US CDC Public Health Response to a Nuclear Detonation meeting
Set for January 16, 2018 at 1:00 p.m. (ET)
https://www.cdc.gov/cdcgrandrounds/archives/2018/January2018.htm
While a nuclear detonation is unlikely, it would have devastating results and there would be limited time to take critical protection steps. Despite the fear surrounding such an event, planning and preparation can lessen deaths and illness. For instance, most people don’t realize that sheltering in place for at least 24 hours is crucial to saving lives and reducing exposure to radiation. While federal, state, and local agencies will lead the immediate response efforts, public health will play a key role in responding.
Join us for this session of Grand Rounds to learn what public health programs have done on a federal, state, and local level to prepare for a nuclear detonation. Learn how planning and preparation efforts for a nuclear detonation are similar and different from other emergency response planning efforts.
Presented By:
Dan Sosin, MD, MPH
Deputy Director and Chief Medical Officer
Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
“Preparing for the Unthinkable”
CAPT Michael Noska, MS
Radiation Safety Officer and Senior Advisor for Health Physics
Chair, Advisory Team for Environment, Food and Health (A Team)
Office of the Commissioner
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
“Using Data and Decision Aids to Drive Response Efforts”
Robert Whitcomb, PhD
Chief, Radiation Studies Branch
Division of Environmental Hazards and Health Effects
National Center for Environmental Health
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
“Public Health Resources to Meet Critical Components of Preparedness”
Betsy Kagey, PhD
Academic and Special Projects Liaison
Office of Emergency Preparedness and Response
Division of Health Protection
Georgia Department of Health
“Roadmap to Radiation Preparedness”
Facilitated By:
John Iskander, MD, MPH, Scientific Director, Public Health Grand Rounds
Phoebe Thorpe, MD, MPH, Deputy Scientific Director, Public Health Grand Rounds
Susan Laird, MSN, RN, Communications Director, Public Health Grand Rounds
For non-CDC staff who want to attend in person:
Non-CDC staff must have prior security clearance. US citizens must submit a request to the Grand Rounds Team. A US state-issued photo ID (e.g., driver’s license, US passport) is required.
Non-US citizens must submit their requests 20 days prior to the session to the Grand Rounds Team, and additional information will be required.
For individuals requiring reasonable accommodations:
It is the policy of CDC to provide reasonable accommodations (RA) for qualified individuals with disabilities to ensure their full inclusion in CDC-sponsored events. Employees are asked to submit RA requests at least 5 business days prior to the event. Please e-mail the request to grandrounds@cdc.gov.
For questions about this Grand Rounds topic:
Feel free to e-mail your questions before or during the session.
Grand Rounds is available for continuing education.
All continuing education credit for Public Health Grand Rounds (PHGR) is issued online through the CDC/ATSDR Training and Continuing Education Online system. If you have questions, you can email Learner Support or call them at 1-800-41-TRAIN (1-800-418-7246). Those who view PHGR and wish to receive continuing education must complete the online seminar evaluation. Continuing education will be available for up to 2 years and 1 month after the initial offering. The course code for all PHGR sessions is PHGR10.
Pilgrim nuclear plant manually shut down
4th Jan 2018
PLYMOUTH — Operators manually shut down Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station shortly at 2 p.m. after one of the two main 345-volt lines that provide off site power to the plant “became unavailable,” according to Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan.
“There have been no complications with the shutdown thus far,” Sheehan wrote in an email to the Times.
The emergency generators were fired up to power cooling and other emergency systems functioning, even though the second 345-volt line, along with a smaller line, from offsite have remained in service.
Patrick O’Brien, a spokesman for Entergy Corp., Pilgrim’s owner and operator, said plant managers decided to use the diesel generators for safety systems because of their reliability.
Plant watchdogs had been calling on federal regulators to order Pilgrim’s reactor shut down since yesterday, when strong winds and flooding were forecast.
