On 21 June 2009, in an interview with Al Jazeera, Mustafa Abul-Yazeed, the leader of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, expressed the hope that Pakistan's nuclear weapons would fall into extremist hands and be used against the United States, saying "By God's will, the Americans will not seize the Muslims' nuclear weapons and we pray that the Muslims will have these weapons and they will be used against the Americans." While officials in Islamabad and Washington maintain that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is secure, the United States has been assisting Pakistan to improve nuclear security and accounting measures. Progress is classified but NNSA has allocated tens of millions of dollars to this cooperation.

In related news, on 26 May, an analysis of an extremist internet forum warned that extremists on the forum were actively examining the possible takeover of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, and had also launched a research project to assess possible targets for nuclear theft or sabotage in countries ranging from Pakistan, Russia, and South Africa to Israel, Belgium, France, and the United States.

For more on the terrorist nuclear threat see the web section on The Demand for Black Market Fissile Material.

On 19 May 2009, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that its Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) had worked with Russia and Kazakhstan to remove 73.7 kilograms (162.5 pounds) of Russian-origin highly enriched uranium (HEU) in spent nuclear fuel from Kazakhstan's Institute of Nuclear Physics at Alatau. The material was shipped to the Mayak site in Russia in four shipments beginning in December of 2008. (Tens of kilograms of unirradiated HEU still remains at the Institute, however.)

Two days later, NNSA announced that 14.5 kilograms (32 pounds) of U.S.-origin HEU in spent nuclear fuel had been removed from Australia, in close cooperation with the Australian government. Since 1998, GTRI has removed more than 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of fuel from Australia and secured the material at DOE's Savannah River Site. Only a small amount of other HEU remains in Australia.

Since its inception, GTRI and its predecessor programs have helped with the removal of approximately 2,053 kilograms (4,517 pounds) of HEU from sites around the world. Read NNSA's Kazakhstan press release and Australia press release. For more on GTRI and the removal of HEU from high-risk sites, see the assessment on pp. 44-57 and 100-111 and the recommendations on pp. 140-147 of Securing the Bomb 2008.

On 5 April 2009 in Prague, President Obama announced "a new international effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years." Warning that nuclear terrorism posed "the most immediate and extreme threat to global security," Obama announced that the United States would host a global summit on nuclear security by the spring of 2010.

However, the administration is still developing a plan to ensure effective security for all nuclear weapons and weapons-usable nuclear material worldwide in this timeframe and the additional funding to implement such an effort was not included in the "steady as you go" $1.3 billion fiscal year (FY) 2010 budget request.

Read the President's speech. For more on the request, see our FY2010 budget analysis. For more on strategies to achieve effective and lasting nuclear security worldwide within four years, see Chapter 5 of Securing the Bomb 2008 and Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: An Agenda for the Next President.

In late December, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced that the security upgrades for buildings with nuclear material and sites with nuclear warheads agreed to following the Bratislava Bush-Putin summit would be "completed by the end of 2008." DOE, the Department of Defense, Russia's State Corporation for Atomic Energy (Rosatom), and Russia's Ministry of Defense reviewed progress at a meeting in Moscow and forwarded the final report on progress to the U.S. and Russian presidents. Work on additional buildings and sites agreed to after the initial Bratislava plan is still ongoing, as is cooperation to ensure that security upgrades will be sustained, and to exchange best practices and strengthen security culture. U.S.-Russian cooperation to convert research reactors fueled with highly enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium, and to ship Soviet-supplied HEU back to Russia for downblending, is also continuing. See the National Nuclear Security Administration's press release. For more on the status of security upgrades in Russia and elsewhere, see Securing the Bomb 2008, pp. 23-44 and 90-95.

On 23 October 2008, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that 154.5 kilograms (nearly 341 pounds) of HEU in spent nuclear fuel had been removed from the Budapest Research Reactor Hungary and secured at the Mayak storage facility in Russia. Through NNSA's Global Threat Reduction Initiative, the United States worked in close cooperation with the Russian Federation, Hungary, Slovenia, the IAEA and Euratom to pack, secure and ship the material. This is the fourth shipment of Russian-origin HEU spent fuel to be removed for safe and secure storage over a year-long period, following shipments from the Czech Republic (80 kilograms), Latvia (14.4 kilograms) and Bulgaria (6.3 kilograms). To date, approximately 765 kilograms (1,685 pounds) of Russian-origin spent and fresh HEU fuel have been returned from Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Libya, Uzbekistan, Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Vietnam and Hungary. Read NNSA's press release.

For more on GTRI and the removal of HEU from high-risk sites, see the assessment on pp. 44-57 and 100-111 and the recommendations on pp. 140-147 of Securing the Bomb 2008, and the web section on Civilian HEU Reduction and Elimination.

The Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), within the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), completed the conversion of five highly enriched uranium (HEU)-fueled research reactors to low enriched uranium during the last week of September and the first two weeks of October 2008. On October 2, NNSA announced that the TRIGA-type HEU research reactors at Oregon State University and Washington State University had been converted and on October 13 that Argentina's RA-6 reactor, Ukraine's WWR-M reactor and South Africa's SAFARI-1 reactor had been converted. In total, 57 of the reactors NNSA has targeted for conversion have converted to LEU and 5 more have shut down, representing reactors in 32 countries. Although GTRI recently expanded the list of reactors it will attempt to convert to 129 and has accelerated the pace of conversion, more than 40% of the research reactors still operating with HEU today are not targeted for conversion (nearly all of them in Russia or the United States). Read NNSA's October 2 press release and October 13 press release.

For more on GTRI and the conversion of HEU-fueled research reactors see the recommendations on pp. 140-147 of Securing the Bomb 2008 and the web section on Converting Research Reactors.

On 17 July 2008, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that 6.3 kilograms (nearly 14 pounds) of HEU in spent nuclear fuel had been removed from Bulgaria and secured at a Russian facility. Through NNSA's Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), the United States worked in close cooperation with the Russian Federation, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to pack, secure and ship the material. This is the second shipment of HEU to be sent to Russia from Bulgaria – the first shipment of 16.9 kilograms (37.3 pounds) of fresh HEU fuel occurred in December 2003 – and completes the removal of all HEU from Bulgaria. Bulgaria is the second country under which GTRI has removed all HEU received from the Soviet Union; Latvia's HEU was removed in May. GTRI has also completed the removal of all eligible U.S.-origin HEU spent fuel from 13 countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Greece, Italy, the Philippines, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Thailand. Read NNSA's press release. (Denmark and Chile, however, still have small amounts of other HEU.)

For more on GTRI and the removal of HEU from high-risk sites, see the assessment on pp. 81-92 and the recommendations on pp. 119-123 of Securing the Bomb 2007, and the web section on Civilian HEU Reduction & Elimination.

At the summit of the Group of Eight (G8) industrial democracies held in Hokkaido Toyako, Japan from 7-9 July 2008, the G8 announced that the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction would be expanded on a case-by-case basis beyond the current targets of Russia and Ukraine to address proliferation challenges around the globe. The G8 also emphasized security for nuclear materials as an additional top priority for the partnership. Launched at the 2002 G8 Summit in Kananaskis, Canada, the Global Partnership was conceived as a 10-year initiative that would provide up to $20 billion for priority areas of work in Russia and later Ukraine. It has expanded over the years to include 22 member nations and the European Union. The partnership has been slow in moving from pledges to implementation, however, and up to this statement, only a tiny portion of the non-U.S. funds have been devoted to security for nuclear weapons and materials. Much of the partnership's effort has focused on submarine dismantlement and chemical weapons destruction in Russia, priorities of the Russian government; other priorities identified in the 2002 statement included plutonium disposition and scientist redirection.

See the G8's Report on the G8 Global Partnership, the Partnership for Global Security's press release G-8 Global Partnership: Adapting To New Realities, and p. 41 of Securing the Bomb 2007 for more information.

On 3 July 2008, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that 18.14 kilograms (nearly 40 pounds) of irradiated U.S.-origin highly enriched uranium (HEU) and nine U.S.-origin plutonium-239 sealed sources had been returned to US nuclear facilities from Japan, Germany, Sweden and Denmark through NNSA's Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI). According to DOE, this is the 42nd shipment from 28 countries of U.S.-origin research reactor fuel returned to the United States. Read NNSA's press release. GTRI has already taken back roughly 90% of all the eligible U.S.-origin HEU it plans to address; under current plans, most of the estimated 15.9 tons of U.S.-origin HEU in foreign countries will not be returned.

For more on consolidating global HEU stockpiles, see the assessment on pp. 81-92 and the recommendations on pp. 119-123 of Securing the Bomb 2007, and the web section on Civilian HEU Reduction & Elimination.

At the fourth meeting of the Global Initiative (GI) to Combat Nuclear Terrorism in Madrid, Spain on 16-18 June, participants identified strengthening detection and forensics, denying safe haven and financing to terrorists, and deterring terrorist intentions to acquire and use nuclear devices as key priority areas and agreed to a program of exercises related to nuclear and radiological terrorism for 2009. The GI was launched by Presidents Bush and Putin on 15 July 2006, to expand and accelerate the development of partnership capacity to combat the global threat of nuclear terrorism. Partner nations include all but a few of the states with substantial stockpiles of nuclear weapons or materials and key potential transit countries; the IAEA and EU attend as observers. Under the auspices of the GI, two nuclear terrorism exercises have been conducted to date: a tabletop exercise in which the scenario involved a radioactive source stolen from North Africa for a dirty bomb (Spain, May 2008); and a field exercise simulating an attack on a nuclear facility (Kazakhstan, June 2008), which included an estimated 900 Kazakh troops, along with international observers. The GI has also held a series of workshops on law enforcement, model nuclear detection guidelines and security of radioactive sources. By and large, however, the GI has not focused on convincing states to undertake rapid improvements in security for their nuclear stockpiles, helping them do so, or discussing and agreeing on what levels of security should be required for nuclear weapons and weapons-usable material. By June 2008, 75 nations had signed on as GI partners, of whom 56 attended the Madrid meeting. Previous meetings were held in Rabat, Morocco (October 2006), Ankara, Turkey (February 2007), and Astana, Kazakhstan (June 2007).

