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In the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, an idea once confined to the conservative ‘wingnut’ fringe of the Republican party has morphed into the party’s mainstream – the belief that intentionally allowing a Federal default on paying the National debt might be an acceptable price to pay to make a political point by forcing the Obama administration to assume ownership of a fiscal mess created by the previous Republican president.

Bean sprouts have had a roller coaster week in the ongoing investigation into the source of E. Coli contamination which has claimed 31 lives and sickened 3,000 around the world.  After being identified as the source for contamination earlier in the week and then being exonerated, German officials have once again tapped bean sprouts as […]

Last weekend, the Arab Spring came to India.  Swami Ramdev, yoga guru and television celebrity, staged a massive hunger strike designed to protest government corruption.  The event, which involved thousands of his followers, was ended by a police raid. This isn’t something new for India though.  Thousands of people in multiple cities in India protested […]

Two of my FPA blogger colleagues offer differing assessments of the war in Afghanistan.  In the optimistic camp is Gail Harris of the FPA U.S. Defense blog. She participated in several Bloggers Roundtables sponsored by the U.S. Defense Department and blogged about it in three parts (here, here, and here).  She notes that NATO is […]

Beware CTBT Cheaters!  We have a Garmin and we know how to use it! In addition to finding your way home and locating enemy targets, researchers at The Ohio State University have found another use for our little Garmin: detecting clandestine nuclear tests. The Global Security Newswire reports today on the work of Ralph Von […]

On the HIV/AIDS front, news has been coming fast and furiously this week and last, as the United Nations conducts its High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS, South Africa hosts its HIV/AIDS conference in Durban and the media takes the opportunity to commorate the 30-year anniversary of the global fight against AIDS.  I thought I’d link to […]

In the context of all the Iranian nuke news, Reuters has run a couple of basic, layperson-accessible FAQs, or “Factboxes”, on uranium enrichment and how uranium ore becomes civilian nuke fuel.  They are reasonably accurate.

“Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis” published by the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research includes commentary-type articles with analysis on existing and emerging trends on topics such as terrorism and political violence, homeland security, religion and violence, and all other areas of security, broadly defined. Please see the June 2011 issue for an […]

Recent events in North Africa and the Middle East have brought to the forefront the fragility of government institutions and have questioned the legitimacy of authoritarian regimes in a number of developing nations.  The right form of governance for the right society has never been easy to identify.  A lot of times, societies have adopted […]

Longtime nuke journalist and now Senior Associate at Carnegie Mark Hibbs has written an update on the ongoing saga regarding the Dair Alzour site in Syria.  Readers will recall that the site was bombed four years ago by the Israeli military because it believed, along with the U.S., that the Syrians were hiding a DPRK-supplied […]

Brazil has relied on sugar cane-derived ethanol for much of its auto fleet for years. However, the industry has hit a soft patch in investment. Since 2005, the country has built 117 ethanol mills, but after the five currently coming on line are finished there are no plans for further expansion. When you consider that […]

On this anniversary of the D-Day invasion that set the allies on course to victory in WWII I wanted to write a few words to commemorate the day but this day is now almost over and my draft is rather meager. After all, so many words have already been written about D-Day, what can I […]