DOE Extends Acceptance Policy for Spent Nuclear Fuel from Foreign Research Reactors; Fuel Recovery Advances Nonproliferation Efforts Under the Global Threat Reduction Initiative

12/6/2004 10:44:00 AM

To: National Desk, Energy Reporter

Contact: Jeanne Lopatto of U.S. Department of Energy, 202-586-4940; or Bryan Wilkes of National Nuclear Security Administration, 202-586-7371

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham today announced that he has extended a policy that to date has enabled the United States to recover nearly 500 kilograms of uranium-235 - enough to build about 20 crude nuclear weapons - in U.S.-origin high-enriched uranium (HEU) used to fuel foreign research reactors. The Department of Energy's (DOE) decision to extend the period for spent fuel acceptance will provide additional time for research reactors to convert from HEU to low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel.

The current acceptance policy established by DOE and the State Department in 1996 permits the United States to accept certain eligible spent fuel that is irradiated by May, 2006, and returned to the United States by May, 2009. A revised record of decision, signed by National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Linton Brooks on November 22, 2004, extends the irradiation deadline to May, 2016, and the acceptance deadline to May, 2019.

"A principal goal of this administration's nonproliferation policy is to secure and reduce worldwide stocks of HEU to keep potential weapons material out of the hands of terrorists and hostile countries," Secretary Abraham said today. "This extension will enable the United States to recover HEU that will not be ready for return to the United States by the original deadlines."

Some countries with eligible fuel have not used their fuel as rapidly as projected or have made alternative fuel processing arrangements, and there have been technical delays in the development of LEU alternatives. The acceptance policy is a cornerstone of the DOE Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), which focuses on minimizing, and, where possible, eliminating the use of HEU in civil applications by converting research reactors to LEU and securing, returning or recovering vulnerable nuclear material. Since 1996, the acceptance program has successfully conducted 30 shipments involving 27 countries, resulting in the safe return of over 6,300 spent nuclear fuel assemblies.

Research reactors have important medical, agricultural and industrial applications. Under the Atoms for Peace program established in the 1950s, the United States provided reactor technology to further other countries' research into peaceful uses of atomic energy.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

-0-

/© 2004 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/

Nuclear Weapons Proliferation
Here is an excerpt from the September 30 Presidential debate, in John Kerry's response to the question: What is the most serious threat to U.S.?:

Kerry: Right now, the President is spending hundreds of million of dollars to research bunker buster nuclear weapons. The United States is pursuing a new set of nuclear weapons. It doesn't make sense. You talk about mixed messages. We're telling other people "You can't have nuclear weapons", but we're pursuing a new nuclear weapon that we might even contemplate using. Not this President! I'm going to shut that program down, and we're going to make it clear to the world we're serious about containing nuclear proliferation.....
----------------------------------------------------
Cheney to Promote Nuke Reactors to China

By H. JOSEF HEBERT
.c The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - On a trip to China next week to talk about high-stakes issues like terrorism and North Korea, Vice President Dick Cheney will have another task - making a pitch for Westinghouse's U.S. nuclear power technology.

At stake could be billions of dollars in business in coming years and thousands of American jobs. The initial installment of four reactors, costing $1.5 billion apiece, would also help narrow the huge U.S. trade deficit with China.

China's latest economic plan anticipates more than doubling its electricity output by 2020 and the Chinese government, facing enormous air pollution problems, is looking to shift some of that away from coal-burning plants. Its plan calls for building as many as 32 large 1,000-megawatt reactors over the next 16 years.

No one has ordered a new nuclear power reactor in the United States in three decades and the next one, if it comes, is still years away. So, China is being viewed by the U.S. industry as a potential bonanza.

Cheney's three-day visit to Beijing and Shanghai next week is part of a weeklong trip to Asia that will also include a stop in Tokyo. He departed Washington on Friday.

A senior administration official, briefing reporters about the trip, said Cheney will not ``pitch individual commercial transactions.'' But he intends to make clear ``we support the efforts of our American companies'' and general access to China's markets, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Some critics are concerned about such technology transfers.

``This pitch could not be more poorly timed,'' Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, told a hearing of the House International Relations Committee recently.

Citing recent Chinese plans to help Pakistan build two large reactors that are capable of producing plutonium, he said it is not the time for China to be rewarded with new reactor technology. U.S. officials said the Chinese have given adequate assurances that such sales will not pose a proliferation risk.

Bid solicitations for four new reactors are expected to be issued by the Chinese within months.

The leading competitors are U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric Co. and a French rival, Areva, which is peddling its next-generation reactor built by its Framatome subsidiary.

