'Nuclear Weapons Put World's Future At Stake'

The future of mankind is at stake and all nations must strive to rid the world of nuclear arms, the US President has said.

As North Korea launched a long-range rocket over Japan, Barack Obama dismissed those who warned the proliferation of nuclear weapons could not be checked.
"This fatalism is a deadly adversary," he told a crowd of 20,000 in Prague. "For if we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable, then we are admitting to ourselves that the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable."
President Obama said his goal of "a world without nuclear weapons" won't be reached soon, "perhaps not in my lifetime," but he said his country, with one of the world's largest arsenals and the only nation to have used an atomic bomb, had a "moral responsibility" to start taking steps now.
Addressing his American audience, President Obama said surrendering nuclear weapons must be a global "all for one" endeavour.
"Make no mistake: As long as these weapons exist, we will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defense to our allies."
He also gave his most unequivocal pledge yet to proceed with a missile defence system in Europe.
The shield will be based in the Czech Republic and Poland, on Russia's doorstep.

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Today's quote is in response to the missile launch by North Korea

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
Albert Einstein
US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)

North Korea launches rocket over Japan…

North Korea just fired their missile right over Japan, isn’t that against the rules or something?

‘Provocative act,’ U.S. says; Japan calls for emergency U.N. meeting

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea defied international warnings and sent a rocket hurtling over the Pacific on Sunday, a launch President Barack Obama called an illicit test of the regime's long-range missile technology that threatened the security of nations "near and far."

Obama and European Union leaders meeting in Prague condemned the move and said North Korea's dangerous defiance demanded an international response. Diplomats at the United Nations scheduled an emergency Security Council session for later Sunday to discuss what Obama called a clear violation of U.N. resolutions.

"North Korea broke the rules once more by testing a rocket that could be used for a long-range missile," Obama said. "This provocation underscores the need for action — not just this afternoon at the U.N. Security Council, but in our determination to prevent the spread of these weapons."

Listen to what the people of North Korea think all this is about…

Four hours after the launch, North Korea declared it a success. An experimental communications satellite reached outer space in just over nine minutes and was orbiting Earth, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said from Pyongyang.

"The satellite is transmitting the melodies of the immortal revolutionary paeans 'Song of Gen. Kim Il Sung' and 'Song of Gen. Kim Jong Il' as well as measurement data back to Earth," it said, referring to the country's late founder and his son, its current leader.

Kim Jong Il’s brainwashing and human rights violations of his own people are reminicent of a cult.  Actually, he reminds me of Jim Jones but on a much larger scale.  With that, I say to the poor people of North Korea, “don’t drink the kool-aid!”

North Korea launches rocket over Japan - North Korea- msnbc.com

Technorati Tags: North Korea,Kim Jong Il,Japan,world news,missile,nuclear weapons,politics

What the Vietnam anti-war movement stopped

 

What can you say?
This madman was President of the United States and Kissinger is still around peddling the world view he honed as a Rockefeller empire employee.

What the Vietnam anti-war
movement stopped

Technorati Tags: anti-war,anti-war movement,peace movement,nuclear weapons,video,BrasscheckTV,politics

The Nuclear Vault: The Iranian Nuclear Program, 1974-1978

Newly Declassified Documents Reveal Remarkable Continuity with Today's U.S.-Iran Nuclear Controversy

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 268

Edited by William Burr
For more information contact:
William Burr - 202/994-7032

President Gerald R. Ford and the Shah of Iran confer over a map during the Shah's May 1975 visit to Washington, D.C. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger sits in the background. (Photo courtesy of Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library)

Washington, D.C., January 13, 2009 - During the 1970s the Shah of Iran argued, like current Iranian leaders today, for a nuclear energy capability on the basis of national "rights," while the Ford and Carter administrations worried about nuclear weapons possibilities, according to newly declassified documents published today by the National Security Archive for the first time.  Uranium enrichment capability is now the major point of controversy between Tehran and the world community, while during the 1970s Washington's greatest concern was that Iran sought a capability to produce plutonium, but in both instances the implication was that a nuclear weapons option might not be far away.

