A few weeks before the tsunami struck Fukushima’s uranium reactors and shattered public faith in nuclear power, China revealed that it was launching a rival technology to build a safer, cleaner, and ultimately cheaper network of reactors based on thorium. This passed unnoticed –except by a small of band of thorium enthusiasts – but it may mark the passage of strategic leadership in energy policy from an inert and status-quo West to a rising technological power willing to break the mould. If China’s dash for thorium power succeeds, it will vastly alter the global energy landscape and may avert a calamitous conflict over resources as Asia’s industrial revolutions clash head-on with the West’s entrenched consumption.
Category: Afghanistan
Obama nominates Hagel, Brennan President Barack Obama on Monday named his counterterrorism chief, John Brennan, to head the Central Intelligence Agency in his second term. In choosing Brennan to lead the spy agency, Obama…
International analysts have launched a debate about the probability of a start of a new world war. The plans to deploy Patriot missile defense systems on the Turkish-Syrian border were another excuse for this discussion….
The CIA Is Taking Over the Dirty Work in Fighting America’s Wars Obama has nominated a veteran – not a chickenhawk – to serve as Secretary of Defense. The Washington Post reports that Chuck Hagel:…
Democracy, Terrorism and the Secret State: From the Era of Gladio to the War on Terror “You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, unknown people far from any political game. The reason…
Washington’s quest to bring Tehran to its knees continues to accelerate. And in turn, ordinary Iranians increasingly find themselves caught in the crosshairs. As the Washington Post reports on the latest round of Iran sanctions signed by President…
If Barack Obama were to marshal America’s vast scientific and strategic resources behind a new Manhattan Project, he might reasonably hope to reinvent the global energy landscape and sketch an end to our dependence on…
Introduction Democracy, a form of representative government where regional segments of a population choose their leaders, has been generally defined as “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. But this is all…
The Syrian government has outlined a plan to solve the country´s conflict, starting with halting international support of ”al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups”. The plan proposes a new constitution and government as well as national reconciliation, including…
Assad at the Opera House Easy walking distance from this observer’s hotel near the city center, the Damascus Opera House, the site of yesterday’s Presidential address, was inaugurated in May of 2004 by the President…