Inter Press Service

Civilian deaths due to drone strikes in Pakistan are falling rapidly, and the death rate is now close to zero – or so asserts a New America Foundation (NAF) report. The report was authored by Peter Bergen and Jennifer Rowland of NAF, a public policy think tank based in Washington DC. Bergen is the cable news channel CNN's national security analyst and a director of NAF, and Rowland is a programme associate. The report states that since 2004, there have been 310 drone ...

"The Pentagon's proposed reductions in its spending plans are far too low," according to William Hartung, a veteran defence analyst at the Washington-based Center for International Policy. "If the administration were to follow up on its own rhetoric on ...

While a growing number of influential voices here and in the region insist that the nearly 20-year, U.S.-sponsored "peace process" has reached its terminal phase, the administration of President Barack Obama remains committed to reviving direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

"…[M]oving forward, we want to see progress on the peace talks," State Department spokesman Mark Toner has emphasised repeatedly over the last two weeks, which have seen Washington's special envoy David Hale shuttling between Jerusalem and Ramallah.

... was one of the worst strategic errors in American history, and, despite the Pentagon's desire to stay, it was the right call to have a full withdrawal," said Steve Clemons, director of the American Security Project at the New America Foundation. ...

That drew strong criticism from Steve Clemons, founder of the American Strategy Programme at the New America Foundation, who called the speech "depressingly conventional in the sense that he looks at the Pentagon as the source of the country's strength ...

If one person in my SAT class enhances, that's one thing, but if it is 25 percent, it begins to skew the curve," Allenby said at the forum, "Is Our Techo-Human Marriage in Need of Counselling", held in September at the New America Foundation and ...

... then others, including Europeans, will lose patience, and pursue alternatives to direct negotiations, including at the UN," according to Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator now based at the New America Foundation here. ...

William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy and author of 'Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex', said talks of defence budget cuts have private defence ...

... with a Palestinian leader willing to say yes to peace with Israel." This can be an opportunity for Obama, according to former Israeli diplomat Daniel Levy: "There might be advantages for the US in having this issue taken somewhat out of its hands… ...

In "The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom", author Evgeny Morozov debunks the predominant narrative and initial techno-euphoria surrounding Iran's restive summer of 2009 as a revolution purported to have been borne out of Twitter. ...