USA and Canada

Photo: Testing of the Peacekeeper re-entry vehicles at the Kwajalein Atoll. All eight fired from only one missile. Each line, if its warhead were live, represents the potential explosive power of about 300 kilotons of TNT, about nineteen times larger than the detonation of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Former ICBM Launch Officer Calls for Reforming Presidential Nuclear Launch Authority

By J C Suresh

TORONTO | WASHINGTON, DC (IDN) – Cofounder of the organization Global Zero, and a former Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile launch officer has called for major changes to prevent a U.S. President from ordering the use of nuclear weapons.

In a new article published in the forthcoming issue of Arms Control Today, Bruce Blair, who is also a member of the Princeton University research faculty, provides an authoritative summary of current U.S. nuclear launch protocol and its dangerous liabilities. The article includes new information about the process, including who is involved and how a nuclear use order would be executed.

: UN Bureau; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 04 January 2018

Photo: President Trump delivers remarks on tax reform in the Grand Foyer of the White House on 13 December 2017. Credit: Official White House Photo by Stefanie Chazes.

Uncertainties Abound on the Threshold of 2018

By Martin Khor

Martin Khor is the Executive Director of the South Centre. He can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. This analysis first appeared on South Bulletin 100, December 2017 with the caption: 'In 2017, Donald Trump dominated the year by using US clout to change many aspects of global relations, and not for the better.'

GENEVA (IDN-INPS) – What a year it has been! As 2017 slips away, and 2018 dawns, many wonder if the world will ever be the same. Credit or blame goes mainly to United States President Donald Trump for this radical change. This time last year, after he won the presidential elections, it was a toss-up whether Trump would implement his campaign promises or become a more statesmanlike President.

: Martin Khor; OPINION; 27 December 2017

Photo: City officials in New York allowed a developer to segregate a high-rise condo between rich and poor. According to reports by New York Post, developers of Extell, a condo on the Upper West Side, got the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to approve a separate entrance for poorer residents. Credit: Rolling out

It's Getting Better Except in Trump's America

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Every so often reports emerge that attempt to measure which are the best countries to live in. The Nordic countries plus New Zealand, Holland and Switzerland, usually come out top. Sweden is number one just for the sheer stability of life and security. Denmark is seen as the most agreeable place to live. The highest rate of longevity is found in Japan. The best schools are in Finland, New Zealand and Canada. Political and press freedom put the Nordics at the top of the league.

Last month, the Legatum Institute based in London published a report looking at inequality. Its timing could not be more perfect with the U.S. Congress last week (December 20) passing President Donald Trump’s tax bill which increases inequality by a substantial amount.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 26 December 2017

Photo: Poverty in America Documentary 2017 on YouTube

UN Expert Reveals Shocking Facts about Poverty in the U.S.

By J C Suresh

TORONTO (IDN) – More than one in every eight Americans, numbering 40 million, equal to 12.7 % of the population, are living in poverty, and almost half of those – 18.5 million – in abysmal poverty, according to a new report.

Though the United States is one of the world’s richest, most powerful and technologically innovative countries, "neither its wealth nor its power nor its technology is being harnessed to address the situation," stresses Professor Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights in his statement on a two-week visit to the USA.

Alston, an international law scholar and human rights practitioner, is John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, and co-Chair of the law school's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice.

: J C Suresh; THE WORLD; USA and Canada; 25 December 2017

U.S. Politics Increasingly Governed by Policy of Unilateralism

By Rodney Reynolds

NEW YORK (IDN) – The politics of the Trump administration are being increasingly governed by the twin policies of unilateralism and isolationism.

After Donald Trump was elected president in November 2016, he withdrew from a historic 2016 climate change agreement signed by 195 countries – and the only signatory to do so.

And this year, he announced plans to dilute the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal signed by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC), namely the U.S., UK, France, China and Russia, plus Germany and the 28-member European Union (EU) – much against warnings by all the other signatories.