Westinghouse is putting its hopes on its 1,100 megawatt AP1000 reactor, an advanced design that is still waiting approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before it can be built in the United States. Westinghouse, owned by the British nuclear firm BNFL, is the only U.S.-based manufacturer of a pressurized water reactor, the type of design China has said it wants to pursue.

``Clearly the China market is very important to the industry and a supplier like Westinghouse,'' said Vaughn Gilbert, a spokesman for the Pittsburgh-based reactor vendor. ``The Chinese market is one that we're pursuing.''

Each of the AP1000 reactors are expected to cost about $1.5 billion. ``We would assume there would be more than one order,'' Gilbert said, since China has indicated it wants a standardized design across its reactor program. A successful bid could mean 5,000 American jobs, Gilbert said in an interview.

For the nuclear industry, the potential windfall goes beyond building the power plants.

``The opportunity is not just in selling the Chinese a number of reactors, but engaging them for a longer term in a strategic partnership,'' says Ron Simard, who deals with future plant development at the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group. That could mean future construction contracts as well as plant service business.

The reactor business has been nonexistent in the United States since the 1970s. No American utility has ordered a new reactor since the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident.

So, vendors like Westinghouse are relying on business elsewhere, especially Asia.

China currently has nine operating reactors, including French, Canadian, Russian, and Japanese designs as well as their own model, producing 6,450 megawatts of power, or about 1.4 percent total capacity. Chinese officials have estimated that by 2020 the country will need an additional 32,000 megawatts from its nuclear industry, or about 32 additional reactors.

Even with the surge in reactor construction, nuclear power will only account for 8 percent of China's future electricity needs. Chinese officials said at an energy conference in Washington last year their country must more than double its coal-fired generation and build more dams, erect windmills and tap natural gas to meet future electricity demands.

04/10/04 00:52 EDT
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.paktribune.com/news/print.php?i...62328b7f48d9e04

(excerpt)

Genesis of Nuclear Proliferation
The entire gamut of how nuclear proliferation started


An open season has been declared on Pakistan in the wake of Doctor A Q Khan's bold confessions. It seems that Pakistan and its scientists are the first and only proliferators in the history of nuclear weaponry.

Nuclear proliferation was born with the first set of nuclear weapons. Its a half century long saga of strategic maneuvering, clashes of ideologies, espionage, love, hate, deceit, back stabbing and personal greed.


History bears witness to the fact that there is nothing extraordinary, new or unique about Pakistan proliferating nuclear know-how, if at all. The United States started the tradition by gifting it to the UK and France. The rogue (socialist) elements in the UK and US exported the same technology to the Soviet Union, who in turn gave it away to countries like China and India. China in kind, passed it to Pakistan who is said to have kept the tradition alive by trying to pass it on to the Iran, Libya and N. Korea. India and Israel did their part by bringing South Africa and Brazil onboard.

For their share of proliferation the French passed the nuclear technology to Israel. Despite De Gaulle's opposition and direct orders to shut the technology pipeline built by Shimon Peres, his atomic energy minister Jacques Soustelle kept the transfer going on. Was Soustelle punished for going rogue and breaking the laws against the proliferation? Not that the world knows of.

If anything, it is the United States, which unintentionally, or otherwise, initiated the nuclear proliferation. The US was the first to let the nuclear genie out of the bottle, the rest merely followed in its footprints.

----------------------------------------

Atomic Age Timeline Animation:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/poifu/poifu.swf

Posted for educational and research purposes only,
~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~

List:
There is only one way to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation and that is
to denature and eliminate plutonium and nuclear waste for good.

Before the late Dr. Roy died in 1994 he asked me
to keep trying and promote his Roy Process for
transmuting nuclear waste as best I could with no
funding. The Roy Process Patent application,
apparatus & theory, contains some 100 pages with
completed calculations for transmuting Pu 239,
Sr 90 and Cs 137. It is available to a company
capable of realization who contracts with us.

--------------------------
THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC
Sunday, November 4, 1979
Process may kill radiation threat

By CLARENCE W. BAILEY
Copyright, 1979. The Arizona Republic

TEMPE -- An internationally recognized Arizona State University physicist disclosed Saturday that he has discovered a method for treating nuclear reac­tor and other highly dangerous radioactive wastes so they will be harmless.

The procedure was conceived by Dr. Radha R. Roy professor of nuclear physics who is the designer and former director of nuclear-physics research fa­cilities at the University of Brussels In Belgium. and at Pennsylvania State Uni­versity.

Roy said the process “very roughly can be described in part as a reversal of phenomena that occur during a nuclear fission chain reactions.

