Feds near announcement of loan guarantees for U.S. nuclear sector

Feds near announcement of loan guarantees for U.S. nuclear sector
The Department of Energy is set to announce the first recipients of loan guarantees for the country's nuclear energy sector. "When DOE issues their first loan guarantee, that's going to send an important signal to private-sector financing, and Wall Street in particular," said Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman John Keeley. Southern, which seeks to construct two reactors in Georgia, is seen as a front-runner for a loan guarantee. Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BR39H20091228

South Korea eyes nuclear deal with Turkey

South Korea eyes nuclear deal with Turkey
Korea Electric Power is in discussions with Turkey for the construction of as many as four nuclear reactors, an official said. This comes after the country forged a nuclear export deal worth $40 billion with the United Arab Emirates. The Turkish government would start the bidding for the $20 billion venture next year, the official added. The Korea Times
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/12/116_58057.html

Arab Dictatorships Take 4 of Top 5 Spots in Purchase of US Weapons and Services

Arab Dictatorships Take 4 of Top 5 Spots in Purchase of US Weapons and Services

http://www.allgov.com/ViewNews/Arab_Dictatorships_Take_4_of_Top_5_Spots_in_Purchase_of_US_Weapons_and_Services_91228

US Intel: Iran Nuke Document Was Forged Gareth Porter gets the scoop from Philip Giraldi

US Intel: Iran Nuke Document Was Forged

Gareth Porter gets the scoop from Philip Giraldi

http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2009/12/28/us-intelligence-found-iran-nuke/

# Iran to unveil new home-built satellite: report

Iran to unveil new home-built satellite: report

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Iran_to_unveil_new_home-built_satellite_report_999.html

NKorea built plant to make gas for uranium enrichment: report

NKorea built plant to make gas for uranium enrichment: report

Washington (AFP) Dec 27, 2009 - North Korea may have constructed a plant to manufacture a gas needed for uranium enrichment in a development that would indicate that Pyongyang had opened a second way to build nuclear weapons as early as the 1990s, The Washington Post reported late Sunday. Citing a previously unpublicized account by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb program, the newspaper said North K ... more
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/NKorea_built_plant_to_make_gas_for_uranium_enrichment_report_999.html

Israel says Iran nuclear plant immune to conventional strike

Israel says Iran nuclear plant immune to conventional strike

Jerusalem (AFP) Dec 28, 2009 - Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Monday that Iran's recently diclosed second uranium enrichment plant is "immune" to conventional bombing. "The new site near Qom is meant for enrichment. What was revealed by the Iranians had been built over years and is located in bunkers that cannot be destroyed through a conventional attack," Barak told parliament's foreign affairs and committee. Iran notified the UN nuclear watchdog in September that it was building a second enrichment plant near the central shrine city of Qom, after Washington accused it of covertly evading its notification responsibilities under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. ... more

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Israel_says_Iran_nuclear_plant_immune_to_conventional_strike_999.html

Russia to keep developing nuclear missiles: Medvedev

Russia to keep developing nuclear missiles: Medvedev
Moscow (AFP) Dec 24, 2009 - President Dmitry Medvedev voiced hope Thursday that Moscow and Washington would reach an agreement on a new nuclear treaty but said Russia would continue developing nuclear missiles to defend itself. Russia and the United States have missed a series of deadlines to agree a new text setting out major cuts in their nuclear arsenals, after a previous agrement expired on December 5. Asked about the delays in a live year-end televised interview, Medvedev admitted the negotiations were "difficult" but insisted: "We need to create a quality document. I am sure that we will create it." ... more

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Russia_to_keep_developing_nuclear_missiles_Medvedev_999.html

South Korea group lands $40B nuclear deal with UAE

South Korea group lands $40B nuclear deal with UAE
A consortium of South Korean companies secured a deal worth $40 billion to construct and run four nuclear reactors in the United Arab Emirates, outclassing rival bidders from the U.S. and France. The first plant is slated for a 2017 startup, and the group seeks to finish the 1,400-megawatt reactors by 2020. Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE5BQ05O20091227?type=marketsNews

Energy Dept. official sees potential in small nuclear rectors

Energy Dept. official sees potential in small nuclear rectors
As the Energy Department nears the designation of a blue-ribbon commission that will look into new policies for handling used nuclear fuel, it still has a way to go in finalizing loan guarantees for new reactors, Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman said. Poneman also is interested in the development of small modular reactors, calling them a carbon-policy option with potential in the U.S. and internationally. "I certainly agree with the premise that small, modular reactors are a very interesting path to explore," Poneman said. The New York Times/ClimateWire (12/24

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/12/24/24climatewire-doe-to-study-storage-options-for-spent-nucle-97694.html

UAE Awards $20 Billion Nuclear Contract to Korea

UAE Awards $20 Billion Nuclear Contract to Korea

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2009-12-27/u-a-e-awards-20-billion-nuclear-contract-to-korea-update3-.html

A South Korean group led by Korea Power Electric Corp. won a $20 billion contract to build four nuclear plants in the United Arab Emirates, the second-biggest Arab economy.

Korea Power, a state-run utility that supplies almost all the power in South Korea also known as KEPCO, won the U.A.E.’s first nuclear power plant order together with Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co., Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co., Samsung C&T Corp. and Westinghouse Electric Co., it said in a statement today.

“The KEPCO team is best equipped to fulfill the government’s partnership requirements in this ambitious program,” Khaldoon Khalifa al-Mubarak, chairman of Emirates Nuclear Energy Corp., or ENEC, said in a separate statement. “The nature of this project will require a partnership that endures for nearly 100 years.”

The U.A.E., the fourth-biggest producer among the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, is turning to nuclear power to meet growing electricity demand as the country’s infrastructure investments use up domestic natural-gas supplies. Power demand in the nation will double to 40,000 megawatts by 2020, Anwar Gargash, the minister of state for foreign affairs, said Nov. 16.

Nuclear Disorder: Surveying Atomic Threats

Nuclear Disorder: Surveying Atomic Threats
By Graham Allison

In a new Foreign Affairs article, Graham Allison questions whether the current global nuclear order could be as fragile today as the financial order was two years ago when conventional wisdom declared it sound, stable, and resilient. Analyzing the facts on the ground in Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea, Allison writes that it is clear that trendlines are propelling us powerfully towards what former Secretaries of Defense Perry and Schlesinger's 2009 Commission Report calls a "tipping point" for proliferation and nuclear terrorism. In President Obama's words, "The next twelve months could be pivotal in determining whether the nonproliferation regime will be strengthened or will slowly dissolve."

read more
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/19819/nuclear_disorder.html

From the Project on Managing the Atom Enabling a Nuclear Revival -- and Managing Its Risks By Matthew Bunn and Martin Malin

From the Project on Managing the Atom
Enabling a Nuclear Revival -- and Managing Its Risks
By Matthew Bunn and Martin Malin

Matthew Bunn and Martin B. Malin examine the conditions needed for nuclear energy to grow on a scale large enough for it to be a significant part of the world's response to climate change. They consider the safety, security, nonproliferation, and waste management risks associated with such growth and recommend approaches to managing these risks. Bunn and Malin argue that although technological solutions may contribute to nuclear expansion in the coming decades, in the near term, creating the conditions for large-scale nuclear energy growth will require major international institutional innovation.

read more

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/19682/enabling_a_nuclear_revivaland_managing_its_risks.html




From the Project on Managing the Atom

oSources: India, Britain will sign civil nuclear agreement

Sources: India, Britain will sign civil nuclear agreement
India and Britain are expected to sign a joint declaration of intent on civil nuclear energy when British Business Minister Peter Mandelson visits India this week, sources said. If the deal pushes through, it will be India's seventh civil nuclear agreement since its first deal with the U.S. in October 2008. The Economic Times (India)/Indo-Asian News Service

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/India-Britain-likely-to-sign-civil-nuclear-deal/articleshow/5351386.cms

China will adopt Westinghouse technology for nuclear project

China will adopt Westinghouse technology for nuclear project
Two of China's major energy suppliers said they plan to construct a nuclear-power demonstration venture using the technology of Westinghouse Electric. The project would allow China to progress in its efforts to build a 1.4 gigawatt power plant, which will expand on Westinghouse's AP1000 design. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/business/s_658523.html

NIAC Memo: Anatomy of a Nuclear Breakthrough Gone Backwards

Issue 74

www.niacouncil.org

Dec 21, 2009

NIAC Memo: Anatomy of a Nuclear Breakthrough Gone Backwards

Less than three months after rising expectations on the possibility of a breakthrough in the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, hopes of sealing a deal that would transfer the bulk of Iran’s low-enriched uranium abroad have dissipated.

Yet another attempt to engender trust between the US and Iran has instead led to more distrust and Obama’s mantra about “talking to Iran” looks more and more like the Bush administration’s policy: all sticks and no carrots.

The hoped-for transfer of Iran’s LEU abroad is on the verge of becoming a precondition for further substantive talks, placing the Obama administration where the Bush administration was for years, insisting on the suspension of all enrichment-related activities before negotiations could begin.

The present impasse cannot last, and a risky confrontation could easily ensue. Cooler heads, of course, could prevail, leading both sides to set aside the rancor surrounding the deal and return to the negotiating table. If talks do resume, both sides should study their missteps closely.

Miscalculation in Tehran

Neither the general agreement in Geneva nor the later technical agreement in Vienna could have come about without the explicit consent of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. On September 29, right before the Geneva meeting, Khamenei’s most visible lieutenant, Ahmadinejad, said publicly, “We have offered to whoever is prepared that we will buy the material from them. Of course, we are prepared to hand over 3.5 percent material, have them enrich it up to 19.75 or 20 percent and deliver it back to us.”

As such, Iran’s interlocutors simply seized upon an opportunity offered by Tehran. But the reversal was also Tehran’s and the question is why.

The most credible explanation for the reversal is that Khamenei and Ahmadinejad underestimated the volatility of Iranian domestic politics pursuant to the fraudulent June 12 presidential election. Just as they dismissed the popular anger at the fraud itself, assuming the furor would pass at the protesters’ first sight of blood, so they miscalculated the intensity of elite reaction to the idea of transferring Iran’s LEU.

That reaction came from all corners, and it was ferocious. Perhaps the ferocity is explained in part by the determination of rival factions that Ahmadinejad not don the mantle of peacemaker with the US after all he and his supporters have done to sabotage previous attempts to improve relations. But after four years of bluster averring Iran’s absolute rejection of any compromise on the issue of enrichment, the elite was naturally skeptical that a single quick meeting should bring about such a rapprochement.

There is evidence that the negotiators themselves were aware, at least partly, of how strong the objections might be. But they chose to deflect them with mendacity. In the initial news coverage of Geneva, the pretense was that at Geneva Iran’s interlocutors “were solely informed of Iran’s decision to participate in the October 18 meeting with the IAEA.”

But these attempts at misinformation backfired and fueled suspicion that additional details of the agreement remained hidden. Questions abounded: Why were the public and the parliament being kept in the dark? Why could not there be a simultaneous exchange? What guarantees were there that Iran would indeed be given the 20 percent enriched uranium after it let go of its “strategic asset”? How could the Russians be trusted after the numerous delays in the start of the Bushehr reactor? Was the transfer the first step toward the voiding of the UN Security Council resolutions demanding suspension of enrichment-related activities? And what if Iran’s interlocutors persisted in asking for suspension after the transfer?

Ahmadinejad did push back against the criticism. He mocked his detractors for saying that he, of all people, would put Iran’s interests in jeopardy. He pointed out again that no previous nuclear negotiator had been able to induce the West to implicitly acknowledge Iran’s right to enrichment.

But for the remainder of the Islamic Republic’s elite the agreement simply happened too fast, the details were murky and Ahmadinejad’s spin ran up against the reality that nothing in the agreement guaranteed the West would ever accept enrichment on Iranian territory.

Foremost in many Iranian minds, moreover, was apprehension that Ahmadinejad, and maybe Khamenei as well, were “giving in” to the West in order to curry favor with the international community and proceed with their repression of the post-election dissent.

There is also evidence that the hardliners were rattled by the agreements’ reception in the international press presenting the transfer as a means to control Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Ahmadinejad acknowledged the confluence of foreign and domestic pressures: “Unfortunately some people fell for the line that the agreement is a conspiracy and a deception…. These are the same people who were asking us to back down at the height of the nuclear pressures on us. Now they have become super-revolutionaries.”

Endgame?

Khamenei and Ahmadinejad are, of course, the most to blame for Tehran’s reversal. They failed to gauge Iran’s post-election climate accurately. They must also be considered naïve for thinking that the Obama Administration would not portray the transfer of LEU as a viable means of checking Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

But neither is the Obama administration fault-free, if the US intent at Geneva was to strike a bargain limiting Iran’s enrichment program and instituting a robust inspection regime. When the agreements encountered opposition, the US could have counseled forbearance and continued negotiations.

Instead, impatient with Iran’s messy domestic dynamics, the US chose a more familiar path: announcements of deadlines, patronizing speeches and ominous reminders that the clock was ticking. In effect, Washington’s insistence that the Geneva and Vienna drafts were the only offer on the table turned the tentative agreement into an ultimatum.

Already under fire for caving into Western pressure their political opponents likely imagined, Khamenei and Ahmadinejad could hardly bow to pressure that was real.

In the end, Tehran also responded with characteristic bombast, bragging about ten new enrichment facilities. In reality, in striking such an outlandish pose, reeking of bluff, Tehran had the more mundane intent of reminding Obama of the cost of no agreement.

It understands that the Obama administration continues to be faced with a familiar choice.

It can declare diplomacy dead after only one meeting and begin the arduous process of putting together a coalition behind sanctions that will actually bite as the Bush administration did for many years unsuccessfully.

Or it can try genuine bargaining based on two key lessons learned in the course of the misadventures of the fall of 2009: First, to neglect Iran’s domestic arena is to strangle agreements in their infancy; and second, even the most intransigent arch-conservatives in Tehran are willing to entertain a compromise over Iran’s nuclear program.

