Newsclick discusses with Aijaz Ahmad the rising tensions concerning North Korea. Aijaz Ahmad says there have been provocative war games taking place every year involving South Korea, the United States and Australia to simulate an attack on North Korea. But, of late, there is a distinct escalation at the level at which the United States is posing this threat. It is in the interests of the US to whip up a war hysteria in order to create a popular demand for the return of its tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea which were withdrawn in 1991 as part of a bilateral agreement with North Korea. These moves are also aimed at building a new cold war against China. The only guarantee that North Korea has for its security is its nuclear power.
 

How the US wants the nations of the world to believe its lies about the inevitability of bombing Iran to prevent another holocaust.

The return of negotiations between Iran and P5+1 – the US, Britain, France, Russia, China (Security Council 5) and Germany (+1) – in Almaty, Kazakhstan signal the possibility of resolving the issues between Iran and the US without a shooting war. Both Catherine Ashton, the lead negotiator of P5+1 and Saeed Jalili, the Iranian head of the delegation expressed guarded optimism and agreed to continue these meetings over March and April.

M V Ramana, a physicist by training, currently working with the Nuclear Futures Laboratory and the Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University discusses with Newsclick the current nuclear scenario in India. He speaks on how, in terms of cost and in terms of safety, dependence on nuclear energy is not feasible. He cautions that imported light water reactors are problematic and India should not rely on them.

A change of regime is often dangerous. After 1947, the Congress party had ruled the country for the most part.

A Gopalakrishnan, in the second part of the Newsclick interview, says there is a de-emphasis on the nuclear energy programme all over the world, mainly due to the rising costs and concerns over public safety. He says there is a growing interest in the renewable sources of energy, specially the wind and solar energy.

Times of India has carried in its front page a report that ISIS --“global watchdog” -- has linked a Chennai based company, an Iranian company and a Chinese commercial website in trying procure ring magnets for centrifuges in Iran.

After threatening for quite some time to do so, North Korea carried out a third underground test of a nuclear device on its own territory just a few days back.

On January 11, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) released its “Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-level Radioactive Waste”. The strategy is the Obama administration’s response to the recommendations issued in January 2012 by the federal Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) on America's Nuclear Future.

Here was the oddest thing: within weeks of the United States dropping an atomic bomb on a second Japanese city on August 9, 1945, and so obliterating it, Americans were already immersed in new scenarios of nuclear destruction.