Nuclear Issues

As part of the India and South Asia Program’s annual speaker series, Ambassador MaleehaLodhi, the Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the United Nations discussed her country’s regional agenda.

With a speed few predicted, Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, has signaled his interest in negotiations this autumn on Iran’s controversial nuclear program," writes Nicholas Burns. "This could produce the first extensive contact between Washington and Tehran since diplomatic relations ruptured during the Jimmy Carter administration."

The Spring 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This issue highlights the Belfer Center’s continuing efforts to build bridges between the United States and Russia to prevent nuclear catastrophe – an effort that began in the 1950s. This issue also features three new books by Center faculty that sharpen global debate on critical issues: God’s Century, by Monica Duffy Toft, The New Harvest by Calestous Juma, and The Future of Power, by Joseph S. Nye.

The Winter 2010/11 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This issue highlights a major Belfer Center conference on technology and governance, the Center's involvement in the nuclear threat documentary Countdown to Zero, and a celebration of Belfer Center founder Paul Doty.

A new analysis of energy research, development, demonstration, and deployment (ERD3) funding in the Obama administration's FY2010 budget and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 finds that the total available for energy research development and demonstration alone and ERD3 in FY2010 would double and increase by two-thirds, respectively, compared to FY2009 (based on certain assumptions). These substantial funding increases—coupled with a range of institutional innovations the administration is implementing and movement toward putting a price on carbon emissions—will help accelerate innovation for a broad range of energy technologies. This report analyzes DOE's budget request for ERD3 and the Recovery Act and makes recommendations for further action by Congress and the administration.

For more than a century, energy and its procurement have been central to the U.S. position as a world power.