New Study Ranks Countries on Security of Materials That Fuel Nuclear Arms

[bananas]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/science/study-ranks-countries-on-nuclear-security.xml

New Study Ranks Countries on Security of Materials That Fuel Nuclear Arms

By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: January 12, 2012

The 32 nations with materials that can
fuel atom bombs are typically mum on
security, which looks to the public like
a closed world of barbed wire and
armed guards. Behind the scenes,
atomic insiders have long told horror
stories of risky practices and security
flaws that might let the crucial
ingredients for nuclear weapons fall
into the wrong hands.

Now, for the first time publicly,
experts have surveyed the precautions
each country has in place and ranked
the nations from best to worst. The
study is full of surprises and potential
embarrassments: for instance,
Australia takes first place in nuclear
security and Japan comes in at No. 23,
behind nations like Kazakhstan and
South Africa.

<snip>

"We'll never get this job done if we
continue to operate behind closed
doors," Deepti Choubey, senior
director for nuclear security at the
Nuclear Threat Initiative, said Tuesday
in an interview. The analysis was
unveiled Wednesday morning and
posted online at www.ntiindex .org.

<snip>

The global assessment is an outgrowth
of President Obama's effort to get
nations to take more responsibility in
locking up bomb materials that are
vulnerable to theft and covert sale. In
2010, he held a security summit
meeting in Washington that drew
attention to the danger. Experts
warned that terrorists could buy or
steal the makings for nuclear arms
from the world's secretive maze of
atomic storage and production sites,
which are said to number in the
thousands. A second summit meeting
is scheduled for March in Seoul, South
Korea.

<snip>