British Former MP calls for withdrawal from Afghanistan

A former member of the British Parliament has called on the government to withdraw British troops from Afghanistan to avoid "unnecessary deaths."

Lawmaker Denis MacShane, in an article published in The Observer on Sunday, said, "British soldiers have shed enough blood; it is time to withdraw troops from Afghanistan."

MacShane criticized the British Ministry of Defense (MoD) strategy to send soldiers out for patrolling Helmand province in southern Afghanistan.

He said these patrols needlessly put the live of British troops at risk of hitting roadside bombs or being the target of Taliban snipers.

MacShane, who now represents the UK on the council of Europe, also slammed the British government for lacking a strategy.

Anti-war sentiments have been on the rise in the UK with British troops falling victim to increasingly militancy in Afghanistan.

Macshane also argued that as the US government looks for an exit strategy, it is time for Britain to reconsider its stance and look to bring troops back home.

The 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was launched with the official objective of curbing militancy and bringing peace and stability to the war-ravaged country. Nine years on, however, US-led forces have failed to bring security to Afghanistan and civilians continue to pay the price. More >>>

2010 NPT Review Conference Outcome

The 2010 Review Conference of Parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Final Document. Click Here

Review of the Treaty as provided for in Article VIII(3), taking into account the decisions and Resolution adopted by 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference and the Final Document of the 2000 Review Conference.

Establishing The New Nuclear Taboo

26 May, 2010 - Today the world community is required to grapple a range of challenges. For example, first, nuclear proliferation by individuals (whether the proliferation of knowledge or materials). 

Second, after 9/11 terrorists’ attack in the US and the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan there are increased risks of nuclear terrorism. A third challenge is the behaviour of newly emerging nuclear states seeking to acquire a nuclear weapons capability: the North Korean withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the aggressive Iranian behaviour in breach of non-proliferation norms both endanger the non-proliferation regime. Fourth, the nuclear black market in material and technologies, dual use technologies and loose export controls in the world remain of concern. Fifth, non-party states to the NPT and the ‘accidental’ use of nuclear weapons by new Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) are now endangering the nuclear taboo. More >>>

Solving Tokyo's Nuclear Conundrum

All but four countries in the world are meeting in New York this month at the quinquennial Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference to discuss the treaty's effectiveness. But one of the more interesting nuclear developments is not on the agenda: Japanese nuclear sales to India.

Over recent months, Indian policy makers have been lobbying Japan to supply civilian nuclear technology to the world's most populous democracy. The Bush administration and Congress paved the way for these kinds of transactions in the 2005 United States-India civil nuclear deal, which exempts India from nuclear trade restrictions on states that do not put all of their nuclear facilities under international safeguards.

In the past, Tokyo has been reluctant to pursue nuclear business in India. Some policy makers and nuclear disarmament advocates in Japan believe that granting India full nuclear cooperation would reward it for possessing nuclear weapons without gaining nonproliferation and disarmament quid pro quos. more >>>

Israel 'tried to sell nuclear weapons'

Documents unearthed by an American academic indicate Israel offered to sell nuclear weapons to South Africa in the 1970s.

Israel has never confirmed it has nuclear weapons despite a large amount of evidence that it has as many as 200 warheads. The documents provide the first proof Israel not only has enough nuclear weapons for its own defence but has enough to sell elsewhere.

Like India, Pakistan and North Korea, Israel is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

In the 1980s, Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician who worked at Israel's main nuclear facility, revealed the extent of the country's arsenal. More >>>

US cannot fix Afghanistan: Prince Turki al-Faisal

‘Inept’ US cannot fix Afghanistan: top Saudi prince 

15 May 2010 RIYADH - An “inept” United States cannot fix Afghanistan’s problems and should simply focus on “chasing the terrorists” there, former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal said on Saturday.
The ex-Saudi ambassador to the United States also challenged Washington to produce results in just-started Palestinian-Israel peace talks, and accused US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of undermining efforts to establish a Middle East nuclear-free zone.

In a speech to a Riyadh audience which included numerous diplomats, Turki said the US-led NATO troop presence in Afghanistan has irrevocably alienated the Afghan people and has no hope of rebuilding the country. More >>>

Drone Attacks in Pakistan have a 2.5% strike rate against Al-Qaeda

The Pakistan Body Count, a website run and managed by Zeeshan Usmani, a professor at Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute has documented over 124 drone attacks since 2004 and as per the last documented attack on May 11th 2010 in Miranshah shows that only 30 Al-Qaeda operatives have perished in the last six years but more significantly 1266 civilians were killed and over 445 civilians were left injured to run a tally of 2.5% as the strike rate against the Al-Qaeda operatives More >>>

New lake threatens havoc in Pakistan

A little over two months ago, Al Jazeera's team in Islamabad, the Pakistan capital, was alerted by our contacts in the Northern Areas over a major landslide. 


