Nuclear Disarmament’s Midnight Hour - Gareth Evens

CANBERRA – Last month, the Doomsday Clock’s hands were moved a minute closer to midnight by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the respected global organization that for decades has tracked the risk of a nuclear-weapons catastrophe, whether caused by accident or design, state or terrorist, fission bomb or dirty radiological bomb.

Few around the world seemed to be listening. The story – as others like it since the end of the Cold War – came and went within a half-day’s news cycle. But the Scientists’ argument was sobering, and demands attention. Progress since 2007 – when the Clock’s hands were last set at five minutes to midnight – has stalled, and political leadership has gone missing on all of the critical issues: disarmament, non-proliferation, and key building blocks needed for both.

On disarmament, the balloon has well and truly deflated. The New START treaty, signed by the United States and Russia in 2010, reduced the number of deployed strategic weapons, but left both sides’ actual stockpiles intact, their high-alert status undisturbed, weapons-modernization programs in place, disagreements about missile defense and conventional-arms imbalances unresolved – and talks on further draw-downs going nowhere.

With no further movement by the US and Russia, which together hold 95% of the world’s total of more than 20,000 nuclear weapons, no other nuclear-armed state has felt pressure to reduce its own stocks significantly, and some – China, India, and Pakistan – have been increasing them.

The 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference was a modest success, mainly because it did not collapse in disarray, as had the previous one in 2005. But it could not agree on measures to strengthen the regime; its push for talks on a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East has so far gathered no momentum; North Korea is no closer to being put back in its NPT box; and Iran is closer than ever to jumping out of it, with consequences that would ricochet around the region – and the global economy – if it makes that decision.

Despite President Barack Obama’s good intentions, the US Senate is no closer to ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, while China, India, and Pakistan, among others, take shelter behind that inaction, with a fragile voluntary moratorium the only obstacle to resumed testing. And negotiations on another crucial building block for both disarmament and non-proliferation – a treaty to ban further production of weapons-grade fissile material – remain at an impasse.

The only half-way good news is that progress continues on a third building block: ensuring that weapons-usable materials, and weapons themselves, currently stored in multiple locations in 32 countries, do not fall into the hands of rogue states or terrorists. At the end of March, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak will host a follow-up meeting to Obama’s successful Nuclear Security Summit in 2010, which brought together 47 government leaders to agree on a comprehensive program aimed at securing all such materials within four years. High on the agenda will be the security implications of nuclear safety: the Fukushima catastrophe showed that nuclear-power plants may be vulnerable not only to natural disaster, but also to terrorist sabotage. More

 

US nuclear oversight too lax: science group

WASHINGTON — A study of safety lapses at nuclear power facilities in the United States found that owners of atomic plants too often either close an eye to problems or fail to adequately address them, a watchdog group said Tuesday.

The report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in its study found 15 cases of safety equipment problems and security shortcomings at 13 nuclear plants last year, calling that number "high."

Titled "The NRC and Nuclear Power Plant Safety in 2011: Living on Borrowed Time," the UCS report said no plant employees or members of the public were harmed in the incidents.

But the lapses nevertheless were deemed serious enough to warrant special inspections by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which is tasked with oversight of the industry and which itself had a mixed record in responding to the problems.

The science group said that in some instances the NRC did an outstanding job of addressing safety problems before they could lead to a potentially dangerous situation.

But there were also times when the federal agency did a less-than-adequate job of cracking down on nuclear plant owners, who in some cases have flouted agency regulations for decades.

"Last year's record shows that the NRC is quite capable of being an effective watchdog that protects the public and saves the nuclear industry from its worst tendencies," said Dave Lochbaum, lead author of the report and the director of UCS's Nuclear Safety Project.

"But the agency too often does not live up to its potential, and we are still finding significant problems at nuclear plants that could too easily trigger a serious accident." More

 

Drums of war: The US media's 'Iranian threat'

 

On Listening Post this week: Beating the drum for war - the US media and 'The Iranian Threat'. Plus, the burgeoning media scene in post-revolutionary Libya.

Something sounds familiar. 'Long-range nuclear missiles', 'terrorist sleeper cells', 'WMDs': terms which quickly became part of the media's vocabulary in the run up to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Fast-forward to 2012 and they are featuring heavily once again, only now it is not about Iraq, but Iran. Last time, the media's saber-rattling followed the Bush administration's lead in selling the attack on Iraq. This time, the so-called 'Iranian Threat' is a narrative being constructed by the US media all by itself - with scant public support from the Obama administration. Our News Divide this week takes a close look at the coverage of Iran and a culture of journalism that seems to have forgotten the very real dangers of hypothesis and conjecture. More

One would think that paranoia was an infectious disease given the way is spreads in certain countries and among the media. However, given the level of greed in today's world that drives corporate motivation it should surprize no one. On the other hand no sector of the economy should be beating the drums of war. All corporations should be practicing Corporate Social Responsability. Editor.

