Much hype, little substance in the so-called “historic” nuclear summit
A summit without substance ttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/06/12/a-summit-without-substance/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8a94c9a95b12By Max Bootm June 12, The Singapore summit was a mesmerizing spectacle utterly lacking in substance. In other words, it was a perfect microcosm of the Trump presidency.
The entire world was riveted by television images of President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shaking hands in front of a backdrop of North Korean and U.S. flags, walking to and from lunch, checking out Trump’s limousine and finally signing a summit declaration. For both leaders, the hype was the whole point.
Kim won an invaluable propaganda windfall: Ruling one of the poorest and most despotic countries in the world (North Korea’s gross domestic product is smaller than Vermont’s), he was recognized as an equal by the leader of the world’s sole superpower — not just an equal, indeed, but a valued friend. Trump claimed to have established a “special bond” with Kim just a day after one of his aides said there was a “special place in hell” reserved for the prime minister of Canada. (The aide, Peter Navarro, has now admitted his comment was “inappropriate.”)
Trump can barely stand to be in the same room with the leaders of the United States’ democratic allies, but he reveled in his quality time with Kim – “a very talented” and “very smart” man who “loves his country very much” and who, in turn is loved by his own people. If Kim does indeed love his country, he has a funny way of showing it, since he enslaves his own citizens. If you want to learn more about Kim’s atrocities, all you have to do is reread Trump’s own Jan. 30 State of the Union address, which gave chapter and verse on the “depraved character of the North Korean regime.”
There was, however, no mention of North Korean human rights abuses on Tuesday. That would have been a downer for a president who has plenty of other downers to deal with — from a special counsel investigation to a botched Group of Seven summit. Trump was in full salesman mode in Singapore, touting a meeting that he claimed had gone “better than anybody could have expected.”
I guess it all depends on what your expectations were. If you took Trump seriously when he claimed on April 22 that Kim had “agreed to denuclearization (so great for World),” then you are bound to be disappointed. If, on the other hand, your expectation was that North Korea would string Trump along with meaningless verbiage, then the summit was precisely what you expected. The meeting really should have been held in Oakland, not Singapore, because there is no therethere. Trump and Kim agreed to four points. The first was empty blather about the United States and North Korea desiring “peace and prosperity.” The second was more empty blather about building a “lasting and stable peace regime.” The fourth was a microscopically small commitment to the repatriation of the remains of Korean War POW/MIAs. The key point was No. 3 — “Reaffirming the April 27, 2018, Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] commits to work towards the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula” — and on closer examination it, too, is empty blather. I can commit “to work towards” beating Roger Federer at Wimbledon, but that doesn’t mean that I will ever reach the goal.
The Singapore Declaration repeats virtually verbatim the pledge that North Korea made not only on April 27 but also on numerous other occasions stretching all the way back to 1992. That’s right — North Korea has been promising to denuclearize for 26 years, and in that time it has not only acquired an estimated 60 nuclear weapons but also the ballistic missiles to deliver them.
Perhaps this time will be different and Kim really, truly means it. If so, we will find out soon enough, because he will agree to the “complete, verifiable and irreversible” disarmament that the Trump administration had initially insisted upon. But there was no mention of those words in the Singapore Declaration, just as there was no mention of human rights. Trump assailed the Iran nuclear deal as the “worst deal ever.” The deal he struck with North Korea is far weaker.
This is where the negotiations stand at the moment. Before the summit, North Korea agreed to an easily reversible moratorium on nuclear and missile testing, it blew up a nuclear test site (but probably only for show), it started razing a missile-testing site, and it released three U.S. prisoners who had been taken so that North Korea could get credit for releasing them.
And in return, Trump legitimated the odious North Korean regime, stopped U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises (which he called, adopting Pyongyang’s language, “provocative … war games”) and destroyed his “maximum pressure” policy of sanctions. China is no longer enforcing sanctions as rigorously as it once did, and the United States is not imposing new sanctions. The pressure is off — and will stay off as long as Kim makes a show of negotiating.
