New Funding Group Calls for 100 More WikiLeaks to Offset Unprecedented Gov’t Secrecy
“…Well, with the Freedom of the Press Foundation, EFF is our legal counsel. And when we go back to how this organization first started, a bunch of us at EFF were talking about what we could do to solve this financial blockade problem, because we saw it as this, you know, real injustice where there was no real legal solution because these organizations like PayPal and Visa and MasterCard have terms of service where they can basically cut off organizations for anything they like. They’re written broadly so they can do that. And, of course, the pressure on these companies from the government officials was unofficial, so there was no real First Amendment lawsuit to bring. But what ended up coming out of that is we started talking to a lot of other people, and—like Glenn and like Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and filmmaker Laura Poitras and activist and actor and director John Cusack. And so, eventually we all got together, and we wanted to start this broader organization…..”
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/5/new_funding_group_calls_for_100
WikiLeaks is set to receive major new financial support this week from a new group that funds independent journalism organizations dedicated to transparency and accountability in government. This comes as MasterCard, Visa and PayPal continue to refuse to process payments for WikiLeaks, making it difficult to send donations. “We don’t need just one WikiLeaks; we need 10 WikiLeaks or a hundred. We have a situation in this country where government secrecy is at an all-time high,” says Freedom of the Press Foundation co-founder and executive director Trevor Timm. We are also joined by Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald, who is a member of the foundation’s board. [includes rush transcript]
Trevor Timm, Freedom of the Press Foundation, activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Glenn Greenwald, columnist and blogger for The Guardian, author of With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful. He is giving the keynote address this morning at the Freedom to Connect conference.
Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting from the Freedom to Connect conference at AFI—that’s the American Film Institute—Silver in Silver Spring, Maryland. Our guest, Glenn Greenwald, constitutional lawyer, blogger, journalist with The Guardian magazine—with The Guardian newspaper in Britain, has been talking and writing extensively about WikiLeaks as well as Bradley Manning, just gave a speech in Brooklyn yesterday and this morning is giving the keynote address here at the Freedom to Connect conference. We’re going to turn right now to our next guest. His name is Trevor Timm. He has just founded a new organization called the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Trevor. Talk about the foundation.
TREVOR TIMM: Thanks for having me.
Well, we started the Freedom of the Press Foundation about three months ago, and our goal here is to protect, support and defend organizations like WikiLeaks and a lot of other innovative journalism organizations that push for transparency and accountability in government. You know, a lot of times, as you’ve been talking about on the show, that we have seen an unprecedented attack on whistleblowers and a sort of criminalization of leaks, and yet leaks and whistleblowers and media organizations publishing classified information in the government interest is American as apple pie, and there has been decades and decades with which this type of—this type of activity has been protected by the First Amendment. And since we’ve seen this kind of war on whistleblowers, we wanted to start an organization that could really defend these organizations aggressively and make sure that we didn’t lose that avenue for government transparency.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s talk about WikiLeaks. First I want to play a clip, 2011, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange receiving the award for the Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism at the 2011 Walkley Awards. This is a clip from his acceptance speech.
JULIAN ASSANGE: We journalists are at our best when we share with activists and lawyers the goal of exposing illegality and wrongdoing, when we help to hold others to account. This award is a sign of encouragement to our people and other people who labor under difficult conditions in this task.
Our lives have been threatened. Attempts have been made to censor us. Banks have attempted to shut off our financial lifeline. An unprecedented banking blockade has shown us that Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, the Bank of America and Western Union are mere instruments of Washington foreign policy. Censorship has, in this manner, been privatized.
Powerful enemies are testing the waters to see how much they can get away with, seeing how they can abuse the system that they are integrated with to prevent scrutiny. Well, the answer is, they can get away with too much. I expected the hate speech on Fox News, but not the calls by U.S. senators for the extrajudicial assassination of myself and my staff. Neither did I expect that the United States would aggressively undermine its own Constitution to persecute me and my organization. But I can understand the Washington elite’s reaction. Washington is waging a war against the truth. It was, after all, the truth about Washington and their friends that we revealed.
AMY GOODMAN: Julian Assange accepting the award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism at the 2011 Walkley Awards in Brisbane, Australia. He sent a video. He was under house arrest in Britain. Assange currently remains holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, fighting extradition to Sweden, even as WikiLeaks continues to receive recognition for its work. In fact, this week it’s set to receive major new funding from the Freedom of Press Foundation, the group that funds independent journalism organizations dedicated to transparency and accountability in government. Trevor, talk about what is happening, what your organization, the Freedom of Press Foundation, is planning to do.
