America’s choice – stop the nuclear weapons obsession, or take the road to extinction

I WRITE THIS PIECE as a physician expertly trained to make accurate diagnoses to either cure the patient or to alleviate their symptoms.
I, therefore, approach the viability of life on Earth from a similar and honest perspective. Hence, for some, this may be an extremely provocative article but as the planet is in the intensive care unit, we have no time to waste and the startling truth must be accepted.
As TS Elliott wrote so long ago, ‘This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper’.
Will we gradually burn and shrivel the wondrous creation of evolution by emitting the ancient carbon stored over billions of years to drive our cars and to power our industries, or will we end it suddenly with our monstrous weapons within which have captured the energy powering the sun?
Here’s the stark diagnosis from a U.S. perspective.
The Department of Defence has nothing to do with defence, because it is, in effect, the Department of War. Over one trillion dollars of U.S. taxpayers’ money is stolen annually to create and build the most hideous weapons of death and destruction, even to launch killing machines from space.
And since 9/11, six trillion dollars have been allotted to the slaughter of over half a million people, almost all of whom were civilians — men, women and children.
Brilliant people, mostly men, are employed by the massive military-industrial corporations – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, BAE, United Technologies, to name a few – deploying their brainpower to devise better and more hideous ways of killing.
From an unbiased perspective, the only true terrorists today are Russia and the United States of America, both of which have several thousand hydrogen bombs larger by orders of magnitude than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs on hair-trigger alert, ready to be launched with a press of a button in the U.S. by the President.
This so-called nuclear “exchange” would take little over one hour to complete. As in Japan, people would be seared to bundles of smoking char as their internal organs boiled away and, over time, the global environment would be plunged into another ice age called “nuclear winter”, annihilating almost all living organisms over time, including ourselves.
But the stark truth is that the United States of America has no enemies. Russia, once a sworn communist power is now a major capitalist country and the so-called “war on terror” is just an excuse to keep this massive killing enterprise alive and well.
Donald Trump is right when he says we need to make friends with the Russians because it’s the Russian bombs that could and might annihilate America. Indeed, we need to foster friendship with all nations throughout the planet and reinvest the billions and trillions of dollars spent on war, killing and death to saving the ecosphere by powering the world with renewable energy including solar, wind and geothermal and planting trillions of trees.
Such a move would also free up billions of dollars to be reallocated to life such as free medical care for all U.S. citizens, free education for all, to house the homeless, to hospitalise the mentally sick, to register all citizens to vote and to invest in the abolition of nuclear weapons.
The United States of America urgently needs to rise to its full moral and spiritual height and lead the world to sanity and survival. I know this is possible because, in the 1980s, millions of wonderful people rose up nationally and internationally to end the nuclear arms race and to end the Cold War.
This, then, is the sound template upon which we must act. You can follow Dr Caldicott on Twitter @DrHCaldicott. Click here for Dr Caldicott’s complete curriculum vitae.
Nuclear cost and water consumption – The elephants in the control room


These are Plant Vogtle in the US (US$27.5bn, 2.2GW), Framanville France (€12.4bn+, 1.6 GW), Olkiluoto in Finland (around €10 bn+, 1.6 GW) and Hinckley Point in the UK (₤22 bn+, 3.2 GW).
There are two further plants whose power costs have been published, Akkuyu in Turkey US$127/MWh and Barakah in the Emirates US$110/MWh.
It should be emphasised that none of these costs are the full cost recovery. For example in the British case it is estimated that some $10 bn has been spent by others on upgrading the grid and backup power supplies. In Turkey the cost of the plant is just that, and doesn’t include civil works, grid connections, cooling water supply.
In the US plant Vogtle has benefited from some US$8bn of federal government loan guarantees and an unusual form of financing where customers have paid about 8% premium on their bills for 10-12 years before the plant is to be commissioned.
All of the plants get catastrophe insurance and some security from their government and most have inadequate bond structures for long term waste storage. They also rarely pay for cooling water. Many have preferential supply agreements which will require other cheaper sources of power to turn off to allow the nuclear plants to keep running.
