North Korea announced its first test of a nuclear device last week, setting off hand-wringing around the world that a newly armed Pyongyang might sell nuclear weapons to rogue states or terrorists.
But another threat, more likely and more dangerous, may emerge. Pyongyang's test could encourage "near-nuclear" proliferation -- a world in which states master key technologies that are ostensibly for harmless energy-related purposes but can be quickly adapted for deadly, offensive ends.
A world in which countries have the capability to go nuclear on short notice is fraught with peril. Over the next decade, keep your eye on five nations in particular that may pursue that path: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/13/AR2006101301398.html
My own feeling is that the North Korean nuclear program is being done to make sure the current leaders family remains in control of the nation after his demise. This is not lost on the world's dictators. The following article is a must read: THE NIGHTMARE AFTER IRAQ
Kim Jong Il’s succession was aided by the link that his father had established in the North Korean mind between the Kim Family Regime and the Choson Dynasty, which ruled the Korean peninsula for 500 years, starting in the late fourteenth century. Expertly tutored by his father, Kim consolidated power and manipulated the Chinese, the Americans, and the South Koreans into subsidizing him throughout the 1990s. And Kim is hardly impulsive: he has the equivalent of think tanks studying how best to respond to potential attacks from the United States and South Korea—attacks that themselves would be reactions to crises cleverly instigated by the North Korean government in Pyongyang. “The regime constitutes an extremely rational bunch of killers,” Lankov says.
Yet for all Kim’s canniness, there is evidence that he may be losing his edge. And that may be reason to worry: totalitarian regimes close to demise are apt to get panicky and do rash things. The weaker North Korea gets, the more dangerous it becomes. The question that should be of greatest concern to the U.S. military in the Pacific—and the question that will likely determine the global balance of power in Asia for generations—is, What happens when North Korea collapses?
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Fariba Ahmedi, a member of Afghanistan's parliament, says the murder of women's rights activist Safia Amajan "will not derail women from the path we are on." Ms. Amajan, a former teacher and school administrator and the head of Kandahar province's women's affairs department, was shot to death on her way to work. She was an outspoken critic of the Taleban. A Taleban commander claimed responsibility for the attack and threatened death to other Afghan women. http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/2006-10-13-voa4.cfm
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New York's junior senator had about $15.8 million on hand at the end of September, according to campaign finance filings released yesterday, and early this month she donated more than $1 million to other Democratic campaign groups. Spencer spokesman Rob Ryan said, "It's obvious: Sen. Clinton is using this money to fund her run for President." http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/story/461566p-388379c.html
A TIMETABLE that would lead to power sharing in Northern Ireland has been put in place following talks at St Andrews.
A target date for devolution of March 26 next year has been put in place by the British and Irish governments.
Parties from both sides of the divide, including the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein, now have until November 10 to respond to the proposals.
If all sides agree a first and deputy first minister would be nominated on November 24. http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1523432006&format=print
Female students at a new Islamic school will be made to wear head scarves regardless of their religion, it was revealed yesterday.
The Madani High School in Leicester will be required by law to accept 10 per cent of its 600 pupils from a non-Muslim background.
But girls who are not Muslim will still have to abide by a rule insisting all female pupils cover their heads as part of the uniform.
Iraq is already in a state of "limited civil war" and progress towards making its army viable is "faltering," a leading U.S. expert says. "Iraq is already in a state of limited civil war," wrote Anthony H. Cordesman, who holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a prominent Washington think tank, in an executive summary of his new report published last week and entitled "Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil War: Can Iraqi Forces do the Job?"
Cordesman wrote: "What began as a small resistance movement centered around loyalists to the Baath and Saddam Hussein has expanded to include neo-Salafi Sunni terrorism, become a broadly based Sunni insurgency, and now a broader sectarian and ethnic conflict."
Although the Bush administration remains publicly upbeat about the rapid development of Iraq's 300,000-man strong security forces, including an envisaged 10-division army, Cordesman wrote that the development of these security forces remains "slow or faltering."
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Assessing_The_New_Iraqi_Army_In_Late_2006_999.html