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Editorial» War is not over and you are the champion ...................................................... 03

SECTION - 1: Articles» U.S.-Russia Relation ................................................................................................. 04» Nuclear Security Summit .......................................................................................... 14» The North Atlantic Treaty Organization ................................................................... 18

SECTION - 2: Hot Topics» BRIC and IBSA Summits ........................................................................................... 25» Visit of External Affairs Minister to China ................................................................ 34

» SECTION - 3: Current Relevant Facts................................................................. 39» SECTION -4: Sports................................................................................................ 54» SECTION -5: Awards.............................................................................................. 60

SECTION -6: CSE Pre 2010:» (Special Study Package For Civil Services (Pre) Examination 2010) ......... 63

INDEX

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War is not over and you are the champion..

Never loose self confidence and patience while you are in the battle-field. Now you have more than a fortnight in your hand and you can do alot during decisive course of two plus two hours of the day i.e. day ofexamination. But don’t take a meaning of my advice that you have not towork hard. No doubt hard work is the most important aspect of being awinner. During hard work you must get constant support and inspirationto learn properly, and you must search this inspiration and support withinyourself.

So develop a positive approach so that you can materialise your invest-ment (of energy and time) into success. Think increased number ofvacancy is positive sign and you are going to be a winner. When you sitalone or get tired, try to recall some facts which you have read earlierinstead of giving place negative thoughts. In this way you can easily over-come from bad thoughts and satan’s pain. So you must think that you areat war and after winning the battle, crown is yours. So have a king likeconcept to become a king.

In this very relevant issue we are giving Articles U.S.-Russia Relation ,Nuclear Security Summit, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization andIn the section of Hot Topics BRIC and IBSA Summits , Visit of ExternalAffairs Minister to China. With Current Affairs, Sports, Awards we areproviding Special Study Package for Civil services(pre) Examination 2010also.

All the best wishes from upscportal.com for your success.. Best Wishes

Ram Kumar Pandey& UPSCPORTAL Team.

Honorary Editor:Ram Kumar Pandey

Sr. Honorary Advisor:Sant Prasad Gupta

Honorary Advisors:1) Dr. Nageshwar Nath Mishra2) Dr. Sachchidanand

Disclaimer:Editor and Publisher are notresponsible for any views, data,figures etc. Expressed in thearticles by the author(s).Maps are notational.

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Aspirants Times

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Presidents Barack Obama of the United States andDmitry Medvedev of Russia signed a new StrategicArms Reduction Treaty for the reduction of theirnuclear weapons stockpiles on April 8, 2010.

The new START deal, which will last for ten years,was signed at a meeting in Prague, where PresidentObama outlined his vision for nuclear disarmamentand non-proliferation around a year ago.

Speaking after the signing, President Obama said,“This day demonstrates the determination of theUnited States and Russia - the two nations that holdover 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons - topursue responsible global leadership.”

President Obama further said that the treaty wouldsignificantly reduce missiles and launchers and putsin place a “strong and effective verification regime.”He added that it would also maintain the flexibilityneeded to protect and advance the U.S.’s nationalsecurity and guarantee its “unwavering commitmentto the security of our allies.”

Describing the deal as a “win-win” for both coun-tries, President Medvedev said, “This agreementenhances strategic ability and, at the same time, al-lows us to rise to a higher level of cooperation be-tween Russia and the United States.”Specifically, the treaty agrees to aggregate limits of1,550 warheads; a combined limit of 800 deployedand non-deployed Inter-Continental Ballistic Mis-sile launchers, Submarine-Launched Ballistic Mis-sile launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for

Signed New Strategic ArmsReduction Treaty

By: Ram Kumar Pandey

“The day after the U.S. elections, in his first state of thenation address, that Russia would move to deploy short-range Iskander missile systems in the western exclaveof Kaliningrad "to neutralize if necessary the anti-bal-listic missile system in Europe.”

nuclear armaments; and separate limit of 700 de-ployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and deployedheavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.

The White House noted that the warheads on de-ployed ICBMs and deployed SLBMs will count to-ward the limit and each deployed heavy bomberequipped for nuclear armaments would count as onewarhead toward this limit. The warhead limit itselfwas 74 percent lower than the limit of the 1991START Treaty and 30 percent lower than the de-ployed strategic warhead limit of the 2002 Mos-cow Treaty, a White House statement added. Fur-ther, the limit on launchers and bombers is less thanhalf the corresponding strategic nuclear deliveryvehicle limit of the previous START Treaty.

In terms of verification and transparency, the newtreaty has a verification regime that combines theappropriate elements of the 1991 START Treatywith new elements tailored to the limitations of theTreaty. In this regard, the White House also statedthat measures under the new treaty include “on-siteinspections and exhibitions, data exchanges and no-tifications related to strategic offensive arms andfacilities covered by the Treaty.”

The signing of the new treaty came two days afterthe announcement of the Obama administration ofits Nuclear Posture Review, in which the U.S. for-swore nuclear attacks on all nuclear states compli-ant with the Non-Proliferation treaty. However, theU.S. reiterated its commitment to maintaining acredible nuclear deterrent.

Section -1 Article (U.S. Russia Relations)



START I or Strategic ArmsReduction Treaty

START (for Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) wasa bilateral treaty between the United States ofAmerica and the Union of Soviet Socialist Repub-lics (USSR) on the Reduction and Limitation of Stra-tegic Offensive Arms. The treaty was signed on 31July 1991 and entered into force on 5 December 1994. The treaty was signed by the United States and theUSSR, that barred its signatories from deployingmore than 6,000 nuclear warheads atop a total of1,600 ICBMs, submarine-launched ballistic mis-siles, and bombers. START negotiated the largestand most complex arms control treaty in history,and its final implementation in late 2001 resultedin the removal of about 80 percent of all strategicnuclear weapons then in existence. Proposed byUnited States President Ronald Reagan, it was re-named START I after negotiations began on the sec-ond START treaty, which became START II.

The START I treaty expired 5 December 2009. On8 April 2010, the new START treaty was signed inPrague by U.S. President Obama and Russian Presi-dent Medvedev. It will enter into force after its rati-fication through the parliaments of both countries.The first START proposal was presented by UnitedStates President Ronald Reagan in Geneva on 29 June1982. Reagan proposed a dramatic reduction in stra-tegic forces in two phases, which he referred to asSALT III at the time. The first phase would reduceoverall warhead counts on any missile type to 5,000,with an additional limit of 2,500 on ICBMs. Addi-tionally, a total of 850 ICBMs would be allowed,with a limit of 110 "heavy throw" missiles like theSS-18, with additional limits on the total "throwweight" of the missiles as well. The second phaseintroduced similar limits on heavy bombers andtheir warheads, and other strategic systems as well.At the time the US had a commanding lead in stra-tegic bombers. The US B-52 force, while aged, wasa credible strategic threat but was only equippedwith AGM-86 cruise missiles, beginning in 1982,because of Soviet air defense improvements in early1980s.The US also had begun to introduce new B-1B Lancer

quasi-stealth bomber and was secretly developingthe Advanced Technology Bomber (ATB) projectthat would eventually result in the B-2 Spirit stealthbomber. The USSR's force was of little threat to theUS, on the other hand, as it was tasked almost en-tirely with attacking US convoys in the Atlantic andland targets on the Eurasian landmass. Although theUSSR had 1,200 medium and heavy bombers, only150 of them (Tupolev Tu-95s and Myasishchev M-4s) could reach North America (the latter only within-flight refueling).

They also faced difficult problems in penetratingadmittedly smaller and poorly defended US airspace.Possessing too few bombers available when com-pared to US bomber numbers was evened out by theUS forces having to penetrate the much larger andheavier defended Soviet airspace. This changed whennew Tu-95MS and Tu-160 bombers appeared in1984 equipped with first Soviet AS-15 cruise mis-siles. By limiting the phase-in as it was proposed,the US would be left with a strategic advantage, fora time.

As Time magazine put it at the time, "UnderReagan's ceilings, the U.S. would have to make con-siderably less of an adjustment in its strategic forcesthan would the Soviet Union. That feature of theproposal will almost certainly prompt the Sovietsto charge that it is unfair and one-sided.

No doubt some American arms-control advocateswill agree, accusing the Administration of makingthe Kremlin an offer it cannot possibly accept a de-ceptively equal-looking, deliberately nonnegotiableproposal that is part of what some suspect is thehardliners' secret agenda of sabotaging disarmamentso that the U.S. can get on with the business of rear-mament." However, Time did point out that, "TheSoviets' monstrous ICBMs have given them a nearly3-to-1 advantage over the U.S. in "throw weight"the cumulative power to "throw" megatons of deathand destruction at the other nation."




NegotiationsContinued negotiation of the START process wasdelayed several times because US agreement termswere considered non-negotiable by pre-GorbachevSoviet rulers. President Reagan's introduction of theStrategic Defense Initiative program in 1983 wasviewed as a threat by the Soviet Union, and the So-viets withdrew from setting a timetable for furthernegotiations.

Due to these facts, a dramatic nuclear arms race pro-ceeded during the 1980s, and essentially ended in1991 by nuclear parity preservation at a level ofmore than ten thousand strategic warheads on bothsides. This treaty also stated that the United Statesand Russia would have 6,000 fighter aircraft, 10,000tanks, 20,000 artillery pieces and 2,000 attack heli-copters.

RatificationIt was signed on July 31, 1991, five months beforethe collapse of the Soviet Union. Entry-into-forcewas delayed due to the collapse of the USSR andawaiting an Annex that enforced the terms of thetreaty upon the newly independent states of Russia,Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. The latter threeagreed to transport their nuclear arms to Russia fordisposal.

It remains in effect between the U.S. and Russia,Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine These latter threehave disarmed since becoming independent nationsin the wake of the break up of the Soviet Union.Today, the United States has 3,696 and Russia has4,237 deployed strategic warheads. The US hasroughly 10,000 total warheads, counting strategicand tactical, both deployed and in reserves. The fig-ures for Russia are less reliable, but are consideredto be in the range of 15,000 to 17,000 total war-heads.

Implementation365 B-52Gs were flown to the Aerospace Mainte-

nance and Regeneration Center at Davis-MonthanAir Force Base in Arizona. The bombers werestripped of all usable parts, then chopped into fivepieces by a 13,000-pound steel blade dropped froma crane. The guillotine sliced four times on eachplane, severing the wings and leaving the fuselagein three pieces. The ruined B-52s remained in placefor three months so that Russian satellites couldconfirm that the bombers had been destroyed, afterwhich they were sold for scrap.

"It remains in effect between the U.S. and Russia,Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. The latter threebecame non-nuclear weapons states under the Treatyon the non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of July1, 1968 (NPT) as they committed to do under the"Lisbon Protocol" (Protocol to the Treaty Betweenthe United States of America and the Union of So-viet Socialist Republics on the Reduction and Limi-tation of Strategic Offensive Arms) after becomingindependent nations in the wake of the break up ofthe Soviet Union."

EfficacyBelarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have disposed ofall their nuclear weapons or transferred them toRussia; while the U.S. and Russia have reduced thecapacity of delivery vehicles to 1,600 each, with nomore than 6,000 warheads.

Expiration and renewalSTART I expired December 5, 2009. Both sidesagreed to continue observing the terms of the treatyuntil a new agreement is reached. There are pro-posals to renew and expand the treaty, supported byU.S. President Barack Obama. Sergei Rogov, direc-tor of the Institute of the U.S. and Canada, said:"Obama supports sharp reductions in nuclear arse-nals and I believe that Russia and the U.S. may signin the summer or fall of 2009 a new treaty that wouldreplace START-1".

He added that a new deal would only happen ifWashington abandoned plans to place elements of amissile shield in central Europe. He expressed will-




ingness "to make new steps in the sphere of disar-mament," however, saying they were waiting forthe U.S. to abandon attempts to "surround Russiawith a missile defense ring." This referred to theplacement of ten interceptor missiles in Poland, aswell as an accompanying radar in the Czech Repub-lic.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, said, the dayafter the U.S. elections, in his first state of the na-tion address, that Russia would move to deploy short-range Iskander missile systems in the western ex-clave of Kaliningrad "to neutralize if necessary theanti-ballistic missile system in Europe." Russia in-sists that any movement towards a new STARTshould be a legally binding document, and must,then, set lower ceilings on the number of nuclearwarheads, and their delivery vehicles.

On March 17, 2009, Russian President DmitriMedvedev signaled that Russia would begin a "large-scale" rearmament and renewal of Russia's nucleararsenal. President Medvedev accused NATO of push-ing ahead with expansion near Russian borders andordered that this rearmament commence in 2011with increased army, naval, and nuclear capabili-ties. Additionally, the head of Russia's strategicmissile forces, Nikolai Solovtsov, told news agen-cies that Russia would start deploying its next-gen-eration RS-24 missiles after the December 5 expiryof the START-1 treaty with the United States. Rus-sia hopes to change the START-1 treaty with a newaccord. The increased tensions come despite thewarming of relations between the United States andRussia ever since U.S. President Barack Obama tookoffice.

As of May 4, 2009, the United States and Russiabegan the process of renegotiating START, as wellas counting both nuclear warheads and their deliv-ery vehicles when making a new agreement. Whilesetting aside problematic issues between the twocountries, both sides agreed to make further cuts inthe number of warheads they have deployed toaround 1,000 to 1,500 each.

The United States has said they are open to a Rus-

sian proposal to use radar in Azerbaijan rather thanEastern Europe for the proposed missile system. TheBush Administration was using the Eastern Europedefense system as a deterrent for Iran, despite theKremlin's fear that it could be used against Russia.The flexibility by both sides to make compromisesnow will lead to a new phase of arms reduction inthe future.

A 'Joint understanding for a follow-on agreementto START-1' was signed by Presidents BarackObama and Dmitri Medvedev in Moscow on 6 July2009. This will reduce the number of deployed war-heads on each side to 1,500–1,675 on 500–1,100delivery systems. A new treaty was to be signedbefore START-1 expired in December 2009 and thereductions are to be achieved within seven years.After many months of negotiations, PresidentsObama and Medvedev signed the successor treaty,Measures to Further Reduction and Limitation ofStrategic Offensive Arms, in Prague, Czech Repub-lic on 8 April 2010.

START IISTART II (for Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) wassigned by United States President George H. W. Bushand Russian President Boris Yeltsin on January 3,1993, banning the use of MIRVs on ICBMs. Hence,it is often cited as the De-MIRV-ing Agreement.MIRVed land-based ICBMs are considered destabi-lizing because they tend to put a premium on strik-ing first. When a missile is MIRVed, it is able tocarry many warheads and deliver them to separatetargets and thereby possibly destroy more than onemissile of an enemy who does not strike first in theirsilos.The LGM-118 Peacekeeper missile was capable ofcarrying up to 10 MIRVs. However, in 2001, Presi-dent George W. Bush set a plan in motion to reducethe country’s missile forces from 6,000 to between1,700 and 2,200. Russian President Vladimir Putinagreed to follow a similar plan and in October 2002the deactivation of the Peacekeeper missile beganand was completed by 19 September 2005.




The Minuteman III ICBM is the primary U.S. mis-sile system and can carry up to 3 MIRVs. Hypo-thetically, if one were to assume that each side had100 missiles, with 5 warheads each, and further thateach side had a 95 percent chance of neutralizingthe opponent's missiles in their silos by firing 2warheads at each silo, then the side that strikes firstcan reduce the enemy ICBM force from 100 mis-siles to about 5 by firing 40 missiles with 200 war-heads and keeping the remaining 60 missiles in re-serve. Thus the destruction capability is greatly in-creased by MIRVs but the number of targets doesnot increase.

START II followed START I and, although ratified,the treaty has never entered into force; in other wordsnever been activated. On June 14, 2002, one day af-ter the U.S. withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Mis-sile Treaty, Russia withdrew from START II. Thehistoric agreement started on June 17, 1992 withthe signing of a 'Joint Understanding' by the presi-dents. The official signing of the treaty by the presi-dents took place on January 3, 1993. It was ratifiedby the U.S. Senate on January 26, 1996 with a voteof 87-4. However, Russian ratification was stalledin the Duma for many years. It was postponed anumber of times to protest American invasion ofIraq and military actions in Kosovo, as well as tooppose the expansion of NATO.

As the years passed, the treaty became less relevantand both sides started to lose interest in it. For theAmericans, the main issue became the modificationof the ABM Treaty to allow the U.S. to deploy anational missile defense system, a move which Rus-sia fiercely opposed. On April 14, 2000 the Dumadid finally ratify the treaty, in a largely symbolicmove since the ratification was made contingent onpreserving the ABM Treaty, which it was clear theU.S. was not prepared to do.

START II did not enter into force because the Rus-sian ratification made this contingent on U.S. Sen-ate ratifying a September 1997 addendum to STARTII which included agreed statements on ABM-TMDdemarcation. Neither of these occurred because ofU.S. Senate opposition, where a faction objected to

any action supportive of the ABM Treaty. On June14, 2002, one day after the U.S. withdrew from theABM Treaty, Russia announced that it would nolonger consider itself to be bound by START II pro-visions.

The treaty was officially bypassed by the SORTtreaty, agreed to by Presidents George W. Bush andVladimir Putin at their summit meeting in Novem-ber 2001, and signed at Moscow Summit on May24, 2002. Both sides agreed to reduce operationallydeployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,700 from2,200 by 2012.

START IIIThe third Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, orSTART III, was a proposed Nuclear disarmamenttreaty negotiated between the United States andRussia. It was never signed. It meant to drasticallyreduce the deployed nuclear weapons arsenals ofboth countries. The treaty was meant to continuethe weapons reduction efforts that had taken placein the START I and START II negotiations. Theframework for negotiations of the treaty began withtalks in Helsinki between President Bill Clinton andPresident Boris Yeltsin in 1997.

Proposed basic elements of the treat included:By December 31, 2007, coterminous with STARTII, the United States and Russia would each deployno more than 2,000 to 2,500 strategic nuclear war-heads on intercontinental ballistic missiles, subma-rine-launched ballistic missiles, and heavy bomb-ers. Russian officials stated that they were willingto consider negotiated levels as low as 1,500 strate-gic nuclear warheads within the context of a STARTIII agreement.The United States and Russia would negotiate mea-sures relating to the transparency of strategicnuclear warhead inventories and the destruction ofstrategic nuclear warheads, as well as other jointlyagreed technical and organizational measures topromote the irreversibility of deep reductions.

The talks faced a number of obstacles. Russia op-posed the eastward expansion of NATO and Ameri-




can plans to build a limited missile defense system(which would have required changes to or the USwithdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic MissileTreaty). Russia strongly hinted that any progress onSTART III would be subject to the satisfaction of itsconcerns on these issues. In addition, a Russian pro-posal to reduce stockpiles still further to 1,000-1,500warheads was opposed by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.Very little progress was made towards completingnegotiations on START III. President Clinton re-vived the issue in 1999 and it played a role in the2000 presidential elections, but persistent disagree-ment, especially on the issue of missile defense, re-sulted in stalemate. The 2002 decision by the BushAdministration to withdraw from the Anti-Ballis-tic Missile Treaty all but killed START III. It wassuperseded by much the weaker SORT treaty.

SORTThe Treaty Between the United States of Americaand the Russian Federation on Strategic OffensiveReductions (SORT), better known as the MoscowTreaty "represents an important element of the newstrategic relationship between the United States andRussia". with both parties agreeing to limit theirnuclear arsenal to 1700–2200 operationally deployedwarheads each. It was signed in Moscow on May24, 2002. SORT came into force on June 1, 2003after the Bush-Putin ratification in St. Petersburg,and expires on December 31, 2012. Either party canwithdraw from the treaty upon giving three monthswritten notice to the other.

Mutual nuclear disarma-ment

SORT is the latest in a long line of treaties and ne-gotiations on mutual nuclear disarmament betweenRussia (and its predecessor the Soviet Union) andthe United States, which includes SALT I (1969–1972), the ABM Treaty (1972), SALT II (1972–1979), the INF Treaty (1987), START I (1991),START II (1993), and START III, which died as ofthe linkage to START II.

The Moscow Treaty is different from START in thatit limits actual warheads, whereas START I limitswarheads only through declared attribution to theirmeans of delivery (ICBMs, SLBMs, and HeavyBombers). Russian and U.S. delegations meet twicea year to discuss the implementation of the Mos-cow Treaty at the Bilateral Implementation Com-mission, or "BIC".

The treaty has been criticized for various reasons:There are no verification provisions to give confi-dence, to either the signatories or other parties, thatthe stated reductions have in fact taken place.

The arsenal reductions are not required to be per-manent; warheads are not required to be destroyedand may therefore be placed in storage and later re-deployed.

The arsenal reductions are required to be completedby December 31, 2012, which is also the day onwhich the treaty loses all force, unless extended byboth parties. This is why some experts joke that SORTis only 'sort' of a treaty.

There exists a clause in the treaty which providesthat withdrawal can occur upon the giving of threemonth's notice and since no benchmarks are requiredin the treaty, either side could feasibly perform noactions in furtherance of the treaty, and then simplywithdraw in September of 2012.

ImplementationLawrence Livermore National Laboratory reportedthat President Bush directed the US military to cutits stockpile of both deployed and reserve nuclearweapons in half by 2012. The goal was achieved in2007, a reduction of US nuclear warheads to justover 50 percent of the 2001 total. A further pro-posal by Bush will bring the total down another 15%.




Strategic Arms LimitationTalks

The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks refers to tworounds of bilateral talks and corresponding interna-tional treaties involving the United States and theSoviet Union-the Cold War superpowers on the is-sue of armament control. There were two rounds oftalks and agreements: SALT I and SALT II. A subse-quent treaty was START.

The first ever negotiations started in Helsinki, Fin-land, in 1970. They were held during Apollo 12'sflight - four months after astronauts from Apollo11 had returned safely home. Primarily focused onlimiting the two countries' stocks of nuclear weap-ons, the treaties then led to START (Strategic ArmsReduction Treaty). START I (a 1991 agreement be-tween the United States and the Soviet Union) andSTART II (a 1993 agreement between the UnitedStates and Russia) which placed specific caps on eachside's number of nuclear weapons.

SALT ISALT I is the common name for the Strategic ArmsLimitation Talks Agreement, also known as Strate-gic Arms Limitation Treaty. SALT I froze the num-ber of strategic ballistic missile launchers at exist-ing levels, and provided for the addition of new sub-marine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launch-ers only after the same number of older interconti-nental ballistic missile (ICBM) and SLBM launch-ers had been dismantled.

The strategic nuclear forces niche of the Soviet Unionand the United States were changing in character in1968. The U.S.'s total number of missiles had beenstatic since 1967 at 1,054 ICBMs and 656 SLBMs,but there was an increasing number of missiles withmultiple independently targetable reentry vehicle(MIRV) warheads being deployed. MIRV's carriedmultiple nuclear warheads, often with dummies, toconfuse ABM systems, making MIRV defence byABM systems increasingly difficult and expensive.One clause of the treaty required both countries to

limit the number of sites protected by an anti-bal-listic missile (ABM) system to two each. The So-viet Union had deployed such a system around Mos-cow in 1966 and the United States announced anABM program to protect twelve ICBM sites in 1967.A modified two-tier Moscow ABM system is stillused. The U.S. built only one ABM site to protectMinuteman base in North Dakota where the "Safe-guard Program" was deployed. Due to the system'sexpense and limited effectiveness, the Pentagon dis-banded "Safeguard" in 1975.

Negotiations lasted from November 17, 1969 untilMay 1972 in a series of meetings beginning inHelsinki, with the U.S. delegation headed by GerardC. Smith, director of the Arms Control and Disar-mament Agency. Subsequent sessions alternatedbetween Vienna and Helsinki. After a long dead-lock, the first results of SALT I came in May 1971,when an agreement was reached over ABM systems.Further discussion brought the negotiations to anend on May 26, 1972 in Moscow when RichardNixon and Leonid Brezhnev signed the Anti-Ballis-tic Missile Treaty and the Interim Agreement Be-tween The United States of America and The Unionof Soviet Socialist Republics on Certain MeasuresWith Respect to the Limitation of Strategic Offen-sive Arms. A number of agreed statements were alsomade. This helped improve relations between theUSA and the USSR.

SALT IIIt was a controversial experiment of negotiationsbetween Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev from1977 to 1979 between the U.S. and the Soviet Union,which sought to curtail the manufacture of strate-gic nuclear weapons. It was a continuation of theprogress made during the SALT I talks. SALT II wasthe first nuclear arms treaty which assumed realreductions in strategic forces to 2,250 of all catego-ries of delivery vehicles on both sides.

SALT II helped the U.S. to discourage the Sovietsfrom arming their third generation ICBMs of SS-17, SS-19 and SS-18 types with many more MIRVs.In the late 1970s the USSR's missile design bureaus




had developed experimental versions of these mis-siles equipped with anywhere from 10 to 38 ther-monuclear warheads each. Additionally, the Sovi-ets secretly agreed to reduce Tu-22M production tothirty aircraft per year and not to give them an in-tercontinental range.

It was particularly important for the US to limitSoviet efforts in the Intermediate-Range NuclearForces (INF) rearmament area. The SALT II Treatybanned new missile programs (a new missile de-fined as one with any key parameter 5% better thanin currently deployed missiles), so both sides wereforced to limit their new strategic missile types de-velopment although US preserved their most essen-tial programs like Trident and cruise missiles, whichPresident Carter wished to use as his main defen-sive weapon as they were too slow to have first strikecapability. In return, the USSR could exclusivelyretain 308 of its so-called "heavy ICBM" launchersof the SS-18 type.

An agreement to limit strategic launchers wasreached in Vienna on June 18, 1979, and was signedby Leonid Brezhnev and President of the UnitedStates Jimmy Carter. In response to the refusal ofthe U.S. Congress to ratify the treaty, a young mem-ber of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, met with theSoviet Foreign Minister Andrey Gromyko, "edu-cated him about American concerns and interests"and secured several changes that neither the U.S.Secretary of State nor President Jimmy Carter couldobtain.

Six months after the signing, the Soviet Union de-ployed troops to Afghanistan, and in September ofthe same year senators including Henry M. Jacksonand Frank Church discovered the so-called "Sovietbrigade" on Cuba. In light of these developments,the treaty was never formally ratified by the UnitedStates Senate. Its terms were, nonetheless, honoredby both sides until 1986 when the Reagan Adminis-tration withdrew from SALT II after accusing theSoviets of violating the pact.

Subsequent discussions took place under the Strate-gic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and the Com-prehensive Test Ban Treaty.

USA/USSR Arms LimitationTreaties

» Partial or Limited Test Ban Treaty (PTBT/LTBT): 1963. Also put forth by Kennedy; bannednuclear tests in the atmosphere, underwater and inspace. However, neither France nor China (bothNuclear Weapon States) signed. » Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT):1968. Established the U.S., USSR, UK, France, andChina as five "Nuclear-Weapon States". Non-Nuclear Weapon states were prohibited from(among other things) possessing, manufacturing, oracquiring nuclear weapons or other nuclear explo-sive devices. All 187 signatories were committedto the goal of (eventual) nuclear disarmament. » Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM): 1972.Entered into between the U.S. and USSR to limitthe anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used indefending areas against missile-delivered nuclearweapons; ended by the US in 2002. » Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties I & II(SALT I & II): 1972 / 1979. Limited the growth ofUS and Soviet missile arsenals. » Prevention of Nuclear War Agreement:1973. Committed the U.S. and USSR to consult withone another during conditions of nuclear confron-tation. » Threshold Test Ban Treaty: 1974. CappedNuclear tests at 150 kilotons. » Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty(INF): 1987. Eliminated nuclear and conventionalground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles withintermediate ranges, defined as between 500-5,500km (300-3,400 miles) » Strategic Arms Reduct ions Treaty I(START I): 1991. This was signed by George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev; reduced the num-bers of U.S. and Soviet long-range missiles and




nuclear warheads from 10,000 per side to 6,000 perside. » Mutual Detargeting Treaty (MDT): 1994.U.S. and Russian missiles no longer automaticallytarget the other country; nuclear forces are no longeroperated in a manner that presumes that the twonations are adversaries.

» Strategic Arms Reduct ions Treaty II(START II): 1993. Will reduce the numbers of U.S.and Russian long-range missiles and nuclear war-heads from 6,000 per side to 3,500-3,000 per side.(START III proposed for 2007).

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) 1996. Pro-hibits all nuclear test explosions in all environments;signed by 180 states, and ratified by 148. The UnitedStates has signed, but not ratified, the CTBT.

Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT/Mos-cow Treaty (2002)). Established bilateral strategicnuclear arms reductions and a new "strategic nuclearframework"; also invited all countries to adopt non-proliferation principles aimed at preventing terror-ists, or those that harbored them, from acquiring ordeveloping all types of WMD's and related materi-als, equipment, and technology.


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A major international summit convened by BarackObama to discuss ways of improving the securityof nuclear materials got under way on April 12, 2010with the American President underlining the im-portance of preventing terrorists from getting holdof the ingredients for a nuclear bomb in Washing-ton.The two-day summit brought together 47 countries,including the U.S., 37 of whom are being representedby their heads of state or government. A final dec-laration, negotiated over the past few months byofficials from participating countries has been re-leased.

Romania has nearly 1500 MWe of nuclear generat-ing capacity and sources 20 per cent of its electric-ity from nuclear energy, Bulgaria's two reactorsaccount for 35 per cent of its national power grid,and Hungary has four reactors generating one-thirdof its power. All three countries also figure in thelist compiled by the International Panel on FissileMaterial with stocks of Highly Enriched Uraniumin the 10-100 kg. range. Yet, neither country willbe at the Washington summit, even though Arme-nia, with just 370 MWe of nuclear power has beeninvited. Uzbekistan has also not been invited, de-spite holding HEU stocks in the 100-1000 kg range.But Georgia, with no nuclear programme to speakof, will be in Washington.

Nuclear Security SummitAdopted Communiqué and Plan of Work

By: Sant Prasad Gupta

Two other countries whose presence ought to havebeen considered essential to such an endeavour areNiger and Namibia, who together account for nearly18 per cent of the world's mined uranium. But thetwo African states, whose yellowcake drives muchof the world's nuclear programme, were not con-sidered important enough for the summit.

Laura Holgate, Senior Director, WMD Terrorism& Threat Reduction at National Security Council,told that the idea was to get a representative set ofcountries. “We couldn't invite every single countrythat has any nuclear connectivity and so we werelooking for countries that represented regional di-versity where we had states that had weapons, statesthat don't have weapons, states with large nuclearprograms, states with small nuclear programs.”

Both India and Pakistan has attended the summit atthe prime ministerial level. Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu pulled out at the last minute,opting to send his Foreign Minister instead.

Statement by Indian PrimeMinister

Nuclear security is one of the foremost challengeswe face today. I therefore wish to commend Presi-dent Barack Obama for his initiative in conveningthis Summit on Nuclear Security. We would like

Section -1 Article (Nuclear Security Summit)



the Summit to lead to concrete outcomes which helpmake our world a safer place.

The developmental applications of nuclear sciencein areas such as medicine, agriculture, food preser-vation and availability of fresh water are by nowwell established. Today, nuclear energy has emergedas a viable source of energy to meet the growingneeds of the world in a manner that is environmen-tally sustainable. There is a real prospect for nucleartechnology to address the developmental challengesof our times.

In India we have ambitious plans for using nuclearenergy to meet our growing energy needs. Our tar-get is to increase our installed capacity more thanseven fold to 35000 MWe by the year 2022, and to60,000 MWe by 2032.

The nuclear industry’s safety record over the lastfew years has been encouraging. It has helped to re-store public faith in nuclear power. Safety alone,however, is not enough. The challenge we face to-day is that of ensuring nuclear security.

The danger of nuclear explosives or fissile materialand technical know-how falling in to the hands ofnon-state actors continues to haunt our world. Indiais deeply concerned about the danger it faces, as doother States, from this threat.

Since 2002, we have piloted a resolution at theUnited Nations General Assembly on measures todeny terrorists access to Weapons of Mass Destruc-tion. We fully support the implementation of UnitedNations Security Council Resolution 1540 and theUnited Nations Global Counter Terrorism Strategy.The primary responsibility for ensuring nuclear se-curity rests at the national level, but national re-sponsibility must be accompanied by responsiblebehaviour by States. If not, it remains an empty slo-gan. All States should scrupulously abide by theirinternational obligations. It is a matter of deep re-gret that the global non-proliferation regime hasfailed to prevent nuclear proliferation. Clandestineproliferation networks have flourished and led toinsecurity for all, including and especially for In-

dia. We must learn from past mistakes and instituteeffective measures to prevent their recurrence.

The world community should join hands to elimi-nate the risk of sensitive and valuable materials andtechnologies falling into hands of terrorists and il-licit traffickers. There should be zero tolerance forindividuals and groups which engage in illegal traf-ficking in nuclear items.

Global non-proliferation, to be successful, shouldbe universal, comprehensive and non-discrimina-tory and linked to the goal of complete nucleardisarmament.We welcome the fact that the worldis veering around to our view that the best guaran-tor of nuclear security is a world free from nuclearweapons.

Starting with Jawaharlal Nehru over five decadesago, India has been in the forefront of the call forglobal and complete nuclear disarmament. In 2006India proposed the negotiation of a Nuclear Weap-ons Convention. We have also expressed our readi-ness to participate in the negotiation of an interna-tionally verifiable Fissile Material Cut-off Treatyin the Conference on Disarmament.

Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had put for-ward a concrete Action Plan in 1988 for the univer-sal and non-discriminatory elimination of nuclearweapons leading to global nuclear disarmament ina time-bound framework. I once again reiterateIndia’s call to the world community to work towardsthe realisation of this vision.

We welcome the agreement between the UnitedStates and Russia to cut their nuclear arsenals as astep in the right direction. I call upon all states withsubstantial nuclear arsenals to further accelerate thisprocess by making deeper cuts that will lead tomeaningful disarmament.

We are encouraged by the Nuclear Posture Reviewannounced by President Obama. India supports theuniversalisation of the policy of No First Use. Thesalience of nuclear weapons in national defence andsecurity doctrines must be reduced as a matter ofpriority. The dangers of nuclear terrorism make the




early elimination of nuclear weapons a matter ofeven greater urgency.

The Indian Atomic Energy Act provides the legalframework for securing nuclear materials and fa-cilities, and the Atomic Energy Regulatory Boardensures independent oversight of nuclear safety andsecurity. We are party to the Convention on thePhysical Protection of Nuclear Material and its 2005amendment.

India’s three stage nuclear power programme whichbegan sixty years ago is based on a closed nuclearfuel cycle. A direct benefit of this is that it ensurescontrol over nuclear material that is generated asspent fuel. At the same time, we are continuallyupgrading technology to develop nuclear systemsthat are intrinsically safe, secure and proliferationresistant. We have recently developed an AdvancedHeavy Water Reactor based on Low Enriched Ura-nium and thorium with new safety and prolifera-tion-resistant features.

India has maintained an impeccable non-prolifera-tion record, of which we are proud of. As a respon-sible nuclear power, India has and will not be thesource of proliferation of sensitive technologies. Wehave a well-established and effective export controlsystem which has worked without fail for over sixdecades. We have strengthened this system byharmonisation of our guidelines and lists with thoseof the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the MissileTechnology Control Regime. Our commitment tonot transfer nuclear weapons or related materialsand technologies to non-nuclear weapon states ornon-state actors is enshrined in domestic lawthrough the enactment of the Weapons of MassDestruction Act. We stand committed not to trans-fer reprocessing and enrichment technologies andequipment to countries that do not possess them.

As a founder member of the International AtomicEnergy Agency, we have consistently supported thecentral role of the IAEA in facilitating national ef-forts to strengthen nuclear security and in fosteringeffective international cooperation. We have so farconducted nine Regional Training Courses onNuclear Security in cooperation with the IAEA. We

have entered into a Safeguards Agreement with theIAEA in 2008, and have decided to place all futurecivilian thermal power reactors and civilian breederreactors under IAEA safeguards.

We will continue to work with the IAEA and ourpartners in the United Nations as well as other fo-rums such as the Global Initiative to CombatNuclear Terrorism to upgrade standards, share ex-periences and ensure effective implementation ofinternational benchmarks on nuclear security.

we have decided to set up a “Global Centre forNuclear Energy Partnership” in India. We visualizethis to be a state of the art facility based on interna-tional participation from the IAEA and other inter-ested foreign partners. The Centre will consist offour Schools dealing with Advanced Nuclear En-ergy System Studies, Nuclear Security, RadiationSafety, and the application of Radioisotopes andRadiation Technology in the areas of healthcare,agriculture and food. The Centre will conduct re-search and development of design systems that areintrinsically safe, secure, proliferation resistant andsustainable. We would welcome participation in thisventure by your countries, the IAEA and the worldto make this Centre’s work a success.

Communiqué and Plan ofWork

The 47-nation Nuclear Security Summit ended withthe adoption of a short final communiqué and sevenpage work plan aimed at promoting the effectivesecurity of nuclear materials worldwide.

The communiqué includes general commitmentswhile the more specific work plan constitutes a po-litical commitment by participating countries tocarry out applicable measures, on a voluntary basis,in all aspects of the storage, use, transportation anddisposal of nuclear materials.

Unlike most nuclear documents springing from theNuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty system, theWashington communiqué makes no legal distinc-tion between nuclear weapon states and the rest. Nor




is there any reference to the NPT. Instead, it reaf-firms the fundamental responsibility of States, con-sistent with their international obligations, to main-tain effective security of all nuclear materials. Thesematerials are defined as including “nuclear materi-als used in nuclear weapons, and nuclear facilitiesunder their control.”