Download PDF version:Image

Farideh Farhi is an Independent Scholar and Affiliate Graduate Faculty at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. The longer and more detailed version of this article can be found at http://www.merip.org/mero/mero120809.html

IAEA Applying a Nuclear Double-Standard

IAEA Applying a Nuclear Double-Standard
by Gareth Porter, December 20, 2009

In 2004, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) revealed that a member state had violated its Safeguards Agreement by carrying out covert uranium conversion and enrichment activities and plutonium experiments for more than two decades. The nature of certain of those enrichment activities, moreover, raised legitimate suspicions of interest in a nuclear weapons program.

The state was found to have lied to the IAEA even when it began investigating these suspicious activities, claiming that its laser enrichment research did not involve any use of nuclear material.

If that sounds like a description of Iran’s troubled relationship with the IAEA up to 2004, that’s because it bears striking resemblance to it. In fact, however, it is a description of the deception of the IAEA by the government of South Korea.

There was just one major difference between the South Korean and Iranian cases: Iran never enriched uranium at a level that could only represent an interest in nuclear weapons, but South Korea did.

Yet the IAEA treated Iran as a state to be investigated indefinitely, after failing to give South Korea even a slap on the wrist.

Even more remarkable is the fact that the two cases were the subject of IAEA reports issued within the same week in November 2004.

Three months before the report on its nuclear activities was published, South Korea admitted doing everything in violation of its Safeguards Agreement that Iran was found to have done up to 2003.

In the early 1980s, South Korea had carried out uranium conversion in a facility that was kept secret from the IAEA. It had also secretly extracted plutonium from a hot cell, and had carried out at least 10 covert uranium enrichment experiments from 1993 through 2000 using undeclared natural uranium metal.

South Korea had used 3.5 kg of natural uranium metal for its unreported enrichment experiments; Iran had used 8.0 kg of natural uranium for the same kind of experiments.

But by far, the most important finding by the IAEA was that, during a series of covert experiments in uranium enrichment using atomic vapor laser isolate separation (AVLIS) in 2000, Korean scientists enriched the uranium to 77 percent. South Korea finally admitted that experiment in its August 2004 declaration to the IAEA.

"Not only did they have an undeclared uranium-enrichment program, but they were actually making something close to bomb-grade, so you have to conclude someone wanted to develop a capability to make nuclear weapons," said David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security after the Korean violations were revealed.

Despite covert activities that could only be reasonably interpreted as evidence of an intention to develop nuclear weapons, however, Seoul was given what amounted to a free pass.

After its August 2004 confidential admission to its covert activities, South Korea mounted an aggressive diplomatic offensive, aimed at avoiding any legal consequences.

First, South Korean officials put pressure on IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei not even to disclose the enrichment in his report to the Governing Board. The South Koreans threatened to undermine ElBaradei’s reelection bid, according to a Nov. 25, 2004 Washington Post story.

ElBaradei was well aware that South Korea’s ally, the George W. Bush administration, was seeking to oust ElBaradei, because of his refusal to conform to U.S. policies toward Iraq and Iran.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration had made no secret of the fact it wanted the IAEA Board of Governors to call for Iran to be reported to the U.N. Security Council.

U.S. officials understood that the South Korean covert enrichment and other violations were, if anything, worse than those of Iran. At least some officials were prepared to support a resolution in the IAEA Governing Board to send Korea’s case to the Security Council in order to establish a precedent that could then be applied to Iran, according to the Post story.

But the British, French and Germans were negotiating with Iran on an agreement under which Tehran would maintain its suspension of uranium enrichment, and they were threatening to send the Iranian file to the Security Council if Iran did not agree.

Given those negotiations, ElBaradei felt no need to write a report that would be the basis of a resolution from the IAEA Board of Governors in late November 2004 to refer the South Korean case to the UN Security Council.

ElBaradei’s Nov. 11, 2004 report on South Korea confirmed that enrichment had gone as high as 77 percent but did not raise the obvious question of whether its covert nuclear activities had been military-related.

It recounted without comment the South Korean authorities’ explanation that both the plutonium and uranium enrichment experiments had been "performed without the knowledge or authorization of the Government."

Given the fact that South Korea had admitted that the covert uranium enrichment had been carried out by no less than 14 government scientists, an IAEA investigation was obviously in order. But the report gave no hint that there was any need to find out who had authorized it and why.

In effect, ElBaradei’s report on South Korea effectively eliminated the issue from the agency’s agenda.

Three days after the report, Iran reached agreement with the Europeans on a voluntary suspension of enrichment and more negotiations. Since there was no chance of getting the Iranian case referred to the UN Security Council, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the South Koreans at a meeting in Chile that the United States was now prepared to "accept Seoul’s explanation" for its covert enrichment to bomb-grade levels.

That clearly signaled that the United States had decided against a resolution to send the South Korean case to the Security Council after the European agreement with Iran.

The subject of South Korea’s violations of its Safeguards Agreement was never raised again at an IAEA meeting. In 2007, an IAEA Safeguards report said the agency was "able to clarify all issues relating to past undeclared activities."

It offered no explanation for the enrichment to bomb-grade levels and the obvious official falsehoods surrounding the activities, or for its own acquiescence in it.

In contrast to ElBaradei’s lack of curiosity about the obviously suspect official South Korean explanations for its bomb-grade enrichment, his report on Iran, issued four days later, concluded that it would "take longer than in normal circumstances" to "conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran."

The report suggested the IAEA would continue to pursue what it called "open source reports relating to dual use equipment and materials" in Iran. That meant that any technology, not matter how innocent, would now be treated as evidence of an Iranian covert nuclear weapons program.

The double standard of treatment of the South Korean and Iranian cases implied that the United States had hard intelligence that Iran had exhibited an interest in nuclear weapons, whereas South Korea had not.

However, the closest thing to such evidence in U.S. possession was a set of documents of uncertain provenance and authenticity.

On the other hand, nuclear physicists working in the Korean nuclear program, who had been recruited by the CIA, had reported in the mid-1970s that South Korea was carrying out a clandestine nuclear weapons program.

The stark contrast between the treatment of the Iranian and South Korean cases by the IAEA Secretariat and its Board of Governors is the most dramatic evidence of a politically motivated nuclear double standard practiced by the agency and its Governing Board, dominated by the United States.

http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2009/12/19/iaea-applying-a-nuclear-double-standard/

Defiant Iran test-fires missile, drawing Western censure

Defiant Iran test-fires missile, drawing Western censure
Tehran (AFP) Dec 16, 2009 - Iran on Wednesday test-fired what it said was a faster version of a medium-range missile which could allow it to strike Israel, drawing international censure and warnings of "serious" fallout. The defiant test of the Sejil 2 (Lethal Stone) missile comes as world powers mull fresh sanctions against the Islamic republic for its controversial nuclear enrichment programme. "It hit the ... more
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Defiant_Iran_test-fires_missile_drawing_Western_censure_999.html

Russia says US slowing down nuclear talks

Russia says US slowing down nuclear talks
Moscow (AFP) Dec 17, 2009 - Russia on Thursday accused the United States of slowing down talks on a new nuclear disarmament treaty, but Washington insisted it still aimed to sign a new accord this year. A senior US official in Washington said US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev would meet on the sidelines of the Copenhagen climate summit on Friday to discuss the delayed accord. ... more

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Russia_says_US_slowing_down_nuclear_talks_999.html

Russia Calls for Simpler Checks on Nuclear Cuts

Russia Calls for Simpler Checks on Nuclear Cuts
Dmitry Solovyov, Reuters
LavrovRussia on Thursday called for simpler verification procedures for planned cuts in nuclear weapons being discussed with the United States, its former Cold War foe.

"It's high time to get rid of excessive suspiciousness," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow.

Talks between the world's two largest nuclear powers to find a replacement for the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START-1) have stumbled in recent weeks, though both sides say they expect a deal to be reached in the near future.
Full Article
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE5BG17M20091217

Nuclear Power Expansion in China Stirs Concerns

Nuclear Power Expansion in China Stirs Concerns
Keith Bradsher, The New York Times
China is preparing to build three times as many nuclear power plants in the coming decade as the rest of the world combined, a breakneck pace with the potential to help slow global warming.
Full Article
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/business/global/16chinanuke.html?_r=1

U.S., UAE move forward with nuclear energy agreement

U.S., UAE move forward with nuclear energy agreement

The U.S. and United Arab Emirates will bring into force a nuclear cooperation agreement today when officials from the countries swap diplomatic notes. The deal, which President Barack Obama approved this year, could bring in billions of dollars to U.S. power companies General Electric and Toshiba unit Westinghouse Electric.

Reuters

Obama Told China: I Can't Stop Israel Strike on Iran Indefinitely

Obama Told China: I Can't Stop Israel Strike on Iran Indefinitely

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1135730.html

US Says Iran Edging Closer to Nukes Knowhow

US Says Iran Edging Closer to Nukes Knowhow

http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/12/16/us-sees-iran-edging-closer-to-nuclear-arms-knowhow-2/

Senate is tackling measures to spur small reactor projects

* Senate is tackling measures to spur small reactor projects
A Senate panel is considering legislation that could trigger the construction and licensing of smaller nuclear reactors. One bill would allow the government to invest about $250 million to support the technology, while the other proposes to establish a demonstration project through the Energy Department. "Smaller projects would carry lower investment risk and could be more affordable to smaller utilities," an agency expert said. Houston Chronicle


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/6772562.html

Vietnam, Russia sign deals on defence, nuclear energy

Vietnam, Russia sign deals on defence, nuclear energy
Moscow (AFP) Dec 15, 2009 - Vietnam and Russia signed a major arms deal and a nuclear energy agreement on Tuesday, in a sign of reviving ties between Moscow and its former Soviet-era ally in Southeast Asia. Hanoi agreed to buy Russian-made submarines and aircraft in the arms deal, which was signed in the presence of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his visiting Vietnamese counterpart, Nguyen Tan Dung. ... more

http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/Vietnam_Russia_sign_deals_on_defence_nuclear_energy_999.html

The Chinese Nuclear Market Is Going To Be Huge from Green Sheet by Graham Winfrey

The Chinese Nuclear Market Is Going To Be Huge
from Green Sheet by Graham Winfrey

Nuclear China Chart

China's electricity generation plan is rooted in coal, but a substantial amount of its new power in the future will be nuclear, as pressure mounts all over the world for the Asian behemoth to reduce its greenhouse gasses.

Just look at how much capacity is currently planned.

Frank Holmes at Seeking Alpha: From an investment perspective, this shows massive potential opportunity both in terms of infrastructure and natural resources, including uranium. Some analysts say the price of uranium, while soft now, could double over the next couple of years in recognition of future market tightness.

...

China has uranium reserves within its borders and it is aggressively lining up supplies in Central Asia, Africa and Australia to make up any shortfall.

Continue reading here.
http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-nuclear-market-huge-2009-12?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+greensheet+%28Green+Sheet%29&utm_content=Google+Reader



See Also:

* China Ramping Up Nuclear Power Plans With 5 New Plants
http://www.businessinsider.com/china-ramping-up-nuclear-power-plans-with-5-new-plants-2009-4

* Nuclear Power Costs Don't Have To Be Out Of Control
http://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-power-costs-dont-have-to-be-out-of-control-2009-7

US envoy voiced concern about N.Korea uranium: official

US envoy voiced concern about N.Korea uranium: official
Seoul (AFP) Dec 15, 2009 - US envoy Stephen Bosworth voiced concerns during his visit to North Korea last week about the country's uranium enrichment programme, a South Korean ruling party official said Tuesday. South Korea's chief nuclear envoy Wi Sung-Lac told lawmakers that the US envoy had raised concerns about the enrichment programme at talks with North Korean officials, a Grand National Party (GNP) official ... more

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_envoy_voiced_concern_about_N.Korea_uranium_official_999.html

+ US to probe 'revelation' of Iran nuclear trigger work

+ US to probe 'revelation' of Iran nuclear trigger work
Washington (AFP) Dec 15, 2009 - The United States said Tuesday it will investigate a British newspaper report that Iran is working on a trigger for a nuclear bomb, adding the "revelation" fueled concerns about Iranian intentions. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley's remarks appear to give credence to a report in The Times on Monday saying it had obtained notes describing a four-year plan by Iran to test a neutron in ... more
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_to_probe_revelation_of_Iran_nuclear_trigger_work_999.html

Tehran's nuclear trigger - Washington Times editorial.

Tehran's nuclear trigger - Washington Times editorial.

