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Could the Coronavirus Mean that the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games are Cancelled?

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24 January, 2020
Occasionally, a huge worldwide virus comes along that changes how we well go about our business.
So far, there hasn’t been a major outbreak of the so-called coronavirus on a global scale, however it is being reported that there are now two cases that have been discovered in Japan, including one in Tokyo where thousands of Chinese tourists will arrive to celebrate the Lunar New Year.
And that adds to the devastation witnessed in China, and particularly the city of Wuhan, where more than 20 people are dead and hundreds more infected, according to reports in the country.
Sporting events in the country, including Olympic qualifiers in football, boxing and athletics, have either been relocated or cancelled, while Great Britain’s basketball team – due to fly out to China for their own qualifying – are likely to be advised not to travel.
Anybody that can remember as far back as 2002/03 may well remember the SARS outbreak, which killed nearly 800 people during a pandemic that spread worldwide from its Chinese origin.
The nature of the disease, and just how quickly it spreads, will have major implications in the weeks and months to come.
We are still months shy of the Olympic Games in Japan, but with the number of coronavirus cases found there likely to increase significantly, there are concerns that the Olympic Committee may have to consider alternate plans for arguably the biggest sporting occasion in the calendar.
The hope is that the outbreak can be nullified as quickly as possible with effective treatment and periods of quarantine for the infected, however the concern is that the virus is killing healthy young people as well as the old and infirm.
Anyone who can remember SARS will know how quickly it can spread, and as such the eyes of the world are on Japan as they look to minimise the spread there.
Concern for the safety of the Olympic Games is growing, and especially so if the virus remains active in the weeks prior to the event, with millions travelling into the country from around the globe.
For now, Olympic organisers are sensibly remaining calm. “Countermeasures against infectious diseases constitute an important part of our plans to host a safe and secure games,” the Tokyo 2020 committee have said in a statement.
However, the president of the Japanese Association for Infectious diseases, Kazuhiro Tateda, warned:
“We have to be very careful about what kind of infectious diseases will appear at the Tokyo Olympics.
“At these kinds of mass gatherings, the risks increase that infectious diseases and resistant bacteria can be carried in.”
The major concern – alongside the threat to life – is that the integrity of the Olympic Games will be affected if major athletes withdraw with safety concerns, as they did at Rio 2016 in the wake of the Zika virus, or that the Olympics will have to be moved from Tokyo to somewhere in the Western world, as was the case with the Women’s World Cup football back in 2003.

February 1, 2020 Posted by | Japan | , | Leave a comment

Japan could decide on fate of radioactive waste water before the Olympics in July

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In this Oct. 12, 2017, photo, ever-growing amount of contaminated, treated but still slightly radioactive, water at the wrecked Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant is stored in about 900 huge tanks, including those seen in this photo taken during a plant tour at Fukushima Daiichi
 
January 25, 2020
Japanese officials say a decision on how to deal with radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant could come before the Tokyo Olympics begin in July.
The Tokyo Electric Company, or TEPCO, operates Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant. Three reactors there suffered meltdowns after a 2011 earthquake and tsunami shut the plant’s cooling systems. The accident forced 160,000 people to flee contaminated areas around the plant.
TEPCO officials recently guided a Reuters reporter around the plant, which covers about 3.5 million square meters in northeast Japan. The reporter described large cranes being used to break up major parts of the plant’s structure. The reporter also described operations aimed at removing spent fuel from a reactor.
Overall, about 4,000 people are taking part in the cleanup effort, Reuters reported. Some Olympic events are set to take place within 60 kilometers of the destroyed plant, Reuters said.
One major part of the cleanup has involved treating and storing contaminated water from the area. TEPCO has predicted that Fukushima will run out of all its storage space for water by 2022.
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Workers are seen near storage tanks for radioactive water at Tokyo Electric Power Co’s (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, Japan January 15, 2020. Picture taken January 15, 2020.
 