The trap being laid by Israel and its allies on both sides of the Atlantic

By accident or design, the third trilateral summit that recently brought President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President Hamid Karzai and President Asif Ali Zardari together in Islamabad, took place against the backdrop of a fragile strategic environment.

Afghanistan faces the consequences of Nato’s decision to withdraw the US-led armies by the end of 2014, with their active combat role ending as early as the summer of 2013. Iran is confronted by the United States and the European Union with an economic war that can easily degenerate into a full-fledged military conflict. Pakistan is reeling under the shocks suffered in its poorly conceived and poorly executed participation in the ‘global war on terror’, a situation greatly aggravated by astonishing misrule and poor governance.

The summit provided an opportunity to move towards a dynamic consensus on trilateral and bilateral issues in a revived awareness of an inner ring of immediate neighbours with long common borders. Understandably, Karzai hogged the limelight with his media interaction, his address at the National Defence University and with an endless queue of Pakistani politicians at his door. For Ahmadinejad’s sojourn, the spectre of Iran’s conflict with the West and its regional allies loomed large behind the summit. What could happen in Iran and the Gulf could be no less catastrophic than what has happened in Afghanistan over three decades. Pakistan’s leaders made appropriate statements about denying Pakistan’s soil for any hostile action against Iran and, in the bilateral context, about their resolve to proceed with the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline.

The lynchpin of the western project for Afghanistan that can easily get derailed with disastrous consequences for the neighbours is the present effort to initiate a meaningful dialogue with the Taliban in Qatar, an enterprise to which the three presidents seem to have only a limited access. Afghanistan is walking a tight rope between efforts to influence the Qatar process and establishing an independent dialogue with the Taliban, with assistance from Pakistan. Karzai has only a limited leverage with the US in working out a peaceful transition to an inclusive Afghan dispensation beyond 2014. More

Logic, if brought to bear on regional relations would dictate that Afghanistan's immediate neighbors would be included in negotiations with the so called 'Taliban', and would not be left solely to states that will withdraw from the country shortly. Does this sound familiar? Editor.

 

Attracting Investment: Finnish Entrepreneur Preaches The Gospel Of Pakistani Opportunity

ISLAMABAD: On January 20 of this year, viewers of Finnish television channel MTV3’s popular show “Good Morning Finland” were witness to something rather unusual: a businessman making the argument that one of the great unreported emerging markets’ business opportunities in the world lay not in India or China, but in Pakistan.

The entrepreneur in question was Wille Eerola, a technology and media consultant who first visited Pakistan eight years ago and for the last several months has been spending one week of every month in Islamabad. Eerola’s argument is simple: Pakistan gets far too much negative attention in the international media which overshadows the tremendous untapped potential in the country, specifically its young entrepreneurs.

“There is huge potential and a growing market that nobody knows of,” said Eerola in an interview with The Express Tribune. “The potential and size of the Pakistani market have generated great interest in me and everyone else who I have been talking to.”

Eerola visits campuses across the northern part of the country, meeting students and talking to them about their business ideas. While he did not explicitly say so, he appears to be in the process of setting up a venture capital fund to incubate, advise and grow small Pakistani businesses and start-ups.

“We are creating a project for new companies to start up from – whether it means providing funding or management expertise, understanding of sales abroad and so on,” he said. “And adjacent to that I am building up a fund by this spring which will then support funding of those new born companies.”

The concept Eerola speaks about is one that some of the largest venture capital funds in the United States have already employed. Some US venture funds provide not just capital, but also office space and consulting on how to grow the business. More

 

The new Cold War has already started – in Syria - Robert Fisk

If Iran obtains nuclear weapons capability, "I think other nations across the Middle East will want to develop nuclear weapons".

Thus thundered our beloved Foreign Secretary, William Hague, in one of the silliest pronouncements he has ever made. Hague seems to spend much of his time impersonating himself, so I'm not really certain which of Mr Hague-Hague's personas made this statement.