The document calls for wider support for existinginternational instruments on nuclear security suchas the 1979 Convention on the Physical Protectionof Nuclear Material and its 2005 amendment, theConvention on the Suppression of Nuclear Terror-ism.

There is no reference in the documents to U.N. Se-curity Council Resolution 1887 on nuclear securityand non-proliferation, passed last year at the urgingor U.S. President Barack Obama. Indian officials saythe reference in that to NPT adherence meant it couldnot be included in the communiqué.

But the communiqué and work plan have words ofsupport for the G8-led Global Partnership againstthe Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Thisinitiative includes the annual G8 statements on non-proliferation, the last of which sought to preventIndia from accessing enrichment and reprocessingtechnologies.

The work plan covers a wide range of issues fromnuclear detection and forensics to exchange of in-formation to detect and prevent illicit nuclear traf-ficking, and the promotion of nuclear security cul-ture.

The document recognises that highly enriched ura-nium (HEU) and separated plutonium — basic in-gredients of a nuclear weapon require special pre-cautions and that participating countries agree to“promote measures to secure, account for, and con-solidate these materials.” It also says that they agreeto encourage the conversion of reactors from HEUto low-enriched uranium, a stated priority of theU.S. in the run-up to the Summit.

Next Nuclear SecuritySummit in the South Korea

President Barack Obama announced that the nextNuclear Security Summit would be held in the Re-public of Korea (South Korea) in two years. He saidthat this would help to “ensure that our progress isnot a fleeting moment, but part of a serious and sus-tained effort.”

Mr. Obama said the summits provided the nationswith the opportunity to take specific and concretenational-level actions to secure the nuclear materi-als, to strengthen the International Atomic EnergyAgency, and to deepen international cooperationaimed at preventing nuclear materials from fallinginto the hands of terrorists.


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NATO agreed on April 23, 2010 to begin handingover control of Afghanistan to the Afghan govern-ment this year, a process that if successful wouldenable President Barack Obama to meet his targetdate of July 2011 for starting to bring U.S. troopshome.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clintonwarned of a rocky road ahead, but said she waspleased with progress towards eliminating theshortage of allied trainers for the Afghan army andpolice. She offered a generally sunny outlook forAfghanistan and said the government of much criti-cized President Hamid Karzai gets too little creditfor progress in building a viable democracy.

NATO is still about 450 short of its target for a train-ing force to assist the Afghan security forces, andwhile that gap apparently was not filled duringFriday’s session, Ms. Clinton said she was not dis-couraged.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussensaid the 28 nation alliance is on track with its newstrategy for winding down the war in Afghanistan,despite security setbacks and a continuing shortageof foreign trainers for the fledgling Afghan policeand army.

NATO aims in 2010 is clear to take the initiativeagainst the insurgents, to help the Afghan govern-

By: Avadhesh Kumar Pandey

“The NATO Response Force (NRF) was launched at the 2002Prague summit on 21 November. On 19 June 2003, a majorrestructuring of the NATO military commands began as the Head-quarters of the Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic were abol-ished and a new command, Allied Command Transformation(ACT), was established in Norfolk, Virginia, United States, andthe Supreme Headquarters..”

ment exercise its sovereignty, and to start handingover responsibility for Afghanistan to the Afghansthis year.

He said a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, in-cluding Hillary Clinton, agreed on what it will taketo create conditions enabling Afghans to assumecontrol of their own country. He was not specificabout what those conditions will be, but saidprogress in that direction is important in order toavoid further erosion of public support for the wareffort.

“Citizens in Afghanistan and in all troop contribut-ing countries are demanding visible progress, andthey are right to insist on that,” he added. “We shouldhave no illusions. Making progress will not be easyand will not be quick. But based on what we see onthe ground now, it is happening.”

He added that looking ahead to a winding down ofthe war does not mean the allies will leave beforethe mission is accomplished. In earlier remarks, Mr.Fogh Rasmussen offered a mostly upbeat assessmentto the gathering.

Mr. Fogh Rasmussen asserted that the Afghan gov-ernment, which has been hampered by a Talibaninsurgency, political corruption, a dysfunctionaleconomy and a dependence on foreign assistance, isstarting to take more responsibility for running thecountry’s affairs.




“We are preparing to begin the process of handingover leadership, where conditions allow, back to theAfghan people,” he said. “The future of this missionis clear and visible: more Afghan capability and moreAfghan leadership.”

During meeting, which was closed to the press af-ter Mr. Fogh Rasmussen made brief introductoryremarks, Ms. Clinton was expected to press otherNATO nations to provide more trainers forAfghanistan’s police and military forces as part ofpreparations to withdraw Western troops from thereby summer 2011.

Mr. Fogh Rasmussen said that an additional 450trainers are needed for Afghanistan’s security forces.Insufficient numbers of foreign trainers has plaguedthe U.S. led war effort for years, although the short-fall has narrowed in recent months.

This session also was focusing on a NATO initia-tive aimed at stimulating the Afghan economy bymaking it a priority for all foreign contingents op-erating in Afghanistan to hire Afghan contractorsand purchase Afghan goods and services wheneverpossible.

This “Afghan First” policy, as NATO calls it, hasbeen deemed “the most important step in promot-ing the development of the Afghan private sectorand supporting the economic development of thecountry,” according to a NATO statement.

To underscore NATO’s effort to coordinate all as-pects of its strategy and operations with the Afghangovernment, Afghan Foreign Minister ZalmaiRassoul was participating in the Tallinn meeting.NATO’s assessment of its exit strategy comes justfive months after Mr. Obama sharply escalatedtroop strength in the rugged mountain nation tochallenge a resurgent Taliban movement. NATO hasstruggled, in some cases, to coordinate military op-erations with Afghan civilian authorities and agen-cies.

NATO was founded 61 years ago this month withthe signing of a treaty of collective defence against

a feared land invasion by the Soviet Union.

During talks, Ms. Clinton ruled out an early with-drawal of about 200 short range U.S. nuclear weap-ons from bases in five European countries. She saidany reductions should be tied to a negotiated nuclearpullback by Russia, which has far more of the weap-ons in range of European targets.

No such talks are in the offing, and Moscow hasshown little interest thus far in bargaining away itstactical nuclear arms. Ms. Clinton also said theObama administration wants NATO to accept mis-sile defence as a core mission of the alliance.

The U.S. sees anti missile systems as part of a broadereffort to combat the dangers posed by nuclear, bio-logical and chemical weapons and the rockets thatcan deliver them.

Some European members of NATO, including Ger-many, have said it’s time for the U.S. to withdrawits remaining Cold War era nuclear weapons fromEurope and cite Obama’s pledge in Prague last yearto seek a nuclear free world. Late last year, Ger-many was joined by NATO members Belgium, theNetherlands, Norway and Luxembourg in request-ing that the nuclear issue be put on the agenda of theTallinn meeting.

But some newer NATO members in central and east-ern Europe, which lay within Moscow’s orbit dur-ing the Cold War, oppose a U.S. nuclear withdrawal.They argue that the presence of the weapons is thesurest guarantee of their territorial integrity.

What is NATOThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)is an intergovernmental military alliance based onthe North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4April 1949. The NATO headquarters are in Brus-sels, Belgium, and the organization constitutes asystem of collective defence whereby its memberstates agree to mutual defence in response to an at-tack by any external party.




For its first few years, NATO was not much morethan a political association. However, the KoreanWar galvanized the member states, and an integratedmilitary structure was built up under the directionof two U.S. supreme commanders. The first NATOSecretary General, Lord Ismay, famously stated theorganization's goal was "to keep the Russians out,the Americans in, and the Germans down". Doubtsover the strength of the relationship between theEuropean states and the United States ebbed andflowed, along with doubts over the credibility ofthe NATO defence against a prospective Soviet in-vasion doubts that led to the development of the in-dependent French nuclear deterrent and the with-drawal of the French from NATO's military struc-ture from 1966.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the orga-nization became drawn into the Balkans while build-ing better links with former potential enemies tothe east, which culminated with several formerWarsaw Pact states joining the alliance in 1999 and2004. On 1 April 2009, membership was enlargedto 28 with the entrance of Albania and Croatia. Sincethe 11 September attacks, NATO has attempted torefocus itself to new challenges and has deployedtroops to Afghanistan as well as trainers to Iraq.The Berlin Plus agreement is a comprehensive pack-age of agreements made between NATO and theEuropean Union on 16 December 2002. With thisagreement the EU was given the possibility to useNATO assets in case it wanted to act independentlyin an international crisis, on the condition thatNATO itself did not want to act the so-called "rightof first refusal". Only if NATO refused to act wouldthe EU have the option to act. The combined mili-tary spending of all NATO members constitutes over70% of the world's defence spending, with the UnitedStates alone accounting for about half the total mili-tary spending of the world and the United King-dom, France, Germany, and Italy accounting for afurther 15%.

BeginningsThe Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France

and the United Kingdom is considered the precur-sor to the NATO agreement. The treaty and the So-viet Berlin Blockade led to the creation of the West-ern European Union's Defence Organization in Sep-tember 1948. However, participation of the UnitedStates was thought necessary in order to counter themilitary power of the USSR, and therefore talks fora new military alliance began almost immediately.These talks resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty,which was signed in Washington, D.C. on 4 April1949. It included the five Treaty of Brussels states,as well as the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy,Norway, Denmark and Iceland. Popular support forthe Treaty was not unanimous; some Icelanders com-menced a pro-neutrality, anti-membership riot inMarch 1949.

The Parties of NATO agreed that an armed attackagainst one or more of them in Europe or NorthAmerica shall be considered an attack against themall. Consequently they agree that, if such an armedattack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the rightof individual or collective self-defence will assistthe Party or Parties being attacked, individually andin concert with the other Parties, such action as itdeems necessary, including the use of armed force,to restore and maintain the security of the NorthAtlantic area.

Such action as it deems necessary, including the useof armed force does not necessarily mean that othermember states will respond with military actionagainst the aggressors. Rather they are obliged torespond, but maintain the freedom to choose howthey will respond. This differs from Article IV ofthe Treaty of Brussels (which founded the WesternEuropean Union) which clearly states that the re-sponse however often assumed that NATO mem-bers will aid the attacked member militarily. Fur-ther, the article limits the organization's scope toEurope and North America, which explains why theFalklands War did not result in NATO involvement.The creation of NATO brought about some stan-dardization of allied military terminology, proce-dures, and technology, which in many cases meantEuropean countries adopting U.S. practices. Theroughly 1300 Standardization Agreements(STANAGs) codifies the standardization that NATO




has achieved. Hence, the 7.62×51 NATO rifle car-tridge was introduced in the 1950s as a standard fire-arm cartridge among many NATO countries.Fabrique Nationale de Herstal's FAL became themost popular 7.62 NATO rifle in Europe and servedinto the early 1990s. Also, aircraft marshalling sig-nals were standardized, so that any NATO aircraftcould land at any NATO base. Other standards suchas the NATO phonetic alphabet have made their waybeyond NATO into civilian use.

Cold WarThe outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 was cru-cial for NATO as it raised the apparent threat levelgreatly (all Communist countries were suspected ofworking together) and forced the alliance to developconcrete military plans. The 1952 Lisbon confer-ence, seeking to provide the forces necessary forNATO's Long-Term Defence Plan, called for anexpansion to 96 divisions. However this requirementwas dropped the following year to roughly 35 divi-sions with heavier use to be made of nuclear weap-ons. At this time, NATO could call on about 15 readydivisions in Central Europe, and another ten in Italyand Scandinavia. Also at Lisbon, the post of Secre-tary General of NATO as the organization's chiefcivilian was also created, and Baron Hastings Ismayeventually appointed to the post. Later, in Septem-ber 1952, the first major NATO maritime exercisesbegan; Operation Mainbrace brought together 200ships and over 50,000 personnel to practice the de-fence of Denmark and Norway.

Greece and Turkey joined the alliance the same year,forcing a series of controversial negotiations, inwhich the United States and Britain were the pri-mary disputants, over how to bring the two coun-tries into the military command structure. Mean-while, while this overt military preparation wasgoing on, covert stay-behind arrangements to con-tinue resistance after a successful Soviet invasion('Operation Gladio'), initially made by the West-ern European Union, were being transferred toNATO control. Ultimately unofficial bonds beganto grow between NATO's armed forces, such as theNATO Tiger Association and competitions such asthe Canadian Army Trophy for tank gunnery.

In 1954, the Soviet Union suggested that it shouldjoin NATO to preserve peace in Europe. The NATOcountries, fearing that the Soviet Union's motive wasto weaken the alliance, ultimately rejected this pro-posal. The incorporation of West Germany into theorganization on 9 May 1955 was described as "adecisive turning point in the history of our conti-nent" by Halvard Lange, Foreign Minister of Nor-way at the time. A major reason for Germany's en-try into the alliance was that without German man-power, it would have been impossible to fieldenough conventional forces to resist a Soviet inva-sion. Indeed, one of its immediate results was thecreation of the Warsaw Pact, signed on 14 May 1955by the Soviet Union, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Po-land, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, and East Ger-many, as a formal response to this event, therebydelineating the two opposing sides of the Cold War.French withdrawal

The unity of NATO was breached early in its his-tory, with a crisis occurring during Charles deGaulle's presidency of France from 1958 onwards.De Gaulle protested at the United States' strong rolein the organization and what he perceived as a spe-cial relationship between the United States and theUnited Kingdom. In a memorandum sent to Presi-dent Dwight D. Eisenhower and Prime MinisterHarold Macmillan on 17 September 1958, he ar-gued for the creation of a tripartite directorate thatwould put France on an equal footing with theUnited States and the United Kingdom, and also forthe expansion of NATO's coverage to include geo-graphical areas of interest to France, most notablyFrench Algeria, where France was waging a counter-insurgency and sought NATO assistance.

Considering the response given to be unsatisfactory,de Gaulle began to build an independent defence forhis country. He also wanted to give France, in theevent of an East German incursion into West Ger-many, the option of coming to a separate peace withthe Eastern bloc instead of being drawn into aNATO-Warsaw Pact global war. On 11 March 1959,France withdrew its Mediterranean Fleet fromNATO command; three months later, in June 1959,de Gaulle banned the stationing of foreign nuclearweapons on French soil. This caused the United




States to transfer two hundred military aircraft outof France and return control of the ten major airforce bases that had operated in France since 1950to the French by 1967.

Though France showed solidarity with the rest ofNATO during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, deGaulle continued his pursuit of an independent de-fence by removing France's Atlantic and Channelfleets from NATO command. In 1966, all Frencharmed forces were removed from NATO's inte-grated military command, and all non-FrenchNATO troops were asked to leave France. This with-drawal forced the relocation of the Supreme Head-quarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) fromRocquencourt, near Paris, to Casteau, north of Mons,Belgium, by 16 October 1967. France remained amember of the alliance, and committed to the de-fence of Europe from possible Communist attackwith its own forces stationed in the Federal Repub-lic of Germany throughout the Cold War. A seriesof secret accords between U.S. and French officials,the Lemnitzer-Ailleret Agreements, detailed howFrench forces would dovetail back into NATO'scommand structure should East-West hostilitiesbreak out.

During most of the Cold War, NATO maintained aholding pattern with no actual military engagementas an organization. On 1 July 1968, the NuclearNon-Proliferation Treaty opened for signature:NATO argued that its nuclear sharing arrangementsdid not breach the treaty as U.S. forces controlledthe weapons until a decision was made to go to war,at which point the treaty would no longer be con-trolling. Few states knew of the NATO nuclear shar-ing arrangements at that time, and they were notchallenged.

On 30 May 1978, NATO countries officially de-fined two complementary aims of the Alliance, tomaintain security and pursue détente. This was sup-posed to mean matching defences at the level ren-dered necessary by the Warsaw Pact's offensive ca-pabilities without spurring a further arms race.

On 12 December 1979, in light of a build-up ofWarsaw Pact nuclear capabilities in Europe, min-

isters approved the deployment of U.S. GLCM cruisemissiles and Pershing II theatre nuclear weapons inEurope. The new warheads were also meant tostrengthen the western negotiating position regard-ing nuclear disarmament. This policy was called theDual Track policy. Similarly, in 1983–84, respond-ing to the stationing of Warsaw Pact SS-20 medium-range missiles in Europe, NATO deployed modernPershing II missiles tasked to hit military targetssuch as tank formations in the event of war. Thisaction led to peace movement protests throughoutWestern Europe.

EscalationWith the background of the build-up of tension be-tween the Soviet Union and the United States,NATO decided, under the impetus of the Reaganpresidency, to deploy Pershing II and cruise mis-siles in Western Europe, primarily West Germany.These missiles were theatre nuclear weapons in-tended to strike targets on the battlefield if the So-viets invaded West Germany. Yet support for thedeployment was wavering and many doubtedwhether the push for deployment could be sustained.On 1 September 1983, the Soviet Union shot downa Korean passenger airliner when it crossed intoSoviet airspace—an act which Reagan characterizedas a "massacre". The barbarity of this act, as the U.S.and indeed the world understood it, galvanized sup-port for the deployment—which stood in place un-til the later accords between Reagan and MikhailGorbachev.

The membership of the organization at this timeremained largely static. In 1974, as a consequenceof the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Greece withdrewits forces from NATO's military command struc-ture but, with Turkish cooperation, were readmit-ted in 1980. On 30 May 1982, NATO gained a newmember when, following a referendum, the newlydemocratic Spain joined the alliance.

In November 1983, NATO manoeuvres simulatinga nuclear launch caused panic in the Kremlin. TheSoviet leadership, led by ailing General SecretaryYuri Andropov, became concerned that the




manoeuvres, codenamed Able Archer 83, were thebeginnings of a genuine first strike. In response,Soviet nuclear forces were readied and air units inEast Germany and Poland were placed on alert.Though at the time written off by U.S. intelligenceas a propaganda effort, many historians now believethat the Soviet fear of a NATO first strike was genu-ine.

Expansion and restructuringNew NATO structures were also formed while oldones were abolished: The NATO Response Force(NRF) was launched at the 2002 Prague summit on21 November. On 19 June 2003, a major restructur-ing of the NATO military commands began as theHeadquarters of the Supreme Allied Commander,Atlantic were abolished and a new command, Al-lied Command Transformation (ACT), was estab-lished in Norfolk, Virginia, United States, and theSupreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe(SHAPE) became the Headquarters of Allied Com-mand Operations (ACO). ACT is responsible fordriving transformation (future capabilities) inNATO, whilst ACO is responsible for current op-erations.

As a result of post-Cold War restructuring of na-tional forces, intervention in the Balkan conflicts,and subsequent participation in Afghanistan, start-ing in late 2003 NATO has restructured how it com-mands and deploys its troops by creating severalNATO Rapid Deployable Corps.

Membership went on expanding with the ac-cession of seven more Northern European andEastern European countries to NATO: Esto-nia, Latvia and Lithuania and also Slovenia, Slovakia,Bulgaria, and Romania. They were first invited tostart talks of membership during the 2002 PragueSummit, and joined NATO on 29 March 2004,shortly before the 2004 Istanbul summit. The samemonth, NATO's Baltic Air Policing began, whichsupported the sovereignty of Latvia, Lithuania andEstonia by providing fighters to react to any un-wanted aerial intrusions. Four fighters are based inLithuania, provided in rotation by virtually all the

NATO states. Operation Peaceful Summit tempo-rarily enhanced this patrolling during the 2006 Rigasummit.

The 2006 Riga summit was held in Riga, Latvia,which had joined the Atlantic Alliance two yearsearlier. It is the first NATO summit to be held in acountry that was part of the Soviet Union, and thesecond one in a former Comecon country (after the2002 Prague summit). Energy Security was one ofthe main themes of the Riga Summit. At the April2008 summit in Bucharest, Romania, NATO agreedto the accession of Croatia and Albania and invitedthem to join. Both countries joined NATO in April2009. Ukraine and Georgia were also told that theywill eventually become members.

Future EnlargementNew membership in the alliance has been largelyfrom Eastern Europe and the Balkans, includingformer members of the Warsaw Pact.At the 2008 summit in Bucharest, three coun-tries were promised future invitations: theRepublic of Macedonia, Georgia and Ukraine.Though it has completed the requirements for mem-bership, the accession of Macedonia is blocked byGreece, pending resolution of the Macedonia nam-ing dispute. Turkey has also threatened to block anattempt from Cyprus.[citation needed]

Other potential candidate countries includeMontenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, whichjoined the Adriatic Charter of potential members in2008. Russia, as referred to above, continues to op-pose further expansion, seeing it as inconsistent withunderstandings between Soviet leader MikhailGorbachev and U.S. President George H. W. Bushthat allowed for a peaceful German reunification.NATO's expansion policy is seen by Moscow as acontinuation of a Cold War attempt to surround andisolate Russia.




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The two Summitshas discussed glo-bal economic cri-sis besides ways toenhance coopera-tion among themember countriesof the two group-

ings. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived inBrazil on a two day visit inApril 2010 during whichhe attended the Brazil—Russia—India—China(BRIC) and India—Brazil— South Africa (IBSA)Summits and held bilateral meetings with ChinesePresident Hu Jintao and Russian President DmitryMedvedev. The Prime Minister reached from Wash-ington on the second leg of his eight nation tour.At the 2nd BRIC Summit, Iran’s nuclear issue andthe controversy surrounding it also discussed underthe grouping’s format by Singh, Russian PresidentDmitry Medvedev, Chinese President Hu Jintao andBrazilian President Lula da Silva. This was the firsttime that Iran has been part of focussed agenda ofthe grouping.

BRIC is a significant grouping comprising two ofthe world’s leading energy producers Russia andChina and top energy consumers India and China,which officials say forms the basis for natural syn-ergy.

In the BRIC format, Foreign Ministers of the fourcountries have met regularly on the sidelines of in-ternational conferences, including the UN GeneralAssembly.

The BRIC countries, representing 40 per cent of theglobal population, are among the largest and fastestgrowing economies with rich human and materialresources. They represent the future of the globaleconomic landscape.

BRIC and IBSASummits

With a similarity of views on several issues likeclimate change and reform of global institutions,including the UN, the four countries have been finetuning their collective approaches to these issues.In the IBSA format too, India, Brazil and South Af-rica, the three fastest growing economies of threecontinents, have evolved common and coordinatedapproaches to the challenges like global economiccrisis and climate change besides pushing efforts toenhance cooperation among themselves.

After the IBSA Summit, India, Brazil and South Af-rica signd two trilateral MoUs. These are in the ar-eas of solar energy and science and technology. AnMoU in the field of sport is also likely to be inked.“These groupings reflect the growing role of emerg-ing economies in shaping the global economic or-der,” the Prime Minister had said in a statement.

He said the IBSA process has come of age as it to-day encompasses a wide range of activities whichsupplement the excellent bilateral relations that In-dia enjoys with each of these countries.

“Our coordination on important international issueshas expanded, and our trilateral cooperation is be-ginning to bear fruit in many sectors,” the PrimeMinister had said.

“We have a high stake in the revival of the globaleconomy, an open trading system, energy security,combating climate change and addressing non tra-ditional threats to international security,” he said.Singh also held bilateral meetings with the ChinesePresident and Russian President. Ahead of his meet-ing with Hu, Singh said in Washington that Indiaand China were working very hard to find a “practi-cal” and “pragmatic” solution to the boundary ques-tion and it would “take time” to get resolved.

Noting that both countries “recognise that it wouldtake time”, he said both the nations have agreed that

Section -2 Hot Topics (BRIC And IBSA Summits)



pending the resolution of the border issues, peaceand tranquility should be maintained along the Lineof Actual Control and by and large that situationprevails on the ground.

On the overall Sino India relations, he said the eco-nomic content of the relationship has increased sig-nificantly, with China today being India’s largesttrading partner.

There are large Chinese investments in our countryand there are large Indian investments in China. “Onthe economic front the relationship is moving in theright direction,” he said.

On multilateral issues, he said, there was a recogni-tion in China that there was a similarity of approachbetween the two countries and they can gain byworking together.

In this context, he referred to the Copenhagen con-ference on climate change last December duringwhich India and China worked closely to block de-veloped nations from imposing their agenda IBSAto develop satellites, cooperate on global issues

India, Brazil and South Africa decided to jointlydevelop two satellites and forged closer coopera-tion on global issues like UN reforms, climatechange and world trade talks. This emerged afterthe fourth India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) sum-mit.

The two satellites will be used for studying climateto help agriculture sector in the three countries.Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that IBSAbesides the embodiment of south-south cooperationhad entered the phase of consolidation and imple-mentation of initiatives.

He said IBSA has immense prospects for the peopleof the three countries and the right direction wasbeing provided to it by strengthening cooperationin science and technology, energy, ocean’s research,which were the hallmark of the forum.

“OBS has developed into a vibrant organisationwhich will play important role in world affairs,”Dr. Singh said.

Dr. Singh said the three developing economies anddemocracies shared similar views with regard toreform of global institutions of governance like theUN.

Mr. Zuma said that IBSA has a natural dialogue fo-rum and he has great confidence in its future. Hesaid the decision to develop the satellite jointly wassymbolic of the fact that the forum has entered anew phase.

He pointed out that the member countries had com-mon positions on the Doha round of WTO talks.He pressed for early conclusions of the Doha roundof trade talks saying it can’t be put indefinitely.

Mr. Zuma said the IBSA was rapidly emerging asan important forum for engagement. “But we areyet to fully explore the full potential of this forum,”he said.

The South African president, whose country willhost the next IBSA summit, said there was an op-portunity for expanding cooperation in science andtechnology and reinforcing shared developmentalobjectives.

Noting that all the three IBSA countries were influ-ential in their own regions, Mr. Zuma said, “Weare in a position to make contributions to a globaldebate. This became clear at the Copenhagen Sum-mit on climate change when IBSA and China playeda key role in reaching an agreement.”

He said the four countries were able to reflect theinterest of developing nations at the climate meet.He said the IBSA countries were key for reform ofglobal bodies like UN to make them more demo-cratic and more responsive to the poor.

Mr. Zuma said the three countries needed more co-ordination on climate change to ensure legally bind-ing agreement on the issue in the next summit inMexico next year.

BRIC, IBSA nations not keen on Iran sanctionsAs the United States and its western allies press ahead




with efforts to impose tough penalties on Iran, lead-ers and officials from two major internationalgroupings BRIC and IBSA meeting in Brasilia thisweek took a contrary view, agreeing that new sanc-tions would not help resolve the nuclear issue.

On the sidelines, India’s national security adviser,Shiv Shankar Menon, took part in a meeting of BRICsenior security officials alongside Nikolai Patrushevof Russia and Dai Binguuo of China. Earlier in theweek, Mr. Menon also met with his U.S. counter-part, James L. Jones, who provided a detailed de-scription of Washington’s current approach to theIran issue.

Giving an account of the intra-BRIC exchanges onIran, a senior Indian official said, “All of us agreedthat we don’t think sanctions will help solve thecurrent problems with Iran.” In addition, there wasagreement that dialogue and diplomacy were essen-tial and that the central role of the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency in settling the Iran nucleardocket had to be re-established.

The official said the BRIC nations agreed Iran hadthe right to nuclear energy but that it also has anobligation to set at rest international fears about thenature of its nuclear programme.

Though the BRIC summit statement did not touchon Iran, the IBSA communiqué said the three lead-ers “reiterated the need for a peaceful and diplomaticsolution of the issue”.

Indian officials said President Lula would be goingto Iran next month and that his visit had added sig-nificance since Brazil was a non-permanent mem-ber of the Security Council through 2011. Anotherfactor which might have a bearing on sanctions wasthat Lebanon – whose government has tended not tosupport the U.S. on Iran would assume the rotatingchair of the UNSC in May.

India buys a significant amount of crude oil fromIran. Until 2009, Indian companies like Reliance alsosold refined products to Iran but have withdrawnfrom the market as American pressure on banks

around the world has made it more difficult to openletters of credit.

An analysisSummits of IBSA and BRIC nations, India and Bra-zil were the lucky two who had overlapping mem-bership in both forums. But South Africa, which isonly part of the former, would very much like BRICto become BRICS, while China, which is part of thelatter as well as of the climate change ginger groupof BASIC with India, Brazil and South Africa —would not be averse to IBSA becoming CHIBSA.

Equation ReversedLast year, when the Russian hosts at Ekaterinburgheld back-to-back summits of BRIC and the Shang-hai Cooperation Organisation, the equation was re-versed. Russia and China belong to both groupings,while India, which has mere observer status in theSCO, agreed to have Prime Minister ManmohanSingh attend that summit only after receiving as-surances that he would have full speaking rights andwould not have to leave the room when the realmembers met.

On the sidelines of the April 15 IBSA and BRICmeets in Brasilia, President Hu Jintao of China helda bilateral meeting with his Brazilian counterpart,Lula da Silva, and the two countries signed a num-ber of agreements. One of these was an 'action plan',and buried deep within it was this proposal: “Thetwo sides will discuss conducting long-term researchon the potential for furthering the development oftrade relations between IBSA and China”.

Not EnthusiasticSome in Brazil have quietly been suggestingBeijing's inclusion in IBSA -- China is, after all, itslargest trading partner -- but India and, to a lesserextent, South Africa, which sees IBSA as a great ve-hicle for itself on the world stage -- are not enthusi-astic.




“Well, IBSA has a character of its own -- three largedemocracies coming together,” Prime MinisterSingh told reporters who managed to throw a ques-tion to him on China joining the trilateral forum.He was standing with his delegation in the lobby ofItamaraty Palace, home to the Brazilian foreignministry, on Thursday evening, waiting for his mo-torcade in between the IBSA and BRIC summits. “Ithink IBSA has now come into its own”.

The reference to democracies was not accidental. Itwas present in Dr. Singh's speech to the IBSA ple-nary and the final summit communiqué spoke ofshared democratic traditions. For Indian officials,this is what provides additional glue to a groupingthat joins India with the most important powers ofAfrica and South America. It helps, of course, thatas a criterion for club membership, China wouldnot quallify.

ProblematicAsked about the expansion of BRIC, the Prime Min-ister said this was an idea of Goldman Sachs. “Weare now trying to give it some shape, flesh it out.Let us see”.

Like IBSA, the expansion of BRIC is problematicbecause the majority of its members fear the dilu-tion of the forum's core competence: fast risingeconomies with a growing footprint in the globaleconomy and system. BRIC today accounts for alittle under a quarter of world output. The SouthAfrican economy is not yet in that league.

Other countries that have expressed an interest injoining BRIC are Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey. TheTurks are also apparently interested in IBSA.

“What makes BRIC a good fit today is that the fourcountries have complementary factor endowmentsand national skills,” a senior Indian official told TheHindu. If China has solid manufacturing and hugefinancial clout, Russia has energy and advanced tech-nology in certain fields, while Brazil is an agricul-tural superpower with strong manufacturing andIndia has a comparative advantage in IT, pharma-

ceuticals as well as agriculture. In an article writ-ten on the eve of the BRIC summit, President DmitriMedvedev spoke of the four countries collaborat-ing with each other in nuclear technology, spacetechnology, aircraft manufacturing, nanotechnologyand other fields. But some in the Indian establish-ment remain sceptical of doing too much with BRIC,fearing a backlash from the U.S.

II BRIC SUMMIT: JointStatement

We, the leaders of the Federative Republic of Bra-zil, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Indiaand the People’s Republic of China, met in Brasíliaon 15 April 2010 to discuss major issues of the in-ternational agenda as well as concrete steps to moveforward the cooperation and coordination withinBRIC.

We have agreed on the following:

Common Vision and GlobalGovernance

We share the perception that the world is undergo-ing major and swift changes that highlight the needfor corresponding transformations in global gover-nance in all relevant areas.

We underline our support for a multipolar, equi-table and democratic world order, based on inter-national law, equality, mutual respect, cooperation,coordinated action and collective decision-makingof all States.

We stress the central role played by the G-20 incombating the crisis through unprecedented levelsof coordinated action. We welcome the fact that theG-20 was confirmed as the premier forum for in-ternational economic coordination and cooperationof all its member states. Compared to previous ar-rangements, the G-20 is broader, more inclusive,diverse, representative and effective. We call uponall its member states to undertake further efforts to




implement jointly the decisions adopted at the threeG-20 Summits.

We advocate the need for the G-20 to be proactiveand formulate a coherent strategy for the post-cri-sis period. We stand ready to make a joint contri-bution to this effort.

We express our strong commitment to multilateraldiplomacy with the United Nations playing the cen-tral role in dealing with global challenges andthreats. In this respect, we reaffirm the need for acomprehensive reform of the UN, with a view tomaking it more effective, efficient and representa-tive, so that it can deal with today’s global chal-lenges more effectively. We reiterate the impor-tance we attach to the status of India and Brazil ininternational affairs, and understand and supporttheir aspirations to play a greater role in the UnitedNations.

We believe the deepened and broadened dialogueand cooperation of the BRIC countries is conducivenot only to serving common interests of emergingmarket economies and developing countries, butalso to building a harmonious world of lasting peaceand common prosperity. We have agreed upon stepsto promote dialogue and cooperation among ourcountries in an incremental, proactive, pragmatic,open and transparent way.

International Economic andFinancial Issues

The world economic situation has improved sinceour first meeting in June 2009, in Ekaterinburg. Wewelcome the resumption of economic growth, inwhich emerging market economies are playing avery important role. However, we recognize thatthe foundation of world economic recovery is notyet solid, with uncertainties remaining. We call uponall states to strengthen macroeconomic cooperation,jointly secure world economic recovery and achievea strong, sustainable and balanced growth. We reit-erate our determination to make positive efforts inmaintaining domestic economic recovery and pro-

moting development in our own countries andworldwide.

We underline the importance of maintaining rela-tive stability of major reserve currencies andsustainability of fiscal policies in order to achieve astrong, long-term balanced economic growth.

We are convinced that emerging market economiesand developing countries have the potential to playan even larger and active role as engines of economicgrowth and prosperity, while at the same time com-mit to work together with other countries towardsreducing imbalances in global economic develop-ment and fostering social inclusion.

G-20 members, with a significant contribution fromBRIC countries, have greatly increased resourcesavailable to the IMF. We support the increase ofcapital, under the principle of fair burden-sharing,of the International Bank for Reconstruction andDevelopment and of the International Finance Cor-poration, in addition to more robust, flexible andagile client-driven support for developing econo-mies from multilateral development banks.

Despite promising positive signs, much remains tobe done. We believe that the world needs today areformed and more stable financial architecture thatwill make the global economy less prone and moreresilient to future crises, and that there is a greaterneed for a more stable, predictable and diversifiedinternational monetary system.

We will strive to achieve an ambitious conclusionto the ongoing and long overdue reforms of theBretton Woods institutions. The IMF and the WorldBank urgently need to address their legitimacy defi-cits. Reforming these institutions’ governance struc-tures requires first and foremost a substantial shiftin voting power in favor of emerging market econo-mies and developing countries to bring their par-ticipation in decision making in line with their rela-tive weight in the world economy. We call for thevoting power reform of the World Bank to be ful-filled in the upcoming Spring Meetings, and expectthe quota reform of the IMF to be concluded by the




G-20 Summit in November this year. We do alsoagree on the need for an open and merit based selec-tion method, irrespective of nationality, for the head-ing positions of the IMF and the World Bank. More-over, staff of these institutions needs to better re-flect the diversity of their membership. There is aspecial need to increase participation of developingcountries. The international community must de-liver a result worthy of the expectations we all sharefor these institutions within the agreed timeframeor run the risk of seeing them fade into obsolescence.

In the interest of promoting international economicstability, we have asked our Finance Ministers andCentral Bank Governors to look into regional mon-etary arrangements and discuss modalities of coop-eration between our countries in this area. In orderto facilitate trade and investment, we will studyfeasibilities of monetary cooperation, including lo-cal currency trade settlement arrangement betweenour countries.

Recent events have shattered the belief about the self-regulating nature of financial markets. Therefore,there is a pressing need to foster and strengthen co-operation regarding the regulation and supervisionof all segments, institutions and instruments of fi-nancial markets. We remain committed to improveour own national regulations, to push for the reformof the international financial regulatory system andto work closely with international standard settingbodies, including the Financial Stability Board.

International TradeWe stress the importance of the multilateral trad-ing system, embodied in the World Trade Organi-zation, for providing an open, stable, equitable andnon discriminatory environment for internationaltrade. In this connection, we commit ourselves andurge all states to resist all forms of trade protec-tionism and fight disguised restrictions on trade. Weconcur in the need for a comprehensive and balancedoutcome of the Doha Round of multilateral tradetalks, in a manner that fulfills its mandate as a "de-velopment round", based on the progress alreadymade, including with regard to modalities. We take

note and strongly support Russia's bid for accessionto the WTO.

DevelopmentWe reiterate the importance of the UN MillenniumDeclaration and the need to achieve the MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDGs). We underscore theimportance of preventing a potential setback to theefforts of poor countries aimed at achieving MDGsdue to the effects of the economic and financial cri-sis. We should also make sustained efforts to achievethe MDGs by 2015, including through technicalcooperation and financial support to poor countriesin implementation of development policies and so-cial protection for their populations. We expect theUN MDG Summit, in September 2010, to promotethe implementation of MDGs through policy rec-ommendations. We stress that sustainable develop-ment models and paths of developing countriesshould be fully respected and necessary policy spaceof developing countries should be guaranteed.

The poorest countries have been the hardest hit bythe economic and financial crisis. The commitmentsregarding the aid to the developing states, especiallythose related to the MDGs, should be fulfilled, andthere should be no reduction in development assis-tance. An inclusive process of growth for the worldeconomy is not only a matter of solidarity but alsoan issue of strategic importance for global politicaland economic stability.

