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The Second CWC Review Conference (2008) has a nice website and some excellent live blogging by Cheryl Voss and Daniel Feakes.

Somehow, though, they both missed (I stand corrected). Cheryl Vos noticed an extraordinary statement by the Dutch Foreign Minister regarding his hopes and dreams for the OPCW:

One of the world’s best ice hockey players, the Canadian Wayne Gretzky, once said that a good hockey player plays where the puck is; but a great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be. The ambition of this review conference should be to turn the OPCW from a good player into a great player. Understanding the future and preparing for it are key. I wish you a most productive conference.

All of this raises the natural question, of course, do the Dutch play ice hockey?

The answer, as the picture above suggests, turns out to be “yes” — though not very well. That’s a Dutch goalie, letting a pick slip by, in a 3-1 loss to mighty Kazakhstan.

Wonders never cease.

My blog post on Gordon England and nuclear weapons spending (DEPSECDEF Deeply Confused, March 29, 2008) made Al Kamen’s In the Loop in the Washington Post.

While England Slept

Usually, witnesses at congressional hearings enlighten lawmakers on the inner workings of their departments. But not always.

Take Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England’s appearance recently before the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee, in which ranking Republican David L. Hobson (Ohio) asked about something that appears to have been bothering him for a while.

“Over a quarter of the Department of Energy’s budget is focused on nuclear weapons,” Hobson said. “Your department develops the strategy for using these weapons, for what [operations], how many are needed and that sort of thing.”

The problem, Hobson said, is that his subcommittee “is left in the position of having to come up with the money to pay for them, often taking funding away from energy programs or funding for levees. And I heard some complaints that Defense asks for the pie in the sky sometimes because they don’t have to pay for it; it doesn’t come out of your budget, so ask for everything. . . . Do you think this current arrangement makes sense?” he asked.

“Mr. Hobson, I guess I was not aware that we were not paying for these programs,” England replied.

“You’re not,” Hobson said.

“I guess that’s a surprise to me,” England said. “I mean, I always thought we were funding these development programs and funding the DOE labs to do this work for us. . . . We’ll look into that, sir.”

Jeffrey G. Lewis, who writes the blog ArmsControlWonk.com and found this conversation, asks: “Shouldn’t the Deputy Secretary know whether or not his department is responsible for the lion’s share of nuclear weapons development costs?”

Well, maybe. Not essential, but it probably wouldn’t hurt.

To England’s credit, of course, he admitted he did not know rather than trying to make it up as he went along.

French nuclear power company Areva has a cartoon touting the the reprocessing of plutonium though as far as I can tell they use neither “reprocess” or “plutonium.”

They stick to “recycling” and “fuel” to make it sound green and friendly.

The have another video set to, no kidding, Funky Town by Lips. (second Areva ad)

I was reading some recent RRW testimony, when I noticed that Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England was not aware that nuclear weapons programs were largely funded out of the Department of Energy budget.

I often mistake esoteric facts for common knowledge — call it the curse of the wonk. But, shouldn’t the Deputy Secretary know whether or not his department is responsible for the lions share of nuclear weapons development costs?

REP. HOBSON: Well, you will find a lot of differences within Congress in the manner in which both NNSA and the Defense Department approached RRW, and that’s why there’s pushback on RRW, as you see it today.

But let me ask another question, too, because this — RRW is really not probably something you’ve worked on, but it’s something that really needs to be looked at, and what we do with the stockpile in the future and how we handle it.

Over a quarter of the Department of Energy’s budget is focused on nuclear weapons activities or dismantling them, monitoring them and extending their lives. I’ve often wondered if this arrangement made sense. And what I mean by that is, your department develops the strategy for using these weapons, for what their operational requirements are, how many are needed and that sort of thing.

Yet the Energy and Water Subcommittee is left in the position of having to come up with the money to pay for them, often taking funding away from energy programs or funding for levees. And I heard some complaints that Defense asks for the pie in the sky sometimes because they don’t have to pay for it; it doesn’t come out of your budget, so ask for everything.

Is this arrangement — do you think this current arrangement makes sense, or what, if anything, will be lost by requiring the Defense Department to actually pay for what they’re requiring? Will we get more bang — kind of a bad word, but more bang for our buck if we looked at it that way rather than having Energy and — you guys just say, “Oh, we want this,” and the guys over at [N]NSA just kind of bow and scrape and say, “Yeah,” because it doesn’t come out of your budget, it comes out of their budget, which comes through Energy and Water?