A smoking-gun document has emerged that indicates Iran is closer than ever to developing a nuclear weapon. Top-secret technical notes leaked from deep within the Iranian nuclear program - and making the rounds of Western intelligence agencies - detail research on a neutron initiator, a device that sets off a nuclear detonation. It is the smoking gun's trigger. The Islamic republic has long argued that its nuclear program is intended for peaceful purposes, but there is no peaceful use for the neutron initiator. It is not a "dual-use" technology; it only sets off bombs. Iran apparently has been working on the initiator since at least 2007, coincidentally the same year that a National Intelligence Estimate from the United States Intelligence Community determined that Iran had no intention of seeking nuclear weapons. In light of this and other revelations, that finding needs a serious rethinking.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/15/tehrans-nuclear-trigger/

Evidence of Iran's nuclear arms expertise mounts

Evidence of Iran's nuclear arms expertise mounts -
Joby Warrick, Washington Post. Long denied access to foreign technology because of sanctions, Iran has nevertheless learned how to make virtually every bolt and switch in a nuclear weapon, according to assessments by U.N. nuclear officials in internal documents, as well as Western and Middle Eastern intelligence analysts and weapons experts. Iran's growing technical prowess has been highlighted by a secret memo, leaked to a British newspaper over the weekend, that purportedly shows Iranian scientists conducting tests on a neutron initiator, one of the final technical hurdles in making a nuclear warhead, weapons analysts said Monday. There was no way to establish the authenticity or original source of the document, which is being assessed by officials at Western intelligence agencies and the U.N. nuclear watchdog. Even so, former intelligence officials and arms-control experts said that if it is a genuine Iranian government document, it is a worrisome indication of an ongoing, clandestine effort to acquire nuclear weapons capability. Iran has steadfastly denied seeking nuclear arms.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...9121403729.html

Russia dismisses concerns on transfer of nuclear technologies to India

Russia dismisses concerns on transfer of nuclear technologies to India

There are no domestic laws that would hinder Russia from shipping technologies in enrichment and reprocessing to India as part of a deal to build up to 14 nuclear reactors in the Asian country, according to Russian Ambassador Alexander Kadakin. The two countries have forged a civil nuclear-cooperation deal. "We don't see many problems in this field," Kadakin added. The Economic Times (India)/Indo-Asian News Service

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/energy/power/Russia-eyeing-12-14-reactors-in-India-says-envoy/articleshow/5336899.cms

+ N.Korea still wants recognition as nuclear state: S.Korea

+ N.Korea still wants recognition as nuclear state: S.Korea
Seoul (AFP) Dec 14, 2009 - North Korea is still seeking recognition as a nuclear power despite trying to normalise relations with the United States, South Korea's top military officer said Monday. "It is our assessment that North Korea has not altered its strategic goal of simultaneously securing the status of a nuclear state and the stability of its regime through the normalisation of North-US relations," General ... more

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/N.Korea_still_wants_recognition_as_nuclear_state_S.Korea_999.html

Reducing the nuclear threat: The argument for public safety

Reducing the nuclear threat: The argument for public safety

Richard Rhodes

Rhodes is the author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, which won the Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction, National Book Award, and National Book Critics Circle Award. It was the first of four volumes he has written on the history of the nuclear age. Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (1995), Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race (2007), and The Twilight of the Bombs (forthcoming in autumn 2010) are the others. He has been a visiting scholar at Harvard and MIT, and currently he is an affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.



http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/op-eds/reducing-the-nuclear-threat-the-argument-public-safety

Areva, NPCIL to start price negotiations for nuclear reactors

Areva, NPCIL to start price negotiations for nuclear reactors

France's Areva is about to start price talks with Nuclear Power Corp. of India for the construction of two European Pressurized Reactors at Jaitapur, Maharashtra, India. This follows the French Parliament's formalization of a nuclear energy deal with India. Aside from the two reactors, another four are being considered for Maharashtra, French Ambassador to India Jerome Bonnafont said. The Financial Express (Bangladesh)

http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Areva-to-begin-talks-with-NPCIL-for-Maha-N-plants/553110/

Lightbridge touts role of thorium in safer nuclear energy future

Lightbridge touts role of thorium in safer nuclear energy future
Thorium could provide the boost needed to revive nuclear energy in the U.S. without raising weapons-proliferation issues, the firm Lightbridge said. While fuel rods made from thorium won't be ready for use in the near term, company CEO Seth Grae said, the material would be safer and more efficient than uranium. Reuters

http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-44659520091211

NEI reacts to draft of bipartisan climate bill in Senate

NEI reacts to draft of bipartisan climate bill in Senate

Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., added incentives for nuclear energy in their draft climate-change bill to gain support from Republicans as well as moderate Democrats. Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman Steve Kerekes said the proposal appears positive "from the conceptual level," adding that the group will seek to work with the lawmakers' offices "at the scale needed to make a difference in meeting rising electricity demand while reducing greenhouse-gas emissions." The New York Times/ClimateWire

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/12/11/11climatewire-senate-climate-roadmap-caters-to-nuclear-off-77696.html

Taiwan probes alleged sales of nuclear parts to Iran: report

Taiwan probes alleged sales of nuclear parts to Iran: report
Taipei (AFP) Dec 12, 2009 - Taiwan is probing allegations that local companies might have sold specialised equipment to Iran that could be used to make nuclear weapons, a report said Saturday. "We are looking into the matter," Hsu Chun-fang, a spokesperson for Taiwan's Bureau of Foreign Trade was quoted by the Taipei Times as saying without elaborating. Export of sensitive items or to sensitive regions are restrict ... more

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Taiwan_probes_alleged_sales_of_nuclear_parts_to_Iran_report_999.html

Iran faces new sanctions over nuke issue: Feltman

Iran faces new sanctions over nuke issue: Feltman
Manama (AFP) Dec 13, 2009 - Iran faces a fresh set of sanctions over its refusal to abide by regulations governing nuclear programmes, the US pointman for the Middle East, Jeffrey Feltman, said on Sunday. "There's a body of law and procedures and regulations that govern nuclear programmes. Iran is simply ignoring those. There have got to be consequences for that," Feltman said in an interview with AFP. "The interna ... more
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_faces_new_sanctions_over_nuke_issue_Feltman_999.html

Iran offers to swap 400 kilos of LEU on Kish for atomic fuel

Iran offers to swap 400 kilos of LEU on Kish for atomic fuel
Manama (AFP) Dec 12, 2009 - Iran's foreign minister on Saturday proposed that Tehran swap 400 kilos of low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel in an exchange on a Gulf island as the first phase of a deal with world powers. Any new sanctions against Tehran over its controversial nuclear programme "will have no impact," Manouchehr Mottaki also said at a security conference in Bahrain. "We are prepared to take 400 kilog ... more

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_offers_to_swap_400_kilos_of_LEU_on_Kish_for_atomic_fuel_999.html

India tests nuclear-capable ballistic missile

India tests nuclear-capable ballistic missile
Bhubaneshwar, India (AFP) Dec 13, 2009 - India successfully tested a nuclear-capable ballistic missile from a ship near the east coast on Sunday, a defence official said. The Dhanush, which has a short range of 350 kilometres (220 miles), is a navy version of the surface-to-surface Prithvi missile and can carry both nuclear and conventional warheads. The missile was successfully fired from a ship in the Bay of Bengal, said S.P. ... more
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/India_tests_nuclear-capable_ballistic_missile_999.html

Nuclear Iran: stop the clock ticking and start talking Tony Karon

Nuclear Iran: stop the clock ticking and start talking

Tony Karon

The National (Abu Dhabi)

December 13. 2009

Instead of the breakthrough he had hoped for in nuclear diplomacy with Iran, Barack Obama has allowed himself to be painted into a corner. But so, too, have his Iranian counterparts, with neither side now capable of breaking the deadlock.

Mr Obama, under pressure from sceptics of engagement in Washington, Paris and Jerusalem, created an artificial deadline of December 2009 for his diplomatic efforts. The clock is ticking, warn the hawks, with Iran supposedly racing full-tilt to build nuclear weapons (although evidence of this remains scant). So Mr Obama turned a deal to send much of Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium abroad for processing into a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum. Iran’s leadership has been unable to accept this, insisting on renegotiating the terms even as it faces its own internal paralysis.
Abiding by the deadline, Mr Obama is now pressing for new sanctions against Tehran. But Russia and China remain sceptical, despite being critical of Tehran’s behaviour, and the UN is unlikely to adopt anything close to the “crippling sanctions” which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has threatened.

The US and its allies are looking at their own measures, targeting Iran’s petrol imports and access to international trade and investment by threatening third-country companies that do business in Tehran. Such measures could, however, provoke a backlash, particularly from countries such as Turkey and China, which is fast emerging as Iran’s major trade and investment partner in the energy sector.
The smart money wouldn’t bet that, whatever sanctions the US is able to muster, Iran will change its behaviour. But by adopting new sanctions, Mr Obama follows the hawks further down the road. What happens when those measures fail to force Tehran to back down? A blockade? War?

Nobody believes Obama would launch military action – or even allow Israel to do so – because at best it would set back Iran’s programme by a few years, while risking setting the region ablaze and imperiling US missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some in Washington now see a nuclear-armed Iran as inevitable.
So how did a president who promised a new dawn of diplomacy find himself stuck in the same dilemma as his predecessor?

Two reasons come to mind: nuclear diplomacy has been eclipsed by the most traumatic domestic political crisis to have gripped the Islamic Republic in its 30-year history; and Mr Obama failed to abandon the Bush administration’s goal to get Iran to forego all enrichment of uranium.
Many had warned that the Obama administration was heading for trouble by maintaining the demand that Iran give up enrichment even for peaceful purposes – a “ridiculous” demand even in the words of an ally like Senator John Kerry. All of Iran’s political factions agree that the country deserves the rights of any other signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which includes uranium enrichment for peaceful purposes .

But Washington hawks, together with Israel, Britain and France, say even peaceful enrichment capability gives Iran the wherewithal to make a bomb, and is therefore intolerable. And Mr Obama wasn’t about to pick a fight on the end goals when he launched his much-maligned engagement policy.

That may have been unfortunate, because different end goals helped to scupper the Tehran research reactor deal. The administration’s key goal, as the National Security Adviser Jim Jones put it, was “to get 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium out of Iran”. By removing three quarters of Iran’s stockpile – which hypothetically could be reprocessed to create a single nuclear weapon – western powers saw the deal as giving them more time to persuade Iran to forego enrichment altogether.
Iran fundamentally rejects that objective and any implication that its stockpile of low-enriched uranium is a security threat. But its skittish response to the reactor deal highlights the extent to which the regime’s internal power struggle has sabotaged nuclear diplomacy.

The Iranian side was the first to publicly propose swapping its low-enriched uranium for fuel, and when the framework for the deal was agreed at talks in Geneva and Vienna, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his supporters boasted at home of a great victory. The deal, they said, had forced the West to buckle and tacitly accept Iran’s right to enrich uranium.
But as details emerged and the international press relayed western glee over persuading Iran to part with most of its stockpile, Mr Ahmadinejad came under blistering attack from conservatives, pragmatists and reformers.

Mr Ahmadinejad suddenly found himself paralysed by the regime’s internal dynamics, unable to say yes or no to the West. Tehran’s equivocation was taken as gamesmanship by western powers, resulting in new condemnation and sanctions threats, met with more bluster and empty threats by Mr Ahmadinejad.
As frustrating as it has proven to be, diplomacy remains Mr Obama’s only serious option – and despite his artificial deadline, it has only just begun. A diplomatic solution in which Iran agrees to forego enrichment entirely remains highly unlikely. Imagining Iran could be tricked on to that road by the reactor deal was a serious mistake.

Still, talks could produce agreement on measures within the NPT framework to strengthen safeguards against Iran weaponising nuclear material. That remains a highly desirable goal, even if getting there would involve a long and painstaking process. Mr Obama would do well to toss out that “ticking clock”, a device manufactured by those goading him towards a confrontation he knows would be disastrous. Considering the alternatives, the latest Nobel Peace laureate should be ready to give serious diplomacy with Iran all the time it needs.

Syria defends Iran nuclear plans

Syria defends Iran nuclear plans
Damascus (AFP) Dec 3, 2009 - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad defended Iran's controversial nuclear programme on Thursday, during a visit to Damascus by Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, and promised that cooperation between the two countries would continue. Assad asserted "the right of Iran and other countries that are signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich unranium for civilian purpo ... more

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Syria_defends_Iran_nuclear_plans_999.html

S.Korea hails first nuclear reactor export

S.Korea hails first nuclear reactor export
Seoul (AFP) Dec 4, 2009 - South Korea on Friday hailed its first export of an atomic reactor, saying the deal with Jordan would spur future overseas sales of nuclear technology. Government officials said a South Korean consortium has won a deal worth about 173 million dollars to build a five megawatt multi-purpose reactor at the Jordan University for Sciences and Technology by 2014. Jordan will use the reactor ... more

http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/S.Korea_hails_first_nuclear_reactor_export_999.html

World Powers Could Hold Iran Meeting Next Week

World Powers Could Hold Iran Meeting Next Week
Slobodan Lekic and Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press
World powers trying to end a standoff over Iran's nuclear program are weighing whether to meet next week to discuss tougher measures, a European Union official said Thursday as Russia reiterated its reluctance to agree to new sanctions.
Full Article
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iRqjZV1Meppj40hTs8IBOv4DdsQwD9CGHHL00

Iran Tries to Reassure IAEA over New Uranium Units Aresu Eqbali, Agence France-Presse

Iran Tries to Reassure IAEA over New Uranium Units
Aresu Eqbali, Agence France-Presse
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that Iran's plan to build 10 new uranium enrichment plants was not aimed at confronting the UN atomic watchdog, which censured Tehran last month, the state television website reported.
Full Article
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hhmmOJ92Y3l7_UloldsmxhEqyGdA

U.S. Envoy: No Commitment by N. Korea on Future Talks Blaine Harden, The Washington Post

U.S. Envoy: No Commitment by N. Korea on Future Talks
Blaine Harden, The Washington Post
BosworthPresident Obama's envoy to North Korea said Thursday that his journey to Pyongyang produced no commitment that the North would return to international talks aimed at ridding the country of nuclear weapons.

But Stephen Bosworth, after a three-day visit that marked the first high-level contact between the Obama administration and the government of leader Kim Jong Il, said his conversations had established a "common understanding" of the need for negotiations.
Full Article
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/10/AR2009121000756.html

Obama’s Nobel & START: Peacemaker Arrives Empty-handed

Obama’s Nobel & START: Peacemaker Arrives Empty-handed

by Eric Walberg / December 9th, 2009 (0)

Obama desperately needed a new nuclear arms treaty to replace START I to provide some justification for the Nobel Committee’s gamble. The award in the face of US imperial wars and hubris is proving to be extremely embarrassing to everyone, left and right. In awarding the Nobel Prize to Obama on 9 October, the selection committee “in particular looked at Obama’s vision and work toward a world without atomic weapons,” giving him an out, if he could at least bring a nuclear arms treaty with him.

Instead, US inspectors packed their bags last week and left Russian nuclear sites unmonitored for …
(Full article …)
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/12/obamas-nobel-start-peacemaker-arrives-empty-handed/

The real path to green energy: Hybrid nuclear-renewable power

The real path to green energy: Hybrid nuclear-renewable power Premium
BY CHARLES FORSBERG
A targeted use of nuclear power could solve the major problems of renewable energy sources by providing carbon-emission-free power for biofuel refineries and backup energy for solar, wind, and other renewable sources.

http://thebulletin.metapress.com/content/k5mg3023428g312l/?p=3e066ae975cf41419a094c318b039a9e&pi=6

Malaysia Recalls U.N. Envoy after Iran Nuclear Vote

Malaysia Recalls U.N. Envoy after Iran Nuclear Vote
Reuters
Malaysia said on Sunday it recalled its envoy to the United Nations in Vienna for "consultations" after he voted against a resolution at the International Atomic Energy Agency rebuking Iran.
Full Article
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-44506820091206

Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire: Russia Sees New Arms Control Deal in 10 Days Global Security Newswire

Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire: Russia Sees New Arms Control Deal in 10 Days Global Security Newswire

Russia Sees New Arms Control Deal in 10 Days Global Security Newswire

Russia Sees New Arms Control Deal in 10 Days
Global Security Newswire
A successor to a key nuclear arms control treaty could be signed by late next week, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 7).
Full Article
http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20091208_8224.php

Turkey Balks at Iran Sanctions

Turkey Balks at Iran Sanctions
Jay Solomon, The Wall Street Journal
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan balked at supporting new economic sanctions against Iran after a White House meeting with President Barack Obama Monday, arguing diplomacy aimed at ending Tehran's nuclear program needed more time.
Full Article
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126021478791880453.html

Iran's Growing Weapons Capability and Its Impact on Negotiations

Iran's Growing Weapons Capability and Its Impact on Negotiations
David Albright and Jacqueline Shire, Arms Control Association
AhmadinejadThe crisis over Iran's growing nuclear weapons capabilities is rapidly reaching a critical point. Recent developments do not bode well for the prospect of successful negotiations that can end concerns about Iran's nuclear program, at least in the short term.