AgricultureWe express our satisfaction with the Meeting ofMinisters of Agriculture and Agrarian Developmentin Moscow, where they discussed ways of promot-ing quadripartite cooperation, with particular atten-tion to family farming. We are convinced that thiswill contribute towards global food production andfood security. We welcome their decision to createan agricultural information base system of the BRICcountries, to develop a strategy for ensuring accessto food for vulnerable population, to reduce thenegative impact of climate change on food security,and to enhance agriculture technology cooperationand innovation.




Fight against povertyWe call upon the international community to makeall the necessary efforts to fight poverty, social ex-clusion and inequality bearing in mind the specialneeds of developing countries, especially LDCs,small islands and African Countries. We supporttechnical and financial cooperation as means to con-tribute to the achievement of sustainable social de-velopment, with social protection, full employment,and decent work policies and programmes, givingspecial attention to the most vulnerable groups, suchas the poor, women, youth, migrants and personswith disabilities.

EnergyWe recognize that energy is an essential resourcefor improving the standard of living of our peoplesand that access to energy is of paramount impor-tance to economic growth with equity and socialinclusion. We will aim to develop cleaner, moreaffordable and sustainable energy systems, to pro-mote access to energy and energy efficient technolo-gies and practices in all sectors. We will aim to di-versify our energy mix by increasing, where appro-priate, the contribution of renewable energy sources,and will encourage the cleaner, more efficient useof fossil fuels and other fuels. In this regard, we re-iterate our support to the international cooperationin the field of energy efficiency.

We recognize the potential of new, emerging, andenvironmentally friendly technologies for diversi-fying energy mix and the creation of jobs. In thisregard we will encourage, as appropriate, the sus-tainable development, production and use ofbiofuels. In accordance with national priorities, wewill work together to facilitate the use of renew-able energy, through international cooperation andthe sharing of experiences on renewable energy, in-cluding biofuels technologies and policies.

We believe that BRIC member countries can coop-erate in training, R&D, Consultancy services andtechnology transfer, in the energy sector.

Climate ChangeWe acknowledge that climate change is a seriousthreat which requires strengthened global action.We commit ourselves to promote the 16th Confer-ence of the Parties to the United Nations Frame-work Convention on Climate Change and the 6thConference of the Parties serving as the Meeting ofthe Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, in Mexico, toachieve a comprehensive, balanced and binding re-sult to strengthen the implementation of the Con-vention and the Protocol. We believe that the Con-vention and the Protocol provide the framework forinternational negotiations on climate change. Thenegotiations in Mexico should be more inclusive,transparent, and should result in outcomes that arefair and effective in addressing the challenge of cli-mate change, while reflecting the principles of theConvention, especially the principle of equity andcommon but differentiated responsibilities.

TerrorismWe condemn terrorist acts in all forms and mani-festations. We note that the fight against interna-tional terrorism must be undertaken with due re-spect to the UN Charter, existing international con-ventions and protocols, the UN General Assemblyand Security Council resolutions relating to inter-national terrorism, and that the prevention of ter-rorist acts is as important as the repression of ter-rorism and its financing. In this context, we urgeearly conclusion of negotiations in the UN GeneralAssembly of the Comprehensive Convention on In-ternational Terrorism and its adoption by all Mem-ber States. Brazil and China express their sympathyand solidarity with the people and Governments ofRussia and India which suffered from recent bar-baric terrorist attacks. Terrorism cannot be justi-fied by any reason.

Alliance of CivilizationsWe affirm the importance of encouraging the dia-logue among civilizations, cultures, religions andpeoples. In this respect, we support the “Alliance of




Civilizations”, a United Nations’ initiative aimedat building bridges, mutual knowledge and under-standing around the world. We praise the Braziliandecision to host, in Rio de Janeiro, in May 2010, the3rd Global Forum and confirm our intention to bepresent at the event, in appropriate high level.

HaitiWe reaffirm our solidarity towards the Haitianpeople, who have been struggling under dire cir-cumstances since the earthquake of January 12th, andreiterate our commitment to gather efforts with theinternational community in order to help rebuild-ing the country, under the guidance of the Haitiangovernment, and according to the priorities estab-lished by the Action Plan for National Recovery andDevelopment of Haiti.

CooperationWe welcome the following sectoral initia-tives aimed at strengthening cooperationamong our countries:

a) the first Meeting of Ministers of Agriculture

and Agrarian Development;

b) the Meetings of Ministers of Finance and Gov-

ernors of Central Banks;

c) the Meetings of High Representatives for Secu-

rity Issues;

d) the I Exchange Program for Magistrates and

Judges, of BRIC countries, held in March 2010 in

Brazil following the signature in 2009 of the Proto-

col of Intent among the BRIC countries’ Supreme

Courts;

e) the first Meeting of Development Banks;

f) the first Meeting of the Heads of the National

Statistical Institutions;

g) the Conference of Competition Authorities;

h) the first Meeting of Cooperatives;

i) the first Business Forum;

j) the Conference of think tanks.

28. We also endorse other important mani-festations of our desire to deepen our rela-tionship, such as:

a) the joint publication by our respective nationalstatistical institutions which is going to be releasedtoday; b) a feasibility study for developing a joint BRICencyclopedia.

29. We reaffirm our commitment to advancecooperation among BRIC countries in science,culture and sports.

We express our confidence in the success of the 2010World Expo in Shanghai, the 2010 CommonwealthGames in New Delhi, the 2013 World StudentGames in Kazan, the 2014 Winter Olympic andParalympic Games in Sochi, the FIFA 2014 WorldCup in Brazil and the 2016 Olympic and ParalympicGames in Rio de Janeiro.

We reaffirm the efforts to strengthen our coopera-tion and assistance for reduction of natural disas-ters. Russia and India express their condolences andsolidarity with the people and Governments of Bra-zil and China, for the lives lost in the mudslide inRio de Janeiro, Brazil, and in the earthquake inYushu, China.

III BRIC SummitBrazil, Russia and India appreciated the offer ofChina to host the III BRIC Summit in 2011.

Russia, India and China expressed their profoundgratitude to the Government and people of Brazilfor hosting the II BRIC Summit.




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Minister of External AffairsMr. S.M. Krishna visited toChina in april 2010. S.M.Krishna was on an officialvisit to China and held dis-cussions with their counter-part, Foreign Minister YangJiechi, on a range of bilat-eral, regional and global is-

sues. His visit coincided with the 60th anniversaryof the establishment of India’s diplomatic relationswith the People’s Republic of China. To commemo-rated that anniversary, they held a Festival of Indiain China.

S.M. Krishna said that most foreign ministers, whenspok abroad, articulate their immediate nationalconcerns and interests. Mr. Krishna has suggestedto his Chinese counterpart that the Foreign Minis-ters of the two countries should meet annually fromnow on and this proposal found an immediatelypositive response from the Chinese side. So, this isanother outcome of the visit.

Speech of S.M. Krishna

Not surprisingly, the post-1945 order was reluctantto recognize the legitimate concerns and interestsof these two nations. China, in particular, stood iso-lated as a result of Cold War politics. In fact, as lateas 1954, only 19 nations had recognized the People’sRepublic of China. India, of course, was among them,having established diplomatic relations with Chinain April 1950. It was also sensitive to the sentimentsof the Chinese people and became an early advocateof the ‘one China policy’ and of the PRC’s admis-sion to the United Nations. Its own bilateral tieswith China during this period, that included a his-toric visit by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1954, also re-flected the friendship between the two nations.

In their early years as independent players, the twopolities found themselves on the same page on de-

Visit of External AffairsMinister to China

colonization, national sovereignty and independence,and security of states. The Panchasheela, or, the fiveprinciples of peaceful co-existence, was their uniquecontribution to contemporary diplomacy. This pe-riod was marked by global crises and flashpoints,some like Korea and the Taiwan Straits that directlyaffected Chinese security, and others like Vietnamand the Suez which were issues of basic principles.India and China stood shoulder to shoulder and theBandung Conference was the high watermark of thatera. In celebrating 60 years of diplomatic ties, weobviously seek to honour and uphold that traditionof working together.

The younger generation may well be unaware of itand it is our duty to remind them so that the spiritof cooperation can be even stronger. Therefore, ourendeavour is to draw inspiration from those earlyyears of our existence as independent nations to co-operate more closely in the future.

In the 1980s, having overcome initial challenges,India and China saw that rapid economic growthwould give them a stronger voice in the interna-tional community. Looking back, it is significantthat Rajiv Gandhi actually sought to accelerateIndia’s modernization just a few years after DengXiaoping unveiled his reform policy in China. Un-fortunately, it took us another decade to evolve anational consensus.

But the point that I wish to underline is that the ar-chitects of modernization and reform in both coun-tries – Rajiv Gandhi and Deng Xiaoping – were alsothe prime movers of normalizing our ties after adifficult interregnum. Rajiv Gandhi’s 1988 visit toChina was the landmark event that put our ties ontheir present course. The underlying assumption thatwas clearly shared by both leaders was of the im-portance of growth at home and of cooperationabroad. Those still remain our guiding principles.

Section -2 Hot Topics (Visit of External Affairs Minster to China)



Getting our growth strategy right in an ever-chang-ing world has its own challenges. As India and Chinamanage their domestic priorities well, it has hugeimplications for global prosperity. After all, be-tween them, they are raising the living standard ofalmost one-third of humanity. When the questionis raised about what we are doing for the world, itis often forgotten that our domestic developmentitself has world-wide effect.

In the last two decades, we have impacted signifi-cantly on global per-capita income, longevity andhuman development. Given the scale of what is un-derway, there is much that can be gained throughour close cooperation. The economic models of In-dia and China may be very different. But an exchangeof best practices can still benefit both countries.After all, we do face similar challenges of urban-ization, resource consumption, food and energy se-curity, inclusive growth and skills development.

The paradigm of co-existence has today been en-hanced by more active engagement. But this is stillnot adequate. We must ask ourselves whether asneighbours and partners, each of whom are largeand rising economies, are we making the best ofopportunities? Put bluntly, is it possible that Indiaand China can leverage each others’ strengths? Af-ter all, in their own past history, both nations haveleapfrogged using international relationships.

There is a huge infrastructure demand in India, cov-ering sectors like power, roads, rail and telecom-munications. In the recent budget, 46% of the totalplan allocations are assigned for physical infrastruc-ture development. China has actually carried outmany of the changes that India is still contemplat-ing. As a result, it has capacities but less domesticdemand. There is considerable scope for jointprojects as we master the practice of working har-moniously together. On the Chinese side, theoutsourcing of IT by state enterprises has onlystarted recently. There is a potential waiting to betapped, which would happen only by connectingChinese users to Indian providers. I am meeting rep-resentatives of Indian businesses in China later to-day and will encourage them to be creative in ex-ploring opportunities here. We strongly feel that

the India-China relationship is grossly under-real-ized and the capacities for expansion are enormous.Like other major States who made the same journeyearlier, India and China seek a secure and peacefulenvironment that allows them to focus on theirgrowth prospects. In this regard, we must alwaysremember that the two countries are each part ofthe other’s immediate periphery. Just by ensuringstability and promoting prosperity at home, we areactually serving each others’ interest. What are thechallenges to our peaceful periphery? They are ac-tually not very different from the problems that weface at home. These emanate from two central is-sues – material poverty and intellectual poverty. Tothe extent that we can raise living standards rapidlyat home and encourage similar progress in ourneighbourhood, we will be more secure and stable.The more complex challenge is that of ideas. As plu-ralistic societies, we are threatened by political ide-ologies that are based on narrow loyalties, often jus-tified by distorting religious beliefs. These forcesare against progress and modernity and have onlybrought misery wherever they have dominated.States that use them as instruments to advance theirpolitical interests find themselves consumed bythese very destructive ideas.

For both of us, stability at home stands in sharp con-trast to extreme instability in our sharedneighbourhood. We cannot afford to be passivespectators. It is critical for our future that we coop-erate actively in meeting common challenges. Ourties were never a zero sum game. Today, it is all themore important that we take an enlightened andlong-term view of our self-interest.

A strong and stable relationship between India andChina has consequences for the entire world. Be-cause we are different, our divergences are oftenexaggerated. If truth be told, there are vested inter-ests at work too. India and China must not just co-operate; they must be seen to be doing so by the restof the world. Our Prime Minister, Dr. ManmohanSingh, often emphasizes that the world is largeenough to accommodate the aspirations of bothcountries. But this is not an inevitable outcome. Itis a goal that requires strong political will, sustainedengagement and a high degree of mutual sensitiv-




ity. What can we do to make this cooperation stron-ger? I believe that we need to work on a wide vari-ety of fronts as progress on one will reinforce in theother.

A number of dialogues and forums already existbetween India and China that need to keep meetingregularly and productively. These include mecha-nisms where we discuss bilateral, regional and glo-bal political issues. We have a separate set of talksfor the boundary question. Annual consultations takeplace between our foreign offices, defence establish-ments, policy planners, consular officials and dis-armament experts. There are also dedicated bodiesto deliberate on trade matters and water manage-ment. Regular meetings lead to better communica-tion, more understanding and strengthen confidence.I would, therefore, strongly encourage an intensiveand sustained engagement between the two systems.

Far from sliding into complacency, we must keeppushing the pace of the relationship with new ideasand more activity. I was pleased to note that this isalready underway. On the political side, the sup-port provided by growing track-2 dialogues is awelcome development. Our military-to-militarycooperation is also expanding steadily. In trade, busi-ness events in 18 Chinese cities this year with IT,pharmaceuticals, engineering and agro-exports asthrust areas will surely make an impact. In culture,the Festival of India that will take our performingarts to 33 Chinese cities this year will be equallynoteworthy. Growing exchanges of students andtourists speak of changing levels of comfort. Soapoperas on Chinese TV and Bollywood dances in lo-cal restaurants confirm that we have transcendedcultural barriers.

We need to strengthen sentiment at the popularlevel. The 60th anniversary of our ties itself offers agreat opportunity. But this needs to be a continuousand widening process. There are powerful symbolsof connectivity between our societies. Xuan Tsangis one from distant history.

We are now completing the construction of an In-dian temple at the White Horse Temple complex inLuoyang which is associated with him. This will be

a powerful symbol of our shared history. Asia’s firstNobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore too evokespositive sentiments among Chinese intellectuals. His150th birth anniversary next year offers a uniqueopportunity to build stronger cultural bonds. Wehave, of course, examples from more contemporarytimes like the young and heroic Dr. Kotnis and theIndian medical mission to Yenan. We must appre-ciate the power of culture to bring about percep-tional changes in society as a whole.

India and China have only be-gun to impact seriously on theworld. Just as we advanced de-colonization and independencemovements in the fifties, todaywe are striving to rewrite therules of the world a little more

in our favour. A reshaping of the global architec-ture is underway, evident in new groupings like theG-20, BRIC, BASIC and the East Asia Summit.

As developing societies, our convergence is mani-fest on issues like climate change and global traderules. Given their shared interest in creating a morecontemporary order, the two countries can advancetheir respective interests much better through ac-tive cooperation. Indeed, even on the complex issueof UN reform, it is perhaps time for China to re-view previously held positions and welcome thepresence in the Security Council of a nation withwhich it has much in common.

We have to accept that there will be outstandingissues between the two countries even as our rela-tionship forges ahead. This is in the very nature ofglobal politics and we should not get discouragedas a result. The true test of our maturity is how wellwe handle our problems. Even on an issue like theunresolved boundary question that is often the sub-ject of media speculation, it is not always appreci-ated that considerable progress has actually beenmade. The Peace and Tranquility Agreement of1993, the Confidence Building Measures of 1996 andthe Guiding Principles and Political Parameters of2005 have all demonstrated that we have the abilityto increase convergence and deepen mutual under-standing on this complex issue through patient ne-gotiation.




As rising powers, India and China are often projectedto have a competitive relationship. In the final analy-sis, we all are what we want to be. It is upto us todisprove such scenarios, not through platitudes andwishful thinking, but by concrete examples of co-operation. Certainly, there is a strong case for a glo-bal issues partnership between India and China astwo large developing Asian economies. We canwork together on key challenges that will define the21st century. These include sustainable develop-ment, technology exploitation, water usage, climatechange, rapid urbanization, migration, human de-velopment and building a pluralistic society. The21st century will be increasingly driven by the qual-ity of human resources. As the two largest humanresource powers, our cooperation can accelerate thattrend.

But there is more to our prospects than issue-basedcooperation. Our rise promises to alter the configu-rations of the global order as we have known it in afundamental manner. We cannot accept incremen-tal change in the way the world is currently run.The G-20 represents the first step in a new direc-tion. Our combined efforts can help reform the sys-tems of international financial governance muchmore effectively than we could by working alone.As Asian states, we must recognize that our conti-nent lags behind Europe and the Americas in termsof economic and infrastructural integration and se-curity cooperation. We have yet to find the rightcommon denominators in many areas. If India andChina work purposefully in this direction, the wholeworld stands to benefit.

The destinies of India and China were linked in thepast. The growth of our relationship will be deter-mined by the extent of our awareness that they arelinked in the future as well.

The issue of India’s membership of the UN SecurityCouncil was also raised in the meeting between ourExternal Affairs Minister and Premier Wen Jiabao.The Chinese position in this regard as encapsulatedin the Joint Statement issued after our PrimeMinister’s visit to China in 2008 was reiterated.




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» Medical Council of India presidentKetan Desai and three others werearrested by CBI in connection withpermitting a medical college inPunjab to admit students despite lackof infrastructure, by allegelly taking

Rs. two crore as bribe.

Besides Dr. Desai, the others arrested were the al-leged middleman Jitendar Pal Singh, a faculty mem-ber of Patiala-based Gyan Sagar Medical CollegeKamaljeet Singh and the college’s Vice ChairmanSukhvinder Singh, CBI said.

The four accused were booked under various provi-sions of Prevention of Corruption of Act, dealingwith inducing a public servant to accept bribe, crimi-nal misconduct and payment of money.

» Singapore has developed expertise in a whole rangeof urban solutions such as water, sewage or wastemanagement, low-cost public housing and transportsystems management, all of which may be relevantto Tamil Nadu or Chennai, according to S. Iswaran,Singapore's Senior Minister of Trade, Industry andEducation.

In his interaction with senior journalists at the head-quarters of The Hindu group of publications, Mr.Iswaran referred to the collaborative venture on theCooum river restoration project, for which theChennai Rivers Restoration Trust and the SingaporeCooperation Enterprise of the Singapore governmentsigned a memorandum of understanding last month.In such areas, the two sides could share their expe-riences and derive benefits mutually, the Ministersaid, adding that the “long historical, cultural andlinguistic ties” between Tamil Nadu and Singaporecreated a “natural opportunity” to work together.

Following Deputy Chief Minister M.K. Stalin's visitto Singapore last year on his invitation, the frame-

work for the collaboration was worked out. (Ac-cording to the Tamil Nadu government's officialdocuments, the MoU was signed for the prepara-tion of a comprehensive master plan for the riverrestoration and the provision of technical assistanceand training during implementation.)

Terming the goodwill and political relationshipbetween Singapore and India very strong, Mr.Iswaran said the Comprehensive Economic Coop-eration Agreement (CECA) between the two coun-tries had created a base that facilitated a lot ofgrowth in trade and investment flows in both direc-tions. There had been significant deals such as TataSteel coming and buying over Natsteel in Singapore.About 3,000 Indian businesses small and mediumsized were incorporated and operating out of thesouth-east Asian country.

» Navies of India and the UnitedStates have begun annual war exer-cises involving anti-submarine war-fare surface firings, visit board,search and seizure and submarineoperations on April 23, 2010.

The 14th edition of MALABAR in theArabian Saw frontline units of the U.S. Navy's 7thFleet and Indian Navy's Western Fleet taking partin the 10-day exercise.

The regular India – U.S. interaction over the yearshas resulted in an increase in the complexity andprofessional content of the bilateral exercise.

The exercise was primarily aimed at deriving mu-tual benefit from each others experiences. Theinteroperability achieved over the years as a resultof such exercises has proved to be operationally ben-eficial particularly during the ongoing Anti-PiracyOperations in the Gulf of Aden as also during Hu-manitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR)operations such as the tsunami of 2004.

Section -3 Current Affairs (Current Relevant Facts)



During MALABAR CY10, the U.S. Navy repre-sented by ships from CTF 70 of its 7th Fleet, basedat Yokosuka, Japan. The CTF included the CruiserUSS Shiloh (CG 67), Destroyers USS Chaffee (DDG90), USS Lassen (DDG 82) and Frigate USS Curts(FFG 38).

» Government on April 23, 2010 saidit will continue to follow its two-pronged approach of developmentand well-planned police action tocheck Naxal menace but pointed outthat Central funds meant for projects

for betterment of such regions were not being wellused.

This was the first time the Committee met after theNaxal ambush that claimed lives of 76 securitymenin Dantewada in Chhattisgarh earlier this month.The subject of the meeting was ‘Left Wing Extrem-ism.’

Drawing attention to anti-development activities ofNaxalites, Mr. Chidambaram said they have beendestroying school buildings, roads and telephonetowers among others because development willwean away poor tribals from the grip of the ultras.He pointed out in 2009 alone, Naxals destroyed 71school buildings, the re-building of which may takeyears, depriving tribal children of education.Mr. Chidambaram said huge amount of money isbeing given to state governments for bringing aboutdevelopment in the 34 worst-affected Naxal districtsunder various programmes.

Expressing dissatisfaction over proper utilisation ofmoney, he called for proper utilisation of the fundsprovided by the Centre for development of theNaxal-affected areas.

Taking part in the discussions, the Committee mem-bers supported the government’s two-pronged policyand suggested a visit by an all-party Parliamentarydelegation to the Naxal-affected areas to win thetrust and goodwill of tribal people, an MHA state-ment said.

They also pointed out the need for good coordina-tion between local police and Central paramilitaryforces and availability of actionable intelligence atthe ground level.

The discussions remained inconclusive and anothermeeting of the Consultative Committee would beheld soon to continue discussions on the same sub-ject, to enable more members to participate, the state-ment read.

The Committee members comprise MP’s from theLok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.

» NATO agreed on April 23, 2010to begin handing over control of Af-ghanistan to the Afghan governmentthis year, a process that if success-ful would enable President Barack

Obama to meet his target date of July 2011 for start-ing to bring U.S. troops home.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clintonwarned of a rocky road ahead, but said she waspleased with progress towards eliminating theshortage of allied trainers for the Afghan army andpolice. She offered a generally sunny outlook forAfghanistan and said the government of much—criticized President Hamid Karzai gets too littlecredit for progress in building a viable democracy.NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussensaid the 28 nation alliance is on track with its newstrategy for winding down the war in Afghanistan,despite security setbacks and a continuing shortageof foreign trainers for the fledgling Afghan policeand army.

He said a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, in-cluding Hillary Clinton, agreed on what it will taketo create conditions enabling Afghans to assumecontrol of their own country. He was not specificabout what those conditions will be, but saidprogress in that direction is important in order toavoid further erosion of public support for the wareffort.




» India slashed its holdings ofAmerican debt by a little over $ 1billion in February while China,which is locked in a currency row

with the U.S., trimmed the holdings by $ 11.5 bil-lion during the same period.

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, Indiahas slashed its holdings to $ 31.6 billion in Febru-ary, while it was at $ 32.7 billion in January.

China, which is also the largest holder of U.S. Trea-sury bonds, has cut its holdings to $ 877.5 billion inFebruary, one of the lowest levels in nearly ninemonths. In January, China’s holdings stood at $ 889billion.

Both the U.S. and China are locked in a row overthe issue of revaluation of Chinese currency yuan.In recent months, American authorities have beenstepping up pressure on the latter to revalue yuan.Going by official statistics, China has been trim-ming its holdings continuously since October lastyear, when the same was at $ 938.3 billion.

Meanwhile, India’s holdings have come down bymore than $ 10 billion since June last year. At thattime, India held Treasury bonds worth $ 42.2 bil-lion.

As per the Treasury data, Japan held bonds worth $768.5 billion, making it the second largest holderof American debt after China.

Among the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China)nations, the second largest holder of American debtis Brazil, followed by Russia and India.

As in February, Brazil held Treasury bonds to thetune of $ 170.8 billion, while Russia held Americandebt worth $ 20.2 billion.

The U.S. economy grew 5.6 per cent in the last threemonths of 2009, shrugging off the adverse impactof the financial meltdown.

» A memo from Defence SecretaryRobert Gates to the White Housewarned that the United States lacksa nimble long term plan for deal-ing with Iran’s nuclear program,according to a published report.Mr. Gates wrote the three pagememo in January and it set off efforts in the Penta-gon, White House and intelligence agencies to comeup with new options, including the use of the mili-tary.

White House officials strongly disagreed with thecomments that the memo caused a reconsiderationof the administration’s approach to Iran.

The U.S. is pressing for new international sanctionsagainst Iran. The memo contemplates a situation inwhich sanctions and diplomacy fail to dissuade Iranfrom pursuing nuclear capability.

Obama set a deadline of the end of 2009 for Iran torespond to his offer of dialogue to resolve concernsabout Iran’s accelerated nuclear development.

Iran spurned the offer, and since then the adminis-tration has pursued what it calls the “pressure track,”a combination of stepped up military activity inIran’s neighbourhood and a hard push for a newround of international sanctions that would pinchIran economically.

Gates and other senior members of the administra-tion have issued increasingly stern warnings to Iranthat its nuclear program is costing it friends andoptions worldwide, while sticking to the long heldview that a U.S. or Israeli military strike on Iraniannuclear facilities would be counterproductive.

Mr. Obama and other administration figures havedrawn a line that says Iran will not be allowed tobecome a nuclear state, but they have not spelledout what the United States would do if Iran gainedthe ability to produce a weapon but does not actu-ally field one.




» India on April 13, 2010 made a strong pitch forglobal disarmament with Prime MinisterManmohan Singh telling the Nuclear Security Sum-mit that the abolition of nuclear weapons would bethe “best guarantor of nuclear security.

The dangers of nuclear terrorism make the earlyelimination of nuclear weapons a matter of evengreater urgency.

Recounting India’s efforts in this regard fromJawaharlal Nehru to Rajiv Gandhi, the Prime Min-ister said non-proliferation efforts at the global levelcould only succeed if they were universal, compre-hensive and non-discriminatory and linked to thegoal of complete nuclear disarmament.

He welcomed the agreement between the UnitedStates and Russia to cut their nuclear arsenals as astep in the right direction and called upon all coun-tries “with substantial nuclear arsenals” the phraseis ambiguous but certainly excludes India “to fur-ther accelerate this process by making deeper cutsthat will lead to meaningful disarmament”.

The Prime Minister said India is “encouraged” bythe Nuclear Posture Review announced by Presi-dent Obama, though he did not identify any of itselements that he considered positive. India wantsthe negotiation of a Nuclear Weapons Conventionand supports the universalisation of the policy of“No First Use”, he said. “The salience of nuclearweapons in national defence and security doctrinesmust be reduced as a matter of priority”.

Dr. Singh also drew attention to India’s work ondeveloping nuclear systems that were safe, secureand proliferation resistant.

» India and China on April 7, 2010signed an agreement to set up a hotline to open up direct communicationbetween their Prime Ministers, butappeared to continue to speak in dif-ferent languages on key issues that

continue to challenge the bilateral relationship.

In talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechiand Premier Wen Jiabao, External Affairs MinisterS.M. Krishna called for China to review its positionon India's bid for a permanent seat on the UnitedNations Security Council (UNSC). He also voicedIndia's concerns over Chinese support to develop-ment projects in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and theissuing of stapled visas to Indian citizens fromJammu and Kashmir.

Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao told that Chinareiterated its earlier position on the UNSC, voicedduring Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit toChina in 2008, that China “understands and supportsIndia's aspirations to play an active role in the U.N.and international affairs.”

This is the same position China has held since Mr.Wen's visit to India in 2005, suggesting there waslittle or no progress on this front.

The reported hacking attacks by China-based hack-ers on India's Ministry of Defence and several em-bassies did not figure in talks, though Ms. Rao saidIndia was “concerned” by the reports. “Cyber secu-rity is of paramount importance and we will ofcourse take all necessary steps to safeguard our as-sets against such attacks.”

» Iran's recent hyper-activism inneighbouring Afghanistan and Pa-kistan has caused considerable con-sternation in large parts of the globe.In media circles, think-tanks andworld chanceries, high-browed

mandarins and their well-healed affiliates are try-ing to make sense of the latest, seemingly inscru-table piece of the Persian puzzle.

Yet Iran's deft moves in an area that the Persianshave known well for thousands of years originatefrom deeply deliberated and well-grounded funda-mentals. Ever since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iranhas been ceaselessly battling the threat of a directAmerican attack or an invasion by a third countrythat is backed by the United States.




It is in this larger context of regionalising the geo-political space that President MahmoudAhmadinejad set foot on Afghan soil on March 10.

Afghanistan's President HamidKarzai who fought runningbattles with the Americanswho were more inclined tofavour his rival AbdullahAbdullah during the recent Afghan elections receivedthe Iranian President warmly. Like the Iranians, Mr.Karzai has concluded that the Americans are tiringin Afghanistan and that the time has come to ex-plore deeper alignments in an alternative camp thatincludes Iran, and has China, Pakistan, Central Asianrepublics and Russia as potential allies.

While engaging the Afghans on a new footing, theIranians have also begun to cultivate Pakistan. Amajor shift in the contours of their relationship canbe traced to October 2009, when the Pakistan-basedJundallah group, led by Abdolmalek Rigi, killedNour-Ali Shoushtari, and other senior commandersof the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC).

Incensed by these high-profile assassinations, in thePishin area of the Sistan-Balochistan province, theIranians sent a few days later their Interior Minis-ter Mostafa Mohammad Najjar to Islamabad, withthe demand for Rigi's handover. Subsequently, Rigiwas nabbed in a dramatic fashion when the Iraniansforced a Kyrgyzstan airlines plane in which he wastravelling from Dubai to Bishkek, to land in the Ira-nian port city of Bandar Abbas. Influential voices inPakistan say that Islamabad gave the vital tip offthat led to Rigi's arrest. The Iranians, however, in-sist that the arrest was possible on account of theirmeticulous intelligence work, without any foreigninvolvement whatsoever.

Since the 2009-10 winter war in Gaza, during whichTurkey openly distanced itself from Israel, the rela-tionship between Tehran and Ankara has been warm-ing up. Political goodwill is being translated intosignificant energy cooperation and both sides, de-spite resistance from several influential quarters, arelooking at participating in the Nabucco pipeline,

which will carry huge quantities of gas to Europe.As the geopolitical alignments ahead of the U.S.pullout begin to emerge, India's absence is glaring.Piqued by India's high profile in Kabul, Pakistan'smilitary establishment has been looking for open-ings that would allow it to achieve its maximalistobjective of seeking India's hasty, and preferablyunseemly, exit from Afghanistan.

However, two major hurdles have been impedingPakistan's path so far. First, the rapid improvementin Indo-U.S. ties during the Bush presidency firmlydeterred it from taking India head-on in Afghani-stan. Second, the Afghan presidency, closely tied toNew Delhi since 2001, was hostile to Islamabad.

However, the scenario changed dramatically withthe exit of the Bush administration and the emer-gence of Barack Obama. Focussed on an exit strat-egy from Afghanistan, the Americans deepened theirsecurity dependence on the Pakistanis in the hopeof achieving rapid success. As a result, the Indianfortress in Afghanistan which looked impregnableduring the Bush era was breached. Pakistan utilisedthis opportunity to the hilt.

A staunch ally of India for several years, PresidentKarzai after his re-election last year began to ex-hibit unusual warmth towards Pakistan. His descrip-tion of India as a friend and Pakistan as a conjoinedtwin during his visit to Islamabad was widely seenas a demonstration of his waning affection towardsNew Delhi.

There has been a significant de-terioration in India-Iran tiessince New Delhi voted againstTehran at the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

on the Iranian nuclear programme. In fact, the dayIndia voted against Iran, it seriously jeopardised itsproject in Afghanistan. Without a geographicallycontiguous border, India can extend its reach intoAfghanistan only through the Iranian corridor.

With its back to the wall, how does India proposeto get back into the great game of realignments be-




ginning to unfold in and around Afghanistan? It candraw some inspiration from its diplomatic conductin the past — when it worked successfully with theIranians, Russians and Central Asians, especially theTajiks to unroll the Northern Alliance against theTaliban in 2001. With the recent visit of RussianPrime Minister Vladimir Putin to New Delhi wherediscussions on Afghanistan took place, India hastaken its first major step in the right direction.

Mending fences with Iran has to be India's nextmajor undertaking. However, in trying to reworkits relations, India is left with only one weighty card,which it can play with good effect provided it be-gins to view its national interests independently andnot through the tinted glasses of the U.S. With itshuge requirements of energy, India needs to get backto the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project.But in doing so, it has to substantially modify thearrangement and turn it around to suit its core long-term interests.

Iran would, with considerable enthusiasm, welcomeIndia's participation in this project, as is evidentfrom the provisions included in the gas deal thatwas signed by Iran and Pakistan in Istanbul in March.Therein lies the opportunity for India to claw backinto the arrangement and take it forward from there.Instead of waiting for others like Pakistan to seizethe initiative, India can benefit substantially byboldly and formally initiating the introduction oftwo significant players — Russia and China — intothis tie up. The Russian gas giant Gazprom has al-ready expressed its keen interest to participate inIPI. Gazprom's representative in Tehran, AbubakirShomuzov, has called for the extension of IPI toChina, in an arrangement that would tie Russia,China, India, Pakistan and Iran together in a giantproject.

Russia's participation in the IPIwould be crucial for India. WithRussia firmly on its side, Indiacan, with greater ease and confi-

dence, engage with China in this cooperative enter-prise. In the debate on the extension of IPI to China,the route that this pipeline can pursue would be of

vital importance. If India has to take advantage ofthis extension, it has to insist that the pipeline pass-ing through Iran and Pakistan should go through anIndian transit corridor and no other alternative routebefore entering China.

Such an arrangement would greatly help in makingthe IPI-plus arrangement more stable and workable.With China, Pakistan's all-weather friend as the fi-nal beneficiary, Islamabad would find it impossibleto block supplies to India. In other words, the rout-ing of the pipeline to China via India, and the inter-dependence that it would generate among the vari-ous stakeholders would become New Delhi's insur-ance policy for obtaining assured gas supplies fromIran via Pakistan.

There is a final diplomatic dimension which needsto be added if IPI-plus is to succeed. Critics of theIPI rightly point to the security problems that thisproject, in the current circumstances, is bound toencounter during the pipeline's passage through theturbulent province of Balochistan. A comprehensivedialogue may therefore be the way forward to re-solve this problem.

India, which in recent years has gone into a diplo-matic shell, can take the high-ground and propose acomprehensive six-party process. Besides itself,Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, China and Iran canbecome the core participants of this arrangement.Such a forum, carefully constructed, adequatelyresourced and energetically led can take head-on notonly the question of Baluchistan, but all other is-sues that may stand in the way of a lasting trans-national energy partnership.

» Several among the 70 known spe-cies of mangroves are at high risk ofextinction and may disappear well be-fore the next decade if protective mea-sures are not enforced, warns the firstglobal study by U.S. researchers.

Eleven of these have been placed on the red list ofthreatened species kept by the International Unionfor Conservation of Nature (IUCN).




The study, led by Beth A. Polidoro attached to theGlobal Marine Species Assessment unit based at OldDominion University, Virginia, shows that about80 per cent of the mangrove areas in India and South-east Asia have been lost over the past 60 years.In India alone, over 40 per cent of the mangrovearea on the west coast has been destroyed for aquac-ulture, agriculture, coastal development and urbandevelopment.

(Disappearing at 2%-8%)

The global mangrove area loss since 1980 stands atbetween 20 and 35 per cent. The areas are disap-pearing at 2-8 per cent per year and the rates areexpected to continue unless mangrove forests areprotected as a valuable resource, says the study re-cently published in PloS One, journal published bythe Public Library of Science.

In addition, 40 per cent of the animal species thatare restricted to mangrove habitat are at an elevatedrisk of extinction due to extensive habitat loss.Given the accelerating rate of loss, mangrove for-ests may at least functionally disappear in around100 years, the study states.

Mangrove forests are the economic foundations ofmany tropical regions providing at least $1.6 bil-lion per year in ecosystem services worldwide.It is also estimated that almost 80 per cent of theglobal fish catches are directly or indirectly depen-dent on mangroves. These are provided by man-groves, occupying only 0.12 per cent of the world'stotal land area.

Implementation of conservation plans for man-groves have largely been done in the absence of spe-cies-specific information, says the study. Tree fell-ing, aquaculture and overexploitation of fisheries inmangrove areas are expected to be the greatest threatsto mangrove species over the next 10-15 years.

Unlike other forests, mangrove forests consist of arelatively few species with 30-40 in the most di-verse sites. Another big threat to mangroves is cli-mate change, says the study.

» Kerala has been adjudged the bestState in the country in devolving pow-ers to local self-government institu-tions. State received the recognitionfollowing an evaluation done by theUnion Panchayati Raj Department.

The evaluation covered the performance of the Statesin 2009-10. Minister for Local AdministrationPaloli Mohammed Kutty would receive the awardfrom Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at a func-tion in New Delhi. Kerala received an aggregate of74.74 points. Karnataka with 69.45 points and TamilNadu with 67.06 points came second and third re-spectively.

» The Union Cabinet on Apr 23,2010 approved a capital infusionof Rs.15,000 crore in public sec-tor banks (PSBs) during the cur-rent fiscal to facilitate an increasein their lending capacity by aboutRs.1.85 lakh crore.

According to cabinet decision a sum of Rs.15,000crore already provided for in the budget for 2010-11 is to be infused in Tier I capital instruments ofthe PSBs.

