Sunnis on the rise in Iran Not nuclear, but more information about Iran's culture is useful.

Iranian Constitution and International Agreements Also non-nuclear, also useful.

WMD Free Zone in Mideast: an opportunity for detente with Iran

Khameni on Nuclear Fatwa: 2010 Edition Although there have been multiple statements by Iran's Supreme Leader atainst nuclear weapons, it's not always easy to believe them beside Iran's actions.

Some of the ways Iran might have responded to the P5+1 (P3+3) and didn't.

"Although these threats have somehow been reduced, Iran must take these threats seriously and work towards clarifying its positions and prove that it is not after a nuclear military program. This issue has not been dealt with as it should be and some believe that Iran's nuclear program has had military aspects and still does." Sadegh Rabbani, former first deputy of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization

Break-in at the Y-12 uranium processing plant...

And at Swedish reactors.

the “Russian Federation…would not be able to achieve a militarily significant advantage by any plausible expansion of its strategic nuclear forces, even in a cheating or breakout scenario under the New START Treaty, primarily because of the inherent survivability of the planned U.S. Strategic force structure, particularly the OHIO-class ballistic missile submarines, a number of which are at sea at any given time.” From a DOD report.
Cuba Almost Became a Nuclear Power in 1962

Ploughshares Fund has a new report out on projected costs of nuclear weapons over the next ten years.

Not strictly nuclear, but cool: video of Felix Baumgartner's jump from space.

James Lindsay is blogging about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Here's today's. I'm not going to try to collect all possible links; everyone is writing about the 50th anniversary, happening now. It was even scarier than the public knew at the time. And, worth repeating: its solution was a matter of compromise; it seemed at the time like Kennedy backed Khrushchev down, but in fact, it was an even trade: missiles out of Cuba for missiles out of Turkey.video of Felix Baumgartner's jump from space.

Cool infographic here of the red lines that Israel has declared and Iran has crossed.

Official EU press statement on the latest sanctions on Iran.(pdf)

Six former ambassadors to Iran say that Iran is not in breach of international law.

It's looking like the conference on a Middle East WMD-Free Zone won't be held this year, but this article doesn't seem to discount the possibility of next year.

Long article in Popular Science on Andrea Rossi's cold fusion machine.

John Fleck: Is Sandia National Laboratories to blame for cost overruns in the multibillion-dollar effort to refurbish the U.S. arsenal of B61 nuclear bombs?

Very modest expectations: Performance of Moscow missile defense.

Canadian intelligence officer shipped documents to Russia for more than 50 months before getting caught.

Thank you Vasili Arkhipov, the man who stopped nuclear war. Fifty years ago, Arkhipov, a senior officer on the Soviet B-59 submarine, refused permission to launch its nuclear torpedo during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Letting Go of 'Loose Nukes'. Douglas Birch agrees with me on the end of Nunn-Lugar.

The myth of strategic stability.

The Promise and Peril of Thorium. No silver, or thorium, bullets.

Cheating on Energy Department guard force tests was widespread.

The private sector's role in nonproliferation.

Mark Fitzpatrick assesses President Obama's prospects on nuclear disarmament issues.

Iran and the bomb: The legal standards of the IAEA. A roundtable with contributions from Daniel Joyner, Christopher Ford, and Andreas Persbo.

Revisiting radioactive source security. When I returned from one of my early trips to Estonia, having visited the Paldiski nuclear submarine training facility, where the Soviets had dropped radioactive sources around like popsicle wrappers, some office neighbors and I discussed how important it was to get sources under control. That was about 1999. Since then, there has been more official recognition that radioactive sources can be dangerous, particularly in the wrong hands, but I'm still amazed at how casually they are treated.

Pierre Goldschmidt outlines some of the obstacles to a Middle East WMD-Free Zone.

Full operation of Iran's Bushehr power reactor may be delayed again.

The speech that Kennedy would have given if he had ordered an airstrike on Cuba in 1962.

Battelle has a part in managing several of the national laboratories. Now John K. Welch, president and CEO of USEC, is the new chairman of Battelle's board of directors. USEC is the company that operates the US enrichment facilities. Research done at Battelle's national laboratories may well benefit USEC. Is this a conflict of interest?

NNSA exceeded the FY 2012 goal of 200 kilograms of plutonium oxide production by disassembling nuclear weapons pits and converting them into plutonium oxide at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). NNSA also initiated operations at H-Canyon and HB-Line at the Savannah River Site (SRS) to begin plutonium oxide production. The oxide production at both LANL and SRS provides the initial feedstock for the MOX facility and demonstrates the first steps towards permanent plutonium disposition.

Everything you ever wanted to know about South Africa's nuclear weapons program.

Yikes - a ton of links, many of them heavy!

Albuquerque Journal editorial: Axing NNSA Should Be Among Options

Sabotage at the San Onofre Nuclear Plant?

Another DOE Inspector General report on spending at Los Alamos (pdf)

The Problem from Hell: South Asia's Arms Race

Qaddafi wanted Kazakhstan's nuclear weapons

Report on Options for Implementing Additional Nuclear Force Reductions - from the State Department's International Security Advisory Board (pdf)

Apparently stray bolts in the reactor vessel were the problem at Bushehr. Frederick Dahl, I wouldn't use the term "fuel cells" for fuel rods or assemblies.