Kim’s incentive, naturally, is to draw out the process as long as possible while giving up as little as possible. And Trump’s incentive is to play along in the hopes of winning a Nobel Peace Prize. Yes, this is preferable to nuclear war — but that doesn’t mean that Trump wasn’t snookered.
The Reality of Fukushima Radiation Pollution Exposure
From Kennichi Abe
LDP-backed candidate wins governor’s race in Niigata
Imperial couple pass evacuation zone 5.8 km from Fukushima plant
Returnee Fukushima farmers offer taste of rice cultivation in hopes of revitalization
What’s NOT in the summit agreement ?- that’s the revealing part.
US-North Korea summit agreement is most revealing for what it leaves out, The Conversation, Lecturer in International Relations, Department of Politics and Philosophy, La Trobe University, 12 June 18
“……..it is not so much what is in the joint statement as much as what has been left out that is the big story.
To tease this out, let’s consider the four specific points of agreement articulated in the joint statement released by US President Donald Trump and North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un at the conclusion of today’s summit…..
The joint statement gets interesting in article three, in which “the DPRK commits to work toward the complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.”
The wording around “complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula” reflects the North Korean interpretation of the concept, which has been well-documented in the lead-up to the summit.
Tellingly, there is no mention of “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearisation” (CVID) in the statement text, which is a clear departure from long-standing US policy.
…….. My take-home message from the omission of CVID from the joint statement is confirmation that North Korea under Kim Jong-un is never going to willingly denuclearise.
In “working toward complete denuclearisation,” North Korea may agree to a nuclear weapons and ballistic missile testing moratorium, decommission obsolete nuclear facilities, or even promise to freeze production of new nuclear weapons, without ever having to compromise its nuclear weapons capability……..
The final paragraph of the joint statement commits US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to meet with an as yet unidentified high level North Korean official. It will be at these meetings and beyond where the “new US-DPRK relations” will start to take shape. https://theconversation.com/us-north-korea-summit-agreement-is-most-revealing-for-what-it-leaves-out-98094?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20June%2013%202018%20-%201
The Singapore nuclear summit – a huge win for Kim Jong UN
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un provides guidance on a nuclear weapons program in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang September 3, 2017. KCNA via REUTERS
The Guardian view on Trump in Singapore: a huge win – for North Korea https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/12/the-guardian-view-on-trump-in-singapore-a-huge-win-for-north-korea 13 June 18
Editorial A confident leader strode into the Singapore summit and won. Kim Jong-un went with a plan, gave little and left with plenty: bolstered status and diplomatic leverage, lavish praise from the US president, the promise of an end to US-South Korean military drills – and, surely, a growing confidence that North Korea is doing well at this game. A meeting supposed to effect a breakthrough on denuclearisation looked “more like a big welcome party to the nuclear-armed club”, in the acid but accurate words of one observer.
Better than war, for sure. But since it was Donald Trump who raised that spectre, giving him credit for dispelling it would be like calling a man a life-saver when second thoughts stay his hand from murder. The US president handed over gift after gift in exchange for the inflation of his ego. He does not know or does not care that his country went home poorer than it came. The language in the joint statement was weaker than in previous agreements– the very significant difference being that the North is now much further advanced in its nuclear programme. There was not even a pledge that either side “shall” take action; just the assertion that North Korea will “commit to working towards” denuclearisation, which it sees as a general, not unilateral, process.
In return Mr Trump axed the drills with, it seems, no warning to Seoul (or even US forces). Worse, he described them as “provocative” and “inappropriate”, not just giving the North what it wanted, but suggesting it was right to demand it. He added that he hoped to withdraw US troops from South Korea at some point – further undermining the long alliance.
