Arms Control Today articles from May 2008

Arms Control Today archives from May 2008

Editor's note.(Editorial)
May 1, 2008... With oil prices high and concerns about global warming on the rise, more than a dozen countries in the Middle East have expressed an interest in pursuing nuclear energy. But recent U.S. claims about an alleged Syrian nuclear facility attacked...

North Korea and the incident in the Syrian desert.(FOCUS)
May 1, 2008... Seven months after Israeli Air Force jets bombed a remote facility near al-Kibar in Syria, the United States released intelligence information April 24 suggesting that the site housed a nuclear reactor for a military program being built with...

Notable quotable.(In BRIEF)(Quotation)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... "We told our president four things: this is a reactor; the North Koreans and Syrians are cooperating on nuclear activities; the North Koreans and Syrians are cooperating on the construction of this reactor; and this reactor, its purpose, is to...

The U.S. administration has done this before.(In BRIEF)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... "The U.S. administration has done this before. They would go to the United Nations Security Council and show you a photo here and a photo there and tell you this is the irrefutable evidence about the Iraqi WMDs. And we are seeing exactly...

South Asia and the future of nuclear nonproliferation.(Ten Years Ago in ACT)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Clearly, if the decisions of India and Pakistan to become the first and second nations to declare a nuclear weapons capability in three decades are not resisted by the international community, and eventually reversed, other nations may decide...

By the numbers.(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Russia's Weapons-Grade Plutonium Production Reactors 1994 Year that the United States and Russia first agreed to close Russia's last three weapons-grade plutonium production reactors. About 300 Estimated number of bombs that...

Conference on Disarmament.(Treaty Update)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... On March 28, the 65-member Conference on Disarmament concluded the first of its three working periods this year without starting any arms negotiations. Members have been trying to adopt a work package that was first proposed last year, but...

Israel-U.S. nuclear safety cooperation.(Treaty Update)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Israel and the United States amended a nuclear safety cooperation agreement March 31 to provide Israel with greater access to U.S. nuclear safety research. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) spokesperson Scott Burnell explained to Arms...

U.S. nonproliferation assistance.(Treaty Update)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... The United States announced in March the signing of a new nonproliferation assistance agreement and reported the successful completion of another. The National Nuclear Security Administration announced March 19 that it had completed converting...

Conventional arming and disarming.(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... * India awarded Russia a $965 million contract to upgrade its MiG-29 warplanes. The upgrade will allow India's aging fleet of 70 MiG-29 jets to remain in service for another 10 to 15 years. * On March 12, the Defense Security Cooperation...

On the calendar.(What's ahead)(Brief article)(Calendar)
May 1, 2008... April 28-May 9 Preparatory Committee meeting for the 2010 Nonproliferation Treaty Review Confernce, Geneva. May 12-June 27 Second session of the Conference on Disarmament, Geneva. ...

Should Israel close Dimona? The radiological consequences of a military strike on Israel's plutonium-production reactor.
May 1, 2008... Much ink has been spilled about apprehensions in Israel and the West that Iran could develop nuclear weapons, prompting calls in American, Israeli, and now even Arab circles for the application of military force to stop the mullahs. Yet, there...

Verifying nuclear disarmament: the inspector's agenda.
May 1, 2008... In the past year, support for moving toward eventual nuclear disarmament has gathered force. In early 2007, an op-ed by four influential U.S. policy shapers, two Republicans and two Democrats, called on the nuclear-weapon states to "turn the...

The Trilateral Initiative: a model for the future?
May 1, 2008... Those seeking to design a system for verifying the dismantlement of nuclear weapons do not have to start from a blank slate. They can benefit a great deal from building on the experience of the Trilateral Initiative. This was a six-year...

NATO summit results fall short of bush goals.(North Atlantic Treaty Organization, George W. Bush)
May 1, 2008... President George W. Bush's top goals heading into his final NATO summit included winning support for U.S. policies to deploy strategic anti-missile systems in Europe and extend NATO membership to former Soviet allies and republics. The...

