September 25th, 2007
While American news media and University Presidents were trying to decide whether Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be best characterized as the devil incarnate, a petty dictator, or just plain mad, he managed to deliver himself of at least one truth during his New York visit – “the nuclear bomb is of no use,” he […]
Read MoreSeptember 21st, 2007
Political correctness aside, Pearson’s point has not lost any of its trenchant relevance. He made the comment in his 1957 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, and it was followed by three decades of the kind of Goliathon war preparations that are, and we hope will remain, unmatched in human history. Indeed, the legacy of those precocious […]
Read MoreSeptember 19th, 2007
The National Counterterrorism Centre of the United States delivers the cold hard facts:[i] in 2006 terrorist attacks rose by 25 percent and deaths at the hands of terrorists by 40 percent. But this time it’s not the devil that is in the details. It turns out that when you look closely, in Europe, Eurasia, East […]
Read MoreAugust 31st, 2007
Brig.-Gen. Guy Laroche, currently Canada’s top military commander in Afghanistan, puts it simply:[i] “I don’t talk to the Taliban.” In the same Canadian Press report, Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier is just as categorical: “Canada does not negotiate with terrorists, for any reason.” For both comments, the immediate issue was the negotiated release of South Koreans […]
Read MoreAugust 24th, 2007
It was a particularly arresting headline that warranted the further search: “Taliban, US in new round of peace talks.” Syed Saleem Shahzad, the Pakistan Bureau Chief of the Asia Times Online, has been writing a series of articles on continuing efforts to negotiate deals which he says “aim to stop violence in selected areas and […]
Read MoreAugust 18th, 2007
On August 3, 2007 the United States and India set out the details of their proposed Agreement for Cooperation on Peaceful uses of Nuclear Energy. This “123 agreement”[i] would bring significantly more of India’s civilian nuclear facilities under an international inspections regime, but it also in effect calls for the international community to embrace India […]
Read MoreJuly 30th, 2007
That the international effort in Afghanistan is faltering, most recently confirmed by a British House of Commons report,[1] is not in doubt.[2] Nor is it in doubt that sooner or later Canada will leave Afghanistan. But the latter should not be determined by the former. Whether Canada stays beyond February 2009 involves a broad range […]
Read MoreJune 18th, 2007
The Toronto Star recently described Canadian Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier as optimistic about the mission in Afghanistan.[i] At the same time, an impressive (and depressing) array of independent reporting from Afghanistan is consistent in describing Afghanistan’s security situation as dire and deteriorating.[ii] Background briefings and roundtables involving Canadian military officials are consistently […]
Read MoreJune 13th, 2007
A central feature of the 50 th anniversary of the first Pugwash Conference, commemorated with an international experts’ workshop (July 5-7) on “revitalizing nuclear disarmament” at the site of the first conference in 1957, was a ceremony to present the medal for the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize to the Pugwash Peace Exchange. The Pugwash Peace […]
Read MoreMay 30th, 2007
This year’s Preparatory Committee for the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference has confirmed two central realities: First, if the ailing NPT is to fulfill its foundational role in advancing global security it must be solidly balanced on its three equal pillars: disarmament, nonproliferation, and peaceful uses. Second, the international community is now well […]
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