International Nuclear Watch & Discussion

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 09 Oct 2010 06:38

Is the Obama administration retreating from its nuclear non-proliferation promise?

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts ... on_promise

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 10 Oct 2010 18:12

Third Maryland reactor shelved

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 10 Oct 2010 18:14

Pak court bars AQ Khan from speaking about nuclear programme

wig · Post by **wig** » 11 Oct 2010 12:07

meanwhile the telegraph has an article on further developments of Pak nuclear capablities

The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based nuclear watchdog, has obtained satellite images showing that a row of cooling towers at Pakistan's secret Khushab-III reactor has been completed. This suggests the plant could begin operation within months, allowing Pakistan substantially to increase its stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... erica.html

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 19 Oct 2010 03:09

David Cameron to delay Trident replacement

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 22 Oct 2010 06:26

US presidential nuclear codes 'lost for months'

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 28 Oct 2010 02:47

Computer glitch halts communication with US missiles

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 31 Oct 2010 11:53

Russia's Medvedev signs nuclear power deal with Vietnam

Under the deal, Russia will initially build two power units in Vietnam with a capacity of 1.2 GW each. Overall, Vietnam plans to build eight nuclear power plants in five provinces by 2030, with a total capacity of 15 GW, or 10% of all electricity produced in the country. Each NPP would have from four to six generating units.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 02 Nov 2010 08:59

Is an existential crisis behind a spate of nuclear blunders?

Sanatanan · Post by **Sanatanan** » 09 Nov 2010 09:25

Nuclear bomb debris holds clues to who planted it

Added later:
I am not sure how soon after the event can one collect the required samples from ground zero and other places -- the article does not seem to mention analysis of air-borne particles. By the time the samples are analysed and conclusions arrived at, it may be too late for any swift retaliatory action.

wig · Post by **wig** » 22 Nov 2010 08:37

Russian Floating Nuclear Power Plants (FNPP)

The idea of FNPPs is simple, if a little scary: Outfit a barge with two 35-megawatts reactors, float them to a spot off the coast and run cables to land to distribute your power. An FNPP set-up this size could power a city of 200,000.

The concept has some people screaming about "floating Chernobyls," but the technology is safer than that. For one thing, the portable reactors are fairly proven hardware, derived from those used on the icebreakers. And while any nuclear reactor poses real dangers if something goes wrong, the FNPPs are comparative pipsqueaks — their 35 MW output only a fraction of the Chernobyl plant's 4,000. A prototype vessel has already been launched at a St. Petersburg shipyard; after reactors are affixed it will be towed to Vilyuchinsk, a city (pop. 25,000) in the Russian Far East that is home to a squadron of nuclear submarines. It is expected to be operational in 2012.

FNPPs could help Russia expand its reach in another critical way: powering the country's efforts to exploit its off-shore petroleum reserves, 90% of which lie in its Arctic continental shelf. Portable reactors would eliminate the cost and headache of transporting diesel long distances in harsh weather. That has Gazprom, which is keen to develop the world's largest untapped gas field — Shtokman in the Barents Sea — signed up for several FNPPs from Rosatom, the state nuclear corporation. Other reactors are slated to be used in uranium mining.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article ... 43,00.html

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 27 Nov 2010 23:28

Surviving Cameramen Recall Nuclear Test Shots

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 28 Nov 2010 02:29

A Nuclear Standoff With Libya

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 02 Dec 2010 02:59

NYtimes story about death of the inventor of Neutron Bomb
Cohen, Bomb Inventor, Dies at 89

BijuShet · Post by **BijuShet** » 04 Dec 2010 01:52

U.N. body to set up atom fuel bank backed by Buffett

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 04 Dec 2010 08:07

Buffett Helps U.N. Agency Create Nuclear Fuel Bank

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 04 Dec 2010 08:13

We have seen what the monetary banks of USA did till now. We can only guess what a US nuclear fuel bank can do...

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 12 Dec 2010 20:39

Russia to start building Turkey's first nuclear power plant in 2013 - ambassador

Russia will start building Turkey's first nuclear power plant estimated at $20 billion in 2013, Russian ambassador to Ankara Vladimir Ivanovsky said on Sunday.

"The launch of the plant's first power unit is planned for 2018 while the other three will be launched with an interval of one year. The fourth power unit will be put into operation in 2021 and the plant's reactors are designed to operate for 60 years. The project for the construction of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant under the Russian design is a strategic area of Russian-Turkish cooperation," the diplomat said.

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 20 Dec 2010 06:25

Egypt ‘turned down’ black-market nukes

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 24 Dec 2010 02:37

US Senate approves new 'START' pact

The outgoing or 'lame duck' US Senate...

Vice Admiral: Obama was outmaneuvered by Russians on START

Pranay · Post by **Pranay** » 24 Dec 2010 03:53

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/24/world ... ml?_r=1&hp

Three engineers suspected of violating Switzerland’s nuclear nonproliferation laws should face charges, an investigating magistrate said on Thursday in a case with national security implications for the United States.

