Iran's first nuclear reactor caps decades of living dangerously

What in the world is the West going to do about Iran? News that Iran had started loading fuel into its first nuclear power plant in Bushehr is a reminder of the limits of muscular foreign policy. Decades of confrontation with Tehran, including economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation, have served only to get us where we are now: less control over events combined with deepening mistrust and growing animosity. "Despite all the pressures, sanctions and hardships imposed by Western nations, we are now witnessing the start-up of the largest symbol of Iran's peaceful nuclear activities," Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi told a news conference on Iranian television as technicians prepared a fuel rod assembly at the plant, according to the Reuters international news service. Iran completed the plant with the help of Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear corporation, over the objections of the United States. But a U.S. State Department spokesman said Washington did not consider the Bushehr reactor to be a proliferation threat because Russia would be providing fuel and taking back spent fuel rods for reprocessing. "Russia's support for Bushehr underscores that Iran does not need an indigenous enrichment capability if its intentions are purely peaceful," spokesman Darby Holladay told Reuters. Russia backed a U.N. Security Council resolution in June that imposed a fourth round of economic sanctions on Iran to discourage Tehran from trying to develop nuclear weaponry. Construction of the reactor at Bushehr was started in the 1970s, before the Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran and started what has now been more than 30 years of animosity between Tehran and Washington.

South Korea wants international response to ship sinking

News from Seoul is that South Korea wants to wait for the international community act before it responds to a suspected attack on one of its ships by its arch enemy. Preliminary results from a South Korean military intelligence report put the blame on North Korea, its reclusive and impoverished Communist neighbor, according to a Reuters international news service report in the New York Times. The two countries have technically been at war since North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950; a 1953 armistice ended most fighting but ushered in a cold peace that has persisted since then despite occasional moves by both sides to ease tensions. North Korea's testing of nuclear weapons beginning in 2006 has heightened tensions again between the two countries and the United States, which has 28,000 soldiers in South Korea. The South Korean patrol ship, the Cheonan, sank last month with 46 aboard after an explosion, which Seoul blames on a North Korean torpedo. Pyongyang denies any responsibility for the sinking. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak told a group of visiting journalists on Friday that his country would wait until an international investigation of the incident was completed. "Just as the investigation is being conducted with international cooperation, we'll try to cooperate with the international community in taking necessary measures when the results are out," Lee said. The last pieces of the sunken ship are expected to be raised to the surface this week, Reuters said. But even if investigators determine that North Korea was responsible for the sinking, South Korea's options appear limited. A military attack on its neighbor would further heighten tensions and possibly get Russia and China involved, a replay of what happened during the Korean War. Plus, Lee faces tough local elections in June that got even tougher when citizens accused his government of being caught unprepared in the attack on the Cheonan. Lee infuriated the north earlier in the week by criticizing Pyongyang for spending money on a huge celebration to mark the birthday of Kim Il-sung, considered the founder of North Korea. Kim died in 1994.

Poland's government reassures country after deaths of top officials

With the country still reeling from Saturday's horrific plane crash that killed dozens of Poland's top political and military leaders, including President Lech Kaczynski, parliament speaker Bronislaw Komorowski went on television to reassure his stunned nation that the October presidential election would be moved up several months. Komorowski, who became acting president after Kacynski and 95 others were killed in the crash of their plane outside the Russian city of Smolensk, told his country that the election would now be held May 30 or June 13 under a procedure laid out in Poland's constitution. "The election date must be set," Komorowski told the TVP Info station while pledging to announce the date Wednesday, according to the Reuters international news service. "This must be done as soon as possible to shorten the period in which Poland is in a period of uncertainty." Kacynski, his wife, and a long list of military and government leaders died April 10 when their plane went down while trying to land in Smolensk, near the Katyn Forest. Poland's leadership was en route to Russia to take part in ceremonies marking the anniversary of the World War II-era massacre of thousands of military officers by the Soviet secret police in Katyn Forest, a massacre blamed for decades on the Nazis. Then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev revealed in 1990 that his country actually was responsible. The revelation has poisoned relations between Poland and Russia even after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Komorowski, a leading member of Prime Minister Donald Tusk's centrist Civic Platform (PO) party, was heavily favored to win the presidential election but the possibility of a large sympathy vote for candidates from Kacynski's conservative Law and Justice party has put the outcome in doubt, Reuters said. Other prominent officials killed in the crash included Gen. Franciszek Gagor, the head of the Polish Army, Gen. Andrzej Blasik, commander of the Polish Air Force; Vice Admiral Andrzej Karweta, commander of the Polish Navy; Slawomir Skrzypek, chairman of the National Bank of Poland; former defense minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski, a presidential candidate; Krzysztof Putra, the deputy parliament speaker; and Piotra Nurowski, head of the Polish Olympic Committee.

