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"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday the United States must take an integrated approach to its national security. Clinton, in a speech at The Brookings Institute in Washington, said the United States needs to exercise "smart power" to deal with "new and complicated threats" -- terrorism, nuclear proliferation, climate change, cyber-security and energy security to name a few."

There are no plans to add a second nuclear reactor to the Clinton power plant anytime soon, Exelon Nuclear officials say, despite rumors to the contrary. Exelon Nuclear received an early site permit in March 2007 from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That allows the utility to "bank" the property adjacent to the Clinton plant for a potential new reactor for up to 20 years. "We have no immediate plans to build a nuclear plant at the site, but if over the course of the next 18 years we decide to do something, we have the process started," Exelon spokesman Bruce Paulson said.

IN A gigantic leap in the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, the United States has assured India that irrespective of New Delhi's reservations, they would be moving ahead with the deal. The government has held the position that the deal is flawed and discriminatory in nature. US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had talks witht the Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna in their meeting on Friday in New York, and the decision was conveyed, said Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake. He also stated that the UN Security council's plea urging all states to join the NPT was not the topic of discussion when Clinton and Krishna met.

Exelon and GE Hitachi are considering a joint venture to produce the isotope cobalt-60 at Exelon's Clinton power reactor in Illinois, Exelon spokeswoman Krista Lopykinski said March 19. Co-60 is used in various medical applications and radioactive sources. On March 31, Exelon representatives and NRC staff will hold a meeting to discuss "a potential license application" by Exelon Generation regarding Co-60 production at Clinton, NRC said in a March 18 notice. Lopykinski declined to provide further details.

"An adviser to former president Bill Clinton intervened in 2005 to help win Kazakh approval of a uranium mining deal benefiting a major donor to the Clinton Foundation, according to a video statement made by the former chief of Kazakhstan's state nuclear firm. "

"Poland and the United States on Saturday signed a deal on a future US anti-missile shield in Europe which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said would help ward off threats from Iran. "This is the first agreement that implements the US European-based Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) for ballistic missile defense and enables the stationing of a US land-based SM-3 missile defense interceptor system in the Republic of Poland," said a joint statement issued by Clinton and Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski. "This agreement marks an important step in our countries? efforts to protect our NATO allies from the threat posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction," it added."

This week several thousand delegates to the 2009 Policy Conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee will descend upon The Best Congress Money Can Buy, to conduct more than 500 separate meetings with congresspersons and key aides, to urge them "to deal with Iran's nuclear threat against the Jewish state." Or else. Of course, Secretary of State Clinton has already testified under oath that "The Non Proliferation Treaty is the cornerstone of the nonproliferation regime, and the United States must exercise the leadership needed to shore up the [associated nuclear-weapons proliferation prevention] regime." The nuclear-weapons proliferation prevention regime which Obama-Biden-Hillary just declared we must "shore up" - as a consequence of the largely successful attempt by Bush-Cheney-Bolton to tear it down - is based upon what the IAEA Secretariat is required to do in the event it discovers that some nuclear materials subject to one of its Safeguards Agreements is "diverted to a military purpose."

"The United States, in an effort to be "as transparent as we can be" in the words of Hilary Clinton, recently announced it has 5,113 in its nuclear stockpile, and thousands more retired warheads awaiting the junk-pile. President Obama recently signed a new agreement with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called The New START Treaty that will reduce current American and Russian stockpiles to 1550. So I started thinking, "What happens to all that uranium after the bombs are dismantled?" It seems a lot of the disarming process is merely paperwork. According to an article called "Where nuclear weapons go to die" by Jeffrey Lewis and Meri Lugo, a nuclear weapon is taken off the active list and put in storage, if it is not there already, or shipped to a company called Pantex in Texas to be disassembled. The authors say that during the Clinton administration, more than 1,000 warheads were dismantled a year, but since 2000, employees at Pantex have spent most of their time "refurbishing operational nuclear warheads to extend their life." They say there are some 4,000 nuclear weapons waiting in line to be dismantled. But this doesn't answer the question of where the uranium ends up once the bomb has been taken apart."

"Iranian President Ahmedinejad minced no words when he responded to reporters' queries prior to the ongoing UN Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference which started on Monday, May 3, 2010, in New York. He is the only head of state attending and was clearly prepared to take on Washington and its allies on the question of his country's uranium enrichment programme. This, the US and friends insist, is meant to fuel bombs not civilian power, regardless of Iran's claims that it is no more than that and well within the NPT rules. Ahmedinejad told reporters last Sunday that the dominant powers are using the atomic bomb as a 'tool for bullying, domination and expansionism,' and are imposing heavy pressures on independent countries, under 'the pretext of prevention of nuclear weapons proliferation.' As expected, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Ahmedinejad were found sparring on stage on the opening day, the latter terming it 'disgusting' and 'shameful' that the US would still be in possession of over 5,000 atomic warheads.[ The United States revealed on Monday that it has a total of 5,113 nuclear warheads in its stockpile, as of September 30, 2009.] The Iranians stressed that this was not only unjustified but also a threat to global security. They added that an independent probe would be required to verify the actual number of nuclear warheads in US possession. All this must have been quite infuriating for Clinton. Prior to Monday's inaugural heat, she had told a 'Meet the Press' session, 'We're not going to permit Iran to change the story from their failure to comply.' "

"Then U.S. president Bill Clinton had offered Pakistan a $5 billion package to refrain from conducting tit-for-tat nuclear tests in response to India's in 1998 but the offer was rejected at the cost of sanctions, Nawaz Sharif, who was the prime minister at the time, said on Friday. "I told him (Clinton) that we are not among those people who are sold for a few dollars, not now and in future too. Thus we successfully carried out our nuclear tests," Online news agency quoted Mr. Sharif as telling party activists on the 12th anniversary of the May 28, 1998 nuclear tests. "

US Senator Hillary Clinton questioned Tuesday Washington's decision to freeze a much vaunted US-Russian civilian nuclear pact, saying the move might not be in Washington's interest. US President George W. Bush decided on Monday to pull from congressional consideration the agreement in the latest effort by the administration to convey its displeasure with Russia over its military actions in Georgia.

