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Showing posts from February, 2018

Recreating the IR431 unit learning guide

I am having a short break from writing my unit learning guide for the unit IR431 International and Regional Security. This is because on Wednesday night (last week), I lost 6 years of work. In my attempt to clean my computer after a virus attack, I accidentally deleted  most of my work folders containing my many files. I lost my assessment files for the faculty and my teaching files for the department. Among my teaching files was the completed version of the IR431 unit learning guide and the required readings (eBooks on security). I will need to recreate this document. This will be a time consuming endeavour because I will need to plot a new learning map and come up with new instructions for the various assessment tasks. After this, I will need to update our unit web page. Our experts at the ICT division were able to find a few files, and the HOD was kind enough to forward the 2018 copies of the unit learning guides for IR202 and IR302, sent to him a few weeks ago. I will use eit

APEC in PNG and IR theory

Today or rather the morning period (10:30am-12:00pm) was not really a good period for discussing the topic of theories. The hot topical sun and the successive blackouts hampered our continuity.  The reassuring fact is that we have hard drives and we have next week. We hope that next week is better then today and your hard drives are virus free so you can copy the video file from me without infecting my computer. I wish you all had access to YouTube. Going back to our discussion on theory, all of you highlighted the necessity of theories. Kossie asked whether international relations theories are prescriptive and Abenicah gave us the car analogy. Apart from them, all of you contributed to help us understand the importance of learning about theories. In relation to Kossie's question, different people who teach and read international relations have different understanding of whether the theories set out to explain, describe or prescribe . Many are of the opinion that inte

The Alexis inquiry

Cession is defined as the surrender, relinquishment, or assignment of territory by one state or government to another by the Free Dictionary. Oxford defines the term as the formal giving up of rights, property, or territory by a state. Vocabulary.com Dictionary says it is the act of giving up something, usually land, by the agreement in a formal treaty. For example, after a war, a losing country might make a cession of part of its land to the victor. In our discussion, Alexis and his group gave the example of territories that were returned to different states in adherence to the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. Alsace-Lorraine was given to France, Belgium received Eupen and Malmedy, Denmark got North Schleswig and so on. In relation to the question by Alexis, if we look at the word 'surrender' then in this context we can say that it is an example of cession. Surrender according to Merriam-Webster means to yield to the power, control, or possession of another upo