Free Republic

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — For decades, the tiny Marshall Islands has been a stalwart American ally. Its location in the middle of the Pacific Ocean has made it a key strategic outpost for the U.S. military. But that loyalty is being tested amid a dispute with Washington over the terms of its “Compact of Free Association” agreement, which expires soon. The U.S. is refusing to engage the Marshallese on claims for environmental and health damage caused by dozens of nuclear tests it carried out in the 1940s and ’50s, including a huge thermonuclear blast on Bikini Atoll.... ... China...

Donald Trump’s first budget recommendations help pay for a bigger military with lower expenditures for other promised programs. His recommendations for infrastructure disappointed local officials across the nation, and his plan to revive Nevada’s Yucca Mountain also received limited funds. Trump’s plan calls for $1.5 trillion in infrastructure projects, with just $200 billion supplied by the federal government. It was widely assumed, including in conservative circles, that the program would force local governments to raise taxes. In the Unification Church publication Washington Times, economist Peter Morici wrote, President Trump’s infrastructure plan puts a heavy burden on the states and will...

.... Several U.S. officials briefed on the options told me they include declaring a “no first use” policy for the United States’ nuclear arsenal, which would be a landmark change in the country’s nuclear posture. Another option under consideration is seeking a U.N. Security Council resolution affirming a ban on the testing of nuclear weapons. This would be a way to enshrine the United States’ pledge not to test without having to seek unlikely Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The administration is also considering offering Russia a five-year extension of the New START treaty’s limits on deployed...

Top White House allies are mounting a campaign to discredit recent reports Iran will be responsible for investigating its own military facility for evidence of nuclear activities under an agreement between international inspectors and Tehran. The International Atomic Energy Agency will rely on Iran to collect its own environmental samples and turn over photos and videos from its suspected nuclear military site Parchin, according to a draft of a secret side-deal between the agency and the Iranian government published by the Associated Press on Thursday. White House allies rushed to denounce the report, accusing the AP of publishing a phony...

Israel built and exploded so-called "dirty bombs," explosives laced with nuclear material, to examine how such explosions would affect the country if it were to be attacked by the crude radioactive weapons, the Haaretz daily newspaper reported Monday. Israeli defense officials and scientists refused to comment on the report when reached by The Associated Press. However, Israel has what is widely considered to be an extensive nuclear weapons program that it has never declared.

Defense: The administration proudly reveals a state secret to our enemies before a U.N. conference on nuclear nonproliferation. It wants to lead by example on disarmament, but Iran and North Korea aren't following. Not since the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact that sought to outlaw war as an instrument of national policy has there been such a stunning display of dangerous naivete. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton disclosed U.S. nuclear secrets to the U.N. conference while proudly proclaiming it showed America is sending "a clear, unmistakable signal" that this nation is committed to nuclear disarmament. Kellogg-Briand laid the groundwork for Munich in...

Arms Deal: President Obama signs away U.S. nuclear security and gives the Russians a veto over whether we can defend ourselves. Our nuclear umbrella is in tatters as another piece of paper proclaims peace in our time. Completing a process of disarmament and appeasement that manifested itself in the dismantling and defunding of U.S. military power that began with his inauguration, President Obama signed a new strategic arms limitation treaty with a grinning and very happy Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday in the Czech capital. How fitting this document was signed in Prague, which isn't far from Munich where...

National Security: Aiming at a world where nuclear weapons are obsolete, the administration's nuclear posture review leaves a world without American nuclear weapons and the backbone to use them. After his stunning bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto lamented that all that had been accomplished was to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve. Under policies announced by the Obama administration, a devastating chemical or biological attack on this country might merely awaken our very own Hamlet and fill him with a terrible sense of angst. We have said before that rather...

Defense: President Obama dreams of a world without nuclear weapons. Unless testing and maintenance of our nuclear deterrent is resumed, it will be a world without American nuclear weapons.In his Prague speech this spring, the president spoke of "America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," ignoring the fact that before 1945 we lived in such a world and it was neither peaceful nor secure. We recently observed the anniversaries of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, actions that brought an abrupt end to the carnage of World War II and arguably...

When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in October 1957, the United States feared that nuclear missiles would soon follow. How could we stop them? In the Dr. Strangelove era, no idea was too absurd, and Nicholas Christofilos, an elevator engineer turned nuclear physicist, had a doozy. Christofilos had only undergraduate degrees in electrical and mechanical engineering, but he had become a top military scientist at California's Livermore Laboratory with a reputation for audacious creativity. He suggested that an atomic explosion in space could generate a vast flux of electrons, which would form a shell of energy over Earth, a phenomenon...