These concerns center on two related questions: whether Iran can be prevented from using its nuclear program for weapons purposes, and how much confidence the United States and other countries can have in verification measures to ensure that the Iranians are not using their program for such purposes.
Full Article
http://armscontrol.org/act/2009_12/AlbrightShire

Russia, India forge nuclear-cooperation agreement

Russia, India forge nuclear-cooperation agreement
Russia has signed a nuclear-cooperation deal with India, becoming the latest country to do so. "Today, we have signed an agreement which broadens the reach of our cooperation beyond the supply of nuclear reactors to areas of research and development and a whole range of areas of nuclear energy," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said after his meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/86b6465c-e398-11de-9f4f-00144feab49a.html

Climate talks should include nuclear power, Constellation CEO says

Climate talks should include nuclear power, Constellation CEO says
Nuclear energy should be part of climate-change discussions in Copenhagen, said Constellation Energy Group CEO Mayo Shattuck III. The power source plays an important role in the country's carbon-reduction targets and should be promoted internationally, he added. The use of nuclear energy should "increase substantially" if the world seeks to achieve a 50% cut in emissions by 2050, Shattuck said. American City Business Journals/Baltimore

http://baltimore.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2009/12/07/daily7.html

U.S. nuclear companies express concern over land scarcity in India

U.S. nuclear companies express concern over land scarcity in India
The lack of land in India could further postpone a nuclear-cooperation agreement between the U.S. and India, a consortium of American nuclear companies said. Aside from land scarcity, businesses are concerned with delays including differences over a fuel-reprocessing deal. "Yes, we realize land acquisition is a problem here," GE executive Timothy Richards said. Reuters

http://in.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idINDEL26413220091208

Nuclear waste storage decision will affect SRS

GAO report suggests 2 options for nuclear-waste storage
A Government Accountability Office report identifies two possible solutions to concerns over the country's nuclear-waste storage. One is the centralized storage of the material at two unnamed sites, and the other is continuing the practice of on-site storage at 80 locations. The Augusta Chronicle (Ga.)
http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/2009/12/07/met_558496.shtml

India, Russia sign deals on nuclear energy, defence

India, Russia sign deals on nuclear energy, defence
Moscow (AFP) Dec 7, 2009 - India and Russia signed deals on nuclear energy and arms sales on Monday as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held talks in the Kremlin with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. "We welcome Russia's participation in the broadening of our nuclear energy programme," Singh told reporters after the talks, according to remarks translated into Russian. "The successful end of the negotiations ... more
http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/India_Russia_sign_deals_on_nuclear_energy_defence_999.html

S. Korea wins contract to build Jordan's first nuclear reactor

S. Korea wins contract to build Jordan's first nuclear reactor
A South Korean consortium has secured a bid to build Jordan's first nuclear reactor, beating offers from Argentina, Russia and China, according to South Korea's science ministry. The contract, which is worth more than $170 million, requires the group to build a five-megawatt reactor for research purposes. Chosun Ilbo (South Korea)/Arirang News

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2009/12/07/2009120700607.html

U.S. nuclear companies proceed with India talks

U.S. nuclear companies proceed with India talks
A consortium of U.S. companies led by GE and Westinghouse Electric is scheduled to meet today with their counterparts in India to discuss nuclear construction plans in the country. The meetings come in the wake of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's U.S. visit last month and the possibility that India will advance a nuclear liability bill that would open up the industry to U.S. businesses. Hindustan Times (India)

http://www.hindustantimes.com/US-nuclear-firms-set-for-Take-2-of-talks-with-India/H1-Article1-483680.aspx

Iran Is No Existential Threat The best way to rescue Obama's failing diplomacy with the Islamic Republic is to stop letting Israel call the shots. BY

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/12/04/iran_is_no_existential_threat?page=full
Iran Is No Existential Threat
The best way to rescue Obama's failing diplomacy with the Islamic Republic is to stop letting Israel call the shots.
BY HILLARY MANN LEVERETT, FLYNT LEVERETT | DECEMBER 4, 2009

After months of halfhearted, fruitless attempts at engagement, the United States and its European partners are effectively re-enacting George W. Bush's Iran policy. In 2006, after Iran had ended a nearly two-year voluntary suspension of uranium enrichment, then-U.S. president pushed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to send Iran's nuclear file to the U.N. Security Council, which duly imposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic. But the sanctions did not prove "crippling," as Bush had hoped: Iran continued to expand its nuclear infrastructure, and the risks of a military confrontation between the United States and Iran climbed.

Unfortunately, Barack Obama's administration has decided to repeat this sorry history. Last Friday, the IAEA passed a resolution urging Iran to send most of its current stockpile of low-enriched uranium abroad. It also reported Iran once again to the Security Council. Iran has wasted no time in upping the ante rather than backing down, saying it would restrict cooperation with the IAEA only to those measures "statutorily" required. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also announced that the Islamic Republic would build 10 new enrichment facilities in coming years. He later added, "Iran will produce fuel enriched to a level of 20 percent," the level required for Iran's research reactor in Tehran. This would be well above the 3 to 4 percent level that Iran has already achieved in producing low-enriched uranium and would take Iran closer to the 90 percent-plus level required for weapons-grade fissile material.

These developments again demonstrate the counterproductive futility of enshrining uranium enrichment and sanctions as the keys to resolving the nuclear issue. By prompting Tehran to reduce cooperation with the IAEA, the United States and its European partners have done real damage to the international community's ability to monitor the state of Iran's nuclear program. More broadly, U.S., British, and French insistence on "zero enrichment" in Iran makes successful nuclear diplomacy with Tehran impossible. At this point, there is no chance that Tehran will accept "zero enrichment" as a negotiated outcome, for at least two reasons: It is a country-specific formulation applied to Iran but not to anybody else, and it requires Iran to forswear its sovereign right to the full range of civil nuclear technology.

If the United States and its partners continue on their present course, the Islamic Republic will continue to expand its nuclear infrastructure, and the risks of an eventual military confrontation between the United States (or Israel, with U.S. support) and Iran will, once again, rise inexorably. There is no set of sanctions the Security Council might plausibly authorize that would change this reality, and various unilateral and secondary sanctions initiatives moving through the U.S. Congress will not work either.

A more constructive approach would seek to maximize international monitoring of Iran's nuclear activities by emphasizing country-neutral formulations for curbing nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. This would require international acceptance of enrichment on Iranian soil. Getting Iran to ratify and implement the Additional Protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty would be an important step in this direction, but the most effective country-neutral initiative would be the establishment of a nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the region.

Although talk of an NWFZ -- or, more broadly, a weapons of mass destruction-free zone (WMDFZ) -- in the Middle East is not new, serious consideration of these ideas in U.S. foreign policy circles always stops as soon as Israel's nuclear status comes up. For years, the Israeli position has been that, once Arab-Israeli peace is achieved, it might become possible for Israel to join in creating an NWFZ/WMDFZ in the region. Although American foreign-policy elites typically take this position at face value, it deserves a higher degree of critical scrutiny.

It is simply not analytically credible to describe the unresolved Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese tracks of the Middle East peace process as "existential threats" to Israel. The 1978 Egypt-Israel Camp David accords effectively dispelled the prospect of Arab armies uniting to "push the Jews into the sea." Similarly, there is no amount of additional armed capabilities that would allow Palestinian and Lebanese militants to destroy Israel without also destroying the populations they are ostensibly seeking to liberate.

More recently, the dominant Israeli discourse about Iran has routinely characterized an Islamic Republic with a nuclear "breakout" capability -- not to mention actual nuclear weapons -- as an "existential threat" to Israel. (Both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have reiterated Israel's position that Iran's full suspension of uranium enrichment is the only acceptable outcome from nuclear talks with Tehran.) But this position, too, does not stand up to rigorous scrutiny. It is not analytically serious to describe an Iran with mastery of the nuclear fuel cycle as an existential threat to Israel or any other state. Even if Iran were to fabricate a nuclear weapon, it is not credible to describe that as an existential threat to Israel -- unless one has such a distorted view of Shiite Islam that one believes the Islamic Republic is so focused on damaging "the Zionist entity" that it is collectively willing to become history's first "suicide nation."

Rhetoric from senior officials and politicians characterizing Iran as an existential threat resonates with the Israeli public, for understandable historical reasons, and Ahmadinejad's statements questioning the Holocaust only reinforce Israeli fears. As a result, there is, effectively, no political debate in Israel about Iran policy.

But, when Israeli politicians and policymakers use politically effective rhetoric about Iran's nuclear development being an existential threat to Israel, what is really motivating them? Fundamentally, Israel's political and policy elites are focused on eliminating Iran's fuel-cycle capabilities in order to preserve a regional balance of power that is strongly tilted in Israel's favor. Regional perceptions that the Islamic Republic had achieved a "breakout" capability would begin to chip away at Israel's long-standing nuclear-weapons monopoly. That, in turn, might begin to constrain Israel's currently unconstrained freedom of unilateral military action.

One can readily appreciate why Israel values its status as the Middle East's military hegemon and wants to maintain the maximum possible room for unilateral military initiative. But that strategic preference is not legitimated by the U.N. Charter, the laws of war, or any international convention. Moreover, Israel's strategic preference for preserving and enhancing its military hegemony does not, at this point, serve the cause of regional stability or containing the spread of nuclear weapons capabilities in the Middle East.

The United States has an abiding commitment to Israel's survival and security. But that commitment should not be confused with maintaining Israel's military hegemony over the region in perpetuity, by continuing to allow U.S. assurances of an Israeli "qualitative edge" for defensive purposes to be twisted into assurances of maximum freedom for Israel to conduct offensive military operations at will against any regional target.

It is time for the United States and its international partners to get serious about creating a regionwide framework for controlling WMD capabilities in the Middle East, including the full range of Israel's WMD capabilities, to create a more secure environment for all Middle Eastern states. Obama's observation, in his June 4 Cairo speech, that no single country should determine which other countries are permitted to have particular types of weapons, could be a positive first step in this direction. But, if he does not follow up purposefully, this will become one more good Obama idea that ends up disappointing the expectations it initially raised.

Flynt Leverett directs the New America Foundation's Iran Initiative and teaches international affairs at Pennsylvania State University. Hillary Mann Leverett is the chief executive officer of Stratega, a political risk consultancy. Together, they have more than 20 years of experience working on Middle East issues for the U.S. government, including at the National Security Council and the State Department, and now publish www.TheRaceForIran.com.

Atomic-Blast Detection Station Established Near Iran (Update1)

Atomic-Blast Detection Station Established Near Iran (Update1)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=ab_a09nGzc_Y

A United Nations group seeking to outlaw nuclear-weapons tests has set up a detection facility near the border between Iran and Turkmenistan that can register the shockwaves of an atomic blast.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization built seismic station PS44 near Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, a “few kilometers” from the Central Asian country’s southern border with Iran, the Vienna-based group said yesterday in a statement on its Web site. The site adds to the group’s 337 stations worldwide designed to detect seismic activity and atmospheric radiation caused by nuclear explosions.

UN inspectors received intelligence material that included Iranian designs for a 400-meter (1,312-foot) deep shaft that could be used for testing a nuclear bomb, the world body’s International Atomic Energy Agency said in May 2008. The documents also showed plans for a control station 10 kilometers from the unidentified blast site, along with diagnostic equipment to monitor an explosion.

US Says Cannot Meet Deadline to Screen Cargo for Nukes

US Says Cannot Meet Deadline to Screen Cargo for Nukes
Agence France-Presse
Top US security official Janet Napolitano on Wednesday admitted her government will fail to meet a 2012 deadline to scan all incoming ship cargo, measures designed to prevent a nuclear terror attack.
Full Article
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5haY5p9AWEOkUxmzp9vWfVVeDtqrw

Atomic-Blast Detection Station Established Near Iran Jonathan Tirone, Bloomberg

Atomic-Blast Detection Station Established Near Iran
Jonathan Tirone, Bloomberg
A United Nations group seeking to outlaw nuclear-weapons tests has set up a detection facility near the border between Iran and Turkmenistan that can register the shockwaves of an atomic blast.
Full Article
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=ab_a09nGzc_Y

Don't Stop with START Daryl G. Kimball, Proliferation Analysis

Don't Stop with START
Daryl G. Kimball, Proliferation Analysis
Obama and MedvedevU.S. and Russian negotiators are working hard to conclude a new strategic nuclear arms reduction deal by the end of this month to replace the landmark 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expires on December 5. Unfortunately, there are a few naysayers who are already trying to undermine support for the new START agreement before it arrives.

Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), for example, erroneously suggested in a November 21 statement "that there had been virtually no talk…of what happens after December 5 and prior to the possible entry into force of the follow-on agreement." Actually, the two sides have been discussing the bridging mechanism for months, but have not publicized the details because it was the subject of ongoing negotiations.
Full Article
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=24254

Yucca Mountain Nuclear Disposal Site Is Dead, Says Longtime Advocate

Yucca Mountain Nuclear Disposal Site Is Dead, Says Longtime Advocate

Former lawmaker says Yucca Mountain is dead, calls for alternatives
Plans to turn Nevada's Yucca Mountain into the country's nuclear-waste repository should no longer be pursued, former Sen. Pete Domenici said, adding that the White House should move forward with a planned blue-ribbon commission to seek other options. A longtime supporter of nuclear energy, Domenici also proposed allocating the federal government's $23 billion waste-disposal fund toward a pilot recycling venture for nuclear fuel, which may bring down the amount of storage space needed for waste. The New York Times/ClimateWire

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/12/02/02climatewire-yucca-mountain-nuclear-disposal-site-is-dead-59660.html

Double Standards for Iran’s Nuclear Program from Antiwar.com Original by Muhammad Sahimi

Double Standards for Iran’s Nuclear Program
by Muhammad Sahimi

http://original.antiwar.com/sahimi/2009/12/01/double-standards-for-irans-nuclear-program/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+antiwar-original+%28Antiwar.com+Original+Articles%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

"The issue between Iran and the West goes beyond Ahmadinejad or any other Iranian government – democratic or not, for that matter. It has to do with Iran’s national rights in the framework of the international agreements that it has signed, in particular the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The issue also has to do with the double standards of the U.S. and its allies. They have agreed to transfer their nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and India; did nothing to prevent Pakistan from developing a nuclear arsenal; and supported Israel in its quest for nuclear weapons. They have also not opposed agreements between Egypt and Russia and Oman and Russia regarding the construction of nuclear reactors in Iran’s vicinity. But the same nations lament a nuclear race in the Middle East and the "threat" that Iran’s nuclear program supposedly poses to peace and stability in the region."

White House is "very supportive" of nuclear power, Chu says

White House is "very supportive" of nuclear power, Chu says
Energy Secretary Steven Chu highlighted the importance of nuclear and green power to the country's energy mix during a visit to South Carolina. In his tour Monday of General Electric's wind-turbine plant in Greenville, Chu said the Obama administration supports nuclear energy and remains committed to its expansion. The Sun News (Myrtle Beach, S.C.)/The Associated Press

http://www.thesunnews.com/575/story/1191704.html

Senate Democrats resume work on climate bill ahead of U.N. summit

Senate Democrats resume work on climate bill ahead of U.N. summit
Democratic senators plan to resume their push for a global-warming bill this week as President Barack Obama and other White House officials prepare for the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is seeking a meeting with key Senate committee chiefs for a pre-summit session, while the bipartisan trio of Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., works on a draft legislative proposal. The New York Times/ClimateWire

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/12/01/01climatewire-with-an-eye-on-copenhagen-senate-tiptoes-bac-21712.html

Big Utility to Close 11 Plants Using Coal

Progress says nuclear is part of long-term power-generation plans
Progress Energy announced it would shut down 11 of its coal-fired power facilities by 2017. While the company is touting natural gas as an alternative in the short term, the long-term strategy for its generating system is in nuclear power, CEO Bill Johnson said. Progress stated plans to construct four reactors in North Carolina and Florida, but none would be operational by 2017. The New York Times (free registration)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/business/energy-environment/02coal.html?_r=1

US treaty inspections to end at Russia missile plant: report

US treaty inspections to end at Russia missile plant: report
Moscow (AFP) Dec 1, 2009 - US arms inspectors must end their almost 15-year monitoring of Russia's main missile plant this week, as the key US-Russia nuclear treaty expires, a Russian military-diplomatic source said Tuesday. Under the old Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, up to 30 US experts monitored traffic to and from Russia's foremost missile factory in the remote village of Votkinsk, about 580 kilometres ... more

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_treaty_inspections_to_end_at_Russia_missile_plant_report_999.html

Ahmadinejad blasts nuclear partner Russia over IAEA vote

Ahmadinejad blasts nuclear partner Russia over IAEA vote
Tehran (AFP) Dec 1, 2009 - Iran hit out at its longtime nuclear partner Russia Tuesday over a yes vote for a censure motion at the UN atomic watchdog and insisted it was serious about plans for 10 more uranium enrichment plants. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that despite the support given in the International Atomic Energy Agency vote on Friday by Russia and China, Western governments would not succeed in their ... more

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Ahmadinejad_blasts_nuclear_partner_Russia_over_IAEA_vote_999.html

IAEA Governors Approve First Nuclear Fuel Bank Plan

IAEA Governors Approve First Nuclear Fuel Bank Plan
Sylvia Westall, Reuters
International Atomic Energy Agency governors on Friday approved a Russian plan for a multilateral uranium fuel supply bank to stem the spread of nuclear arms as more countries seek atomic energy.
Full Article
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Oil/idUSTRE5AQ1OG20091127

Pakistan’s Leader Cedes Nuclear Office

Pakistan’s Leader Cedes Nuclear Office
Sabrina Tavernise and David E. Sanger, The New York Times
President Asif Ali Zardari has ceded his position in Pakistan's nuclear command structure to his prime minister, in a sudden political maneuver widely seen as a fresh sign of turmoil on the eve of President Obama’s strategy announcement for the region.
Full Article
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/world/asia/29pstan.html

Iran's Nuclear Move Puzzles West

Iran's Nuclear Move Puzzles West
Daniel Dombey and Najmeh Bozorgmehr, Financial Times
In response to the revelation that Iran had been building an undeclared nuclear facility near the holy city of Qom, the United Nations nuclear watchdog asked Tehran whether it had any other such building plans.
Full Article
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e89a90b4-dd24-11de-ad60-00144feabdc0.html

* Nuclear Quagmire with Iran

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=24223

The US Nuclear Industry: Current Status and Prospects under the Obama Administration

The US Nuclear Industry: Current Status and Prospects under the Obama Administration
Sharon Squassoni, CIGI Nuclear Energy Futures Paper
Expectations of a nuclear energy renaissance are particularly high in the United States, which hasn't had a new reactor order in 30 years.
Full Article
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=24232

A Change in Leadership at the IAEA

A Change in Leadership at the IAEA
James M. Acton, Q&A
AmanoOn Monday, Mohammed ElBaradei stepped down after twelve years as head of the UN's nuclear watchdog. Yukiya Amano, ElBaradei's successor as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will confront growing proliferation challenges from nuclear weapons programs and nuclear power industries across Asia, the Middle East, and beyond.

In the final days of ElBaradei's tenure, the last week of November, the IAEA issued a stern resolution censuring Iran for continually defying its international nuclear obligations. In response, Iran announced that it would build 10 additional uranium enrichment plants, once again challenging the IAEA's enforcement authority. In a new Q&A, James Acton reflects on ElBaradei's leadership, discusses Amano's agenda, and calls attention to the importance of the IAEA's work.
Full Article
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=24240

* Japan's Amano Takes Helm at UN Atomic Watchdog
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j7HBzElyN6JUJQEM2OTmBDNYWf9Q

Uranium Demand Could Outstrip Supply For Three Years Straight (CCJ)

Uranium Demand Could Outstrip Supply For Three Years Straight (CCJ)

http://www.businessinsider.com/uranium-demand-will-outstrip-supply-in-2010-2009-11

Interest Brews In The Other Yellow Metal: Uranium

Interest Brews In The Other Yellow Metal: Uranium

http://www.businessinsider.com/interest-brews-in-the-other-yellow-metal-uranium-2009-12?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+greensheet+%28Green+Sheet%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

* U.S. moves closer to clinching nuclear energy deal with India

* U.S. moves closer to clinching nuclear energy deal with India
The U.S. and India are near the signing of a deal for nuclear fuel reprocessing, which is one of the remaining requirements to complete a civilian nuclear pact between the countries, an Indian official said. The construction of reprocessing sites under International Atomic Energy Agency rules is a vital part of implementing the agreement struck last year with then-President George W. Bush. The deal permits India to access civilian nuclear power despite declining to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Google/Agence France-Presse
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ilMrGQJmRisRmmrY3BuC50VPQFAg

French bid for Emirates nuclear plant at risk: report

French bid for Emirates nuclear plant at risk: report
Paris (AFP) Nov 25, 2009 - A French attempt to win a 41-billion-dollar (27.2-billion-euro) contract to build nuclear power stations in the Emirates is at risk over pricing, the La Tribune newspaper reported on Wednesday. The newspaper reported that the top official at the presidential Elysee Palace, Claude Geant, had held a meeting with the heads of big French companies concerned on Tuesday to discuss a further ... more
http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/French_bid_for_Emirates_nuclear_plant_at_risk_report_999.html

Iran MPs call for reduced ties with UN atomic watchdog

Iran MPs call for reduced ties with UN atomic watchdog
Tehran (AFP) Nov 29, 2009 - Iranian lawmakers on Sunday demanded the government of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reduce ties with the UN atomic watchdog after it censured Tehran for building a new nuclear plant. Condemning a resolution issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Friday as "political and lacking consensus," MPs also demanded that Tehran continue its controversial nuclear ... more

US, India inch closer to nuclear deal: Indian official

US, India inch closer to nuclear deal: Indian official
New Delhi (AFP) Nov 29, 2009 - India and the United States are close to signing a nuclear fuel reprocessing agreement, one of the last requirements to finalise last year's landmark civilian nuclear deal, an official said Sunday. Indian National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan told reporters "we have arrived at almost the very last stage" of negotiations. Narayanan was speaking on board Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's ... more

http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/US_India_inch_closer_to_nuclear_deal_Indian_official_999.html

Nuclear pope' ElBaradei steps down

Nuclear pope' ElBaradei steps down
Vienna (AFP) Nov 29, 2009 - UN atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who once described himself as a "nuclear pope", quoted the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi in his farewell remarks at the International Atomic Energy Agency. "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; were there is ... more

http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/Nuclear_pope_ElBaradei_steps_down_999.html

Iran in hot seat at ElBaradei's last IAEA meeting

Iran in hot seat at ElBaradei's last IAEA meeting
Vienna (AFP) Nov 25, 2009 - The UN atomic watchdog begins a two-day meeting Thursday, the last to be chaired by Egyptian diplomat Mohamed ElBaradei, who steps down on November 30 after 12 years at the helm of the IAEA. But the 67-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner will be leaving a difficult legacy to his successor, 62-year-old Yukiya Amano of Japan, with the International Atomic Energy Agency no closer to knowing the ... more

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_in_hot_seat_at_ElBaradeis_last_IAEA_meeting_999.html

India fires nuclear-capable missile

India fires nuclear-capable missile
Bhubaneswar, India (UPI) Nov 24, 2009 - India has test fired a nuclear-capable, medium-range ballistic missile, Agni II. The surface-to-surface missile was test fired off the eastern coast of India, in Orissa state, officials were quoted as saying by local media. The same officials said a mobile rail launcher was used in the late-night operation. The Agni II is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to targets of up ... more
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/India_fires_nuclear-capable_missile_999.html

Egyptian Nuclear Leadership—Time to Realign? Kimberly Misher, Policy Outlook

Egyptian Nuclear Leadership—Time to Realign?
Kimberly Misher, Policy Outlook
CairoRecognizing Egypt's critical role in the Arab world, President Obama selected Cairo for a landmark speech in June. To continue to lead the Middle East and enhance regional security, Egypt should work to strengthen the nonproliferation regime. The 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference is Egypt's next best chance to advance its disarmament goals, contends a new paper by Kimberly Misher.
Full Article
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=24203

* Restoring the NPT: Essential Steps for 2010
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/events/?fa=eventDetail&id=1479

Fighting Nuclear Proliferation at 20 Gregory L. Schulte, Proliferation Analysis

Fighting Nuclear Proliferation at 20
Gregory L. Schulte, Proliferation Analysis
The Obama administration has been thinking big about how to transform American diplomacy and international relations. One idea is to replace the G8 with the G20 on a variety of global issues. Doing nonproliferation "at 20" rather than 8 is an intriguing possibility.
Full Article
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=24218

Iran Says Needs Guarantees to Ship Nuclear Fuel Parisa Hafezi, Reuters

Iran Says Needs Guarantees to Ship Nuclear Fuel
Parisa Hafezi, Reuters
Iran could consider sending its low-enriched uranium abroad, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, signaling a possible softening of its opposition to a plan aimed at easing Western concern over its nuclear ambitions.
Full Article
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5AN0Y020091124

Nuclear Quagmire with Iran

Nuclear Quagmire with Iran
George Perkovich, Council on Foreign Relations Interview
A leading arms control expert, George Perkovich says Iran's domestic political turmoil has seemingly caused it to back out of an agreement with the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany to send its processed uranium out of the country.
Full Article
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=24223

France Not for India-like Nuclear Pact with Pakistan Ashok Dasgupta, The Hindu

France Not for India-like Nuclear Pact with Pakistan
Ashok Dasgupta, The Hindu
Much as Pakistan has been trying to project in recent months that France's initiative for a "strategic relationship" with it was on the same lines as that with India, a top French government official made it categorically clear that in no case would it include a civil nuclear cooperation deal.
Full Article
http://beta.thehindu.com/news/international/article52171.ece

UAE should diversify its power generation sources: minister

UAE should diversify its power generation sources: minister
Abu Dhabi (AFP) Nov 16, 2009 - The United Arab Emirates should diversify its power generation sources, with nuclear energy providing the best option for the oil-rich country, the minister of state for foreign affairs said on Monday. "The UAE needs a diverse portfolio of energy in order to remain safe," Anwar Gargash told the energy security conference organised by the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research. ... more
http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/UAE_should_diversify_its_power_generation_sources_minister_999.html

Russia delays Iranian nuclear reactor

Russia delays Iranian nuclear reactor
Moscow (UPI) Nov 16, 2009 - Russia said the launch of a nuclear power plant it is building in Iran will be delayed, in a move observers say is linked to the slow progress in the nuclear conflict with the Islamic Republic. "We expect serious results by the end of the year, but the launch itself will not take place," Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko was quoted by the BBC as saying. "The engineers have to reach ... more
http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/Russia_delays_Iranian_reactor_Turkey_awaits_response_on_uranium_storage_999.html

Electricity-hungry Vietnam looks to join nuclear club

Electricity-hungry Vietnam looks to join nuclear club
Hanoi (AFP) Nov 17, 2009 - Vietnam is expected to take a key step towards meeting its burgeoning appetite for electricity by paving the way for its first nuclear power plant, but debate is still raging over the controversial project. Parliament in the fast-growing communist state is set to vote at the end of November on the project -- which lawmakers have been mulling for more than a decade -- after legalising the ... more
http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/Electricity-hungry_Vietnam_looks_to_join_nuclear_club_999.html

China, U.S. Remove Each Other From Nuclear Crosshairs -- Global Security Newswire

China, U.S. Remove Each Other From Nuclear Crosshairs -- Global Security Newswire

http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20091118_1273.php



China and the United States yesterday announced they would refrain from targeting each other with their strategic nuclear arsenals, the Union of Concerned Scientists said (see GSN, Nov. 6).

