Council for a Livable World

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION NEWS
Three Reasons Obama Will Win; Three Reasons Romney Will Win
David Lauter, LA Times – November 6, 2012
The most expensive election in U.S. history is almost over, and most public polls suggest President Obama has a small, but persistent, edge over his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney. But before the final vote counts, here are three reasons each candidate has to expect victory, and a key place to watch to see who is right.

Would Mitt Bomb Iran?
Jeremiah Goulka, Salon – November 5, 2012
It’s the consensus among the pundits: foreign policy doesn’t matter in this presidential election.  They point to the ways Republican candidate Mitt Romney has more or less parroted President Barack Obama on just about everything other than military spending and tough talk about another “American century.” The consensus is wrong. There is an issue that matters: Iran.

NORTH KOREA
Trouble in Pyongyang
Joel S. Wit, Foreign Policy – November 5, 2012
Whoever wins Tuesday’s election will face a long list of foreign-policy challenges, ranging from Iran’s nuclear weapons program to the Arab Spring. Usually lurking somewhere behind the frontrunners is North Korea and its own home-grown nuclear effort. But there are good reasons why dealing with the threat presented by Pyongyang should be near the top of the to-do list for a new president.

SYRIA
Syria’s Main Opposition Group Broadens Base
Karin Laub, AP – November 6, 2012
The main Syrian opposition bloc on Monday broadened its ranks to accommodate more activists and political groups from inside the country, officials said, in an apparent nod to international demands for a more representative and cohesive leadership. However, the Syrian National Council’s reforms, approved on the second day of a five-day convention in Doha, may not suffice to counter a U.S.-backed plan to create a new opposition leadership that would greatly dilute the SNC’s influence.

Russia Urges Syria Opposition to Drop Demand for Assad to Quit
Suleiman Al-Khalidi, Reuters – November 6, 2012
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday urged the Syrian opposition to abandon its precondition that President Bashar al-Assad step down before any talks can be held on ending the conflict. Speaking after meeting former Syrian Prime Minister Riad Hijab, who defected to Jordan last August, Lavrov accused the opposition of disregarding Syrian lives by demanding the immediate removal of Assad.

IRAN
Iran Nuclear Weapons Bid Might Trigger Arms Race, Cameron Says
Kitty Donaldson and Robert Hutton, Businessweek – November 5, 2012
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron warned that an Iranian development of nuclear weapons might “trigger a nuclear arms race” across the Middle East. Iran obtaining nuclear arms would not only be a “desperately bad development for our world,” it could make the region “a more unstable and more dangerous place,” Cameron told students at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi today at the start of a three-day visit to the Middle East.

Iran Nuclear Fuel Move May Ease War Fears – For Now
Fredrik Dahl, Reuters – November 5, 2012
A slowdown in Iran’s accumulation of its most sensitive nuclear material may have helped put off the threat of a new Middle East war for now, but Tehran’s expanding uranium-enrichment capacity suggests any relief could be short-lived. By dedicating a big part of its higher-enriched uranium to make civilian reactor fuel , Iran is removing it from a stockpile that could be used to make nuclear weapons if refined further and which would otherwise have grown faster.

IAEA: Iran Not Providing ‘Necessary Cooperation’ in Nuclear Probe
Reuters – November 5, 2012
Discriminatory implementation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has left many countries feeling that being a party to the anti-atom bomb pact hinders cooperation in the field atomic energy, Iran’s U.N. ambassador said on Monday. Western diplomats and analysts have long expressed concern that Iran might one day follow North Korea’s example and pull out of the NPT and produce a bomb. North Korea withdrew from the treaty in 2003 and tested nuclear devices in 2006 and 2009.

U.K.
UK Nuclear Deterrent Plan Triggers Divisions
Simon Hooper, Al Jazeera – November 6, 2012
At an unknown location somewhere deep beneath the world’s oceans, a British submarine sits primed to launch up to 40 nuclear warheads with a collective destructive power almost 300 times greater than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Since the late 1960s Britain’s nuclear deterrent strategy has required that at least one of the Royal Navy’s four-strong fleet of Vanguard submarines be operational and fully armed at all times, providing, according to the navy’s website, a “round-the-clock insurance policy”.

NUCLEAR WASTE
Storing Nuclear-Bomb Waste in Glass
Andrew Morse, Wall Street Journal – November 5, 2012
In early 2011, John Raymont was hoping his company, Kurion Inc., could break into the business of cleaning up nuclear waste, an industry dominated by large multinationals and mostly off limits to start-ups. Then in March, an earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing its reactors to dangerously overheat. The crisis gave Mr. Raymont an idea.

MISSILE DEFENSE
U.S. Clears Sale of Lockheed Missile Defense System to UAE, Qatar
Reuters – November 6, 2012
Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have requested the sale of up to $7.6 billion in Lockheed Martin Corp missile-defense systems to counter perceived threats and lower their dependence on U.S. forces, the Pentagon announced on Monday. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), which oversees foreign arms sales, formally notified lawmakers on Friday that it had approved the possible sales, which come against the backdrop of heightened tensions with Iran.

IRAN
Israeli Report Cites a Thwarted 2010 Move on Iran
Jodi Rudoren, New York Times – November 4, 2012
An Israeli news channel reported Sunday night that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak asked the Israeli military in 2010 to prepare for an imminent attack on the Iranian nuclear program, but that their efforts were blocked by concerns over whether the military could do so and whether the men had the authority to give such an order.

