I collect links throughout the day. At my other blog, I frequently post "Bits and Pieces," which may include short commentaries on various links.

So let me try something like that here. If you've got some good links, you can share them here.

Julian Borger, "Sanctions 'successfully hindering' Iran's nuclear progress."

Mark HIbbs on some history of Iran's nuclear program and former President and parliamentarian Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's part in it.

India may be increasing its capacity for uranium enrichment. If that is what they are doing, and the overhead photos show the construction at a very early stage, then this is part of the basis for the Pakistani view featured here today.

Ran across these yesterday on twitter:

Iran HEU fuel plant ready by year end

Fukushima expected to be in cold shutdown by year-end.

If Duqu, Stuxnet's cousin, has been found in European manufacturers' computer systems, what does that say about its origin?

China and North Korea: A Chinese view.

India wants to import uranium from South Africa.

Miniaturized chemistry for experiments on nuclear reprocessing.

U.S. invites Russia to measure missile-defense test.

Russia wants to colonize the moon

Chuck Conlen of DTE Energy believes increasing nuclear energy will create jobs, reduce carbon emissions and lower energy prices. “Probably the biggest threat to not just the nuclear industry but our energy complex as a whole, is a lack of a comprehensive energy policy that mandates ‘This is what we’re going to do to meet our energy needs, to meet our environmental goals and to meet our manufacturing and job-growth goals,’” he said. “That’s something that we just lack.”

Russia's "Skolkovo" Innovation City moves forward with developing this modern high tech community. Last week, it named Professor Edward Crawley, President of Massachusetts University as President of the University of Skolkovo. This week Russian officials hope to sign an agreement with MIT for the establishment of the "Skolkovo" Institute of Science & Tech.

Business Week has a story of Kazutaka Kikawada, the man critical to steering Tokyo Electric Power Co. into nuclear power.

The dangers of denial: nuclear weapons in China-India relations
Fiona Cunningham , Rory Medcalf

Summary

In this Lowy Institute Analysis, Research Associate Fiona Cunningham and International Security Program Director Rory Medcalf warn of growing security risks in the relationship between Asia’s nuclear-armed rising powers China and India. An asymmetry of capabilities and threat perceptions is helping to drive these dangers. The authors call for a strategy stability dialogue to begin between China and India, embedded in a relationship of greater mutual respect, to ensure that possible future confrontations do not involve nuclear threats or misjudgments. This publication is supported by the Lowy Institute’s partnership with the Nuclear Security Project of the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

Download: www.lowyinstitute.org/Publication.asp?pid=1723 (275KB PDF)

Hey, thanks, everyone! Good links!

Here are a few more that I want to say something about when I have time. But there are a lot of links, not much time. So I may or may not get to them. Definitely worth perusing.

There are no more W70s in the United States nuclear stockpile.

The latest numbers on New START from the State Department.

The NRC has imposed fines of more than $45,000 on GE-Hitachi for breaches of security in their laser isotope separation program. But they can't tell us any more than that - it's classified!

Long interview with French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé by Siddharth Varadarajan, editor of The Hindu. Some highlights: France is willing to ignore recent decisions in the Nuclear Suppliers Group; nothing in the article says it in so many words, but this appears to mean that France is willing to sell reprocessing and enrichment technology to India. However, France has the same difficulties that America has with India's liability laws.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon made a strong statement in favor of a world free of nuclear weapons. The man in the center of the photo looks very much like someone I know.

The dismantlement of the last B53 bomb as the end of the Cold War.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says he doubts that North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons program. I keep wondering why the administration takes what looks like such a hard line toward both North Korea and Iran.

Very wonky: the latest in a continuing argument over how long it might take Iran to make a bomb.