Russia unflinching on CFE treaty suspension.(Conventional Armed Forces in Europe)
May 1, 2008... Russia is denying foreign arms inspections as part of its decision last year to stop abiding by a treaty limiting conventional weapons in Europe. Claiming the current situation "cannot last indefinitely," the United States and its NATO allies...

Threat reduction programs meet benchmarks.(EUROPE AND THE FORMER SOVIET UNION)
May 1, 2008... U.S. threat reduction programs in Russia registered three significant successes in April. First, the Department of Defense announced April 9 that its Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program had helped Russia completely dismantle and destroy...

CWC review conference avoids difficult issues.(THE WORLD)(Chemical Weapons Convention )
May 1, 2008... The second review conference for the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) only barely avoided failure. The meeting, which took place April 7-18 in The Hague, had to be suspended at midnight of the last day, and diplomats worked until the...

U.S. joins others seeking nuclear export criteria.(THE WORLD)
May 1, 2008... The United States recently gave up its campaign to convince other nuclear suppliers to prohibit certain sensitive nuclear exports. It has now joined an alternative effort to adopt criteria to strictly limit such transactions, although Canada...

U.S. shares information on NK-Syrian nuclear ties.(THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA)(North Korea)
May 1, 2008... Breaking nearly eight months of official silence, Bush administration and intelligence officials briefed Congress and the public in late April on the details of a Sept. 6, 2007, Israeli airstrike on a suspected Syrian nuclear facility. (See...

Middle Eastern states seeking nuclear power.(THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA)
May 1, 2008... In recent years, more than a dozen states in the Middle East have expressed an interest in developing nuclear energy. These states have offered a number of official rationales for their interest, including powering water desalination plants,...

Iran starts new centrifuge installation Campaign.(THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA)
May 1, 2008... Iran announced in April that it would install several thousand additional centrifuges at its commercial-scale ura-nium-enrichment facility, defying three UN Security Council sanctions resolutions demanding that it suspend such fuel cycle...

African nuclear-weapon-free zone nears realization.(THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA)
May 1, 2008... Mozambique on March 26 became the 24th country to ratify the Pelindaba Treaty, which means that the treaty needs only four more ratifications before an African nuclear-weapon-free zone enters into force. Currently, there are three regions...

U.S., NK seek compromise on nuclear declaration.(ASIA AND AUSTRALIA)(North Korea)
May 1, 2008... During an April 8 meeting in Singapore, U.S. and North Korean nuclear envoys appeared to make headway toward resolving a stalemate regarding North Korea's declaration of its nuclear activities. Disagreement over this declaration has stalled...

Taiwan fuse shipment reveals nuclear security gaps.(ASIA AND AUSTRALIA)
May 1, 2008... In the second major nuclear security lapse to be revealed in a year, the Pentagon admitted March 25 that it had mistakenly shipped four nuclear-weapon fuses to Taiwan in August 2006. The fuses had been shipped instead of four replacement...

Senate mulls CCW edits; cluster munitions debated.(THE UNITED STATES AND THE AMERICAS)(Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons)
May 1, 2008... As negotiators met in Geneva in April to discuss a proposed new protocol to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) that would address the humanitarian impact of cluster munitions, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee finally...

Key GNEP decision left to next president.(THE UNITED STATES AND THE AMERICAS)(Global Nuclear Energy Partnership)
May 1, 2008... With its Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) already facing resistance from Congress, the Bush administration has decided to leave to the next president key decisions affecting the domestic leg of the controversial program. ...

Looking back: the 1998 Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests.
May 1, 2008... Ten years ago, the governments of India and Pakistan tested nuclear devices, prompting a global uproar, a united front by the five permanent members (P-5) of the UN Security Council, and stiff sanctions directed at New Delhi and Islamabad....