103
From a European perspective:
The U.S. has a great deal of influence in the world, so the presidency of the U.S. is quite likely to affect your own country in some way.
For example: In the last 20 years the U.S. invaded Afghanistan & Iraq, wrecked Libya and tried (and is still trying?) to topple Assad in Syria, which at least in part facilitated the ...
96
The answer is right in the Wikipedia page you cited (emphasis added):
War reparations are compensation payments made after a war by the vanquished to the victors.
The United States has not been vanquished in a war, so it has not been in a situation where it would make a payment to a victor of a war.
Being “vanquished” implies not merely “losing” a war, ...
89
Kill versus capture
If they had captured Osama bin Laden, what would they have done with him? Barack Obama opposed the Guantanamo Bay facility, so they would have had to keep him on United States soil. Where?
If captured, he would have been tried, convicted, and executed. So not kill versus capture but kill then versus later.
His trial would have ...
81
In addition to RedGrittyBrick's correct answer, also do not forget that between 2011 and 2020, russian Soyuz rockets were how to get to and from the ISS. If tensions between the US and Russia had extended to the ISS, it would have been the USA losing access to the station, not Russia.
Update: RedGrittyBrick has updated his answer to include the transport ...
79
Ownership
Russia owns a significant part of the ISS
Treaty
Access to the ISS is governed by an international treaty, the Space Station Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA)
Article 9 (Utilization) Clause 4 says
In its use of the Space Station, each Partner, through its Cooperating Agency, shall seek through the mechanisms established in the MOUs to avoid ...
74
Many countries are seeking to move to a system of 100% voluntary (unpaid) blood donations, and many others already have; according to the World Health Organization's Global Status Report on Blood Safety and Availability 2016, fifty-seven countries reported collecting 100% (or more
than 99%) of their blood supply from voluntary non-remunerated donations. The ...
66
Specifically with reference to the UK, an article in the Guardian reports that
Experts have warned about the risk that if tough measures are taken too soon, “fatigue” may set in, prompting the public to disregard the advice just as the virus reaches its peak.
Effectively the argument is that, absent some sort of enforcement squad if people are told to ...
63
They cannot. It's an exclusive competence of the EU. So much so that the point played a major role in the Brexit negotiations. The reason there are two phases in the Brexit deal (leave first, then negotiate a trade deal) is that the EU cannot legally negotiate a trade deal with one of its own members.
That being said, China's Belt and Road in itself is not ...
55
I am Canadian. I would challenge your opinion that American Politics "don't have much of an effect on day-to-day life in Canada".
Canada and the United States enjoy the largest trading relationship in the world. A lot of the Canadian economy is dependent on trade with America; a leader that has a habit of throwing tariffs left and right can ...
55
What is the largest political entity that lacks legislative power?
The United Nations. It comprises of 193 states with two additional observer states - Vatican City and Palestine. Whilst it has a General Assembly, which can be considered as a kind of legislative body, its resolutions aren't binding and hence are considered advisory on its member states.
52
Your question is slightly at odds with reality.
First off, with the important exception of the US government, nobody sensible is quibbling over the mounting amount of evidence that Agent Orange had short and long lasting side effects.
As you've noted already, the US government is not accepting any guilt or responsibility. So the real question is whether ...
50
The agreement to pay war reparations is usually part of a peace treaty. It is usually a demand the superior party makes from the inferior party in exchange for peace.
In any wars where the United States "lost" in the past 100 years, the United States simply gave up on occupying the other parties' territory and withdrew their troops. The "winning" side was ...
48
So the borough of Manhattan (pop. 1.6m) does not have its own separate authority with legislative powers. Are there even bigger fully dependent political entities like this?
There are at least two political entities that are more populous than Manhattan and certainly meet your criteria, because they are also boroughs of the city of New York: Brooklyn and ...
46
What prevents this in general is the practical ability to collect. The US can collect on its citizens living abroad in part because (even foreign) banks really don't want to end up on the bad side of the US government, so they try to obey FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act).
Few foreign banks would probably give a hoot if the Iranian government ...
