Bharat Rakshak

The United States has drafted a U.N. Security Council resolution calling on all countries with atomic weapons to get rid of them, a text Washington hopes will be approved by a special council session presided over by U.S. President Barack Obama.

The text, obtained by Reuters, calls for signatories of the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to begin talks on nuclear arms reduction and to negotiate "a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control, and calls on all other states to join in this endeavor."

Gerard wrote:US drafts UN resolution urging nuclear disarmament

The United States has drafted a U.N. Security Council resolution calling on all countries with atomic weapons to get rid of them, a text Washington hopes will be approved by a special council session presided over by U.S. President Barack Obama.

The text, obtained by Reuters, calls for signatories of the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to begin talks on nuclear arms reduction and to negotiate "a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control, and calls on all other states to join in this endeavor."

Sanjay M wrote:

Gerard wrote:US drafts UN resolution urging nuclear disarmament
...

Haha, if Pak actually did that -- and I don't see why they would -- then they wouldn't be able to use the terror card against us, without us rolling over them like a steamroller. I wonder how safe the Russians would feel next to the Chinese as well.

Global nuclear disarmament would certainly lighten our defense outlay, though. But Pak would be a big loser under such an arrangement, so they'd probably obstruct it. Let's see if the US can bring enough pressure to bear against them if we make favourable noises towards it.

North Korea-South Korea: For the record. South Korea refused to comment on reports that North Korea may be preparing a third nuclear test, Agence France-Presse reported. Both South Korea's Unification Ministry and National Intelligence Service refused to comment on reports from Open Radio of North Korea, a South Korean rights group, citing an unnamed North Korean official as saying North Korean leader Kim Chong-il had ordered a new nuclear test prepared. Open Radio also said the new test is likely to use uranium instead of plutonium as used on the previous tests, and that it is likely to take place between 20 September and 10 October.

No news service or other commentary claims the North has enough enriched uranium plus the technological capability to make a nuclear weapon that uses enriched uranium. That allegation is dismissible.

On the other hand, another plutonium blast is feasible and would punctuate the North’s policy of engaging in bilateral talks with the US, sort of as a reminder or incentive for holding talks, as the North’s leaders understand what motivates the US.

It is worth noting that the rumors of another test surfaced after the US stipulated that it would agree to engage in bilateral talks with the purpose of restoring the Six Party Talks, which the North Korean government has declared at an end. Assuming the US position does not change, the North may be trusted to blow another nuke.

enough enriched uranium plus the technological capability to make a nuclear weapon that uses enriched uranium

Mongolia today became the fifth nation to sign a civil nuclear pact with India as New Delhi extended a 25 million US dollar soft loan to the Central Asian nation to help it mitigate the effects of the global financial meltdown.

Great significance is being attached to the MoU between the two countries on ‘development of cooperation in the field of peaceful use of radioactive minerals and nuclear energy’. Mongolia’s huge uranium reserves are expected to boost and energise India’s starving civil nuclear fuel cycle.

India has already signed nuclear deals with France, Russia, the US and Kazakhstan after it got an exemption from the nuclear suppliers’ group (NSG) in September last year to undertake nuclear commerce.

Mongolia, which claims to have 6 per cent of the world’ uranium reserves, is not a member of the NSG. However, it had supported India’s case for a clean waiver at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting prior to the NSG meet.

Nuclear experts believe that the supply of uranium is more crucial for India than access to enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technology.

Mongolia’s decision could be a big surprise for Australia, which has refused to supply uranium to India as it was not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). India hopes Australia would also give up its reservation sooner rather than later and agree to supply uranium to India.

The annexe said Iranian scientists had engaged in "probable testing" of explosives arranged in a hemisphere, which is how an implosion-type nuclear warhead is triggered.

The Pakistani scientist who passed nuclear secrets to the world’s rogue states has been muzzled by his government. In a smuggled letter, AQ Khan reveals his side of the story

THE push to stop the spread of nuclear weapons could drive countries such as Japan and South Korea to build their own bombs if it was not handled carefully, a policy research body has warned.

