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A lawsuit filed in a US district court claims that US aid to Israel is illegal under a law passed in the 1970s that prohibits aid to nuclear powers that don’t sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Grant Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, who filed the lawsuit Monday with a Washington DC court, said the United States has given Israel an estimated $234 billion in foreign aid since Congress in 1976 passed the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act, with its stipulation regarding countries that did not sign the NPT, according to Courthouse News....

WASHINGTON — Americans following this year's presidential campaign would never know it from mainstream media coverage, but the commander in chief we hired four years ago has set the United States on a course for unilateral disarmament. The following people hope you won't notice until after Nov. 6: Vladimir Putin, Liang Guanglie, Kim Jong-un, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Sayyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, A.Q. Khan and of course, Barack Obama. The 10 individuals above share a common fascination: nuclear weapons. Vladimir Putin, Russia's modern czar; Liang Guanglie, minister of national defense for...

'It's Terrifying': Students Build Grassroots Momentum for Nuclear Disarmament Activist Students Say Nuclear Weapons Elimination Should Be a Top Priority for Their Generation By HUMA KHAN May 3, 2010— Scott Ibaraki has been on the road for the last three weeks. Ibaraki, 22, has driven from Florida to Washington, D.C., in a dusty green van, accompanied by two colleagues for what he describes as an important mission: warning people about the dangers of a nuclear world. It is so important to him that Ibaraki, at one college campus, used a Pikachu outfit and ran across the campus with a megaphone...

Heading into a historic meeting on Tehran’s disputed nuclear activities, Iran’s new president called on Israel on Thursday to join an international treaty banning the spread of nuclear weapons, chiding the Jewish state for being the only Mideast nation that has failed to do so. President Hassan Rouhani addressed a United Nations forum on nuclear disarmament, speaking as chair of an organization of mostly developing countries that has long demanded that Israel sign the landmark 1979 Non-Proliferation Treaty. …

Iran will keep the option of withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty on the table and will seriously consider it if the West intensifies sanctions or refers the case to the U.N. Security Council, a leading lawmaker warned Monday. Alaeddin Boroujerdi said Iran cannot remain an NPT member while it is punished for exercising its nuclear rights, while offering terms for a deal at the same time—halting high-quality enrichment in exchange for cancellation of punishing Western sanctions. … Boroujerdi heads the Iranian parliament’s security and foreign policy committee. The 1968 treaty aims to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Signatories...

The Chinese have called it their “Underground Great Wall” — a vast network of tunnels designed to hide their country’s increasingly sophisticated missile and nuclear arsenal. For the past three years, a small band of obsessively dedicated students at Georgetown University has called it something else: homework. Led by their hard-charging professor, a former top Pentagon official, they have translated hundreds of documents, combed through satellite imagery, obtained restricted Chinese military documents and waded through hundreds of gigabytes of online data. The result of their effort? The largest body of public knowledge about thousands of miles of tunnels dug by...

Defense: The administration proudly reveals a state secret to our enemies before a U.N. conference on nuclear nonproliferation. It wants to lead by example on disarmament, but Iran and North Korea aren't following. Not since the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact that sought to outlaw war as an instrument of national policy has there been such a stunning display of dangerous naivete. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton disclosed U.S. nuclear secrets to the U.N. conference while proudly proclaiming it showed America is sending "a clear, unmistakable signal" that this nation is committed to nuclear disarmament. Kellogg-Briand laid the groundwork for Munich in...

National Security: Aiming at a world where nuclear weapons are obsolete, the administration's nuclear posture review leaves a world without American nuclear weapons and the backbone to use them. After his stunning bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto lamented that all that had been accomplished was to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve. Under policies announced by the Obama administration, a devastating chemical or biological attack on this country might merely awaken our very own Hamlet and fill him with a terrible sense of angst. We have said before that rather...

Defense: President Obama dreams of a world without nuclear weapons. Unless testing and maintenance of our nuclear deterrent is resumed, it will be a world without American nuclear weapons.In his Prague speech this spring, the president spoke of "America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," ignoring the fact that before 1945 we lived in such a world and it was neither peaceful nor secure. We recently observed the anniversaries of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, actions that brought an abrupt end to the carnage of World War II and arguably...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/presidential-memorandum-regarding-india Home • Briefing Room • Presidential Actions • Presidential Memoranda The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release February 03, 2010 Presidential Memorandum Regarding India Presidential Determination No. 2010-04 MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE SUBJECT: Certifications Pursuant to Section 104 of the United States-India Nuclear Cooperation Approval and Nonproliferation Enhancement Act Regarding the Safeguards Agreement Between India and the International Atomic Energy Agency Pursuant to section 104 of the United States-India Nuclear Cooperation Approval and Nonproliferation Enhancement Act (Public Law 110-369), I hereby determine and certify that: 1....

The United States is looking for nukes in all the wrong places. Nuclear terrorism won't come from countries; it will come from vast networks of operatives with only tenuous links to states. Nor are terrorists likely to get their nuclear material from rogue regimes. Far more probable is that they will steal it or obtain it through the growing global black market. If this is to be prevented, the United States and its allies will have to give their counterproliferation mindset a sweeping overhaul. Today's terrorist threats are far less tangible than the traditional, state-centric security ones embodied by such...

Note: The folllowing text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary _________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release May 29, 2009 Statement by the President on Beginning of Negotiations on Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty There is no greater security challenge in the world today than turning the tide on nuclear-proliferation, and pursuing the goal of a nuclear-free world. I welcome today’s important agreement at the Conference on Disarmament to begin negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, which will end production of fissile materials for use in atomic bombs. As I announced in Prague, a verified...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/foreign_policy/ THE AGENDA • FOREIGN POLICY THE AGENDA FOREIGN POLICY President Obama and Vice President Biden will renew America’s security and standing in the world through a new era of American leadership. The Obama-Biden foreign policy will end the war in Iraq responsibly, finish the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, secure nuclear weapons and loose nuclear materials from terrorists, and renew American diplomacy to support strong alliances and to seek a lasting peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Afghanistan and Pakistan Afghanistan: Obama and Biden will refocus American resources on...

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....