Two announcements of note.
First, the International Panel on Fissile Materials has a cool new blog. (No one tells me anything!)
Second, writing on said blog, Zia Mian notes that construction on Pakistan’s Khushab 2 reactor is now probably complete:
On 20 February, Pakistan’s Prime Minister visited the Khushab nuclear complex, along with senior military officers and top officials from the country’s nuclear weapons program. The Prime Minister is reported to have congratulated Khushab engineers for completing important projects, announced one month bonus pay, and approved new projects. He was accompanied by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Director General of the Strategic Plans Division, and the Chairman of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission.
The Prime Minister’s visit may mark the completion of work on Pakistan’s second plutonium production reactor. Khushab is the home of the country’s first plutonium production reactor (Khushab-I), which started work in 1998, and is the site where two new reactors are under construction. The construction of Khushab II appears from satellite imagery to have started in 2001-2002, while work on Khushab III seems to have started in 2005 or 2006.
