Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly

Recommended Citation

"Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly", NAPSNet Weekly Report, June 06, 2012, https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-weekly/nautilus-peace-and-security-weekly-6/

7 June 2012

The Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly Report presents articles and full length reports each week in six categories: Austral securitynuclear deterrenceenergy security, climate change adaptation, the DPRK, and governance and civil society. Our team of contributors carefully select items that highlight the links between these themes and the three regions in which our offices are found—North America, Northeast Asia, and the Austral-Asia region. Each week, one of our authors also provides a short blog that explores these inter-relationships.

CONTENTS

See this week’s blog from our Energy Security contributor, Nikhil Desai.


DETERRENCE:  Regions that say no: Precedents and precursors for denuclearizing northeast Asia, Michael Hamel-Green, NAPSNet Special Report (5 June 2012)

A northeast Asian NWFZ could follow the Tlatelolco precedent of incremental implementation since South Korea and Japan are already nuclear-free and North Korea could join it in principle, and slowly bring the treaty into force for its territory in return for binding nuclear weapons state security guarantees.


DPRK: China must not let N. Korea go nuclear, Global Times (2 June 2012)

Defense Secretary Panetta formally articulated U.S. “pivot” to the Pacific. However, there has been little reaction from North Korea. North Korea has been reaching out in different ways: declaring themselves a nuclear power by amending their constitution, making geodetically challenged threats to destroy South Korean media, and visiting Southeast Asian countries. Regional allies are drawing closer to counter these perceived threats.


CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION: Climate change adaptation and the Australian urban water industry, Occasional Paper 27, Water Services Association of Australia Ltd. (2012) [PDF, 3.36 MB]

Climate change projections for Australia suggest a hotter, drier climate, rising seas and more intense fires and floods. These projections will be critically important to the management of water services across the country because the water cycle is highly sensitive to climate. Therefore, the water industry in Australia is facing an unprecedented challenge, with implications for all facets of the urban water cycle from water supply, sewerage transfer and treatment and infrastructure, to river health, drainage and flood management.


ENERGY SECURITY: Japan to make more plutonium despite big stockpile, Eric Talmadge and Mari Yamaguchi, Business Week (1 June 2012)

The crisis of nuclear power is not in technology but in governance. Japan piles up plutonium for its potential usefulness, even if not clear to others. The nuclear establishment everywhere is clinging to the faith in plutonium, rooted in the origins of nuclear power. The same mania of cheap, unlimited energy supplies and energy security has driven the Indian government to send the army and psychiatrists to control its nuclear protesters.


Check out this week’s Energy Security blog: Phobias, Manias, and Addictions.


GOVERNANCE AND CIVIL SOCIETY: South Korea should get nuclear weapons: Rep. Chung, Dong-A Ilbo (4 June 2012)

A ruling Saenuri Party leader called for the ROK to match the DPRK “nuclear weapon for nuclear weapon” in response to the DPRK referring to itself as a nuclear state in its Constitution. The ROK is pushing for the US to extend its ballistic missile range to cover the entirety of the DPRK. An expert panel called for a new approach towards the DPRK based on an international peace treaty between states in the region and a nuclear weapons free zone.


CLIMATE CHANGE AND SECURITY: Top US companies shelling out to block action on climate change, Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian (30 May 2012)

Some of America’s top companies are spending heavily to block action on climate change or discredit climate science, despite public commitments to sustainable and green values, a Union of Concerned Scientists report has found. An analysis of 28 Standard & Poor 500 publicly traded companies exposed a sharp disconnect in some cases between PR message and less visible activities, with companies quietly lobbying against climate policy or misrepresented climate science in their public communications.


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