“The British and the British media have to be very careful in shouting too loudly about this. It's America's worst environmental disaster unfolding in the Gulf, and if you are too defensive about this the mud sticks.”
BASIC Executive Director Paul Ingram quoted in the Times Colonist. Read more:
http://www.timescolonist.com/news/special+relationship+with+under+microscope/3181535/story.html
May has been an intense and hectic month for BASIC and for nuclear diplomacy. The month-long global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference (NPT RevCon) in New York draws to a close today.
Yesterday’s announcement that the government would stick to a limit of 225 nuclear warheads has been rightly welcomed by BASIC (the British American Security Information Council) as a next step in transparency and disarmament.
Mary Riddell references BASIC in her commentary. Read more:
Anne Penketh, BASIC Program Director, backed Egypt's proposals for a Middle East international conference to work towards a Middle East nuclear weapons free zone at a side event on the margins of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference.
The May 21 event was hosted by Greenpeace whose Israeli representative, Sharon Dolev, described how she has been trying to raise awareness for nuclear disarmament in Israel, where discussion of that country's presumed nuclear arsenal of up to 200 weapons remains taboo.
The unveiling of the Iran sanctions resolution “has changed the atmosphere here”, noted Anne Penketh who is monitoring the view. The conference, she noted, “has been on a knife-edge from the get-go and I think it still is”.
“The big shift in this relationship has been the election of Obama, which has been basically a shift away from traditional alliances and towards reaching out to new relationships around the world.”
BASIC Executive Director Paul Ingram quoted in RT News.
Read more:
http://rt.com/Top_News/2010-04-23/british-debate-foreign-policy.html