The exact amount, the mode of capitalisation andother terms and conditions would be decided in con-sultation with the banks at the time of the infusion.For the next fiscal (2011-12), additional capital re-quirements, if any, is to be worked out in consulta-tion with the PSBs based on their third quarter re-sults for 2010-11 to ensure that they maintain aminimum 8 per cent Tier I capital to meet the creditrequirements of the economy and accelerate growth.The infusion of Rs.15,000 crore in Tier I capital in-struments of PSBs would enable them to expand theircredit growth by about Rs.1.85 lakh crore.

This additional availability of credit is likely tobenefit employment oriented sectors, especiallyagriculture, micro & small enterprises, export andentrepreneurs, in promotion of their economic ac-tivities which would in turn contribute substantiallyto the growth of the economy.




The government decided on capital infusion of PSBsto ensure that the banking system does not sufferfrom capital adequacy constraints and the creditgrowth needed to sustain the economic momentumin 2010-11 is maintained. The capital infusionwould enhance the lending capacity of PSBs that areexpected to continue meeting credit requirementsof the economy in order to maintain and accelerateeconomic growth.

For this purpose, it may be recalled that in the wakeof the recent global financial crisis, the governmenthad negotiated with the World Bank for two ‘Bank-ing sector support loans (BSSL)' amounting to $3.2billion. Formalities in respect of the first tranche of$2 billion loan have already been completed.

» Our country is first amongthe ten countries with thehighest degree of maliciousactivity on the Internet. Thatdubious “leadership” India hasachieved 5th position for ma-licious activities for about (4%)compared with the 11-m (3%)

in 2008Symantec annually prepares top online dangers inthe world. According to experts, the growth of simi-lar processes taking place in India against the world-wide trend to the growing influence of developingcountries in the Internet space.

Specialists of Symantec argues that maliciousInternet activity originating from countries such asChina, India, Brazil, Poland and Russia will growin direct proportion to the increase in points of abroadband network. According to them, encouragedangerous trend was the launch of 3G services inIndia and a number of mergers between key indus-try players, which led to the development of Internetinfrastructure.

As per the annual report by Symentic In 2009, Rus-sia accounted for about 3% are malicious activityagainst 2% in 2008 year. The leaders left the UnitedStates and China, but the percentage of their posi-tion weakened. Share attacks emanated from theU.S., declined to 19% from 23% in 2008.

In China, it were reported 8% of the total number ofcases of malicious activity against 9% in 2008. Bra-zil has risen from 5th (4%) on the third (6%) place,India won the 5 th place (4%) compared with the11-m (3%) in 2008.

» The Chhattisgarh police didnot fully support the centralparamilitary troopers, thus fail-ing to prevent the April 6 Maoistattack in which 76 security per-sonnel were killed, a govern-

ment-appointed committee probing the Dantewadamassacre has found, well informed sources said onApr 26, 2010.The probe by the E N Rammohan Committee hashighlighted Chhattisgarh police's lack of cohesive-ness and their alleged failure to support the centralparamilitary forces in anti-Maoist operations in thestate.

According to sources, top police official inDantewada may be summoned by the Union HomeMinistry to Delhi for the "lapses".

It has been found that the police support to the (Cen-tral Reserve Police Force) CRPF personnel (whowere targeted in the April 6 ambush) was was lessthan desired.

There is evidence in the report suggesting that theCRPF team (of 62 Battalion that came under attack)diverted from the earmarked patrol task within aspecific grid and moved in and around the area onits own where they were attacked by the Naxals.The report, submitted to the home ministry, hassuggested a re-look into "tactical" security opera-tions against Maoist rebels.

Rammohan was appointed as a one-man panel toprobe the Dantewada massacre two days after theattack.

The panel's terms of reference included determin-ing the sequence of events leading to the massacreand analysing and establishing the command struc-ture of the security personnel there.




» India and Afghanistan on 26 Apr 2010 reiteratedtheir commitment to the strategic partnership andexpressed satisfaction at the progress in their rela-tions.

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai on his firstofficial visit after his second term Prime MinisterManmohan Singh and President Pratibha DevisinghPatil.

Singh, during his talks, cautioned Karzai against aplan to integrate the Taliban opposed to the emer-gence of ‘‘a strong, independent and pluralistic Af-ghanistan’’.

At a joint press interaction with Karzai, who arrivedin India in the morning en route to the South AsianAssociation for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)summit in Thimphu,

Singh underlined India’s unwavering commitmentto continuing reconstruction works in Afghanistanand said repeated attacks on Indians would not de-ter it from carrying on with this process. India haspledged $1.3 billion for a slew of reconstruction andinfrastructure projects in Afghanistan.» A vital study cited by Environment MinisterJairam Ramesh to justify his decision to disallowthe commercial cultivation of Bt brinjal in India isflawed, claim top European scientists. Mr Rameshhad referred to the findings of France-based CaenUniversity professor Gilles-Eric Séralini and histeam, which had branded Bt brinjal—India’s firstgenetically modified (GM) food crop—“unsafe”.

Experts claim that Séralini was unduly influencedby the renowned international NGO Greenpeace—with its aggressive green agenda—which sponsoredthe study, and never carried out a peer-reviewedlaboratory study on GM crops he called hazardous,including Bt maize and Bt brinjal, its gene or seeds.

The European Food Safety Association, a risk as-sessment body, has trashed Séralini’s findings onMonsanto’s MON 863, a variety of Bt maize.

On February 9, 2010, the Union government decidedto freeze the introduction of Bt Brinjal in India tillindependent scientific studies established health andenvironment safety of the product to the satisfac-tion of both public and experts.

Bt Brinjal is a genetically modified vegetable thatis infused with Cry1Ac gene from a bacterium, ba-cillus thuringiensis, to make the plant resistant tofruit and shoot borers and certain pests.

The Environment Ministry has appointed a GeneticEngineering Approval Committee (GEAC) to regu-late research, testing and commercial release of ge-netically modified crops, foods and organisms. TheGEAC had cleared Bt Brinjal for commercial releasein October 2009. According to GEAC Bt Brinjalwould reduce farmers’ dependence on pesticides andenable higher yields.

» From the 2011 academic ses-sion, students of Classes XI andXII across the country willstudy a uniform science andmath curriculum. Currently,

course content of these critical subjects varies withthe State school board an institution is affiliated to.

The idea is to have for every student a level playingfield for entry to professional colleges. The govern-ment has also received the approval of all schoolboards—including State boards—to work towardsa single, national-level entrance exam for all engi-neering and medical courses in India from 2013.Gradually, such an exam would be extended for en-try to colleges of other disciplines, such as law.

One test would mean the end of plenty like IIT-JEE,AIEEE and State exams for engineering colleges andvarious State-level PMTs, beside national levelPMT, which the CBSE conducts. This, the HumanResource Development (HRD) Ministry believes,would lessen the burden on students, who have toprepare for different exams, which bring their ownlevels of stress.




» India will spare no efforts to con-tribute to the success of post-Copenhagen process, Prime Minis-ter Manmohan Singh declared on

February 6, 2010, as he announced the launch of aNational Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency,aimed at cutting carbon emissions by 99 milliontonnes. Within the ambit of our National ActionPlan on Climate Change, India has already unveiledone of the world's most ambitious plans for pro-moting solar energy, targeting an installed capacityof 20,000 MW by the year 2022. The initiative isexpected to lead to avoidance of capacity additionof nearly 20,000 MW and reduce carbon dioxideemissions of almost 99 million tonnes.

» On February 17, 2010, theSupreme Court upheld theconstitutional validity ofcourts’ powers to order CBIprobe without the consent ofState governments but with a

rider: the powers should be used cautiously and spar-ingly. The five-judge Constitution Bench, headed byChief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, said that such pow-ers have to be used sparingly in exceptional and ex-traordinary circumstances in cases having nationaland international ramifications. Otherwise, the CBIwill be flooded with such directions in routine cases.Such powers are vested with the apex court and Highcourts to ensure protection of fundamental rights ofcitizens under Article 21 of the Constitution, it said.

» The proposed Judicial Standards and Accountabil-ity Bill, which will replace the four decade-oldJudges Inquiry Act, has laid down 14 guidelines forjudges. These guidelines will be called judicial stan-dards.

Major highlights of the Bill are:» No judge shall give an interview to the

media in relation to any of his judgement delivered,or order made, or direction issued, by him in anycase adjudicated by him.

» No judge shall enter into a public debateor express his views in public on political matters,

except views expressed by a judge in his individualcapacity on issues of public interest, other than as ajudge during a private discussion or at an academicforum.

» The Bill bars the judges from allowingany member of his family, who is a practising law-yer, from using the residence in which the judgeactually resides or use of any other facilities pro-vided to the judge, for professional work of any fam-ily member.

» The proposed law expects judges not todelay delivering a judgement beyond three monthsafter conclusion of arguments and have bias in judi-cial work or judgements on the basis of religion,race, caste, sex or place of birth.

» Any wilful breach of judicial standardscould be treated as misbehaviour and lead to a dis-ciplinary panel initiating proceedings against theerring judge.

» A complaint alleging misbehaviour or cor-ruption would be referred to a scrutiny panel com-prising three judges. If the panel finds merit in anycomplaint, it would be forwarded to an OversightCommittee, which after investigating the matter canrefer it to the President for initiating action againstthe judge.

» In an important step towards the imple-mentation of the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal, theUnion government is to introduce a Bill to facili-tate the entry of American companies in the nuclearsector. The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill,2009 is commonly known as the nuclear liabilityBill.

The Bill aims at limiting the liability of a nuclearplant operator to Rs 300 crore in the eventuality ofan accident and provides for appointing a claimscommissioner with powers of a civil court to arbi-trate such cases. It also provides for the penalty tobe paid by the operator and not the supplier compa-nies, which would mainly be American in this case.

The operator would not be liable for any nucleardamages if the incident is caused by “grave nationaldisaster of exceptional character”, armed conflict oran act of terrorism and is suffered by the person onaccount of his own negligence.




The Bill also provides for the establishment of theNuclear Damage Claims Commission, which willhave one or more claims commissioners for a speci-fied area. The claims commissioner shall have allthe powers of a civil court for the purpose of takingevidence on oath, enforcing attendance of witnesses,compelling the discovery and production of docu-ments and other material objects.

Environment activists have described the attemptto cap the level of compensation for victims of anuclear accident as a violation of fundamental rights.Currently, the Atomic Energy Act, 1962, allows thegovernment-owned Nuclear Power Corporation ofIndia to operate nuclear power plants in the coun-try.

» The Union government has ac-cepted most of the recommenda-tions of the Thirteenth FinanceCommission headed by former Fi-nance Secretary Vijay Kelkar.

The Commission has told govern-ments at the Centre and States to set their fiscal housein order, even as it raised the share of taxes that theStates would be entitled to receive over the next fiveyears by 1.5 percentage points.

In addition, the Commission, a Constitutional bodythat is appointed every five years to recommend atax-sharing formula between the Centre and States,has suggested a roadmap for the introduction of asingle-rate goods and services tax (GST), the keyindirect tax reform to create a common market inIndia.

Its stringent new roadmap for fiscal responsibilitysuggests, among other things, that the overall debtof the Centre and States be capped at 68 per cent ofgross domestic product (GDP) from the current 82per cent, and 75 per cent recommended by theTwelfth Finance Commission.

The Finance Commission has recommended that theCentre reduce debt to 45 per cent of GDP by March2015, against 54.2 per cent at present. For States thereduction in debt is recommended at 2 percentage

points to 25 per cent. The relatively less stringentcondition for States comes with the rider that theFiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Actallows the Centre to borrow on behalf of the Statesto help them counter macro-economic shocks. Dur-ing the financial crisis, the Centre had relaxed thecap on the fiscal deficit.

The Finance Commission has said the Centre shouldtransfer 32 per cent of the taxes it collects to States,against 30.5 per cent at present. The overall ceil-ing— including transfers to local bodies—on trans-fers from the Centre’s gross revenue has been raisedfrom 38 to 39.5 per cent.

Among proposals that provide a thrust to fiscal fed-eralism, the commission has recommended that lo-cal bodies receive up to 2.5 per cent of the divisibletax pool. Of this, up to 1 per cent can be incentive-linked.

While there is more reason for the States to cheersince the commission proposes an increase in grants,much of it is tied to specific spending programmessuch as those for elementary education and envi-ronment. There is, however, a performance incen-tive of Rs 1,500 crore for Assam, Sikkim andUttarakhand and a grant of Rs 51,800 crore to meetthe deficits of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradeshand the north-eastern States (excluding Assam).

Like its predecessor, the Thirteenth Finance Com-mission has recommended a debt relief scheme forthe States. The first element is to cap the interestrate on a part of the loans from the National SmallSavings Fund at 9 per cent from up to 10.5 per cent.This will translate into a benefit of Rs 28,360 croreto the States. In addition, there is a Rs 4,506 crorebenefit with the government accepting the sugges-tion to write off central loans that are not adminis-tered by the finance ministry but were outstandingat the end of 2009-10.

Including the higher grants-in-aid, Madhya Pradesh,Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra would be the big-gest beneficiaries in terms of share of transfers.Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu andKashmir would be the top losers.




The Finance Commission has projected that tax re-ceipts would see a compounded annual growth rateof over 17 per cent between March 2010 and March2015, while nominal GDP growth is estimated at13.2 per cent.

Prescribing a zero revenue deficit as the golden rule,the Commission has recommended that the endeav-our for all States should be to reach that level by2014-15.

» On February 18, 2010, the Uniongovernment decided to raise ureaprices by 10 per cent. It also allowedthe industry to fix retail prices of othersubsidised fertilisers, while limitingthe government’s subsidy burden un-der a new policy that will determine

the subsidy on phosphorus and potash based on theirnutrients.

The decision, to take effect from April 1, 2010, willhelp the government reduce its fertiliser subsidy bill,estimated at Rs 50,000 crore for 2009-10. But, themove will hit farmers, even as fertiliser companieswill stand to gain. The latest decision does awaywith the practice of government fixing a maximumretail price and aims at replacing the current sys-tem of giving subsidy to the industry with directassistance to farmers.

The switch to the nutrient-based fertiliser plan issignificant as companies will now be able to changeretail prices of only nutrient-based fertilisers (ni-trogen, phosphorus, potash and sulphur), which willhelp the government cap the subsidy on thesefertilisers. The move is also expected to attract freshinvestment in the fertiliser industry.

The government’s annual subsidy bill on fertilisersin 2008-09 was estimated at Rs 75,849 crore, whichwas expected to be brought down to Rs 49,980 crorein 2009-10. The bulk of the increase in the fertilisersubsidy is on account of the sale of decontrolledfertiliser with concession to farmers. Urea accountsfor about 30 per cent of the total fertiliser subsidyburden.

» The Union government has set-up a five-membercommittee headed by Justice B.N. Srikrishna to lookinto the modalities of forming the separate State ofTelangana. The committee has been given time tillDecember 31, 2010 to consult all sections of thesociety and submit report. The terms of referenceof the committee are:

Examine the situation in Andhra Pradesh with ref-erence to demand for separate Telangana State, aswell as the demand for maintaining the present sta-tus of a united Andhra Pradesh.Review developments in the State since its forma-tion and their impact on the progress and develop-ment of different regions of the State.Examine the impact of recent developments in theState on different sections of people such as women,children, students, minorities, OBCs, SC and STs.Consult all sections of people, especially politicalparties and elicit their views on a range of solutionsthat would resolve the present difficult situation.Identify the key issues that must be addressed.

Consult organisations of other civil societies suchas industries, trade unions, farmer organisations,women students.

Make any other suggestion and recommendationsthat the committee may deem appropriate.

The protagonists of separate State, however, rejectedthe terms of reference of the Justice Srikrishna com-mittee and vowed to intensify their agitation. TheTelangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), which has beenspearheading the statehood agitation, struck a bel-ligerent note and announced that its MPs, MLAs andMLCs would resign in protest.

Rejecting the terms of reference and the ten-monthtime frame given for the committee, the TRS chiefsaid the Centre had once again cheated the people ofTelangana by backtracking on its December 9, 2009statement announcing initiation of the process forformation of separate State.

Taking serious objection to the inclusion of the de-mand for continuation of united Andhra Pradeshamong the terms of reference, he said: “what is the




point in looking into the demand for united AndhraPradesh when it already exists now? There is onlyone popular movement going on in the State andthat is for separate Telangana State.”

However, the leaders from coastal Andhra andRayalaseema regions found comfort in the open-ended nature of the panel’s terms. “We welcome theterms of reference, which are fairly balanced. It willgive an opportunity for a thorough assessment ofthe ground situation,” a ruling Congress MP fromcoastal Andhra region said.

» India's candidacy for a non-permanent seat in theSecurity Council has been endorsed by all 53 mem-ber States of the Asian group in the UN GeneralAssembly. Nineteen countries, including Nepal, SriLanka, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, spoke in favourof giving India a slot on the Security Council tablefrom January 2011.

In January 2010, India's path to a non-permanentseat got cleared after its sole competitor from Asia,Kazakhstan, backed out of the race.

The Security Council is made up of 15 States—fivepermanent members who have the veto power and15 non-permanent members elected for a two-yearterm. To win, India needs two-thirds of the GeneralAssembly vote, which adds up to about 128 coun-ties saying yes to India's presence in the Council.

Running after more than a decade, India orchestrateda year-long campaign led by India’s envoy to theUN Hardeep Singh Puri, who campaigned in NewYork and at multilateral events at the United Na-tions.

The last time India had a seat at the Council was in1992. In 1996, Japan won with India trailing behindwith approximately 40 votes.

» In a major setback to the Andhra Pradeshgovernment’s Muslim reservation policy, the HighCourt, on February 8, 2010, struck down a legisla-tion providing four per cent quota for the minoritycommunity in jobs and educational institutions.

A seven-member constitutional bench headed byChief Justice A.R. Dave found fault with the waythe survey was conducted by the Backward ClassesCommission, whose recommendations had formedthe basis for quota policy.

The State Assembly had passed the legislation inJuly 2007 providing four per cent reservation forsocially and educationally backward Muslims byincluding them among backward classes. The quotawas made applicable to 15 Muslim groups identi-fied by the Andhra Pradesh Backward Classes Com-mission as socially and educationally backward.These were categorised as BC-E Group for the pur-pose of providing reservation.

Acting on a bunch of writ petitions filed by severalindividuals and organisations challenging the leg-islation, the court—in a majority verdict—termedthe commission’s survey as “irrational and unscien-tific” and held the legislation as “unsustainable”.

» Maharashtra and West Bengal,which have been hit by terroristand Maoist violence, are amongthe seven States that have faredpoorly in modernising their po-lice force. According to officialdocuments, put together by the

Home Ministry, Maharashtra and West Bengal havebeen labelled as “poor performing States” as theyfailed to use the funds sanctioned to them by theCentre for upgrading their police force and intelli-gence apparatus.

The Centre earmarked Rs 1,230 crore for 2009-10for the scheme for modernisation of the State policeforces (MPF), which is meant primarily to equipState governments to deal with emerging challengesto internal security like terrorism and naxal vio-lence.

The poor performing States have outdated and ob-solete weapons and even the extremist-prone policestations are often not supplied with modern weap-ons, and even when it is supplied police personnelare not trained to use them. Their police communi-




cation network does not function efficiently, theydo not have enough vehicles and their forensic labo-ratories lack proper infrastructure.

» The Basic Capabilities Index (BCI), 2009, has foundthat South Asia will get 80 points on the index by2015, 10 points higher than the present value of 70.India received 68 points in the index, an increase ofmeagre four points since 2004.

The global NGO Social Watch’s index of 130 coun-tries says 100 points defines well-being of the citi-zens based on children getting education till pri-mary level, child mortality rate and percentage ofbirths attended by skilled labourers. The BCI doesnot use income as an indicator. According to the index, South Asia, a region withworst BCI in 2004, has been making fast progress,but the situation is still “extremely critical”. Since2004, the report said, one-third of the countriesfailed to raise their BCI value by more than one percent and only one out of six countries showed sig-nificant progress.

The index also tells about the increasing gap in liv-ing standards of rich and poor in the world. The high-est BCI is 97 of Iran and lowest is 44 of Chad inAfrica, followed by Afghanistan, Ethopia,Bangladesh and Nepal.

» Retaining its position as theworld's second largest economy,the Japanese economy grew at afaster-than-expected pace of 1.1per cent in the last three monthsof 2009.

China, the fastest-growing large economy, clockeda growth of 10.7 per cent in the December 2009quarter, bringing it at a sniffing distance to surpassJapan as the second largest economy in the world.

Japan’s economy, which is primarily exports-driven,rose 1.1 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2009. Onan annual basis, GDP expanded a much higher paceat 4.6 per cent. For the whole of 2009, the Japanese

economy shrank 5 per cent and is valued at 474.92trillion yen (about $5.1 trillion). The better-than-expected Japanese growth in the December 2009quarter was mainly driven by better exports and ef-fects of stimulus measures. To bolster the recession-hit economy, Japan had unveiled stimulus measuresworth over $130 billion.

» Iranian President MahmoudAhmadinejad declared on Feb-ruary 11, 2010, that Iran had pro-duced its first batch of 20 percent enriched uranium, amidst a

growing view in the West that Tehran is bluffing.

“Iran was now a nuclear State,” Ahmadinejad told ahuge rally of supporters on the 31st anniversary ofthe Islamic Revolution. Experts say that once Irancan enrich uranium to 20 per cent it should moverelatively quickly toward 90 per cent purification,weapons-grade fuel.

Former U.S. officials and independent nuclear ex-perts say continued technical problems could de-lay—though probably not halt—Iran’s march to-wards achieving nuclear-weapons capability, giv-ing the US and its allies more time to press for adiplomatic solution.

While Iran says its nuclear program is entirelypeaceful, Western nations suspect that the countryis intent on developing an atomic bomb.




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» Anil Kumble led from the frontwith the ball with a four-wicket haulto help Royal Challengers Banga-lore crush Deccan Chargers by ninewickets in the third place play-offmatch in the Indian Premier League

in Mumbai on April 24, 2010. Chasing 83 for vic-tory, Bangalore cruised to 86 for one in 13.5 oversto win with 37 deliveries to spare and seal a placein the Champions League Twenty20 tournament.

Kevin Pietersen finished off things with a quick in-nings of 29 from 21 balls, while Rahul Dravid fin-ished unbeaten on 35 from 30 balls. Jacques Kalliswas the only wicket to fall when he was caught andbowled by leg-spinner Rahul Sharma for a sedate19 from 32 balls.

Earlier, Kumble took four for 16 to bowl out DeccanChargers for a paltry 82 in 18.3 overs. PraveenKumar took two for 18, while Jacques Kallis tooktwo for three and Nayan Doshi took one for 17 onhis debut in a splendid bowling performance by Ban-galore. Anirudh Singh top-scored with a steady in-nings of 40 from 39 balls and Venugopal Rao made24 with the duo putting on 43 runs for the sixthwicket, but the rest of the batsmen failed to come tothe party on a slow wicket. Kumble and Kallis trig-gered a lower order collapse as Deccan lost theirlast four wickets in the space of 12 deliveries with-out the addition of a single run.

» Suresh Raina's unbeaten innings of57 helped Chennai Super Kings beatMumbai Indians by 22 runs to win thefinal of the 2010 Indian PremierLeague on april 24, 2010. Raina's 57came off just 35 balls and included

three fours and as many sixes. Chennai set Mumbaia target of 168 but restricted them to 146-9 to earnthe victory with Sachin Tendulkar top scoring forthe Indians with 48.

Shadab Jakati took the prized wicket of Tendulkarand was the pick of the Super Kings bowlers withfigures of 3-31. The Super Kings were off to a cau-tious start with their opening stand of Murali Vijay(26) and Matthew Hayden (17) only worth 44. How-ever, Raina's half century stand with MahendraSingh Dhoni (22) helped in part to them setting atarget of 168-5 from their 20 overs.

The Super Kings had been struggling at 68-3 at theend of the 12th over but the turnaround came whenRaina, who had played himself in nicely was let offtwice - first on 13 when a mistimed pull landedsafely between Dilhara Fernando and AbhishekNayar. He escaped again on 28, when Zaheer Khangrassed another straightforward chance.

Two years ago Chennai were beaten by the RajasthanRoyals in the inaugural IPL final, with DeccanChargers claiming victory over Royal ChallengersBangalore in last year's final.

» The BBC has announced it haswon the rights to show the 2010Commonwealth Games fromDelhi in October. The Games,which get under way from 3 Oc-

tober, will be available across TV, radio, online,iPlayer, mobile and new media outlets across theUK.

The Games mark another step for athletes across theworld as they prepare for the 2012 Olympics.

Section -4 (SPORTS)



The Commonwealth Games, which include manyOlympic sports like athletics, cycling and swim-ming, were last held in Melbourne, Australia in2006. Unlike the Olympic Games where Britaincompetes under the Team GB banner, there are sepa-rate teams for England, Scotland, Northern Irelandand Wales at the Commonwealths.

With a total of 17 sports, the Commonwealth Gamesare considered the third largest multi-sport eventin the world, behind the Olympics and the AsianGames. Much of the build-up to the event has beenovershadowed by security concerns, with Englandforced to deny rumours that they would pull out.Glasgow will host the next Commonwealth Gamesin 2014.

» Ace cueist PankajAdvani was named the bestsenior sportsperson of theyear by the Calcutta Sports'Journalists' Club at its an-nual function for 2009-10.The CSJC, in a list of 16 players, decided to accordlife time achievement award to former Indianshuttler Madhumita Singh Bisth and Chirag United'sDenson Debdas as soccer player of the year.

The other recipients were cricketer Manoj Tiwari,Bikram Mondal in swimming, Rupesh in Tennis,Soumyajit Ghosh in Table Tennis, and Saptarshi RoyChowdhury in chess. Sayantan Das (chess),Sheshadri Sanyal in Badminton, Satyendra Singh inbasketball and Abdus Slam Gazi in Kabaddai weredeclared best junior sportperson of the year.Leo Bilung of BNR was chosen for hockey, GovindaPramanik in gymnastics, Sh. Mortaza and JhumaKhatun in athletics.

» Maniram Sharma won his maiden pro-fessional title at the PGTI Feeder Tour event atGolden Greens Golf Course in Gurgaon. Sharma shota one over 73 to finish with a winning total of twoover 218. Rudresh Sharma (74, 71, 74) of Delhi,Patiala's Balpreet Singh Ghuman (72, 72, 75) andMohd Nawab (72, 68, 79) of Patna finished tied sec-ond at three over 219.

Maniram (73, 72, 73) fired two birdies against threebogeys in the third and final round. The 28-year-old from Karnal earned his first professional title asa result of some solid iron-play and putting even asovernight leader Mohd Nawab slipped on the finalday after firing a 79. Maniram took home thewinner's cheque of Rs. 63,575 and is now placedsecond (behind Arshdeep Tiwana) on the PGTIFeeder Tour Order of Merit for 2010. Rajiv KumarJatiwal was placed fifth at four over 220.

» Indian shooter Gagan Narangwon the bronze medal in the 10meter air rifle event at the WorldCup in Beijing. Narang shot a totalof 700.3 points (597 qualifying and100.3 finals) to win his sixth WorldCup medal.

The gold went to Russian Denis Sokolov with a to-tal score of 701.3 (597 qualifying + 104.3 final) andthe silver went to Chinese Qinan after he shot 701.2(598 qualifying + 103.2 final). Narang was disap-pointed to miss out on the gold medal by smallmargin.

India's Dipika Pallikal won the 8000 dollar WomenInternational Squash Players Association (WISPA)'sIndian Challenger, a category five championship,defeating England's Emma Beddoes in the final.Twenty-year-old Dipika from Chennai, who oustedtop-seeded Sharon Wee of Malaysia in the semifi-nal, also beat second seed Emma Beddoes in a foursetter 11-9,11-8, 9-11,11-6 to win a major trophyin her carrier.

In the men's all-Egypt final, third seed MohammedEl Shorbagy, who defeated India's Sourav Ghosal inthe semis, came from behind in third set to beat TarekMomem 11-7,3-1, 8-11,11-8, 11-8 to win 50,000dollar Professional Squash Association Indian Chal-lenger, a five star category event at Caclutta RacketClub.

Section -4 (SPORTS)



» Olympic and three-timeWorld champion Lin Dan ofChina claimed his maidenAsian title with a 21-17, 21-15 win over WangZhengming while Xuerui Liovercame a stubborn Xin Liu

21-13, 18-21, 21-19 to win the women's singles titleat the Badminton Asia Championships.

Second-seeded Dan, who was a favourite to win thetitle after top seed and staunch rival Taufiq Hidayatmade a shock exit in the pre-quarterfinals, showedhis all-round ability to finish the game in 39 min-utes against the 2008 World junior champion.

In the men's doubles, Korea's Cho Gun Woo andYoo Yeon Seong upset top seed Hung Ling Chenand Yu Lang Lin of Chinese Taipei 21-19, 12-21,21-17 in an adrenaline rushing last encounter of theday that lasted 50 minutes. Sixth seeded Chinese PanPan and Qing Tian beat Malaysians Vivian Kah MunHoo and Khe Wei Woon 21-10, 21-6 in 27 minutesin women's doubles.In the mixed doubles, Malaysian Liu Ying Goh andPeng Soon Chan beat Koreans Yeon Seong Yoo andMing Jung Kim 21-17, 20-22, 21-19 in an hour longmatch.

» India on April 12 beat arch rivals Paki-stan by a margin of 58-24 to win the first edition ofWorld Cup Kabaddi. With this win, India bagged acash prize of Rs. 1 crore whereas Pakistan took homeRs.51 lakh.

Nine international teams from countries like Paki-stan, the US, Britain, Canada, Iran and Australiaparticipated in this cash-rich tournament.

» Former Commonwealth champion SunilKumar had to settle for a silver after he went downdown to Olympic champion Zou Shiming in the fi-nals of the AIBA 3 Star China Cup in Guiyang City.

The Indian matched his faniced Chinese rival blowfor blow but just towards the end he failed to curtail

the two-time World Champion's rise and lost the2-4. Kumar, 21 came out all guns blazing much tothe surprise of the local lad and managed to holdShiming 1-1 after the first round.

The Haryana boxer continued to impress one andall in the next round and it was just one point thatseparated him with the Chinese as he trailed 2-3 af-ter the second round. But it was the third roundwhich spoiled his bid for a Gold as the Indian couldnot land a scoring punch and his Chinese counter-part grabbed the yellow metal with a 4-2 verdict inthe final bout.

Besides the silver, Kumar also became richer 2,000dollar prize money. As many as four Indian pugi-lists lost out in the semis and had to be content withbronze medals and 1,000 dollars each.

South Asian Games gold medallist Chhote Lal Yadav(57kg), Olympian Diwakar Prasad (60kg), KuldeepSingh (75kg) and Jasveer Singh (81kg) were India'sbronze medallists in the 19-nation event.

» Sania Mirza has been ap-pointed the brand ambassador ofthe 'Mega Tennis Event' which isaimed at the development ofsport in the country. The eventwill be an important part of the

agenda at the All India Tennis Association's (AITA)executive committee meeting in Mumbai April 16.

The unveiling of the event will top the agenda ofthe meeting, AITA said in a press statement Tues-day. The event will be of tremendous help in devel-opment of both professional tennis for men andwomen in India as well as development of juniors.AITA has decided to appoint Sania Mirza as one ofthe brand ambassadors for the event and she has givenher approval," AITA said.

» Third seeds Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy de-feated fourth seeds Mahesh Bhupathi and MaxMirnyi 6-2, 7-5 to clinch the Sony Ericsson Opendoubles tennis, their first title this season.

Section -4 (SPORTS)



India's Bhupathi with Belarusian Max Mirnyi setup a title clash with compatriot and long time ex-partner Paes and Czech Dlouhy Friday with astraight sets defeat of Poland's Mariusz Frystenbergand Marcin Matkowski. Paes and Dlouhy sprintedto an early 2-0 lead and never gave their opponentsa chance to fightback in the first set. The Indo-Czechpair was quick to go up a break in the second set,too, but were broken back immediately for 3-3. ButPaes and Dlouhy, broke again at 5-5 before servingout the match.

» Olympic hero Vijender Singhbroke the bronze jinx and fetchedone of India’s two silver medalsat the two-day Champion ofChampions invitational boxingtournament in Guangzhou, China.

The 24-year-old Olympic and World Champion-ship bronze medallist lost 0-6 to China's Zhang JinTing in the in the middle weight (75kg) categoryfinal.

The other silver medal for India came throughOlympian Dinesh Kumar, who settled for silver in81kg after losing 2-10 to Chinese Meng Fan Long.

» Cricket’s push to be a part of the OlympicGames received a major boost with InternationalOlympic Council (IOC) granting recognition to In-ternational Cricket Council (ICC) on February 12,2010. This could be seen as a first step towardscricket becoming Olympic sports. Its Twenty20version can now bid to join the 2020 OlympicGames though ICC has not made it clear which for-mat it will push for.

Cricket was granted the status of a recognised Olym-pic sport in 2007, for sports not in the Olympicprogramme but which conform to certain criteria,pending a decision for a permanent slot in theGames.

Cricket was part of the 1900 Olympics in Paris andhas not appeared since then. The game was part ofthe 1998 Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games andits Twenty20 version is set to feature at Asian Gamesin Guangzhou, China.

» Sachin Tendulkar rewrote therecord books on February 24,2010, hammering the first doublecentury in the history of one-daycricket to add another feather tohis well-adorned cap. The capac-ity crowd at the Captain Roop

Singh Stadium, Gwalior witnessed history asTendulkar, statistically the greatest batsman thegame has ever seen, pushed South African bowlerCharl Langeveldt’s delivery through the off-side andran a single to achieve a feat which no other crick-eter has achieved.

One Day International cricket, since its 1971 incep-tion, had to wait nearly four decades to see a bats-man score 200. The previous best mark was sharedby Zimbabwean Charles Coventry (194 not out) andPakistan’s Saeed Anwar (194).

» The 11th edition of South Asian Games(SAG) opened at the Bangabandhu National Stadium,Dhaka, on January 29, 2010. The aquatic show wasthe main attraction of the opening ceremony, inwhich a concert hosted by Pt. Ravi Shankar andBeatles star George Harrison for Bangladesh’s In-dependence day and the March 7 address of SheikhMujibur Rehman were displayed on a water screen.

This was the third time that the Bangladeshi capitalhosted the Games, thus becoming the first city tohold the games three times.

Athletes from eight countries— Afghanistan,Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Paki-stan and Sri Lanka—competed in 23 different sports.India continued its dominance with 175 medals, in-cluding 90 gold medals. Pakistan narrowly beat thehost to occupy the second spot with 19 golds, whilethe host Bangladesh capture 18 golds, including themost popular and prestigious football and crickettitles. Sri Lanka’s Shehan Abeypitiya became thefastest man while Pakistan’s Naseem Hamid wascrowned the fastest woman of the region.

The logo of the Games was 'Kutumb', a flying doel,known in English as the Oriental Magpie Robin. It

Section -4 (SPORTS)



is the National Bird of Bangladesh. The mascot alsofeatured a Magpie Robin.

Delhi will host the next South Asian Games. Indiawas picked to host the regional sporting event afterBhutan, whose turn it was to host the next SAG, ex-pressed its inability to stage the meet. India hashosted the South Asian Games twice thus far—in1987 (Kolkata) and in 1995 (Chennai).

» The 2010 Winter Olympics,officially the 21st WinterOlympics, were a major inter-national multi-sport eventheld on February 12–28, 2010,in Vancouver, British Colum-bia, Canada.

Approximately 2,600 athletes from 82 nations par-ticipated in 86 events in fifteen disciplines. CaymanIslands, Colombia, Ghana, Montenegro, Pakistan,Peru and Serbia made their winter Olympic debuts.Also Jamaica, Mexico and Morocco returned to theGames after missing the Turin Games.

The 2010 Winter Olympics were the third Olym-pics hosted by Canada, and the first by the provinceof British Columbia. Previously, Canada hosted the1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec andthe 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta.

Canada topped the medals tally with 14 gold, 7 sil-ver and 5 bronze medals. Germany was second, fol-lowed by USA. The 2014 Winter Olympics will beheld from February 7 to February 23, 2014 in Sochi,Krasnodar Krai, Russia.

» With 23 gold medals, 17 silver and 9bronze medals, India topped the medals tally of thechampionships held in Delhi in February 2010. En-gland was second in the medals tally, followed byAustralia.

Section -4 (SPORTS)



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Paulos Mar Gregorios Award

President Pratibha Patil presented the Paulos MarGregorios Award 2010 to Dr. Karan Singh for Out-standing Contribution in the Fields of Public Life,Inter-Faith Dialogue and Culture, at a function inNew Delhi.

Sahara IPL Awards winnersAnnounced

Winners of the Sahara IPL Awards were announcedat a glittering ceremony held on April 23, 2010 atthe Grand Hyatt Mumbai. The winners were judgedby a jury comprising Lalit Modi (Chairperson), SunilGavaskar, Brian Lara, Javagal Srinath, Simon Taufel,and Harsha Bogle.

Among the notable awardees were Sachin Tendulkar(Mumbai Indians), who was adjudged the Best Bats-man. Pragyan Ojha (Deccan Chargers) was declaredthe Best Bowler. The Best Debut Performance awardwent to Kieron Pollard (Mumbai Indians), whileJacques Kallis (Royal Challengers Bangalore) wasdeclared the Most Consistent Performer.

