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There has been a plutonium leak at a site run by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Austria. UN nuclear monitors said pressure had built up and plutonium had contaminated a storage-room at the Seibersdorf laboratory, south of Vienna. Last year the head of the IAEA warned the facility was outdated and did not meet UN safety standards. Austrian officials said the empty lab had been sealed off and no-one was at risk. An investigation is planned. The lab is used to carry out tests on samples taken during IAEA inspection missions. El-Baradei warning "Pressure build-up in a small...

â—† N. Korea says used 2 kg of plutonium in 2006 nuke test: source SEOUL, June 28 KYODO North Korea's declaration of its nuclear programs that it submitted this week states that it extracted a total of around 30 kilograms of plutonium and used 2 kg in the nuclear test it conducted in October 2006, a six-party talks source said Saturday. A nuclear weapon normally requires between 4 and 8 kg of plutonium. There is speculation that North Korea may have declared a smaller quantity to counter rumors that the 2006 nuclear test, which resulted in a relatively small explosion,...

CIA Director Michael Hayden said Monday that the alleged Syrian nuclear reactor destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in September would have produced enough plutonium for one or two bombs within a year of becoming operational. U.S. intelligence and administration officials publicly disclosed last week their assessment that Syria was building a covert nuclear reactor with North Korean assistance. They said it was modeled on the shuttered North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, which produced a small amount of plutonium. The Syrian site, they said, was within weeks or months of being operational. "In the course of a year after they got...

Officials will tell Congress members this week that North Korea was helping Syria build a reactor last year when it was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike, a U.S. official says. WASHINGTON — CIA officials will tell Congress on Thursday that North Korea had been helping Syria build a plutonium-based nuclear reactor, a U.S. official said, a disclosure that could touch off new resistance to the administration's plan to ease sanctions on Pyongyang. The CIA officials will tell lawmakers that they believe the reactor would have been capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons but was destroyed before it could do...

The CIA will tell Congress today that the North Koreans had begun to build a nuclear reactor at a site in Syria bombed by the Israelis last year. The timing of the briefing appears related to the expected resolution of the six-nation plan to disarm the DPRK in the next few weeks, according to the Los Angeles Times. It may create new political difficulties for the Bush administration, but more likely it is intended to fulfill a Congressional demand for information to clear hurdles for ratification of the agreement with North Korea: CIA officials will tell Congress on Thursday that...

The Bush administration will tell Congress tomorrow that a nuclear facility in Syria built with North Korean help was nearly complete when Israel bombed it in September, and that Pyongyang has not provided any further nuclear assistance to the hard-line Arab nation, at least at that site, U.S. officials said. CIA Director Michael V. Hayden and other intelligence officials are expected to brief several congressional committees in closed-door sessions, breaking the administration's silence on the issue. The Syrian facility has become a key issue in six-nation negotiations to end the North's nuclear programs. “The belief is that the reactor was...

Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

N. Korea produced 30 kg plutonium: report TOKYO - NORTH Korea told the United States in December it has produced a total of around 30 kg of plutonium, about 20 kg less than what the United States estimates, a Japanese newspaper reported on Monday. The daily Tokyo Shimbun reported that North Korea's chief envoy to the talks, Kim Kye Gwan, told his US counterpart, Christopher Hill in North Korea last December the North had used about 18 kg of its plutonium stockpile for nuclear development and around 6 kg for its first and only underground nuclear test in October 2006....

The appearance of nuclear weapons materials on the black market is a growing global concern, and it is crucial that the United States reinforce its team of nuclear forensics experts and modernize its forensics tools to prepare for or respond to a possible nuclear terrorist attack. Large quantities of nuclear materials are inadequately secured in several countries, including Russia and Pakistan. Since 1993, there have been more than 1,300 incidents of illicit trafficking of nuclear materials, including plutonium and highly enriched uranium, both of which can be used to develop an atomic bomb. And these are only the incidents we...

AMHERST, Massachusetts — North Korea is expected to declare it has produced 30 to 40 kilograms of plutonium when it gives a full account of its nuclear programs under a six-party deal, top U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said. That is less than about 50 kg the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs had earlier suggested. Hill's remarks may reflect the information he received from Pyongyang as he called for the state's fulfillment of its six-way obligations. "They are supposed to give us a full figure on that, which will be in the neighborhood of 30,...

North Korea nuclear fuel rods tough to extract: envoy Fri Nov 30, 3:32 AM ET The removal of fuel rods from an ageing reactor at the heart of North Korea's nuclear arms program, an important step in a disarmament deal, will stretch into next year, South Korea's nuclear envoy said on Friday. North Korea agreed with regional powers to disable its Soviet-era reactor and other nuclear facilities by the end of this year in exchange for aid and an end to its international ostracism. "A lot of preparation is needed to get the fuel out of there," Chun Yung-woo told...