The scientist said the process is the culmination of many years research

“Theoretical analysis and mathematical calculations confirm the process is highly effective and that any level of radio activity, from weak to strong. Can be reduced to harmless state in a short period of time,” Roy said.

The thing that is so encouraging is that the method can cancel radioactivity rapidly enough for it to be of r real practical value in disposing of dangerous wastes in storage and as they are being produced, Roy said.

One treatment-plant design which Roy has devised could reduce the radioac­tivity of even the most dangerous wastes with half-lives or 15,000 to 40,000 years to a level where they would be essentially harmless in about 20 days.

A half-life is the time required for a quantity of radioactive material to lose one half of its radioactive strength.

Roy, who left his native Calcutta, India. to do advanced nuclear- physics re­search at the University of London during World War II, said all the necessary theoretical and quantum electrodynamical work on the process has been completed.

“There remains perhaps as much as a years work in calculating parameters and preparing data that will he needed for the engineering design of a pilot radio­active waste-treatment plant’ he said.

Roy is known internationally among scientists for his many advanced research contributions in the field of nuclear fission fragments and as the author of de­finitive graduate and post-doctoral textbooks used in universities all over the world. “During the 37 years since the first fission chain reaction there has been no progress whatever toward the development of a method of deactivating radioactive waste or even for storing it safely,” he said.

“The collections of dangerous nuclear wastes in this country alone have now reached a total of at least 75 million gallons, and it is growing daily.”

He estimated an operational nuclear waste-treatment plant could cost $40 mil­lion or more. By contrast, he noted, Congress last summer appropriated $80 million just to build more concrete storage bunkers to hold only a part of the growing accumulation of nuclear wastes.

“Since it is so very dangerous to ship strongly radioactive materials it would certainly be sensible to build a treatment plant for each reactor so radioactivity could be killed out before the waste is transported anywhere" the scientist said.

Roy said that the national danger from nuclear waste is "extremely serious" and urged the federal government to build treatment plants near established nuclear waste storage areas. Other treatment plants should be constructed to kill out the radioactivity in the wastes from the nation's weapons programs and from its educational, industrial, medical and experimental research facilities he said.

Roy warned that waste containing plutonium 239 is "critically dangerous" because of its extremely high radioactivity and also because it is the essential ingredient in an atomic bomb.

The treatment process not only will render plutonium 239 harmless in a remarkably short time, he said, but also will keep deactivated plutonium from ever being reprocessed to make an illegal atomic weapon.

Roy further warned that the United States not only is exporting nuclear energy when it sells reactor technology to foreign nations, but also is sending overseas the potential for making illegal bombs out of plutonium from reprocessed nuclear wastes.

The treatment method will guarantee to foreign countries that use nuclear fission energy that they can maintain an environment free from radioactivity, and it also could guarantee to the world that there will be no reuse of plutonium in an unauthorized weapon, he said. Careful theoretical and mathematical analysis have assured him that the nuclear waste- treatment process will function reliably and with rapidity and high efficiency, he said.

"But the existence of this promising nuclear waste-treatment procedure should not be construed in any sense to mean that nuclear fission power reactors are safe" Roy said. The contractor who built Three Mile Island's reactor-like those who built the other 71 reactors now operational in the United States -- expected that plant to function normally for 30 years in total safety without event .But the fact is that it went out of control and nearly created a meltdown which could have destroyed a large part of the human habitat of east-central Pennsylvania,'' Roy said.

----------------------------------------

Neutralize & Eliminate Nuclear Waste For Good
The Roy Process Brief Description
from the web site: http://members.cox.net/theroyprocess

Is there a safe process to get rid of nuclear waste? One possible solution is a process invented by Dr. Radha R. Roy, former professor of Physics at Arizona State University, and designer and former director of the nuclear physics research facilities at the University of Brussels in Belgium and at Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. Roy is an internationally known nuclear physicist, consultant, and the author of over 60 articles and several books. He is also a contributing author of many invited articles in a prestigious encyclopedia. He is cited in American Men and Women of Science, Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the World and the International Biographical Centre, England. He has spent 52 years in European and American universities researching and writing recognized books on nuclear physics. He has supervised many doctoral students.

Roy invented a process for transmuting radioactive nuclear isotopes to harmless, stable isotopes. This process is viable not only for nuclear waste from reactors but also for low-level radioactive waste products.

In 1979, Roy announced his transmutation process and received international attention. The Roy process does not require storage of radioactive materials. No new equipment is required. In fact, all of the equipment and the chemical separation processes needed are well known.

