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Terrorists could target nuclear arsenals of Pakistan and India

Pakistan’s mini nuclear weapons easy targets for terrorists: US President Barack Obama  By Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN | 3 Apr, 2016, WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama on Friday counselled India and Pakistan to contain aggressive military doctrines and nuclear arsenals as he wrapped up the fourth Nuclear Security Summit, his signature international effort to curtail the spread of nuclear weapons and source material.

At a press conference towards the end of the summit that attracted leaders from all major powers save Russia, Obama sought to “see progress in Pakistan and India…making sure that as they develop  ..  http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/pakistans-mini-nuclear-weapons-easy-targets-for-terrorists-us-president-barack-obama/articleshow/51668359.cms

April 4, 2016 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Transition to renewable energy sector: the goal of these North American Oil and Gas Workers

Amid Price Plunge, North American Oil and Gas Workers Seek Transition to Renewable Sector  TruthOut, 03 April 2016 00:00By Candice Bernd,  “…….after years of working in an industry that one top climate scientist has called “the biggest carbon bomb on the planet,” Hildebrand came to realize that he was not the only oil worker in Alberta who felt “guilty about developing the infrastructure that is creating climate change.”

Opportunity in the Oil Plunge

Last spring, when oil prices began to fall, Hildebrand banded together with like-minded coworkers and began building an oil and gas worker-led nonprofit called “Iron & Earth,” which officially launched this month during a press conference in Edmonton. Through the nonprofit, the oil sands workers hope to help others who have been laid off diversify their skill sets and facilitate the necessary training to transition them to the renewable energy sector. They also want to help incorporate renewable energy projects into oil sands workers’ current scope of work…….

“We are a group of workers who not only want to diversify our work scope based on job need, but also based on a values-based mission, to ensure that we’re creating and building a future that’s going to be sustainable,” Hildebrand told Truthout. “The drop in oil prices was certainly a catalyst to help amplify these conversations, and created the pressure to … create a catch-all organization that’s going to make projects happen and get workers’ hands on some renewable energy projects.”

Moreover, not every oil worker with experience in Alberta’s oil sands needs to retrain in order to transition to the renewable sector, according to Hildebrand, who says a lot of trades are “directly transferable.” Hildebrand has worked on several renewable energy projects himself, including a biomass plant and the wind farm weather station that inspired him during his apprenticeship. “I didn’t require any retraining for that. All I required was the blueprints and the steel, and the facility to build it,” he said.

From Oil Sands to “Solar Skills”

Iron & Earth’s first project is its “Solar Skills” campaign to facilitate the retraining of 1,000 laid-off electricians from Alberta’s oil industry, to help build 100 solar installations on public buildings throughout the province beginning this fall. In the future, as the group takes on different campaigns focused on geothermal, biomass, biofuel and wind energy, they hope to attract other kinds of oil and gas workers, such as pipefitters and iron workers, as well as workers from other building trades, to retrain in those sectors………http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35477-amid-price-plunge-north-american-oil-and-gas-workers-seek-transition-to-renewable-sector

April 4, 2016 Posted by | Canada, climate change, ENERGY | Leave a comment

New arms race makes nuclear catastrophe more likely

The new nuclear arms race , LA Times, 3 Apr 16 Doyle McManus Contact Reporter    Former Defense Secretary William J. Perry, one of the nation’s wise men on national security, delivered an arresting message last week: We’re about to find ourselves in a new nuclear arms race.

“The danger of a nuclear catastrophe today is greater than during the Cold War,” Perry said.

The danger stems not only from terrorist groups like Islamic State, which would gladly steal or buy nuclear material on the black market, but also from the huge nuclear arsenals the United States, Russia and other big powers maintain more than 20 years after the end of the Cold War. Those nuclear forces are bigger than they need to be — almost 16,000 warheads in all. And they still include hundreds of missiles on hair-trigger alert.

If an apparent attack against U.S. missile bases is detected, officials will have only a few minutes to decide whether to launch the missiles in response, or lose them.

“We’ve avoided a catastrophe more by good luck than by good management,” Perry told a meeting at the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank.

