The Agonist - Global Arms Control

US-Russia nuclear talks hit snag

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:47:04 -0800

Moscow | Nov 12

AFP - Talks between Moscow and Washington to replace a key nuclear disarmament treaty that expires next month have hit a snag over proposed restrictions on Russian missiles, a newspaper said Thursday.

The dispute threatens to derail high-stakes talks on a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which US President Barack Obama's administration hopes to replace before it expires on December 5.

The Kommersant daily, citing an expert familiar with the START talks, said Washington was seeking to keep a provision from the original treaty for monitoring Russia's arsenal of mobile ground-based missiles.

"They are offering to keep and even strengthen control over our mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) such as the Topol," the expert was quoted as saying by Kommersant.

Russia is against the proposal since the United States currently does not have its own mobile ground-based ICBMs and it is therefore of "unilateral character," he said.

The maximum number of "carriers" capable of delivering nuclear warheads remains another sticking point, the newspaper reported.

"In their package, the Americans stipulated a new ceiling for warhead carriers that we don't quite agree with," the expert told Kommersant, referring to proposals presented to Moscow last month by US National Security Adviser James Jones.

Besides ground-based ICBMs, the term "carriers" also encompasses submarine-launched missiles and heavy bombers.

Power for U.S. From Russia’s Old Nuclear Weapons

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:50:54 -0800

Andrew E. Kramer | Moscow | Nov 10

NYT - What’s powering your home appliances?

For about 10 percent of electricity in the United States, it’s fuel from dismantled nuclear bombs, including Russian ones.

“It’s a great, easy source” of fuel, said Marina V. Alekseyenkova, an analyst at Renaissance Capital and an expert in the Russian nuclear industry that has profited from the arrangement since the end of the cold war.

But if more diluted weapons-grade uranium isn’t secured soon, the pipeline could run dry, with ramifications for consumers, as well as some American utilities and their Russian suppliers.

Already nervous about a supply gap, utilities operating America’s 104 nuclear reactors are paying as much attention to President Obama’s efforts to conclude a new arms treaty as the Nobel Peace Prize committee did.

In the last two decades, nuclear disarmament has become an integral part of the electricity industry, little known to most Americans.

Salvaged bomb material now generates about 10 percent of electricity in the United States — by comparison, hydropower generates about 6 percent and solar, biomass, wind and geothermal together account for 3 percent.

Utilities have been loath to publicize the Russian bomb supply line for fear of spooking consumers: the fuel from missiles that may have once been aimed at your home may now be lighting it.

The Story of 'Operation Orchard'

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:14:22 -0800

Erich Follath & Holger Stark | Nov 2

Spiegel Online - How Israel Destroyed Syria's Al Kibar Nuclear Reactor

In September 2007, Israeli fighter jets destroyed a mysterious complex in the Syrian desert. The incident could have led to war, but it was hushed up by all sides. Was it a nuclear plant and who gave the orders for the strike?

Hersh: In an unstable Pakistan, can nuclear warheads be kept safe?

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:18:54 -0800

Seymour Hersh | Nov 16 Issue | New Yorker

Obama did not say so, but current and former officials said in interviews in Washington and Pakistan that his Administration has been negotiating highly sensitive understandings with the Pakistani military. These would allow specially trained American units to provide added security for the Pakistani arsenal in case of a crisis. At the same time, the Pakistani military would be given money to equip and train Pakistani soldiers and to improve their housing and facilities—goals that General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the chief of the Pakistan Army, has long desired. In June, Congress approved a four-hundred-million-dollar request for what the Administration called the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund, providing immediate assistance to the Pakistan Army for equipment, training, and “renovation and construction.”

The secrecy surrounding the understandings was important because there is growing antipathy toward America in Pakistan, as well as a history of distrust. Many Pakistanis believe that America’s true goal is not to keep their weapons safe but to diminish or destroy the Pakistani nuclear complex. The arsenal is a source of great pride among Pakistanis, who view the weapons as symbols of their nation’s status and as an essential deterrent against an attack by India. (India’s first nuclear test took place in 1974, Pakistan’s in 1998.)