Carnegie has been unusually productive this week:
Mark Hibbs: The Plan for IAEA Safeguards

George Perkovich: Reducing the Role of Nuclear Weapons: What the NPDI Can Do

Karim Sadjadpour and George Perkovich: The Iranian Nuclear Threat

Whew. Have a good weekend!

The UN is on an antinuclear tear this week! U.N. passes Japan-led resolution on abolition of nuclear weapons. A background report on Japan's nonproliferation history from the FAS.

Meanwhile, The Heritage Foundation says America needs more than the several thousand nuclear weapons it already has.

North Korea may be planning another missile test.

Too much of the common wisdom on Iran is wrong.

Bid to Preserve Manhattan Project Sites in a Park Stirs Debate.

I may be getting too crabby about this, but the level of MSM reporter ignorance on science- and engineering-related issues seems to have ratcheted up recently. (Warning: a ratchet is a mechanical gear thing! Engineering metaphor!) This Guardian article is a nice reminder of one aspect of the problem. But George Jahn's ignorance on that graph and NBC's ignorance on chemical weapons go beyond that. I might write more. Grumble, grumble.

Nature news feature on new reactor designs.

Radio telescopes might detect nuclear tests.

Japan's nuclear history (pdf).

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano speaks on the record for an hour. Barbara Slavin and Mark Hibbs report.

There's a much longer discussion possible here. Proponents of thorium for nuclear power like to claim that it's proliferation resistant, or even that it's proliferation-proof. But the question of whether a nuclear technology can encourage or allow proliferation is complex, interweaving political and other motivations with technology. Here are some reservations on thorium.

Plutonium is stable for longer than has been thought.

Um, no, The News, it's a subcritical test, no nuclear chain reaction. Says so right in the article. This week seems to be "Write the headline, don't read the article" week.

The Union of Concerned Scientists just released a free, interactive Web map of the US nuclear complex, based on Google Earth.

Project Iceworm: the nuclear city hidden under Greenland’s glaciers.

The Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty as a model for arms control between Pakistan and India.

Another biography of Robert Oppenheimer.

More on Parchin.

America's contribution to the international gun trade.

Jeremy Bernstein on the nuclear tests he watched.

A radiation dose rate converter: Sieverts and rems.

I haven't read the next two fully, but they look good.

Nuclear Energy in America: Preventing its Early Demise

Closed cities in the Soviet Union

Does Russia have fewer tactical nuclear weapons than we thought?

Myanmar will sign an NPT Additional Protocol to increase nuclear transparency. There have been concerns about Myanmar's having a nuclear weapons program.

Walter Pincus: How many nukes does it take to be safe?

David Wright and Jeffrey Lewis examine the debris from North Korea's latest rocket launch.

Some early progress in the plutonium-238 production program at Oak Ridge.

Will the natural gas boom go bust? Will that open the markets to nuclear?

And some not-nuclear news.

As a chemist, I totally endorse this. We and everything we can touch and see are made of chemicals.

Here are the best stargazing events of 2013.

Better Nuclear Bombs for a Safer World. Bloomberg editorial on why nuclear modernization makes sense.

Pakistan is developing tactical nuclear weapons for battlefield use, similar to the destabilizing move that the US and the Soviet Union took in the 1980s. Michael Krepon: Pakistan and India are entering "uncharted territory" with their nukes.

Mystery site in the Chinese desert. What do you think it is? (h/t to Adam)

An eyewitness account of the atom bombing of Hiroshima.

Infographic of world nuclear reactors - operating, under construction, and being planned.

NASA Researchers Studying Advanced Nuclear Rocket Technologies.

Vogtle reactor vessel slips on its railcar. No damage expected. The photo gives a good indication of the size of a reactor containment vessel.

An Army veteran recalls being part of nuclear tests in the 1950s.

There's a fair bit of discussion going on about how much radiation is safe. Here's one contribution to that discussion. I hope to add some more.

Pakistan aims to develop smaller lighter nuclear warheads.

Your Second-Amendment right to bear nukes.

If you're wondering how much uranium there is in Mali, Mark Hibbs has some answers.

Photos from just after World War II. Numbers 5, 14, 30, 31, and 40 are of particular nuclear interest. Number 28 shows Kim Il Sung remarkably resembling Kim Jung Un. Number 34 shows protective gear for handling chemical weapons.

The Department of Defense Nuclear Matters Handbook (long pdf)..

More from Ward Wilson: Military Wisdom and Nuclear Weapons.

Is Kashmir planning for a nuclear attack?

Oil and gas deposits are often associated with uranium and other radioactive substances. Fracking may liberate them as well as the natural gas. So Pennsylvania is stepping up its monitoring of radioactivity at fracking sites.

Iran needs to be more open about safety issues at its civilian power Bushehr reactor.

As Russia looks at drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic, it has to reconsider where it dumped nuclear waste.

Interview with Burton Richter on nuclear power in America's future.