On December 11, 2007, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced the return of 80 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU) in "spent" nuclear fuel from the Nuclear Research Institute in Rez, Czech Republic to Russia as part of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI). According to the Nuclear Research Institute, the shipment consisted of 549 irradiated fuel assemblies that contained 37.3 kilograms of 80 percent uranium-235 (U-235) and 43.4 kilograms of 36 percent U-235. The shipment also included 281.4 kilograms of 10 percent enriched U-235. The HEU and low-enriched uranium was packaged into sixteen transportation casks, and transported through Slovakia and Ukraine to a Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom) Russian facility, where the spent fuel will be reprocessed over several years. With the completion of this shipment on December 8, GTRI has returned approximately 590 kilograms of Russian-origin HEU fuel to Russia from Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Libya, Uzbekistan, Poland, Germany, Latvia, the Czech Republic, and Vietnam.

See the National Nuclear Security Administration press release, the U.S. Embassy in Prague's press release, and the English-language Nuclear Research Institute's homepage for more information.

On November 8, at 12:16 a.m., four armed attackers broke into the Pelindaba nuclear facility, 18 miles west of Pretoria, South Africa, a site where hundreds of kilograms of weapon-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU) is located. According to the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (NECSA), the "technically sophisticated criminals" entered the facility by cutting a hole in an outside fence and then deactivated several security layers on an electric fence. The four attackers spent nearly 45 minutes walking around the facility before forcing their way into the emergency control room, where they shot Anton Gerber, a senior emergency services officer, in the chest, and made off with a computer. The thieves escaped without being caught by the site security forces, though they left the stolen computer behind. The CEO of NECSA, Dr. Rob Adam, argued that the thieves' success at getting in and out of the facility "was evidence that the criminals had prior knowledge of the electronic security systems." The incident appears to have been a coordinated attack, as another team of intruders penetrated the security perimeter from the west at the same time, but fled after being shot at by a patrolling security officer. That four gunmen were able to penetrate the site's security systems, go to the control room, and then depart uncaught raised serious questions about the adequacy of security at the site; NECSA suspended six security employees at the site, and promised an investigation. South Africa's National Intelligence Agency is also involved in the investigation. On November 16, local police arrested three suspects — ranging in age from 17 to 28 — in connection with the incident.

For more, see the NECSA press release of Dr. Adam's November 13 media briefing, and a New York Times article of the attack. For an account of the dangers posed by inadequately secured nuclear material around the world, see "The Global Threat."

The United States and Russia have signed a joint statement outlining a joint plan for using excess Russian weapons plutonium as fuel in the BN-600 and BN-800 fast-neutron reactors, representing a major shift from past efforts focused on using this material in Russia's fleet of light-water reactors. The United States pledged to provide $400 million to support the effort. Critics have attacked the new approach, arguing that it effectively subsidizes Russian movement toward a large-scale plutonium economy based on fast-neutron breeder reactors that produce more plutonium than they consume. Critics have also raised fears over whether adequate safety and security will be maintained in Russia. Supporters counter that, as with the previous approach focused on light-water reactors, the effort will take separated plutonium in a form that could readily be used in bombs and put it into spent fuel, which, under the terms of the 2000 Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement, cannot be reprocessed until disposition of all 34 tons of plutonium covered by the agreement is complete, decades from now. Advocates also argue that with sufficient investment, high standards of safety and security can be maintained throughout the process. (While NNSA has previously said it would only support the BN-800 if it were converted from a breeder, producing more plutonium than it consumes, to a burner, reducing the total stock of plutonium, no such conversion was mentioned in the joint statement — and in any case, the modifications being discussed would only shift the breeding ratio from slightly above 1.0 to slightly below 1.0, which would have little nonproliferation impact.) Senator Sam Nunn, co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, released a statement commending the new accord as "a major advance toward achieving the elimination of enough plutonium to make more than 8,000 nuclear bombs." Read NNSA's press release.

For more on U.S. and Russian plutonium disposition programs and the relevant controversies, see Matthew Bunn and Anatoli Diakov, "Disposition of Excess Plutonium," in International Panel on Fissile Materials, Global Fissile Materials Report 2007 (Princeton, N.J.: IPFM, October 2007).

On October 31, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced the completion of U.S.-funded security upgrades at 25 Russian nuclear missile sites. The cost to the United States for the upgrades at these sites since 2003 was $150 million, or roughly $6 million per site. According to NNSA Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation William Tobey, "completing this security work at the Strategic Rocket Forces sites helps to fulfill President Bush's commitment under the Bratislava joint statement with Russia, and shows our continued partnership with the Russians."

