Free Republic

Mitt Romney would back an Israeli military strike against Iran aimed at preventing Tehran from obtaining nuclear capability, a top foreign policy adviser said early Sunday, outlining the aggressive posture the Republican presidential candidate will take toward Iran in a speech in Israel later in the day. Romney has said he has a "zero tolerance" policy toward Iran obtaining the capability to build a nuclear weapon. "If Israel has to take action on its own, in order to stop Iran from developing the capability, the governor would respect that decision," foreign policy adviser Dan Senor told reporters ahead of the...

In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney bluntly states that "A nuclear Iran represents the greatest threat to the world." "I have said in the past and I can reiterate now that it is essential that Iran does not become nuclear," Romney says, according to a transcript of the interview. "A nuclear Iran represents the greatest threat to the world, to the United States and to the very existence of Israel. A nuclear Iran would mean that Hezbollah or other actors would potentially someday be able to secure fissile materials which would threaten the...

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Since the end of WWII, America's naval might has been undisputed and our aircraft carriers have been its crown jewels. However, the days of dominance could end with China's new DF-21D ballistic missile—the only device on Earth capable of sinking an aircraft carrier—four and a half acres of sovereign US territory—with one shot. VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi0d-eFiGN4&feature=player_embeddedThe DF-21D (Dong-Feng 21 variant D) is the world's first and only anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM). It's a two stage, land-launched missile with a maximum estimated range of 2,700 to 3,000 km. Its single fuel-air explosive warhead packs 200 to 500 kilotons. It was developed by...

Japanese authorities are investigating subcontractors on suspicion that they forced workers at the tsunami-hit nuclear plant to underreport the amount of radiation they were exposed to so they could stay on the job longer. Labor officials said Sunday that an investigation had begun over the weekend following media reports of a cover-up at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, which suffered multiple meltdowns following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disasters. A subcontractor of plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, acknowledged having nine workers cover their dosimeters with lead plates late last year so the instrument would indicate a lower...

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<p>WUERGASSEN, Germany (Reuters) - Peter Klimmek has spent his entire career at a nuclear plant in Germany. Next year, he will retire -- just months before his workplace does.</p> <p>The nuclear plant in the small and remote village of Wuergassen, halfway between Frankfurt and Hamburg, has been Klimmek's passion for the past 37 years.</p>

In an unusually public forum, the head of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency, MI6, has forecast that Iran would likely achieve a nuclear weapons capability within two years, a British newspaper reported Friday. The newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, quoted Sir John Sawers, once the ranking British diplomat on the Iranian nuclear issue and now head of the Secret Intelligence Service, as making the disclosure last week to a gathering of around 100 high-ranking civil servants. The reported remarks play into a highly contentious debate over Iran’s intentions and capabilities, in which estimates have varied widely. American intelligence agencies have cited a...

The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) notoriously opaque nuclear arsenal could be much bigger than the estimates prevalent in the United States—up to 1,800 warheads as opposed to the 300 or 400 currently thought—according to a report authored by a retired Russian colonel general. In addition, the report says that the PRC has rail-mounted intercontinental ballistic missiles equipped with nuclear warheads, and nuclear warheads on a series of ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) and cruise missiles—statements that contradict dominant understandings of China’s nuclear posture. Viktor Yesin, the former chief of the main staff of the Strategic Rocket Forces and currently professor...

North Korea has claimed that it needs atomic weaponry to defend itself from a constant threat of US nuclear attack and that Pyongyang would never give up its right to a "peaceful space programme". Pak Ui-Chun, North Korea's foreign minister, told a crowd at the ASEAN forum that it was Washington's aim to "eliminate the political ideology and system our people have opted for". Mr Pak said North Korea would use its "peaceful space programme" to "explore and utilise the outer space to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes". Mr Pak justified his claims by describing a US and South...

Would it have been worth it to use low-yield tactical nuclear weapons during Vietnam War?

UCSON, Ariz., July 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) was awarded a $636 million development and sustainment contract to provide the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle to The Boeing Company, which is the prime contractor for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense program. Raytheon booked the award during its second quarter. EKV represents the centerpiece for the Missile Defense Agency's GMD as the intercept component of the Ground Based Interceptor, also known as GBI, which is designed to engage high-speed ballistic missile warheads in space. "When it comes to developing, testing and deploying technologies that enable the intercept of threats in space,...

50 years ago today, a hydrogen bomb lit the sky over Hawaii in a renewed nuclear race between superpowers "The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch." — Revelation 8:10 The "great star" that lit up the night sky over Honolulu 50 years ago today had no roots in the Bible. But its effects rivaled the dramatic imagery of Revelation. A hydrogen bomb test above Johnston Atoll called Starfish Prime turned night to day on Oahu, 860 miles to the northeast.

The Electricity Ministry has prepared a report for President Mohamed Morsy on the steps necessary for implementing Egypt’s controversial nuclear program. Minister of Electricity Hassan Younis has reviewed the report, which argues for the implementation of the project. It will be submitted to the cabinet, then the president. The report says that an important reason for going ahead with a nuclear program is Egypt's increasing demand for electricity, which requires an additional 300 megawatts annually. It says the drop in both traditional sources of energy and employment opportunities mean Egypt should realise the project, which is economically feasible compared to...

Здравствуйте! A formal hello, how ya doin’? salute with a middle finger and a nuclear bomber from the Ruskies has come our way not once, but twice in the last two weeks. Seems to me the Russians are itching for war and are prepping on all fronts. This time Moscow dispatched nuclear-capable bombers into the 200-mile zone surrounding U.S. territory. They came just short of breaching the 12 mile zone we consider sovereign air space. The previous incident involved two Tu-95 Bear H bombers and took place near Alaska as part of arctic war games that Russian military claim included...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran will block the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, the passageway through which a fifth of the world's oil flows, if its interests are seriously threatened, a senior Iranian military commander said Saturday. "We do have a plan to close the Strait of Hormuz," state media quoted Gen. Hasan Firouzabadi as saying Saturday. "A Shiite nation (Iran) acts reasonably and would not approve interruption of a waterway ... unless our interests are seriously threatened," Press TV quoted him as saying.

France’s President Francois Hollande has reaffirmed his commitment to nuclear arms. Boldly going where no French head of state has gone for almost 40 years, Hollande took a three hour trip off the coast of Brittany on the submarine ‘Terrible’.

The Obama administration is moving toward decisions that would further cut the number of U.S. nuclear weapons, possibly to between 1,000 and 1,100, reflecting new thinking on the role of nuclear weapons in an age of terror, current and former officials say. The reductions under consideration are in line with President Barack Obama's vision of trimming the nation's nuclear arsenal without harming national security in the short term, and in the longer term, eliminating nuclear weapons.

DUBAI - Iran has threatened to destroy US military bases across the Middle East and target Israel within minutes of being attacked, Iranian media reported on Wednesday, as Revolutionary Guards extended test-firing of ballistic missiles into a third day. Israel has hinted it may attack Iran if diplomacy fails to secure a halt to its disputed nuclear energy program. The United States also has mooted military action as a last-resort option but has frequently nudged the Israelis to give time for intensified economic sanctions to work against Iran.

GENEVA: Scientists at Europe's CERN research center have found a new subatomic particle, a basic building block of the universe, which appears to be the boson imagined and named half a century ago by theoretical physicist Peter Higgs. "We have reached a milestone in our understanding of nature," CERN director general Rolf Heuer told a gathering of scientists and the world's media near Geneva on Wednesday. "The discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson opens the way to more detailed studies, requiring larger statistics, which will pin down the new particle's properties, and is likely to shed light...