NucNews - December 6, 2004 -------- NUCLEAR Energy Department Extends Acceptance Policy for Spent Nuclear Fuel from Foreign Research Reactors DOE, December 6, 2004 http://www.energy.gov/engine/content.do?PUBLIC_ID=16940&BT_CODE=PR_HIGHLIGHTS&TT_CODE=PRESSRELEASE WASHINGTON, DC – Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham today announced that he has extended a policy that to date has enabled the United States to recover nearly 500 kilograms of uranium-235 – enough to build about 20 crude nuclear weapons – in U.S.-origin high-enriched uranium (HEU) used to fuel foreign research reactors. The Department of Energy’s (DOE) decision to extend the period for spent fuel acceptance will provide additional time for research reactors to convert from HEU to low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel. The current acceptance policy established by DOE and the State Department in 1996 permits the United States to accept certain eligible spent fuel that is irradiated by May, 2006, and returned to the United States by May, 2009. A revised record of decision, signed by National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Linton Brooks on November 22, 2004, extends the irradiation deadline to May, 2016, and the acceptance deadline to May, 2019. “A principal goal of this administration’s nonproliferation policy is to secure and reduce worldwide stocks of HEU to keep potential weapons material out of the hands of terrorists and hostile countries,” Secretary Abraham said today. “This extension will enable the United States to recover HEU that will not be ready for return to the United States by the original deadlines.” Some countries with eligible fuel have not used their fuel as rapidly as projected or have made alternative fuel processing arrangements, and there have been technical delays in the development of LEU alternatives. The acceptance policy is a cornerstone of the DOE Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), which focuses on minimizing, and, where possible, eliminating the use of HEU in civil applications by converting research reactors to LEU and securing, returning or recovering vulnerable nuclear material. Since 1996, the acceptance program has successfully conducted 30 shipments involving 27 countries, resulting in the safe return of over 6,300 spent nuclear fuel assemblies. Research reactors have important medical, agricultural and industrial applications. Under the Atoms for Peace program established in the 1950s, the United States provided reactor technology to further other countries’ research into peaceful uses of atomic energy. Media contact: Jeanne Lopatto, 202/586-4940 Bryan Wilkes, NNSA, 202/586-7371 ------ The Nuclear Third Rail: Can Fuel Cycle Capabilities Be Limited? Jon B. Wolfsthal, December 2004 Arms Control Today http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_12/Wolfsthal.asp In U.S. politics, some issues are so controversial that they are known as “third rails”—touching them risks political electrocution. Social Security, for example, has often been likened to the third rail of U.S. domestic politics. In the nuclear security world, the third rail has been the nuclear fuel cycle, that is, what restrictions if any should be placed on the ability of states to produce and use fissile materials (enriched uranium and especially plutonium), which have civilian purposes but also can be used to make nuclear weapons. Past attempts to alter the status quo on these issues have produced many political headaches, but few tangible results. On Feb. 11, President George W. Bush delivered a major nonproliferation address that approached the nuclear third rail. In addressing a long-standing concern, he stated that, under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), states were “allowed to produce nuclear material that can be used to build bombs under the cover of civilian nuclear programs” and proposed to close this treaty’s “loophole.” The president said the world must create a “safe, orderly system to field civilian nuclear plants without adding to the danger of weapons proliferation.” The following month, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei told the agency’s Board of Governors that “the wide dissemination of the most proliferation-sensitive parts of the nuclear fuel cycle—the production of new fuel, the processing of weapons-usable material, and the disposal of spent fuel and radioactive waste—could be the ‘Achilles’ heel’ of the nuclear nonproliferation regime.” These comments echo those ElBaradei made in September 2003 when he urged states to consider “the merits of limiting the use of weapons-usable material (plutonium and highly enriched uranium [HEU]) in civilian nuclear programs, by permitting it only under multilateral control.” At that time, he also proposed limiting to international centers the production of new fissile material through reprocessing and enrichment. “It is clear that strengthened control of weapons-usable material is key to our efforts to strengthen nonproliferation and enhance security,” he said. Both of these leaders focused on a central issue: whether the current nuclear nonproliferation system, or the global security architecture for that matter, is capable of preventing states from—or punishing states for—making use of civil facilities for weapons purposes if at some point they decide to abandon the NPT or related commitments. This “breakout” scenario, where a state could acquire virtually all of the weapons-related capabilities it needs under the NPT’s protection, is an increasing concern. Already, the fabric of the global nonproliferation regime is weakening with a chronic crisis over North Korea’s nuclear program and continuing concerns over Iran’s nuclear future. Whether the regime rips apart or will be sown back together is an open question. The answer will have much to do with how the Iranian crisis in particular is resolved. A successful resolution will shore up a security system based on a small and eventually shrinking number of nuclear-weapon states. A failure could help pave the way to widespread proliferation, with many states looking for a nuclear insurance policy by acquiring civil capabilities that provide a base for weapons development. They could add to the 12 countries already known to possess enrichment or reprocessing facilities for either nuclear or civilian purposes. Although a recently announced agreement by Iran to suspend its enrichment activities while negotiations with three European Union countries proceed is a good first step, it is far too early to know if the proposed nuclear deal with Iran is a model or a mirage. Technological Realities At the crux of this challenge is the fact that nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants depend on the same basic raw materials—enriched uranium and plutonium—to provide their essential energy. Most civilian nuclear power plants, for example, use low-enriched uranium (LEU), which is uranium that has gone through a process to increase the percentage of uranium-235 by 3 percent to 5 percent for use in civilian power reactors. However, the same facilities that produce LEU can also produce the much higher concentrations of U-235 needed for the production of nuclear weapons. Moreover, all nuclear energy reactors produce plutonium, albeit some more than others. Some countries treat this material as waste, leaving it encased in radioactive spent fuel for later disposal. Other countries such as Russia, France, and Japan separate out this plutonium and mix it with uranium to use as so-called mixed oxide fuel, or Mox, in power plants. The plutonium-separation plants, however, can also produce plutonium that can be used for a nuclear weapon, creating a weapons potential under the cover of civilian use. The challenge then is how to ensure that enrichment and reprocessing plants do not support weapons activities. Uranium-enrichment plants, using centrifuge technology to purify the U-235 isotope, could be reconfigured from producing LEU for nuclear power plants to produce weapons-grade material within hours. For plutonium-separation plants, even in countries such as Japan, where reprocessing facilities are designed to produce mixtures of plutonium and uranium oxide, the additional purification to a weapon-usable form is straightforward. Inspections carried out under IAEA safeguards agreements can detect changes in plants or the diversion of materials, a capability further enhanced if the inspections are carried out in countries that have adhered to variants of the 1997 Model Additional Protocol, which grants broader rights to inspectors. Yet, inspectors cannot be everywhere at every time. Additionally, even under the safeguards, the possession of large stocks of HEU and separated plutonium is permitted under the NPT as several legitimate peaceful uses for these materials exist. Moreover, the world lacks an ironclad system for preventing defections from the nonproliferation regime or for denying states who defect access to nuclear capabilities acquired under the treaty’s protection. States can acquire enrichment or reprocessing facilities under the guise of the NPT and then legally withdraw from the treaty, allowing these “peaceful” facilities to be used to advance a weapons program. It does not mean all states with such capabilities will do so or even think about it, but the potential exists and must be recognized. It is not surprising, therefore, that some countries may view these plants as nuclear weapons insurance or hedging policies. A Long-standing Problem The fact that nuclear facilities can be used both for peaceful and military ends has been known for decades. The 1965 Gilpatric report to President Lyndon Johnson stated starkly that “the world is fast approaching a point of no return in the prospects of controlling nuclear weapons. Nuclear power programs are placing within the hands of many nations much of the knowledge, equipment, and materials for making nuclear weapons.” The report said every effort should be made to ensure that “peaceful atomic energy programs do not unreasonably contribute to potential proliferation of nuclear weapons capabilities.”[1] Yet, three years later, Article IV of the NPT stated that it is the “inalienable right of all the parties to the treaty to develop research production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.” Developing and many developed countries have long interpreted Article IV of the NPT as a right for all states to acquire uranium-enrichment and plutonium-separation capabilities as long as they are under IAEA safeguards. For just as long, however, some experts have questioned whether the inherent risk these facilities pose are consistent with an effective nonproliferation regime. These concerns have been echoed in U.S. and international export control policies that have sought to limit the availability of these capabilities, albeit in some countries only in the past few years. For decades, efforts have been made to reconcile the two positions. In the 1970s and 1980s, for example, these included the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation (INFCE), the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy conference, and the six-year Committee on Assurances of Supply. Yet, all fell short of addressing this challenge or making any real adjustments to the global fuel-supply system due to concerns about the long-term availability of uranium, potential limits on industry growth, and conflicts between international security concerns and national sovereignty. Countries that have made massive economic and technical investments in reprocessing and enrichment, such as Japan and France, have resisted any moves that might restrict their ability to engage in these activities for domestic or international export-related purposes. States such as Brazil also are pursuing enrichment capabilities to advance their own nuclear industries as well as to claim a position of technical leadership in the developing world. These institutional, economic, and political interests combine to make it exceedingly challenging to find support for major structural adjustments to the international fuel cycle. Now, more than 20 years after INFCE, there is growing awareness that the world faces a long-term choice of either living with or seeking to adjust a system that enables states to develop virtual nuclear arsenals under the protection of the NPT and international safeguards. These issues can be addressed case-by-case, such as the current situation with Iran, or strategically to prevent such crises from emerging. There is a reasonable international debate about the extent of the risks posed by safeguarded nuclear production facilities and fissile materials. States such as Japan with exemplary nonproliferation credentials and fully safeguarded facilities rightly point out that they have complied with all norms and should not be restricted now that countries such as Iran and North Korea have broken the rules. At the same time, as the nonproliferation regime is challenged, states can and should be alarmed at the prospect that more and more states will seek peaceful nuclear production capabilities as an insurance policy again proliferation by their neighbors. Already, South Koreans are calling for the development of a domestic enrichment capability on economic grounds, but with an understanding that it would also balance the nuclear capabilities in North Korea, Japan, and China. In the past, the most effective nonproliferation tools have been those that reduce the perceived need to acquire nuclear weapons in the first place. Economic, political, and security integration of Japan, South Korea, Germany, and other countries once considered prone to proliferation have been critical to nonproliferation successes. Moreover, countries highly dependent on nuclear power are often dependant on outside sources for raw uranium or technical support from supplier states; and reorienting civilian nuclear plants to military production in countries such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan would have to be seriously weighed against the possible loss of nuclear cooperation, to say nothing of other issues, with the outside world. Yet, in the extreme circumstances where states closely allied with the United States would be actively considering nuclear options, violating bilateral or international agreements might be of lesser importance than hard security calculations. Even if production facilities are not intended for weapons purposes, they can create tensions. South Korean officials, for example, are not shy about pointing to the large civilian stocks in Japan as a potential nuclear arsenal, even though Japan’s nonproliferation credentials are impeccable and relations between the Republic of Korea and Japan are quite strong. If the number of reprocessing and enrichment plants worldwide grows, such concerns are likely to grow as well. The bottom line is that states that do not possess the ability to produce nuclear materials are obviously less capable of acquiring nuclear weapons, except by theft or via black market purchases of material. The central axiom of nonproliferation is “no nuclear materials, no nuclear weapons.” Three Approaches to the Fuel Cycle Dilemma There are now three basic viewpoints in relation to the fuel cycle issue. The first school believes that the current system essentially works and that adjustments are needed to ensure that no unsafeguarded or illegal transfers of nuclear production technologies take place. A second group maintains that the possession of such capabilities by peaceful, integrated, and nonproliferation-compliant states is perfectly acceptable and that the focus should be only on states with bad track records, obvious incentives to proliferate, and poor justifications for acquiring nuclear production capabilities. A third, more ambitious approach holds that the national possession of enrichment and plutonium-separation capabilities undermines the very basis for nonproliferation and that such activities should be minimized to the extent possible and exercised only under international or multinational control to provide additional assurances that they will only ever be used for peaceful purposes. Bush and ElBaradei Bush and ElBaradei represent the second and third of these perspectives and have backed up their statements with explicit proposals. In February, Bush called on the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), an informal export control organization made up of the main nuclear exporting states, to deny the transfer of enrichment or reprocessing technologies to any country that “does not already possess full-scale, functioning enrichment and reprocessing plants.” The Group of Eight, which brings together the world’s richest countries, has since adopted a similar position in a one-year moratorium on such transfers, with the possibility of a longer-term extension. Bush optimistically stated, “[T]his step will prevent new states from developing the means to produce fissile material for nuclear bombs.” It is questionable whether even the 44-member NSG is comprehensive enough to prevent the spread of this technology. Bush’s proposals came at the same time that the public learned of the black-market nuclear network established by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program. That network successfully and secretly disseminated enrichment capabilities to Iran, Libya, and North Korea. Controversy continues to rage over whether Khan’s activities were sponsored and approved by the Pakistani government. If they were, Bush’s proposal would have done little to shut down this network as Pakistan is not an NSG member. ElBaradei has voiced his support for stronger export controls and enforcement but has also formed an experts group under the direction of former IAEA Deputy Director-General Bruno Pellaud to consider various alternatives to the current system of national control of special nuclear material production capabilities.