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This time around, U.S. Senate skeptics who killed the nuclear test-ban treaty a decade ago must take into account a new, $1-billion verification network underpinning the pact, the treaty chief said Wednesday. In 1999, "the system was a blueprint," Tibor Toth said of the high-tech web of stations on alert for nuclear bomb tests. Now "I could call it a `verification Manhattan Project," he said, referring to the all-out U.S. program that built the first bombs in the 1940s. Toth, who heads the U.N.-affiliated Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, spoke with The Associated Press on the eve of a conference of some 150 nations convened every other year to urge those that have not ratified the treaty, including the United States, to do so. The two-day session will be held in parallel Thursday with a summit of the 15 U.N. Security Council members on the subject of nuclear nonproliferation, presided over by U.S. President Barack Obama.

The Swiss government on Wednesday ordered the quick destruction of about 100 pages of evidence linked to an investigation of three Swiss engineers suspected of smuggling nuclear weapons technology. The Cabinet said the documents were "the most explosive" material in a file of more than 1,000 pages related to the case against the Tinner family, which is suspected of links to the nuclear smuggling network of Abdul Qadeer Khan - the creator of Pakistan's atomic bomb. The documents are copies of files destroyed in 2007 under a previous order that led to protests from lawmakers and legal experts, who said the government undermined the prosecution in the smuggling case. The copies were found in prosecutors' archives last December. Citing security concerns and its legal obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Cabinet, or Federal Council, said that about 100 pages dealing with atomic weapons designs would be shredded shortly to keep them out of "the wrong hands." It didn't give a date for the destruction.

Pakistan's nuclear programme has been under attack right from its inception. The decade of seventies saw conspiracy theories of Pakistan's acquisition of nuclear technology clandestinely. The decades of 80s and 90s saw an orchestrated campaign to malign its programme. After being forced to cross the nuclear threshold in May 1998, Pakistan established its Nuclear Command Authority three years before India; put in place, its Strategic Plans Division (SPD) to perform functions relating to planning, coordination, and establishment of a reliable command, control, communication, and intelligence network; yet Pakistan faces a concerted campaign to instil fears regarding the security of its nuclear assets. Frederick Kagan, former West Point military historian, who devised the Bush administration's Iraq troop surge, called for the White House to consider various options for an unstable Pakistan, including the US to consider sending elite troops to Pakistan to seize its nuclear weapons if the country descends into chaos. The Washington Post carried a detailed report on war-games to take out Pakistan's nukes. Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer, senior advisor to three US presidents including President Obama on Middle East and South Asian issues came up with an Op-Ed Pakistan and the bomb: How the US can divert a crisis in WSJ (May 30, 09) based on half truths, conjectures and apparent twisting of facts in pursuit of an agenda. It has been refuted by various analysts including this scribe so let it rest at that though because of Mr Bruce Riedel's position in the US government, it may be construed that his views are reflective of the Obama administration.

A parliamentary control delegation has rejected plans by the cabinet to destroy sensitive documents related to an international nuclear smuggling ring. The committee called on the government to seek an acceptable solution with justice authorities for about 100 pages of evidence linked to an investigation of three Swiss engineers suspected of smuggling nuclear weapons technology. "There is no international obligation to destroy the documents," said Hansruedi Stadler, a Christian Democratic senator, on Tuesday. The committee said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) agreed that Switzerland was capable of safely storing the file, which contains more than 1,000 pages including documents on bomb designs, until a court rules on the case of Urs Tinner, his brother Marco and their father Friedrich. They are suspected of having links to the nuclear smuggling network of Abdul Qadeer Kahn, the father of Pakistan's nuclear programme, and are believed to have worked as undercover agents for the United States. Last week, the government ordered the quick destruction of sensitive material

An earthquake fault previously believed to be limited to an area south of Whidbey Island actually stretches 250 to 300 miles, from Victoria to Yakima, crossing the Cascade Mountains and is capable of producing a major earthquake, new research shows. Many of the other faults in Western Washington could be connected to the South Whidbey Island Fault in a network similar to the San Andreas Fault system in California, Craig Weaver, the regional earthquake coordinator for the U.S. Geological Survey based in Seattle, said in an interview this week. Suzette Kimball, the USGS acting director, told Congress on Thursday that there was "strong evidence" other faults in Western Washington were connected to the South Whidbey fault. "It appears there is a very large (fault) system in the Cascade arc," she told the House Interior appropriations subcommittee.

A bill allocating P100 million for a feasibility study has already "predetermined" results, a member of a multisectoral alliance against the recommissioning and operation of mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) said on Friday. Engr. Roberto Verzola, secretary-general of Philippine Greens, a member of Network Opposed to Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (NO to BNPP), said in a statement that Rep. Mark Cojuangco's H.B. 6300 on the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) has been scheduled by the House of Representatives for plenary debates when it reconvenes in July.

