Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty

BEIJING -- China, the only major nuclear power not to have agreed to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, said yesterday that it has decided "in principle" to accede to the pact.The promise to sign the treaty came from Chinese Premier Li Peng during an opening talk yesterday afternoon with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu, said spokesmen for both the Chinese and Japanese foreign ministries."For the purpose of promoting the realization of the objective of the comprehensive prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons, the Chinese government has decided in principle to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," Wu Jianming, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said at a news briefing last night.

A neocon joke, at the beginning of the Iraq war, was: "Anyone can go to Baghdad. Real men go to Tehran. " It wasn't funny then, and it isn't funny now. Unfortunately, those "real men" who want to wage war on Iran are making so much noise that they may prevail - and hardly anyone is pushing back. Take Maryland's U.S. senators. Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin are co-sponsors of SR 380, also known as the Lieberman-Graham bill. This resolution moves the goal posts by stating that Iran must be denied the "capability" for nuclear weapons, as opposed to the weapons themselves.

The Easter Parade at the Inner Harbor is great. The tail end needs attention.The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer and the gap is growing but -- just ask Newt -- it's not enough.If there were no nuclear non-proliferation treaty, we couldn't get one. Soon there won't be, and we won't.Senator Dole threatens not to let the nomination of Dr. Foster for surgeon general come to the floor of the Senate. Until after the last Republican presidential primary.The streets of Baltimore are safe.

The latest United Nations report on Iran's nuclear program questioned Tehran's credibility regarding a recently disclosed facility built into a mountain near the holy city of Qom. The International Atomic Energy Agency report issued Monday noted Iran's contention that it began work on the nuclear facility in 2007 in response to Bush administration threats of war as part of a plan to safeguard sensitive "organizations and activities" that could...

TOKYO -- Foreign Minister Kabun Muto says that Japan must have the will to build nuclear weapons if necessary to defend itself against a North Korean nuclear threat, the newspaper Nihon Keizai reports.Mr. Muto made the statement yesterday to Japanese reporters at a news conference in Singapore after assuring the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that Japan would offer unqualified support for an indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The outgoing foreign minister also told ASEAN foreign ministers that Japan has no intention of building a nuclear arsenal of its own.Japan is the only nation to have suffered nuclear attacks.

INTERNATIONAL inspection of Iraq's nuclear programs and Iraq's admission that it has been attempting to produce enriched uranium indicate that Saddam Hussein remains dangerous. Saddam's army was crushed in the gulf war, but as long as he remains in power he must be contained.That's because where once there was informed suspicion that the Iraqi leader still craves a nuclear bomb and the power it would give him, there now is certainty. The Bush administration believed the Iraqis had secretly produced enough weapons-grade uranium for at least one bomb and possibly two. The inspection team said Saddam instead has enough to eventually build 20 to 40 bombs.

BEIJING -- China announced yesterday that it welcomed President Bush's initiative on reduction of nuclear arms but gave no indication that it was prepared to cut its own nuclear arsenal.The New China News Agency said in a brief dispatch that China has always supported a "complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons" and that it hopes Mr. Bush's proposal may help realize those objectives."We maintain that the United States and the Soviet Union, which possess the largest nuclear arsenals, have a special responsibility for nuclear disarmament and thus have the obligation to take the lead in halting the testing, production and deployment of nuclear weapons and substantially cutting the nuclear weapons of all types in their possession," the report said.

TOKYO -- The International Atomic Energy Agency declared yesterday that North Korea had violated its obligations to open its suspected nuclear weapons sites to inspections. For the first time, the agency asked the U.N. Security Council to enforce the provisions of international agreements intended to limit the spread of nuclear arms.The action, at a special meeting of the agency's board of governors, came a day after North Korea defied the latest deadline to permit inspectors into two sites near Yongbyon, a heavily guarded nuclear installation that U.S. intelligence satellites suggest would provide evidence of how close the Communist government is to producing an atomic bomb.

Vienna, Austria -- If Saddam Hussein had succeeded in building a nuclear weapon, a U.S. president would not have launched ''Desert Storm.'' There would have been at most an economic embargo and the threat to retaliate with nuclear weapons if Iraq dared use its.The near miss with Saddam Hussein has made all the present nuclear-haves determined to hold on to their nuclear weapons. It is a policy of questionable wisdom.By holding onto their large arsenals long after the Cold War's end the nuclear-haves forfeit arguments of morality, self-discipline and symmetry in seeking to dissuade would-be nuclear powers.