TREVOR TIMM: Sure. So, a major part of our mission is to crowdsource funding for organizations like WikiLeaks who are under attack, who may have gotten cut off from payment processors like Visa, MasterCard and PayPal. So, for two years now, they’ve barely been able to get any donations. And when we launched in December, we started taking donations in a tax-deductible way so U.S.—people in the U.S. could safely and relatively anonymously donate to WikiLeaks. But they can also donate to other journalism organizations that do similar work, so groups like the National Security Archives, which has the largest library of declassified material in the country, or new organizations like MuckRock, which do Freedom of Information Act work where they allow citizens to file their own requests. And so, we set this up to, you know, help organizations like WikiLeaks, but we also want to bring attention to other groups that are doing really innovative work in trying to bring transparency to government.
AMY GOODMAN: So, how are you going to get this money to WikiLeaks? Have you spoken, for example, to PayPal, Visa, MasterCard?
TREVOR TIMM: Well, you know, we’re fairly confident that they’re not going to cut us off at this point. I think the level of hysteria has died down from late 2010. And, you know, companies have had a chance to do legal research and realize that nothing that WikiLeaks is doing by publishing this information is against the law. Obviously, every day or every week newspapers around the country, like The New York Times, The Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal, publish classified information, a lot of times at a higher level of secrecy than WikiLeaks did. And, you know, if these companies were to cut us off, they wouldn’t just be cutting off WikiLeaks. It’s important to emphasize that we’re completely an independent organization from WikiLeaks, and we take donations to a variety of journalism organizations and do different types of freedom of information advocacy work. And so, they wouldn’t be cutting off WikiLeaks; they’d be cutting off the freedom of the press.
What happens if the A-bomb drops again – Norwegian Foreign Ministry conference seeks answers
“Atomic weapons are gene targeting weapons and induce leukemias and cancers throughout life,” said Dr. Tomonaga. “Nuclear weapons are absolutely anti humanitarian weapons.”
http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2013/Mofa_abomb_conference
Charles Digges, 04/03-2013
Dropping an atomic bomb any city in the world would destroy the possibilities for humanitarian help, decimate infrastructure, wreck the environment, cause countless deaths and result in a crisis that would take decades to recover from, according to panelists at a symposium on nuclear weapons hosted by Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs that began in Oslo today.
And the effects do not end there – as bourn out by conference participants who survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even survivors run long-term risks of lethal cancers, blood diseases and decades of birth defects.
Current unstable geopolitics, however, make just such a scenario all the more plausible. Conference panelists noted that two nuclear attacks have already taken place – setting precedence for more. Yet such international conferences may prove to be more important as time-honored methods between old Cold War foes begin to break down.
The research on the conference’s opening day – at which Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide spoke– constituted some of the most up-to-date information and modeling on the effects of a nuclear attack. Many of the panelists focused on the effects that one nuclear bomb would have on one city – but all agreed that a worldwide nuclear exchange would result in nearly total devastation of the human race.
The atomic bomb was called by one prominent Japanese physician, Dr. Masao Tomonaga of the Japanese Red Cross Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Hospital, nothing less that a “gene targeting weapon.”
 |
| Dr. Masao Tomonaga |
| Nils Bøhmer/Bellona |
Nukes must ‘never be used again’ : Nagasaki survivor
Dr. Terumi Tanaka, who as a child survived the Nagasaki bombing by US forces to end World War II and represented the Japanese delegation, said in his impassioned appeal from the plenum that, “such a weapon must never be used again.”
Sir Andy Haines of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said, however, there was less of a guarantee in today’s push and pull world of extremism that a nuclear attack could be averted than “during the relative predictable circumstances of the Cold War.:
 |
| Dr Terumi Tanaka, Nagasaki survivor |
| Nils Bøhmer/Bellona |
Nuclear countries absent
Panelists and delegates from over 130 countries gathered for the conference Monday – entitled “Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons” – notably did not include ministerial or diplomatic level officials from the US, Russia, France or UK who have well developed nuclear weapons programs.
“States that have nuclear weapons arsenals are evidently keeping a low profile at this conference,” said Bellona General Director and nuclear physicist Nils Bøhmer. “We can learn much from the health effects, but the environment is also at risk from the current nuclear weapons industries, particularly in the US, the UK and Russia.”