Mr Trump’s recounting of the meeting would have been laughable were it not so shocking. He explained to the North Koreans that they could have “the best hotels in the world” on the beaches they use for artillery drills. He presented Mr Kim with a Hollywood-style movie trailer laying out the choice before him, complete with growling voiceover. He described the 100,000 or more North Koreans held in prison camps as “one of the big winners” of the meeting, though not even the vaguest assurance was extracted on their behalf. While finding time for another crack at Canada’s Justin Trudeau, he called Mr Kim “a very talented man” who wants to do the right thing and loves his country. He praised him for “running it tough” (quite the euphemism for a dictatorship with human rights atrocities which the UN calls unparalleled in the modern world). And the comprehensive, verifiable, irreversible denuclearisation on which the US was to insist? Ah: “There was no time!” to cover that. But he would be surprised if the North Koreans hadn’t begun already. Mr Trump thinks that the two sides probably have a rough transcript capturing all this, but does not need to verify anything because “I have one of the great memories of all time”. No satirist would dare to invent this.
Hope for the best but don’t expect much progress in lower-level talks next week; nor at meetings at the White House or in Pyongyang, mooted by the US president. China has already implied that it may be time to relax sanctions; South Korea and Russia have hinted that they are similarly minded. Even Mr Trump acknowledged that in six months’ time it may emerge that the North Koreans are not taking action (adding, in a startling moment of candour, that “I will find some sort of excuse” rather than admit that).
“He trusts me and I trust him,” Mr Trump boldly declared of Mr Kim. But if the US president is so naive, surely the North Korean leader cannot be. In so far as the US president has any enduring belief, it appears to be that disruption is a good in and of itself: that throwing everyone else off-balance must benefit the world’s only superpower, as one official has suggested (his colleague had a cruder characterisation). Withdrawal from the Iran deal proved that America’s enemies cannot rely upon its word. The G7 and Singapore summits demonstrated that allies cannot either. But Tuesday’s meeting also showed that Americans have reason to be wary. They too cannot count upon Mr Trump to live up to his promises.
What the Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un document actually says
Singapore summit: Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un document released after historic meeting http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-12/donald-trump-and-north-korea-leader-statement-after-meeting/9861688–June 12, 2018, Sentosa Island
The text from the document signed by Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un has been made available. Here it is in full:
President Donald J Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong-un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) held a first, historic summit in Singapore on June 12, 2018.
President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un conducted a comprehensive, in-depth, and sincere exchange of opinions on the issues related to the establishment of new US-DPRK relations and the building of a lasting and robust peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK, and Chairman Kim Jong-un reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.
Convinced that the establishment of new US-DPRK relations will contribute to the peace and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula and of the world, and recognising that mutual confidence-building can promote the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un state the following:
- The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new US-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.
- The United States and the DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
- Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work towards complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.
- The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.
The United States and the DPRK commit to hold follow-on negotiations led by the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and a relevant high-level DPRK official, at the earliest possible date, to implement the outcomes of the US-DPRK summit.
President Donald J Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong-un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have committed to cooperate for the development of new US-DPRK relations and for the promotion of peace, prosperity, and security of the Korean Peninsula and of the world.
Amazingly High Radiation in Tokyo Bay — 131,000 Bq per Meter Squared
Abstract http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0193414
A monitoring survey was conducted from August 2011 to July 2016 of the spatiotemporal
distribution in the 400 km2 area of the northern part of Tokyo Bay and in rivers flowing into it of radiocesium released from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident.
The average inventory in the river mouth (10 km2) was 131 kBq⋅m-2 and 0.73 kBq⋅m-2 in the central bay (330 km2) as the decay corrected value on March 16, 2011. Most of the radiocesium that flowed into Tokyo Bay originated in the northeastern section of the Tokyo metropolitan area, where the highest precipitation zone of 137Cs in soil was almost the same level as that in Fukushima City, then flowed into and was deposited in the Old-Edogawa River estuary, deep in Tokyo Bay.
The highest precipitation of radiocesium measured in the high contaminated zone was 460 kBq⋅m-2. The inventory in sediment off the estuary of Old-Edogawa was 20.1 kBq⋅m-2 in August 2011 immediately after the accident, but it increased to 104 kBq⋅m-2 in July 2016. However, the radiocesium diffused minimally in sediments in the central area of Tokyo Bay in the five years following the FDNPP accident.
