Post by
ldoggy on Mar 26, 2012 10:21am
lets go UNDT
March 26, 2012 - Voice of America - Nuclear Summit Aims to Keep Fissile Materials from Terrorists - Almost lost at the moment, amid concern over a scheduled North Korean missile launch, is the official purpose of the two-day nuclear summit opening Monday in Seoul – to make sure that nuclear materials never fall into the hands of terrorists. That goal has been a signature issue for U.S. President Barack Obama, who announced early in his term that he would lead a global effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials. He pushed the effort forward with the first Nuclear Security Summit in Washington two years ago. Organizers of the summit said, after a working dinner for summit participants Monday, that significant progress has been made since then. Mr. Obama announced on Sunday that Ukraine has removed all highly enriched uranium (HEU) from its soil, fulfilling a pledge made at the 2010 summit. Kazakhstan, once host to part of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, has secured more than 13 tons of HEU and plutonium in the past two years, while the United States and Russia have agreed to dispose of enough plutonium for 17,000 nuclear weapons.