“Southern Sudan is just the beginning. The world may soon have 300 independent, sovereign nations ... and that's just fine.”

“It is less likely that [states that are internally diffuse and often intentionally unevenly developed] will gather the competence, capacity, and will to become equitable modern states than that they will continue to inspire resistance to the legacies of centralized misrule.”

“The way to create a peaceful and borderless world is, ironically, by allowing ever more nations to define themselves and their borders.”

 - Parag Khanna is a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation. See his article for Foreign Policy magazine here.

“In every state, without exception, there are people in state power who … assert that all the citizens of that state constitute a nation, one that has already determined its destiny. In the twenty-first century, [this] is in retreat in most countries.”

“Autonomy versus secession has geopolitical consequences. And these are crucial in terms of the ongoing struggles within the world-system as a whole. … Outside powers are primarily concerned with the geopolitical impact of the decision. But it is the role of these outside powers that is often decisive.”

- Immanuel Wallerstein, eminent International Relations scholar. See his comment here.

Four top Khmer Rouge leaders have had their appeals against the cases against them thrown out, paving the way for another major genocide trial later this year.
 
The four face charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and related crimes under Cambodian laws in connection with the deaths of up to two million people between 1975 and 1979 from starvation, overwork and execution.
 
The accused are the communist regime's most senior surviving members, Nuon Chea ('Brother number 2'), former foreign minister Ieng Sary, his wife and ex-social affairs minister Ieng Thirith, and former head of state Khieu Samphan.

There are concerns the accused could die before the trial is concluded, as they are aged 78 to 84.
 
The trial follows the landmark conviction last July of former prison chief Kaing Guek Eav (known as Duch) for war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to 30 years for his role in the deaths of around 15,000 men, women and children.
 
See the write up of a documentary, ‘Enemies of the People’ on Cambodia’s genocide here.

“The historic vote is an exercise in self-determination long in the making.

“The international community was united in its belief that this referendum had to take place and that the will of the people of southern Sudan had to be respected, regardless of the outcome.

“If the south chooses independence, the international community, including the United States, will have an interest in ensuring that the two nations that emerge succeed as stable and economically viable neighbors.”

- President Obama. See his op-ed in the New York Times here.

The African National Congress (ANC), Africa's oldest liberation movement, celebrates the 99th anniversary of its founding today.

See South African president and ANC leader Jacob Zuma’s speech marking the event here.

2011 also marks two 50th anniversaries: the forming in 1961 of the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (‘Spear of the Nation’), co-founded by Nelson Mandela, and the awarding of the 1960 Nobel Peace Prize (held over for a year) to the then president-general of the ANC, Chief Albert Luthuli.

Explaining the ANC’s decision to take up armed struggle, Mr. Mandela, who argued within the movement’s leadership for the move, told journalists:

"If the  government reaction is to crush by naked force our non-violent struggle, we will have to reconsider our tactics. In my mind we are closing a chapter on this question of a non-violent policy."

With the collapse of the Apartheid state, the ANC came to power under South Africa's new constitution in 1994, with Mr. Mandela as president.

Interestingly, the United States which designated the ANC a terrorist group in the 1970's, only removed President Mandela and other ANC officials from 'terror lists' in 2008. From 1994 till then, they needed special 'waivers' to visit Washington.

“Such is India's footprint on so many transnational challenges - from climate change to pandemics to the international trade regime - that no table deciding on them would be complete without its presence. [This] may even explain India's rise far better than geopolitics ever will. India's and the world's growing awareness of this fact is expanding its presence in global governance structures, as seen in the endorsements for its bid for the UN Security Council.

“India's intent is clear. It is turning ‘non-alignment’ on its head. Without sacrificing the fundamental principle of not entering blocs or alliances, it is increasingly weaving closer ties with all the poles of the international system”

- Raja Karthikeya, foreign policy researcher. See the full analysis in the Times of India.

According to the referendum commission, anyone who has a parent or ancestor from a southern tribe indigenous to the south can vote on January 9. Also anyone who has been permanently resident, or whose parents or grandparents have been in the south since the January 1, 1956 independence can vote.

