December 22, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
The Lame Duck session of Congress is supposed to be ineffectual and, well, “lame”, unable to get things done. It is even more the case in a year when control of Congress changes hands. But this lame duck session has been historically active and engaged. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has been struggling to set himself up as a key leader by undermining signature initiatives put forward by the Democratic majority, but has watched idly as one after another major initiative passes the Senate and goes to the president for signature.
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November 18, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Pres. Obama has reportedly secured Chinese president Hu Jintao’s pledge of cooperation on global economic recovery, efforts to curb emissions and combat climate destabilization, and nuclear non-proliferation, both in Iran and North Korea. The pledge of cooperation came despite Obama’s demand that China honor the “universal” human rights of its people, alongside differences over how strongly to pressure Iran to guarantee its nuclear pursuits are legal and peaceful in nature.
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October 18, 2009 :: Anjika Sridhar :: Comments Off
The fraud perpetrated in Afghanistan’s election was so pervasive, international monitors fear it may never be possible to determine the actual results. At least 1.5 million ballots are believed to be illegal or fake votes. Entire district tallies are reported to be possibly comprised of fake ballots. The report from the UN-backed electoral complaints commission [...]
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September 26, 2009 :: Mirya Dunaeva :: Comments Off
The government of Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has been hard to characterize, seeming one day to be a mouthpiece for the bellicose policies of his predecessor, now PM, Vladimir Putin, and another day to be the first Russian leader ever to express interest in a uniform standard of global governance and cooperation, rooted in democratic principles. Now, Mr. Medvedev’s political stock has gained, as ongoing nuclear negotiations with the US, at Pres. Obama’s urging, have resulted in a unanimous Security Council counter-proliferation vote.
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September 26, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
We also took unprecedented steps to secure loose nuclear materials; to stop the spread of nuclear weapons; and to seek a world without them. As the first U.S. president to ever chair a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, I was proud that the Council passed an historic and unanimous resolution embracing the comprehensive strategy I outlined this year in Prague.
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September 22, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The UN General Assembly, which brings together every head of government in the world, to offer their country’s position on issues, their country’s demands regarding trade and conflict negotiations, their country’s hopes for a more harmonious world, this year truly grapples with issues of global consensus. Economic recovery, for many parts of the world, will require an unprecedented expansion of women’s rights and sustained attention to responsible environmental stewardship.
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August 5, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
During a brief mission to the North Korean capital Pyongyang, former US president Bill Clinton secured the release of two jailed Korean-American reporters, Euna Lee and Laura Ling. Lee and Ling had been sentenced to 12 years hard labor for allegedly violating North Korean law by filming without state permission. Clinton met personally with DPRK leader Kim Jong-il, who is reported to be in ill health, and there is speculation the visit could create an opening for US-DPRK dialogue on a range of issues.
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July 9, 2009 :: Evelyn Winston Perez :: 3 Comments
Niger is the third leading source of uranium in the world, after Canada and Australia. Uranium accounts for as much as 70% of Niger’s export revenue. Pres. Mamadou Tandja ordered a referendum be held to amend the constitution, permitting him to remain in office. That order was overturned by the nation’s constitutional court, which Tandja subsequently dissolved, replacing the justices with jurists he believed would be more favorable to his interests.
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June 8, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
California-based Korean-American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee have been sentenced to 12 years hard labor in North Korea for “grave crimes” allegedly stemming from their filming video across the North Korean border, from Chinese soil. Reports suggest the two women were abducted by North Korean border guards, who crossed into Chinese territory to seize the journalists in a military raid, while the two women were reporting for Current TV.
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May 8, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Newt Gingrich is trying to reinvent, or rehabilitate, himself. And he’s doing it by trying to whip up reflexive anger across his party’s base. Without citing one single point of Pres. Obama’s policy or one single piece of historical evidence, he has classed Obama’s call for a world free of nuclear weapons as “a dangerous fantasy”. He is situating himself firmly in the camp of make-believe “values conservatives” whose world view is actually an adolescent reading of Machiavelli (and a fantasy already proven to be dangerous).