U.S., Russia agree to cut nuclear weapons arsenals

It's remarkable to see how much the world has changed in the past few decades. Not so long ago, an agreement to reduce the number of nuclear weapons held by the United States and Russia would have been greeted by celebrations, especially across Europe. Yet this week, a treaty signing that would do precisely that barely was noticed in the United States. Yes, it's true, it took some personal diplomacy involving U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, but a deal between the world's most nuclear-armed nations to cut weapons stockpiles by a third was signed Thursday in Prague, according to Cable News Network (CNN). Obama called the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) an indication of the two countries' commitment to "responsible global leadership" while Medvedev called it a "win-win situation" for both countries. "This day demonstrates the determination of the United States and Russia -- the two nations that hold over 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons -- to pursue responsible global leadership," Obama said Thursday. "Together, we are keeping our commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which must be the foundation for global nonproliferation." Medvedev, too, acknowledged the potentially historic impacts of the new treaty. "This agreement enhances strategic ability and, at the same time, allows us to rise to a higher level of cooperation between Russia and the United States," Medvedev said. For U.S. residents who remember the days when public buildings had fallout shelters and schoolchildren participated in fallout shelter drills, the agreement is a welcome sign of real progress since the Cold War between the United States and the old Soviet Union. Of course, the new agreement is merely a continuation of the previous START deal that expired in December, and still leaves both countries with more than 1,000 nuclear warheads. Just as important in the short term, perhaps, Obama and Medvedev also discussed other related issues, such as developing nuclear power Iran, before the signing ceremony, CNN said. The weapons reduction agreement is still subject to ratification by each country's legislature. Obama and Medvedev wrapped up the new agreement shortly before the scheduled start of a global nuclear security summit in Washington on Monday.

Progressive nuclear policies sound good but mean nothing

While it'll been fun hearing right-wing blowhards blow a little harder this week, the most important thing about the new nuclear weapons policy unveiled Tuesday by U.S. President Barack Obama is that it doesn't mean anything. Rhetoric about when and where a country will or will not use nuclear arms is meaningless because neither situations nor temptations can be accurately predicted in advance. So, the Obama administration's Nuclear Posture Review, a document required from all U.S. governments by the Congress, can be full of lofty anti-nuclear sentiment yet not reflect what the country will actually do in the event of nuclear conflict. If another country launches a nuclear attack on the United States, sentiment loses all value. Critics of the administration must realize this, even as they launch what are sure to be bombastic attacks on the new policy. The Obama policy, which replaces the Bush administration's threat of nuclear retaliation in the event of chemical or biological attack, commits the United States to refrain from the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries that comply with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970, according to the Reuters international news service. The new policy also declares that the United States will not develop any new nuclear weapons. "We are taking specific and concrete steps to reduce the role of nuclear weapons while preserving our military superiority, deterring aggression and safeguarding the security of the American people," Obama said in a statement released by the White House, Reuters said. The policy was released in time for Thursday's scheduled signing of a new arms reduction treaty with Russia and appears designed to enhance next week's 47-nation nuclear summit in Washington. Iran and North Korea, emerging nuclear powers that have not signed the treaty, were deliberately left out of the non-use guarantee, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said. "If there is a message for Iran and North Korea here, it is ... if you're not going to play by the rules, if you're going to be a proliferator, then all options are on the table in terms of how we deal with you," Gates told reporters, Reuters said. The document also expressed concern about China, which has a nuclear arsenal and has signed the treaty, but has not been forthcoming about its program. "China's nuclear arsenal remains much smaller than the arsenals of Russia and the United States," the document said. "But the lack of transparency surrounding its nuclear programs -- their pace and scope, as well as the strategy and doctrine that guides them -- raises questions about China's future strategic intentions." Obama is expected to hold talks with Chinese leader Hu Jintao on the sidelines of next week's summit that will possibly include China's nuclear program as well as the value of its currency, Reuters said.