Flaw number one, of course, is Hague-Hague's failure to point out that there already is another Middle East "nation" that has, in fact, several hundred nuclear weapons along with the missiles to fire them. It's called Israel. But blow me down, Hague-Hague didn't mention the fact. Didn't he know? Of course, he did. What he was trying to say, you see, was that if Iran persisted in producing a nuclear weapon, Arab states – Muslim states – would want to acquire one. And that would never do. The idea, of course, that Iran might be pursuing nuclear weapons because Israel already possesses them, did not occur to him.

Now as a nation that sells billions of pounds worth of military hardware to Gulf Arab nations – on the basis that they can then defend themselves from Iran's non-existent plans to invade them – Britain is really not in a position to warn anyone of arms proliferation in the region. I've been to the Gulf arms fairs where the Brits show alarming films of an "enemy" nation threatening the Arabs – Iran, of course – and the need for these Arab chappies to buy even more kit from British Aerospace and the rest of our merchants of death. More

 

Secret U.S. cable warned about Pakistani havens

The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan sent a top-secret cable to Washington last month warning that the persistence of enemy havens in Pakistan was placing the success of the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan in jeopardy, U.S. officials said.

The cable, written by Ryan C. Crocker, amounted to an admission that years of U.S. efforts to curtail insurgent activity in Pakistan by the lethal Haqqani network, a key Taliban ally, were failing. Because of the intended secrecy of that message, Crocker sent it through CIA channels rather than the usual State Department ones.

The cable, which was described by several officials familiar with its contents, could be used as ammunition by senior military officials who favor more aggressive action by the United States against the Haqqani havens in Pakistan. It also could buttress calls from senior military officials for a more gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan as the 2014 deadline for ending combat operations approaches.

These military officials have maintained for months that the current strategy of targeting raids against Taliban leadership and building local Afghan governance is showing impressive results. But they warn that worsening conditions in Pakistan and the ability of insurgent groups to find haven there necessitates a larger American force than many in the Obama administration are advocating.

The United States is on course to reduce the size of its force in Afghanistan to about 68,000 troops by the end of this summer and shift from combat to more of an advisory role to Afghan forces by the middle of next year.

The coming drawdowns will put heavy pressure on the Afghan government in the east, where U.S. and Afghan forces have struggled to curb violence, in part because insurgents can flee across the border to Pakistan, U.S. officials said. The American frustration with insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan has long been a source of tension in the brittle relations between the two countries.

“The sanctuaries are a deal-killer for the [Afghan war] strategy,” said a senior defense official who is familiar with the ongoing debate and who, like several officials in this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations.

In past years, U.S. military officials have argued that the best defense against Pakistan insurgent sanctuaries was a stronger Afghan army and government. But with U.S. drawdowns looming, the need to directly address the sanctuaries seems more urgent.

The Haqqani network is responsible for some of the larger and more dramatic attacks on Kabul, including one on the U.S. Embassy last year, U.S. officials said.

The group’s patriarch, Jalaluddin Haqqani, was a major mujaheddin fighter in the CIA-backed effort to expel the Soviets from Afghanistan in the 1980s. He has relinquished control to his son, Sirajuddin, who carries a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head and runs day-to-day operations from the network’s Pakistani base in Miran Shah.

The location has given the Haqqani leadership a measure of protection: The CIA has repeatedly refrained from launching missiles at known Haqqani targets, including a prominent religious school the network uses as a base of operations, out of concern for civilian casualties and the backlash that could ensue. More

 

Danger Zone: Ageing Nuclear Reactors

Following Japan's nuclear disaster last year there are fears the US may be heading for a nuclear catastrophe of its own

In March 2012, a devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. As tens of thousands of people were evacuated from nearby towns and villages, the world waited anxiously to see whether the radioactive fallout would spread across the country, or even be carried overseas. Unsurprisingly, in the wake of this incident, the nuclear operations of other countries have come under considerable scrutiny. One such country is the US where more than 100 similar reactors - some of them in earthquake zones or close to major cities - are now reaching the end of their working lives. Their owners want to keep them running, but others - from environmentalists to mainstream politicians - are deeply concerned. In this investigation for People & Power, Joe Rubin and Serene Fang of the Center for Investigative Reporting examine whether important safety considerations are being taken into account as the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) considers extending the licences of these plants. The agency has recently come under fire for glossing over the potential dangers of ageing reactors, for becoming too cosy with the industry and for political infighting among the agency's senior executives, which critics in the US Senate and elsewhere say seriously hampers its ability to ensure safety. The investigation focuses on the Pacific Gas & Electric nuclear facility at Diablo Canyon and two others, which are at Indian Point in New York and Fort Calhoun in Nebraska. These three sites represent the dangers posed to nuclear power plant safety by earthquakes, terrorism and flooding. More

 

 

Intel Exclusive: Trillion Dollar Terror Exposed

Bush, Fed, Europe Banks in $15 Trillion Fraud, All Documented.

