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Pressure is quietly mounting on John McCain to support the idea of a nuclear-free world. It is being pushed primarily by former secretaries of state, and Senator McCain advisers, Henry Kissinger and George Shultz.They are joined in their efforts by a bipartisan slate of eminent national security figures, including a former secretary of defense during the Clinton administration, William Perry, and a Democratic Party heavyweight, Sam Nunn. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have already signaled their support for the effort.The Kissinger-Shultz argument says that in today's world where nuclear weapons are both becoming more dangerous and are being procured by...

JERUSALEM--Business opportunities in Iran were the theme of a German government-sponsored conference last week in Darmstadt, Germany. "Iran is accustomed to crises," the conference invitation delicately noted, "but somehow always keeps going forward." In fact, Iran's resilience is made possible in no small measure by Germany itself, which remains one of Iran's largest trading partners. Now Berlin is balking at international attempts to intensify economic sanctions against the Tehran regime for its nuclear program. Just how discordant Germany's Iranian policy is even within the European Union was made clear to me last spring, when I participated in a "roving seminar"...

The World’s Growing Nuclear Club India can offer some lessons on non-proliferation in a new nuclear age Humphrey Hawksley YaleGlobal, 16 April 2007 TARAPUR, INDIA: Behind the heightened tension with Iran lies a wider problem that world leaders must swiftly and substantively grasp. The Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), drawn up in 1968, needs to be re-written to make it both workable and acceptable to nations who view it as outdated and unfair. Over the next generation, as the scramble for energy gathers pace, many more governments will announce plans to build uranium-enrichment facilities. Some will be friendly...

Iran to pull out of nuclear treaty 'if further pressure' 13 minutes ago Iran will be obliged to pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if it is subjected to further international pressure over its atomic programme, chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani warned on Monday. "If they pressure us further we will have no choice but to reconsider our membership of the NPT as parliament has ruled," Larijani said, referring to a law agreed by parliament last year allowing the government to reduce cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog.

Some two dozen power plants are scheduled to be built or refurbished during the next five years in Canada, China, several European Union countries, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and South Africa. In the US and the UK, governmental preparations are under way that may lead to 15 new reactor orders by 2007. About 16% of the world's electricity supply comes from nuclear power, and energy demand is increasing (see PHYSICS TODAY, April 2002, page 54). Worldwide, nearly 80% of the 441 commercial nuclear reactors currently in operation are more than 15 years old.

ST. PETERSBURG, May 26 (RIA Novosti) - Russia rigorously complies with all its commitments on nuclear non-proliferation, the country's defense minister said Friday. "Rumors that Russia is covertly providing [nuclear] assistance to Iran is nothing but propaganda," Sergei Ivanov, who is also deputy prime minister, said following talks in Russia's second city with his German counterpart, Franz Josef Jung. Ivanov said the construction of a nuclear power plant in Bushehr, Iran, with Russian help had nothing to do with non-proliferation regulations. "Supplies of fuel to the plant are possible if only [the spent fuel] is then returned to Russia," he...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hinted Monday that Iran was considering withdrawing from the worldwide Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and said he did not think the UN Security Council would impose sanctions on Iran. "Those who speak about sanctions would be damaged more (than Iran)," he told a press conference. "But no particular event will happen, don't worry." Ahmadinejad said that Iran would reconsider its compliance with NPT and membership of the International Atomic Energy Agency if they continued to be of no benefit to the country. "What has more than 30 years of membership in the agency given us?" he asked....

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran reaffirmed its commitment to a nuclear arms control treaty Sunday and urged a peaceful solution to the international crisis over concerns it is seeking to develop atomic weapons, a day after its hard-line president issued a veiled threat to withdraw from the pact. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, meanwhile, began a mission to Iran to learn just what controls remain on nuclear sites and equipment after Tehran ended all but minimum cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency. In Vienna, Austria, a diplomat told The Associated Press Saturday that some International Atomic Energy Agency...

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said Friday that his country should produce its own nuclear fuel for power plants, part of the West-leaning leader's effort to reduce its reliance on Russia following a dispute over natural gas prices. "We must change our uranium policy - our policy on the use of uranium for peaceful purposes," Yushchenko said on national television. "We must cooperate with international allies on a serious political and economic level so that we can have a full cycle of processing and production of nuclear fuel."

