Shoddy translation in the Western media is increasing nuclear tensions–again, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Ariane Tabatabai, 25 Aug 17, “…….Inaccurate translations, imprecise analyses, and poor reporting have long plagued discussion of Iranian nuclear affairs in Western, English-language media. Now, though, this kind of irresponsibility is particularly alarming, because the nuclear agreement signed in 2015 between Iran and six world powers is in a fragile state. The agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, curbs Iranian nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief, and is critical to advancing the US objective of keeping Tehran away from the Bomb without resorting to military force. US President Donald Trump has gone from pledging to dismantle the deal to trying to kill it by a thousand cuts. Meanwhile, various American interest groups are jumping in to advocate for their own preferred Iran policy options, including leaving the JCPOA and pursuing regime change. All this makes it even more critical than before for journalists and experts to get the facts right.
In foreign policy reporting, especially during periods of heightened tension and escalation, translations are a particularly challenging part of the journalist’s job. Mistranslations and inaccurate reporting
can be consequential, as even the slightest mistakes can change meaning and generate crises……
the bottom line of all statements coming out of Tehran about the nuclear deal is that the country is committed to preserving it. This is
currently the consensus within the regime; whether everyone likes it or not, the JCPOA is the law of the land. Yet given US threats to renege on the deal, Rouhani also has to hedge. So he is laying out his country’s options and the possible outcomes should America withdraw from the process. It is in this area that many reporters have translated his statements inaccurately.
For example, on August 15,
Reuters inaccurately reported that Rouhani said his country “could abandon its nuclear agreement with world powers ‘within hours’ if the United States imposes any more sanctions.” The article went on to misquote Rouhani as saying: “If America wants to go back to the experience (of imposing sanctions), Iran would certainly return in a short time—not a week or a month but within hours—to conditions more advanced than before the start of negotiations.” In fact, what Rouhani said was: “New US officials should know that the failed experience of sanctions and coercion brought their previous governments to the negotiating table. And if they want to return to that experience, surely, in a short amount of time, not in a period of weeks and months, but hours and days, we will return to a much more advanced situation than that of the beginning of the talks.” In other words, Rouhani wasn’t threatening to leave the JCPOA if the United States imposed more sanctions on it—as the article’s title suggested and its content indicated—but to resume elements of its program if
Washingtondecided to leave the JCPOA. At the same time, Rouhani reiterated that his country’s preferred course of action was to preserve the deal—but he wanted the United States to know that Iran, too, had options……
These inaccuracies would be problematic under normal circumstances, but they are particularly irresponsible at a time of heightened tensions, during which misperceptions could quickly torpedo the nuclear deal and put the United States and Iran on a collision course. Right now, the Trump administration is reviewing its policy on the JCPOA, Iranian support for the deal is diminishing, and hawks on both sides see this fragile state of affairs as an opportune moment to kill it off completely. If journalists are to hold those in power accountable, they must be held accountable themselves.
http://thebulletin.org/shoddy-translation-western-media-increasing-nuclear-tensions-again11046?platform=hootsuite
August 26, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Iran, media, USA |
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TRUMP’S TWEETS COULD LEAD TO NUCLEAR WAR, SAYS FORMER CIA AGENT WHO WANTS TO BUY TWITTER, BAN PRESIDENT, NewsWeek, BY JASON LE MIERE ON 8/24/17 President Donald Trump’s tweets could lead the United States to “stumble into a nuclear conflict with North Korea,” according to a former CIA agent who has begun a crowdfunding campaign to buy Twitter and ban the president from using it.
The former agent, Valerie Plame Wilson, worked on nuclear issues at the CIA and now works with Global Zero, a nonprofit that works to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons. Last week, in conjunction with Global Zero, she launched a campaign on GoFundMe that aims to raise $1 billion in order to buy a controlling interest in Twitter.
Wilson said she has been bothered by many aspects of Trump’s Twitter use, including his penchant for personal attacks, but it was his recent escalation of rhetoric with North Korea that truly concerned her.
“People who understand how crises escalate…[know] it is absolutely alarming that the president uses this global platform…[and] perhaps we would stumble into a nuclear conflict with North Korea,” she told Newsweek Thursday. “And that is unacceptable.”….