The flux of radiocesium off the estuary decreased slightly immediately after the accident and conformed almost exactly to the values predicted based on its radioactive decay. Contrarily, the inventory of radiocesium in the sediment has increased.
It was estimated that of the 8.33 TBq precipitated from the atmosphere in the catchment regions of the rivers Edogawa and Old-Edogawa, 1.31 TBq migrated through rivers and was deposited in the sediments of the Old-Edogawa estuary by July 2016. Currently, 0.25 TBq⋅yr-1 of radiocesium continues to flow into the deep parts of Tokyo Bay.
Scientists predict millions of climate refugees – but where will they go?
Universal migration predicts human movements under climate change, Physics World, 12 Jun 2018
Faster global warming predicted, with new Antarctic study
Climate Central By Mikayla Mace, Arizona Daily Star 10 June 18
A group of scientists, including one from the University of Arizona, has new findings suggesting Antarctica’s Southern Ocean — long known to play an integral role in climate change — may not be absorbing as much pollution as previously thought.
To reach their contradictory conclusion, the team used state-of-the-art sensors to collect more data on the Southern Ocean than ever before, including during the perilous winter months that previously made the research difficult if not impossible.The old belief was the ocean pulled about 13 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide — a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change — out of the atmosphere, helping put the brakes on rising global temperatures.
Some oceanographers suspect that less CO2 is being absorbed because the westerlies — the winds that ring the southernmost continent — are tightening like a noose. As these powerful winds get more concentrated, they dig at the water, pushing it out and away.
Water from below rises to take its place, dragging up decaying muck made of carbon from deep in the ocean that can then either be released into the atmosphere in the form of CO2 or slow the rate that CO2 is absorbed by the water. Either way, it’s not good.
The Southern Ocean is far away, but “for Arizona, this is what matters,” said Joellen Russell, the University of Arizona oceanographer and co-author on the paper revealing these findings. “We don’t see the Southern Ocean, and yet it has reached out the icy hand.”
Oceans, rivers, lakes and vegetation can moderate extreme changes in temperature. Southern Arizona has no such buffers, leaving us vulnerable as average global temperatures march upward.
“Everybody asks, ‘Why are you at the UA?’” Russell said about studying the Southern Ocean from the desert at the University of Arizona. She said the research is important to Arizona and the university supports her work.
…….. scientists know less about the Southern Ocean than the rest of the world’s oceans. What they do know is mostly limited to surface CO2 levels in the summer, when it’s safer to take measurements by ships with researchers aboard. Shipboard sensors that directly measure CO2 are the accepted scientific standard in these types of studies.
Understanding CO2 levels within the air, land and sea and how it is exchanged between the three is necessary for making more accurate future climate predictions.
To fill the gap in knowledge, Russell and her team have deployed an array of cylindrical tanks, called floats, that collect data on carbon and more in the Southern Ocean year-round. Russell leads the modeling component of this project called Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling, or SOCCOM.
The floats drift 1,000 meters below the surface. Every 10 days, they plunge a thousand meters deeper, then bob up to the surface before returning to their original depth.
For three years, 35 floats equipped with state-of-the-art sensors the size of a coffee cup have been collecting data along the way and beaming it back to the researchers, like Russell in Tucson. Within hours, the data is freely available online.
They measure ocean acidity, or pH, and other metrics to understand the biogeochemistry of the elusive ocean, but not without controversy.
Making a splash
Alison Gray, an oceanographer at the University of Washington, is the lead author on the study. She said there are two reasons the study may contradict what has previously been thought of about the Southern Ocean: The lack of winter-time observations at the ocean by other researchers and the fact that ocean carbon levels might vary throughout the year.
So while SOCCOM is making it possible to get more data than ever before, others question her nontraditional methods. ………http://www.climatecentral.org/news/antarctic-ocean-discovery-warns-of-faster-global-warming-21865
Fundamental problem with Britain’s Wylfa nuclear power programme – it’s a ripoff
Observer 10th June 2018, Set aside the debate over whether it’s right that the government should
be proposing to use more than £5bn to help Hitachi. There is a more
fundamental problem with the project: it’s a rip-off.