The decision, described in a joint statement issued during President Barack Obama's visit to Beijing, is an about-face from a 2002 Bush administration decision to aim U.S. nuclear weapons at the Asian state, according to the organization. Washington and Beijing this week "reaffirmed their commitment made on 27 June 1998 not to target at each other the strategic nuclear weapons under their respective control," according to the release.

In addition, the powers agreed to work toward ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and negotiating a fissile material cutoff treaty through the international Conference on Disarmament (see GSN, Sept. 8).

"The two sides believed that the two countries have common interests in promoting the peaceful use of outer space and agree to take steps to enhance security in outer space," the White House statement adds. The language hints that Washington might be open to negotiating curbs on deploying offensive and defensive weapons in orbit, a step Beijing has advocated and linked to its willingness to end production of weapon-usable fissile material, the science group said.

The nations also reaffirmed their commitment to eventual nuclear disarmament and pledged their continued support for nuclear nonproliferation safeguards (Union of Concerned Scientists release, Nov. 17).

U.S., India try to conclude nuclear-cooperation deal during Singh's visit

U.S., India try to conclude nuclear-cooperation deal during Singh's visit
The U.S. and India are hoping to resolve issues related to their nuclear energy pact when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits Washington, D.C., on Saturday, said U.S. Ambassador to India Timothy Roemer. Among the issues are India's passage of legislation on liability and its development of a dedicated nuclear-reprocessing site, Roemer said. The Hindu (India)

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article51029.ece

Progress makes information-sharing deal in China on nuclear energy

Progress makes information-sharing deal in China on nuclear energy
Progress Energy is among several major power companies in the U.S. that are teaming up with Chinese firms to gain access to China's booming nuclear industry. Progress Energy recently agreed to share input with Shangdong Nuclear in hopes of learning from its experience in nuclear construction. In return, Progress has agreed to impart its knowledge in the safe operation of nuclear facilities. The Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704538404574537712028807656.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

Nuclear "evangelist" is out to save the world

Nuclear "evangelist" is out to save the world
Esquire magazine characterizes Eric Loewen as "the evangelist of the sodium fast reactor, which burns nuclear waste, emits no CO2, and might just save the world." The former U.S. Navy officer with an doctorate faces a challenge of biblical scope with consequences including global warming, widespread starvation, financial ruin, resource wars and a long-term energy crisis, says the magazine. Esquire.com (subscription required)

http://www.esquire.com/features/best-and-brightest-2009/nuclear-waste-disposal-1209

The Coming Nuclear Crisis MIT Technology Review. How come no one is talking about Peak Uranium?

The Coming Nuclear Crisis MIT Technology Review. How come no one is talking about Peak Uranium?

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24414/

U.S., Japan form partnership to study nuclear-waste reprocessing

U.S., Japan form partnership to study nuclear-waste reprocessing
The U.S. has agreed to work with Japan to develop "advanced fuel-cycle technologies" for nuclear plants or reprocessing nuclear waste, according to media reports. The partnership suggests that the Energy Department might review the plan to reprocess nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain site, according to this blog post. Greentech Media/Green Light blog

http://www.greentechmedia.com/green-light/post/u.s.-japan-to-cooperate-on-nuclear-fuel-reprocessing-wsj/

Tripartite Conference Reveals Top Energy Priorities For US And Canada

Tripartite Conference Reveals Top Energy Priorities For US And Canada
Chicago IL (SPX) Nov 12, 2009 - A recent construction industry conference cited nuclear power, green technology, and skilled worker recruitment and training as top energy priorities for the United States and Canada. Solutions for these concerns were also presented as part of the event. The United Association (UA) of Plumbers, Fitters, Welders and HVAC Techs held the Tripartite Conference, entitled "Building Stronger ... more
http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/Tripartite_Conference_Reveals_Top_Energy_Priorities_For_US_And_Canada_999.html

Pakistan rejects report of bomb-grade uranium from China

Pakistan rejects report of bomb-grade uranium from China
Islamabad (AFP) Nov 13, 2009 - Pakistan on Friday angrily rejected a US newspaper report that China provided the nuclear-armed Muslim state with weapons grade uranium for two bombs in 1982. A spokesman for Pakistan's foreign ministry rejected the allegations in a Washington Post article as "baseless." "Pakistan strongly rejects the assertions in the article that is evidently timed to malign Pakistan and China," the ... more
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Pakistan_rejects_report_of_bomb-grade_uranium_from_China_999.html

UAE should diversify its power generation sources: minister

UAE should diversify its power generation sources: minister
Abu Dhabi (AFP) Nov 16, 2009 - The United Arab Emirates should diversify its power generation sources, with nuclear energy providing the best option for the oil-rich country, the minister of state for foreign affairs said on Monday. "The UAE needs a diverse portfolio of energy in order to remain safe," Anwar Gargash told the energy security conference organised by the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research. ... more


http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/UAE_should_diversify_its_power_generation_sources_minister_999.html

Russia delays Iranian nuclear reactor

Russia delays Iranian nuclear reactor
Moscow (UPI) Nov 16, 2009 - Russia said the launch of a nuclear power plant it is building in Iran will be delayed, in a move observers say is linked to the slow progress in the nuclear conflict with the Islamic Republic. "We expect serious results by the end of the year, but the launch itself will not take place," Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko was quoted by the BBC as saying. "The engineers have to reach ... more
http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/Russia_delays_Iranian_reactor_Turkey_awaits_response_on_uranium_storage_999.html

Pakistan rejects report of bomb-grade uranium from China

Pakistan rejects report of bomb-grade uranium from China
Islamabad (AFP) Nov 13, 2009 - Pakistan on Friday angrily rejected a US newspaper report that China provided the nuclear-armed Muslim state with weapons grade uranium for two bombs in 1982. A spokesman for Pakistan's foreign ministry rejected the allegations in a Washington Post article as "baseless." "Pakistan strongly rejects the assertions in the article that is evidently timed to malign Pakistan and China," the ... more

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Pakistan_rejects_report_of_bomb-grade_uranium_from_China_999.html

Russia, US say Iran running out of time on nuclear row

Russia, US say Iran running out of time on nuclear row
Singapore (AFP) Nov 15, 2009 - President Barack Obama on Sunday won the strongest backing yet from Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on the Iranian nuclear crisis as the US leader warned that Tehran was "running out of time". Obama expressed frustration with Iran's failure to give an answer three weeks after it received a UN-brokered offer aimed at defusing the stand-off, while Medvedev suggested that even Russian ... more

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Russia_US_say_Iran_running_out_of_time_on_nuclear_row_999.html

N. Korea can prosper if it gives up nuclear weapons: Obama

N. Korea can prosper if it gives up nuclear weapons: Obama
Seoul (AFP) Nov 13, 2009 - North Korea can achieve security and prosperity if it honours its commitment to give up nuclear weapons, US President Barack Obama said in an interview published Friday. The impoverished communist state's nuclear and missile programmes are a grave concern to the world and make the North itself less secure, he told South Korea's Yonhap news agency in a written interview. But "negotiations ... more

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/N._Korea_can_prosper_if_it_gives_up_nuclear_weapons_Obama_999.html

Congress Should Follow Wall Street's Lead And Shun New Reactors

Congress Should Follow Wall Street's Lead And Shun New Reactors
Washington DC (SPX) Nov 12, 2009 - If Congress and the states do not follow the lead of Wall Street in declining to underwrite financially "risky and uneconomic" new nuclear reactors, the resulting taxpayer-backed loan guarantees and other subsidies could pave the way for the same kind of industry-wide meltdown that happened in the 1970s and 1980s, according to a major new study by Dr. Mark Cooper, a senior fellow for economic ... more

http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/Congress_Should_Follow_Wall_Street_Lead_And_Shun_New_Reactors_999.html

Tripartite Conference Reveals Top Energy Priorities For US And Canada

Tripartite Conference Reveals Top Energy Priorities For US And Canada
Chicago IL (SPX) Nov 12, 2009 - A recent construction industry conference cited nuclear power, green technology, and skilled worker recruitment and training as top energy priorities for the United States and Canada. Solutions for these concerns were also presented as part of the event. The United Association (UA) of Plumbers, Fitters, Welders and HVAC Techs held the Tripartite Conference, entitled "Building Stronger ...

http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/Tripartite_Conference_Reveals_Top_Energy_Priorities_For_US_And_Canada_999.html

We do not need help guarding nukes: Pakistani general

We do not need help guarding nukes: Pakistani general
Islamabad (AFP) Nov 9, 2009 - Pakistan's military chief on Monday said that his country did not need any foreign help in guarding its nuclear facilities because they were already well protected. Islamabad on Sunday angrily rejected a media report in the United States that raised fears of a militant seizure of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and suggested that the US had a hand in protecting the arsenal. Pakistan's ...

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/We_do_not_need_help_guarding_nukes_Pakistani_general_999.html

The New Yorker Annals of National Security Defending the Arsenal In an unstable Pakistan, can nuclear warheads be kept safe? by Seymour M. Hersh

The New Yorker
Annals of National Security
Defending the Arsenal
In an unstable Pakistan, can nuclear warheads be kept safe?
by Seymour M. Hersh November 16, 2009

America’s dealings with Pakistan may be increasing the risk of radicalization.;

In the tumultuous days leading up to the Pakistan Army’s ground offensive in the tribal area of South Waziristan, which began on October 17th, the Pakistani Taliban attacked what should have been some of the country’s best-guarded targets. In the most brazen strike, ten gunmen penetrated the Army’s main headquarters, in Rawalpindi, instigating a twenty-two-hour standoff that left twenty-three dead and the military thoroughly embarrassed. The terrorists had been dressed in Army uniforms. There were also attacks on police installations in Peshawar and Lahore, and, once the offensive began, an Army general was shot dead by gunmen on motorcycles on the streets of Islamabad, the capital. The assassins clearly had advance knowledge of the general’s route, indicating that they had contacts and allies inside the security forces.

Pakistan has been a nuclear power for two decades, and has an estimated eighty to a hundred warheads, scattered in facilities around the country. The success of the latest attacks raised an obvious question: Are the bombs safe? Asked this question the day after the Rawalpindi raid, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “We have confidence in the Pakistani government and the military’s control over nuclear weapons.” Clinton—whose own visit to Pakistan, two weeks later, would be disrupted by more terrorist bombs—added that, despite the attacks by the Taliban, “we see no evidence that they are going to take over the state.”

Clinton’s words sounded reassuring, and several current and former officials also said in interviews that the Pakistan Army was in full control of the nuclear arsenal. But the Taliban overrunning Islamabad is not the only, or even the greatest, concern. The principal fear is mutiny—that extremists inside the Pakistani military might stage a coup, take control of some nuclear assets, or even divert a warhead.

On April 29th, President Obama was asked at a news conference whether he could reassure the American people that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal could be kept away from terrorists. Obama’s answer remains the clearest delineation of the Administration’s public posture. He was, he said, “gravely concerned” about the fragility of the civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari. “Their biggest threat right now comes internally,” Obama said. “We have huge . . . national-security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don’t end up having a nuclear-armed militant state.” The United States, he said, could “make sure that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is secure—primarily, initially, because the Pakistan Army, I think, recognizes the hazards of those weapons’ falling into the wrong hands.”

The questioner, Chuck Todd, of NBC, began asking whether the American military could, if necessary, move in and secure Pakistan’s bombs. Obama did not let Todd finish. “I’m not going to engage in hypotheticals of that sort,” he said. “I feel confident that the nuclear arsenal will remain out of militant hands. O.K.?”

Obama did not say so, but current and former officials said in interviews in Washington and Pakistan that his Administration has been negotiating highly sensitive understandings with the Pakistani military. These would allow specially trained American units to provide added security for the Pakistani arsenal in case of a crisis. At the same time, the Pakistani military would be given money to equip and train Pakistani soldiers and to improve their housing and facilities—goals that General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the chief of the Pakistan Army, has long desired. In June, Congress approved a four-hundred-million-dollar request for what the Administration called the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund, providing immediate assistance to the Pakistan Army for equipment, training, and “renovation and construction.”

The secrecy surrounding the understandings was important because there is growing antipathy toward America in Pakistan, as well as a history of distrust. Many Pakistanis believe that America’s true goal is not to keep their weapons safe but to diminish or destroy the Pakistani nuclear complex. The arsenal is a source of great pride among Pakistanis, who view the weapons as symbols of their nation’s status and as an essential deterrent against an attack by India. (India’s first nuclear test took place in 1974, Pakistan’s in 1998.)

A senior Pakistani official who has close ties to Zardari exploded with anger during an interview when the subject turned to the American demands for more information about the arsenal. After the September 11th attacks, he said, there had been an understanding between the Bush Administration and then President Pervez Musharraf “over what Pakistan had and did not have.” Today, he said, “you’d like control of our day-to-day deployment. But why should we give it to you? Even if there was a military coup d’état in Pakistan, no one is going to give up total control of our nuclear weapons. Never. Why are you not afraid of India’s nuclear weapons?” the official asked. “Because India is your friend, and the longtime policies of America and India converge. Between you and the Indians, you will fuck us in every way. The truth is that our weapons are less of a problem for the Obama Administration than finding a respectable way out of Afghanistan.”

The ongoing consultation on nuclear security between Washington and Islamabad intensified after the announcement in March of President Obama’s so-called Af-Pak policy, which called upon the Pakistan Army to take more aggressive action against Taliban enclaves inside Pakistan. I was told that the understandings on nuclear coöperation benefitted from the increasingly close relationship between Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Kayani, his counterpart, although the C.I.A. and the Departments of Defense, State, and Energy have also been involved. (All three departments declined to comment for this article. The national-security council and the C.I.A. denied that there were any agreements in place.)

