Britain boosts nuclear weapons research

Hundreds of extra scientists are being sought to work on Britain�s nuclear bomb programme. Their job will be to maintain Britain�s Trident warheads, to help ensure that new weapons can be designed in the future and to conduct joint research with the US.

But the recruitment drive has raised fears that Britain risks being sucked into fresh US research on low-yield nuclear weapons � so-called "mini-nukes" � for use as bunker busters on the battlefield.

Britain "is being dragged down the slippery slope towards new nuclear weapons and nuclear testing by the US," says Kathryn Crandall, an analyst with the British American Security Information