SEOUL, South Korea — Washington this weekend will roll out the red carpet for the newly inaugurated president of South Korea. On Saturday (April 19), Lee Myung-bak will hold his first overseas summit with President Bush. The two will meet at Camp David, about 60 miles outside of the capital in Maryland. A Korean leader has not visited the presidential retreat since 1942. And in the eyes of many figures inside the Bush administration, none is more deserving than Lee. Since taking office in February, the CEO-turned-politician has pledged to break with previous South Korean administrations and embrace the 50-plus-year [...]
After hesitating several years, the British government finally accepted American entreaties to join the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), becoming its 21st member on Feb. 26, 2008. Celebrating the British decision, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman said “This important addition provides great momentum for GNEP.” In the U.S.-Russia Strategic Framework Declaration, issued by Presidents George Bush and Vladimir Putin at their April 6 summit at the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, the two governments reaffirmed their commitment to promote nuclear nonproliferation by “working together and with other nations to develop mutually beneficial approaches for economical and reliable access to [...]
WASHINGTON — Several recent U.S. court decisions are threatening an effort to dramatically reduce Russia’s stockpiles of weapons-grade uranium. The court decisions would eliminate high tariff barriers that have effectively blocked Russia’s exports of uranium to the United States, except for those covered by a 1993 U.S.-Russian agreement for downblending 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from nuclear weapons into fuel for nuclear reactors by 2013. To date, the agreement has helped lead to the downblending of 325 metric tons of HEU, equivalent to 13,000 nuclear warheads. The downblended uranium currently supplies more than 40 percent of the [...]
