Vladimir Putin again takes hold of the nuclear warfare suitcase
Putin takes back Russia’s nuclear button, Channel New Asia, 07 May 2012 MOSCOW: Russia’s newly sworn-in President Vladimir Putin Monday was handed the black suitcase Monday that controls the country’s vast nuclear arsenal moments after taking his oath to a third term. Read more »
Nuclear missiles – the ultimate phallic symbol
North Korea’s Performance Anxiety, NYT, By WILLIAM J. BROAD, May 5, 2012 “IT’S a boy,” Edward Teller exulted after the world’s first hydrogen bomb exploded in 1952 with a force 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
From the start, the nuclear era seethed with sexual allusions. Military officers joked about the phallic symbolism of their big missiles and warheads — and of emasculating the enemy. “Dr. Strangelove” mocked the idea with big cigars and an excited man riding into the thermonuclear sunset with a bomb tucked between his legs.
Helen Caldicott, the antinuclear activist, argued in the 1980s that male insecurity accounted for the cold war’s perilous spiral of arms. Her book? “Missile Envy.” Today, the psychosexual lens helps explain why North Korea, in addition to dire poverty and other crippling woes, faces international giggles over its inability to “get it up” — a popular turn of phrase among bloggers and some headline writers.
“Things like this never go away,” Spencer R. Weart, an atomic historian and director emeritus of the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics, said in an interview. “There’s little doubt that missiles are phallic symbols. Everybody agrees on that.”
On Friday, April 13, North Korea fired a big rocket on a mission to loft the nation’s first satellite into orbit. But it fell back to Earth with a splash……. The phallic symbolism once centered on success. Nowadays, at least with North Korea, it seems as if it’s more about dysfunction. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/sunday-review/north-koreas-fizzling-missiles.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
The difference between a uranium nuclear weapon and a plutonium one
Uranium or plutonium? , The Korea Times, By Andrei Lankov”….. It makes a big difference whether they test a plutonium device, as they have done twice before, or if this time we will see the first test of a uranium one. There is a major difference between the two.
If the outside world knows the technical details of the reactor, it is possible to guess its total plutonium output, from when the reactor became operational. Analysts believe that North Korea’s nuclear reactors have produced between 30 and 50 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium (enough for five to 10 nuclear bombs).
Can Israel maintain its secret nuclear arsenal?
Israel’s atomic arsenal could fall victim to a new U.S. nuclear policy Haaretz, 4 May 12, Senior Haaretz analyst Amir Oren says that if Obama wins in November, he will likely push for dramatic new reductions in nuclear arsenals; in addition to the U.S. and Russia, Israel may also have to give up some of the nuclear warheads it reportedly holds.
By Amir Oren ”…..According to a secret document of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, which was drawn up at the end of the Bill Clinton administration and leaked during the period of the George W. Bush administration, Israel had “60 to 80″ nuclear warheads in 1999. The document’s authors did not expect this number to change much in the next two decades….. http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/israel-s-atomic-arsenal-could-fall-victim-to-a-new-u-s-nuclear-policy-1.428231
USA and Russia – just the bare 2,800 non-strategic nuclear warheads !
The report concludes that non-strategic nuclear weapons are neither the reason nor the solution for Europe’s security issues today but that lack of political leadership has allowed bureaucrats to give these weapons a legitimacy they don’t possess and shouldn’t have.
2,800 Nuclear Warheads in Russian and U.S. Arsenal, According to New
Report http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2012/05/01/2800-nuclear-warheads-in-russian-and-u-s-arsenal-according-to-new-report/ May 1, 2012 From the Federation of American Scientists: A new FAS Special Report – Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons – concludes that Russia and the United States combined possess an estimated 2,800 nuclear warheads for their non-strategic nuclear forces. Several thousand other non-strategic warheads have been retired and are awaiting dismantlement. Read more »
North Korea preparing for 3rd nuclear test
NK nuclear test seen ‘imminent’ The Korea Times, By Kang Hyun-kyung, 1 May 12 North Korea appears to be preparing for a third nuclear test amid high tensions on the Korean Peninsula after the reclusive nation’s failed launch of a satellite when it fell into the West Sea on April 13. Read more »
Nuclear balance of terror makes India and Pakistan less safe
Nuclear missiles don’t give security The Daily Star, Praful Bidwai, 1 May 12, “…….Nuclear weapons have made India and Pakistan more, not less, insecure. Millions of civilians in both are vulnerable to, but defenceless against, attacks by nuclear-capable missiles. Both are stockpiling large quantities of bomb fuel. Pakistan is building new plutonium facilities even as it expands its uranium enrichment programme. Read more »
Japan wants India to sign the Nuclear non Proliferation Treaty
Sign nuclear non-proliferation treaty, Japan tells India The Hindu, 30 April 12, SANDEEP DIKSHI Japan on Monday asked India to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) even as the two sides decided to reopen talks on a bilateral civil nuclear agreement…..
“We have instructed our negotiators on the way forward,” Mr. Krishna said and added the two countries understood the “concerns” of each other which were related to their historic experiences. Officials explained this to mean that while India says its clean non-proliferation record was good enough to restart civil nuclear talks, Japan feels that since India is not a signatory to the NPT, it should demonstrate its commitment to a ban on testing in words…. http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article3371546.ece
Cut your nuclear weapons drastically – China urges USA and Russia
China wants ‘drastic’ US, Russia nuclear arms cuts, Daily Times, 1 May 12 A senior Chinese diplomat told a nuclear meeting in Vienna that the development of missile defence systems which ‘disrupt’ the global strategic balance should also be abandoned, in a possible reference to US plans that have angered Russia
China called on the United States and Russia on Monday to make “drastic” cuts in their nuclear arsenals, saying countries with atomic weapons should pledge not to be the first to use them. Read more »
India pursuing nuclear missile system
India developing radar-destroying Anti-Radiation Missile, DNA, Apr 29, 2012, After the success of Agni-V project, India is developing an Anti-Radiation Missile (ARM) which can hugely multiply the strike capabilities by destroying the enemy’s advance warning system. Read more »
Israeli experts criticise Netanyahu’s belligerent stand towards Iran
Mr Diskin’s comments echoed those previously made by Meir Dagan, the director of Israel’s Mossad spy agency until January last year, who said that a strike on Iran would lead to ”regional war” and encourage Iran to continue its nuclear program.

