Doug Smith W9WI wrote:

I meant the above in the particular case of Kosovo, not in general,
obviously. There have been sovereign countries that existed for
centuries, yet did not seek the UN membership for whatever reason. Their
sovereignty, however, had never been disputed.

The problem with Kosovo is that if the UN does not accept it (due to the
Russian and Chinese veto, or Serbian objection, or whatever else), there
is no legal ground on which it can be assigned a prefix block.

But isn't that pretty much the same as the situation as with E4? (the
primary difference being which Security Council member would veto UN
membership)

Not really. Palestine has "received a standing invitation to participate
as observer in the sessions and the work of the General Assembly and
maintaining permanent observer mission at Headquarters", i.e. it is as
close as it can get to the full UN membership without the ultimate
solution of its territory, etc. It is a tacit acknowledgment that the
state is de facto there with a future promise of a membership once the
peace process results in the permanent settlement.
Kosovo is a much crazier socio-political situation, if that's even possible.

It would be interesting to know whether the membership is granted by the
member-state vote and whether the permanent UN Security Council members
have a veto right in such issues.


I did some digging around and best I can tell, the Security Council *does*
have a veto with regard to new members.

So much for a new one, eh? In the meantime, the ARRL DXCC manager issued
a clarification on the YU8:

"The 'Event Date' will be either the date Kosovo became a UN member or
it receives its prefix from the ITU."

Which, as things stand right now, means never. Either way, the present
YU8 operation can only ever count as YU.


73 ..... WA7AA