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In the final hours of negotiations, the United States, as well as Russia and China, all large weapons exporters, said more time was needed.

Fifty-one senators had urged the administration not to sign it in a letter sent Thursday. That letter sent an important signal of defeat because ratification requires 67 Senate votes. “As defenders of the right of Americans to keep and bear arms, we write to express our grave concern about the dangers posed by the United Nations’ arms trade treaty,” the senators said in the letter to President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. “Our country’s sovereignty and the constitutional protection of these individual freedoms must not be infringed.”

Galen Carey, vice president of government relations at the National Association of Evangelicals, criticized gun lobby members for disparaging the treaty, saying, “Those spreading misinformation about alleged links between this treaty and the Second Amendment should stop doing so.”

Environmental security is still viewed in Western countries that see climate change as a “threat multiplier” in already conflict-sensitive regions differently than in developing countries that consider security implications with regional neighbors when responding to extreme events.

operational risk analyses that focus on environmental systems supporting overall stability

The most crucial of these resources and critical nodes is water.

Among measures Iran is taking since the interim agreement took effect on January 20 is the dilution of its stock of higher-enriched uranium to a fissile concentration less suitable for any attempt to fuel an atomic bomb.Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), indicated that Iran had made sufficient progress in this regard to receive a scheduled March 1 installment of $450 million out of a total of $4.2 billion in previously blocked overseas funds.

Separately, the IAEA is investigating suspicions - largely believed to be based on intelligence provided by Western states and Israel - that Iran has researched how to construct an atomic bomb, a charge Tehran denies. Iran says it is Israel's assumed nuclear arsenal that threatens Middle East peace.

Amano said 17 IAEA member states had so far expressed interest in contributing extra-budgetary funds to help finance the IAEA's extra workload in monitoring the implementation of the Geneva agreement in Iran, but that more was needed. "We are still short of some €1.6 million ($2.21 million)," Amano said.The U.N. agency said in January it needed about 5.5 million euros from member states to pay for its increased activities in Iran. This would cover more inspectors sent to Iran and the purchase of specialized surveillance-related equipment.

I came to understand that the pursuit of national and individual interests of political leaders is the driving force of international relations. Sure, in recent years several Western governments have officially recognized the Armenian genocide. However, domestic political considerations or foreign policy objectives (like the goal of keeping Turkey out of the EU) rather than a commitment to rectifying an historical injustice, appear to be the primary reasons for these actions. After all, why had these governments ignored the Armenian genocide until now?

Focusing all my energies to the task of forcing the Turkish government to reverse its policy of denial is self-defeating and perpetuates my emotional and intellectual self-incarceration. I have shed the culture of victimhood and freed myself from the oppressive weight of our history.

it is Turkey’s problem. Let the Turks come to terms with their history by freeing it from their self-manufactured myths, reassess their past and transform their state from an ethnically exclusive home for Turks alone into an inclusive one for different ethnic and religious groups who consider themselves the citizens of Turkey. But while Dink was mourned by Armenians all over the world and even by a large number of Turks, his message -- as far as the Armenian diasporas are concerned -- has fallen on deaf ears.

About one in five of those polled for the BBC by GlobeScan said they had discussed issues relating to corruption with others in the last month, making it the most talked about concern ahead of climate change, poverty, unemployment and rising food and energy costs.

Nearly one in three people who had contact with the police around the world had to pay a bribe

Publication of the BBC poll coincides with anti-corruption day held by the United Nations.

despite the fervent hopes of remainers, nothing that happened last week makes an “exit from Brexit” more likely. Instead, Brexit compromises conceivably capable of bridging the country’s divides, such as the “Norway plus” option proposed by moderate Conservative MP Nick Boles, are now harder than ever to reach

Britain is teetering more wildly than ever on the edge of an outright constitutional crisis

the strength of the Scottish National Party has made working majorities a thing of the past

There was, of course, no Brit. After two years of increasingly frustrating Brexit talks with a hopelessly divided government incapable of explaining what – in the realm of the real – it actually even wanted, Europe had had enough. “It’s like dealing with a failed state,” one official confided before the summit.