Below is one of the strangest stories in financial history, one involving the US government lying about hundreds of thousands of tons of imaginary gold, illegal wire transfers and loans totalling $15 trillion. The video, from the House of Lords, is amazing in itself.

What it doesn’t express is where the money came from though Lord James of Blackheath proves conclusively that an effort was made to say it came from a gold reserve in Brunei that, in fact, never existed.

At surface, it appears we have stumbled upon the largest terrorist organization in the world and have found original documents tracing its funding to the Secretary of the Treasury and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, two of the top financial officers in the US. A cursory review of terrorism statues in the US indicate that all transactions we will learn about are, in fact, to be assumed “terrorist money laundering” and that the only thing preventing the immediate arrest of hundreds of top financial officials is their political connections alone. More

 

What is Iran hiding at Parchin?

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors on their second visit to Iran in a month have been turned away from a military base in Parchin, immediately raising questions about the activities being carried out there.

The IAEA last had access to Parchin, about 30km southeast of Tehran, in early 2005. According to the 2011 IISS dossier on Iran’s nuclear capabilities: ‘The site contained test bunkers and diagnostic buildings, which US officials suspected might be used for high-explosive tests related to nuclear weapons development. Such tests are commonly used to develop the high-explosive lens system for implosion designs [ie. bombs].

‘In January 2005, Iran allowed the IAEA to visit and take samples at one of four locations in Parchin to which it had requested access. In March 2005, the IAEA reported that it “saw no relevant dual-use equipment or materials in the location visited”. Environmental samples taken at the selected site did not indicate the presence of nuclear materials.’

The director of the IISS non-proliferation programme, Mark Fitzpatrick, has said today that it is ‘very disappointing’ for the IAEA to come back from Tehran with nothing to show for it for a second time – and an ‘own goal’ by the Iranians.

‘The IAEA had been led to believe they would have access to the Parchin military complex to investigate information that it was the site of unreported nuclear explosive-related experiments,’ he said. ‘But hardliners in Tehran prevailed over those who wanted to demonstrate some flexibility in order to quiet the war-drums and slow down the sanctions that are beginning to strangle the Iranian economy.’

Iran recently announced several new nuclear developments. Although it also accepted an EU invitation for more nuclear talks, the IAEA this morning calledthese latest talks a failure.More

 

Pat Buchanan, Author of Suicide of a Superpower on war with Iran

 

Say No To War

 

 

 

Win A Fulbright Award

Did you know that Pakistan will have the largest Fulbright program in the world in 2013? The program will award Pakistanis with grants to study for their Master's or Ph.D degrees at a U.S. university beginning in Fall 2013. Deadline is May 16, 2012 to apply.

More

 

The Vetiver System (Vetiver Grass) Ground Water Recharge System

 

This movie shows how the management of Ano Farm (Western Ethiopia) has used The Vetiver System to reduce erosion and improve groundwater recharge. The results are higher crop yields and increased groundwater and regenerated water flow from springs. This technology has great potential for offsetting some of the problems associated with climate change?

 

'Perpetual Growth Myth' Leading World to Meltdown: Experts

UN-Sponsored Papers Predict Sustained Ecological and Social Meltdown.

The current system is broken," says Bob Watson, the UK’s chief scientific advisor on environmental issues and a winner of the prestigious Blue Planet prize in 2010. "It is driving humanity to a future that is 3-5°C warmer than our species has ever known, and is eliminating the ecology that we depend on for our health, wealth and senses of self."

Smoke billows from burned trees. A collective of scientists and development thinkers have warned that civilisation faces an 'unprecedented emergency'. (Photograph: CRISTINA QUICKLER/AFP/Getty Images)"We cannot assume that technological fixes will come fast enough. Instead we need human solutions. The good news is that they exist but decision makers must be bold and forward thinking to seize them."

Watson's comments accompanied a new paper released today by 20 past winners of the Blue Planet Prize - often called the Nobel Prize for the environment, and comes ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Rio+20 conference – which takes place in June this year – where world leaders will (it is hoped) seize the opportunity to set human development on a new, more sustainable path.

Civilization Faces 'Perfect Storm of Ecological and Social Problems'

The Guardian's John Vidal reports:

In the face of an "absolutely unprecedented emergency", say the [...] past winners of the Blue Planet prize – the unofficial Nobel for the environment – society has "no choice but to take dramatic action to avert a collapse of civilization. Either we will change our ways and build an entirely new kind of global society, or they will be changed for us".

