Nuclear Policy News – March 25, 2010

FISSILE MATERIAL
China joins Iran sanctions talks
Turtle Bay (Foreign Policy) by Colum Lynch

U.S. Softens Sanction Plan Against Iran
WSJ by David Crawford, Richard Boudreaux, Joe Lauria and Jay Solomon

United States and Russia reach nuclear-arms deal
WP by Mary Beth Sheridan and Philip P. Pan

Pakistan judge delays ruling on nuclear scientist
AP

U.S. must get its nuclear house in order before April Security Summit
The Hill by Peter Stockton and Ingrid Drake

EAST ASIA
1. S.Korea KOPEC wins $569 mln UAE order from KEPCO
Reuters by Kim Yeon-hee
Korea Power Engineering Co Inc (KOPEC) (052690.KS), a nuclear power plant designer, said on Thursday it had received a 646.6 billion won ($569 million) order from its parent Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO) (015760.KS).

2. DPRK paper accuses Japan of disrupting denuclearization process
Xinhua News
The official Minju Joson daily of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Wednesday blasted Japan for linking the abduction of Japanese citizens decades ago with denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.

MIDDLE EAST
3. U.S. Softens Sanction Plan Against Iran
WSJ by David Crawford, Richard Boudreaux, Joe Lauria and Jay Solomon
The U.S. has backed away from pursuing a number of tough measures against Iran in order to win support from Russia and China for a new United Nations Security Council resolution on sanctions, according to people familiar with the matter.

4. West 'fussing' over Iran nuclear drive: Ahmadinejad
AFP by Jay Deshmukh
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday accused the West of stirring up a "fuss" about Iran's nuclear programme, as reports said Washington has backed down from harsh sanctions against Tehran.

5. Iran dismisses Israel PM's self-defence warning
AFP
Iran on Thursday dismissed as "worthless" Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's warning that the Jewish state has the right to self-defence.

6. Russia says may support Iran nuclear sanctions
Reuters by Conor Humphries
Russia could support additional sanctions on Iran but any measures must be focused only on preventing the proliferation of nuclear materials, Russia's foreign ministry said on Thursday.

7. China joins Iran sanctions talks
Turtle Bay (Foreign Policy) by Colum Lynch
China committed today for the first time to engage in substantive talks on a U.S.-backed initiative to sanction Iran for defying U.N. demands to halt its enrichment of uranium, according to Britain's U.N. ambassador. But diplomats here predicted at least several weeks of further talks before the council will adopt sanctions on Iran.

8. Japan urges continued high-level contacts with Iran
PressTV
Japan's foreign minister has called on Iran to continue high-level contacts with his country over issues of mutual interest.

SOUTH ASIA
9. Pakistan says it is 'satisfied' with U.S. pledges on aid delivery
WP by Karen DeYoung
Pakistan said Wednesday that it was satisfied with U.S. pledges, made during a day-long strategic conference in Washington, to increase and streamline the delivery of military and economic aid and to "move from a relationship to a partnership."

10. Pakistan judge delays ruling on nuclear scientist
AP
A judge on Wednesday delayed a ruling on a government petition aimed at questioning Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan over recent media reports that Islamabad arranged the transfer of nuclear technology to Iran, a lawyer said.

11. State liable in case of terror attack at atomic plants
Sify by Indo-Asian News Service
The government has clarified that in case of a terrorist strike at nuclear installations, the state and not the operator will be liable and assured that the civil nuclear liability bill allows it to access an international corpus of funds in case of an accident.

RUSSIA/FSU/EUROPE
12. United States and Russia reach nuclear-arms deal
WP by Mary Beth Sheridan and Philip P. Pan
The United States and Russia have reached a deal on their most extensive nuclear arms-control agreement in nearly two decades, the Kremlin announced Wednesday. The pact appeared to represent President Obama's first victory in his ambitious agenda to move toward a nuclear-free world.