In response to a series of questions, Admiral Mullen acknowledged that he and Kayani were, in his spokesman’s words, “very close.” The spokesman said that Mullen is deeply involved in day-to-day Pakistani developments and “is almost an action officer for all things Pakistan.” But he denied that he and Kayani, or their staffs, had reached an understanding about the availability of American forces in case of mutiny or a terrorist threat to a nuclear facility. “To my knowledge, we have no military units, special forces or otherwise, involved in such an assignment,” Mullen said through his spokesman. The spokesman added that Mullen had not seen any evidence of growing fundamentalism inside the Pakistani military. In a news conference on May 4th, however, Mullen responded to a query about growing radicalism in Pakistan by saying that “what has clearly happened over the [past] twelve months is the continual decline, gradual decline, in security.” The Admiral also spoke openly about the increased coöperation on nuclear security between the United States and Pakistan: “I know what we’ve done over the last three years, specifically to both invest, assist, and I’ve watched them improve their security fairly dramatically. . . . I’ve looked at this, you know, as hard as I can, over a period of time.” Seventeen days later, he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “We have invested a significant amount of resources through the Department of Energy in the last several years” to help Pakistan improve the controls on its arsenal. “They still have to improve them,” he said.

In interviews in Pakistan, I obtained confirmation that there were continuing conversations with the United States on nuclear-security plans—as well as evidence that the Pakistani leadership put much less weight on them than the Americans did. In some cases, Pakistani officials spoke of the talks principally as a means of placating anxious American politicians. “You needed it,” a senior Pakistani official, who said that he had been briefed on the nuclear issue, told me. His tone was caustic. “We have twenty thousand people working in the nuclear-weapons industry in Pakistan, and here is this American view that Pakistan is bound to fail.” The official added, “The Americans are saying, ‘We want to help protect your weapons.’ We say, ‘Fine. Tell us what you can do for us.’ It’s part of a quid pro quo. You say, also, ‘Come clean on the nuclear program and we’ll insure that India doesn’t put pressure on it.’ So we say, ‘O.K.’ ”

But, the Pakistani official said, “both sides are lying to each other.” The information that the Pakistanis handed over was not as complete as the Americans believed. “We haven’t told you anything that you don’t know,” he said. The Americans didn’t realize that Pakistan would never cede control of its arsenal: “If you try to take the weapons away, you will fail.”

High-level coöperation between Islamabad and Washington on the Pakistani nuclear arsenal began at least eight years ago. Former President Musharraf, when I interviewed him in London recently, acknowledged that his government had held extensive discussions with the Bush Administration after the September 11th attacks, and had given State Department nonproliferation experts insight into the command and control of the Pakistani arsenal and its on-site safety and security procedures. Musharraf also confirmed that Pakistan had constructed a huge tunnel system for the transport and storage of nuclear weaponry. “The tunnels are so deep that a nuclear attack will not touch them,” Musharraf told me, with obvious pride. The tunnels would make it impossible for the American intelligence community—“Big Uncle,” as a Pakistani nuclear-weapons expert called it—to monitor the movements of nuclear components by satellite.

Safeguards have been built into the system. Pakistani nuclear doctrine calls for the warheads (containing an enriched radioactive core) and their triggers (sophisticated devices containing highly explosive lenses, detonators, and krytrons) to be stored separately from each other and from their delivery devices (missiles or aircraft). The goal is to insure that no one can launch a warhead—in the heat of a showdown with India, for example—without pausing to put it together. Final authority to order a nuclear strike requires consensus within Pakistan’s ten-member National Command Authority, with the chairman—by statute, President Zardari—casting the deciding vote.

But the safeguards meant to keep a confrontation with India from escalating too quickly could make the arsenal more vulnerable to terrorists. Nuclear-security experts have war-gamed the process and concluded that the triggers and other elements are most exposed when they are being moved and reassembled—at those moments there would be fewer barriers between an outside group and the bomb. A consultant to the intelligence community said that in one war-gamed scenario disaffected members of the Pakistani military could instigate a terrorist attack inside India, and that the ensuing crisis would give them “a chance to pick up bombs and triggers—in the name of protecting the assets from extremists.”

The triggers are a key element in American contingency plans. An American former senior intelligence official said that a team that has trained for years to remove or dismantle parts of the Pakistani arsenal has now been augmented by a unit of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the élite counterterrorism group. He added that the unit, which had earlier focussed on the warheads’ cores, has begun to concentrate on evacuating the triggers, which have no radioactive material and are thus much easier to handle.

“The Pakistanis gave us a virtual look at the number of warheads, some of their locations, and their command-and-control system,” the former senior intelligence official told me. “We saw their target list and their mobilization plans. We got their security plans, so we could augment them in case of a breach of security,” he said. “We’re there to help the Pakistanis, but we’re also there to extend our own axis of security to their nuclear stockpile.” The detailed American planning even includes an estimate of how many nuclear triggers could be placed inside a C-17 cargo plane, the former official said, and where the triggers could be sequestered. Admiral Mullen, asked about increased American insight into the arsenal, said, through his spokesman, “I am not aware of our receipt of any such information.” (A senior military officer added that the information, if it had been conveyed, would most likely “have gone to another government agency.”)

A spokesman for the Pakistani military said, in an official denial, “Pakistan neither needs any American unit for enhancing the security for its arsenal nor would accept it.” The spokesman added that the Pakistani military “has been providing protection to U.S. troops in a situation of crisis”—a reference to Pakistan’s role in the war on terror—“and hence is quite capable to deal with any untoward situation.”

Early this summer, a consultant to the Department of Defense said, a highly classified military and civil-emergency response team was put on alert after receiving an urgent report from American intelligence officials indicating that a Pakistani nuclear component had gone astray. The team, which operates clandestinely and includes terrorism and nonproliferation experts from the intelligence community, the Pentagon, the F.B.I., and the D.O.E., is under standing orders to deploy from Andrews Air Force Base, in Maryland, within four hours of an alert. When the report turned out to be a false alarm, the mission was aborted, the consultant said. By the time the team got the message, it was already in Dubai.

In an actual crisis, would the Pakistanis give an American team direct access to their arsenal? An adviser to the Pentagon on counterinsurgency said that some analysts suspected that the Pakistani military had taken steps to move elements of the nuclear arsenal “out of the count”—to shift them to a storage facility known only to a very few—as a hedge against mutiny or an American or Indian effort to seize them. “If you thought your American ally was telling your enemy where the weapons were, you’d do the same thing,” the adviser said.

“Let me say this about our nuclear deterrent,” President Zardari told me, when asked about any recent understandings between Pakistan and the United States. “We give comfort to each other, and the comfort level is good, because everybody respects everybody’s integrity. We’re all big boys.”

Zardari and I met twice, first in his office, in the grand but isolated Presidential compound in Islamabad, and then, a few days later, alone over dinner in his personal quarters. Zardari, who became President after the assassination, in December, 2007, of his charismatic wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, spent nearly eleven years in jail on corruption charges. He is widely known in Pakistan as Mr. Ten Per Cent, a reference to the commissions he allegedly took on government contracts when Bhutto was in power, and is seen by many Pakistanis as little more than a crook who has grown too close to America; his approval ratings are in the teens. He is chatty but guarded, proud but defensive, and, like many Pakistanis, convinced that the United States will always favor India. Over dinner, he spoke of his suspicions regarding his wife’s death. He said that, despite rumors to the contrary, he would complete his five-year term.

Zardari spoke with derision about what he depicted as America’s obsession with the vulnerability of his nation’s nuclear arsenal. “In your country, you feel that you have to hold the fort for us,” he said. “The American people want a lot of answers for the errors of the past, and it’s very easy to spread fear. Our Army officers are not crazy, like the Taliban. They’re British-trained. Why would they slip up on nuclear security? A mutiny would never happen in Pakistan. It’s a fear being spread by the few who seek to scare the many.”

Zardari offered some advice to Barack Obama: instead of fretting about nuclear security in Pakistan, his Administration should deal with the military disparity between Pakistan and India, which has a much larger army. “You should help us get conventional weapons,” he said. “It’s a balance-of-power issue.”

In May, Zardari, at the urging of the United States, approved a major offensive against the Taliban, sending thirty thousand troops into the Swat Valley, which lies a hundred miles northwest of Islamabad. “The enemy that we were fighting in Swat was made up of twenty per cent thieves and thugs and eighty per cent with the same mind-set as the Taliban,” Zardari said. He depicted the operation as a complete success, but added that his government was not “ready” to kill all the Taliban. His long-term solution, Zardari said, was to provide new business opportunities in Swat and turn the Taliban into entrepreneurs. “Money is the best incentive,” he said. “They can be rented.”

Zardari’s view of the Swat offensive was striking, given that many Pakistanis had been angered by the excessive use of force and the ensuing refugee crisis. The lives of about two million people were torn apart, and, during a summer in which temperatures soared to a hundred and twenty degrees, hundreds of thousands of civilians were crowded into government-run tent cities. Idris Khattak, a former student radical who now works with Amnesty International, said in Peshawar that residents had described nights of heavy, indiscriminate bombing and shelling, followed in the morning by Army sweeps. The villagers, and not the Taliban, had been hit the hardest. “People told us that the bombing the night before was a signal for the Taliban to get out,” he said.

Zardari did not dispute that there were difficulties in the refugee camps—the heat, the lack of facilities. But he insisted that the fault lay with the civilians, who, he said, had been far too tolerant of the Taliban. The suffering could serve a useful purpose: after a summer in the tents, the citizens of Swat might have learned a lesson and would not “let the Taliban back into their cities.”

Rahimullah Yusufzai, an eminent Pakistani journalist, who has twice interviewed Osama bin Laden, had a different explanation for the conditions that led to the offensive. “The Taliban were initially trying to win public support in Swat by delivering justice and peace,” Yusufzai said. “But when they got into power they went crazy and became brutal. Many are from the lowest ranks of society, and they began killing and terrorizing their opponents. The people were afraid.”

The turmoil did not end with the Army’s invasion. “Most of the people who were in the refugee camps told us that the Army was equally bad. There was so much killing,” Yusufzai said. The government had placed limits on reporters who tried to enter the Swat Valley during the attack, but afterward Yusufzai and his colleagues were able to interview officers. “They told us they hated what they were doing—‘We were trained to fight Indians.’ ” But that changed when they sustained heavy losses, especially of junior officers. “They were killing everybody after their colleagues were killed—just like the Americans with their Predator missiles,” Yusufzai said. “What the Army did not understand, and what the Americans don’t understand, is that by demolishing the house of a suspected Taliban or their supporters you are making an enemy of the whole family.” What looked like a tactical victory could turn out to be a strategic failure.

The Obama Administration has had difficulty coming to terms with how unhappy many Pakistanis are with the United States. Secretary of State Clinton, during her three-day “good-will visit” to Pakistan, late last month, seemed taken aback by the angry and, at times, provocative criticism of American policies that dominated many of her public appearances, and responded defensively.

Last year, the Washington Times ran an article about the Pressler Amendment, a 1985 law cutting off most military aid to Pakistan as long as it continued its nuclear program. The measure didn’t stop Pakistan from getting the bomb, or from buying certain weapons, but it did reduce the number of Pakistani officers who were permitted to train with American units. The article quoted Major General John Custer as saying, “The older military leaders love us. They understand American culture and they know we are not the enemy.” The General’s assessment provoked a barrage of e-mail among American officers with experience in Pakistan, and a former member of a Special Forces unit provided me with copies. “The fact that a two-star would make a statement [like] that . . . is at best naïve and actually pure bullshit,” a senior Special Forces officer on duty in Pakistan wrote. He went on:


I have met and interacted with the entire military staff from General Kayani on down and all the general officers on their joint staff and in all the services, and I haven’t spoken to one that “loves us”—whatever that means. In fact, I have read most of the TS [top secret] assessments of all their General Officers and I haven’t read one that comes close to their “loving” us. They play us for everything they can get, and we trip over ourselves trying to give them everything they ask for, and cannot pay for.

Some military men who know Pakistan well believe that, whatever the officer corps’s personal views, the Pakistan Army remains reliable. “They cannot be described as pro-American, but this doesn’t mean they don’t know which side their bread is buttered on,” Brian Cloughley, who served six years as Australia’s defense attaché to Pakistan and is now a contributor to Jane’s Sentinel, told me. “The chance of mutiny is slim. Were this to happen, there would be the most severe reaction” by special security units in the Pakistani military, Cloughley said. “But worry feeds irrationality, and the international consequences could be dire.”

The recollections of Bush Administration officials who dealt with Pakistan in the first round of nuclear consultations after September 11th do not inspire confidence. The Americans’ main contact was Lieutenant General Khalid Kidwai, the head of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division, the agency that is responsible for nuclear strategy and operations and for the physical security of the weapons complex. At first, a former high-level Bush Administration official told me, Kidwai was reassuring; his professionalism increased their faith in the soundness of Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine and its fail-safe procedures. The Army was controlled by Punjabis who, the Americans thought, “did not put up with Pashtuns,” as the former Bush Administration official put it. (The Taliban are mostly Pashtun.) But by the time the official left, at the beginning of George W. Bush’s second term, he had a much darker assessment: “They don’t trust us and they will not tell you the truth.”

No American, for example, was permitted access to A. Q. Khan, the metallurgist and so-called father of the Pakistani atomic bomb, who traded crucial nuclear-weapons components on the international black market. Musharraf placed him under house arrest in early 2004, claiming to have been shocked to learn of Khan’s dealings. At the time, it was widely understood that those activities had been sanctioned by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (I.S.I.). Khan was freed in February, although there are restrictions on his travel. (In an interview last year, Kidwai told David Sanger, for his book “The Inheritance,” that “our security systems are foolproof,” thanks to technical controls; Sanger noted that Bush Administration officials were “not as confident in private as they sound in public.”)

A former State Department official who worked on nuclear issues with Pakistan after September 11th said that he’d come to understand that the Pakistanis “believe that any information we get from them would be shared with others—perhaps even the Indians. To know the command-and-control processes of their nuclear weapons is one thing. To know where the weapons actually are is another thing.”

The former State Department official cited the large Pakistan Air Force base outside Sargodha, west of Lahore, where many of Pakistan’s nuclear-capable F-16s are thought to be stationed. “Is there a nuke ready to go at Sargodha?” the former official asked. “If there is, and Sargodha is the size of Andrews Air Force Base, would we know where to go? Are the warheads stored in Bunker X?” Ignorance could be dangerous. “If our people don’t know where to go and we suddenly show up at a base, there will be a lot of people shooting at them,” he said. “And even if the Pakistanis may have told us that the triggers will be at Bunker X, is it true?”