41
There are movements for gender-inclusive language in almost every language that has grammatical gender, though the extent and favored solutions differ in each.
Wikipedia has a long document discussing gender-inclusive language choices in many languages. Obviously, it's hard to know how prevalent or accepted these are as a foreigner, and as you can see, the ...
41
Another possibility, ignoring fears of infection, is that the country doesn't want their citizens to become stranded in another country if flights are suspended at a later date. For example, on Monday, March 30th, the UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced a £75m plan to charter flights to repatriate stranded Britons, and also advised any citizens still ...
37
Maybe this is a bit of circular reasoning, but UN sanctions prohibit countries from supplying North Korea with such weapons (and much more). You might say this reasoning is circular because China or Russia could have prevented these UN resolutions by vetoing them, but they didn't.
As for weapons, there is Resolution 1718 passed in 2006, which according to ...
36
Shutting down schools, banning large gatherings and pushing people to do home office has a massive economic cost. Of course you never get the exact numbers on either death or cost but essentially you have to answer questions like: How many death does one need to prevent to make a 10% reduction of annual GDP worth it? This is a complicated ethical question ...
33
Why would both China and Russia want to modernize North Korean army in the first place?
They both (mainly China) derive some benefits from the NK behavior, but they don't completely control NK (that's the point of being a sovereign, after all).
On one hand, any improvement in the NK military potential will force both China and Russia, as well as other ...
32
An important factor here is the treaties a country has signed up to. In this case, a relevant one is the 1951 Refugee Convention. From UNHCR:
The 1951 Refugee Convention is the key legal document that forms the basis of our work. Ratified by 145 State parties, it defines the term ‘refugee’ and outlines the rights of the displaced, as well as the legal ...
32
"Obsessed" is rather too strong a term. "Interested in" or "concerned about" might be closer.
The big reason is "money", or perhaps "power". The two are closely related. The USA is big, rich and powerful. Decisions of the President will have direct consequences for people around the world. So Canadians ...
32
Your premise is incorrect as to the state of the DPRK army. The Chonma-ho may not be up to the standards of an Abrams, but it is much more modern than the T-34.
It is unclear if the DPRK really has operational ICBMs. They certainly haven't done as many (successful or unsuccessful) tests as the USA and the Soviet Union did during the cold war. Are their ...
30
The Wolf Amendment was a focused attempt to stop China's specific behavior of stealing civilian space technology and using it to develop military capabilities
The Wolf Amendment was not passed just to give China a slap on the wrist because of "geopolitical tensions." The Wolf Amendment was passed because there was a concern that China was engaged ...
30
1. The formal system just doesn't matter that much.
If you look at some other long-lasting stable democracies such as the UK or Switzerland, you'll see that they function very different than the US does. Conversely, if you look at countries that slid away from democracy, you'll often find that initially there were safe guards such as term limits, which were ...
29
Yes
The first and most obvious method is based on the UN charter, Article VI, which says in its entirety:
A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the
Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the
Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the
Security Council.
Obviously, if ...
28
This requirement is usually in place to combat money laundering and tax evasion. The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, an international organization, has a series of recommendations for countries to fight money laundering, including Recommendation 32—"Cash Couriers":
Countries should have measures in place to detect the physical cross-...
28
Countries are not usually prosecuted, only the individuals responsible in the command structure.
There is an international criminal court; not only has the US not signed up to obey its judgements, it has a specific law ("Hague Invasion Act") preventing the international court's judgements being enforced against US military staff.
"international court" ...
27
I would say the US does not work because of the Constitution, it works despite the archaic and partly unworkable Constitution. It works because there is a centuries-old habit of respecting the rule of law. For a long time, it worked because there was no more capable rival on the American continent, and the oceans were wide. More recently, it works because it ...
26
Not all nukes are the same. Nuclear weapons are designed for specific purposes. There are different launch systems like ships, submarines, intercontinental missiles, ground-based mobile launch systems, large bombers, small fighter-jets and even systems which can be carried by infantry. Each of these systems needs their own nukes when you want all of them to ...
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