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"Barack Obama's ambitious goal of freeing the world of nuclear weapons won a significant boost tonight when Russia indicated that it had reached agreement with the United States on a historic nuclear arms reduction treaty. Kremlin officials said that a document to replace the 1991 Start treaty had been agreed with Washington. A signing ceremony between Obama and Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, is likely to take place early next month in the Czech capital Prague, they said."

" The Russian and American presidents have signed a long-awaited nuclear weapons pact in the Czech capital that will replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start). The new treaty marks a milestone in the arms control process, as the BBC's Diplomatic Correspondent Jonathan Marcus reports from Prague."

"President Barack Obama sent a landmark arms-reduction treaty with Russia to the Senate on Thursday for ratification and called for $80 billion in nuclear funding, which could help win opposition support. Barack Obama | Russia Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the funds, which would be spent over a decade, were needed to "rebuild and sustain America's aging nuclear stockpile." The treaty, which must be ratified by the Senate and Russia's parliament before it goes into force, would reduce the strategic nuclear arsenals deployed by the former Cold War foes by 30 percent within seven years."

"The United States, Russia and other nuclear powers would agree to a global conference in 2014 to negotiate a timetable for abolishing nuclear arms, under a draft committee report submitted Friday, halfway through a monthlong conference reviewing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). The highly ambitious plan was only an opening bid for the upcoming two weeks of haggling over a final document to be issued by the conference. The eventual text, if there is one, will inevitably be less far-reaching. For one thing, the five nuclear powers recognized under the treaty - also including Britain, France and China - have never endorsed a timetable for nuclear abolition."

"It was only one paragraph buried deep in the most plain-vanilla kind of diplomatic document, 40 pages of dry language committing 189 nations to a world free of nuclear weapons. But it has become the latest source of friction between Israel and the United States in a relationship that has lurched from crisis to crisis over the last few months. At an annual meeting to review the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in May, the United States yielded to demands by Arab nations that the final document urge Israel to sign the treaty - a way of spotlighting its historically undeclared nuclear weapons."

"Toshiba Corp., Hitachi Ltd. and Tokyo Electric Power Co. are among six Japanese companies that will form a joint venture to sell nuclear reactors and technology to Vietnam and other countries. The group, which includes Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., Chubu Electric Power Co. and Kansai Electric Power Co., will seek financial assistance from the trade ministry, they said in a joint statement yesterday. The companies have set up an office ahead of forming the venture this autumn. Japan is holding talks for nuclear cooperation treaties with India, Jordan, and Russia and has had preliminary discussions with Vietnam. The trade ministry will work to speed negotiations for the treaties, which are necessary for Japanese companies to export nuclear technology, the ministry said in a statement yesterday. "

"It didn't end in failure. That was perhaps the best the U.S. government could boast about a month-long conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which ended Friday in New York. President Obama has made a priority of strengthening the treaty, which is in danger of unraveling after decades of curtailing the spread of nuclear weapons. Much of his ambitious nuclear agenda has been undertaken with an eye toward demonstrating U.S. compliance with the pact. The United States got few of the specific goals it sought at the conference, such as penalties for nations that secretly develop nuclear weapons, then quit the pact (think North Korea). Language calling on countries to allow tougher nuclear inspections was greatly watered down. "

President Barack Obama needs to back up a campaign pledge to ratify a worldwide nuclear test ban or risks seeing an atomic-bomb "bubble," international security experts say. "There is a problem and regulation is needed," Tibor Toth, 54, director of the Vienna-based United Nations treaty organization that is seeking to outlaw atomic weapons testing, said yesterday in an interview. "The arrangements in place to address the threat posed by nuclear weapons are showing cracks in the facade."

A new nuclear weapons report by a panel of scientists and two new books by weapons scientists show just how deeply the nuclear genie still haunts the scientific heirs of the Manhattan Project. "Scientists have always felt a special responsibility for nuclear weapons, the one weapon they have created of such import," says physicist John Browne, a former head of Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory. Now, amid pressing economic and wartime worries, nuclear weapons are poised once again to enter public debate, fueled by warnings from Congress and a campaign pledge by President-elect Barack Obama to support the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The treaty, which bans nuclear weapon test explosions, has been ratified by 143 nations, but not the United States.

Russia moved swiftly yesterday to extend a hand to President Obama over American plans for big cuts in nuclear weapons. Sergei Ivanov, the Deputy Prime Minister, said that Russia was ready to sign a new strategic missile treaty with the US. "We welcome the statements from the new Obama Administration that they are ready to enter into talks and complete within a year, the signing of a new Russian-US treaty on the limitation of strategic attack weapons," said Mr Ivanov, a hawkish former Defence Minister, who was once seen as a candidate to become the president of Russia.

Burundi has ratified a global ban on nuclear test explosions and has become the 145th nation to fully endorse the accord. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization says the Central African country ratified the treaty earlier this week. But the Vienna-based organization is still urging key holdout nations to ratify the pact. Forty-four states that possess nuclear technology need to both sign and ratify it before it can take effect - and only 35 have done so.