Indeed recent radioactive leaks revealed at the US’s Hanford Nuclear Reservation, which produced the plutonium for the bomb the US dropped on Nagasaki, has recently reached even newer proportions.
Bøhmer pointed out that Russia’s Mayak facility and the UK’s Sellafield site have caused environmental hazards since thier inception in the race for the bomb.
“More pressure must be brought to bear on the nuclear weapons industry to prevent further ongoing environmental deterioriation,” he said.
A survivor’s tale
Tanaka, Secretary General of the Japan Confederation of A and H Bomb Sufferers Organization, was a child when the Nagasaki bomb was dropped.
“I was upstairs in my house, 3.2 kilometers from the hypocenter. Suddenly I saw a huge flash. I ran downstairs, and as soon as I laid on the floor, I became unconscious. When I woke up, I found myself under glass doors blown by the blast,” he told the more than 400 participants in the conference. “Three days later, I entered ground zero to find my relatives. Some had burned to death where their house used to be. Others survived but soon died with heavy burns or fever from radiation. Altogether, five of my family were killed.”
He emphasized that: “The number of A-bomb deaths, several hundreds of thousands, is not just a number –it is the deaths of many individual human beings, whose survival and dignity should have been secured.”
No state is safe if a nuclear weapon is used, even to protect a state’s survival,” he continued. “Nuclear deterrence, which allows the existence of nuclear weapons by assuming their possible use, runs totally counter to humanity.”
Missiles still hot in the silos
Nuclear agency: Aging fire protection system at West Texas plant poses safety threat
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AMARILLO, Texas — A congressional nuclear watchdog agency has raised safety concerns about an aging fire protection system at Pantex, the country’s only nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly plant.
The Amarillo Globe-News (http://bit.ly/WH5KL4 ) reported Tuesday the agency wants the National Nuclear Security Administration to prepare a response within 90 days.
The agency, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, requested the response in its Feb. 25 report that said failures in the fire protection system pose risks to workers and to public health.
The report also noted inadequate automatic sprinkler protection at the plant outside Amarillo.
Pantex says it has spent millions of dollars in improvements to the fire system by installing high-density polyethylene pipes.
But the report noted an “apparent lack of urgency” in correcting failures in the underground pipe system.
http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/87e1c04fe4ba41289466a5b87721db18/TX–Pantex-Safety-Concerns
UK politicians agree more benefits needed from nuclear – Hidden costs of nuclear.
“Sedgemoor has championed Community Benefit Contributions as an important mechanism to ensure the communities around Hinkley Point receive fair and reasonable benefits in recognition of the burden of hosting nationally beneficial energy infrastructure.”
A House of Commons committee agrees with Sedgemoor that community benefits will build trust between nuclear giants and neighbours.
A report published by MPs on the Energy and Climate Change Committee recommended that community benefits, through retention of business rates, should be extended to new nuclear power projects.
At present, Community Benefits are only available to renewable energy projects.
The committee also called on the Government to consider providing extra forms of community benefit during construction, given the time it takes to build power stations.
Chinese general who threatened nuclear strike on U.S. visits Washington this week
“Gen. Zhu’s propensity to threaten nuclear war against adversaries without regard for China’s supposed commitment to ‘no first use,’ his subsequent military promotions and his continued prolixity in China’s official communist party media should be a clear signal to American policy-makers that Chinese state policy is to use nuclear weapons as an instrument of intimidation,”
BY: Bill Gertz
March 4, 2013 7:00 pm
http://freebeacon.com/guess-whos-coming-to-dinner-3/
A Chinese general who once threatened to use nuclear weapons against hundreds of U.S. cities will visit the Pentagon this week as part of a U.S.-China military exchange program.
Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu, who is head of China’s National Defense University, will take part in a “familiarization exchange,” Maj. Catherine Wilkinson, a Pentagon spokeswoman, told the Free Beacon.
“The delegation will visit Hawaii and D.C.,” she said. “A military delegation from the U.S. Pacific Command will visit China later this year for a reciprocal exchange.”
Zhu will lead a group of 10 senior colonels from all branches of the Chinese military, Wilkinson said. She declined to provide the names of the officers.
Zhu is best known for inflammatory comments made to two foreign news reporters in 2005 when he said China would use nuclear weapons against the United States in any conflict over Taiwan.
A State Department spokesman at the time called the comments “highly irresponsible.”
“If the Americans draw their missiles and position [sic]-guided ammunition onto the target zone on China’s territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons,” Zhu told reporters for the Financial Times and the Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal, according to their July 14, 2005, editions.