Yet sooner or later the US administration will have to grasp the nettle of regulating strategic defences. Otherwise, continued reductions in strategic nuclear offences will be either impossible or, worse, dangerous.

"We want them to explain to us that the design studies are not for nuclear weapons," said the official. "We're saying, you say you've done re-entry vehicle re-engineering [on Shahab-3], so show us some documentation."

The first Chinese H-bomb (H639-23) is displayed at an exhibition showcasing the achievements China has made in the past six decades, ahead of October's 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, in Beijing September 21, 2009.

SEC. GATES: Well, the Nuclear Posture Review is well under way, and I would say we're beginning to see what some of the likely conclusions are. I would say that it is clear, at least to me, that it is important for us to continue to make investments, and I think larger investments, in modernizing our nuclear infrastructure, the labs and so on, the expertise in those places, to have the resources for life-extension programs, and in one or two cases probably new designs that will be safer and more reliable.

Gerard wrote:Investigation: Nuclear scandal - Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan

The Pakistani scientist who passed nuclear secrets to the world’s rogue states has been muzzled by his government. In a smuggled letter, AQ Khan reveals his side of the story

As sins go, they were big: Pakistan had been spreading nuclear technology for years. The first customer for one of its enrichment plants was China — which itself had supplied Pakistan with enough highly enriched uranium for two nuclear bombs in the summer of 1982.

There it was in the letter: “We put up a centrifuge plant at Hanzhong (250km southwest of Xian).” It went on: “The Chinese gave us drawings of the nuclear weapon, gave us 50kg of enriched uranium, gave us 10 tons of UF6 (natural) and 5 tons of UF6 (3%).” (UF6 is uranium hexafluoride, the gaseous feedstock for an enrichment plant.)

arun wrote:

Gerard wrote:Investigation: Nuclear scandal - Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan

Excerpt dealing with the criminally irresponsible nuclear proliferation carried out by PR China:

As sins go, they were big: Pakistan had been spreading nuclear technology for years. The first customer for one of its enrichment plants was China — which itself had supplied Pakistan with enough highly enriched uranium for two nuclear bombs in the summer of 1982.

There it was in the letter: “We put up a centrifuge plant at Hanzhong (250km southwest of Xian).” It went on: “The Chinese gave us drawings of the nuclear weapon, gave us 50kg of enriched uranium, gave us 10 tons of UF6 (natural) and 5 tons of UF6 (3%).” (UF6 is uranium hexafluoride, the gaseous feedstock for an enrichment plant.)

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Jiang Yu's Regular Press Conference on September 22, 2009 ……………..

Q: Former head of Pakistan nuclear program recently made public that he helped China get enrichment technologies in return for atomic bomb blueprint. Can you confirm it?

A: As a member of the NPT, China is committed to its international obligations of non-proliferation and firmly opposes any forms of proliferation of nuclear weapons.

MOFA, PRC

'China tested Pak-made N-device'

Headlines Today
New Delhi, September 23, 2009


………………… Nuclear weapons designer Thomas C. Reed has on record revealed that China not only provided designs of N-weapons to Pakistan but also tested an N-device produced by Islamabad.

Reed's disclosure substantiates Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan's allegations that China was involved in nuclear proliferation. ............................

India Today

UNITED NATIONS – With U.S. President Barack Obama presiding over an historic session, the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a U.S.-drafted resolution Thursday aimed at ridding the world of nuclear weapons.

Russia, China and developing nations supported the U.S.-sponsored measure, giving it global clout and strong political backing.

The resolution calls for stepped up efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, promote disarmament and "reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism."

"The (pfffft) we just adopted enshrines our shared commitment to a goal of a world without nuclear weapons," Obama said immediately after the vote. "And it brings Security Council agreement on a broad framework for action to reduce nuclear dangers as we work toward that goal."