Taiwan firm sold DPRK precision equipment Toshinao Ishii / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent TAIPEI--Taiwanese investigators have sent papers to prosecutors on a company suspected of violating the trade law by illegally exporting precision equipment capable of producing nuclear weapons-related materials to North Korea, sources said Tuesday. With Japan tightening its controls on exports to North Korea following the revelation of Pyongyang's nuclear and missile development programs, North Korea is believed to have turned to Taiwan, which is not a member of the United Nations, to import Taiwanese machinery. The machinery are said to have contained high-tech parts from Japan. According to...

<p>A top-secret report by the U.S. intelligence services says several North Korean scientists were injured in Israel's strike in Syria last month, top Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland reported in the paper Sunday.</p> <p>Some two weeks ago, British newspaper The Sunday Times reported that diplomats in North Korea and China believed a number of North Koreans had been killed in the strike, based on reports reaching Asian governments about conversations between Chinese and North Korean officials.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP) — A stockpile of plutonium and other nuclear weapons materials stored at Los Alamos National Laboratory hasn't been fully accounted for in 13 years or more, a government audit has found. The northern New Mexico lab's workers have done regular, partial inventories of the material, which the government considers to be at high risk of theft, the audit by the Energy Department's inspector general, Gregory Friedman, found. Yet an inventory of all the material hasn't been done in "perhaps 13 years or more," Friedman wrote. It wasn't even done when the lab's management contract changed last year, investigators...

By DOUGLAS BIRCH Associated Press Writer YEKATERINBURG, Russia — Amid tense relations between the United States and Russia, two prominent American arms control advocates Friday toured a storage facility designed to hold tons of plutonium and enriched uranium from dismantled Russian nuclear weapons. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and former Sen. Sam Nunn, co-authors of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, were escorted through the high-security Mayak Fissile Materials Storage Facility — built to withstand assaults from terrorists and a direct hit from a jet. Russia plans to store up to 25 metric tons of plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons at...

Construction has started on a South Carolina plant that will convert weapons plutonium to commercial reactor fuel and eventually employee hundreds of workers. Construction of the facility at the Savannah River nuclear complex near Aiken had been delayed because of complications with a corresponding Russian facility. The Bush administration for years has had plans to convert 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium into a mixed oxide fuel, or MOX, as part of a program with Russia in which both countries agree to dispose of an equal amount of the material from their weapons stockpiles. Last month, the Bush administration announced plans...

Georgian [the country south of Russia, not the US state ] customs officers sent a car carrying a mixture of plutonium and beryllium back into Azerbaijan after foiling an attempt to smuggle the materials over the border, Georgian television reported. Customs officials found the materials, which can be used in nuclear bombs, in what appeared to be a routine check as the car was driven over the border from Azerbaijan, the Imedi television station reported.

Hwang: “Nuclear Facility in Yongbyon Has Been Unnecessary for 10 Years” FEBRUARY 21, 2007 07:10 Hwang Jang-yop, the former secretary of the North Korean Workers Party in charge of international affairs, disclosed in a Freedom North Korea Broadcast on February 19 that the nuclear facility in Yongbyon, which North Korea promised to shut down in exchange for one million tons of oil, was in fact already deemed unnecessary 10 years ago. The former secretary Hwang said, “In fact, I heard the plutonium (extracted) with a graphite reactor is unusable directly from the secretary of munitions manufacture. Before that, they had...

Some of the former Yukos executives could be involved in the murder of Russian security service defector Alexander Litvinenko, Russia's top prosecutors said Wednesday. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office said Leonid Nevzlin, a core shareholder of the bankrupt oil company, who lives in Israel and is on the international wanted list on fraud charges, could have ordered Litvinenko's poisoning with polonium-210. "We are checking a version that people, who are on the international wanted list for grave crimes, including [former] Yukos co-chairman Leonid Nevzlin, could be behind these crimes," the office said, referring to Litvinenko's murder and an attempt on...

Last Updated: Wednesday, 29 November 2006, 21:29 GMT E-mail this to a friend Printable version Radioactive traces on BA planes Mr Litvinenko was a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin Traces of a radioactive substance have been found on two British Airways planes at Heathrow Airport, says BA.The planes, plus a third in Moscow, are being tested as part of the probe into the death from radiation poisoning of ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. BA is trying to make contact with up to 33,000 passengers who travelled on the 221 European flights affected, including the London to Moscow route....