Even with a state stake, the project will be ridiculously costly for consumers and
alternatives are much cheaper. The government is understood to be
considering a guaranteed price from the Wylfa project on Anglesey of around
£77.50/MWh of electricity: a subsidy to be paid through energy bills for
35 years.
It looks cheap compared to the £92.50/MWh promised to EDF Energy
for Hinkley Point C in Somerset. But that is like saying a Lotus is
affordable compared with a Ferrari. Hinkley was branded “risky and
expensive” by the spending watchdog. It is not a good yardstick.
As one MP pointed out, offshore windfarms have won contracts for as little as
£57.50/MWh. “That is the real cost benchmark that the government should
use,” said the SNP’s Alan Brown. Solar and onshore windfarms would be
even cheaper, but have had their subsidies scrapped. Storage, smarter grids
and imports can help the UK manage renewables’ variable output. Clark’s
intervention shows the economics of new nuclear do not work. Why should
consumers pay through the nose when there are lower-cost alternatives?
Reinventing Power: America’s Renewable Energy Boom
changed their lives and benefitted the diverse regions where they live.
“After I lost my job, I had about three days of sulking, and then I got
up and decided to listen to some of my co-workers’ advice to look into
wind turbines,” he said in Reinventing Power: America’s Renewable
Energy Boom, a new film (to be widely released this summer) from the Sierra
Club about the energy revolution in America.
recession. Bruce’s circumstances are not unusual: In the U.S., jobs in
sectors that have traditionally boosted the economy are disappearing. Coal
is environmentally damaging and expensive to mine. Car companies are
looking at an eventual slow-down in sales. Across both sectors and many
more, automation is putting people out of work.
employ over 800,000 people across the country, and are some of the
fastest-growing industries. As these resources scale, they’re becoming
economically viable–solar is around 50% cheaper than coal–and
wide-scale adoption of wind and solar could help curb America’s carbon
emissions. And they’re adaptable across a range of communities:
Reinventing Power traces the establishment of the country’s first
offshore wind farm near the tiny Rhode Island community of Block Island and
delves into community solar programs in Austin and wind power on Northern
Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana and a farm in North Carolina, The
film also follows the retraining of former coal miners and auto workers for
jobs in renewables throughout the U.S.
https://amp.fastcompany.com/40580983/this-new-doc-shows-how-renewable-energy-recharges-communities
Systemic failures in France’s Flamanville nuclear project
Challenges 8th June 2018 [Machine Translation] EPR plant in Flamanville: does EDF really control its
construction site? While China has inaugurated its first EPR reactor,
delays are accumulating on the site of the EPR Flamanville in the Channel.
Defects noted at the end of March on strategic welds will further postpone
the opening of the plant “at least a few months” according to the Nuclear
Safety Authority.
In Flamanville, we are facing systemic failures. It is no
longer a matter of simple problems that add up to each other. It is in
these terms that Mycle Schneider, an independent Canadian expert and
co-author of an annual report on the nuclear industry, draws the alarming
report of the Flamanville shipyard. On May 31, EDF announced a delay of
several months in the construction of the EPR plant due to welding defects
on pipes. A new setback that will delay the commissioning of the plant. And
this is mainly due to a long series of problems since the launch of the
project in December 2007.
https://www.challenges.fr/entreprise/centrale-epr-de-flamanville-edf-maitrise-t-elle-vraiment-son-chantier_592774
US demands Japan reduce its plutonium stockpiles
Nikkei Asian Review 10th June 2018 , US demands Japan reduce its plutonium stockpiles. Trump-Kim summit raises
questions about Tokyo’s nuclear exemption. The U.S. has called on Japan to
reduce its high levels of stockpiled plutonium, a move that comes as the
Trump administration seeks to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear
weapons, Nikkei has learned.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-Relations/US-demands-Japan-reduce-its-plutonium-stockpiles
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