Rosatom has a “new blog”:http://blogstroyka.rosatom.ru whose English title, according to “this article,”:http://www.rosatom.ru/en/news/13055_08.12.2008 is _NPP Construction Projects_.
As far as I can tell, the blog itself is only in Russian, so Anya will have to tell us what it says.
Check out “this Beeb story”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_3283000/3283817.stm from back in the day when the INF was signed as well as this “ACA Factsheet”:http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/INFtreaty and “the Inventory”:http://cns.miis.edu/inventory/pdfs/inf.pdf on the INF.
Here is a neat video on INF verification:
Also, check out Margaret Thatcher’s comments on a “nuclear-free Europe”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQMo_kRu_mc. And finally, here is a neat video on “the Pershings”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJt7KCB3Jro and a Russian video on “the Spider ^ru^”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM2v2JYjlco in all of their pre-INF glory.
From the first glimpses of it, the “Russian-Indian nuclear agreement”:http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601091&sid=aiepQLfHzBw4&refer=india is just for construction of additional units at Kudankulam. “Four of them”:http://www.rosatom.com/en/news/13021_05.12.2008. As expected. As I noted before, they’ve been “readying the construction site”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1694/on-your-mark-get-set for quite some time. Meh.
What I am curious about is whether they’ve discussed “India’s participation in the Angarsk IUEC”:http://www.rosatom.com/en/news/6781_31.10.2007 again.
Also, “press reports aside”:http://www.hindu.com/2008/12/05/stories/2008120556341500.htm, Medvedev’s “comment on Russian plans to lease a nuclear-powered sub to the Indians”:http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2008/12/04/0928_type82916_210105.shtml is crafty. (I like this part in particular: _”These projects are costly, because they require lots of money.”_ Check out the video.) He doesn’t even answer whether the “ill-fated Nerpa”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1765/was-it-the-ins-chakra is indeed the INS Chakra (“is it?”:http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/As_Medvedev_visits_India_confusion_on_nuclear_submarine_deal/articleshow/3791903.cms).
Well, sorta.
Today, I went to an “AEI event”:http://aei.org/events/eventID.1850,filter.all,type.past/event_detail.asp where Bolton and Gary Milhollin were speaking about Iran’s nuclear program. Long story short, it looks like Bolton has essentially thrown in the towel on Iran. He thinks Tehran will inevitably acquire nuclear weapons and that the only possible way to stop this is by attacking its nuclear facilities – an action that, in Bolton’s opinion, neither the Bush nor Obama administrations will take. Therefore, he argues, the United States and its allies need to think about ways to deter and contain Tehran, though he is not sanguine about that course of action.
Now, I said “sorta” at the beginning because Bolton still thinks that the United States _should_ have been more hardline on Tehran in the past and, as I noted above, that military force is a good idea.
Happy Tuesday.
Ok, first off, looking at today’s Global Security Newswire story titled “Ukraine Could Join Russian ‘Fuel Bank’ Project”:http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20081202_4911.php, I can’t help but wonder whether the folks at GSN are confusing the fuel bank at Angarsk with the IUEC enrichment venture. ‘Cause Ukraine is definitely buying 10 percent of the latter. (And no, the “original RIA Novosti”:http://en.rian.ru/world/20081201/118627657.html story does not even mention the fuel bank.)
Second, I really don’t understand what all the fuss is about.
So, after months and months of speculation of where we were in the process, Ukraine’s parliament approved a “draft agreement” on Ukraine’s participation in the Angarsk IUEC.
This is not news. The Ukrainians haven’t joined. Yet.
They signed an MoU with the Russians on IUEC participation in June 2007. And this is just another seemingly small step in the horrendously drawn-out process of joining the IUEC.
I know that few care about the IUEC. And I am not being nitpicky. I’m just surprised that the amazing folks at _National Journal_ are this confused.
_I’m not making this up._
*Kaliningrad Zoo giraffe nearly christened after Russian missile system.*
In response to a contest held by the Kaliningrad Zoo administration to name a baby giraffe, the city residents proposed to call it Iskander after the Russian missile system. The opinions were divided, Zoo staff said.
A RIA Novosti video is “available here”:http://en.rian.ru/video/20081127/118578942.html.
Whatever one thinks about Iran, this bit from D Ross makes no sense:
bq. We need to offer political, economic and security benefits to Tehran, on the condition that *Iran change its behavior not just on nukes but on terrorism* as well. Sticks will show Iran what it stands to lose by going nuclear; carrots will show its leaders what they would gain by moderating their behavior.
Leaving aside the fact that neither Iran nor the intelligence community say that Tehran is going nuclear, conditioning “carrots”:http://www.newsweek.com/id/171256?from=rss (God, please kill that stupid metaphor) on terrorism does not show Iran what it will gain if it complies with the United States’ nuclear demands but does nothing on terrorism.
I agree that the United States may be right to be concerned about “possible Syrian efforts”:http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4AR2K120081128 to sanitize sites that may (or may have been) nuclear-related. But this whole thing would be easier to sort out if the Israelis hadn’t blown up the reactor-box thing in the first place.
Just in time for T-giving break, ACA posted the “much-anticipated interview”:http://www.armscontrol.org/20081114_Kisylak with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. In addition to the predictable discussion of re-starting START and missile defense issues (_yawn! just kidding_), the interview has some CFE and 123 wonkage.
Quite interesting is Kislyak’s response to an ACA prompt on the need for Russia to provide assurances to U.S. policymakers on Moscow’s supply of conventional weapons to Tehran:
bq. When it comes to the defense supplies you seem to be referring to, first of all, there are no inconsistencies with our obligations or the resolutions of the Security Council because we do show restraint, and whatever we do is purely defensive and *for deterrence*. It is our policy, and it is going to be reportable to the Russian parliament and Russian people and not anybody else. If the United States is interested in working with us, we will be more than ready to work, but it needs to be based on mutual respect and the mutual respect of interests.
That “d-word” again… Why use it at all?
The Kazakhstani parliament ratified the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone treaty today, according to “press reports ^ru^”:http://www.gazeta.kz/art.asp?aid=122933. As I “noted last week”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1600/only-one-ratification-left-for-canwfz, Kazakhstan was the last remaining state out of the CANWFZ five (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) that needed to ratify.
This baby could still use some “U.S. support”:http://cns.miis.edu/stories/060905.htm.