Six atoms may seem minuscule--especially if they exist for only fractions of a second--but they can have huge implications. The recent announcement that Russian and American scientists finally managed to produce a tiny bit of element 117 by firing calcium atoms at berkelium fills in a missing spot on the periodic table. When the results are confirmed, "ununseptium" will get a catchier moniker and occupy the square between 116 and 118--elements that also await proper names from the ...

Nuclear crises don't usually come as complete surprises. Nations hungry to acquire the power of mass death will steal and cheat and lie to achieve their ambition, but millions are spent on high-tech spying to divine the telltale signs well before any nuclear adventurism occurs. Not this time. Before firing off five nuclear explosions last week, India deliberately concealed its specific test plans and misled the rest of the world. But no one was paying attention anyway, even when the ...

Egyptian activists, most of them young, were out in force in the midday sun on Friday, Feb. 19, their flags and posters raised high, their chants rippling across the pavement at the arrival terminal of Cairo International Airport. They had come out in a startling show of support for a candidate who has yet to declare his candidacy for the presidency of Egypt. Indeed, Mohamed ElBaradei, who until recently held the top position at the International Atomic Energy ...

President Barack Obama's year of outreach to Iran has succeeded in putting it on the diplomatic defensive: that much was clear from Friday's blunt reproach of Tehran by the International Atomic Energy Agency's board. But it's less clear that Obama can convert that diplomatic advantage into sanctions that will curtail Iran's nuclear program. "The question is," says one senior Democratic aide in Congress, "Can Obama pivot [from engagement to sanctions] and succeed in changing conditions on the ground?" Iran ...

Three days of talks on Iran's nuclear program wrapped up here Wednesday with a draft agreement on how to provide the Islamic republic nuclear fuel for civilian purposes. The delegations from Iran, France, Russia, the United States and the United Nations have until Friday to decide whether they will sign the agreement described by International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei as "a balanced approach to the problem." The agency is the United Nations' nuclear watchdog. The delegates met in ...

Iranian officials are expected to huddle again with their Western counterparts Wednesday to hammer out a deal about the future of Tehran's nuclear program. A day earlier, talks between the two sides ended on an optimistic note, with the director-general of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency calling them constructive. The meetings are taking place at the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. The participants include Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali-Asghar Soltaniyeh, and officials from France, Russia ...

A $5 million prize to reward good leadership in Africa was dramatically awarded Monday to ... nobody. It was the first time in the three-year history of the Mo Ibrahim Prize that the committee did not name a winner. "The Prize Committee has considered some credible candidates. However, after in-depth review, the Prize Committee could not select a winner," the committee said in a statement. Democratically elected African presidents and prime ministers who have left office within the ...

Congratulations to President Barack Obama, recipient of the 89th Nobel Prize for Peace, as well as the fourth Nobel Prize for Not Being George W. Bush. The NPNBGWB was first established in 2002, when the Nobel Committee awarded its peace prize to former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, ostensibly for monitoring elections in far-flung hellholes, but really for being the most prominent American critic of then-President Bush's buildup to a war in Iraq. The NPNBGWB returned after a short hiatus ...

The Obama administration is working on a substantial sanctions package against Iran in case current diplomatic efforts to curb its nuclear program fail, top officials told Congress on Tuesday. Under Secretary of the Treasury Stuart Levy, who developed some of the existing financial sanctions against Iran under the Bush administration, said at a Senate Banking Committee hearing that the "comprehensive" plan would target "key vulnerabilities and fissures" in Iran to show Tehran that it would face "serious costs" for thwarting ...

The United States and its partners in the P5+1 -- Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China -- can rightfully claim progress in Thursday's talks with Iran. (CNN) -- The United States and its partners in the P5+1 -- Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China -- can rightfully claim progress in Thursday's talks with Iran. The seven hours worth of talks in Geneva, Switzerland, ended much better than anyone anticipated. Iran pledged to admit International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors into its ...