What's the basis for the Roy Process? If you examine radioactive elements such as strontium 90, cesium 137 and plutonium 239, you will see that they all have too many neutrons. To put it very simply, the Roy process transmutes these unstable isotopes to stable ones by knocking out the extra neutrons. When a neutron is removed, the resulting isotope has a considerably shorter half-life which then decays to a stable form in a reasonable amount of time.

How do we knock out neutrons? By bombarding them with photons (produced as x-rays) in a high- powered electron linear accelerator. Before this process, the isotopes must be separated by a well-known chemical process.

It is feasible that portable units could be built and transported to hazardous sites for on-site transmutation of nuclear wastes and radioactive wastes.

To give an example, cesium 137 with a half-life of 30.17 years is transformed into cesium 136 with a half-life of 13 days. Plutonium 239 with a half-life of 24,300 years is transformed into plutonium 237 with a half-life of 45.6 days. Subsequent radioactive elements which will be produced from the decay of plutonium 237 can be treated in the same way as above until the stable element is formed.

From the Patent application claim: http://members.cox.net/theroyprocess/addit...royprocess.html

###

Atomic Age Timeline Animation:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/poifu/poifu.swf

PATENT EXAMINER COMMENTS ON THE ROY PROCESS INVENTION.

http://fredtalk.fredericksburg.com/showfla...b=5&o=2&fpart=1

Re: Yucca Mt. Is Not The Answer for Nuclear Waste

As a patent examiner, the explanation as to why the Roy process was not patented makes perfect sense and is not paranoid at all. There is no reason to get a patent unless you have the money to defend it in court. Large corporations are notorious for stealing them. Also, patent applications in 1979 were held confidential until they were issued as patents. The inventor requiring a non-disclosure agreement of a corporation to view the application is also perfectly reasonable. It is niave to believe that Reagan was not encouraged by large corporations to change the law regarding acceptable nuclear waste disposal methods to benefit them in order to squash any new method like the Roy process. These kinds of things happen all the time.

As to the merits of the Roy process, it seems to me on it's face to have potential to change nuclear waste into something less dangerous. I don't know enough about nuclear physics to really give an detailed response, but I do know that nuclear accelerators do change atomic structure and that bombarding nuclear waste would certainly change it into something else.

Political Cartoon

Evil Dating
Tuesday, February 15, 2005

http://www.post-gazette.com/robrogers/default.asp?id=3

Bush and N. Korea

Nuclear Weapons: Who has What? (BBC)

Pakistan, like India and Israel, is not party to the NPT

BBC Friday, 11 February, 2005

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4256599.stm

Five nations are officially recognised as possessing nuclear
weapons by the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

These are the US, the first to acquire nuclear capability in
1945, Russia (1949), the UK (1952), France (1960) and China
(1964).

As information about nuclear arsenals is secret, there are
only estimates about their nuclear weapons.

The Arms Control Association (ACA), a US weapons research
organisation, estimates the number of strategic warheads
held by these states to be about 6,000 for the US, 5,000 for
Russia, 300 for China, 350 for France and under 200 for the UK.

The NPT, which has 187 signatories, was created to prevent
other countries from acquiring nuclear capability, to
promote cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy
and to work towards nuclear disarmament.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was set up to
verify compliance to the treaty through inspections, making
sure that nuclear material or activities were not being used
for military purposes.

Three states - India, Israel and Pakistan - never joined the
treaty and are known to possess nuclear weapons.

Claiming its nuclear program was for peaceful purposes,
India first tested a nuclear explosive device in 1974.

India and Pakistan both demonstrated their nuclear weapons
muscle with a round of tit-for-tat tests in May 1998.

While Israel has not publicly conducted a nuclear test and
does not admit or deny having nuclear weapons, it is widely
believed to possess nuclear arms.

The ACA estimates India to have between 45 and 95 nuclear
warheads, Pakistan, 30 and 50, and Israel, 75 and 200.

Iran is generally perceived to be secretly pursuing a
nuclear arms program although it maintains its nuclear
program is for peaceful purposes.

Nuclear muscle

The EU is engaged in negotiations with Tehran to urge it to
suspend its nuclear activities while the US has stated that
it will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.

North Korea, which this week announced it was pulling out of
multi-lateral talks on its nuclear activities, is believed
by the CIA to have one or two nuclear weapons.

The ACA says Pyongyang also has sufficient spent nuclear
fuel that could be reprocessed into fissile material for as
many as six nuclear bombs.

With the availability of foreign expertise, the CIA has
raised concerns that Syria, which is an NPT member, could be
trying to covertly acquire nuclear bombs.

