IRELAND is exporting software crucial to the development and maintenance of the US and French nuclear weapons programmes.

US Energy Department officials want the Los Alamos National Laboratory, known as the birthplace of the atomic bomb, to create a special facility where scientists can work with infectious agents such as plague, anthrax and tuberculosis.

A retired Los Alamos scientist who spent the past decade gathering first-hand information on China’s nuclear weapons programmes is fighting US efforts to block publication of his book.