Geopolitics Weekly

Obama has narrowed the role of nuclear weapons in US defence strategy, but has also left significant loopholes that will disappoint arms control advocates.

The biggest change is arguably in the "negative security assurance" contained in the review, a guarantee the US will not use its nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. The Bush nuclear posture from 2001 (handily summarised here by GlobalSecurity.org) left open the option of using nuclear weapons against biological, chemical or mass conventional attack.

But here is the catch in the Obama doctrine. The tricky word is compliance. The US and its allies argue that Iran is not in compliance with its obligations under the NPT treaty, leaving Iran a potential target in the US nuclear operational plan. Depending on Syria's relations with the IAEA, the review could also be read as a warning to Damascus.

rule out a nuclear response to attacks on the US involving biological, chemical or conventional weapons. Nor would the US use nuclear arms on non-nuclear states that comply with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Mr Obama said he would make exceptions for states deemed in violation of the treaty, naming Iran and North Korea.

A White House statement on Monday said the new nuclear policy offered "an alternative to developing new nuclear weapons, which we reject".

The misfortune of the four garlic pickers was to have unwittingly strayed into a "counter-insurgency operation" conducted by Russian forces in the densely wooded border between Chechnya and Ingushetia. The soldiers, apparently looking for militant rebels who are waging their own violent campaign against the Russian state, came across the unarmed group, brutally killing them amid the picturesque massif of low hills.Normally this atrocity on a cold day in February would have raised barely a ripple of attention had it not been for the terrible events in Moscow this week. In a video address on Thursday, Chechnya's chief insurgent leader, Doku Umarov, said Monday's suicide attacks on the Russian capital's metro were in revenge for the killings of the garlic pickers near the Ingush village of Arshaty. He claimed federal security service (FSB) commandos had used knives to mutilate their bodies of the dead boys.

Forty people died and more than 70 were injured when two suicide attackers from the North Caucasus set off their devices at stations outside the headquarters of the FSB and Park Kultury.

human rights groups say it is undeniable that the brutal actions of Russia's security forces have fuelled the insurgency raging across the North Caucasus region of Russia and the ethnic republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia, Chechnya and Kabardino-Balkaria. This largely invisible war has now reached the Kremlin's doorstep.

Barack Obama has urged Beijing to "ratchet up the pressure" on Iran over its nuclear programme after a breakthrough for the US administration in persuading China to agree to talks on fresh sanctions against Tehran.

diplomats say that while China's agreement to discuss sanctions is a step towards greater unity over Iran, the US and China remain a considerable distance from reaching agreement.China is the last permanent member of the UN security council to oppose any new measures, although there is disagreement among the other permanent members over the extent of additional sanctions.

Western officials claimed a breakthrough on Wednesday when they said China had agreed to start drafting a fourth UN security council resolution for sanctions against Iran. They said that in a conference call diplomats from the permanent five members of the security council and Germany had begun discussing the content of a new resolution for the first time. China had hitherto argued that more sanctions were unnecessary and counterproductive.

President Barack Obama won rare praise from Moscow for scrapping that plan, which the Russians suspected was aimed against them. But the thaw did not last long. Last September, Washington announced what it called the Phased Adaptive Approach (PAA) to missile defence. This new system would start by stationing missile defence assets in south-east Europe, and slowly spread its web to the centre and finally the north.

As part of the PAA, Romania has announced that it will accept up to 24 land-based interceptor missiles. Talks with the US on the details will begin soon. And the Bulgarian government has offered to play host to the radar component which complements the missiles.

The introduction of the interceptors and radar clearly represents a shift in the balance of power in south-east Europe, following 2008's Russia-Georgia conflict, and Ukraine's new president's offer to extend Russia's lease on its naval base at Sevastopol in the Crimea. "The Black Sea region... will be a very interesting hub, in terms of the arms race and everything we can can see developing on the eastern border of Nato," says Radu Tudor, a defence analyst in Bucharest.

