Recovered records include material even senior Biden officials were not authorized to view, Washington Post reports
The FBI recovered a document describing a foreign government’s nuclear capabilities during its search of Mar-a-Lago, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
The Post, citing unnamed sources, did not identify the foreign government named in the document describing the country’s military defenses.
Continue reading...Moscow blames Ukraine war sanctions for preventing mutual inspection of its nuclear arms under New Start treaty
Russia has suspended an arrangement that allowed US and Russian inspectors to visit each other’s nuclear weapons sites under the 2010 New Start treaty, in a new blow to arms control.
Mutual inspections had been suspended as a health precaution since the start of the Covid pandemic, but a foreign ministry statement on Monday added another reason Russia is unwilling to restart them. It argued that US sanctions imposed because of the invasion of Ukraine stopped Russian inspectors travelling to the US.
Continue reading...Non-nuclear state Australia’s handling of nuclear-powered submarines will have to be ‘impeccable’, Australia Institute says
Australia needs to step up in the fight to stop nuclear conflict, and to prove to the world it is a safe nuclear custodian, a new report argues.
The report by the Australia Institute comes ahead of a major global conference that starts on Monday in New York, where Australia’s Aukus submarine deal will come under scrutiny.
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Continue reading...Cameraman Daniel McGovern copied footage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki devastation to ensure lessons were learned
The photograph shows devastation in Nagasaki after the atomic bomb: a scorched wilderness where there was once a city. At its centre stands a lone man with a camera.
It was 9 September 1945 and Lt Daniel McGovern, a US Army Air Force cameraman, was documenting ground zero, the point directly below the bomb’s detonation four weeks earlier. Few would recognise McGovern, but the vision of apocalypse is familiar from documentary footage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the second world war.
Continue reading...Talks to save 2015 agreement on brink of collapse as Tehran is also accused of testing missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons
Iran has been accused of making “maximalist demands” in the latest unsuccessful round of talks on reviving the nuclear non-proliferation deal at a grave session of the UN security council in which it was widely acknowledged that the talks – and the whole 2015 deal – were on the brink of collapse.
Iranian and US officials, with the EU acting as mediators, held two days of talks in Doha in a bid to break a months-long impasse, but no progress was made on Iran’s central demand that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps be removed from US sanctions and its list of foreign terrorist organisations.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Anthony Albanese committed Labor to signing the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons while in opposition
Australia will attend – as an observer – a UN meeting of countries that have outlawed nuclear weapons, parties to a treaty Anthony Albanese championed in opposition and committed Labor to ratifying in government.
Government backbencher Susan Templeman’s attendance at the meeting in Vienna on Tuesday comes as a group of 55 former Australian ambassadors and high commissioners have written an open letter to the prime minister urging the government to sign up to the treaty, which outright prohibits the development, testing, production and use of nuclear weapons.
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Continue reading...Thinktank also says nuclear powers must take immediate action to prevent rise amid heightened risk of weapons’ use
The global nuclear arsenal is expected to grow in the coming years for the first time since the cold war, and the risk of such weapons being used is the greatest in decades, a leading conflict and armaments thinktank says.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and western support for Kyiv has heightened tensions among the world’s nine nuclear-armed states, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) thinktank said on Monday in a new set of research.
Continue reading...Defence secretary says US does not support Taiwan independence, which China says would prompt it to take island back
The US has warned of “especially stark” stakes in the Taiwan Strait if the status quo is unilaterally altered, as China reiterated its resolve to take the island back if it declares independence.
Speaking at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore on Saturday, US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said Washington does not support Taiwanese independence, and the Joe Biden administration “categorically” opposes any change of the status quo.
Continue reading...Parchin facility has previously come under scrutiny from UN nuclear watchdog
One person has been killed in an “industrial accident” near an Iranian military complex that has previously come under scrutiny from the UN nuclear watchdog, according to state media reports.
“An industrial accident took place [on Wednesday evening] in one of the factories in the Parchin area, leading to the death of one person and injuries to another,” Iran’s official IRNA news agency said. It gave no details of the cause of the accident.
Continue reading...South Korea calls launches ‘grave provocation’ and detects experiment that suggests forthcoming nuclear test
North Korea has fired three ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast, including one believed to have long-range capabilities, the South Korean military has said, a day after Joe Biden ended his first presidential visit to Asia.
Hours after the missile tests, South Korea said it had detected signs North Korea had conducted an experiment with a detonation device in preparation for a possible nuclear test, according to Yonhap news agency.
