The budget cuts experienced by much of the Western world are predominantly viewed through the prism of job loss, shrinking pensions, and healthcare cuts. While these concerns are absolutely legitimate, the public as a whole – as opposed to a narrow group of politicians and policy experts – has not concerned itself much with the […]
The startling agreement announced today–the U.S. providing North Korea food aid in exchange for the North’s putting a moratorium on uranium enrichment, nuclear weapons tests and long-range missile testing–would seem by any reckoning a very positive step in the right direction. The mere fact that North Korea’s new leadership is putting the immediately nutritional needs […]
Many hold a view that the terms Africa and nuclear security have no correlation. This is a false and dangerous perception. South Africa’s Energy Minister Dipuo Peters announced on Tuesday 28 February 2012 that the country plans to use nuclear energy as part of diversified mix to help cure South Africa’s energy crisis and to […]
I saw these two reports within a few minutes of each other and the contrast wasn’t exactly hard to see. The first piece detailed China’s rapidly increasing military spending: China’s defense budget will double by 2015, making it more than the rest of the Asia Pacific region’s combined, according to a report from IHS Jane’s, […]
The 56th session on the Commission on the Status of Women will begin on Feb. 27 at the United Nations headquarters. The theme – empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, sustainable development and current challenges – will be the driving force to bring a change to millions of women […]
To judge from reports that appeared in The New York Times and Washington Post, as well as Science magazine, it appears that the World Health Organization will recommend, over U.S. objections, full publication of the bird flu studies showing that an air-transmissible, mammal-to-mammal form of the H5N1 virus can be engineered. A Times story that […]
A number of years ago while still in the military I was stationed in a highly volatile part of the world. The crisis was pretty intense and it was the first job I held where my boss was routinely on the evening news on both U.S. and world television stations. As has happened numerous times […]
On the heels of the resumption of U.S.-Jordanian 123 talks, the pressure on the Obama Administration to maintain its commitment to the so-called Gold Standard is getting stronger. Indeed, the pressure is coming from across the political spectrum. In a spate of OpEds and Commentaries over the last several weeks, everyone from stalwart nonpro […]
21 February marked the deaths of a prominent foreign journalist and a foreign photographer covering the unrest in Homs, Syria: Marie Colvin of The Sunday Times and French photographer Remi Ochlik. Again, their deaths cast light upon the apparent crimes against humanity that are raging unabated in Syria. Colvin’s and Ochlik’s deaths in Baba Amr, […]
It’s never a dull moment in Pakistan, but various moments filled with dull people. A rally was held on January 28, in the city of Rawalpindi, against the establishment of a place of worship by the Ahmeddia community. The Ahmedi’s are a minority community who consider themselves a sect within Islam, but were declared non-Muslims […]
The estimable Robert Kagan, senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brooking Institution has a new book, The World America Made (Knopf). Because Kagan is the most formidable of the neoconservative foreign policy intellectuals, and because he reputedly has the attention of both the Obama administration and the Romney campaign, a condensed version of the […]
U.S. diplomat Dennis Ross argues compellingly in today’s New York Times that Iran sanctions are biting hard and that Tehran may be getting in the mood for serious negotiations. In particular, Ross reports that Iran has declared its willingness to discuss the so-called Russian step-by-step plan, in which parties to the nuclear dispute take reciprocal […]
The North Koreans allegedly conducted secret, nearly undetected nuclear tests in 2010. And they almost got away with it. That is, until Lars-Erik De Geer, an atmospheric scientist at the Swedish Defence Research Agency in Stockholm, took a closer look at the monitoring data from Russian and Japanese stations close to North Korea. Reporting in […]
Kenya’s military had one of its biggest victories this past weekend when two of its helicopter gunships attacked an al Shabaab convoy in Southern Somalia, killing more than 100 militant fighters, according to Kenyan Military spokesman Emmanuel Chirchir. This comes after the January 21 announcement that Kenya’s military incursion passed the halfway point in its […]
US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s assertion that Israel is preparing to attack Iran in either April, May, or June has added more speculation and fuel to the sensitive situation surrounding Iran’s nuclear program. David Ignatius’ article in The Washington Post provides us with a bit of evidence that Israel may be preparing for war, […]