Off Country: A Multimedia Documentary Feature, KICK STARTER
A multimedia oral history project examining landscapes of nuclear weapons testing and anti-nuclear activism in the American Southwest.
About this project
For the past two years we have traveled throughout Colorado and New Mexico, interviewing activists and community members whose lives have been impacted by the nuclear weapons industry. We have listened to stories both heartbreaking and inspiring. We have heard about calling into work sick to go on a Backcountry Action in Nevada to stop an underground nuclear weapons test, about quitting your job to dedicate your life full-time to shutting down Rocky Flats, and we have heard about sickness, death, and imprisonment. In the face of both adversity and triumph, these are stories about solidarity, community and a profound commitment to environmental and racial justice.
Our project is a feature-length experimental documentary and multimedia oral history archive that examines three regions in the west, the former Rocky Flats Plant, the White Sands Missile Range and the Nevada Test Site. Off Country investigates the environmental consequences of the nuclear weapons industry as well as racist and classist policies inherent in the storage, mining, and production of radioactive material. We have driven more than 8000 miles, shot over two and a half hours of 16mm film and collected nearly twenty hours of interviews and field recordings.
The film was started with a small grant from CU Boulder, this grant allowed us to perform field work for 4 weeks in the summer of 2016. We shot over 2000 feet of film during this period. Since then we have traveled to New Mexico numerous times and have spent $8,000 on our own conducting fieldwork. Thanks to a small grant from The Puffin Foundation we were able to process and transfer about half of our footage. At bare minimum, we need an additional $10,000 to process the remaining film and transfer it to video.
In order to continue our work we have started a Kickstarter campaign and invite you to help. We are fiscally sponsored by Basement Films so all donations are tax deductible. www.off-country.com
Why Now?
In 1992 the closing of the Rocky Flats Plant outside of Boulder Colorado halted the industrial production of nuclear weapons. There are currently plans underway to construct a plutonium pit production facility at Los Alamos National Labs in New Mexico, in order to modernize the U.S. nuclear stockpile for the 21st Century, despite lingering environmental contamination left by the legacy of the 20th century.
In the 1940s, New Mexico was chosen as the site for the Manhattan Project and the world’s first atomicweapons test because of its remoteness and the military’s perception that “no one” lived there. However, the Mescalero Indian reservation was established just seven miles from ground zero, and Hispanic families had been ranching in the area for generations. What the military meant by “no one” was that no Anglo-Americans lived in the area.
The film will be bilingual and focus on nuclear weapons testing, manufacturing, and storage, with an emphasis on social justice and environmental restoration. Additionally, the archive will document and catalog a diverse chorus of voices whom history has neglected. This archive will be a tool for researchers, historians, and activists, to learn not only about history but the human stories of people resisting environmental contamination and political oppression……..https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/578520099/off-country-a-multimedia-documentary-feature
UAE severs North Korea ties over nuclear & missile threats – thousands of workers at risk THE UNITED Arab Emirates (UAE) has announced plans to cut ties with North Korea amid international outrage at Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes. By WILL KIRBY, orth Korea’s ambassador in the country has been told to leave and the UAE will terminate its own envoy’s services in Pyongyang, according to a statement from the Foreign Ministry.
The statement also said the UAE will stop issuing new visas or company licenses to North Korean citizens.
Several thousand North Korean workers live in the country, with many working on construction sites.
They earn a significantly better wage than they would for the same job in their own country, but are forced to make so-called “loyalty payments” to Kim Jong-un’s regime…….
The measures taken by the UAE come after President Trump urged United Nations members to ramp up pressure on the hermit state to give up its nuclear weapons.
The UAE foreign ministry statement reads: “The measures… come within the context of its obligation as a responsible member of the international community to strengthen the international will and to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile programs.”
The withdrawal from Euratom, as part of the Brexit process, threatens to leave British firms without a framework through which to navigate the tightly regulated trade of nuclear materials.
UK ministers presented a Nuclear Safeguards Bill to Parliament this week which sets up a domestic nuclear safeguards regime. Industry insiders told The Daily Telegraph that they are monitoring the Government’s efforts to replicate the Euratom standards in an attempt to maintain access to the global nuclear market, but the slow progress means urgent contingency plans are likely to be required.
The risk of a 2019 cliff edge could paralyse work building the new Hinkley Point C new nuclear project and leave nuclear fuel suppliers without stocks.
“We are facing disruption to absolutely everything,” Tom Greatrex, chief executive of the Nuclear Industries Association, told Sky News. “Fifteen months to two years sounds like a lot of time. It’s not. The clock is ticking and it has been since the referendum and we’ve made very little progress so far.”
Nuclear giant Westinghouse, which runs the Springfields nuclear fuel plant in Cumbria, is working closely with the Government, regulators and its customers to ensure it can still import raw materials and export fuel even after leaving Euratom.
The Springfields facility is the first plant in the world to produce fuel for a commercial nuclear power station and has supplied products and services to customers in 11 countries since 1946. Without a replacement deal the facility, which employs a workforce of 1,200, would be unable to import the uranium needed to make enriched nuclear fuel or be able to export to customers.
“As part of these discussions we will evaluate any contingency arrangements which need to be in place to ensure we continue to successfully deliver to our customers in the UK and overseas,” the spokesman said.
But for the UK’s first new nuclear power plant to be built in a generation a regulatory gap following Brexit could raise major issues securing construction materials and skilled labour.