‘Messianic’ Israeli leaders warned over Iran strike, Sydney Morning Herald, Karin Brulliard April 30, 2012 JERUSALEM: The recently retired chief of Israel’s domestic intelligence agency has described the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, as men driven by ”messianic feelings” and said that he had ”no faith” in them to lead a possible strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The scathing comments by Yuval Diskin, who had kept a low profile since retiring last year, added to the sense of a divide between Israel’s security establishment and its political leadership over Iran. Last week the head of Israel’s military, Lieutenant-General
Benny Gantz, said sanctions and the threat of military action would deter Iran from building nuclear bombs, an analysis that contrasted with Mr Netanyahu’s and Mr Barak’s grimmer assessments. Read more »
A window into the very controlled State of North Korea

(includes video) http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/24/11365838-north-korea-nuclear-test-ready-soon North Korea nuclear test ready ‘soon’ NBC’s Richard Engel spent two weeks in North Korea and got a rare and revealing look inside this very closed country. World News msnbc, By Reuters 27 April 12 BEIJING – North Korea has almost completed preparations for a third nuclear test, a senior source with close ties to Pyongyang and Beijing told Reuters, which will draw further international condemnation following a failed rocket launch if it goes ahead. Read more »
The military madness of North Korea
there it is: a nation that starves its people to feed its military spouting a philosophy of friendship and cooperation.
The despairing result of all this is that it is the people who suffer, not the leaders. It’s not enough that famines devastate the population, as North Korea endured in the nineties and from which it has not recovered, but that military madness should overwhelm all other considerations.
Paranoid state fuels military madness SMH, April 27, 2012 ’The Government of the Republic promotes friendship and cooperation with the various countries of the world. It makes every effort in unity with all the peace-loving peoples of the world to … reduce armaments, nuclear armaments in particular, thereby meeting the desire of human beings to live in a world, free from nuclear weapons.’ - The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea website
‘Once the above-said special actions kick off, they will reduce all the rat-like groups and the bases for provocations to ashes in three or four minutes, in much shorter time, by unprecedented peculiar means and methods of our own style’. - The Korean People’s Army Command
It would be lunacy, rib-chuckling idiocy, if it were not so serious.
Both statements are the creation of North Korea. Read more »
Satellite photography indicates North Korea’s nuclear activity
New photo shows work at NKorea nuclear test site Google News, By MATTHEW PENNINGTON, Associated Press 28 April 12, WASHINGTON — New satellite imagery appears to show a train of mining carts and other preparations under way at North Korea’s nuclear test site but no indication of when a detonation might take place. Read more »
Nuclear missile envy played out between India and Pakistan

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Anything you can do... Pakistan follows India with its own missile test Launch is latest proof of escalation of arms in Asia as new report stresses the threat to rest of the world ANDREW BUNCOMBE The Independent, 26 APRIL 2012 A week after India successfully tested a long-range missile, Pakistan yesterday said it had also fired an upgraded nuclear-capable device in a reminder of the ongoing arms race that has gripped Asia. Officials in Pakistan said they had completed a positive trial of the Shaheen-1A, an intermediate range missile that is capable of reaching targets across India. Read more »
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