Stephen Aftergood’s Secrecy News commends SECDEF nominee Bob Gates on his record regarding openness, oversight: ROBERT GATES ON OPENNESS, OVERSIGHT As Director of Central Intelligence from 1991-1993, Robert M. Gates, the nominee to be the next Secretary of Defense, grappled with questions of government secrecy more than almost any other agency head and helped to …
Guangyuan Plutonium Production Reactor
by | 2006-11-10 | 2 Comments
Google Earth now has high resolution imagery of what is generally believed to be China’s Guangyuan plutonium production reactor. Click on the image for a .kmz file. The annotations are reproduced from David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, Chinese Military Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium Inventories (Institute for Science and International Security, June 30, 2005). David …
North Korean Ghost Ship
by | 2006-11-09 | 17 Comments
Indian authorities have stopped a North Korean ship headed to Iran. [cue suspense music…] Except, it was empty! [GASP] “MV Omrani-II” developed a snag and entered Indian waters on October 29 and was towed to the Mumbai Port where the crew was being questioned by Indian intelligence and customs officials. “The crew has not been …
NORKS Gave Beijing 20 Minutes Warning
by | 2006-11-08 | No Comments
A new IISS Strategic Comment—“North Korea’s Nuclear Test: Continuing Reverberations”—confirms statements by US and South Korean officials that the NORKs gave the Chinese all of twenty minutes notice before the nuclear test: Chinese sources confirm that North Korea informed Beijing 20 minutes in advance of the test, enabling China to notify other governments. But this …