However, even on the published information, nuclear power plants in democracies are running at about A$13m/MW………
“…..Cooling Water
A key issue with nuclear plants is cooling. Because of the cost of shutdowns and the degradation of materials by irradiation, the plants are designed to run at lower peak temperatures (260-320 C) than coal (500-670 C), gas turbines (1,300-1430C) or internal combustion plants (2,000 C).
The thermal efficiency of a plant is directly related to the difference between the peak temperature and the cooling medium – what is termed Carnot efficiency.
Lower temperature means lower efficiency, as less of the heat energy is converted into work and more is removed by the cooling system. So for a given amount of electrical energy delivered, more cooling is required in a nuclear plant. Furthermore the warmer the cooling water or air the more coolant is required.
Thus the Barrakah plants require 100 tonnes of Gulf seawater per second for each generator. In higher latitudes with seawater temperatures in the range of 2-12C, water requirements can still be 40-60 tonnes per second per GW…….
It is enough to change the local environment for all sea life, so finding a suitabable site is very difficult. There are currently no nuclear plants operating using warm seawater for cooling although Barrakah is soon to be commissioned.
The problem there is not just the temperature but the accelerated rates of corrosion and biofouling which will mean the heat exchangers need to be larger, pumping losses will be higher and maintenance bills higher still…..
On land in very cold climates, a small number of air cooled plants have been built but the offset is that about 5% of the output of the power plant is used to run the fans. However in warm climates it is virtually impossible to run an air cooled nuclear power plant……
A closer look at Barrakah
There are a range of risks with all nuclear designs, but the business risks assoctiated with the Barrakah style APR 1400 seem even larger than most.
The Barrakah plants were supposed to progressively come on line in early 2017 but they have yet to generate power. This delay is adding US$1.2-2 bn per year to the eventual liabilities that have to be paid off.
They are designed for an 18 month refueling cycle – unlike the AP1000 at plant Vogtle which has a 3 year refueling cycle. This means lower lifetime capacity factors and higher backup requirements with gas or pumped hydro. The design goal is 90% availability.
They have largely been built with very low finance costs from both Korea and the Emirates together with cheap expat Indian and Pakistani labour which significantly understates their real cost of construction.
The Barrakah plant is a 4 unit plant, which allows useful economies of scale, and there is nowhere in Australia where a 4 unit plant can safely be intergrated into the grid.
Recent problems with the single unit 750MW Kogan Creek generator in Queensland have shown that the grid can be destabilised with the failure of a single unit. As demand is gradually falling, a single unit of that magnitude is even harder to manage. The APR 1400 units are 1,350-1,400 MW so would be even more difficult to integrate into the grid.
These reactors have not yet been shown to work in a hot environment so their reliability is unknown, in fact there is only one other reactor of this type operating in the world with two more under construction.
The Moorside project in the UK which was to use KEPCO designs has been abandoned and plans for two more units in Korea have been frozen. KEPCO was offered all the development work already done on the Oldbury and Wyfla plants in the UK and did not take them up.
These plants came with billions of pounds worth of development work already done, project teams and permits in place and an offer from the UK government of a guaranteed ₤75/MWh + inflation for 25+ years.
There is a reasonably held belief that the price was artificially supported by the previous Korean government which viewed nuclear technology as a new export industry and this project as a flagship demonstrator. In contrast the current Korean government was elected on an anti-nuclear program and has pledged to build no more plants after the current two units under construction are completed.
There are some doubts about the level of safety in the design and a new design, APR1400+ was developed to reduce the possibility of a melt down. However no plants of this design have been ordered. So which one would you choose? https://www.openforum.com.au/nuclear-cost-and-water-consumption-the-elephants-in-the-control-room/?fbclid=IwAR2M3NxMjfrDJNWTG9tatKSARHGUKWVcG_CE-bSW5wtnAbwhGnYxd1ElugU
5.1 magnitude earthquake near Iran nuclear power plant
History of deadly quakes
Further delay in removal of spent nuclear fuel at Fukushima No. 1
![]() ![]() The government decided Friday to delay the removal of spent fuel from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant’s Nos. 1 and 2 reactors by up to five years, casting doubt on whether it can stick to its time frame for dismantling the crippled complex.