The stark assessment of the current global outlook by the group, who include [Watson]... US climate scientist James Hansen, Prof José Goldemberg, Brazil's secretary of environment during the Rio Earth summit in 1992, and Stanford University Prof Paul Ehrlich. [...] More

 

 

 

A U.S. double-standard for Bahrain?

MANAMA, Bahrain - Screaming at the riot police, dozens of women dressed head-to-toe in black excoriated the police for dragging away a teenage boy.

The police, dressed in shiny white helmets and black flak jackets, held their billy clubs in check. A policeman with a megaphone finally dispersed the crowd, threatening them with jail if they stayed.

The boy was allegedly picked up by plainclothes officers for organizing a protest.

"Welcome to living under a dictatorship," said a young Bahraini-American, an architect from Ohio who was back in Bahrain for the one-year anniversary of the uprisings here. Those uprisings didn't result in a regime change, the way many of the protests in the Arab Spring did, but they did raise an uncomfortable but important question for the United States: How long can the U.S. keep close ties with a regime that kills and tortures those who protest their rule?

At least 35 people were killed during protests in February-March 2011, according to Amnesty International. More than 20 have died since then in the ongoing protests; dozens of people have been reportedly tortured.

The protesters are mainly Shia Muslims, who make up 70 percent of the population but are shut out of almost all government posts. The Sunni al Khalifa family has ruled Bahrain for more than 200 years, with King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa holding nearly complete control of the country. More

 

 

Foreign Office Summons Acting US Ambassador Over Balochistan Resolution

US charge d`affaires Richard Hoagland was summoned by the Foreign Office on Monday and a protest was lodged with the US regarding the resolution presented in the congress about Balochistan.

According to the Foreign Office spokesperson, the resolution is a violation of the UN charter and it would have a negative impact on Pak-US relations.

On Sunday, Hoagland while speaking to a private channel said Balochistan was an important issue but not part of US foreign policy.

He added that supporting Balochistan's independence was not the policy of the Obama administration. Official sources said that Hoagland was also asked to conveys Islamabad's reaction on the matter to Washington. More

 

Models Underestimate Future Temperature Variability: Food Security at Risk

ScienceDaily (Feb. 17, 2012) — Climate warming caused by greenhouse gases is very likely to increase the variability of summertime temperatures around the world by the end of this century, a University of Washington climate scientist said Friday. The findings have major implications for food production.

Current climate models do not adequately reflect feedbacks from the relationship between the atmosphere and soil, which causes them to underestimate the increase of variability in summertime temperatures, said David Battisti, a UW professor of atmospheric sciences.

While warmer temperatures already have implications for food production in the tropics, the new findings suggest the increase in the volatility of summertime temperatures will have serious effects in grain-growing regions of Europe and North and South America, Battisti said.

"If there's greater variability, the odds of the temperature being so high that you can't grow a crop are greater," he said. "In terms of regional and global food security, it's not good news."

Battisti presented his findings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Vancouver, Canada. His discussion was part of a panel on climate and global food security that included Rosamond Naylor of Stanford University and Daniel Vimont of the University of Wisconsin, with whom he has collaborated on previous food security research. More

 

 

Iran: stumbling into war

If Obama continues on his current path, he could well have a conflict. For this reason alone, he should change course

There are two possible outcomes of the barrage of words being launched against Iran: a war that starts inadvertently (what, one wonders, would be the reaction today if a British naval patrol in the Gulf were captured by the Iranians, as happened four years ago?); or a war that starts after an attack by Israel. A negotiated climbdown by both sides is the least likely option, although the venue for one still exists. The next round of talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN security council plus Germany will be held in Istanbul. Failing any breakthrough there, western policy is caught in a cleft stick.

The British foreign secretary, William Hague, warned on successive days that the Iranian nuclear programme could trigger a Middle East cold warand that Israeli military action to forestall it would be unwise. And yet, if you do not believe that sanctions will deter Tehran from its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons (and this newspaper talked to senior US officials who do not), one judgment inexorably leads to the other. So competing voices in the US administration are both upping the ante and scurrying every month to Jerusalem to restrain Ehud Barak and Binyamin Netanyahu from doing what they have long promised to do. The latest visitor to Israel is Tom Donilon, Barack Obama's national security adviser. Long before coming to power, Netanyahu said that Israel's date with destiny lay with Iran, not the Palestinians. And there is no reason to disbelieve his intention to attack Iran.