Misunderstandings over "deterrence" are greatly damaging U.S. foreign policy and national security. Deterrence is based upon fear. We deter someone from an action against us by instilling fear of the consequences. To be effective, our threat of deterrence must be credible. Our adversary must absolutely believe we will carry out our threat. In the case of nuclear deterrence -- since the stakes are so high -- he must be confident the consequences for him will be intolerable; that we will destroy all he holds dear; that we will do so rapidly and devastatingly; and that the loss to him will...

U.N. reform agenda watered-down General Assembly adopts wording stripped of details UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday adopted a watered-down draft document on poverty, human rights and reform for this week's summit of world leaders to consider, shedding many of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's ambitious goals after weeks of bitter debate. The compromise 35-page document is supposed to launch a major reform of the United Nations itself and galvanize efforts to ease global poverty. But to reach a consensus, most of the text's details were gutted in favor of abstract language. A definition of terrorism and details...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 - In a first test of the new leadership in Iran, European negotiators have prepared a sweeping proposal that raises the possibility of Iran acquiring nuclear reactors and fuel, and of achieving a full political and economic relationship with the West, if it ends nuclear activities suspected to be part of a weapons program, Western diplomats said Thursday. The European offer, drafted with the tacit approval of the Bush administration, is to be transmitted by the end of this weekend as the latest step in a European-American effort to get Iran to abandon its suspected nuclear arms...

The Indians have also long claimed that the NPT unfairly grandfathered China, India’s rival and sometimes-adversary, into the nuclear club while keeping India itself out on the grounds that it had not tested a weapon when the treaty was completed. Not only does the Bush administration accept that logic — so did the Clinton administration. That was why, rather than insisting that India join the NPT as a non-nuclear-weapon state, the US has, for much of the past seven years, tried to work out a genuine compromise. Such an agreement would give India more access to technology necessary for its...

{snip}The United States has wisely been very cautious about sharing nuclear technology – military or civilian. Just a few months ago, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told The Wall Street Journal that any decision to sell civilian nuclear technology to India would have "quite serious" implications for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. So why did President Bush decide this week to help India build nuclear power plants and import advanced weapons? Certainly, a domestic civilian nuclear power program will aid India's economy and gives the United States another strong ally in the region against Muslim extremism, the emerging military and economic...

VIENNA, July 16 KYODO - The International Atomic Energy Agency seeks to put eight to 10 nuclear facilities, including ones in Japan, the United States, Russia and Finland, under international management, diplomatic sources close to the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Saturday. They include a reprocessing facility in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, while some of the others may be newly built under the initiative, they said. The IAEA plans to submit a draft to address the initiative to a board of directors meeting in September and put it into practice by 2010, when the next Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference will...

G-8 to push N. Korea to abandon nuke plans The Yomiuri Shimbun A nuclear nonproliferation declaration that pressures North Korea to abandon its nuclear development program is to be adopted at the upcoming Group of Eight major nations summit meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, government sources said Monday. The declaration, which has been tentatively called the "declaration concerning nonproliferation," will express "grave concern" over North Korea, which declared in February that it possessed nuclear weapons. According to the sources, if the schedule for resumption of the six-way talks is not decided at the July 6-8 summit meeting, the G-8 will demand...

Jimmy Carter: Erosion of the Nonproliferation Treaty Jimmy Carter International Herald Tribune MONDAY, MAY 2, 2005 ATLANTA As the review conference of the Nonproliferation Treaty convenes in New York this month, we can only be appalled at the indifference of the United States and the other nuclear powers. This indifference is remarkable, considering the addition of Iran and North Korea as states that either possess or seek nuclear weapons programs. In the run-up to the conference, a group of "Middle States" had a simple goal: "To exert leverage on the nuclear powers to take some minimum steps to save the...

MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERSFROM: GARY SCHMITTSUBJECT: Iran's "Right" to a Nuclear Program According to a front-page story in the New York Times yesterday ("Reshaping Nuclear Rules," by David Sanger), the Bush administration is seeking to close loopholes in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). The administration's concern is that the treaty allows states to become virtual or actual nuclear weapons states under the guise of acquiring technology, infrastructure, and know-how for "peaceful" nuclear energy programs.The core problem with the NPT is that it appears to give non-nuclear weapon states a "right" to nuclear technology and assistance in exchange for foreswearing weapons...