The reports cited men in masks, a death squad van and other suspicious sights around the Davis Besse Nuclear Power Plant. Authorities fielded a flurry of calls Saturday from concerned residents who saw men in ski masks, Ghostbusters, ballerinas, ninjas and Little Red Riding Hood. The calls initiated numerous traffic stops over three hours as the Ottawa County Sheriff's Office, the Port Clinton Police Department's Harbor Patrol, Carroll Township and Oak Harbor Police and the U.S. Border Patrol responded to the calls.

Pressure is growing within Nato for the removal of the remaining US nuclear weapons on European soil, and for a new doctrine for the alliance that would depend less on nuclear deterrence. The initiative is being driven by the new German government coalition, which has called for the removal of American nuclear weapons on its territory as part of a Nato strategic rethink. The German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, the driving force behind the new policy, raised the issue during talks in Washington today with the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. Earlier this week, Westerwelle assured the Nato secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, that Germany would consult its allies on the removal of the estimated 20 nuclear weapons left on its soil.

Pressure is growing within Nato for the removal of the remaining US nuclear weapons on European soil, and for a new doctrine for the alliance that would depend less on nuclear deterrence. The initiative is being driven by the new German government coalition, which has called for the removal of American nuclear weapons on its territory as part of a Nato strategic rethink. The German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, the driving force behind the new policy, raised the issue during talks in Washington today with the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. Earlier this week, Westerwelle assured the Nato secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, that Germany would consult its allies on the removal of the estimated 20 nuclear weapons left on its soil.

Will Obama-Biden administration national security policies look remarkably like Clinton-Gore's? On the basis of the Obama-approved statement Hillary made to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at her confirmation hearings last week, it sure looks that way. After noting that "the gravest threat that America faces is the danger that weapons of mass destruction will fall into the hands of terrorists," Obama-Biden-Hillary goes on to declare that "The Non Proliferation Treaty is the cornerstone of the nonproliferation regime, and the United States must exercise the leadership needed to shore up the [associated nuclear-weapons proliferation prevention] regime."

Seven years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, at a time when government officials and outside experts are expressing growing concern about the prospect of a nuclear 9/11, few members of Congress know how much the United States spends on nuclear security or where the money goes. When Secretary of State-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton and Secretary of Energy-designate Steven Chu head into their Senate confirmation hearings Tuesday, they'll face difficult questions about how the U.S. is addressing nuclear dangers. Although most lawmakers would rank nuclear threats at the top of their list of national security concerns, they won't have sufficient or comprehensive information to work with. But Congress can fix this.

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on Monday emphasized diplomacy, internationalism and alliances as he laid out a national security outlook far from President George W. Bush's more unilateral approach, analysts said. "Our destiny is shared with the world's," Obama said before naming his former rival Sen. Hillary Clinton as his choice for secretary of state "To succeed, we must pursue a new strategy that skillfully uses, balances, and integrates all elements of American power -- our military and diplomacy, our intelligence and law enforcement, our economy and the power of our moral example."

The previous Clinton-Gore administrations - acting at the behest of various well-funded groups of activists in this country and the complicit Best Congress Money Can Buy - attempted to convert various regimes (Muslim and otherwise) in other nation-states to regimes more sympathetic to those activists' beliefs. First, by the imposition of sanctions. And if that didn't work, by bombing them from 20,000 feet.

Reuters) - Several people who could serve as energy secretary in U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's administration already have been mentioned by Washington insiders, lobbyists and blog writers, including: * U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He advocates renewable energy and energy efficiency measures. * Wesley Clark, retired Army general and former NATO commander who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. * General Electric Co Chief Executive Jeff Immelt, who says government investment in environmental technologies can create green jobs. * Ray Mabus, former Democratic Governor of Mississippi and U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil producer. He served as a senior adviser to the Obama campaign. * U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. A long-time critic of OPEC and nuclear power, he supported higher fuel economy standards for cars and trucks. * Dan Reicher, director of climate change and energy initiatives at Google.org. A former assistant energy secretary under President Bill Clinton, he wants more U.S. electricity generated by renewable sources and promotes plug-in vehicles. * Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat who has called for a $850 million state Energy Independence Fund to invest in clean energy projects and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. * Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat who is a big promoter of developing liquid fuel from coal. * Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat who fought efforts to allow a coal-fired power plant to expand in her state, saying it would spew more greenhouse gas emissions.

A charter member of George W. Bush's infamous "axis of evil" on account of its nuclear-weapons program, arms sales and brutal human-rights record, North Korea was unsurprisingly targeted by Bush for regime change from the start. That Kim Jong Il - a man the American President once called a "pygmy" - has not only survived, but emerged in the twilight of the Bush era with an agreement eerily similar to the one he signed with Bill Clinton over a decade earlier, makes for a remarkable tale.

As I've said before on this forum and perhaps elsewhere, I'm a fan of David Michaels -- particularly because of his work as an asst. secretary at DOE during the Clinton administration. I've seen a bunch of folks serve as political appointees at the Dept. of Energy over the past 25-plus years. David Michaels was one of the best, and he made a difference during his three years (I think that's right) at DOE.