The comments raised questions within the Pentagon about the sincerity of China’s policy of not being the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict.
Zhu’s comments also were the most explicit statement of Chinese strategic intent since 1995 when another general, Xiong Guangkai, implicitly threatened to use nuclear arms against Los Angeles if the United States defended Taiwan in a conflict.
Nuclear Power Debate: Lawmakers cite nine problems at plant
“Taiwan Power Co [Taipower] knows about the problems and is concealing them, the Atomic Energy Council [AEC] is neglecting its duty [to monitor nuclear safety] because it has identified some of the flaws and even asked [Taipower] to make improvements, but it did not enforce them,” he said.
NUMBERS GAME:A spokesman for the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant acknowledged five of the problems, but said they have either been resolved or are being addressed
Listing nine major problems at the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers said the government should address safety issues before rushing into a referendum on the fate of the plant.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Ho Hsin-chun holds an enlarged page from a nuclear accident emergency response booklet at the legislature in Taipei yesterday, asking why it gives the crisis area a circumference of just 5km.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
DPP Legislator Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said that the party has found at least nine safety flaws at the plant that could result in nuclear accidents if they are not resolved.
Three of the most serious flaws found are: poor welding on more than 50 percent of a reactor’s pressure vessel; the touch panel in the control room reflects light and may be touched off accidentally during emergencies; and a digital control system that integrates 13 separate systems and links more than 40,000 signals into one system.
Moreover, the signal lights in the plant’s control room use three colors — purple, blue and white — unlike the easier-to-read red and green lights at Japan’s nuclear plants, Lin said, adding that people tend to act on instinct during emergencies and the three-color signals are too complicated.
The other flaws are: seriously damaged emergency standby generators; temperatures could exceed the dry well’s capacity, causing a radiation leak; more than 1,400 substandard ground wires; walls containing penetration pipes are not thick enough and the aperture does not close properly, which may cause radiation to leak into the nearby water catchment area; and tests of the reactor’s internal pump so far have only reached 10 percent of the required testing time, Lin said.
Nuclear giant Areva faces negative public opinion in France – Video
Published on Mar 5, 2013
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The French nuclear giant Areva says in its annual report that it’s made immense technological progress. It has begun the delivery of special equipment to improve the safety conditions at the most dangerous nuclear reactor in Japan. But Since the Fukushima catastrophe, questions have been raised over the safety of nuclear energy. The company claims that nuclear reactors in France are safe.
Despite technological improvements and organizational changes, the French nuclear giant Areva is faced with another big challenge: adverse public opinion. According to a poll by the Ifop surveying agency, three months after the Fuskushima catastrophe, 77 percent of the French wanted to get rid of nuclear energy by 2040.
French public opinion is nearly the same as in neighboring countries, like in Germany where the government under public pressure decided to abandon nuclear energy. If the French government follows, the same trend remains to be seen.
Anustup Roy, Press TV, Paris
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Thrifty Nuclear Terrorism Nanodetectors Delayed by Funding Uncertainty
“No timeline for deployment has been set,” National Security Technologies spokesman Jeff Donaldson told Nextgov. “It will be based on funding availability, at the discretion of the National Nuclear Security Administration.” The agency, part of Energy, is subject to the “sequester” — default funding reductions mandated by a 2011 debt ceiling deal that took effect Friday.
By Aliya Sternstein Government Executive
5 March 2013
The Energy Department this month announced plans to prop up nanotechnology sensors at airports and other U.S. entry points for detecting nuclear substances, but there is no rollout timetable because of budget uncertainty, according to operators of the counterterrorism program.
The new nanotech sensors can be produced for less than .17 percent of the price of existing sensor technology, with the equivalent of $300 worth of current materials now costing 50 cents, scientists reported to Congress in 2010. The screening tools were created to elucidate concealed nuclear substances in border stations, cities and various ports of entry, said officials with National Security Technologies, which runs the department’s Nevada National Security Site. Many Energy laboratories and facilities are government-owned and contractor-operated.
“No timeline for deployment has been set,” National Security Technologies spokesman Jeff Donaldson told Nextgov. “It will be based on funding availability, at the discretion of the National Nuclear Security Administration.” The agency, part of Energy, is subject to the “sequester” — default funding reductions mandated by a 2011 debt ceiling deal that took effect Friday.