The NIA estimates that the £20bn Hinkley Point project will source around £5bn of its component parts from European countries.
Typically the UK imports graphite components from Germany using feedstock produced in France. Stainless steel castings are also manufactured in France and stainless strips, used to manufacture certain fuels and stringer components, are imported from Sweden.
The exit will also pose problems recruiting skilled labour.
It is estimated that Hinkley Point will need 1,400 steel fixers at the peak of its construction phase. The NIA has said only 2,700 registered and certified steel fixers are based in the UK and the project will be forced to compete with other major infrastructure projects in the UK for these individuals. Many are nearing retirement with an average age of 57.
“The best outcome for the nuclear industry would be if the UK could remain within the Euratom Treaty,” said a spokesman for EDF Energy, the French state-backed developer backing Hinkley Point.
“If the UK withdraws from the Treaty, it is essential that alternative and transitional arrangements are put in place in a pragmatic fashion, and before the existing arrangements are terminated. We stand ready to assist the development and timely delivery of the appropriate solution,” he added.
North Korea earthquake hits near nuclear test site THE AUSTRALIAN, 13 Oct 17 A series of tremors and landslides near North Korea’s nuclear test base probably mean the country’s sixth and largest blast has destabilised the region, and the Punggye-ri nuclear site may not be used for much longer to test nuclear weapons, experts say.
A small quake was detected early today near the North’s nuclear test site, South Korea’s weather agency said, but unlike quakes associated with nuclear tests, it did not appear to be man-made.
The tremor was the latest in a string of at least three shocks to be observed since Pyongyang’s September 3 nuclear test, which caused a 6.3 magnitude earthquake.
Today’s quake was a magnitude 2.7 with a depth of 3km in North Hamgyong Province in North Korea, the Korea Meteorological Administration said. The United States Geological Survey measured the quake at 2.9 magnitude at a depth of 5km.
“This event occurred in the area of the previous North Korean nuclear tests. The event has earthquake-like characteristics, however, we cannot conclusively confirm at this time the nature (natural or human-made) of the event,” the US agency said.
But the Korea Meteorological Administration in the South said on its website that “analysis shows it was a natural quake”. “It is believed to have caused no damage,” it added.
The series of quakes has prompted experts and observers to suspect the last test – which the North claimed to be of a hydrogen bomb – may have damaged the mountainous location in the northwest tip of the country, where all of North Korea’s six nuclear tests were conducted.
“The explosion from the September 3 test had such power that the existing tunnels within the underground testing site might have caved in,” said Kim So- gu, head researcher at the Korea Seismological Institute.
“I think the Punggye-ri region is now pretty saturated. If it goes ahead with another test in this area, it could risk radioactive pollution.”
According to 38 North, a Washington-based project that monitors North Korea, numerous landslides throughout the nuclear test site have been detected via satellite images after the sixth test. These disturbances are more numerous and widespread than seen after any of the North’s previous tests, 38 North said.
The explosion from the sixth test was large enough for residents of the Chinese border city of Yanji, 200km north of North Korea’s nuclear test site, to feel the ground shake beneath their feet.
“The reason why Punggye-ri has become North Korea’s nuclear testing field is because this area was considered stable and rarely saw tremors in the past,” said Hong Tae-kyung, a professor of earth system science at Yonsei University in Seoul.
Thanks To North Korea, Nuclear Bunkers Are Making A Comeback — But How Effective Are They?, Forbes, Sharon Lam , FORBES STAFF I am an editorial intern with the Asia Channel, 13 Oct 17,Those born in America in the 40’s may recall “Duck and Cover”—a public service announcement featuring an animated turtle named Bert who instructed American households on how to protect themselves in the event of a nuclear blast. While the effectiveness of this strategy has been called into question since the Cold War, the level of threat has not necessarily decreased in kind. In September, North Korea test-flighted a second missile over Japan only twelve days after its sixth nuclear weapons test earlier that month. Bunkers and fallout shelters are now seeing an uptick in sales, making their first revival since the Cold War.
In the 20-some years that have passed, has our emergency preparedness in the aftermath of a nuclear detonation become more effective, and are we now more prepared than we were before for a nuclear strike?
Destruction Of Seismic Proportions
Virtually no city is prepared for a nuclear detonation –that is the verdict of a recent report by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. While factors like location, subsequent fire blast, long-term radioactive fallout and even building shield coverage all affect overall level of destruction, a nuclear exchange would cause irreparable damage to the world. To contextualize matters, North Korea’s recent hydrogen bomb test, which was believed to be 120 kilotons TNT, dwarfs both atomic bombs dropped in World War II–the “Little “Boy” on Hiroshima and the “Fat Man” in Nagasaki.
Melissa Hanham, a senior researcher at the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, reminds us that compared to a conventional weapon, a nuclear weapon is a different beast altogether. “It’s not possible to prepare for nuclear attack. There are not enough places to shelter, not enough emergency supply nor emergency responders to handle a nuclear exchange of this magnitude. Even if you were to survive the immediate blast, you would need to think about planning for the days, weeks, months– years afterwards.”………
Public fallout shelters have also edged towards obsolescence because they cannot adequately protect against nuclear, chemical or biological attacks, and also require time to get to–time that civilians likely won’t have. As Timothy J. Jorgensen writes for The Conversation, “The main reason we no longer build fallout shelters is that as nuclear bombs have grown in size and number, the prospects of surviving a nuclear war – even in a shelter – have decreased.” Spending money on fallout shelters does not guarantee safety, and funding has instead been diverted to deterrence efforts.
