Israel is sure that nuclear power for Saudi Arabia will not lead to Saudi nuclear weapons
Israel confident U.S. to keep protections in any Saudi nuclear power deal
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gas-conference-israel-nuclearpower/israel-confident-u-s-to-keep-protections-in-any-saudi-nuclear-power-deal-idUSKBN1JM310 Timothy Gardner, WASHINGTON (Reuters) 28 June 18– Israel’s energy minister said on Tuesday after meeting Trump administration officials he is confident that the United States will not relax non-proliferation standards in any nuclear power deal it agrees with Saudi Arabia.
Israel vehemently opposes any effort by the Saudi Arabia to relax “gold standard” non-proliferation limits on enriching uranium or reprocessing nuclear fuel in any deal between the two countries, Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s energy minister, told Reuters in an interview.
“Once you allow one country to enrich uranium or reprocess fuel, it will be extremely difficult to tell other countries in this vicinity or elsewhere in the world not to do so,” he said.
Steinitz, in Washington for the World Gas Conference, met this week with people in the Trump administration about Saudi Arabia’s quest to build at least two nuclear power stations with the help of U.S. technology. He did not identify who he met with.
U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry has been working with Saudi Arabia on a civilian nuclear agreement that could allow the kingdom to enrich uranium and reprocess plutonium, practices that non-proliferation advocates worry could one day be covertly altered to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.
The Energy Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the status of the nuclear power talks with Saudi Arabia.
Israel and Saudi Arabia do not have diplomatic relations, but they share concern about Iranian influence in the Middle East.
If the United States allows Saudi to relax the standards, “then you deteriorate the non-proliferation effort, so I am confident the Americans would listen to our concern,” Steinitz said.
Steinitz said it would support Saudi Arabia’s development of nuclear power only if it included the gold standard protections and if the kingdom purchases uranium from the United States.
Saudi Arabia has said if it does not get U.S. assistance to build reactors it could turn to other international partners. The kingdom is also in talks with companies from Russia, China, South Korea and other countries on nuclear power., Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by James Dalgleish
India – the global nuclear weapons threat that is being ignored
A global nuclear threat, The News CN, , 27 June 18, India’s nuclear weapons now pose a potential threat to the world. The Agni-V, India’s longest-range intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), can travel 6,000 kilometres.Keep in mind that the Agni-V ICBM is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to almost anywhere in Asia and to parts of Europe and Africa. Because it can be fired from a mobile launcher, essentially a canister mounted on a truck, instead of a hard concrete launch-pad, it gives the Indian armed forces operational flexibility. They now have the ability to launch the missile against any adversary, almost guaranteeing to take them by surprise by offering a shorter period of time to react. But the Agni-V is not the real danger and is only being seen as a stepping stone towards completing the Agni-VI ICBM, which is rumoured to be in its final phase of development.
The Agni-VI can potentially travel 12,000 kilometres or more, and is supposed to have MIRV capability – the ability to carry several independent nuclear warheads – and a manoeuvrable re-entry vehicle (MaRV) capability, the warhead of which is capable of autonomously tracking ground targets. Because of these capabilities, this missile will be unstoppable by the current anti-missile defence systems. Once completed, the Agni-VI will put the whole world within the range of India’s nuclear warheads.
India has taken advantage of the fact that the world has been distracted by North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and the threat they pose that they have entirely ignored the growing threat of India’s nuclear capabilities, its global ambitions, and its threat to international and regional security.
……….By investing on building up its nuclear and conventional forces, PM Modi hopes to project his country as a global power, standing shoulder to shoulder with the likes of the US and China. But, in fact, India is causing a massive headache for the South Asian region by threatening to destabilise the fragile strategic balance with its actions. If India’s ambitions are not kept in check, its growing capabilities are guaranteed to turn into a global threat. Instead of trying to impress the international community by investing so heavily on its defences (and causing havoc), PM Modi should perhaps first invest in his people, which include the more than 330 million Indians living in poverty – nearly a quarter of the country’s total population.There has been very little outcry in the West, particularly in the US, because American presidents in the past have turned a blind eye towards India’s dangerous global nuclear ambitions, hoping to create a new strategic partner capable of taking on China. This has provided India with a situation that it has taken, and continues to take, advantage of by growing its military’s conventional and nuclear capabilities………https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/334105-a-global-nuclear-threat
Thanks, Muhammad Umar, for this insightful article. But that last paragraph? Have you forgotten who President Trump is? He is a ruthless and not terribly intelligent salesman and attention-seeker. His over-riding aim would be to SELL NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY to India – quite the opposite of “curbing the country’s massive and extremely dangerous military nuclear weapons programme”
Putin: Russia making a quantum leap in nuclear weaponry
Putin says new Russian nuclear weapons are decades ahead of foreign rivals, 58 WGJT Milwaukeee, By: Justin Thompson-Gee , 28 June 18 MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted about his country’s prospective nuclear weapons Thursday, saying they are years and even decades ahead of foreign designs.
