STANDING OPPOSITE TO REALITY?

Today there are various disputes and controversies found in the World, which are not only dangerous to global peace but also dividing the World Community in various blocks. How two nations deal with each other to resolve disputes largely depends upon the specific circumstances prevailing in their region but there are some “global issues” which involve United Nations and World Super Powers against single country hence dragging other “weak” or “dependent” nations to formulate their foreign policies to “fit” the demands and desires of those super powers to corner that victim country. The demands or desires of super powers are usually nothing but the mistrust or fear or confliction of interest or historic brawl or any other future fear from that particular victim nation. How the reality is derived from one dispute or issue is not universal constant but the reflection of super power’s interests. Reality goes that way where absolute power exists. That’s why one oppressed country’s stance (truth) is not listened and recognized by the other nations, as balance of power is not there. We can count number of disputes and controversies around us where “Reality” is the name of the military supremacy or economical viability.
Who will determine the “Reality” within Iran vs. US led Western Block conflict? Will Iran drop atom bomb on Israel or whether Iranian missiles can hit the Europe are only assumptions today but from US led Western powers to curb Iran from nuclear technology is very meaningful as Iran has denied for preparing atom bomb and clearly announced its policy against the any sort of preparations for making atom bomb but despite that, for West, “Reality” is only what they are claiming. Atom bombs are used only when war is on. Iran alone is not in a position to start war in Middle East against Israel or any other country. The only left-power in region is Israel with bad past record. Is it not in the knowledge of USA and European countries that Israel has a secret plan to start war in Middle East to complete US old agenda of forming “New Middle East” and as a precautionary measure Iran is pressed hard to stop Uranium Enrichments? It’s a well-known reality that Israel has the intentions to expand its borders up to Iraq, Jordan and Hijaz (Saudi Arabia) and it is possible only when there is an anarchy in the region and Israel involves in war with neighbor countries. Every country knows that Israel is an un-declared nuclear power and has nuclear warheads in its arsenal.
Apparently USA supports a Palestinian State but its over all ME policies are full of contradictions. It fully supports Israel with economical and military aids and assures its safety and solidarity but on the other hand strictly opposes the any sort of aids for Palestinians particularly in Gaza, which is besieged by Israel since several months. USA does not take notice and talk about nukes of Israel but opposes Iran with full force. USA teaches the lesson of democracy to whole World but opposes Iran’s elected governments and supports Arab monarchies.
India had already signed an agreement with USA for Civil Nuclear Cooperation and recently inked the same sort of agreement with Canada whereas agreements with Russia, France and Japan are under process. Under the blessings of USA, India is enjoying all the nuclear supports and cooperation with Western countries despite the fact that India has not yet signed NPT. India and Canada or USA are independent countries – they can enter into any sort of agreements but the agreements concerning nuclear issues are not ordinary agreements and should be processed under IAEA and should be available to all other countries following the precautionary requisites set by the IAEA. No country asks the clarification either from Canada or India but when the matter comes to other countries, do India or any other country has a right to ask clarification over the nuclear treaty between two proven nuke capable countries?
Nuclear Technology and International Politics are now two sides of the same coin of Super Powers. On Nuclear Technology, Super Powers want to keep their monopoly and do not want to give the right to any other nation for gaining expertise on nuclear technology. All of their efforts are based on the name of non-proliferation of atomic weapons but practically their efforts are biased and do not reflect what they say to the World as Super Powers are only interested in selling arms as a major source of income.

Why has Russia changed its stance on Iran's Nuclear Program ?

Updated on : Saturday, July 24, 2010

After 4th round of Russia’s backed sanctions against Iran, the differences are rising between Moscow and Tehran. Russia was considered as a great supporter of Iran against US led alliance campaign for its nuclear program.

How did the Moscow change its stance about Iran’s nuclear program that "….. In a meeting with his ambassadors, Medvedev said we have knowledge that Iran is moving towards the bomb," – the answer may be somewhere in a series of the meetings of Russian President and US President on different occasions and most probably reaching to an understanding and later on “deal” with Washington on various strategic issues regarding Central Asia and Middle East.

Russia is fervently interested in seeking a big share in World Politics likewise in past and Washington-Tehran conflict is giving it that opportunity for the time being. That’s why, Iranian President said in the footage filmed at a gathering in Tehran on July 23, 2010, "We regret that Medvedev has become the mouthpiece for the plans of Iran's enemies,".

Hillary Clinton arrives in Moscow for nuclear, ME talks

Updated on : Thursday, March 18, 2010

MOSCOW: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday arrived in Russia for crucial talks on disarmament and a meeting of the international quartet on the Middle East, a French news agency correspondent reported.

Clinton arrived at a Moscow airport at around 0430 GMT. She was due in the afternoon to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for bilateral talks expected to push forward attempts to agree a new US-Russia disarmament treaty.

