage.

Micronations, some more ridiculous than others, are interesting ways for people to experiment with government, have some fun, send a message to governments. Some are most definitely amusing to look at on the outside and even the world governments seem not to care much as long it doesn't get to big. But maybe in the post apocalyptic future of the Sealand will expand across Europe, the Republic of Awesome will bring Fun to all of the destroyed lands of humanity and the New Republic of Texas will come to annex and rebuild the shattered nuclear wasteland of the United States.

More on Micronations
http://micronations.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_micronations_by_establishment
http://micronations.wordpress.com/resources/what-the-world-says/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_and_Lesbian_Kingdom_of_the_Coral_Sea_Islands

Saturday, October 12, 2013

The Nation in Italy - The Republic of San Marino

The Republic of San Marino is the 5th smallest recognized country in the world. The entire country is 23.63 square miles (61.2 square kilometers) and is completely surrounded by Italy on Mount Titano. San Marino claims to be the oldest surviving republic in Europe, being founded in 301. The origin of San Marino is shaped by both fact and legend. It is said that Marinus and Dalmatian fled from the Roman Emperor and Marinus (Marino) founded a community of Christians at Mount Titano. It is possible that Saint Marino, who the capital city and country are named after did not exist in the 300s, but instead he was around between 500 and 700. It is also possible that the Saint Marino was not actually a saint and that this was added later to give legitimacy and help defend the monastery on the territory from being claimed by the Bishop of Rimini, because the territory was not referred as San Marino till 885. Regardless if San Marino's life story is partially made up the, country is named after him and have a celebration in his honor of his death, which is said to be in 366 on September 3rd.

Even though San Marino is not part of the European Union the country participates in many things with the EU. San Marino is part of the European Union Customs Union. San Marino made the Euro their official currency and are allowed to a set amount of Euros. San Marino's only neighbor is Italy and ever since Italian Unification in 1862 the two nations have had diplomatic relations. San Marino has a open border policy with only occasional checks made by police. However directly importing into San Marino is illegal and must go through Italy first before heading into San Marino and they must use and mint the Italian Euro. San Marino also allows Italy to have a monopoly on the tobacco industry and ship 250 tons of sea salt, 40 tons of tobacco, 20 tons of cigarettes and unlimited matches.

The 32,00 Citizens of San Marino have a high standard of living, similar to the their neighbors in Italy. The country has GDP of about 1.44 billion US dollars and per capita of $44,208 and is ranked 24th overall in the world. San Marino makes about 2.2% of their GDP from Tourism and in 2009 2 million tourists visited the country. San Marino is a huge advocate of tourists because no passport is required to enter San Marino if you are entering for tourists purposes. San Marino is also involved in banking, manufacturing of ceramics, clothing, fabrics, furniture, paints, tiles, and wine.

The Republic of San Marino the enclave in Italy is quite an interesting place. Even though it is small the country is recognized by most of the major world organizations. The small nation gets to enjoy independence and recognition all while living fairly wealthy.

More on the Republic of San Marino
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Marino
http://www.sanmarinosite.com/eng/index.php
http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx?crName=San%20Marino
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sm.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Marino%E2%80%93European_Union_relations
http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/02278/versiunea_text/san_marino.html

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Dual Citizenship

Acquiring the citizenship of a country can happen through many process. By being born in that country, through your parents blood, by marriage, naturalization, or being adopted from another country as a minor. Because of these different process it is possible to have multiple citizenship. For example I could be acquire dual citizenship because I was born in the US and because my mom is Filipino, I could apply for Filipino citizenship and have dual citizenship. Also someone with French citizenship is also a citizen of the European Union, the same is also true with any other nations that are part of the European Union.

Some nations do not allow multiple citizenship at all. Azerbaijan China, Czech Republic, Denmark, India, Indonesia, Japan, and Kazakhstan do not allow dual citizenship and if some one voluntary acquires another citizenship they automatically lose their citizenship. These nations require the person to choose citizenship and may only have one. For example in Japan a person may be born with dual citizenship, like Canadian and Japanese, but by the age of 22 they must choose one.

Dual Citizenship is handled differently in the US. If the person is born in the US and has parents of some other nationality they will gain both citizenship. The same also goes to US citizen marring someone of another nationality. Naturalized citizens in the US also can keep the citizenship they were born with. However if a US citizen could lose their citizenship by voluntarily applying for another one.

Many nations around the world do offer dual citizenship, each with their own policies and requirements. UK citizens can apply for another citizenship and they will not loose their British citizenship. Germany and Austria only allow dual citizenship at birth or if someone does apply for another citizenship they must ask permission from Germany or Austria to keep their citizenship . And Pakistan will only allow dual citizenship with 16 other countries.