A plan to transport more radioactive material on the Northern Territory's rail network is a recipe for disaster, a Darwin-based anti-uranium campaigner says. BHP Billiton will hold a public meeting in Darwin tonight to outline the environmental impacts of its plans to expand the Olympic Dam uranium mine in South Australia. The company wants to freight 1.6 million tonnes of concentrate to Darwin each year, while also increasing the amount of uranium oxide it already sends north by rail.

Senior Canadian officials left a binder full of confidential nuclear documents in a television studio and made no attempt to retrieve them, the TV network involved said on Wednesday. The incident is likely to increase pressure on the minority Conservative government, already under fire for its handling of the economic crisis. The main opposition Liberal Party said on Tuesday it would decide next week whether to try to bring down the Conservatives in Parliament.

Fresh evidence has emerged of police efforts to recruit paid spies within environmental groups after the Guardian revealed that police in Scotland are running a network of hundreds of informants inside pressure groups. Anti-nuclear protesters in Scotland said yesterday that military police had offered them cash in exchange for information. One protester said he was offered money on top of his jobseeker's allowance - a move sanctioning benefit fraud - if he gave military police the names of people planning environmental action. One activist from Plane Stupid revealed that members had been given £20 by police.

A coalition of six anti-nuclear groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and Livermore's Tri-Valley CAREs, on Wednesday released its in-depth blueprint for steering Obama administration policy toward a nuclear weapons-free future. The timing of the report's release was deliberate: It was intended to get to President Barack Obama's desk before a bipartisan congressional committee releases its own report in early May to guide the president's thinking as he prepares a new nuclear weapons policy. Obama's eagerly-anticipated "2009 Nuclear Posture Review" is due this year, and will lay out the nation's guiding principles for a reduction of its nuclear weapons stockpile and for maintaining the viability of existing warheads to serve as a credible nuclear deterrent. The anti-nuclear coalition, called the Nuclear Weapons Complex Consolidation Policy Network, calls for slashing the U.S. nuclear stockpile to 500 weapons from 2015 to 2020, and for scaling down the nuclear weapons complex from eight sites to three.

Nuclear watchdog groups are proposing that the U.S. reduce its nuclear weapons complex to just three sites - not to include SRS - as a step toward the nuclear weapons-free world that President Barack Obama envisioned in a speech days ago in Prague. "We have a different declared direction ... (that) makes our recommendations a whole lot more possible than they were before" Obama's speech Sunday, said Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, one of the authors of the report released Wednesday by the Nuclear Weapons Complex Consolidation Policy Network. The watchdog groups have a proposal that would cut nuclear weapons work down to essential operations while the nation works toward "a world free of nuclear weapons," Coghlan said in a telephone news conference.

As Constellation Energy seeks to expand its nuclear energy output by partnering with a French power company and building a new reactor just south of Anne Arundel County, statewide consumer groups are trying to draw a line in the sand. Members of Chesapeake Safe Energy Coalition, which includes Maryland PIRG, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Nuclear Information and Resource Service and others, released a new report yesterday outside of the Public Service Commission headquarters, advocating for clean-energy alternatives.

"The FY 2011 budget request will be released on Monday, February 1, 2010. The Obama administration has laid out an aggressive nonproliferation agenda that includes deep reductions in nuclear stockpiles, ratification of a nuclear test ban, and decreased prominence for nuclear weapons in US defense policy. Despite this agenda, the Department of Energy's (DOE) budget request will ask Congress to significantly increase nuclear weapons activities, including funding for construction of new facilities that will expand U.S. warhead production capacity. The DOE request will not reflect recent independent scientific conclusions that existing nuclear weapons can be reliably maintained for decades under current, well-established programs. The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), a national network representing communities downwind and downstream from U.S. nuclear weapons facilities, is concerned that increased funding for nuclear energy and weapons research and production will rob precious resources for needed environmental cleanup and clean, sustainable energy solutions. Items of interest:"

"GOVERNMENT officials were grilled by 350 members of the public over plans to build a nuclear power plant in Kirksanton. Angry residents made their voices heard with calls for the Department of Energy and Climate Change to pull the plug on the project. The meeting, held on Saturday at Millom School, followed a three-day exhibition in Millom Network Centre."

"WHAT: News briefing to release 1st Year Radioactive Report Card on President Obama and his Administration to grade their performance on policies on nuclear weapons production, waste cleanup and reactor funding. WHEN: Monday, March 15, 2010 - - 10:00am WHERE: Room 2322 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC WHO: Leaders of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) a national network of organizations representing the concerns of people living downwind and downstream from U.S. nuclear research, testing, production and waste disposal facilities - Michele Boyd, Director, Safe Energy Program, Physicians for Social Responsibility -- taxpayer subsidies for new reactors, radioactive waste disposal, and nuclear contamination cleanup - Ralph Hutchison, Coordinator, Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance -- new Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear production plants, the next generation of weapons they may help support, and the implications for U.S. treaty obligations - Nick Roth, Program Director, Alliance for Nuclear Accountability -- performance of President Obama and his Administration during its first year in office and changes that must be made to improve its grades. WHY: Scores of activists from across the nation will present their concerns about U.S. nuclear weapons, cleanup and reactor spending policies in dozens of meetings with leaders of Congress and the Obama Administration from March 15 - 17 as part of ANA's 22nd Annual DC Days. "