Continue reading...US president willing to meet Kim Jong-un, while Seoul says deployment of US ‘strategic assets’ was discussed
Joe Biden and his South Korean counterpart, Yoon Suk-yeol, have said they are considering expanding joint military exercises in response to the “threat” posed by North Korea, a move that is expected to enrage the regime as speculation builds that it could conduct a nuclear test.
Speaking in Seoul on the second day of his visit to South Korea, Biden said he was willing to meet North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, but only if he was “sincere and serious” about dismantling his nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.
Continue reading...National security adviser says intelligence reflects ‘long-range missile test or a nuclear test, or frankly both’
The White House is braced for a North Korean missile or nuclear test while Joe Biden is on a trip to South Korea and Japan, which begins on Friday.
The national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters on Wednesday: “Our intelligence does reflect the genuine possibility that there will be either a further missile test, including long-range missile test, or a nuclear test, or frankly both in the days leading into, on or after the president’s trip to the region.
Continue reading...Letter signed by former diplomats says Iran close to developing nuclear weapons capability
Leading former diplomats including seven ex-UK foreign and defence ministers have warned the Iran nuclear talks are heading to “corrosive stalemate devolving into a cycle of increased nuclear tension” and urged Tehran and Washington to show more flexibility.
Year-long talks in Vienna on reviving the deal and for the US, which was pulled out of the agreement by Donald Trump, to lift sanctions on Iran have in effect ground to a halt in a dispute over whether the west will lift the foreign terrorist organisation designation, and sanctions, against the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
Continue reading...Putin boasts new intercontinental ballistic weapon will provide rivals with ‘food for thought’
Russia has said it had test-launched its Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, a new addition to its nuclear arsenal, which Vladimir Putin said would give Moscow’s enemies something to think about.
The Russian president was shown on television being told by the military that the missile had been launched from Plesetsk in the north-west and hit targets in the Kamchatka peninsula in the far east.
Continue reading...Leader appears well pleased with latest test of what state media reported was a new type of tactical guided weapon
North Korea has test-fired a new weapons system, under the supervision of leader Kim Jong-un, that it claims will boost the efficiency of its tactical nuclear weapons, state media reported.
The “new-type tactical guided weapon ... is of great significance in drastically improving the firepower of the frontline long-range artillery units and enhancing the efficiency in the operation of tactical nukes,” the official Korean Central News Agency said early on Sunday, without specifying when the test took place. It said the test was successful.
Continue reading...US says Pyongyang may escalate recent provocations with a weapons test on 110th anniversary of founder Kim Il-sung’s birth
North Korea could be planning its first nuclear weapon test in nearly five years, according to a senior US official who urged the regime to step back from further provocations following its recent long-range missile test.
Sung Kim, the special representative for North Korea policy at the US state department, said Washington believes Pyongyang could demonstrate its growing nuclear weapons capacity on 15 April, an annual holiday held to celebrate the 110th anniversary of the birth of the country’s founder, Kim Il-sung.
Continue reading...Warning points to a rise in tensions on the peninsula after the North conducted its first intercontinental ballistic missile test in five years
The influential sister of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has said the country’s nuclear forces would “annihilate” the South Korean military if it launched a pre-emptive strike against the regime.
Kim Yo-jong, who holds several senior positions in the government and ruling party, said the North had no intention of starting a second Korean war, but would respond if provoked and leave the South’s military in a state of “total destruction and ruin”.
Continue reading...‘Shortcut’ tunnel at Punggye-ri nuclear testing centre could see it operational within a month, sources tell South Korean news agency
North Korea may be making rapid preparations to carry out a nuclear weapons test for the first time in more than four years, according to a South Korean media report.
The Yonhap news agency, quoting government sources, said North Korea appeared to be digging a “shortcut” to Tunnel 3 at its previously closed nuclear test site in Punggye-ri.
Continue reading...Japan calls testing ‘unforgivable’ as regime fires one of biggest missiles for first time since 2017
North Korea has launched what is thought to be its largest intercontinental ballistic missile to date, in a dramatic return to long-range testing that marks the regime’s most serious provocation for years.
South Korea’s military fired a missile barrage into the Sea of Japan in response to the ICBM launch – the first full-range test of Kim Jong-un’s most powerful missiles since 2017. The launch will lead to fears that the North has made significant progress in developing weapons capable of sending nuclear warheads anywhere in the US.
Continue reading...Pyongyang launches were to test parts of intercontinental ballistic missile and not satellite surveillance system, US concludes
The US believes North Korea is testing a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in what the Biden administration called a “serious escalation” that would trigger more sanctions.
Pyongyang conducted two recent missile launches which it said were ultimately intended for putting satellites into space. After scrutinising them, however, US intelligence has assessed that the real intention was to test parts of the new ICBM.
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