In The News

Measure Would Alter Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy

R. Jeffrey Smith October 4, 2003
In an effort to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons, the US has made an effort to reduce global trade in bomb-grade uranium, which is often used for medical isotope production. In recent years, Washington has required isotope-producing firms to move towards use of low-enriched uranium, which has less destructive capabilities. But a provision in an energy bill currently under consideration by the...

Iran Playing With Fire

October 3, 2003
Iran faces harsh international scrutiny in coming weeks about its nuclear weapons program as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) begins new inspection. In question are traces of weapon’s grade enriched uranium found in Iran that Tehran officials claim were contaminated before Iran received them. The IAEA has warned that Iran could face international sanctions backed by the US if Iran...

Roh Says Iraq Troops Hinge on NK Nukes

Sim Sung-tae October 2, 2003
Though the US has made an effort to keep the security issues of North Korea and Iraq separate, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun views them as connected. President Roh hesitates to deploy any troops to the Middle East, thus sending an "indirect message" to the US to consider the non-aggression pact that North Korea has been demanding. According to the author, as the US continues to...

North Korea Says It Is Using Plutonium to Make A-Bombs

James Brooke October 2, 2003
While claiming to be producing plutonium for nuclear weapons, Pyongyang's vice foreign minister also emphasized that "We have no intention of transferring any means of that nuclear deterrence to other countries." Apparently, the communist regime wants to avoid pushing Washington so far that the Bush administration would declare the need for a pre-emptive strike. But analysts...

Politics in Command

Jonathan Schell September 29, 2003
In war, true victory means the achievement of an express political aim. Although Saddam Hussein has been toppled, the political objective of the American war in Iraq appears far from fulfilled. An author and journalist who has written extensively about war and peace, Jonathan Schell, says what should worry Washington more than the daily attacks on US troops is its failure to win the hearts and...

Foreign Religious Students on the Run

Hasan Mansoor September 26, 2003
The Pakistani Intelligence Agency raided two extremist religious seminaries this week and took 19 students of East Asian origin into custody for connections to groups acting against "the integrity of Pakistan." The students are currently being interrogated by a joint United States FBI-Pakistani team, and their visas have been revoked. "It is not a case of terrorism;" argues...

Connect the Dots

Thomas Friedman September 25, 2003
The US has refused to cut agricultural subsidies to its farmers for years, and it refused again at the recent WTO meeting in Cancún. Thomas Friedman laments that fact, arguing that a real connection exists between US hypocrisy on world trade issues and the roots of anti-American terrorism. Countries like Pakistan, mired in poverty, would produce fewer angry fundamentalists willing to bomb the...