U.N. Nuclear Watchdog Picks Argentina’s Grossi As Next Chief
Francois Murphy | Reuters
The U.N. nuclear watchdog’s board on Tuesday picked Argentina’s Rafael Grossi to become the agency’s next chief, and he immediately pledged to act independently and neutrally on issues including Iran. Grossi, 58, succeeded Yukiya Amano, who died in office. Grossi had been running neck-and-neck with Amano’s former right-hand man and current acting director general, Cornel Feruta of Romania, in repeated votes by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors until Grossi took the lead on Monday. Grossi, who had the early support of heavyweights including Brazil and the United States, reached the two-thirds of votes required on Tuesday, with 24 countries backing him. His appointment will now be signed off on by another board meeting and a wider meeting of all member states, both formalities. Diplomats do not expect a major shift under Grossi in the IAEA’s stance on its most high-profile issues, such as policing Iran’s deal with major powers, which Iran is breaching step by step in response to crippling U.S. economic sanctions.
Trump Moves Closer to Ending Another Post-Cold War Treaty
Michael Gordon and Vivian Salama | Wall Street Journal
The Trump administration has taken steps toward leaving a nearly three-decade-old agreement designed to reduce the risk of war between Russia and the West by allowing both sides to conduct reconnaissance flights over one another’s territories, U.S. officials said. President Trump has signed a document signaling his intent to withdraw the U.S. from the 1992 Open Skies Treaty, two U.S. officials said. The White House wouldn’t respond to questions about whether the administration has decided to pull out of the treaty. One of the officials said discussions were continuing. Former national security adviser John Bolton, however, is a longtime skeptic of arms-control agreements who has challenged Russia’s claims of compliance. Before he left his post, he urged Mr. Trump to sign the document signaling the U.S. intention to withdraw, two of the U.S. officials said. Mr. Trump’s nominee to head the U.S. military’s Strategic Command, which oversees nuclear forces, declined to say during his Thursday confirmation hearing if he thought the U.S. should leave the treaty.
A New Era of Arms Control: Myths, Realities and Options
Alexey Arbatov | Carnegie.ru
The United States’ withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) threatens to dismantle the entire nuclear arms control system built over the last fifty years. It may lead to an uncontrolled multilateral arms race involving strategic, intermediate-range, and tactical nuclear and non-nuclear offensive and defensive weapons, as well as space and cyber warfare systems, laser weapons, and other arms innovations. As a consequence, international armed conflicts are more likely and may instantly escalate into a global nuclear war. This extremely dangerous turn of events has been long in the making and wasn’t at all accidental. Military industrial complexes and nationalist factions dreaming of revenge for concessions and real or imaginary losses in recent decades have been exerting a growing pressure. These processes have been facilitated by the military and political ideology that has recently gained popularity in some political and professional circles in the United States, Russia and a number of other countries.
U.S. Says Talks Progressing With Saudi on Possible Nuclear Program
Reuters
U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said on Saturday that conversations with Saudi Arabia on a nuclear program are going forward. The world’s top oil exporter had said it wanted to use nuclear power to diversify its energy mix. It wants to go ahead with a full-cycle nuclear program, including the production and enrichment of uranium for atomic fuel. In order for U.S. companies to compete for Saudi Arabia’s project, Riyadh would normally need to sign an accord on the peaceful use of nuclear technology with Washington. Reuters has reported that progress on the discussions has been difficult because Saudi Arabia does not want to sign a deal that would rule out the possibility of enriching uranium or reprocessing spent fuel - both potential paths to a bomb. “The kingdom and the leadership in the kingdom .. will find a way to sign a 1,2,3 agreement with the United States, I think,” Perry said.
Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant Denies Cyber Attack by North Korean Hackers
Mithun MK | News Minute
Did the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) in Tamil Nadu face a cyber-attack from hackers based in North Korea? The officials at KKNPP in a press statement have strongly denied that any such cyberattack has taken place. This, after several users on Twitter claimed that a data dump on a virus tracking website suggested that the infamous North Korean hacker group, Lazarus, could have gained administrative access to some of the computers at KKNPP. The tweets by the twitter user @a_tweet_user on October 28 pointed towards data dumps made on VirusTotal, a website that tracks the activities of various viruses that infect systems worldwide. A data dump generally refers to copious amounts of data moved from one system to another. In a press statement, KKNPP officials stated, "This is to clarify Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) and other Indian Nuclear Power Plants Control Systems are stand-alone and not connected to outside cyber network and Internet. Any cyberattack on the Nuclear Power Plant Control System is not possible.”
$85B Nuclear Missile Competition Gets Messier as Feds Investigate Northrop
Marcus Weisberger | Defense One
The Pentagon’s effort to build a new ICBM just took another step toward a no-competition sole-source award — and the prospective lone bidder just came under federal investigation for anti-competitive behavior. A Northrop Grumman filing revealed that the Federal Trade Commission is looking into allegations that the company is not abiding by an agreement that allowed its 2018 acquisition of Orbital ATK, one of just two U.S. makers of solid rocket motors. Those terms required the company to sell rocket motors “on a non-discriminatory basis to all competitors for missile contracts.” Until July, Boeing and Northrop had both been planning to bid on the ICBM contract. Then Boeing announced that it would withdraw, charging that it had been unfairly handicapped in the competition because Northrop had slow-rolled an agreement that would have paved the way for Boeing to buy rocket motors from Orbital ATK. The FTC inquiry was revealed on Wednesday in a Northrop Grumman regulatory filing. “In October 2019, the company received a civil investigative demand from the FTC requesting certain information relating to a potential issue of the company’s compliance with the Order in connection with a pending strategic missile competition,” the filing states.