A North Carolina-based company called Nukepills.com reports selling more than five million doses of its potassium iodide pills, intended to protect against carcinogenic nuclear fallout, to Kuwait in recent months. Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Reactor sits 150 miles from the coast of Kuwait.
Pakistan is increasing its capacity to produce plutonium at its Khushab nuclear facility by building a third reactor, according to the Ploughshares-funded Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS).
A joint political statement is not like an email or a newspaper column. Each word is negotiated. That is why the April 1 statement from Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev is so remarkable. The two leaders spoke with unusual clarity, defining intentions and joint projects.
During a visit Sunday to Prague for a U.S.-European Union summit, President Obama unveiled plans to cut atomic stockpiles, curtail testing, choke fissile production and secure loose nuclear material.
U.S. officials are considering whether to accept Iran’s pursuit of uranium enrichment, which was outlawed by the UN and remains at the heart of fears that Iran seeks nuclear weapons capability. Mark Fitzpatrick of the Ploughshares-funded International Institute for Strategic Studies said, “There’s a fundamental impasse between the western demand for no enrichment and the Iranian demand to continue enrichment.” The process can produce both nuclear fuel and weapons-grade material. Trita Parsi of the Ploughshares-funded National Iranian American Council commented, “There is a growing recognition in [Washington] that the zero [enrichment] solution, though still favored, simply is unfeasible.”
Experiments conducted with a new, giant laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory could pose a health and environmental threat to thousands of workers and nearby residents, a local watchdog group warns.