One does not have to doubt the sincerity of Obama's extended hand to Iran at the start of his presidency, or the two personal letters he wrote to its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to worry about the direction in which his administration's policies are leading him now. Obama is no George W Bush. This president has not pulled out of Iraq, and started the drawdown in Afghanistan, only to start a conflict with a country with the power to mess up both Iraq and Afghanistan if attacked. But if he continues on this path, he could well have a conflict. For this reason alone, he should change course. More

 

Autonomous Fighting Machines

 

What is the role of robots and drones in wars and how will they shape the future of the US military? AlJazeera

 

US Policy Towards The China-Pakistan-India Triangle – OpEd

The region of South Asia comprising of two nuclear states India and Pakistan – which also happen to be long time rivals - is the flashpoint of future conflicts.

These conflicts would most likely arise from the on and off imbalance of nuclear deterrence, trans-border terrorism, water disputes or the much clichéd Kashmir issue. But one must note here that these conflicts won’t come into play without the role of foreign involvement like the United States and China.

The United States is on the verge of losing balance in the region because of economic constraints, as a result of the failing War on Terror in Afghanistan. It is therefore, looking for a way out which seems to be not that easy. The expansion of its influence into Asia-Pacific for economic ties with partners like South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and India is gaining the required media hype. The recent visits of President Obama on the eve of Asian Economic Summits have proven that America can no longer sustain the decade long war and is now claiming its dominance as an Asia-Pacific power in the region. One wonders where that is going to lead the superpower.

China on the other hand, being a superpower in its own region has managed to match the American economy and has the potential to leave it behind in the near future. China is strong economically and militarily and is an apparent threat to the United States and India alike. Pakistan being an old ally of China, is taking every advantage of the “friendship” to improve its security, economic and energy problems. In other words, Pakistan provides a platform to China in the heart of South Asia which is a strategic gain for the latter. More

 

The Winter War

In the frozen peaks of Afghanistan's Kunar province, a ferocious clash for supremacy rages amid the mountaintops.

Barack Obama, the US president, has pledged to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan by 2014, with other NATO nations set to pull out their troops before that date and overall responsibility for security gradually being handed to the Afghan National Army and police.

Following the announcement last month from the Taliban that they are prepared to open a political office in Qatar - a step which may facilitate a move towards negotiations and a peaceful settlement - many people hope that the end of Afghanistan's long and brutal war may just be in sight.

But there is a long way to go yet and many ways in which any deal could be upset by events. General John Allen, the senior American commander on the ground, has publicly expressed doubts that a full military withdrawal by 2014 is feasible and, as many experts point out, fighting in parts of Afghanistan is just as fierce as it has always been.

This is especially so in two strategically vital provinces, Kunar and Nuristan, which sit on Afghanistan's mountainous north-eastern border with Pakistan. Since US troops arrived in the country 11 years ago, the area has seen sustained and intense violence. In 2009, with casualties rising, the Americans withdrew entirely from Nuristan. The following year northern Kunar was also handed over to Afghan control. But within a few months, the Taliban had retaken the area, infiltrating through vital border crossings and completely undermining attempts by Afghan forces to maintain security across the region.

So now US forces have returned to the area, this time to the frozen peaks as well as the valleys, determined to re-establish their military dominance and win over the local population before they go. The Taliban are just as keen to see them defeated and the result is an intermittent but occasionally ferocious clash for supremacy amid the mountain tops. Both sides know that what happens here may yet decide the success or failure of NATO's war and indeed the future of Afghanistan itself. More

 

Japan, IAEA to Hold Fukushima Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety

On 17 February 2012, the Japanese Government announced that it will hold The Fukushima Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety, in co-sponsorship with the IAEA.

Convening in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, from 15 to 17 December 2012, the Conference will be organized in two sessions. Opening with a Ministerial Session on 15 December 2012, to be followed by technical experts' sessions.

The International Ministerial Conference's principal objective is to contribute to strengthening nuclear safety worldwide. The Conference will provide yet another opportunity to share with the international community further knowledge and lessons learned from the accident at TEPCO's Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations, to further enhance transparency, and to discuss the progress of international efforts in strengthening nuclear safety, including through the implementation of the IAEA Action Plan on Nuclear Safety.

