Will the Libya Conflict Affect Nonproliferation?

Today's top nuclear policy stories, with excerpts in bullet form.

Stories we're following today - Friday, March 25, 2011:

North Korea Suggests Libya Should Have Kept Nuclear Program - Mark McDonald for The New York Times [link]

• A North Korean statement that Libya’s dismantling of its nuclear weapons program had made it vulnerable to military intervention by the West is being seen by analysts as an ominous reinforcement of the North’s refusal to end its own nuclear program.
• North Korea’s official news agency carried comments this week from a Foreign Ministry official criticizing the air assault on Libyan government forces and suggesting that Libya had been duped in 2003 when it abandoned its nuclear program in exchange for promises of aid and improved relations with the West.
• Calling the West’s bargain with Libya “an invasion tactic to disarm the country,” the official said it amounted to a bait and switch approach. “The Libyan crisis is teaching the international community a grave lesson,” the official was quoted as saying Tuesday, proclaiming that North Korea’s “songun” ideology of a powerful military was “proper in a thousand ways” and the only guarantor of peace on the Korean Peninsula.
• The United States said there was no link between Libya’s abandonment of efforts to develop nuclear arms and other weapons and the current military campaign by Western nations.  “Where they’re at today has absolutely no connection with them renouncing their nuclear program or nuclear weapons,” said Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman.
• The comments by the anonymous North Korean official appeared to dim the chances for a renewal of the so-called six-party talks on the dismantling of North Korea’s atomic program. The talks ended in 2009 when North Korea withdrew, angry over international sanctions that followed a long-range missile test. The two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan are the participants in the six-party process, which began in 2003. China, North Korea’s only major ally, has served as the host country.

Built For Bombs, Sensors Now Track Japan Radiation - Geoff Brumfiel for National Public Radio [link]

• As radioactive contamination from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant spreads, a global network of sensors is tracking it across oceans and continents. The network was originally set up to detect nuclear weapons testing, but scientists now hope it can tell them more about the accident.
• The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization began setting up its monitoring stations about a decade ago, with the eventual goal of enforcing a worldwide ban on nuclear weapons tests.  "We have currently over 280 sensors worldwide, monitoring underground, the atmosphere, the oceans for any sign of a nuclear explosion, and we're also sniffing the air for any sign of radioactivity," says spokesperson Annika Thunborg.
• That now includes radioactivity from the Japanese plant. Explosions at three reactors and a fire at a spent fuel pool have released radiation into the atmosphere. The sensors should also provide people with a sense of reassurance. Even though radiation from the plant has been picked up across the United States, the levels aren't dangerous, says Harry Miley who is a nuclear physicist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state.
• "The highest detection that we've gotten here in the U.S. has been far lower than the natural radioactivity that's already there, so I don't think there's any increased risk to the U.S. public," he says.  And there's more good news — the latest readings here in America seem to indicate that radiation from the plant is decreasing. Miley is hopeful that the worst of the accident may be behind us.
  

Retired General: Republicans Making Nuclear Terrorism More Likely - Evan McMorris-Santoro for Talking Points Memo [link]

• A retired Army general is taking to the radio to call out leaders of the Republican party for making it more likely we'll be blown up by a terrorist's nuclear bomb.  Lt. Gen. Robert Gard is the star of a series of radio ads targeting Republican leaders in the House and Senate for supporting "deep cuts to the U.S. Government's signature nuclear security program to remove highly enriched uranium and other dangerous nuclear materials from countries in the former Soviet Union and other unstable regions around the world."
• Gard is a veteran of the Vietnam and Korean wars and a top official at Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a nonpartisan group (with center-left lean) focused on reducing the spread of nuclear weapons and other threats.
• The Center and its sister group, the Council For A Livable World, say the House budget proposal cut Obama's 2011 request for the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration by more than $600 million, nearly a quarter less than what the president requested. And the current short-term budget resolution, which is keeping the government open while lawmakers duke it out over a long-term spending plan, cuts the current White House request for the NNSA by $551 million.
• The cuts just don't make any sense when contrasted with GOP national security rhetoric, Gard said.  "The House Republicans claim that national security programs were exempted from the cuts [in their budget]," Gard said. "So it was either through gross inattention or gross irresponsibility that they cut funds [for NNSA], apparently because it was in the Department of Energy, not the Department of Defense budget."
• "This is real, declared threat," Gard said, referring to a 1998 promise by Osama Bin Laden that Al Qaeda would pursue WMDs. "This isn't something we're making up. We need to give it high priority to prevent a nuclear explosion in an American city with disastrous consequences."

Exhibition of Over 1 Million Antinuke Signatures Starts at UN - The Economic Times [link]

• More than a million signatures collected from around the globe calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons went on display in a new exhibit at the UN headquarters.  Among attendees of the opening event were UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, Hollywood actor and peace advocate Michael Douglas and three atomic-bomb survivors from Japan -- sisters Toshiko Tanaka and Motoko Nakamura, as well as Lee Sil Gun.
• "Together we can rid the world of nuclear weapons and answer the call of these hibakushas, who survived the nuclear attack and dedicated themselves to making sure no one else will ever suffer the same fate," Ban said in his speech yesterday.
• The UN chief added his name to the 1,024,820 signatures, which had been gathered through an initiative organized by the Mayors for Peace in support of their Cities Are Not Targets project.  The exhibit, which is located on the third floor near the General Assembly Hall, consists of two 3-meter high Plexiglas containers that hold the signatures and was designed by Brooklyn artist, Eli Elysee, who also signed the petition after Ban.
• Douglas, who has often spoken against nuclear proliferation, also expressed his support of the grassroots project that he hopes will influence UN visitors to press their leaders to work toward the total elimination of nuclear weapons.  "The people who signed these petitions are sending a clear and unambiguous message that cities do not accept being held hostage by nuclear weapons," he said.
• The three Hiroshima survivors were visibly moved to be a part of the opening event.  "I am deeply moved to find that so many people from all over the world are concerned about this issue," Tanaka told Kyodo News.  She was 6 years old when the atomic bomb was dropped over Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945 and suffered burns to her face, arm and neck.
  

What's Behind Our Conflicted Feelings on Nukes? - Seth Borenstein for The Associated Press [link]

• Nuclear radiation, invisible and insidious, gives us the creeps.  The experts tell us to be logical and not to worry, that nuclear power is safer than most technologies we readily accept. Producing and burning coal, oil and gas kill far more people through accidents and pollution each year.
• But our perception of nuclear issues isn't about logic. It's about dread, magnified by arrogance in the nuclear industry, experts in risk and nuclear energy say.  Some experts contend that when a disaster has potentially profound repercussions, we should pay attention to emotions as much as logic.
• Nuclear energy hits all our hot buttons when we judge how risky something is: It's invisible. It's out of our control. It's manmade, high-tech and hard to understand. It's imposed on us, instead of something we choose. It's associated with major catastrophes, not small problems. And if something goes wrong, it can cause cancer - an illness we fear far more than a bigger killer like heart disease.
• A Pew Research Center poll after the Japanese nuclear crisis found support for increased nuclear power melting down. Last October the American public was evenly split over an expansion of nuclear power; now it's 39 percent in favor and 52 percent opposed.