AB de Villiers (Delhi Daredevils) bagged the BestFielder’s award, while Harbhajan Singh (MumbaiIndians) won the Best Dramatic Performance award.Anil Kumble’s (Royal Challengers Bangalore) wasadjudged the Best Breakthrough Performance 2009.M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru, was declaredthe Best Ground.

Grammy Awards, 2010

» Life Time award: Michael Jackson, posthu-mously.» Album of the Year: Taylor Swift, Fearless.

» Song Written for Motion Picture, Televi-sion or Other Visual Media: Jai Ho, written byGulzar, A. R. Rahman and Tanvi Shah, from“Slumdog Millionaire”.» Record of the Year: Use Somebody, Kings ofLeon.» New Artist: Zac Brown Band.

» Song of the Year: Single Ladies (Put a Ring onIt), written by Thaddis Harrell, Beyoncé Knowles,Terius Nash and Christopher Stewart (Beyoncé).» Female Pop Vocal Performance: Halo,Beyoncé.» Male Pop Vocal Performance: Make it mine,Jason Mraz.» Pop Performance, Duo Or Group: I GottaFeeling, the Black Eyed Peas.» Pop Collaboration: Lucky, Jason Mraz andColbie Caillat.» Pop Instrumental Performance: Throw DownYour Heart, Béla Fleck.» Pop Instrumental Album: Potato Hole, BookerT. Jones.» Pop Vocal Album: The E.N.D., the Black EyedPeas.» Solo Rock Vocal Performance: Working ona Dream, Bruce Springsteen.» Hard Rock Performance: War Machine, AC/DC.» Metal Performance: Dissident Aggressor, Ju-das Priest.» Rock Song: Use Somebody, written by CalebFollowill, Jared Followill, Matthew Followill andNathan Followill.

Section -5 (AWARDS)



» Rock Album: 21st Century Breakdown, GreenDay.» Alternative Music Album: WolfgangAmadeus Phoenix, Phoenix.» Female R&B Vocal Performance: Single La-dies (Put a Ring on It), Beyoncé.» Male R&B Vocal Performance: Pretty Wings,Maxwell.» Female Country Vocal Performance: WhiteHorse, Taylor Swift.» Male Country Vocal Performance: SweetThing, Keith Urban.» Score Soundtrack Album for Motion Pic-ture, Television or Other Visual Media: Up.

Lifetime Achievement Award

Eight-time national badminton championMadhumita Bisht was given the lifetime achieve-ment award for her contribution to the game by theCalcutta Sports Journalists' Club during its annualawards function.

Pankaj Advani, who won the world professional bil-liards champion last year, was adjudged the bestsportsperson of 2009 while the former world youth(under-12) chess champion Sayantan Das was giventhe best junior sportsperson of the year award. Theothers were state awardees.

The other awardees (in state category):» Football - Denson Devadas; Cricket - ManojTiwary; Tennis - Rupesh Roy;» Table Tennis - Soumyajit Ghosh; Swimming -

Bikram Mondal; Badminton - Sheshadri Sanyal;

» Basketball- Satyendra Singh; Kabaddi - AbdusSalam Gazi;» Hockey - Leo Bilung; Gymnastics - GobindaPramanik;» Athletics (men) - Sheikh Mortaza;

» Athletics (women) - Jhuma Khatun;; Chess -Saptarshi Roy Choudhury.

Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards

Punjab has for the first time bagged the highest num-ber of awards in the performing arts category for2009, since the inception of the Sangeet NatakAkademi in 1952.

The winners of the coveted honour include UstadLachhman Singh Seen (classical music tabla), UstadVilayat Khan, Goslan Khanna (ragi/dhadi) and NeetaMahindra (theatre). Besides Kamal Arora (theatremake-up) from Chandigarh is another recipient.

The award carries a citation, a shawl, a mementoand a cash prize of Rs 1,00,000.

Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of theYear Awards, 2009

» Entrepreneur of the year: Anand G. Mahindra,Vice Chairman and MD of Mahindra Group.» Lifetime Achievement award: N. Vaghul, Ex-Chairman of ICICI Bank Ltd.» Entrepreneur of the year (Start-up): AmitMittal, Chairman and Managing Director of A2ZMaintenance & Engineering Services Pvt. Ltd.» Entrepreneur of the year (Business trans-formation): Dr Vikram Akula, Chairperson &founder SKS Microfinance Ltd.» Entrepreneur of the year (Manager): O.P.Bhatt, Chairman, State Bank of India.» Entrepreneur of the year (Manufacturing):Harsh C. Mariwala, Chairman and Managing Di-rector, Marico Ltd.» Entrepreneur of the year (Healthcare andLife Sciences): Pankaj R. Patal, Chairman andManaging Director, Zydus Cadila Healthcare Ltd.» Entrepreneur of the year (Services): ShashiKiran Shetty, Chairman and Managing Director,Allcargo Global Logistics Ltd.

Section -5 (AWARDS)



Sasawaka Prize of UNEP, 2010

A portable light that can be recharged by pedallingfor 20 minutes and was developed for use in areasnot wired for electricity, has won a Canadian of In-dian origin, Sameer Hajee, the prestigious SasakawaPrize of the United Nations EnvironmentProgramme (UNEP).

The device has been developed by Nuru Design(Nuru means light in Swahili). A pilot project is al-ready in place in Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. Thedevice, called the Nuru light, is essentially a light-ing system that can be recharged by a pedal genera-tor—the Nuru POWERCycle.

Nuru Light’s objective is to replace the use of ex-pensive, polluting, unhealthy, and dangerous kero-sene as a source of lighting for the two billion peoplewithout access to electricity. Of those, nearly 580million are in India.

Section -5 (AWARDS)



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A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a weaponthat can kill large numbers of humans (and otherlife forms) and/or cause great damage to man-madestructures (e.g. buildings), natural structures (e.g.mountains), or the biosphere in general. The scopeand application of the term has evolved and beendisputed, often signifying more politically than tech-nically.

Coined in reference to aerial bombing with chemi-cal explosives, it has come to distinguish large-scaleweaponry of other technologies, such as chemical,biological, radiological, or nuclear. This differen-tiates the term from more technnical ones such aschemical, biological, radiological, and nuclearweapons (CBRN).

The first use of the term "weapon of mass destruc-tion" on record is by Cosmo Gordon Lang, Arch-bishop of Canterbury, in 1937 in reference to theaerial bombardment of Guernica, Spain:“ Who can think at this present time without a sick-ening of the heart of the appalling slaughter, thesuffering, the manifold misery brought by war toSpain and to China? Who can think without horrorof what another widespread war would mean, wagedas it would be with all the new weapons of massdestruction?”

At that time, there were no nuclear weapons; bio-logical weapons were already being researched byJapan (see Unit 731), and chemical weapons had seenwide use, most notably in World War I.

Following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima andNagasaki, and progressing through the Cold War,the term came to refer more to non-conventionalweapons. The application of the term to specifically

Civil Services PreliminaryExamination 2010

Weapon of Mass Destructionnuclear and radiological weapons is traced by Wil-liam Safire to the Russian phrase oruziye massovovoporazheniya.

He credits James Goodby (of the Brookings Institu-tion) with tracing what he considers the earliestknown English-language use soon after the nuclearbombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (although it isnot quite verbatim): a communique from a Novem-ber 15, 1945, meeting of Harry Truman, ClementAttlee and Mackenzie King (probably drafted byVannevar Bush– or so Bush claimed in 1970) re-ferred to "weapons adaptable to mass destruction".That exact phrase, says Safire, was also used by Ber-nard Baruch in 1946 (in a speech at the United Na-tions probably written by Herbert Bayard Swope).The same phrase found its way into the UN resolu-tion to create the Atomic Energy Commission (pre-decessor of the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA)), which used the wording "... atomic weap-ons and of all other weapons adaptable to mass de-struction".

An exact use of this term was given in a lecture"Atomic Energy as an Atomic Problem" by J. Rob-ert Oppenheimer. The lecture was delivered to theForeign Service and the State Department, on Sep-tember 17, 1947. The lecture is reprinted in TheOpen Mind (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955)."It is a very far reaching control which would elimi-nate the rivalry between nations in this field, whichwould prevent the surreptitious arming of one na-tion against another, which would provide somecushion of time before atomic attack, and presum-ably therefore before any attack with weapons ofmass destruction, and which would go a long waytoward removing atomic energy at least as a sourceof conflict between the powers".

Section -6 (CSE Pre Special 2010)



The term was also used in the introduction to thehugely influential US Government Documentknown as NSC-68 written in April 1950.

An early use of the exact phrase in an internationaltreaty was in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, how-ever no definition was provided.

Evolution of its useDuring the Cold War, the term "weapons of massdestruction" was primarily a reference to nuclearweapons. At the time, as a necessary deterrent againstnuclear or conventional attack from the SovietUnion (see Mutual Assured Destruction), and theeuphemism "strategic weapons" was used to referto the American nuclear arsenal.

The term "weapons of mass destruction" continuedto see periodic use throughout this time, usually inthe context of nuclear arms control; Ronald Reaganused it during the 1986 Reykjavík Summit, whenreferring to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.[4]Reagan's successor, George H.W. Bush, used theterm in an 1989 speech to the United Nations, usingit primarily in reference to chemical arms.

The end of the Cold War reduced U.S. reliance onnuclear weapons as a deterrent, causing it to shiftits focus to disarmament. This period coincided withan increasing threat to U.S. interests from Islamicnations and independent Islamic groups.

With the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and 1991 GulfWar, Iraq's nuclear, biological, and chemical weap-ons programs became a particular concern of thefirst Bush Administration. Following the war, theClinton Administration and other western politi-cians and media continued to use the term, usuallyin reference to ongoing attempts to dismantle Iraq'sweapons programs.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks and the 2001anthrax attacks, an increased fear of non-conven-tional weapons and asymmetrical warfare took holdof the United States and other Western powers. Thisfear reached a crescendo with the 2002 Iraq disar-

mament crisis and the alleged existence of weaponsof mass destruction in Iraq that became the primaryjustification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. However,no WMD were found in Iraq.

Because of its prolific use during this period, theAmerican Dialect Society voted "weapons of massdestruction" (and its abbreviation, "WMD") theword of the year in 2002, and in 2003 Lake SuperiorState University added WMD to its list of termsbanished for "Mis-use, Over-use and General Use-lessness".

Definitions of the termMilitary / Strategic Definitions

The most widely used definition of "weapons of massdestruction" is that of nuclear, biological or chemi-cal weapons (NBC) although there is no treaty orcustomary international law that contains an au-thoritative definition. Instead, international law hasbeen used with respect to the specific categories ofweapons within WMD, and not to WMD as awhole.

The acronyms NBC (for nuclear, biological andchemical) or CBR (chemical, biological, radiologi-cal) are used with regards to battlefield protectionsystems for armored vehicles, because all three in-volve insidious toxins that can be carried throughthe air and can be protected against with vehicle airfiltration systems.

However, there is an argument that nuclear and bio-logical weapons do not belong in the same categoryas chemical and "dirty bomb" radiological weap-ons, which have limited destructive potential (andclose to none, as far as property is concerned),whereas nuclear and biological weapons have theunique ability to kill large numbers of people withvery small amounts of material, and thus could besaid to belong in a class by themselves.

The NBC definition has also been used in officialU.S. documents, by the U.S. President, the U.S. Cen-tral Intelligence Agency, the U.S. Department of




Defense, and the U.S. Government AccountabilityOffice.

Other documents expand the definition of WMD toalso include radiological or conventional weapons.The U.S. military refers to WMD as:Chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weap-ons capable of a high order of destruction or caus-ing mass casualties and exclude the means of trans-porting or propelling the weapon where such meansis a separable and divisible part from the weapon.Also called WMD.

The significance of the words separable and divis-ible part of the weapon is that missiles such as thePershing II and the SCUD are considered weaponsof mass destruction, while aircraft capable of car-rying bombloads are not.

In 2004, the United Kingdom's Butler Review rec-ognized the "considerable and long-standing aca-demic debate about the proper interpretation of thephrase ‘weapons of mass destruction’".

The committee set out to avoid the generalterm but when using it, employed the defini-tion of United Nations Security Council Reso-lution 687, which defined the systems whichIraq was required to abandon:

è "Nuclear weapons or nuclear-weapons-usablematerial or any sub-systems or components or anyresearch, development, support or manufacturing fa-cilities relating to [nuclear weapons].

è Chemical and biological weapons and all stocksof agents and all related subsystems and componentsand all research,development,support and manufac-turing facilities.

è Ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150kilometres and related major parts, and repair andproduction facilities."

Chemical weapons expert Gert G. Harigel consid-ers only nuclear weapons true weapons of mass de-struction, because "only nuclear weapons are com-

pletely indiscriminate by their explosive power, heatradiation and radioactivity, and only they shouldtherefore be called a weapon of mass destruction".He prefers to call chemical and biological weapons"weapons of terror" when aimed against civiliansand "weapons of intimidation" for soldiers.

Testimony of one such soldier expresses the sameviewpoint. For a period of several months in thewinter of 2002–2003, U.S. Deputy Secretary of De-fense Paul Wolfowitz frequently used the term"weapons of mass terror," apparently also recogniz-ing the distinction between the psychological andthe physical effects of many things currently fallinginto the WMD category.

Gustavo Bell Lemus, the Vice President of Colom-bia, at the 2001 United Nations Conference on theIllicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons inAll Its Aspects, quoted the Millennium Report ofthe UN Secretary-General to the General Assem-bly, in which Kofi Annan said that small arms couldbe described as WMD because the fatalities theycause "dwarf that of all other weapons systems - andin most years greatly exceed the toll of the atomicbombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki".

An additional condition often implicitly applied toWMD is that the use of the weapons must be strate-gic. In other words, they would be designed to "haveconsequences far outweighing the size and effective-ness of the weapons themselves". The strategic na-ture of WMD also defines their function in the mili-tary doctrine of total war as targeting the means acountry would use to support and supply its war ef-fort, specifically its population, industry, and natu-ral resources.

Within U.S. civil defense organizations, thecategory is now Chemical, Biological, Ra-diological, Nuclear, and Explosive (CBRNE),which defines WMD as:(1) Any explosive, incendiary, poison gas, bomb,grenade, or rocket having a propellant charge of morethan four ounces [113 g], missile having an explo-sive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarterounce [7 g], or mine or device similar to the above.




(2) Poison gas.(3) Any weapon involving a disease organism.(4) Any weapon that is designed to release radia-tion at a level dangerous to human life.

Nuclear Non-ProliferationTreaty

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of NuclearWeapons, also Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty(NPT or NNPT) is a treaty to limit the spread (pro-liferation) of nuclear weapons. The treaty came intoforce on 5 March 1970 and currently there are 189states party to the treaty, five of which are recog-nized as nuclear weapon states: the United States,Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China (alsothe five permanent members of the United NationsSecurity Council).

Four non-parties to the treaty are known or believedto possess nuclear weapons. India, Pakistan andNorth Korea have openly tested and declared thatthey possess nuclear weapons, while Israel has hada policy of opacity regarding its own nuclear weap-ons program. North Korea acceded to the treaty,violated it, and withdrew from it in 2003.

The treaty was proposed by Ireland and Finland andthey were the first to sign.

The NPT consists of a preamble and elevenarticles. Although the concept of "pillars"appears nowhere in the NPT, the treaty isnevertheless sometimes interpreted as a threepillar system, with an implicit balance amongthem: 1. non-proliferation, 2. disarmament, and 3. the right to peacefully use nuclear technology.

The treaty is reviewed each five years in meetingscalled Review Conferences of the Parties to theTreaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.In addition, Sessions of the Preparatory Committeefor the Review Conference take place on the inter-mediate years. Simultaneously, many events orga-

nized by independent institutions, groups of experts,think tanks and NGO's take place worldwide in or-der to provide reports and recommendations thatcompliment the Preparatory Committees.

Even though the treaty was originally conceivedwith a limited duration of 25 years, the signing par-ties decided by consensus to extend the treaty in-definitely and without conditions during the ReviewConference in New York City on May 11, 1995.The next Review Conference will be held in May,2010.

Treaty "pillars"The NPT is commonly described as having threemain "pillars": non-proliferation, disarmament, andpeaceful use. This "pillars" concept has been ques-tioned by some who believe that the NPT is, as itsname suggests, principally about nonproliferation,and who worry that "three pillars" language mis-leadingly implies that the three elements haveequivalent importance.

First pillar: Non-ProliferationFive states are recognized by the NPT as nuclearweapon states (NWS): China (signed 1992), France(1992), the Soviet Union (1968; obligations andrights now assumed by the Russian Federation), theUnited Kingdom (1968), and the United States(1968) (The U.S., UK, and Soviet Union were theonly states openly possessing such weapons amongthe original ratifiers of the treaty, which entered intoforce in 1970).

These five nations are also the five permanent mem-bers of the United Nations Security Council. Thesefive NWS agree not to transfer "nuclear weapons orother nuclear explosive devices" and "not in any wayto assist, encourage, or induce" a non-nuclearweapon state (NNWS) to acquire nuclear weapons(Article I). NNWS parties to the NPT agree not to"receive," "manufacture" or "acquire" nuclear weap-ons or to "seek or receive any assistance in the manu-facture of nuclear weapons" (Article II).




NNWS parties also agree to accept safeguards bythe International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) toverify that they are not diverting nuclear energyfrom peaceful uses to nuclear weapons or othernuclear explosive devices (Article III).

The five NWS parties have made undertakings notto use their nuclear weapons against a non-NWSparty except in response to a nuclear attack, or aconventional attack in alliance with a NuclearWeapons State. However, these undertakings havenot been incorporated formally into the treaty, andthe exact details have varied over time. The U.S.also had nuclear warheads targeted at North Korea,a non-NWS state, from 1959 until 1991.

The previous United Kingdom Secretary of State forDefence, Geoff Hoon, has also explicitly invokedthe possibility of the use of the country's nuclearweapons in response to a non-conventional attackby "rogue states". In January 2006, President JacquesChirac of France indicated that an incident of state-sponsored terrorism on France could trigger a small-scale nuclear retaliation aimed at destroying the"rogue state's" power centers.

Second Pillar: DisarmamentThe NPT's preamble contains language affirmingthe desire of treaty signatories to ease internationaltension and strengthen international trust so as tocreate someday the conditions for a halt to the pro-duction of nuclear weapons, and treaty on generaland complete disarmament that liquidates, in par-ticular, nuclear weapons and their delivery vehiclesfrom national arsenals.

The wording of the NPT's Article VI arguably im-poses only a vague obligation on all NPT signato-ries to move in the general direction of nuclear andtotal disarmament, saying, "Each of the Parties tothe Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in goodfaith on effective measures relating to cessation ofthe nuclear arms race at an early date and to nucleardisarmament, and on a treaty on general and com-plete disarmament."

Under this interpretation, Article VI does notstrictly require all signatories to actually concludea disarmament treaty. Rather, it only requires them"to negotiate in good faith."

On the other hand, some governments, especiallynon-nuclear-weapon states belonging to the Non-Aligned Movement, have interpreted Article VI'slanguage as being anything but vague. In their view,Article VI constitutes a formal and specific obliga-tion on the NPT-recognized nuclear-weapon statesto disarm themselves of nuclear weapons, and ar-gue that these states have failed to meet their obli-gation.

Some government delegations to the Conference onDisarmament have put forth proposals for a com-plete and universal disarmament, but no disarma-ment treaty has emerged from these proposals. Crit-ics of the NPT-recognized nuclear-weapon statessometimes argue that what they view as the failureof the NPT-recognized nuclear weapon states to dis-arm themselves of nuclear weapons, especially inthe post-Cold War era, has angered some non-nuclear-weapon NPT signatories of the NPT. Suchfailure, these critics add, provides justification forthe non-nuclear-weapon signatories to quit the NPTand develop their own nuclear arsenals.

Other observers have suggested that the linkage be-tween proliferation and disarmament may also workthe other way, i.e., that the failure to resolve prolif-eration threats in Iran and North Korea, for instance,will cripple the prospects for disarmament. No cur-rent nuclear weapons state, the argument goes,would seriously consider eliminating its last nuclearweapons without high confidence that other coun-tries would not acquire them.

Some observers have even suggested that the veryprogress of disarmament by the superpowers whichhas led to the elimination of thousands of weaponsand delivery systems could eventually make thepossession of nuclear weapons more attractive byincreasing the perceived strategic value of a smallarsenal.




As one U.S. official and NPT expert warned in 2007,"logic suggests that as the number of nuclear weap-ons decreases, the 'marginal utility' of a nuclearweapon as an instrument of military power in-creases. At the extreme, which it is preciselydisarmament’s hope to create, the strategic utilityof even one or two nuclear weapons would be huge."

Third Pillar: Peaceful use ofNuclear Energy

The third pillar allows for and agrees upon the trans-fer of nuclear technology and materials to NPT sig-natory countries for the development of civiliannuclear energy programs in those countries, as longas they can demonstrate that their nuclear programsare not being used for the development of nuclearweapons.

Since very few of the states with nuclear energy pro-grams are willing to abandon the use of nuclear en-ergy, the third pillar of the NPT under Article IVprovides other states with the possibility to do thesame, but under conditions intended to make it dif-ficult to develop nuclear weapons.

The treaty recognizes the inalienable right of sov-ereign states to use nuclear energy for peaceful pur-poses, but restricts this right for NPT parties to beexercised "in conformity with Articles I and II" (thebasic nonproliferation obligations that constitute the"first pillar" of the Treaty).

As the commercially popular light water reactornuclear power station uses enriched uranium fuel,it follows that states must be able either to enrichuranium or purchase it on an international market.Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the Inter-national Atomic Energy Agency, has called thespread of enrichment and reprocessing capabilitiesthe "Achilles' heel" of the nuclear nonproliferationregime. As of 2007 13 states have an enrichmentcapability.

Because the availability of fissile material has longbeen considered the principal obstacle to, and "pac-

ing element" for, a country's nuclear weapons de-velopment effort, it was declared a major emphasisof U.S. policy in 2004 to prevent the further spreadof uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocess-ing (a.k.a. "ENR") technology.

Countries possessing ENR capabilities, it is feared,have what is in effect the option of using this capa-bility to produce fissile material for weapons useon demand, thus giving them what has been termeda "virtual" nuclear weapons program.

The degree to which NPT members have a "right"to ENR technology notwithstanding its potentiallygrave proliferation implications, therefore, is at thecutting edge of policy and legal debates surround-ing the meaning of Article IV and its relation toArticles I, II, and III of the Treaty.

Countries that have signed the treaty as Non-NuclearWeapons States and maintained that status have anunbroken record of not building nuclear weapons.However, Iraq was cited by the IAEA and sanctionedby the UN Security Council for violating its NPTsafeguards obligations; North Korea never came intocompliance with its NPT safeguards agreement andwas cited repeatedly for these violations, and laterwithdrew from the NPT and tested multiple nucleardevices; Iran was found in non-compliance with itsNPT safeguards obligations in an unusual non-con-sensus decision because it "failed in a number ofinstances over an extended period of time" to reportaspects of its enrichment program; and Libya pur-sued a clandestine nuclear weapons program beforeabandoning it in December 2003.

In 1991 Romania reported previously undeclarednuclear activities by the former regime and the IAEAreported this non-compliance to the Security Coun-cil for information only. In some regions, the factthat all neighbors are verifiably free of nuclear weap-ons reduces any pressure individual states might feelto build those weapons themselves, even if neigh-bors are known to have peaceful nuclear energy pro-grams that might otherwise be suspicious. In this,the treaty works as designed.




In 2004, Mohamed ElBaradei, the then DirectorGeneral of the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA), said that by some estimates thirty-five toforty states could have the knowledge to developnuclear weapons.

Key articlesArticle I: Each nuclear-weapons state (NWS) un-dertakes not to transfer, to any recipient, nuclearweapons, or other nuclear explosive devices, and notto assist any non-nuclear weapon state to manufac-ture or acquire such weapons or devices.

Article II: Each non-NWS party undertakes not toreceive, from any source, nuclear weapons, or othernuclear explosive devices; not to manufacture oracquire such weapons or devices; and not to receiveany assistance in their manufacture.

Article III: Each non-NWS party undertakes toconclude an agreement with the IAEA for the appli-cation of its safeguards to all nuclear material in allof the state's peaceful nuclear activities and to pre-vent diversion of such material to nuclear weaponsor other nuclear explosive devices.

Article IV: 1. Nothing in this Treaty shall be in-terpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all theParties to the Treaty to develop research, produc-tion and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposeswithout discrimination and in conformity with Ar-ticles I and II of this Treaty.

2. All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facili-tate, and have the right to participate in, the fullestpossible exchange of equipment, materials and sci-entific and technological information for the peace-ful uses of nuclear energy. Parties to the Treaty in aposition to do so shall also co-operate in contribut-ing alone or together with other States or interna-tional organizations to the further development ofthe applications of nuclear energy for peaceful pur-poses, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consid-eration for the needs of the developing areas of theworld.

Article VI. The states undertake to pursue "nego-tiations in good faith on effective measures relatingto cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early dateand to nuclear disarmament", and towards a "Treatyon general and complete disarmament under strictand effective international control".

Article X. Establishes the right to withdraw fromthe Treaty giving 3 months' notice. It also estab-lishes the duration of the Treaty (25 years before1995 Extension Initiative).

HistoryThe impetus behind the NPT was concern for thesafety of a world with many nuclear weapon states.It was recognized that the cold war deterrent rela-tionship between just the United States and SovietUnion was fragile. More nuclear players reducedsecurity for all, multiplying the risks of miscalcu-lation, accident or unauthorized use, or through theescalation of a small nuclear conflict.

The NPT process was launched by Frank Aiken, IrishMinister for External Affairs, in 1958. It was openedfor signature in 1968, with Finland the first State tosign. By 1992 all five then-declared nuclear powershad signed the treaty, and the treaty was renewed in1995 (and followed by the Comprehensive Test BanTreaty in 1996). Several NPT signatories have givenup nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons programs.South Africa undertook a nuclear weapons program,allegedly with the assistance of Israel in the 1970s,and may have conducted a nuclear test in the Atlan-tic ocean in 1979, but has since renounced its nuclearprogram and signed the treaty in 1991 after destroy-ing its small nuclear arsenal. Several former SovietRepublics destroyed or transferred to Russia thenuclear weapons inherited from the Soviet Union.

United States-NATO nuclearweapons sharing

At the time the treaty was being negotiated, NATOhad in place secret nuclear weapons sharing agree-ments whereby the United States provided nuclear




weapons to be deployed by, and stored in, otherNATO states. Some argue this is an act of prolifera-tion violating Articles I and II of the treaty.

A counter-argument is that the U.S. controlled theweapons in storage within the NATO states, and thatno transfer of the weapons or control over them wasintended "unless and until a decision were made togo to war, at which the treaty would no longer becontrolling", so there is no breach of the NPT. Theseagreements were disclosed to a few of the states,including the Soviet Union, negotiating the treaty,but most of the states that signed the NPT in 1968would not have known about these agreements andinterpretations at that time.

As of 2005, it is estimated that the United Statesstill provides about 180 tactical B61 nuclear bombsfor use by Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlandsand Turkey under these NATO agreements. Manystates, and the Non-Aligned Movement, now arguethis violates Articles I and II of the treaty, and areapplying diplomatic pressure to terminate theseagreements.

They point out that the pilots and other staff of the"non-nuclear" NATO states practice handling anddelivering the U.S. nuclear bombs, and non-U.S.warplanes have been adapted to deliver U.S. nuclearbombs which must have involved the transfer ofsome technical nuclear weapons information. NATObelieves its "nuclear forces continue to play an es-sential role in war prevention, but their role is nowmore fundamentally political".

NATO officials also point out that no nuclear weap-ons have ever been given over to non-U.S. controlby the United States, so therefore there cannot havebeen a violation of Article I (which prohibits trans-ferring "nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosivedevices or control over such weapons or explosivedevices") or Article II (which bars "receiv[ing] thetransfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclearweapons or other nuclear explosive devices or ofcontrol over such weapons or explosive devices").

U.S. nuclear sharing policies were originally de-signed to help prevent the proliferation of nuclear

weapons—not least by persuading the then WestGermany not to develop an independent nuclear ca-pability by assuring it that West Germany wouldbe able, in the event of war with the Warsaw Pact,to wield (U.S.) nuclear weapons in self-defense.

(Until that point of all-out war, however, the weap-ons themselves would remain "safely" in U.S. hands.)The point was to limit the spread of countries hav-ing their own nuclear weapons programs, helpingensure that NATO allies would not choose to godown the proliferation route.

(West Germany was discussed in U.S. intelligenceestimates for a number of years as being a countrywith the potential to develop nuclear weapons ca-pabilities of its own if officials in Bonn were notconvinced that their defense against the Soviet Unionand its allies could otherwise be met.)

India, Israel and PakistanThree states—India, Israel, and Pakistan—have de-clined to sign the treaty. India and Pakistan are con-firmed nuclear powers, and Israel has a long-stand-ing policy of deliberate ambiguity (see List of coun-tries with nuclear weapons). These countries arguethat the NPT creates a club of "nuclear haves" and alarger group of "nuclear have-nots" by restrictingthe legal possession of nuclear weapons to thosestates that tested them before 1967, but the treatynever explains on what ethical grounds such a dis-tinction is valid.

India and Pakistan have publicly announced posses-sion of nuclear weapons and have detonated nucleardevices in tests, India having first done so in 1974and Pakistan following suit in 1998 in response toanother Indian test. India is estimated to haveenough fissile material for more than 150 warheads.Pakistan reportedly has between 80 and 120 war-heads according to the former head of its strategicarms division. India is one of the few countries tohave a no first use policy, a pledge not to use nuclearweapons unless first attacked by an adversary usingnuclear weapons.




The main reason India cites for not signing the NPTand for possessing nuclear weapons is that China isone of the "nuclear haves." India's External AffairsMinister Pranab Mukherjee said during a visit toTokyo in 2007: "If India did not sign the NPT, it isnot because of its lack of commitment for non-pro-liferation, but because we consider NPT as a flawedtreaty and it did not recognise the need for univer-sal, non-discriminatory verification and treatment."China and India have a longstanding border dispute,including a border war in 1962.

According to leaked intelligence, Israel has beendeveloping nuclear weapons at its Dimona site inthe Negev since 1958, and many nonproliferationanalysts like David Albright estimate that Israel mayhave stockpiled between 100 to 200 warheads usingthe plutonium reprocessed from Dimona. The Is-raeli government refuses to confirm or deny pos-session of nuclear weapons, although this is nowregarded as an open secret after Israeli low levelnuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu—later ab-ducted and jailed by Israel—revealed the programto the British Sunday Times in 1986.

In early March 2006, India and the United Statesfinalized a deal, having critics in both countries, toprovide India with US civilian nuclear technology.Under the deal India has committed to classify 14of its 22 nuclear power plants as being for civilianuse and to place them under IAEA safeguards.Mohamed ElBaradei, the Director General of theIAEA, welcomed the deal by calling India "an im-portant partner in the non-proliferation regime."

In December 2006, United States Congress approvedthe United States-India Peaceful Atomic EnergyCooperation Act that was cemented during Presi-dent Bush's visit to India earlier in the year. Thelegislation allows for the transfer of civilian nuclearmaterial to India. Despite its status outside theNuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, India was grantedthese transactions on the basis of its clean non-pro-liferation record, and India's unusually high needfor energy fueled by its rapid industrialization anda billion-plus population.

On August 1, 2008, the IAEA approved the IndiaSafeguards Agreement and on September 6, 2008,India was granted the waiver at the Nuclear Suppli-ers Group (NSG) meeting held in Vienna, Austria.The consensus was arrived after overcoming mis-givings expressed by Austria, Ireland and NewZealand and is an unprecedented step in giving ex-emption to a country, which has not signed the NPTand the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

While India could commence nuclear trade withother willing countries. The U.S. Congress approvedthis agreement and the President signed it on 8 Oc-tober 2008.

The NSG Guidelines currently rule out nuclear ex-ports by all major suppliers to Pakistan and Israel,with very narrow exceptions, since neither has full-scope IAEA safeguards (i.e. safeguards on all itsnuclear activities). Attempts by Pakistan to reach asimilar agreement have been rebuffed by the UnitedStates and other NSG members.

The argument put forth is that not only does Paki-stan lack the same energy requirements but that thetrack record of Pakistan as a nuclear proliferatormakes it impossible for it to have any sort of nucleardeal in the near future.

On September 18, 2009 the General Conference ofthe International Atomic Energy Agency called onIsrael to open its nuclear facilities to IAEA inspec-tion and adhere to the non-proliferation treaty aspart of a resolution on "Israeli nuclear capabilities,"which passed by a narrow margin of 49-45 with 16abstentions. The chief Israeli delegate stated that"Israel will not co-operate in any matter with thisresolution."

North KoreaNorth Korea ratified the treaty on December 12,1985, but gave notice of withdrawal from the treatyon January 10, 2003 following U.S. allegations thatit had started an illegal enriched uranium weaponsprogram, and the U.S. subsequently stopping fueloil shipments under the Agreed Framework whichhad resolved plutonium weapons issues in 1994.




The withdrawal became effective April 10, 2003making North Korea the first state ever to withdrawfrom the treaty. North Korea had once before an-nounced withdrawal, on March 12, 1993, but sus-pended that notice before it came into effect.

On February 10, 2005, North Korea publicly de-clared that it possessed nuclear weapons and pulledout of the six-party talks hosted by China to find adiplomatic solution to the issue. "We had alreadytaken the resolute action of pulling out of the NuclearNon-Proliferation Treaty and have manufacturednuclear arms for self-defence to cope with the Bushadministration's evermore undisguised policy toisolate and stifle the DPRK [Democratic People'sRepublic of Korea]," a North Korean Foreign Min-istry statement said regarding the issue. Six-partytalks resumed in July 2005.

On September 19, 2005, North Korea announcedthat it would agree to a preliminary accord. Underthe accord, North Korea would scrap all of its exist-ing nuclear weapons and nuclear production facili-ties, rejoin the NPT, and readmit IAEA inspectors.The difficult issue of the supply of light water reac-tors to replace North Korea's indigenous nuclearpower plant program, as per the 1994 Agreed Frame-work, was left to be resolved in future discussions.On the next day North Korea reiterated its knownview that until it is supplied with a light water re-actor it will not dismantle its nuclear arsenal or re-join the NPT.

On October 2, 2006, the North Korean foreign min-ister announced that his country was planning toconduct a nuclear test "in the future", although itdid not state when. On Monday, October 9, 2006 at01:35:27 (UTC) the United States Geological Sur-vey detected a magnitude 4.2 seismic event 70 km(45 miles) north of Kimchaek, North Korea indi-cating a nuclear test. The North Korean governmentannounced shortly afterward that they had com-pleted a successful underground test of a nuclear fis-sion device.

In 2007, reports from Washington suggested thatthe 2002 CIA reports stating that North Korea wasdeveloping an enriched uranium weapons program,

which led to North Korea leaving the NPT, hadoverstated or misread the intelligence.

On the other hand, even apart from these press alle-gations—which some critics worry could have beenplanted in order to justify the United States givingup trying to verify the dismantlement ofPyongyang's uranium program in the face of NorthKorean intransigence—there remains some infor-mation in the public record indicating the existenceof a uranium effort.

Quite apart from the fact that North Korean FirstVice Minister Kang Sok Ju at one point admittedthe existence of a uranium enrichment program,Pakistan's then-President Musharraf revealed thatthe A.Q. Khan proliferation network had providedNorth Korea with a number of gas centrifuges de-signed for uranium enrichment.

Additionally, press reports have cited U.S. officialsto the effect that evidence obtained in dismantlingLibya’s WMD programs points toward North Ko-rea as the source for Libya's uranium hexafluoride(UF6) -- which, if true, would mean that North Koreahas a uranium conversion facility for producing feed-stock for centrifuge enrichment.

IranIran is a party to the NPT, but was found in non-compliance with its NPT safeguards agreement andthe status of its nuclear program remains in dispute.In November 2003 IAEA Director GeneralMohamed ElBaradei reported that Iran had repeat-edly and over an extended period failed to meet itssafeguards obligations, including by failing to de-clare its uranium enrichment program.

After about two years of EU3-led diplomatic effortsand Iran temporarily suspending its enrichment pro-gram, the IAEA Board of Governors, acting underArticle XII.C of the IAEA Statute, found in a rarenon-consensus decision with 12 abstentions thatthese failures constituted non-compliance with theIAEA safeguards agreement.




This was reported to the UN Security Council in2006, after which the Security Council passed a reso-lution demanding that Iran suspend its enrichment.Instead, Iran resumed its enrichment program.

The IAEA has been able to verify the non-diversionof declared nuclear material in Iran, and is continu-ing its work on verifying the absence of undeclaredactivities. In February 2008, the IAEA also reportedthat it was working to address "alleged studies" ofweaponization, based on documents provided bycertain Member States, which those states claimedoriginated from Iran.

Iran rejected the allegations as "baseless" and thedocuments as "fabrications." In June 2009, the IAEAreported that Iran had not “cooperated with theAgency in connection with the remaining issues ...which need to be clarified to exclude the possibilityof military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program.”The United States concluded that Iran violated itsArticle III NPT safeguards obligations, and furtherargued based on circumstantial evidence that Iran'senrichment program was for weapons purposes andtherefore violated Iran's Article II nonproliferationobligations.

The November 2007 US National Intelligence Esti-mate (NIE) later concluded that Iran had halted anactive nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003and that it had remained halted as of mid-2007. TheNIE's "Key Judgments," however, also made clearthat what Iran had actually stopped in 2003 was only"nuclear weapon design and weaponization work andcovert uranium conversion-related and uraniumenrichment-related work"-namely, those aspects ofIran's nuclear weapons effort that had not by thatpoint already been leaked to the press and becomethe subject of IAEA investigations.

