Nuclear Arms

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has called for his nuclear scientists to increase production of weapons-grade material to make bombs to put on his increasing range of weapons. The report in state media on Tuesday followed a series of missile launches seven launch events in this month alone and rising threats to use the weapons against his enemies. North Korea's weapons tests and US-South Korea military exercises have intensified in a tit-for-tat cycle, underscoring heightened tensions in the region. Officials say North Korea could further up the ante in coming weeks or months with more provocative displays of its military nuclear program, possibly including its first test detonation of a nuclear device since September 2017. The Korean Central News Agency said Kim during a meeting on Monday with officials and scientists at a state nuclear weapons institute stressed the need to ramp up bomb fuel production to meet his goals to expand his nuclear arsenal exponentially, and issued ..

Russia's refusal to allow on-the-ground inspections to resume is endangering the New START nuclear treaty and US-Russian arms control overall, the Biden administration charged on Tuesday. The finding was delivered to Congress and summarized in a statement by the State Department. It follows months of more hopeful US assessments that the two countries would be able to salvage cooperation on limiting strategic nuclear weapons despite high tensions over Russia's war on Ukraine. Inspections of US and Russian military sites under the New START treaty were paused by both sides because of the spread of the coronavirus in March 2020. The US-Russia committee overseeing implementation of the treaty last met in October 2021, but Russia then unilaterally suspended its cooperation with the treaty's inspection provisions in August 2022 to protest US support for Ukraine. "Russia's refusal to facilitate inspection activities prevents the United States from exercising important rights under the trea

The United States and Russia will soon hold talks on resuming suspended nuclear arms control inspections that had been put on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic and languished after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the State Department said Tuesday. State Department spokesman Ned Price said negotiations on the inspections would take place in the near future under the terms of the New START treaty and would not include any discussion of the conflict in Ukraine. He would not give a date or a venue for the talks but other officials suggested they would be held before the end of the year, likely in Egypt. The meeting of the treaty's so-called Bilateral Consultative Commission will be the first in more than a year, and is intended to show that the two countries remain committed to arms control and keeping lines of communication open despite other differences. We believe deeply around the world in the transformative power and the importance of diplomacy and dialogue, Price told reporters in

Five billion people would die in a modern nuclear war with the impact of a global famine, likely to far exceed the casualties caused by lethal blasts, a new study showed

Hiroshima remembered the atomic bombing 77 years ago as officials warned against nuclear weapons buildup and as fears grow of another such attack amid Russia's war on Ukraine

Kim has been stepping up his provocations this year while US attention has been diverted toward Russia's invasion of Ukraine by firing off a record number of ballistic missiles

While refusing to rule out the use of nuclear weapons, Vladimir Putin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that if there is an existential threat for Russia, the country can use the nukes.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it has succeeded in establishing a direct dialogue on nuclear security between Russia and Ukraine at a high level

China has called on Russia and Ukraine to ensure the safety of Ukraine's nuclear facilities, as fears mount over a potential environmental disaster amid an intensifying military offensive

The five countries, also permanent members of the UN Security Council, said they believe strongly that the further spread of such weapons must be prevented

Israel will always maintain its right to act and will defend itself by itself, he said

AQ Khan, known as the father of Pakistan's nuclear programme, passed away on Sunday after a brief illness. He was 85. Khan breathed his last at about 7.00 AM (local time) at Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) Hospital in Islamabad. Geo News reported that he was brought to the hospital early in the morning after he faced difficulty in breathing. Defence Minister Pervez Khattak said he was "deeply grieved" over his death and called it a "great loss". "Pakistan will forever honour his services to the nation! The nation is heavily indebted to him for his contributions in enhancing our defence capabilities," he said.

Anyone within range of China's expanding navy will have to build capabilities faster and/or work more closely with the US, as Australia has just announced, writes T N Ninan

Senior diplomats urged North Korea to return to talks over its missile and nuclear development, a day after it announced it successfully tested new long-range cruise missiles

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg urged China on Monday to join international efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons

The United States is concerned about China's accelerated build-up of its nuclear arsenal, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Thursday

The outgoing chief of Israel's Mossad intelligence service has offered the closest acknowledgment yet his country was behind recent attacks targeting Iran's nuclear programme and a military scientist

The spokesman expressed the hope that more countries that have nuclear weapons will join nuclear disarmament efforts

Putin and US President Joe Biden spoke on the phone on Tuesday expressing "satisfaction" over the exchange of diplomatic notes between both countries on extending the treaty

Dr Meera Chadha's groundbreaking research with dust particles could pave the way for reducing the impact of nuclear blasts