: Ramesh Jaura; THE WORLD; Middle East; 20 December 2017

Photo: U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson addresses reporters during a joint statement to the media with European Union High Representative Federica Mogherini, in Brussels, Belgium on December 5, 2017. [State Department Photo/ Public Domain]

Iran Deal 'Key Strategic Priority' for Global Security, Mogherini Tells Tillerson

By Kelsey Davenport

Kelsey Davenport is director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association. This article was first published in their blog with the caption 'Tillerson, Mogherini Meet Ahead of Key JCPOA Deadlines'. – The Editor

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN-INPS) – EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini reiterated to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that the EU would work with the United States to address shared issues related to Iran, "on the basis of continued U.S. implementation of the nuclear deal" and outside of the agreement itself.

Mogherini and Tillerson discussed the nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) during a Dec. 5 bilateral meeting in Brussels.

: UN Bureau; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 12 December 2017

Photo: Roman siege and destruction of Jerusalem (David Roberts,1850). Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Trump's Damning Move Raises the Stakes Over Jerusalem

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - Poets as diverse as William Blake and Yehuda Amichai have sung the praises of the heavenly Jerusalem, a land without strife or rancour, war or bitterness, envy, acquisitiveness or hatred.

Until last week and President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s de facto capital, Israel, Fatah, Hamas and their common interlocutor, the U.S., had the historic opportunity to take a giant step towards making the present day Jerusalem acquire, at least in some of its aspects, the earthly prototype of the heavenly Jerusalem.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 12 December 2017

Photo: NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg and EU High Representative addressing a press conference on December 5, 2017. Credit: NATO

Despite Differences, New Areas of NATO-EU Cooperation Agreed

By Jaya Ramachandran

BRUSSELS (IDN) – Against the backdrop of growing estrangement between the European Union (EU) and the United States with Donald Trump at the helm of affairs, 23 member states of the European Union (EU) signed up on November 13 for the permanent structured cooperation (PESCO) on defence.

In spite of persisting differences, some three weeks later, Foreign Ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the EU have agreed to step up the U.S.-led Alliance's cooperation with the EU. Explaining the move, EU High Representative and Vice President Federica Mogherini, told journalists on December 5 that the European Union comprises 28 democracies that maintain with the United States "not a relationship of alliance but of partnership and friendship". NATO, said Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, is "an alliance of 29 different nations, democracies," with "very often different views on different issues".

: Jaya Ramachandran; THE WORLD; USA and Canada; 06 December 2017

Photo: People in Pyongyang watch Kim Jong-un on North Korean TV, 2015. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

No More Bluster, A Way Out of North Korean Nuclear Crisis

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - When, soon after the election, President Barack Obama invited Donald Trump to the White House we didn't learn much about their conversation. But we were briefed on one thing: Obama had told Trump that North Korea would be the most pressing and difficult issue on his agenda.

How right that was. But the Americans have missed the boat. It's as simple as that. What’s done is done. While Washington has dithered and dithered through three successive presidencies, missing opportunity after opportunity, North Korea has gone from zero nuclear weapons to an arsenal of at least 20. Its test of an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile, in the early hours of November 29, is said to be capable of striking the U.S. It doesn't have a nuclear tip yet but that will come sometime in the next two or three years.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 05 December 2017

Photo: Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., asks about the president's nuclear authority at November 14 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. Credit: PBS Newshour

Reducing the Risk of Nuclear Miscalculation

By Daryl G. Kimball

Daryl G. Kimball is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. This article first appeared with the caption 'Step Back From the Nuclear Brink'.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN-INPS) - Over the past year, cavalier and reckless statements from President Donald Trump about nuclear weapons and his threat to unleash “fire and fury” against North Korea have heightened fears about Cold War-era policies and procedures that put the authority to launch nuclear weapons in his hands alone.

Partially in response, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, for the first time since 1976, held a hearing on the “executive’s authority to use nuclear weapons.” The November 14 hearing should be just the start of a process that leads to changes that reduce the risk of nuclear miscalculation and establishes that the United States will not be the first to use nuclear weapons.