The news last week that six Arab states are beginning efforts to acquire nuclear technology — although the technology is ostensibly for civil power generation — is stark evidence that non-proliferation efforts around the world must not be neglected. The world has been focused on the Oct. 9 North Korean nuclear test and the Iranian nuclear program and its regional consequences. But the threat of nuclear proliferation is not limited to Asia and the Middle East. South America also poses a threat. South American allies Argentina and Brazil abandoned their relatively advanced nuclear weapons programs, signed the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) [...]
Think Fidel Castro is going soft in his old age? A recently published report from Reporters Without Borders, “Going Online in Cuba: Internet Under Surveillance,” suggests you should think again. In fact, if authors Claire Voeux and Julien Pain with the French journalism organization are correct in their assessment, even the information age hasn’t changed much about daily life in this Caribbean nation of 11 million people. “With less than 2 percent of the population online, Cuba is one of the world’s most backward countries as regards Internet usage,” reads an excerpt. “The worst off by far in Latin America [...]
PERUGIA, Italy — Naples, Italy’s third largest city, is experiencing a wave of killings that has left 12 dead in 10 days. The killings are the result of a feud between clans belonging to the Camorra, the loose criminal system operating in the region of Naples. Interceptions collected throughout the year by the Carabinieri — the Italian military police — in the Neapolitan quarter of La Sanita’ were published last week by Il Mattino, Naples’ most widely read newspaper. After the killing of a clansman, an unidentified man was quoted as saying: “Now I will repay you with the same [...]