Government-commissioned fallout shelters may be more symbolic than functional, and Hanham explains how their role has always been to dampen widespread panic and hysteria. The catchy tune of “Duck and Cover” in particular provided comic relief, even when it belied much darker overtones of destruction. “Even in the Cold War, when people were asked to ‘duck and cover,’ it was largely to provide comfort and solace to the people,” she says.
A Burgeoning Market For Private Bunkers
While governments may no longer be building civil defense bunkers, there’s no denying that they do mitigate the effects of nuclear fallout. It has also carved out a niche market for the sale of personalized private bunkers, usually built underground or in the basement of one’s home. Nuclear shelter companies in Japan such as Shelter Co., whose shelters come equipped with anti-radiation air purifiers and tunnel exits have also proliferated, and Oribe Seiki Seisakusho in Kobe has reportedly received eight orders in April alone, compared to its usual average total of six in a year, Reuters reports. However, U.S. based bunker companies still command the lion’s share of fallout shelters, the most popular of which are the California–based company Atlas Survival and Rising S Co. in Texas, both of which have seen an uptick in sales, according to Bloomberg.
The obvious upside of these private bunkers include the benefit of proximity—assuming one is already home and can reach a shelter faster than a crowded metro station. Unlike wartime bunkers, they are also fully stocked and often built with protective materials.
That bunkers also increase the likelihood of survivability is indeed a hopeful sign in an otherwise grim situation. The War Monitor claims that radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion loses intensity fairly rapidly. “Fallout emitting gamma ray radiation at an initial rate over 500 R/hr (fatal with one hour of exposure for 50%) shortly after an explosion, weakens to only 1/10th as strong 7 hours later. Two days later, it’s only 1/100th as strong, or as deadly, as it was initially.” This fact should be reassuring, suggesting that even staying in a shelter and waiting for radiation levels to decline can dramatically increase one’s chances of survival. During nuclear Armageddon, every extra minute afforded counts towards survival rates……https://www.forbes.com/sites/lamsharon/2017/10/13/thanks-to-north-korea-nuclear-bunkers-are-making-a-comeback-but-how-effective-are-they/#6356e67d5ddd
The Risks of Pakistan’s Sea-Based Nuclear Weaponshttps://thediplomat.com/2017/10/the-risks-of-pakistans-sea-based-nuclear-weapons/The Babur-3 opens a dangerous era for Pakistan’s nuclear forces.By Ankit Panda, October 13, 2017 Nine days into 2017, Pakistan carried out the first-ever flight test of the Babur-3, it’s new nuclear-capable submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM). A variant of the Babur-3 ground-launched cruise missile (GLCM), this SLCM will see Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent head to sea—probably initially aboard its Agosta 90B and Agosta 70 submarines, but eventually, perhaps even on board new Type 041 Yuan-class submarines Pakistan is expected to procure from China.
In a new article in the Fall 2017 issue of the Washington Quarterly, Christopher Clary and I examine some of the novel security challenges Pakistan may experience with its sea-based deterrent. It is already well known that Pakistan has outpaced it’s primary rival, India, in terms of its nuclear stockpile growth.
On land, low-yield systems, like the Nasr, have also raised concerns of a lower nuclear-use threshold in South Asia. The move to sea can have some positive effects on overall strategic stability; indeed, the perceived survivability of a sea-based deterrent can abate so-called “use-it-or-lose-it” pressures for Pakistan’s land-based forces. But the story doesn’t stop there.
Sea-based weapons can aggravate crisis stability concerns in the India-Pakistan dyad and present unique command-and-control challenges for Pakistan, which may be required to place these weapons at a higher level of readiness during peacetime. Finally, Pakistan’s internal security environment will remain a concern with a submarine-based deterrent. The threat of theft and sabotage may be greater in the case of Pakistan’s sea-based weapons than it is for its land-based forces. In aggregate, we argue that the sea-based deterrent may, on balance, prove detrimental to Pakistan’s security.
Pakistan, like other nuclear states, employs a range of physical and procedural safeguards to ensure that its nuclear weapons are only used in a crisis and a with a valid order from the country’s National Command Authority (NCA). The introduction of a nuclear-capable SLCM aboard its Agosta submarines would necessitate the erosion of some of these safeguards.
For instance, some physical safeguards that Pakistan is known to use for its land-based weapons — including partially dissembled storage, separation of triggers and pits, and de-mated storage — would be impractical at sea. Meanwhile, the experience of other nuclear states, like the United Kingdom, with sea-based deterrents suggests that sea-based nuclear weapons generally see fewer use impediments. Pakistan has long asserted that its nuclear command-and-control is highly centralized, but it remains doubtful that this would remain true for its small nuclear-capable submarine force in wartime or a crisis. The temptation to pre-delegate use authorization may be too great.
Leaving aside the command-and-control and safeguard concerns, sea-based weapons may seriously aggravate crisis stability, in other words, the temptation for India to attack first as a crisis begins. The theory behind a survivable sea-based second-strike capability is more compelling assuming a large submarine force capable of maintaining a continuous at-sea deterrent presence. Pakistan’s submarine force, by contrast, would likely employ a bastion model — meaning that their peacetime locations would be known and hence the submarines would be vulnerable to Indian conventional attack.
