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Japan has ordered a destroyer in the Sea of Japan to strike any ballistic missiles that may be launched by North Korea in the coming weeks after Pyongyang fired a Rodong medium-range missile over the sea, a government source said on Saturday.

LONDON — India and Israel have concluded an agreement to assemble a ballistic missile defense system. Indian sources said Jerusalem and New Dehli concluded more than two years of negotiations with an agreement in principle to build a BMD system for India. The sources said the system would be designed to protect against nuclear warheads fired from China or Pakistan. “This system would integrate Indian and Israeli assets into a layered defense network,” a source said. The sources said the Indian Defense Ministry agreed to the project. But the two sides were preparing for contract negotiations that could extend into...

A magnitude five earthquake has been detected 132km (80 miles) from the Korean peninsula early on Tuesday morning, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) has said. The quake, which was said to have occurred at approximately 03:48 local time, took place at a depth of nearly 16km (10 miles) in the sea west of the Korean peninsula – just days after North Korea threatened to carry out a “new form” of nuclear test. While North Korean nuclear tests have previously been detected by the USGS quake monitoring center, the location and depth of the earthquake did not immediately suggest North...

-On Thursday, 10,000 Russian troops began a drill simulating the massive use of nuclear missiles. While much Western attention has been bestowed on Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine, Moscow also began a massive nuclear offensive exercise on Thursday. According to the Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta, on Thursday Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces began a massive three-day exercise involving 10,000 soldiers and 1,000 pieces of equipment from more than 30 units. The major purpose of the drill, according to the report—which cites multiple senior Russian military officers—is to ensure Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces have sufficient readiness to conduct offensive operations involving the...

he Department of Energy said Thursday it expects to get underground next week to begin investigating the cause and extent of a mysterious radiation leak from the government's nuclear waste dump in southeastern New Mexico. Officials said the inspections of the shafts that workers will use to access the half-mile-deep repository are complete and they are preparing to send an initial crew of eight into the mine early next week. The dump has been shuttered since mid-February, when radiation was released above ground and into the air around Carlsbad, contaminating at least 17 workers with low doses of radiation. Four...

ABUJA — On Monday, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said his country intends to harness nuclear energy for development purposes - which to most Nigerians means one thing: providing electricity. But some analysts say that Nigeria should figure out how to keep the lights on with the huge natural resources it already has. Nigeria’s nuclear aspirations began in 2007, when then-President Umaru Yar'Adua said the country planned to add nuclear power to the national grid by 2017. The original deadline seems to be off the table, but officials say the plan is still on track. “Nigeria is on course in its...

AASpecial ReportThe Roots of Russia’s Revanchism — Energy

<p>While the NSA is busy justifying its spying of every American its existence thanks to famous Moscow resident Edward Snowden, its Russian counterparts have been busy intercepting even more phone Ukrainian conversations.</p> <p>After a month ago a leaked phone call between US assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland and the US envoy to the Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt confirmed that it was the US that was pulling the strings in what was about to be a violent coup overthrowing Ukraine's president Yanukovich, "someone" has just leaked another phone conversation, this time between parliamentarian Nestor Shufrych and former PM and ideological leader of the Ukraine "revolution" Yulia Tymoshenko and most probable future president of West Ukraine, in which Tymoshenko is makes the following threats, "It’s going too far! Bugger! We must grab arms and go whack those damn katsaps [a Ukrainian word used to refer to the Russians in a negative tone] together with their leader", "I’ll use all my connections, I’ll raise the whole world – as soon as I’m able to – in order to make sure.. Bugger!.. not even scorched earth won’t remain where Russia stands" although all her empty threats collapse in the last sentence of the phone conversation in which she says, regarding the Crimea annexation, that "we are going to take it to the Hague International Criminal Court." Good luck with that.</p>

While Vladimir Putin's actions in Crimea are worthy of international censure, a more imminent threat to world peace is impasse over Iran. There has been a sense in recent days that this was no ordinary week in the life of the planet. Our already bloodstained 21st-century history — unfolding once again in uncertain and threatening ways — seemed to be opening a new chapter. Two events last Tuesday in world capitals more than 2,000 kilometres apart best symbolized this. But which of these events do you think poses the greatest potential danger to world peace? In Moscow, a preening, self-satisfied...

AP — A rising chorus of Israeli voices is again raising the possibility of carrying out a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in what appears to be an attempt to draw renewed attention to Tehran’s atomic program — and Israel’s unhappiness with international negotiations with the Iranians. In recent days, a series of newspaper reports and comments by top defense officials have signaled that the military option remains very much on the table. While Israeli officials say Israel never shelved the possibility of attacking, the heightened rhetoric marks a departure from Israel’s subdued approach since six world powers opened...