“His head is chaotic, to say the least,” Wilson said. “He’s got one finger on Twitter, one finger on the nuclear weapon. I think most Americans walk around in the ignorant but secure belief that somehow there’s a considered way to launch a nuclear weapon. And that’s not the case. He has immediate access to this awesome destructive power and he loves to emote reckless bravado, and it makes this scenario that much more likely.”…..
Twitter, Wilson contends, is also failing to protect against violent speech. There have been previous calls for Twitter to suspend Trump from the platform, but it has thus far rejected those appeals.
“The actual Twitter rules say they forbid hate speech and inciting violence and I think it’s fair to say that nuclear war would be inciting violence,” she said.
Wilson added that the campaign was a way of “holding Twitter executives’ feet to the fire.”
While a majority stake in Twitter would currently cost around $6 billion, a $1 billion stake would make Wilson the largest shareholder and give her a powerful voice.
With the current amount raised standing at just over $44,000, Wilson accepts that her goal is ambitious, but she says that if the target is not reached, all the money will go to Global Zero to help prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. And, if nothing else, she added, it will raise awareness of what she considers should be a major concern to all Americans, regardless of their political leanings.
“My real hope in launching this campaign is to shine a spotlight on how dangerous Donald Trump’s use of Twitter really is,” she said. “We don’t have to sit by while he uses this huge global platform to undermine our national security.” http://www.newsweek.com/trump-nuclear-war-twitter-president-654883
August 26, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
2 WORLD, media |
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Investigative reports in 2015 revealed that Exxon had its own scientists doing its own climate modeling as far back as the 1970s: science and modeling that was not only accurate, but that was being used to plan for the company’s future.
Now, a peer-reviewed study published August 23 has confirmed that what Exxon was saying internally about climate change was quantitatively very different from their public statements. Specifically, researchers Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes found that at least 80 percent of the internal documents and peer-reviewed publications they studied from between 1977 and 2014 were consistent with the state of the science – acknowledging that climate change is real and caused by humans, and identifying “reasonable uncertainties” that any climate scientist would agree with at the time. Yet over 80 percent of Exxon’s editorial-style paid advertisements over the same period specifically focused on uncertainty and doubt, the study found.
The stark contrast between internally discussing cutting-edge climate research while externally conducting a climate disinformation campaign is enough to blow many minds. What was going on at Exxon?
I have a unique perspective – because I was there.
From 1995 to 1997, Exxon provided partial financial support for my master’s thesis, which focused on methane chemistry and emissions. I spent several weeks in 1996 as an intern at their Annandale research lab in New Jersey and years working on the collaborative research that resulted in three of the published studies referenced in Supran and Oreskes’ new analysis.
Climate research at Exxon
A scientist is a scientist no matter where we work, and my Exxon colleagues were no exception. Thoughtful, cautious and in full agreement with the scientific consensus on climate – these are characteristics any scientist would be proud to own.
Did Exxon have an agenda for our research? Of course – it’s not a charity. Their research and development was targeted, and in my case, it was targeted at something that would raise no red flags in climate policy circles: quantifying the benefits of methane reduction…….
Did I know what else they were up to at the time? I couldn’t even imagine it.
Fresh out of Canada, I was unaware that there were people who didn’t accept climate science – so unaware, in fact, that it was nearly half a year before I realized I’d married one – let alone that Exxon was funding a disinformation campaign at the very same time it was supporting my research on the most expedient ways to reduce the impact of humans on climate.
Yet Exxon’s choices have contributed directly to the situation we are in today, a situation that in many ways seems unreal: one where many elected representatives oppose climate action, while China leads the U.S. in wind energy, solar power, economic investment in clean energy and even the existence of a national cap and trade policy similar to the ill-fated Waxman-Markey bill of 2009.
Personal decisions
This latest study underscores why many are calling on Exxon to be held responsible for knowingly misleading the public on such a critical issue. For scientists and academics, though, it may fuel another, different, yet similarly moral debate.
Are we willing to accept financial support that is offered as a sop to the public conscience?