13. Russia and U.S. Report Breakthrough on Arms
NYT by Peter Baker and Ellen Barry
The United States and Russia have broken a logjam in arms control negotiations and expect to sign a treaty next month to slash their nuclear arsenals to the lowest levels in half a century, officials in both nations said Wednesday.

MULTILATERAL ARMS CONTROL AND NONPROLIFERATION

U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS STRATEGY AND POLICY
14. North Korea, Afghan hearings fall prey to US health fight
AFP
US President Barack Obama's Republican foes, angry over his historic health overhaul, derailed Senate hearings Wednesday on Afghan police training and North Korea's nuclear drive.

15. Managers Warned Against Bungling Los Alamos Lab Construction Project
GSN
Work on a planned nuclear research facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico could hit unexpected roadblocks despite growing federal support for the project, the Albuquerque Journal reported Tuesday (see GSN, March 8).

16. Pentagon Seeks to Join U.S., Allied Missile Defenses
GSN
The United States envisions its missile defense system interfacing with the shield technology of its allies, restricting expenses and helping the countries prepare for enemy missile strikes, a senior Defense Department official said Monday (see GSN, March 23).

OPINIONS
17. U.S. must get its nuclear house in order before April Security Summit
The Hill by Peter Stockton and Ingrid Drake
As part of President Barack Obama’s initiative to secure all vulnerable nuclear material within four years, the U.S. will host more than 40 heads of state next month for a nuclear security summit. There is good reason for such a summit: There is enough bomb-grade nuclear material in the world — in every corner of the globe — to build more than 120,000 nuclear bombs. The U.S., which has the world’s second-largest stock of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium, needs to unveil a much bolder strategy for securing its own bomb-grade material to inspire other nations to follow suit.

18. "Containing" Iran debated as sanctions options falter
Reuters Analysis by Mark Heinrich
With big powers unable to agree tough new sanctions against Iran and military action rife with risks to the West, Cold War-style containment may prove the only realistic way to check Tehran's nuclear ambitions, experts say.

19. Iran’s leaders say nuclear weapons are forbidden by Islamic law. What I’ve seen suggests otherwise.
CS Monitor by Reza Kahlili
Muslims use the word haram to describe any act forbidden under the rules of Islam. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, recently declared that Iran could not possibly be working on a nuclear bomb because doing so would be haram.

20. The NPT at 40: Can We Salvage the Nonproliferation Treaty for the Next Forty Years?
Huffington Post by Bennett Ramberg
This month marks the 40th anniversary of the entry into force of the global linchpin to halt the spread of nuclear weapons, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. With just four nuclear states outside the NPT -- India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea -- the agreement's near universal appeal belies a disturbing undertow: a minority of parties have used the façade of fidelity to mount clandestine efforts to acquire the Bomb. Unless Treaty loyalists redouble efforts to prop up leaky dikes, the nonproliferation regime's durability will increasingly fall into question and so will global security.

21. Europe's Nuclear-Disarmament Delusion
WSJ Op-ed by Michael Anton
Among the many links that bind together the NATO alliance, and therefore the West, the presence of American nuclear weapons on the soil of five NATO nations is not one that gets a lot of love or attention. Yet it is vital just the same. Serious voices on both sides of the Atlantic are now advocating that this tie be severed. They should not be heeded.

22. Moving from fission to fusion is the Holy Grail of nuclear energy
Irish Times by William Reville
NUCLEAR FUSION, which promises the clean production of virtually limitless energy from readily available raw materials, is the Holy Grail of research that hopes to find a viable successor to the generation of energy from fossil fuels. However, developing a fusion reactor is proving to be a tough nut to crack and may take much longer than originally expected. The current state of play in nuclear fusion is described by Michael Moyer in the March edition of Scientific American.

23. Report slip hits nuclear hopes
The Age by Daniel Flitton
IN A blow to Australia's credibility in global nuclear debates, the Rudd government has ignored a key finding from its own inquiry into disarmament, one that called for limits on the use of atomic weapons in war.