They told us that the village of Attabad, perched dangerously on the slopes of a mountainside, was no more.
The geological survey of Pakistan had warned about the impending disaster after they conducted a survey of the area before the slide took place so the village was evacuated.

But some chose to stay of their own accord and many of them became victims. Significantly, the slide had blocked the River Hunza, posing a potential threat of submerging entire villages and the highway. More >>>

Canada's most distinguished peacemaker

Douglas Roche has worn many hats in his long life of public service: author, parliamentarian, diplomat, academic. Hope drives his tireless quest for nuclear disarmament, but it's tempered with his grasp of the bitter realities of power politics.

In 1982, at the height of the Cold War, one million people gathered on the streets of New York to push the world's superpowers to halt the dangerous arms race and bring the world back from the brink of mass destruction. Doug Roche, a 52-year-old MP from Edmonton, was there and felt the mood of tension and anxiety.

"In 1982, I was one of a million people who marched from the UN to Central Park to protest nuclear weapons. That march woke up (U. S. President) Ronald Reagan and (Russian leader) Mikhail Gorbachev," Roche says.

Last Sunday, Roche, now a vibrant 80-year-old, was back in New York, this time joining the 10,000 who strode to the UN to protest against nuclear weapons. More >>>>

China, Pakistan Boost Nuclear Ties

Chinese authorities have recently confirmed that China National Nuclear Cooperation has signed an agreement with Pakistan for two new nuclear reactors at the Chashma site - Chashma III and Chashma IV.

The move is in clear violation of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) guidelines that forbid nuclear transfers to countries who have not signed on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or who do not adhere to comprehensive international safeguards on their nuclear program.
Ever since the US decided to conclude a civilian nuclear energy cooperation pact with India, China has indicated its displeasure through various means. With the exception of China, all other major global powers (the UK, France, Germany and Russia) have supported the US-India nuclear deal: They were eager to sell nuclear fuel, reactors and equipment to India. China, however, has requested that India sign the NPT and dismantle its nuclear weapons, saying that the US-India deal would “set a bad example for other countries.” More >>> 

However, as all states are going to be seeking new sources of energy given that petroleum is a finite resource it is only logical, and in fact an imperative, that a solution be found to this conundrum. This may perhaps be found in the Travelling Wave Reactor.


A traveling-wave reactor, or TWR, is a kind of nuclear reactor that can convert fertile material into fissile fuel as it runs using the process of nuclear transmutation. TWRs differ from other kinds of fast-neutron and breeder reactors in their ability to use little or no enriched uranium, instead burning fuel made from depleted uranium, natural uranium, thorium, spent fuel removed from light water reactors, or some combination of these materials. Editor

West Europeans target US nukes at treaty session

UNITED NATIONS - May 6 2010 — Germany and other West European nations at the U.N. nonproliferation conference are calling for elimination of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe — "leftovers from the Cold War" — as a way to advance global arms control.

"They no longer serve a military purpose and do not create security," German state minister Werner Hoyer told fellow delegates to the 189-nation session to review the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Belgian disarmament official Werner Bauwens, speaking Thursday, the fourth day of the monthlong conference, urged the U.S. and Russia to launch negotiations "as soon as possible" to reduce their shorter-range nuclear weapons. More >>>

Inside Story - Sending a message to Pakistan?

White House Set to Submit U.S.-Russian Civil Nuclear Pact to Congress

Wednesday, May 5, 2010 - UNITED NATIONS -- The Obama administration within the next few days intends to submit a U.S.-Russian civil nuclear cooperation agreement to Congress for review, just as Washington is pressing for Moscow’s support on sanctions against Iran, U.S. officials tell Global Security Newswire (see GSN, Sept. 9, 2008).