The NRC left it to Pilgrim’s management, along with three federal inspectors onsite at the plant, to make the call. O’Brien had said late yesterday there were no plans to power down the reactor in anticipation of storm-related problems.
O’Brien issued the following written statement from Entergy shortly before 4 p.m today:
“We are working to determine the cause of the line loss. Pilgrim had been safely operating for 227 consecutive days following the completion of our most recent refueling outage in May 2017. We will take this opportunity to conduct preventive maintenance that we could not otherwise perform with the plant operating at full power. When Pilgrim will return to 100 percent power is considered business sensitive, and we do not disclose that information.”
Mary Lampert, president of Pilgrim Watch, said her group had asked federal regulators to order the reactor shut down as a pre-emptive measure.
“My concern was flooding, the high winds, the water, everything,” Lampert said shortly after the reactor was manually powered down.
“So much for (Energy Secretary Rick) Perry’s and Trump’s faith in nuclear as providing reliable power,” Lampert said. “It’s only Jan. 4. We’re off to a good start.”
A January blizzard in 2015 resulted in an emergency shutdown that was accompanied by a number of system problems. Those storm-related difficulties pushed Pilgrim into Column 4, as one of the country’s worst performing reactors.
http://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20180104/pilgrim-nuclear-plant-manually-shut-down
Westinghouse, Toshiba’s troubled nuclear unit, is acquired
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS January 5, 2018 at 08:35 JST
CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa.–Westinghouse Electric, the U.S. nuclear unit of embattled Japanese electronics giant Toshiba, has been acquired in a deal valued at about out $4.6 billion.
Westinghouse Electric Co. declared bankruptcy protection early last year, leaving a number of nuclear projects in limbo.
The acquisition by Brookfield Business Partners LP on Thursday comes one day after an agreement tying up loose ends from two failed nuclear reactors in South Carolina.
South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. abandoned construction reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station. Thousands were left jobless in the wake of the $9 billion failure, which was blamed by owners on the plight of Westinghouse, the lead contractor. A deal proposed Wednesday could mean $1.3 billion in refunds for utility customers affected by the failed project.
The nuclear industry has struggled both because of the tremendous cost of building massive reactors and the accelerating shift to other forms of energy like natural gas and alternative energy, like solar. The industry, and Toshiba in particular, has been subjected tighter regulatory control following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in northeastern Japan.
Toshiba has been dumping assets to cover for its disastrous immersion into nuclear power, a play it saw once as a safe infrastructure investment, free of the seasonal fluctuations of the power generation industry.
Technology in both fracking, a form of drilling, and alternative energy, has upended the power sector.
Westinghouse said Thursday that the deal with Brookfield doesn’t involve cash, but includes the assumption of a number of pension, environmental and operating obligations.
The agreement, pending the approval of bankruptcy court, is expected to close in the third quarter.
Political Scientists to Speak on Nuclear Weapons and International Relations
To further understand how decisions about nuclear weapons are made by world leaders and institutions, the Division of the Social Sciences, the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST), and the Institute of Politics (IOP) are cosponsoring a January 29 panel titled “A Safer or a More Dangerous World? Nuclear Weapons in Today’s Global Community.” The event, to be held in Regenstein Library Room 122 from 5:30-7:00 PM, is an extension of the University-wide Nuclear Reactions series commemorating the 75th anniversary of the first controlled atomic chain reaction.
Organized by political scientist Paul Poast, Assistant Professor of Political Science,
the event joins UChicago international relations scholars to offer different viewpoints on military decisions, the role of nuclear arms in the formation of alliances, and aids and obstacles to non-proliferation efforts. “It’s important to think systematically about the international system, about how countries interact with each other, and what would lead them to think that nuclear weapons are a useful thing to have,” Poast says.
In addition to Poast, panelists will include Austin Carson, Assistant Professor of Political Science; Paige P. Cone, CPOST’s Nuclear Proliferation Fellow; Robert Pape, Professor of Political Science and Director of CPOST; and Paul Staniland, Associate Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Committee on International Relations (CIR). Steve Edwards, Chief Content Officer of WBEZ and former executive director of the Institute of Politics (IOP), will moderate.