While the February 2005 Joint Statement does not mention these sites specifically, it led to U.S.-Russian agreement on a plan of work to upgrade security at nuclear warhead and nuclear material sites that included these facilities. The United States has agreed to help with security upgrades at 97 Russian nuclear warhead sites by the end of 2008, followed by a several-year transition period after that, ending with Russian nuclear security and accounting systems sustained solely with Russian resources by the beginning of 2013.

Read NNSA's press release, and a New York Times news story about the security upgrades completed at the 25 sites. For more information on the status of warhead security upgrades, see Securing the Bomb 2007, pp. 68-71.

On 17 September 2007, U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman announced that the United States was declaring another nine tons of plutonium excess to its military needs. (See Gregg Webb, "U.S. to Convert Weapons Plutonium Into Fuel," Global Security Newswire, 17 September 2007.) Some 52.5 tons of the 99.5 ton stockpile held by the Departments of Defense and Energy had been declared excess in the 1990s. The new declaration brings the total U.S. excess plutonium to 61.5 tons, leaving approximately 38 tons of plutonium available for nuclear weapons. In 1994, the Department of Energy (DOE) allowed a committee of the National Academy of Sciences to use four kilograms of plutonium per weapon as an unclassified "planning figure" — so the plutonium still available for weapons amounts to enough for over 9,000 nuclear weapons. Russia, which has far larger stockpiles of plutonium, has not yet declared any additional material excess. DOE officials have indicated that the newly declared nine tons of excess will be added to the material to be fabricated into uranium-plutonium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel at a controversial plant now being built at Savannah River. For more on plutonium disposition and the importance of reducing plutonium stockpiles to the minimum needed to support small, agreed nuclear warhead stocks, see Matthew Bunn, "Troubled Disposition: Next Steps in Dealing With Excess Plutonium," Arms Control Today, April 2007.

August and September were busy months for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).  In September, GTRI helped the only research reactor in Vietnam fueled with highly enriched uranium (HEU) convert to low enriched uranium (LEU) which cannot be used in a nuclear bomb.  The HEU-fueled reactor at Purdue University in the United States also converted in September with GTRI's help.  September shipments removed all the fresh, unirradiated HEU from Vietnam and the last of the U.S.-origin HEU from South Korea, and an August shipment removed several kilograms of fresh HEU from Poland.  Read the National Nuclear Security Administration's press releases on the Vietnam conversion and shipment; the Korea shipment; and the Purdue conversion.  For an account of the Polish shipment, see John Fox, "Polish Reactor Turns Over Nuclear Fuel," Global Security Newswire, 5 September 2007. These efforts and others are described in DOE's fact sheet on GTRI's accomplishments as of early September 2007.  For a summary of progress made and steps yet to be taken on removing potential nuclear bomb material around the world, see  Securing the Bomb 2007, pp. 81-92.

In July, the United States and India completed negotiations of a nuclear cooperation agreement which, if approved, would authorize each country to sell nuclear reactors and materials to the other.  Congress had amended the Atomic Energy Act to permit such an agreement even though India does not have full-scope safeguards on its nuclear facilities. The agreement has been controversial because it is seen as bending nonproliferation trade rules and implicitly accepting India's status as a nuclear weapon state.  (See, for example, the resources available from the Arms Control Association.)  Before the agreement goes into effect, India must still negotiate a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency to cover a portion of its nuclear facilities; the Nuclear Suppliers Group must authorize a change to its rules barring exports to countries without full-scope safeguards; and the U.S. Congress must approve the accord.  Despite the agreement, India continues to refuse any cooperation with the United States to improve security and accounting for its nuclear stockpiles; the agreement, however, like other U.S. nuclear cooperation agreements, specifies that all of the nuclear material covered by the pact has to be protected in a way that meets very general International Atomic Energy recommendations.  Conceivably, the agreement might make the problem of guarding separated plutonium worse.  Under the terms of the pact, the United States grants India prior approval for reprocessing plutonium, if India builds a new plutonium reprocessing plant under international safeguards where this work would be done.