The process of removing the spent fuel from the units’ pools had previously been scheduled to begin in fiscal 2023. In its latest decommissioning plan, the government said the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., will not begin the roughly two-year process at the No. 1 unit at least until fiscal 2027 and may wait until fiscal 2028. Work at the No. 2 unit is now slated to start between fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2026, it said. The delay is necessary to take further safety precautions, such as the construction of an enclosure around the No. 1 unit to prevent the spread of radioactive dust and the decontamination of the No. 2 unit, the government said. It is the fourth time it has revised its schedule for removing the spent fuel rods. It’s a very difficult process and it’s hard to know what to expect. The most important thing is the safety of the workers and the surrounding area,” industry minister Hiroshi Kajiyama told a news conference. The government set a new goal of finishing the removal of the 4,741 spent fuel rods across all six of the plant’s reactors by fiscal 2031. Tepco has started the process at the No. 3 unit and already finished at the No. 4 unit, which was off-line for regular maintenance at the time of the disaster. A schedule has yet to be set for the Nos. 5 and 6 reactors. While the government maintained its overarching time frame of finishing the decommissioning of the plant 30 to 40 years from the 2011 crisis triggered by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, there may be further delays. The government said it will begin removing fuel debris in fiscal 2021 from the three reactors that experienced core meltdowns, starting with the No. 2 unit. The process, considered the most difficult part of the decommissioning plan, will involve using a robot arm to initially remove small amounts of debris, and later take out larger amounts. The government also said it will aim to reduce the pace at which contaminated water at the plant increases. Water for cooling the melted cores, mixed with underground water, amounts to around 170 tons per day. That number will be reduced to 100 tons by 2025, it said. The water is being treated to remove the most radioactive materials and stored in tanks on the plant’s grounds, but already more than 1 million tons have been collected and space is expected to run out by the summer of 2022. |
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Goats irradiated in 1950s now pose possible environmental danger in Berkshire, UK
Contamination in Berkshire, Berkshire Live 21st Dec 2019, Goats injected with radioactive chemicals could be buried in Berkshire. The
animals, said to have been experimented on in the 1950s and 60s, could now
be buried on land in Shinfield.
Those living nearby have raised concerns
after learning scientists at the University of Reading injected the goats
with radioactive isotopes. The experiments were said to have been looking
into how radiation affected milk and metabolism.
It formed part of research
into milk production and the dairy industry, by The National Institute for
Research in Dairying (NIRD), based in Shinfield and closed in 1985. The
goats were apparently ‘famous in folklore’, according to one American
professor, Margaret Neville. Burying dead livestock is now banned to stop
the spread of disease. But before the 2003 ban, farmers would reportedly
often bury dead animals in pits on their own land.
Hawaii’s law-makers very worried about the nuclear coffin at the Marshall Islands
How A Nuclear Waste Site 2,800 Miles Away Became A Hawaii Priority https://www.civilbeat.org/2019/12/how-a-nuclear-waste-site-2800-miles-away-became-a-hawaii-priority/
The Runit Dome in the Marshall Islands is cracked and in danger of spilling its radioactive contents into the Pacific Ocean. By Nick Grube / December 26, 2019 WASHINGTON — A concrete dome built decades ago by the U.S. government on a Marshall Islands atoll 2,800 miles from Hawaii has the state’s federal lawmakers worried.
The Runit Dome is a relic of America’s atomic past. It’s home to 3 million cubic feet of radioactive waste that was buried there as part of the government’s effort to clean up the mess left from dozens of nuclear tests in the 1940s and ’50s that decimated the atoll.
A warming climate and rising sea levels now threaten the integrity of the saucer-shaped structure, which, if it fails, could spill its radioactive contents into the Pacific, a scenario that would threaten both people and the surrounding environment.
Members of Hawaii’s federal delegation, led by U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, recently secured a provision in the bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act to study what it would take to repair the dome.
