National illegal wildlife trafficking of threatened species: a descriptive study in Manabí (Ecuador)

Illegal wildlife trafficking has negative effects on biodiversity conservation at both global and local scale. Therefore, the establishment of appropriate conservation measures requires local studies that quantify this problem. The objective of this work was to quantify and characterize the species of birds and mammals seized in the period 2016-2017, at the Valle Alto Wildlife Rescue Centre and Wildlife Refuge. The study showed that 212 specimens belonging to 41 different species were confiscated. More birds than mammals were confiscated, and a greater proportion of birds were included in a national and international threat category. A clear preference for primates, parrots and squirrels was found. Furthermore, the presence of species with a distribution range outside the study area revealed the existence of the transportation of species from other parts of the country. Although these data are only a sample of what is actually trafficked in the country, they provide an approach of the type of species that are illegally trafficked in this biodiversity hotspot.

See No Evil, Speak No Evil? Morality, Evolutionary Psychology, and the Nature of International Relations

A central theme in the study of international relations is that anarchy requires states to set aside moral concerns to attain security, rendering IR an autonomous sphere devoid of ethical considerations. Evolutionary and moral psychology, however, suggest that morality emerged to promote human success under such conditions. It is not despite anarchy but because of anarchy that humans have an ethical sense. Our argument has three empirical implications. First, it is almost impossible to talk about threat and harm without invoking morality. Second, state leaders and the public will use moral judgments as a basis, indeed the most important factor, for assessing international threat, just as research shows they do at the interpersonal level. Third, foreign policy driven by a conception of international relations as an amoral sphere will be quite rare. Word embeddings applied to large political and nonpolitical corpora, a survey experiment in Russia, and an in-depth analysis of Hitler's foreign policy thought suggest that individuals both condemn aggressive behavior by others and screen for threats on the basis of morality. The findings erode notions of IR as an autonomous sphere and upset traditional materialist–ideational dichotomies.

The Geopolitical Threat Index: A Text-Based Computational Approach to Identifying Foreign Threats

Few concepts figure more prominently in the study of international politics than threat. Yet scholars do not agree on how to identify and measure threats or systematically incorporate leaders’ perceptions of threat into their models. In this research note, we introduce a text-based strategy and method for identifying and measuring elite assessments of international threat from publicly available sources. Using semi-supervised machine learning models, we show how text sourced from newspaper articles can be parsed to discern arguments that distinguish threatening from non-threatening states, and to measure and track variation in the intensity of foreign threats over time. To demonstrate proof of concept, we use news summaries from The New York Times from 1861 to 2017 to create a geopolitical threat index (GTI) for the United States. We show that the index successfully matches periods in US history that historians identify as high and low threat and correctly identifies countries that have posed a threat to US security at different points in its history. We compare and contrast GTI with traditional indicators of international threat that rely on measures of material capability and interstate behavior.

Looking for a Dream, Surviving a Time of Nightmares: Eric Hobsbawm, Marxism Today and the Resignification of Antifascism During Thatcher’s Time

In 1979 Margaret Thatcher came to power in the United Kingdom inaugurating the rise of neoliberalism. In the pages of Marxism Today an intense debate took place about the strategy of the Labour Party to defeat Thatcher and Thatcherism. The author aims to show how the famous communist historian Eric Hobsbawm appealed to his own memories of the French Popular Front and the antifascist movement to give ideological content to the fight against Thatcherism on two points. First, Thatcherism as a new international threat similar to fascism in the 1930s. Second, by appealing emotionally to his own experiences during the 1930s in order to show readers how antifascism could work to unite the diverse progressive forces ranged against Thatcher. By doing so, Hobsbawm and the contributors to Marxism Today would reshape antifascism based on two ideals: the unity of the majority, in particular, the unity of the working class, against the forces of reaction. Second, the strength of unity to articulate policies for the emancipation of the working class.

Legal Aspects of Protecting the State Border of the Republic of Poland during Pandemics

The problems raised in this article focus on the issues related to the solutions adopted by the Polish legislator as to the protection of the state border in the context of an international threat. The author presents the legal conditions related to the probability of temporary reintroduction of border control for persons crossing the state border regarded as an internal border of the European Union in the event of a threat to public health. The background for these considerations are legal regulations concerning the change in the organization of the protection of the state border of the Republic of Poland, as introduced due to the World Health Organization’s announcement of the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus leading to the COVID-19 disease.

Oil and Military Effectiveness

This chapter discusses the military value of oil and traces its origins to the historical transformation from coal to oil as the major military fuel during World War I. Oil's superiority over coal was made clear by the conduct of the war, and by its end, all of the major powers understood that oil coercion had emerged as a major international threat. Even countries that lacked oil had no choice but to adopt oil-fueled military technology because coal related transportation was no longer competitive. The chapter then explains how oil deprivation influenced Japan's decision to surrender at the end of World War II in the time and manner that it did. The case illuminates in empirical detail the military devastation inflicted by the Allied blockade, which completely severed Japanese oil access.

Italian Coronacrisis and its Repercussions: National, European, and Global Dimensions

In early 2020, humanity has confronted with a pandemic challenge. The new coronavirus as an international threat has forced states to recognize that they cannot fulfill their principal constitutional obligation - to ensure the safety of their citizens. Coronavirus, as a global threat, despite its pre-industrial nature, is, in all respects, a distinctive challenge of postmodern society. The danger of coronavirus manifests itself non-linearly in time and space – first appeared in China, the virus flared up in other parts of the world, including the Apennines. In Europe, Italy has become an anti-leader in terms of the number of infected and victims. With scientists arguing about the causes of the outbreak of the virus on the Apennines, the null patient is yet to be found. However, the same reason gives rise to different consequences. For Italy, the pandemic had an impact on both national and foreign policies, including relations with the EU, Russia and China. The purpose of this article is to analyze the implications of the coronavirus pandemic for the Italian Republic at different levels – national, pan-European, and global.

Cybercrime as a Threat to Zimbabwe's Peace and Security

The purpose of this study was to understand the effects of cybercrime to Zimbabwe's peace and security. In the 21st century, cybercrime has become an international threat. This has necessitated many states to enact legislation and other measures to curb cybercrime. Primary data was gathered through key informant interviews, while documentary search was used to review scholarly literature on the subject. Key informants for the study were drawn from institutions that deal in combating cybercrime. Zimbabwe does not have adequate and effective legislative instruments to combat cybercrime. Cybercrime is a threat to peace and security as it can be used to bring down critical infrastructure and disrupt communication networks of the country. Some of the measures identified to curbing cybercrime include prevention and awareness, training and development, development of new technology and introduction of new laws, and updating of current and introduction of new legislations.

Document examinations in Malta

The forensics of documents in Malta is constantly increasing in demand. This need is a reaction to the control of human trafficking and the international threat of terrorism, amongst other crimes in Malta and Europe. Besides the constant updates in the Criminal Code, document fraud analysts are increasingly in demand to ensure a more thorough and scientific analysis of forgeries of documents, stamps, seals and private writings.