The Swiss magistrate, Andreas Müller, said in a telephone interview that he was recommending that the three Swiss men — Friedrich Tinner and his two sons, Marco and Urs — be tried for violating a Swiss law on the use of war material, “specifically in supporting the development of nuclear weapons.”

The investigation stems from the Tinners’ relationship with Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani atomic bomb pioneer who later peddled his knowledge on the black market. The three family members are alleged to have acted as middlemen in Mr. Khan’s dealings with rogue nations seeking nuclear equipment and expertise.

The Tinners have acknowledged working for Mr. Khan, but they maintain that they believed he was developing peaceful nuclear power applications. Judge Müller said that that defense did not hold up after May 1998, when Pakistan tested an atomic bomb. “After that, they had to know it was for bombs,” he said.

Judge Müller, an independent federal judge, said that the government was not bound by his recommendation to prosecute, and he noted that the state had been dragging its heels or actively obstructing the investigation.

The Tinners’ involvement with Mr. Khan was born of Friedrich Tinner’s expertise in vacuum technology, which aided Mr. Khan’s development of atomic centrifuges to produce fuel for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. American officials have said that in 2000, Urs Tinner was recruited by the C.I.A. to work secretly for the agency, and that he later persuaded his father and younger brother to join him as moles.

The six-year investigation has been hampered at times by the Swiss government’s insistence that it had to destroy evidence — which included plans for nuclear arms and technologies — in the name of national security.

The New York Times reported in 2008 that the administration of President George W. Bush had also urged the Swiss government to destroy the files. The reason, according to officials, was less to thwart terrorists than to hide evidence of a clandestine relationship between the Tinners and the C.I.A. The officials told The Times that the Tinners had been paid as much as $10 million to deliver secret information that helped to end Libya’s bomb program, to reveal Iran’s atomic labors and, ultimately, to undo Mr. Khan’s nuclear black market.

The case has been extremely controversial in Switzerland. The Swiss Parliament issued an opinion saying the executive had acted “disproportionately” in destroying the evidence.

“It was the first time that the executive had interfered that hard with justice,” Judge Müller said. “The separation of powers was overrun.”

Pranay · Post by **Pranay** » 25 Dec 2010 00:14

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/24/world ... ml?_r=1&hp

A seven-year effort by the Central Intelligence Agency to hide its relationship with a Swiss family who once acted as moles inside the world’s most successful atomic black market hit a turning point on Thursday when a Swiss magistrate recommended charging the men with trafficking in technology and information for making nuclear arms.

The prospect of a prosecution, and a public trial, threatens to expose some of the C.I.A.’s deepest secrets if defense lawyers try to protect their clients by revealing how they operated on the agency’s behalf. It could also tarnish what the Bush administration once hailed as a resounding victory in breaking up the nuclear arms network by laying bare how much of it remained intact.

The three men — Friedrich Tinner and his two sons, Urs and Marco — helped run the atomic smuggling ring of A. Q. Khan, an architect of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb program, officials in several countries have said. In return for millions of dollars, according to former Bush administration officials, the Tinners secretly worked for the C.I.A. as well, not only providing information about the Khan network’s manufacturing and sales efforts, which stretched from Iran to Libya to North Korea, but also helping the agency introduce flaws into the equipment sent to some of those countries.

The Bush administration went to extraordinary lengths to protect the men from prosecution, even persuading Swiss authorities to destroy equipment and information found on their computers and in their homes and businesses — actions that may now imperil efforts to prosecute them.

While it has been clear since 2008 that the Tinners acted as American spies, the announcement by the Swiss magistrate on Thursday, recommending their prosecution for nuclear smuggling, is a turning point in the investigation. A trial would bring to the fore a case that Pakistan has insisted is closed. Prosecuting the case could also expose in court a tale of C.I.A. break-ins in Switzerland, and of a still unexplained decision by the agency not to seize electronic copies of a number of nuclear bomb designs found on the computers of the Tinner family.

But if the Pakistanis were worried about revelations surrounding Dr. Khan and whom he might have worked with in the Pakistani military and political hierarchy, the C.I.A. was worried about the Tinners.

The new book says the Bush administration grew so alarmed at possible disclosures of C.I.A. links to the family that in 2006 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice lobbied Swiss officials to drop their investigation.

The book says the C.I.A. broke into a Tinner home in 2003 and found that the family possessed detailed blueprints for several types of nuclear bombs.

In his news conference on Thursday, Mr. Müller harshly criticized the Swiss government for having “massively interfered in the wheels of justice by destroying almost all the evidence.” He added that the government had also ordered the federal criminal police not to cooperate with his investigation.

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 26 Dec 2010 21:31

Serbia ships 2.5 tons of nuclear waste to Russia

Ameet · Post by **Ameet** » 28 Dec 2010 02:06

Report Strengthens Suspicions That Stuxnet Sabotaged Iran’s Nuclear Plant

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/1 ... n-stuxnet/

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 04 Jan 2011 02:03

China 'in nuclear power advance'

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 06 Jan 2011 05:30

China military eyes preemptive nuclear attack in event of crisis

The newly revealed policy, called ''Lowering the threshold of nuclear threats,'' may contradict China's strategy of no first use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances, and is likely to fan concern in the United States, Japan and other regional powers about Beijing's nuclear capability.

