Military and Security Spending, April 26 | Foreign Policy In Focus released its fourth annual Unified Security Budget report. discussed in this TomPaine.com commentary by report co-author Miriam Pemberton, as well as on Marketplace and in the Inter Press Service.

Nuclear Power, April 23 | This report from IPS, Friends of the Earth and the Government Accountability Project, directed by Robert Alvarez, revealed that the Department of Energy’s plans to recycle spent fuel from nuclear power plants could cost tens of billions of dollars and pose unprecedented potential hazards. Read about it in a Huffington Post blog by Alex Raksin.

CEO Pay, April 23 | IPS Fellow Sarah Anderson calls on Congress to rein in executive compensation in this Hartford Courant op-ed.

Climate Change, May 3 | IPS Fellow Daphne Wysham is quoted in this Reuters article about the shortcomings of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a corporate alliance that has proposed ways that companies can curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Politics, May 3 | Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr., whose Hip Hop Caucus partners with the Institute’s Cities for Progress project, is quoted in this Washington Post article about Barack Obama’s comments on the African-American community.

I R A Q //

Hired Guns, April 25 | IPS Fellow Sanho Tree is quoted in this Dissident Voice article about the growth of mercenary recruitment in Latin America, including thousands of "contractors" now deployed in Iraq.

War Policy, April 30 | IPS Research Fellow Erik Leaver is quoted in this TomDispatch.com commentary by Jeremy Scahill about a glaring loophole in the recently vetoed Iraq spending bill. Its restrictions on troop deployment did not apply to military contractors, giving the Bush administration room to escalate the use of mercenaries.

April 27 | IPS Fellow Phyllis Bennis and University of Texas at Austin professor Robert Jensen call on the movement against the Iraq War to move beyond this conflict and "advocate for an entirely new foreign policy based on opposition to the long U.S. drive toward empire" in this Common Dreams commentary.

April 26 | In this AlterNet commentary, IPS Research Fellow Erik Leaver explores what’s likely to happen following Bush’s veto of the Iraq and Afghanistan supplemental spending bill.

I N D I A //

Environment, April 21 | IPS fellow Daphne Wysham warns in this AlterNet commentary of escalating violence in India where villagers are resisting plans by South Korean steelmaker Posco to build a massive complex.

IDEAS INTO ACTION

For a Balanced Security Budget
Our four-year effort to draft a Unified Security Budget has finally begun to bear fruit. For the first time the Congressional Budget Office will pull together information on the relative balance of military and non-military security spending in the budget materials it presents to Congress.