Panelists will address various long-standing questions about nuclear politics and policy, from the effectiveness of dropping the first atomic bombs over Japan during World War Two to the latest battles over nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea. “All of us have something to say on this topic about the international politics of nuclear weapons,” says Poast. “This session will help to not only give a little historical perspective, but also contextualize the uncertain future of nuclear weapons in the world.”
Poast stresses that despite the daunting scale of the nuclear weapons threat and the global problems it presents, the work of researchers like those on the panel can help people better understand the implications for society today and in the future. “The goal is to give people a new way to think about things,” he says.
Looking at nuclear weapons from the viewpoint of political science helps reinforce the idea that technology is always political and social, Carson says. “But we have a lot of ways of managing that technology and we better damn well understand what makes it work and what doesn’t,” he says. “Because it’s the seventy-fifth anniversary of an innovation that still vexes us in terms of how to handle it. And I think probably should for a long time.”
Panelists will offer varied perspectives, scholarship
In a paper published early in his career, Robert Pape challenged the conventional wisdom that dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the key to the Japanese surrender that ended World War II. He suggested instead that Japan’s ability to continue fighting was most threatened by the Soviet Union’s declaration of war (on August 9, the same day as the bombing of Nagasaki), and by the United States’ sea blockade and capture of Okinawa. Pape argued further that while the nuclear bombs’ devastation was massive, the Japanese had already suffered intense conventional bombing and had not surrendered.
“[Pape’s argument] raises all sorts of ethical questions about the whole justification to use it to end the war quickly,” Poast says. “Could we have ended the war quickly just by having the Soviets invade without the dropping of the atomic bombs? That’s a big question and I think that’s going to be something that will be really valuable for the audience to hear.”
In another influential article titled “Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work“, Pape questioned the effectiveness of punishing sanctions to achieve international political goals, like efforts to end specific states’ nuclear weapons programs. Cone says sanctions can appear reasonable to leaders faced with emergent crises. “They think, we don’t want to reward you for your bad behavior, so we’re going to punish you. That might make sense morally, but does it actually work?”
Cone’s research extends beyond sanctions to include other forms of economic or military coercion as well. A recent item she published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists explained her finding that previous uses of so-called “negative inducements” have not produced good results. “If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results, insanity is an apt description of US sanctions policy against North Korea,” Cone wrote.
According to Cone, 39 states have pursued nuclear weapons. Of those, Cone determined that offering positive inducements was a more reliable method of intervening to prevent a country from becoming a nuclear power, and was successful in reversing at least 11 countries’ nuclear ambitions. Today, nine countries are considered nuclear states, including North Korea.
“It’s really easy to think everything is terrible right now,” Cone says. “But if you take everything else away and look at the numbers, far more states have tried to begin nuclear weapons programs and failed, than those that have tried and not failed. And a big part of why they start and then reverse is a consequence of the inducements that are being given to them.”
Part of Poast’s research centers around one of those inducements — membership in international security alliances like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Although a key function of NATO was to limit the Soviet Union’s influence in Europe during the Cold War, Poast’s research suggests that the alliance also thrived as a way for the United States to enforce nuclear non-proliferation.
“You can’t avoid the fact that nuclear politics provide the rationale for NATO,” Poast says. “Once you view NATO’s role in the context of nuclear weapons, you realize that the end of the Cold War did not in any way make NATO obsolete.” In fact, Poast believes NATO became even more important as a tool of non-proliferation in the 1990s, when the Iron Curtain fell and Eastern European states might have pursued nuclear weapons.
Austin Carson also examines the influence of international organizations in nuclear politics. The 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and its enforcement arm, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have played an increasingly important role in combatting nuclear programs, particularly since the first Gulf war in Iraq.