Seymour Hersh | Nov 16 Issue | New Yorker

In the tumultuous days leading up to the Pakistan Army’s ground offensive in the tribal area of South Waziristan, which began on October 17th, the Pakistani Taliban attacked what should have been some of the country’s best-guarded targets. In the most brazen strike, ten gunmen penetrated the Army’s main headquarters, in Rawalpindi, instigating a twenty-two-hour standoff that left twenty-three dead and the military thoroughly embarrassed. The terrorists had been dressed in Army uniforms. There were also attacks on police installations in Peshawar and Lahore, and, once the offensive began, an Army general was shot dead by gunmen on motorcycles on the streets of Islamabad, the capital. The assassins clearly had advance knowledge of the general’s route, indicating that they had contacts and allies inside the security forces.

Pakistan has been a nuclear power for two decades, and has an estimated eighty to a hundred warheads, scattered in facilities around the country. The success of the latest attacks raised an obvious question: Are the bombs safe? Asked this question the day after the Rawalpindi raid, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “We have confidence in the Pakistani government and the military’s control over nuclear weapons.” Clinton—whose own visit to Pakistan, two weeks later, would be disrupted by more terrorist bombs—added that, despite the attacks by the Taliban, “we see no evidence that they are going to take over the state.”

Clinton’s words sounded reassuring, and several current and former officials also said in interviews that the Pakistan Army was in full control of the nuclear arsenal. But the Taliban overrunning Islamabad is not the only, or even the greatest, concern. The principal fear is mutiny—that extremists inside the Pakistani military might stage a coup, take control of some nuclear assets, or even divert a warhead.

On April 29th, President Obama was asked at a news conference whether he could reassure the American people that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal could be kept away from terrorists. Obama’s answer remains the clearest delineation of the Administration’s public posture. He was, he said, “gravely concerned” about the fragility of the civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari. “Their biggest threat right now comes internally,” Obama said. “We have huge . . . national-security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don’t end up having a nuclear-armed militant state.” The United States, he said, could “make sure that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is secure—primarily, initially, because the Pakistan Army, I think, recognizes the hazards of those weapons’ falling into the wrong hands.”

The questioner, Chuck Todd, of NBC, began asking whether the American military could, if necessary, move in and secure Pakistan’s bombs. Obama did not let Todd finish. “I’m not going to engage in hypotheticals of that sort,” he said. “I feel confident that the nuclear arsenal will remain out of militant hands. O.K.?”

Obama did not say so, but current and former officials said in interviews in Washington and Pakistan that his Administration has been negotiating highly sensitive understandings with the Pakistani military. These would allow specially trained American units to provide added security for the Pakistani arsenal in case of a crisis. At the same time, the Pakistani military would be given money to equip and train Pakistani soldiers and to improve their housing and facilities—goals that General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the chief of the Pakistan Army, has long desired. In June, Congress approved a four-hundred-million-dollar request for what the Administration called the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund, providing immediate assistance to the Pakistan Army for equipment, training, and “renovation and construction.”

The secrecy surrounding the understandings was important because there is growing antipathy toward America in Pakistan, as well as a history of distrust. Many Pakistanis believe that America’s true goal is not to keep their weapons safe but to diminish or destroy the Pakistani nuclear complex. The arsenal is a source of great pride among Pakistanis, who view the weapons as symbols of their nation’s status and as an essential deterrent against an attack by India. (India’s first nuclear test took place in 1974, Pakistan’s in 1998.)

A senior Pakistani official who has close ties to Zardari exploded with anger during an interview when the subject turned to the American demands for more information about the arsenal. After the September 11th attacks, he said, there had been an understanding between the Bush Administration and then President Pervez Musharraf “over what Pakistan had and did not have.” Today, he said, “you’d like control of our day-to-day deployment. But why should we give it to you? Even if there was a military coup d’état in Pakistan, no one is going to give up total control of our nuclear weapons. Never. Why are you not afraid of India’s nuclear weapons?” the official asked. “Because India is your friend, and the longtime policies of America and India converge. Between you and the Indians, you will fuck us in every way. The truth is that our weapons are less of a problem for the Obama Administration than finding a respectable way out of Afghanistan.”

