The sudden death of North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-Il, from a heart attack has naturally raised questions about the transition in the isolated nuclear-armed state as power is handed to his youngest son Kim Jong-Un believed to be in his late twenties.
Non-proliferation treaty (NPT)
The Fallout from the British Embassy Attack in Iran
The storming of the British Embassy in Tehran on Tuesday, and the subsequent diplomatic fallout, marks a serious deterioration in the ongoing standoff between Iran and the West and seems sure to set back further diplomatic efforts to address Iran’s nuclear program.
Will Israel strike Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program?
Anne Penketh was interviewed on RT (Russian English language television) on November 7, 2011 about Israeli military threats against Iran prior to the publication of an International Atomic Energy Agency report.
This Week: Iran on the brink
Iran’s nuclear program is back at the top of the international agenda.
This Week: Hope for North Korea Talks?
It’s election season in the United States, and the US delegation at talks in Geneva this week with North Korean officials will have one priority in mind – to avoid a provocation by nuclear-armed North Korea
Finland will host 2012 meeting to start talks on nuclear free Mideast
Anne Penketh was quoted by the Associated Press in an October 14 2011 article on the UN announcement that Finland will host, and provide a facilitator for, the 2012 conference on a WMD-free zone in the Middle East.
This Week: WMDFZ Middle East
Finnish diplomat Jaakko Laajava starts a new job this week.
Finland, the cradle of the Helsinki process that played a vital role in ending the Cold War, is no stranger to international mediation. But this could be the toughest assignment yet for Finland’s undersecretary of state at the foreign ministry, who was named last Friday to be facilitator of the 2012 conference on a zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.
IAEA and Iran
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will hold its fall Board meeting this week, and as usual Iran’s nuclear program will be on the agenda. Though some news reports have played up the Agency’s latest assessment as final proof that Iran is on the fast track to a nuclear weapon, others have pointed out that the IAEA’s indicators reveal a program that is moving more slowly