North Korea has shut down its 5 MWe reactor at Yongbyon, probably to unload spent fuel rods that will be reprocessed to recover plutonium for North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Senior North Korean officials recently informed Selig Harrison of the impending shutdown. Unloading the 8,000 fuel rods, which contain enough plutonium for two or more …
State Dept. Terrorism Report Begone!
by | 2005-04-18 | 2 Comments
The State Department will no longer publish “Patterns of Global Terrorism.” Some officials justified the decision based on methodologocal objetions, but others suggested the statistics were suppressed because they contained bad news about the war on terror. Paul Kerr asks: Which of those explanations sounds more compelling to you?
Bolton and BW Inspections
by | 2005-04-18 | No Comments
Bolton’s (in)famous speech about the Cuban offensive BW effort originally “called for international observers of Cuba’s biological facilities.” Of course, these observers don’t exist because Bolton and the Bush Administration sank the BWC verification protocol.
The Ambiguous Arsenal
by | 2005-04-16 | No Comments
My article about the Chinese nuclear force—“The Ambiguous Arsenal”—is available in the May/June 2005 issue of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. The Table of Contents accurately summarizes the larger article: Analysts tend to grossly exaggerate China’s nuclear arsenal, thanks to flawed research and faulty assumptions. Yet that doesn’t stop hardliners from citing the “Chinese threat” …
