Arms Control Today articles from July 2005

Arms Control Today archives from July 2005

Editor's note.
July 1, 2005... About a month before the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a group of scientists led by Leo Szilard wrote President Harry Truman, urging him not to use the weapons to attack Japan. They warned that in launching such...

Repairing the nonproliferation regime.(FOCUS)
July 1, 2005... Six decades after the first atomic blasts, the world's leaders agree that nuclear weapons pose one of the greatest threats to global security and human existence. But as the recently concluded nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) review...

Notable quotable.(InBRIEF)
July 1, 2005... "[Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] review conferences... are not amendment conferences, and any declarations or decisions or other text emanating from them neither supersede, nor reinterpret, nor add onto the explicit legal obligations of...

Nuclear rollback decisions: future lessons?(Ten Years Ago in ACT)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... If, on the other hand, many more countries eventually decide to try to hedge against an unpredictable and inhospitable future by increasing their nuclear competence, it will erode confidence in the [nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] regime,...

By the numbers.
July 1, 2005... Yields of U.S. Nuclear Bombs Dropped on Japan and Selected Current Warheads 15 kilotons Little Boy Bomb dropped on Hiroshima 21 kilotons Fat Man Bomb dropped on Nagasaki 100 kilotons W76 Trident Warhead 140...

IAEA additional protocol.(Treaty Update)(International Atomic Energy Agency )(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... On May 11, Colombia signed its version of the 1997 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Model Additional Protocol, which expands the IAEA's ability to monitor a state's nuclear activities and facilities. Turkmenistan signed its version of...

Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.(Treaty Update)
July 1, 2005... Ukraine joined the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons' Protocol V on explosive remnants of war on May 17; India joined the Protocol V a day later. The protocol details countries' responsibilities concerning the removal and destruction...

Cooperative threat reduction.(Treaty Update)
July 1, 2005... The Department of Energy and the Latvian Ministry of Environment signed an agreement April 25 spelling out U.S.-Latvian cooperation on nonproliferation and threat reduction objectives. The agreement allows the Energy Department's National...

The Senate June 20 again failed to end a Democratic filibuster on the nomination of John Bolton as U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations.(Comings and Goings)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... The Senate June 20 again failed to end a Democratic filibuster on the nomination of John Bolton as U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations. Bolton served during President George W. Bush's first term as undersecretary of state for...

Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO).(Comings and Goings)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... The board of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) decided not to renew its contract with Charles Kartman, a career U.S. diplomat who has led the organization since 2001. KEDO is charged with implementation of elements of...

Brookings Institution.(Comings and Goings)(John McLaughlin appointed as CIA director)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... John McLaughlin, former acting CIA director, has been named nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research.(Comings and Goings)
July 1, 2005... The new director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, has picked his key staff members. Thomas Fingar, head of the Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, will become Negroponte's deputy director for analysis and...

International Atomic Energy Agency.(Comings and Goings)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... Bush has nominated Gregory Schulte as U.S. envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Schulte would succeed Ken Brill, who left in the summer of 2004, as U.S. representative to the Vienna office of the United Nations. Last year, Bush...

What's ahead: on the calendar.(Calendar)
July 1, 2005... July 11-15 Second biennial meeting of states to consider the implementation of the Program of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in...

Is there a role for nuclear weapons today?
July 1, 2005... More than a dozen years after the end of the Cold War, the frozen nuclear strategies of that conflict have begun to thaw. Russia is itching to make further cuts in its strategic forces. Several European countries have opened a debate on...

Reality check: the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings in pictures.(Cover Story)
July 1, 2005... Nuclear weapons have raised the stakes of war from concerns over personal safety or even national survival to the fate of the world itself. The first nuclear bomb detonation in July 1945 and the surprise attacks on the people of Hiroshima and...

A readiness to harm: the health effects of nuclear weapons complexes.
July 1, 2005... On September 29, 1957, at 4:20 p.m., an enormous explosion in a tank containing highly radioactive waste occurred in the Mayak nuclear weapons plant in the southern Ural mountains of the Soviet Union. The fallout plume spread strontium-90 and...

Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty meeting sputters.(THE WORLD)
July 1, 2005... After four sterile weeks, the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference ended May 27 as it began, with competing agendas, widespread distrust, and no consensus on next steps for stopping the spread of or eliminating nuclear...

ElBaradei set to win third term.(THE WORLD)(Mohamed ElBaradei )
July 1, 2005... The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors recommended June 13 that Mohamed ElBaradei be granted a third term as the agency's director-general, virtually guaranteeing his re-election by the full IAEA membership in...

IAEA board seeks strengthened safeguards.(THE WORLD)(International Atomic Energy Agency )
July 1, 2005... In an effort to strengthen the ability of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to detect clandestine nuclear activity, the agency's Board of Governors in June established a committee to recommend improvement in agency safeguards and...

Key U.S. interdiction initiative claim misrepresented.(THE UNITED STATES AND THE AMERICAS)(nuclear nonproliferation)
July 1, 2005... When the Bush administration is challenged on its dedication to nonproliferation, officials like to point to the two-year-old Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) as evidence of the administration's nonproliferation bona fides. In...

Bunker buster future uncertain.(THE UNITED STATES AND THE AMERICAS)
July 1, 2005... The Bush administration's attempt to revive a study on a nuclear weapon designed to destroy targets buried deep underground has received a mixed welcome from lawmakers. Other Bush administration proposals on missile defenses and replacement...

More testing urged for missile defense.(THE UNITED STATES AND THE AMERICAS)
July 1, 2005... Atrio of outside experts commissioned by the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has warned that the nascent ground-based strategic missile defense system is bound for additional test failures and may not function properly if its testing...

Israeli officials see few prospects for arms control.(News ANALYSIS)
July 1, 2005... Muslim governments often point to the willingness of the United States to tolerate Israel's nuclear weapons program as evidence of a double standard. Most prominently, Iran has said that efforts to prevent it from building the capacity to...

U.S., Israel seek to cut deal on China arms sales.(News ANALYSIS)
July 1, 2005... Under pressure from the Bush administration and Congress to cut off arms shipments to China, Israel hopes to iron out an agreement this summer with the United States on how future potential sales to Beijing will be considered. Israeli...

IAEA: more questions on Iran nuclear program.(News ANALYSIS)(International Atomic Energy Agency )
July 1, 2005... Shortly before Iran elected a new president, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials reported that Tehran had still not resolved several outstanding issues about its nuclear programs. Iran has, however, continued to adhere to its...

Kim willing to talk, does not say when.(ASIA AND AUSTRALIA)(Kim Jong Il )
July 1, 2005... North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told a senior South Korean official June 17 that Pyongyang is willing to participate in another round of six-party talks designed to resolve the crisis surrounding Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. However, no...

Deal reached in Georgia, Russia dispute.(EUROPE AND THE FORMER SOVIET UNION)(closure of military bases in Moscow)
July 1, 2005... The foreign ministers of Georgia and Russia signed a preliminary deal May 30 that calls on Moscow to close down its final two military bases in the former Soviet republic before the end of 2008. The United States and key European leaders...

Deeper nuclear cuts unlikely for now.(EUROPE AND THE FORMER SOVIET UNION)
July 1, 2005... A senior Bush administration official has labeled recent Russian statements on additional nuclear arms talks between the two sides as ill-timed and insincere, suggesting that prospects are slim for any new agreement on U.S. and Russian nuclear...

Book review: a tragic life: Oppenheimer and the bomb.(Book Review)
July 1, 2005... American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer By Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, 721 pp. 109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos By Jennet Conant ...