One of the most recent successes in non-proliferation was in
2003 when Libya renounced its secret efforts to acquire
nuclear capability.

ESTIMATED NUCLEAR WARHEADS, STRATEGIC AND TACTICAL

*The US is also said to have some 3,000 warheads in reserve,
while Russia has about 11,000 in non-operational stockpiles.

Israel declines to confirm it has nuclear weapons.

North Korea claims it has nuclear arms but no details are
available.

Iran is accused by the US of ambitions to build nuclear arms.

Click here for estimates on global arsenals
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-paci...4256599.stm#map

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/4081...lear_map416.gif

--
Nuclear Fuel Cycle

Introduction :: Mining uranium

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/world/...ing/default.stm

--
Nuclear Fuel Cycle

Introduction :: Mining uranium

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/world/...ing/default.stm

--
Conversion

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/world/...ion/default.stm

--
Enrichment

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/...ent/default.stm

--
Uranium bomb

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/...omb/default.stm

--
Reactor

Nuclear reactors work on the principle that nuclear fission
releases heat, which can be harnessed and used to heat water
into steam to drive turbines.

A typical nuclear reactor uses enriched uranium in the form
of fuel 'pellets', each roughly the size of a coin and about
an inch long. The pellets are formed into long rods known as
bundles, and housed inside a heavily insulated, pressurised
chamber.

In many power stations, the bundles are submerged in water
to keep them cool. Other types use carbon dioxide or liquid
metal to cool the reactor core.

To function in a reactor - ie produce heat through a fissile
reaction - the uranium core must be supercritical. This
means that the uranium must be in sufficiently enriched form
to allow a self-sustaining chain reaction to occur.

To regulate this process, and allow the nuclear plant to
function, control rods are inserted into the reactor
chamber. The rods are made of a substance, typically
cadmium, which absorbs neutrons inside the reactor.

Fewer neutrons means fewer chain reactions are started,
slowing down the fission process.

There are more than 400 nuclear power stations across the
globe, producing about 17% of the world's electricity.
Nuclear reactors are also used to power submarines and naval
vessels.

--
Reprocessing

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/world/...ing/default.stm

--
Plutonium bomb

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/world/...omb/default.stm

--
Posted for educational and research purposes only,
~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~
NucNews Links and Expanded Archives - http://nucnews.net

===========================

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20050101fare...clear-wave.html

The Next Nuclear Wave
John B. Wolfsthal

http://policy.house.gov/assets/ATOD.pdf

The Modern Nuclear Proliferation Challenge

Pressed, Iran Admits It Discussed Acquiring Nuclear
Technology
By ELAINE SCIOLINO and DAVID E. SANGER
Iran has reluctantly turned over new evidence suggesting it
negotiated for technologies central to making nuclear arms.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/28/internat.../28nuke.html?th

ElBaradei asks Iran to provide more information about past dealings with nuclear smuggling ring.

http://csmonitor.com/2005/0228/dailyUpdate.html

Russia, Iran Sign Pacts on Nuclear Plant
--------------------

Moscow says Tehran will return all spent atomic fuel, thereby eliminating the possibility of its being used for weapons.

By David Holley
Times Staff Writer

February 28 2005

MOSCOW; Russia and Iran signed agreements Sunday that opened the way for Tehran to start up its first nuclear power plant next year, a step the Bush administration fears could help the Islamic Republic produce nuclear weapons.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...0,7973829.story

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...ml?nav=hcmodule

IAEA Head Waits to Issue Iran Verdict
Nuclear Program Documents Sought

White House: Bush May Try European Approach for Dealing with
Iran's Nuclear Program

http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=BE8C39:2F72C9D

Spokesman says President thinking through European ideas after last
week's trip to region

President Bush is weighing a number of ideas put forward by European
leaders for dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions. The suggestions
were made during the president's trip last week to Belgium, Germany
and Slovakia.

Throughout his trip, the president stressed that the United States and
Europe share a common goal: to prevent Iran from developing nuclear
weapons.

In the past, they differed on the best way to reach that end, with the
Europeans talking about incentives to Tehran, and the Americans
raising the possibility of sanctions.

Now, there are hints the White House may be willing to give the
European approach a chance.

Spokesman Scott McClellan says the European ideas are getting a close
look. "The president is thinking through some of the ideas that were
mentioned last week and thinking about what the next steps are for how
we move forward to accomplish that shared goal," he said.

Mr. McClellan told reporters that President Bush has been discussing
the European suggestions with his top foreign policy advisers. The
White House spokesman would not provide details, except to say some of
these ideas have been in existence for some time.