Action Plan

After the nuclear accident at TEPCO's Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations on 11 March 2011, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano dispatched an International Experts Fact-Finding Mission to the site of the accident, and convened a Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety in Vienna in June 2011. The Ministerial Conference adopted a Ministerial Declaration that, inter alia, requested the Director General to develop a draft Action Plan on Nuclear Safety. Developed in intensive consultation with Member States, the Action Plan on Nuclear Safety was adopted by the IAEA's Board of Governors and subsequently unanimously endorsed by the IAEA General Conference in September 2011. The implementation of the Action Planstarted immediately after its adoption through a wide range of activities. More

 

Girl Killed By US Drone - Barack Obama - She Never Saw It Coming

 

Barack Obama says the drone attacks he authorises are targetted only at named people on a list of active terrorists who are a direct threat to America. The facts tell a different story. More

Video

Posted February 18, 2012.

 

Balochistan resolution in US Congress drives Pakistan crazy

WASHINGTON: A resolution moved by a group of US Congressmen calling for right to self-determination for the Baloch people has drivenPakistan to hysteria, with its leaders from the Prime Minister down questioning Washington's commitment to the country's sovereignty.

 

Following a Congressional hearing last week on the human rights situation in Balochistan, the Obama administration had assured Islamabadthat it is committed to the country's unity and integrity, but suspicion runs deep in Pakistan that Washington is intent on fingering the country on account of its covert support for terrorists.

 

Some hardline American analysts have suggested that the Washington help the Baloch break away from the federation so that American and Nato forces can have unfettered access to landlocked Afghanistan, given how Pakistan has been holding the US to ransom. More

 

US Army Human Terrain Report: Afghan structure versus Iraqi tribal structure

Human Terrain System Cultrual Knowledge Report - Afghan Tribal Structure Versus Iraqi Tribal Structure

Most US personnel that are serving in Afghanistan have already served a tour in Iraq and are accustomed to doing things "the Iraq way". Many people are trying to apply the lessons teemed in Iraq to Afghanistan, which in many cases is inappropriate. AF2 wants to provide a product to US units to compare and contrast tribal structure and Pashtun tribal structure to prevent future missteps by US forces.

Download Here

 

Nuclear New Math

Reports that the Pentagon is weighing a range of cuts to the nation’s nuclear arsenal – perhaps going as low as 300 deployed strategic weapons, down from the current 1,550 – has nuclear-triggered concern on Capitol Hill. “I have to suggest to you,” Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., told Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Wednesday, “I consider that reckless lunacy.”

 

But Stephen I. Schwartz, editor of the The Nonproliferation Review at California’s Monterey Institute of International Studies, has gone to the history books. “Amid all the hyperventilating from congressional Republicans over the Obama administration’s ongoing review of nuclear force levels and postures, it’s worth remembering that when it comes to actual reductions in U.S. nuclear weapons, whether bilateral or unilateral, these have always been deeper and faster under Republicans than under Democrats,” he tells Battleland, flinging recently-declassified charts our way to make his case.

 

“During George H.W. Bush’s four years in office, the total stockpile was reduced by 38%, from 22,217 to 13,708 weapons, thanks in part to his unilateral decision to retire all ground-based nuclear weapons in Europe and South Korea and remove all nuclear weapons from naval surface vessels,” Schwartz says. “George W. Bush went even further, cutting the total stockpile over eight years by 50%, from 10,526 to 5,273 weapons. More

 

Israel vs. Iran: The Truth Slips Out

 Just days after the New York Times Magazine’s lurid cover story, “Israel Vs. Iran,” the Washington Post struck back with a two-fisted effort to win the “most dire prediction” contest. 

The Post’s foreign policy pundit David Ignatius wrote a widely-circulated column claiming inside information: U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta “believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June.” The next day thePost’s front page headline warned ominously, “Israel: Iran Must Be Stopped Soon.” Both stories reported that the Obama administration opposes any Israeli action, just like the Bush administration before it. The risks to U.S. interests are incalculable, as the Pentagon and State Department have been telling us for years.

 

 Yet both stories added a new note: Israel might strike without U.S. support or permission. “The administration appears to favor staying out of the conflict unless Iran hits U.S. assets,” Ignatius wrote.

Of course the U.S. is already in the conflict, as the Iranians know perfectly well. Israel’s ability to strike depends largely on its high-tech weaponry, paid for by the $3 billion a year coming from Washington. With that kind of money flowing -- plus U.S. diplomatic support, which many in Israel see as their last barrier against international isolation -- the Obama administration has powerful leverage to stop any Israeli action that threatens U.S. interests.