Since Iran's uranium enrichment program atNatanz—and its continuing work on a heavy waterreactor at Arak that would be ideal for plutoniumproduction—began secretly years before in conjunc-tion with the very weaponization work the NIE dis-cussed and for the purpose of developing nuclearweapons, many observers find Iran's continued de-velopment of fissile material production capabili-ties distinctly worrying.

Particularly because fissile material availability haslong been understood to be the principal obstacle tonuclear weapons development and the primary "pac-ing element" for a weapons program, the fact thatIran has reportedly suspended weaponization workmay not mean very much. As U.S. Director of Na-tional Intelligence Mike McConnell has put it, theaspects of its work that Iran allegedly suspendedwere thus "probably the least significant part of theprogram."

Iran states it has a legal right to enrich uranium forpeaceful purposes under the NPT, and further saysthat it "has constantly complied with its obligationsunder the NPT and the Statute of the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency". Iran also states that itsenrichment program is part of its civilian nuclearenergy program, which is allowed under Article IVof the NPT. The Non-Aligned Movement has wel-comed the continuing cooperation of Iran with theIAEA and reaffirmed Iran's right to the peaceful usesof nuclear technology.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has welcomedthe continued dialogue between Iran and the IAEA,and has called for a peaceful resolution to the issue.

South AfricaSouth Africa also deserves a special mention as theonly country that developed nuclear weapons by it-self and later dismantled them - unlike the formerSoviet states Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan,which inherited nuclear weapons from the formerUSSR, and also acceded to the NPT as non-nuclearweapon states.

During the days of apartheid, the white South Afri-can government developed a deep fear of both a blackuprising and the threat of communism. This led tothe development of a secret nuclear weapons pro-gram as an ultimate deterrent. South Africa has alarge supply of uranium, which is mined in thecountry's gold mines. The government built anuclear research facility at Pelindaba near Pretoriawhere uranium was enriched to fuel grade for thenuclear power plant at Koeberg as well as weapongrade for bomb production.




In 1991, after international pressure and when achange of government was imminent, South Afri-can Ambassador to the United States Harry Schwarzsigned the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In1993, the then president Frederik Willem de Klerkopenly admitted that the country had developed alimited nuclear weapon capability. These weaponswere subsequently dismantled prior to accession tothe NPT. South Africa then opened itself up to IAEAfor inspection. In 1994 the IAEA completed its workand declared that the country had fully dismantledits nuclear weapons program.

LibyaLibya had signed and ratified the Nuclear Non-Pro-liferation Treaty and was subject to IAEA nuclearsafeguards inspections, but undertook a secretnuclear weapons development program in violationof its NPT obligations, using material and technol-ogy provided by the A.Q. Khan proliferation net-work—including actual nuclear weapons designedallegedly originating in China.

Libya began secret negotiations with the UnitedStates and the United Kingdom in March 2003 overpotentially eliminating its WMD programs. In Oc-tober 2003, Libya was embarrassed by the interdic-tion of a shipment of Pakistani-designed centrifugeparts sent from Malaysia, also as part of A. Q. Khan'sproliferation ring.

In December 2003, Libya announced that it hadagreed to eliminate all its WMD programs, andpermitted U.S. and British teams (as well as IAEAinspectors) into the country to assist this process andverify its completion. The nuclear weapons designs,gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment, and otherequipment—including prototypes for improvedSCUD ballistic missiles—were removed from Libyaby the United States.

(Libyan chemical weapons stocks and chemicalbombs were also destroyed on site with internationalverification, with Libya joining the Chemical Weap-ons Convention.) Libya's noncompliance with itsIAEA safeguards was reported to the U.N. Security

Council, but with no action taken, as Libya's returnto compliance with safeguards and Article II of theNPT was welcomed.

Leaving the treatyArticle X allows a state to leave the treaty if "ex-traordinary events, related to the subject matter ofthis Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interestsof its country", giving three months' (ninety days')notice. The state is required to give reasons for leav-ing the NPT in this notice.

NATO states argue that when there is a state of "gen-eral war" the treaty no longer applies, effectivelyallowing the states involved to leave the treaty withno notice. This is a necessary argument to supportthe NATO nuclear weapons sharing policy, but atroubling one for the logic of the treaty.

NATO's argument is based on the phrase "the con-sequent need to make every effort to avert the dan-ger of such a war" in the treaty preamble, insertedat the behest of U.S. diplomats, arguing that thetreaty would at that point have failed to fulfill itsfunction of prohibiting a general war and thus nolonger be binding. Many states do not accept thisargument. See United States-NATO nuclear weap-ons sharing above.

North Korea has also caused an uproar by its use ofthis provision of the treaty. Article X.1 only requiresa state to give three months' notice in total, and doesnot provide for other states to question a state's in-terpretation of "supreme interests of its country".

In 1993, North Korea gave notice to withdraw fromthe NPT. However, after 89 days, North Koreareached agreement with the United States to freezeits nuclear program under the Agreed Frameworkand "suspended" its withdrawal notice.

In October 2002, the United States accused NorthKorea of violating the Agreed Framework by pur-suing a secret uranium enrichment program, andsuspended shipments of heavy fuel oil under thatagreement. In response, North Korea expelled IAEA




inspectors, disabled IAEA equipment, and, on Janu-ary 10, 2003, announced that it was ending the sus-pension of its previous NPT withdrawal notifica-tion. North Korea said that only one more day'snotice was sufficient for withdrawal from the NPT,as it had given 89 days before.

The IAEA Board of Governors rejected this inter-pretation. Most countries held that a new three-months withdrawal notice was required, and somequestioned whether North Korea's notification metthe "extraordinary events" and "supreme interests"requirements of the Treaty. The Joint Statement ofSeptember 19, 2005 at the end of the Fourth Roundof the Six-Party Talks called for North Korea to "re-turn" to the NPT, implicitly acknowledging that ithad withdrawn.

Recent and coming eventsThe 2000 Review Conference had as main outcomethe definition in practical terms of the nuclear weap-ons states' disarmament obligations, summarized inthe so called Thirteen Points.

The inclusion of (civilian) nuclear power in the July2005 Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Develop-ment and Climate was politically sensitive, as In-dia, which tested its first atomic bomb in 1974, re-fused to sign the NPT. Prior to the announcementof the Asia-Pacific Partnership, on 18 July 2005, USPresident George W. Bush had met Indian PrimeMinister Manmohan Singh and declared that hewould work to change US law and international rulesto permit trade in US civilian nuclear technologywith India.

Some, such as British columnist George Monbiot,argue that the U.S.-India nuclear deal, in combina-tion with US attempts to deny Iran (an NPT signa-tory) civilian nuclear fuel-making technology, maydestroy the NPT regime, while others[who?] con-tend that such a move will likely bring India, anNPT non-signatory, under closer international scru-tiny.

At the Seventh Review Conference in May 2005,there were stark differences between the UnitedStates, which wanted the conference to focus on non-proliferation, especially on its allegations againstIran, and most other countries, who emphasized thelack of serious nuclear disarmament by the nuclearpowers. The non-aligned countries reiterated theirposition that NATO's nuclear sharing arrangementviolates the treaty.

The 2010 Review Conference will be held in May2010 in New York City and is seen as critical toconsolidate the nuclear nonproliferation regime,based on the treaty. The 2009 Session of the NPTPreparatory Committee, held in May, failed to de-liver an agreed recommendation for the upcomingReview Conference, but even so, it has been consid-ered successful to define the main issues to be dis-cussed during the meeting.

The "Global Summit on Nuclear Security" took placeApril 12-13, 2010. The summit was proposed byPresident Obama in Prague and is intended tostrengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty inconjunction with the Proliferation Security Initia-tive and the Global Initiative to Combat NuclearTerrorism. Forty seven states and three internationalorganizations took part in the Summit, which is-sued a communiqué and a work plan.

Criticism and responsesSome argue that the NWS have not fully complied,in practice, with their commitments mentioned inNPT. Article VI of the treaty requires NPT partiesto "pursue negotiations" on an end to the arms race,"nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on generaland complete disarmament." Yet thousands ofnuclear weapons remain, some on high alert, longafter the end of the cold war. In January 2002, a re-port by the Defense Department following the U.S.Nuclear Posture Review recommended the devel-opment of nuclear weapons designed to destroyhardened and deeply-buried targets, but the result-ing Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator never gainedfull Congressional support and was canceled in 2005.




The representative of Ghana, on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement and the African Group said dis-armament and non-proliferation were complemen-tary and mutually reinforcing and that, "Withouttangible progress in disarmament, the current em-phasis on non-proliferation cannot be sustained."

The United States responds to criticism of its disar-mament record by pointing out that since the end ofthe Cold War it has eliminated over 13,000 nuclearweapons and eliminated over 80% of its deployedstrategic warheads and 90% of non-strategic war-heads deployed to NATO, in the processing elimi-nating whole categories of warheads and deliverysystems and reducing its reliance on nuclear weap-ons.

U.S. officials have also pointed out the United States'ongoing—and, throughout 2007, sharply accelerat-ing work to dismantle nuclear warheads. When cur-rent accelerated dismantlement efforts ordered byPresident George W. Bush have been completed, theU.S. arsenal will be less than a quarter of its size atthe end of the Cold War, and smaller than it hasbeen at any point since the Eisenhower administra-tion, well before the drafting of the NPT.

The United States has also purchased many thou-sands of weapons' worth of uranium formerly inSoviet nuclear weapons for conversion into reactorfuel. (As a consequence of this latter effort, it hasbeen estimated that the equivalent of one lightbulbin every ten in the United States is powered bynuclear fuel removed from warheads previously tar-geted at the United States and its allies during theCold War.) The U.S. Special Representative forNuclear Nonproliferation agreed that nonprolifera-tion and disarmament are linked, noting that theycan be mutually reinforcing but also that growingproliferation risks create an environment that makesdisarmament more difficult.

The United Kingdom, France and Russia likewisedefend their nuclear disarmament records, and thefive NPT NWS issued a joint statement in 2008 re-affirming their Article VI disarmament commit-ments. As discussed above, the precise nature of

nuclear weapons state obligations, if any, underArticle VI of the Treaty is sharply contested.

Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty(CTBT) bans all nuclear explosions in all environ-ments, for military or civilian purposes. It wasadopted by the United Nations General Assemblyon 10 September 1996 but it has not yet entered intoforce.

The Treaty was adopted by the United Nations Gen-eral Assembly on 10 September 1996. It opened forsignature in New York on 24 September 1996, whenit was signed by 71 States, including five of the eightthen nuclear-capable states. As of November 2009,151 states have ratified the CTBT and another 31states have signed but not yet ratified it.

The treaty will enter into force 180 days after the44 states listed in Annex 2 of the treaty have ratifiedit. These "Annex 2 states" are states that participatedin the CTBT’s negotiations between 1994 and 1996and possessed nuclear power reactors or researchreactors at that time. As of April 2009, nine Annex2 states have not ratified the treaty: China, Egypt,Indonesia, Iran, Israel and the United States havealready signed the Treaty, whereas India, NorthKorea and Pakistan have not yet signed it.

Obligations(Article I): 1. Each State Party undertakes not tocarry out any nuclear weapon test explosion or anyother nuclear explosion, and to prohibit and preventany such nuclear explosion at any place under itsjurisdiction or control.

2. Each State Party undertakes, furthermore, to re-frain from causing, encouraging, or in any way par-ticipating in the carrying out of any nuclear weapontest explosion or any other nuclear explosion.




HistoryArms control advocates had campaigned for theadoption of a treaty banning all nuclear explosionssince the early 1950s, when public concern wasaroused as a result of radioactive fall-out from at-mospheric nuclear tests and the escalating arms race.

Over 50 nuclear explosions were registered between16 July 1945, when the first nuclear explosive testwas conducted by the United States at Alamogordo,New Mexico, and 31 December 1953. Prime Min-ister Nehru of India voiced the heightened interna-tional concern in 1954, when he proposed the elimi-nation of all nuclear test explosions worldwide.However, within the context of the Cold War, skep-ticism about the capability to verify compliancewith a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty poseda major obstacle to any agreement.

Partial Test Ban Treaty, 1963Limited success was achieved with the signing ofthe Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963, which bannednuclear tests in the atmosphere, underwater and inspace. Neither France nor China signed the PTBT.However, the treaty was ratified 80 to 19, and signedby President JFK.

Nuclear Non-proliferationTreaty, 1968

A major step towards non-proliferation of nuclearweapons came with the signing of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968. Under the NPT,non-nuclear weapon states were prohibited from,inter alia, possessing, manufacturing or acquiringnuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.

All signatories, including nuclear weapon states,were committed to the goal of total nuclear disar-mament. However, nations like India have not rati-fied the NPT on grounds that such a treaty is funda-mentally discriminatory as it places limitations onstates that do not have nuclear weapons while mak-

ing no efforts to curb weapons development by de-clared nuclear weapons states.

Negotiations for the CTBTGiven the political situation prevailing in the sub-sequent decades, little progress was made in nucleardisarmament until 1991. Parties to the PTBT heldan amendment conference that year to discuss a pro-posal to convert the Treaty into an instrument ban-ning all nuclear-weapon tests; with strong supportfrom the UN General Assembly, negotiations for acomprehensive test-ban treaty began in 1993.

Adoption of the CTBT, 1996Intensive efforts were made over the next three yearsto draft the Treaty text and its two annexes. How-ever, the Conference on Disarmament, in whichnegotiations were being held, did not succeed inreaching consensus on the adoption of the text.

Under the direction of Prime Minister John Howardand Foreign Minister Alexander Downer Australiathen sent the text to the United Nations GeneralAssembly in New York, where it was submitted asa draft resolution. On 10 September 1996, the Com-prehensive Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) was adopted bya large majority, exceeding two-thirds of the Gen-eral Assembly's Membership.

US ratification of the CTBTThe US has signed the CTBT, but not ratified it.There is ongoing debate whether or not the USshould ratify the CTBT.

The CTBT for the United States is conditionedon:

A: The conduct of a Science Based Stock-pile Stewardship Program program to ensure a highlevel of confidence in the safety and reliability ofnuclear weapons in the active stockpile, includingthe conduct of a broad range of effective and con-tinuing experimental programs.




B: The maintenance of modern nuclear laboratoryfacilities and programs in theoretical and explor-atory nuclear technology which will attract, retain,and ensure the continued application of our humanscientific resources to those programs on which con-tinued progress in nuclear technology depends.

C: The maintenance of the basic capability to re-sume nuclear test activities prohibited by the CTBTshould the United States cease to be bound to ad-here to this treaty.

D: Continuation of a comprehensive research anddevelopment program to improve our treaty moni-toring capabilities and operations.

E: The continuing development of a broad range ofintelligence gathering and analytical capabilitiesand operations to ensure accurate and comprehen-sive information on worldwide nuclear arsenals,nuclear weapons development programs, and re-lated nuclear programs.

F: The understanding that if the President of theUnited States is informed by the Secretary of De-fense and the Secretary of Energy (DOE) -- advisedby the Nuclear Weapons Council, the Directors ofDOE's nuclear weapons laboratories and the Com-mander of the U.S.

Strategic Command -- that a high level of confi-dence in the safety or reliability of a nuclear weapontype which the two Secretaries consider to be criti-cal to the U.S. nuclear deterrent could no longer becertified, the President, in consultation with Con-gress, would be prepared to withdraw from theCTBT under the standard "supreme national inter-ests" clause in order to conduct whatever testingmight be required.

Proponents of ratification claim that it would: 1. Establish an international norm that would pushother nuclear-capable countries like North Korea,Pakistan, and India to sign.

2. Constrain worldwide nuclear proliferation byvastly limiting a country's ability to make nuclearadvancements that only testing can ensure.

3. Not compromise US national security becausethe Science Based Stockpile Stewardship Programserves as a means for maintaining current US nuclearcapabilities without physical detonation.

On 13 October 1999, the United States Senate re-jected ratification of the CTBT. President BarackObama stated during his 2008 election campaignthat "As president, I will reach out to the Senate tosecure the ratification of the CTBT at the earliestpractical date."

Monitoring of the CTBTGeophysical and other technologies are used tomonitor for compliance with the Treaty: seismol-ogy, hydroacoustics, infrasound, and radionuclidemonitoring. The technologies are used to monitorthe underground, the waters and the atmosphere forany sign of a nuclear explosion. Statistical theoriesand methods are integral to CTBT monitoring pro-viding confidence in verification analysis. Once theTreaty enters into force, on site inspection will beprovided for where concerns about compliance arise.

The Preparatory Commission for the Comprehen-sive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), aninternational organization headquartered in Vienna,Austria, was created to build the verification regime,including establishment and provisional operationof the network of monitoring stations, the creationof an international data centre, and development ofthe On Site Inspection capability.

The monitoring network consists of 337 facilitieslocated all over the globe. As of September 2009,close to 250 facilities have been certified. The moni-toring stations register data that is transmitted tothe international data centre in Vienna for process-ing and analysis. The data is sent to states that havesigned the Treaty.

Threshold Test Ban TreatyThe Treaty on the Limitation of UndergroundNuclear Weapon Tests, also known as the Thresh-old Test Ban Treaty (or TTBT), was signed in July




1974 by the USA and the USSR. It establishes anuclear "threshold," by prohibiting nuclear tests ofdevices having a yield exceeding 150 kilotons(equivalent to 150,000 tons of TNT).

The threshold is militarily important since it re-moves the possibility of testing new or existingnuclear weapons going beyond the fractional-mega-ton range. In the 1960s, many tests above 150 kilo-tons were conducted by both countries. The mutualrestraint imposed by the Treaty reduced the explo-sive force of new nuclear warheads and bombs whichcould otherwise be tested for weapons systems.

Of particular significance was the relationship be-tween explosive power of reliable, tested warheadsand first-strike capability. Agreement on the Thresh-old Test Ban Treaty was reached during the summitmeeting in Moscow in July 1974.

ProvisionsThe treaty included a protocol which detailed tech-nical data to be exchanged and which limited weapontesting to specific designated test sites to assist veri-fication. The data to be exchanged included infor-mation on the geographical boundaries and geol-ogy of the testing areas.

Geological data -- including such factors as densityof rock formation, water saturation, and depth ofthe water table -- are useful in verifying test yieldsbecause the seismic signal produced by a given un-derground nuclear explosion varies with these fac-tors at the test location. After an actual test has takenplace, the geographic coordinates of the test loca-tion are to be furnished to the other party, to help inplacing the test in the proper geological setting andthus in assessing the yield.

The treaty also stipulates that data will be exchangedon a certain number of tests for calibration purposes.By establishing the correlation between stated yieldsof explosions at the specified sites and the seismicsignals produced, this exchange improved assess-ments by both parties of the yields of nuclear explo-sions based primarily on the measurements derived

from their seismic instruments. The tests used forcalibration purposes may be tests conducted in thepast or new tests.

Agreement to exchange the detailed data describedabove represented a significant degree of direct co-operation by the two major nuclear powers in theeffort to control nuclear weapons. For the first time,each party agreed to make available to the other datarelating to its nuclear weapons test program.

Technical issuesThe technical problems associated with a yieldthreshold were recognized by the sides in the springof 1974. In this context the Soviet Union mentionedthe idea of some kind of a "mistakes" understandingconcerning occasional, minor, unintended breaches.Discussions on the subject of such an understandingtook place in the autumn of 1974 and in the springof 1976.

The Soviet Union was informed by the United Statesthat the understanding reached would be includedas part of the public record associated with submit-ting the Treaty to the Senate for advice and consentto ratification. The entire understanding is as fol-lows:

Both Parties will make every effort to comply fullywith all the provisions of the TTB Treaty. How-ever, there are technical uncertainties associatedwith predicting the precise yields of nuclear weap-ons tests. These uncertainties may result in slight,unintended breaches of the 150 kiloton threshold.

Therefore, the two sides have discussed this prob-lem and agreed that: (1) one or two slight, unin-tended breaches per year would not be considered aviolation of the Treaty; (2) such breaches would bea cause for concern, however, and, at the request ofeither Party, would be the subject for consultations.




Intermediate-RangeNuclear Forces Treaty

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty(INF) is a 1987 agreement between the United Statesand the Soviet Union. Signed in Washington, D.C.by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and General Sec-retary Mikhail Gorbachev on December 8, 1987, itwas ratified by the United States Senate on May 27,1988 and came into force on June 1 of that year. Thetreaty is formally titled The Treaty Between theUnited States of America and the Union of SovietSocialist Republics on the Elimination of Their In-termediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles.

The treaty eliminated nuclear and conventionalground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles withintermediate ranges, defined as between 500-5,500km (300-3,400 miles). By the treaty's deadline ofJune 1, 1991, a total of 2,692 of such weapons hadbeen destroyed, 846 by the U.S. and 1,846 by theSoviet Union, which was much more unequal innumber of INF warheads destroyed. Under the treatyboth nations were allowed to inspect each other'smilitary installations.

HistoryThe longer range, greater accuracy, mobility andstriking power of the new missile was perceived toalter the security of Western Europe. After discus-sions, NATO agreed to a two part strategy - firstlyto pursue arms control negotiations with the SovietUnion to reduce their and the American INF arse-nals; secondly to deploy in Europe from 1983 up to464 ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCM) and108 Pershing II ballistic missiles.

Until the late 1970s NATO had clear superiorityover USSR in INF systems because Soviets possessedonly liquid-fueled, single warhead, very inaccurateand easy to destroy IRBMs and a few hundredsequally outdated subsonic heavy bombers of Tu-16and Tu-22 types.

In contrast, NATO and USAFE had Mirage IV, V-force and brand-new F-111 bombers in addition toFrench, British, and US precise, solid propelledIRBMs and SLBMs based in Europe and on adjacentwaters. So Soviet attempts to close the "INF gap"by SS-20 and Tu-22M deployment was met withNATO moves to secure Western alliance nuclearadvantage in Europe thanks to GLCM and PershingII installation.

Despite dissatisfaction with the deployment of USweapons in Europe, the Soviet Union agreed to opennegotiations and preliminary discussions began inGeneva in 1980. Formal talks began in September1981 with the US "Zero option" offer - the com-plete elimination of all Pershing, GLCM, SS-20, SS-4 and SS-5 missiles.

Following disagreement over the exclusion of Brit-ish and French delivery systems, the talks were sus-pended by the Soviet delegation in November 1983.In 1984, despite public protest, the US began to de-ploy INF systems in West Germany, Italy, and theUnited Kingdom.

In March 1986 negotiations between the US and theSoviet Union resumed, covering not only the INFissue but also separate discussions on strategic weap-ons (START I) and space issues (NST). In late 1985both sides were moving towards limiting INF sys-tems in Europe and Asia.

On January 15, 1986, Gorbachev announced a So-viet proposal for a ban on all nuclear weapons by2000, which included INF missiles in Europe. Thiswas dismissed by the US and countered with aphased reduction of INF launchers in Europe andAsia to none by 1989. There would be no constraintson British and French nuclear forces.

A series of meetings in August and September 1986culminated in the Reykjavík Summit betweenReagan and Gorbachev on October 11, 1986. Bothagreed in principle to remove INF systems fromEurope and to equal global limits of 100 INF mis-sile warheads. Gorbachev also proposed deeper andmore fundamental changes in the strategic relation-ship.




More detailed negotiations extended throughout1987, aided by the decision of West Geman Chan-cellor Helmut Kohl in August to unilaterally removethe joint U.S.-West German Pershing IA systems.The treaty text was finally agreed in September1987.

New STARTNew START (for STrategic Arms Reduction Treaty)(Russian: ???-III) is a bilateral nuclear arms reduc-tion treaty between the United States and Russia thatwas signed in 2010. It is a follow-up to the 1991START I treaty, which expired in December 2009,and to START II and the 2002 Treaty of Moscow(SORT), which was due to expire in December 2012.

Prolonged talks were conducted by U.S. and Rus-sian delegations in Geneva, led on the American sideby U.S. State Department Assistant Secretary RoseGottemoeller. The Russian delegation was headedby Anatoly Antonov, director of security and disar-mament at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedevthen announced on 26 March 2010 that they hadreached an agreement. The new treaty was signedon 8 April 2010 in Prague by Obama and Medvedev.

It will limit the number of operationally deployednuclear warheads to 1,550, which is down nearlytwo-thirds from the original START treaty and is30% lower than the deployed strategic warhead limitof the 2002 Moscow Treaty and it will limit to 800the number of deployed and non-deployed inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) launchers, sub-marine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launch-ers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear arma-ments. Also it will limit the number of ICBMs,SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers equipped fornuclear armaments to 700.

These obligations must be met within seven yearsfrom the date the new treaty enters into force. Thetreaty will last ten years, with an option to renew itfor up to five years upon agreement of both parties.The treaty first has to be ratified by the United StatesSenate and the Federation Council of the Russian

Federation. Once that is done, the treaty will enterinto force on the date of the exchange of instrumentsof ratification.

The number of operationally inactive stockpilednuclear warheads will remain in the high thousandsin both the Russian and United States inventories.

The number of nuclear missile launchers will bereduced by half. A new inspection and verificationregime will be established, replacing the mechanismdefined by the earlier treaty.

The new treaty has been described in the press as"substantial".

NPT Review ConferenceIn May, the 2010 review conference for the Treatyon the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons(NPT) will be held at United Nations Headquartersin New York.

ContextThree major events occurred prior to the NPTReview Conference:

è The New START treaty was signed on April 8,2010 in Prague by U.S. President Obama and Rus-sian President Medvedev.

è The Nuclear Security Summit (2010) was heldon April 12–13, 2010.

è Iran held the Tehran International Conferenceon Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, 2010 onApril 17–18, 2010.

ParticipantsA delegation headed by Foreign MinisterManouchehr Mottaki will represent Iran at the con-ference.




Nuclear disarmamentNuclear disarmament refers to both the act of re-ducing or eliminating nuclear weapons and to theend state of a nuclear-free world, in which nuclearweapons are completely eliminated.

Proponents of nuclear disarmament say that it wouldlessen the probability of nuclear war occurring, es-pecially accidentally. Critics of nuclear disarmamentsay that it would undermine deterrence.

HistoryThe movement for disarmament has varied fromnation to nation over times.

A few prominent proponents of disarmament arguedin the earliest days of the Cold War that the cre-ation of an international watchdog organizationcould be used to enforce a ban against the creationof nuclear weapons. This initial movement largelyfailed. During the 1960s, a much stronger popularmovement against nuclear weapons developed, ral-lying primarily around the fear of nuclear falloutfrom nuclear testing.

After the Partial Test Ban Treaty (1963), which pro-hibited atmospheric testing, the movement againstnuclear weapons somewhat subsided in the 1970s(and was replaced in part by a movement againstnuclear power). In the 1980s, a popular movementfor nuclear disarmament again gained strength inthe light of the weapons build-up and aggressiverhetoric of US President Ronald Reagan. After theend of the Cold War in the early 1990s the momen-tum again faded.

In the USSR, voices against nuclear weapons werefew and far between as there was no "public" to speakof as a political factor. Certain citizens who hadbecome prominent enough to safely criticize theSoviet government, such as Andrei Sakharov, didspeak out against nuclear weapons, but to little ef-fect.

When the extreme danger intrinsic to nuclear warand the possession of nuclear weapons became ap-parent to all sides during the Cold War, a series ofdisarmament and nonproliferation treaties wereagreed upon between the United States, the SovietUnion, and several other states throughout the world.Many of these treaties involved years of negotia-tions, and seemed to result in important steps to-ward creating a nuclear weapons free world.

Key treatiesPartial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) - 1963: Prohibitedall testing of nuclear weapons except underground.

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) - signed1968, came into force 1970: An international treaty(currently with 189 member states) to limit thespread of nuclear weapons. The treaty has threemain pillars: nonproliferation, disarmament, and theright to peacefully use nuclear technology.

Interim Agreement on Offensive Arms (SALT I) -1972: The Soviet Union and the United States agreedto a freeze in the number of intercontinental ballis-tic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched bal-listic missiles (SLBMs) that they would deploy.

Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) - 1972: TheUnited States and Soviet Union could deploy ABMinterceptors at two sites, each with up to 100ground-based launchers for ABM interceptor mis-siles. In a 1974 Protocol, the US and Soviet Unionagreed to only deploy an ABM system to one site.

Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II) - 1979:Replacing SALT I, SALT II limited both the SovietUnion and the United States to an equal number ofICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bomb-ers. Also placed limits on Multiple IndependentReentry Vehicles (MIRVS).

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) -1987: Created a global ban on short- and long-rangenuclear weapons systems, as well as an intrusiveverification regime.




Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) - signed1991, ratified 1994: Limited long-range nuclearforces in the United States and the newly indepen-dent states of the former Soviet Union to 6,000 at-tributed warheads on 1,600 ballistic missiles andbombers.

Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II (START II) -signed 1993, never put into force: START II was abilateral agreement between the US and Russiawhich attempted to commit each side to deploy nomore than 3,000 to 3,500 warheads by December2007 and also included a prohibition against deploy-ing multiple independent reentry vehicles (MIRVs)on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)

Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT orMoscow Treaty) - signed 2002, into force 2003: Avery loose treaty that is often criticized by armscontrol advocates for its ambiguity and lack ofdepth, Russia and the United States agreed to re-duce their "strategic nuclear warheads" (a term thatremain undefined in the treaty) to between 1,700and 2,200 by 2012.

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) - signed1996, not yet in force: The CTBT is an internationaltreaty (currently with 181 state signatures and 148state ratifications) that bans all nuclear explosionsin all environments. While the treaty is not in force,Russia has not tested a nuclear weapon since 1990and the United States has not since 1992.

New START Treaty - signed 2010, not yet ratifiedby either Russia or the United States.

Only one country has been known to ever dismantletheir nuclear arsenal completely—the apartheidgovernment of South Africa apparently developedhalf a dozen crude fission weapons during the 1980s,but they were dismantled in the early 1990s.

NATO's European theatreAfter the fall of the Soviet Union, a number offormer Soviet republics (Belarus, Ukraine, andKazakhstan) found themselves in possession of So-

viet nuclear weapons, but they were given to Russia(who took responsibility and ownership of the So-viet arsenal) in exchange for negative security as-surances and financial compensation from theUnited States and the Russian Federation.

As part of an effort to reduce nuclear tensions be-tween US and Russia after the end of the Cold War,a delegation from the Russian Ministry of Defenceled by US-Russian national Alexander M. Dokychuk,during an official visit to the US in 1992, stated in alive televised program that Russian nuclear missileswill never again be pointed at US cities.

OrganizationsMany organizations and networks exist which dis-tribute information and put pressure on govern-ments, e.g. the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament(CND), which advocated a policy of unilateralnuclear disarmament in the United Kingdom to-gether with the Labour far left, specifically theBevanites, leading it to become Labour Party policyin 1960-61 and again in 1980-89.

There was also a strong peace camp movement.Many people still felt the need for a nuclear deter-rent, especially since the Cold War was still ongo-ing, and this policy is believed to have been a majorcause of Labour's defeat in the 1983 election.

In 1955, 11 leading scientists and intellectuals signedthe Russell-Einstein Manifesto, warning of the dan-gers posed by nuclear weapons and calling on worldleaders to find peaceful solutions to internationaltensions. This was followed in 1957 by the first ofthe Pugwash Conferences on Science and WorldAffairs hosted by Cyrus S. Eaton in Pugwash, NovaScotia.

The 1985 Nobel peace prize-winning InternationalPhysicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War(IPPNW) advocates abolition of all nuclear weap-ons. In 2006, it initiated the International Campaignto Abolish Nuclear Weapons.




The Council for a Livable World, founded by nuclearphysicist Leo Szilard, and its sister organization, theCenter for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation,have both advocated for a reduction in global nuclearstockpiles and for an increase in non proliferationefforts.

In the U.S. an organization for nuclear disarmamentis Peace Action - National Committee for a SaneNuclear Policy.

US nuclear policyDespite a general trend toward disarmament in theearly 1990s, the George W. Bush administrationrepeatedly pushed to fund policies that would al-legedly make nuclear weapons more usable in thepost-Cold War environment. To date the U.S. Con-gress has refused to fund many of these policies.However, some feel that even considering such pro-grams harms the credibility of the United States asa proponent of nonproliferation.

Recent controversial U.S.nuclear policies

Reliable Replacement Warhead Program (RRW):This program seeks to replace existing warheadswith a smaller number of warhead types designedto be easier to maintain without testing. Criticscharge that this would lead to a new generation ofnuclear weapons and would increase pressures totest. Congress has not funded this program.

Complex Transformation: Complex transformation,formerly know as Complex 2030, is an effort to shrinkthe U.S. nuclear weapons complex and restore theability to produce “pits” the fissile cores of the pri-maries of U.S. thermonuclear weapons. Critics seeit as an upgrade to the entire nuclear weapons com-plex to support the production and maintenance ofthe new generation of nuclear weapons. Congresshas not funded this program.

Nuclear bunker buster: Formally knows as the Ro-bust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), this program

aimed to modify an existing gravity bomb to pen-etrate into soil and rock in order to destroy under-ground targets. Critics argue that this would lowerthe threshold for use of nuclear weapons. Congressdid not fund this proposal, which was later with-drawn.

Missile Defense: Formerly known as National Mis-sile Defense, this program seeks to build a networkof interceptor missiles to protect the United Statesand its allies from incoming missiles, includingnuclear-armed missiles. Critics have argued that thiswould impede nuclear disarmament and possiblystimulate a nuclear arms race. Elements of missiledefense are being deployed in Poland and the CzechRepublic, despite Russian opposition.

Former U.S. officials Henry Kissinger, GeorgeShultz, Bill Perry and Sam Nunn proposed in Janu-ary 2007 that the United States rededicate itself tothe goal of eliminating nuclear weapons, conclud-ing: “We endorse setting the goal of a world free ofnuclear weapons and working energetically on theactions required to achieve that goal.” Arguing ayear later that “with nuclear weapons more widelyavailable, deterrence is decreasingly effective andincreasingly hazardous,” the authors concluded thatalthough “it is tempting and easy to say we can't getthere from here, . . . we must chart a course” towardthat goal. During his Presidential campaign, U.S.President Elect Barack Obama pledged to “set a goalof a world without nuclear weapons, and pursue it.”

U.S. policy options fornuclear terrorism

The United States has taken the lead in ensuring thatnuclear materials globally are properly safeguarded.A popular program that has received bipartisan do-mestic support for over a decade is the CooperativeThreat Reduction Program (CTR). While this pro-gram has been deemed a success, its funding levelsneed to be increased so as to ensure that all danger-ous nuclear materials are secured in the most expe-ditious manner possible.




The CTR program has led to several other innova-tive and important nonproliferation programs thatneed to continue to be a budget priority in order toensure that nuclear weapons do not spread to actorshostile to the United States.

Key programsCooperative Threat Reduction (CTR): The CTR pro-gram provides funding to help Russia secure mate-rials that might be used in nuclear or chemical weap-ons as well as to dismantle weapons of mass de-struction and their associated infrastructure in Rus-sia.

Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI): Expand-ing on the success of the CTR, the GTRI will expandnuclear weapons and material securing and dis-mantlement activities to states outside of the formerSoviet Union.

Other statesWhile the vast majority of states have adhered tothe stipulations of the Nuclear NonproliferationTreaty, a few states have either refused to sign thetreaty or have pursued nuclear weapons programswhile not being members of the treaty.

Many view the pursuit of nuclear weapons by thesestates as a threat to nonproliferation and world peace,and therefore seek policies to discourage the spreadof nuclear weapons to these states, a few of whichare often described by the US as "rogue states".

Declared nuclear weapon states not party tothe NPT:

è Indian nuclear weapons - 60-80 active warheads.

è Pakistani nuclear weapons - 70-90 active war-heads

è North Korean nuclear weapons - <10 active war-headsUndeclared nuclear weapon states not party

to the NPT:Israeli nuclear weapons - 75 - 200 active warheads

Nuclear weapon states not party to the NPTthat disarmed and joined the NPT as non-nuclear weapons states:

South African nuclear weapons - disarmed from1989-1993

Former Soviet states that disarmed and joinedthe NPT as non-nuclear weapons states:

è Belarus

è Kazakhstan

è Ukraine

Non-nuclear weapon states party to the NPT cur-rently accused of seeking nuclear weapons:

Iranian nuclear weaponsprogram

Non-nuclear weapon states party to the NPTwho acknowledged and eliminated pastnuclear weapons programs:

è Libyan nuclear weapons program

è Nuclear proliferation

Nuclear proliferation is a term now used to describethe spread of nuclear weapons, fissile material, andweapons-applicable nuclear technology and infor-mation, to nations which are not recognized as"Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also known asthe Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty or NPT.

Proliferation has been opposed by many nations withand without nuclear weapons, the governments ofwhich fear that more countries with nuclear weap-ons may increase the possibility of nuclear warfare(up to and including the so-called "countervalue"targeting of civilians with nuclear weapons), de-sta-




bilize international or regional relations, or infringeupon the national sovereignty of states.

Four nations besides the five recognized NuclearWeapons States, none of which signed or ratifiedthe NPT, have acquired, or are presumed to haveacquired, nuclear weapons: India, Pakistan, NorthKorea, and Israel. One critique of the NPT is that itis discriminatory in recognizing as nuclear weaponstates only those counties that tested nuclear weap-ons before 1968 and requiring all other states join-ing the treaty to forswear nuclear weapons.

Nuclear proliferationResearch into the development of nuclear weaponswas undertaken during World War II by the UnitedStates, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, andthe USSR. The United States was the first and is theonly country to have used a nuclear weapon in war,when it used two bombs against Japan in August1945.