World Nuclear Market is Shrinking – preview of 2018 World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR),
L’Usine Nouvelle 26th June 2018 The world nuclear market is shrinking, confirms the 2018 edition of the
World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR), unveiled in preview by
L’Usine Nouvelle.
The nuclear spring, which was to succeed the
post-Fukushima winter, still does not arrive. And may well never happen.
Only four new reactors – that is, connected to the electricity grid – were
commissioned in 2017. The first three are in China, the fourth – of Chinese
construction – in Pakistan. In 2018, there will be only three. One in China
and two in Russia, including Rostov 4 under construction since the 1980s.
Statistics from the count of May 31 Julie Hazemann, data manager, and Mycle
Schneider, lead author of the World nuclear industry status report 2018
(WNISR 2018) unveiled in preview by “L’Usine Nouvelle”.
https://www.usinenouvelle.com/article/world-nuclear-exhibition-le-nucleaire-est-en-voie-de-disparition-pour-mycle-schneider-auteur-du-wnisr-2018.N711409
High cancer rates in flight attendants – effect of ionising radiation
Flight Attendants Have Higher Rates Of Many Cancers, Study Says | TIME
Why are flight attendants’ rates of cancer spiking? Disrupted sleep and radiation may be to blame https://www.aol.com/article/lifestyle/2018/06/28/why-are-flight-attendants-rates-of-cancer-spiking-disrupted-sleep-and-radiation-may-be-to-blame/23470250/, ABBY HAGLAGE, Jun 28th 2018
The nuclear weapons connection: Why Hinkley Point C nuclear station gets go-ahead, and Tidal Lagoon energy doesn’t
David Lowry’s Blog 27th June 2018 , The question asked in the Guardian leader: “Hinkley Point C got the
go-ahead despite its cost. So why not Swansea Bay?” has a number of
credible answers.
Firstly, you cannot warheads for nuclear weapons of mass
destruction form any by-products of a tidal lagoon as you can from Hinkley
C’s plutonium.
Indeed, when Hinkley A was being developed in the late the
Ministry of Defence issued clear statement on: “the production of
plutonium suitable for weapons in the new [nuclear ] power stations
programme as an insurance against future defence needs…” (17 June 1958)
http://drdavidlowry.blogspot.com/2018/06/you-cannot-fuel-nuclear-proliferation.html
UK govt launches pro nuclear campaign, pushes for women in the nuclear industry
UK government unveils £200m nuclear sector deal, The Engineer, Business secretary Greg Clark launches deal including commitment to new technology development and increased role for women in the nuclear industry ……. Details of the deal include up to £44m funding to develop advanced modular reactors, a commitment to reduce the cost of nuclear new build by 30 per cent by 2030, and to cut the cost of decommissioning old sites by 20 per cen% in the same period. There will be a new review into ways of accelerating the cleanup of old sites. Clark also signalled an increased commitment to fusion energy research, with the establishment of a national fusion technology centre at Culham in Oxfordshire, the site of the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion experiment and the home of Tokomak Technologies, which is developing fusion reactors based on the spherical tokomak principle. This fusion centre will be supported by £86m funding from the government.
“The UK is the home of civil nuclear technology and with this investment in innovation and our commitment to increasing diversity in an already highly-skilled workforce, I want to ensure we remain the world leader,” Clark said.
The NSD was announced at Trawsfynydd in Snowdonia, the site of a decommissioned nuclear reactor (the only one in the UK not on the coast) and a mooted site for the first small modular reactor project. “This site reflects both the past of our nuclear industry and an exciting future as the potential site for the new generation of small reactors, placing Wales at the centre of a UK arc of the nuclear industry,” said Alan Cairns, secretary of state for Wales.