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May 5, 2009 :: Anjika Sridhar :: Comments Off
Pakistan’s military is stepping up its offensive against Taliban militia factions in the Northwest Frontier Province. The government has reported daily tallies of dozens of militants killed in fighting in the Buner district. Yesterday, it accused the Taliban of using over 2,000 civilians as “human shields” to prevent a military action against militants. Today, there were reports from the BBC about “helicopter gunships” being used in the assault against militia positions.
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April 29, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office have been a flurry of major reforms and of global political and economic strategy. He took the oath of office on 20 January 2009 with the worst recession in 70 years setting in, major banks on the verge of insolvency, record numbers of home foreclosures, two wars in Asia, an increasingly hostile Russia and a predecessor’s policy of using torture to “enhance” interrogations. Not only has he moved forward on the economy, healthcare, security, and energy; he has reformed the entire American diplomatic paradigm, moving toward a “smart power” based on 3d vision: diplomacy, development, defense.
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April 23, 2009 :: Anjika Sridhar :: 2 Comments
With an Afghan-Pakistani hybrid Taliban taking hold of significant areas inside Pakistan, the nuclear-armed nation has become a grave security risk to the rest of the region and the world. After signing a deal with Pakistan’s government to take control of the Swat Valley and impose a brutal distortion of shari’a law, the Taliban almost immediately launched attacks deeper into Pakistan, taking control of parts of the Buner district.
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April 23, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
David Frum likes to think he knows what he’s talking about, but here’s the main reason he so often does not: he tends to link ideological assumptions with cynical bad-faith arguments about geo-politics. He mixes willing naïveté with the radical pretense of cynical omniscience. Frum would have us commit to the dangerous gamble that is selective non-proliferation, because he can’t think a better way.
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April 21, 2009 :: Anjika Sridhar :: 2 Comments
After just over two weeks of sporadic fighting in the Buner district of Pakistan, between the Swat Valley —now under shari’a law and run by the Taliban— and the nation’s capital, Taliban fighters have reportedly forced the local government to flee. This leaves them within 100 km of the capital, Islamabad, where the insurgents may seek to claim control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.
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April 21, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 4 Comments
Today comes the news that the Taliban have taken more territory in Pakistan’s Buner district, just 100 km from the capital Islamabad. The shockingly weak government of Pres. Zardari has already ceded the Swat Valley to the Taliban, allowing harsh shari’a law to be imposed. The local government has been forced out of Buner, and the area is becoming a stronghold. If the Taliban reach Islamabad, they may be able to seize control of the one of the world’s 9 known arsenals of nuclear weapons.
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April 8, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 3 Comments
President Barack Obama, during a speech in Prague, announced his intention to embark upon the framing of a new global effort to eliminate all of the world’s nuclear weapons, admitting the goal may not be achieved for decades. The US president told his audience that the deadliest weapons known to humanity must be considered contrary to peace and stability by all humankind, and should be responsibly phased out by those powers that have them.
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April 5, 2009 :: staff :: 4 Comments
When I was born, the world was divided, and our nations were faced with very different circumstances. Few people would have predicted that someone like me would one day become the President of the United States. (Applause.) Few people would have predicted that an American President would one day be permitted to speak to an audience like this in Prague. (Applause.) Few would have imagined that the Czech Republic would become a free nation, a member of NATO, a leader of a united Europe. Those ideas would have been dismissed as dreams.
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March 2, 2009 :: Riga Listin :: Comments Off
The United States and the Russian Federation are reportedly planning lengthy and in-depth discussions in Geneva, starting Friday, to improve relations and strengthen bilateral efforts in a number of areas. Security in Europe, the Middle East and the far East will all be on the agenda, as will nuclear non-proliferation and negotiation with Iran to halt its nuclear program.
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January 14, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) appeared before the Senate foreign relations committee, Tuesday, in confirmation hearings for her nomination as secretary of State. Her preparation and the sweeping breadth of her responses to issues of major global import were widely praised, by members of both parties. She now appears to be headed for what leaders of both parties suggest will be a significant majority vote to approve her nomination.
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November 30, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
The three-day siege of Mumbai has come to a fateful, bloody end, leaving at least 183 dead and over 270 injured. The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, a 105-year-old landmark, the scene of the worst fighting, was described by one witness as “totally burnt”, with bodies bloodied and badly damaged by fire, strewn around. The attack began Wednesday evening as 8 to 10 gunmen reportedly landed in a small inflatable boat on a city beach, and proceeded to assault civilians at cafes and hotels, using high-powered automatic weapons and grenades.