It was among the top priorities for Hawaii, at least in the House. Hawaii Congressman Ed Case, who is a founder of the Pacific Islands Caucus, said the Runit Dome is of critical importance, not only for the islands but the U.S. as a whole.
“This is a concern on a number of levels,” Case said. “The basic one being: Is the Runit Dome capable, especially in a time of rising sea levels, of containing the very deadly radioactive waste that we deposited into that dome? The short answer is we’re not sure.”
Columbia University researchers published a study in July that found that the amount of radiation on Enewetak atoll, where the dome is located, and other parts of the Marshall Islands rival what’s been detected around Chernobyl and Fukushima, two locations synonymous with nuclear catastrophe.
The NDAA provision calls on the Secretary of Energy to submit a report to Congress within 180 days that includes a detailed plan to repair the Runit Dome and ensure that it “does not have any harmful effects to the local population, environment, or wildlife.”
The report should include an assessment of the current structure, cost analysis for the repair and a summary of discussions between the U.S. government and Marshall Islands regarding the dome.
In addition, the report will analyze how rising sea levels will affect the ability of the dome to contain the radioactive contents.
Case said the U.S. has an obligation to the Marshall Islands to at least analyze whether the Runit Dome is in danger of failure after it absolved itself of any responsibility through the execution of a Compact of Free Association, a treaty that effectively settled any claims related to past nuclear testing.
“The Marshall Islands obviously does not have the financial or human resources or expertise to effectively manage any issues that might be arising at the Runit Dome,” Case said.
“I think we owe it not only to the Marshalls but to the other islands of the Pacific to be sure we’re comfortable with what’s happening there, and, if we’re not comfortable with it, to determine what exactly we need to do to secure that waste.”
Case’s concerns about being a good ally come as the U.S. attempts to renegotiate its Compacts of Free Association with the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau.
The compacts give the U.S. military control over the countries’ land, airspace and surrounding waters, and are strategically important to American interests, especially as China tries to exert more influence in the region.
Gabbard did not respond to a Civil Beat request for an interview about the NDAA or the Runit Dome.
In June, Gabbard issued a press release stating that she was successful in including the provision for a public study in the House Armed Services Committee’s version of the NDAA.
She also noted that she was a co-sponsor of legislation named after former Hawaii Congressman Mark Takai that aimed to make it easier for veterans involved in the clean-up at Enewetak atoll to seek treatment through the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Takai died in 2016 of cancer.
“The Marshallese people are gravely concerned about environmental threats to the integrity of the storage site and the impact on their country,” Gabbard said in the statement. “The U.S. government is responsible for this storage site and must ensure the protection of the people and our environment from the toxic waste stored there.”
U.S. Congress Demands Investigation Into the U.S.’s Nuclear Coffin, The Runit Dome
Congress Demands Investigation Into the U.S.’s Nuclear Coffin, The Runit Dome is leaking radioactive waste into the Pacific Ocean. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a30338371/congress-investigation-runit-dome-nuclear-waste/
Dec 27, 2019
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Russia deploys first hypersonic missiles
Russia has deployed its first hypersonic nuclear-capable missiles, with Vladimir Putin boasting that it puts his country in a class of its own.
The president described the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, which can fly at 27 times the speed of sound, as a technological breakthrough comparable to the 1957 Soviet launch of the first satellite.
Putin has said Russia’s new generation of nuclear weapons can hit almost any point in the world and evade a US-built missile shield, though some western experts have questioned how advanced some of the weapons programmes are.
The Avangard is launched on top of an intercontinental ballistic missile, but, unlike a regular missile warhead, which follows a predictable path after separation, it can make sharp manoeuvres en route to its target, making it harder to intercept……. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/27/russia-deploys-first-hypersonic-missiles-nuclear-capable
European Union split on nuclear energy, but manages a draft Green Finance deal.
Green-finance deal survives EU split on nuclear energy. European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde has underlined the importance of the reform, with sustainable finance deals reaching one half a trillion dollars in 2018.