Talks between the United States and China on nuclear weapons apparently aren't going so well. But it's early yet.
U.S.-China Nuclear Talks Stymied by Distrust and Miscommunication
Chickens Talking With Ducks: The U.S.-Chinese Nuclear Dialogue
5 Most Likely Ways the U.S. and China Could Spark Accidental Nuclear War

The more present danger is that Israel will attack Iran. Apparently there is a lot about this in the Israeli media.
Yediot’s Alex Fishman: U.S. ‘Very Afraid’ of Israeli Attack on Iran
Barak Says, Unconvincingly, Israel Hasn’t Yet Decided to Attack Iran
That's Ehud Barak, Israel's Defense Minister, not Barack Obama.

There was a flurry of tweets this morning about a BASIC (British American Security Information Council) report that said that most of the world's nuclear powers are increasing their spending on nuclear weapons, all the ones I saw linked to a not-very-informative Guardian article. Here's the report itself (pdf).

As Russia get closer to re-welcoming Vladimir Putin the Presidency, he is showing no signs of slowing down.

The second most powerful man in the world, according to Forbes is pursuing a plan for a Eurasian Union to improve economic trade in the region.

Russia wants Viktor Bout, a Russian businessman convicted of conspiracy with the aim of killing Americans through his attempts to sell ABMs to a Colombian organization the US considers a terrorist group returned to Russia. Russia, not surprisingly, has expressed dissatisfaction with the verdict.

In the Russian courts, the Jehovah's Witnesses top leader in Russia was found guilty of publishing and distributing 48 religious articles of "a strongly extremist nature" aimed at discrediting other religions.He was sentenced to 100 hours of community service.

With Vladimir Putin hiking Russia's defense budget by 60 percent along with increases to China's and India's budgets, Barron Youngsmith wonders if this is the end of Obama's Disarmament Dream

Nobody rarely mentions how much of every ruble invested in Russia's defense modernization plans over the past two decades actually showed up where it was intended. The Russian government says a fifth of the defense budget is stolen every year. But the continual lack of successful implementation of its military sector lead many to think that percentage is much higher. Russian continues to slip further on Transparency International's corruption perceptions index and is now rated 154th out of 178 nations, along with Cambodia, Kenya and Laos. We'll see if Putin takes on corruption this round of terms.

For those familiar with Los Alamos National Laboratory's recent history, this article by Hugh Gusterson hits it right on the head - The assault on Los Alamos National Laboratory: A drama in three acts

Albuquerque Journal reporter John Fleck is making his collection of digital documents on nuclear issues in New Mexico that he obtained by Freedom of Information Act requests available on Scribd. He says you have to register, but I seem to have direct access to them. Maybe some time, a long time ago, I registered at Scribd.

This is a good resource. Maybe we need a separate section here for resources. Attn: Webmaster!

Thank you, Cheryl.

Lots more on Iran today. All these articles make good points, although I reserve the right to disagree with any specific point!
Hugh Chalmers, Andreas Persbo and Sonya Pillay (VERTIC): Iran and the Board of Governors
Stephen Walt: Stopping an Iranian Bomb (No, he's not saying to bomb them!)
Harlan Ullman: Iran: Not Necessarily a Nuclear Apocalypse
Robert Farley: Over the Horizon: Iran and the Nuclear Paradox

Charles Cameron collects all the information on the Web on the fatwa against nuclear weapons by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This is invaluable for future reference.

Iran has offered to help Turkey build a nuclear power plant. You may recall that last year Turkey and Brazil tried to pull together a deal between the United States and Iran for a nuclear fuel swap.

Two articles on the International Science and Technology Center, the cooperative effort to put Soviet weapons scientists to work on peaceful projects. This ties in with whether Vyacheslav Danilenko was a weapons scientist.
Lisa Bergstrom: The Dying Voice of Cooperative Nonproliferation's Greatest Advocates
Sharon K. Weiner: Who's a weapons scientist?

A video of how DARHT works. DARHT is the Dual Axis Radiographic Hydro-Test Facility. There is some overlap here with what Danilenko may have been doing with the Iranians, and it's useful to understand the hardware and processes.

