HKS in the News April 30, 2012

1. Europe’s growth challenge (Summers) The Washington Post

2. One answer to Secret Service scandal? Hire more women (Kamarck) CNN

3. A tale of three capitals (Freilich) The Jerusalem Post

4. Could North Korea test "uranium bomb" for first time? (Heinonen) Reuters

5. Years after Cold War, NATO still "vital" to US: US experts (Burns) Xinhuanet (China)

6. Is the Nobel committee off its mission? (Clements) The Boston Globe

Europe’s growth challenge

Publication

April 29

Commentary by: Lawrence Summers, Mossavar-Rahmani Center

Topic: Europe’s economic problems

Once again European efforts to contain crisis have fallen short. It was perhaps reasonable to hope that the European Central Bank’s commitment to provide nearly a trillion dollars in cheap three-year funding to banks, would, if not resolve the crisis, contain it for a significant interval. Unfortunately, this has proved little more than a palliative. Weak banks, especially in Spain, have bought more of the debt of their weak sovereigns, while foreigners have sold down their holdings. Markets, seeing banks holding the dubious debt of the sovereigns that stand behind them, grow ever nervous. Again, Europe and the global economy approach the brink. …

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One answer to Secret Service scandal? Hire more women

CNN

April 30

Commentary by: Elaine Kamarck, Belfer Center

Topic: Gender and the Secret Service

Is the Colombia prostitution scandal rocking the Secret Service an isolated incident? Or is it evidence of a debauched organizational culture that permeates the entire agency when its agents are out of the country and don't think anyone is watching?

This is the question that has been on everyone's mind as word leaked out last week about a similar incident involving the Secret Service and some military personnel in El Salvador before President Barack Obama's trip there in March. …

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A tale of three capitals

The Jerusalem Post

April 29
Commentary by: Charles Freilich, Belfer Center

Topic: Iran’s nuclear program

The need to resolve the growing international crisis over Iran’s nuclear program has never been greater.

In Jerusalem, fears of a threat to Israel’s very existence, at the very least of a dire strategic threat, have animated the public bluster of recent months. Designed first and foremost to put pressure on the international community to finally deal with the Iranian issue effectively, so that Israel will not actually have to strike, rather than as a true indication of imminent action, the policy has worked well. …

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Could North Korea test "uranium bomb" for first time?

Reuters

April 27

Quoted: Olli Heinonen, Belfer Center

Topic: North Korea’s nuclear program

North Korea, believed to be preparing for a third nuclear test, would probably be able to make and explode a uranium device for the first time after earlier relying on plutonium, a former chief U.N. inspector said. …

"This assumes that the North Koreans have succeeded in producing HEU, in sufficient quantities as well, and have a bomb design," Olli Heinonen said in a paper he sent to Reuters on Friday. (http://tinyurl.com/c8x8etv ) …

The smuggling network of Pakistani nuclear proliferator A.Q. Khan, which sold nuclear secrets to North Korea and others, had design drawings of a uranium device developed in the mid-1990s, Heinonen said. And in any case, he said, "due to the fact that they were able to make a plutonium device, they should also be able to make a uranium one." …

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Years after Cold War, NATO still "vital" to US: US experts

Xinhuanet (China)

April 30

Quoted: Nicholas Burns, Belfer Center

Topic: The importance of NATO

Despite its creation in the Cold War era, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is not only still relevant but "vital" to the United States, U.S. experts said recently at events of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

"NATO is vital to the United States of America, and when I say vital, we can't do without it," R. Nicholas Burns, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO from 2001 to 2005, said at a lecture.

He dismissed the recent skepticism that NATO is irrelevant in the post-Cold War era and that the United States should reorient its foreign policy accordingly. "In our national discussion for people to be suggesting that Europe is a beautiful museum -- a nice place to visit but no longer where the action is -- is just completely wrong if you think about trade, investment, military power and politics," said Burns, who is also professor of diplomacy and international politics at Harvard University. …

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Is the Nobel committee off its mission?

The Boston Globe

April 28

Quoted: Charles Clements, Carr Center

Topic: Controversy over Nobel Prize awards

An eminent group of global peacemakers was in Chicago this week for the 12th annual World Summit of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, held in a US city for the first time...But the distinguished gathering masked a long-simmering controversy, mostly centered in Europe, over whether the Nobel committee has been violating the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish industrialist who endowed the prize. …

“The committee’s composition changes and their notion of what constitutes peace changes,” said Charlie Clements, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard University. Clements said Obama’s prize, which many called premature, is a good example. “They gave the prize for the possibility of what could be accomplished,” he said. “They wanted to propel the work. That was a new concept of the prize.” …

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Broadcast Notes

Graham Allison, Belfer Center

CBS “Face the Nation,” 4/29

Topic: The US a year after Osama Bin Laden’s death

Nicholas Burns, Belfer Center

CBS News , 4/28

Topic: US-China relations