On April 15, 1996, IEER released the Russian translation of its report, Fissile Materials in a Glass, Darkly, marking the beginning of its new global outreach project, "Nuclear Material Dangers." The project will provide information and analysis regarding security and environmental aspects of nuclear weapons-usable materials and technologies to journalists and activists in key nuclear countries. It will also bring the views of experts in these countries to audiences in the U.S. -- particularly to journalists, non-governmental organizations, and decision-makers in Washington -- thus broadening the scope of discussions on critical issues such as plutonium disposition, reprocessing, nonproliferation and disarmament. It will also be connecting the resolution of these issues to the development of sustainable energy strategies.

Central to the project is reaching activists and journalists in their own languages. Through translated publications and a new multi-lingual newsletter, Energy & Security, activists will gain the tools they need to effectively address problems related to nuclear materials and technologies. The English version of this newsletter, to be distributed in the U.S. and other English-speaking countries, will include guest articles from scientists and activists in Russia, India, Japan, and other key countries. This 16-page publication will be supplemented by inserts covering issues unique to the region or country of distribution.

During the first year of the project, the newsletter will be published in Russian and English. Other selected IEER materials will be translated into French, Chinese, and Japanese. In 1997 we will expand the newsletter translation to include French, Chinese, and possibly other languages.

IEER's newest staff member, Anita Seth, will be coordinating the project as managing editor of the global newsletter. With Anita's Russian and French language skills and her familiarity with Spanish and Hindi, IEER will be able to reach our international colleagues as never before. In addition to the global newsletter, Anita will coordinate Washington press briefings with international press correspondents, as well as press teleconferences with journalists based in their home countries.

The "Nuclear Material Dangers" project is being launched in a time of unprecedented global security threats and unparalleled opportunity to achieve nonproliferation and disarmament goals. Nuclear proliferation dangers today stem from unwise policies such as the resumption of reprocessing in the U.S., the building of a new commercial reprocessing plant at Krasnoyarsk in Russia, continued nuclear testing by China, research in various countries into inertial confinement fusion, lack of progress globally on disposal of high-level waste, and reprocessing of commercial spent fuel in Japan, Russia, France, India and Great Britain.

These trends not only threaten global security in the short term, but an also erode support for the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), threatening in particular the fulfillment of Article VI on nuclear disarmament. But the successful pursuit of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament is possible at the end of the Cold War, especially if key governments also adopt sound non-nuclear energy strategies. Sustained progress on these issues depends on informed activists, journalists and members of the public who have reliable and understandable technical information to help them influence the debate. By providing a common technical information base in many languages, IEER will help these individuals to more effectively promote sustainable energy technologies, work for cessation of the production of nuclear weapons-usable materials, and halt development of technologies which exacerbate proliferation problems.