 

The documents, obtained by the Archive through a mandatory review request, show that two U.S. presidents dealing with the Shah of Iran, Ford and Carter, put concerns over proliferation and the Shah's possible desire to build a nuclear bomb front and center when they approved negotiating positions for a deal to sell nuclear reactors to Iran.  While Iranian officials argued then, as they do today, that Iran had "rights" under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to develop nuclear technology, the U.S. government successfully sought an agreement that put nonproliferation controls over U.S.-supplied nuclear material.

 

The 1979 Iranian Revolution derailed the agreement, but the approach that the Ford and Carter administrations took shows significant continuity with contemporary U.S. and world policy, which holds that Iran must not use its technological capabilities to produce nuclear weapons. The documents contradict the 2005 claim by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that non-proliferation was not an issue in the 1970s negotiations; this was a "commercial transaction," Kissinger told The Washington Post.

 

The 1970s nuclear negotiations have other parallels with the current situation.  The Bush administration has raised questions about Iranian claims that its interest in a nuclear energy program are peaceful, while the declassified record indicates that U.S. policy-makers during the 1970s were also skeptical of, but ultimately willing to accept, the Shah's similar claims, as long as a nuclear agreement with Iran restricted its freedom of action in the nuclear field.  Significantly, the Bush administration also disparages Iran's assertion that it needs to develop alternative fuels in anticipation of the eventual decline in the country's extensive oil reserves.  But the Shah and his government made the exact same statements in the 1970s. 

 

The record also shows that the Shah's regime and the current Iranian government have made the same claims that their pursuit of nuclear technology was an inherent national entitlement.  No country "has a right to dictate nuclear policy to another," said the Shah's chief atomic energy official in 1977.

 

Among the disclosures in the new documents:

• In 1974 Department of State officials wrote that if the Shah's dictatorship collapsed and Iran became unstable, "domestic dissidents or foreign terrorists might easily be able to seize any special nuclear material stored in Iran for use in bombs."  Moreover, "an aggressive successor to the Shah might consider nuclear weapons the final item needed to establish Iran's complete military dominance of the region."

• According to national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, the Ford administration hoped that the Shah would commit himself to a "major act of nuclear statesmanship: namely, to set a world example by foregoing national reprocessing."

• When officials from Oak Ridge National Laboratory received briefings on the planned Esfehan Nuclear Technology Center (ENTEC), they concluded that the "bears watching" because "unusually large" size of the facility "makes it theoretically possible to produce weapons-grade material (plutonium)" and the ENTEC plans include a "large hot lab," the first step toward reprocessing.

• Questioning U.S. efforts to restrict Tehran's freedom of action, Iranian officials argued that "Iran should have full right to decide whether to reprocess" and the "right to effective control of the management and operation of … reprocessing facilities."

• By the summer of 1978, Tehran and Washington had overcome differences and agreed to a nuclear pact that met U.S. concerns and the Shah's interest in buying reactors, but the agreement closely restricted Iran's ability to produce plutonium or any other nuclear weapons fuel using U.S. supplied material without Washington's "agreement." 

Drawing on the new documents, National Security Archive senior analyst William Burr has written an article to give perspective to the nuclear talks: "A Brief History of U.S.-Iranian Nuclear Negotiations," now appearing on-line in the January-February 2009 issue of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.  While the documents available so far illuminate the negotiations, more needs to be learned from U.S. government files.  To a great extent the intelligence side of the story remains an unknown. So far, the Central Intelligence Agency has denied all documents gleaned from the Archive's mandatory review request, although they are presently under appeal.

The Nuclear Vault: The Iranian Nuclear Program, 1974-1978

Technorati Tags: nuclear weapons,the Iranian nuclear program,Iran,US government,history,Shah of Iran,President Gerald Ford,classified documents

U.S. spurned Israel plan for Iran reactor attack: report

NEW YORK (Reuters) - President George W. Bush deflected Israel's secret request last year for bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran's main nuclear complex, saying he had authorized covert action to sabotage Tehran's suspected atomic weapons development, The New York Times said.

Citing U.S. and foreign officials, the Times reported on Saturday the White House was unable to determine whether Israel had decided to carry out the strike before Washington objected or whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was trying to get Bush to act more decisively before he leaves office this month.

