Cheap and Dirty Bombs VOICE, Could these creepy chest packs be North Korea’s way of threatening radiological war? BY WILLIAM C. POTTER , JEFFREY LEWIS FEBRUARY 17, 2014
“…….. As part of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) in the 1970s, the United States and the Soviet Union negotiated a draft treaty on the prohibition of the development, production, stockpiling, and use of radiological weapons. In a rare act of superpower unity, the United States and the Soviet Union submitted the treaty to the Committee on Disarmament in 1979. Oddly enough, this draft treaty seems to have been all but forgotten by the arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation community.
The Conference on Disarmament, as it is known today, maintained an ad hoc committee on radiological weapons until 1992. Despite the U.S.-Soviet agreement, the initiative foundered due to disagreements among other conference members over the scope of the draft treaty, definitional issues, and the relatively low priority attached to the subject by most delegations. In particular, the forum could not reach consensus on whether to include attacks on nuclear power plants or other facilities that would release radioactivity — a divisive issue that arose after Israel destroyed Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981.
Now might be the time to revisit the history of U.S.-Soviet arms control efforts on radiological weapons. Although the Conference on Disarmament remains deadlocked over a number of issues, there may be a new forum in which to revisit this conversation: the P-5 process. First launched in 2009, this ongoing series of formal consultations among the five nuclear weapons states under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — the United States, Russia, China, France, and Britain — has focused mainly on nuclear disarmament issues involving verification, transparency, and definitions of nuclear terms.
Some P5 states have expressed interest in adding new topics to the agenda ahead of the 2015 NPT Review Conference. Radiological warfare would be a useful addition. ….
Although a P5 renunciation of radiological weapons would be far from a multilateral treaty, an agreement would still constitute an important step to strengthen the norm against dirty bombs — and help discourage a renewed interest by states in radiological warfare……http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/02/17/cheap_and_dirty_bombs
Vive la Françafrique! Who Benefits from Niger’s Uranium?, Think Africa Press France needs Niger’s uranium, while Niger needs French assistance. But the relationship is and always has been unequal.
| 13 FEBRUARY 2014 BY SAM PIRANTY–-According to the International Monetary Fund, Areva’s global revenues of nearly $13 billion in 2013 make the French firm almost twice as big as Niger’s whole economy, and as Areva’s revenues have risen − partly off Niger’s uranium − Nigeriens have remained poor.,,,,,,
Niger is reportedly demanding that the royalties Areva’s mines pay increase from 5.5% to 12%, bringing them closer to the 13% Areva pays in Canada and the 18.5% paid in Kazakhstan. However the French-owned company, which has posted losses in recent years, insists that such a change would not make their operations worthwhile.
The result of the deadlocked talks could prove highly significant for Niger, but this is not the first time the West African nation has found itself in this position. In fact, the current negotiations are merely the latest chapter in a long history of France-Niger relations, and unfortunately for Niger, a look back at previous chapters of the story doesn’t offer too much hope for a positive outcome in the one being played out today…….
The Franco-African pact coloniale made sure that African financial decisions were made with French interests at heart and that post-colonial Francophone markets were reserved for French companies and traders. And of all the resources available to France, uranium was of arguably the greatest importance − it not only offered economic value, but political and military value, and reified France’s status as a global force ………
Fast-forwarding to the current day, the structures and means of coercion in France’s relations with Niger continue, albeit altered through generational changes in personnel, new economic realities, and a shift from a Cold War to a War on Terror geopolitical discourse. Both President François Hollande and his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy have made lofty statements about ending La Françafrique in recent years, but France’s military presence and continuing economic hold in its former colonies suggest an ongoing and unequal relationship…….