Similarly, Indian forces, unable to discriminate whether a detected Pakistani submarine in a crisis was fielding nuclear or conventional capabilities, would have to presume nuclear capability should the Babur-3 see deployment. All of this in turn not only would make Pakistan’s submarine force a prime early-crisis target for Indian forces, but also aggravate use-or-lose pressures for land-based forces.
Ultimately, even if India resisted attacking Pakistani submarines to avoid unintended escalatory pressures, it would at least see value in targeting the Very Low Frequency (VLF) radar facility established at Karachi in November 2016 that would allow Pakistan’s NCA to communicate with its at-sea deterrent in a crisis. This would require some confidence in New Delhi that Pakistan had not pre-delegated use authorization and that Islamabad’s sea-based weapons would still require the transmission of a use-authorization code from the NCA.
Finally, a major cause for concern with Pakistan’s move to the sea with its nuclear forces comes from its ongoing struggle with various radical Islamic militant groups. Here, Pakistan is somewhat unique among nuclear possessor states. While militants have mostly targeted soft targets in urban centers, the Pakistani military has endured major attacks as well. In particular, Pakistan has endured attacks and infiltration attempts at sensitive military and naval sites, some associated with its nuclear program. Then-Defense Minister Khawaja Asif acknowledged that Pakistan Navy insiders even abetted Al Qaeda attackers in the 2014 PNS Zulfiquarattack. (Similar reports surfaced around the time of the 2011 PNS Mehran attacks, too.)
Militants with an eye on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons may find no better targets than sea-based systems with fewer physical safeguards. Moreover, the locations of these weapons would be well-known in peacetime, unlike Pakistan’s land-based weapons. The Pakistan Naval Dockyard in Karachi or the Jinnah Naval Base in Ormara — the two known sites capable of hosting Pakistani submarines — are thus prime for attack, infiltration, and even insider risks. While many of the above risks raised by the Babur-3 are far from unique to Pakistan, no other nuclear state faces a similar level of internal militancy.
The Babur-3‘s introduction presents a classic at-sea deterrent dilemma for Pakistan. It can choose to have its presumed second-strike capability either totally secure or readily usable in wartime. For a range of reasons, Pakistan can be expected to opt for the latter option. This will require real compromises on nuclear weapons security that expose Pakistan’s sea-based deterrent to theft and unauthorized use. Combined with the crisis stability implications and the more mundane concerns rising from costs, a sea-based leg to Pakistan’s nuclear forces appears to be, on balance, a net negative for its overall security.
Eskom gets nod to develop new nuclear power station, Fin24, Oct 13 2017 Lameez Omarjee Johannesburg – Eskom has permission to develop a new nuclear plant next to the existing Koeberg power station in the Western Cape.
A statement issued by the power utility on Friday revealed that the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) authorised its Final Environmental Impact Report for the power station at Duynefontein.
Eskom’s chief nuclear officer Dave Nicholls said this is considered an “important milestone” in developing the country’s nuclear programme.
Five sites were investigated which include Brazil and Schulpfontein in the Northern Cape, Bantamsklip and Duynefontein in the Western Cape, and Thyspunt in the Eastern Cape.
Following the scoping phase, Brazil and Schulpfontein have been excluded for further environmental studies while the other sites are still usable in the future as no “fatal flaws” have been identified, Eskom said……….
However, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) which has been challenging Eskom’s nuclear build programme, claims to have “plenty of ammo” left to dispute any claims of progress being made by the power utility.
Speaking to Fin24 on Friday, Ted Blom, director of the energy portfolio, said that such a decision by the DEA is premature. “It is absolutely premature, with the whole nuclear IRP justification process still a work in progress,” he said. “Any claims of progress are totally premature.”
Greed for atomic minerals to leave Tamil Nadu in peril, INDIAN EXPRESS, By Sv Krishna Chaitanya & Sushmitha Ramakrishnan | Express News Service 13th October 2017 CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu has been the biggest victim of illegal beach sand mining in the country. As per the report submitted recently by senior lawyer and rights activist V Suresh, appointed as amicus curiae by Madras High Court in the case relating to illegalities in mining of beach sand minerals in Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli and Kanniyakumari, out of 1.5 crore tonnes of raw sand mined between 2000 and 2017, 57 per cent had been mined illegally.
Now, the latest “horrific” amendment, as activists call it, to Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification, 2011 by Union Ministry of Environment, allowing mining of atomic minerals like uranium, thorium or titanium in ecologically sensitive CRZ areas, irrespective of whether they are available in non-CRZ areas or not, is only going to deliver a telling blow on the already under-stress Tamil Nadu coast.
As per the study titled “Coastal Mineral Mapping” done by researchers in Institute of Ocean Management (IOM) in Anna University, it is revealed that Tamil Nadu arguably has highest concentration of Monazite deposits in the country along its coastline that spans over 1,076 km. Monazite, an atomic mineral, contains 8-10 percent thorium, which is a nuclear fuel. This was India’s first exhaustive attempt to map and record all the natural minerals available, done is tandem with Atomic Mineral Directorate for Exploration and Research (AMD) of Department of Atomic Energy and funded by Environment Ministry. The beach sands of India — especially in Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh — are rich in several heavy minerals such as ilmenite, rutile, leucoxene, garnet, sillimanite, zircon and monazite.