Carson’s work looks at secrecy and transparency between states and international organizations. He has previously studied covert military and intelligence operations as a kind of face-saving communication among states. His current project examines why decisions are made not to communicate secret information, particularly when countries have intelligence that could cause an acceleration of nuclear programs.
“We’ve known that…if you tell everyone about [a state’s attempts to develop nuclear weapons], you marshal international pressure that’s going to make that proliferating country or that violator more likely to come come back from the brink and reverse what they’re doing,” Carson says. But examining newly declassified documents from US intelligence archives, he found that there are often situations in which government and military officials did not think publicity would produce a positive outcome.
“Part of what sustains norms and conventions is a lack of awareness about who breaks those norms and conventions and how commonly they do it,” Carson says. “Publicizing information that isn’t widely held about a particular violation could make it more likely that other countries violate and then ultimately that norm or convention or law would sort of fall away.”
Poast says Paul Staniland’s perspective will help the panel address the regional impacts of nuclear weapons programs. Staniland, whose work has been on insurgencies and violence in South and Southeast Asia, has recently shed light on broader South Asian foreign policy questions, including the way nuclear weapons factor into smaller-scale conflicts between Pakistan and India like the resurgent violence in Kashmir last year. Staniland recently coauthored a paper that considers the domestic political implications of India’s nuclear policy and the role played by other regional nuclear powers like Pakistan and China.
Poast says the various questions raised in his and the other panelists’ research reflect the fact that nuclear politics are inextricable from the development of other kinds of international politics and governance, and that their influence may be surprising. “If anything,” he says, “nukes have had this perverse effect of making everyone more conscious of trying to create peaceful relations”
N.J. stops fast-track pursuit of nuclear subsidy bill, for now
Jan 4 (Reuters) – * A bill to subsidize New Jersey’s nuclear power plants that could have cost ratepayers about $300 million a year was abandoned in the state legislature late Wednesday, according to organizations interested in the plan.
* Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, a Democrat, decided not to advance the bill, which was designed to stop the reactors from retiring early in the current low power and natural gas price environment.
* The reactors in question include Public Service Enterprise Group Inc’s Salem and Hope Creek plants in New Jersey, which PSEG said it might be forced to close in a couple of years if it does not receive some kind of assistance
* After a joint legislative committee voted unanimously to support the bill on Dec. 20, which was introduced earlier in the month, some energy analysts thought the state legislature would pass it during the ongoing lame duck session and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican, would sign it into law before he leaves office on Jan. 16.
* The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group and opponent of the bill, said in a statement on Thursday that Prieto’s move provides Governor-elect Phil Murphy, a Democrat, the opportunity to develop an energy plan that will increase investment in energy efficiency and renewables, while keeping the state’s nuclear plants running.
* PSEG said in a statement on Thursday that it “will continue to educate New Jersey’s legislators and policymakers on the economic threat facing the nuclear plants that serve our state.”
* New Jersey is one of several states exploring ways to keep reactors in service to preserve carbon-free energy, jobs and taxes as cheap and abundant gas from shale fields keep power prices low, making it less profitable or even unprofitable for generators to keep the units operating.