But the long-standing disagreement over nuclear energy has undermined the EU’s efforts to cut greenhouse emissions, with a promise last week by EU leaders for carbon neutrality by 2050 nearly scuppered by a feud over atomic energy.
https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50671303/green-finance-deal-survives-eu-split-on-nuclear-energy 23 Dec 19, EU negotiators have been struggling for weeks to finalise a harmonised classification system for green finance in Europe that could decide the fate of hundreds of billions of euros in investment.
The lobbying frenzy in Brussels over the new EU norm has been immense, with soon to Brexit Britain also making its voice heard while protecting the interests of the City of London financial hub.
“This is a historic moment… the much-needed enabler to get green investments to flow and help Europe reach climate neutrality by 2050,” said EU Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis.
Late on Monday, EU lawmakers approved an offer by member states that delayed the nuclear question – as well as the role of natural gas cherished by Berlin – until the end of 2021.
“I am fully aware that the nuclear problem will return in two years’ time. We pushed back the matter,” said the chairman of the European Parliament’s Environment Committee, French centrist MEP Pascal Canfin.
“The risk was to take the whole classification hostage,” he added.
Ever since the European Commission’s proposal was put on the table in May 2018, nuclear energy has been the subject of a huge fight between its supporters, led by France and backed by Eastern European countries.
But opponents of nuclear power – such as Germany, Austria, Luxembourg and Greece – have refused to back down, with domestic opinion fearing atomic energy disasters, such as Fukushima or Chernobyl.
The compromise suggested by Finland, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, was reached with MEPs behind closed doors and needs final approval by member states envoys on Wednesday.
Once approved, the European Commission will then have two years to draw up detailed lists of sectors eligible for a Green finance label, based on the criteria.
Germany’s next nuclear reactor closure on December 31st
German nuclear exit continues as planned with next reactor to close Dec 31, https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/podcasts/crude/122319-capitol-crude-oil-market-top-geopolitical-risks-2020. Andreas Franke Editor. Dan Lalor — Germany’s planned phasing out of nuclear power will continue with the closure next Tuesday of the 1.5 GW Philippsburg 2, leaving six reactors with a combined 8 GW online for the next 2-3 years. Federal environment minister, Svenja Schulze, said in a statement that the consensus in Germany behind the nuclear phase-out was “rock solid”. The last reactor will close by the end of 2022. “The nuclear exit makes our country safer [as it avoids radioactive waste]…It is important to emphasize in times when some propagate nuclear power as supposed climate savior that it solves no single problem, but creates new problems for a million years,” Schulze said. Germany decided in 2011 amid the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan to immediately close reactors built before 1980 and reverse a planned run-time extension for modern nuclear plants by setting final closure dates. Nuclear operators still had to pay a combined Eur23 billion ($25.6 billion) into a state-run fund for the financing of mid- and long-term nuclear storage in Germany. So far, two modern reactors were shut in 2015 and 2017, with Philippsburg 2 the third reactor to close. The final shutdowns are more concentrated with three reactors set to close in December 2021 and the final three by the end of 2022. |
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Ionising radiation damages brain connections
How Radiation Can Affect Brain Connections https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/news/how-radiation-can-affect-brain-connections-328547 Dec 17,| 2019 Original story from University of Rochester Medical Center, One of the potentially life-altering side effects that patients experience after cranial radiotherapy for brain cancer is cognitive impairment. Researchers now believe that they have pinpointed why this occurs and these findings could point the way for new therapies to protect the brain from the damage caused by radiation.
The new study – which appears in the journal Scientific Reports – shows that radiation exposure triggers an immune response in the brain that severs connections between nerve cells. While the immune system’s role in remodeling the complex network of links between neurons is normal in the healthy brain, radiation appears to send the process into overdrive, resulting in damage that could be responsible for the cognitive and memory problems that patients often face after radiotherapy. Continue reading |
Seafloor mapping reveals the degradation of ocean floor by Bikini nuclear bomb tests
Bikini Seafloor Hides Evidence of Nuclear Explosions, Seafloor mapping has revealed a crater and several shipwrecks persisting 73 years after the world’s first underwater nuclear test. Eos, Amanda Heidt 28 Dec 19
Seventy-three years after serving as the site of the world’s first underwater nuclear test, the seafloor around the Bikini Atoll remains scarred by finely detailed craters and littered with derelict ships.