There is an arm of the Chinese government that has repeatedly aided the nuclear weapons programs of Pakistan and Iran. Now that arm is in line for a $5-billion loan deal from the U.S. government--for the benefit of two major U.S. corporations. The Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im), an independent federal agency that finances exports, has granted a preliminary commitment for the largest deal in it is history: $5 billion in loans and loan guarantees to the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) to build nuclear power plants. According to U.S. government reports, CNNC has been tied to at...

A group of hardline officials known as “nuclear hawks” is being promoted in a shake-up of the Bush administration's arms control and non-proliferation teams, according to officials close to the administration. The latest appointment, announced by President George W. Bush on Monday, saw Jack Crouch, the ambassador to Romania, become deputy national security adviser. Mr Crouch, who served in the Pentagon from 2001 to 2003 as assistant secretary of defence for international security policy, has a long background in arms control. In his Senate confirmation hearing in 2001 he was questioned on his support for US testing of nuclear weapons,...

AS THE UNITED STATES and its allies give Tehran its fifth chance in nearly two years to suspend activities that could bring it within weeks of having enough enriched uranium for a large arsenal, the question arises: Isn't there a better way to prevent states from getting nuclear weapons? The answer is yes, but only if we and our partners are willing to be much more aggressive in adapting existing nonproliferation efforts to today's threats.The key problem is that our current policy concedes too much. Iran, for instance, asserts that it has the right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I promised a sound bite or two. Yes, two on this Iraq business. Actually, Iran and nuclear material. Here is what Kerry says about Iran and giving them nuclear material. JOHN KERRY: With respect to Iran, the British, French and Germans were the ones who initiated an effort, without the United States regrettably, to begin to try to move to deter the nuclear possibilities in Iran. I believe we could have done better. I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see whether or not they were actually...

Iran should not be allowed to dictate the terms of the nonproliferation treaty Ever since word first leaked out that Iran was trying to make nuclear-weapons-usable fuels, U.S. officials have been trying to get the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to refer the matter to the United Nations Security Council. Washington's first argument — now over two years old — was that Iran cheated for nearly two decades on its nonproliferation-treaty (NPT) obligation to declare its sensitive nuclear activities to the IAEA. This was confirmed by the agency but put aside in favor of encouraging Iran to open up...

...Earlier this month in Jakarta, Secretary of State Colin Powell met with North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun, the highest-level meeting between the two countries since 2002. They discussed a plan put forward by the U.S. at six-party talks in late June to exchange a step-by-step dismantling of Pyongyang's nuclear program for South Korean and Japanese assistance to North Korea and security assurances from the U.S.... North Korea continues to issue outrageous threats. Just a week after the Jakarta meeting, Defense Minister Kim Il-chol warned that his country would pummel the U.S. "with merciless crushing blows" if provoked.... In...

MEMORANDUMFROM: BC'04 POLICY DEPARTMENTRE: THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION RECORD ON NONPROLIFERATION INTRODUCTION Preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) around the world continues to be an urgent priority of President George W. Bush and his Administration. There is no greater danger to our people than the nexus of terrorists and weapons of mass destruction. The risks posed by this dangerous nexus cannot be contained or deterred by traditional means. From the beginning of his Administration, the President's national security strategy has committed the US to work with its allies to: Ensure that international agreements against the proliferation of...

"John Kerry's embrace of nonproliferation goals and objectives already laid out by President Bush is a welcome step, but his failure to accept the success of negotiations with Libya and his criticism of a multilateral approach to confront the threat from North Korea demonstrate that John Kerry can't help but play politics with national security." -Steve Schmidt, Bush-Cheney '04 Spokesman Kerry Promises To Elevate Nonproliferation To The Top Of The Global Agenda – A Step Already Taken By President Bush And His G-8 Colleagues In December 2003, Kerry Promised To "Elevate Non-Proliferation To The Top Of The Global Agenda."...

When suicidal terrorists used commercial airliners as bombs on Sept. 11, 2001, it raised the prospect of even worse dangers: terrorists armed with chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons, President Bush said in his weekly radio address today. "The possibility of secret and sudden attack with weapons of mass destruction is the greatest threat before humanity today," he emphasized. The president said America is confronting this danger with open eyes and unbending purpose. But he warned that America faces the possibility of catastrophic attack from ballistic missiles armed with weapons of mass destruction. "So we are developing and deploying missile...

Moscow (CNSNews.com) - The Russian Foreign Ministry described non-proliferation talks with the United States on Friday as "serious, businesslike and pragmatic," but Moscow has so far refrained from a clear commitment to join the U.S.-backed Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton traveled to Russia this week for talks aimed largely at urging Russia to join the PSI, which is designed to further curb the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Bolton met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak, who is in charge of non-proliferation issues; Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev, and other officials. So far,...

