nuclear-news

Published Sunday, Mar. 23 2014, Japan will announce Monday that it will turn over to Washington more than 700 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium and a large quantity of highly enriched uranium, a decades-old research stockpile that is large enough to build dozens of nuclear weapons, according to U.S. and Japanese officials.

The announcement is the biggest single success in President Barack Obama’s five-year-long push to secure the world’s most dangerous materials, and will come as world leaders gather here Monday for a nuclear security summit. Since Obama began these meetings with world leaders – this will be the third – 13 nations have eliminated their caches of nuclear materials and scores more have hardened security at their storage facilities to prevent theft by potential terrorists.