Iceland's socialist government was surveying the damage Sunday after a referendum rejected a deal to pay Britain and the Netherlands billions for losses in the collapse of the Icesave bank.    As expected, Icelanders overwhelmingly voted down the deal in Saturday's referendum, with some 93.6 percent of voters lined up on the "no" side after more than 50 percent of the votes had been counted.    Only 1.5 percent of voters had so far voted "yes" to the Icesave deal, said RUV public broadcaster which compiles all electoral statistics.

Icelanders were asked to vote on whether the country should honour an agreement to repay Britain and the Netherlands 3.9 billion euros (5.3 billion dollars) by 2024.    This would be to compensate them for money they paid to 340,000 of their citizens hit by the collapse of Icesave in 2008.    Some observers had warned that a "no" vote might result in the International Monetary Fund blocking the remaining half of a 2.1-billion dollar rescue package.    It could also hit European Union and euro currency membership talks, Iceland's credit rating and destabilise the leftwing government, which negotiated the agreement in the first place, they argued.

Grimsson said that while Icelanders were not against compensating Britain and the Netherlands, many considered that the repayment conditions, and especially the high 5.5-percent interest rate agreed upon, were exorbitant.    "The people of Iceland, farmers, fishermen, teachers, nurses, are by and large willing to repay to Britain and the Netherlands what is equal to over 20,000 euros per depositor," Grimsson said.    "But they are not ready to pay a very high interest rate so that the British and Dutch governments would make a huge profit off this whole exercise."

France urged international financial bodies to fund a new era of global nuclear power on Monday and pitched its own reactor technology as the model to follow.     Welcoming delegates from 60 energy-hungry nations to a conference in Paris, President Nicolas Sarkozy said civil nuclear power had been unfairly passed over for World Bank development loans.    

He called on world and regional financial bodies to finance new nuclear projects in developing countries, and announced that France would set up an international institute to promote atomic technology.     "I can't understand why nuclear power is ostracised by international finance, it's the stuff of scandal," he said, urging the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and others to do more.

"I have decided to change up a gear by creating an International Institute of Nuclear Energy that will include an international nuclear school," he said.     He said the French school would become the heart of an international network of institutes, beginning with a centre in Jordan.     "Other centres of nuclear training will be developed with French support, such as the Franco-Chinese nuclear energy institute, in cooperation with the University of Guangzhou," he said.     France has the world's second largest nuclear sector and generates a greater proportion its own electricity through nuclear power than any other economy -- around 75 percent of its needs.     It has also made the export of nuclear technology an economic priority.

At the start of the foreign secretary's evidence to the Chilcot panel, Sir Roderic Lyne, a member of the inquiry panel, said it had heard "three rather different explanations as to why we took military action against Iraq in 2003".Tony Blair emphasised the need to impose regime change on Iraq, Lyne said. But Jack Straw, the foreign secretary at the time of the war, stressed the importance of dealing with Iraq's presumed weapons of mass destruction, Lyne said.And Gordon Brown, when he gave evidence on Friday last week, said he supported the war because he thought the will of the international community had to be enforced.

In his evidence Blair said the inquiry should consider what would have happened if the Iraq war had not taken place. He said that an Iraq still led by Saddam Hussein, competing with Iran to acquire WMD and support terrorism, could be an even greater threat today than Iraq was in 2003.

Miliband went on: "The authority of the UN would have been severely dented. If, in the hypothetical case you are putting, we had marched to the top of the hill of pressure and marched down again without disarming Saddam Hussein, that would really have been quite damaging [to the ability of the UN to work together].

Israel has authorised the building of 112 new apartments in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank.

On Sunday, Palestinian Authority leaders in the West Bank agreed to indirect talks with Israel. Israel had promised a 10-month pause in settlement building in the West Bank, not including East Jerusalem.

The planned apartments are in the settlement of Beitar Illit, which has a mostly Orthodox Jewish population.