nuclear-news

al-Qaida seeking to have atomic bomb

US: al-Qaida exemplifies new-age nuclear threat, Google hosted news, By ROBERT BURNS (AP) – 10 April 2010, WASHINGTON The Associated Press: US: al-Qaida exemplifies new-age nuclear threat— The White House on Friday warned that al-Qaida is quietly hunting for an atomic bomb, adding urgency to a historic summit next week where President Barack Obama will try to persuade world leaders to step up efforts to keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands.Expectations for decisive action by the 47 countries are low, because existing controls haven’t worked as well as hoped and some nations worry tighter regulation will only slow civilian nuclear power projects.But the White House has high hopes for the two-day summit, where the U.S. and Russia are to sign a long-delayed agreement to dispose of tons of weapons-grade plutonium from Cold War-era nuclear weapons. That is the kind of preventive action the summit is meant to inspire………..
Three countries at the heart of the international debate over nuclear dangers — Iran, North Korea and Syria — were not invited to the summit, and Israel, whose undeclared nuclear arsenal is a core grievance among Muslim nations, scrapped plans for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attend.

An Israeli official said Netanyahu canceled after getting word that other participants would use the summit to criticize Israel’s nuclear program. Israel is believed to have dozens, perhaps hundreds, of nuclear weapons. In Netanyahu’s absence, Israel will be represented by Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor….

ran and other Muslim countries accuse the United States of hypocrisy for ignoring Israel’s nuclear arsenal while demanding that others forego such weapons.

In the U.S. view, a nuclear-armed Iran would threaten Israel and the West, while North Korea, which has tested a nuclear device, is a continuing threat to sell its nuclear know-how to other hostile nations.

The U.S. believes Syria also has nuclear ambitions; an Israeli airstrike in 2007 destroyed what the U.S. asserts was a nearly completed nuclear reactor designed to make plutonium.

But the nuclear security summit is less concerned with countries that acquire nuclear weapons than with the terrorists and criminals believed to be seeking them.

The Associated Press: US: al-Qaida exemplifies new-age nuclear threat

April 10, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, safety | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear technology, nuclear weapons