Nuclear Policy News - March 31, 2010

The Hindu by Siddharth Varadarajan

 

The Guardian by Julian Borger

 

Global Security Newswire by Elaine M. Grossman

 

Global Security Newswire by Stephanie Palla

 

Reuters by Steve Holland and David Ljungren

 

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is highly likely to visit China soon, a presidential spokeswoman and other government officials in Seoul said Wednesday, a trip that could boost prospects for the reopening of international talks on Pyongyang's nuclear programs.

 

South Korea's new vice unification minister Wednesday called on North Korea to take a "rational" approach to handling inter-Korean relations and luring investment from abroad.

 

WP by Mary Beth Sheridan

President Obama and ministers from the world's top industrialized countries turned up the heat on Iran on Tuesday, raising the prospect of new U.N. sanctions within weeks to discourage its nuclear program.

 

The Guardian by Julian Borger

ABC News is reporting that Shahram Amiri, a young Iranian nuclear scientist who went missing while on a pilgrimage to Mecca in late May or early June last year, is now living in the US having been seduced by US intelligence.

 

Reuters by Steve Holland and David Ljungren

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday he wanted tougher U.N. sanctions in weeks against Iran over its nuclear program, and the world's leading industrial nations expressed optimism that China will agree on possible next steps.

 

NY Times by Reuters

The world's leading industrial nations called on Tuesday for stronger action against Iran over its nuclear program and the United States said it was confident China would agree on the need for sanctions.

 

Earth Times by Deutsche Presse-Agentur

New sanctions against Iran would mean international nuclear inspectors have a more difficult job in the short term, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Yukiya Amano told the German Press Agency DPA Tuesday.

 

Asia Times by Saban Kardas 

During a Turkish-Korean joint business forum held in Turkey on March 10, a protocol was signed to cooperate on Turkey's second planned nuclear power plant. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, attending the signing ceremony, welcomed the development as a positive step toward bolstering Turkish trade and economic ties with Eastern Asia. 

 

The Hindu by Siddharth Varadarajan

The ‘arrangements and procedures' (A&P) under which India can reprocess U.S.-obligated spent fuel allow Washington to suspend reprocessing permission if it apprehends a “serious threat” either to its national security or to the physical protection of the facility where the reprocessing is taking place that makes suspension unavoidable.

 

While terming the Nuclear Liability Bill as beneficial for the country's atomic power generation, Samajwadi Party today said it wanted the bill to be vetted by a select committee of all parties before it is introduced in Parliament as it has several loopholes.

 

Global Security Newswire by Elaine M. Grossman

A set of technical annexes to the new U.S.-Russian nuclear arms reduction treaty is to be completed only after the accord is signed next week, a senior Obama administration official said yesterday (see GSN, March 29).

 

NY Times by Peter Baker

An official photograph of a B-52 bomber at Barksdale Air Base in Louisiana shows it with a formidable arsenal of nuclear weapons it can carry all at once — 14 air-launched cruise missiles, four B61-7 gravity bombs and two B83 gravity bombs.

 

The Group of Eight (G8) foreign ministers affirmed their support Tuesday for the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as the cornerstone of the non-proliferation regime while pledging continuous efforts to seek a world without nuclear weapons.

 

Global Security Newswire by Stephanie Palla

The U.S. Government Accountability Office plans to review the progress of a federal program that deploys technology at foreign seaports to detect nuclear or radiological weapons materials that could be used in an act of terrorism (see GSN, March 30).

 

CS Monitor by Kristen Chick

As a debate over Iran nuclear sanctions take front stage at the G8 meeting in Quebec today, The Monitor looks at how effective past sanctions have been and what new measures are being considered.

 

WSJ Op-ed by Danielle Pletka

Has the U.S. abandoned plans to target the Iranian regime's access to banking and credit and to isolate Iranian air and shipping transport? While recent reports to that effect have been strenuously denied by the administration, it has become clear that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's promise of "crippling sanctions" and President Barack Obama's "aggressive" penalties are little more than talk. The administration simply cannot persuade a critical mass of nations to join with it.

 

Asia Times by MK Bhadrakumar 

The relationship between the United States and India, which lately showed signs of stress, was revamped on Monday with the announcement that the two countries have completed the "arrangements and procedures" for US-origin spent nuclear fuel to be reprocessed in India. 

 

Huffington Post by Macha Levinson

Did President Obama set the bar too high? Last April he embraced the goal of a nuclear free world. At the time, he was widely applauded for bringing the United States back to nuclear disarmament after years of neglect by his predecessor, but will he now be jeered and criticized if he achieves only the inevitably smaller steps that are feasible? The freshly completed START Treaty between the US and Russia hailed as a break through achievement, does make sizable cuts in US and Russian nuclear stockpiles. Yet, the April signing ceremony in Prague, no matter how historic, and even with the promise of further arms control successes to come, can not meet the expectations raised by a year's worth of lofty pronouncements on disarmament and non-proliferation.

 

UPI Asia by Prakash Nanda

Traditionally speaking, the Bharatiya Janata Party, currently India’s principal opposition party, has been a great votary of nuclear power, both in its civilian and military dimensions. In fact, it made history when in 1998 Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, the BJP’s tallest leader so far, declared India as a nuclear-weapon power through the Pokhran-II nuclear explosions.

 

WSJ Editorial

The second "T" in START, the nuclear arms deal President Obama struck with the Russians late last week, stands for "Treaty." That means two-thirds of the Senate is obliged to sign off on the accord. The U.S. would benefit from a full and close Senate airing of where Mr. Obama is taking the nation on both the offensive and defensive sides of nuclear weapons.