John Kerry and Barack Obama are betting the entire world on the proposition that Khamenei’s statements against nuclear weapons are sincere, and not intended to deceive the Infidels into complacency. Lets hope they’re right, and that this whole thing doesn’t blow up in their faces, and ours. But given their repeated genocidal statements against Israel, it would be better to be prepared for all contingencies. “John Kerry: US Welcomes Ayatollah Khamenei’s Fatwa against N. Weapons,” from Iran’s state-run Fars News Agency, March 22: TEHRAN (FNA)- US Secretary of State John Kerry appreciated the fatwa (religious decree) issued by Supreme Leader...

COLUMBIA, SC — The story of an accused arsonist’s employment at a South Carolina nuclear plant ended quietly when SCE&G learned more about the criminal charges and fired him. But while the man isn’t believed to have been a threat to safety at the V.C. Summer power plant, experts say his hiring underscores the need to thoroughly check prospective employees before putting them on the payroll and giving them access to atomic energy plants. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week cited SCE&G for not completely checking the worker’s background and allowing him “unescorted access” to the nuclear plant about 25...

Pressed by ABC News’ Jonathan Karl to comment on a threat made last night on state TV that Russia is still “the only country in the world capable of turning the U.S.A. into radioactive dust,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney dismissively said, “people say crazy things on TV all the time.” See below for the full exchange: JON KARL: And let me ask you just something on — that was on Russian television, state-controlled television, the main state-controlled channel. Dmitry Kiselev, prominent Russian television anchor, posed in front of a mushroom cloud and warned that Russia’s the only country...

Netanyahu: “Iran will next hide nuclear suitcases.” (DEBKAfile: Bought 10 years ago from Ukraine) Nuclear-capable X-55 missiles sold by Ukraine to Iran ten yeas ago Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned Monday, March 10, that because the world chooses to slide over Iran’s concealed nuclear program, the next Klos C ship may not carry missiles but “nuclear suitcases.” They would not only reach an Israeli port, he said, but any port in the world. He spoke at Israel’s naval base in Eilat at the presentation of the 60 missiles, 181 mortar shells and hundreds of bullets unloaded from the Klos C...

TEHRAN -- Russia will build two nuclear power plants in Iran's southern Persian Gulf littoral city of Bushehr, the spokesman for Iran Atomic Energy Organization Behrouz Kamalvandi was quoted as saying by official IRNA news agency on Wednesday. Iran and Russia reached a preliminary agreement to build at least two nuclear plants in Iran, Kamalvandi told IRNA. "According to the agreement, the capacity of each plant will be at least 1,000 megawatt and the new plants will be built by the side of the existent Bushehr nuclear power plant," Kamalvandi said.

The spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) says the construction of Arak heavy water production plant in the country’s Markazi (Central) Province has made a nearly 90-percent progress. In an interview with Iran’s Arabic-language Al-Alam News Network, Behrouz Kamalvandi said Arak heavy water complex has been “built [using] indigenous knowledge and technology and [its construction] has made an 87-percent progress.” “Given the concerns that they have about reprocessing (at the Arak plant), the possibility exists for the reprocessing not to take place for a certain period of time; however, in the long run, when the concerns are...

TEHRAN (FNA)- Lieutenant Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Hossein Salami underlined that Iranian military commanders are prepared to attack and destroy the Zionist regime of Israel as soon as they receive such an order. “Today, we can destroy every spot which is under the Zionist regime's control with any volume of fire power (that we want) right from here,” Salami said, addressing a conference in Tehran on Tuesday dubbed ‘the Islamic World's Role in the Geometry of the World Power’. “Islam has given us this wish, capacity and power to destroy the Zionist regime so...

Full title: Fukushima disaster: Plan to send residents home three years after nuclear accident labelled 'irresponsible' A nuclear industry insider has told the ABC that the situation at the stricken Fukushima reactor is still not under control, three years after the disaster there. Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe has announced he wants 30,000 residents to return to their homes and the reactors to be switched back on within two years. SNIP At the risk of losing his job if his identity is revealed, a senior TEPCO staffer, who has worked at the Fukushima plant for more than 20 years, says...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned Monday, March 10, that because the world chooses to slide over Iran’s concealed nuclear program, the next Klos C ship may not carry missiles but “nuclear suitcases.” They would not only reach an Israeli port, he said, but any port in the world. He spoke at Israel’s naval base in Eilat at the presentation of the 60 missiles, 181 mortar shells and hundreds of bullets unloaded from the Klos C that was apprehended by Israeli commandos on the Red Sea opposite Sudan last week. Present too were defense minister Moshe Ya’alan, chief of staff Lt....

Energy is arguably the single most important strategic issue of our time. It literally powers everything we do. The world economy see-saws to the gyrations of oil prices. Most of our geopolitical squabbles are about energy in one way or another. And, of course, above all hovers the threatening Armageddon of global climate change. But when it comes to energy, you probably don't know who, or what, to trust. Clean energy! No, wait, that doesn't work! (And what does that mean, exactly?) Shale gas! No, wait, you will pollute everything. There's a band of hipsters within the community of people...