Supreme Court lawyer Ritwick Dutta, who is also the managing trustee of Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment, said the latest notification will compromise the integrity of the coast. “I can’t make sense of this notification. There is no consultation, there is no fixation on extraction of minerals. This will give a free run for miners to plunder India’s natural treasure. There is a pattern in what the Centre is doing. It is systematically weakening all the laws coming under Environment (Protection) Act, 1972. Firstly, construction projects were exempted from preparing EIA, later Central Wetlands Regulatory Authority was replaced with ‘toothless’ Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2016, where state authorities call the shots. Now, this mindless amendment to CRZ Notification, 2011.”………
Environmental activist Nityanand Jayaraman says that Tamil Nadu has already been plundered violating CRZ norms. The intertidal, CRZ-1 areas were not spared even when there were laws. “Now, this is legitimising some of the wrongdoing done in the past and people have also lost their right to question the illegality.”
Environmental dangers
It’s not just the loss of precious minerals that should worry the States. Tampering of fragile coastline would also invite disasters like salt water intrusion, qualitative and quantitative degradation of ground water……..
Health effects
While social and environmental consequences seem inevitable, Konstantine claimed that atomic mining has brought serious health complications to residents around the mines. “Since 1965, mining for radioactive minerals has been prominent in Kanniyakumari, particularly in Manavalakruchi. Studies in the neighbouring mines in Kollam have revealed that the effect of radiation has had a far reaching effect, up to 85 km,” he rued.
He added that no comprehensive study has been brought to public forum about the health effects of these radiations. “The incidences of cancer has been rising over the decades and most victims from Manavalakuruchi and Midalam, approach the Regional Cancer Centre in Thiruvananthapuram or the International Cancer Centre , by CSI Medical Mission at Neyyoor. “These cases are however are not mapped back to radioactivity,” he said claiming that the incidence of the disease is relatively lower the farther one lives from atomic mining areas……..
Alarm bells ringing
Activists say the resources could end up in foreign soil owing to lack of state-run companies’ expertise in handling such rare-earth minerals
Mining for radioactive minerals can contribute to cancer among those in the vicinity of the project
Tampering of fragile coastline would also invite disasters like salt water intrusion, leading to degradation of ground water. They say there are many areas in the State already battling such issues due to unscientific construction
Why “stupid” machines matter: Autonomous weapons and shifting norms, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Ingvild Bode, Hendrik Huelss 13 Oct 17, In August, a group of experts on robotics and artificial intelligence released an open letter to the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. The well-publicized letter called on the convention “to find a way to protect us all from” the dangers of autonomous weapons systems—and drew attention to a lack of international regulation on autonomous weapons (often understood as weapons that “once activated, can select and engage targets without further human intervention”).
In 2013 the convention added autonomous weapons to the list of weapons it might consider restricting or outlawing. But parties to the convention remain far from agreement on how to define “lethal autonomous weapons systems” or “appropriate human control of autonomous weapons”—a necessary precursor to further discussions on the topic or to a pre-emptive ban of the sort advocated by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots.
In December of last year, the convention established a Group of Governmental Experts, with a mandate to discuss lethal autonomous weapons systems—but the group’s first meeting has been postponed twice for budgetary reasons. It is now scheduled for next month.
Deliberative processes that might examine autonomous weapons from the perspective of the laws of war—processes, that is, that could result in new regulations—are notoriously sluggish. Meanwhile, autonomous weapons technology is developing apace. Nations such as the United States, China, Russia, South Korea, and the United Kingdom continue to develop autonomous weapons and related dual-use technologies, meaning that deployment of these weapons could become a fait accompli before any pre-emptive ban can be negotiated.
The current debate over autonomous weapons exhibits two important shortcomings. First, though it is important to examine autonomous weapons from the legal and regulatory perspective, doing so can fail to capture the reality that autonomous weapons, and the practices associated with their development and deployment, can alter norms themselves. For example, practices surrounding autonomous weapons can produce new understandings, outside and beyond international law, of when and how using force is appropriate. As Herbert Lin has written in the Bulletin, the unrestricted submarine warfare of World War II undermined agreed-upon norms about the conduct of war; other such examples are not hard to find.
Second, when observers discuss autonomous weapons’ game-changing potential in international relations and security policy, they often overemphasize the technologically sophisticated autonomous weapons of the future. (This tendency is shaped by popular culture’s “Terminator” vision of humanoid monsters and is affected by the lack of a consensus definition of “autonomous weapons” or “autonomy.”) Overemphasizing technologically sophisticated weapons seems to result in a belief that the international community should just wait to see whether “killer robots” indeed become reality. However, no matter how important advanced artificial intelligence will be for future weapons systems, it is “stupid” autonomous weapons that require attention now.
(This issue has been discussed, for example, by Noel Sharkey, an emeritus professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield—and, in a broader context, by Toby Walsh, a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales.)
To sort out these problems, it is helpful to contrast autonomy with mere automation. Drawing on definitions from basic robotics, automated machines can be said to run according to fixed and preprogrammed sequences of action. Autonomous systems, meanwhile, are defined by their ability to adapt: An autonomous device’s “actions are determined by its sensory inputs, rather than where it is in a preprogramed sequence.” This level of autonomy is easy to achieve—one need only think of robotic vacuum cleaners. But where weapons are concerned, even this level of autonomy contests the idea of appropriate human control. And importantly, unlike the humanoid killer robots of possible future scenarios, this level of autonomy already exists………
It is sometimes presumed that autonomous weapons will demonstrate ethical superiorityover humans. Any such superiority is still hypothetical, but autonomous weapons might lack potentially problematic emotions such as fear, anger, or vengefulness. Presumed ethical superiority leads to further procedural arguments for constructing autonomous weapons as “better soldiers” that will outperform humans morally and in terms of compliance with international humanitarian law. If this argument becomes more dominant, the widespread development and deployment of autonomous weapons will become more likely—further escalating the possibility that procedural norms will affect the public and legal norms that underlie international law and notions of legitimacy.
The US military’s pervasive and accelerating deployment of drones, and drones’ centrality in US security policy, show that practices indeed shape norms. Drones have become “preferred” security instruments due to specific rationales based on procedural norms. Autonomous weapons’ versatility, the dual-use character of their main features, and the technological rivalry among major powers qualify them as very important instruments—and this makes their regulation more difficult. Whenever procedural norms prevail over legal and ethical norms, the latter category, unfortunately, is likely to yield or adapt.
To be sure, some types of autonomous weapons might be banned in the future. But practices now being established regarding autonomous weapons are already setting standards about the future use of force. This trend should be monitored much more closely—regardless of whether the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, governments, and nongovernmental organizations find common ground in their struggle to define what autonomous weapons are in the first place. https://thebulletin.org/why-%E2%80%9Cstupid%E2%80%9D-machines-matter-autonomous-weapons-and-shifting-norms11189
Former president Anote Tong compares Kiribati’s future to the sinking of the Titanic, ABC News By Sarah Hancock , 13 Oct 17 Anote Tong is the former president of the Republic of Kiribati and his island home, in the central Pacific Ocean, is already suffering from the effects of climate change.
Rising sea levels are causing land to be engulfed by tidal waters, driving people away from their homes and leaving them displaced.
Anote Tong is the former president of the Republic of Kiribati and his island home, in the central Pacific Ocean, is already suffering from the effects of climate change.
Rising sea levels are causing land to be engulfed by tidal waters, driving people away from their homes and leaving them displaced.
“What I have seen in my lifetime over the years has been villages, communities, who have had to leave … because it is no longer viable,” he said. “The sea is there and there is nothing. Everything has been taken away so they have had to relocate.”……..
“As a grandfather I have got to think beyond that, as a leader I have to think beyond what will happen today, and knowing what we know today, what will happen to the next generation,” he said.
Mr Tong compared Kiribati’s future to the sinking of the Titanic.
“We are the people who will be swimming,” he said.
— Donald Trump on Sunday, October 8th, 2017 in a tweet
Is Sen. Bob Corker responsible for the Iran deal, as Donald Trump claims? POLITIFACT By John Kruzelon Thursday, October 12th, 2017President Donald Trump escalated a war of words with Sen. Bob Corker by blaming the Tennessee Republican for the Iran nuclear deal Trump has long derided……..
“Bob Corker gave us the Iran Deal,” Trump wrote in an Oct. 8 tweet, hours after Corker tweeted that the White House “has become an adult day care center.”
We decided to take a closer look at Corker’s role in the brokering the agreement.
Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act
Trump’s claim is contradicted by the fact Corker vocally opposed the deal that would eventually emerge from negotiations with Iran in July 2015, and urged Republican colleagues to oppose it, too.
The deal “leaves the United States vulnerable to a resurgent Iran wealthier and more able to work its will in the Middle East,” Corker wrote in an August 2015 opinion piece in the Washington Post. “Congress should reject this deal and send it back to the president.”
Corker himself voted against the deal, though Republicans ultimately lacked the votes to reject it.
When asked how Trump could say that Corker was responsible for the deal, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said a bill Corker sponsored paved the way for the Iran deal and gave it credibility.
“Sen. Corker worked with (Democratic House Leader) Nancy Pelosi and the Obama administration to pave the way for that legislation, and basically rolled out the red carpet for the Iran deal,” she said in an Oct. 10 press briefing, adding, “He not only allowed the deal to happen, he gave it credibility.”
The legislation Sanders was referring to is the Corker-sponsored Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. After initial resistance from President Barack Obama, the bill passed with overwhelming majorities in both chambers, and was signed into law in May 2015.
Corker’s office described the law as enhancing Congress’ authority to review any nuclear agreement with Iran before allowing a president to lift congressionally-imposed sanctions.
So if Corker’s law aimed to give Congress more say over the agreement, what to make of the Trump administration’s assertion that it paved the way for the deal?
“This is astonishingly wrong,” said Richard Nephew, a senior research scholar on global energy policy at Columbia University, who previously served as the lead sanctions expert for the U.S. team negotiating with Iran during the administration of President Barack Obama. “The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act gave Congress the most direct way of killing the deal, quickly and easily.”
Kelsey Davenport, the director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, also said the Trump administration was way off the mark.
“It is ludicrous to argue that Senator Corker and Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act are responsible for delivering the nuclear deal with Iran,” she said. “If anything, (the law) nearly prevented the deal’s implementation and undermined the agreement.”……..
Our ruling
Trump said, “Bob Corker gave us the Iran Deal.”
Corker sponsored legislation to enhance Congress’ authority to review the Iran nuclear deal before allowing the president to lift congressionally-imposed sanctions. He also vocally opposed the deal, urged lawmakers to reject the agreement and voted against it.
We don’t see how this could reasonably be construed as Corker giving the United States the Iran deal. Trump’s claim doesn’t make logical sense.