He wasn’t supposed to do it, but on May 15, 1948, Lieutenant Colonel Paul H. Fackler, commanding officer of the U.S. Air Force 514th Reconnaissance Squadron Weather, flew his airplane into the seething mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb detonation. As part of Zebra, the final shot of America’s second series of atomic tests at Enewetak atoll in the Pacific, Fackler had the job of tracking the atomic cloud from at least 10 miles away, hoping that special filters attached to the airplane would catch samples of the radioactive debris. But as he pulled away from the enormous roiling cloud...

August 26, 1945. Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico. Twenty four year old Harry Daghlian is working late, and alone. Both are violations of safety protocol, but Harry doesn’t care. He’s good at his job, and he’s careful. He doesn’t have to be working this late, six days ago the Japanese surrendered, and the war is over. But, that doesn’t mean his work isn’t still important. The bombs he helped build won the war, and he’s going to keep making them as long as he can. This night, Harry is working on placing the final tungsten bricks in a neutron...

A question on the letters page of the September 2002 issue of Fortean Times -- a British magazine which covers fringe science or "Fortean" subjects -- piqued my interest. Was it true that a manhole cover, accidentally blasted upwards at escape velocity during the American nuclear tests in the 1950s, was in fact the first manmade object in space, beating Sputnik 1 by a long way? Or was it just an urban myth? The Internet is the natural home of the urban myth: the two could have been made for each other. The question therefore was: could it find room...

YEONPYEONG, South Korea -North Korea warned Friday it would act in "self-defense" if provoked by the U.N. Security Council, which is considering tough sanctions over the communist country's nuclear test, and followed the threat with the test launch of another short-range missile. The North fired the missile from its Musudan-ni launch site on the east coast, a South Korean government official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the matter. It is the sixth short-range missile North Korea has test-fired since Monday's nuclear test. The official did not provide further details. But the Yonhap news agency...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama increased pressure on North Korea to halt moves toward a weekend test of a long-range ballistic missile, warning Pyongyang on Friday that a launch would be "provocative" and wouldn't go unpunished. U.S. defense officials said, however, there were no signs North Korea was curtailing its test and was instead making final preparations for the rocket shot, which could come as early as Saturday -- despite intensified diplomacy and increasingly strong objections from Mr. Obama and the U.S.'s Asian allies. Speaking at a joint news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy ahead of a North Atlantic...

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Wednesday said Iran is a "great threat" and called for tighter sanctions after it test-fired nine missiles. "Iran is a great threat. We have to make sure we are working with our allies to apply tightened pressure on Iran," the Illinois senator, who will face Republican John McCain in the November election, said on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Nuclear device exploded in Sichuan By Boxun Jun 1, 2008 - 6:46:34 PM Lu Shishen, who reported the cover up of the earthquake forecast, said that there was a strong nuclear explosion in Sichuan during the earthquake. Xinhua reported yesterday that an explosion of “volcano was observed in the earthquake”, people said that concrete debris was burst out of the crack during the quake. Experts tested the debris and found it is radioactive, according to Lu Shishen’s report. Full report in Chinese: http://news.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2008/06/200806020720.shtml

CAMP DAVID, United States (AFP) - US President George W. Bush warned North Korea against nuclear testing but would not say whether he had information confirming that preparations for such a test were under way. "It's a hypothetical question," Bush told reporters. "And you're asking me to divulge intelligence information I have. I'm not going to do that, as you know." But he added: "If North Korea were to conduct a test, it's just a constant reminder for people in the neighborhood, in particular, that North Korea poses a threat." The US television network ABC reported on Thursday that North...

There is new evidence that North Korea may be preparing to for an underground test of nuclear bomb, U.S. officials tell ABC News. "It is the view of the intelligence community that a test is real possibility," says a senior State Department official. A senior military official tells ABC News that a U.S. intelligence agency has recently observed "suspicious vehicle movement" at a suspected North Korean test site. The activity includes the unloading of large reels of cable outside an underground facility called Pungyee-yok in northeast North Korea. Cables can be used in nuclear testing to connect an underground test...

A High-Risk Nuclear Stakeout The U.S. took too long to act, some experts say, letting a Pakistani scientist sell illicit technology well after it knew of his operation. By Douglas Frantz, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON — Nuclear warhead plans that Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan sold to Libya were more complete and detailed than previously disclosed, raising new concerns about the cost of Washington's watch-and-wait policy before Khan and his global black market were shut down last year. Two Western nuclear weapons specialists who have examined the top-secret designs say the hundreds of pages of engineering drawings and handwritten notes...