A government group studying future storage solutions said last month that it had decided on two main possible solutions. One solution is to treat the water and then control its release into the Pacific Ocean. The other would be to let the water evaporate.
Japanese experts say the government may decide on a solution within the next few months. Either process is expected to take years to complete.
Joji Hara is a Tokyo-based spokesman for the power company. He told Reuters that TEPCO has already been making preparations to inform the public about any developments related to Fukushima.
“The Olympics are coming, so we have to prepare for that, and TEPCO has to disclose all the information – not only to local communities but also to foreign countries and especially to those people coming from abroad,” Hara said.
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A Tokyo 2020 banner stands in front of the Azuma Baseball Stadium, a venue for baseball and softball at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Saturday, Nov. 30, 2019, in Fukushima, Fukushima prefecture, Japan. The torch relay for the Tokyo Olympics will kick off…
 
He added that TEPCO had already opened English-language Twitter and Facebook accounts for that purpose. TEPCO is also preparing to put out emergency information in Korean and Chinese, Hara said.
Reuters reported that athletes from at least one country — South Korea — have said they plan to bring their own radiation detectors and food during the Olympics.
Olympic baseball and softball games will be played in Fukushima City, about 60 kilometers from the nuclear plant.
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Storage tanks for radioactive water are seen at Tokyo Electric Power Co’s (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, Feb. 18, 2019.
 
The Olympic torch will be carried through a sports center called J-Village. The center served as an operations base for the Fukushima nuclear plant during the first years after the disaster. The torch will then pass through areas near the destroyed power station on its way to Tokyo.
Last month, the environmental group Greenpeace said it found radiation “hotspots” at J-Village, about 18 kilometers south of the plant.
When Tokyo was chosen for the 2020 Summer Olympics, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared that Fukushima was “under control” and would not affect activities related to the Games.

February 1, 2020 Posted by | Fukushima 2020 | , , , | Leave a comment

Shikoku Electric not to appeal injunction over Ikata nuclear plant

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A banner reading “victory” is shown in front of the Hiroshima High Court on Jan. 17, 2020.
 
January 27, 2020
Matsuyama – Japan Shikoku Electric Power Co. said Monday it will not appeal a high court injunction banning the operation of the trouble-hit No.3 reactor of the Ikata nuclear power plant in western Japan for the time being.
“It is not the right time to appeal the injunction,” Shikoku Electric President Keisuke Nagai told Ehime Gov. Tokihiro Nakamura, head of the local government hosting the plant, as he apologized for a series of problems including temporary loss of power at the plant on Saturday.
However, in a meeting with Nakamura in Matsuyama, Nagai said the company still sees some problems in the decision handed down by the Hiroshima High Court on Jan. 17.
The court ordered the utility to suspend operation of the reactor in the town of Ikata, Ehime Prefecture, determining the operator’s and the Nuclear Regulation Authority’s rules and risk assessment for a possible disastrous eruption of Mt. Aso, about 130 kilometers away, are inadequate.
The No. 3 unit, currently not in operation due to a regular checkup, restarted operations in 2018 under stricter safety regulations introduced after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis led to a nationwide halt of nuclear power plants.
The injunction dealt a blow to the Japanese government’s bid to bring more reactors back online.
On Saturday afternoon, the nuclear plant was hit by a blackout while a periodic inspection of the No.3 unit was under way.
Power was restored in about 10 seconds as an emergency diesel generator and others were activated, but Shikoku Electric revealed “almost all power sources were temporarily lost.”
That was not the only recent problem at the nuclear power station.
On Jan. 12, a control rod was mistakenly removed from the reactor and remained outside for about seven hours during maintenance work including the country’s first removal of spent mixed-oxide fuel.
The rod, which controls the fission rate of the nuclear fuel, was accidentally lifted out of the containment vessel when the upper part of the apparatus that holds fuel assemblies in place was lifted by crane.
On Jan. 20, a signal indicating a fall in nuclear fuel in a spent fuel pool was emitted.
Shikoku Electric said Saturday it has suspended regular checkups of the reactor, under way since Dec. 26, in the wake of the series of the problems.