Inside Trump’s Head: An Exclusive Interview With the President, And The Single Theory That Explains Everything, By Randall Lane, FORBES STAFF , 12 Oct 17, This story appears in the November 14, 2017 issue of Forbes. If Trump really did call the White House a “dump,” he’s over it. Inside the small West Wing study—where he stacks his papers and takes his meals atop what he calls his “working desk,” the president talks volubly about a chandelier he had installed and the oil paintings of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. He pokes open the door to his pristine private bathroom, a must for the germophobe-in-chief. He takes us outside to see the serene swimming pool. And inside the Oval Office, freshly renovated with drapes, carpet and fixtures that lean heavily on gold, he slides his hand across the same Resolute desk where JFK handled the Cuban Missile Crisis and Reagan fought the Cold War, adorned with nothing but two telephones and a call button. “This looks very nice,” says the president.
He could as easily be pitching a Trump Tower penthouse or a Doral golf club membership, and over the course of a nearly one-hour interview in the Oval Office, President Trump stays true to the same Citizen Trump form that Forbes has seen for 35 years.
He boasts, with a dose of hyperbole that any student of FDR or even Barack Obama could undercut: “I’ve had just about the most legislation passed of any president, in a nine-month period, that’s ever served. We had over 50 bills passed. I’m not talking about executive orders only, which are very important. I’m talking about bills.”
He counterpunches, in this case firing a shot at Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who reportedly called his boss a moron: “I think it’s fake news, but if he did that, I guess we’ll have to compare IQ tests. And I can tell you who is going to win.”
And above all, he sells: “I also have another bill… an economic-development bill, which I think will be fantastic. Which nobody knows about. Which you are hearing about for the first time… Economic-development incentives for companies. Incentives for companies to be here.” Companies that keep jobs in America get rewarded; those that send operations offshore “get penalized severely.” “It’s both a carrot and a stick,” says the president. “It is an incentive to stay. But it is perhaps even more so—if you leave, it’s going to be very tough for you to think that you’re going to be able to sell your product back into our country.”
And so here we are, the first president to come solely from the private sector, representing the party that for more than a century championed laissez-faire capitalism and free trade, proposing that government punish and reward companies based on where they choose to locate factories and offices. Is the president comfortable with that idea?
“Very comfortable,” he replies. …………..
For Trump, numbers also serve as a pliant tool. American business has fully embraced Big Data, Moneyball -style analytics and machine learning, where figures suggest the best course of action. But Trump, for decades, has boasted about how he conducts his own research—largely anecdotal—and then buys or sells based on instinct. Numbers are then used to justify his gut. He governs exactly that way, sticking with even his most illogical campaign promises—the kind other politicians walk back from once confronted with actual policy decisions, whether making Mexico pay for a border wall when illegal immigration is historically low or pulling the U.S. from the Paris climate accords, despite the fact that compliance is voluntary—citing whatever figures he can to justify his stances. When asked about Russian interference in the election, for example, he notes that he got 306 electoral votes and adds that the Democrats need “an excuse for losing an election that in theory they should have won.” For the greatest-ever American salesman (yes, including P.T. Barnum), statistics serve as marketing grist………..
there’s precious little about running the Trump Organization that provides the kind of experience that it takes to run the ultimate organization in America: the U.S. government. At the Trump Organization, he owns basically everything. There’s no known board of directors, no outside shareholders and no real customer base, save onetime luxury real estate buyers and golf club members. It’s far closer to running a family office than running Wal-Mart……..
Trump does have experience leading public companies, but even then there was only one shareholder who mattered. When Trump controlled 40% of publicly traded Trump Hotels & Casino, he used it to buy a casino he privately owned for $500 million, even though one analyst thought it was worth 20% less. At one point, he also owned more than 10% of Resorts International. He cut a deal with that company that garnered him millions in fees at the expense of other owners. Neither ended well: Trump Hotels filed for bankruptcy (for the first time) in 2004; Resorts had gone bankrupt some years earlier after Trump cashed out……….
Trump intends to run the country more like the Trump Organization in other ways. Much has been made about how slow he’s been to nominate people to key positions. In the State Department, for example, he has failed to put up names for more than half of the comfirmable positions. That’s apparently not an accident.
“I’m generally not going to make a lot of the appointments that would normally be—because you don’t need them,” he says. “I mean, you look at some of these agencies, how massive they are, and it’s totally unnecessary. They have hundreds of thousands of people.”
And how does this man, who’s never really had a boss, feel about now having 330 million of them, to be exact? He acknowledges the fact, but then answers in a way that is perfect, consistent Trump: “It doesn’t matter, because I’m going to do the right thing.” https://www.forbes.com/donald-trump/exclusive-interview/#26a98c32bdec
Energy Secretary Rick Perry faces grilling over his proposal to subsidize coal and nuclear power generation, CNBC, 12 Oct 17
U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry faced questions from Congress over his proposal to subsidize coal and nuclear power plants.
Perry said the notion of a free market for power generation is a “fallacy.”
One Democrat accused the Trump administration of hypocrisy because the EPA chief criticized the Obama administration for picking winners and losers in power markets.
Tom DiChristopher | @tdichristopherFacing questions on Capitol Hill over his proposal to subsidize coal and nuclear power plants, Energy Secretary Rick Perry said the notion of a free market in energy generation is a “fallacy.”
The hearing before the House Energy Subcommittee contained some noteworthy moments, including when Perry was unable to answer a basic question about his controversial proposal and implied the regulators who are considering it do not take a long-term view of energy markets.
