FAS Roundup: September 2, 2014

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Worldwide Deployment of Nuclear Weapons Hans Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project, and Robert Norris, Senior Fellow for Nuclear Policy, estimate that there are approximately 16,300 nuclear weapons located at  98 sites in 14 countries. Roughly 10,000 of these weapons are in military arsenals; the remaining weapons are retired and awaiting dismantlement. Approximately 4,000 are operationally available, and 1,800 are on high alert and ready for use on short notice. In the latest Nuclear Notebook published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Kristensen and Norris examine the storage sites of deployed weapons in the nine nuclear countries. Read the article here.    From the Blogs Gov't Resists Court Review of State Secrets: It is “not appropriate” for a court to conduct its own independent review of evidence that the government asserts is protected by the state secrets privilege, attorneys for the government argued last week. They were objecting to an order that was issued in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the “no fly” list in the case of Gulet Mohamed v. Eric Holder. On August 6, Judge Anthony J. Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia ordered the government to submit for in camera review a copy of all documents and testimony relevant to the case that it asserts fall under the state secrets privilege. The 2014 Ebola Outbreak and More from CRS: Secrecy News has obtained recently released CRS reports on topics such as the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, long range ballistic missiles and existing laws relating to climate change.  Call for Submissions: Public Interest Report Articles  FAS welcomes article submissions for future issues of the PIR; if interested please submit a one paragraph abstract regarding scientific and policy issues of concern related to catastrophic threats including biological and nuclear weapons, homeland security and natural disasters. Abstract should be no more than 500 words and feature relevant content; please include biography with submission. The submission deadline for the Fall 2014 issue is September 19, 2014. Please submit abstract via email to pir@fas.org. If selected, authors will be asked to submit an article on the chosen topic (less than 3,000 words) for publication in future issue. FAS in the News Aug 27: Business Insider, "Here's Where We Think The World's Nukes Are Stored- And What It Says About Global Security" Aug 27: Press TV, "China's Nuke Power Growing: US Report" Aug 25: Physics Today, "Ernest Moniz Asked To Intervene In Firing of Los Alamos National Laboratory Scientist"  Aug 22: Science, "Science Group Asks U.S. Energy Secretary To Intervene In Case Of Fired Los Alamos Researcher"