The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based nuclear watchdog, has obtained satellite images showing that a row of cooling towers at Pakistan's secret Khushab-III reactor has been completed. This suggests the plant could begin operation within months, allowing Pakistan substantially to increase its stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium.

Last year, Barack Obama, US president, called for "a new treaty that verifiably ends the production of fissile materials". In response, the Conference on Disarmament, a 64-nation coalition that negotiated the 1992 Chemical Weapons convention and the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, agreed to negotiate a Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty, intended to cap production of weapons-grade enriched uranium and most forms of plutonium.

But Pakistan, which is deepening its nuclear ties to China, has blocked the Conference on Disarmament from starting discussions, saying a cut-off would hurt its national security interests. Ashley Tellis, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: "Pakistan thinks its going to be forced to cap its fissile material stocks and wants to make sure it has as much as it can get before then." The country's position has frustrated many states. Rose Gottmeiler, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, recently warned that her country's "patience is running out".

Khushab-III is the latest in a series of reactors built to feed Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme. Khushab-II, located next to its new sister plant, became operational in February. The plutonium produced at the complex allows for the construction of small but lethal weapons: a single kilogram can produce an explosion equal to 20,000 tons of conventional explosives.

Source.

Background:
Pakistan: terrorist attacks and double game continues.
US slams Pakistan.
Contacts with the Taliban.
US top Defence officials worried about ISI's involvement with the Talibans.

FOXNews.com - Chavez: Venezuela Studying Nuclear Program:

"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Monday that his government is carrying out initial studies into starting a nuclear energy program.

Chavez brought up the issue during a news conference, saying the South American country needs an atomic energy program.

'We're taking on the project of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and they aren't going to stop us,' Chavez said. 'We need it and we're carrying out the first studies.'

Chavez is a close ally of Iran and has defended the Iranian nuclear program, saying he is sure Iran is not making atomic weapons in spite of U.S. and European suspicions."

Just after the legislative elections in which he lost his "supermajority". Wasn't Venezuela one of the most important oil producers in the world? So, why do they need nuclear energy? Just the same Iran needs it?

If I were Colombian, I would be really worried.

Just watch Medvedev's faces throughout Obama's speech. It's a sign of more or less, this:

Obama, Medvedev Sign Nuclear Understanding: Russia to remain nuclear; Obama to remain understanding.

WaPo has more.

Question: what has US given in return of Russia letting US planes travelling to Afghanistan through Russian air space?

Read also this post from Heritage.org.

Fox News has the interview.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, you know, that's what I don't understand about China because I know you've told me before that China doesn't want -- they don't want North Korea to fall apart and have all those North Korean refugees pour into China. But the alternative is, is to let North Korea to continue what it does, build up its nuclear program, for Japan to go into a full-scale panic and do its own nuclear program. And now -- now China's got one of its -- you know, its not so friendly neighbors with nuclear weapons. And that seems to me worse than having the refugees.
BOLTON: I don't think there's any question about it. China's policy is internally contradictory. There's no way of escaping it. The refugee problem would be intense in the short term, but frankly, compared to the threat of a nuclear North Korea and the implications for China of a nuclear Japan and the other threats to its own stability, I would think there's a way to get through to their top decision makers. I think that's something the U.S. could do with vigorous diplomacy focused on China, but neither the Obama nor the Bush administrations chose to do that.

Meanwhile NK people are in a grave danger of suffering another famine, not as grave as the one in the 90's, but grave altogether.