He strongly denied that the United States is about to announce an
abrupt change of course, emphasizing instead the need to give
diplomacy a chance. "We have always supported the efforts of our
European friends to get Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions.
We want to see them succeed in those efforts," he said.

The White House spokesman made clear the United States is not about to
become an active partner in the negotiations with Iran and will
continue to leave the process in the hands of Germany, France and
Britain. However, he did imply that America may play a more active
role on the sidelines.

Iran has said that its nuclear program is designed for civilian use
only. But the United States and others have questioned why an oil-rich
nation would need nuclear power.

The first atomic reactor in Iran is expected to start up next year.
Russia signed an agreement with Tehran Sunday to supply nuclear fuel.
When asked about the deal, Scott McClellan said the Bush
administration is waiting for more information from Moscow. He
emphasized that under terms of the agreement, all spent nuclear fuel
will be sent back to Russia.

China's Delegate to Nuclear Talks Visits Seoul

http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=BEF055:2F72C9D

Beijing's Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei is in Seoul for three
days of talks aimed at finding ways to bring North Korea back to the
negotiating table China's top delegate to multilateral nuclear
disarmament talks brushed aside questions as he arrived in Seoul
Wednesday.

Beijing's Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei is here for three days of
talks aimed at finding ways to bring North Korea back to the
negotiating table.

Last month, North Korea indefinitely pulled out of talks aimed at
ending its nuclear weapons programs. Pyongyang said it had already
built nuclear weapons and intended to build more.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il later told a senior Chinese official
his country might return to the talks if certain conditions were
right. Neither Pyongyang nor Beijing has elaborated publicly on what
those conditions might be.

Beijing's Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei is here for three days of
talks aimed at finding ways to bring North Korea back to the
negotiating tableSouth Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon said
Wednesday he looks forward to any new insights Mr. Wu might have. Mr.
Ban says South Korea hopes and expects that China will accelerate its
efforts to bring Pyongyang back to talks.

China has held three rounds of unsuccessful nuclear talks involving
Japan, Russia, the United States, and both Koreas. As North Korea's
only major ally, China is widely viewed as having the most access to -
and leverage over - North Korean leaders.

The United States is pushing to have North Korea dismantle its nuclear
programs and comply with its earlier international commitments to be
nuclear free. Pyongyang, however, says it must first receive economic
aid and a security guarantee from Washington before it will freeze its
weapons programs.

U.S. Appears Poised to Support European Incentives for Iran
(Tyler Marshall, Los Angeles Times)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...headlines-world

President Bush and his closest foreign policy advisors convene today to grapple with an important shift in U.S. policy toward Iran: how best to support a European diplomatic initiative to prevent the Middle East nation from becoming a nuclear weapons state.

The discussions follow a working lunch Wednesday at the White House that included Vice President Dick Cheney, national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, during which the Europeans' strategy to offer economic incentives was discussed, U.S. officials said.

The issue is potentially divisive, with the more conservative members of the administration opposed in principle to any contact with Iran, arguing that it would only strengthen what they view as an illegitimate and oppressive regime.

Tehran Accuses IAEA of Leaking Secrets
(Gareth Smyth and Stephen Fidler, Financial Times - UK)
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/8458511a-8c14-11d...000e2511c8.html

A senior Iranian security official on Thursday accused the International Atomic Energy Authority of lying and leaking information from inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities.

Speaking on Iranian television, the normally mild Hossein Mousavian, foreign policy head of the Supreme National Security Council, also warned Britain, France and Germany that Iran would leave talks with them about its nuclear programme unless there was “tangible progress”.

Mohamed ElBaradei, IAEA director general, told the agency's board this week that Iran should go out of its way to be transparent about its nuclear programme, which Tehran says is peaceful, to overcome suspicions arising from the fact that it had been kept secret for almost two decades.

North Korea Threatens to Resume Missile Tests
(Jon Herskovitz, Reuters)
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=...storyID=7791449

North Korea has threatened to resume long-range missile testing and demanded that the United States apologise for calling the reclusive country "an outpost of tyranny", official media reported.

The threat follows a Feb. 10 announcement in which North Korea officially said for the first time it had nuclear arms and was pulling out six-way disarmament talks with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea.

The Korean-language version of a Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) report late on Wednesday quoted a Foreign Ministry statement saying North Korea had a right to test-fire missiles, despite a moratorium that has been in place for six years.

