Aaron Ledbetter, fastest gun in the West, was trapped by US Marshal Sam Back, who had a reputation to maintain and a kidnapping to solve. So they made a deal-Ledbetter's life in exchange for Melanie Feak and her $5,000 ransom. Ledbetter had twenty-four hours to find the kidnapping gang and the missing girl. Twenty-four hours to play the deadly doublecross that would win the Widowmaker his freedom-or cost him his funeral.

From the dawn of the nuclear age, nuclear power has been recognized as a 'dual-use' technology. The same nuclear reactions that give bombs the destructive force of many thousands of tons of high explosive can, when harnessed in a controlled fashion, produce energy for peaceful purposes. The challenge for the international nuclear nonproliferation regime-the collection of policies, treaties, and institutions intended to stem the spread of nuclear weapons-is to prevent nuclear proliferation while at the same time permitting nuclear energy's peaceful applications to be realized. One of the key institutions involved in meeting these two objectives is the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an international organization created in 1957 as a direct outgrowth of president Eisenhower's 'Atoms for Peace' program. The IAEA Statute, which creates the legal framework for the agency, charges it to 'accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health, and prosperity throughout the world.' At the same time, it gives the agency the authority to enter into so-called safeguards agreements with individual nations or groups of nations to ensure that nuclear materials, equipment, or facilities are not used to produce nuclear weapons. The IAEA's mission and its safeguards responsibilities were extended with the enactment in 1970 of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (also known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT). The Treaty requires non-nuclear-weapon states that are parties to the accord to enter into safeguards agreements with the IAEA covering all nuclear materials on their territory (e.g., uranium and plutonium, whether in forms directly usable for weapons or forms that require additional processing before becoming usable in weapons).

This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. Contents: (1) Intro.: Overview of the NPT; (2) Past NPT Review Conf.: 1995, 2000, 2005; (3) Issues for the 2010 Conf.: Disarmament: New U.S.-Russian START Agreement; U.S. Nuclear Posture Review, Negative Security Assurances; Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty; Fissile Material Cut-Off Negotiations; Non-proliferation and Compliance: Safeguards; Non-compliance; NPT Withdrawal; Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones; Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy; Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle; Universality of the Treaty; WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East; (4) Possible Outcomes and Potential Impact; (5) Legislation in the 111th Cong. Append.: (A) Text of the NPT; (B) Resolution on the Middle East (1995); ( C) 13 Practical Steps (2000). Illus.