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After a week of feints, fizzles and frustration, the U.S. seems to have averted a diplomatic meltdown -- at least temporarily -- in its escalating nuclear standoff with North Korea. First, Pyongyang exacerbated the 15-month dispute by beginning to remove plutonium-rich fuel rods from a nuclear reactor without monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency -- which could enable the North to acquire more plutonium for its suspected nuclear arms program. The move prompted the IAEA to issue an unusually blunt statement accusing Pyongyang of a "serious violation" of its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. And that effectively catapulted...
Since late April, North Korea has been telling the IAEA that it intended to unload fuel rods from its main nuclear reactor near the city of Yongbyon. According to Defense Secretary William Perry, Yongbyon's estimated 8,000 rods contain enough plutonium to build four or five bombs, and inspectors need to see if all the fuel is still there. The issue is of critical importance because the CIA estimates that fuel rods removed from Yongbyon in 1989 provided the plutonium to build one or two nuclear weapons. Whether Pyongyang actually has them is impossible to know for sure...
Sudoplatov reports a conversation between Bohr and Yakov Terletsky, a Soviet physicist and intelligence agent, in Denmark in 1945. Terletsky supposedly told Bohr that a nuclear reactor built in the U.S.S.R. would not work, and Bohr gave precise advice on what went wrong and how to fix it. The conversation did occur, but Bohr's son Aage, who was present, insists his father gave away no technical secrets. His account was backed up by Terletsky -- at least according to Roald Sagdeev, a former Soviet physicist now teaching at the University of Maryland, and other scholars who have read...
...Yekaterinburg's history than he was in Sverdlovsk-45, the site of Russia's assembly plant for nuclear warheads, 124 miles farther north. There scientists and technicians have begun the process of dismantling most of Russia's 32,000 nuclear weapons, converting the weapons-grade plutonium into commercial-reactor fuel. The KGB still blocks any visits to Sverdlovsk-45, even turning away Yeltsin's nuclear-safety inspectors. But because of its proximity to all the nuclear and missile complexes in the area, Yekaterinburg has become a shopping center for the hottest market in restricted products: the rare- and strategic-metals...
There are staggering profits to be made selling Russia's precious metals, especially those mined or produced by MINATOM. These include internationally restricted materials like boron 10, which is used in reactor control rods, and osmium 187, a nonradioactive isotope that can sell for more than $100,000 a gram. International trade in other, less exotic materials, such as zirconium, beryllium and hafnium, is controlled by nuclear nonproliferation agreements...