U.S. and Russia appear on verge of nuclear arms reduction deal

With Western nations focused on emerging nuclear powers North Korea and Iran, word from Washington on Wednesday that the United States and Russia are on the verge of reaching a new agreement to reduce the world's largest nuclear arsenals comes as quite a surprise. But it's a good surprise for a change. Officials from both countries say U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev have managed a way around the last remaining obstacle to a deal to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991 that expired in December, according to the New York Times. The two leaders reportedly need one more meeting to finalize the new agreement, which would require their countries to reduce warheads and launchers by more than 25 percent, the Times said. The White House and the Kremlin declined to comment on the reports, but officials on both sides confirmed the breakthrough on the condition of anonymity, the newspaper said. A signing ceremony is planned in Prague early next month. The deal caps a year of sometimes problematic negotiations that was originally intended to wrap up a new deal by the end of 2009. But the talks got hung up on verification, sharing information and limits on missile defense systems, the Times said, even though Obama agreed not to construct a planned European-based missile shield authorized by his predecessor, former President George W. Bush. The planned Prague ceremony would help jump-start an international summit on nuclear nonproliferation that Obama has scheduled for April 12 and 13 in Washington, the Times said.

Russia moves toward backing sanctions against Iran

Just when it seemed that international efforts to convince Iran to stop its nuclear weapons program were failing comes word that Russia was dissatisfied with Tehran's level of cooperation and might be willing to support sanctions in the future. Speaking to the press following a meeting between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just outside Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his country did not rule out the possibility that sanctions could be necessary to convince Iran to stop trying to develop nuclear weaponry, according to the Reuters international news service. Lavrov said reports from the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency indicated that Iran did not appear to be close to developing such weapons at this time. "The reports that the IAEA director-general publishes on a regular basis contain very precise assessments that do not give reason for any sort of alarm," Lavrov said. "But that does not mean that we are satisfied with Iranian actions. What we see is that they are letting the opportunity to establish normal, systematic, mutually beneficial dialogue with the international community slip away." U.S. officials have been trying to convince the UN Security Council to agree to impose severe international sanctions on Iran's Islamic government, with which it has exchanged threatening dialogue over the past few years. Iran has threatened to attack Israel, a close U.S. ally, and has been involved in sharp public exchanges with both countries over the years since the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. But both Russia and China will have to agree before the Security Council can impose new sanctions on Iran. "As President Medvedev has said, sanctions rarely work, but situations can arise when they are unavoidable, and we do not rule out that such a situation may arise in relation to Iran," Lavrov said, according to a Reuters report citing the Interfax news agency.