US, North Korea agree to hold bilateral meetings

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:32:31 -0800

Seoul | Nov 4

AFP - The United States and North Korea have agreed to hold two rounds of bilateral meetings before the North returns to multilateral nuclear disarmament talks, a US news report said.

The agreement was reached at last month's meetings in New York and San Diego between officials from the two sides, Foreign Policy magazine said on its website, in a report seen Wednesday.

The communist state, putting further pressure on the United States to start direct talks, announced Tuesday it has completed reprocessing spent fuel rods to produce more plutonium for its atomic weapons programme.

The US State Department responded that the plutonium production "runs counter" to the North's disarmament commitments and violates UN Security Council resolutions.

It said it has not decided when and where to hold bilateral talks involving the US special envoy to North Korea, Stephen Bosworth.

Nuclear-Power Fuel Too Close to Nuclear-Weapon Fuel for Comfort

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:31:42 -0800

THE DEPROLIFERATOR -- Recent statements by its chief representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency suggest that Iran may be backing away from an agreement to ships it low-enriched nuclear fuel to Russia for further enriching. Even, though, after agreeing to the deal, President Ahmadinejad, ever the master of the sweeping gesture, said the West had "moved from confrontation to cooperation."

Among reasons to hope that Iran relents is a fact of which many who proclaim Iran has a right to a nuclear program seem ignorant. Turns out that transubstantiating the fuel used for nuclear energy into nuclear-weapon fuel, far from a miracle, is all too commonplace.

The Hudson Institute's Christopher Ford explains (sorry, misplaced the link).

Reactor fuel production is worrisome enough all by itself, because in enriching uranium to LEU [low-enriched uranium] reactor fuel levels the Iranians would have already done most of the work necessary to enrich to weapons-usable HEU [highly-enriched uranium].

At Huffington Post, Bruno Pellaud, former deputy director general of the International Atomic Agency, adds some seasoning to Ford's remarks:

. . . [LEU] (some 4% enriched) is already a long way towards the weapon-relevant [HEU] (some 90%), much more than these two figures seem to indicate. In the physics of enrichment, it's like a pre-cooked cake, so well pre-cooked that a few minutes in the micro-oven suffices to bring it to the table.

Ford again (emphasis added):

. . . it takes a certain number of [Sleep-Inducing Technical Term, or SITT -- RW] to enrich uranium all the way to weapons-usable levels, but by the time one gets to [LEU] most of that work has already been accomplished. It takes fewer [SITT] to finish the job than to get to [LEU] in the first place, so possessing a supply of uranium that is already LEU makes it much easier to enrich to HEU levels [but] at a secret additional facility.

This is nothing new, Ford explains in a previous paper. Describing the early U.S. nuclear years, he writes: "Thinkers of the period were painfully aware of what we might today call the problem of the 'latent' or 'virtual' nuclear weapons programs [which can be ramped up in case of a threat -- RW] afforded by possession of nuclear fuel-making capabilities. As U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson put it, the true 'measure of atomic armament'. . . was to be found less in what [a country] actually had 'put into a bomb'" than in the sum-total of its fissionable material.

Therefore, writes Pellaud:

For the time being, this shipment to Russia. . . eliminates the [risk of a nuclear weapons breakout]. Some would argue that Iran would only send to Russia part of its LEU stockpile and keep hidden any past clandestine production of LEU. Not so easy. The IAEA would indeed detect such dissimulation, [like it] kept track [of the] 350 tonnes of raw uranium that Iran had purchased from Namibia in the seventies.

