In a sprawling building atop a mesa in New Mexico, workers labor around the clock to fulfill a vital mission: producing America’s nuclear bomb cores. The effort is uniquely challenging. Technicians at Los Alamos National Laboratory must handle hazardous plutonium to create the grapefruit-size cores, known as pits. They do so in a nearly 50-year-old … Read more
France’s President Emmanuel Macron (C) poses for a family photo with other leaders and participants at the end of the Tripling Nuclear Energy by 2050 session at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai on December 2, 2023. | Photo Credit: AFP More than 20 countries called for the tripling of world nuclear energy capacity at U.N. … Read more
The Indian Rare Earths mining area at Vellanathu Thuruth in Kollam. File | Photo Credit: C. Sureshkumar In parts of Kerala, background radiation levels, or that emitted from natural sources such as rocks, sand or mountains, are nearly three times more than what’s been assumed, a pan-India study by scientists at the Bhabha Atomic Research … Read more
Canberra, Australia CNN — More than a year after the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia dropped the tightly held news they were combining submarine forces, the trio released more details Monday of their ambitious plan to counter China’s rapid military expansion. Under the multi-decade AUKUS deal, the partners will build a combined fleet … Read more
Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of “A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen” and blogs at Andelman Unleashed. He formerly was a correspondent for … Read more
Abu Dhabi, UAE CNN — Uranium particles enriched to near bomb-grade levels have been found at an Iranian nuclear facility, according to the UN’s nuclear watchdog, as the US warned that Tehran’s ability to build a nuclear bomb was accelerating. In a restricted report seen by CNN, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that … Read more
Brisbane, Australia CNN — The discovery of a tiny lost radioactive capsule beside a remote highway in Western Australia raises many questions – not least how it escaped layers of radiation-proof packaging loaded onto a moving truck. It’s one of the many puzzling aspects of a case investigators will examine in the coming weeks as … Read more
CNN — Drones attacked a military plant in Iran’s central city of Isfahan, Tehran said on Sunday. “An explosion has occurred in one of the military centers affiliated to the Ministry of Defense,” the deputy head of security for Isfahan governorate Mohammad Reza Jan-Nesari told the semi-official Fars News Agency. Jan-Nesari said the explosion left … Read more
Abu Dhabi CNN — Diplomatic efforts to prevent Iran developing a nuclear weapon should restart, said International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi, who warned that Tehran has amassed enough material for “several nuclear weapons.” Speaking ahead of a planned visit to Tehran, Grossi told a European Parliament subcommittee in Brussels on Wednesday that Iran … Read more
Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here. Abu Dhabi, UAE CNN — Electronic music, strobe lights, glittered faces and hundreds of thousands of people in mixed-gender gyrations are all part of a new kind … Read more