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Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, of Japan, pleaded guilty in Manhattan, New York, today to conspiring with a network of associates to traffic nuclear materials, including uranium and weapons-grade plutonium, from Burma to other countries, as well as to international narcotics trafficking and weapons charges.“Today’s plea should serve as a stark reminder to those who imperil our national security by trafficking weapons-grade plutonium and other dangerous materials on behalf of organized criminal syndicates that the Department of Justice will hold you accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security...

Iran has defied international demands to rein in its nuclear program and has increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, according to a confidential report by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog seen Tuesday by The Associated Press. The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency said that as of Oct. 26, Iran has 182.3 kilograms (401.9 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60%, an increase of 17.6 kilograms (38.8 pounds) since the last report in August. Uranium enriched at 60% purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. The IAEA also estimated...

North Korea, which in recent weeks has conducted a nuclear test and fired a long-range rocket in defiance of United Nations sanctions, has also resumed its efforts to produce weapons-grade nuclear material, National Intelligence Director James Clapper told Congress Tuesday. A North Korean uranium enrichment facility has been expanded, and a plutonium reactor, closed in 2007, is back up and running, Clapper testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee. The reactor could begin to recover plutonium "within a matter of weeks to months," he said. The dictatorship's growing menace also includes a growth in the "size and sophistication of its...

After reading " The Killer Strain ", and a lot of anthrax conspiracy-related material, one hard-to-dispute theory seems to present itself: The anthrax-laden materials found in the envelopes came from our own military research labs.( One specimen Russian microbiologist Alibek examined had gotten soaked prior to examination, and was understandably "clumpy", but the rest was superfine, electrostatically charged,and made in accordance with the Patrick process.) Quite some time before the attacks, there were massive layoffs at Ft. Detrick: the primary repository of this "hot" material. Administrative discipline, according to many reports, had become extremely slack, and, according to a later...

<p>BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. Marines may have found weapons-grade plutonium in a massive underground facility discovered beneath Iraq's Al Tuwaitha nuclear complex, an embedded reporter told Fox News Thursday.</p> <p>Coalition forces are investigating a stash of radioactive material found at the site south of Baghdad, the reporter, Carl Prine of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, told Fox News.</p>

American Spy Satellites over North Korea have detected what appear to be trucks moving the country's stockpile of 8,000 nuclear fuel rods out of storage, prompting fears within the Bush administration that North Korea is preparing to produce roughly a half dozen nuclear weapons, American officials said today.Throughout January, intelligence analyists have seen extensive activity at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, with some trucks pulling up to the building housing the storage pond.While the satellites could not see exactly what was being put into the trucks, analysts concluded that it was likely the workers were transporting the rods to another site,...