A paper in the March issue of the journal Science & Global Security titled "Radionuclide Evidence for Low-Yield Nuclear Testing in North Korea" by Lars-Erik De Geer, Research Director at the Swedish Defence Research Agency claims that North Korea may have carried out a very low-yield nuclear weapon test explosion in May 2010. North Korea is known to have conducted a nuclear test explosion in 2006 and again in 2009.

The paper says that radionuclide data collected between 14 and 23 May 2010 at stations in South Korea, Japan and Russia suggest that North Korea carried out a very low-yield underground nuclear test on 11 May 2010.

If there was a nuclear explosion in May 2010, it was not detected by any seismic station or network. This leads De Geer to argue that if there was a nuclear detonation, it "must therefore have been quite low-yield..." according to a prepublication draft of the article.

De Geer also notes that if such an event was "still detected by another technology in the currently evolving CTBT verification system as well as by a national control post [it] suggests that there are fewer and fewer ground for countries to refuse ratifying  the CTBT by questioning the effectiveness of its verification regime. It also shows that the CTBT verification system sometimes is capable of detecting underground nuclear tests of significantly lower yields than what was anticipated when the treaty was opened for signature 15 years ago."

De Geer speculates that North Korea is trying to build a more powerful, tritium-boosted nuclear bomb through low-yield tests.

Today is the first annual National Downwinders Day, recognizing the many people across the United States--but especially in the Mountain West-who were affected by radiation exposure from nuclear test explosions in Nevada. Last year the US Senate voted unanimously to honor downwinders with a special day of recognition.

Today is also the 61st anniversary of the nuclear test code-named "Able," the first of 928 nuclear test explosions in Nevada.

There's a great collection of information on the health effects of the resulting atmospheric fallout from the CTBT Organization online here.

There is more work to be done to end the possibility of nuclear testing by anyone, any place, any time.

Please take a moment today to write or call your Senators and ask them to honor the memory of nuclear test and weapons production victims and survivors by improving the federal compensation program for downwinders and by reconsidering and supporting the CTBT.

See the Project for the CTBT Web site for more details: http://www.projectforthectbt.org/involvement

For further information, see the story "Nation Recognizes Nuclear Test Downwinders."

Today, the Indonesian parliament approved the ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, bringing the number ratifications necessary for entry into force down from 9 to 8.

We hope to “create new momentum so that the other countries in a similar position to Indonesia can also follow suit in beginning their ratification process,” Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said in September 2011.

“We believe that [the] CTBT is one of the main instruments for nuclear disarmament,” he said.

“Indonesia will use its good relations to promote the Treaty in Asia and the Middle East and beyond and at the highest political level,” Hemly Fauzy, the Indonesian Parliament’s coordinator for the CTBT ratification process said during a recent visit by an Indonesian parliamentary delegation to the CTBTO headquarters in Vienna.

“We want our country to be at the vanguard of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation,” said Fauzy. “We intend to extend our involvement in the CTBT beyond the Treaty’s ratification.” Support for the CTBT in the Indonesian Parliament was unanimous across its nine parties, he said.

Amb. Linton Brooks, the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration during the George W. Bush administration, said there is practically no chance of the United States resuming nuclear testing.

Brooks, speaking at an ACA-sponsored Nov. 28 event on “The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty at 15: a Status Update,” described the political bar to testing as “too high” and stated that testing is not the best use of time or resources.

Brooks expressed his confidence in the NNSA's Science Based Stockpile Stewardship and Management program ability to maintain a safe and reliable nuclear arsenal, saying that it would be “extremely difficult” to conceive of a problem that could not be solved by the program and require a resumption of nuclear testing to substantiate. He noted that in the past eighteen years, no national laboratory director has ever called for a resumption of testing in their annual stockpile report to Congress.

The event, sponsored by the Arms Control Association and the Heinrich Böll Stiftung, also included remarks by Marvin Adams from Texas A & M University, Jenifer Mackby of the Center Strategic and International Studies, and Daryl Kimball of ACA.

Fifteen years after the CTBT was opened for signature, more than 160 senior government representatives gathered and 53 spoke at UN Headquarters to highlight the value of the Treaty and call upon the remaining 9 CTBT "hold out" states to sign and/or ratify to facilitate formal entry into force. The gathering is the seventh such Article XIV Conference on Facilitating Entry Into Force, which has been held every other year since 1999.

The final conference declaration “urge[s] all remaining States … to sign and ratify the Treaty without delay” and endorses bilateral, regional, and multilateral initiatives to achieve the treaty’s “earliest entry into force.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon probably summed up the spirit and substance of the meeting best. He noted the growing calls—at the international political level and from the many victims and survivors of nuclear testing—for bringing the treaty into force.

“My message is clear: Do not wait for others move first. Take the initiative. Lead. The time for waiting has passed,” he stated.

“We must make the most of existing—and potentially short-lived—opportunities,” Ban said.

A number of leading nuclear arms control proponents said last week that the international community should act promptly to make key features of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty permanent, despite a widespread view that the pact itself will not be formally implemented for many years to come.

Because it has not yet entered into force, the organizations created to promote the agreement and build its verification regime were labeled temporary from the outset.

"We propose to eliminate [the] words 'provisional' and 'preparatory' from the letterheads" of CTBT-related institutions and from international "lexicon," Michael Krepon, co-founder of the Henry L. Stimson Center, said at a Thursday event.

For more details, see: http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20110923_2179.php

The CTBTO is inviting people the world over to submit their video messages and photos explaining why they support a world without nuclear testing.

Make your voice heard! Add your "Close the Door on Nuclear Testing" message to the campaign!

Watch the campaign video and submit your own (< 15 seconds) video clip here.

Alternatively, send in a picture of yourself closing a door or holding a "Close the Door on Nuclear Testing" sign. Submit to closedooronnuketests@ctbto.org

The best entries will be included in a compilation and broadcast worldwide

In an oped in today's Los Angeles Times, former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary outlines the case for careful Senate reconsideration and ratification of the Treaty. She notes that:

"In 1999, opponents of the treaty expressed concern that it would hamper America's ability to maintain a robust nuclear arsenal. Those worries are now moot. Thanks to technological progress over the last decade, nuclear scientists can determine with high confidence that warheads work without detonating them. Indeed, the United States hasn't conducted a nuclear test explosion since 1992."

O'Leary, who served as U.S. Energy Secretary from 1993-1997, was instrumental in the Clinton administration to extend the nuclear test moratorium first mandated by Congress and pursue a "zero-yield" test ban treaty, and under her watch the Department developed the stockpile stewardship program.

"By ratifying the treaty," O'Leary writes, "the United States would gain the political and moral leverage to end nuclear testing worldwide. And we'd help establish the kind of robust framework needed by the international community to monitor and deter the nuclear activities of the most dangerous countries."

"Now is the time for the Senate to seriously reconsider and approve the test ban treaty."

The oped, "Ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty,' by O'Leary and Daryl Kimball is  available online.