The concept of tendering literal payment for sin is nothing new. From the indulgences of the Middle Ages to the criticisms some have leveled at carbon offsets today, we humans have always sought to stave off the consequences of our actions and ease our conscience with good deeds, particularly of the financial kind. Today, many industry groups follow this familiar path: supporting science denial with the left hand, while giving to cutting-edge research and science with the right.
The Global Climate and Energy Project at Stanford University conducts fundamental research on efficient and clean energy technologies – with Exxon as a founding sponsor. Philanthropist and political donor David Koch gave an unprecedented US$35 million to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in 2015, after which three dozen scientists called on the museum to cut ties with him for funding lobbying groups that “misrepresent” climate science. Shell underwrote the London Science Museum’s “Atmosphere” program and then used its leverage to muddy the waters on what scientists know about climate…….
After two decades in the trenches of climate science, I’m no longer the ingenue I was. I’m all too aware, now, of those who dismiss climate science as a “liberal hoax.” Every day, they attack me on Facebook, vilify me on Twitter and even send the occasional hand-typed letter – which begs appreciation of the artistry, if not the contents. So now, if Exxon came calling, what would I do?……
Despite the fact that there’s no easy answer, it’s a question that’s being posed to more and more of us every day, and we cannot straddle the fence any longer. As academics and scientists, we have some tough choices to make; and only by recognizing the broader implications of these choices are we able to make these decisions with our eyes wide open, rather than half shut. https://theconversation.com/i-was-an-exxon-funded-climate-scientist-49855
August 26, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, Religion and ethics, USA |
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Santee Cooper CEO retires amid SC nuclear fiasco, The State, BY AVERY G. WILKS, awilks@thestate.com, AUGUST 25, 2017 Santee Cooper chief executive Lonnie Carter Friday became the first executive to step down amid a political firestorm after the construction of two nuclear reactors in Fairfield County was abandoned……
A spokeswoman said details of Carter’s retirement pay package would not be available until early next week. Carter’s $527,187-a-year salary in 2016 was the highest of any state employee not involved in athletics……..http://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article169317737.html
August 26, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
general |
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More young professionals qualify as future nuclear leaders: 2017 Japan-IAEA Joint Nuclear Energy Management School, Keiko Hanamitsu, IAEA Department of Nuclear Energy, Irena Chatzis, IAEA Department of Nuclear Energy“……….On the margins of the School, the IAEA signed Practical Arrangements with the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (JAIF), and the JAIF International Cooperation Center (JICC). The Practical Arrangements formalize cooperation in the area of nuclear human resource development, including knowledge management, education, training and outreach. The JAEA, JAIF and JICC serve as secretariats of the Japan Nuclear Human Resource Development Network and also collaborate with the IAEA as the NEM School organizers, together with the National Institute of Technology, Fukushima College and the University of Tokyo.
Background The NEM School was launched in 2010 in cooperation with the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy. The purpose of the School is to help address the need for an expanded global cadre of nuclear professionals, brought about by the increased worldwide interest in the use of nuclear technologies – from electricity generation to medical, agricultural and industrial uses. Since then, besides the annual NEM School hosted in Trieste, regional schools have been conducted in the UAE, Japan, the USA, South Africa and Russian Federation, benefitting more than 600 students from all over the world. The NEM School enables the transfer of IAEA-specific knowledge to Member States, furthering their capacity building efforts.
The NEM School focuses mainly on training of young professionals with managerial potential from developing countries on the different aspects of the nuclear energy sector. …..https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/more-young-professionals-qualify-as-future-nuclear-leaders-2017-japan-iaea-joint-nuclear-energy-management-school
August 26, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
2 WORLD, Education |
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The Trump Administration Censors Climate Change Research as Hurricane Harvey Barrels Down on Texas http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a57202/climate-change-censor-scientist/ This is nothing new, but it’s still a disgrace. BY JACK HOLMES, AUG 25, 2017
Free speech for me but not for thee” seems to be a core principle of the Trump administration.