Biden says China will sign on to Iran sanctions

Say whatever you want to about U.S. Vice President Joe Biden -- and, indeed, many people say a lot of things that are not complimentary -- he does tell it exactly how it is. Of course, you're not always sure if he's speaking with the approval of U.S. President Barack Obama, the head of the government, or if he's just revealed something that would have been better kept unsaid, but his comments do have the ring of truth. That is a rare quality in a politician these days. So when Biden told the NBC-TV program "Meet the Press" on Sunday that the United States expected China to agree with international efforts to impose punitive economic sanctions against Iran for refusing to end its nuclear weapons program, he was making perfect sense. "We have the support of everyone from Russia to Europe," Biden told NBC, according to the Reuters international news service. "I believe we'll get the support of China to continue to impose sanctions on Iran to isolate them, to make it clear that in fact they cannot move forward." China, which depends on Iran for oil imports, is the fifth veto power on the UN Security Council and must agree before international sanctions can be imposed or enforced. Iran, for its part, continues to deny trying to build a nuclear weapon and insists its nuclear technology development is intended only for peaceful purposes. But it's illogical for the world's third largest reserves of oil to seek nuclear power for energy -- it has oil. Iran's pursuit of nuclear technology only makes sense if it seeks nuclear weapons. And China certainly understands the threat to the world economic order, in which it is just now getting the upper hand, if an unstable head of state like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmedinejad figures out how to build nuclear bombs.

Iran puts into writing what everyone knew all along

Well, it's finally put up or shut up time for the West on Iran's nuclear program, as if what happened wasn't obvious all along. We're discussing, of course, Tehran's formal rejection of a United Nations proposal to send most of the country's enriched uranium abroad for processing. The International Atomic Energy Agency announced that it had received a letter from Iran rejecting parts of the proposed deal, designed to prevent the country from developing nuclear weapons, according to the Reuters international news service. Western nations had backed the plan offered by former IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei but Iran allowed the proposal's Dec. 31 deadline to pass despite threats of economic penalties for noncompliance. The plan would have required Iran to transfer at least 70 percent of its nuclear fuel to a European nation for enrichment to levels suitable for power but not for weaponry. Iran reportedly agreed to the deal in principle in October at six-party talks in Geneva, but has raised objections to its provisions ever since. Now, it's up to the United States, European Union and other Western nations to either come up with a sanctions regime that will force Iran's capitulation or raise the stakes and put some threat of force on the table. Parties to the October talks -- the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China -- have started to discuss future actions, Reuters said. Of course, that only makes sense if the six powers really thought Iran would comply with the terms of the deal -- a considerable reach given Iran's behavior in the past. The six powers, and the West, surely already have plans in place for what to do now -- hopefully, they'll let the rest of us know soon, because the security of the entire world would seem to be at risk.

Concerns over cybercrime bring United States back to Internet talks

News from Geneva that the United States has agreed to discuss Internet security with Russia and the United Nations raises hopes of a new treaty between the world powers to demilitarize cyberspace. The very existence of the talks represents a huge shift in U.S. policy since a new president took office in January, since the previous government in Washington had refused to discuss the subject with Russia for years, according to the New York Times. The negotiations also are further evidence of friendlier relations between Moscow and Washington since Barack Obama became president of the United States in January, as they are proceeding in tandem with talks expected to lead to a new round of cuts in the two countries' nuclear weapons arsenals. Talks with UN disarmament negotiators are expected to resume in January along with informal discussions at an Internet security conference in Germany. The renewed efforts apparently mean the Obama administration is taking the issue of computer security seriously despite differences with the Russians on enforcement issues, the Times said. Some experts say the two superpowers are trying to avoid an Internet arms race in which countries develop increasingly powerful cyberweapons to disrupt computer systems that control weapons and security in other nations, which is why UN arms control negotiators are becoming part of the talks. The United States had previously considered the negotiations as a purely economic matter. But last month, high-ranking Russian security officials met in Washington with representatives of the National Security Council and the U.S. departments of state, defense and homeland security, the Times said, setting up the January dates for serious negotiations.