The advanced modular reactor project will see eight designs go forward to detailed commercial and technical visibility studies. This phase 1, £4m has been allocated, and three or four of the designs will then go forward to a second phase for further development, with a possible £40m of further funding subject to a value for money approval from the Treasury. Up to £5m will be made available to regulators to support this, and up to £7m will fund capability and capacity to assess and licence small and novel reactor designs…..https://www.theengineer.co.uk/nuclear-industry-sector-deal/
Norway makes a choice for the environment – shuts down Halden nuclear research reactor
Bellona 27th June 2018 , In a major victory for radiation safety in Europe, the Norwegian government announced Wednesday that it would be permanently shutting down the financially and technically troubled Halden research reactor, which experienced a leak in 2016. The 25 megawatt installation, which is the world’s oldest heavy-water reactor, is located in a mountain cave in the southern Norwegian town of Halden, and has been under a temporary closure since March due to a valve failure. It is the second of Norway’s two reactors, the first of which is the Kjeller reactor, near Oslo, which began operations in 1951.
Bellona has for three decades questioned the Halden reactor’s sometimes hazardous operations, and demanded that the government stop subsiding its continued use.
http://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2018-06-in-victory-for-the-environment-norway-will-shut-down-halden-reactor
Trumpocracy – analysed by Noam Chomsky
The Anatomy of Trumpocracy: An Interview With Noam Chomsky C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout June 28, 2018
With its spate of right-wing rulings this week, the Supreme Court has paved the way for Donald Trump and the Republican-dominated Congress to intensify their attacks on human rights, workers and the country’s democratic institutions, dragging the US deeper into the abyss.
US political culture has long been dominated by oligarchical corporate and financial interests, militarism and jingoism, but the current Trumpocracy represents a new level of neoliberal cruelty. Indeed, the United States is turning into a pariah nation, a unique position among Western states in the second decade of the 21st century.
What factors and the forces produced this radical and dangerous shift? How did Trump manage to bring the Republican Party under his total control? Is Trumpocracy a temporary phenomenon, or the future of American politics? Is the Bernie Sanders phenomenon over? In the exclusive Truthout interview below, world-renowned scholar and public intellectual Noam Chomsky, Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at MIT and currently Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona, tackles these questions and offers his unique insights.
Qn. “…… how do we explain the fact that he has essentially taken over the Republican Party without any serious opposition?”
Noam Chomsky: Part of the solution to the puzzle is Obama’s performance in office. Many were seduced by the rhetoric of “hope” and “change,” and deeply disillusioned by the very early discovery that the words had little substance………
Quite apart from Obama’s disappointing policies, he and the [Democratic] Party were victims of the intense racism that is deeply rooted in large parts of American society. The visceral hatred of Obama cannot be explained in other terms.
But there is far more than that. For some time, candidates for Republican primaries who emerged from the base have been far off the traditional spectrum. The establishment was able to suppress them and gain their own candidate, but that didn’t change the basis for their support. For years, both parties have drifted to the right — the Republicans off the spectrum of normal parliamentary politics. Their dedication to wealth and corporate power is so extreme that they cannot get votes on their actual policies
…….. Trump has had overwhelming support among whites and less educated sectors, but for the most part, his mass voting base is relatively affluent and privileged. A recent Pew poll of Trump approvers found two-thirds are either college graduates, women or nonwhite, the last group apparently not many.
……. For the actual Republican constituency of wealth and corporate power, these are glory days, so why object, even if his antics sometimes cause some grimaces? The core constituency of Evangelicals is solidly in Trump’s pocket, thanks to the crumbs thrown their way. Many working people maintain the illusion that Trump cares about them and will bring back lost days of steady jobs in mining and manufacturing.
……… Trump himself seems to be having the time of his life. He’s constantly in the limelight, his loyal base worships his every move, he’s free to defy convention, to insult anyone he chooses, to disrupt the international economic and political order at will — whatever comes to mind next, knowing that he’s the biggest thug on the block and can probably get away with it — again, for a while, at least.
“….Qn: How do we explain the fact that Trump continues to cause chaos on all fronts, both domestically and internationally, and yet his popularity remains at quite high levels?
As I mentioned, Trump’s popularity among Republicans is unusually fervent and high, though not uniquely so. The affluent are doing fine. The economy is continuing the slow growth under Obama, though wages are barely rising and job security is low.
………. https://truthout.org/articles/the-anatomy-of-trumpocracy-an-interview-with-noam-chomsky/
Previously angry and aggressive, John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, now chummy with Putin and Kim Jong Un
The new John Bolton: Trump ally swaps fire and brimstone for a spoonful of sugar
Trump’s national security adviser seems to have abandoned his firebrand persona – and in Moscow the change of tone was striking, Guardian, Julian Borger, 28 June 18,
The trademark walrus moustache was still there, and the penetrating gaze was just the same, but in almost every other way the new John Bolton and the old John Bolton seemed very different.
The old Bolton was a firebrand pundit, raining derision from television talkshows and editorials on US diplomats promoting compromise with America’s enemies. Almost a year ago he wrote a commentary describing Vladimir Putin as a serial liar responsible for an “act of war” in the form of his interference in the US election and warned: “We negotiate with Russia at our peril.”
