The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) will guest post a few of PSR's Iran entries. The first one is called "Rafsanjani Has Not Caved." Read more »

A leading chemical weapon nonproliferation expert told a Washington crowd how lessons learned on the road to zero by the Chemical Weapon Convention regime could be applied to the nuclear nonproliferation regime. The Washington based Wilson Center hosted Ambassador Rogelio Pfirter June 16, Director-General of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Read more »

We need to increase the warning time of our nuclear weapons to give the President more decision making time. About one thousands U.S. nuclear weapons are on day-to-day alert, ready to launch in minutes notice. U.S. nuclear strategy still revolves around a Russian threat, but Russia hates the idea of de-alerting our nuclear weapons. Read more »

The most important thing to note at this time is a growing rift between power players in Iran and that violence towards protestors is intensifying. Read more »

Fires, tear gas and blood are flowing in Tehran today (June 20), but the crowds are thinner than expected. The Green Movement (made of reformist supporters in Iran) is being seriously beaten by police. At least 100 people have been seriously injured. European and Australian Embassies have opened up for the injured in Tehran. Read more »

Students were stabbed to death Sunday in their dormitory at Tehran University by Basij (an arm of the Revolutionary Guards). The Iranian government is silent on the issue, but it is starting to hit the news. Academics are resigning because of the killings, and Speaker of Parliament, Ali Larijani is calling for an inquiry from the Interior Ministry into the killings. Read more »

At 12:05 Mecca time Iran’s Supreme Leader spoke to the people. He was with supporters of Ahmadinejad. I will put up an analysis with a shorter summary soon. Here is most of the text translated into English this morning live from my notes, of course it is not perfect, since it went from Farsi/Persian to English: Read more »

I had the pleasure recently of attending the Sierra Club’s Midwest “New Energy Future” conference, where I shared information from PSR on the health impacts of global warming. This included our new fact sheets, which I hope you have seen. Read more »
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I know that a few people doubted the possibility I offered on the French position last week in a post. We will soon find out for sure what that position is. The French are sending a high level diplomat, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bernard Kouchner, to address the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva June 23. Minister Kouchner will speak about the French position on disarmament. Read more »

On June 18 at 2:50pm an anonymous and reliable twitter from inside Iran gave us a quick translation of Mousavi’s speech to the people: I have come due to concerns of current political and social conditions - to defend the rights of the nation. I have come to improve Iran’s international relations. I have come to tell the world and get back Iran’s pride, our dignity and our future. Read more »
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Horrible News from Iran Iran’s reformist supporters of Presidential Candidate Mousavi took to the streets and were pushed back by Iranian police June 13 (picture at TMP). Seven people were killed. This is getting really sad and extremely frustrating. Read more »

Looks like incumbent President Ahmadinejad is going to be called the winner of Iran’s Presidential race. Ahmadinejad must win over 50% of the votes to declare victory in this first round. If not, he will have to run a second time against reformist candidate Mousavi. Mousavi will have a greater chance to win if there is a second round. Read more »

A bill passed the House of Representatives last night that would add 25 nonproliferation jobs to the State Department, along with a whole host of measures to strengthen U.S. arms control and nonproliferation policy. Read more »

Indonesian Foreign Minister Wirajuda said June 8 in Washington at the Carnegie Endowment that Indonesia supported the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1995, but “naturally we were dismayed” when nuclear weapon states did not ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Read more »

Jonathan Medalia at the Congressional Research Service just put out a report on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Here is one key point he makes about Congress’ upcoming floor debate/bargain: Read more »

In a former post I mentioned that France at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) meeting in NYC this past May was “an interesting player” and had not supported the final document of the meeting. I was not implying that France is pushing back a nuclear weapon free world movement. Read more »

Senate Republican, John McCain, embraces Obama’s vision, which he claims was actually Reagan’s vision, of a world free of nuclear weapons in a Senate floor speech June 3. He quoted President Ronald Reagan saying, “The only value in possessing nuclear weapons is to make sure they can't be used ever. I know I speak for people everywhere when I say our dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the Earth.” Senator McCain said “that is my dream too.” Read more »

Oliver Meier, the Arms Control Associations International Representative based in Germany, reflected on the German debate and the argument to keep U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe at the conference today. “All German political parties, except the conservative party, are in favor of withdrawing U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe now,” said Meier. Adding that, “the outcome of Germany’s elections will not fundamentally affect the Foreign Ministry’s position on this.” Read more »

Today at the conference, we had an intervention by Camille Grand, Director of the Foundation pour la Recherche Strategic (a leading French Security thinktank). Camille Grand said that nations in the past accepted deep cuts and drastic down-sizing of their nuclear arsenals, because they believed their security situation was improving. In Asia, a region where the security situation is worsening, Grand pointed out that nuclear weapon arsenals are growing. This is one of the greatest challenges to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) regime at the moment. Read more »

Dr. Rebecca Johnson, Director of the Acronym Institute, made an appearance today at the conference and commented on recent Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) action. With over 20 years of experience in the field of nuclear nonproliferation and international diplomacy, it is not surprising that she said a few very important things to say on the topic. Rebecca reflected on the NPT Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meeting in New York May 4-15. It was the last meeting of state parties before the NPT 2010 review conference. Read more »