Doubts about Iran's intentions increase after IAEA censure

So, what is Iran thinking now? Today's announcement that the Islamic republic plans to build 10 new uranium enrichment plants to add to its known facilities at Natanz and Qom can only be seen as a rebuke, even if a petulant one, to Friday's censure by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But why? Does Iran think it is impervious to international economic sanctions, or to military action if it starts developing nuclear weapons? Is it? The UN's nuclear monitoring agency voted 35-0 to condemn Iran for secretly building an underground enrichment facility near Qom, including votes from usual Tehran supporters Russia and China, according to the Reuters international news service. The existence of the plant, which apparently had been suspected by Western countries' spy agencies for some time, was revealed by Iran in September and discussed publicly for the first time in October by U.S. President Barack Obama at a conference in Geneva. The revelation added renewed urgency to Western nations' effort to prevent Iran, the world's fifth-largest oil exporting nation by volume, to develop nuclear weaponry, because the enrichment plant is not suitable for civilian nuclear power, Tehran's stated intention. Iran has backed away from an agreement with Western nations to surrender its uranium stockpiles in exchange for a guaranteed supply of low-level enriched uranium to power a medical research reactor, adding to Western suspicions. "We have a friendly approach toward the world but at the same time we won't let anyone harm even one iota of the Iranian nation's rights," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad said Sunday, Reuters said. Ahmedinejad maintains Iran has a right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy. But Ahmedinejad does not discuss why a major oil producer like Iran would even need nuclear power for electricity when it has such an abundant supply of petroleum, a safer fuel. The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, told Iran's Mehr News Agency that "10 new enrichment plants will be built," Reuters said, and that locations for five of them had already been decided. The 10 proposed enrichment plants would be the same size as the facility at Natanz, Iran's main enrichment site.

Kremlin says U.S. and Russia to sign weapons-reduction deal in December

Anybody still remember the Cold War? Remember air-raid sirens and fallout shelter drills? Remember Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev saying "We will bury you?" Remember the Soviet Union? Those days were brought to mind Friday when Russia said it expected to sign a new agreement with the United States to destroy a portion of the two countries' arsenals of thousands of nuclear weapons, according to the Reuters international news service. The new deal, designed to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that expires Dec. 5, got a boost in April when Russian President Dimitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama issued a joint statement about reaching a new agreement and again in July when the two agreed to cut their arsenals by a third. Diplomatic frictions that damaged Russia-U.S. relations were relaxed in September when Obama said he would roll back plans for a missile shield in Eastern Europe, even though outstanding issues from Russia's brief war with U.S. ally Georgia remain unresolved. Today's report was attributed by Reuters to an unnamed source in Minsk, where Medvedev was meeting with regional leaders. "This treaty is a great move ahead and will improve relations between the United States and Russia," Roland Timerbayev, a former Soviet ambassador and nuclear arms negotiator, told Reuters. But both sides said it is possible that they will not be able to reach a deal before the Dec. 5 expiration of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. "The delegations of Russia and the United States are working incessantly but not looking at the time," the Russian Foreign Ministry said. "The timeframe for signing new agreement is important but does not define the negotiating process; rather, (the process is defined) by the striving of the leaders of Russia and the United States to agree a full, properly working bilateral agreement." Diplomats from both countries say continuing cooperation between Russia and the United States on dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions have helped them to resolve remaining issues on a new treaty.

Kosovo conducts first election as independent nation

Low turnout by European standards failed to dim the excitement among government leaders in Pristina on Sunday as voters in Kosovo went to the polls for its first local election since declaring itself independent from Serbia last year. "Today we are showing that our country and its citizens have deserved independence, democracy and the European Union perspective," Prime Minister Hashim Thaci exulted after the vote, according to the Reuters international news service. Forty-five percent of Kosovo's 1.5 million voters turned out for the balloting, in which the population chose mayors and councilmembers in the new country's 36 municipalities. Winners will not be determined until runoff elections next month. Some analysts blamed the low turnout on frustration over the country's sluggish economy and 40 percent unemployment rate, Reuters said. "The faith is lost in Kosovo because of high corruption among the political parties," said Halil Matoshi, a local analyst. "People that vote today are mainly party militants." That's certainly possible, but it's a little hard to believe that the population of a brand new country that fought so hard to be independent would be jaded by politics. The turnout also was impacted by Serbian calls for a boycott by voters of Serbian descent, who make up seven percent of Kosovo's population. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, nine years after NATO bombers drove Serbian forces from the then-province to stop the killing of ethnic Albanians, who make up 88 percent of the population. Kosovo's independence has only been recognized by 63 countries, primarily Western nations, including the United States. Serbia and Russia have refused to recognize the new country. Kosovo is the poorest country in Europe, with a per capita income of $2,300 annually, according to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Nuclear deal with Iran faces crucial test tomorrow

