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
Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire - Major Energy and Environmental News and Commentary affecting the Nuclear Industry. Nuclear Activities
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Monday, December 7, 2009
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
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
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
Saturday, December 5, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
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.
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
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
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
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
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
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
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."
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
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
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
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
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)