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November 30, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: One Comment
We have to think very carefully about what it would mean if we took the accusations of some political leaders in India seriously when they say the origin of the attacks can be linked to Pakistan. More careful, more thoughtful intellectual lights in the Indian diplomatic corps or in party politics, have noted that while it is likely fair to say the official government of Pakistan was not responsible, it may also be true that there are militant “roots” somewhere in Pakistani society that supported or enabled the attacks. It must be said, there is no publicly known evidence to date.
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October 11, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), commonly known as North Korea, has been removed from the United States’ government’s official list of “state sponsors of terrorism”. The move comes as part of an agreement among the Six Parties involved in denuclearization talks regarding the DPRK, which will restart the dismantling of all nuclear facilities in North Korea, and will include inspections, document review, and other measures designed to prevent the further production of nuclear weapons in the secretive state.
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June 29, 2008 :: staff :: Comments Off
New Yorker investigative reporter Seymour Hersh reports this week that US joint special operations forces are intensifying “covert military operations” inside Iran. A US State Dept. spokesperson told CNN that US forces are “not operating across the Iraqi border into Iran”, though he did not deny there were operations organized and executed from inside Iran.
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February 18, 2008 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
18 February :: Dallas Morning News becomes first “mainstream” or corporate-owned US media outlet to run the now partially corroborated story regarding allegations of US officials’ selling nuclear secrets to foreign operatives, possibly to enemy, terrorists; DMN ran revised edition of Philip Giraldi’s investigative report from The American Conservative magazine questioning the US media’s role [...]
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January 9, 2008 :: staff :: Comments Off
Sibel Edmonds was a translator at the FBI when she overheard, in taped wiretaps, conversations that involved US officials at high levels organizing and taking bribes in exchange for dealing nuclear secrets to the black market. The Sunday Times, a London-based Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper, has now broken the story, after years of Edmonds being turned away by the US press, due to an unprecedented “state secrets privilege” gag order. The world press is taking note, while US media outlets continue to keep quiet or not investigate.
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December 8, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
8 December :: Harvard physicist “Lene Vestergaard Hau can stop a pulse of light in midflight, start it up again at 0.13 miles per hour, and then make it appear in a completely different location“; laboratory achievement signals major breakthrough in understanding of physics of electromagnetic radiation, key is manipulation of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), [...]
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December 4, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
4 December :: Revised US National Intelligence Estimate says Iran halted nuclear weapons program in 2003, no current work being done to pursue bomb; NIE is consensus report from 16 US intelligence agencies, current analysis contradicts White House policy, as well as 2005 NIE citing Iran’s determination to build bomb; according to current NIE, Iran [...]
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November 23, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
23 November :: Discovery of skin-cell property that allows stem-cell behavior hope for researchers, conservative candidates; the discovery means research into curing diseases through stem-cell treatments need not be held back by ban on research that destroys human embryos, conservative candidates in US need not face criticism for opposing life-saving research… Pakistan has been suspended [...]
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November 18, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
18 November :: CNN has reported “The State Department’s inspector-general announced Wednesday he would recuse himself from decisions involving security contractor Blackwater, after admitting his brother serves as an adviser to the company”… Truthdig reporting that senior military officers are moving to protect Pentagon policy against the influence of VP Cheney’s office; Admiral William Fallon, [...]
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November 11, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
11 November :: German chancellor Angela Merkel and US pres. George W. Bush have declared their mutual intention to press for a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions; both leaders say they believe diplomacy and economic measures can be effective in persuading the Islamic republic to abandon its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons capability; speculation [...]
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November 6, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
6 November :: Privacy advocates say Real ID —a Homeland Security plan to force all US citizens to carry uniform biometric ID cards— may be finished, as DHS official reportedly indicated to officials from several states their citizens will not be penalized for the states’ rejecting Real ID; 17 states have passed legislation opposing the [...]