The real Iranian threat: Cyberattacks
David Goldman, CNN Money – November 5, 2012
Iran is believed to be behind a slew of massive attacks in September that took down a string of U.S. banks’ websites. The country is also thought to have launched a devastating cyber time bomb on Saudi Oil company Aramco in August and to have coordinated a similar attack on Qatar’s RasGas, an Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500) subsidiary.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Who might serve on Romney’s national security team?
CNN – November 5, 2012
If Mitt Romney is elected the 45th President of the United States on Tuesday, he will have the task of filling an entire presidential cabinet as opposed to President Obama who will likely have less vacancies to fill. Foreign policy analysts say the national team is unique from other cabinet positions in that their agencies work closely together on a daily basis. Those who are picked to be members of the national security team will need to be consensus players with the entire national security team and able to confront difficult situations abroad, while the vast focus of the early days of the administration focused on rejuvenating the nascent economic recovery – a central theme of the Romney campaign.

Early Voting Results 2012: Latest Figures From Colorado, Florida, Ohio & More
Huffington Post – November 5, 2012
About 30 million people have already voted in 34 states and the District of Columbia, either by mail or in person. No votes will be counted until Tuesday but some key states are releasing the party affiliation of those who vote early.

ISRAEL
Israel Upgrades Iron Dome Anti-Missile Batteries
CBN News – November 5, 2012
In the face of continued rocket and missile threats from all sides, Israel is upgrading its anti-missile defense systems. A series of tests on the fifth Iron Dome anti-missile battery — to be added to the four already deployed in the south — proved successful, the Ministry of Defense announced Sunday.

MISSILE DEFENSE
Missile Defense Agency says it completed largest test in history
W.J. Hennigan, LA Times – October 25, 2012
Multiple missiles screaming above the Pacific Ocean were successfully intercepted by the military’s ballistic defense system in a test that the U.S. Missile Defense Agency is calling its biggest and most complex exercise to date.

NORTH KOREA
North Korea’s economic dreams are, well … dreams
Ju-min Park, Reuters – November 5, 2012
Despite talk of reform by the secretive state after the third generation of the Kim family dynasty took over nearly a year ago, about all that seems to be growing is the gap between the tiny population of rich and the already malnourished poor. And while the government is hoping to lure in foreign investment, more often the money, and tens of thousands of workers, are heading out of the impoverished North.

DEFENSE SPENDING
Russia’s defense spending surges as U.S. cuts
F. Michael Maloof, WND – November 4, 2012
Moscow is to increase its annual defense spending by 59 percent by 2015 as it attempts to modernize its military – while the United States looks to ways to downside in the face of major spending cuts, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

SYRIA
Syria Army Quit Base on Strategy Aleppo Road
Dominic Evans, Reuters – November 2, 2012
The Syrian army abandoned its last base near the northern town of Saraqeb after a fierce assault by rebels, further isolating the strategically important second city Aleppo from the capital. But in a political setback to forces battling to topple President Bashar al-Assad, the United Nations said the rebels appeared to have committed a war crime after seizing the base.

CHEMICAL & BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
Fabric Repels Chemical, Biological Agents
UPI – November 21, 2012
A new fabric for military uniforms made with carbon nanotubes can repel chemical and biological agents, researchers in California say.
Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory say the material has been designed to undergo a rapid transition from a breathable state to a protective state.

IRAN
Iran Marks Anniversary of US Embassy Attack
AP – November 2, 2012
s Iranians marked the 33rd anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, a commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guard on Friday offered a pot of gold to anyone who could prove that America is not “the most criminal regime on earth.” Speaking to a crowd of thousands outside the building that once housed the embassy, Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi said 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of gold would be given to anyone who found a regime “more criminal than the United States.”

Netanyahu Rival Blasts His Obsession with Iran
Reuters – November 1, 2012
Kicking off his election campaign, Israeli opposition leader Shaul Mofaz on Thursday accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of being driven by an obsession to bomb Iran. Mofaz, head of the centrist Kadima party that quit Netanyahu’s coalition weeks ago citing differences over how to rein in Iran’s nuclear program, unveiled a poster of a flaming mushroom cloud emblazoned with “Netanyahu will mire us in trouble”.

NORTH KOREA
Experts: North Korea Regime May Tighten Grip on Private Markets
Alexander Martin, Wall Street Journal – November 2, 2012
Various rumors and reports have been circulating in past months that North Korea’s new leader Kim Jong Eun was planning to introduce new reforms to lift his nation’s battered economy. But two North Korea experts in Japan now say that, contrary to such expectations, the authoritarian regime may actually be getting ready to tighten its grip on the economy through restrictions imposed on informal private markets.

North Korean Leadership Visualized
Tania Branigan, The Guardian – November 1, 2012
US based NK News and the Korea Economic Institute of America have launched the NK Leadership Tracker looking at every single event that Kim Jong Il and son Kim Jong Un have ever attended (which was reported), since 1994.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION NEWS
Obama or Romney? Five Scenarios that Could Affect the Outcome of the Election
Ed Pilkington, The Guardian – November 2, 2012
The memory of Bush versus Gore will be hanging over next Tuesday’s election like a black cloud. Could it be possible that, as in 2000, we wake up on Wednesday morning with the next occupant of the White House still undecided? Quite possible, says Professor Edward Foley, an expert in election law at Ohio State University. He estimates, based on his knowledge of the legal landscape and his reading of the polls, that there could be up to a 1% chance of the outcome of the election still being in the balance beyond next Tuesday.

DEFENSE SPENDING
Hammond Sees Budget Cuts Driving Overhaul of Defense Industry
Robert Wall, Businessweek – November 2, 2012
Military spending cuts among developed countries and changes in export markets will force defense companies to restructure, U.K. Defense Secretary Philip Hammond said.