[2] Some of the issues to be explored by the expert group are limits on the use of weapons-usable nuclear material in civilian nuclear programs by permitting it only under multilateral control and multinational approaches to managing and disposal of spent fuel and radioactive wastes. In forming the group, ElBaradei stated, “I am aware that this is a complex issue. But we owe it to ourselves to examine all possible options. Common sense and recent experience make clear that the [NPT], which has served us well since 1970, must be tailored to fit 21st-century realities. Without threatening national sovereignty, we can toughen the nonproliferation regime.” The group has already met twice and will hold a total of four meetings before reporting its initial findings to the March 2005 IAEA Board of Governors meeting. The leading nuclear countries, including the United States, are participating, and the panel has governmental and nongovernmental representatives with a broad background in the issue of the nuclear fuel cycle and nonproliferation. Some hybrid solutions are also being mentioned in capitals around the world. Some have suggested that what is needed is a greater assurance that any misuse of safeguarded facilities will be challenged and the dangers counteracted. Openly discussed options include establishing clear obligations that a state must return any and all material, equipment, and technology acquired under safeguards if a violation is detected or a state withdraws from the NPT.[3] The key here, however, would be the ability and the willingness of states to enforce such an edict. Any country trying to withdraw from the NPT or willing to violate its obligations might be equally unwilling to comply with a “request” for nuclear materials to be removed. Thus, states may have to consider military actions to eliminate the potential nuclear option in such states. That, as can be seen from the Iraq experience, is no easy step. Another set of ideas being floated by experts and officials is an objective set of criteria that might allow the international community to judge the “legitimate” need for states to acquire nuclear production capabilities. These might include the scope of the nuclear power industry and energy output of a state, the availability of other natural resources for energy production, a state’s nonproliferation credentials, and its integration into international economic and political organizations. Some would argue this would make it easy to judge between states such as North Korea and Iran on the one hand and Japan and Brazil on the other. It is not clear how such a set of criteria would be enshrined in international operations or whether it could be accepted by NPT members, many of who increasingly express their concern about the discriminatory nature of the existing regime. A less legalistic set of approaches in a similar vein would seek to test the motivations of states seeking to acquire uranium-enrichment or plutonium- separation capabilities for civilian power applications.[4] These ideas would, in various ways, seek to outdo domestic nuclear production facilities economically by offering legally binding and economically attractive options to supply fresh fuel and remove spent nuclear fuel from states with nuclear power programs. Such arrangements could be provided through the existing commercial market with groups of existing enrichers providing fresh fuel at attractive rates and countries agreeing to manage the spent fuel in their own countries or via international arrangements such as an IAEA-run fuel bank or internationally owned and operated consortium such as those being considered by the IAEA experts group. Refusal of viable and economically attractive options by a state would call into question its motives and possibly make it easier to galvanize the potential international response. Yet, as the Iran case demonstrates, it the difficult for states and the international community to muster political will to enforce global standards even in the face of obvious proliferation risks. Assessment The near-term prospects for a new international fuel-cycle system that limits the national ability of states to determine their own national capabilities are not bright. The main focus of nonproliferation efforts for the coming months and possibly years will be resolving or trying to deal with the aftermath of the dual nuclear challenges of Iran and North Korea. In the meantime, procedural adjustments to export controls and tighter enforcement through multilateral measures including the Proliferation Security Initiative, an informal coalition of states working together to enforce national export controls more effectively through legal and even military interdiction, can help slow the unsafeguarded acquisition of nuclear production facilities. Thus, states concerned with the spread of production capabilities may be left trying to enforce a new discriminatory standard where some states are permitted to have uranium-enrichment and plutonium reprocessing capabilities and others are not. This system is inherently unstable and threatens to repeat what many consider to be the main weakness of the NPT itself. Moreover, the two issues are intimately linked. Non-nuclear weapons states are unlikely to consider yielding to what many see as a basic right under the NPT. They will be especially resistant as many already question the commitment of the United States or other nuclear-weapon states to meet their own treaty obligations. In particular, they claim that the nuclear-weapon states have not made sufficient progress in achieving their stated goals of general and complete disarmament and their 2000 pledge that they were unequivocally committed to doing so. In other words, it will be difficult to tighten some portions of NPT implementation without states linking it to other efforts to enforce other aspects of the agreement. What is clear is that the way the world succeeds or fails in addressing Iran will serve as a precedent in the coming years. In accepting an offer from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany to suspend and potentially abandon nuclear production plans in exchange for access to nuclear reactors, energy assistance, and fuller trade engagement, Iran and its negotiating partners may be creating a potentially useful model for others to follow. In the end, however, the choice is between trying to get ahead of the curve by changing the rules of the international system or resigning the United States and other major players to putting out nuclear fires every time a new state attempts to acquire reprocessing or enrichment technologies. If the Iran talks fall apart or other states friendlier to the West decide to pursue nuclear production plans and are not equally opposed, the discrimination among states will be made more apparent and the underlying tensions will re-emerge. If, as many hope, the talks lead to a long-term deal to end Tehran’s fuel cycle ambitions, the United States and its allies should work to establish Iran as the model for a new norm where no new states acquire these special capabilities and those that have them move to operate them in ways that reduce the distinction between the haves and have-nots. ENDNOTES 1. The White House, “A Report to the President by the Committee on Nuclear Proliferation,” January 21, 1965. 2. Miles A. Pomper, “ElBaradei Appoints Fuel Cycle Group,” Arms Control Today, September 2004. 3. George Perkovich et al., “Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security,” June 2004. 4. Ernest Moniz et al., “Making the World Safe for Nuclear Energy,” Survival, Winter 2004. Jon B. Wolfsthal is an associate and deputy director for Non-Proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a co-author of Deadly Arsenals: Tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 2002). ---- The Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Is It Time for a Multilateral Approach? Tariq Rauf and Fiona Simpson, December 2004 Arms Control Today http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_12/Rauf.asp * Not the First Time: The Long History of Multinational Approaches to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle * U.S. Nuclear Trade Restriction Initiatives Still on Hold The continuing spread of nuclear technology, along with the emergence of clandestine nuclear supply networks, has led to discussion on revisiting multinational approaches to the nuclear fuel cycle. The idea had been explored in the 1970s and 1980s but failed to win approval. However, it has gained a new relevance recently amid several new and serious challenges to the nuclear nonproliferation regime: the discovery of Iran’s uranium-enrichment program, which is now subject to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards or verification; Libya’s December 2003 admission and renunciation of its clandestine nuclear-weapon development program; and the admission by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the “father” of Pakistan’s nuclear weapon program, that he had organized a clandestine network to supply Iran and Libya, as well as North Korea, with uranium-enrichment technology. These events have led to a rethinking of how the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and the related nuclear nonproliferation regime might be reinforced. The NPT remains the world’s most adhered-to multilateral arms control treaty, currently with 189 states-parties, the only holdouts being India, Israel, and Pakistan.[1] It is based on an inherent, intricate, and interlinked three-part bargain: all states-parties that did not have nuclear weapons prior to January 1967 are required to renounce any ambitions for developing or possessing nuclear weapons. Furthermore, although these states-parties may use nuclear material and technology exclusively for peaceful purposes, they are required to subject their nuclear material and activities to IAEA verification, and nuclear-weapon states are required to pursue measures to achieve nuclear disarmament at an early date. In addition, several NPT states-parties that are the principal suppliers or transshippers of nuclear material and technology are administering export controls as required under the NPT regime (the Zangger Committee) or to supplement the regime (the Nuclear Suppliers Group). Two basic approaches have been put forward; both seek to ensure that the nuclear nonproliferation regime maintains its authority and credibility in the face of these very real challenges. One calls for the further denial of technology to non-nuclear-weapon states and the reinterpretation of the NPT’s provisions governing the transfer of nuclear technologies. It is unlikely to succeed in light of lowered technical barriers to the development of sensitive technology and the increasing unwillingness of many non-nuclear-weapon states to accept additional restrictions to their right to peaceful nuclear technology under the NPT. The other approach would use multinational alternatives to national operations of uranium-enrichment and plutonium-separation technologies, and to storage of spent nuclear fuel. The first to propose a fresh look at multilateral approaches was IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei. Addressing IAEA member states at the September 2003 General Conference, ElBaradei said that such approaches, based on improved nuclear technology control, greater operational transparency, and nuclear fuel and power plant supply assurances, could serve to strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime while not impeding the development of nuclear energy for states wishing to choose that option. ElBaradei’s proposal put forward the possibility of supplementing and thereby strengthening the nonproliferation regime by re-examining the need for each state-party to control all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, particularly with respect to the uranium enrichment and plutonium separation and the storage and disposal of spent nuclear fuel. Thus, the regime could be strengthened by placing these technologies under some form of multilateral or multinational control.