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NEWS ABOUT: nuclear weapons

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Russia Dodged Nuclear Disaster in December

Submarine fire almost triggered biggest accident since Chernobyl

(Newser) - When a Russian submarine caught fire in December, officials said its nuclear weapons had been removed long before the fire—but now, Russian navy insiders tell a magazine that wasn't the case. In fact, during the fire, the Yekaterinburg submarine had 16 intercontinental ballistic missiles on board, and each... More »

Bush's CIA Chief: We Ruled Out Iran Strike

Michael Hayden says it would have backfired then, and would now, too

(Newser) - George W. Bush's administration pondered an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and ultimately rejected it, says former CIA and NSA chief Gen. Michael Hayden. He and others concluded that an attack on Iran's nuke factories "would guarantee that which we are trying to prevent—an Iran... More »

Chavez, Ahmadinejad Chuckle About Nukes

Bomb is 'ready' under steps of palace, jokes Venezuela's leader

(Newser) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez shared a laugh about a nuclear bomb and Washington during a jovial meeting yesterday in Caracas. Chavez joked that a nuke was ready under a grassy knoll in front of his Miraflores palace steps. "That hill will open up and... More »

College Students Map China's Nuclear Tunnels

Report causes stir in arms control community

(Newser) - The US is about to get its most complete look yet at China’s massive network of secret nuclear tunnels, compiled by people who don’t even have bachelor’s degrees. When China dispatched nuclear experts after a 2008 earthquake, a Pentagon agency asked volunteer Phillip Karber, a former top... More »

Pakistan Constantly Moves Nukes in Unprotected Vans

...to hide them from its American 'allies'

(Newser) - Pakistan works hard to protect its nuclear arsenal, but not from terrorists—from the US. In a huge Atlantic article provocatively titled “The Ally from Hell,” Jeffrey Goldberg and Marc Ambinder reveal that Pakistan is so afraid of a US move to steal or disable its arsenal—particularly... More »

UN Examines Possible Syria-Pakistan Nuke Ties

AQ Khan may have helped Damascus in quest for nuclear bomb

(AP) - Satellite images have provided UN investigators with fresh evidence that the Syrian government once worked with AQ Khan, the world's most prolific nuclear weapons merchant. The images reveal that a complex in northwest Syria appears to match Khan's designs for a uranium enrichment plant that were sold to... More »

US Can't Trace Sold Nuclear Material

Government Accountability Office is concerned

(Newser) - For all the Obama administration’s talk of securing nuclear stockpiles, the US has no ability to track 5,900 pounds of “weapons usable” nuclear material that it has sold to foreign governments over the years, according to a little-noticed Government Accountability Office report last week picked up by... More »

Explosion Rocks Nuclear Waste Site in France

At least one dead, three injured

(Newser) - An explosion hit the Marcoule nuclear plant in southern France today, killing at least one person and injuring three others, the BBC reports. The site handles nuclear waste and recycles plutonium from nuclear weapons into MOX fuel, but does not include any reactors. The explosion occurred near a furnace, but... More »

Pakistan's Nuke Founder: We Sold Secrets to N. Korea

Letter, documents seem to verify claim

(Newser) - Pakistani military officials took more than $3.5 million in kickbacks from North Korea in exchange for essential nuclear weapons technology, according to Abdul Qadir Khan, the founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. Khan has given documents detailing the transaction, which would have taken place in the late 1990s,... More »

Wildfire Reaches Los Alamos

Blaze on outskirts of lab complex extinguished

(Newser) - A wildfire raging in New Mexico jumped a highway and set fire to an acre at the edge of the Los Alamos National Laboratory property, triggering the evacuation of thousands of nearby residents. The fire, which hit an area once used for underground tests of radioactive explosives, was extinguished safely... More »

Wildfire Threatens Los Alamos Nuclear Lab

'It's a very, very big concern'

(Newser) - It's not a good day to live near a nuclear facility : In New Mexico, a wildfire is edging dangerously close to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the world's first nuclear weapons were developed during WWII. "It's a very, very big concern, not only locally but... More »

Syria Tried Making Nuclear Weapons: UN

New report paves way for security council action

(Newser) - Syria “very likely” had a secret nuclear weapons program, according to an International Atomic Energy Agency report released yesterday, which concludes that the Dair Alzour site Israel bombed in 2007 was almost certainly an under-construction nuclear reactor. The allegations themselves are old news—US intelligence agencies presented evidence of... More »

Nuke Watchdog: Iran Worked on Nuclear Triggers

Disclosure buried in 9-page International Atomic Energy Agency report

(Newser) - In the kind of revelation that doesn't help one sleep at night, the International Atomic Energy Agency yesterday disclosed that it has evidence that Iran has worked on nuclear triggering technology that has but a single use: setting off a nuke. The New York Times reports that the detail... More »

Pakistan Has More Than 100 Nukes: Experts

Doubled arsenal surpasses India's

(Newser) - Pakistan likely has more than 100 deployed nuclear weapons, or twice what it had just a few years ago, analysts tell the Washington Post . The country has sped up its uranium and plutonium production, and devised new delivery systems for it, pushing its nuclear capabilities ahead of India’s. That's... More »

US Secretly Sends Ukraine's Uranium to Russia

...in an effort to destroy it

(Newser) - The US carried out a secret operation this week in which 110 pounds of highly enriched uranium—enough to make two atomic bombs—were sent from Ukraine to Russia, as part of the Obama administration’s not-at-all secret push to secure the world’s nuclear material. Russia intends to blend... More »

Nuclear Arms Treaty Clears Biggest Senate Hurdle

Vote to end debate makes passage all but certain tomorrow

(Newser) - It looks like President Obama's full-court press on the New Start treaty will give him his top foreign policy priority of the year. The Senate today voted 67-28 to end debate on the nuclear arms pact with Russia, all but assuring final passage tomorrow. Democrats needed at least nine Republicans... More »

GOP Support Grows Ahead of START Vote

Scott Brown is on board; Corker, Gregg likely

(Newser) - Things were looking bleak yesterday for the New START arms treaty—but that was yesterday. Following a closed-door meeting, GOP Sen. Scott Brown said he’d vote for the treaty and two other Republicans said they would likely support it, giving supporters enough votes to push it through as voting... More »

Dems Stonewall GOP's Attempts to Alter START

Amendments would have effectively killed treaty

(AP) - Senate Democrats have turned back Republican efforts to change a new arms control treaty with Russia. By a vote of 64-33, the Senate rejected a measure that would have increased the number of weapons inspectors. If adopted, the amendment would have effectively killed the treaty, forcing US and Russian officials... More »

START Treaty in Trouble

Senate GOP leaders will vote against nuke treaty

(Newser) - Harry Reid says the Senate's choice on the START Treaty is simple—"You either want to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists or you don’t"—but the political reality is proving to be a lot more complicated. Top Senate Republicans Mitch McConnell and Jon... More »

Sarah Palin to Senate: Vote Down New START

Former Alaska guv believes new treaty 'makes no strategic sense'

(Newser) - Sarah Palin comes out swinging against New START, the nuclear arms reduction treaty currently being considered for ratification by the Senate, in a National Review op-ed. The treaty is not "in America's interest," the former Alaska governor writes, as it "requires the US to reduce our nuclear... More »

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