• Apathy a "central threat" to nuclear security, says expert

    Corey Hinderstein, the vice president of the International Program at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, looks back on the progress made in securing loose nuclear material in the ten years since 9/11; more specifically, Hinderstein discusses the likelihood of al Qaeda obtaining a nuclear bomb or nuclear material, bolstering security at medical and industrial facilities that have stockpiles of low-grade nuclear material, and the dangers of apathy

  • TSA: Aviation security "stronger and more secure" ten years later

    Lisa Farbstein, a spokesperson for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA); discusses new technologies implemented by TSA and DHS and the agency’s shift to a more risk-based approach to passenger screening

  • Groups seek FCC ruling on BART’s cell phone shutdown

    An ongoing legal battle in California over whether law enforcement agencies can shut off cell phone service could set the precedent for policies across the United States; in response to the Bay Area Rapid Transit’s (BART) decision to shut down its mobile phone service during a planned protest, several digital rights groups are urging the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to take swift action

  • U.S. makes nuclear fuel available to other countries

    The United States announced the availability of a reserve stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) for use in nuclear fuel; the LEU is derived from down-blended surplus military material; the LEU will be made available to countries interested in nuclear power generation, thus making it unnecessary for these countries to develop their own uranium-enrichment technology

  • Statistics helps calculate uncertainty of aging U.S. nukes

    How do you test a not-so-young nuclear stockpile for the effects of age when you cannot detonate any for the sake of finding out? The U.S. government has not conducted live nuclear tests since the early 1990s, but a BYU scientist offers solid answers — based on statistical analysis and without setting off any weapons

  • Blue ribbon commission calls for interim off site waste storage

    After deciding to stop the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project, President Obama appointed a blue Ribbon commission to examine alternatives; the first report from the commission calls for interim storage of nuclear waste not on the site of nuclear power plants, and for the creation of a new corporation to develop one or more deep geological repositories “as expeditiously as possible”

  • Another Iranian nuclear scientist killed in Tehran

    On Saturday, Darioush Rezaei, a 35-year-old physics professor involved in Iran’s nuclear program, was killed outside is Tehran home by assailants on a motorcycle; Rezaei’s expertise — neutron transport — is at the heart of nuclear chain reactions in reactors and bombs; Rezaei joins an ever-growing list of Iranian nuclear scientists who have met an untimely death at the hands of mysterious assailants; the systematic, covert killing of nuclear scientists to prevent a country from building a bomb is a method Israel used successfully — if, at times, with collateral damage — against Egypt in the early 1960s and against Iraq in the 1980s; the precision and lethality of the current Israeli campaign against Iran’s nuclear weapons scientists shows Israel learned important operational lessons from those two campaigns

  • Tampa police already training for 2012 RNC convention

    In preparation for next year’s Republican National Convention in Tampa Bay Florida, nearly every local police department employee is required to attend a three-day training course; the mandatory training is designed to teach officers how to control large crowds

  • UN body approves measure advancing Iran's nuke program

    The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), over a strenuous U.S. opposition, approved a measure committing the UN to supporting what the Iranians call a “disaster information management center”; the United States managed to defeat the Iranian proposal for the center several times in the past, but this time Iran, exploiting concerns about climate change, repackaged its proposal and tied it to a broader UN effort to help Asian countries prepare for climate change-induced natural disasters; the technologies with which the center will be provided — technologies which are otherwise unavailable to Iran because of the UN sanctions imposed on the country — will give Iran much-improved satellite-imagery and missile-control capabilities; these technologies will dramatically bolster Iran’s target selection, target-destruction, and bomb-damage-assessment capabilities; as is the case with any other new nuclear weapon state, Iran will initially have very few nuclear bombs in its arsenal; the technologies approved by ESCAP for delivery to Iran will allow the ayatollahs to make a much more efficient — and effective — use of their small arsenal — and make their threats to use this arsenal more credible

  • Boulder Colorado hit with plague and rabies

    On 3 June, the Boulder County Public Health (BCPH) department warned residents of the Mapleton Hill area that a domestic cat and a dead squirrel had tested positive for the plague; according to Joe Malinowski, the manager of BCPH’s Environmental Health Division, last week a second dead squirrel was found with the plague, but the cat had been successfully treated for the disease; so far there have been no other confirmed cases, but residents have reported several additional dead squirrels

  • House representatives battle for control of TSA

    Representatives Pete King (R-New York) and John Mica (R-Florida) are battling for control over jurisdiction of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA); currently, King’s Homeland Security Committee oversees TSA as airport security checkpoints are manned by DHS employees — making TSA the only government transportation agency that Mica’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee does not have jurisdiction over; last week Mica introduced an amendment that could place TSA under his committee’s control by moving to require TSA to hire private contractors to conduct airport screenings, thus removing DHS from the equation — and from King’s jurisdiction

  • Iran to enrich uranium to 20 percent

    Iran said it was planning to begin enriching uranium to 20 percent, bringing its stock closer to bomb-grade level; it will also shift its enrichment activities from Natanz to Qom

  • Iran pushes ahead with nuke plans, despite seismic warnings

    Iranian officials have chosen to ignore the warnings of top scientists and continue with the construction of nuclear facilities near earthquake prone regions; according to an official with the International Atomic Energy Agency, in a top level meeting Iran’s leaders recently decided to move ahead with plans to construct nuclear facilities, despite Iranian scientists’ warnings that “data collected since the year 2000 shows the incontrovertible risks of establishing nuclear sites in the proximity of fault lines’ in Khuzestan as well as nineteen other Iranian provinces; Iran is one of the most seismically active countries in the world with major fault lines covering at least 90 percent of it

  • WikiLeaks: Japan brushes aside U.S. fears of nuke terrorism

    Diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks reveal that U.S. officials were concerned about terrorist attacks at Japan’s nuclear facilities and the government’s seemingly lax security measures; one cable dated 26 February 2007, detailed a meeting where Japanese officials brushed aside U.S. concerns for physical security at one of the country’s nuclear facilities; additional cables sent from the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo to Washington D.C. reported that anti-terrorism drills held at nuclear facilities were unrealistic and overly “scripted”

  • U.S. can curb carbon emissions while boosting domestic oil production

    A report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Texas at Austin urges the United States to accelerate efforts to pursue carbon capture and storage (CCS) in combination with enhanced oil recovery (EOR), a practice that could increase domestic oil production while significantly curbing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2)