Iran's effort to forestall tightening international economic sanctions over its nuclear program faces its first major test tomorrow when UN inspectors are scheduled to enter its formerly secret uranium enrichment facility near Qom. Nobody except the Iranians even knows if the experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency will actually be admitted to the site, even though Iran agreed to that in Geneva last month under pressure from Western nations, according to the Washington Post. The meeting was noteworthy for several developments, including the first public announcement of the existence of the enrichment plant and the highest-level official contact between Iran and the United States since 1979. Iran acknowledged the plant's existence in a letter to the IAEA last month, just before the Geneva conference. Tehran insists it has no designs on nuclear weapons but is merely developing nuclear power for electricity, which it insists it has a right to. But the plant, still under construction on the side of a mountain at a military base yet apparently known about for years by intelligence agencies worldwide, only is suitable for weapons development, the Post said. Iran plans to place only 3,000 centrifuges at the site, which is not enough to enrich uranium for a civilian nuclear plant, the Post said citing expert sources. Analysts say it would take Qom's centrifuges at least 20 years to produce enough uranium to power a 1,000- megawatt nuclear power reactor for a year. But the equipment could produce enough enriched uranium to build three nuclear bombs annually, the Times said. "There is no Iranian document saying the facility is designed for a military program, but what else can it be good for?" a senior Middle East-based intelligence official who studies Iran told the Times. In fact, the Qom plant has forced the United States to reconsider the 2007 conclusion of its intelligence agencies that Iran had halted nuclear weapons research in 2003. "Qom changed a lot of people's thinking, especially about the possibility of secret military enrichment" of uranium, another former officials told the Times. The revised assessments are classified, the Times said. But the public revelations about the plant do raise obvious questions about Iran's intentions, despite its protestations to the contrary. Of course, it never made sense that Iran needed to pursue civilian nuclear energy when it sits atop a sixth of worldwide oil reserves. If Russia and China are sufficiently alarmed, Qom could be the catalyst for further tightening of worldwide economic sanctions, just when it seemed Iran wanted to rejoin the nations trying to figure out how to live in peace.

Announcement on Europe missile shield sounds like appeasement

Is anyone else troubled by the latest moves by the United States to appear impotent in its dealings with Russia? That's the effect of the Obama adminstration's impending decision to scrub plans to build a missile-defense system protecting Poland and the Czech Republic before Russia fulfills its treaty obligations in Georgia. The White House will announce its decision to forego the Bush administration-proposed system as early as this week, according to the Wall Street Journal newspaper. Moscow apparently was outraged by the proposal, which it believed was directed at its intercontinental ballistic missiles despite U.S. assurances that it was intended to counterbalance the perceived threat from an increasingly radicalized and militarily sophisticated Iran. The Iranians are developing nuclear technology and are expected to have missiles capable of reaching European capitals and close U.S. ally Israel by 2015. But Washington needs Moscow's cooperation at the UN Security Council to impose new sanctions against Iran if Tehran refuses to give up its nuclear program at six-nation negotiations planned in October. The Obama adminstration denies such linkage, the Journal said, and maintains that it is dropping the missile shield after a reassessment of the Iranian threat. Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a speech last month that the missile programs of Iran and North Korea "are not there yet," according to the Journal. "We believed that the emergence of the intercontinental ballistic missile would come much faster than it did," Cartwright said. "The reality is, it has not come as fast as we thought it would come." The Bush administration-proposed system would have included a radar installation in the Czech Republic and 10 missiles in Poland.