Russia, US close in on nuclear disarmament deal

Updated on : Tuesday, March 02, 2010

PARIS: Russia and the United States are getting close to a deal on reducing their nuclear arsenals through a follow-up to the START treaty; Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev and US officials said Monday.

"We are close to agreeing all issues," Medvedev told reporters in Paris. "We are already agreeing on the nuances of the text. I hope that these talks will be brought to a conclusion in the nearest future."

Negotiations on a replacement to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) between Moscow and Washington, which expired December 5, have dragged on for months despite reports that the two sides are near agreement.

In Washington, senior US officials speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed Monday that a deal was in the offing, with one adding that President Barack Obama plans "dramatic reductions" in the country's nuclear arsenal.

"We expect the negotiations will resume in Geneva on March 9," said another, referring to the talks with Russia, explaining that the negotiating teams had headed to their respective capitals for a "last round" of consultations.

The broad outlines of a new START replacement treaty on nuclear weapons have been clear since a summit in July, when Obama and Medvedev agreed to slash the number of warheads on either side to between 1,500 and 1,675.

Obama's 1st yr marked by diplomacy, but few results

Updated on : Sunday, January 17, 2010

WASHINGTON: A year after coming to office, President Barack Obama has reopened diplomatic lines of communication, but still has little to show for his efforts on the toughest US foreign policy questions.

While former president George W. Bush's foreign policy was driven by the necessities of the "war on terror," Obama's Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared the new administration would begin "a new era of engagement."

Whether dealing with the global economic crisis or the climate change summit in Copenhagen, Obama has demonstrated his conviction that the United States cannot solve international problems alone.

He has also worked to repair relations with Russia, engage in "strategic dialogue" with China and pledged the United States will no longer engage in torture and will respect the United Nations.

Obama's personal popularity has bolstered the impact of key international speeches, including his address to the Muslim world delivered in Cairo and his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo.

But the US president has also risked the wrath of critics by extending a hand to US adversaries including Cuba, Venezuela and Iran.

"He has put Washington back in the international negotiating business," wrote Leslie Gelb, the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, in The American Interest magazine.

"Obama has also cleared the international air of a lot of anti-Americanism," he added.

"His words have prepared the ground for the subsequent application of real American power. The problem is that the power shoe still hasn't dropped."

Three foreign policy issues have dominated Obama's agenda: the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Iran's nuclear program and the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The first of the three remains deadlocked as a result of Israeli government intransigence and Palestinian divisions. After a long year of futile efforts, Washington has reportedly offered its own peace plan for consideration.

But it has failed to convince Israel to halt settlement construction, and has seen little progress towards creating a strong or unified Palestinian side able to pursue negotiations.

On the issue of Iran's nuclear program, Obama made good on a promise to pursue dialogue with Tehran, only to see his overture rebuffed.

Iran's intransigence in the face of US engagement has ultimately strengthened international support for new sanctions against Iran, experts said.

Tehran has not only refused to negotiate, but even announced it would build more nuclear sites.

In dealing with the war in Afghanistan, Obama eventually announced he would boost the number of US troops in the country and has also sought to strengthen relations with Pakistan, even as he ordered an increase in the number of US airstrikes against militants in the country.

He faces rising US casualties in the war, and the difficult task of dealing with an Afghan government that came to power after fraud-tainted elections.

On all three policy questions, Obama has weakened the impact of his new approach by maintaining more-or-less similar tactics to his predecessor George W. Bush, said Amjad Atallah, a policy expert at the New America Foundation.

"Even in Afghanistan, where you see the most difference (because) the neo-cons never cared about Afghanistan, the policy is very similar to the Bush administration's strategy for Iraq: surge and withdraw," he said.

Writing in Foreign Affairs magazine, former president Jimmy Carter's diplomacy guru Zbigniew Brzezinski praised Obama for having "completely reconceptualized US foreign policy with respect to several centrally important geopolitical issues."

He cited Obama's commitment to nuclear disarmament, his decision to treat China as a "geopolitical partner" and his desire to be a "fair-minded and assertive mediator" in the Middle East peace process.

But he noted that Obama's efforts have so far "generated more expectations than strategic breakthroughs."

Ultimately, he added, "how Obama handles these three urgent and interrelated issues -- the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the Iranian dilemma and the Afghan-Pakistani conflict -- will determine the United States' global role for the foreseeable future."

Russia in secret plan to save Earth from asteroid: official

Updated on : Wednesday, December 30, 2009

MOSCOW: Russian scientists will soon meet in secret to work on a plan for saving Earth from a possible catastrophic collision with a giant asteroid in 26 years, the head of Russia's space agency said Wednesday.

"We will soon hold a closed meeting of our collegium, the science-technical council to look at what can be done" to prevent the asteroid Apophis from slamming into the planet in 2036, Anatoly Perminov told Voice of Russia radio.