Besides, wrote Andreas Persbo in March at Verification, Implementation, and Compliance, winner of the award for Highest-Traffic-Generating Blog Title three years running (not):

A break-out at this stage would be very risky for the Iranian government. The amassed low-enriched material is about right for one uranium-based weapon, but in order to get that processed into weapons-grade, Iran would need to reconfigure the cascade and run the material through the facility again. Then, the weapons grade material would need to [go through a Tedious Technical Process, or TTP -- RW].

How long will that process take?

… a minimum of two months. Add another four to five months to [endure yet another TTP] and we're up to half a year. Even if the Iranians have done their weaponization homework, they'll have to move from theory to practice for the first time. [What's more] they only have enough material for one weapon. It is literally a one-shot deal. …

If Iran really wants to acquire a nuclear weapon, the best strategy would be to bypass safeguards altogether and to build a clandestine enrichment facility.

Which, of course, it since did -- the Fordo facility near Iranian holy city Qom, from which an International Atomic Energy Agency inspection team just returned. "We had a good trip," said the mission head.

First posted at the Faster Times.

Kazakhstan not a nuclear threat, official says

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:29:31 -0700

Peter Grier | Washington | Oct 20

CSM - A US intelligence report on concerns about Kazakhstan's nuclear deals is misleading, said the Kazakh government Monday.

A Kazakhstan government official says that, contrary to recent reports, his country is not looking to do nuclear deals with countries that have a mixed record on proliferation.

Roman Vassilenko, chairman of the Committee for International Information at Kazakhstan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, says that his country does see itself as a potential nuclear power – but a "peaceful and responsible" one that has no interest in nuclear weapons or nuclear commerce with potential proliferators.

On October 15, The Christian Science Monitor published an article on a US intelligence report that expressed concerns about the geopolitical implications of some of Kazakhstan's nuclear deals.

Both the article and the report "seem utterly misleading", says Mr. Vassilenko.

Kazakhstan, formerly part of the Soviet Union, returned 1,000 nuclear weapons soil to Russia following the dissolution of the USSR. It shut down a former weapons test site where the Soviets detonated 650 nuclear bombs, points out Mr. Vassilenko in an e-mailed response.

"Kazakhstan has clearly seen enough of nuclear horrors to be firmly committed to peaceful nuclear energy," he says.

Curbs on nuclear scientist lifted

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 02:17:23 -0700

Aug 29

BBC - A court in Pakistan has lifted the final restrictions on controversial nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, allowing him total freedom of movement.

Dr Khan, whose work helped Pakistan become a nuclear state, spent years under house arrest after he admitted selling off nuclear weapons secrets.

In February 2009 most restrictions on him were lifted, but he still had to notify authorities of his movements.

He subsequently filed a petition arguing for further freedoms.

Dr Khan confessed to transferring nuclear weapons technology to Libya, North Korea and Iran in 2004 but was later pardoned by former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

He has since said that the charges against him were false and that his confession was "forced".

US to abandon Polish-Czech missile shield, lobbyist says

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:46:29 -0700

Andrew Rettman | Aug 27

EU Observer - The United States has all-but abandoned plans to house anti-missile bases in Poland and the Czech republic, according to a senior White House lobbyist.

Riki Ellison, the chairman of the 10,000 member-strong Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, said in Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza on Thursday (26 August) that the US has changed its mind to avoid a rift with Russia and is now looking at Israel, Turkey, the Balkans or ship-borne facilities instead.

"The signals given by generals from the Pentagon are clear: the current US government is looking for different solutions on the question of missile defence than Poland and the Czech republic," he said.

"The new [US] team is paying more attention to Russian arguments," he added.

"Obama's people believe that many problems in the world can be more easily solved together with Moscow ...It's a question of priorities. For many Democrats, the priority is disarmament and they are capable of sacrificing a lot in order to achieve a new agreement with Russia on the reduction of strategic [nuclear] weapons."

