North Korea
The leaders of the United States and China said that North Korea “should get the message” that the world community will not tolerate its possession of nuclear weapons, a Chinese official said.
Interactive Investor 19th Nov 2006
World economic leaders condemned North Korea’s nuclear arms program, although the issue was not mentioned in the communique at the end of a two-day summit here of Group of 20 (G20) finance ministers and central bank chiefs, Australian Treasurer Peter Costello, chairman of the meeting, said.
Interactive Investor 19th Nov 2006
North Korea’s plutonium production facilities are facing problems, says a prominent US weapons scientist who visited the country earlier this month.
Nature 17th Nov 2006
THE United States offered an olive branch to North Korea and Burma yesterday, with the promise of peace and opportunity if their isolated regimes made the right “strategic choices”.
Sunday Times 19th Nov 2006
New nukes
SELLAFIELD union leaders are pushing for at least two new reactors to be built on site following Tony Blair’s announcement that it has a vital role to play in the rebirth of the nuclear industry.The Prime Minister’s visit to Sellafield on Thursday is being hailed as an important morale-booster for the workforce and he sent out a clear message that west Cumbria has a bright future.
Carlisle News and Star 18th Nov 2006
Trident
THE government will signal within the next two to three weeks that it wants to continue with the submarine-based Trident missile system as the UK’s nuclear deterrent, according to Whitehall sources.
Sunday Times 19th Nov 2006
Iraq
British intelligence reports on Saddam Hussein’s alleged efforts to buy uranium ore from Niger will be at the centre of new American investigations into the Iraq war by the newly elected Democrat-run Congress.
Sunday Telegraph 19th Nov 2006
The search for an exit strategy is causing them to turn to the unlikeliest “peace partners”: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran – who glorifies the country’s nuclear programme and insists Israel should be “wiped off the map” – and Bashar Assad of Syria, who was left out of President Bush’s original “Axis of Evil”, only to be included later.
Independent on Sunday 19th Nov 2006
Terror
A SPECIAL armed police force is being proposed to protect Britain’s main oil, gas and electricity installations from terrorist attack by Al-Qaeda. Whitehall security officials are suggesting that key sites such as the Milford Haven gas terminal on the Welsh coast and national grid power stations that supply London and other cities should be protected by police armed with machineguns. The new force is likely to be created by extending the existing Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC), a dedicated police force that protects more than 40 nuclear power plants and other civil nuclear sites across Britain.That force deploys several hundred officers, many of them armed, at sensitive nuclear sites such as Sizewell in Suffolk and Sellafield in Cumbria.
Sunday Times 19th Nov 2006
Freedom of Information
Scottish Freedom of Information Commisioner, Kevin Dunion, faces the first court challenges to his decisions. Next month, he is being taken to the Court of Session in Edinburgh by the Scottish Executive in an attempt to overturn two rulings ordering the release of ministerial correspondence about legal reform and a quarry in Ayrshire. Earlier this month the National Health Service was in court arguing that obeying Dunion’s instruction to release details of childhood cancer cases in Dumfries and Galloway would breach patient confidentiality. A verdict is not expected until the New Year.
Sunday Herald 19th Nov 2006