Unraveling the A.Q. Khan and Future Proliferation Networks
(David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, Washington Quarterly)
http://www.twq.com/05spring/index.cfm?id=147

The most disturbing aspect of the international nuclear smuggling network headed by Abdul Qadeer Khan, widely viewed as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, is how poorly the nuclear nonproliferation regime fared in exposing and stopping the network’s operation. Khan, with the help of associates on four continents, managed to buy and sell key nuclear weapons capabilities for more than two decades while eluding the world’s best intelligence agencies and nonproliferation institutions and organizations. Despite a wide range of hints and leads, the United States and its allies failed to thwart this network throughout the 1980s and 1990s as it sold the equipment and expertise needed to produce nuclear weapons to major U.S. enemies including Iran, Libya, and North Korea.

Bunker Buster Would Not Contain Blast, Official Says
(David Ruppe, Global Security Newswire)
http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_3_3.html#BECC9EE4

A nuclear weapon modified for earth-penetration that the Bush administration is seeking funding to study would not burrow far enough into the earth to contain its blast, a senior Energy Department official said yesterday.

Nor is it intended to, National Nuclear Security Administration head Linton Brooks said, adding that the administration was “imprecise” if it had conveyed that impression.

The Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator’s (RNEP) hardened shell, which the White House hopes to field test next year, is intended to provide a few meters of deeper penetration in order to project its force deeper for striking enemy facilities far underground, Brooks told a House Armed Services subcommittee.

Don't Blame Canada for Missile-Defense Snub
(Michael O'Hanlon, Christian Science Monitor)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0303/p09s02-coop.html

The Liberal Party government of Prime Minister Paul Martin in Canada told the Bush administration last week that it will not endorse the US plan for national missile defense.

Many are viewing this as a slap in the face from Ottawa to Washington, and a change in the position Canada seemed to be taking a year ago. They expect it to poison relations between the two neighbors - ensuring, among other things, that next month's three-way summit with Mexican President Vicente Fox will fail to make progress in broadening NAFTA. It would seem that the knee-jerk liberal Canadians just could not get over their nostalgia for the ABM Treaty, as well as their visceral dislike of missile-defense systems.

This interpretation is badly mistaken. The Bush administration made major diplomatic errors in handling this topic with Canada. It asked for blanket endorsement of an open-ended US missile defense program, rather than for specific help with specific technical challenges and defensive weapons. This was a fundamental mistake, and the US has mostly itself to blame for the resulting fallout.

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publicati...a=view&id=16478

Enforcing Compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty
Speech as delivered by Carneigie Director for Non Proliferation
Joseph Cirincione at the Arms Control Association Annual Meeting
February 3, 2005

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/static/np..._doc_feb_22.pdf

Multilateral Approaches to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Expert Group Report Submitted to the Director General, IAEA.

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/npp/publi...a=view&id=16509

Not So Fast
Jon Wolfsthal

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/npp/publi...a=view&id=16604

Dealing with Iran's Nuclear Challenge
Full Text

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-nuclear-iran.html

Iran Starts Building New Nuclear Plant - diplomats

--------------------
Nuclear Watchdog Assails North Korea
--------------------

The IAEA session also focuses on Iran, which is urged by the agency chief to 'come clean.'

From Associated Press

March 4 2005

VIENNA; A 35-nation meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Thursday called North Korea's nuclear posturing a threat to peace and urged the communist nation to return to negotiations and let the agency resume its monitoring activities.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...headlines-world

--------------------
N. Korea Lists Conditions for Negotiations
--------------------

By Barbara Demick
Times Staff Writer

March 4 2005

SEOUL; North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told a Chinese envoy last week that his country would resume talks over its nuclear weapons program only if it got assurances that the United States had no hostile intent and a promise that its negotiators could speak directly to the Americans, diplomats here said.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...headlines-world

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/st...255E663,00.html

Iran the next nuclear threat

http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=5068

Nuclear Threat Dwarfs Existing Treaties
Jim Lobe

http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/p...02-101815-2259r

US says Tehran hinders inspectors

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/commo...55E1702,00.html

Iran starts work on reactor

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/8458511a-8c14-11d...000e2511c8.html

Iran accuses IAEA of leaking nuclear secrets

A Better Iran Strategy

THE CHANCES that the West will succeed in peacefully restraining Iran from building nuclear weapons have been looking dismal at the meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency this week. The agency's staff reported that Iran was still not fully cooperating with its investigation into the secret uranium enrichment program Tehran began 18 years ago. Iranian officials, meanwhile, made it clear that their negotiations with the European governments that seek a long-term freeze on that program are going nowhere. A permanent moratorium, said the Iranian delegate, "was not on the table, will not be on the table and should not be on the table."