Traditional sensor-making that requires growing big, fragile crystals to visibly illuminate nuclear radiation is more expensive than manufacturing bulk nanocrystals that fit into plastic, the 2010 report stated. The nanosensors are rugged enough to be embedded into large sheets of material for screening wide areas.
Since these detectors can be produced at industrial scale, many departments, including, for example, Homeland Security and Defense, could deploy them across high-population or vulnerable locations, scientists at the site said. The agencies’ ability to field the tools, again, would depend on future year budgets, they added.
Site officials said that, during the past year, they proved the sensors work at Nellis Air Force Base and now they are shifting to the production phase.
The Indian Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage has evoked interest in Japan
“Japan must follow India’s example, make all nuclear companies fully accountable for the damage they cause, and put its people before industry profit,”
Greenpeace is calling on the Stephen Harper government to stop protecting nuclear companies. Sign the petition here
Greenpeace Nuclear Analyst Shawn-Patrick Stensil explains the Nuclear Liability Act, the special federal law that protects the nuclear industry.
Because of a similar law in Japan, the nuclear companies that helped cause the Fukushima disaster have been allowed to walk away from the disaster without compensating the hundreds of thousands of victims who have lost their homes and livelihoods. That’s wrong.
Greenpeace report here:
The Indian Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage has evoked interest in Japan
5 March 2013
Indian Defence
Is Japan looking to take a leaf out of the Indian nuclear liability law that is considered an obstacle to business by equipment suppliers and welcomed by civil society activists?
The Indian Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act 2010 has evoked interest in Japan as it sets about amending its Act on Compensation for Nuclear Damage, 1961.
One of the reasons for revising the Japanese law is the absence of supplier liability provisions for compensation in case of an accident.
Civil society activists claim that after the Fukushima disaster, Japan realised it could not nail General Electric, the suppliers of the nuclear reactor, because of a weak supplier liability law.
While high-ranking Indian government officials and anti-nuclear activists are on the same page in defending the Indian law, the handful of civil nuclear equipment suppliers and leaders from their countries of origin have expressed their distaste for the liability provisions which Japanese lawmakers are interested in.
Following renewed pressure from leaders of Russia, the U.S. and France, senior Indian officials reiterated that New Delhi had no intention of altering the Indian law which also holds equipment suppliers responsible for a nuclear accident. Washington, in particular, has gone on record to say the Indian law must be changed because it is not compatible with the Convention on Supplementary Compensation.
Leading Nuclear Energy Company (AREVA) to Expand in Mecklenburg County, N.C.
“AREVA has taken the lead in the U.S. nuclear sector by investing millions to create domestic industrial capacity, which provides a tremendous boost to American energy infrastructure and the U.S. economy,” said Michael W. Rencheck, CEO of AREVA. “North Carolina is a great place to do business because of its quality of life, extensive business infrastructure, investments in workforce development and commitment to forming partnerships with industry.”
Compensation will vary by job function, but the average compensation for the new positions is expected to be more than $130,000 plus benefits. The average annual wage in Mecklenburg County is $57,144.
March 5, 2013
RALEIGH — Today, Governor Pat McCrory and North Carolina Commerce Secretary Sharon Decker announced that AREVA, the largest technical resource for the nation’s nuclear energy sector, will expand its operations in Charlotte to include its North American headquarters. The company plans to create 130 jobs in North Carolina by the end of 2016 and invest $404,000 into its Mecklenburg County location.
“We are working to make our state the very best place to live and do business,” said Governor McCrory. “Businesses have choices, and we are proud that AREVA has chosen North Carolina for its headquarters.”
With a Charlotte presence established in 2002, AREVA provides its customers with solutions for low-carbon power generation in North America and around the world. With global headquarters in France, AREVA is a leader in nuclear energy and a significant, growing player in the renewable energies sector. AREVA combines U.S. and Canadian leadership, access to worldwide expertise and a proven track record of performance.
“The North Carolina Department of Commerce is committed to working with existing companies to spur job creation and growth,” said Sharon Decker, North Carolina Secretary of Commerce. “We congratulate AREVA for its success and for investing in North Carolina once again.”
AREVA currently employs 562 people in Charlotte and another 78 at its Columbiana Hi Tech subsidiary located in Greensboro. The company plans to expand its current operations in Charlotte to include its North American headquarters. AREVA will use the headquarters location as a platform for hiring additional engineers and other staff who will provide services to support key projects and initiatives.
Pirate Bay claims ‘virtual asylum’ in North Korea
Published time: March 05, 2013 06:13
After being forced out of Sweden, the file-sharing website Pirate Bay has announced a new and rather surprising location for its servers: North Korea. Pyongyang has not confirmed the report.
