Nuclear weapons

Requires Administration Review of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy and Posture; Reports due to Congress by September 2009 and March 2010

August 2, 2007 -- Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has introduced legislation that would cut all funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead Program through Fiscal Year 2010, and require the Administration to conduct in-depth reviews of U.S. nuclear policy and posture.    » read more »

New Delhi, 30 July 2007 (By Steve Herman) -- A U.S. diplomat says details of a nuclear energy agreement with India will soon be made public. VOA's Steve Herman reports from New Delhi that since the deal was announced on Friday there has been considerable speculation about its contents and whether it will win approval from U.S. lawmakers.

The U.S. Ambassador to India says the text of the landmark civil nuclear-cooperation agreement between Washington and New Delhi will be released in a "matter of a few days."    » read more »

U.S.-India pact, if approved by Congress, would pave way for nuclear trade

Washington 27 July 2007, By David Shelby (USINFO Staff Writer) – The United States and India reached an agreement July 27 to govern their cooperation in developing civil nuclear energy programs. It would allow the countries to cooperate in research and development and nuclear safety and to engage in commercial trade in nuclear reactors, technology and fuel.    » read more »

18 July 2007 -- Delegates from six nations have gathered in Beijing to negotiate a timetable for North Korea to declare and dismantle its nuclear programs. As Daniel Schearf reports from the Chinese capital, the meeting begins as the United Nations' top nuclear expert says North Korea has shut down more nuclear facilities.

Negotiators from North and South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan, and Russia are trying to set a schedule for the second phase of an agreement that requires North Korea to declare all its nuclear facilities and dismantle them.    » read more »

3 July 2007 -- With easy access to oil unlikely to last much longer, ethanol has the potential to replace a significant part of the world's petroleum-based fuels, says a leader of the push for energy sustainability in Brazil. But José Goldemberg, a physicist at the University of São Paulo, told a 27 June seminar at AAAS that there is considerable "hype" surrounding the recent popularity of ethanol.    » read more »

03 July 2007 -- The United States and Russia vowed Tuesday to pursue further cuts in their strategic nuclear arsenals and to take new steps to limit weapons proliferation. The announcement was a follow-on to the talks between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin Sunday and Monday in Kennebunkport, Maine.

Arms control advocates have been critical of the administrations of both Presidents Bush and Putin for allegedly neglecting arms control.    » read more »

Built by IBM, BlueGene/L (BG/L) clocks in at 280.6 teraFLOPS (trillion floating operations per second) on the LINPACK, the industry standard for supercomputer performance. BGL is a workhorse machine for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) effort to ensure the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear deterrent without underground nuclear testing, known as the Stockpile Stewardship Program.    » read more »

29 June 2007 -- United Nations inspectors say they are satisfied with their visit to a North Korean nuclear reactor that the communist nation has pledged to shut down in exchange for aid.

The team from the International Atomic Energy Agency returned to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, Friday after touring the Yongbyon nuclear complex.

IAEA Deputy Director Olli Heinonen said the reactor was still operating, but added that his team was able to visit all the places originally intended for inspection.    » read more »

28 June 2007 -- More than five years after North Korea expelled nuclear inspectors a team from the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency is visiting the North's main nuclear facility. The visit is a prelude to closing the facility. The nuclear diplomacy that led to the shutdown is also about to yield tangible benefits for the North.    » read more »

June 25, 2007 -- Washington, DC– The following is a statement issued by Senator Jim Webb in response to the announcement that North Korea will freeze its nuclear facility:

“I would like to congratulate the Administration on the announcement that North Korea will fulfill the February 13th six-party agreement to freeze its nuclear programs.

As with the situations that once existed in China and Vietnam, the best way forward when dealing with isolated regimes is to add realistic economic and diplomatic agendas to America’s military posture.    » read more »

27 June 2007 -- Japanese media say North Korea will allow United Nations inspectors to visit the main reactor at the center of its nuclear weapons program.

Olli Heinonen, the International Atomic Energy Agency's chief inspector, told Kyodo news Wednesday his team will visit the Yongbyon nuclear facility Thursday.

Heinonen's team arrived in Pyongyang Tuesday for a five-day visit - the first since the U.N. watchdog was expelled in 2002.

The team is trying to negotiate the closing of the Yongbyon nuclear reactor and its nuclear materials reprocessing plant.    » read more »

25 June 2007 -- United Nations nuclear inspectors are in Beijing, preparing to head to the North Korean capital to discuss a shutdown of the country's main nuclear reactor. At the same time, a Russian bank has confirmed the final resolution of a money dispute which long obstructed diplomacy on the North Korean nuclear issue.

A little-known bank in Russia's far eastern city of Khabarovsk said Monday the long-standing dispute involving blocked North Korean funds has been put to rest.    » read more »

Defense Expert Charles Pena to Present Findings at a June 21st Policy Forum in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., June 19—The U.S. should reduce it’s nuclear arsenal, normalize relations with Iran and North Korea, and accept that these countries may become nuclear-weapons powers, says defense expert Charles Pena in a new policy report published by the Independent Institute, “Nuclear Nonproliferation in the Post-9/11 World.” Mr. Pena will discuss his findings at an Independent Institute policy forum on June 21st in Washington, D.C.    » read more »

18 June 2007 -- The chief U.S. negotiator at talks on North Korea's nuclear programs says Pyongyang may already have its money back from a Macau bank and should shut down its nuclear facilities in a matter of weeks. As Daniel Schearf reports from Beijing, finding a bank to receive the formerly frozen North Korean funds has proven a big obstacle to restarting the nuclear talks.    » read more »

Pathways Open for Reuse and Recycling

May 14, 2007 -- Takoma Park, MD — Radioactive materials are being released from nuclear weapons facilities to regular landfills and could get into commercial recycling streams, finds a new report released today by Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS).

The report: Out of Control — On Purpose: DOE's Dispersal of Radioactive Waste into Landfills and Consumer Products — was commissioned to track if and how the Department of Energy (DOE) releases some of the radioactive wastes from nuclear bomb production.    » read more »