Dual citizenship would be cool to get. For me, I could be both American and Filipino. But I have only visited the Philippines once, and even though I have family there, I would identify myself American before Filipino. Maybe if I lived there I would reconsider, but at the moment it would not make much sense.

Who Owns Space

Who owns Space or the moon for the matter. Well if we used the rules of claiming land, the Moon would be the America's giant orbiting colony, be cause Armstrong and Aldrin planted the American flag on the Moon, like how Christopher Columbus planted the Spanish flag in the Americas. But the Moon does not belong to any country regardless if they planted their flag on it. Because of bills passed by Congress in 1969, the US flag will be used as a symbol of national pride and not for claiming territory.

But can anyone ever own land on the Moon. According to the Moon Treaty, molded after the Antarctic Treaty, was set up in 1979 and states that any celestial body in space is under international jurisdiction and can not be under the sovereignty of any nation. The problem with the Moon Treaty is that it is not ratified by any nation that launches its own objects into space and is only ratified by 15 states (probably nations that are jealous of not having a space program). However the Outer Space Treaty has gotten a lot more support and recognition. The Outer Space Treaty was set up in 1967 and has been ratified by 102 states, which include all the major space faring countries, so naturally this treaty has more authority then the Moon treaty.

The Outer Space Treaty states that no nation can claim sovereignty on any celestial body, but any thing launched into space is under that nations jurisdiction and space is the "Common Heritage of Mankind". So if the US lunches a giant base that lands on the Moon, the US has full control of that base, but not the moon rock below it.

The Outer Space Treaty is a great principals but has some flaws. First the treaty was made during a time of high tensions and fears of nuclear war. Some have pointed out that the treaty does not give enough incentive to nations and private parties to explore space. If no one can claim territory in space, then why even lunch things up there, there is no gain for the party. So dreams of having a colonies in space may be harder to achieve. Another flaw it is kind of ridiculous to think that all of space is to be governed under this treaty. We have no idea what is out there. There could be some other intelligent life form that has space capabilities and would they follow are authority over space? No.

It could be possible that as Space programs get more ambitious, such as bases on the moon or even on Mars, that a nations would start denouncing the treaty and a new one would have to be formed. The treaty is not bad, because it promotes unity between the space faring nations.

More on the Moon Treaty and the Outer Space Treaty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Treaty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_law

http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/SpaceLaw/outerspt.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bbgz4yY-xX0

http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/oosa/SpaceLaw/moon.html

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/960/1

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Chivarly is Not Dead- Sovereign Military Order of Malta

Many people believe Chivalry is dead, but obviously they are not looking hard enough. The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem and of Malta, all so known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta or simply as the Order of Malta is the oldest surviving order of Chivalry and just calibrated its 900 year anniversary this year. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta has its headquarters located in Rome and is subject to international laws, treated as a sovereign entity and hold permanent observer status in the UN.

The SMOM has had many homes throughout history. SMOM is the continuation of the Knights Hospitallers that was established around 1048 in Jerusalem and later on became a military order. During the First Crusade the knights build hospitals to treat pilgrims coming to the holy land. Hover the order relocated to Rhodes in 1310, then to Malta in 1530. The Order stayed on Malta until 1798 when Napoleon kicked them out and found their current home in Rome in 1834.

The SMOM still follows Chivalry and the practice of Knights and Dames. There are 13,500 Knights and Dames in the Order now, around 80,000 volunteers, and 20,000 medical personal. Keeping to their Hospitaller roots the Order of Malta is heavily involved in humanitarian aid, by setting up hospitals, medical centers, nursing homes and take care of the elderly, disabled and terminally ill. So where does the military order come in, well they needed to become a military order in the crusades in order to protect themselves, but these days the name is kept and they follow military tradition.

The Order of Malta is present in over 120 nations and has diplomatic relations with 104 nations in the world. Their members are issued with passports which allows to travel to countries to help provide humanitarian aid where it is need. The Order of Malta are a permanent observer in the UN, but they are not an independent country, but they do govern themselves and hold more resemblance to the Red Cross and Crescent Societies also since both groups are heavily involved in providing humanitarian aid and are permanent observers in the UN. The Order also has institutions and associations in various nations, with 23 cities in the United States harboring Knights and Dames.

Not going to lie when I first came across the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, I thought it sounded like secrete society out of a conspiracy theory who were intent on ruling over the world, mostly because it has the words military order in it. . But as with any thing when you actually look into it, it is something almost different. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta, like many other international organizations are using their time and resources to help people the need it the most and will still continue to do for the next 900 years or so.

Read more about the Sovereign Military Order of Malta

Official Website

Wikipedia

Geography About

Order of Malta in the US