UK Secretary of Defence Des Browne addressed the Conference of Disarmament on February 5, announcing the call to fellow nuclear weapon states to send technical experts to a conference in London to discuss how they might cooperate to develop verification methods for future disarmament agreements.
In a particularly interesting paragraph he said:
What's the point of mentioning all the books about Dr Khan if one doesn't mention at least one book review? Thus, this article AQ Khan's Atomic Vision: How a petty postal inspector became the world's leading nuclear salesman by Douglas Farah in yesterday's Washington Post, which looks at three of the most recent. Though I think we disagree with the use of the word petty
. Nobody who dreams of helping build nuclear weapons can be accused of being petty.
An article in the November 19 South Korean Yonhap notes that South Korea received US,000 from the US government in 2005 as part of assistance to help improve Seoul's export control systems, according to the report dated October 31 from the Government Accounting Office (GAO).
It is an unspoken rule in journalism that no matter how many times something has been covered, the subject is always deemed newsworthy when covered by a leading member of the mainstream media.
Thus, the article 'Those Nuclear Flashpoints Are Made in Pakistan' in yesterday's Washington Post by Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins, lamenting the leniency
the United States has shown toward the most dangerous nuclear-trafficking operation in history – an operation masterminded by one man, Abdul Qadeer Khan.
In light of all the current angst about the turmoil in Pakistan and concern over its nuclear weapons and the possibility that they, or more likely, relevant technology, equipment, and material, might leak elsewhere, it seems relevant to note this synopsis by the Partnership For Global Security of its workshop, Building Confidence in Pakistan's Nuclear Security.
According to the press release:
There are some interesting references to Dr Khan in the book, The Nuclear Sphinx of Iran. Here is one:
Call it serendipity, but the authors of the new book I mentioned previously, which just became available here in the past couple of weeks, will be in a certain superpower capitol city in the near future.
It appears that the story of Dr Khan provides a nearly endless saga for those seeking to discern lessons to be learned from his experiences. In that regard the newest batter to step up to the plate is the US Government Accountability Office, which just today, released the report Nonproliferation: US Efforts to Combat Nuclear Networks Need Better Data on Proliferation Risks and Program Results (GAO-08-21, October 31) .