THE US is to start work on new nuclear weapons, including mini-nukes and bunker-buster bombs, following a last-minute compromise in Congress.
The House of Representatives had tried to slash the administration’s request for funding, while the Senate approved it in full.
The compromise, reached by a House-Senate conference committee last week, appears to leave enough money for the projects’ planning stages. No engineering work will be possible without further congressional authorisation.
Mini-nukes have just one-quarter the power of the Hiroshima bomb. Critics fear that they will make the use of nuclear weapons seem less unacceptable and hence more likely. The…