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...er=emailarticle

Bush: US, Europe Working Together on Iran Nuclear Issues

http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=BFAC6E:2F72C9D

UN Atomic Energy Agency says Iran must do more to cooperate with
inspectors evaluating extent and intent of country's nuclear
program

Mohamed ElBaradei The U.N. atomic energy agency says Iran must do more
to cooperate with inspectors evaluating the extent and intent of the
country's nuclear program. President Bush says he is working with
European allies to convince Iran to give up its nuclear enrichment
program.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei says Iran
has concealed sensitive nuclear activities for nearly 20 years,
creating what he calls a confidence deficit around its compliance with
nuclear inspections today.

Wrapping up a four-day board of governor's meeting in Vienna, the IAEA
called on Iran to provide full transparency of its nuclear activities
and to extend pro-active cooperation to agency inspectors.

But Mr. ElBaradei says it is too soon to say whether Iran is secretly
developing a nuclear weapons program, as President Bush suspects.

Speaking following a briefing at the Central Intelligence Agency, the
president said America's EU allies, as well as Russian President
Vladimir Putin, all agree that Iran should not have nuclear weapons.

George Bush"I have told our European friends who are handling the
negotiations on behalf of the rest of the world that we want to help
make sure the process goes forward, and we are looking at ways to help
move the process forward," said Mr. Bush.  "The guilty party is
Iran. They are the ones who are not living up to international
accords. They are the people that the whole world is saying, 'Don't
develop a weapon.'"

The U.N. atomic energy agency has endorsed negotiations between Iran,
France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, expressing hope that an
agreement can be reached on a long-term solution.

Those talks resume next week in Geneva amid speculation that the Bush
administration may agree to drop its opposition to Iran joining the
World Trade Organization (WTO) as an incentive for Tehran to reach
agreement on nuclear issues.

White House spokesman Scott Mr. McClellan would not speculate on how
Washington might encourage the Geneva talks.

Iran says its nuclear program is only designed to generate
electricity. The country's official news agency quotes supreme leader
Ayatollah ali Khamenei as telling a group of students that the United
States and Europe want to prevent Iran from enriching uranium, because
it is part of scientific progress.

The official IRNA news agency quotes him as saying that the United
States and Europe are hostile to Iran moving forward in the field of
nuclear technology because they do not want the Iranian people to
progress.

http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/2005...52521-8765r.htm

US Changes Track on Iran

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...5-2005Mar3.html

US Wants Guarantees on Iran Effort
Support for UN Action Sought if Tehran Does Not Abandon Nuclear Program

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=27718

Nuclear Threat Dwarfs Existing Treaties

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a...h/us_mideast_10

Bush: Iran Flouts World Pacts with Nukes

http://www.antiwar.com/ips/deen.php?articleid=5077

Saudis Break New Ground Eyeing Russian Weapons
Thalif Deen

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...nuclear_iran_dc

Images Show Iran Heavy-Water Plant Nearly Done ISIS

A Destabilizing Bit of Research
Merely hypothesizing about the use of "bunker busting"
nuclear weapons feeds anxiety about proliferation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/opinion/06sun3.html?th

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GC08Ak03.html

Saudis Look to the Russians for Arms

http://www.armscontrol.org/npt2005/2005030...aign_Launch.asp

Arms Control Associaton and Carnegie Endowment Launch New Web site on Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty: NPT2005.0rg

http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/40813.htm

Iran: Sanctions Forced Nuke-Program Secrecy

http://twq.com/05spring/docs/05spring_gottemoeller.pdf

Cooperative Threat Reduction beyond Russia
Rose Gottemoeller

http://www.npt2005.org/

News Analysis: Examining North Korea's Nuclear Claims

http://www.npt2005.org/

Nuclear Bunker Buster Revived in Budget

http://www.npt2005.org/

Tackling the Nuclear Dilemma: An Interview with IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei

http://www.npt2005.org/

Turning a Blind Eye Again?
The Khan Network's History and Lessons for US Policy

Iranian Confirms Underground Nuke Plant
(Associated Press)
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7119928/

Monday, March 7
An Iranian official confirmed Monday that a uranium enrichment plant in central Iran is underground as a protection against airstrikes, but insisted that is not a sign the program aims to produce nuclear weapons.

U.S. officials have said building nuclear facilities underground is inconsistent with Iran’s contention its atomic program is intended only for the generation of electricity. The Iranians deny Washington’s accusation that they are trying to build nuclear weapons.

Ali Akbar Salehi, a nuclear affairs adviser to the foreign minister, said U.S. and Israeli threats forced Iran to take precautions to protect its technology, including the string of centrifuges used to enrich uranium — a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors that generate electricity but also make material suitable for atomic warheads.