The Isar nuclear power plant, Bavaria, Germany, Nov. 13, 2010 (Photo by Bjoern Schwarz via flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0).

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and the implications for U.S.-China relations. For the Report, Miles Pomper talks with Peter Dörrie about the future of nuclear energy. Listen:Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant Articles on WPR: Why Trump’s Taiwan Call Might Be the Least of Traditional Diplomacy’s Worries Will Trump Regret Backing China Into a Corner on Taiwan and the South China Sea? What’s Behind Jammeh’s Perplexing Decision to Accept Gambia’s Election Results? Will the Syrian Crisis Doom the […]

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at a joint press conference, Tokyo, Japan, Nov. 11, 2016 (AP photo by Franck Robichon).

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Japan last month saw the conclusion of an India-Japan nuclear deal that had long been in the works. Not so many years ago, that development would have elicited major international reaction, given India’s status as a nonsignatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The lack of such reaction to the latest bilateral agreement is perhaps due to the fact that India already has 14 such deals in place, with a list of countries that includes the United States, Russia and France. Nevertheless, that India became the first non-NPT country to firm up such […]

The unfinished Bellefonte nuclear plant, which was sold at auction last month for $111 million, Hollywood, Ala., Sept. 7, 2016 (AP photo by Brynn Anderson).

In 2007, The Economist reported that “America’s nuclear industry is about to embark on its biggest expansion in more than a generation. This will influence energy policy in the rest of the world.” Safety, management and regulatory improvements, it predicted, would lead to an “atomic renaissance” for a nuclear energy industry hobbled for decades by the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. The nuclear industry itself anticipated that soaring electricity demand in fast-growing developing countries and rising concerns about climate change would drive countries to take a fresh look at an industry whose safety practices appeared to have improved […]