With their loss during the war, Germany and Japanceased to be involved in any nuclear weapon re-search. In August 1949, the USSR tested a nuclearweapon. The United Kingdom tested a nuclearweapon in October 1952. France developed a nuclearweapon in 1960. The People's Republic of Chinadetonated a nuclear weapon in 1964. India explodeda nuclear device in 1974, and Pakistan tested aweapon in 1998. In 2006, North Korea conducted anuclear test.

Non-proliferation effortsEarly efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation in-volved intense government secrecy, the wartimeacquisition of known uranium stores (the CombinedDevelopment Trust), and at times even outrightsabotage—such as the bombing of a heavy-waterfacility thought to be used for a German nuclearprogram. None of these efforts were explicitly pub-lic, owing to the fact that the weapon developmentsthemselves were kept secret until the bombing ofHiroshima.

Earnest international efforts to promote nuclear non-proliferation began soon after World War II, whenthe Truman Administration proposed the BaruchPlan of 1946, named after Bernard Baruch, America'sfirst representative to the United Nations AtomicEnergy Commission. The Baruch Plan, which drewheavily from the Acheson-Lilienthal Report of 1946,proposed the verifiable dismantlement and destruc-tion of the U.S. nuclear arsenal (which, at that time,was the only nuclear arsenal in the world) after allgovernments had cooperated successfully to accom-plish two things:

(1) the establishment of an "international atomicdevelopment authority," which would actually ownand control all military-applicable nuclear materi-als and activities, and

(2) the creation of a system of automatic sanctions,which not even the U.N. Security Council could veto,and which would proportionately punish states at-tempting to acquire the capability to make nuclearweapons or fissile material.

Although the Baruch Plan enjoyed wide interna-tional support, it failed to emerge from the UNAECbecause the Soviet Union planned to veto it in theSecurity Council. Still, it remained official Ameri-can policy until 1953, when President Eisenhowermade his "Atoms for Peace" proposal before the U.N.General Assembly.

Eisenhower's proposal led eventually to the creationof the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)in 1957. Under the "Atoms for Peace" program thou-sands of scientists from around the world were edu-cated in nuclear science and then dispatched home,where many later pursued secret weapons programsin their home country.

Efforts to conclude an international agreement tolimit the spread of nuclear weapons did not beginuntil the early 1960s, after four nations (the UnitedStates, the Soviet Union, Britain and France) hadacquired nuclear weapons.

Although these efforts stalled in the early 1960s, theyrenewed once again in 1964, after China detonated




a nuclear weapon. In 1968, governments representedat the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee(ENDC) finished negotiations on the text of the NPT.

In June 1968, the U.N. General Assembly endorsedthe NPT with General Assembly Resolution 2373(XXII), and in July 1968, the NPT opened for signa-ture in Washington, DC, London and Moscow. TheNPT entered into force in March 1970.

Since the mid-1970s, the primary focus of non-pro-liferation efforts has been to maintain, and even in-crease, international control over the fissile mate-rial and specialized technologies necessary to buildsuch devices because these are the most difficult andexpensive parts of a nuclear weapons program.

The main materials whose generation and distribu-tion is controlled are highly enriched uranium andplutonium. Other than the acquisition of these spe-cial materials, the scientific and technical means forweapons construction to develop rudimentary, butworking, nuclear explosive devices are consideredto be within the reach of industrialized nations.

Since its founding by the United Nations in 1957,the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) haspromoted two, sometimes contradictory, missions:on the one hand, the Agency seeks to promote andspread internationally the use of civilian nuclearenergy; on the other hand, it seeks to prevent, or atleast detect, the diversion of civilian nuclear energyto nuclear weapons, nuclear explosive devices orpurposes unknown.

The IAEA now operates a safeguards system as speci-fied under Article III of the Nuclear Non-Prolifera-tion Treaty (NPT) of 1968, which aims to ensurethat civil stocks of uranium, plutonium, as well asfacilities and technologies associated with thesenuclear materials, are used only for peaceful pur-poses and do not contribute in any way to prolifera-tion or nuclear weapons programs.

Dual use technologyDual use technology refers to the possibility of mili-tary use of civilian nuclear power technology.

The enriched uranium used in most nuclear reac-tors is not concentrated enough to build a bomb.Most nuclear reactors run on 4% enriched uranium;Little Boy used 80% enriched uranium; while lowerenrichment levels could be used, the minimumbomb size would rapidly become unfeasibly largeas the level was decreased. However, the sameplants and technology used to enrich uranium forpower generation can be used to make the highlyenriched uranium needed to build a bomb.

In addition, the plutonium produced in power reac-tors, if separated from spent fuel through chemicalreprocessing (much less technically challenging thanisotopic separation), can be used for a bomb. Whilethe plutonium resulting from normal reactor fuel-ing cycles is less than ideal for weapons use becauseof the concentration of Pu-240, a usable weapon canbe produced from it.

If the reactor is operated on very short fueling cycles,bomb-grade plutonium can be produced. However,such operation would be virtually impossible tocamouflage in many reactor designs, as the frequentshutdowns for refueling would be obvious, for in-stance in satellite photographs.

Fast breeder reactors require reprocessing, gener-ate more plutonium than they consume (and morethan non-breeders), and can produce better thanweapons-grade plutonium. New technology forbreeder reactors, like SSTAR, may lessen the riskof nuclear proliferation by providing sealed reac-tors with a limited self-contained fuel supply thatcould be remotely shut down in case of tampering.

International cooperationNuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

At present, 189 countries are States Parties to theTreaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weap-ons, more commonly known as the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty or NPT. These include the fiveNuclear Weapons States (NWS) recognized by theNPT: the People's Republic of China, France, Rus-sian Federation, the UK, and the United States.




Notable non-signatories to the NPT are Israel, Pa-kistan, and India (the latter two have since testednuclear weapons, while Israel is considered by mostto be an unacknowledged nuclear weapons state).

North Korea was once a signatory but withdrew inJanuary 2003. The legality of North Korea's with-drawal is debatable but as of 9 October 2006, NorthKorea clearly possesses the capability to make anuclear explosive device.

International Atomic EnergyAgency

The IAEA was established on 29 July 1957 to helpnations develop nuclear energy for peaceful pur-poses. Allied to this role is the administration ofsafeguards arrangements to provide assurance to theinternational community that individual countriesare honoring their commitments under the treaty.Though established under its own internationaltreaty, the IAEA reports to both the United NationsGeneral Assembly and the Security Council.

The IAEA regularly inspects civil nuclear facilitiesto verify the accuracy of documentation supplied toit. The agency checks inventories, and samples andanalyzes materials. Safeguards are designed to de-ter diversion of nuclear material by increasing therisk of early detection. They are complemented bycontrols on the export of sensitive technology fromcountries such as UK and United States throughvoluntary bodies such as the Nuclear SuppliersGroup.

The main concern of the IAEA is that uranium notbe enriched beyond what is necessary for commer-cial civil plants, and that plutonium which is pro-duced by nuclear reactors not be refined into a formthat would be suitable for bomb production.

Scope of safeguardsTraditional safeguards are arrangements to accountfor and control the use of nuclear materials. Thisverification is a key element in the international

system which ensures that uranium in particular isused only for peaceful purposes.

Parties to the NPT agree to accept technical safe-guard measures applied by the IAEA. These requirethat operators of nuclear facilities maintain and de-clare detailed accounting records of all movementsand transactions involving nuclear material.

Over 550 facilities and several hundred other loca-tions are subject to regular inspection, and theirrecords and the nuclear material being audited. In-spections by the IAEA are complemented by othermeasures such as surveillance cameras and instru-mentation.

The inspections act as an alert system providing awarning of the possible diversion of nuclear mate-rial from peaceful activities. The system relies on;

1. Material Accountancy - tracking all inward andoutward transfers and the flow of materials in anynuclear facility. This includes sampling and analy-sis of nuclear material, on-site inspections, and re-view and verification of operating records.

2. Physical Security - restricting access to nuclearmaterials at the site.

3. Containment and Surveillance - use of seals, au-tomatic cameras and other instruments to detectunreported movement or tampering with nuclearmaterials, as well as spot checks on-site.

All NPT non-weapons states must accept these full-scope safeguards. In the five weapons states plus thenon-NPT states (India, Pakistan and Israel), facil-ity-specific safeguards apply. IAEA inspectors regu-larly visit these facilities to verify completeness andaccuracy of records.

The terms of the NPT cannot be enforced by theIAEA itself, nor can nations be forced to sign thetreaty. In reality, as shown in Iraq and North Korea,safeguards can be backed up by diplomatic, politi-cal and economic measures.




While traditional safeguards easily verified the cor-rectness of formal declarations by suspect states, inthe 1990s attention turned to what might not havebeen declared. While accepting safeguards at de-clared facilities, Iraq had set up elaborate equipmentelsewhere in an attempt to enrich uranium to weap-ons grade.

North Korea attempted to use research reactors (notcommercial electricity-generating reactors) and areprocessing plant to produce some weapons-gradeplutonium.

The weakness of the NPT regime lay in the fact thatno obvious diversion of material was involved. Theuranium used as fuel probably came from indig-enous sources, and the nuclear facilities were builtby the countries themselves without being declaredor placed under safeguards. Iraq, as an NPT party,was obliged to declare all facilities but did not doso.

Nevertheless, the activities were detected andbrought under control using international diplo-macy. In Iraq, a military defeat assisted this pro-cess.

In North Korea, the activities concerned took placebefore the conclusion of its NPT safeguards agree-ment. With North Korea, the promised provisionof commercial power reactors appeared to resolvethe situation for a time, but it later withdrew fromthe NPT and declared it had nuclear weapons.

Additional ProtocolIn 1993 a program was initiated to strengthen andextend the classical safeguards system, and a modelprotocol was agreed by the IAEA Board of Gover-nors 1997. The measures boosted the IAEA's abilityto detect undeclared nuclear activities, includingthose with no connection to the civil fuel cycle.

Innovations were of two kinds. Some could be imple-mented on the basis of IAEA's existing legal author-ity through safeguards agreements and inspections.Others required further legal authority to be con-

ferred through an Additional Protocol.

This must be agreed by each non-weapons state withIAEA, as a supplement to any existing comprehen-sive safeguards agreement. Weapons states haveagreed to accept the principles of the model addi-tional protocol.

Key elements of the model Additional Pro-tocol: The IAEA is to be given considerably moreinformation on nuclear and nuclear-related activi-ties, including R & D, production of uranium andthorium (regardless of whether it is traded), andnuclear-related imports and exports.

IAEA inspectors will have greater rights of access.This will include any suspect location, it can be atshort notice (e.g., two hours), and the IAEA can de-ploy environmental sampling and remote monitor-ing techniques to detect illicit activities.

States must streamline administrative procedures sothat IAEA inspectors get automatic visa renewal andcan communicate more readily with IAEA headquar-ters.

Further evolution of safeguards is towards evalua-tion of each state, taking account of its particularsituation and the kind of nuclear materials it has.This will involve greater judgement on the part ofIAEA and the development of effective methodolo-gies which reassure NPT States.

As of 9 October 2008, 127 countries have signedAdditional protocols, and 88 have brought them intoforce. The IAEA is also applying the measures ofthe Additional Protocol in Taiwan. Among the lead-ing countries that have not signed the AdditionalProtocol are Egypt, which says it will not sign untilIsrael accepts comprehensive IAEA safeguards, andBrazil, which opposes making the protocol a require-ment for international cooperation on enrichmentand reprocessing, but has not ruled out signing.




Limitations of SafeguardsThe greatest risk from nuclear weapons prolifera-tion comes from countries which have not joinedthe NPT and which have significant unsafeguardednuclear activities; India, Pakistan, and Israel fallwithin this category. While safeguards apply tosome of their activities, others remain beyond scru-tiny.

A further concern is that countries may develop vari-ous sensitive nuclear fuel cycle facilities and researchreactors under full safeguards and then subsequentlyopt out of the NPT.

Bilateral agreements, such as insisted upon by Aus-tralia and Canada for sale of uranium, address thisby including fallback provisions, but many coun-tries are outside the scope of these agreements. If anuclear-capable country does leave the NPT, it islikely to be reported by the IAEA to the UN Secu-rity Council, just as if it were in breach of its safe-guards agreement. Trade sanctions would then belikely.

IAEA safeguards, together with bilateral safeguardsapplied under the NPT can, and do, ensure that ura-nium supplied by countries such as Australia andCanada does not contribute to nuclear weapons pro-liferation. In fact, the worldwide application of thosesafeguards and the substantial world trade in ura-nium for nuclear electricity make the proliferationof nuclear weapons much less likely.

The Additional Protocol, once it is widely in force,will provide credible assurance that there are noundeclared nuclear materials or activities in thestates concerned. This will be a major step forwardin preventing nuclear proliferation.

Other developmentsThe Nuclear Suppliers Group communicated itsguidelines, essentially a set of export rules, to theIAEA in 1978. These were to ensure that transfersof nuclear material or equipment would not be di-

verted to unsafeguarded nuclear fuel cycle or nuclearexplosive activities, and formal government assur-ances to this effect were required from recipients.

The Guidelines also recognised the need for physi-cal protection measures in the transfer of sensitivefacilities, technology and weapons-usable materi-als, and strengthened retransfer provisions. Thegroup began with seven members – the UnitedStates, the former USSR, the UK, France, Germany,Canada and Japan – but now includes 46 countriesincluding all five nuclear weapons states.

According to Kenneth D. Bergeron's Tritium on Ice:The Dangerous New Alliance of Nuclear Weaponsand Nuclear Power, tritium is not classified as a 'spe-cial nuclear material' but rather as a 'by-product'. Itis seen as an important litmus test on the serious-ness of the United States' intention to nuclear dis-arm.

This radioactive super-heavy hydrogen isotope isused to boost the efficiency of fissile materials innuclear weapons. The United States resumed tritiumproduction in 2003 for the first time in 15 years.This could indicate that there is a potential nucleararm stockpile replacement since the isotope natu-rally decays.

In May 1995, NPT parties reaffirmed their com-mitment to a Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty toprohibit the production of any further fissile mate-rial for weapons. This aims to complement the Com-prehensive Test Ban Treaty of 1996 and to codifycommitments made by the United States, the UK,France and Russia to cease production of weaponsmaterial, as well as putting a similar ban on China.This treaty will also put more pressure on Israel,India and Pakistan to agree to international verifi-cation.

On 9 August 2005, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issueda fatwa forbidding the production, stockpiling anduse of nuclear weapons. Khamenei's official state-ment was made at the meeting of the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. As ofFebruary 2006 Iran formally announced that ura-




nium enrichment within their borders has contin-ued. Iran claims it is for peaceful purposes but theUnited Kingdom, France, Germany, and the UnitedStates claim the purpose is for nuclear weapons re-search and construction.

Unsanctioned NuclearActivity

Non-signatory States

India, Pakistan and Israel have been "threshold"countries in terms of the international non-prolif-eration regime. They possess or are quickly capableof assembling one or more nuclear weapons. Theyhave remained outside the 1970 NPT. They are thuslargely excluded from trade in nuclear plant or ma-terials, except for safety-related devices for a fewsafeguarded facilities.

In May 1998 India and Pakistan each exploded sev-eral nuclear devices underground. This heightenedconcerns regarding an arms race between them, withPakistan involving the People's Republic of China,an acknowledged nuclear weapons state. Both coun-tries are opposed to the NPT as it stands, and Indiahas consistently attacked the Treaty since its incep-tion in 1970 labeling it as a lopsided treaty in favorof the nuclear powers.

Relations between the two countries are tense andhostile, and the risks of nuclear conflict betweenthem have long been considered quite high. Kash-mir is a prime cause of bilateral tension, its sover-eignty being in dispute since 1948. There is persis-tent low level military conflict due to Pakistan back-ing an insurgency there and the disputed status ofKashmir.

Both engaged in a conventional arms race in the1980s, including sophisticated technology andequipment capable of delivering nuclear weapons.In the 1990s the arms race quickened. In 1994 Indiareversed a four-year trend of reduced allocations fordefence, and despite its much smaller economy,Pakistan was expected to push its own expendituresyet higher.

Both have lost their patrons: India, the formerUSSR, and Pakistan, the United States.

But it is the growth and modernization of China'snuclear arsenal and its assistance with Pakistan'snuclear power programme and, reportedly, withmissile technology, which exacerbate Indian con-cerns. In particular, Pakistan is aided by China'sPeople's Liberation Army, which operates somewhatautonomously within that country as an exporter ofmilitary material.

IndiaNuclear power for civil use is well established inIndia. Its civil nuclear strategy has been directedtowards complete independence in the nuclear fuelcycle, necessary because of its outspoken rejectionof the NPT.

This self-sufficiency extends from uranium explo-ration and mining through fuel fabrication, heavywater production, reactor design and construction,to reprocessing and waste management. It has asmall fast breeder reactor and is planning a muchlarger one. It is also developing technology to utiliseits abundant resources of thorium as a nuclear fuel.

India has 14 small nuclear power reactors incommercial operation, two larger ones un-der construction, and ten more planned. The14 operating ones (2548 MWe total) com-prise:

Two 150 MWe BWRs from the United States,which started up in 1969, now use locally-enricheduranium and are under safeguards,

Two small Canadian PHWRs (1972 & 1980), alsounder safeguards, and

Ten local PHWRs based on Canadian designs, twoof 150 and eight 200 MWe.

Two new 540 MWe and two 700 MWe plantsat tarapore (known as TAPP :Tarapore AtomicPower Project)




The two under construction and two of the plannedones are 450 MWe versions of these 200 MWe do-mestic products. Construction has been seriouslydelayed by financial and technical problems.

In 2001 a final agreement was signed with Russiafor the country's first large nuclear power plant,comprising two VVER-1000 reactors, under a Rus-sian-financed US$3 billion contract. The first unitis due to be commissioned in 2007. A further twoRussian units are under consideration for the site.

Nuclear power supplied 3.1% of India's electricityin 2000 and this was expected to reach 10% by 2005.Its industry is largely without IAEA safeguards,though a few plants (see above) are under facility-specific safeguards. As a result India's nuclear powerprogramme proceeds largely without fuel or tech-nological assistance from other countries.

Its weapons material appears to come from a Cana-dian-designed 40MW "research" reactor whichstarted up in 1960, well before the NPT, and a100MW indigenous unit in operation since 1985.Both use local uranium, as India does not importany nuclear fuel. It is estimated that India may havebuilt up enough weapons-grade plutonium for ahundred nuclear warheads.

It is widely believed that the nuclear programs ofIndia and Pakistan used CANDU reactors to pro-duce fissionable materials for their weapons; how-ever, this is not accurate. Both Canada (by supply-ing the 40 MW research reactor) and the UnitedStates (by supplying 21 tons of heavy water) sup-plied India with the technology necessary to createa nuclear weapons program, dubbed CIRUS (Canada-India Reactor, United States). Canada sold India thereactor on the condition that the reactor and any by-products would be "employed for peaceful purposesonly."

Similarly, the United States sold India heavy waterfor use in the reactor "only... in connection with re-search into and the use of atomic energy for peace-ful purposes". India, in violation of these agreements,used the Canadian-supplied reactor and American-

supplied heavy water to produce plutonium for theirfirst nuclear explosion, Smiling Buddha. The Indiangovernment controversially justified this, however,by claiming that Smiling Buddha was a "peacefulnuclear explosion."

The country has at least three other research reac-tors including the tiny one which is exploring theuse of thorium as a nuclear fuel, by breeding fissileU-233. In addition, an advanced heavy-water tho-rium cycle is under development.

India exploded a nuclear device in 1974, the so-calledSmiling Buddha test, which it has consistentlyclaimed was for peaceful purposes. Others saw it asa response to China's nuclear weapons capability. Itwas then universally perceived, notwithstandingofficial denials, to possess, or to be able to quicklyassemble, nuclear weapons. In 1997 it deployed itsown medium-range missile and is now developinga long-range missile capable of reaching targets inChina's industrial heartland.

In 1995 the United States quietly intervened to headoff a proposed nuclear test. However, in 1998 therewere five more tests in Operation Shakti. These wereunambiguously military, including one claimed tobe of a sophisticated thermonuclear device, and theirdeclared purpose was "to help in the design ofnuclear weapons of different yields and differentdelivery systems".

Indian security policies are driven by:

Its determination to be recognized as a dominantpower in the region

Its increasing concern with China's expandingnuclear weapons and missile delivery programmes

Its concern with Pakistan's capability to delivernuclear weapons deep into India

It perceives nuclear weapons as a cost-effective po-litical counter to China's nuclear and conventionalweaponry, and the effects of its nuclear weaponspolicy in provoking Pakistan is, by some accounts,considered incidental.




India has had an unhappy relationship with China.After an uneasy ceasefire ended the 1962 war, rela-tions between the two nations were frozen until1998. Since then a degree of high-level contact hasbeen established and a few elementary confidence-building measures put in place. China still occupiessome territory which it captured during the afore-mentioned war, claimed by India, and India stilloccupies some territory claimed by China. Its nuclearweapon and missile support for Pakistan is a majorbone of contention.

American President George W. Bush met with In-dia Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discussIndia's involvement with nuclear weapons. The twocountries agreed that the United States would givenuclear power assistance to India.

PakistanPakistan is believed to have produced the materialfor its weapons using Chinese help.

In Pakistan, nuclear power supplies only 1.7% ofthe country's electricity. It has one small (125 MWe)Canadian PHWR nuclear power reactor from 1971which is under international safeguards, and a 300MWe PWR supplied by China under safeguards,which started up in May 2000. A third one, a Chi-nese PWR, is planned. Enriched fuel for the PWRswill be imported from China.

It also has a 9 MW research reactor of 1965 vin-tage, and there are persistent reports of another "mul-tipurpose" reactor, a 50 MW PHWR near Khushab,which is presumed to have potential for producingweapons plutonium.

Pakistan's concentration is on weapons technology,particularly the production of highly enriched ura-nium suitable for nuclear weapons, utilising indig-enous uranium. It has at least one small centrifugeenrichment plant. In 1990 the U.S. Administrationcut off aid because it was unable to certify that Pa-kistan was not pursuing a policy of manufacturingnuclear weapons.

This was relaxed late in 2001. In 1996 the UnitedStates froze export loans to China because it wasallegedly supplying centrifuge enrichment technol-ogy to Pakistan. Indian opinion is in no doubt aboutPakistan's nuclear weapons capability.

Pakistan has made it clear since early 1996 that ithad done the basic development work, and that ifIndia staged a nuclear test, Pakistan would imme-diately start assembling its own nuclear explosivedevice. It is assumed to now have enough highly-enriched uranium for up to forty nuclear warheads.

In April 1998 Pakistan test fired a long-range mis-sile capable of reaching Chennai in southern India,pushing home the point by naming it after a 12thcentury Muslim conqueror. This development re-moved India's main military advantage over Paki-stan. Pakistan's security concerns derive from India'spossession of a nuclear weapons capability.

In May 1998 Pakistan announced that they had con-ducted six underground tests in the Chagai Hills,five on the 28th and one on the 30th of that month.Seismic events consistent with these claims wererecorded.

Pakistan-North KoreaNuclear Proliferation and

Missile CooperationPakistan and North Korea's efforts to acquire nuclearweapons have had some similarities. Both countriesfirst attempted the plutonium route to acquire suchweapons and, when this was thwarted, turned to-wards uranium enrichment.

PakistanIn the 1970s, Pakistan first focused on the pluto-nium route. They expected to obtain the fissile ma-terial from a reprocessing plant provided by France.This plan failed due to U.S. intervention. Pakistan,not wanting to give up, redoubled its efforts to ob-tain uranium enrichment technology. The main ef-




forts towards this direction were done under Dr.Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Dr. Khan had earlier worked with FysischDynamisch Onderzoekslaboratorium (FDO). FDOwas a subsidiary of the Dutch firm VMF-Stork basedin Amsterdam. From 1972 to 1975 Dr. Khan hadaccess to classified data used to enrich ordinary ura-nium to weapons grade concentrations. FDO wasworking on the development of ultra high-speedcentrifuges for URENCO.

In 1974 while he was on secondment for 17 days asa translator to the URENCO plant in Almelo, heobtained photographs and documents of the plant.Dr. Khan returned to Pakistan in 1976 and initiatedthe Uranium enrichment program on the basis ofthe technology he had stolen from his previous em-ployer. Dr. Khan relied on nuclear technology sup-plied by American, Canadian, Swiss, German, Dutch,British, Japanese and Russian companies.

Dr. Khan said of the assistance he got from the Japa-nese, "Next month the Japanese would come hereand all the work would be done under their super-vision." After the British Government stopped theBritish subsidiary of the American Emerson Elec-tric Co from shipping the nuclear technology toPakistan, Dr. Khan describes his frustration with asupplier from Germany as "That man from the Ger-man team was unethical. When he did not get theorder from us, he wrote a letter to a Labour Partymember and questions were asked in [British] Par-liament."

His efforts made Dr. Khan into a national hero. In1981, as a tribute, the president of Pakistan, Gen-eral Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, renamed the enrich-ment plant the A. Q. Khan Research Laboratories.

In 2003, IAEA unearthed a nuclear black market withclose ties to Pakistan. It was widely believed to havedirect involvement of the government of Pakistan.This claim could not be verified due to the refusalof the government of Pakistan to allow IAEA to in-terview the alleged head of the nuclear black mar-ket, who happened to be no other than Dr. Khan.

Dr. Khan later confessed to his crimes on nationaltelevision, bailing out the government by taking fullresponsibility. He confessed to nuclear proliferationfrom Pakistan to Iran and North Korea. He was im-mediately given presidential immunity. Exact na-ture of the involvement at the governmental levelis still unclear, but the manner in which the gov-ernment acted cast doubt on the sincerity of Paki-stan.

North KoreaNorth Korea joined the NPT in 1985 and had subse-quently signed a safeguards agreement with theIAEA. However it was believed that North Koreawas diverting plutonium extracted from the fuel ofits reactor at Yongbyon, for use in nuclear weap-ons. The subsequent confrontation with IAEA on theissue of inspections and suspected violations, re-sulted in North Korea threatening to withdraw fromthe NPT in 1993.

This led to negotiations with the United States re-sulting in the Agreed Framework of 1994, whichprovided for IAEA safeguards being applied to itsreactors and spent fuel rods. These spent fuel rodswere sealed in canisters by the United States to pre-vent North Korea from extracting plutonium fromthem. North Korea had to therefore freeze its pluto-nium programme.

During this period Pakistan-North Korea coopera-tion in missile technology transfer was being estab-lished. A high level Pakistani military delegationvisited North Korea in August-September 1992, re-portedly to discuss the supply of Scud missile tech-nology to Pakistan. In 1993, PM Benazir Bhuttotraveled to China and North Korea. The visits arebelieved to be related to the subsequent acquisitionof Ghauri (North Korean No-dong) missiles by Pa-kistan.

During the period 1992-1994, A.Q. Khan was re-ported to have visited North Korea thirteen times.The missile cooperation program with North Ko-rea was under Dr. A. Q. Khan's Kahuta ResearchLaboratories. At this time China was under U.S.




pressure not to supply the M series of missiles toPakistan. This forced the latter (possibly with Chi-nese connivance) to approach North Korea for mis-sile transfers. Reports indicate that North Korea waswilling to supply missile sub-systems includingrocket motors, inertial guidance systems, control andtesting equipment of Scud SSMs for US$ 50 mil-lion.

It is not clear what North Korea got in return. Jo-seph S. Bermudez Jr. in Jane's Defence Weekly (27November 2002) reports that Western analysts hadbegun to question what North Korea received inpayment for the missiles; many suspected it wasnuclear technology and components. Khan's KRLwas in charge of both Pakistan's uranium enrich-ment program and also of the missile program withNorth Korea.

It is therefore likely during this period that coop-eration in nuclear technology between Pakistan andNorth Korea was initiated. Western intelligenceagencies began to notice exchange of personnel, tech-nology and components between KRL and entitiesof the North Korean 2nd Economic Committee (re-sponsible for weapons production).

A New York Times report on 18 October 2002quoted U.S. intelligence officials having stated thatPakistan was a major supplier of critical equipmentto North Korea. The report added that equipmentsuch as gas centrifuges appeared to have been "partof a barter deal" in which North Korea suppliedPakistan with missiles.

Separate reports indicate (Washington Times, 22November 2002) that U.S. intelligence had as earlyas 1999 picked up signs that North Korea was con-tinuing to develop nuclear arms. Other reports alsoindicate that North Korea had been working covertlyto develop an enrichment capability for nuclearweapons for at least five years and had used tech-nology obtained from Pakistan (Washington Times,18 October 2002).

Nuclear arms control in theregion

The public stance of the two states on non-prolif-eration differs markedly. Pakistan appears to havedominated a continuing propaganda debate.

Pakistan has initiated a series of regional securityproposals. It has repeatedly proposed a nuclear freezone in South Asia and has proclaimed its willing-ness to engage in nuclear disarmament and to signthe Non-Proliferation Treaty if India would do so.It has endorsed a United States proposal for a re-gional five power conference to consider non-pro-liferation in South Asia.

India has taken the view that solutions to regionalsecurity issues should be found at the internationalrather than the regional level, since its chief con-cern is with China. It therefore rejects Pakistan'sproposals.

Instead, the 'Gandhi Plan', put forward in 1988, pro-posed the revision of the Non-Proliferation Treaty,which it regards as inherently discriminatory in fa-vor of the nuclear-weapon States, and a timetablefor complete nuclear weapons disarmament. It en-dorsed early proposals for a Comprehensive TestBan Treaty and for an international convention toban the production of highly enriched uranium andplutonium for weapons purposes, known as the 'cut-off' convention.

The United States for some years, especially underthe Clinton administration, pursued a variety of ini-tiatives to persuade India and Pakistan to abandontheir nuclear weapons programs and to accept com-prehensive international safeguards on all theirnuclear activities. To this end, the Clinton adminis-tration proposed a conference of the five nuclear-weapon states, Japan, Germany, India and Pakistan.

India refused this and similar previous proposals,and countered with demands that other potentialweapons states, such as Iran and North Korea, shouldbe invited, and that regional limitations would only




be acceptable if they were accepted equally by China.The United States would not accept the participa-tion of Iran and North Korea and these initiativeshave lapsed.

Another, more recent approach, centers on 'capping'the production of fissile material for weapons pur-poses, which would hopefully be followed by 'rollback'. To this end, India and the United States jointlysponsored a UN General Assembly resolution in1993 calling for negotiations for a 'cut-off' conven-tion.

Should India and Pakistan join such a convention,they would have to agree to halt the production offissile materials for weapons and to accept interna-tional verification on their relevant nuclear facili-ties (enrichment and reprocessing plants). It appearsthat India is now prepared to join negotiations re-garding such a Cut-off Treaty, under the UN Con-ference on Disarmament.

Bilateral confidence-building measures betweenIndia and Pakistan to reduce the prospects of con-frontation have been limited. In 1990 each side rati-fied a treaty not to attack the other's nuclear instal-lations, and at the end of 1991 they provided oneanother with a list showing the location of all theirnuclear plants, even though the respective lists wereregarded as not being wholly accurate.

Early in 1994 India proposed a bilateral agreementfor a 'no first use' of nuclear weapons and an exten-sion of the 'no attack' treaty to cover civilian andindustrial targets as well as nuclear installations.

Having promoted the Comprehensive Test BanTreaty since 1954, India dropped its support in 1995and in 1996 attempted to block the Treaty.

Following the 1998 tests the question has been re-opened and both Pakistan and India have indicatedtheir intention to sign the CTBT. Indian ratificationmay be conditional upon the five weapons statesagreeing to specific reductions in nuclear arsenals.The UN Conference on Disarmament has also calledupon both countries "to accede without delay to the

Non-Proliferation Treaty", presumably as non-weapons states.

IsraelIsrael is also thought to possess an arsenal of poten-tially up to several hundred nuclear warheads andassociated delivery systems, but this has never beenopenly confirmed or denied.

An Israeli nuclear installation is located about tenkilometers to the south of Dimona, the NegevNuclear Research Center. Its construction com-menced in 1958, with French assistance.

The official reason given by the Israeli and Frenchgovernments was to build a nuclear reactor to powera "desalination plant", in order to "green the Negev".The purpose of the Dimona plant is widely assumedto be the manufacturing of nuclear weapons, and themajority of defense experts have concluded that itdoes in fact do that. However, the Israeli govern-ment refuses to confirm or deny this publicly, apolicy it refers to as "ambiguity".

Norway sold 20 tonnes of heavy water needed forthe reactor to Israel in 1959 and 1960 in a secretdeal. There were no "safeguards" required in thisdeal to prevent usage of the heavy water for non-peaceful purposes. The British newspaper DailyExpress accused Israel of working on a bomb in 1960.

When the United States intelligence communitydiscovered the purpose of the Dimona plant in theearly 1960s, it demanded that Israel agree to inter-national inspections. Israel agreed, but on a condi-tion that U.S., rather than IAEA, inspectors wereused, and that Israel would receive advanced noticeof all inspections.

Some claim that because Israel knew the scheduleof the inspectors' visits, it was able to hide the al-leged purpose of the site from the inspectors by in-stalling temporary false walls and other devicesbefore each inspection. The inspectors eventuallyinformed the U.S. government that their inspectionswere useless due to Israeli restrictions on what ar-




eas of the facility they could inspect. In 1969, theUnited States terminated the inspections.

In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician atthe Dimona plant, revealed to the media some evi-dence of Israel's nuclear program. Israeli agents ar-rested him from Italy, drugged him and transportedhim to Israel, and an Israeli court then tried him insecret on charges of treason and espionage, and sen-tenced him to eighteen years imprisonment. He wasfreed on 21 April 2004, but was severely limited bythe Israeli government. He was arrested again on11 November 2004, though formal charges were notimmediately filed.

Comments on photographs taken by MordechaiVanunu inside the Negev Nuclear Research Centerhave been made by prominent scientists. Britishnuclear weapons scientist Frank Barnaby, who ques-tioned Vanunu over several days, estimated Israelhad enough plutonium for about 150 weapons. TedTaylor, a bomb designer employed by the UnitedStates of America has confirmed the several hun-dred warhead estimate based on Vanunu's photo-graphs.

Signatory states

(Egypt)

In 2004 and 2005, Egypt disclosed past undeclarednuclear activities and material to the IAEA. In 2007and 2008, high enriched and low enriched uraniumparticles were found in environmental samples takenin Egypt. In 2008, the IAEA states Egypt's state-ments were consistent with its own findings.[16] InMay 2009, Reuters reported that the IAEA was con-ducting further investigation in Egypt.

(Iran)

In 2003, the IAEA reported that Iran had been inbreach of its obligations to comply with provisionsof its safeguard agreement. In 2005, the IAEA Boardof Governors voted in a rare non-consensus deci-sion to find Iran in non-compliance with its NPT

Safeguards Agreement and to report that non-com-pliance to the UN Security Council, In response, theUN Security Council passed a series of resolutionsin response to concerns about the program.

Iran's representative to the UN argues sanctionscompel Iran to abandon its rights under the NuclearNonproliferation Treaty to peaceful nuclear tech-nology. Iran says its uranium enrichment programis exclusively for peaceful purposes and has enricheduranium to "less than 5 percent," consistent with fuelfor a nuclear power plant and significantly belowthe purity of WEU (around 90%) typically used in aweapons program.

The director general of the International AtomicEnergy Agency, Yukiya Amano, said in 2009 he hadnot seen any evidence in IAEA official documentsthat Iran was developing nuclear weapons.

(Iraq)

Up to the late 1980s it was generally assumed thatany undeclared nuclear activities would have to bebased on the diversion of nuclear material from safe-guards. States acknowledged the possibility ofnuclear activities entirely separate from those cov-ered by safeguards, but it was assumed they wouldbe detected by national intelligence activities. Therewas no particular effort by IAEA to attempt to de-tect them.

Iraq had been making efforts to secure a nuclearpotential since the 1960s. In the late 1970s aspecialised plant, Osiraq, was constructed nearBaghdad. The plant was attacked during the Iran–Iraq War and was destroyed by Israeli bombers inJune 1981.

Not until the 1990 NPT Review Conference did somestates raise the possibility of making more use of(for example) provisions for "special inspections"in existing NPT Safeguards Agreements. Specialinspections can be undertaken at locations other thanthose where safeguards routinely apply, if there isreason to believe there may be undeclared materialor activities.




After inspections in Iraq following the UN GulfWar cease-fire resolution showed the extent of Iraq'sclandestine nuclear weapons program, it becameclear that the IAEA would have to broaden the scopeof its activities. Iraq was an NPT Party, and had thusagreed to place all its nuclear material under IAEAsafeguards. But the inspections revealed that it hadbeen pursuing an extensive clandestine uranium en-richment programme, as well as a nuclear weaponsdesign programme.

The main thrust of Iraq's uranium enrichment pro-gram was the development of technology for elec-tromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS) of indig-enous uranium.

This uses the same principles as a mass spectrom-eter (albeit on a much larger scale). Ions of uranium-238 and uranium-235 are separated because theydescribe arcs of different radii when they movethrough a magnetic field. This process was used inthe Manhattan Project to make the highly enricheduranium used in the Hiroshima bomb, but was aban-doned soon afterwards.

The Iraqis did the basic research work at their nuclearresearch establishment at Tuwaitha, near Baghdad,and were building two full-scale facilities atTarmiya and Ash Sharqat, north of Baghdad. How-ever, when the war broke out, only a few separatorshad been installed at Tarmiya, and none at AshSharqat.

The Iraqis were also very interested in centrifugeenrichment, and had been able to acquire some com-ponents including some carbon-fibre rotors, whichthey were at an early stage of testing.

