nuclear-news

1. James Deutsch, MD PhD

1. Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont.

My heartfelt thanks for breaking the medical media’s silence on the destructive attacks on the people of Gaza by the Israeli state. 1^,2 I was a member of a Jewish medical delegation to the West Bank and Gaza this past October. We were turned away from crossing into Gaza just 6 days before Israel violated the ceasefire on Nov. 4, 2008. In the West Bank, we observed first-hand the severe impact on children and families of the ongoing occupation.

Many Jewish Canadians are appalled by Israel’s actions against all Palestinians. We do not dismiss the actions of Hamas and other factions, either. However, one must carefully read the history of the region, beginning in 1947–1948 or even earlier, if one is to understand the context for all of these actions. Physicians for Human Rights Israel, along with other medical and human rights organizations, has issued a strong appeal for the government of Israel, as an occupying power that bears overall responsibility for the protection of the right to health of Palestinians, to fulfill its responsibilities under international law.

http://www.cmaj.ca/content/180/10/1036.2.full

The strange case of the missing uranium isotopes

DOE USA report 2010

[…]

However, the agencies have not 
systematically visited countries believed to be holding the highest 
proliferation risk quantities of U.S. nuclear material, or 
systematically revisited facilities not meeting international physical 
security guidelines in a timely manner. Of the 55 visits made from 
1994 through 2010, U.S. teams found that countries met international 
security guidelines approximately 50 percent of the time.
[...]
However, the agencies have not 
systematically visited countries believed to be holding the highest 
proliferation risk quantities of U.S. nuclear material, or 
systematically revisited facilities not meeting international physical 
security guidelines in a timely manner. Of the 55 visits made from 
1994 through 2010, U.S. teams found that countries met international 
security guidelines approximately 50 percent of the time.
[...]
7. Restrictions on enrichment or reprocessing of U.S.-obligated 
material: The cooperating party must guarantee that no material 
transferred, or used in, or produced through the use of transferred 
material or production or utilization facilities, will be reprocessed 
or enriched, or with respect to plutonium, uranium-233, HEU, or 
irradiated nuclear materials, otherwise altered in form or content 
without the prior approval of the United States.

[…]

In addition, we found that all agreements, 
except three negotiated prior to 1978 and the U.S.-China agreement, 
contain a provision that the other party shall report, or shall 
authorize the IAEA to report, inventory information upon request. 
However, according to DOE and NRC officials, with the exception of the 
administrative arrangements with five partners, the United States has 
not requested such information from all partners on an annual or 
systematic basis. 
[...]
Inspectors from IAEA's 
Department of Safeguards verify that the quantities of nuclear 
material that these non-nuclear weapons states declared to IAEA are 
not diverted for other uses. IAEA considers such information 
confidential and does not share it with its member states, including 
the United States, unless the parties have agreed that IAEA can share 
the information. 
[...]
However, the measures cited by DOE are 
not comprehensive or sufficiently detailed to provide the specific 
location of U.S. nuclear material overseas. 
[...]
Our analysis of other documentation associated with the report shows 
that NRC, in consultation with U.S. agencies, was able to verify the 
location of 1,160 kilograms out of an estimated 17,500 kilograms of 
U.S. HEU remaining overseas as of January 1993. NRC's estimates 
matched partner estimates in 22 cases; did not match partner estimates 
in 6 cases; and, in 8 cases, partners did not respond in time to NRC's 
request. 
[...]
Therefore, while the 
1995 Nuclear Proliferation Assessment Statement accompanying the U.S.- 
EURATOM agreement estimated 250 tons of U.S.-obligated plutonium are 
planned to be separated from spent power reactor fuel in Europe and 
Japan for use in civilian energy programs in the next 10 to 20 years, 
our review indicates that the United States would not be able to 
identify the European countries or facilities where such U.S.-
obligated material is located. 
[...]
Office of Nonproliferation and International Security told us that, 
while they could attempt to account for U.S. material overseas on a 
case-by-case basis, obtaining the information to systematically track 
this material would require renegotiating the terms of nuclear 
cooperation agreements.
[...]
In addition, we reviewed U.S. agencies' records of these and other 
physical protection visits and found that, over the 17-year period 
from 1994 through 2010, U.S. interagency physical protection teams 
made 55 visits. Of the 55 visits, interagency physical protection 
teams found the sites met IAEA security guidelines on 27 visits, did 
not meet IAEA security guidelines on 21 visits, and the results of 7 
visits are unknown because the physical protection team was unable to 
assess the sites, or agency documentation was missing. 
[..]
A State official, who regularly 
participates in the U.S. physical protection visits, told us that 
interagency coordination had improved in the past 6 months, in 
response to a recognized need by U.S. agencies to be prepared for an 
expected increase in requests for exports of U.S. LEU.
[...]
DOE 
officials stated that the best measure of the U.S. physical protection 
visits' effectiveness is that there has not been a theft of U.S. 
nuclear material from a foreign facility since the 1970s, when two LEU 
fuel rods were stolen from a certain country. However, officials 
reported to us that, in 1990, the facility was determined to be well 
below IAEA security guidelines. Our review of DOE documentation shows 
that other U.S. LEU transferred to the facility remains at the site. 
[...]
DOE and U.S. agencies do not have a systematic process to revisit or 
monitor security improvements at facilities that do not meet IAEA 
security guidelines. Based on our analysis of available documentation, 
we found that, since 1994, U.S. interagency physical protection teams 
determined that partner country sites did not meet IAEA security 
guidelines on 21 visits. We then examined how long it took for a U.S. 
team to revisit the sites that did not meet IAEA security guidelines 
and found that, in 13 of 21 cases, U.S. interagency teams took 5 years 
or longer to revisit the facilities.
[...]
Our report further noted that DOE has 
experienced situations where a foreign government has refused its 
assistance to make security upgrades. For example, we reported that 
one country had refused offers of DOE physical security upgrades at a 
research reactor for 9 years. However, this situation was subsequently 
resolved when all HEU was removed from this country, according to GTRI 
officials. In addition, we reported that DOE had experienced two other 
situations where the partner country would not accept security 
assistance until agreements with the United States were reached on 
other issues related to nuclear energy and security. 

There are several countries that have U.S. nuclear material that are 
particularly problematic and represent special cases. Specifically, 
U.S. nuclear material has remained at sites in three countries where 
physical protection measures are unknown or have not been visited by 
an interagency physical protection team in decades. GTRI removed a 
large quantity of U.S. spent HEU recently from one of these countries.
[...]
As indicated in figure 1, the United States has nuclear cooperation 
agreements in force with Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil,
Canada, China, Colombia, EURATOM, Egypt, India, Indonesia, IAEA,
Japan, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Norway, Peru, Russia, South Africa, South
Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, and United Arab
Emirates.[Footnote 27] In addition, the United States previously had 
nuclear cooperation agreements with Chile, Dominican Republic, Iran, 
Israel, Lebanon, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Uruguay, 
Venezuela, and Vietnam.
[...]
security of nuclear 
materials and facilities would decrease, if states chose not to pursue 
such agreements with the United States. Although the current system is 
not perfect, we recognize that it does allow for formal and informal 
follow-up visits that help improve the security of nuclear materials 
in another country. 
[...]

http://www.gao.gov/assets/330/323048.html

and the IAEA not noticing Isreal when taking the nuclear health and safety into account.. another interesting document. oncw again no mwntion of Isreal?

http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/2012/infcirc254r11p1.pdf