Israeli government officials declined comment on the report.

A U.S. official told Reuters in September that the Pentagon had refused an Israeli request for unspecified "offensive" items that could be used on Iran. To reassure the Israelis, Washington instead gave them advanced radars for spotting missile launches.

Details of the expanded U.S. covert program and the Bush administration's efforts to talk Israel out of attacking Iran emerged from 15 months of interviews with current and former U.S. officials, international nuclear inspectors, outside experts and European and Israeli officials, the Times said.

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Experts: Possible Terrorist Strike with a Nuke by 2013

By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet - There’s no way around it: nuclear weapons are scary. Will fear drive Americans away from Obama’s arms control agenda?

"Megaterror Attack Likely By 2013, Say Experts." It's a good bet this headline caused thousands of Americans to stop in the tracks of their morning routines.
Even by the tough post-9/11 standards of a.m. bummers, it was a gulper. On Dec. 4, the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism convened a press conference to declare that our margin of safety against an act of megaterror is shrinking at a disturbing clip. The commission also issued a book-length study, World at Risk, which concluded, "unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013."

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Iranian nuclear workers arrested for spying

Several Iranians working directly for the country's nuclear research program were among those arrested recently for funneling information about the program to foreign nations, according to an Iranian media report.

The Tabnak report which was released on Tuesday did not say which countries were connected to the alleged spying ring or how many Iranians were arrested in the past few months.

Tabnak is a semi-official Iranian news agency that is linked to a former commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

The report said the arrests were made after media reports which claimed the United States and other Western intelligence agencies were trying to spy on Iran's nuclear program.

Iran maintains its nuclear program is for energy purposes only, despite accusations from the U.S. and other Western nations that Tehran is trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Two weeks ago, Iran arrested three alleged spies accused of working for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported.

IRGC Commander Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari told Fars that those arrested included members of an Israeli spy network who collected and transferred information about Iran's nuclear and military centers.

The network included members who had allegedly been trained in Israeli cities to carry out bombing attacks and assassination plots in Iran, Tehran's prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi, told Fars.

In November, Iran executed Ali Ashtari, 45, who was convicted by Tehran's Revolutionary Court in June of spying for the Mossad in exchange for money, according to Iranian media reports.

According to Ashtari's "confession," published by Fars, he was a salesman who obtained high-end but security-compromised pieces of electronic equipment from the Mossad and sold them to military and defense centers in Iran. Iran and Israel have been engaged in an escalating war of words.

Iran accuses Israel of trying to destabilize the republic. Israel has not ruled out military action to halt Iran's nuclear aspirations.

Several other Iranians are currently in custody, awaiting trial on charges of spying for foreign countries and planning terrorist activities inside Iran

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Pakistan: We're ready for war with India

A peace vigil in honour of those who died in the Mumbai attacks is held in the Indian city of Bhopal...

This is really scary. Actually, it's all just getting more and more frightening. Meaning the violence, insanity and depravity that has completely taken over the entire world.

Pakistan warned it is ready for war with India if it is attacked following the strike by the Mumbai terrorists.
The remarks by Pakistan's foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who also insisted he would not hand over any suspects in the Mumbai attacks, come amid mounting tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
India has said it is keeping all options open following last month's carnage by the Mumbai terrorists, who killed more than 170 people.
"We do not want to impose war, but we are fully prepared in case war is imposed on us," said Mr Qureshi.
"We are not oblivious to our responsibilities to defend our homeland. But it is our desire that there should be no war."

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LAT: Nuclear chief calls efforts against Iran a 'failure'

By Borzou Daragahi

December 6, 2008

Reporting from Vienna -- The chief of the world's nuclear weapons watchdog organization considers five years of U.S. and international efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions a failure, as Tehran moves ever closer to obtaining the means to develop weapons of mass destruction.

The United Nations Security Council has imposed three sets of sanctions to try to get Iran to halt uranium enrichment and other activities, while the United States and Europe have offered economic and security incentives. Yet Iran continues acquiring nuclear technology and stockpiling sensitive material.