[2] To explore this idea, an independent expert group has been set up at the IAEA to consider possible multilateral approaches to the nuclear fuel cycle. This group will submit a report to ElBaradei in the spring of 2005. Old Regime, New Challenges When the NPT entered into force in 1970, sensitive nuclear technology was widely considered out of the reach of most countries. This is clearly no longer the case. Access to such technologies has increased particularly over the last few years. As many as 40 countries may now have the technical know-how required to produce nuclear weapons, and the legal regime has not kept pace with these technological developments. In the absence of an enhanced legal regime, the sole remaining and somewhat fragile barrier to development of nuclear weapons may be a state-party’s assessment of its security situation and requirements. Such considerations are rarely fixed but alter over time. In the face of external events, a country that now has no interest in incorporating nuclear weapons into its security doctrine may one day decide otherwise. One of the fallacies of the so-called good guys/bad guys distinction is that occupants of these categories may move from one to the other. Betting on future nonproliferation solely on the basis of the current benign intentions of states-parties dangerously narrows the margin of security. Can the NPT Be Altered? One straightforward option for strengthening the nonproliferation regime involves altering the NPT itself, whether de facto or de jure. In particular, some have suggested reinterpreting existing NPT language that guarantees non-nuclear-weapon states the right to pursue nuclear technology exclusively for peaceful purposes if they forgo nuclear weapons (Article II) and submit to IAEA safeguards (Article III). Such an approach, however, is unrealistic. Article IV of the NPT has two interconnected elements. The first reaffirms the inalienable right of all NPT parties “to develop research, production, and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.” The second is a reaffirmation that “[a]ll the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate and have the right to participate in the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy” and places an obligation on the parties to “cooperate in the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,” especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon states-parties, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world. Article IV was specifically crafted to preclude any attempt to reinterpret the NPT so as to inhibit a country’s right to peaceful nuclear technologies as long as the technology is not used to produce nuclear weapons. Moreover, there is no formal mechanism for reinterpretation of the NPT. Any reinterpretation would probably have to occur through a consensually agreed decision at a review conference, which occurs every five years. This is how some past decisions and documents, which have not sought to alter any of the articles of the treaty but to provide benchmarks for implementation, were approved, such as at the 2000 Review Conference, where the states-parties agreed to take 13 practical steps to demonstrate their progress in implementing Article VI of the NPT. Past experience, however, does not bode well for using such an approach. Some non-nuclear-weapon states have expressed frustration, for example, that some nuclear-weapon states such as the United States and Russia have backed away from the 13 steps. Given this history, it is unlikely that a reinterpretation of Article IV would hold or that an agreement on reinterpreting the NPT could be reached in the first place. More broadly, the non-nuclear-weapon states would be disinclined to contribute to what many of them increasingly view as the growing imbalance in the NPT. They believe the nuclear-weapon states have backed away from their original guarantee that the non-nuclear-weapon states would enjoy “the right to participate in the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy,” as well as the right to receive assistance in this arena from “Parties to the Treaty in a position to do so.” The increasing concerns that the states-parties “in a position to do so” are not only no longer doing so but are placing still more restrictions on supply have fostered a belief among many non-nuclear-weapon states that the NPT bargain is being corroded. The Limitations of a Denial Approach Cognizant of these difficulties, a related but somewhat narrower approach has been advanced by President George W. Bush and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. In February, Bush told an audience at the National Defense University that “enrichment and reprocessing are not necessary for nations seeking to harness nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.” In view of this, he proposed that the 44-nation NSG “should refuse to sell enrichment and reprocessing equipment and technologies to any state that does not already possess full-scale, functioning enrichment and reprocessing plants.” This approach also found voice in a proposal the same month from Straw, who questioned whether states that fail to comply with their safeguards obligations “should not forfeit the right to develop the nuclear fuel cycle, particularly the enrichment and reprocessing capabilities which are of such proliferation sensitivity.” The Straw proposal went on to suggest that “this does not mean that they would be deprived of the possibility of constructing and running civil nuclear power stations. These could still operate with fuel supplied by countries honoring their safeguards obligations.” Even though the Straw proposal is closer to the multilateral approach suggested by ElBaradei, both the Straw and the Bush proposals proceed from the basis of a denial of certain nuclear technologies. Yet at the same time, the demand for nuclear energy and related technologies has continued and even risen as countries seek to add nuclear power to their energy mix to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels and in the future to meet their Kyoto Protocol carbon emission reduction quotas. In this world, export controls, such as those of the NSG, serve as a useful but only temporary barrier to further proliferation. They are inadequate to address the most severe proliferation challenges as they rely on informal, nonbinding arrangements that are far from universal. Moreover, in recent years the spread of nuclear technology has been facilitated by clandestine nuclear supply networks ostensibly out of the control of governments. These networks are easily established in response to the continuing and rising demand for nuclear technology. Current media attention has focused on A. Q. Khan and his international associates, but it should not be forgotten that similar networks also supplied Iraq prior to 1991. These networks appear to have encompassed companies and entities in more than 30 countries, ostensibly without the knowledge of their governments, including members of nuclear export control bodies such as the Zangger Committee and the NSG. Indeed, the attempt to place ever more restrictions on supply may well have contributed indirectly to the emergence of clandestine nuclear supply networks. Iran, for example, has claimed that it was forced to turn to clandestine sources to meet its needs for civil nuclear technology when more open sources were shut off. The concerns evoked by these clandestine networks, the availability of and increasing access to nuclear technology, and the possibility that some countries may be tempted to use such technology for nonpeaceful purposes cannot be ignored, particularly given past evidence of some countries not complying with their safeguards obligations. Consequently, it seems the time has come for new thinking or, to be more accurate, for a re-exploration of some old thinking in the light of new challenges. Pros and Cons of a Multilateral Approach ElBaradei’s initiative in the fall of 2003 attempted to jump-start this debate.[3] He did not set out a detailed plan but suggested a few guidelines: He said that any such venture would require proper rules of transparency and, crucially, assurance that legitimate users could obtain access to nuclear fuel for peaceful uses. The potential benefits of such an approach for the nonproliferation regime are symbolic and practical. As a confidence-building measure, multilateral approaches have the potential to provide enhanced assurance to the international community that the sensitive portions of the civilian nuclear fuel cycle are less vulnerable to weapons proliferation, without singling out “good” and “bad” countries. If implemented, these measures may also have the potential to facilitate the continued use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and enhance the prospects for the safe and environmentally sound storage and disposal of spent fuel and radioactive waste. The inherent proliferation risks of enrichment and reprocessing technologies could be reduced by having more than one country involved in their operation, because any country that sought to break out of its NPT commitments would not only be choosing to violate the will of the international community but potentially forcing a confrontation with another state or states that might not want to choose such a course. In addition, such approaches could strengthen nonproliferation norms by requiring nuclear verification and security and safety measures that go beyond existing international agreements and conventions. The partners in such endeavors could conceivably allow IAEA inspectors “any time, anywhere” access rights, in addition to the use of any verification technologies deemed necessary by the agency, as well as other agreed confidence-building measures. Multilateral approaches would provide benefits of cost-effectiveness and economies of scale for smaller countries or those with limited resources while providing the benefits of the products of nuclear technology, i.e., nuclear fuel for power plants and subsequent storage of spent fuel. Similar benefits have accrued in other high-technology and high-security sectors, such as aerospace and high-speed computing. The argument, however, is not straightforward. Opponents of multilateral approaches point to loss or limitation of state sovereignty and independence of ownership or control over a key technology sector. Countries with differing levels of technology, institutionalization, political relationships, economic development, resources, or requirements might find multilateral approaches inconvenient, unfeasible, restrictive, or simply not beneficial. Other might argue that multilateral approaches could lead to further dissemination or loss of control over sensitive nuclear technologies and to weaker nuclear security and safety standards. To be sure, if all sensitive technology is available to all participants in a multilateral arrangement, then there is no benefit to be gained. To guard against this, multilateral efforts must come with some restrictions in order to avoid the risks of sensitive technology transfer. Within a multilateral context, however, this can be done at a larger stage than unilateral denial policies, allowing countries greater access to truly peaceful nuclear technology while discouraging them from developing independent national programs either overtly or covertly that can lead to weapons development. To meet the twin objectives of nonproliferation and “multilateralization,” nuclear facilities can be provided to partners in a “black box” mode, i.e., the technology holders construct and operate facilities that are managed and operated multilaterally, without technical know-how being disseminated. Any viable future multilateral approach will require states-parties with nuclear weapons to set an example by using their enrichment and reprocessing plants to provide nuclear fuel to other states that have eschewed these technologies. Assurances of supply will need to be devised in a manner that is commercially competitive, avoids monopolistic situations, and provides for back-up supply in the event that some suppliers might be unable to provide the required services for whatever reason. Conclusion Most observers agree that the new challenges to the nuclear nonproliferation regime require a fresh response. Any attempt to strengthen the regime by further denial of technology, however, holds little likelihood of success. A new look at multinational approaches to the nuclear fuel cycle is clearly in its infancy, and its progress dependent mainly on political will. Still, despite the disappointments of past initiatives of this kind, such ideas merit serious consideration. It may be that new thinking on an old idea holds out the promise of a strengthened and relevant regime, one that is able to cope with contemporary and future challenges. ENDNOTES 1. According to the February 12, 2003 Resolution adopted by the IAEA Board of Governors, North Korea’s nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) safeguards agreement remains in force and is binding. The 2003 and 2004 sessions of the Preparatory Committee for the 2005 NPT Review Conference remained silent on the matter of North Korea’s NPT withdrawal. Neither the UN Security Council nor the NPT depository states, as far as is known, have rendered any definitive opinion regarding North Korea’s withdrawal from the treaty. 2. The terms “multilateral” and “multinational” are used in a broad sense to refer to arrangements beyond solely national control. 3. For an outline of these proposals, see “Curbing Nuclear Proliferation: An Interview With Mohamed ElBaradei,” Arms Control Today, November 2003, pp. 3-6. Not the First Time: The Long History of Multinational Approaches to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle The idea of a multilateral approach to the fuel cycle is not new. Soon after the nuclear age began, the United States unsuccessfully advanced a proposal for multinational control of the nuclear fuel cycle: the 1946 Baruch Plan. Named for U.S. diplomat Bernard Baruch, the plan called for states to transfer ownership and control over civil nuclear activities and materials to an international development agency. In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower unveiled his Atoms for Peace plan, which laid the groundwork for the establishment of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The real heyday for such explorations was the second half of the 1970s and the early 1980s. After India conducted a “peaceful” nuclear test in 1974, concerns grew that other countries could follow India’s example and use their civilian nuclear program and plutonium reprocessing technologies to build nuclear weapons. Yet at the same time, countries wished to solve this problem within the context of the newly minted nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which sought to assure all states that they would be permitted to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes under IAEA safeguards. Out of such concerns, the first feasibility study on multilateral approaches to the nuclear fuel cycle was undertaken. The Regional Nuclear Fuel Cycle Centres (RFCC) study of 1975-1977 was created to provide a forum for countries to examine the possibility of joining together to set up fuel cycle centers at selected sites. In keeping with contemporary concerns, the emphasis in this and other studies of the time was on the back end of the cycle, specifically reprocessing and plutonium containment. Although the RFCC study drew some favorable conclusions regarding the technical viability of such an endeavor, it also highlighted some potential problems, among them the risks of technology transfer and the interrelated difficulties of providing assurances of supply to all stakeholders, including making provisions for the possibility of host-country withdrawal or interference. The International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation (INFCE) study of 1977-1980, which among other things touched upon the possibility of regional fuel-cycle facilities and prospects for multilateral cooperation on plutonium storage, came to similarly positive technical conclusions. However, due in large part to diminishing concerns over the likelihood of a “plutonium economy,” the disinclination of some countries to give up national control over reprocessing, and the general lack of political will, neither the RFCC or INFCE studies resulted in any further pursuit of multilateral approaches. The IAEA Expert Group on International Plutonium Storage (IPS), the next initiative in the field, moved away from the discussion of regional fuel-cycle centers to examine instead the prospects for IAEA-supervised management, storage, and disposition of spent nuclear fuel. Once again, no consensus was reached as states were unwilling to renounce sovereign control over nuclear technology and fuel. The same fate met the studies undertaken by the IAEA Committee on Assurances of Supply (CAS) in 1980. After seven years, 21 sessions, and little or no agreement among the participants, CAS went into formal abeyance, where it remains. The efforts that began in the 1970s in the area of multilateral approaches finally ended with the UN Conference for the Promotion of International Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy (with the rather unwieldy acronym UNCPICPUNE) in 1987, but like its predecessors, it yielded little in the way of concrete results in this regard. ---- U.S. Nuclear Trade Restriction Initiatives Still on Hold By Wade Boese In a Feb. 11 speech setting out his agenda for checking nuclear proliferation, President George W. Bush called on a voluntary group of nuclear suppliers to implement two proposals to limit the spread of materials and technologies that could be used to make nuclear weapons. To date, neither has been adopted. Bush urged the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), whose 44 members seek to coordinate their nuclear trade policies, to add two export guidelines. One proposed regulation would deny transfers of enrichment and reprocessing technologies to countries without functioning facilities for these activities. Such facilities can be used to produce fuel for civilian power reactors or key ingredients for nuclear weapons. The other new restriction would block any nuclear-related trade unless a recipient had ratified an additional protocol to their safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Additional