April 2006

Diplomatic, not aid sanctions more effective Dr. Chipman is in the country to confirm the participation of Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee in the Shangri-La Dialogue 2006, a conclave of defence ministers from the Asia-Pacific region to be held in Singapore from June 2-4. The conclave, ostensibly of an informal nature, will include sessions on India and China as emerging global powers, maritime security in the region and counter-insurgency warfare in the 21st century. He will be back later this year to invite the defence minister to...
Regional security 'is vital to world peace' Dr Abdul Ghaffar quoted from His Majesty King Hamad's address at the Second Gulf Dialogue in December 2005 where the King said that for the world to be free, it had to be secure and stable. The Minister also referred to the King's statement that comprehensive stability in the region was the best way to ensure global energy supplies.
IAEA report says Iran defies UN demands Mark Fitzpatrick, nuclear analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said interest in ElBaradei's report focussed on how it assessed Iran's claims to rapid progress towards mastering the enrichment process. "Answers to such questions will be important in helping the world understand the degree of urgency of the crisis and scope for diplomacy. If the IAEA cannot say much about Iran's progress, then policymakers will rely more on worst-case scenarios,"...
Q&A: Iran's nuclear programme Estimates on how long it would take Iran to manufacture a nuclear bomb range from a couple of years to a decade. The London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies believes it is on course to produce enough nuclear material within three years.
Report likely to find Iran defying UN Mark Fitzpatrick, nuclear analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said world leaders would look for any substantiation in the report of Iran's claims to rapid progress towards mastering the enrichment process. "Answers to such questions will be important in helping the world understand the degree of urgency of the crisis and scope for diplomacy. If the IAEA cannot say much about Iran's progress, then policy-makers will rely more on worst-case...
NATO debates Australian partnership Jean-Yves Hine, an expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said the partnership idea underlined NATO's transformation from a Cold War body ensuring mutual defence to an organisation taking on a global security role. "NATO is everywhere," he said, noting its missions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan and its disaster relief operations in Pakistan. "It's quite right that other countries, such as Australia, have a say in its defence planning," he...
New government doesn't slow Iraq killings And the protracted legislative squabbling before the new prime minister-designate, Nouri al-Maliki, was picked may have allowed the militias to break free of the limited control that political parties have over them and to step up sectarian killings, said Toby Dodge, an Iraq specialist at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London
The Taliban Resurgence in Afghanistan It's unclear. The Taliban has never appeared on the U.S. State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, nor does it appear on similar lists maintained by Britain, the European Union, Canada, and Australia. Yet since the Taliban was driven from power in Afghanistan, the group is believed to be behind numerous attacks that have killed workers for nongovernmental organizations, civilians, government officials, policemen, and Pakistani and Afghan soldiers. Christopher Langton, a...
India loathes Tigers, fears impact "It's very complicated in the sense that the LTTE continues to be an organisation India would like to be banned worldwide," said Rahul Roy-Chaudhury, a South Asia specialist at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "But there is a sense that because of the volatile politics in South India there is no choice but to tell the government to stop the strikes," he said.
Can the U.S. Win 'Asymetric' Wars? The dilemmas facing the American military in the new era of irregular warfare are analysed by Professor Lawrence Freedman in his latest work, The Transformation of Strategic Affairs, a booklet published by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. In a neat summary he writes that 'Washington overstated the threat posed by pre-war Iraq and understated the problems of post-war Iraq.'
Chances rising of military strike on Iran "I think it's more than just putting pressure on Iran. I think it's a real possibility," argued Mark Fitzpatrick, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). "The (US) administration is looking at it seriously, not for using it today but if all else fails, as a last option."
British Report Analyzes West's Failure Mark Fitzpatrick, director of Non-Proliferation Programme for International Institute for Strategic Studies" took part in a lecture. He said that Iran would probably acquire a nuclear weapon within a period of three to five years and added, "The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) announced it was expecting this to happen within 10 years. But it is cautious when speculating about the Iranian nuclear program following the mistakes it made when it speculated about the former Iraqi...
Georgia Promotes Property Payback At a March 31 meeting in the Russian city of Vladikavkaz, organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Georgian government officials met for the first time with Ossetian refugee representatives, and experts from non-governmental and international organizations, to pitch their message.
Iran Advances Could Speed Nuclear Process A private group, the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, also said in a recent report that the fact that Iran had hedged on providing information about the P-2 centrifuges raised worries that the more advanced machines might be the basis of a secret program.
Iran claim on nuclear plan raises new fears So far his answers have been vague, investigators say. Iran, for its part, has said virtually nothing about its P-2 program. The International Institute for Strategic Studies, an arms analysis group in London, said in a report last year that Iran's failure to provide more information about its P-2 program led many analysts to suspect that the advanced centrifuges formed "the nucleus of a secret enrichment program."
Iran and the nuclear spin cycle According to a study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, with 1000 working centrifuges at Natanz, it would take just over two years to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb - without the IAEA safeguards which are currently in place. With 3000 centrifuges - the number Iran has told the Europeans it wants to install at Natanz - it would take 271 days to produce the same amount of weapons-grade fuel.
Iran and 'The Bomb' Iran's nuclear programme consists of the following; a 5 MW research reactor (bought from the US in the 1960s), a 30 KW miniature neutron source reactor, a 1000 MW reactor currently being constructed via a contract with Russia, a uranium enrichment research laboratory in Natanz, and a heavy water facility in Arak, which is also under construction. But the greatest fear for the international community lies in its enrichment capabilities, which if further developed to the level scientists call...
Iran expanding, reinforcing atomic sites "It will be very difficult to erase the knowledge they have achieved," said Mark Fitzpatrick, nuclear affairs expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
Iran is racing down nuclear route Mark Fitzpatrick, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, argued that "negotiating with a country to roll back" a programme was rarely successful -witness the success of North Korea in holding on to its work in the face of intense international pressure.
Iran follows Saddam in defying the UN A dossier published last year by the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated that, under perfect conditions, 3,000 centrifuges could turn out 25kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU), enough for a single nuclear weapon, in less than a year. However, the institute estimated that the facilities at Natanz were poorly configured for HEU production, a weakness that could double the optimum timescale.