"We haven't really moved one inch toward addressing the issues," said Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA. "I think so far the policy has been a failure."

The 66-year-old Egyptian diplomat and 2005 Nobel Peace Prize laureate also urged world leaders to address broader unease about security, poverty and perceived injustice rather than zero in on narrow security concerns, such as nuclear weapons.

"Now, I am talking more and more about poverty, HIV/AIDS" and other matters, he told The Times this week during a rare one-on-one interview at the agency's headquarters in Vienna. The nuclear issue "is the tip of the iceberg."

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Next terror attack on US will originate from Pakistan

Describing Pakistan as 'the intersection of nuclear weapons and terrorism', a top US Congressional panel has warned that the next terror attack on America is likely to originate in its ally's tribal areas.
While observing that Pakistan is a US ally, the commission on weapon of mass destruction (WMD) and terrorism said 'the next terrorist attack against the United States is likely to originate from within the Federally Administered Tribal Areas' in Pakistan.
The US says the tribal areas in northwest Pakistan, where the government exerts little control, are a haven for militants from both Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan.
The commission also expressed particular concern about the nuclear programmes of Iran and North Korea, and about Pakistan, which it described as 'the intersection of nuclear weapons and terrorism.'
It warned that there is a threat of nuclear terrorism, both because more countries are developing nuclear weapons and because some existing nuclear powers are expanding their arsenals.
'Terrorist organizations are intent on acquiring nuclear weapons,' said the report, which was published Tuesday on the internet and will be officially released Wednesday.
It cited testimony before the commission from former Senator Sam Nunn, who said that the 'risk of a nuclear weapon being used today is growing, not receding.'

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Russia upgrades missiles to evade U.S. arms

Russia's military is planning to upgrade its missiles to allow them to evade American weapons in space and penetrate any prospective missile shield, a Russian general said Monday.
In comments to the Interfax news agency, Russia's Strategic Missile Forces chief, Col.-Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, as saying that Russia's intercontinental ballistic missiles will be modernized to protect them from space-based components of the U.S. missile defense system.
The upgrade will make the missiles' warheads capable of flying "outside the range" of the space-based system, Solovtsov was quoted as saying.

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Russia and Venezuala Sign Nuclear Deal in Show of Defiance.

Russia's president Medvedev and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez just signed a nuclear development deal to help Venezuela set up a civilian nuclear energy program.

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Iran Said to Have Nuclear Fuel for One Weapon

Experts said that the milestone was mostly symbolic, and that Iran was not likely to risk a “nuclear breakout” yet.
Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts analyzing the latest report from global atomic inspectors. The figures detailing Iran’s progress were contained in a routine update on Wednesday from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been conducting inspections of the country’s main nuclear plant at Natanz. The report concluded that as of early this month, Iran had made 630 kilograms, or about 1,390 pounds, of low-enriched uranium.

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Nuclear-powered Submarine Accident Kills at Least 20

The Russian navy says the nuclear-powered Russian naval submarine, involved in a deadly accident, has pulled into port at Bolshoi Kamen, a military shipyard not far from the eastern city of Vladivostok. Russian Navy officials say at least 20 shipbuilders and servicemen were killed Saturday when the fire-extinguishing system aboard the vessel was activated in error. The officials say the submarine was in the waters of the Sea of Japan conducting sea trials when the accident occurred. Emma Stickgold reports from Moscow for VOA that the accident occurred amid Russia's attempt to show the world its military prowess, as its relations with the West have soured.

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Olbermann's World's Worst 6/27 - Hannity Flip Flops on Korea

Fox News’ Sean Hannity applauded the Bush Administrations for lifting some of the sanctions on North Korea. However, moments later when his guest, former UN Ambassador John Bolton disagreed, Hannity quickly changed mind.