When it comes to France’s relationship with Africa then, it seems the adage that plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose rings true − including when it comes to its ongoing negotiations over Nigerien uranium prices……
despite Niger’s vast uranium reserves − over which France has an effective monopoly − the country has remained poor………Areva’s power in Niger is also exemplified by recent court battles over the safety of the mines. ……
Recently, an Al Jazeera documentary and investigation by Greenpeace has further raised concerns about the health effects around the mines in Arlit. Greenpeace claims that radiation around the mines is 100 times the World Health Organsation’s safety levels, while the NGO along with important and extremely active local civil society groups maintain that water used in the towns surrounding the mines has been contaminated, mine vents pump radioactive radon into the air, and tonnes of nuclear waste has been left around the area. The Al Jazeera documentary even showed Areva-employed doctors saying that radiation had been responsible for a local’s death. How Areva responds and whether it will be held accountable, however, remains to be seen.
Ultimately, many of the dynamics at play in the 60s and 70s are still prominent today as a Nigerien president pushes for a better deal of uranium prices once again, France continues to dominate the country’s mining industry, the region remains somewhat unstable, and the French military maintains its heavy presence……..http://thinkafricapress.com/niger/vive-la-francafrique-nuclear-colonialism-uranium-areva
Published: February 18th, 2014 at 4:11 pm ET
By ENENews
The Asia-Pacific Journal, Feb. 17, 2014: A U.S. government nuclear expert who was directly involved in the U.S. government’s radiation assessment of this situation said: “At 100 meters away it (the helicopter) was reading 4 sieverts per hour. That is an astronomical number and it told me, what that number means to me, a trained person, is there is no water on the reactor cores and they are just melting down, there is nothing containing the release of radioactivity. It is an unmitigated, unshielded number.” –Confidential communication, Sept. 17, 2012
>> >> Containment monitor reading: 10,000,000 R/hr [100,00 Sv/hr] (unconfirmed), tried to replicate the reported high radiation levels at site gate and computed and reported 375 R/hr [3.75 Sv/hr] from helicopter at 100 meters above spent fuel pools.
3 Myths From Pro-Nuclear Film ‘Pandora’s Promise, Eco News, 16 Feb 14,,’”…….Pandora’s Promise … propagated three common myths about nuclear power: it suggested the environmental movement’s “scare tactics” are what has inhibited nuclear power, claimed nuclear power is cheaper than renewables and downplayed complications from nuclear waste.This led to a generally one-sided story, which has led to criticism from many reviewers.
Here’s how the film Pandora’s Promise propagated nuclear power myths:
1.Claimed Nuclear Energy Is Cheaper Than Renewable Energy…….
2. Blamed Environmentalists For Preventing Nuclear Deployment.……the lack of nuclear expansion in the U.S. comes down to a simple case of economics. …..As the libertarian Cato Institute’s Jerry Taylor explained that there’s “zero evidence” that environmental opposition is preventing new nuclear power plants, a myth that he said has been purported by nuclear advocates who “like to dodge the cost estimates.”
Fact is, there are trillions of dollars of highly profitable energy efficiency measures available that are currently not being pursued, according to McKinsey & Company. Energy efficiency is the cheapest form of new energy –
Nuclear power is also capital intensive and job poor. By contrast, energy efficiency is more labour-intensive – and efficiency creates jobs in every community.
Renaissance reconsidered, Corporate Knights, 13 February, 2014 Why build nuclear when we can meet growing demand less expensively through energy efficiency by Jim Harris, ”……..The fall of nuclear power has been driven in part by the estimated cost of nuclear catastrophe. The Japanese Center for Economic Research, for example, has estimated that the cost of dealing with the Fukushima disaster alone will exceed $250 billion. Governments are also beginning to understand the magnitude of decommissioning costs. In the U.K., the cost of the Sellafield nuclear plant’s decommissioning has skyrocketed to $122 billion, all borne by taxpayers……
No insurance company will insure nuclear power without government guarantees, and no business will run nuclear plants without a government assuming the liability, construction cost overruns and decommissioning costs.
At the same time, nuclear costs are rising sharply while the price of renewable energy has dropped significantly, and continues to do so. In 2013, new installations of renewable energy in the United States are on pace for the first time to exceed new capacity of new fossil fuel plants (coal and gas fired) and nuclear combined.