Despite splits, U.S. still arms Israel

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:38:09 -0700

Tel Aviv | July 8

UPI - Despite differences between the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama and Israel over Iran and the Middle East peace process, and human-rights groups' allegations of war crimes against the Palestinians, Washington continues to provide the Jewish state with billions of dollars' worth of arms and equipment every year.

And there's no sign that this will change any time soon.

Indeed, Obama has endorsed a military aid package worth up to $30 billion, without conditions, over the next 10 years that was set up by the administration of President George W. Bush in 2007.

That represents a 25 percent increase in the vast U.S. military and security assistance given to Israel during the Bush administration.

With annual military aid of some $2 billion, Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. largesse in the world.

Arms sales have largely been an important instrument of U.S. foreign policy for many years. But these days there are new dynamics to consider.

With the U.S. military transforming itself from a force designed to fight major conventional inter-state wars with armored phalanxes, carrier task forces and the biggest, most powerful air force in the world to one able to counter agile non-state insurgent forces, as in Iraq or Afghanistan, the vast U.S. defense industry needs to find other markets for its tanks, warships and fighter-bombers.

Hence the huge $30 billion package for Israel, which should help keep production lines for the F-35 advanced stealth fighter and other big-ticket items going for a while.

Most of this military aid is simply a credit line to U.S. defense contractors since the money has to be spent on American systems.

As it is, the Israelis were only marked down for a $30 billion package because the Bush administration wanted to provide a weapons package for the Arab states, mainly Saudi Arabia and its partners in the Gulf, amounting to $20 billion over 10 years.

That, it said, was to bolster U.S. regional allies against an expansionist Iran. To do that meant giving Gulf states access to advanced technology that had largely been reserved for the Israelis.

Thus Israel had to be kept sweet so it did not use its considerable clout in the U.S. Congress to block the proposed sales to the Arabs, as the Jewish state has done many times in the past to ensure its qualitative edge.

But when the Israelis invaded the Gaza Strip on Dec. 28, 2008, in considerable force with the declared objective of halting rocket attacks by the fundamentalist Hamas faction that ruled the territory, but ultimately seeking to crush its military capability, human-rights groups appealed to the outgoing Bush administration to halt arms supplies to the Jewish state.

Amnesty International and others argued that the Israeli forces were committing war crimes by killing large numbers of civilians -- men, women and children -- and using U.S.-supplied weapons to do it.

Bush demurred. Obama also refused after he took office in January 2009. That was two days after Israel called off its 22-day war, apparently so as not to offend the incoming U.S. president.

"Obama has thus far failed to realize that the problem in the Middle East is that there are too many deadly weapons in the region, not too few," says Stephen Zunes, who heads the Middle Eastern Studies program at the University of San Francisco and is a longtime regional affairs analyst.

"Instead of simply wanting Israel to have an adequate deterrent against potential military threats, Obama insists the United States should guarantee that Israel maintain a qualitative military edge," Zunes added in an assessment published in Foreign Policy in Focus in March.

"Thanks to this overwhelming advantage over its neighbors, Israeli forces were able to launch devastating wars against Israel's Palestinian and Lebanese neighbors in recent years."

That was a reference to a 34-day war Israel fought with Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas, backed by Iran and Syria, in July and August 2006.

Now, the Americans are concerned that while they are trying to open a dialogue with Iran over its nuclear program, the Israelis, who see that as a mortal threat to their existence as a nation, will launch pre-emptive strikes against Iran -- using U.S.-supplied weapons systems.

In fiscal 2008, U.S. foreign military sales totaled $36 billion, 50 percent up on 2007. According to Frida Berrigan of the New America Foundation's Arms and Security Initiative, sales in the first half of 2009 reached $27 billion and could hit $40 billion for the year.

Some experts predict that over the next decade arms will be the single biggest U.S. export, with Israel taking a big chunk, such as up to 75 of the new F-35 stealth fighters.

In Russia, Obama’s Star Power Does Not Translate

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:43:05 -0700

CLIFFORD J. LEVY and ELLEN BARRY | Moscow | July 8, 2009

New York Times - MOSCOW — Let other capitals go all weak-kneed when President Obama visits. Moscow has greeted Mr. Obama, who on Tuesday night concluded a two-day Russian-American summit meeting, as if he were just another dignitary passing through.

