Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Qin Gang announced that North Korea would return to Six Party Talks on September 13. Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post reports that John Lewis, Sig Hecker and Jack Pritchard have returned from a trip to North Korea and briefed SECSTATE that North Korea will insist on its “right” to the …
Rattehalli Rare Materials Plant (RMP)
The Institute for Science and International Security has published the first ever satellite photograph of India’s Rattehalli Rare Materials Plant (RMP)—a gas centrifuge facility with several hundred subcritical centrifuge rotor assemblies operating at less 3 SWU/year per machine—located near Mysore in Karnataka state. The facility has reportedly been upgraded at least once since that estimate. …
Gearity on China & Export Controls
A couple of days ago, I blogged about China’s export controls, specifically relating to missiles. One issue was the difficulty of enforcing controls on commercial items such as aluminum powder used to paint heating equipment, powder that can also be used in missile fuel. I hoped Scott Gearity would comment. Boy, did he ever.
One more thing on India & the Khan Network
David Albright mentions that “a very important member of the Khan network in South Africa sold to India’s gas centrifuge program” at 11:46 in his interview with Terry Gross on NPR. See my previous post on India’s Nonproliferation Record.