* Ohio, Pennsylvania and Connecticut have also considered proposals to protect reactors. In 2016, New York and Illinois adopted rules to subsidize some reactors in danger of closing
* PSEG has said economic studies show the loss of its plants would result in $400 million a year in higher electricity rates, 14 million tons a year of additional air pollution and the loss of 5,800 or more jobs (Reporting by Scott DiSavino; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
Dr. Norma Field on Fukushima solidarity and Japanese society
| Summary: Interview following NEIS’ “The End of the Nuclear Age: Where are the People?” event with Arnie Gundersen and Norma Field at DePaul University. Dr. Field speaks of her solidarity work with Japanese effected by the Fukushima disaster. When the government failed to prosecute anyone in its aftermath, a peoples campaign formed to demand accountability. She speaks of that and the tradition of protest against government and nuclear power specifically. She refers to some largely unknown but shared experiences in American and Japanese society. |
|
| Credits: DePaul University NEIS |
|
| Notes: “Sea of Miracles” Case in point about history of protest. Link above to a short documentary about a Japanese fishing village that has for 30 years been protesting the building of a nuclear power plant that would destroy the Bay it depends on for its livelihood and culture. Having stopped the nuclear power plant twice the community was recently notified that local authorities have approved the power company’s permit to begin construction. |
Podcast for Program: Dr. Norma Field on Fukushima solidarity and Japanese society In series: Version: Interview following NEIS’ “The End of the Nuclear Age: Where are the People?” event with Arnie Gundersen and Norma Field at DePaul University. Dr. Field speaks of her solidarity work with Japanese effected by the Fukushima disaster. When the government failed to prosecute anyone in its aftermath, a peoples campaign formed to demand accountability. She speaks of that and the tradition of protest against government and nuclear power specifically. She refers to some largely unknown but shared experiences in American and Japanese society.
Dr. Norma Field on Fukushima solidarity and Japanese society Segment: 1
January 3, 2018, 5:20 AM
Media files
2838-1-Norma_Field_on_Resistance.mp3 (audio/mpeg, 19.0 MB)
UN officials welcome reopening of comm b/w two Koreas
Thursday, Jan 4 2018 IST
United Nations Secretary-General Antnio Guterres has welcomed the reopening of the communication channel between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea, his deputy spokesman has said.”It is always good to have a dialogue between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea,” F
arhan Haq told reporters on Wednesday in response to a question during the daily news briefing at UN Headquarters in New York.He went on to say that the UN remains committed to ensuring the implementation of Security Council resolutions on the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. “We hope that enhanced diplomatic initiatives will help achieve this goal,” he added.
According to media reports, DPRK announced Wednesday the reopening of a channel of communication, the day after the offer of dialogue made by the Government of the Republic of Korea.This communication channel, established in August 1972, was cut in February 2016 by Pyongyang after Seoul decided to close the inter-Korean industrial zone of Kaesong,
in the wake of a nuclear test by the DPRK.Meanwhile, the President of the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly, Miroslav Lajk, met today with Ja Song Nam, the Permanent Representative of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to the United Nations, at the request of the Permanent Representative.According to a note issued by the Assembly President’s Office, Mr Lajk said he was pleased with the readiness of DPRK to constructively engage in a dialogue with the Republic of Korea, including a possible participation of a delegation from DPRK in the Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang, Republic of Korea, as well as with the reopening of the communication channels.UNi XC-SNU 0758
https://news.webindia123.com/news/Articles/World/20180104/3244425.html
Scana To Be Bought By Dominion Energy, Assume Failed Nuclear Project Costs
Dominion Energy Inc said on Wednesday it would buy Scana Corp in an all-stock deal worth about $7.9 billion, offering the utility a…..
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Bill to help New Jersey’s nuclear power plants to get vote today
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) – New Jersey lawmakers are set to vote on a roughly $300 million bill that would raise utility ratepayers’ costs to rescue the state’s nuclear power industry from what some say is impending financial ruin.
The Democrat-led state Senate is set to vote on the bill Thursday. A vote in the Democrat-controlled Assembly is pending. Estimates state the legislation could mean ratepayers would pay from $31 to $41 more annually.
PSE&G;, the state’s biggest utility, says its two nuclear plants, which account for about 40 percent of the state’s electricity production, are in danger of going broke within two years and would shut down.
The legislation has drawn significant opposition, including from the AARP, environmental groups and industrial utility ratepayers who argue that PSE&G; is opportunistically pursuing a bailout.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jan/4/bill-to-help-new-jerseys-nuclear-power-plants-to-g/
Nuclear industry desperately lobbying for financial help. to be counted as “clean”
It’s all about money.