He said the global effort would seek to "lock down all vulnerable nuclear materials within four years."

"This is not about singling out an individual nation," he said. "International law is not an empty promise, and treaties must be enforced."

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that "our main shared goal is to untie the problem knots" among nations seeking nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.
Obama aides see adoption of the resolution as an endorsement of the president's entire nuclear agenda , as laid out in his April speech in Prague. He declared his commitment to "a world without nuclear weapons."

The president called in that speech for the slashing of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, adoption of the treaty banning all nuclear tests, an international fuel bank to better safeguard nuclear material, and negotiations on a new treaty that "verifiably" ends the production of fissile materials for atomic weapons.

He also strongly backed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, which requires signatory nations not to pursue nuclear weapons in exchange for a commitment by the five nuclear powers to move toward nuclear disarmament. States without nuclear weapons are guaranteed access to peaceful nuclear technology for electricity generation.

All those measures are included in the draft resolution.

In its opening paragraph, the draft reaffirms the council's commitment "to seek a safer world for all and to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons."

Arms control advocates say those elements are interconnected. Some nations might eventually reject the limitations of the Nonproliferation Treaty, for example, if the U.S. and other nuclear powers don't abide by that treaty's requirement to move toward disarmament by reducing their arsenals, or if they reject the test ban.

Also Thursday, the U.S. rejoined a biennial conference designed to win support for the treaty banning all nuclear bomb tests. .. It represents the first U.S. participation since 1999.

...The draft resolution does not mention any country by name but it reaffirms previous Security Council resolutions that imposed sanctions on Iran and North Korea for their nuclear activities. It does not call for any new sanctions.

The draft "expresses particular concern at the current major challenges to the nonproliferation regime that the Security Council has acted upon."

It also calls on all countries that are not parties to join the treaty "to achieve its universality at an early date," and in the interim to comply with its terms. The major countries that are not members of the NPT are India and Pakistan, which have conducted nuclear tests, and Israel which is believed to have a nuclear arsenal.

His new book The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and Its Proliferation, co-written with Danny Stillman, the former director of the technical intelligence division at Los Alamos National Laboratory, rewrites much of the public understanding about how countries with nuclear weapons came to acquire them. All countries that built bombs, including the United States, spied on or were given access to the work of other nuclear powers. In particular, the book is a scathing indictment of the Chinese government, alleging that it intentionally proliferated nuclear technology to risky regimes, particularly Pakistan.[/quote]

What was the Chinese strategy behind encouraging proliferation once they had mastered the atomic bomb? The way you describe the Chinese intentionally spreading nuclear technology to countries like Pakistan and North Korea seems both shockingly lax and shortsighted.
Shockingly lax? Yes. Shortsighted I'm not so sure.

Think of it as three constituencies: China in about 1982, under Deng Xiaoping, decided to proliferate nuclear technology to communists and Muslims in the third world.They did so deliberately with the theory that if nukes ended up going off in the western world from a Muslim terrorist, well that wasn't all bad. If New York was reduced to rubble without Chinese fingerprints on the attack, that left Beijing as the last man standing. That's what the old timers thought.

Did the Chinese further assist in the Pakistan program?
Under Pakistani president Benazir Bhutto, the country built its first functioning nuclear weapon. We believe that during Bhutto's term in office, the People's Republic of China tested Pakistan's first bomb for her in 1990.There are numerous reasons why we believe this to be true, including the design of the weapon and information gathered from discussions with Chinese nuclear experts.

Is the world safer or more dangerous with all these powers?
The world is safer for having all the permanent UN Security Council members possess nuclear weapons. I think having North Korea, Pakistan, and India is probably not a good idea. Nuclear proliferation, above all, is not inevitable as many thought at the dawn of the nuclear age.

A new Iranian nuclear enrichment facility which was revealed to the world this week will soon start work, a Tehran official said on Saturday.