Today, an interdisciplinary team of scientists is using sonar to assess the complex submarine environment. The results provide a sobering assessment of humanity’s capacity to alter nature…..
Unleashing the Power of the Atom
In the aftermath of World War II, the U.S. Navy chose the Bikini Atoll for a series of controlled nuclear explosions. Between 1946 and 1958, 23 confirmed tests were conducted throughout the area.
Trembanis and his team studied Able and Baker, a pair of tests conducted in July 1946 as part of Operation Crossroads. Both Able and Baker involved plutonium fission bombs with a yield of between 21 and 23 kilotons, but they were deployed differently……….
Clustering around a laptop, Trembanis and his team witnessed the real-time rendering of an underwater crater more than 800 meters across—big enough to fit three Roman Colosseums. ….
Littered throughout the atoll are the husks of strategically placed ships—decommissioned dreadnaughts, aircraft carriers, and submarines meant to bear the brunt of the Able and Baker explosions. …..
Even independent of their place in nuclear history, the Pilotfish and other Bikini shipwrecks attest to the long-lived effects of human activities on the environment.
As old ships decompose, they become ecological burdens, and researchers found that several wrecks on the Bikini seafloor are leaching plumes of oil. Trembanis and his team looked at sketches from surveys the National Park Service conducted in the late 1980s and saw the degradation of the past 40 years……. https://eos.org/articles/bikini-seafloor-hides-evidence-of-nuclear-explosions
U.S. Congress votes $billions of tax-payers’ money for a new nuclear weapon for Trump
![]() BY JOHN TIERNEY, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 12/24/19 In reaction to the Trump administration’s inept negotiating process on denuclearization, the North Koreans have threatened to send an ominous “Christmas gift.” Unfortunately, Americans are already certain to get a different nightmarish present, compliments of the U.S. Congress.
Absent convincing logic or reason, and against the House of Representative’s inclinations, legislators overwhelmingly decided to provide President Donald Trump with a new nuclear warhead — one that his administration thinks is “more usable.” Indeed, upon signing the Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, this president — only the third in U.S. history to be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors — will be in the position to gain control over the new nuclear weapon he first requested in 2018, a submarine-launched “low-yield” warhead. The United States has the most sophisticated conventional and nuclear arsenals in the world, with capabilities to respond to any limited use of nuclear weapons in multiple ways, including a thousand existing low-yield options that can be delivered by air. In fact, Congress and the last two administrations have already devoted billions of dollars to ensure these assets can effectively penetrate the most advanced air defenses. Based on existing bipartisan-supported plans, those investments are sure to continue. The Trump Administration has never given a convincing explanation why current bloated investments in upgrades to the U.S. nuclear deterrent are insufficient or why the deployment of the new warhead would make any real change in our current deterrent forces. Their half-hearted case for this new warhead is fragile, bordering on specious. It contends that Russia has a doctrine whereby it would employ nuclear weapons on a limited basis to end a conventional conflict with NATO. But there is scant evidence of this doctrine’s existence and the question remains: If the current and planned air-launched options cannot properly respond to any such Russian action, why are American taxpayers being asked to spend billions of dollars on those systems? Moreover, while the yield of this “low-yield” nuclear weapon is estimated to be roughly one-third to one-half of the yield of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima and killed approximately 80,000 people, this is still a weapon that could kill tens of thousands of people in seconds. Launching even a “low-yield” nuclear weapon off a submarine greatly increases the chances of nuclear miscalculation. How would an adversary know the size of the weapon being launched at them? They would not, and would likely respond as if the worst-case scenario was occurring, exponentially increasing the risk of nuclear escalation. …….. https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/475794-congresss-christmas-gift-to-trump-a-new-nuclear-weapon |
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Kim Jong Un refers to North Korea being ‘prepared’ for war, hinting at nuclear capabilities
Kim Jong Un stresses nuclear capabilities during meeting https://www.dailynk.com/english/kim-jong-un-stresses-nuclear-capabilities-during-meeting/The Third Expanded Meeting of the Central Military Commission was held on Sunday, according to Rodong Shinmun, By Lee Sang Yong, 2019.12.27 North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently presided over an expanded meeting of the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK). At the meeting, Kim made references to readying North Korea’s nuclear capabilities for war, Daily NK has learned.
