Chinese Firms Still Helping Iran with Missile Technology

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

Stories we're following today: Monday October 18, 2010.

Chinese Firms Bypass Sanctions on Iran, U.S. Says - John Pomfret for The Washington Post [link]

• The Obama administration has concluded that Chinese firms are helping Iran to improve its missile technology and develop nuclear weapons, and has asked China to stop such activity, a senior U.S. official said.
• During a visit to Beijing last month, a delegation led by Robert J. Einhorn, the State Department's special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, handed a "significant list" of companies and banks to their Chinese counterparts, according to the senior U.S. official.
• The Obama administration thinks that the companies are violating U.N. sanctions, but that China did not authorize their activities.
• The Obama administration faces a balancing act in pressing Beijing to stop the deals and limit Chinese investments in Iran's energy industry. U.S. officials say they need to preserve their ability to work with China on issues ranging from the value of its currency to the stability of North Korea

Iran 'Ready for Talks' if West Comments on Israel's Nuclear Capability - RIA Novosti [link]

• The Iran Six - the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany - are due to hold talks with Iran on November 15-18. Western powers believe the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program is aimed at the production of atomic weapons.
• Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that Tehran was ready to restart talks with world powers on its nuclear program in November in exchange for a statement on Israel’s atomic capability.
• "You may keep silent,” he added. “But silence to us indicates that you are... backing the Zionist regime's atom bombs and that you are not seeking friendship.”
• He also said the West would have to determine if it wanted friendship or a state of conflict with Iran, and that the talks would have to be guided by the international atomic watchdog’s rules.

Chavez Visits Moscow, Reaches Deal for Russia to Build Venezuela's First Nuclear Power Plant - Vladimir Isachenkov for the Los Angeles Times [link]

• Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez reached a deal with Russia on Friday to build the South American country's first nuclear plant, as questions arose why a nation rich in oil and gas would feel the need to venture into atomic energy.
• The ITAR-Tass news agency said Russia plans to build two 1,200 megawatt nuclear reactors at the Venezuelan plant. The cost of Friday's nuclear deal wasn't immediately announced.
• The two nations also signed other energy agreements. Russia has cultivated close ties with Chavez's government to expand its global clout and counter U.S. influence in Latin America.
• Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sought to pre-empt questions about why Venezuela would need nuclear power by saying the deal would help Caracas reduce its dependence on global market fluctuations.
• "This is something that we will watch very closely," U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Friday. "The last thing we need to do is see technology migrate to countries or groups that should not have that technology."

When North Korea Falls . . . - Fareed Zakaria in The Washington Post [link]

• Most of Washington's attention has been devoted to the Pyongyang regime's small nuclear arsenal. But perhaps a more likely scenario, and possibly one that would be even more disruptive, is a meltdown of the regime.
• North Korea is showing many signs of instability. It has had a bad year economically with a disastrous revaluation of its currency. Food shortages and famine are still part of the landscape. Internal political tensions, perhaps relating to the succession, produced external belligerence, most dramatically with the sinking of the South Korean navy ship, the Cheonan, last March. Perhaps most telling, North Koreans are beginning to learn more and more about the outside world.
• There are big issues at stake. Does a unified Korea retain its close alliance with the United States? Does it keep the North's nuclear arsenal? Do American troops stay in the country? If the answer to all three questions is "yes," then a unified Korea will be an American ally, with American troops, and nuclear weapons -- sitting on China's border. How is Beijing likely to react to that? Would it move troops in to shore up the regime? What would South Korean and American forces do then?
• Washington has been mostly preoccupied with North Korean nukes. But to solve that problem, it will need to discuss with China the rules of the road when Pyongyang falls.

MoD's Own Experts Reveal Nuclear Arms Safety Flaws - Rob Edwards in The Guardian [link]

• Dozens of potentially disastrous flaws in the safety regime for nuclear weapons have been exposed by secret Ministry of Defence reports seen by the Observer.
• Safety procedures at the bomb factory at Aldermaston in Berkshire have been "poor", nuclear weapons convoys have suffered from "crew fatigue" and safety regulations have been ignored by nuclear submarine commanders, according to the MoD's internal safety watchdogs.
• A new US-made "arming, fusing and firing" system being fitted on to warheads worried the MoD's nuclear weapon regulator, Andy Moore.
• The prolonged battle to force the MoD to release the reports was backed by Fred Dawson, who worked for the MoD for 31 years and was head of its radiation protection policy team before he retired in 2009. "People may conclude that the culture of secrecy is due in part for the presentational need to hide poor safety and environmental performance," he said.

Nuclear Pact with U.S. at Risk: Russian Lawmaker - Christian Lowe in Reuters [link]

• A nuclear arms treaty between Russia and the United States could collapse unless Washington ratifies it before next month's elections change the Senate's composition, a senior Russian lawmaker said.
• The Kremlin ally said he remained hopeful that the Senate could ratify the treaty in the so-called lame duck session, when it re-convenes after the Nov. 2 congressional elections but before newly elected senators take up their seats.
• "If for whatever reason -- political, technical -- that does not happen ... then I think the agreement will have problems from the point of view of ratification, very big problems," Kosachyov told Reuters in an interview late on Saturday.
• "For now I am disappointed with how all this is going but I am optimistic because there are very good chances that it will be ratified in the lame duck session," Kosachyov said on the sidelines of the World Policy Conference in Morocco.
• But he said: "If it (the treaty) collapses just because of internal political considerations of the United States, that would be very bad."