In The News

How To Get Rid of Nuclear Weapons

May 5, 2010
As signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty gather to review its forty years’ performance, the danger posed by nuclear weapons remains undiminished. Gareth Evans, Co-Chairman of an International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, interviewed by Nayan Chanda, Editor of YaleGlobal Online, discusses the threat and urgent tasks ahead for the international community...

NPT Review Faces Challenges as Iran Knocks on Door

Leonard S. Spector May 3, 2010
Threatening to build, possess or use nuclear weapons does not do much to win friends or influence neighbors, as the old saying goes, particularly as more nations acquire the bomb. More than 180 nations convene at the UN this month, starting today, to continue regular five-yearly review and negotiations aimed at reducing these weapons. Progress is slow because decisions at the UN conference on the...

Tuareg Activist Takes on French Nuclear Company

Cordula Meyer April 28, 2010
Areva, a largely state-owned French power giant, has extensive uranium mining operations in northern Niger. That uranium generates the majority of France's electricity, along with thousands of jobs in France and across Europe. Yet, left in northern Niger are millions of tons of radioactive waste that have contaminated groundwater and killed crops, destroying the nomadic lifestyle of the...

Cutting Climate Change's Gordian Knot

John C. Topping Jr. April 2, 2010
Black carbon, commonly known as soot, a byproduct of incomplete combustion, is a major contributor to global warming. It also can have significant, deleterious effects on one’s health. Now, several environmental groups are asking the US Environmental Protection Agency to regulate black carbon under the Clean Water Act on the grounds that it affects sea ice and glaciers. While this proposal may...

Europe's Green Diplomacy

Sascha Müller-Kraenner and Martin Kremer March 11, 2010
After Copenhagen, Europe learned that leading by example is not enough. Lacking the power of a China or a US in the environment debate, Europe will need to balance shifting alliances in a multipolar world to combat climate change. Such green diplomacy is even more important in an interconnected world where climate change affects not only the environment but also economic growth, energy supply,...

Steelworkers Say Reactors Overseas Will Cost Jobs

Matthew L. Wald and Keith Bradsher February 23, 2010
President Obama is pushing nuclear power as a new source of energy and as a way to create jobs for Americans, offering loan guarantees to make it happen. Now, however, labor unions are protesting the move because they say that much of the material for new reactors will come from overseas, reducing the potential for US job growth. The trouble is that since the Three Mile Island reactor accident in...

Will Japan Emerge from its Shell? – Part II

Daniel Sneider February 5, 2010
Since the Democratic Party of Japan came to power in August of 2009, upsetting fifty years of conservative rule, US-Japan relations have been on rocky ground. It would seem that the DPJ is upending decades old policies, hewing its own path with the US, China, and the Asia Pacific region. As Asia-Pacific expert Daniel Sneider notes, Japan’s new tack not only has caught the US flat-footed, but also...