Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Gareth Porter* WASHINGTON, Aug 26, 2010 (IPS) – President Barack Obama’s refusal in a White House briefing earlier this month to announce a "red line" in regard to the Iran nuclear programme represented another in a series of rebuffs of pressure from Defence Secretary Robert Gates for [...]
Israeli Generals and Intel Officials Oppose Attack on Iran
August 13, 2010 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS Analysis by Gareth Porter* WASHINGTON, Aug 13, 2010 (IPS) – Pro-Israeli journalist Jeffrey Goldberg’s article in "The Atlantic" magazine was evidently aimed at showing why the Barack Obama administration should worry that it risks an attack by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Iran in the [...]
Peace Signals from U.S. Nuclear Footprint Sites
August 9, 2010 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN By Ramesh Jaura IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis BERLIN (IDN) – History is in the making with two sites where the United States left its indelible nuclear footprints — the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall archipelago and Japan’s legendary city of Hiroshima — sending new signals. The World Heritage Committee meeting [...]
IRAN: Eyes on the Skies Over Bushehr Nuclear Reactor
August 7, 2010 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS Analysis by Marsha B. Cohen MIAMI, Aug 6, 2010 (IPS) – Iran’s light water nuclear power plant at Bushehr is preparing to go "live" – again. Iranian and Russian nuclear scientists and officials have announced Bushehr’s reactor will soon be receiving its first shipment of nuclear fuel 36 [...]
As Sanctions Rise, China Steps Deeper Into Iran
July 30, 2010 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS Analysis by Antoaneta Becker LONDON, Jul 30, 2010 (IPS) – The European Union’s new sanctions against Iran appear to open a new space for eager Chinese companies to expand their investments in a country viewed as a rogue player by much of the western world. With China recently [...]
BURMA: Loophole Gives Junta Room to Go Nuclear in Secrecy
July 22, 2010 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Marwaan Macan-Markar BANGKOK, Jul 21, 2010 (IPS) – Thanks to a loophole in the international regime to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons, military-ruled Burma could very well carry out its reported intent to go nuclear behind a veil of secrecy, free of scrutiny from the International [...]
SOUTH-EAST ASIA: Burma’s Nuke Ambitions to Come under Scrutiny
July 20, 2010 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS Marwaan Macan-Markar BANGKOK, Jul 19 (IPS) – When South-east Asian foreign ministers gather in Hanoi this week for a series of annual security meetings, the region’s most troublesome member, military-ruled Burma, is due to come under scrutiny over reports of its nuclear ambitions. Alarm bells have been going [...]
Stirrings of a New Push for Military Option on Iran
July 10, 2010 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS Analysis by Jim Lobe* WASHINGTON, Jul 9, 2010 (IPS) – "From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August," explained then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card back in September 2002, in answer to queries about why the administration of George W. Bush had [...]
IRAN: Worries Mount over Sanctions’ Ripple Effect
July 8, 2010 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Omid Memarian WASHINGTON, Jul 8, 2010 (IPS) – Although the United States and its allies insist that the latest round of U.N. sanctions against Iran targets high-level government officials rather than the general population, interviews with a number of analysts, activists and journalists in Tehran reveal a [...]
The Arabs and the Race to Nuclear Hell
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN By Fareed Mahdy IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis ISTANBUL (IDN) – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sounds rather optimistic — or has chosen to do so: “Recently, we have seen signs of progress on nuclear non-proliferation talks,” he said some two weeks ahead of announcing on August. 3 that ministerial-level discussions on [...]