When the administration tells the Washington Post that the U.S. is unhappy but helpless, it’s obviously looking for deniability if the attack occurs. But it’s also a clear signal to the Israelis: Though we could stop you, so far we have not decided that we will. This is a major shift in the message coming from Washington. More

US State Department considers formal apology for the Pakistan soldiers’ deaths

 WASHINGTON — A senior U.S. military commander will visit Pakistan this month in what could be an important step in healing the rift between the two nations, officials said Tuesday.

 

Gen. James Mattis, commander of U.S. Central Command, will meet with Pakistani Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani to talk about the U.S. investigation into airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in a Nov. 26 exchange of fire at the border with Afghanistan. 

Mattis would be the first high-ranking official to visit since the strikes that sent relations between Washington and Islamabad to a new low and prompted Pakistan to close its border to NATO war supplies headed for Afghanistan, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive matter publicly. News of the planned visit came as Pakistan’s defense minister said Tuesday the country should reopen its Afghan border crossings to NATO troop supplies after negotiating a better deal with the coalition.

Without providing details, Pakistan Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar told the private Geo TV that the government should negotiate new “terms and conditions” with NATO, then reopen the border. More

 

Truth, Lies and Afghanistan

 February 06, 2012 "Armed Forces Journal" --  I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners. 

 

My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces.

What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground. Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress.

Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.

My arrival in country in late 2010 marked the start of my fourth combat deployment, and my second in Afghanistan. A Regular Army officer in the Armor Branch, I served in Operation Desert Storm, in Afghanistan in 2005-06 and in Iraq in 2008-09. In the middle of my career, I spent eight years in the U.S. Army Reserve and held a number of civilian jobs — among them, legislative correspondent for defense and foreign affairs for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

As a representative for the Rapid Equipping Force, I set out to talk to our troops about their needs and their circumstances. Along the way, I conducted mounted and dismounted combat patrols, spending time with conventional and Special Forces troops. I interviewed or had conversations with more than 250 soldiers in the field, from the lowest-ranking 19-year-old private to division commanders and staff members at every echelon. I spoke at length with Afghan security officials, Afghan civilians and a few village elders.

I saw the incredible difficulties any military force would have to pacify even a single area of any of those provinces; I heard many stories of how insurgents controlled virtually every piece of land beyond eyeshot of a U.S. or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) base. More

 

America, Israel, Iran: signals of war

 A range of military and political developments, from the very rare planned deployment of three huge United States armadas in the Persian Gulf to Israeli fears of Barack Obama’s re-election, is evidence of rising danger around Iran.

 

Volusia is a small town in Florida, about sixty kilometres west of the coastal resort of Daytona. This dot on the map [11], straddling the St John River just off the state’s “black bear strategic byway”, seems a very long way from the rising tensions over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In fact, the connection is surprisingly close. For Volusia also sits at the eastern border of the extensive Ocala [12] national forest, which plays host to the United States navy's only[13] firing-range - the “Pinecastle impact range” - capable of dropping live air-to-surface weapons. The town’s residents are used to living with noise, but since mid-January 2012 they have been “hearing booms loud enough to rattle their windows and scare their cats” (see Skyler Swisher, “Naval bomb practice rattles Volusia-Flagler [14]”, Daytona Beach News-Journal, 2 February 2012).

This exceptional level [15] of activity reflects the range’s current intensive use as an aircrew-training site for pilots and weapons officers from the USS Enterprise now cruising offshore.  The plan is that this will be redeployed to the Persian Gulf some time in March 2012 as the leading vessel in a third US carrier battle-group in the region, alongside the groups already there led by the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Carl Vinson. The Enterprise battle-group is normally assigned to the United States navy's sixth fleet in the Mediterranean, though it has also transited the Suez canal into the Red Sea and beyond. This time [16], the Pentagon is making it clear that the Enterprise deployment is intended specifically to send a strong message to Iran.

The carrier message

To get a sense of what is happening, some context is helpful. The Enterprise is as a 1960s-era vessel the oldest [17] nuclear-powered carrier in the United States navy; its current deployment will be the twenty-second and last before it is decommissioned. Until that happens it remains one of eleven potential carrier battle-groups in the US’s inventory, including much more modern Nimitz-class [18]warships such as the Abraham Lincoln and the Carl Vinson.

It is routine for carrier battle-groups (CBG), once assembled and deployed in distant waters, to stay on station for up to six months - though with resupply this can be extended. There is often a short period of overlap between CBGs coming and going, but rarely much more than this. What is most unusual about the two CBGs now in the Persian Gulf - which have been there barely a month - is precisely that there are two rather than one in the same area; which also means that to have three on station, potentially for several months, is very rare indeed. More