See the State Department's page on the Global Initiative To Combat Nuclear Terrorism and pp. 35-36 of Securing the Bomb 2007 for more information.

On 5 June 2008, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that the second plutonium-producing reactor at Seversk in Russia had been shut down, ahead of schedule; the first reactor was shut down in April 2008. This leaves only one remaining plutonium production reactor at Zheleznogorsk, which is to be shut by the end of 2010. Since the reactors not only produced hundreds of kilograms of plutonium every year, but also used hundreds of kilograms of HEU in thousands of small, easily carried fuel elements, which had to be fabricated and transported every year, this shut-down is an important consolidation step. NNSA's Elimination of Weapons Grade Plutonium Production program worked with Russia to build replacement fossil fuel heat and electricity capacity, allowing the reactors to close. Plans for re-employing the thousands of workers who once worked at the Seversk reactors and the associated reprocessing plant are not yet clear.

See the NNSA press release and NNSA's Office of Nuclear Risk Reduction for more information; for a program summary from several years ago, see the web section on Plutonium Production Reactor Shutdown.

On 16 May 2008, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that nearly 30 pounds (14.4 kg) of Soviet-origin highly enriched uranium (HEU) in spent nuclear fuel had been removed from the Salaspils Research Reactor in Latvia and secured at Russia's Mayak nuclear storage facility through NNSA's Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), completing the removal of all HEU from Latvia. This is the second shipment of Latvian HEU to be returned to Russia, with the first shipment of three kilograms of Soviet-origin HEU fresh fuel in May 2005. The shipment is part of a prioritized, accelerated HEU fuel return schedule developed in fulfillment of the February 2005 Bush-Putin Bratislava Joint Statement on Nuclear Security Cooperation. Eleven U.S.-supplied countries (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Greece, Italy, the Philippines, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, and Thailand) and three Soviet-supplied countries (Latvia, Georgia, and Iraq) have had all their HEU removed. (Denmark and Chile have had all their HEU eligible for the U.S. take-back program removed, but still have modest stocks of other HEU.) Ukraine, Belarus, and South Africa, countries with particularly dangerous HEU stockpiles, have not yet agreed to eliminate those stocks.

See NNSA's press release, NNSA's GTRI website, the assessment on pp. 81-92 and the recommendations on pp. 119-123 of Securing the Bomb 2007, and the web section on Civilian HEU Reduction & Elimination for more information.

On 19 March 2008, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that the VVR-SM research reactor at the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Uzbekistan had been converted from highly enriched uranium fuel to low enriched uranium fuel. According to NNSA, 207 research and icebreaker reactors worldwide are designed to operate on HEU fuels, and GTRI hopes to convert 129 of these to LEU fuel. (The remaining 78 research reactors – more than 70 of them in Russia – either have defense-related missions or have unique designs, and would be very difficult to convert.) To date, 56 of the HEU-fueled reactors on GTRI's list targeted for conversion have converted or shut down (including 15 in the United States and 42 in other countries) and NNSA is working to convert the other 73 on its targeted list by 2018.

See NNSA's press release, NNSA's Office of Global Threat Reduction January 2007 Strategic Plan, the web section on Past and Current Efforts to Reduce Civilian HEU Use, and pp. 89-92 of Securing the Bomb 2007 for more information.

All plutonium and HEU removed from Sandia National Lab
On 28 February 2008, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that all stocks of weapons-usable nuclear material requiring the highest level of security protection, which includes plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU), had been removed from Sandia National Laboratory, seven months ahead of schedule. Under current plans, removing all potential nuclear bomb material from Hanford, Livermore, and Los Alamos will take somewhat longer, but NNSA hopes to have only five sites with weapons-usable material remaining in its nuclear-weapons complex by 2012. According to NNSA, as of 24 July 2008, a total of 12 metric tons of plutonium and HEU had been removed from nuclear weapons sites during fiscal year 2008.

Read NNSA's press release, pp. 27-28 of Securing the Bomb 2007, and DOE's Complex Transformation Vision for more information. For an analysis that suggests DOE's efforts should be both more urgent and more comprehensive see chapter 4, "Fissile Material Consolidation in the U.S. Nuclear Complex," in the International Panel on Fissile Materials' Global Fissile Material Report 2007.