When it emerged in mid-March that the perpetrator of a deadly suicide attack on American troops in Afghanistan had come from Germany, the American media showed remarkably little interest. On March 3, 28-year-old Cüneyt Ciftci from Ansbach in Bavaria drove a pick-up loaded with several tons of explosives into a guard post in Khost province in southeastern Afghanistan and then detonated his payload while still inside the truck. According to U.S. Army and Afghan sources, two American soldiers and two Afghans were killed in the attack and another seven persons, including four soldiers, were wounded. The Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), [...]
Richard Weitz’ roundup of the nuclear agreement signed last week between the U.S. and Russia is the most thorough I’ve read so far. I’d been under the impression that the agreement threatened efforts to reduce Russia’s stock of weapons grade uranium. But Weitz points out all the other ways that the agreement opens up areas of cooperative counterproliferation. Among the most convincing is that by offering Russia access to both the American domestic nuclear market and, via cooperative mechanisms, various foreign markets, the agreement provides a lucrative alternative to Russia’s nuclear cooperation with Iran. Ironically, that’s the very sticking point [...]
On May 6, during Russian President Vladmir Putin’s last day in office, the American and Russian governments finally signed their long-sought civil nuclear energy agreement. The accord facilitates the transfer of technologies, materials, equipment and other components used to conduct nuclear research and produce nuclear power. Putin and Bush originally announced their intent to negotiate a U.S.-Russia Agreement for Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation (known as a “123 Agreement”) at their joint news conference held on the sidelines of the July 2006 G-8 summit in St. Petersburg. Section 123 of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act requires the United States to negotiate a [...]