Maybe U.S. should rethink shuttle plan

News this week that NASA plans to use $50 million in economic stimulus money to encourage proposals for commercial passenger transportation to space raises the fairly obvious question of why the U.S. space agency decided to retire its fleet of shuttles before developing an alternative. While it's certainly encouraging that NASA is finally serious about replacing the shuttle, which is scheduled to make its last trip in 2010, the U.S. space program will be forced to depend on Russia's Soyuz space capsule and rocket until a new craft is developed. "The main thing that the public should be taking note of is that right now we are (solely dependent) on the Russians (for space transports) after 2010," Elon Musk, the founder and chief executive of SpaceX, one of the U.S. companies competing to build the next space vessel, told the Reuters international news service. Musk could have a point, considering that Russia has not been among the United States' most reliable allies. Then again, NASA relied on the Soyuz for transport to the international space station for years when the shuttle fleet was grounded. Musk's company, Space Exploration Technologies, and another company, Orbital Sciences Corp., already share a $500 million contract to develop and build rockets and capsules to bring supplies to the station. Other U.S. firms that have expressed an interest in the commercial passenger program include Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., Airborne Systems, Boeing Co, Tether Applications, Retro Aerospace, Emergent Space Technologies, Davidson Technologies and Paragon Space Development Corp, Reuters said. NASA is planning a workshop for interested companies on Thursday in Houston.

From Russia with love?

Was Russian President Dmitiri Medvedev sending a peace message to Washington as one of his top diplomats threatened economic sanctions against companies that sell weapons to Georgia? In a television interview broadcast Sunday, after U.S. President Joe Biden's visit to former Soviet republics Georgia and Ukraine, Medvedev referred to both states as independent "countries," according to the New York Times, even though Russia has vociferously opposed their efforts to join the Western alliance. Medvedev acknowledged his country's desire for "normal, working, friendly relations with the United States -- mutually beneficial relations" in the interview with Russian television station NTV, the Times said. On Friday, just as Biden returned from a visit to Georgia and Ukraine, Dmitri Rogozin, Russia's envoy to NATO, said Medvedev had decreed that sanctions would be imposed on any company that helped the two former Soviet republics rebuild their military arsenals. Georgia's armed forces were routed last year in a brief war with Russia over two provinces that broke away from Tblisi. Many observers speculated at the time that Russia's anger over the two country's bids for NATO membership was actually the reason for the war. Of course, Biden did not specifically promise military aid, even though such an arrangement would seem logical, but assured Georgia and Ukraine that the United States would not abandon them if it got friendlier with Russia, the Times said. Adding to the drama, a U.S. State Department spokesman said Thursday that the United States was committed to upgrading the Georgian military to NATO standards, the Times said. So it seems that Medvedev was trying to defuse the obvious friction when he told NTV that better relations between Russia and the United States would not cause "deterioration of our ties with other countries or of U.S. relations with some other countries, including Ukraine and Georgia.” Then again, Medvedev did not explain why Moscow has not withdrawn its troops from Georgian territory as required by the accord that ended last year's war.