Voting will occur not only in southern Sudan, but throughout Sudan for people of southern origin, and in eight countries that have large populations of southern Sudanese: Australia, Canada, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

See Al-Jazeera’s Q & A on ‘The road to the referendum’ here.

Palestinian leaders, determined to proclaim their state in the coming year, are readying an arsenal of diplomatic alternatives to frozen negotiations with Israel.

The Palestinians’ strategy centres on a proclamation of statehood in September 2011 - when the United Nations holds its next General Assembly.

An international convention aimed at preventing ‘disappearances’ - a fate affecting tens of thousands of people throughout the world - came into force last week.

The International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance, first launched by the UN General Assembly in 2006, became law following its ratification last month by the minimum 20 states. Another sixty states have also signed the Convention.

"It is an important achievement in the struggle against a cause of indescribable fear and sorrow for hundreds of thousands of people worldwide."

- Olivier Dubois of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

"Enforced disappearances inflict unbearable cruelty not just on the victims, but on family members - who often wait years or decades to learn of their fate"

- Aisling Reidy, senior legal adviser at Human Rights Watch (HRW).

See the report by AFP here.

The UN established a Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances thirty years ago.

“Self-determination is the only way that the people of south Sudan will be able to join the modern world. I want my people to have ownership of their land, to have ownership of their future and their destiny.”

“I am certain that the popular vote will be won in favour of independence. It is the will of the people. … I hope very much that the international community will take note and help us.”

- Tobiolo Almero Olberto, member of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). See his call for international support here.

Meanwhile, in the north, a group of radical Muslim clerics on Friday criticised the Sudanese government for accepting south Sudan’s referendum on independence, and demanded imposition of Islamic Shar’iah law across the entire country whether citizens of the mainly Christian region of south Sudan like it or not. They denounced the internationally-supported referendum as a 'Western plot.'

Former Argentine military ruler Jorge Videla has been sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity, the BBC reports.

The general is accused of being the main architect of what became known as Argentina's ‘Dirty War’ – a period of state-sponsored terror friom 1976 to 1983 in which up to 30,000 people were killed or ‘disappeared’.

See a survivor’s account here.

An Argentine court, however, found Gen Videla, 85, guilty of a specific crime: the torture and murder of 31 prisoners in 1976.

During the Dirty War, Argentina’s dictatorship was then supported by the United States in the Cold-War era campaign against leftist insurgents and opponents.

However, last week the US extradited home a former Argentine police officer alleged to have taken part in torture and disappearances.

“[We] will not allow the United States to be a safe haven for those who have come to our country in an effort to evade prosecution and punishment for the crimes they have committed against others," US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) head John Morton said.

More than 130 people have been convicted of crimes committed during the dictatorship, with dozens more currently on trial.

Videla remained unrepentant to the end, telling the court that Argentine society had demanded the crackdown to prevent a Marxist revolution and claiming that the country was now run by "terrorists".

Last month another Junta member, Emilio Massera, died of illness. He was also unrepentant to the end.

India and Russia this week discussed setting up more nuclear reactors in Tamil Nadu, in addition to the two being jointly built which will become operational in the next two years, IANS reported.

Announcing the discussions on ‘additional nuclear reactors’, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, at a joint press conference with visiting Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, said the move “reflects our mutual desire for strong cooperation in the field of defence and (civil) nuclear energy.”

Atomstroyexport, a subsidiary of Russia’s state-owned nuclear company Rosatom, is building two 1,000 MW reactors in Kudankulam in collaboration with the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), and is in negotiations to build more.

The first of the original reactors is undergoing final safety tests and is likely to start operations early next year, while construction on the second is mostly complete, IANS reported.

India now ranks sixth in the world's elite nuclear club, with its 20th nuclear-powered reactor at Kaiga in Karnataka achieving criticality Saturday, officials said.

After the United States, France, Japan, Russia and Korea, India now has 20 or more nuclear reactors in operation, they said.