Solar power, in particular, is enjoying cost reductions typically associated with computers and smart phones. In the early 1980s, telephone giant AT&T estimated the number of cellphone subscribers in the United States by the year 2000 would be 900,000. The actual number was 107 million: AT&T was off by a factor of 120 times. The discrepancy was driven by three powerful trends:…….
the cost of solar power is dropping dramatically.
Why build or refurbish expensive nuclear power plants when by the time they are ready to operate we may have reduced demand for power?
The potential for energy efficiency is huge. Take LED lighting. Its price performance is improving 200-fold per decade, putting it on track to be the dominant form of new lighting worldwide by 2020. Lighting accounts for 24 per cent of North American electricity consumption and 18 per cent worldwide. And LED lights use 80 per cent less electricity than traditional light bulbs. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, adopting LEDs will save Americans the energy equivalent of 334 million barrels of oil a year.
Fact is, there are trillions of dollars of highly profitable energy efficiency measures available that are currently not being pursued, according to McKinsey & Company. Energy efficiency is the cheapest form of new energy – because every kilowatt-hour of power I save in my home or business due to energy efficiency is a kilowatt-hour made available to someone else on the grid……..
Nuclear power is also capital intensive and job poor. By contrast, energy efficiency is more labour-intensive – and efficiency creates jobs in every community. As well, efficiency has the added benefit of insulating homeowners and businesses from rising energy prices. http://corporateknights.com/article/renaissance-reconsidered
Delay in nuclear-deal with Japan may hit progress on atomic plants ET By PTI | 16 Feb, 2014 NEW DELHI: Progress on atomic plants being built here by France and the US can be hampered by the delay in India’s nuclear deal with Japan where key components of these plants are manufactured and India now wants these countries to push Japan to conclude the agreement at the earliest. ……
France is building a nuclear plant at Jaitapur in Maharashtra and a number of its components are manufactured by companies based in Japan. Until India and Japan have a nuclear deal in place, these companies cannot provide the components for the plant.
Similarly, the US is also proposing to construct a nuclear plant in Mithi Virdi in Gujarat and will require components from Japan-based companies.
……As the nuclear deal with Japan and India could not be signed during Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s recent visit to Delhi last month, sources point out that this could have an impact on the progress of two upcoming nuclear power plant projects in India. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/30526219.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
Expert predicts doubling of Fukushima cleanup costs; First Nations want radiation testing of fishby CHARLIE SMITH Straight.com, FEB 15, 2014 A CANADIAN-BORN nuclear-energy expert has predicted that the it will cost at least $120 billion to clean up the mess left by the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. In an interview with ResourceClips, Thomas Drolet said that it will take 12 to 15 years to convert the Fukushima Daiichi site “back to brownfield condition”.
“Of the government and TEPCO cost estimates, the biggest I’ve seen in print is about $60 billion,” Drolet told journalist Greg Klein. “My opinion? Double that.”…..
Meanwhile here in B.C., the North Shore News hasreported that several First Nations leaders—including Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs president Grand Chief Stewart Phillip and Tahlton Central Council president Annita McPhee—want the federal government to conduct systematic tests of radiation levels in fish from the Pacific Ocean.
….Busche has filed complaints with the federal government alleging she has suffered retaliation since filing her original safety complaint in 2011…. AP | Spokane (US)
A whistle-blower who raised safety concerns at the most polluted nuclear weapons production site in the US has been fired from her job at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
Donna Busche’s complaints are part of a string of whistle-blower and other claims related to the design and safety of an unfinished waste treatment plant at Hanford, created by the federal government in the 1940s as part of the top-secret project to build the atomic bomb. Today, it is the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site, where cleanup costs about USD 2 billion each year.
Busche, 50, said she was called into the office yesterday morning and told she was being fired for cause.
“I turned in my key and turned in my badge and left the building,” Busche told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Richland, where Hanford is located.
