Search results for

China’s regional relationships

For the Asia-Pacific region's five powers, it's important for both economic and security reasons that they achieve common ground and work together.
Zanskar River, in the Himalayas

Climate change and water scarcity will increase risk of nuclear catastrophe in South Asia

Nowhere is the relation between the climate crisis and the increased threat of nuclear war clearer than in South Asia, where approximately 700 million people in India, Pakistan, China, and Bangladesh depend on the shared waters of the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra river basins. These river systems, fed by Himalayan glaciers, are diminishing markedly due to climate change.
road closed by flooding

How plants react to climate change could make floods a whole lot worse

“Plants matter more than I think anyone thought they would.”
nuclear plant France

Why countries still must prioritize action to curb nuclear terrorism

When a Superman-shaped drone crashed into a French nuclear plant on July 3 officials were lucky it was just Greenpeace demonstrating vulnerabilities at the facility, and not a terrorist group intent on attacking the site.

Climate change could be the next great military threat

The United States currently faces one of its greatest and most misunderstood threats: climate change. And as changing climate patterns affect the water supplies critical to human life and agriculture, as sea levels rise and threaten coastal communities, and as changes in the environment increasingly weaken marginal states, the implications for U.S. defense will only grow.

International roundtable series launches on nuclear disarmament and economic development

Today on its website, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists launches a new monthly Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Development Roundtable series in which experts from emerging and developing countries debate crucial, timely topics in nuclear energy, nuclear proliferation, and economic development.
camera-based remote monitoring

Remote Monitoring: Verifying geographical arms limits

“Active tags,” attached to dual-capable missiles, could help states to monitor remotely defined arms limits without having to rely on resource-intensive human inspections.
27966633388_194dafea34_z.jpg

Benefits of curbing climate change far outweigh costs

It actually costs more to do nothing.

Interview: CalPERS’ Anne Simpson on the climate change power of investment managers

In this interview, Anne Simpson, director of global governance at CalPERS, California’s public employees’ pension fund, and a noted activist investor, explains her approach to encouraging fossil fuel companies to clean up their acts.
World leaders celebrate with hands up after signing Paris climate accords at COP21

Can climate action gain traction at COP26 in Glasgow?

Experts say an increased focus on climate justice could help propel talks.

The limits to international cooperation on Iran

Far more is at stake in diplomacy with Iran than a solution to the Iranian nuclear program.

Australia’s nuclear dilemma

"What will make a focus on nuclear security a permanent feature of what we do?" asked Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit held in Seoul in late March. Experts agree that the 2014 summit must go further in securing nuclear materials from disasters and, most important, terrorist threats -- but agreement on precisely how to do this is harder to come by. In this regard, Australia has much to offer.

To sanction North Korea, sanction those that won’t—Russia and China

As North Korea readies for a nuclear test, Russia and China must be held accountable for failing to implement their international sanctions obligations.
Nurse cares for patient.

The known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns of COVID-19

Where did COVID-19 come from? In the search for answers, we face known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.
President Joe Biden in a photo from 2016. Credit: US Embassy Tel Aviv. CC BY 2.0.

Biden’s pivot to Asia is missing something: diplomats

The Biden administration has begun to show its commitment to allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region, but those efforts are undercut by the slow pace of diplomatic appointments and the selection of political nominees for critical diplomatic posts.
An after-picture of the Urakami Tenshudo (Catholic Church) in Nagasaki, which was destroyed in 1945 by the fission of about one kilogram of plutonium. Credit: Public domain image accessed via Wikimedia Commons.

Plutonium programs in East Asia and Idaho will challenge the Biden administration

The separation of plutonium by civilian reprocessing has far exceeded plutonium use in breeder and light-water reactor fuel with the result being a global stockpile of over 300 tons of civilian but weapon-usable plutonium. By the International Atomic Energy Agency’s metric, this is enough for almost 40,000 Nagasaki bombs.

2008 world nuclear industry status report: Asia

Six Asian countries possess nuclear power programs--China, India, Japan, Pakistan, South Korea, and Taiwan. In 2007, they generated 523 terawatt hours--or 20 percent--of the world's nuclear electricity. That, however, represented a 3.5 percent drop in the continent's nuclear generation when compared to 2006. The decrease was mainly due to the shutdown of the seven-unit plant at Kashiwazaki, Japan, which was damaged by a 6.8-magnitude earthquake in July 2007.
atoms for peace

Exchanging atoms for influence: Competition in Southeast Asia’s nuclear market

To satisfy the potential Southeast Asian nuclear market, China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan are stepping in. Given the enormous strategic as well as economic benefits that nuclear exports offer, countries that make forays into the region will likely wield significant influence in the region for years to come.

Politics, race, and religion: Pandemic misinformation courses through the Southeast Asian internet

The misinformation ecosystem in Southeast Asia continues to thrive in the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The struggle for a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia

When Kazakhstan's Parliament ratified a treaty establishing a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia earlier this month, the effort to ban nuclear weapons from the region took its final step. Throughout the Cold War, Central Asia had been the epicenter of the Soviet nuclear testing program--with the Soviet military conducting 456 nuclear tests in Kazakhstan alone. Appropriately then, the treaty was signed by representatives from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in September 2006 at Semipalatinsk, the main Soviet test site in Kazakhstan.