The proposal in question asks the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to consider, on an expedited timetable, a rule to compensate coal-fired plants and nuclear power stations for the reliability they bring to the nation’s electricity supply. Perry’s proposal has gotten pushback from power industry groups, environmentalists and even one of the FERC commissioners.
“We will not destroy the marketplace,” FERC Commissioner Robert Powelson told an audience last week when asked about the proposal.
The Energy Department’s request that FERC make a final decision within 60 days has drawn criticism in particular, given that the Energy Department and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation have both determined the nation’s power system remains reliable. Some contend the department is rushing the process to rescue distressed coal and nuclear plants.
The share of the nation’s power generated from coal and nuclear energy has slipped due to cheap, abundant natural gas and the rapid growth of solar and wind farms. President Donald Trump has vowed to revive the coal industry.
Accusation of hypocrisy
Perry faced an early grilling from Rep. Frank Pallone in his opening statement. The New Jersey Democrat accused the Trump administration of hypocrisy, noting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt earlier this week criticized the Obama administration for favoring renewable energy in its bid to regulate carbon emissions from power plants…….
FERC is an independent federal agency that regulates electricity and natural gas transmission and wholesale retail across state lines. NERC is a not-for-profit international regulatory authority that assures the reliability and security of the bulk power system in North America. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/12/energy-sec-perry-coal-and-nuclear-subsidies.html
This is a timely and important article. As an antinuclear campaigner, I also must deplore the lack of insight shown by most environmentalists on this issue. We rightly oppose the nuclear industry, with its focus on endless growth in energy use. However, the growth in renewable energy and in modern technology should not mean endless energy use and endless mining of rare earths.
What is needed is DESIGN for recycling. That’s difficult, but not impossible. With technologies designed for easy retrieval of rare earths, and with a transition to recycling, instead of throwaway living, the toxic radioactive problems of wasting rare earths would be avoided. Mining for them would become almost unnecessary.
The environmental cost of an iPhone http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/article/2017/10/the-environmental-cost-of-an-iphoneThanks to advances in metallurgy and integrated circuit design, computers are working themselves into every aspect of our lives. From appliances to smart phones, it seems like everything these days has a microprocessor buried somewhere inside it. But remember, all of these pieces come from somewhere, and the metals they’re made from aren’t easy to come by. They are called “precious metals,” after all.
From the earth to your smart fridge, rare earth metal mining consists of three stages: mining, refining and disposal, all of which create waste byproducts. In the case of electronics, a lot of these waste products are r (http://www.electronicstakeback.com/toxics-in-electronics/wheres-the-harm-extraction/)adioactive because rare earth elements are usually mixed in with thorium or iridium, two radioactive substances.
To separate the minerals from their radioactive neighbors, large amounts of sulfates, ammonia and hydrochloric acid are used. With today’s refinement technology, producing one ton of refined rare earth metals produces 2,000 tons of toxic waste. And the waste doesn’t stop after the electronics are produced.
Another large threat to the environment is the disposal of electronics after they’ve completed their life cycle. Throwing a smart phone in the trash leads to a plethora of environmental toxins. From the chemicals in the battery to the plastics in the case, these materials eventually make their way into soil or waterways, damaging these natural resources in the process.
A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed that out of the 120 million mobile phones purchased in the U.S. in 2011, only 12 million mobile phones were collected for recycling. That’s 10 percent.
According to the United Nations Environmental Program, 90 percent of electronic waste ends up being illegally dumped. This occurs via a black market for exporting e-waste to countries with more lax environmental regulations. Countries such as Ghana and Vietnam take on the environmental burden of other countries’ e-waste at a monetary and human cost.
Once the waste has been dumped, the metals are extracted to be re-sold and reused. However, this isn’t clean recycling. A simple way to extract metals from electronics is to burn the surrounding plastic, and it shouldn’t come as news to you that burning plastic is bad on many levels, from the air pollution it causes to the respiratory and neurological damage that occurs when humans breathe these fumes.
In the countries where such recycling practices take place, not much is done in the way of worker safety. Studies have found alarming levels of toxic compounds linked to cancer, developmental damage and other health problems present in both these workers and those that live near these plants.
To combat this growing trend, many companies and countries are pushing legislation and practices in order to minimize these impacts.
Apple has made the claim on its website that it wants to move toward using 100 percent recycled parts in the coming years, and the UN is continuing to create policy that will apply harsher punishments to those who illegally dump electronic waste.
In the meantime, the need for the latest gadgets continues to propel this problem forward. One of the biggest surges in electronic waste is around Christmas, when people are getting their newest tech-toys and getting rid of the old ones.
Maybe the next time you want the newest iPhone, take a moment first to stop and think about what consequences for both people and the planet stem from this decision. While just being conscious of the impact won’t solve the problem, by realizing the weight of this decision, we can maybe slow it down some. What’s your new tech-toy really worth?
Finding Nemo? We may be losing him, says climate study, Guardian, 12 Oct 17
Clownfish under threat from warming ocean waters, which are damaging the anemones that serve as its home The clownfish, the colourful swimmer propelled to fame by the 2003 film Finding Nemo, is under threat from warming ocean waters wreaking havoc with sea anemones, the structures that serve as its home, a study has found.
Closely related to corals, sea anemones are invertebrate marine creatures that live in symbiosis with algae, which provide them with food, oxygen and colour.
Clownfish, also known as anemonefish, in turn use the structures as shelter to lay their eggs and raise their young – keeping the anemones clean in return.
nuclear-news 