Crowds did not clamor for a glimpse of him. Headlines offered only glancing or flippant notice of his activities. Television programming was uninterrupted; devotees of the Russian Judge Judy had nothing to fear. Even many students and alumni of the Western-oriented business school where Mr. Obama gave the graduation address on Tuesday seemed merely respectful, but hardly enthralled.

“We don’t really understand why Obama is such a star,” said Kirill Zagorodnov, 25, one of the graduates. “It’s a question of trust, how he behaves, how he positions himself, that typical charisma, which in Russia is often parodied. Russians really are not accustomed to it. It is like he is trying to manipulate the public.”

Others suggested that after decades of social turmoil, Russians were simply exhausted with politics, and had been so often disappointed by Western leaders that they were not inclined to get excited by the latest one. Asked by one Moscow newspaper what they expected to come out of Mr. Obama’s visit, most respondents had the same answer: traffic jams.

Some Obama aides said they were struck by the low-key reception here, especially when compared with the outpouring on some of his other foreign trips. Even Michelle Obama, who typically enjoys admiring coverage in the local news media when she travels, has not had her every move chronicled here.

In the background is the question of race, which Russians view through a complicated prism. For decades, Soviet propaganda hammered home the idea that the United States was an irredeemably racist country, as opposed to the Communist bloc nations. But Russia in recent years has been plagued by racist violence against people from the Caucasus region and Central Asia, as well as other immigrants.

Yet many young Russians, like David Zokhrabian, 21, who recently received a graduate degree in international relations from Moscow State University, said Mr. Obama’s race cut both ways. “Students in Moscow, they are pretty positive about this,” he said. “It’s cool, modern, progressive. All the students know American history, they know about segregation, so it shows us about democracy, how it can be.”

But the same cannot be said for average Russians, he said, adding: “It looks weird to them. They just think that America has gone crazy.”

Many here noted that Russia went through an enthusiastic phase with President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, when Russians were reaching out to Americans. Mr. Clinton conducted a town hall meeting in Moscow that was broadcast across Russia (and featured a woman in the audience jumping up and hugging Mr. Clinton on camera).

By contrast, Mr. Obama’s speech on Tuesday, billed as his third major foreign policy address after speeches in Cairo and Prague, was not shown live on any of the major Russian channels, to the White House’s disappointment.

Mr. Obama used the speech, at the New Economic School, to declare that Russia and the United States “share common interests.” The Kremlin tightly controls Russian television, and it was not clear why officials chose to disregard the speech.

They may have believed that there would be little public interest, or they may not have wanted to provide Mr. Obama with unfettered access to the country, which might have allowed him to overshadow Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin or President Dmitri A. Medvedev.

Tom Malinowski, who was a speechwriter for Mr. Clinton, said Russian audiences were always the toughest to connect with.

“It is a jaded political culture that has had a very hard experience with a system that professed universal idealism while delivering unbearable suffering,” said Mr. Malinowski, now Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. “Some degree of cynicism about high-minded ideals is a natural outcome of that.”

He said Mr. Obama’s facility with language gives him the ability to talk around governments directly to people. Mr. Obama, he said, has the talent to “do that in every part of the world, except possibly Russia.”

Sergei Brilev, a top television anchor at Rossiya, the state-owned national channel, said that Mr. Obama’s oratory might not translate well into Russian. He recalled that when he watched Mr. Obama’s speech in Cairo with dubbing in Russian, he found it lackluster. It was only when Mr. Brilev, who speaks polished English, saw the original that he realized what all the fuss was about.

Russians tend to view Mr. Obama not so much with hostility as with indifference. “Despite Russia becoming part of the rest of the world in the last 5 or 10 years,” Mr. Brilev said, “the interesting thing about Russia is that so many things which fascinate the American and European publics are Page 26 stuff here.”