protocols grant the IAEA broader authority to verify that a recipient’s nuclear activities are confined to peaceful pursuits. Putting a cap on the spread of enrichment and reprocessing technologies has generated “substantial concerns” among NSG members, according to a U.S. government official interviewed Nov. 19 by Arms Control Today. Several members question whether a blanket denial of specific technologies is consistent with the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) provision to allow non-nuclear-weapon states “the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.” Countries are particularly anxious to forestall what may well prove to be a divisive debate at this May’s NPT Review Conference (see page 6). In addition, some EU countries contend that such a rule might conflict with the general EU policy of free trade among EU members. Limiting nuclear trade to countries that have ratified an additional protocol has met less NSG resistance, but the group operates by consensus, so the initiative remains stalled. Argentina and Brazil, neither of which has adopted an additional protocol, assert that this criterion should be voluntary. Russia and at least one additional country have argued against tying all nuclear trade to a recipient ratifying an additional protocol. Instead, they advocate that such a restriction be limited to enrichment and reprocessing transfers. U.S. officials intend to continue to press Bush’s proposals at the NSG. The next decision-making meeting of the group is scheduled for June in Oslo. Although Bush has seen his proposals stymied so far at the NSG, the president succeeded in getting the more select Group of Eight to agree to a one-year moratorium on new deals involving enrichment and reprocessing technologies. (See ACT, July/August 2004.) This group includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Tariq Rauf is Head of Verification and Security Policy Coordination, and Fiona Simpson is an External Relations and Policy Coordination Officer, at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The views expressed here are personal and do not necessarily represent those of the IAEA. -------- depleted uranium International Weapons Conventions and Iran, Iraq Electronic Iraq Omar Khan 6 December 2004 http://electroniciraq.net/news/1741.shtml Map of the United State's Active Nuclear Weapons Facilities. http://electronicIraq.net/uploads/usweaponsites.jpg In no less than hundreds of articles over the past few weeks, our press has tirelessly reported on Iran’s uranium enrichment program, or rather—in characteristic shorthand—on “Iran’s efforts to develop the capability to make nuclear weapons” (Foreign Affairs, 11/24). Early on the morning of the November 29th, however, in “Iran Backs Away From a Demand on A-Bomb Fuel,” the New York Times announced that a settlement between Iran and Britain, France, and Germany (EU-3) had been reached: Iranians had agreed to suspend all research on uranium enrichment. One hopes that with this agreement, daily scrutiny of hypothetical Iranian weapons might also give way to some observations of actual American weapons being deployed nearby. For by many accounts, the use of unconventional weapons has likely been a US pastime in “The War on Terror” during even its most recent episodes. Dahr Jamail of Inter Press News Service has recorded Fallujan experiences of poison gas and bombs that “exploded into large fires that burnt the skin even when water was thrown on the burns”—a trademark of napalm and phosphorus bombs. Though many Americans will no doubt say such claims are dubious, they have reason to: no outside medical personnel or observers have yet been allowed into Fallujah to even allow further discussion of the matter. Less dubious is the continued use of depleted uranium munitions, which as Vishnu Bhagwat, former Indian Chief of Naval Staff, has written amounted in 2003 alone to the equivalent of nearly 250,000 Nagasaki bombs. But depleted uranium is nothing new, having been used extensively in southern Iraq during the first Gulf War. The Department of Environmental Engineering at the University of Baghdad has accordingly measured radiation levels in and near the city of Basra to range from hundreds to thousands of times the normal levels. Dr. Jawad Kadhim Al-Ali, Director of the Oncology Center in Basra, has theorized that depleted uranium may be a reason that the death rate from cancers in Basra has now reached 19 times that of 1988. It was also in Basra that a previous study led by Dr. Alim Yacoup found the incidence of leukaemia among children to have doubled between 1990 and 1999. Perhaps it is such reports that have led Dr. Asaf Durakovic, the nuclear-medicine expert of the Veterans’Administration, to characterize DU as a “threat to humanity.” According to an oft cited August 2002 UN report, the use of DU munitions breaches the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Charter, the Genocide Convention, the Convention against Torture, the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, the Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980, and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. Returning once more to Iran, one is reminded of the adage that history is indeed written by the victors: while the New York Times writes of Iran's "long history of concealment" in its relation to international weapons conventions, there is little need for such concealment by United States Government for its violations of such conventions as they go almost entirely unreported. This double standard at work in the application of such conventions is emphasized by a closer look at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the basis for the present attention on Iran. Article 4(1) says that "Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes"; Article 4(2) says that "All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy," it goes on, "with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world." It would seem that the United States, rather than Iran, would be bound by the terms of the treaty, which obligate it-as a signer to the Treaty-to undertake to facilitate the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials, and so forth to Iran, one such developing country of the world. According to the aforementioned New York Times article, like all other coverage of the standoff in this country, such an exchange was of course not a right, much less a possibility. That right was instead Iran's "demand," one that last week "came in two letters to the International Atomic Energy Agency from Iran's atomic energy agency, whose hard-liners oppose any concessions to outsiders." But as these hard-liners, like other Iranians, have apparently conceded to their US and European watch dogs, the question arises with regard to Iraq, where any comparable watch dogs can be found to concede to. Principle two of the Nuremburg Tribunal tells us that "the fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law." A dying hope of Iraqis today would not be so ambitious as to imagine respite in the face of our longstanding war crimes, but instead an interruption of the silence that sanctions them. Omar Khan is a writer and editor in Oakland. He is writing regular analysis, 'Covering Iraq', for Dahr Jamail's website. 'Covering Iraq' provides analysis and discussion of US mainstream news in light of Dahr Jamail's reports and photographs from Occupied Iraq. Its intent is to identify unreported news from Iraq and to make a broader audience aware of events there. 'Covering Iraq' encourages your comments, reactions, and participation. -------- india / pakistan Musharraf Scorns Nuclear Probe Pakistani leader defends his decision to deny monitors access to accused proliferator Abdul Qadeer Khan as a matter of national pride. Los Angeles Times By Sonni Efron December 6, 2004 http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/latimes429.htm WASHINGTON — Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Sunday defended his decision not to allow international investigators to interrogate Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist accused of peddling nuclear secrets around the world. Appearing on CNN's "Late Edition" on Sunday, Musharraf said the requests from United Nations nuclear inspectors indicated a lack of trust in Pakistan, portraying the issue as a matter of national pride. President Bush met with Musharraf on Saturday and urged the Pakistani military man to ensure that all information about the Khan network's nuclear proliferation be turned over to the Americans. Musharraf promised to do so. But the White House did not ask for direct access to Khan — apparently in deference to Pakistani sensitivities about a man who, as the father of the country's atomic bomb, had been considered a hero. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency still wants to interview Khan, whom Musharraf has pardoned, and Khan's assistant, who is held in Malaysia. Lacking such cooperation, officials view it as unlikely that Khan's activities will ever be fully unraveled, The Times reported Sunday. Musharraf told CNN that Pakistan could do the best job interrogating Khan. "It shows a lack of trust in us," Musharraf said. "We can question him the best, and then there is … a domestic sensitivity. This man is a hero for the Pakistanis, and there is a sensitivity that maybe the world wants to intervene in our nuclear program, which nobody wants…. It is a pride of the nation." Analysts have raised doubts about whether Musharraf is keeping Khan from speaking to international investigators for fear the scientist might reveal the extent to which some of his activities may have been condoned by the Pakistani military. Musharraf denied "200%" that the Pakistani government or military knew that Khan was making nuclear weapons information available to other nations. The Pakistani leader, a key Bush administration ally in its war on terrorism, also said that, in hindsight, the U.S. decision to invade Iraq was a mistake. "We have landed ourselves in more trouble," he said. There was no new information on where Osama bin Laden could be, Musharraf said, but he suggested that Al Qaeda's command structure in Pakistan has been broken by recent military operations aimed at rousting militants from tribal areas along the Afghan border. In Pakistan, both pro-government and opposition parties staged large street demonstrations coinciding with Musharraf's foreign tour. In the central city of Multan, a coalition of six Islamic parties, Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, held a rally and vowed to force Musharraf to quit as army chief if he reneged on his promise to do so voluntarily by year's end, according to Reuters. Loosening the military's control over politics has been a key goal of the Pakistani democracy movement, but the parliament recently passed a law that would allow Musharraf to keep the top army job as well as the presidency. -------- iran Military Sites Off-Limits to UN Inspectors: Tehran Agence France Presse, Arab News 6 December 2004 http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20archives/2004%20News%20archives/December/6n/Military%20Sites%20OffLimits%20to%20UN%20Inspectors%20Tehran.htm TEHRAN, - Iran said yesterday it was not obliged to allow UN atomic energy agency inspectors to visit military sites alleged to be involved in secret nuclear weapons work, but that it was willing to discuss the issue. "It is not a matter of unlimited commitments and unlimited inspections," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters when asked if International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) teams would be able to probe two suspect military facilities. "We will act in accordance with the NPT (nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), our duties and responsibilities," Asefi added. The IAEA is mandated under the NPT to verify that all nuclear material in a country is declared and not being diverted for nuclear weapons purposes, as the United States claims is the case in Iran. But under the NPT and even its additional protocol - also signed by Iran - the agency has limited inspection powers. The Vienna-based watchdog has asked Iran if it can visit the Parchin military base east of Tehran, where US officials have said the Iranians may be testing "high-explosive shaped charges with an inert core of depleted uranium" as a dry test for how a bomb with fissile material would work. IAEA director Mohamed El-Baradei said in an interview that he had "every reason to expect that Iran will allow us to go" to the site. But Asefi said Iran has not been officially asked by the IAEA if it can inspect Parchin, although he did add that "we are ready to cooperate within the framework of our commitments with the IAEA." The IAEA is also researching another site in Tehran, Lavizan II, which the exiled Iranian opposition has alleged is a site involved in the secret enriching of uranium. Iran insists its nuclear program is solely directed at generating electricity, and fiercely denies allegations it is seeking weapons. The country escaped possible UN sanctions last week after agreeing to a deal with Britain, France and Germany to suspend its controversial fuel cycle work in exchange for a package of incentives. "A temporary suspension means a short while, not a long time," Asefi said of the suspension. However he said comments Friday by former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani that the freeze would not last more than six months should not be seen as a firm timeframe. Asefi said Rafsanjani only mentioned six months an "example". An IAEA board of governors resolution on Iran last week had failed to give the agency the "unrestricted access" in the Islamic republic which nations like the United States say is needed if the IAEA is to resolve the Iranian nuclear question. El-Baradei said the issue has been raised that "we do not have the authority to go everywhere" but he said this was a "non-issue because we have received access to every facility we asked for in Iran." The IAEA goes beyond NPT accords in what it calls "transparency visits," when it asks Iran as a confidence-building measure to allow it to inspect sites, even if the agency does not have a suspicion of nuclear material at these places, El-Baradei said. ----- Iran Hints It Sped Up Enriching Uranium as a Ploy By NAZILA FATHI NYTimes December 6, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/06/international/middleeast/06iran.html?ex=1103000400&en=024d39d854d99ba0&ei=5006&partner=ALTAVISTA1 TEHRAN, Dec. 5 - Iranian officials have hinted in recent days that they sped up their enrichment of uranium in the past year to put Iran in a better position to negotiate with the West. In a rare admission, Sirous Nasseri, a member of Iran's negotiating team with three European countries over its nuclear program, was quoted Sunday in the daily newspaper Shargh as saying that Iran had mastered the nuclear fuel cycle since last year, when it came under international pressure to abandon its uranium enrichment program. "We are in a better negotiating position for political work than last year," the daily quoted him as saying. Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's former ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, told students at Ferdowssi University in Mashhad on Wednesday that the government of President Muhammad Khatami had, for the first time, allocated money and facilities to make "advanced centrifuges" for uranium enrichment, Shargh also reported. Iran has taken the position that its nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes, though it has pursued technology that could easily be converted to weapons production. The United States has accused Iran of secretly trying to make nuclear weapons and has urged its allies on the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear monitoring agency, to send Iran's case to the Security Council. The agency opted for a gentler approach and issued a mildly worded resolution after Iran agreed in talks with the three European nations - France, Germany and Britain - to suspend its uranium enrichment activities. In return Iran expects rewards, including economic benefits, political and security cooperation with Europe and help with nuclear technology. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Sunday that Iran was not obliged to allow United Nations inspectors to visit military sites said to be involved in secret nuclear weapons work, but that it was willing to discuss the issue, Agence France-Presse reported. "It is not a matter of unlimited commitments and unlimited inspections," said the spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi. "We will act in accordance with" the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. Despite statements by Iran's leaders that their nuclear program has wide public support, reaction among Iranians to the agreement to suspend nuclear activities has been muted. Except for a protest outside the British Embassy in Tehran, for which about 200 members of a militia force were bused in, no noticeable protest has occurred. Frustrated by more than two decades of isolation and eight years of war with Iraq, many Iranians indicate that they would rather avoid confrontation with other countries. They say their priorities are an improved economy and more political and social freedom. "The government could spend the $12 billion it has spent over a nuclear program for development of the country," said Karim Bozorgmehr, 32, an English teacher. An analyst in Tehran, who had done surveys on the subject but who said he feared retaliation if his name was published, said a majority of people he approached viewed the government's nuclear ambition with skepticism, saying the government was seeking nuclear capacity as a deterrent and as a way to consolidate its power. "The clerics want to get hold of the bomb to rule for another 50 years," said, Reza, 36, a civil servant, who, fearing retaliation, would agree to be identified by only his first name. News of the United Nations agency's resolution last week helped Iran's economy, in which important sectors like real estate and the stock market had slumped over fears that the nuclear dispute could result in a military confrontation with Israel or the United States. "People were in a wait-and-see situation," said Saeed Leylaz, a journalist and an analyst in Tehran. "The decline in the economy and the soaring unemployment led to discontent among people. Iranian society is not ready for any kind of confrontation, and this put pressure on the government to reach a deal with Europe." Iran began its nuclear program before the Islamic revolution in 1979 with aid from the United States, Germany and France. But the world has been suspicious of the nuclear program of Iran's Islamic government. -------- korea Russian Envoy Sees Korea Nuclear Talks in Late Jan Reuters Dec 6, 2006 http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041206/wl_nm/korea_north_talks_dc_1 TOKYO (Reuters) - North Korea (news - web sites) could return to six-party talks on its nuclear programs in late January after President Bush (news - web sites) forms his new cabinet, Russian ambassador to Japan Alexander Losyukov said Monday. "Probably, the negotiations could be restarted sometime at the end of January," Losyukov, Russia's former point man on the talks, told reporters. "We think the sooner we restart the negotiations, the better." North Korea said on Saturday it would not return to the talks involving North and South Korea (news - web sites), the United States, Japan, Russia and China, until Bush assembled his new team and Washington decided its policy toward Pyongyang. The six parties have met for three rounds of talks in Beijing but made little progress. A fourth round scheduled for September never materialized. The nuclear standoff started two years ago when U.S. officials said North Korea had admitted to pursuing a secret uranium enrichment program, something the North has since denied. Losyukov, whose country is one of North Korea's closest allies, also said he saw no signs of "regime change" in the isolated communist state. "It is a very secluded system. They have been surviving as such for quite a long time ... They can go on like that for a number of years," he said. "We cannot expect some kind of collapse of the system in the near future." Reports from diplomats and officials have said some of the long ubiquitous portraits of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il had been removed from public places and fewer people were wearing lapel badges of Kim. The reports have sparked rumors of a coup in the North. "I have not heard of any indications of possible collapse of the regime or drastic changes," he said. "I have not seen any evidence that changes are coming there." -------- North Korea Said to Expand Arms Program By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD Published: December 6, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/06/international/asia/06korea.html?oref=login VIENNA, Dec. 3 - Nearly two years after international nuclear inspectors were ejected from North Korea, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency says he is now certain that the nuclear material his agency once monitored there has been converted into fuel for four to six nuclear bombs. The assessment by the energy agency's chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, in an interview here at its headquarters, aligns with the private assessments of many American intelligence officials. But it goes well beyond anything that the Central Intelligence Agency or President Bush and his aides have said in public. Some Bush administration officials have said they are not eager to update their public assessment of North Korea's abilities, out of a concern that it could create pressure for action - either greater efforts to force the collapse of the North Korean government, or greater concessions in negotiations, as North Korea has demanded. In the interview, Dr. ElBaradei said his judgment that North Korea had converted its stockpile of spent nuclear fuel into weapons-grade plutonium was not based on new intelligence. Instead, he said, it was based on the agency's years of accumulated knowledge of North Korea's abilities, and the amount of time that had passed since North Korea ejected inspectors and began removing the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods that inspectors had been monitoring. "I'm sure they have reprocessed it all," he said. "We know they have the fissile material," he said, a reference to the rods, which can be reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium. "The production process is not that difficult" to turn the rods into bomb fuel, he said, and now enough time has passed for North Korea to have solved any production problems. Until now, the United States has insisted that North Korea has enough nuclear material to make only one or two weapons, based on an estimate made in the early 1990's. Because the United States and the I.A.E.A. have never seen that material or any nuclear weapons, it was an educated guess, and one that has been the subject of considerable behind-the-scenes debate. But it was also assumed that one or two weapons posed relatively little threat: North Korea could not afford to sell its plutonium, or even conduct a nuclear test, if those actions would eradicate its stockpile. If Dr. ElBaradei's new estimate is right - and several American experts interviewed in recent days said they believed it probably was - then that equation changes, and could give North Korea far more leverage. Richard L. Armitage, who is departing as the deputy secretary of state, warned Congress nearly two years ago that if North Korea reprocessed its fuel rods, there was a far more significant risk that it could sell the material. The comment alarmed some administration officials, who have striven to convey a sense that there is not a great strategic difference if North Korea holds one or two weapons or if it holds seven or eight. But internally, there has been significant debate on that subject at the White House and the Pentagon. Last month, Gen. Leon J. LaPorte, commander of United States forces in South Korea, told reporters in Seoul that he was increasingly concerned that "North Korea, in its desire for hard currency, would sell weapons-grade plutonium to some terrorist organizations." Robert J. Einhorn, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and a former senior State Department official who has often dealt with North Korea, said Dr. ElBaradei's comments "certainly create some pressure on the Bush administration." "Would the North Koreans ever sell their plutonium? I don't think so, but who knows?" he said. "It becomes more plausible if they think we are turning the screws on them. And it makes the military situation more difficult," he said, because North Korea could hide its weapons around the country, making them more difficult to target or seize. A spokesman for the National Security Council, Sean McCormack, said he was unaware of any change in the official assessment of North Korea's abilities. Dr. ElBaradei's assessment puts him in the opposite position he was in two years ago, when the Bush administration was pressing him to find evidence that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Dr. ElBaradei balked then, saying there was little evidence of activity since the 1991 Persian Gulf war in 1991. His view was later supported by the American-led Iraq Survey Group. But in the case of North Korea, it is Dr. ElBaradei who appears more willing to raise alarms. That may reflect, in part, the breakdown in communication between the I.A.E.A. and the United States on North Korea - the agency has been largely frozen out of the little new intelligence that the United States has gathered about North Korea's activities since inspectors left. One senior official of the agency said that was to be expected because "without inspectors in North Korea, there's not much we could do with the intelligence." Dr. ElBaradei's assessment, in the same week that he raised new questions about whether Iran might be hiding elements of its nuclear program, frames the two most urgent proliferation threats. While Mr. Bush, who said last year that he would not "tolerate" a nuclear-armed North Korea, has avoided public discussion of its apparently expanding nuclear capacity, the subject clearly concerns his aides. But there have been a few hints of those worries. In September, just before the presidential election, a senior administration official with access to the highest level intelligence told The New York Times that there was satellite evidence indicating that North Korea was preparing to conduct a nuclear test. The statement appeared to be an effort to warn North Korea and China, the North Koreans' main economic lifeline, not to interfere with the election by proceeding with the test. Soon after, activity at the suspected test site diminished, though experts here in Vienna say their own examination of other satellite imagery suggests that a test is still a strong possibility. In interviews, officials here said that if their assessment was correct, North Korea now had six or more "bomb cores." But it is unclear whether those cores have been made into weapons. Either way, the officials said, North Korea's action could complicate the inspection process if the North agreed to disarm. "This is going to be a nightmare if we don't have full cooperation and full access" throughout the country, said Pierre Goldschmidt, who directs the department of safeguards at the nuclear agency, which is responsible for inspections. With so much material now produced, he said, North Korea has had time to disperse it around the country and conceal it. "It will almost be an impossible job," he said. But he said the agency had already developed a plan in case talks between North Korea and five other nations - China, the United States, South Korea, Japan and Russia - resulted in a deal to allow inspectors back into the country. That plan calls for far more intrusive inspections than any the agency has conducted before. Mr. Goldschmidt said that even with full cooperation by the North Koreans, completing the inspections could take several years. -------- mideast Vanunu: Israeli nukes push neighbor states to get atomic arms By The Associated Press December 06, 2004 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/510345.html LONDON - Israel's atomic weapons are pushing other countries in the Middle East to develop similar arms, nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu said Sunday. He also said that tensions over Iran's nuclear activities were linked to the Israeli arsenal. Iran insists its nuclear program is strictly for the generation of electricity. But the United States suspects the Middle East nation has a secret program to develop nuclear weapons, and has threatened to refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council for sanctions. "Iran tried to put pressure on the world to deal with Israel," Vanunu told Sky News TV, defying a government order that bans him from talking to the media. "Iran doesn't need, I think, atomic bombs. Iran doesn't want to fight any state with atomic bombs," he said. "But because the world [is] ignoring Israel, that pushes Iran and other states to try to be equal with Israel." Vanunu also said he felt unsafe living in Israel, although he didn't specify what threat he faced. A convert to Christianity, he has been living at St. George's Anglican Cathedral in Jerusalem since his release from jail in April. "I don't feel safe, I don't feel free, the only place I can feel freedom and enjoy new life after 18 years will be far away from Israel, abroad in England, or in Europe, or the United States," he told Sky News TV. -------- russia Russia reveals new missile threat MOSCOW (AFP) Dec 06, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041206184729.a51w65e1.html Russia revealed Monday it was fitting its strategic bombers with cruise missiles capable of delivering a massive precision strike thousands of miles away -- giving away the first clear hint of its post-Cold War military strategy. "Russia's long-range air force finally has a new weapon," the government's Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily announced in a headline. "We now have a strategic cruise missile with a non-nuclear warhead," the paper wrote "We have broken the US monopoly on the use long-range conventional cruise missiles," an unnamed senior air force commander told ITAR-TASS. The technology appears to be similar to cruise missiles that the United States has long attached to its own intercontinental bombers like the B-2 Stealth bomber. The announcement followed months of cryptic statements from President Vladimir Putin and his top generals that Russia was developing a new missile program that is a step ahead of any Western rivals -- including technology developed by the United States. Putin declared last month that Russia had "conducted tests of the latest nuclear rocket systems" in a cryptic comment that puzzled military strategists but seemed aimed at Washington and its mooted missile defense shield that Moscow considers illegal. Russia has been developing a range of new missiles capable of penetrating US defenses as a result. Generals announced earlier this year the successful tests of a hypersonic intercontinental missile that has no officially-confirmed rival in the United States. Moscow is also believed to be developing a multi-stage intercontinental ballistic missile that uses cruise missile technology to zigzag and avoid being shot down once it re-enters the earth's atmosphere. Finally Russia announced that it was making its most feared and powerful trans-Atlantic missile mobile within the next two years. But the latest technology announced Monday would see old Soviet-era conventional missiles be carried by strategic bombers with a global range. The Russian government daily said tests of the new system were being conducted in military exercises now under way in southern Russia. "This year, our strategic Tu-160 and Tu-95s bombers have been equipped with new non-nuclear precision weapons," ITAR-TASS quoted an unnamed Russian air force general as saying. "These cruise missiles have a range of more than 3,000 kilometersmiles) and can miss a target by no