He described the nuclear deal with Iran, by which Tehran reduced its uranium stockpile by 98%, as an “American Munich” comparable to Neville Chamberlain’s short-lived agreement with Hitler, and he derided US diplomats as “appeasers” for pursuing contacts with adversaries for their own sake.
That was then, but this is now. And Bolton is now national security adviser to Donald Trump, whose defining diplomatic style is chumminess with dictators. In the past month, Bolton has shaken hands with Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin, with smiles all round. Face to face with Putin on Wednesday, Bolton replaced fire and brimstone with a large dose of honey………
The change in tone is even more evident in relation to North Korea. In January this year, Bolton said: “Talking to the North Koreans is a waste of time.” He repeatedly insisted that the only subject of discussion at a summit should be the details of how North Korean nuclear weapons would be dismantled and removed.
“I think it’s important if the president sees that they’re just looking for a way to waste time, that he make the point that he’s not there to waste time and that we expect real denuclearisation, not talks about talks about denuclearisation,” he wrote.
It is clear that Trump’s Singapore meeting with Kim Jong-un stopped very much short of that. The US failed in its effort to have its language insisting on “complete verifiable irreversible disarmament” and setting out a timetable.
Instead, Trump unilaterally suspended joint military exercises with South Korea, to the surprise of the government in Seoul and to the US military. In return, he claimed to have won a pledge from Kim to destroy a missile engine testing site. In terms of the overall North Korean weapons programme, the site was a small element, and there is no evidence so far that it has been dismantled.
…….Back in Moscow at a post-Putin press conference, the new Bolton had a one-line answer to a flurry of questions about what had become of the old Bolton.
“I don’t address what I have said before,” he said. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/28/john-bolton-trump-adviser-new-style-putin
UK’s Tidal Lagoon energy project – would be costly to build, but very cheap for 120 years thereafter
Times 28th June 2018 , Professor Chris Binnie: Greg Clark says that the Swansea tidal
lagoon was rejected as it is three times as expensive as Hinkley C, but his
calculations are suspect. The tidal lagoon would be expensive to build, but
once built it could go on for 120 years with minimal refurbishment cost.
And letter Prof Roger Kemp: The government’s rejection of the Swansea tidal
lagoon is extremely disappointing. Greg Clark says that wind energy is
cheaper, bu t it’s a false comparison: we can predict the tides years in
advance but it is difficult to look more than a week ahead with wind.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/adhd-and-the-rise-in-the-use-of-medication-d2bjsnc6f
Theresa May’s UK govt rejects renewables, promotes nuclear – and cancels promising tidal energy project
Bloomberg 27th June 2018 The U.K. government earmarked 200 million pounds ($262 million) to smooth
the way for the next nuclear power plants just two days after rejected the
case for an experimental project that would generate power from the tides.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said its
Nuclear Sector Deal will fund technology and skills needed to maintain the
industry that the government is backing to be part of its future energy
mix. About 56 million pounds will go to help eight vendors of modular
reactors carry out technical studies.
The decision puts further distance
between Prime Minister Theresa May’s administration and the possibility
of government support for cutting-edge renewable technologies. May’s
government has scaled back subsidies for wind and solar, halted onshore
wind farms and declined to back Tidal Lagoon Power Ltd.’s proposal for a
1.3 billion pound project to demonstrate its technology.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-27/u-k-earmarks-262-million-to-bolster-its-nuclear-power-industry
North Korea carrying out improvements at Yongbyon Nuclear Research Facility
North Korea improving nuclear facility despite Kim Jong-un’s pledge, satellite images show, ABC News , By Mary Lloyd , 28 June 18 Satellite images show improvements have continued at a North Korean nuclear facility, even though leader Kim Jong-un recently made commitments to dismantle the country’s nuclear program.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confident that North Korea understands what is expected in complete denuclearization
North Korea understands U.S. on ‘complete denuclearization’: Pompeo, Patricia Zengerle, WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday he was confident that North Korea understood the scope of the U.S. desire for complete denuclearization as the two countries negotiate after President Donald Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“We’ve been pretty unambiguous in our conversations about what we mean when we say complete denuclearization,” Pompeo told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on funding for the State Department.
Trump has drawn some criticism from national security analysts for an agreement that emerged from his June 12 summit with Kim that had few details on how Pyongyang would surrender its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles…… https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pompeo-senate-northkorea/n-korea-understands-u-s-on-complete-denuclearization-pompeo-idUSKBN1JN2W3
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