NATO agreement with Russia is a glass half-full

It's not exactly bad news that NATO and Russia have agreed to resume military cooperation in the aftermath of the suspension that followed Moscow's unfortunate war with Georgia last year. But it certainly can't be called good news, either. "The NATO-Russia Council is up and running again also at the political level," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told a meeting of ministers Saturday in Corfu, Greece, according to Cable News Network (CNN). Russa is not a member of NATO but consults with the alliance and takes part in its international activities through the council, which was formed in 1982, CNN said. Of course it's important to keep a military power like Russia engaged in world diplomacy, but the Georgia crisis is far from resolved, at least as far as Western nations are concerned. Russia intervened military and humiliated the Georgian armed forces in a 5-day war last August after Georgia sent its military to try to prevent the secession of its South Ossetia and Ahzbakia provinces. Russia declined to attend last year's meeting and was suspended from the council, presumably to punish Moscow for extending immediate diplomatic recognition to the two provinces as independent countries and for not withdrawing its troops from Georgia as provided in last year's ceasefire accord. Well, it's nearly a year later and the situation remains the same. Russian troops still occupy South Ossetia and Ahzbakia, only now ostensibly to protect their soveriegnty, and Nicaragua is the only other country in the world to recognize them as independent states. It is counterproductive to pretend, as NATO has, that everything is back to normal. Scheffer said at the Corfu meeting that NATO-Russia cooperation on "common security interests" -- such as Afghanistan, arms control and fighing drug trafficking, terrorism and piracy -- was more important than the disagreement over Georgia. NATO ministers "are in the process of examining the current institutional structure of the NATO-Russia Council and have agreed to make it a more efficient and valuable instrument for our political dialogue and practical cooperation," Scheffer said. Tell that to our friends in Tblisi, the Georgian capital. And tell that to any other countries considering joining the Western alliance. Georgia's application to join NATO is said to have provoked Russia into launching last year's attack.

World's richest nations plan economic recovery

Maybe the worldwide recession actually is over. The world's eight richest nations ended two days of talks Saturday in Italy to plan for the expected worldwide economic recovery, according to the Reuters international news service. Or maybe the recession is about to be over for them. Meeting in Lecce, finance ministers of the world's eight richest nations began getting ready for the end of stimulus programs propping up their economies. "The force of the economic storm is receding," U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said as the Group of Eight meeting concluded. "There are encouraging signs of stabilization across many economies." Ministers agreed that the stimulus programs would not be ending anytime soon, however, and also agreed to ask the International Monetary Fund to help them figure out the best way to bring the programs to a conclusion. But there appeared to be sharp disagreement on how to roll back stimulus spending plans and how to stress-test each country's banks, Reuters said. In fact, Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin called the meeting "stormy" since there were major arguments about what stage the crisis had reached. Conservative nations like Germany and Canada are pressuring other G8 nations to end stimulus programs to keep interest rates from rising too rapidly once the recovery takes hold. But Geithner said the United States would probably not be tightening monetary policy anytime soon. "It is too early to shift toward policy restraint," he told the ministers. Reuters said a G8 source who did not want to be named said the IMF report would likely be presented in October at the fund's annual meeting in Istanbul. Private sector economists do not expect tightening of fiscal and monetary policy before next year, Reuters said. The other G8 nations are Japan, Britain, France and Italy.

North Korea's tests missile, Obama gets angry

While domestic policy changes are unfolding daily, U.S. residents hoping for a about-face on foreign policy issues may have to wait a little longer. President Barack Obama took a step back into the Cold War-era on Sunday, calling for nuclear-armed North Korea to be "punished" for firing a test missile into the Pacific Ocean. Obama, speaking in Prague on his first European trip since assuming the presidency in January, called the missile test a "provocation" that violated international norms, according to the New York Times. Obama called for a "strong international response" to the firing of the missile, which fell harmlessly in the Pacific Ocean a few hours before Obama's speech before 20,000 in Prague. "This provocation underscores the need for action -- not just this afternoon at the U.N. Security Council -- but in our determination to prevent the spread of these weapons,” Obama said. “Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something.” Obama said blocking North Korea's pursuit of missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons was part of his effort to limit the spread of such technology. He said he was still pursuing a missile defense syestem for Europe, including Poland and Czechoslovakia, but linked it to Iran's pursuit of nuclear weaponry. "As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven,” Obama said. Russia is opposed to the missile defense, which was proposed by former president George W. Bush. Here's hoping the Cold War is not going to be defrosted.