more than a few meters while carrying a warhead of hundreds of kilotons," the source said. The report failed to specify the type of missile being used. The bombers currently carry an intercontinental ballistic missile called X-55 (AS-15 Kent according to Western classification) that was first deployed in 1983. But Russian news reports said at least some of the planes will now be re-equipped with a new smaller missile which in Russian is called OFAB-500 and which carries a massive cluster bomb weighing 515 kilograms (1,130 pounds). The pudgy weapon only has a top speed of 1,200 kilometers (720 miles) an hour but would be launched from bombers that can reach any spot on earth. A military source told ITAR-TASS the first Tu-160 has been equipped with 45 tons of bombs -- or about 90 missiles. "These new cruise missiles are a very precise weapon," the Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) official defense ministry newspaper wrote. "The crew will be capable of delivering, as they say, a 'present' through an open window," the paper said. However the Russian government daily pointed out that Moscow has a long way to go before it can catch up with Washington. Rossiyskaya Gazeta estimated said the United States now has 5,000 non-nuclear-tipped cruise missiles with up to 700 of them attached to global B-52 and B-2 bombers. The unnamed general told ITAR-TASS that Russia's technology was primarily aimed for "anti-terrorist operations" rather than a major war. -------- Russia Seeks Safety in Nuclear Arms No more a superpower, its conventional forces greatly weakened, Moscow increasingly relies on the deterrent power of atomic weapons. Los Angeles Times By David Holley December 6, 2004 http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/latimes427.htm MOSCOW — It was near the end of President Vladimir V. Putin's reelection campaign early this year, and two days of high-profile military exercises highlighting his role as Russia's commander in chief had been marred by failed tests of submarine-launched missiles. But with a few cryptic words, Putin dispelled the gloom. The exercises, he said at a news conference, confirmed that Russia would soon possess intercontinental nuclear weapons capable of maneuvering in flight to evade antimissile defenses. "No other country in the world has such weapons systems," Putin said. "It means that Russia has been and will remain one of the biggest nuclear missile powers in the world. Some people may like it and some may not, but everyone will have to reckon with it." The end of the Cold War, improved relations with the U.S. and the personal rapport between Putin and President Bush have all served to make Moscow's military seem far less ominous than in Soviet times. On top of that, Russia's conventional forces have vastly weakened. The sad state of its regular military has forced Moscow to place fresh emphasis on nuclear weapons in order to protect its interests in Europe and Asia. Washington is building military bases in some former Soviet republics. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has expanded eastward into the former Soviet Baltic republics. Washington has continued to develop missile defenses. The world may now have only one superpower, but the United States and Russia still could destroy each other many times over. Source of Prestige "In the current situation the role of nuclear weapons for Russia is hard to overestimate," said retired Gen. Makhmut Gareyev, president of the Academy of Military Sciences in Moscow. "Basically it is the only factor which can still ensure our country's safety. We have nothing else to repel strategic military threats anymore." Nuclear weapons also ensure prestige for Russia. Some Russian analysts maintain that their country's nuclear arsenal is the only reason it has been given a seat at the table with the world's major industrial powers. "It shouldn't be forgotten that Russia was invited to the G-8 because it has around 800 strategic missiles," military analyst Victor Litovkin wrote recently in the weekly newspaper Moskovskie Novosti. "Strategic missiles remain the only chance to make the world respect Russia in the near future." Those within Russia's military and political elite who favor greater spending on nuclear weapons promote such views, said Ivan Safranchuk, head of the Moscow office of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information. "I do not exclude that Putin buys this argument to some extent," he added. The conventional forces are a shadow of the army that NATO once feared could overrun Western Europe. Dispirited and poorly trained draftees equipped with aging and badly maintained weapons have taken a beating from separatists in the southern republic of Chechnya. A tradition of brutal hazing still leads to high rates of suicide and desertion among conscripts. The army is top-heavy and works with a technologically outdated command and control system. But Russia has about 7,800 operational nuclear warheads, roughly divided between 4,400 strategic warheads and 3,400 tactical nuclear weapons, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an American journal considered among the most authoritative public sources for such information. An additional 9,000 warheads are in storage or officially out of service and awaiting dismantling. The United States, the journal said, has about one-third more strategic warheads, but a smaller total stockpile. Russia's land- and submarine-launched strategic warheads have a total explosive power equal to about 120,000 bombs of the size that destroyed Hiroshima. A single Hiroshima-sized blast in downtown Los Angeles, according to a computer projection done several years ago by Physicians for Social Responsibility, would kill about 150,000 people immediately and 100,000 more from neutron and gamma radiation. An additional 800,000 people would be exposed to high-level radiation. Relying on Topol-M Although the futuristic new weapon that Putin alluded to during his campaign and again in comments on Nov. 17 may never be deployed, Russia is already modernizing its nuclear forces. The silo-based Topol-M missile, first deployed in 1997, was designed to accelerate faster during its booster phase to counter U.S. efforts to shoot down missiles immediately after launch. At least 36 are now in service, and a mobile version is in final testing. They will form the core of Russia's land-based missile force after 2015, said Yuri Solomonov, director of the state-run Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology, the missile's builder. The Topol-M "belongs to the next generation of missile weaponry and differs fundamentally from everything that has been done before in this field in our country and abroad," Solomonov told journalists in May. Russia has had more trouble developing a missile for use on new submarines. Many of Russia's aging Soviet-era submarines have been scrapped. Some have been refurbished and three new ones are being built. "The old submarines should go to a junkyard already. It's time," said Pavel Zolotarev, another retired general who is now deputy director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' USA-Canada Institute. "And a new submarine needs a new missile to be installed in it — more perfect, more safe, more reliable." Four years ago, leaking torpedo propellant caused an explosion that sank the Kursk nuclear submarine, killing its 118-man crew in what Russia's top prosecutor called a technical malfunction for which no one was to blame. Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov said the accident on Aug. 12, 2000, was triggered by a leak of highly unstable hydrogen peroxide that exploded after contact with kerosene and the metal body of the torpedo. Construction of the three new submarines has been delayed, partly because of missile failures. Several missiles test-launched in the late 1990s blew up before reaching their targets. A new missile, the Bulava-30, was successfully tested in September, according to a Russian military publication. Like the Topol-M, the Bulava-30 boasts fast acceleration on takeoff and other "enhanced systems" to overcome missile defenses, the journal reported. The first of the new submarines, named the Yuri Dolgoruky after Moscow's 12th century founder, is scheduled for delivery by 2006. All three are supposed to be in service by 2012. Washington and Moscow may not have any intention of unleashing these weapons, but neither side fully trusts the other, either. And both are concerned about the possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists. Bush and Putin have agreed to reduce deployed strategic nuclear weapons to no more than 2,200 each by 2012. However, their agreement contributed to the final demise of the 1993 START II treaty. The pact would have eliminated all land-based strategic missiles equipped with multiple warheads. During the Cold War, missiles fitted with multiple warheads were considered particularly destabilizing. If one side launched the missiles first, it could theoretically destroy a larger number of enemy missiles than the number it used. That arithmetic made it more difficult to reach a stable balance between the two sides. Both Washington and Moscow now plan to retain missiles with multiple warheads, and neither is under any obligation to destroy nonoperational warheads, leading some critics to question whether real arms control is taking place. With so many bombs still in so many places, a lot of things could go wrong. The danger of terrorists gaining possession of a nuclear bomb may head the list. Zolotarev, of the USA-Canada Institute, said terrorists could try to trick Moscow and Washington into firing missiles at each other. He painted a scenario where three events take place simultaneously: a sea-launched missile of undetermined origin is fired toward Russia, a so-called dirty bomb — a conventional device rigged with radioactive materials — explodes in a Russian city, and false information gets into the nuclear weapons management system. "We must take into account that terrorists also get the knack of modern technologies, and to pit one nuclear power against the other nuclear power, to achieve their mutual destruction, can be a very alluring task," Zolotarev said. Although unlikely, he said it was a bigger threat than a war between Russia and the United States. But that possibility hadn't disappeared altogether, either. "There are forces in the United States which still dream of dismembering Russia and bringing it to its knees, all the way down," said Gareyev, the military academy president. "What if these forces gain the upper hand in Washington?" Defense Spending Such worries, together with Russia's new-found oil wealth and the high cost of reforming conventional forces, have combined to trigger a rapid increase in defense spending. Russia's military budget — including items listed under other headings — has grown 84% in real terms since 1999, according to calculations by Safranchuk. The official military budget is set to jump an additional 17% next year, to about $22 billion. In the late 1990s, when funds were tight, maintenance of Russia's nuclear forces was a top priority, Safranchuk said. "The nuclear umbrella was regarded as a must to be funded, and it was taking up to 80% of procurement and research and development money," he said. The nuclear forces lost their luster for a few years, but now seem to have regained it, he said. Russia's official budget proposal for 2005 earmarks $300 million for the nuclear weapons sector and $2.8 billion for military research, the Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported. Many details of Russian military spending are secret, but the research category could include significant nuclear-related activities. Alexei G. Arbatov, former deputy chairman of the defense committee of the lower house of parliament, said political leaders should tell defense planners on both sides to stop regarding the other side as a potential enemy. "Until they are told not to do so … this will continue to poison our relations," he told a forum on U.S.-Russian security issues earlier this year at the Carnegie Center Moscow. Nuclear weapons take years to develop, and with the Topol-M missile, Russia has countered one element of the Reagan-era "Star Wars" defense idea of a space-based laser system that would destroy missiles during their boost stage, Safranchuk said. There are no details available on the maneuvering device Putin referred to in February, but it apparently is designed to protect a warhead after a ballistic missile reenters Earth's atmosphere. Russian experts have suggested it might resemble a cruise missile, or that it could be a gliding warhead that could use its momentum and the resistance of the atmosphere to change directions and evade U.S. defense systems. Whether or not this new technology is deployed, for the foreseeable future Russia still has enough weapons to simply overwhelm any U.S. antimissile defense. The Bush administration, for its part, insists that the purpose of antimissile defense is not to provide a shield against Russia but against a small number of missiles launched by a rogue state such as North Korea. Pentagon officials say they closely monitor advances in ballistic missile technology by countries such as Russia and China, especially those that may affect plans for U.S. defense systems. "We'd be fools to think that Russia is not taking steps to develop its ballistic missile capabilities," said one defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. In the past, defense experts have said that a maneuverable missile could evade a missile defense system. U.S. officials prefer to emphasize U.S.-Russian cooperation on terrorism and on reducing nuclear arsenals. Brookings Institute President Strobe Talbott, a Russia expert who was deputy secretary of state in the Clinton administration, said that although U.S. policymakers had not completely dismissed the possibility of a confrontation with Russia, "they do not lay awake at night worrying about 'the bad Russia, the bad bear' coming out of its lair and threatening the United States." However, U.S. officials are expressing concern about Russia's investments in submarines capable of carrying nuclear missiles because the money could be better spent elsewhere, he said. "They say, 'This is bad because it's money that Russia can't afford. It's money that Russia ought to be spending on becoming a modern country.' " Zolotarev said Russia and the United States should never allow any other countries to match the size of their nuclear arsenals. That would, in effect, require the two nations to work together to maintain strategic dominance for decades to come. Because Russia today is concerned with security closer to its borders rather than a global ideological conflict, tactical nuclear weapons may be more important than long-range missiles. "A deterring role will be played by the tactical weapons," Zolotarev said. 'A Great Power' Talbott said Russia had a choice between emphasizing military strength or other forms of influence — the economic, diplomatic and cultural weight sometimes defined as "soft power." "Russia is a great power," he said. "It is going to be a great power forever, for all intents and purposes. The question is, is it going to be a great power that defines its greatness in military terms, or will it define its power in other terms…. If they spend too much, as they have traditionally done, on 'hard power,' it's going to be all the harder for them to catch up in 'soft power.' " Former U.S. Secretary of Defense William J. Perry said in an interview that apart from the cost of maintaining nuclear arsenals and the danger that they could fall into the hands of terrorists, the very existence of the weapons creates a risk that they will one day be used. "Instead of the weapons being used to implement policy, the weapons may drive policy," Perry said. "I think that is the danger." Speaking at the Carnegie forum, Perry paraphrased a comment by Russian physicist and human rights activist Andrei D. Sakharov during the Cold War: "Reducing the risk of nuclear war carries an absolute priority over all other considerations." "During the Cold War it did," Perry said. "Today it should also." * (BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX) Nuclear arsenals Although Russia and the United States have made sizable cuts in their strategic nuclear arsenals, both still have thousands of warheads and delivery systems: Warheads 2000 Russia: 5,096 United States: 7,206 2001 Russia: 6,018 United States: 7,206 2003 Russia: 4,850 United States: 6,140 2004 Russia: 4,422 United States: 5,886 ** Delivery systems Intercontinental ballistic missiles Russia: 56% United States: 25% Submarine-launched ballistic missiles Russia: 24% United States: 47% Bombers Russia: 20% United States: 28% Note: Both sides maintain separate arsenals of tactical nuclear weapons. Unlike strategic weapons, these generally have a shorter range, lower yield and are intended for battlefield use. They can take the form of artillery shells and other munitions. ** Nuclear agreements Here are the most important nuclear arms treaties between the U.S. and Soviet Union/Russia: SALT I (Signed May 26, 1972) Limited strategic antiballistic missile defenses and capped the number of missile launchers for each side. SALT II (Signed June 18, 1979) Would have limited each side to a total of 2,400 launchers, with various sublimits. Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (Signed Dec. 8, 1987) Eliminates ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 310 and 3,420 miles. START I (Signed July 31, 1991) Limits each side to a total of 6,000 strategic warheads with various sublimits. Reductions completed Dec. 5, 2001; remains in force until December 2009. START II (Signed Jan. 3, 1993) Passed by U.S. Senate in 1996 and ratified by Russian parliament in 2000. Would have limited warheads to 3,500 with one sublimit. Russia declared treaty null and void June 14, 2002, after U.S. withdrew from ABM treaty portion of SALT I. START III Would have limited each side to 2,500 warheads. No agreement was reached. ** Increased spending Russia plans a big hike in its military budget next year, after two years of small adjustments. 2000: 9% 2001: 28% 2002: 19% 2003: 9% 2004: 2% 2005: 17% Sources: Center for Defense Information; Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation; U.S. State Department; Dr. Nikolai Sokov, Monterey Institute of International Studies. Graphics reporting by Tom Reinken -------- Some Russian Export-Control Specialists Quitting, Expert Says By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire, December 6, 2004 http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2004_12_6.html#79BAE2FE WASHINGTON — Some Russian export-control officials are leaving the government rather than work for the Defense Ministry, which has assumed authority over Russia’s export control regulatory system for technology that could have WMD applications, an expert said Friday (see GSN, April 23). The departure of the trained personnel could create “gaps” and “loopholes” within Russia’s export-control system, said Igor Khripunov of the University of Georgia’s Center for International Trade and Security. As part of a massive governmental reorganization effort launched earlier this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin transferred control of Russia’s export-control framework from the Economic Development and Trade Ministry to the Defense Ministry. The reorganization, which eliminated of about half of Russia’s Cabinet-level ministries, also saw the downgrading of the Atomic Energy Ministry to the Federal Atomic Energy Agency, which was first placed under the newly created Industry and Energy Ministry and then moved to the prime minister’s office. Khripunov did not detail how many export-control specialists have chosen not to work for the Defense Ministry. Noting that the ministry had a “very militarized culture,” he said that some of the departing civilians were “allergic” to the military and had been concerned of the negative impact of the association to their future employment prospects. There has long been concern that would-be proliferators may be interested in obtaining dual-use technologies from Russian entities. In a report released last month, the CIA listed Russia among those “supplier” countries of concern. Over the past year, Russian entities “continued to be eager to raise funds via exports and transfers” of technologies related to biological and chemical weapons, along with ballistic missiles, to a number of countries, including Iran, India and China, the CIA said (see GSN, Nov. 26). The CIA also warned that while Russia has made progress in developing a system of export-control regulations, “lax enforcement remains a serious concern.” Khripunov said Friday, though, that the departure of some export control specialists did not represent a “disaster.” More worrisome, he said, is the loss of “trained personnel” that the Russian government could ill afford to lose. -------- u.n. UN Nuclear Disarmament Debate Stalled Wade Boese, December 2004 Arms Control Today http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_12/DisarmamentDebate.asp If a recent month-long UN disarmament meeting is a signpost for where key nuclear arms control talks are headed next year, a dead end might be around the corner. From Oct. 4 to Nov. 5, UN members discussed, disputed, and voted on a smorgasbord of nonbinding arms control resolutions at the First Committee, which is the UN General Assembly’s annual forum on disarmament and international security matters. Members endorsed a verification study, supported stricter controls for shoulder-fired missiles, and backed curbing the illegal small arms trade. Yet, no such consensus emerged on nuclear weapons. Countries without nuclear arms pressed those possessing such weapons to do more to give them up, while nuclear-weapon states—the United States most vehemently—argued greater attention must instead be devoted to stopping the nuclear club from expanding. To be sure, this is an age-old argument between the nuclear haves and have-nots, but this latest round came amid the lead-up to a review conference next May on the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which entered into force in 1970. Only India, Israel, and Pakistan—all three of which possess nuclear weapons stockpiles—have stayed outside the treaty. North Korea’s January 2003 withdrawal from the accord has not been recognized by the other 188 NPT states-parties. Many countries are looking to the treaty review conference, which occurs every five years, as an opportunity to bolster what they fear is a weakening foundation for the global nuclear nonproliferation regime. The general concern is that the bargain between the non-nuclear-weapon states to forgo nuclear arms in exchange for access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and the nuclear-weapon states to disarm is eroding. The First Committee meeting highlighted the sharp divisions over who shoulders the blame for the treaty’s perceived ills and how to remedy them. Illicit attempts by non-nuclear-weapon states, most notably Iran, to acquire nuclear weapons are the greatest source of danger for the treaty, U.S. officials forcefully and repeatedly insisted. Solving this problem, they said, will require all states-parties to put a premium on ensuring and enforcing treaty compliance. Assistant Secretary of State for Verification and Compliance Paula DeSutter stated Oct. 22 that “detecting a violation is not an end in itself; it is a call to action.” The United States is upset that other countries have resisted its attempts to take Iran before the UN Security Council for Tehran’s exposed illegal nuclear activities. Many other countries, however, including the New Agenda Coalition of Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sweden, pointed their collective fingers at the nuclear-weapon states for failing to fulfill their side of the NPT deal. “If the nuclear-weapon states continue to treat nuclear weapons as a security enhancer, there is a real danger that other states will start pondering whether nuclear weapons would not be a security enhancer also for them,” Swedish Ambassador Anders Lidén warned Oct. 4. The New Agenda Coalition sponsored a resolution that garnered 135 affirmative votes calling on the nuclear-weapon states to pick up their disarmament pace. France, the United States, and the United Kingdom opposed the resolution, arguing it failed to take into account their past nuclear reductions and neglected “the full range of obligations of all of us toward nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.” Israel and Latvia joined the three nuclear powers in their dissent. On Oct. 8, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker labeled any allegation that the United States had not made progress toward nuclear disarmament as “unjust and untrue.” Washington later sponsored a resolution with Moscow touting their past nuclear reduction activities. It received the First Committee’s unanimous blessing, although the New Agenda Coalition noted that the removal of nuclear warheads from service under the May 2002 U.S.-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty “cannot replace irreversible cuts in and actual destruction of nuclear weapons.” Japan offered a resolution advocating additional steps that the nuclear-weapon states, as well as others, could pursue toward nuclear disarmament. It won the support of 151 states. Only India and the United States rejected the initiative; another 16 countries abstained. Washington’s opposition to the Japanese resolution stemmed from provisions that endorsed bringing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) into force and negotiating an “effectively verifiable” fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT) to ban the production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons purposes. In October 1999, the U.S. Senate rejected the CTBT, which prohibits all nuclear test explosions. Since taking office, the Bush administration has repeatedly voiced its opposition to the treaty. Meanwhile, the administration asserts that an FMCT cannot be crafted to detect cheating sufficiently and should therefore be negotiated without a verification mechanism. (See ACT, September 2004.) These viewpoints led the United States to cast the sole negative votes against separate First Committee resolutions backing these two measures. The FMCT dispute does not auger well for another UN body, the 65-member Conference on Disarmament (CD). Although supposedly the home for international arms control negotiations, the conference, which operates by consensus, has not produced an agreement since 1996, when it finished crafting the CTBT. Washington wants the CD to initiate FMCT negotiations on U.S. terms early in 2005, but the near unanimous support for an “effectively verifiable” treaty at the First Committee indicates the United States faces an uphill battle. A U.S. government official explained to Arms Control Today Nov. 16 that the United States is not ruling out the discussion of verification measures during FMCT negotiations, but that Washington would not participate in negotiations if they presuppose completing an “effectively verifiable” treaty. One diplomat critical of the U.S. approach to an FMCT told Arms Control Today Nov. 16 that Washington’s decision to “march to a different drummer” constitutes a “recipe for further delay” at the CD. The lingering standoff between the United States and a strong majority of other CD members, led by China and Russia, on concluding an agreement to prevent an arms race in outer space also points to continued deadlock at the conference. The United States and Israel were the only countries to abstain from a First Committee vote urging the CD to take up the space issue. Russian Ambassador Leonid Skotnikov pledged to the First Committee Oct. 5 that Moscow “shall not be the first to place any weapons in outer space” and called on other countries to follow Russia’s lead. The United States, which is exploring basing missile interceptors in orbit (See ACT, October 2004), contends there is no space arms race, so an agreement is unnecessary. If the CD remains mired in deadlock during the first half of 2005, which several diplomatic sources say is a safe bet, it could further reinforce the divisions between countries heading into the NPT Review Conference, making efforts to forge a consensus on future implementation of the treaty more difficult. -------- u.s. nuc weapons How Los Alamos is driving the development of new nuclear weapons by Nick Schwellenbach and John Pruett December 06, 2004 zmag.org http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=6808 In 1945, J. Robert Oppenheimer declared, "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds," after he witnessed the first nuclear explosion under the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory. His statement, a line from the Bhagavad-Gita, displayed his own apprehensions with helping to create weapons capable of overwhelming destruction Almost 60 years later, Los Alamos, located in northern New Mexico, once again stands at a major crossroads in nuclear weapons development, but this time around lab officials do not openly harbor the same reservations as Oppenheimer. In fact, Los Alamos, in its own entrenched institutional interest, has been driving drastic changes in national nuclear weapons policy. Now that Bush has been re-elected and Congress has drifted farther right, these troublesome developments are sure to continue After almost a decade of management scandals and security failures at Los Alamos, the Department of Energy has decided to open management to outside competition, with the University of Texas System and several corporations such as Northrop Grumman and Bechtel eyeing the bid Opposition to Los Alamos has been visible at both UT and at the University of California System, the long-standing manager of the Lab Students, faculty and alumni have voiced opposition based on moral, as well as more mundane reasons-the rife security, management, and environmental problems and also whether management would, on balance, yield benefits over the costs and risks involved UT and UC have both asserted that management of Los Alamos brings research and prestige to the university that manages the Lab. However, any qualified researcher from any university, manager or not, already has access to working on or collaborating with research done at Los Alamos. Due to this, several faculty members and students question the professed research benefits to their respective universities that would result from a management contract. Additionally, "prestige" from management of this so-called "crown jewel" of American science is also dubious when Los Alamos is revealed for what it truly is: a bomb lab Proponents of the lab emphasize the few truly worthwhile projects such as HIV research, but downplay the overwhelming mission of the lab-maintaining the current nuclear stockpile and developing new nuclear weapons. In fact, out of a total DOE operating budget of $2 billion, the DOE budget request for fiscal year 2005 includes $1.36 billion for weapons programs, or about 79 percent of its total DOE budget, while other science programs receive a mere 3.4 percent or $59.8 million Perhaps more revealing, is that funding for science programs has dropped from roughly $75 million in FY 2003 to just below $60 million requested for FY 2005. During the same time period, funding for weapons programs at the lab has increased by about $150 million. Los Alamos has clearly not shifted gears from its historic role as a core component of America's nuclear weapons complex On the contrary, recent changes to nuclear policy have many experts concerned that a new nuclear arms race could soon unfold. The Bush Administration's nuclear initiative to develop a new class of weapons coincides with the competitive bid for Los Alamos as well as the congressional increases in lab funding. Researchers at Los Alamos, alongside those at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, are working to develop these new "mini-nukes." Despite the name, these weapons are not very "mini." They range from explosive yields of one-third to multiple times that of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in World War II which killed