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Diverse Coalition Launches Campaign to Stop U.S. Nuclear Deal with India

Contact: Leonor Tomero, Council for a Livable World, (202) 546-0795 ext 119, ltomero@clw.org

http://www.clw.org/r/5083/24970/

Diverse Coalition Launches Campaign to Stop U.S. Nuclear Deal with India

Arms Control Experts, Environmental Activists, Consumer Advocates, Religious Groups and Doctors Find Proposed Agreement Would Dangerously Undermine National Security, Global Stability

WASHINGTON, DC –Twenty-three organizations today launched a coalition to stop the Bush Administration’s proposed nuclear trade agreement with India. The proposed agreement would exempt that nuclear-armed nation from longstanding U.S. and international restrictions on states that do not meet global standards to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

The Campaign for Responsibility in Nuclear Trade believes the agreement would: dangerously weaken nonproliferation efforts and embolden countries like Iran and North Korea to pursue the development of nuclear weapons; further destabilize South Asia and Pakistan in particular; and violate or weaken international and U.S. laws, including the Hyde Act, which Congress passed in 2006 to provide a framework for the bilateral U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation agreement.

“When Congress takes a close look at the Bush Administration’s proposed agreement, it will find a dangerous, unprecedented deal,” said John Isaacs of the Council for a Livable World. “The proposal undermines over 30 years of nonproliferation policy, will increase India’s capability to produce nuclear weapons and its stockpile of nuclear weapons-material, and sends the wrong message to Pakistan during a time of crisis in that country. We feel confident that, under the Congressional microscope, the many flaws of this deal will be exposed, and it will ultimately be rejected for the sake of preserving national security and global stability.”

The U.S.-Indian bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement would allow the transfer of U.S. nuclear technology and material to India. However, it fails to hold India to the same responsible nonproliferation and disarmament rules that are required of advanced nuclear states. The deal will increase India’s nuclear weapons production capability, exacerbate a nuclear arms race in the region, undermine international non-proliferation norms, and encourage the creation of large nuclear material stockpiles. Its contribution to meeting India’s growing energy needs has been greatly exaggerated and it would create economic opportunities for foreign nuclear industries without any guarantees for U.S. businesses.

The pact must win approval from the U.S. Congress, which changed U.S. law in December 2006 to allow negotiation of the agreement, under several conditions that have not been met in the final language of the agreement. Those conditions include a new agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency for safeguarding Indian power reactors and changes to the international guidelines of the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group, which currently restrict trade with India.

Members of the Campaign are working to educate the U.S. Congress and public about the dangers of the deal, and are working with experts and organizations in two-dozen countries to inform deliberation over the deal within Nuclear Suppliers Group and its member state governments.

The new coalition’s partners include: Council for a Livable World, Arms Control Association, Federation of American Scientists, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Washington office, United Methodist Church - General Board of Church and Society, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Institute for Religion and Public Policy, Union of Concerned Scientists, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, All Souls Nuclear Disarmament Task Force, British American Security Information Council, Women’s Action for New Directions, Americans for Democratic Action, Peace Action, Peace Action West, Arms Control Advocacy Collaborative, Beyond Nuclear, Bipartisan Security Group, Citizens for Global Solutions, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Nuclear Information Resource Information Service.

Advisors to the coalition include Ambassador Robert Grey (Ret.), former U.S. Representative to the Conference on Disarmament and Director of the Bipartisan Security Group; Dr. Leonard Weiss, former staff director of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Nuclear Proliferation and the Committee on Governmental Affairs; Dr. Robert G. Gard, Jr., Lt. Gen., U.S. Army (Ret.), Senior Military Fellow, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation; Subrata Ghoshroy, Director, Promoting Nuclear Stability in South Asia Project, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Dr. Christopher Paine, Nuclear Program Director, Natural Resources Defense Council.

The Campaign’s website is http://www.clw.org/r/5085/24970/.

About the Campaign for Responsibility in Nuclear Trade

The Campaign for Responsibility in Nuclear Trade, a partnership project of 23 nuclear arms control, non-proliferation, environmental and consumer protection organizations, opposes the July 2005 proposal for civil nuclear cooperation with India and the additional U.S. concessions made to India as a result of subsequent negotiations because they pose far-reaching and adverse implications for U.S. and international security, global nuclear non-proliferation efforts, human life and health, and the environment. More information about the campaign can be found at http://www.clw.org/r/5087/24970/.

Technorati tags: activism, nuclear weapons, nuclear, protest, deal, Jimmy Carter, India