Ben Heard, – Executive Director, Bright New World
Phumzile J. Oliphant,Chairperson -Thyspunt Nuclear Development Forum, South Africa
Rauli Partanen- Independent Author and Founder,Finnish Ecomodernist Society
Taylor Stevenson- Co-Founder and Director, Generation Atomic
Population Oscillations OR Collapsing Ecosystem
Exclusive and rare interview with Christina Mac Phearson owner of nuclear-news.net
One of Christina’s many memes 🙂
For all our followers here on nuclear-news.net, I would like to present you with two interviews from our authors.
Firstly, here is a recent and rare audio podcast with Christina MacPhearson (AKA Noel Wauchomp), our blog founder. In the podcast she mentions how she started her activism and progressed onto blogging nuclear information. She also discusses the situation in her home Australia, Fukushima as well as a range of other topics.
Lonnie Clark interiew with Christina Mac Phearson 2 Jan 2017
While I am doing this post i thought to add an interview with 2 co authors of the blog for any new subs. Herve Courtois who has been covering much of the Fukushima news here on nuclear-news.net. I (Shaun McGee aka arclight2011) will add an information packed podcast interview that I did with Herve here;
In the second part of the show we discuss with Herve Courtois (French activist, blogger and researcher) the issues with Fukushima evacuees, The PR companies methods to smooth over the bad news, The connection between health studies done after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and how health studies are being equaly fudged by the nuclear corporations and Health physicists, How the Japanese government is forcing evacuees back into contaminated areas against their will, How the Japanese blocked the UN petition to evacuate at least the children from more contaminated areas, We discuss also how the nuclear industry world wide is going into overdrive to promote the safety of nuclear energy around the anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the timing of the first Japanese nuclear reactor to be brought back online. This is a fascinating interview packed with information that the main stream media can not report on. We discuss Wikileaks and the report concerning the spying on Japan by the NSA in recent years and the connection to the Okinawa protest.
If you wish to make a small donation to either myself or Herve towards our running costs for the year, please feel free to send a paypal payment via these emails
To make a donation to Herve Courtois (aka Dun Renard) send your payment here; herve.courtois@yahoo.com
To make a donation to Shaun McGee )aka arclight2011) send you payment here;
arclight2011@riseup.net
Many thanks! And we all wish you a productive and peaceful new year! Namaste!
Governments can use social media to target activists – UK and the Iran protests
Could GCHQ influence Iran protests? They’ve done it before, claims 
researcher https://www.rt.com/uk/414831-gchq-influence-hack-protest/#.WkwCv_uo99Q.facebook
He says through its social media manipulation operations, spy agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) tried to influence online activists during the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests, and the 2011 uprisings widely known as the Arab Spring.
Al-Bassam told the Chaos Communication Congress in Germany last week that the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) – a unit in GCHQ – uses “dirty tricks” to target activists.
He says JTRIG has been tasked by the British government to “[use] online techniques to make something happen in the real or cyber world.” To fulfil this aim, a wide but basic array of technological tools and software are used, including ‘DEADPOOL,’ which is described as a “URL shortening service,” and ‘HUSK,’ a “secure one-to-one web based dead-drop messaging platform.”
He told the conference: “It’s basically a fancy name for sitting on Twitter and Facebook all day and trolling online. What they do, is they conduct what they call ‘human intelligence’ – which is like the act of interacting with humans online to try and make something happen in the real world.
“In their own words one of the things they do is to use ‘dirty tricks’ to ‘destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt’ enemies by ‘discrediting’ them.”
JTRIG has been involved in infiltrating hacktivist groups Anonymous and LulzSec, and protesters in Iran, Syria and Bahrain, he says.
As a “honey pot” to attract activists, GCHQ set up free URL shortening service lurl.me, which was used on Twitter and other social media platforms to spread revolutionary messages in the Middle East. These messages would attract people protesting against the government there, and British intelligence would collect information on them.