February 1, 2020 Posted by | Japan | , , | Leave a comment

Mayor in Kyushu admits to ‘bribe’ from company in nuclear business

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Shintaro Wakiyama, mayor of Genkai, Saga Prefecture, speaks at a news conference on Jan. 23.
January 24, 2020
GENKAI, Saga Prefecture–The mayor here said Jan. 23 that he received–but returned–what he suspected was a bribe from a contractor tied to an individual known to have lavished gifts on nuclear power company executives.
Shintaro Wakiyama, 63, said at a news conference at the Genkai town office that he received “about 1 million yen ($9,140)” from Shiohama Industry Corp. in July 2018, immediately after he was elected mayor for the first time.
He said he returned the money to the company, which is based in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, through an acquaintance in December 2019.
Wakiyama also said he recently learned that the acquaintance had died soon after the money was returned, but he did not provide any details about the intermediary.
A Shiohama Industry official said in an interview with The Asahi Shimbun that the company has received 1 million yen, apparently from Wakiyama.
“No employee can recount how our company handed cash (to the mayor),” the official said.
But the official explained that Shiohama Industry was seeking to expand its nuclear plant-related business.
“Heads of municipalities with nuclear power plants have influence over electric power companies,” the official said.
Genkai hosts a nuclear power plant, and Wakiyama has expressed his support for nuclear power generation.
Under the Political Fund Control Law, companies and organizations are prohibited from giving donations to politicians or their support groups.
Donations from individuals are permitted, but if the sum from one person exceeds 50,000 yen a year, the recipients must describe the donation in their income and expenditure reports on political funds.
The 1 million yen from Shiohama Industry was not listed in any of Wakiyama’s reports.
“I thought it was a temporary deposit,” the mayor said. “I cannot offer any rebuttal if the legality (of the money) is called into question. I was too naive.”
He said he will consult his supporters about his next course of action.
Wakiyama said he was suspicious of the money from the start.
He explained that several days after the mayoral election was held on July 29, 2018, two men connected to Shiohama Industry visited his home.
The men tried to hand Wakiyama something wrapped in small silk cloth, saying, “This is a congratulatory present,” according to the mayor.
Wakiyama said he caught sight of an envelope for gift money, so he told the men, “I don’t want it.”
But the men insisted, saying they would be “scolded” if they failed to deliver the present.
They put the envelope, along with a business card of the company’s president, at the doorway of Wakiyama’s home and left.
“I felt like I received a bribe,” Wakiyama recalled.
He said he felt a sense of shame but kept the money in a safe.
“I was too busy after becoming mayor and didn’t have time to go to faraway Fukui Prefecture to return the money,” he said.
Also located in Fukui Prefecture is the town of Takahama, where Eiji Moriyama had served as deputy mayor.
Moriyama, who died in March last year at the age of 90, had helped to bring nuclear power plants to the prefecture.
He also had close ties with Shiohama Industry, according to an industry source.
Several executives related to nuclear power operations at Kansai Electric Power Co. have resigned for receiving cash and other presents from Moriyama. They said he had demanded contracts from the utility for his company.
News of that scandal, which surfaced in September, “made me feel more and more that I needed to return (the money),” Wakiyama said.
After learning that his acquaintance had a connection with Shiohama Industry, the mayor gave the company’s money to the acquaintance in Genkai in mid-December, according to Wakiyama.
He said that after a few days, he received a phone call from the acquaintance: “The money has been returned to the manager of the company’s Tokyo branch.”
Wakiyama, who was elected as a town assembly member for the first time in 2001, declined to reveal the name and occupation of the acquaintance, citing privacy, but said that person died soon after the phone call.
An employee at Shiohama Industry’s headquarters in Tsuruga told The Asahi Shimbun, “It is highly likely that the head of the company’s Osaka branch, who died in December 2018, visited the mayor with a corporate adviser and handed (the money) directly to the mayor.”
Shiohama Industry has done civil engineering and construction work in the Wakasa region of Fukui Prefecture, home to 15 nuclear reactors, the most in the nation.
These reactors include ones operated by Kansai Electric Power at its Takahama nuclear power plant, as well as decommissioned units.
According to company documents, Shiohama Industry has received contracts for projects at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co., the Shimane nuclear power plant operated by Chugoku Electric Power Co. and the Sendai nuclear power plant in Kagoshima Prefecture operated by Kyushu Electric Power Co.
A former senior official of Kansai Electric Power said that Moriyama and Shiohama Industry “had known each other since at least 20 years ago.”
(This article was written by Matsuo Watanabe, Manabu Hiratsuka and Shingo Fukushima.)

