The World Next Week podcast is up. Bob McMahon and I discussed the presidential election in Egypt; the NATO summit in Chicago; and the P5+1′s talks with Iran in Baghdad.

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The highlights:

• Egypt holds its presidential elections on May 23-24. Read more »

The World Next Week podcast is up. Bob McMahon and I discussed next week’s talks in Vienna between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran; the Group of Eight (G8) summit at Camp David; François Hollande’s inauguration as president of France; and the Cannes Film Festival.

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The highlights: Read more »

The World Next Week podcast is up. This week, Bob McMahon and I had the week off. Fortunately, Isobel Coleman and Toni Johnson graciously agreed to step in for us to preview next week’s news. They discussed the resumption of Iran and the P5+1′s nuclear talks; the Summit of the Americas in Colombia; the continuing trials of foreign NGO workers in Egypt; and World Health Day. Read more »

The World Next Week podcast is up. Bob McMahon and I discussed the Arab League summit in Baghdad; President Obama’s visit to the Denuclearized Military Zone (DMZ) on the Korean Peninsula as part of his visit to the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul; the presidential election run-off in Senegal; and the Pope’s trip to Cuba. Read more »

The World Next Week podcast is up. Bob McMahon and I discussed the UN inspectors visiting Iran for a second time; the “Friends of Syria” meeting in Tunis; and the convening of G20 foreign ministers in Mexico. Read more »

The World Next Week podcast is up. Bob McMahon and I discussed the Obama administration’s FY 2013 budget; the Senate Armed Services Committee’s upcoming hearing on worldwide threats; Chinese Vice President Xi Jingping’s visit to the United States; and the one-year anniversary of Hosni Mubarak’s ouster from power. Read more »

Nuclear weapons are the most dangerous weapons on the planet. So you would think that they and the fissile material used to make them are under tight control. Perhaps not.

That’s at least the conclusion of a new study conducted by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). Using open-source data—that is, without relying on secret intelligence—they ranked the thirty-two countries that have at least one kilogram of weapons-useable nuclear materials (plutonium and highly enriched uranium) in terms of how tight their security is. (The study did not look at the security of other kinds of radioactive material that could be used in making so-called radiological or dirty bombs.) NTI and EIU weighed eighteen factors, ranging from physical protections at nuclear sites to broader questions of political stability and corruption, in compiling their rankings. Read more »