The people in the picture were plugged into EU leaders in the summit room, figuring out a plan that would, finally and unavoidably, force Britain to confront reality and choose.

“It ensures that the British recognise Brexit is their responsibility, and obliges them, finally, to accept the consequences of the divorce they are seeking,”

a Finnish investigative journalist, has faced down death threats and harassment over her work exposing Russia’s propaganda machine long before the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. In January, the U.S. State Department took notice, telling Aro she would be honored with the prestigious International Women of Courage Award, to be presented in Washington by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Weeks later, the State Department rescinded the award offer. A State Department spokesperson said it was due to a “regrettable error,” but Aro and U.S. officials familiar with the internal deliberations tell a different story. They say the department revoked her award after U.S. officials went through Aro’s social media posts and found she had also frequently criticized President Donald Trump.

There is no indication that the decision to revoke the award came from the secretary of state or the White House. Officials who spoke to FP have suggested the decision came from lower-level State Department officials wary of the optics of Pompeo granting an award to an outspoken critic of the Trump administration.

the incident underscores how skittish some officials—career and political alike—have become over government dealings with vocal critics of a notoriously thin-skinned president.

a report by the Astana Club that brings together prominent political figures, diplomats, and experts from the Great Game’s various players under the auspices of Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev. Entitled, ‘Toward a Greater Eurasia: How to Build a Common Future?,’ the report warns that the Eurasian supercontinent needs to anticipate the Great Game’s risks that include mounting tensions between the United States and China; global trade wars; arms races; escalating conflict in the greater Middle East; deteriorating relations between Russia and the West; a heating up of contained European conflicts such as former Yugoslavia; rising chances of separatism and ethnic/religious conflict; and environmental degradation as well as technological advances. The report suggested that the risks were enhanced by the fragility of the global system with the weakening of multilateral institutions such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and NATO.

Erdogan’s vision, according to Eurasia scholar Igor Torbakov, is built on the notion that the world is divided into distinct civilizations. And upon that foundation rise three pillars: 1) a just world order can only be a multipolar one; 2) no civilization has the right to claim a hegemonic position in the international system; and 3) non-Western civilizations (including those in Turkey and Russia) are in the ascendant. In addition, anti-Western sentiment and self-assertiveness are crucial elements of this outlook. Expressing that sentiment, Turkish bestselling author and Erdogan supporter Alev Alati quipped: “We are the ones who have adopted Islam as an identity but have become so competent in playing chess with Westerners that we can beat them. We made this country that lacked oil, gold and gas what it is now. It was not easy, and we won’t give it up so quickly.”

Turkey and Russia still “see themselves as empires, and, as a general rule, an empire’s political philosophy is one of universalism and exceptionalism. In other words, empires don’t have friends – they have either enemies or dependencies,” said Mr. Torbakov, the Eurasia scholar, or exist in what Russian strategists term “imperial or geopolitical solitude.” Mr. Erdogan’s vision of a modern-day Ottoman empire encompasses the Turkic and Muslim world. Different groups of Russian strategists promote concepts of Russia as a state that has to continuously act as an empire or as a unique “state civilization” devoid of expansionist ambition despite its premise of a Russian World that embraces the primacy of Russian culture as well as tolerance for non-Russian cultures. Both notions highlight the pitfalls of their nations’ history and Eurasianism.

No new phone, tablet, car, or satellite transferring your data at lightning speed can be made without certain minerals and metals that are buried in a surprisingly small number of countries, and for which few commonly found substitutes are available. Operating in niche markets with limited transparency and often in politically unstable countries, Chinese firms have locked up supplies of these minerals and metals with a combination of state-directed investment and state-backed capital, making long-term strategic plays, sometimes at a loss

unprecedented concentration of market power

“Made in China 2025,” aims to build strategic industries in national defense, science, and technology. To meet these objectives, in October 2016, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced an action plan for its metals industry to achieve world-power status: By deploying state-owned enterprises and private firms to resource-rich hot spots around the globe, China would develop and secure other countries’ mineral reserves—including minerals in which China already holds a dominant position