'Scrap nuclear arms' Israel urged ElBaradei: IAEA assumes Israel has nuclear weapons The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog has urged Israel to surrender its alleged nuclear weapons in order to further peace in the Middle East. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei told an Israeli newspaper such weapons were not "an incentive for security". He also said Israel should sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Israel has never confirmed being a nuclear power, but is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons. Need for dialogue In his first interview with an Israeli newspaper, Mr ElBaradei told Haaretz...

NIAMEY, Niger (AP) - Two or three times each week, a convoy of flatbed trucks loaded with drums of mined uranium heads south from the Sahara Desert in Niger on a 10-day journey to the port of Cotonou in neighbouring Benin. Two lightly armed Nigerien gendarmes accompany the tarp-covered trucks on their 1,995-kilometre trip. They have no satellite phones or other ways to communicate in case of trouble. On their prearranged stops for the night the drivers must notify the mining companies, but they take no special precautions to secure the drums against theft. This low-grade security for the powder...

The United States accused Iran on Tuesday of violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty but said Tehran had "a last chance" to prove it wasn't running a covert weapons program. Backed by key allies, chief U.S. delegate Kenneth Brill took Iran to task on the basis of a report outlining discrepancies between its past statements on its nuclear program and findings by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The report, by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, lists the discovery of weapons-grade enriched uranium and other evidence that critics say point to a weapons program. "The United States believes the facts already established would...

Tehran, 21 July: Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi on Monday [21 July] gave the assurance that Iran is committed to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Asefi, speaking at his weekly press conference, denied conflicting reports by the foreign media about Iran's nuclear activities, its possible exit from the NPT or signing of the additional protocol to the NPT. "The Islamic Republic of Iran's (reported) quitting from the NPT is not on the agenda and Iran is committed to the treaty," he said. "It is but natural for people to express different opinions in a free society," he said, adding...

Perhaps the reason why the Bush administration is focusing on Iraq rather than North Korea is a bit more complex than it appears. The issues involved are more problematic than the Left's typical hand-scrawled protest signs, "Babes, not Bombs."Is the Bush administration using a double standard by aggressively reacting to Iraq but seeming to downplay the North Korean threat? The Left criticizes Bush, claiming that his concentration on Saddam Hussein is causing him to ignore the real threat, Kim Jong-il, who is rumored to already have missiles with the capability of striking the United States. Unfortunately, many on the Left...

Denmark demands American concessionsThe Danish foreign minister Pers Path Möller asks the US to accept all UN agreement regarding weapons of mass destruction. He recieves support from his Swedish counterpart Anna Lindh. At the same time as Denmark prepare themselves to support a US-led war against Iraq with equipment and soldiers, the foreign minister asks the USA and all other countries to sign the various UN agreements related to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, says Berlingske Tidende [danish newspaper]. Möller especially points at the US refusal to accept the nuclear test ban treaty and says that this...

North Korea said yesterday that it was pulling out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty because of American threats. As two United Nations nuclear inspectors expelled by Pyongyang arrived in China, North Korea accused the United States of plotting war against it, and vowed to fight "to the last man". Pak Ui Chun, North Korea's ambassador to Moscow, said that the US had not only made moves to cut off fuel oil supplies, it had been "threatening us with a preventative nuclear strike". "In these circumstances, we also cannot fulfil the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the basic clause of which is the obligation...

A high-ranking Iranian official arrived in Moscow on Tuesday for three days of consultations with Russian diplomats expected to focus on nuclear non-proliferation issues, Interfax reported. Zamani Nia, the Iranian foreign ministry's general director for international policy issues, would review "an extensive range of disarmament and export control issues" in the course of his visit, the news agency said, quoting a Russian source. His visit comes following Moscow's announcement last month that it planned to expand its nuclear cooperation with Tehran beyond existing projects. Additionally, they are expected to discuss Russia’s reported inability to guarantee the return from Iran of...

<p>Biological warfare is the subject of today's "Winds of Change" features. Lady Margaret Thatcher leads off in typically clear and inspirational style. The recently-passed Bioterrorism Preparedness Act of 2001 follows - it's a start, but large gaps remain. We look at the act and the gaps, and set out the 10-point plan for change. In-depth briefings on anthrax and smallpox round out today's features.</p>