(May. 5) - Activists, shown near a train loaded with depleted uranium in France last month, protest exports of nuclear waste to Russia. The Obama administration plans to seek congressional approval of a civil nuclear cooperation agreement that could enable the United States to send its own waste to its former Cold War rival (Bertrand Langlois/Getty Images).
“These kinds of agreements, from a practical standpoint, are a model for how countries can pursue their inherent right to nuclear energy without a greater proliferation risk,” a senior State Department official said, speaking on condition of not being named.
However, behind the scenes, the administration is reportedly having qualms about submitting the accord to Capitol Hill in short order, having heard negative feedback last week from both sides of the aisle in the House and Senate about how this deal might affect other pending legislation. More >>>

SAARC Summit Focuses on Climate Change

29 April 2010: The Sixteenth Meeting of the Heads of State or Government of the Member States of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was held in Thimphu, Bhutan, from 28-29 April 2010, around the theme of climate change.

SAARC leaders adopted the Thimphu Statement on climate change, which contains commitments to: review and ensure timely implementation of the Dhaka Declaration and SAARC Action Plan on Climate Change; plant ten million trees over 2010-2015 as part of a regional afforestation and reforestation campaign, in accordance with national priorities and programmes of Member States; develop national plans and regional projects on protecting and safeguarding the archeological and historical infrastructure of South Asia from climate change adverse effects; stress the imperative of biodiversity conservation and monitoring of mountain ecology in the region; and complete the ratification process for the SAARC Convention on Cooperation on the Environment at an early date to enable its entry into force. More >>>

Should geoengineering be used to address global warming?

If humans heated the earth, perhaps our technology can cool it, too. A look at the science of geoengineering and how it might be used to address global warming.

May 3, 2010 -The time for barely muffled chuckles and rolled eyes is over. Scientists, ethicists, and legal experts are now quite soberly thinking about how humans should mess with the world's climate – with the goal of keeping it as close to what we are used to as possible.

But as it stands today, geoengineering – as climate modification is being called – is little more than a shopping bag full of sometimes outrageous-sounding proposals and theories. Little is known about whether they would work in the real world.
Deciding which geoengineering ideas to test – and how to do it safely – presents a huge stumbling block. The effects could be global, but getting all nations to agree on any particular measure could prove to be a Herculean task. More >>>
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In treating the illness of a sick planet it may be as well to operate under the maxim of ‘do no harm’. This is the only inhabitable planet in this solar system, and if we get it wrong the outcome could be disasterous. Editor

Obama administration discloses size of U.S. nuclear arsenal

Tuesday, May 4, 2010 - UNITED NATIONS -- Shattering a taboo dating from the Cold War, the Obama administration revealed Monday the size of the American nuclear arsenal -- 5,113 weapons -- as it embarked on a campaign for tougher measures against countries with hidden nuclear programs.

The figure was in line with previous estimates by arms-control groups. But Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton emphasized that it was the very disclosure of the long-held secret that was important.

"We think it is in our national security interest to be as transparent as we can about the nuclear program of the United States," she told reporters at a high-level nuclear conference in New York, where she announced the change in policy. "We think that builds confidence."

Shortly after Clinton's speech, the Pentagon issued a fact sheet saying that the number of working U.S. nuclear warheads had plummeted from a peak of 31,255 in 1967. In addition to the functioning weapons, thousands more have been retired and await dismantlement, the Pentagon said. Analysts estimate that number at about 4,500.

The Obama administration had debated for months whether to release the arsenal numbers, with some intelligence officials worrying they could give clues to would-be bombmakers about how much plutonium was required for a weapon. But Clinton noted that reliable private estimates of the stockpile were readily available.

The disclosures came on a day when Iran and the United States squared off over U.S.-led efforts to strengthen the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, used the meeting to lash out at the United States and accuse nuclear nations of trying to unfairly deny much of the world the possibility to pursue nuclear energy programs.

But Ahmadinejad was greeted with a public scolding about his country's secretive nuclear program from the United Nations' top leadership. More >>>



T

A New Ground Zero

April 28, 2010 - A few weeks ago, traveling in Kazakhstan, I had the sobering experience of standing at Ground Zero. This was the notorious test site at Semipalatinsk, where the Soviet Union detonated 456 nuclear weapons between 1947 and 1989.

Apart from a circle of massive concrete plinths, designed to measure the destructive power of the blasts, there was little on the vast and featureless steppe to distinguish this place. Yet for decades it was an epicenter of the Cold War — like similar sites in the United States, a threat to life on our planet. Its dark legacy endures: poisoned rivers and lakes, children suffering from cancer and birth defects.

Today, Semipalatinsk has become a powerful symbol of hope. On Aug. 29, 1991, shortly after independence, the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, closed the site and abolished nuclear weapons. It was a tangible expression of a dream that has long eluded us — a world free of nuclear weapons. More >>