Recently added articles from Arms Control Today:

Editor's NOTE

May 01, 2008; Pomper, Miles A ... 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 by the Israeli Air Force illustrate one reason why ...

North Korea and the Incident in the Syrian Desert

May 01, 2008; Kimball, Daryl G ... 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 assistance from North Korea. The assessment comes as ...

Notable Quotable

May 01, 2008; Anonymous ... "We told our president four things: this is a reactor; the North Koreans and Synans 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 create fuel for a nuclear weapons program ....

South Asia and the Future of Nuclear Nonproliferation

May 01, 2008; Graham, Thomas Jr ... Ten Years Ago in ACT 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 to follow suit. The ...

BY THE NUMBERS

May 01, 2008; Anonymous ... Russia's Weapons-Grade Plutonium Production Reacto 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 could be manufactured with the total ...

Conference on Disarmament

May 01, 2008; Anonymous ... 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 China, Iran, and Pakistan are blocking the necessary ...

Israel-U.S. Nuclear Safety Cooperation

May 01, 2008; Anonymous ... 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 Control Today April 17 that the amendment allows the ...

U.S. Nonproliferation Assistance

May 01, 2008; Anonymous ... 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 a research reactor in Uzbekistan from running on ...

Conventional Arming and Disarming

May 01, 2008; Anonymous ... * 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 Agency notified Congress of a possible U.S ....

What's Ahead: On the Calendar

May 01, 2008; Anonymous ... April 28-May 9 Preparatory Committee meeting for the 2010 NonproliferationTreaty Review Conference, Geneva. May 12-June 27 Second session of the Conference on Disarmament, Geneva. May 19-22 Nuclear Suppliers Group ...

Verifying Nuclear Disarmament: The Inspector's Agenda

May 01, 2008; Persbo, Andreas; Bjørningstad, Marius ... 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 goal of a world without nuclear weapons into a joint ...

Should Israel Close Dimona?

May 01, 2008; Ramberg, Bennett ... The Radiological Consequences of a Military Strike on Israel's Plutonium-Production Reactor 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 ...

The Trilateral Initiative: A Model For The Future?

May 01, 2008; Shea, Thomas E ... 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 (1996-2002) effort to develop a verification system under ...

Bush, Putin Leave Arms Disputes Unsettled

May 01, 2008; Boese, Wade ... Meeting for their final time as presidents, George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin extolled their efforts to move the United States and Russia beyond their Cold War confrontation. Yet, the two leaders left unresolved arms disputes rooted in that competition that have been a constant source of ...

NATO Summit Results Fall Short of Bush Goals

May 01, 2008; Boese, Wade ... 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 administration claimed success afterward even though the ...

The EU's Nonproliferation Efforts: Limited Success

May 01, 2008; Meier, Oliver ... In 2003, European states, shaken by their inability to unite around a common strategy toward Iraq, determined to forge a common and independent approach to dealing with proliferation threats.1 Five years later, the EU's hopes of being an independent power broker on arms control and ...

Russia Unflinching on CFE Treaty Suspension

May 01, 2008; Boese, Wade ... 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 are seeking to induce Russia to reverse its ...

Threat Reduction Programs Meet Benchmarks

May 01, 2008; Arnaudo, Daniel ... 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 its stockpile of SS-24 ICBMs. Later the same month, ...

CWC Review Conference Avoids Difficult Issues

May 01, 2008; Meier, Oliver ... 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 early morning of April 19 to reach ...

U.S. Joins Others Seeking Nuclear Export Criteria

May 01, 2008; Boese, Wade ... 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 and a few other countries have objected to some ...