"We are talking about people's lives," Perminov was quoted by news agencies as telling the radio station.

"Better to spend a few hundred million dollars to create a system for preventing a collision than to wait until it happens and hundreds of thousands of people are killed," he said.

The Apophis asteroid measures approximately 350 metres (1,150 feet) in diameter and a local news agency said that if it were to hit Earth when it passes nearby in 2036 it would create a new desert the size of France.

Perminov said a serious plan to prevent such a catastrophe would probably be an international project involving Russian, European, US and Chinese space experts.

Another local news agency quoted him as saying that one option would be to build a new "space apparatus" designed solely for the purpose of diverting Apophis from a collision course with Earth safely.

"There won't be any nuclear explosions," Perminov said. "Everything will be done according to the laws of physics. We will examine all of this."

In a statement dated from October and posted on its website, the US space agency NASA said new calculations on the path of Apophis indicated "a significantly reduced likelihood of a hazardous encounter with Earth in 2036."

"Updated computational techniques and newly available data indicate the probability of an Earth encounter on April 13, 2036, for Apophis has dropped from one-in-45,000 to about four-in-a-million," NASA said.

The news agency said the asteroid was expected to pass within 30,000 kilometres (18,600 miles) of Earth in 2029 -- closer than some geo-stationary satellites -- and could shift course to hit Earth seven years after that.

10 feared dead following a plane crash in Russia

Updated on : Saturday, November 7, 2009

MOSCOW: Ten people are believed to have been killed when a Russian long-range anti-submarine aircraft, a Tu-142, crashed in the Tatar Strait in Russia's Far East.

The plane was said to have been on a routine training mission when it lost radio contact with air traffic control.

The emergency services say, despite the bad weather, they have located the wreckage site some 15-20 kilometres from the coastline, and are now searching for surviving crewmembers.

Russian space chief proposes nuclear spaceship

Updated on Thursday, October 29, 2009

MOSCOW: Russia's space agency is planning to build a new spaceship with a nuclear engine, its chief said Wednesday.

Anatoly Perminov told a government meeting Wednesday that the preliminary design could be ready by 2012. He said it will then take nine more years and 17 billion rubles ($600 million, 400 million euros) to build the ship.

"The implementation of this project will allow us to reach a new technological level surpassing foreign developments," Perminov told a meeting which focused on communications and space technologies.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev urged the Cabinet to consider providing the necessary funding.

"It's a very serious project," Medvedev said. "We need to find the money."

Perminov's ambitious statement contrasted with the current state of the Russian space program, and sounded more like a plea for extra government funds than a detailed proposal.

Russia is using 40-year old Soyuz booster rockets and capsules to send crews to the International Space Station. Development of a replacement rocket and a prospective spaceship with a conventional propellant has dragged on with no end in sight.

Perminov described the proposed spaceship as a "unique breakthrough project," but offered few details.

He said that the ship will have a megawatt-class nuclear reactor, as opposed to small nuclear reactors that powered Soviet satellites. The Cold-War era Soviet spy satellites had reactors which produced just a few kilowatts of power and had a lifespan of just about a year.

Russia ready for nuclear cuts in US deal: President

Sunday, June 21, 2009

MOSCOW: Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said his country is ready for a reduction of strategic weapons in an arms control agreement with the United States. Medvedev is due to meet President Barack Obama next month on replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Medvedev says Moscow wants binding arrangements outlined in one single, efficient document. He said Russia wants "a verifiable and real" reduction of offensive weapons as part of that deal. Russian officials have said previously that U.S. plans for a missile defense system will be problematic in the talks, though the US said the shield is designed against threats from Iran, not Russia. Medvedev spoke to reporters today after meeting Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende.

‘Expect unexpected in Pakistan, Ukraine, Russia’: Eurasia

Updated at: 1605 PST, Tuesday, April 28, 2009

LONDON: Pakistan, Ukraine, Russia, Nigeria and Mexico are the places where unexpected political change could have the most impact on world markets in 2009, the Eurasia Group risk consultancy said in a report on Tuesday.

In a special report on the world's top 10 "fat tails", relatively low-likelihood but potentially high-impact events, Eurasia Group identified the chance of a military takeover in Pakistan as the most potentially significant unexpected development that might transform global geopolitics.

Other risks outlined included unrest in Russia, collapse in Nigeria and secularists lashing out in Turkey, almost all made more likely by the impact of the global financial crisis.

"Each of these scenarios remains unlikely," Eurasia Group president Ian Bremmer said.

"None of them represent our "call" for any of these countries. But in each case, the impact of the global economic meltdown, has dramatically increased the likelihood of (such scenarios) occurring from 2 or 3 percent six months ago to 10 to 20 percent, or 30 percent in the case Pakistan, now."

Recent "fat tail" events largely unpredicted by analysts would include post-election violence in Kenya early last year or the August war between Russia and Georgia, both of which had dramatic market impact.