Busche worked for URS Corp., which is helping build a USD 12 billion plant to turn Hanford’s most dangerous wastes into glass. Construction of the plant has been halted over safety concerns. Busche has filed complaints with the federal government, alleging she has suffered retaliation since filing her original safety complaint in 2011.
Author and Pediatrician Helen Caldicott takes time out of her busy schedule to join me to discuss the unfolding events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in Japan. Fukushima was devastated by a massive earthquake on March 11, 2011 which led directly to a massive failure causing hydrogen explosions which blew the roof off of at least two of the reactor buildings. Tepco and the Japanese government have understated the radiation dangers and the dire reality of the situation from day one.
Helen says, at this point there is no “best case scenario” for Fukushima, just worsening degrees of horror because it’s scientifically impossible to clean up what has already occurred. And with thousands of spent fuel rods and thousands more active rods still in the fuel pools of the damaged reactor buildings, the worst case scenario – if another major earthquake hits the area – is an ecological nightmare of biblical proportions for everyone living in the Northern hemisphere.
GREG & MICHEAL GIVEN OVER, 5 MORE YEARS PLOWSHARES 3 , FOR WHAT, attempting to safe your life, your kids life, your kids kids kids kids kids lifes.
AS Y 12 OAK RIDGE, IS BREAKING THE LAW. THE QUEENS COURT CONT. THE TORUTURE AND REPRISSION OF JUSTICE, LONGSHANKS LIVES,
TOKYO, Japan (February 19, 2014) U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy delivers opening remarks at the Japan-U.S. Decommissioning and Remediation Fukushima Recovery Forum.
Green Drinks NYC invites you to a lively evening at its SPARK SPEAKER SERIES with a focus on Japan’s Fukushima Reactor disaster and New York’s Indian Point Nuclear Reactor and how to manifest a green energy future. Riverkeeper Hudson River Program Director Phillip Musegaas will take part in a panel discussion at The Moderns titled “Three Years After Fukushima: Lessons Learned from the Disaster and The Future of Indian Point.”
The nuclear disaster at Fukushima continues to unfold nearly three years after that fateful day, March 11, 2011. The lives and livelihoods of tens of thousands of Japanese have been irreparably harmed with devastating human, economic and environmental consequences. Here in the United States, what lessons have we heeded from this disaster? What are U.S. regulators doing to better protect the hundreds of millions of Americans who live near one of the nation’s 100 operating nuclear reactors, including the Indian Point nuclear plant, 38 miles north of New York City? What are some of the known risks at the Indian Point plant and what is being done to address them?
Riverkeeper has a long history of work on Indian Point safety and environmental issues, including its current active legal challenge to Indian Point’s re-licensing by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Appearing with him is and journalist Susan Q. Stranahan and Edwin Lyman, a nationally recognized nuclear power safety expert from the Union of Concerned Scientists and the author (with Dave Lochbaum and Susan Q. Stranahan) of the Feb, 2014 book, Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster.” Hosting the event is Paul E. McGinniss.
A grim “Of Special Importance”[highest classification level] report prepared by the State Atomic Energy Corporation (ROSATOM) circulating in the Kremlin today is warning that the “potentially catastrophic nuclear event” currently unfolding at the United States atomic Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico has prompted the Obama regime to begin pre-staging government forces and equipment in the event a large-scale evacuation is needed.
According to this report, the United States Department of Energy WIPP is the world’s third deep geological repository (after closure of Germany’s Repository for radioactive waste Morsleben and the Schacht Asse II Salt Mine) licensed to permanently dispose of transuranic radioactive waste for 10,000 years that is left from the research and production of nuclear weapons.
Critical to note, however, this report says, is that the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC), the private American corporation serving as executive agent for the HEU Purchase Agreement, was “deliberately targeted” for elimination by the Obama regime in early 2009 leading to its 16 December 2013 announcement that it had reached an agreement with a majority of its debt holders to file a prearranged and voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring in the first quarter of 2014.
