WORLD
September 13, 2008 | Borzou Daragahi, Times Staff Writer
A leaked report by a U.N. agency reveals fresh details about Libya's now-abandoned attempts to obtain nuclear weapons and an underground network of scientists who peddled atomic secrets for cash. Before deciding to abandon its quest for nuclear weapons, Libya had tapped into a sophisticated black-market network that included Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, says a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, prepared for delivery Friday to members of its governing board.
NEWS
May 31, 1989 | From a Times Staff Writer
Throughout his public career, George Bush has tended to get a little giddy when he's in a celebratory mood. During his presidential campaign, Bush managed to keep his lighter side in firm check, but since his inauguration, it has been showing more and more. On Tuesday, as he celebrated the successful end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's 40th anniversary summit here, the old George Bush, fractured syntax and all, was on full display. Asked about NATO's position on nuclear weapons, for example, Bush began to read aloud from the NATO communique: "Where nuclear forces are concerned, blah, blah, land, sea, air," he said.
ENTERTAINMENT
May 16, 2012 | By Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times Film Critic
Like its creator and star Sacha Baron Cohen, the comedy of "The Dictator" is mercurial to the extreme and as crude as the massive oil reserves of Wadiya, the fictional North African nation where his latest movie prank begins. By turns hysterical, heretical, guilty, innocent, silly, sophisticated, teasing and tedious, the film follows the power-mad leader Admiral General Haffaz Aladeen as he loses his bearings, his beard and his heart in New York City. "The Dictator" underscores both Baron Cohen's genius and his folly, and delivers the actor's signature blend of scatological outrage, sagacity and at least one full-frontal assault with a flaccid unmentionable.
NATIONAL
February 11, 2011 | By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau
A major cyber attack somewhere in the United States is becoming increasingly possible, top government intelligence officials said Thursday, warning that an assault on America's power grid system "represents the battleground for the future. " The officials, speaking at a special hearing on Capitol Hill, also said that although Al Qaeda has been diminished after nine years of the U.S. war on terror, more foreign groups have risen up, increasing concerns among U.S. authorities that one of them may eventually get their hands on a nuclear device.
ENTERTAINMENT
May 11, 2010 | By Bob Drogin, Los Angeles Times
Nuclear weapons, which largely faded from front pages after the Cold War, are back in the news. President Obama endorsed a new national security strategy, and earlier this year he signed an ambitious arms control treaty with Russia, further easing fears of global Armageddon. But Obama also led an unprecedented summit of world leaders to warn of an increasingly urgent threat — nuclear terrorism. Much of this perilous state of affairs can be traced to the villainous deeds of Abdul Qadeer Khan.
OPINION
January 6, 2012
Budgetary necessity may have been the mother of President Obama's reinvention of military strategy, but that doesn't mean the change is reckless or even imprudent. After the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and with the winding down of the American presence in Afghanistan, it's time for new thinking. In an appearance Thursday at the Pentagon, Obama unveiled the recommendations of a Defense Department study group that he said would produce a military that is "agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats.