Bolivian president's plane forced to divert over a rumor Snowden was on board

(Aside from the issues of Bolivia being landlocked since the War of the Pacific in 1879...)

Per the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)

Article 95 of UNCLOS: Warships on the high seas have complete immunity from the jurisdiction of any State other than the flag State.

Article 96 of UNCLOS: Ships owned or operated by a State and used only on government non-commercial service shall, on the high seas, have complete immunity from the jurisdiction of any State other than the flag State.

1) An interesting case came up: Argentina's frigate (well, a historical tall ship, but it was technically the flagship, like the USS Constitution) the ARA Libertad was seized in Ghana related to the $100b sovereign debt default of 2001, and a NY federal district court judgment for one of the bondholders against Argentina.

2) The whole point of a warship is that you can't detain it; if it fails to be able to prevent detention, it's not really very good as a warship, is it?

3) Ragnar Danneskjøld

Generally no-one really cared that the US ruled the world because, despite our flaws, we were the good guys.

9/11 changed that. We started torturing people. We started targeted killings. We started invading countries that hadn't lifted a finger.

Now we spy on our citizens in secret, silence journalists, and we hunt-down the whistle-blowers who put it out in the open.

And the rot is spreading. Selective application of the law is happening at all levels - HSBC launders billions, and pay a 300 million dollar fine, no jail time for anyone involved. But the DoJ defends its request for a 7 year felony jail sentence for Aaron Swarz for downloading academic journal content because, simply "he broke the law". Bank of America defrauds tens of thousands on their mortgages, and nothing. Snowden breaks the law to reveal systematic abuse of governmental power, and not only do our elected leaders (with a few exceptions) not come to his aid, but denounce him as a traitor and redouble their efforts to "hunt him down". At the local level, it seems that not a day goes by without some new evidence of abuse of local law-enforcement, such as that marshall who arrested a young woman for claiming that he'd harassed her, to a judge who didn't even acknowledge her existence.

Osama bin Laden, looking up at us from hell, is laughing. With three planes and a few thousand deaths he managed to move the US, a country with over 300 million residents, toward the path of the Taliban: selective application of justice, system-wide corruption, amoral acts of torture and indefinite detention, system-wide abuse of our freedoms, and violent, ferocious pursuit of those who bring these abuses to wide-spread attention.

We do rule the world, and for that reason I fear for us all.

Do you think America cares what some little treaty says? We effectively own the UN and can freely flout any agreements we've made through it. I doubt anyone would be even slightly surprised if America - either is military, a government agency, or by some other means - decided to raid foreign vessels looking for a suspect. All in a day's work when you're the world's self appointed arbiter of justice.

Actually that is a longer distance, due to great cirle!

http://www.aircalculator.com/flightplan.php?from=HKG&to=CCS 16354 km

http://www.aircalculator.com/flightplan.php?from=PVG&to=CCS 15279 km

http://www.aircalculator.com/flightplan.php?from=SVO&to=CCS 9908 km

http://www.aircalculator.com/flightplan.php?from=VVO&to=CCS 13705 km

http://www.aircalculator.com/flightplan.php?from=LED&to=CCS 9391 km

I estimate the deviation on SVO-CCS to avoid UK would be about 2000 km, tops.

"Direct", in an airline sense, is not meaningful -- that just means it doesn't change plane enroute. Direct flights can still make technical (refueling) stops, or take on passengers (e.g. Caracas to Damascus to Tehran was in fact direct Caracas to Tehran service.) "Non-stop" means it doesn't land. "Does not overfly a US ally" is complicated, ex-China too, due to the first and second island chain problem (if Portugal will deny overflight, I'm sure Japan would too...)

Direct flights from Asia to South America have historically had a stop in the US, so every passenger needed a US transit visa ($130 and hard, if not from a visa waiver country). So, they've largely been discontinued. Tokyo to Tijuana sort of happens, but still overflies US territory, so they need to report passengers to the US under APIS. And Mexico is both in North America and closely tied to the US, so it's a non-starter for Snowden.

The only direct flights which don't touch the US are Shanghai-Madrid-Sao Paolo, and on Emirates, Shanghai - Dubai - Sao Paolo. The former is obviously out, and the latter I think transits enough US allies (plus, UAE itself) to not work.