February 1, 2020 Posted by | Japan | , | Leave a comment

Japan to release over a million tonnes of radioactive water into sea from Fukushima power plant

February 1, 2020 Posted by | Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

UK government could save money, promote health, by energy efficiency programmess

February 1, 2020 Posted by | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

Dangers of Artificial Intelligence with Nuclear Weapons

AI, CYBERSPACE, AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS.  WSJ, JAMES JOHNSON AND ELEANOR KRABILL, JANUARY 31, 2020
COMMENTARY “……… A new generation of AI-augmented offensive cyber capabilities will likely exacerbate the military escalation risks associated with emerging technology, especially inadvertent and accidental escalation. Examples include the increasing vulnerability of nuclear command, control, and communication (NC3) systems to cyber attacks. Further, the challenges posed by remote sensing technology, autonomous vehicles, conventional precision munitions, and hypersonic weapons to hitherto concealed and hardened nuclear assets. Taken together, this trend might further erode the survivability of states’ nuclear forces.

AI, and the state-of-the-art capabilities it empowers, is a natural manifestation — not the cause or origin — of an established trend in emerging technology. the increasing speed of war, the shortening of the decision-making timeframe, and the co-mingling of nuclear and conventional capabilities are leading states to adopt destabilizing launch postures.

The AI-Cyber Security Intersection

AI will make existing cyber warfare capabilities more powerful. Rapid advances in AI and increasing degrees of military autonomy could amplify the speed, power, and scale of future attacks in cyberspace. Specifically, there are three ways in which AI and cyber security converge in a military context.
First, advances in autonomy and machine learning mean that a much broader range of physical systems are now vulnerable to cyber attacks, including, hacking, spoofing, and data poisoning. ………
Second, cyber attacks that target AI systems can offer attackers access to machine learning algorithms, and potentially vast amounts of data from facial recognition and intelligence collection and analysis systems. These things could be used, for example, to cue precision munitions strikes and support intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions.
Third, AI systems used in conjunction with existing cyber offense tools might become powerful force multipliers, thus enabling sophisticated cyber attacks to be executed on a larger scale (both geographically and across networks), at faster speeds, simultaneously across multiple military domains, and with greater anonymity than before.
………. the speed and scope of the next generation of AI cyber tools will likely have destabilizing effects……..
A significant risk in the operation of autonomous systems is the time that passes between a system failure (i.e., performing in a manner other than how the human operator intended), and the time it takes for a human operator to take corrective action. ……..

New Risks to the Security of Nuclear Systems

During the early stages of a cyber operation, it is generally unclear whether an adversary intends to collect intelligence or prepare for an offensive attack. The blurring of cyber offense-defense will likely compound an adversary’s fear of a preemptive strike and increase first-mover incentives. In extremis, strategic ambiguity caused by this issue may trigger use-them-or-lose-them situations………..
It is now thought possible that a cyber attack (i.e., spoofing, hacking, manipulation, and digital jamming) could infiltrate a nuclear weapons system, threaten the integrity of its communications, and ultimately (and possibly unbeknown to its target) gain control of both its nuclear and non-nuclear command and control systems………..

Pathways to Escalation

AI-enhanced cyber attacks against nuclear systems would be almost impossible to detect and authenticate, let alone attribute, within the short timeframe for initiating a nuclear strike. According to open sources, operators at the North American Aerospace Defense Command have less than three minutes to assess and confirm initial indications from early-warning systems of an incoming attack. This compressed decision-making timeframe could put political leaders under intense pressure to make a decision to escalate during a crisis, with incomplete (and possibly false) information about a situation……..
Ironically, new technologies designed to enhance information, such as 5G networks, machine learning, big-data analytics, and quantum computing, can also undermine its clear and reliable flow and communication, which is critical for effective deterrence.