In the July/August issue of Arms Control Today, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, who recently retired after three years as the Department of Energy’s director of intelligence and counter-intelligence, preceded by two decades at the C.I.A., wrote vividly about the “lethal proximity between terrorists, extremists, and nuclear weapons insiders” in Pakistan. “Insiders have facilitated terrorist attacks. Suicide bombings have occurred at air force bases that reportedly serve as nuclear weapons storage sites. It is difficult to ignore such trends,” Mowatt-Larssen wrote. “Purely in actuarial terms, there is a strong possibility that bad apples in the nuclear establishment are willing to cooperate with outsiders for personal gain or out of sympathy for their cause. Nowhere in the world is this threat greater than in Pakistan. . . . Anything that helps upgrade Pakistan’s nuclear security is an investment” in America’s security.

Leslie H. Gelb, a president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, said, “I don’t think there’s any kind of an agreement we can count on. The Pakistanis have learned how to deal with us, and they understand that if they don’t tell us what we want to hear we’ll cut off their goodies.” Gelb added, “In all these years, the C.I.A. never built up assets, but it talks as if there were ‘access.’ I don’t know if Obama understands that the Agency doesn’t know what it’s talking about.”

The former high-level Bush Administration official was just as blunt. “If a Pakistani general is talking to you about nuclear issues, and his lips are moving, he’s lying,” he said. “The Pakistanis wouldn’t share their secrets with anybody, and certainly not with a country that, from their point of view, used them like a Dixie cup and then threw them away.”

Sultan Amir Tarar, known to many as Colonel Imam, is the archetype of the disillusioned Pakistani officer. Tarar spent eighteen years with the I.S.I. in Afghanistan, most of them as an undercover operative. In the mujahideen war against the Soviet Union, in the eighties, he worked closely with C.I.A. agents, and liked the experience. “They were honest and thoughtful and provided the finest equipment,” Tarar said during an interview in Rawalpindi. He spoke with pride of shaking hands with Robert Gates in Afghanistan in 1985. Gates, now the Secretary of Defense, was then a senior C.I.A. official. “I’ve heard all about you,” Gates said, according to Tarar. “Good or bad?” “Oh, my. All good,” Gates replied. Tarar’s view changed after the Russians withdrew and, in his opinion, “the Americans abandoned us.” When I asked if he’d seen “Charlie Wilson’s War,” the movie depicting that abandonment and a Texas congressman’s futile efforts to change the policy, Tarar laughed and said, “I’ve seen Charlie Wilson. I didn’t need to see the movie.”

Tarar, who retired in 1995 and has a son in the Army, believed—as did many Pakistani military men—that the American campaign to draw Pakistan deeper into the war against the Taliban would backfire. “The Americans are trying to rent out their war to us,” he said. If the Obama Administration persists, “there will be an uprising here, and this corrupt government will collapse. Every Pakistani will then be his own nuclear bomb—a suicide bomber,” Tarar said. “The longer the war goes on, the longer it will spill over in the tribal territories, and it will lead to a revolutionary stage. People there will flee to the big cities like Lahore and Islamabad.”

Tarar believed that the Obama Administration had to negotiate with the Afghan Taliban, even if that meant direct talks with Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader. Tarar knew Mullah Omar well. “Omar trained as a young man in my camp in 1985,” he told me. “He was physically fit and mission-oriented—a very honest man who was a practicing Muslim. Nothing beyond that. He was a Talib—a student, and not a mullah. But people respected him. Today, among all the Afghan leaders, Omar has the biggest audience, and this is the right time for you to talk to him.”

Speaking to Tarar and other officers gave a glimpse of the acrimony at the top of the Pakistani government, which has complicated the nuclear equation. Tarar spoke bitterly about the position that General Kayani found himself in, carrying out the “corrupt” policies of the Americans and of Zardari, while Pakistan’s soldiers “were fighting gallantly in Swat against their own people.”

A $7.5-billion American aid package, approved by Congress in September, was, to the surprise of many in Washington, controversial in Pakistan, because it contained provisions seen as strengthening Zardari at the expense of the military. Shaheen Sehbai, a senior editor of the newspaper International, said that Zardari’s “problem is that he’s besieged domestically on all sides, and he thinks only the Americans can save him,” and, as a result, “he’ll open his pants for them.” Sehbai noted that Kayani’s term as Army chief ends in the fall of 2010. If Zardari tried to replace him before then, Kayani’s colleagues would not accept his choice, and there could be “a generals’ coup,” Sehbai said. “America should worry more about the structure and organization of the Army—and keep it intact.”

Lieutenant General Hamid Gul was the director general of the I.S.I. in the late eighties and worked with the C.I.A. in Afghanistan. Gul, who is retired, is a devout Muslim and had been accused by the Bush Administration of having ties to the Taliban and Al Qaeda—allegations he has denied. “What would happen if, in a crisis, you tried to get—or did not get—our nuclear triggers? What happens then?” Gul asked when we met. “You will have us as an enemy, with the Chinese and Russians behind us.”

If Pakistani officers had given any assurances about the nuclear arsenal, Gul said, “they are cheating you and they would be right to do so. We should not be aiding and abetting Americans.”

Persuading the Pakistan Army to concentrate on fighting the Taliban, and not India, is crucial to the Obama Administration’s plans for the region. There has been enmity between India and Pakistan since 1947, when Britain’s withdrawal led to the partition of the subcontinent. The state of Kashmir, which was three-quarters Muslim but acceded to Hindu-majority India, has been in dispute ever since, and India and Pakistan have twice gone to war over the territory. Through the years, the Pakistan Army and the I.S.I. have relied on Pakistan-based jihadist groups, most notably Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, to carry out a guerrilla war against the Indians in Kashmir. Many in the Pakistani military consider the groups to be an important strategic reserve.

A retired senior Pakistani intelligence officer, who worked with his C.I.A. counterparts to track down Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, said that he was deeply troubled by the prospect of Pakistan ceding any control over its nuclear deterrent. “Suppose the jihadis strike at India again—another attack on the parliament. India will tell the United States to stay out of it, and ‘We’ll sort it out on our own,’ ” he said. “Then there would be a ground attack into Pakistan. As we begin to react, the Americans will be interested in protecting our nuclear assets, and urge us not to go nuclear—‘Let the Indians attack and do not respond!’ They would urge us instead to find those responsible for the attack on India. Our nuclear arsenal was supposed to be our savior, but we would end up protecting it. It doesn’t protect us,” he said.

“My belief today is that it’s better to have the Americans as an enemy rather than as a friend, because you cannot be trusted,” the former officer concluded. “The only good thing the United States did for us was to look the other way about an atomic bomb when it suited the United States to do so.”

Pakistan’s fears about the United States coöperating with India are not irrational. Last year, Congress approved a controversial agreement that enabled India to purchase nuclear fuel and technology from the United States without joining the Non-Proliferation Treaty, making India the only non-signatory to the N.P.T. permitted to do so. Concern about the Pakistani arsenal has since led to greater coöperation between the United States and India in missile defense; the training of the Indian Air Force to use bunker-busting bombs; and “the collection of intelligence on the Pakistani nuclear arsenal,” according to the consultant to the intelligence community. (The Pentagon declined to comment.)

I flew to New Delhi after my stay in Pakistan and met with two senior officials from the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s national intelligence agency. (Of course, as in Pakistan, no allegation about the other side should be taken at face value.) “Our worries are about the nuclear weapons in Pakistan,” one of the officials said. “Not because we are worried about the mullahs taking over the country; we’re worried about those senior officers in the Pakistan Army who are Caliphates”—believers in a fundamentalist pan-Islamic state. “We know some of them and we have names,” he said. “We’ve been watching colonels who are now brigadiers. These are the guys who could blackmail the whole world”—that is, by seizing a nuclear weapon.

The Indian intelligence official went on, “Do we know if the Americans have that intelligence? This is not in the scheme of the way you Americans look at things—‘Kayani is a great guy! Let’s have a drink and smoke a cigar with him and his buddies.’ Some of the men we are watching have notions of leading an Islamic army.”

In an interview the next afternoon, an Indian official who has dealt diplomatically with Pakistan for years said, “Pakistan is in trouble, and it’s worrisome to us because an unstable Pakistan is the worst thing we can have.” But he wasn’t sure what America could do. “They like us better in Pakistan than you Americans,” he said. “I can tell you that in a public-opinion poll we, India, will beat you.”

India and Pakistan, he added, have had back-channel talks for years in an effort to resolve the dispute over Kashmir, but “Pakistan wants talks for the sake of talks, and it does not carry out the agreements already reached.” (In late October, Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, publicly renewed an offer of talks, but tied it to a request that Pakistan crack down on terrorism; Pakistan’s official response was to welcome the overture.)

The Indian official, like his counterparts in Pakistan, believed that Americans did not appreciate what his government had done for them. “Why did the Pakistanis remove two divisions from the border with us?” He was referring to the shifting of Pakistani forces, at the request of the United States, to better engage the Taliban. “It means they have confidence that we will not take advantage of the situation. We deserve a pat on the back for this.” Instead, the official said, with a shrug, “you are too concerned with your relationship with Pakistan.”

Pervez Musharraf lives in unpretentious exile with his wife in an apartment in London, near Hyde Park. Officials who had dealt with him cautioned that, along with his many faults, he had a disarmingly open manner. At the beginning of our talk, I asked him why, on a visit to Washington in late January, he had not met with any senior Obama Administration officials. “I did not ask for a meeting because I was afraid of being told no,” he said. At another point, Musharraf, dressed casually in slacks and a sports shirt, said that he had been troubled by the American-controlled Predator drone attacks on targets inside Pakistan, which began in 2005. “I said to the Americans, ‘Give us the Predators.’ It was refused. I told the Americans, ‘Then just say publicly that you’re giving them to us. You keep on firing them but put Pakistan Air Force markings on them.’ That, too, was denied.”

Musharraf, who was forced out of office in August, 2008, under threat of impeachment, did not spare his successor. “Asif Zardari is a criminal and a fraud,” Musharraf told me. “He’ll do anything to save himself. He’s not a patriot and he’s got no love for Pakistan. He’s a third-rater.”

Musharraf said that he and General Kayani, who had been his nominee for Chief of Army Staff, were still in telephone contact. Musharraf came to power in a military coup in 1999, and remained in uniform until near the end of his Presidency. He said that he didn’t think the Army was capable of mutiny—not the Army he knew. “There are people with fundamentalist ideas in the Army, but I don’t think there is any possibility of these people getting organized and doing an uprising. These ‘fundos’ were disliked and not popular.”

He added, “Muslims think highly of Obama, and he should use his acceptability—even with the Taliban—and try to deal with them politically.”

Musharraf spoke of two prior attempts to create a fundamentalist uprising in the Army. In both cases, he said, the officers involved were arrested and prosecuted. “I created the strategic force that controls all the strategic assets—eighteen to twenty thousand strong. They are monitored for character and for potential fundamentalism,” he said. He acknowledged, however, that things had changed since he’d left office. “People have become alarmed because of the Taliban and what they have done,” he said. “Everyone is now alarmed.”

The rise in militancy is a sensitive subject, and many inside Pakistan insist that American fears, and the implied threat to the nuclear arsenal, are overwrought. Amélie Blom, a political sociologist at Lahore University of Management Sciences, noted that the Army continues to support an unpopular President. “The survival of the coalition government shows that the present Army leadership has an interest in making it work,” she said in an e-mail.

Others are less sure. “Nuclear weapons are only as safe as the people who handle them,” Pervez Hoodbhoy, an eminent nuclear physicist in Pakistan, said in a talk last summer at a Nation and Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy forum in New York. For more than two decades, Hoodbhoy said, “the Pakistan Army has been recruiting on the basis of faithfulness to Islam. As a consequence, there is now a different character present among Army officers and ordinary soldiers. There are half a dozen scenarios that one can imagine.” There was no proof either that the most dire scenarios would be realized or that the arsenal was safe, he said.

The current offensive in South Waziristan marked a significant success for the Obama Administration, which had urged Zardari to take greater control of the tribal areas. There was a risk, too—that the fighting would further radicalize Pakistan. Last week, another Pakistan Army general was the victim of a drive-by assassination attempt, as he was leaving his home in Islamabad. Since the Waziristan operation was announced, more than three hundred people have been killed in a dozen terrorist attacks. “If we push too hard there, we could trigger a social revolution,” the Special Forces adviser said. “We are playing into Al Qaeda’s deep game here. If we blow it, Al Qaeda could come in and scoop up a nuke or two.” He added, “The Pakistani military knows that if there’s any kind of instability there will be a traffic jam to seize their nukes.” More escalation in Pakistan, he said, “will take us to the brink.”

During my stay in Pakistan—my first in five years—there were undeniable signs that militancy and the influence of fundamentalist Islam had grown. In the past, military officers, politicians, and journalists routinely served Johnnie Walker Black during our talks, and drank it themselves. This time, even the most senior retired Army generals offered only juice or tea, even in their own homes. Officials and journalists said that soldiers and middle-level officers were increasingly attracted to the preaching of Zaid Hamid, who joined the mujahideen and fought for nine years in Afghanistan. On CDs and on television, Hamid exhorts soldiers to think of themselves as Muslims first and Pakistanis second. He claims that terrorist attacks in Mumbai last year were staged by India and Western Zionists, aided by the Mossad. Another proselytizer, Dr. Israr Ahmed, writes a column in the Urdu press in which he depicts the Holocaust as “divine punishment,” and advocates the extermination of the Jews. He, too, is said to be popular with the officer corps.

A senior Obama Administration official brought up Hizb ut-Tahrir, a Sunni organization whose goal is to establish the Caliphate. “They’ve penetrated the Pakistani military and now have cells in the Army,” he said. (The Pakistan Army denies this.) In one case, according to the official, Hizb ut-Tahrir had recruited members of a junior officer group, from the most élite Pakistani military academy, who had been sent to England for additional training.

“Where do these guys get socialized and exposed to Islamic evangelism and the fundamentalism narrative?” the Obama Administration official asked. “In services every Friday for Army officers, and at corps and unit meetings where they are addressed by senior commanders and clerics.”