Archive
Reuters blog archive
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
India, Japan in security pact; a new architecture for Asia?
While much of the media attention during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Japan this week was focused on a free trade deal the two sides failed to agree on, another pact that could have even greater consequences for the region was quietly pushed through.
This was a security cooperation agreement under which India and Japan, once on opposite sides of the Cold War, will hold military exercises, police the Indian Ocean and conduct military-to-military exchanges on fighting terrorism.
It doesn’t sound very grand, but its significance lies in the fact that pacifist Japan has such a security pact with only two other countries - the United States and Australia.
And it comes in the same month that India and the United States closed a nuclear cooperation deal that won New Delhi a place on the world’s nuclear high table, ending three decades of isolation following its first nuclear tests in 1974.
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
Is Pakistan’s war against militants India’s too?
Time was when every time militants set off a bomb in Pakistan, India's strategic establishment would turn around and say "we told you so". This is what happens when you play with fire ... jihad is a double-edged sword, they would say, pointing to Pakistan's support for militants operating in Kashmir and elsewhere.
Not any more. When India's opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party -- which has consistently advocated a tougher policy toward Pakistan -- tells the government to be watchful of the fallout of the security and economic situation in Pakistan, then you know the ground is starting to shift.
from Oddly Enough Blog:
What’s the danged deal on this thing, anyway?
Blog Guy, I rely on you for most of my news on international relations.
That's probably not a great idea.
Anyway, I saw today that President Bush just signed something called the United States-India Nuclear Cooperation Approval and Non-proliferation Enhancement Act. What in the heck is that about?
Well, simplified, it's an act designed to enhance the nuclear approval of non-proliferation cooperation between the U.S. and India...
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
India-US celebrate nuclear deal;China, Pakistan ask questions
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be in New Delhi this weekend to celebrate a hard-fought nuclear deal that to its critics strikes at the heart of the global non-proliferation regime by allowing India access to nuclear technology despite its refusal to sign the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT) and give up a weapons programme.
China and Pakistan are not amused although both stepped aside as they watched an unstoppable Bush administration push the deal through the International Atomic Energy Agency and then the Nuclear Suppliers Group in one of its few foreign policy successes.
from FaithWorld:
Should religious groups talk to Iranian president?
A rabbi, a Mennonite and a Zoroastrian priest were having dinner with the president of Iran -- sounds like the start of a joke, but it happened in New York this week.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had dinner with around 200 people of various faiths including Mennonites, Quakers, United Methodists, Jews and Zoroastrians who said they wanted to promote peace by meeting such a prominent foe of the United States. You can read our story about the meeting here.
from Global News Journal:
Poland to Russia: Please keep the nuke threats to a minimum
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski would appreciate it if Russia would stop threatening his country with nuclear annihilation -- or at least limit its threats to once a month.
"It is not a friendly thing to do, and we have asked them to do it no more than once a month. But as the Atlantic alliance we have nukes too," Sikorski told an audience at Columbia University this week.
from Global News Journal:
Big Bang experiment – the end of the world as we know it?
Scientists said they simply didn't know what surprises might emerge when they started up the Large Hadron Collider, the world's biggest and most complex machine which until Wednesday lay benignly in its underground home on the outskirts of Geneva.
Perhaps crashing together millions of particles at close to the speed of light would replicate the conditions just after the Big Bang that created the universe.
Perhaps the high-energy collisions, which will generate temperatures more than 100,000 times than the heart
of the sun, would lay to rest an unproven theory of physics.
from Global News Journal:
What’s next in the Russia-West crisis over Georgia?
The people of South Ossetia and Abkhazia were celebrating on Tuesday after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree recognising the independence of the two regions.
Western leaders responded with harsh words. U.S. President George W. Bush said it increased world tensions and Britain called for "the widest possible coalition against Russian aggression in Georgia," where the two regions lie.
from Global Investing:
EDF fails to push Britain’s nuclear button
A dramatic last-minute hitch to plans for France's EDF to buy British Energy leaves managements, shareholders and especially the British government in a quandary.
It was a 12 billion pounds ($24 billion) deal that was supposed to relaunch Britain's nuclear energy programme. Everyone had been told to expect it. In fact, the collapse of talks came too late for French newspapers, several of which had been briefed on the deal and splashed it prominently on their front pages on Friday.
from Global News Journal:
Iran – a young revolution with plenty of life?
In the late 1990s, not long after pro-reform politician Mohammad Khatami swept to a landslide victory in the Iranian presidential elections, some Western observers started wondering if this was the step that would herald a collapse of the Islamic Republic -- rather like the Soviet Union tumbled on Mikhail Gorbachev's watch a decade earlier.
It was early days for me observing Iran. But an acquaintance of mine offered some analysis. Iran is not communist Europe. It is still a young revolution, he told me (at a time when it was
turning 20). There are still plenty of Iranians willing to die for the cause. Don't expect it to come crashing down, he said.