MR. ENGLAND: So Mr. Hobson, I guess I was not aware that we were not paying for these programs —

REP. HOBSON: You’re not.

MR. ENGLAND: — with Department of Energy, because — okay, I guess that’s a surprise to me. I mean, I always thought we were funding those development programs and funding the DOE labs to do work for us. So I though there was a money transfer to DOD (sic) to do this. I guess I’m surprised —

REP. HOBSON: There may be some minor monies, but the majority of the money comes out of Energy and Water accounts.

MR. ENGLAND: So —

REP. HOBSON: You provide — you build the delivery systems. The weapons and the weapons development is funded by Energy and Water. And those labs are basically funded out of Energy and Water.

REP. CRAMER: If the gentleman would yield, it’s a Defense function, but Energy picks up the tab.

MR. ENGLAND: So Mr. Hobson, we’ll look into that, sir. I wasn’t aware of that.

Readers, we have failed you.

From 4 February to 7 March one of the Wonk’s favourite events in the entire nuclear calendar took place and we didn’t even comment on it… yes, that’s right, Miss Atom 2008. We can but report the winner: Yulia Nagaeva. Alas, unlike last year there can be no repeat of Jane’s attempts to use ACW to rig the vote.

Note for new readers: Miss Atom is a beauty contest for “girls” (their word, not mine) in Russia’s nuclear industry. Seriously.

Yesterday’s Global Security Newswire has a hilarious story about a Laboratory Preparedness Survey in 2007 (an exercise in which labs are required to identify an unknown pathogen). Obviously, it’s funny for all the wrong reasons. Here’s a taster (or should that be a sniff):

Written instructions included with the testing kits directed laboratory personnel to handle the samples using safety cabinets inside the confines of a Biosafety Level 3 facility. However, not all workers handled the material safely, some going so far as to smell open culture plates while trying to identify the unknown material, according to documents.

Steven Aftergood passes along a little humor from the NORKs, via Xinhua News Agency:

“DPRK Slams U.S. Senator’s Hardline Remarks” — Xinhua headline
Xinhua

Wednesday, December 19, 2007 T09:26:37Z

PYONGYANG, Dec. 19 (Xinhua) — The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Wednesday slammed U.S. Senator Brown Back for his remarks that Washington should not soften its policy on Pyongyang.

The DPRK’s remarks came after Senator Back presented a bill, claiming that Washington should not delist the DPRK as a “sponsor of terrorism” and lift the application of the “Trading with the Enemy Act.”

“Such conservative hardliners as Back calculate they can throw a hurdle in the way of the process of the six-party talks (on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue) and the DPRK-U.S. relations,” said the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

“Nothing is, however, more foolish than this,” the agency said.
“With no desperate effort can the U.S. conservative hardliners stem the trend of the times towards detente over the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula,” it added.

(Description of Source: Beijing Xinhua in English — China’s official
news service for English-language audiences (New China News Agency))

Seriously, Chris Hill has to work with these guys. VOTE CHRIS HILL AS ARMS CONTROL PERSON OF THE YEAR!

For many years, Sha Zukang was a fixture on the disarmament circuit representing China during CTBT negotiations and making the odd statement here or there to cause an international kerfuffle — like when implied that China’s no-first use pledge might not apply to Taiwan.

Now that he is UN Undersecretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, he is fodder for satirical articles in The Onion like this one:

See, I’m not like those other public servants who are dedicated to saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war and promoting social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom. I’m dangerous. I play by my own set of detailed bureaucratic procedures. I’m a rebel. A rogue. And I make the ladies swoon from sub-Saharan Africa to the shantytowns of the Mekong River Delta.

So don’t call me Undersecretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Sha Zukang. Call me Daddy.

Regular Wonk readers will know that the question of how long it would take Japan to build the Bomb has been a subject of interest in the past. See here and here for starters.

Well, we now have a new low-ball estimate. Global Security Newswire (not exactly a scoop for ACW, I know) reports a speech from Gary Sick last week:

Experts have told him that Japan is so close to a weapons capacity that Tokyo “could do it, sort of, over a long weekend.”

I’d just love that word: “experts”…

The China Academy of Engineering Physics has a new website.

Make sure the sound is on.