Under Friday's deal, US airlines will be free to fly both to airports in the European Union and from there to third destinations.
Similarly, European airlines will be able to fly to US airports and from there to other destinations
Hunting Loose Nukes in Eastern Europe
Nukes on the Loose
Since 2002, Bolshinsky has almost single-handedly removed 269 pounds of fresh, highly enriched uranium from seven countries — enough to make about five nuclear bombs. And he's just getting started. By 2010, his goal is to remove 2 tons of highly enriched uranium from 14 countries, including his homeland. That's enough for about 80 nuclear bombs.
Ambassador Linton Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the Energy Department's effort to secure nuclear material around the world, said the task is huge. "This is an effort which is a thousand small victories rather than one galactic one," Brooks said.
A report released this year by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government says that there is enough material in the former Soviet Union to build 80,000 nuclear weapons — and only half of it is secured.
"There's certainly a huge amount of material," Brooks said. "The Cold War produced in both sides exceptionally large quantities of material."
At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union sent nuclear material to 17 Soviet republics and allies, including a reactor in Latvia.
But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was neither the money nor the political will to support these reactors. Today, the Latvia reactor's control room is covered with dust — it was shut down seven years ago. But the nuclear fuel remained, protected by only a rickety gate, a few guards and some dogs.
Other sites in Russia were protected by simple locks or just wax and some string — the same technology used to seal official letters hundreds of years ago. The Energy Department says the United States has upgraded