Midterm exam hispanic peopel in US society Essay

Midterm exam hispanic peopel in US society - Essay Example It was in 1492 that Muslim rule was finally extinguished to its very last remnant in Granada (Ralph, 2008) at the peak of the Reconquista. It is clearly out of the direct influence of Judaism, Islamic and Christian rule from ancient times, that most of Spain’s present religion and language, and laws are based. Spanish Jews were a prosperous community under Christian and Muslim rule in Spain before most of them were killed or expelled in 1492 in the process of forced conversion. This coincided with Christopher Columbus’ return from his exploration voyage to America. As Roman Catholicism took ground in the 1400s and 1500s, most Jews and Muslims were expelled from empire. From this time through to the 16th and 17tth centuries saw Hispania develop into a global empire, and emerging as a world power until wars and other problems rocked it to a point that its status as a powerful empire diminished according to Ralph (2008). In the early 19th century, French invaded Spain which triggered insurmountable chaos that finally resulted in independence movements that tore most of the empire apart leaving it unstable politically. Yet again, the country suffered during the 20th century, a devastating civil war which led to several years of economic and political stagnation mainly as a result of dictatorial leadership. Spain and the United States have in many instances acted in opposition to each other. Some of these instances include the Spanish-American war of 1898, Spanish American Wars of Independence, World War One, World War Two, and during the indigenous struggles for self rule of the Philippine Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico and Cuba. Spain which was initially ruled by powerful Monarchs enjoyed great wealth as the empire initially grew during the era of discovery exploration and colonization. American Hispanics believe their history can be traced to Cuba, Spain, Mexico, Puerto Rico and other Latin American countries where Spanish speaking people exist. In fact,

Are peace support operations under the auspices of the United Nations Essay

Are peace support operations under the auspices of the United Nations sufficiently accountable - Essay Example However, the United Nations certainly faces a lot of issues in bringing such violators to justice and making them accountable for their actions. To give a real answer to the problems of accountability of Peace Support Operations which is posed in the question, we must first examine the evidence which suggests that violations of international law and human rights have been made. After that we can take a look what has been done about those violations by the United Nations or other international bodies which will give us a measure of the level of accountability that has been adopted by the UN (Akbar, 2005). Finally we can discuss what ‘sufficient’ accountability is and discuss some of the recommendations made by experts on the idea of accountability for PSOs. The problem associated with the definition of peace support becomes multiplied when we consider the various terms that have been associated with different operations. For example while one operation may be undertaken on the basis of humanitarian intervention to bring peace to a country, another might be conducted to prevent a war from spilling into neighbouring regions (Akbar, 2005). Still others may be required for rebuilding and reconstruction of the civilian infrastructure after the ravages of war. In fact, the military forces can even be called in to keep the peace after a natural disaster has struck a region such as a Tsunami in coastal regions or an Earthquake in any part of the world. With the rising number of peace keeping operations, the diversity of a typical peace keeping unit has certainly increased. With that diversity we get different cultures that may bring different ideas of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour (Akhavi, 2003). In 1988, less than thirty countries had ever sent their forces to be a part of an alliance for peacekeeping, in 2000, there were more than 80 countries which had