"The Alliance of Nuclear Worker Advocacy Groups applauded the Government Accountability Office's recommendation of an indepdendent advisory board to oversee the Dept. of Labor work in carrying out the goverment's sick nuclear work compensation program. But spokespeople within the network of advoacy groups said more needs to be done. Here is a link to the GAO report, "Energy Employees Compensation: Additional Independent Oversight and Transparency Would Improve Program's Credibility." The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program has the subject of contention and controversy from its creation a decade ago. In a statement, Scott Yundt of Tri-Valley CARES, said: "The GAO's call for scientific oversight of Part E is no small matter. It challenges the current program leadership's understanding of the complexity of the issues and highlights their unwillingness to assure the scientific integrity of the decision. GAO's recommendations support ANWAG's contention that program decisions are often arbitrary and capricious, and without scientific basis. Moreover, it supports the advocates' concerns and those of the program's last medical director, who was forced out of his job when he raised these very issues."

"A two-phase federal plan to clean up the former nuclear reprocessing plant near West Valley drew disappointment Friday from critics. The U. S. Energy Department issued a "record of decision" late Thursday for the West Valley Demonstration Project in Ashford that will result in a gradual return to normal for the closed facility. On Friday, Diane D'Arrigo, a member of the watchdog West Valley Action Network, said the plan falls short of what is needed. "There is widespread disappointment in the federal government's decision to pursue only a partial cleanup of the site," D'Arrigo said. "We have a big mess at West Valley, and we've been pushing for a full cleanup of [the site] for decades." "

"A monitor that measures radiation emissions at the nation's oldest operating nuclear plant has been found to be inoperable. But officials say the problem at the Oyster Creek plant in Lacey Township doesn't pose a public health threat. Exelon Corp., which owns the plant, recently notified the state Department of Environmental Protection about the problem. But it's not clear how long the equipment - known as a stack monitor - has been out of service. DEP officials say other monitors throughout the plant can be used to provide data about radiation levels. The agency also maintains a network of radiation monitors in the area around the plant. "(We're) confident that there have been no releases from the stack," DEP Commissioner Bob Martin said. "Our independent monitoring system has not shown any elevated levels in the environment.""

How the Map Works: A growing number of Radiation Monitoring Stations across the country, using various models of Digital GeigerCounters, upload their Radiation Count data in real time to their computer using a Data Cable, and then over the Internet to this web site, all of this accomplished through GeigerGraph for Networks software. How to Read the Map: Referring to the Map Legend at the bottom left corner of the map, locate Monitoring Stations around the country that are contributing radiation data to this map as you read this, and watch the numbers on those monitoring stations update as frequently as every minute (your browser will automatically refresh). The numbers represent radiation Counts per Minute, abbreviated CPM, and under normal conditions, quantify the level of background radiation, i.e. environmental radiation from outer space as well as from the earth's crust and air. Depending on your location within the US, your elevation or altitude, and your model of Geiger counter, this background radiation level might average anywhere from 5 to 60 CPM, and while background radiation levels are random, it would be unusual for those levels to exceed 100 CPM. Thus, the "Alert Level" for the National Radiation Map is 100 CPM, so if you see any Monitoring Stations with CPM value above 100, further indicated by an Alert symbol over those stations, it probably means that some radioactive source above and beyond background radiation is responsible.

The nuclear industry funds the special armed police force which guards its installations across the UK, and secret documents, seen by the Guardian, show the 750-strong force is authorised to carry out covert intelligence operations against anti-nuclear protesters, one of its main targets. The nuclear industry will pay £57m this year to finance the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC). The funding comes from the companies which run 17 nuclear plants, including Dounreay in Caithness, Sellafield in Cumbria and Dungeness in Kent. Around a third is paid by the private consortium managing Sellafield, which is largely owned by American and French firms. Nearly a fifth of the funding is provided by British Energy, the privatised company owned by French firm EDF. Private correspondence shows that in June, the EDF's head of security complained that the force had overspent its budget "without timely and satisfactory explanations to us". The industry acknowledges it is in regular contact with the CNC and the security services.

The nuclear industry funds the special armed police force which guards its installations across the UK, and secret documents, seen by the Guardian, show the 750-strong force is authorised to carry out covert intelligence operations against anti-nuclear protesters, one of its main targets. The nuclear industry will pay £57m this year to finance the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC). The funding comes from the companies which run 17 nuclear plants, including Dounreay in Caithness, Sellafield in Cumbria and Dungeness in Kent. Around a third is paid by the private consortium managing Sellafield, which is largely owned by American and French firms. Nearly a fifth of the funding is provided by British Energy, the privatised company owned by French firm EDF. Private correspondence shows that in June, the EDF's head of security complained that the force had overspent its budget "without timely and satisfactory explanations to us". The industry acknowledges it is in regular contact with the CNC and the security services.