Al-Bassam said he discovered this information among the documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. “In 2011, I was unknowingly messaged… by a covert agent from [GCHQ], who was investigating the hacktivist groups of Anonymous and Lulzsec. Later that year, I was arrested and banned from the internet for my involvement in Lulzsec.
Then, in 2014, I discovered through a new Snowden leak that GCHQ had targeted Anonymous and Lulzsec, and that the person that messaged me was a covert employee, pretending to be a hacktivist.”
He added: “Because I was myself targeted in the past, I was aware of a key detail – a honeypot URL shortening service set up by GCHQ, that was actually redacted in the Snowden documents published in 2014. This URL shortening service enabled GCHQ to deanonymize another hacktivist and discover his real name and Facebook account, according to the leaked document.
“Using this key detail, I was able to discover a network of sockpuppet Twitter accounts and websites set up by GCHQ, pretending to be activists during the Arab spring of 2011,” he said.
Britain’s Hinkley nuclear project rife with scandalous conflicts of interest
Times 1st Jan 2018,Consultancy firms working for the government on the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station were advising the project’s Chinese investor and its French builder at the same time, an investigation by The Times has revealed.
KPMG, the professional services group, was paid £4.4 million between 2012 and 2017 as a financial adviser to the energy and business departments, despite telling officials that it was also acting for China General Nuclear Power
Corp on the project.
The apparent conflict of interest has been revealed after the Information Commissioner’s Office intervened to press for
disclosure from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Previously, officials had redacted the information, claiming that it was commercially sensitive.
In a second potential conflict, Lazard, the financial advisory firm, was paid £2.6 million between 2012 and 2015 to
advise the business department on Hinkley Point. Details of its previously redacted tender documents reveal that it was an adviser to EDF, the French developer that is investing in Hinkley Point alongside the Chinese. A source said that Lazard’s advice to EDF was not related to the Somerset project.
Meg Hillier, chairwoman of the Commons public accounts committee, said that Hinkley Point was crucial public infrastructure and therefore it was “vital that auditors get full sight” of the potential conflicts. It “looks cosy”, she said, adding that it was “not really appropriate” for firms to be advising both sides.
The details have been released more than a year and half after The Times complained to the Information Commissioner’s Office, which informally advised the business department to reconsider its position. The department previously had handed over heavily redacted documents in response to a Freedom of Information request.
The Information Commissioner’s Office said that there was a “significant and important public interest”, something that had been strengthened by a report from the National Audit Office in June, which found that the government’s deal had “locked consumers into a risky and expensive project with uncertain strategic and economic benefits”. The project has been riddled with delays and controversy over its spiralling costs.
The National Audit Office also criticised the business department for insufficiently managing the potential conflict of Leigh Fisher, another government adviser. The Times reported in November 2016 that Leigh Fisher, the management consultant, had been awarded contracts worth a combined £1.2 million despite telling officials that the British division of Jacobs Engineering Group, an American firm that owns Leigh Fisher, was working for EDF on Hinkley Point.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/advisers-on-hinkley-point-c-nuclear-power-station-had-cosy-ties-to-both-sides-xftxcl9sz
GE and its 2017 annus horribilis.
GE sued for $700M over 401(k) management
https://dailygazette.com/article/2017/09/29/ge-sued-for-700m-over-401-k-management
Shareholder sues GE after ‘unacceptable’ results hurt stock
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ge-lawsuit/shareholder-sues-ge-after-unacceptable-results-hurt-stock-idUSKBN1D22CK
General Electric plans to lay off 12,000 people from its GE Power business unit as part of a broad effort to cut $3.5 billion in costs by the end of 2018
http://fortune.com/2017/12/07/ge-layoff-power-business/
GE faces $500M federal lawsuit over Fukushima nuclear disaster –
https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2017/11/17/ge-faces-federal-lawsuit-over-fukushima-nuclear.html
1 This Month
of the week – Shut Down Drone Warfare!
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
Petition to revoke the licensing of the Near Surface Nuclear Disposal Facility (NSDF) at Chalk River. https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7247
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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