Advances in AI could also exacerbate this cyber security challenge by enabling improvements to cyber offense. Machine learning and AI, by automating advanced persistent threat (or “hunting for weaknesses”) operations, might dramatically reduce the extensive manpower resources and high levels of technical skill required to execute advanced persistent threat operations, especially against hardened nuclear targets.

Information Warfare Could Lead to Escalation……….

Conclusion 

Rapid advances in military-use AI and autonomy could amplify the speed, power, and scale of future attacks in cyberspace via several interconnected mechanisms — the ubiquitous connectivity between physical and digital information ecosystems; the creation of vast treasure troves of data and intelligence harvested via machine learning; the formation of powerful force multipliers for increasingly sophisticated, anonymous, and possibly multi-domain cyber attacks.

AI systems could have both positive and negative implications for cyber and nuclear security. On balance, however, several factors make this development particularly troublesome. These include the increasing attacks vectors which threaten states’ NC3 systems, a new generation of destabilizing, AI-empowered cyber offensive capabilities (deepfakes, spoofing, and automated advanced persistent threat tools), the blurring of AI-cyber offense-defense, uncertainties and strategic ambiguity about AI-augmented cyber capabilities, and not least, a competitive and contested geo-strategic environment.

At the moment, AI’s impact on nuclear security remains largely theoretical. Now is the time, therefore, for positive intervention to mitigate (or at least manage) the potential destabilizing and escalatory risks posed by AI and help steer it toward bolstering strategic stability as the technology matures.

The interaction between AI and cyber technology and nuclear command and control raises more questions than answers.  What can we learn from the cyber community to help us use AI to preempt the risks posed by AI-enabled cyber attacks? And how might governments, defense communities, academia, and the private sector work together toward this end?

James Johnson is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS), Monterey. His latest book project is entitled, Artificial Intelligence & the Future of Warfare: USA, China, and Strategic Stability. Twitter:@James_SJohnson

Eleanor Krabill is a Master of Arts in Nonproliferation and Terrorism candidate at Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS), Monterey. Twitter: @EleanorKrabill    https://warontherocks.com/2020/01/ai-cyberspace-and-nuclear-weapons/

February 1, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, weapons and war | Leave a comment

A really bad idea – The Navy’s New Mini-Nuclear Warheads

February 1, 2020 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Qatar says UAE`s power plant activities are a threat to Gulf stability and the environment

February 1, 2020 Posted by | environment, MIDDLE EAST, safety | Leave a comment

Young African climate activists

February 1, 2020 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Opposition to Nuclear Waste Storage Plan Near Lake Huron

February 1, 2020 Posted by | Canada, indigenous issues, wastes | Leave a comment

Nuclear weapons- the USA bomb making companies are doing great!

February 1, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Book review – “The Bomb”

The Bomb’ Review: Down the Nuclear Rabbit Hole
Until 1989, no president had ever been privy to the military’s list of specific targets in the Soviet Union.  WSJ, Paul Kennedy, Jan. 31, 2020,  In the summer of 1945, as a mushroom cloud rose high above the Japanese city of Hiroshima, the very history of war and diplomacy, and the world of Great Power relations, changed irrevocably. Science had created a weapon of such indiscriminate destructiveness that it ought, now that its ferocity was clear, never to be used again. This became even more obvious to contemporary observers when the more powerful hydrogen bombs appeared on the scene only a few years later, and when the Soviet Union also quickly acquired similar weaponry.

February 1, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, resources - print, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Political instability adds to the danger of nuclear power for Bolivia

February 1, 2020 Posted by | politics, safety, SOUTH AMERICA | Leave a comment

Historic vote on nuclear waste underway in Bruce County, Ontario

February 1, 2020 Posted by | Canada, indigenous issues, politics, wastes | Leave a comment

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