Play The Diplomat’s Quiz: October 23, 2016 Edition

See: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte Meets Xi Jinping: First Takeaways

On Friday, October 21, a U.S. Navy destroyer sailed near features in the Paracel Islands, challenging “excessive maritime claims” as part of a freedom of navigation operation (FONOP), Reuters reported, citing U.S. officials.

The USS Decatur, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer sailed near China-occupied features in the Paracel Islands that are also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan. The destroyer specifically sailed near Triton Island and Woody Island, but did not sail within 12 nautical miles of either feature.

The operation is the fourth U.S. FONOP in the South China Sea since last year and the first since an international tribunal released a landmark ruling in a case between the Philippines and China, finding China’s capacious nine-dash line claim in the South China Sea invalid.

On October 27, 2015, the USS Lassen sailed within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef and other features in the Spratly Islands.

On January 17, 2016, at the University of Hyderabad in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, a 26-year-old student, Rohith Vemula, committed suicide. Nine months later, a video clip that he recorded days before his death has resurfaced and in its wake sparked discussion on the circumstances of his death, the politics he stood for, and his own identity as a Dalit scholar.

Rohith Vemula, along with four others, had been suspended from the university prior to his death and barred from the premises. In this context, their presence in public spaces and administrative buildings was treated as a criminal act. As members of the Ambedkar Students’ Association (ASA) they had held an event protesting the hanging of Yakub Memon. A student leader from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a prominent group with right-wing leanings, had lodged a complaint against these students, accusing them of violently demanding an apology from him for a Facebook post he put up condemning their event. The university’s board launched an inquiry and recommended strict action that culminated in Rohith’s suspension.

Located in the deep south of Siberia, the Tuva Republic is one of Russia’s most isolated and culturally unique regions. Nominally independent between the two world wars, Tuva was one of the last territories added to the Soviet Union. Today, Tuva is a land of contradictions: famed for its throat singing and shamanism around the world, the region remains among the most disconnected inside Russia. No railroad line reaches the republic, and flights to Kyzyl, Tuva’s capital, are few and far between. The quickest way in is a five-hour taxi ride through the Sayan mountains and across the vast Siberian steppe.

On Wednesday, October 5, the International Court of Justice decided against proceeding with the Marshall Island’s nuclear disarmament case, which was lodged earlier against India, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom. The small Pacific Island nation had entered proceedings at the ICJ earlier this year at the Hague-based court, which is the primary judicial arm of the United nations.

The case grew out of a legacy of nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands by the United States between 1946 and 1958; in 2014, the Marshall Islands filed suit against nine nuclear weapon states at the ICJ — China, North Korea, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States — accusing them of insufficiently “fulfilling their obligations with respect to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.” India, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom ended up defending themselves at the ICJ this year over their declarations to accept ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction under article 36, paragraph 2 of the court’s statute.

On Monday, the Nikkei Asian Review reported that Japan and Russia were in talks over potentially sharing administration of the disputed Kuril Islands — part of a chain of islands that run from the northern coast of Hokkaido in Japan to the southern tip of Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the northern Pacific Oceans.

In the wake of the deplorable attacks against the Indian Army in Uri, Jammu & Kashmir, tensions in the New Delhi-Islamabad bilateral, which were already running high over the preceding weeks, escalated further. In addition to pursuing Islamabad’s diplomatic isolation within the region, India indicated that it will review Pakistan’s Most Favored Nation (MFN) status, granted to Pakistan under its World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations. Surprisingly, India also indicated that it will ‘review’ the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), the one bilateral treaty between the two countries that has stood the test of time – even through the most difficult of times in the relationship.

Reviewing the IWT does not automatically imply its abrogation. Yet, it would be pertinent to assess two factors: Are there any downsides to withdrawing the MFN status or abrogating the IWT, for India? If yes, what are they? Are they manageable?

While there appears to be a high degree of public support in India for withdrawing the MFN status and rescinding the IWT, one could expect New Delhi to not abrogate the IWT.

India and Russia signed an inter-governmental agreement for the procurement of four (some sources say five) regiments of Russian-made S-400 Triumf advanced Air Defense Systems (NATO reporting name: SA-21 Growler) on October 15 in Goa, India at the sidelines of the eight BRICS summit. The deal, along with 17 other cooperation agreements, was signed in the presence of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The export of search-and-rescue aircraft would be Japan’s first defense deal in its post-war history.

It doesn’t really matter that Kyrgyzstan seems to havelost the original copy of its 2010 constitution, at least in the sense that it remains a legal document whether the state locates the original or not. But the missing paper is emblematic of the constitution’s impermanence and the Kyrgyz leadership’s apparent disregard for its own laws.

Kyrgyzstan has had three constitutions: the original 1993 post-independence document which was amended twice before and twice after the 2005 Tulip Revolution, a constitution passed by referendum in 2007, and the present constitution passed by referendum in 2010 after the second revolution.