So that they don't get lost in all that Iran stuff, I'm making a separate post for two links that have relevance for civilian nuclear power. I keep feeling we're not saying enough about that lately.

One of the reasons that Nuclear Diner covers both nuclear weapons and nuclear power is that they often intersect. The United States House of Representatives is considering a measure to require a congressional vote on Agreements for Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation, also called "123 agreements." Such agreements contain measures designed to prevent the use of nuclear materials in weapons. CSIS has prepared a brief (pdf) on the measure.

I'm not even going to pretend I've read the next one, from the GAO. It looks like I should read it, though. And it talks about those double-sided issues. Also pdf, 76 pages.
Nuclear Fuel Cycle Options: DOE Needs to Enhance Planning for Technology Assessment and Collaboration with Industry and Other Countries.
Matt Wald provides a short summary.

A couple of excellent links on Iran. At first, they seem opposed, but after I thought about it a while, they look like the same thing from different viewpoints. They are quite different from most of what is in the MSM.
Why Iran lashes out at the West
Interview with Robin Wright

The Japanese government panel investigating the Fukushima meltdowns is asking whether the earthquake caused damage to the reactors before the tsunami hit.

American crocodiles are coming back from endangered status with some help from the Turkey Point nuclear plant in Florida.

NATO's Secretary-General on Russia and missile defense.

The Hindu: US was surprised by India's 1974 nuclear test.

Possible implications of an oil embargo on Iran, from an oil expert. With a map of Iran's nuclear facilities and petroleum resources.

I've seen this and similar reports referred to today as though they were definitive indications of Saudi intentions to develop a nuclear weapon. Saudi officials say things like this from time to time when political issues are getting hot. It's hard to know whether they are warning Israel off from attacking Iran or egging them on. Or posturing in preparation for next year's conference on a Middle East WMD-free zone.

OTOH, Dubai's ruler doesn't believe Iran wants a nuclear weapon.

Posts I would like to do:
A detailed consideration of this proposal on how to get to that Middle East WMD-free zone.

For all the complaints about how much the CMRR facility is costing at Los Alamos, I keep seeing complaints about how much all sorts of building projects are overrunning their cost projections. I'm just wondering if the CMRR is any worse. Brad Plumer provides a nice place to start.

Should we drop counterforce, an attack on the other side's nuclear forces on the ground, as part of the nuclear military mission?

Was Russia behind Stuxnet? I've argued (mostly on listservs) that this is a possibility since we first heard about Stuxnet. I don't agree with everything in this article, but the overall argument is the same as mine: Russia has people capable of developing Stuxnet, they have no desire for Iran to have nuclear weapons, and they wouldn't be at all unhappy to see someone else blamed. Plus they had a way to get the memory sticks in through their work at Bushehr. Not that Bushehr and Natanz are closely related; just hand some music to the guys you're working with and let it happen.

Big demonstrations in Moscow today, tens of thousands of people, mostly ordinary citizens with jobs who are fed up with corruption. No violence; perhaps the Moscow police have been studying the tapes of the pepper-spray cop.
Overhead photos of the crowd.
Julia Ioffe
New York Times

A couple of updates on stories I've been following:
Last week's explosion in Esfahan, Iran, doesn't seem to have damaged the production plant for feed material to centrifuge enrichment of uranium.

Eli Lake accuses Ploughshares of using its funding to generate support for its claims about the "nuclear weapons budget." Here's my latest on that.

In other news,

Areva, the nuclear company mostly owned by the French government, is cutting back on projects around the world, including the Eagle Rock enrichment plant in Idaho.

Russia is planning to extend the lifetimes of many of its nuclear reactors, including the inherently unsafe RBMKs, the kind that exploded at Chernobyl.

The Foreign Ministers of Sweden and Mexico urge the nations that haven't to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. They're looking at you, United States Senate!