approximately 100,000 civilians. And like most weapons, "mini-nukes" do not discriminate between combatants and non-combatants These new weapons are designed to deter so-called "rogue" states from possessing their own weapons of mass destruction capabilities Advocates, including Los Alamos personnel, claim that "mini-nukes" provide a more credible deterrence than traditional nuclear weapons because they decrease the amount of "collateral damage" to civilian areas while still destroying targets such as airfields, underground tunnels and bunkers as well as enemy stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons While the feasibility and possible benefits of these "mini-nukes" remain unclear at best, Los Alamos employees along with other officials have feverishly sought their realization. One seemingly obvious reason for the lab's enthusiasm is that a "mini-nuke" project would provide scientists and research with a reinvigorating mission and direction A March 2002 article in USA Today pointed out the relative importance of this factor. Designing new nuclear weapons provides hands-on instruction for future generations of weapons scientists that are fast-replacing older Cold War personnel. Thus, the challenge allows Los Alamos and other national labs to gain a new technological edge and retain the top minds in research However, persuading government leaders to dramatically change national nuclear policy has been no easy task for lab employees. Two analysts from Los Alamos, T.N. Dowler and J.S. Howard, authored a landmark essay for the Fall 1991 issue of Strategic Review calling for the development of what they referred to as "micro-nukes." Earlier that same year, they had lobbied and secured support for their plan from the Defense Science Board with a presentation entitled "Potential Uses for Low-Yield Nuclear Weapons in the New World Order." Unfortunately for Dowler and Howard, then-President George H. W. Bush called for a moratorium on new nuclear weapons development and testing in 1992. Subsequently, the nuclear weapons complex suffered from almost a decade of stagnation as it struggled to adapt to a post-Cold War era The call for "mini-nukes" from Los Alamos employees continued. In 2000, Stephen Younger, then head of nuclear weapons work at the lab, wrote a paper supporting "mini-nukes" and their possible use in the future Most recently, in October of 2003, four employees of Los Alamos authored an essay for the journal Comparative Strategy entitled "An Analysis of Reduced Collateral Damage Nuclear Weapons." This essay attempted to reconcile the development of "mini-nukes" with the Bush Administration's Nuclear Policy Review leaked to the public in January Los Alamos personnel argued that in order for the US to reduce its nuclear stockpile but still retain a credible nuclear deterrent against "rogue" states, greater diversity in available nuclear weapons would be required (i.e. "mini-nukes"). They also stated that developing such weapons would allow US forces to avoid undesirable "collateral damage." In 2003, Los Alamos marked the 60th anniversary of the lab's creation by producing its first plutonium pit (the core of a nuclear weapon) in 14 years. The Global Security Newswire referred to this as "a first step toward reconstituting a nuclear warhead production program," and by 2007 Los Alamos expects to produce 10 such pits a year Along with the resumption of pit production, the passage that same year of the Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2004 signals the implementation of a new, fundamentally different nuclear policy advocated by Los Alamos and the nuclear weapons complex. Most importantly, the congressional Act lowers the bar for future testing and repeals the "Spratt-Furse" provision banning low-yield nuclear weapons The development of "mini-nukes" could prove even more dangerous than nuclear weapons production during the Cold War. As Newt Gingrich stated in 2003 for USA Today, "This would be a weapon designed to be used. It would not simply be a weapon of deterrence, as current nuclear weapons are." The threshold for nuclear weapons use will be lowered because the US will be more willing to use smaller nuclear weapons on non-nuclear weapons states. This would open a Pandora's Box. In turn states with weapons may become more likely to use their weapons, and prod more states to acquire nuclear weapons as a deterrent to US "pre-emptive" war. On a downward spiral the US may then utilize "mini-nukes" to attack these new nascent programs The University of Texas and University of California Systems argue that management of Los Alamos is national service. What they really mean is that university management is active engagement with the warfare state by lending an academic gloss to activities many of the best and brightest might otherwise steer clear. Yet Los Alamos and its scientists and engineers are not simply just "following orders," in fact many of them are shaping an increasingly hostile American nuclear weapons policy from the bottom up. Whoever "manages" the Lab will be directly complicit in a new nuclear arms race. Los Alamos has shown over the years that it is a power unto itself and that, as evidenced by 60 years of University of California management, its main function as a weapons of mass destruction facility cannot be resolved or mitigated by university involvement Nick Schwellenbach is a former member and John Pruett is a current member of the student-based watchdog group, University of Texas Watch (http://www.utwatch.org) -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- idaho Possible Plutonium Production at Idaho National Laboratory KIDK TV By Siemny Chhuon December 6, 2004 http://www2.kidktv.com/x18258.xml?ParentPageID=x3963&ContentID=x60231&Layout=kidk.xsl&AdGroupID=x18258 Idaho Falls - The Department of Energy is scoping out the public about a proposal to consolidate plutonium production at the new Idaho National Laboratory. This kind of plutonium is used for deep space exploration and national security related missions, not the kind that's used for making nuclear weapons. "In a post 9-11 environment, we are really seeing an increase in national security requirements. One of the key points is that the material we have that's available to use for national security--the same radioisotope power systems fueled with plutonium--that inventory of available plutonium is decreasing," explains Tim Frazier of the DOE. Frazier says consolidating all plutonium operations at one highly secure site would reduce the cost and risk of transportation. Public scoping meetings will be held according to the following schedule: * December 7, 7 pm--Jackson Hole Middle School, 1230 South Park Loop Road, Jackson, WY * December 8, 7 pm--Fort Hall Tribal Business Center, Tribal Council Chambers, Prima Drive, Fort Hall Town Site, Fort Hall * December 9, 7 pm--Shilo Inn, 1586 Blue Lakes Blvd., Twin Falls -------- new jersey Small coolant leak at PSEG N.J. Salem 1 nuke (Reuters) Dec 6, 2004 http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=JFIBGI4IL5WFICRBAEZSFEY?type=topNews&storyID=7003972 NEW YORK, Dec 6 - Reactor coolant leaked outside of the containment at Public Service Enterprise Group Inc.'s (PEG.N: Quote, Profile, Research) 1,150-megawatt Salem 1 nuclear unit in New Jersey, the company told the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in an event report. Officials at PSEG were not immediately available for comment, but said in the report that the leak did not hurt anyone. The company estimated the leak rate as 0.68 gallon per minute. At the time of the coolant leak on Dec. 5, both 1,150 MW units 1 and 2 at Salem were out of service due to an oil spill in the Delaware River. On Nov. 26, crude oil leaked out of a damaged oil tanker in the river upstream from the Salem nuclear station. As the oil flowed downstream, PSEG shut the reactors on Dec. 3-4 to avoid possible problems because it uses river water to cool the reactors. One megawatt powers about 1,000 homes, according to the North American average. The Salem station is located in Salem, New Jersey, about 18 miles southeast of Wilmington, Delaware. PSEG Nuclear, a unit of PSEG of Newark, operates Salem for its owners; PSEG (57 percent) and Exelon Corp. (EXC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) of Chicago (43 percent). -------- MILITARY -------- africa The State of U.S.-Africa Relations: A Look at Debt Repayment, HIV/AIDS and the Impact of Bush's Reelection in Africa democracynow.org December 6th, 2004 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/06/1453252 We host a roundtable discussion on the state of U.S.-Africa relations with three experts: Rev. Molefe Tsele of the South African Council of Churches, Muthoni Wanyeki of the African Women's Development and Communications Network and Salih Booker of Africa Action. [includes rush transcript] The British aid agency Oxfam is warning that 45 million children will die needlessly over the next 10 years because rich nations have failed to live up to promises to fight global poverty. The group has released a new report titled Paying the Price that reveals that inn real terms, the aid budgets of rich countries are half what they were in 1960. Oxfam is also estimating that poor countries are now paying $100 million a day in debt repayments. We are going to spend the rest of the hour taking a look at the state of U.S.-Africa relations, the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa, the impact of Bush's reelection, African foreign debt and how the war on terror has affected the continent. * Rev. Molefe Tsele, General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches. * Muthoni Wanyeki, Executive Director of the Kenyan-based African Women's Development and Communications Network (FEMNET). * Salih Booker, Director of Africa Action. RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: We are joined by Reverend Molefe Tsele who is the General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches, by Muthoni Wanyeki, who is the Executive Director of the Kenyan-based African Women's Development and Communications Network known as FEMNET, and Salih Booker joins us again; he is Director of Africa Action in Washington, D.C. We welcome you all to Democracy Now! GUESTS: Thank you. AMY GOODMAN: This issue of repayment. Muthoni Wanyeki, let's begin with you and the debt. The amount of money, $100 million a day in debt repayment, that countries are paying now to the wealthier countries. What effect does that have on -- you come from Kenya but also you talk about the continent. MUTHONI WANYEKI: Well obviously, what it means is that money that should be available for public investment and health, education, general social services just simply is not available. And even though there have been efforts around the HIPC, the highly indicted poor countries initiative, it is clear that those initiatives are simply insufficient: (1) they are limited to a certain range of country, (2) they are tied to, as usual, conditions around the macroeconomic framework underlying how countries are able to structure their economies. So, calls for debt cancellation remain very high on the agenda. AMY GOODMAN: Reverend Tsele, how has the Bush re-election been received in South Africa? How does it impact your country? REV. MOLEFE TSELE: Well, at the state level the word we hear from the President Mbeki is that nothing will change. However, on the ground, there are very serious concerns. Firstly, there's a growing presence of conservative evangelical American groups especially who are doing work on HIV/AIDS. But also there is an attempt to turn South Africa, which is one of the best democracies there, into possibly one of the sea of influence in the region so that in interventions in pro crisis areas such as the Great Lakes, basically the U.S. could continue to be involved through South Africa. And so there's an ambivalence and I can safely say that in the streets of Soweto there was a great depression and sadness after the results came out of Ohio. AMY GOODMAN: Muthoni Wanyeki, the effect in Kenya of -- are you seeing the same kind of phenomenon, more evangelical groups both from Kenya and coming to Kenya from the United States? MUTHONI WANYEKI: Definitely. I actually work for a Pan African organization so I should say this impact is being felt across the continent. It not just evangelical groups. What it means is that American bilateral cooperation money is increasingly tied to a religious right agenda in terms of how money is coming into HIV/AIDS, what kind of prevention strategies are being used and obviously this is at the expense of full demands for women's reproductive and sexual rights, which are at the heart of HIV/AIDS pandemic. AMY GOODMAN: How concretely does it impact them? What does it mean? MUTHONI WANYEKI: What it means is that groups that are talking about the full range of reproductive and sexual rights including the right to choice, including the need for more than abstinence only approaches to prevention are simply having funding cut and it also means that states that have taken a fairly holistic approach in the past are no longer able to do so because this is the biggest pot of money coming into HIV/AIDS. AMY GOODMAN: Salih Booker, you are here in the United States. You work directly on U.S. policy and on lobbying the government, educating people in this country. How are you dealing with this and to what extent do people here understand what is happening? SALIH BOOKER: I think increasingly people do understand what is happening. Certainly on debt cancellation for example there have been movements in the United States seeking debt cancellation, the Jubilee 2000, which became the Jubilee USA network. And we expect that in the coming years we are going to be able to achieve some victories in terms of getting debt cancellation for at least 33 of the worlds most impoverished countries, the majority of whom are in Africa. But the other critical thing about debt, in African countries, they are spending more on repaying these old an illegitimate debts that come from the cold war era. AMY GOODMAN: And who do they pay it to, how does it actually work? SALIH BOOKER: It is largely to the World Bank and the IMF and rich country creditors like the US the UK and France but the vast majority is the World Bank and the IMF. Of course, those institutions are controlled by the rich countries, the G-7 countries. That is $15 billion a year out of the African continent. That is more money than is spent on healthcare in the face of this AIDS pandemic; that is more than is coming in the continent in the form of new aid or loans or direct investment. So you have this cruel irony where the poorest region of the world is subsidizing some of the wealthiest institutions and wealthiest economies in the world. But the other critical thing about debt, also about foreign assistance or aid, is the strings that come attached with it. Debt is used not just to drain resources out of Africa but as leverage to force African governments to implement economic policies that the West demands: Privatization of hospitals and public services, privatization of public utilities like water. So, it is a tool used to maintain and perpetuate this imbalance between the rich minority in the world and the impoverished majority in the world. So when we demand debt cancellation we are talking about unconditional debt cancellation. We are trying to move the discourse toward one of reparations and ask the question of who really owes whom. Is it the poor countries that owe the rich countries or is it really these wealthy countries that have amassed their surplus capital by exploited poor countries over the years. I would just say the same on HIV/AIDS. It is not just that we need more funding. Obviously there is a need for more funding but it needs to be funding that provided to the Africans that are on the front lines fighting this pandemic, not by imposing fundamentalist ideologies over science. AMY GOODMAN: Muthoni Wanyeki, when the stress is abstinence, what is the problem with that? MUTHONI WANYEKI: Well, the problem is, first of all, looking at the fact that the face of HIV/AIDS is increasingly of that of young African women.