 In 2007, Perry joined with former Sen. Sam Nunn and former Secretaries of State Henry A. Kissinger and George P. Shultz — two Democrats, two Republicans — to urge that the U.S. make the abolition of nuclear weapons a formal goal. President Obama embraced the idea, negotiating a treaty with Russia to cut both countries’ arsenals.

But since that 2010 pact, progress toward nuclear disarmament has virtually stopped. Both Russia and the U.S. have launched expensive plans to modernize their nuclear forces, reaffirming the weapons’ central role in national security. In Obama’s case, the modernization program, which will cost an estimated $355 billion over 10 years, was the price of winning Republican votes in the Senate to ratify the 2010 treaty.

As Russia builds new weapons, Perry said, “I have no doubt that the United States will follow suit.”

So Perry is trying to revive a proposal that a handful of arms control advocates have floated in previous years: The U.S. should eliminate all of its 400-plus land-based nuclear missiles.

For decades, U.S. nuclear strategy has relied on a “triad” of weapons platforms: land-based missiles or ICBMs, manned bombers and submarines.

The basic idea was redundancy: If one system was knocked out by an enemy, the others would still be available.

Over the years, however, U.S. nuclear submarines have become virtually undetectable. Stealth bombers are difficult for opponents to find, as well.

The land-based missiles, by contrast, are more vulnerable. They’re stuck in one place. Their locations are known to the Russians and other potential enemies.

That means they face a dilemma known as “use it or lose it.” If an apparent attack against U.S. missile bases is detected, officials will have only a few minutes to decide whether to launch the missiles in response, or lose them.

And that makes them susceptible to false alarms — which actually occurred several times in both the U.S. and Russia during the Cold War. (Luckily, officers realized that their radar was malfunctioning.)

That vulnerability is still there. “The way to solve it is simply to eliminate the ICBMs,” Perry said……….http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0403-mcmanus-nuclear-danger-20160403-column.html

April 4, 2016 Posted by | 2 WORLD, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Chinese President Xi Jinping urges international co-operation on nuclear security

Chinese president charts course for strengthening global nuclear security system, New China WASHINGTON, April 1 (Xinhua) –– Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday urged countries around the world to increase national input and expand international cooperation so as to further firm up the global nuclear security architecture.

He made the appeal in a speech delivered here at the opening plenary of the fourth Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) and titled “Strengthen Global Nuclear Security Architecture and Promote Global Nuclear Security Governance.”

A FOUR-PRONGED PROPOSAL

In his speech, Xi noted that the NSS process has provided a major boost to international nuclear security, including developing common goals, establishing key priorities and mapping out the blueprint for the future.

However, he pointed out, new threats and challenges keep emerging in the security field, the root causes of terrorism are far from being removed, and nuclear terrorism remains a grave threat to international security.

“A more robust global nuclear security architecture is the prerequisite for the sound development of nuclear energy,” he said.

Recalling that he envisioned the building of a global nuclear security system featuring fairness and win-win cooperation at the third NSS in The Hague in 2014, Xi laid out a four-pronged proposal for the international community to make fresh efforts.

Countries across the world need first to step up political input and stick to the direction of addressing both symptoms and root causes, said the Chinese president.

“As national leaders, we have the responsibility to ensure that nuclear security gets adequate attention,” he said, adding that only with a solution that addresses both symptoms and root causes can the world “remove the breeding ground of nuclear terrorism at an early date.”……..http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-04/02/c_135245822.htm

April 4, 2016 Posted by | China, politics international | Leave a comment

Obama expresses the widely held concerns of national leaders, about Donald Trump’s nuclear comments

Obama Rebukes Donald Trump’s Comments on Nuclear Weapons, NYT, By MARK LANDLER APRIL 1, 2016 WASHINGTON — President Obama on Friday questioned Donald J. Trump’s fitness for office after statements from the Republican front-runner that the United States and its allies should move away from decades of constraints on the use of nuclear weapons. “We don’t want somebody in the Oval Office who doesn’t recognize how important that is,” Mr. Obama said.