On 3 August 2007, President George W. Bush signed the "Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007" (Public Law 110-53). It was passed in the House on a 371-40 vote and 85-8 in the Senate. The act establishes a Coordinator for the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism in the White House; it also directs the President to discuss with the President of Russia the creation of a corresponding office in the Kremlin. The act also establishes an independent, nine-member Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, which would conduct hearings and release a report with recommendations for corrective measures of U.S. efforts to prevent WMD proliferation. To attempt to reduce the likelihood of nuclear smuggling through one route, by July 1, 2012, the act allows a cargo container to enter the United States only if it is scanned by "nonintrusive imaging equipment and radiation detection equipment at a foreign port before it was loaded on a vessel." Finally, the act rescinds all existing Congressional restrictions on the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program.

According to former Rep. Lee Hamilton, vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, with the enactment of this law, approximately 80 percent of the panel's 41 recommendations will have been implemented. See the full text of the act, and the full list of 9/11 Commission recommendations, pp. 361-428.  Our reports have recommended the appointment of a senior White House official with a narrower mandate, focused on leading all the myriad efforts related to reducing the risk of nuclear terrorism.  See, for example, Securing the Bomb 2007, pp. 143-145.

On June 11 and 12, 2007, the third meeting of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism was held in Astana, Kazakhstan. In two previous Global Initiative meetings, the partner nations had agreed on a statement of principles, and invited new nations to participate. Thirty-eight partner nations attended the Astana meeting, where they agreed to a plan of work for 2007-2008 with an emphasis on: preventing the availability of nuclear material to terrorists; improving the capabilities of participating nations to detect, search for, and prevent trafficking in such materials; promoting information sharing and law enforcement cooperation; establishing appropriate legal and regulatory frameworks; minimizing the use of highly enriched uranium and plutonium in civilian facilities and activities; denying safe haven and financial resources to terrorists; and strengthening our response capabilities to minimize the impact of any nuclear terrorism attack. On the eve of the Astana meeting, Pakistan announced its intention to join the Global Initiative. As of August 28, 2007, there are 60 partner nations.  For more, see the full statement from Astana, and a State Department list of Global Initiative partner nations.

On June 1, 2007, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Russian Federal Customs Service (FCS) announced an agreement to install fixed radiation portal monitors at approximately 350 border crossings in Russia—including airports, seaports, railway, and land crossings—by 2011, six years faster than the previously planned schedule. The agreement is part of the NNSA Second Line of Defense program that has worked with the FCS to jointly install portal monitors at approximately 176 Russian crossing points since 1998. Under the June 1 agreement, the NNSA and the FCS will each provide some $140 million to install the remaining portal monitors. To ensure long-term sustainability, between 2009 and 2013 the NNSA will transition the operations and maintenance of the U.S.-provided monitors to Russia. See the National Nuclear Security Administration press release, a more detailed Reuters story, and our discussion of the Second Line of Defense program on pp. 78-82 of Securing the Bomb 2006.

On April 11, 2007, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and Russia's Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom) announced an agreement to help ensure the sustainability of U.S.-funded security upgrades at Rosatom nuclear materials sites that the United States has funded for the past fourteen years. DOE officials report that, in essence, the two sides agreed on a list of the work to be done to achieve a sustainable security system at each site, and which side would take responsibility for each of those tasks – with more and more of the tasks being Russia's sole responsibility as the effort progresses. DOE hopes to complete upgrades for all of the weapons-usable nuclear material buildings at which it has gained agreement with Russia to cooperate by the end of 2008, and then have a period of cooperation focused primarily on sustainability, leading to sole Russian support for Russia's nuclear security and accounting system from the beginning of 2013. The agreement covers Rosatom sites, but not the nuclear material sites controlled by other agencies or the nuclear warhead sites controlled by the Ministry of Defense. Site-level preparations for sustaining security upgrades are underway at these other locations, however, and NNSA Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation William Tobey argued that “there's every reason to believe” that the agreement with Rosatom will pave the way for a similar, future agreement with the Ministry of Defense on nuclear warhead facilities.

See the full National Nuclear Security Administration press release, further reporting from the Arms Control Association, and our discussion of the importance of sustainability from pages 150-152 of Securing the Bomb 2006.

