Worldfocus’ Daljit Dhaliwal spoke with Flynt Leverett, director of theIran Project at the New America Foundation for some insight into theIranian leadership’s reservations about the IAEA’s recent proposalwhich would send low-enriched uranium first to Russia to be enrichedthen to France for further processing.
The U.S.-UAE 123 Agreement on civil nuclear cooperation is set to come into force now that the mandatory 90-day period of congressional review has passed. The deal has the firm backing of the Obama administration, which sees it as a model for countries looking to introduce nuclear energy to their territories. For the UAE, the deal represents a reaffirmation of its close ties to the West as well as a gateway to developing a source of energy that, for a number of reasons, makes sense for the Emirates. The third-party beneficiary of the agreement, of course, is France, with its […]
Qatar, along with the rest of the United Arab Emirates, has always been known for its wealth of natural resources such as natural gas. Though Qatar’s development has hinged on this direct flow of revenue, the state is now working to diversify their economy through the arts, particularly through a growing film industry. Qatar will try to reach their goal of zero percent natural gas reliance by 2030, though a new gas plant was recently built.
President Nasheed of Maldives and his cabinet held the first everunderwater cabinet meeting on Oct. 28. The spectacle was intended todraw attention to the issue that plagues the archipelago — climatechange. Outfitted in scuba suits and surrounded by fish, the Maldiviangovernment focused on the U.N.’s Climate Change Conference inCopenhagen in December.
In a landmark address to the U.N. Climate Change Conference last month, Chinese President Hu Jintao announced Beijing’s commitment to trim the explosive growth of China’s carbon emissions “by a notable margin.” But he also reiterated his country’s hackneyed dictum that industrialized countries should bear most of the burden for emissions-cutting. Hu’s headline-grabbing speech captured the essence of China’s Janus-faced climate change policy — which, despite remarkable progress, continues to be bogged down with implementation problems and overshadowed by China’s concerns with economic growth and its leadership role in the developing world. Currently the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, […]
If you ask Spc. Daniel McBroom of the Army National Guard, the hardest part of war was the wind. “Physically and mentally, the wind was the worst,” he recalls. “This endless hot wind, like 100-degree fans turned toward your body.” But McBroom, 23, who returned in June after serving a year in Iraq, says that the toll of war will be different for everyone. “There’s no doubt it will mark you, change your body. But I don’t think anyone can predict what that change will be.” McBroom is one of nearly 1.5 million Americans enlisted in the U.S. armed forces, […]
This year, every country in the world has had to confront H1N1 influenza, also known as “swine flu.” The newly identified influenza virus caused great concern when it appeared unexpectedly in Mexico and the United States, before spreading quickly to all continents around the globe. But we are now breathing a collective sigh of relief after discovering that — so far, at least — the health impact of this virus has not been much greater than that of the “seasonal” influenza viruses we face every year. At first glance, the international community displayed an admirable level of cooperation and collective […]
BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Christian Democratic Party agreed to form a new government with the upstart conservative Free Democrats on Saturday, setting the stage for major changes in both German domestic and foreign policies. The CDU and the FDP, which is led by Guido Westerwelle, have been locked in tough negotiations over both cabinet appointments and policy platforms for weeks. Westerwelle, who is expected to be named foreign minister, was pushing for tax cuts of $52 billion, while Merkel was advocating much more modest cuts. In the end, it appears as if Merkel was the one […]
This week, “The Thinkers 50” Web site named their 50 most influential business thinkers in the world. Atop its list stood the Indian-born, University of Michigan professor, C.K. Prahalad — a visionary whose analysis of the market opportunities to be found in the emerging global middle class is must reading for anyone seriously given to strategic thought in the age of globalization. Globalization is often described as a “race to the bottom,” whether to the lowest price or the least protection for workers and the environment. While relevant, these statements are untrue: High levels of globalization connectivity clearly correlates with […]
Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton urged the international community to strengthen and focus non-proliferation efforts in a speech given at the U.S. Institute of Peace. She discussed the IAEA’s need for rights and resources upgrading. “All states with nuclear materials or technology have a responsibility to protect them against theft or illicit transfer,” she said.
The United States and France have joined a chorus of disapproving African states to condemn recent events in Guinea — events that have dimmed hopes that the isolated and resource-rich West African nation might finally achieve democratic civilian rule following the death last December of longtime autocrat Lansana Conté. One voice that has opted against singing from the international hymn book, however, is arguably Guinea’s most important interlocutor: China. Instead of opprobrium, Beijing appears to have offered Guinea incentive, in the form of a multi-billion dollar investment in oil and minerals — the latest installation of the checkbook diplomacy that […]
As the People’s Republic of China celebrated its 60th anniversary, many observers understandably used the occasion to advocate strengthened cooperation between China and the United States. However, the substance of bilateral cooperation depends considerably on the balance of power between the two countries. The ongoing debate over the trend in the Sino-American balance centers primarily on three problematic assessments: – The “G-2” assessment, which argues that China and America are the two powers whose partnership is most needed to address global challenges, discounts the cooperation that they require from Europe and emerging powers to make substantial headway. – The “Chinese […]
The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime released a report detailing the effects of a $15 billion industry – the Afghan opium trade. The report connects instability in Central Asia and global heroin addiction to the Taliban-taxed drug. The UNODC explains that insurgent groups derive anywhere from $90-160 million in revenue from opium taxes and that the trade could be financing insurgents across borders. Paradoxically, as the drug is globally smuggled, leaving a trail of addiction in places such as India and China, wealthier nations are intercepting less of the drug at their borders.
Zimbabwe’s fragile unity government is facing yet another crisis. The development is all the more unfortunate because, asVoice of America reports, the new government has actually made some progresstoward stabilizing the ailing Zimbabwean economy. The introduction ofthe U.S. dollar and South African rand has been particularlyinstrumental in bringing inflation under control and facilitatingcommerce, though life remains very hard for most Zimbabweans. Voice ofAmerica’s Scott Bobb reports from Harare.
After briefly discussing Afghanistan’s election woes, President Obama turned his attention to progress in Iraq during a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Obama and Maliki celebrated a new dimension of their relationship – the prospect of doing business. The two emphasized a shift in focus from military cooperation to more financial pursuits as Iraq gears up to hold its first business investors conference.
When Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin invited Western energy companies to help develop natural gas fields in Siberia’s Yamal Peninsula in late September, many Western observers viewed it as an admission of defeat. After years of increasing state involvement in the upstream of the Russian hydrocarbon sector, a collapse in the price of oil had pushed Moscow to reconsider its adversarial relations with private investors — foreign and domestic alike. While there is some truth to this interpretation, it ignores a more important narrative that emerged from the meeting at the Siberian frontier town of Salekhard about Russia’s shifting attention […]
Americans’ fear of China right now is palpable. We see danger in its products, in its vast reserves of our currency, in its growing military might, in its ravenous hunger for raw materials, and in its single-party state. With “Made in China” seemingly stamped on the bottom of everything we bring into our already overstuffed houses, we worry that China will soon buy and sell us, just like Japan seemed poised to do two decades ago. In short, we no longer feel on top of the global economy. It’s somebody else’s “age.” Roughly a century ago, that’s exactly how the […]