Nuclear Security Sumit.

Yesterday (13/4) delegates from 50 countries completed a two day nuclear security summit in Washington. I have to start by pointing out that if it hadn't been for the antics of RIRA this would actually have been a very tame and pedestrian summit.

It was called to address the problem that worldwide there is quite a lot of nuclear material and actual nuclear bombs just sort of laying around. This has been caused by new Eastern European nations that inherited nuclear arsenals when the USSR collapsed. Countries like South Africa that were trying to develop nuclear weapons but have now stopped. Countries like Chile who have done a lot of research into developing nuclear weapons as a way to develop their science and technology capabilities. There are also quantities of non-weapons grade material from nuclear medicine. As a consequence of these various factors there are now ample supplies of the components of nuclear weapons just sitting around in warehouses doing nothing.

Obviously this creates a massive security problem because it means all terrorists need to do to obtain nuclear weapons is break into one of these warehouse and simply steal one. Building a dirty bomb is even easier because all the terrorists need to do is scour garbage dumps in places like Nigeria* and get lucky. Therefore the summit set out to agree a minimum security standard for storing nuclear material and set up a mechanism that would allow countries that are unable to meet that standard to transfer their nuclear materials to countries that can. The solution offered was perfectly reasonable and quickly accepted because it's in every one's best interest.

Although it wasn't officially on the agenda the summit also provided the United States and the Russian Federation to hold a sort of question & answer session on the START treaty they signed recently. Again this wasn't particularly dramatic because obviously both parties were happy with the agreement and it's not really relevant to the current nuclear threat in the modern world. There was also some discussion on Iran's nuclear program but because there haven't been any developments in that area since the last time the was an actual summit on Iran's nuclear program there wasn't really a lot to say.

The part of the summit that may have put a lot of people on edge was that it featured a face to face meeting between the US President and the Chinese President. Even this wasn't that dramatic because these days the two meet a couple of times a year making it more a gradual blurring into one rather then a contest with winners and losers. It would though be unwise for me go trampling my feet over what is still a tense and complicated relationship by going into detail. However if I was forced to score it I would say that China won it with a late earthquake deep into stoppage time even though no-one really knew what they were playing for.

On the subject of things that sound a lot more dramatic then they really are my father and grandmother have made their visit to the House of Lords. While I haven't got all the gory details yet there doesn't appear to be any cause for concern. After all neither of them are exactly civilians and this wasn't the first time they've visited the upper house. In fact I get the impression the purpose of some of the previous visits was to keep the Peers in line.

While they were out I received a response from the Court of Protection (CoP). As with all letters from courts it's about three inches thick so I can't go into more detail until I've actually read it. However the important part is that the court have agreed to hear the case. That's a little unusual because I was pretty sure I'd submitted the wrong form.



*"Welcome to Lagos" - BBC2 21:00 15/4. Check it out.