- Talks continue over nuclear program without clear progress
- IAEA Director General’s latest report on Iran’s nuclear program shows growth in enrichment capabilities, but analysts speculate over implications
- Non-Aligned Movement Summit in Tehran and U.N. General Assembly opening in New York draw more attention to crisis
- Sanctions effects deepen; Canada closes embassy
- Concerns rise over Iranian plans for Arak facility
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Open letter to NATO Secretary General on B-61 upgrades
BASIC has written to the NATO Secretary General with concern over the rising cost of the new full-scope Life Extension Program for the U.S. B-61 nuclear bombs. The U.S. Department of Defense estimates the program costing billion, more than doubling original estimations.
Iran news update: Israel raises the temperature
A flurry of media reports in the past week have sounded the alarm over purported advancements in Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme and Israel’s willingness to launch a first strike to prevent Iran obtaining a bomb. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak have raised the stakes in the full knowledge that the U.S. is less than three months from a presidential election.
Getting to Zero Update
Officials from China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States (“P5”) held their third special forum since 2009 to discuss nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, this time in Washington, DC. Separately, representatives from Iran and the P5 plus Germany, have met at various levels without producing a breakthrough over Iran’s nuclear program amid rising tensions in the Middle East.
Iran Update: Number 161
- Nations cling to talks
- Additional sanctions bear down on Iran
- Military tensions intensify
- U.S. leaders pay multiple visits to Israel to offer reassurance
Iran sanctions bill
The U.S. Congress is poised to consider an Iran sanctions bill this week that may shut down any transactions with the Iranian oil industry and tighten financial loopholes as part of tough international moves aimed at pressuring Tehran to curb its nuclear program.
Obama and Romney on U.S. Foreign Policy
Today, Barack Obama will speak about foreign policy at the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention, followed by Mitt Romney who will speak at the same convention tomorrow. Romney, who has been criticized in the press for his lack of foreign policy and national security experience, is then scheduled to travel abroad, in an attempt to strengthen his reputation on foreign issues. He will go to London to speak at the start of the Olympics—an opportunity to build on the transatlantic relationship—and then to Israel and Palestine to speak with representatives of both nations.
Will the NWS fail to support the NWFZ…again?
Foreign Ministers from the five recognized nuclear weapons states (NWS) meet on Thursday with members of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). There had been an expectation that the NWS would at last endorse the Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (NWFZ) by signing up to its Protocol, but they are still expressing reservations over the scope of the Treaty and its restriction on the passage of NWS vessels through the surrounding seas. China also has particular concerns that the Treaty treads on its territorial sovereignty – it is already in dispute with ASEAN members over the South China Seas.