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November 3, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
3 November :: Senate subcommittee approves America’s Climate Security Act, legislation aimed at capping greenhouse gas emissions, now to be voted by full Environment and Public Works committee; bill touted as milestone in US climate policy; Sen. Lieberman has said it is the “Manhattan Project” for climate change that activists have long called for, bill [...]
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November 2, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
2 November :: 60 Minutes reveals WMD intel fraud, Iraqi emigré known as ‘Curve Ball’ by spy agencies said to have lied to officials about involvement in WMD work in Iraq in order to get asylum in Germany; US later used his false claim as support for invasion of Iraq; program to air Sunday in [...]
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October 26, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
26 October :: Report from Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds terrorist watch list may be targetting too many people to be effective, including 755,000 names as of May 2007, 860,000 at present; critics of the list say it threatens civil liberties, contravenes Constitutional protections; Sen. Lieberman has expressed concern about its “500 percent increase in [...]
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October 25, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
25 October :: Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice admits to House human rights subcommittee that the US handling of the case of Maher Arar, was “by no means perfect, in fact it was quite imperfect”, adding “we do absolutely not want to transfer anyone to a place where they might be tortured”; Arar is a [...]
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October 21, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
21 October :: Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, has stepped down, allegedly over differences with Pres. Ahmadinejad; Iran gov’t says there is no rift among leadership, diplomats, Larijani will attend meeting with UN representatives to ease transition to new negotiator’s team… At least 9 casualties reported in PKK raid on Turkish forces near Iraqi [...]
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October 18, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
18 October :: Ex-PM Benazir Bhutto returns to Pakistan, is greeted by hundreds of thousands of supporters in Karachi, having traveled from across the nation, Bhutto has been in talks with Musharraf to form ‘national unity’ gov’t, stave off ascent of radical clerics; two bombs ripped through massive crowd marching with Bhutto through Karachi, reportedly [...]
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October 16, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
16 October :: 1st official ‘baby-boomer’ begins collecting Social Security; as many as 80 million Americans from her generation will eventually collect the government pension payments… NY Times ‘The Caucus’ blog reports Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy would “Use both hard power and soft power; talk to your enemies and strengthen alliances with your friends; deal [...]
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October 2, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
2 October :: HRW says killing of 10 African Union peacekeepers, civilian police in Darfur is war crime, calls on Khartoum, gov’t forces in region to aid investigation, punish those responsible… WSJ reports “Frustrated by the stalemate over Iraq, House Democrats spelled out a strategy that would stall action on President Bush’s 2008 war budget [...]
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September 30, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
30 September :: US pres. George W. Bush has approved $25 million in fuel aid for North Korea, as part of a February deal to shut down nuclear facilities, dismantle weapons and allow IAEA inspections; the Yongbyon reactor was shut down in July… Six-party talks to negotiate North Korean denuclearization have been suspended for two [...]
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September 26, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
26 September :: Riot police in Burma (Myanmar under its military dictatorship) have fired on 10,000 Buddhist monks and pro-democracy activists protesting against totalitarian rule; US has announced new sanctions against regime, Bush denouncing “19-year reign of fear”; on Monday, 100,000 marched to support the “saffron rebellion”… Global carbon footprint at 23.881 billion tons, as [...]
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September 24, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
24 September :: Estimated 100,000 march in Rangoon (Yangon) to support Buddhist monks calling for end to military rule in Burma; some fear junta will impose another harsh crack-down… Iran pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said his nation does not need nuclear weapons and is not headed for war with US; news comes amid heightened tensions [...]
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September 23, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
23 September :: Sunday Times reports “Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem”; nuclear-related material not named, report also says Israel raid carried out with US backing… Newsweek [...]
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September 18, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
18 September :: North Korea’s gov’t says rumors it provided nuclear assistance to Syria are "conspiracy" designed to prevent its normalizing relations with the US… Russia, China have raised "alarm" over comments by French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner that the nation should prepare for war with Iran; Reuters reports "Kouchner sought, however, to play down [...]
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September 17, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
17 September :: The "six-party talks" aimed at dismantling North Korea’s nuclear apparatus, normalizing relations with rogue regime, suspended, in move apparently linked to allegations of Syrian nuclear ties; Israel allegedly bombed, in secret, facilities in Syria it now claims contained North Korean nuclear technology, that claim has caused a heightening in tensions between Pyongyang, [...]
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