In late January 2007 several news outlets carried reported the case of a Russian man who was arrested in Georgia attempting to sell 79.5 grams of uranium enriched to 89% (according to the IAEA).  The arrest actually occurred in Tbilisi, Georgia, in February 2006 through a sting operation by Georgian security services.  They had learned of a man from Vladikavkaz, the regional capital of the Russian republic North Ossetia (which is also the home of Beslan, the site of the September 2004 terrorist attack on a school that saw the death of 365 hostages and rescuers) who was offering to sell some two to three kilograms of highly enriched uranium in the breakaway South Ossetian region of Georgia.  After the arrests, Georgia turned over samples of the seized material to Russia and the United States, but Russian officials publicly stated that the source of the material could not be identified.  Coverage of the incident highlighted the acrimony between Russian and Georgian officials that has plagued the countries' relationship.  Russian-Georgian tensions appear to be interfering with intelligence and law enforcement cooperation – a key issue, as the Russian/Georgian border was also the site of an HEU smuggling incident in 2003, detailed here and here.  For more on the February 2006 incident, see the coverage of the International Atomic Energy Agency and this summary from the Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

On December 18, 2006, an international team removed 268 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (enriched to 36 percent uranium-235) and 58 kg of low-enriched uranium (i.e., enriched to less than 20 percent U-235) from a site at Rossendorf, near Dresden, Germany, to Russia.  The fuel, which the Soviet Union originally provided to East Germany in the 1960s and 1970s for two reactors at the Rossendorf facility (according to the IAEA), was transported to the airport in Dresden in 18 containers, where it was airlifted to Moscow and then on to the Luch Scientific Production Association in Podolsk, where it will be downblended to low-enriched uranium for use as reactor fuel.  The German federal state of Saxony paid about 1 million euros for the operation, which required collaboration from German, Russian, U.S., and IAEA experts.  Returning the material to Russia will eliminate the ongoing costs of securing the HEU at the Rossendorf site.  It was the largest single repatriation of HEU to Russia under the National Nuclear Security Administration's Global Threat Reduction Initiative, which is working to remove HEU from vulnerable sites and convert reactors away from HEU fuel.   See the NNSA press release for more.

On October 30 and 31, 2006, twelve nations met to launch the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism that Presidents Bush and Putin announced at their July 2006 summit in St. Petersburg.  The initial nations appear to include the members of the G-8—Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, plus the United States and Russia—and four other nations—China, Australia, Kazakhstan, and Turkey. Morocco hosted the organizing meeting, and moved from observer to participant during the meeting.  They agreed to a statement of principles for participants in the initiative.  Among other principles, the statement called on states to commit to implement "on a voluntary basis" improved accounting, control, and physical protection systems for nuclear materials and enhanced security for civilian nuclear facilities.  The principles explicitly exclude all military nuclear stockpiles.  The initial participants also established terms of reference for facilitating provision of assistance to participants requiring it, and expressed a desire to broaden participation in the initiative.  The U.S. State Department supplemented a pre-meeting release on the meeting with a summary of the action during the meeting.  The original U.S. fact sheet on the initiative is available here, and a more detailed description of U.S. goals for the initiative from Undersecretary of State Robert Joseph is available here. Mary Beth Nikitin of the Strengthening the Global Partnership Project also provided extensive comments on the initial meeting.

On October 24, 2006, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced [link to announcement] that it had completed security upgrades at the final 2 of the 39 Russian Navy nuclear warhead storage sites for which it has upgraded security.  NNSA had previously completed security upgrades for 11 Navy fuel and other nuclear material storage sites.  For the fiscal year that just began, NNSA earlier planned to continue training and sustainability support (including short-term maintenance) for 16 of the 39 warhead sites and 10 of the 11 fuel and storage sites.  For more on this effort, see our page on Warhead Security.

On September 29, 2006, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) announced an agreement with the government of Kazakhstan to blend down to low-enriched uranium a cache of unirradiated highly enriched uranium at Kazakhstan's Institute of Nuclear Physics near Almaty. The parties also agreed to convert the Institute's VVR-K reactor to use LEU fuel. DOE, through the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, will spend at least $4 million on the project. NTI helped seal the agreement by pledging up to $1.3 million to improve safety and performance in the converted reactor, providing a crucial incentive for Kazakhstan and the reactor to forgo HEU fuel. The announcement followed the April 2006 completion of blending down some 2.9 tons of HEU fuel through a partnership of NTI and the state nuclear company Kazatomprom. See the full DOE-NTI press release and a longer story.

On September 28, 2006, a website associated with past al Qaeda messages posted an audiotape from a man most believe to be Abu Ayyub al-Masri—the leader of the group al Qaeda in Iraq following the June killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi—that called for experts in "chemistry, physics, electronics, media and all other sciences, especially nuclear scientists and explosives experts" to join the group. "We are in dire need of you," the speaker said, according to translations in news reports: "T