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VIENNA (Reuters) - U.N. inspectors have found traces of plutonium, of possible use in atom bombs, at an Iranian nuclear waste site as Tehran pursues a nuclear program despite the risk of sanctions, an IAEA report said on Tuesday.

VIENNA, Austria -- More than two tons of radioactive material stored in a rundown research facility in Serbia offer an easy target for terrorists seeking to build a "dirty bomb," according to the United Nations' nuclear watchdog. Nuclear inspectors have branded the lightly guarded storage facility at a communist-era reactor, which closed 22 years ago, the world's most dangerous disused nuclear site -- because of the potency of the material and the risk of leakage. The outdated facility is on a 48-acre site at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences in Vinca, 10 miles outside the capital, Belgrade, surrounded by a...

WASHINGTON - The United States and Russia have resolved a major hurdle in their negotiations to dispose of tons of excess plutonium, announcing an accord Friday on a liability issue that has long stymied the program. The two countries signed a protocol that provides a framework for dealing with the liability problem, the Energy Department announced. However, there are other issues still to be worked out, including details on how Russia is going to dispose of its 34 metric tons of plutonium from its weapons stockpile under the agreement. At the same time, the future of the U.S. disposal program...

[Male announcer] As you might have heard, Arak's Heavy Water Facility was inaugurated by President Ahmadinezhad earlier today. This is one of the major nuclear projects. We have established live video link with our colleague Ms Mehrafar in Arak. Hello Ms Mehrafar. [Mehrafar] In the name of God, the merciful and the compassionate. Hello to our dear viewers. As you indicated, President Ahmadinezhad and Mr [Reza] Aqazadeh, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), inaugurated Arak's complex. We have with us the AEOI's Deputy for international affairs Mohammad Sa'idi. Mr Sa'idi, would you please tell our...

Iran has announced that a heavy water reactor plant south-west of Tehran has been put into operation. The plutonium by-product of the plant could be used to make atomic war-heads but Iran insists it only intends to build nuclear power plants. The move comes days before a UN deadline for Iran to halt uranium enrichment, the part of Tehran's atomic programme that most worries the West. ...................... A Reuters witness said on Saturday the president inaugurated the project and toured the site at Khondab, which is near Arak, 190 kilometers (120 miles) southwest of the capital Tehran. The plant's plutonium...

Tehran, 25 August (AKI) - News agencies in Iran are predicting a new announcement from outspoken president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his country's nuclear progress. There is intense speculation that it may come next Tuesday on the first anniversary of the formation of the government after last year's elections. In the Iranian capital there are reports that Ahmadinejad, who several months ago announced the entry of Iran into the 'nuclear club' will provide details on progress in the field of heavy water reactors. It has a heavy water reactor under construction at the Arak plant in central Iran, 360 kilometres...

Pakistan's Khushab nuclear research complex is likely to come under intense international scrutiny following a report that included satellite imagery indicating construction of a 1000 MW heavy water reactor that could generate enough plutonium to produce 40 to 50 nuclear warheads per year. This second reactor, that could begin operating in 5 years, would be in addition to the 50 MW reactor commissioned in 1988. It could substantially boost the number of plutonium-based weapons in the Pakistani arsenal that currently is predominantly comprised of enriched uranium based bombs. The report will revive demands for speeding-up the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty,...

Plant Underway Could Generate Plutonium for 40 to 50 Bombs a Year, Analysts Say Pakistan has begun building what independent analysts say is a powerful new reactor for producing plutonium, a move that, if verified, would signal a major expansion of the country's nuclear weapons capabilities and a potential new escalation in the region's arms race. Satellite photos of Pakistan's Khushab nuclear site show what appears to be a partially completed heavy-water reactor capable of producing enough plutonium for 40 to 50 nuclear weapons a year, a 20-fold increase from Pakistan's current capabilities, according to a technical assessment by Washington-based...

A program of clandestine action against nuclear and missile traffic to North Korea and Iran is to be intensified after last week's missile tests by the Pyongyang regime. Intelligence agencies, navies and air forces from at least 13 nations are quietly co-operating in a secret war against Pyongyang and Tehran. It has so far involved interceptions of North Korean ships at sea, US agents prowling the waterfronts in Taiwan, multinational naval and air surveillance missions out of Singapore, investigators poring over the books of dubious banks in the former Portuguese colony of Macau and a fleet of planes and...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. WASHINGTON – As President Bush seeks to ensure that other countries wanting to use nuclear energy do so without creating weapons-grade material, the United States' plan to reduce its own stock of bomb-quality plutonium is behind schedule and has more than tripled in cost. The program, referred to as MOX for the mixed oxide blend that would be converted into energy, has been slowed for a host of reasons, including partner Russia's unwillingness to agree to U.S. terms on liability as well as delays and cost overruns in the design phase...

ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is making plans to revive nuclear fuel reprocessing, including a long-term proposal to provide reactor fuel to foreign countries if they return it to the United States to be recycled. President Bush will include a request for $250 million in his budget to be released next week as a first step toward reversing a decades long U.S. policy against nuclear reprocessing, congressional and administration officials said Thursday. The plan is part of an effort to take a fresh look at how to deal with the thousands of tons of used reactor fuel piling...

‘Hill Said U.S., N.Korea Ties Depend on Human Rights’ Washington’s chief negotiator in six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, Christopher Hill, reportedly said the Stalinist country must discuss its human rights record, plans to develop biochemical weapons, support for terrorism and other illegitimate activities before the U.S. is ready to normalize ties. Reports on Sunday said Hill made the remark in a closed-door address right after signing a statement of principles that ended the fourth round of the talks on Sept. 19. He said other parties in the talks must take a clear stance in the next round slated...

QUESTION: What's your reaction to the protests in Iran around the British Embassy? This is a reaction to the IAEA vote, I presume, were there to be a U.S. embassy, they would be protesting there. MR. MCCORMACK: Right. Well, I'll leave it to those on the ground to describe the protests there and who might be organizing those protests. The position where Iran finds itself right now, I think, is one that is probably a surprise to them after the IAEA Board of Governors vote. And where they find themselves is more isolated from the international community than when they...

Canada has reversed a long-standing policy and will supply material for India's atomic energy program. Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew agreed Monday to allow the supply of nuclear-related "dual-use items," which can be used for both civilian and military applications. Canada had stopped providing nuclear materials to India three decades ago after that country started testing nuclear bombs. Pettigrew said Monday that the situation had changed because of India's commitments to keep its military and civilian nuclear programs separate, and because of its moratorium on nuclear testing. "We have to acknowledge the substantial progress that has been made in India," said...

TOKYO, Aug. 21 (Yonhap) -- North Korea began operating its nuclear reactor just before the fourth round of six-party talks on ending the North's nuclear weapons ambitions started in late July, Japan's Asahi Shimbun reported Sunday. In a dispatch from Washington, Asahi said North Korea resumed operations at its 5,000-kilowatt nuclear plant in Yongbyon in July, merely months after it announced that activities at the plant had been suspended in order to remove spent fuel rods out of it for reprocessing. Asahi quoted U.S. officials as saying that intelligence satellites had detected water vapor being released from the plant's...

Washington DC—According to a 2 August 2005 Washington Post article, a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) projects that Iran is a decade away from manufacturing a key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with first-hand knowledge of the new analysis. The intelligence estimate is contradictory—reflecting disagreement within the community. On one hand, the estimate is reassuring: Iran is alleged to be about ten years away from getting the bomb. On the other hand, the estimate is worrisome: “It is the judgment of the intelligence community that, left to its own...

Sixty years ago the Manhattan Project carried out its first test of a secret weapon, forged from a metal first detected in sub-microgram amounts fewer than five years before. By David FishlockOn Thursday 12 July 1945 a US Army sedan drove Philip Morrison the 210 miles from Los Alamos to Alamagordo with the plutonium core of the world’s first nuclear weapon on his lap. At dawn four days later the priceless hemispheres the physicist had helped forge, then assembled, vanished in the highly successful Trinity nuclear test. The scientists who witnessed the test estimated the energy released equivalent to 18,600t...

TGV stands for “Two guys and a van” and got their start trying to figure out how to reduce the cost of spaceflight operations. They have discovered a very interesting market: suborbital imagery. The Bush Administration announced plans last week to restart plutonium 238 production. For $1.5 billion over 30 years, they get about 5 kilograms a year of plutonium whose main use is for thermoelectric generation to power classified military applications. $1.5 billion is a lot of money. If you add in the $9.5 billion here and the $25 billion there we are talking a pretty good chunk of...

North Korea has resumed the construction of two nuclear reactors suspended under a 1994 agreement with the United States, a Japanese newspaper reported Thursday. North Korea restarted building a 50,000-kilowatt reactor in Yongbyon and a 200,000-kilowatt reactor in Thaechon _ both are plutonium-producing graphite-based _ Japanese economic daily Nihon Keizai said, quoting unidentified U.S. government and other sources. Japan's Foreign Ministry said it couldn't confirm the report. North Korea had suspended the construction of the two reactors under the 1994 deal in exchange for energy aid and two light-water reactors that are less likely to be used in nuclear...