The People's Liberation Army's strategic missile forces, the Second Artillery Corps, ''will adjust the nuclear threat policy if a nuclear missile-possessing country carries out a series of air strikes against key strategic targets in our country with absolutely superior conventional weapons,'' according to the documents, copies of which were obtained by Kyodo News

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 13 Jan 2011 03:23

UK nuclear weapons sites cuts put public at risk, says watchdog

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 13 Jan 2011 03:26

US tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, 2011

W78 Life Extension Program Description and Work Scope

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has sent Congress a white paper describing plans for extending the life of the W78 warhead on the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 16 Jan 2011 16:38

Israel tested Stuxnet virus on Dimona plant

Israel Tests on Worm Called Crucial in Iran Nuclear Delay

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 16 Jan 2011 17:21

Published Spring 2010
By James Allensworth, Gabriel Grant
An Assessment of Vietnam’s Proliferation Risk (Report pdf)

Conclusions: Vietnam possesses the means to engage in nuclear proliferation, but it lacks the motivation. There are no significant security concerns that would cause Vietnam’s leaders to press for the development of a nuclear weapon. It is also unlikely that a rogue agent would be able to divert material away from existing facilities without being noticed. Assuming that proliferation is attempted, the IAEA possesses technology that can detect such proliferation activities and deter those involved. Further advancements in detection technology would improve the IAEA’s ability to spot proliferation attempts. Policy also works well as a deterrent. Threats of crippling economic sanctions from major trade partners could either prevent Vietnam from participating in proliferation or force Vietnam to abandon its attempts. When used together, policy and technology can be effective forms of deterrence and prevention to nuclear proliferation.

vipins · Post by **vipins** » 16 Jan 2011 17:24

Gerard wrote:Israel tested Stuxnet virus on Dimona plant

Israel Tests on Worm Called Crucial in Iran Nuclear Delay

NY Times wrote:Perhaps the most secretive part of the Stuxnet story centers on how the theory of cyberdestruction was tested on enrichment machines to make sure the malicious software did its intended job.

The account starts in the Netherlands. In the 1970s, the Dutch designed a tall, thin machine for enriching uranium. As is well known, A. Q. Khan, a Pakistani metallurgist working for the Dutch, stole the design and in 1976 fled to Pakistan.

The resulting machine, known as the P-1, for Pakistan’s first-generation centrifuge, helped the country get the bomb. And when Dr. Khan later founded an atomic black market, he illegally sold P-1’s to Iran, Libya, and North Korea.

The P-1 is more than six feet tall. Inside, a rotor of aluminum spins uranium gas to blinding speeds, slowly concentrating the rare part of the uranium that can fuel reactors and bombs.

How and when Israel obtained this kind of first-generation centrifuge remains unclear, whether from Europe, or the Khan network, or by other means. But nuclear experts agree that Dimona came to hold row upon row of spinning centrifuges.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 16 Jan 2011 21:41

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 20 Feb 2011 22:54

North Korea digging tunnels for nuclear test

sudeepj · Post by **sudeepj** » 21 Feb 2011 04:39

^^^^ Stuxnext worm breached physical security of Irans network by having someone plug in a USB drive. Such efforts have been tried with Indian networks too!

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/threatchaos/u ... y-case/367

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 01 Mar 2011 05:53

'Iran says Bushehr nuclear plant delays caused by broken pump'

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a report obtained by Reuters on Friday that Iran had told it Iranian experts would unload fuel assemblies from the core of the Bushehr reactor, just a few months after they were loaded.

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 07 Mar 2011 20:28

IAEA: New info adds to Iran nuclear work concern

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 08 Mar 2011 09:28

Rethinking nuclear deterrence

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 09 Mar 2011 04:04

IAEA approves safeguards for new Pakistani reactors

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 09 Mar 2011 11:57

X-Posting from TSP Thread

SSridhar wrote:IAEA approves Safeguards Agreement for the new Chinese reactors at Chashma
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Tuesday gave its approval to a safeguards agreement for two new reactors that Pakistan said China was building for it at Chashma.

The NSG will meet again in the Netherlands later this year where the Chashma transfers will likely be brought up again. But with China refusing to budge, the United States and other leading members of the suppliers club will have little option but to ignore this violation of their guidelines.

So how about NSG throwing out China from the grouping. That would mean all countries which are members of the NSG, like Canada, Australia, Kazakhstan halt their uranium exports to China.

Either NSG does so, or its reputation is finished! It is dead! As China starts unraveling the whole nuclear non-proliferation system.

Muppalla · Post by **Muppalla** » 11 Mar 2011 17:10

st LD Writthru: Japanese PM declares atomic power emergency, but no radiation leaks

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan declared a state of atomic power emergency after a 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck the country Friday, but no radiation leaks have been detected at or near nuclear power plants, reported Kyodo news agency.

Fire broke out at the turbine building of Onagawa nuclear power plant in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan following the earthquake that triggered huge tsunami on the coasts of eastern Japan and some other Asian nations.