Speaking to reporters at the end of a summit meeting devoted to nuclear security, the president said the comments by Mr. Trump reflected a person who “doesn’t know much about foreign policy or nuclear policy or the Korean Peninsula or the world in general.”

Mr. Obama has not hesitated to criticize Mr. Trump for contributing to a coarse tone and circuslike atmosphere on the campaign trail. But his criticism of the candidate’s comments on nuclear proliferation was not about public language or personal style, but about one of the gravest responsibilities of an American president. It carried an extra edge because it involved an issue that Mr. Obama has made a central goal of his presidency.

He said world leaders and other participants at the conference had expressed concerns about Mr. Trump’s comments during private conversations with him at the summit meeting, which gathered more than 50 world leaders to discuss ways to reduce the threat of a nuclear attack, whether from the leakage of nuclear fuel or the theft of a bomb by a terrorist group………http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/02/world/middleeast/obama-nuclear-security-summit-iran.html?_r=0

April 4, 2016 Posted by | USA elections 2016 | Leave a comment

Warns of persistent threat of nuclear terrorism

US President Barack Obama holds nuclear summit, focusing on Islamic State and North Korea APRIL 2, 2016 Anna Caldwell in Washington DC news.com.au News Corp Australia Network US President Barack Obama has warned of a persistent threat of terrorists getting their hands on nuclear materials despite progress in reducing such risks, and called on world leaders to do more to safeguard nuclear facilities.

Obama cited concerns about groups such as al-Qaeda and Islamic State trying to obtain nuclear materials, saying this was no time for the international community to be complacent.

Obama was hosting more than 50 world leaders for his fourth and final summit focused on efforts to lock down vulnerable atomic materials to prevent nuclear terrorism……

US President Barack Obama has warned of a persistent threat of terrorists getting their hands on nuclear materials despite progress in reducing such risks, and called on world leaders to do more to safeguard nuclear facilities.

“There is no doubt that if these madmen ever got their hands on a nuclear bomb or nuclear material, they would certainly use it to kill as many people as possible,” he told a global nuclear security summit in Washington DC.

Obama cited concerns about groups such as al-Qaeda and Islamic State trying to obtain nuclear materials, saying this was no time for the international community to be complacent.

Obama was hosting more than 50 world leaders for his fourth and final summit focused on efforts to lock down vulnerable atomic materials to prevent nuclear terrorism…….http://www.news.com.au/world/us-president-barack-obama-tells-world-leaders-to-stand-against-north-koreas-nuclear-strength/news-story/80c17b166c9c1974b042b04d9af7eda8

April 4, 2016 Posted by | politics, safety, USA | Leave a comment

EPA will clean up thorium pollution adjacent to West Lake Landfill.

EPA says it will remove radioactive dirt on private property adjacent to landfill, St Louis Post Dispatch, By Jacob Barker St. Louis Post-Dispatch 2 Apr 16 

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to clean up spots of dirt on private property just outside the radioactively contaminated West Lake Landfill.

Testing from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources identified radioactive contamination on property beyond the landfill’s perimeter, according to a report released Friday. The agency said the findings were “consistent” with prior EPA studies.

Levels of thorium were above Environmental Protection Agency limits for unrestricted use in two locations on the edge of property now used as a service and repair facility for AAA Trailer Services.

The contamination is to the west of the northernmost part of the West Lake Landfill known as “Area 2,” which is not adjacent to thesmoldering Bridgeton Landfill……..

EPA limits thorium levels to 7.9 pico Curies per gram for unrestricted use (a pico Curie represents 2.2 atomic disintegrations per minute). ……. Thorium mostly emits radiation that can’t pierce the skin, so radiation exposure is mostly through ingestion or inhalation.

West Lake was contaminated with byproducts from uranium processing for the nation’s early nuclear weapons program. Thorium was the only uranium decay product found at levels above EPA guidelines in the DNR tests. The DNR report recommended further investigation around the areas where the contamination was detected. http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/epa-says-it-will-remove-radioactive-dirt-on-private-property/article_3732051c-ea91-5ba2-9120-88fe8e0cc5b8.html

April 4, 2016 Posted by | environment, thorium, USA | Leave a comment

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