Although Kim did not explicitly say so, his remarks on “launchers,” the reorganization of the military, as well as his emphasis on self-reliant defense capabilities, can all be seen as a roundabout reference to the country’s nuclear capabilities. NO EXPLICIT MENTION OF NUCLEAR CAPABILITIES AT MEETING At the meeting, Kim stressed that rockets (missiles) and artillery capabilities should be strengthened, according to a high-ranking North Korean source speaking to Daily NK on Monday. These are the “decisions on organizational matters” alluded to in the North Korean media, which were also presumably the main issues of the meeting. “They say that Kim Jong Un issued a direct order calling for the reinforcement of military divisions where relevant to rocket and artillery capabilities,” a source in North Korea told Daily NK. “This essentially translates to an order to improve every aspect related to the strengthening of rocket and artillery capabilities, and can be seen as very relevant to ensuring nuclear weapons are battle-ready.” ”There was no explicit mention of nuclear weapons, but those present understood the order to mean that Kim Jong Un should be able to launch whatever he makes up his mind to launch, should he decide to do so,” continued the source. “Thus, whether it’s rockets or weapons of mass destruction, we must be prepared for every possibility.” In this context, “rocket” is a catch-all term that refers to both short-range and long-range missiles. Since Kim Jong Un came into power, North Korea has invested in the operational capabilities of various missiles, such that a dedicated branch was formed, called the Strategic Rocket Forces (currently Strategic Forces Command). The Strategic Forces Command reportedly consists of three divisions: the Scud missile division, the Rodong missile division, and the Musudan missile division. The announcement that there is to be a new division in addition to these three can be read as a move to create a separate division for strategic weapons, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) like the Hwasong-15. A MOVE TOWARD MORE CONFRONTATION WITH SOUTH KOREA? North Korea also recently conducted a series of tests at the Sohae Satellite Launch Site in Dongchang-ri, Cholsan County in North Pyongan Province. The tests involved a new solid-fuel engine for its ICBMs as well as a stability test. This has led to speculation over whether this is an indicator of North Korea’s determination to construct a system with the ability to stealthily launch both short- and long-range missiles at any hour of the day. “It’s been made clear that North Korean rockets must be shown as a force to be contended with,” said a source. “Apparently there was considerable emphasis on the sanctions against North Korea, and the fact that the military must take the lead in developing a self-reliant defense system.” “The order to strengthen artillery capabilities seems to indicate that they’re more interested in a confrontation with South Korea, rather than dialogue,” continued the source. “Given the emphasis on being prepared for every possibility in a fight, it seems they will continue to conduct tests with the aim of improving the relevant technologies.” On Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had presided over the Third Expanded Meeting of the Seventh WPK Central Military Commission and discussed issues pertaining to the strengthening of “self-reliant defense capabilities.” This meeting is presumed to have taken place on Saturday, given that top military officials assembled in Pyongyang on Friday morning. *Translated by Violet Kim Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net. |
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Philippines prone to natural disasters, but still contemplates nuclear power
Philippines seeks to relaunch nuclear power ambitions, Country prone to natural disasters eyes potential suppliers including Russia and US, Ft.com 27 Dec 19. The Philippines plans to revive its long-discontinued nuclear energy programme to combat the threat of a future power supply crunch — a prospect likely to raise safety concerns in a country prone to typhoons and earthquakes. The country is working with the International Atomic Energy Agency to meet the UN watchdog’s safety and other requirements, and investigating potential suppliers from Russia, South Korea, China and the US, said Alfonso Cusi, the energy secretary.
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