Spread Of Nuclear

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - President Bush and Russian leader Vladimir V. Putin said yesterday that they have moved beyond their disputes over Iraq to work together against terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons. Bush invited Putin to join him at Camp David in September, a gesture meant to show that the two leaders remain on good terms. Both noted progress in what has been an area of contention: Russia's supplying of equipment and technical assistance for Iran's nuclear program. Iran says it is trying to develop a civilian nuclear power program.

The U.N. panel on climate change warns of mass extinctions, droughts, floods and fires. Less remarked upon but also disturbing: The effort to slow global warming could speed up the spread of nuclear weapons. We need a new approach to avoid global warming and nuclear proliferation merging into an environmental and security nightmare. Why? Global electricity demand is growing quickly. Meeting that demand with coal-fired plants will continue to spill massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

BRASILIA, Brazil -- Brazil's new government has uncovered a 15-year-old secret military program to make an atomic bomb, the nation's top science official says.The official, Jose Goldemberg, secretary of science and technology, said the project was started in 1975 under the presidency of Ernesto Geisel, an army general who is now a high official at the state petroleum company.In early September, a 50-page classified report on the project reached Brazil's civilian president, Fernando Collor de Mello, who was inaugurated in March.

VIENNA, Austria - The director of the agency responsible for detecting the spread of nuclear weapons is being hoodwinked while Iran moves perilously close to developing a nuclear bomb. Or he is quietly, systematically - and successfully - making the best of limited powers to prevent the world's ultimate weapon from getting into Iran's hands. Whatever the differing views about Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the importance of his efforts is nearly impossible to overstate.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush announced yesterday that the United States would no longer produce plutonium or enriched uranium used in nuclear warheads, codifying as policy a suspension that had been in effect for years because of arms cuts and mechanical problems.Mr. Bush described the move as one of a series of steps intended to stem the spread of nuclear weapons. By renouncing the production of fissionable material, the United States hopes to add weight to its efforts to persuade nations in the Middle East, South Asia, and other potential flash points, to take similar steps, Bush administration officials said.

This time, in Iraq, the nuclear genie was pushed back into the bottle. But only after the United States threatened new aerial strikes to enforce a Security Council resolution requiring the Baghdad regime to eliminate weapons of mass destruction.What about next time? The world can hardly count on every rogue dictator to be as stupid and blatant as Saddam Hussein. Unless the Non-Proliferation Treaty is toughened to permit the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct sudden challenge inspections of suspect nuclear facilities wherever they exist, nuclear genies will make the next century a nightmare.

Twenty-five years after the Non-Proliferation Treaty took effect, 174 nations will assemble at the United Nations today to determine whether this historic pact to stop the spread of nuclear weapons will be extended indefinitely.For the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France, the officially acknowledged weapons states, an affirmative answer is an important strategic objective. But for some of the larger non-nuclear states, an extension for only a fixed period of time supposedly would give them leverage over the Big Power states.

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.

In international politics, the choice is sometimes between bad and worse alternatives.The proliferation of nuclear weapons is not an appealing prospect. But managed nuclear proliferation is preferable to wishful thinking, because it offers the best hope of minimizing the instabilities that otherwise will accompany the spread of nuclear weapons in the coming decades.Despite the international community's best efforts, nuclear proliferation is inevitable. The challenge is to manage it in a way that minimizes the danger of strategic instability.

In dealing with a country as paranoid and militarily powerful as North Korea, the United States has to be careful not to goad it into an attack on South Korea, with the incalculable damage (and potential U.S. casualties) that would cause. Yet Washington cannot allow the Pyongyang regime to capitalize on its irrationality by defying international rules to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.After months of delicate negotiations, North Korea has in effect put aside its threat to be the first nation to withdraw from theall-important Non-Proliferation Treaty.

THE LATEST discovery about Iran's 18-year-long secret nuclear weapons development program -- it possesses a design for an advanced centrifuge to enrich uranium -- couldn't have been more timely. The news broke within 24 hours of President Bush's speech Wednesday in which he offered a new U.S. plan to curb the spread of weapons of mass destruction. And of course that speech followed disclosure the week before of perhaps history's worst case of nuclear proliferation by a Pakistani-led black-market network.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - President Bush and Russian leader Vladimir V. Putin said yesterday that they have moved beyond their disputes over Iraq to work together against terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons. Bush invited Putin to join him at Camp David in September, a gesture meant to show that the two leaders remain on good terms. Both noted progress in what has been an area of contention: Russia's supplying of equipment and technical assistance for Iran's nuclear program. Iran says it is trying to develop a civilian nuclear power program.

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 -- As the first presidential visit to China in nearly a decade opens this week, the Asian colossus is poised to play a pivotal part in some of the world's most perilous politics, but many Americans worry which way it will turn.Whether it's a potentially disastrous Indo-Pakistani nuclear race, hair-trigger tension on the Korean Peninsula or Asia's turbulent finances, China is crucial to stabilizing an area stretching from the Himalayas far into the Pacific."The role China chooses to play will powerfully shape the next century," President Clinton asserted recently, making the case for his policy of seeking a "strategic partnership" with the most populous nation.

WASHINGTON -- Pakistan's defiance of the United States in testing nuclear weapons was a sobering reminder of America's limited ability to control some of the world's most highly volatile .. and dangerous regions.Besides being unable to prevent an arms race in South Asia, the United States has failed to block Russia's transfer of missile and nuclear technology to Iran.At the United Nations, the once-solid U.S.-led front to uncover the extent of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction is starting to crumble.

The nuclear explosions India detonated raise two questions for U.S. foreign policy: Why was the United States unable to prevent them? And what should be done now?The answer to the first is that although Washington's opposition to the spread of nuclear weapons is universal in theory, we divide potential nuclear weapon states into three categories and treat each differently.In the first category are the allies, Germany and Japan. If they were to get nuclear weapons, their adversaries - Russia and China - would react sharply, making Europe and Asia far more dangerous places.

The U.N. panel on climate change warns of mass extinctions, droughts, floods and fires. Less remarked upon but also disturbing: The effort to slow global warming could speed up the spread of nuclear weapons. We need a new approach to avoid global warming and nuclear proliferation merging into an environmental and security nightmare. Why? Global electricity demand is growing quickly. Meeting that demand with coal-fired plants will continue to spill massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

THE LATEST discovery about Iran's 18-year-long secret nuclear weapons development program -- it possesses a design for an advanced centrifuge to enrich uranium -- couldn't have been more timely. The news broke within 24 hours of President Bush's speech Wednesday in which he offered a new U.S. plan to curb the spread of weapons of mass destruction. And of course that speech followed disclosure the week before of perhaps history's worst case of nuclear proliferation by a Pakistani-led black-market network.

Twenty-five years after the Non-Proliferation Treaty took effect, 174 nations will assemble at the United Nations today to determine whether this historic pact to stop the spread of nuclear weapons will be extended indefinitely.For the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France, the officially acknowledged weapons states, an affirmative answer is an important strategic objective. But for some of the larger non-nuclear states, an extension for only a fixed period of time supposedly would give them leverage over the Big Power states.

WASHINGTON -- As the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty comes up for renewal next month, the United States' determination to block the spread of nuclear weapons faces its most severe challenge since the pact was signed a generation ago.The sale of nuclear fuel or technology by cash-strapped republics of the former Soviet Union to hostile Third World FTC nations or terrorists is a constant fear. North Korea repeatedly threatens to break its agreement with the United States and resume acquiring a nuclear arsenal.