Australia on Friday said it will support the safeguards agreement between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and India, but has reaffirmed that it will not sell uranium to India or any other country that is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). "After careful consideration, the Australian government has formed the view that the safeguards agreement is a positive step which will strengthen nuclear non-proliferation efforts and is consistent with the non-proliferation objectives of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said in a statement here.

MOSCOW, April 23 (UPI) -- Russia and Armenia signed a treaty Tuesday in Yerevan to set up a joint venture for the exploration and mining of uranium and other minerals in Armenia. A joint company is being established on parity lines and will be registered within the next three months. The treaty was signed by Vadim Zhivov, general director of the Atomredmetzoloto uranium holding, and Armenian Environmental Protection Minister Aram Arutyunyan. ARMZ manages all of Russia's uranium assets and runs some projects in Kazakhstan.

9 May 2008 - Over 100 States took part in a two-week meeting seeking to pave the way towards the review of the United Nations-backed Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which forms the foundation of the world's nuclear non-proliferation regime. This gathering, which wrapped up today, was the second of three sessions of the Preparatory Committee of the Parties to the Treaty on the NPT.

Russia will deploy a new multiple-warhead, nuclear-capable missile after a key US-Russian arms control treaty expires in December, a top general said on Tuesday, quoted by news agencies. "After December 5, that is after the expiration of the START-1 treaty, a regiment with one command centre and one rocket division armed with RS-24 complexes with detachable warheads will be placed on a state of combat readiness," General Nikolai Solovtsov was quoted as saying. At least four warheads would be placed on the RS-24 missiles to be deployed, said Solovtsov, the commander of Russia's strategic missile forces.

On January 15, outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed a nuclear cooperation accord with her United Arab Emirates (UAE) counterpart Shaikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan. The treaty, which to become law needs to be presented to the U.S. Congress, would help the Persian Gulf state become the first Arab country to develop a nuclear power sector. Along with last year's nuclear agreement with India, this treaty emphasizes a trend away from decades of U.S. policy dominated by the fear of nuclear proliferation. Not since the 1950s Eisenhower-era "Atoms for Peace" program has so much hope been placed in peaceful nuclear cooperation. Background The pact marks an astonishing diplomatic journey for the UAE and Shaikh Abdullah. Ten years ago in 1999, the shaikh, a son of the then ruler and a half-brother of the current UAE president, was an honored guest during a visit to Pakistan's unsafeguarded Kahuta uranium enrichment and missile facility. While there, he saw the prefabricated structures built in Sharjah, a member sheikhdom of the UAE, which were hiding the production line of the nuclear-capable Ghauri missile from U.S. satellites passing overhead. For a quarter century, until 2004, the UAE helped Pakistan elude Western export controls by serving as a vital transit point for Pakistan's purchases of nuclear-weapon-related parts and manufacturing equipment.

Five months after President Barack Obama, with great fanfare, called for a world free of nuclear weapons, a crucial step toward that goal is running into resistance. There is little indication Obama will have the votes he needs for a cornerstone of his nonproliferation efforts: Senate ratification of a nuclear test ban treaty. If Obama can't get the treaty approved, he probably will have a hard time persuading the rest of the world to rein in nuclear weapon programs. Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, an advocacy group based in Washington, said the Obama administration needs to "work faster and harder" to build support in the Senate.

India is not considering signing the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty, government informed the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. This was stated by Minister of State in PMO Prithviraj Chavan in a written reply to a question raised by Kalikesh Singh Deo in the Lok Sabha. "No Sir," Chavan said to a query on whether the government was considering signing the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty.

New York and Washington may be separated by only a few hundred miles, but in the last few weeks, they have appeared to be light years apart on arms control and nonproliferation issues. In New York, representatives of more than 100 countries worked from May 4-15 to prepare for next year's nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference. Buoyed by U.S. President Barack Obama's April pledge to seek a world free from nuclear weapons, their work was marked by a spirit of cooperation and compromise that had been noticeably absent during the eight years of the Bush administration. They approved an agenda for next year's event in record time and contemplated forwarding an ambitious set of recommendations to the conference. They welcomed the reinvigoration of U.S-Russian strategic arms talks and Obama's commitment to again seek ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) prohibiting nuclear weapon tests.

Australia plans to increase uranium sales to China provided it is not used in Beijing's expanding weapons programme, documents mistakenly made public by Australia's foreign minister showed on Thursday. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith tabled in parliament a confidential list of treaty negotiations with other countries, revealing details of negotiations between Australia and China about lifting exports of uranium from BHP Billiton's (BHP.AX: Quote, Profile, Research) Olympic Dam mine in South Australia. The treaty document said Australian diplomats attended talks in Beijing in January on BHP Billiton's proposal to send uranium-infused copper concentrate to China from Olympic Dam.