After relations with the United States curdled in the final years of President George W. Bush’s tenure, many people here were relieved by Mr. Obama’s election. But that does not necessarily mean they are overly optimistic about his pledge to improve ties.

Valery Kanishev, 68, a designer for the state circus company, said he was pleased that Mr. Obama had brought his children with him to Russia. But Mr. Kanishev said Mr. Obama’s address on Tuesday would not get him far with many older Russians, who grew weary of political speeches after enduring the wooden recitations of Leonid I. Brezhnev, the former Soviet leader.

In Soviet times, speeches were composed by committees, Mr. Kanishev said, “10 or 12 people who would drink a glass of cognac and then put something together.”

“Russians are the smartest people in the world,” he said. “The main thing is results. Our people don’t trust anyone.”

Younger people were generally more welcoming. Oksana Sytnova, 24, graduated first in her class at the New Economic School, an honor that was particularly sweet because Mr. Obama presented it to her at the graduation on Tuesday.

“For my generation, he is a very attractive politician,” Ms. Sytnova said. “And today’s speech showed that.”

IAEA chooses Japanese as new head

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:57:46 -0700

George Jahn | July 3

AP - The 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency chose a veteran Japanese diplomat as the agency's next head on Thursday, in a tight vote reflecting stubborn North-South divisions of the U.N. nuclear monitoring organization.
Yukiya Amano collected 23 votes, compared to 11 for Abdul Samad Minty of South Africa, with one abstention, barely giving him the two-thirds majority needed for victory.
Even that tight margin came only after hard-fought preliminary sessions. A March vote between the two men — Amano, backed by the U.S. and like-minded countries, Minty supported by the developing world — was inconclusive, showing the divide separating the two camps.

US navy prepares to intercept North Korean ship

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:39:45 -0700

Ewen MacAskill | Washington | June 19

The Guardian -

Kang Nam vessel suspected of transporting weapons, a violation of UN sanctions imposed last week

Tension was growing in the Pacific today as the US navy prepared to intercept a North Korean cargo ship suspected of carrying weapons in defiance of a United Nations ban.

The US navy has been tracking the Kang Nam since its left a North Korean port on Wednesday.

It would be the first ship to be intercepted since the UN last week imposed sanctions on North Korea as punishment for conducting an underground nuclear test last month. The sanctions ban the import and export of nuclear material, missiles and all other weapons other than small arms.

A USS destroyer, the John McCain (named after the father of the Republican senator, who was an admiral), was awaiting orders to intercept the ship off the Chinese coast.

The UN sanctions only allow the US to hail a North Korean ship and demand to be allowed to conduct a search, but not forcibly board it. North Korea has said a forcible search would be regarded as an act of war.

This has the ability to tremendously backfire

Reflecting heightened tension, the US today began moving radar systems and ground-to-air missiles to Hawaii. The Pentagon said it fears that Pyongyang could test-fire an intercontinental missile in the direction of Hawaii over the next few weeks in retaliation for the UN sanctions.

US officials designated the Kang Nam as being of "special interest" soon after it left port.

If the North Koreans refuse to allow a US crew to search the ship, the US could order it into the nearest port. Failing that, the USS John McCain could closely follow the ship until it reaches a port. The US would then be entitled to demand, under the UN sanctions agreement, that that country inspect the ship.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, told reporters at the Pentagon yesterday: "Without going into specific details, clearly we intend to vigorously enforce the United Nations security council resolution."

Republicans, such as the failed presidential candidate John McCain, have criticised the UN resolution for being too weak because it does not make such searches at sea mandatory.

McCain on Tuesday described interceptions without mandatory searches as "a half measure" and called for a tougher response, "Those ships should be stopped and searched if there is probable cause," he said.

But Mullen said the US would first try "hail and query" and if that failed, direct the ship to a port where the country would be required to inspect the vessel. He refused to confirm that the Kang Nam was the ship being tracked or to say what the ship might be carrying.

Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, sitting alongside Mullen, told reporters he was taking seriously the possibility of a North Korean missile launch in the direction of the US. "We're obviously watching the situation in the North, with respect to missile launches, very closely. And we do have some concerns, if they were to launch a missile to the east, in the direction of Hawaii," Gates said.

Japan's Yomiuri newspaper, citing a Japanese defence ministry analysis, said North Korea may fire a long-range missile over Japan towards Hawaii between July. Gates ordered the deployment of anti-ballistic missiles to the islands group. The Theatre High-Altitude Area Defence (Thaad) missiles do not carry warheads but are intended to collide with incoming missiles.

He has also directed that an array of floating radars be positioned in the ocean round Hawaii, known as the Sea-based X-band (SBX), whose beams are meant to track incoming missiles.

"So without telegraphing what we will do, I would just say, we are - I think we are - in a good position, should it become necessary to protect American territory," Gates said.

In contrast with Iran and other foreign policy hotspots where the Obama administration is pursuing a softly-softly approach, it is toughening its position towards North Korea, frustrated that Pyongyang has rebuffed various diplomatic overtures and incentives offered by the Bush administration.

Washington wants Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table to discuss the decommissioning of facilities aimed at creating nuclear weapons.

North Korea has been responsible for secret nuclear proliferation, including the export of information and material to Libya, which has since voluntarily given up its nuclear weapons ambitions.

Defence analysts question whether North Korea has a missile capable of reaching Hawaii or Alaska. Its Taepodong-2 missile in April managed to reach only half the distance required to reach Hawaii.

But defence analysts are also sceptical about whether, if the missile was to approach Hawaii, the US is capable of intercepting it.

U.N. Atomic Energy Chief Says Iran Wants Bomb Technology

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:37:35 -0700

Alan Cowell | Paris | June 17

NYT - Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, said it was his “gut feeling” that Iran’s leaders wanted the technology to build nuclear weapons “to send a message to their neighbors, to the rest of the world: ‘Don’t mess with us.’ ”

He spoke in a BBC interview broadcast Tuesday and Wednesday as protesters took to the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities, demanding that last Friday’s disputed election result be overturned and confronting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with the leadership’s biggest domestic challenge since the Islamic Revolution three decades ago.

Dr. ElBaradei has made similar points in the past, officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency, of which he is director general, said Wednesday, but his latest remarks were less hedged with diplomatic caveats than previously.

Dr. ElBaradei, whose term of office is to expire in November, said in the interview that countries in possession of nuclear weapons were treated differently from others, citing the example of North Korea, which was invited to negotiations while Iraq under Saddam Hussein — which did not have a nuclear capacity — was “pulverized.”

“It is my gut feeling that Iran would like to have the technology to enable it to have nuclear weapons,” Dr. ElBaradei said in the interview at the organization’s headquarters in Vienna.

“They want to send a message to their neighbors, to the rest of the world, ‘Don’t mess with us,’ ” he said, urging outside powers to engage with Iran to remove the incentive for making a bomb.

He said he believed that Iran’s “ultimate aim” was to be “recognized as a major power in the Middle East.”

UN set to adopt tougher North Korea sanctions

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:50:00 -0700

June 12

AFP -

The UN Security Council was expected to adopt tougher sanctions targeting North Korea's atomic and ballistic missile programs in response to the Stalinist state's nuclear defiance.

The 15-member body was to meet at 15:00 GMT for a likely vote on a draft resolution agreed by its five veto-wielding permanent members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - plus Japan and South Korea.

The text calls on UN member states to slap biting sanctions on North Korea.

They include tougher inspections of cargo suspected of containing banned items related to North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile activities, a tighter arms embargo with the exception of light weapons and new financial restrictions.

Passage is a foregone conclusion - nine votes in favor are required with no veto - after more than two weeks of intensive bargaining among the seven sponsors.

The compromise text seeks to punish Pyongyang for its May 25 underground nuclear test and subsequent missile firings in violation of UN resolutions.

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