The Bush administration is planning the government's first production of plutonium 238 - a highly radioactive substance valued as a power source - since the Cold War, stirring debate over the risks and benefits of the deadly material. It is hot enough to melt plastic and so dangerous that a speck can cause cancer. Federal officials say the program would produce a total of 330 pounds, or 150 kilograms, over 30 years at the Idaho National Laboratory, a sprawling site outside Idaho Falls some 100 miles, or 160 kilometers, to the west and upwind of Grand Teton National Park in...

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NATIONAL SECURITY: U.S. MAY RESUME PRODUCTION OF PLUTONIUM; FIRST TIME SINCE END OF COLD WAR... DEVELOPING...

Teheran 'lied' over plutonium production By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor (Filed: 17/06/2005) Iran falsely reported the timing of experiments to produce plutonium, a fissile material used in nuclear weapons, a report by the United Nations watchdog said yesterday. The International Atomic Energy Agency said that Teheran had earlier admitted that it had produced plutonium in breach of the international rules, but claimed that the work had ended in 1993. But IAEA inspectors have now forced Teheran to admit that the work continued until 1998. The quantities involved are small, but in a statement, the American representative to the IAEA,...

Iran admits having treated plutonium in 1998 VIENNA - Iran admitted having treated plutonium, a material which can be used for the nuclear bomb, in 1998, that is to say earlier than it had up to now admitted it, according to a report/ratio having to be communicated Thursday in the States of the IAEA and whose AFP obtained a copy. When International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) requested from Iran the dates its experiments on the separation of plutonium, Teheran admitted to have purified plutonium in 1998. That represents a change compared to the Iranian preceding declarations, according to which...

US might find Pyongyang strike 'tempting' By Hamish McDonaldBeijingMay 21, 2005   South Korean electronics giant Samsung has launched a unilateral initiative to improve relations with the North. It has signed North Korean dancer Cho Myong-ae to promote its mobile phones. Cho will be the first North Korean to appear in an advertisement in the South.Photo: Reuters A nuclear arms control expert has warned that the United States might be tempted to carry out a strike on the reactor that is North Korea's source of bomb-making plutonium.The warning comes as North Korean moves suggest it may soon carry out a nuclear...

/begin my translation N. Korean Think Tank, "Nuclear Test Coming Soon" Told a Visiting Japanese Delegation, "No Uranium Enrichment Plan" 05/09/2005 Amid a flurry of reports that N. Korean nuclear test is imminent, a report has belatedly surfaced, which says that N. Korea had told Japanese experts on Korea and figures from Japanese nongovernmental organizations(NGO) that it will have nuclear test soon.   An official at a N. Korean think tank, "Nuclear test coming soon"  According to May 9 issue of Mainichi Shimbun, a Japanese daily, Park Hyun-jae, Vice Director of 'Arms Reduction and Peace Institute', a think tank under N. Korean Foreign Ministry, told Japanese specialists on Korea,...

N.Korea May Carry Out Nuclear Test by June - Kyodo Fri Apr 29,10:13 PM ET TOKYO (Reuters) - The United States has warned the International Atomic Energy Agency that North Korea has been preparing to carry out an underground nuclear test since March and could go ahead as early as June, Kyodo news agency said on Saturday. The report, which quoted diplomatic sources in Vienna, came a day after the chief U.S. negotiator to stalled talks on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions said Washington believed North Korea might be trying to harvest material for a nuclear bomb from a shut-down reactor. According...

U.S. policy on North seen in flux April 20, 2005 - WASHINGTON - Speaking to an American newspaper, North Korea's top diplomat in New York said the country has shut down its nuclear reactor and plans to increase its nuclear deterrent. At the same time, the United States warned that it may soon change its policy and clamp down on the North economically and militarily. According to a report in USA Today, Han Song-ryol, North Korean deputy ambassador to the United Nations, said Monday that his government has shut down its reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear complex and plans to...

North Korea ready to reprocess spent nuclear fuel into plutonium Sun Apr 17, 3:06 AM ET  Asia - AFP TOKYO (AFP) - North Korea has halted operations at a nuclear power reactor at the center of an international row, a move that could let Pyongyang reprocess spent fuel to retract plutonium and boost its nuclear arsenal, a press report said. North Korean workers re-paint a propaganda tower near the truce village of Panmunjom. (AFP/File/Jung Yeon-Je) The United States will shortly send Christopher Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, to South Korea, Japan and China...