Al Qaeda used to be the kings of propaganda, outmaneuvering the American media machine at every turn. Now, it’s clear the terror group’s information operators have stumbled, big time. The latest misstep: calling President-elect Barack Obama a “house Negro.” That’s right. The guys who used to kill people, just to get their death on tape, have been reduced to name-calling.

It has to be saying something that the only thing Al Qaeda can come up with is “Well, I’m blacker than you.”

My question though, is does he regret some of these beauties:

“Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?” —Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000

“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.” —Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” —Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

It does not take too much of a leap to know that the Israeli’s are obviously concerned with the idea of a nuclear capable Iran.

However, developing such a drone is not easy. The US had a development programme for a number of years before they made the move to focus solely on weaponising space. But, I imagine if anyone can do it, the Israeli’s can, given their track record for general technology awesomeness.

Hilarious!

What conflict? You ask. Well. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 1982,* jurisdiction and sovereignty over bodies of water and their resources are split according to a countries Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and their Continential Shelf. The EEZ extends 200 nautical miles from the baseline (the low-water mark of a coastal state). The Continental shelf is defined as the natural lie of the land to the edge of the continental shelf or 200 nautical miles from the baselines – whichever is greater. States have the right to harvest matter in the subsoil of their continental shelf to the exclusion of others.

UNCLOS Diagram

But, if you look at a map, you’ll see a plethora of states in the region that all have claim over the same areas. In the South China Sea alone there are 9 overlapping claims (from China, Brunei, Cambodia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Taiwan).

And there has actually been a lot of tension over these claims. It is fairly common to have fishing boats being harrassed, and military skirmishes aren’t exactly uncommon. In 1995, for example, there were exchanges between the Philippines and China over the the Mischief Reef. Stories of some states creating artificial islands to help their territorial claims aren’t unknown, along with sending people to live on generally uninhabitable islands just to claim that they are part of your territory (in hopes of extending your territorial claim.

Now we see tensions heating up between Japan and South Korea over the Dokdo islet. South Korea has long controlled the islet, but Japan still will not relinquish their claim over the tiny islet. The South Koreans are so concerned about a hostile takeover that they even have armed guards patrolling, keeping look out for any potential military movement on the horizon.

We’re lucky in New Zealand in that there are not too many states to worry about overlapping with. Our overlapping claim with Australia was sorted out in July of 2004.

*excuse the bastardisation of UNCLOS, but I’m assuming if you actually want some in-depth information about the Law of the Sea you’ll go look at a text book or something. Or wikipedia. Whatever.

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