Some say the world will end in fire.Some say in ice. . . .- Robert Frost, Fire and IceSimple logic dictates that the more nations have nuclear arms, the greater the chance these terrible weapons will be used. Yet a number of respected analysts today believe that nuclear proliferation actually makes the world safer. The effects of their arguments may be more than academic.At issue is U.S. policy, which soon will be put to a strong test. This month at United Nations Headquarters in New York, 162 nations will decide whether or not to renew their adherence to the 1969 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

LONDON -- I can see the headlines now: "U.S. Increases Nuclear Arsenal by 2,200"; "U.S. Proliferates While Scolding Iran for Doing the Same"; "U.S. to be Next North Korea." Do not be shocked if you notice these titles in foreign press outlets, keen to grab any tidbit that might paint the Bush administration or America in a negative light. Do not be too surprised if they appear in the opinion pages of major U.S. newspapers either. Last month, the administration announced its intention to pursue a multi-year plan to upgrade the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which includes the development of 2,200 new nuclear weapons.

WASHINGTON - As the United Nations continues a review of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty's mission to stem the spread of nuclear weapons, President Bush meets with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow tomorrow to discuss, among other things, what more can be done to speed a lagging effort to disable existing Russian nukes. Most of the president's attentions regarding nuclear weapons these days have concerned the reports of North Korea's claim to have them and Iran's determination to press on with a development program.

WASHINGTON - The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has united the world against the spread of nuclear weapons for 35 years and has permitted only one defector - North Korea. Today, this important security system is mired in such discord that it is in danger of crumbling. As envoys from around the world meet this month in New York to review the NPT, North Korea is ratcheting up the pressure with a militarily meaningless but politically pointed missile test. Iran enters the meeting with threats to end its suspension of uranium enrichment, a process that can make fuel for nuclear reactors but also for bombs.

IRAN'S DETERMINATION to pursue nuclear technology despite U.S. demands to desist underscores the failure of international efforts to curtail Tehran's ambitions. At the same time, it points up the unlikely prospect of forcing Iran to comply. Neither coaxing by European negotiators nor the Bush administration's heightened rhetoric have persuaded Iran so far to do more than freeze its uranium enrichment operations. And, at that, the international community can't be assured that Iran is living up to its promise.

LOS ANGELES -- President Bush has urged the Senate to approve legislation that would improve compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, hoping to encourage Iran and other nations to follow the U.S. example. To strengthen treaty safeguards, Mr. Bush wants the Senate to ratify what is called the Additional Protocol. The protocol received headlines in the fall of 2003 when the United States pressed Iran to embrace it. After stonewalling, Tehran signed up, but left ratification in abeyance.

WASHINGTON -- Russia's decision to withdraw from the START II Treaty underlines the real significance of the U.S. pullout from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. International law will not prevent all acts of terrorism, but it is an essential tool to make terrorists' efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction more difficult, time-consuming and likely to be detected. The greatest threat to our national security -- that terrorists will use a nuclear weapon against an American city -- seems only more plausible after Sept.

Washington. - A carefully monitored High-Tech Bungle Index should be added to the various conventional measures of how things are going in society. It's needed because more and more calamities are threatened by advanced methods and machines that are supposed to be our benevolent helpers.The airlines, for example, are in a stew because collision-avoidance alarms, newly mandated by the government, have been erroneously popping off in flight, causing pilots to maneuver abruptly to evade objects that aren't there.

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), in its long journey from the negotiation table to Senate approval of ratification, has been transformed. Originally a pact solely designed to curtail the mutual-annihilation arsenals of the Cold War superpowers, it has become the catalyst for a high-stakes diplomatic effort to denuclearize Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus.These spin-off republics of the former Soviet Union now control weaponry with a power that dwarfs Britain, France and China combined.

ATLANTA -- Let me see if I've got this straight: The missile defense system we needed because of the Cold War, but didn't get in time, we need now because there isn't a Cold War. If this somehow seems puzzling, remember it is brought to you by the man who, as a candidate for the presidency, said we needed an outsized tax cut because the economy was humming, but now as president says we need it because the economy is wan. There is, as you can see, a...

BERLIN -- The most pressing issue facing the European Union today is how to agree on a common position that expresses its widely shared concerns over plans by the United States to deploy a National Missile Defense system and the effects such a system would have on the future of arms control, disarmament and international security. The EU clearly has a real stake in the question of NMD for several reasons. First, Europeans believe there is a reasonable risk that deployment of NMD will spark a renewed nuclear arms race and destabilize international security.