The president defended a group of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, and the “very fine people” who march with them earlier this month, partly on the grounds that they had secured a permit and thus had a First Amendment right to assemble. But when it comes to scientists publishing their findings on issues that Republicans and the fossil fuel interests that pay their campaign bills find inconvenient, this administration suddenly takes a very dim view of free expression. The latest example comes via a scientist at Northeastern University, who received an intriguing email from a federal bureaucrat Thursday afternoon:[on original]
As another scientist who shared Bowen’s post on Twitter put it, this is a textbook case of censorship. Political operatives in the administration are attempting to police the work of nonpartisan academics to remove any references to “climate change” or “global warming.” Because if you never say the words, the things they describe will never appear. Like Beetlejuice.
These aren’t exactly uncharted waters for the Trump administration. Earlier this month, it emerged that staffers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture were instructed to censor the terms “climate change,” “reduce greenhouse gasses,” “sequester carbon,” and “climate change adaptation” in their work. In March, Politico reported the Department of Energy’s international climate office had instructed staff not to use “climate change,” “emissions reduction,” or “Paris Agreement” in “memos, briefings, or other written communication.”
And of course, the contemptible Scott Pruitt—the man tasked with destroying the Environmental Protection Agency from the inside—has enacted a policy of secrecy at that agency that wouldn’t be out of place at the CIA. The problem is so bad that scientists from 13 federal agencies preemptively leaked a terrifying report on the realities of man-made climate change, explicitly stating that they were concerned it would be censored by the administration.
This all fits the mold for Republicans in general. After all, Vice President Dick Cheney and his operatives did plenty of meddling in climate research during the Bush administration. And the administration of Governor Rick Scott in Florida—a state in which the biggest city is already flooding at high tide—has long banned the use of certain terms, including “climate change.” Because again, if you don’t say the words, the problem doesn’t exist. It’s like playing hide and seek with a toddler. Just put your palms over your eyes and stand there while the water rises around your ankles.
August 26, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
civil liberties, climate change, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA |
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French utility EDF has given information to nuclear regulator ASN about previously unknown deviations in manufacturing documentation of nuclear components made by Areva-owned foundry Creusot Forge, an ASN spokeswoman said.
Confirming a report in Platts, the spokeswoman told Reuters that no further information was available about the nature of these deviations. Platts reported on Wednesday that a new batch of files that the ASN has received from EDF on nuclear parts manufactured by Creusot Forge “reveal deviations that were not known”.
https://www.reuters.com/article/edf-creusot-idUSL8N1L94M7
August 26, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
general |
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He saw a nuclear blast at 9, then spent his life opposing nuclear war and climate change, WP, By Dan Zak August 24 As a 9-year-old on an island between Hawaii and Australia, Tony deBrum witnessed the explosion of the largest bomb ever detonated by the United States. The “Castle Bravo” nuclear weapon was 1,000 times as powerful as the one dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
From his perch 280 miles from ground zero, Mr. deBrum saw the flash of light — silent and brighter than the sun — and watched the sky turn red as blood. The terrifying thunder from the test explosion stayed with him the rest of his life, which he devoted to representing the people of the Republic of the Marshall Islands at home and abroad.
Mr. deBrum, who helped gain his nation’s independence from the United States — and then helped sue the U.S. for allegedly breaching an international treaty on nuclear nonproliferation — died Aug. 22 in Majuro, the capital city of his Pacific island nation. He was 72…… https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/he-saw-a-nuclear-blast-at-9-then-spent-his-life-opposing-nuclear-war-and-climate-change/2017/08/24/5b6d10e6-882e-11e7-a94f-3139abce39f5_story.html?utm_term=.18c641eccfdb
August 26, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
OCEANIA, opposition to nuclear, PERSONAL STORIES |
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More young professionals qualify as future nuclear leaders: 2017 Japan-IAEA Joint Nuclear Energy Management School, “……….On the margins of the School, the IAEA signed Practical Arrangements with the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (JAIF), and the JAIF International Cooperation Center (JICC). The Practical Arrangements formalize cooperation in the area of nuclear human resource development, including knowledge management, education, training and outreach. The JAEA, JAIF and JICC serve as secretariats of the Japan Nuclear Human Resource Development Network and also collaborate with the IAEA as the NEM School organizers, together with the National Institute of Technology, Fukushima College and the University of Tokyo.
nuclear-news 