The upheavals sweeping across the Middle East have cast a long shadow over diplomatic negotiations aimed at organizing a conference on establishing a zone free of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in that region, according to officials involved in the process.
This Week – Hopes and Doubts about WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East
The increasingly violent clashes between security forces and protesters protests across the Arab world, inspired by the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, are causing some diplomats to raise doubts about the prospects for holding a conference next year on a WMD-free zone in the Middle East.
This Week – U.S. Defense Budget
It’s a big week for the U.S. military budget for fiscal 2012 with details of the billion budget – the largest in the nation’s history – being unveiled today by the Pentagon. Also relevant to arms control will be the Energy Department budget and particularly that of the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Should Israel join NATO?
NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen has called for the alliance to expand cooperation with Israel. Israel has been part of the Mediterranean dialogue with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which includes Arab states such as Tunisia and Egypt, since 1994. But there have been recent calls for NATO to deepen the relationship still further by accepting Israel as a member.
This Week – State of the Union: an opportunity to take the next step
President Barack Obama has a golden opportunity in his State of the Union address tomorrow to advance his disarmament agenda by highlighting the benefits to U.S. security in the entry into force of the global treaty banning nuclear weapons tests. This requires the new Senate to ratify it.
America’s diplomatic secrets go public
“If you hang around with diplomats, they might be smiling to you, on the one hand, while at the same time, they're stabbing you in the back. It's reassuring because they are sticking to the same talking points in private and in public, whether they're talking to government officials or to journalists or to non-government organizations.”
Anne Penketh, BASIC's Program Director, was interviewed about the WikiLeaks dump of U.S. cables with Michael Shire of the National Journal and Susan Glasser of Foreign Policy on WAMU radio.
New START Treaty hanging in Senate limbo
“The administration doesn’t want the whole thing to be reopened when they’ve already gone through 20 briefings, they’ve already answered 900 questions for the record,”Anne Penketh, BASIC's program director in Washington, told the Epoch Times.
Read the full article here: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/46462/
NATO unveils Strategic Concept
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has unveiled its policy documents charting the way ahead for the Alliance over the next 10 years. The Strategic Concept, covering NATO doctrine on nuclear and conventional defence and security strategy, was released on November 19th. The Lisbon summit Declaration, on how the Alliance will implement the principles laid down in the Strategic Concept, came out the following day.