As to why the Obama regime wanted to eliminate USEC, Federal Security Service (FSB) intelligence experts contributing to this report say, was for the diverting HEU Purchase Agreement uranium for the purpose of reconstituting it to its highly dangerous U-235 level to conduct experiments at the WIPP on what is called nuclear salt-water rockets (NSWR), which is a proposed type of nuclear thermal rocket designed by Robert Zubrin that would be fueled by water bearing dissolved salts of plutonium or U-235.
Under tight strictures put upon it by US law, this report says, the Obama regime needed Russia’s HEU Purchase Agreement uranium for these NSWR experiments and which is not reportable.
On 5 February, however, this report continues, these NSWR experiments at the WIPP went “horrifically wrong” leading to an explosion and fire at the underground facility, followed by the 14 February “radiological event” that prompted its full evacuation.
Sister Megan Rice vandalized a weapons facility for almost an hour before she was apprehended
Sister Megan Rice, an 84-year-old radical nun who broke into a nuclear weapons facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., in protest against the nation’s nuclear arsenal, was sentenced Tuesday afternoon to 35 months in federal prison.
“Please have no leniency with me,” Rice told the judge. “To remain in prison for the rest of my life would be the greatest gift you could give me.”
The judge said he considered her age and her decades of good works and just could not give her what could amount to a life sentence. He asked that Rice use her “brilliant mind” to lead to change in Washington, D.C., and not use it to break laws in Tennessee.
Her co-defendants, Michael Walli, 65, and Gregory Boertje-Obed, 58, were sentenced to 62 months on charges of interfering with national security and damaging property at the Y-12 National Security Complex in July 2012 — the facility that once provided the enriched uranium for the Hiroshima bomb.
The activists put up banners, splashed blood and beat hammers against the walls of the storage facility in a biblical reference to Isaiah 2:4, “They shall beat swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.”
The defense argued the trio acted in accordance with their religious beliefs and did not mean to cause any harm with their action, which follows a series of anti-nuclear protests organized by “Transform Now Plowshares,” a collective of pacifist activists looking to draw attention to the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal.
Sister Megan Rice and two other defendants jailed for entering Oak Ridge plant and daubing it with Biblical messages
…..But the US government argued at the January hearing that they did not accept that they had committed crimes, took no responsibility for them, showed no contrition and then, during the trial, proceeded to argue against the laws they had broken. It has described the three, who have previous convictions related to their protest activities, as “recidivists and habitual offenders”……
An 84-year-old nun was handed a 35-month jail term on Tuesday for breaking into a US nuclear weapons plant and daubing it with biblical references and human blood. Sister Megan Rice was sentenced alongside two co-defendants, Greg Boertje-Obed, 58, and Michael Walli, 64, who both received 62-month terms.
At an earlier hearing in January, a judge ordered the three Catholic anti-nuclear protesters to pay $53,000 for what the government estimated was damage done to the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, regarded as one of the most secure in the world.
All three defendants were convicted of sabotage after the 2012 break-in, on charges that carried a maximum sentence of up to 30 years. The government had asked for the trio to be given prison sentences of between five and nine years.
In a recent interview with the Guardian from prison, Rice said she hoped US district judge Amul Thapar would seize the opportunity to “take his place in history” and sentence them in a way that would reflect their symbolic, non-violent actions – actions she said were intended to highlight the US stockpile of nuclear weapons they believe is immoral and illegal.
Rice and her co-defendants have been in prison, mostly in Ocilla, Georgia, for nine months, a period of time her lawyers had argued was sufficient punishment for the break-in.
On 28 July 2012, the three activists cut through three fences before reaching a $548m storage bunker. They hung banners, strung up crime-scene tape and hammered off a small chunk of the fortress-like storage facility for uranium material, inside the most secure part of complex. They painted messages such as “The fruit of justice is peace” and splashed small bottles of human blood on the bunker wall.
nuclear-news 