MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti defense commentator Viktor Litovkin) - In an announcement that would have been sensational if it had not been so logical, Chief of Staff of the Russian military Army General Yury Baluevsky said that the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) were planning their first theater-level military exercise.
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“The head of the U.N. nuclear agency warned that as many as 30 countries could soon have technology that would let them produce atomic weapons “in a very short time,” joining the nine states known or suspected to have such arms.
Speaking at a conference on tightening controls against nuclear proliferation, Mohamed ElBaradei said more nations [...]

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Current status of the nuclear industry:
- 442 nuclear power plants in operation with a total net installed capacity of 369.573 GW(e)
- 6 nuclear power plants in long term shutdown
- 28 nuclear power plants under construction
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This section collects material in the open literature to provide a coherent survey of nuclear weapons technology. Everything in this section is in the public domain (not the same thing as being unclassified however), or is reasonable extrapolation or speculation based on public domain material. It was prepared without my ever having had access to [...]

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The Middle East is poised for a headlong rush into a new age. The players, their motives and the risks are analysed by our correspondent.
IT IS one of the world’s most unstable regions, where conflicts over land, ideology and religion have raged for centuries.
Yet the Middle East may now be entering the most precarious era [...]

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Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, UAE and Saudi Arabia seek atom technology.
THE SPECTRE of a nuclear race in the Middle East was raised yesterday when six Arab states announced that they were embarking on programmes to master atomic technology.
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North Korea’s recent nuclear test has forced the world’s attention towards East Asia and the danger of an arms race in the region. That is disturbing enough, but there is the risk of a yet more intensive nuclear drive in the Middle East if Iran becomes a nuclear power. As we report today, four major [...]

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There was a glorious time when the Berlin Wall came down and Russia seemed headed toward democracy. At long last, the Cold war was over. All things seemed possible.
Thanks first to Boris Yeltsin and now Vladimir Putin, those happy days are in the distant past. So far back we can barely remember our optimism. [...]

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