They were clearly in violation of their NPT and safe-guards obligations, and the IAEA Board of Gover-nors ruled to that effect. The UN Security Councilthen ordered the IAEA to remove, destroy or renderharmless Iraq's nuclear weapons capability. This wasdone by mid 1998, but Iraq then ceased all coopera-tion with the UN, so the IAEA withdrew from thiswork.

The revelations from Iraq provided the impetus fora very far-reaching reconsideration of what safe-guards are intended to achieve.

(Myanmar)

A report in the Sydney Morning Herald andSearchina, a Japanese newspaper, report that twoMyanmarese defectors saying that the Myanmarjunta was secretly building a nuclear reactor andplutonium extraction facility with North Korea'shelp, with the aim of acquiring its first nuclear bombin five years. According to the report, "The secretcomplex, much of it in caves tunnelled into a moun-tain at Naung Laing in northern Burma, runs paral-lel to a civilian reactor being built at another siteby Russia that both the Russians and Burmese saywill be put under international safeguards."

In 2002, Myanmar had notified IAEA of its inten-tion to pursue a civilian nuclear programme. Later,Russia announced that it would build a nuclear re-actor in Myanmar. There have also been reports thattwo Pakistani scientists, from the AQ Khan stable,had been dispatched to Myanmar where they hadsettled down, to help Myanmar's project.

Recently, the David Albright-led Institute for Sci-ence and International Security rang alarm bellsabout Myanmar attempting a nuclear project withNorth Korean help.

If true, the full weight of international pressure willbe brought against Myanmar, said officials famil-iar with developments. But equally, the informa-tion that has been peddled by the defectors is also"preliminary" and could be used by the west to turnthe screws on Myanmar—on democracy and humanrights issues—in the run-up to the elections in thecountry in 2010.

During an ASEAN meeting in Thailand in July 2009,US secretary of state Hillary Clinton highlightedconcerns of the North Korean link. "We know thereare also growing concerns about military coopera-tion between North Korea and Burma which we takevery seriously," Clinton said.




(North Korea)

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)acceded to the NPT in 1985 as a condition for thesupply of a nuclear power station by the USSR.However, it delayed concluding its NPT SafeguardsAgreement with the IAEA, a process which shouldtake only 18 months, until April 1992.

During that period, it brought into operation a smallgas-cooled, graphite-moderated, natural-uranium(metal) fuelled "Experimental Power Reactor" ofabout 25 MWt (5 MWe), based on the UK Magnoxdesign. While this was a well-suited design to starta wholly indigenous nuclear reactor development,it also exhibited all the features of a small pluto-nium production reactor for weapons purposes.

North Korea also made substantial progress in theconstruction of two larger reactors designed on thesame principles, a prototype of about 200 MWt (50MWe), and a full-scale version of about 800 MWt(200 MWe). They made only slow progress; con-struction halted on both in 1994 and has not re-sumed. Both reactors have degraded considerablysince that time and would take significant efforts torefurbish.

In addition it completed and commissioned a re-processing plant that makes the Magnox spentnuclear fuel safe, recovering uranium and pluto-nium. That plutonium, if the fuel was only irradi-ated to a very low burn-up, would have been in aform very suitable for weapons. Although all thesefacilities at Yongbyon were to be under safeguards,there was always the risk that at some stage, theDPRK would withdraw from the NPT and use theplutonium for weapons.

One of the first steps in applying NPT safeguards isfor the IAEA to verify the initial stocks of uraniumand plutonium to ensure that all the nuclear materi-als in the country have been declared for safeguardspurposes.

While undertaking this work in 1992, IAEA inspec-tors found discrepancies which indicated that the

reprocessing plant had been used more often thanthe DPRK had declared, which suggested that theDPRK could have weapons-grade plutonium whichit had not declared to the IAEA. Information passedto the IAEA by a Member State (as required by theIAEA) supported that suggestion by indicating thatthe DPRK had two undeclared waste or other stor-age sites.

In February 1993 the IAEA called on the DPRK toallow special inspections of the two sites so that theinitial stocks of nuclear material could be verified.The DPRK refused, and on 12 March announced itsintention to withdraw from the NPT (three months'notice is required).

In April 1993 the IAEA Board concluded that theDPRK was in non-compliance with its safeguardsobligations and reported the matter to the UN Se-curity Council. In June 1993 the DPRK announcedthat it had "suspended" its withdrawal from the NPT,but subsequently claimed a "special status" with re-spect to its safeguards obligations. This was rejectedby IAEA.

Once the DPRK's non-compliance had been reportedto the UN Security Council, the essential part of theIAEA's mission had been completed. Inspections inthe DPRK continued, although inspectors were in-creasingly hampered in what they were permittedto do by the DPRK's claim of a "special status".However, some 8,000 corroding fuel rods associ-ated with the experimental reactor have remainedunder close surveillance.

Following bilateral negotiations between the UnitedStates and the DPRK, and the conclusion of theAgreed Framework in October 1994, the IAEA hasbeen given additional responsibilities. The agree-ment requires a freeze on the operation and con-struction of the DPRK's plutonium production re-actors and their related facilities, and the IAEA isresponsible for monitoring the freeze until the fa-cilities are eventually dismantled. The DPRK re-mains uncooperative with the IAEA verificationwork and has yet to comply with its safeguardsagreement.




While Iraq was defeated in a war, allowing the UNthe opportunity to seek out and destroy its nuclearweapons programme as part of the cease-fire con-ditions, the DPRK was not defeated, nor was it vul-nerable to other measures, such as trade sanctions.It can scarcely afford to import anything, and sanc-tions on vital commodities, such as oil, would ei-ther be ineffective or risk provoking war.

Ultimately, the DPRK was persuaded to stop whatappeared to be its nuclear weapons programme inexchange, under the agreed framework, for aboutUS$5 billion in energy-related assistance. This in-cluded two 1000 MWe light water nuclear powerreactors based on an advanced U.S. System-80 de-sign.

In January 2003 the DPRK withdrew from the NPT.In response, a series of discussions among theDPRK, the United States, and China, a series of six-party talks (the parties being the DPRK, the ROK,China, Japan, the United States and Russia) were heldin Beijing; the first beginning in April 2004 con-cerning North Korea's weapons program.

On 10 January 2005, North Korea declared that itwas in the possession of nuclear weapons. On 19September 2005, the fourth round of the Six-PartyTalks ended with a joint statement in which NorthKorea agreed to end its nuclear programs and re-turn to the NPT in exchange for diplomatic, energyand economic assistance.

However, by the end of 2005 the DPRK had haltedall six-party talks because the United States frozecertain DPRK international financial assets such asthose in a bank in Macau. On 9 October 2006, NorthKorea announced that it has performed its first-evernuclear weapon test. On 18 December 2006, the six-party talks finally resumed.

On 13 February 2007, the parties announced "Ini-tial Actions" to implement the 2005 joint statementincluding shutdown and disablement of North Ko-rean nuclear facilities in exchange for energy assis-tance. Reacting to UN sanctions imposed after mis-sile tests in April 2009, North Korea withdrew from

the six-party talks, restarted its nuclear facilities andconducted a second nuclear test on 25 May 2009.

(Russia)

Security of nuclear weapons in Russia remains amatter of concern. According to high-ranking Rus-sian SVR defector Tretyakov, he had a meeting withtwo Russian businessman representing a state-cre-ated Chetek corporation in 1991.

They came up with a project of destroying largequantities of chemical wastes collected from West-ern countries at the island of Novaya Zemlya (a testplace for Soviet nuclear weapons) using an under-ground nuclear blast. The project was rejected byCanadian representatives, but one of the business-men told Tretyakov that he keeps his own nuclearbomb at his dacha outside Moscow.

Tretyakov thought that man was insane, but the"businessmen" (Vladimir K. Dmitriev) replied: "Donot be so naive. With economic conditions the waythey are in Russia today, anyone with enough moneycan buy a nuclear bomb. It's no big deal really".

(South Africa)

In 1991, South Africa acceded to the NPT, concludeda comprehensive safeguards agreement with theIAEA, and submitted a report on its nuclear mate-rial subject to safeguards. At the time, the state hada nuclear power programme producing nearly 10%of the country's electricity, whereas Iraq and NorthKorea only had research reactors.

The IAEA's initial verification task was complicatedby South Africa's announcement that between 1979and 1989 it built and then dismantled a number ofnuclear weapons. South Africa asked the IAEA toverify the conclusion of its weapons programme. In1995 the IAEA declared that it was satisfied allmaterials were accounted for and the weaponsprogramme had been terminated and dismantled.

South Africa has signed the NPT, and now holds thedistinction of being the only known state to have




indigenously produced nuclear weapons, and thenverifiably dismantled them.

(Syria)

On September 6, 2007, Israel bombed an officiallyunidentified site in Syria which it later asserted wasa nuclear reactor under construction (see OperationOrchard). The alleged reactor was not asserted tobe operational and it was not asserted that nuclearmaterial had been introduced into it. Syria said thesite was a military site and was not involved in anynuclear activities.

The IAEA requested Syria to provide further accessto the site and any other locations where the debrisand equipment from the building had been stored.Syria denounced what it called the Western "fabri-cation and forging of facts" in regards to the inci-dent.

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei criti-cized the strikes and deplored that information re-garding the matter had not been shared with hisagency earlier.

United States cooperation onnuclear weapons with the United

Kingdom

The United States has given the UK considerableassistance with nuclear weapon design and construc-tion since the 1958 US-UK Mutual Defence Agree-ment. In 1974 a CIA proliferation assessment notedthat "In many cases [Britain's sensitive technologyin nuclear and missile fields] is based on technol-ogy received from the United States and could notlegitimately be passed on without U.S. permission."

The U.S. President authorized the transfer of "nuclearweapon parts" to the UK between at least the years1975 to 1996. The UK National Audit Office notedthat most of the UK Trident warhead developmentand production expenditure was incurred in theUnited States, which would supply "certain war-head-related components". Some of the fissile ma-

terials for the UK Trident warhead were purchasedfrom the United States.

Declassified U.S. Department of Energy documentsindicate the UK Trident warhead system was in-volved in non-nuclear design activities alongside theU.S. W76 nuclear warhead fitted in some U.S. NavyTrident missiles, leading the Federation of Ameri-can Scientists to speculate that the UK warhead mayshare design information from the W76.

Under the Mutual Defence Agreement 5.37 tonnesof UK-produced plutonium was sent to the UnitedStates in return for 6.7 kg of tritium and 7.5 tonnesof highly enriched uranium over the period 1960-1979. A further 0.47 tonne of plutonium wasswapped between the UK and United States for rea-sons that remain classified. Some of the UK pro-duced plutonium was used in 1962 by the UnitedStates for a nuclear weapon test of reactor-gradeplutonium .

The United States has supplied nuclear weapon de-livery systems to support the UK nuclear forcessince before the signing of the NPT. The renewal ofthis agreement is due to take place through the sec-ond decade of the 21st century.

Arguments in favour of pro-liferation

There has been much debate in the academic studyof International Security as to the advisability ofproliferation. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Gen.Pierre Marie Gallois of France, an adviser to CharlesDeGaulle, argued in books like The Balance of Ter-ror:

Strategy for the Nuclear Age (1961) that mere pos-session of a nuclear arsenal, what the French calledthe force de frappe, was enough to ensure deterrence,and thus concluded that the spread of nuclear weap-ons could increase international stability.

Some very prominent neo-realist scholars, such asKenneth Waltz, Emeritus Professor of Political Sci-ence at UC Berkeley and Adjunct Senior Research




Scholar at Columbia University, and JohnMearsheimer, R. Wendell Harrison DistinguishedService Professor of Political Science at the Uni-versity of Chicago, continue to argue along the linesof Gallois (though these scholars rarely acknowl-edge their intellectual debt to Gallois and his con-temporaries).

Specifically, these scholars advocate some forms ofnuclear proliferation, arguing that it will decreasethe likelihood of war, especially in troubled regionsof the world. Aside from the majority opinion whichopposes proliferation in any form, there are twoschools of thought on the matter: those, likeMearsheimer, who favor selective proliferation, andthose such as Waltz, who advocate a laissez-faireattitude to programs like North Korea's.

Total proliferationIn embryo, Waltz argues that the logic of mutuallyassured destruction (MAD) should work in all se-curity environments, regardless of historical ten-sions or recent hostility. He sees the Cold War asthe ultimate proof of MAD logic – the only occa-sion when enmity between two Great Powers didnot result in military conflict.

This was, he argues, because nuclear weapons pro-mote caution in decision-makers. Neither Washing-ton nor Moscow would risk nuclear Armageddonto advance territorial or power goals, hence a peace-ful stalemate ensued. Waltz believes there to be noreason why this effect would not occur in all cir-cumstances.

Selective proliferationJohn Mearsheimer would not support Waltz's opti-mism in the majority of potential instances; how-ever, he has argued for nuclear proliferation as policyin certain places, such as post-Cold War Europe. Intwo famous articles, Professor Mearsheimer opinesthat Europe is bound to return to its pre-Cold Warenvironment of regular conflagration and suspicionat some point in the future. He advocates arming

both Germany and the Ukraine with nuclear weap-onry in order to achieve a balance of power betweenthese states in the east and France/Britain in the west.If this does not occur, he is certain that war willeventually break out on the European continent.

Another separate argument against Waltz's openproliferation and in favor of Mearsheimer's selec-tive distribution is the possibility of nuclear terror-ism. Some countries included in the aforementionedlaissez-faire distribution could predispose the trans-fer of nuclear materials or a bomb falling into thehands of groups not affiliated with any governments.

Such countries would not have the political will orability to safeguard attempts at devices being trans-ferred to a third party. Not being deterred by self-annihilation, terrorism groups could push forth theirown nuclear agendas or be used as shadow fronts tocarry out the attack plans by mentioned unstablegovernments.

Arguments againstBoth Positions

There are numerous arguments presented againstboth selective and total proliferation, generally tar-geting the very neorealist assumptions (such as theprimacy of military security in state agendas, theweakness of international institutions, and the long-run unimportance of economic integration and glo-balization to state strategy) its proponents tend tomake.

With respect to Mearsheimer's specific example ofEurope, many economists and neoliberals argue thatthe economic integration of Europe through the de-velopment of the European Union has made war inmost of the European continent so disastrous eco-nomically so as to serve as an effective deterrent.

Constructivists take this one step further, frequentlyarguing that the development of EU political insti-tutions has led or will lead to the development of anascent European identity, which most states on theEuropean continent wish to partake in to some de-




gree or another, and which makes all states withinor aspiring to be within the EU regard war betweenthem as unthinkable.

As for Waltz, the general opinion is that most statesare not in a position to safely guard against nuclearuse, that he under-estimates the long-standing an-tipathy in many regions, and that weak states willbe unable to prevent - or will actively provide for -the disastrous possibility of nuclear terrorism. Waltzhas dealt with all of these objections at some pointin his work; though to many, he has not adequatelyresponded.

The Learning Channel documentary Doomsday: "OnThe Brink" illustrated 40 years of U.S. and Sovietnuclear weapons accidents. Even the 1995 Norwe-gian rocket incident demonstrated a potential sce-nario in which Russian democratization and mili-tary downsizing at the end of the Cold War did noteliminate the danger of accidental nuclear warthrough command and control errors.

After asking: might a future Russian ruler or ren-egade Russian general be tempted to use nuclearweapons to make foreign policy? the documentarywriters revealed a greater danger of Russian secu-rity over its nuclear stocks, but especially the ulti-mate danger of human nature to want the ultimateweapon of mass destruction to exercise political andmilitary power.

Future world leaders might not understand howclose the Soviets, Russians, and Americans were todoomsday, how easy it all seemed because apoca-lypse was avoided for a mere 40 years between ri-vals, politicians not terrorists, who loved their chil-dren and did not want to die, against 30,000 yearsof human prehistory. History and military expertsagree that proliferation can be slowed, but neverstopped (technology cannot be uninvented).

Proliferation begetsproliferation

Proliferation begets proliferation is a concept de-scribed by Scott Sagan in his article, Why Do StatesBuild Nuclear Weapons? This concept can be de-scribed as a strategic chain reaction. If one state pro-duces a nuclear weapon it creates almost a dominoeffect within the region. States in the region willseek to acquire nuclear weapons to balance or elimi-nate the security threat.

Sagan describes this reaction best in his article whenhe states, “Every time one state develops nuclearweapons to balance against its main rival, it alsocreates a nuclear threat to another region, which thenhas to initiate its own nuclear weapons program tomaintain its national security”.

Going back through history we can see how this hastaken place. When the United States demonstratedthat it had nuclear power capabilities after the bomb-ing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Russians startedto develop their program in preparation for the ColdWar. With the Russian military buildup, France andGreat Britain perceived this as a security threat andtherefore they pursued nuclear weapons.

Chemical WeaponsConvention

The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is anarms control agreement which outlaws the produc-tion, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. Itsfull name is the Convention on the Prohibition ofthe Development, Production, Stockpiling and Useof Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction.

The current agreement is administered by theOrganisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weap-ons (OPCW), which is an independent organizationand often mistaken as being a department withinthe United Nations.




As of May 2009, 188 states are party to the CWC,and another two countries have signed but not yetratified the convention.

AdministrationIntergovernmental consideration of a chemical andbiological weapons ban was initiated in 1968 withinthe 18-nation Disarmament Committee, which, af-ter numerous changes of name and composition,became the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in1984.

On September 3, 1992 the Conference on Disarma-ment submitted to the U.N. General Assembly itsannual report, which contained the text of theChemical Weapons Convention, the full title ofwhich is "Convention on the Prohibition of the De-velopment, Production, Stockpiling and Use ofChemical Weapons and on Their Destruction." TheGeneral Assembly approved the Convention onNovember 30, 1992, and The U.N. Secretary-Gen-eral then opened the Convention for signature inParis on January 13, 1993.

The CWC remained open for signature until its en-try into force on April 29, 1997, 180 days after thedeposit of the 65th instrument of ratification (byHungary). The convention augments the GenevaProtocol of 1925 for chemical weapons and includesextensive verification measures such as on-site in-spections. It does not, however, cover biologicalweapons. The convention is administered by theOrganization for the Prohibition of ChemicalWeapons (OPCW), which conducts inspection ofmilitary and industrial plants in all of the membernations as well as working with stockpile countries.

Controlled substancesThe convention distinguishes three classes of con-trolled substance, chemicals which can either be usedas weapons themselves or used in the manufactureof weapons. The classification is based on the quan-tities of the substance produced commercially forlegitimate purposes. Each class is split into Part A,

which are chemicals that can be used directly asweapons, and Part B which are chemicals useful inthe manufacture of chemical weapons.

Schedule 1 chemicals have few, or no uses outsideof chemical weapons. These may be produced orused for research, medical, pharmaceutical orchemical weapon defence testing purposes but pro-duction above 100 grams per year must be declaredto the OPCW.

A country is limited to possessing a maximum of 1tonne of these materials. Examples are mustard andnerve agents, and substances which are solely usedas precursor chemicals in their manufacture. A fewof these chemicals have very small scale non-mili-tary applications, for example minute quantities ofnitrogen mustard are used to treat certain cancers.

Schedule 2 chemicals have legitimate small-scaleapplications. Manufacture must be declared andthere are restrictions on export to countries whichare not CWC signatories. An example is thiodiglycolwhich can be used in the manufacture of mustardagents, but is also used as a solvent in inks.

Schedule 3 chemicals have large-scale uses apartfrom chemical weapons. Plants which manufacturemore than 30 tonnes per year must be declared andcan be inspected, and there are restrictions on ex-port to countries which are not CWC signatories.Examples of these substances are phosgene, whichhas been used as a chemical weapon but which isalso a precursor in the manufacture of many legiti-mate organic compounds and triethanolamine, usedin the manufacture of nitrogen mustard but also com-monly used in toiletries and detergents.

The treaty also deals with carbon compounds calledin the treaty Discrete organic chemicals. These areany carbon compounds apart from long chain poly-mers, oxides, sulfides and metal carbonates, such asorganophosphates. The OPCW must be informedof, and can inspect, any plant producing (or expect-ing to produce) more than 200 tonnes per year, or30 tonnes if the chemical contains phosphorus, sul-fur or fluorine, unless the plant solely produces ex-plosives or hydrocarbons.




TimelineThe treaty set up several steps with deadlines to-ward complete destruction of chemical weapons,with a procedure for requesting deadline extensions.No country reached total elimination by the origi-nal treaty date although several have finished underallowed extensions.

Member statesAlmost all countries in the world have joined theChemical Weapons Convention. Currently 188 ofthe 195 states recognized by the United Nations areparty to the CWC. Of the seven states that are not,two have signed but not yet ratified the treaty (Burmaand Israel) and five states have not signed the treaty(Angola, North Korea, Egypt, Somalia, and Syria).

Members states with declared stockpiles of chemi-cal weapons

As of May 2009, there were four membercountries which had declared stockpiles:

è Iraqè Libyaè Russiaè United States

Iraq did not enter the treaty until February 2009,not declaring a weapons stockpile until April, ap-parently indicating the continuing presence of somechemical warfare remnants.

World stockpileThe total world declared stockpile of chemicalweapons was about 30,308 tons in early 2010. Atotal of 71,315 tonnes of agents, 8.67 million muni-tions and containers, and 70 production facilitieswere declared to OPCW before destruction activi-ties began. Several countries that are not membersare suspected of having chemical weapons, especiallySyria and North Korea, while some member states(including Sudan and the People's Republic of China)

have been accused by others of failing to disclosetheir stockpiles.

Current progressBy February 28, 2010, a total of 40,886 metric tonsor 57.4% of all declared chemical weapons had beendestroyed including all Class 3 declared chemicals.More than 45% (3.93 million) chemical munitionsand containers have been destroyed. (Treaty con-firmed destruction totals often lag behind state-de-clared totals.) Only about 50% of countries hadpassed the required legislation to outlaw participa-tion in chemical weapons production.

Albania: On July 11, 2007, the OPCW confirmedthe destruction of the entire chemical weapons stock-pile in Albania. Albania is the first nation to com-pletely destroy all of its chemical weapons underthe terms of the CWC. The Albanian stockpile in-cluded 16,678 kilograms of mustard agent, lewisite,adamsite, and chloroacetophenone. The UnitedStates assisted with and funded the destruction op-erations.

A State Party: The unspecified "state party" haddestroyed all of its stockpile by the end of 2008.

India: 100% of India's chemical weapons stockpilewas destroyed by the end of April 2009.

Iraq: Iraq joined in CWC in 2009, declaring "twobunkers with filled and unfilled chemical weaponsmunitions, some precursors, as well as five formerchemical weapons production facilities" accordingto OPCW Director General Rogelio Pfirter.

No plans were announced at that time for the de-struction of the material, although it was noted thatthe bunkers were damaged in the 2003 war and eveninspection of the site must be carefully planned.Most of Iraq's chemical weapons were previouslydestroyed under a United Nations reduction pro-gram after the 1991 Gulf War.

Approximately five hundred degraded chemicalmunitions have been found in Iraq since the 2003invasion of Iraq, according to a report of the US




National Ground Intelligence Center. These weap-ons contained sarin and mustard agents but were sobadly corroded that they could not have been usedas originally intended.

Libya: Libya's entire chemical weapons stockpileis expected to be destroyed by 2011.

U.S.A.: The United States of America destroyedover 70% of its stockpiled agents (22,322 tons ofthe original 31,500 tons) as of 26 January, 2010 andover 2.3 million munitions. The U.S. had completedPhase III in June 2007, having destroyed over halfof its stockpile.

By 2007, over 66% of the chemical weapons de-stroyed in the world since the treaty came into forcewere destroyed in the U.S. The United States Gen-eral Accounting Office has announced it does notexpect the United States to complete its campaignuntil 2014, after the treaty's final deadline. The Pen-tagon, in late 2006, announced that it expected dis-posal of the U.S. stockpile to not be completed until2023.

Russia: Russia had destroyed around 18,000 met-ric tons, or 45%, of its chemical weapons stockpilesby the end of December 2009, passing phase III re-quirements. Russia had destroyed 24% by the endof 2007. Russia completed Phase II in 2007 and hadreceived extensions on the remaining phases.

The United States General Accounting Office hasannounced it does not expect Russia to reach 100%destruction until 2027; however, Russia has declaredits intention to complete operations by the treatydeadline of 2012.

Stockpiles eliminated underthe Convention

Albania's stockpile was eliminated in 2007. An un-declared "state party", (probably South Korea) elimi-nated its stockpile in late 2008. India's stockpile wascompletely eliminated in April 2009.

Known production facilities(of chemical weapons)

Thirteen countries declared chemical weap-ons production facilities:

è Bosnia and Herzegovina

è China

è France

è India

è Iran

è Iraq

è Japan

è Libya

è Russian Federation

è Serbia

è United Kingdom

è United States

1 non-disclosed state party (referred to as "A StateParty" in OPCW-communications)

By 2007, all 65 declared facilities had been deacti-vated and 94% (61) have been certified as destroyedor converted to civilian use. As of the end of Febru-ary 2008, 42 facilities were destroyed while 19 wereconverted for civilian purposes.

In 2009, Iraq declared five production sites whichwere put out of commission by damage in the 1991and 2003 wars; OPCW inspections were still re-quired.

FinancingFinancial support for the Albanian and Libyan stock-pile destruction programmes was provided by theUnited States. Russia received support from a num-ber of nations, including the United States, theUnited Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Italyand Canada; some $2 billion given by 2004. Costs




for Albania's program were approximately 48 mil-lion U.S. dollars. The U.S. had spent $20 billion andexpected to spend a further $40 billion.

Biological WeaponsConvention

The Convention on the Prohibition of the Develop-ment, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriologi-cal (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on theirDestruction (usually referred to as the BiologicalWeapons Convention, abbreviation: BWC, or Bio-logical and Toxin Weapons Convention, abbrevia-tion: BTWC) was the first multilateral disarmamenttreaty banning the production of an entire categoryof weapons .

It was the result of prolonged efforts by the interna-tional community to establish a new instrument thatwould supplement the 1925 Geneva Protocol.

The BWC was opened for signature on April 10,1972 and entered into force March 26, 1975 whentwenty-two governments had deposited their instru-ments of ratification. It currently commits the 162states that are party to it to prohibit the develop-ment, production, and stockpiling of biological andtoxin weapons.

However, the absence of any formal verificationregime to monitor compliance has limited the ef-fectiveness of the Convention. ( As of July 2008, anadditional 13 states have signed the BWC but haveyet to ratify it)

The scope of the BWC’s prohibition is defined inArticle 1 (the so-called general purpose criterion).This includes all microbial and other biologicalagents or toxins and their means of delivery (withexceptions for medical and defensive purposes insmall quantities).

Subsequent Review Conferences have reaffirmedthat the general purpose criterion encompasses allfuture scientific and technological developmentsrelevant to the Convention. It is not the objects them-selves (biological agents or toxins), but rather cer-

tain purposes for which they may be employed whichare prohibited; similar to Art.II, 1 in the ChemicalWeapons Convention (CWC).

Permitted purposes under the BWC are defined asprophylactic, protective and other peaceful purposes.The objects may not be retained in quantities thathave no justification or which are inconsistent withthe permitted purposes.

As stated in Article 1 of the BWC: "Each StateParty to this Convention undertakes never in anycircumstances to develop, produce, stockpile or oth-erwise acquire or retain:

(1) Microbial or other biological agents, or toxinswhatever their origin or method of production, oftypes and in quantities that have no justification forprophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes;

(2) Weapons, equipment or means of delivery de-signed to use such agents or toxins for hostile pur-poses or in armed conflict."

SummaryArticle I: Never under any circumstances to ac-quire or retain biological weapons.

Article II: To destroy or divert to peaceful pur-poses biological weapons and associated resourcesprior to joining.

Article III: Not to transfer, or in any way assist,encourage or induce anyone else to acquire or re-tain biological weapons.

Article IV: To take any national measures neces-sary to implement the provisions of the BWC do-mestically.

Article V: To consult bilaterally and multilater-ally to solve any problems with the implementa-tion of the BWC.

Article VI: To request the UN Security Council toinvestigate alleged breaches of the BWC and to com-ply with its subsequent decisions.




Article VII: To assist States which have been ex-posed to a danger as a result of a violation of theBWC.

Article X: To do all of the above in a way thatencourages the peaceful uses of biological scienceand technology.

MembershipThe Biological Weapons Convention has 162 StatesParties and unofficially, the Republic of China (Tai-wan).

Several countries have declared reservations, in thattheir agreement to the Treaty should not imply theircomplete satisfaction that the Treaty allows thestockpiling of biological agents and toxins for 'pro-phylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes', norshould the Treaty imply recognition of other coun-tries they do not recognise.

Review ConferencesA long process of negotiation to add a verificationmechanism began in the 1990s. Previously, at thesecond Review Conference of State Parties in 1986member states agreed to strengthen the treaty byreporting annually Confidence Building Measures(CBMs) to the United Nations. The following Re-view Conference in 1991 established a group of gov-ernment experts (known as VEREX). Negotiationstowards an internationally-binding verification pro-tocol to the BWC took place between 1995 and 2001.

At the Fifth Review Conference in 2001 however,the Bush administration, after conducting a reviewof policy on biological weapons, decided that theproposed protocol did not suit the national interestsof the United States.

The US claiming that it would interfere with le-gitimate commercial and biodefense activity unlikemost arms control agreements, the BWC also ap-plies to private parties. The Fifth Review Confer-ence took place in November/December 2001,shortly after 9/11 and the anthrax scare.

It was decided to suspend the Fifth ReviewConference and reconvene the following year.At the resumed conference it was agreed toestablish annual meetings of state parties andexperts who would look at specific issues,including:

2003: National mechanisms to establish and main-tain the security and oversight of pathogenic mi-cro-organisms and toxins.

2004: Enhancing international capabilities for re-sponding to, investigating and mitigating the effectsof cases of alleged use of biological or toxin weap-ons or suspicious outbreaks of disease.

2004: Strengthening and broadening the capabili-ties for international institutions to detect and re-spond to the outbreak of infectious diseases (includ-ing diseases affecting plants and animals).

2005: Codes of conduct for scientists.

Fissile Material Cut-offTreaty

The Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) is a pro-posed international treaty to prohibit the furtherproduction of fissile material for nuclear weaponsor other explosive devices. The treaty has not beennegotiated and its terms remain to be defined. Ac-cording to a proposal by the United States, fissilematerial includes high-enriched uranium and plu-tonium (except plutonium that is over 80% Pu-238).

According to a proposal by Russia, fissile materialwould be limited to weapons-grade uranium (withmore than 90% U-235) and plutonium (with morethan 90% Pu-239). Neither proposal would prohibitthe production of fissile material for non-weaponspurposes, including use in civil or naval nuclear re-actors.

In a 27 September 1993 speech before the UN, Presi-dent Clinton called for a multilateral conventionbanning the production of fissile materials fornuclear explosives or outside international safe-




guards. In December 1993 the UN General Assem-bly adopted resolution 48/75L calling for the nego-tiation of a "non-discriminatory, multilateral andinternational effectively verifiable treaty banningthe production of fissile material for nuclear weap-ons or other nuclear explosive devices."

The Geneva based Conference on Disarmament (CD)on 23 March 1995 agreed to a establish a commit-tee to negotiate "a non-discriminatory, multilateraland internationally and effectively verifiable treatybanning the production of fissile material fornuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive de-vices.". However, substantive negotiations have nottaken place.

In 2004, the United States announced that it opposedthe inclusion of a verification mechanism in thetreaty on the grounds that the treaty could not beeffectively verified. On November 4, 2004. theUnited States cast the sole vote in the First Com-mittee of the United Nations General Assemblyagainst a resolution (A/C.1/59/L.34) calling for ne-gotiation of an effectively verifiable treaty.

The Bush Administration supported a treaty butadvocated an ad hoc system of verification whereinstates would monitor the compliance of other statesthrough their own national intelligence mecha-nisms.

On April 5, 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama re-versed the U.S. position on verification and proposedto negotiate "a new treaty that verifiably ends theproduction of fissile materials intended for use instate nuclear weapons."

On May 29, 2009, the CD agreed to establish anFMCT negotiating committee, However, Pakistanblocked the CD from implementing its agreed pro-gram of work, despite severe pressure from themajor nuclear powers to end its defiance of 64 othercountries in blocking international ban on the pro-duction of new nuclear bomb-making material, aswell as discussions on full nuclear disarmament, thearms race in outer space, and security assurancesfor non-nuclear states.

Nuclear-weapon-free zoneA Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone, or NWFZ is de-fined by the United Nations as an agreement whicha group of states has freely established by treaty orconvention, that bans the use, development, or de-ployment of nuclear weapons in a given area, thathas mechanisms of verification and control to en-force its obligations, and that is recognized as suchby the General Assembly of the United Nations.

NWFZs do not cover international waters (wherethere is freedom of the seas) or transit of nuclearmissiles through space, as opposed to deploymentthat stations nuclear weapons in space. The NWFZdefinition does not count countries or smaller re-gions that have outlawed nuclear weapons simplyby their own law, like Austria with theAtomsperrgesetz in 1999; also, the 2+4 Treaty, atthe end of the Cold War, banned nuclear weaponsin the former East Germany, but was an agreementonly among the four Allies and two German states.

NWFZs have a similar purpose to, but are distinctfrom, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty towhich all countries except for four nuclear weaponsstates are party.

Today there are five zones covering continental orsubcontinental groups of countries (including theirterritorial waters and airspace), one UN-recognizedzone consisting of a single country, Mongolia, andthree governing Antarctica, the seabed, and outerspace which are not part of any state. The Antarctic,seabed, and space zones actually preceded most ofthe zones on national territories.

As of 15 July 2009 (2009 -07-15)[update] when theAfrican zone came into force, the six land zonescover 56% of the Earth's land area of 149 millionsquare kilometers (less of the Earth's oceans abovethe seabed are covered since freedom of the seas re-stricts restrictions in international waters) and 60%of the 193 states on Earth, up from 34% and 30%the previous year; however only one third of theworld's population lives in NWFZs, while the ninenuclear weapons states have 28% of world land areaarea and 48% of world population.




NWFZs do cover most territories belonging tonuclear weapons states that are situated insideNWFZ boundaries; all are small islands except forFrench Guiana. However, the U.S. signed but hasnot ratified Protocol I to the Treaty of Rarotongawhich would apply to American Samoa and the U.S.and Britain dispute the African NWFZ's applica-bility to Diego Garcia which is an American mili-tary base.

There have been NWFZ proposals for other regionswhere there are few or no nuclear weapons states:the Middle East (e.g. Nuclear program ofIran#Nuclear Free Zone in the Mideast), the Ko-rean Peninsula, Central Europe, South Asia, and theArctic.

BoundariesThe Antarctic, Latin American, and South Pacificzones are defined by lines of latitude and longitude,except for the northwestern boundary of the SouthPacific zone which follows the limit of Australianterritorial waters, and these three zones form a con-tiguous area, though treaty provisions do not applyto international waters within that area.

In contrast, the Southeast Asian zone is defined asthe territories of its members including their Ex-clusive Economic Zones, and the African zone is alsodefined as the countries and territories consideredpart of Africa by the OAU (now the African Union)which include islands close to Africa and Madagas-car. An AU member, Mauritius, claims the BritishIndian Ocean Territory where Diego Garcia is cur-rently a US military base.

Geographical zones andNWFZs

Southern Hemisphere, High seas in blue.Because few prevailing winds cross the Equator,effects of nuclear explosions in the Northern Hemi-sphere might send less fallout to the Southern Hemi-sphere. (This fact was used in the book and film Onthe Beach, although there the Southern Hemisphereeventually succumbs as well.)

Together the five southern NWFZs cover the South-ern Hemisphere except for the area north of the 60thparallel south, east of the 20th meridian west, andwest of the 115th meridian east, but outside of Afri-can, Australian or Indonesian territorial waters.

There is less than 8000 km² of land in thisarea:Addu, the southernmost of the atolls of the Maldives

Chagos Islands (British Indian Ocean Territory) in-cluding Diego Garcia (disputed by Mauritius)

Kerguelen, Crozet, Saint Paul and Amsterdam Is-lands, some of the French Southern Territories inthe southern Indian Ocean

St. Helena and its dependencies Ascension Island andTristan da Cunha, a British overseas territory in theSouth Atlantic

Bouvet Island, a Norwegian territory in the SouthAtlantic

In 1994 states of the South Atlantic Peace and Co-operation Zone issued a "Declaration on the De-nuclearization of the South Atlantic" which the U.N.General Assembly endorsed but the U.S., U.K., andFrance still opposed.

TropicsThe Latin American, African, South Pacific andSoutheast Asian zones also cover most land in thetropics, but not some Northern Hemisphere areassouth of the Tropic of Cancer. Most of their landarea is in India and the Arabian Peninsula.

Little of the land area covered by the five southernNuclear-Weapon-Free Zones extends north of theTropic of Cancer: only northern Mexico, northernBahamas, northern Myanmar, and North Africa.However, the Central Asian and Mongolian zonesare entirely in the North Temperate Zone.

Nuclear power and




programsArgentina, Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa, are theonly countries in the zones using nuclear power forelectricity, with two nuclear plants each. South Af-rica formerly had a nuclear weapons program whichit terminated in 1994.

Argentina and Brazil are known to operate uraniumenrichment facilities. Countries that had enrichmentprograms in the past include Libya and South Af-rica, although Libya's facility was never operational.Australia has announced its intention to pursue com-mercial enrichment, and is actively researching la-ser enrichment.

Another term, Nuclear-free zone, often means anarea which has banned both nuclear power andnuclear weapons, and usually does not mean a UN-acknowledged international treaty.


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