The website claimed in a statement published on its blog that Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un invited it to North Korea.
“This is truly an ironic situation. We have been fighting for a free world, and our opponents are mostly huge corporations from the United States of America, a place where freedom and freedom of speech is said to be held high,” the Pirate Bay said. “And to our help comes a government famous in our part of the world for locking people up for their thoughts and forbidding access to information.”
A Pirate Bay insider told website TorrentFreak that they had been working for a while to get connectivity in North Korea. “We’ve been in talks with them for about two weeks, since they opened access for foreigners to use 3G in the country,” the source said.
Last week anti-piracy groups forced the Swedish Pirate Party to deny service to The Pirate Bay. It was then offered refuge by the pirate parties of Norway and Catalonia, but the Norwegian party apparently dropped the site earlier on Monday.
Despite TorrentFreak confirming “the site does indeed route through North Korea at the moment,” many experts have expressed doubts the report is true.
The Guardian quoted analysis conducted by The Next Web suggesting that The Pirate Bay was most likely still being routed through Europe. “The individuals behind the Pirate Bay are unlikely to trade speed for the chance to say the site is hosted in North Korea. They are more likely to hack around and can claim it regardless of whether it’s true.”
MOX, A National Priority – Areva – or MOX, a national scam?
http://www.moxproject.com/about/Official%20MOX%20Video%202012%20web.wmv
MOX, A National Priority
Guest post by James Yu, Director of International and Federal Affairs, AREVA Inc.
Last week, Kelly Trice, President and Chief Operating Officer of Shaw AREVA MOX Services, presented the following video during the Annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit in Arlington, VA.
The conversation underscored the importance of the national nuclear security mission of the MOX Project, through which the United States will fulfill its international commitment to dispose of at least 34 metric tons of nuclear weapons material initiated under the U.S.-Russia Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement of 2000. In turn, Russia is obligated to permanently dispose of at least 34 metric tons of its weapons plutonium.
During the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington in April 2010, President Obama announced:
“After many years of effort, I’m pleased that the United States and Russia agreed today to eliminate 68 tons of plutonium for our weapons programs—plutonium that would have been enough for about 17,000 nuclear weapons. Instead, we will use this material to help generate electricity for our people… We’ve made real progress in building a safer world.”
The MOX fuel that will be generated from the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at the DOE Savannah River Site in South Carolina is estimated to produce $50 billion worth of electricity for American consumers while enabling the U.S. to eliminate the expense of storage, surveillance and other mandatory safeguards of nuclear weapons material. Already, the U.S. is benefitting from the consolidation at the Savannah River Site of much of the 34 metric tons destined for the MFFF from across the nation’s weapons complex.
Last Tuesday, Neile Miller, Acting Administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration, testified before the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and reiterated the Administration’s commitment to fulfilling its obligations under the U.S.-Russia agreement, stating that “the United States government remains completely committed to the agreement that we signed with Russia for the disposition of that excess weapons plutonium.”
Let’s fulfill our nonproliferation obligation, generate clean energy, and optimize nuclear safeguards costs by continuing to fund the MOX Project.
And for context, at this sudden rush of “feel good” MOX promotion, I give you this
And this strange story of MOX fuel being sent to Japan when the Japanese are saying that they have no use for it? Are the finances being manipulated before the end of the year? or has Japan done a secret deal in the last couple of days? It would appear that Areva have to keep sending the MOX fuel it is making anyway to sustain the business model.
“…The forecast is much more optimistic than a report published “yesterday” forecasting no new reactors put into operation before the end of the year….” Luc Oursel Head of Areva
IAEA Reports On Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown- “The worst is behind us” “post-accident phase,” – Amano
‘It has been a challenging two years, especially for the people and Government of Japan, but also for the IAEA. However, the worst elements of the accident are behind us and we are now in the post-accident phase,’ Amano told the IAEA board members gathered to discuss the agency’s work on nuclear verification, safety, security and the peaceful use of nuclear technologies.
AFX News · Mehr Nachrichten von AFX News
05.03.2013
TOKYO (dpa-AFX) – The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Monday tabled its report on the aftermath of the meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant as well as issues related to the controversial nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea.
IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano told the Agency’s 35-member Board of Governors during their first meeting of the year in Vienna that the UN nuclear watchdog is working hard to help Japan deal with the consequences of the March 2011 nuclear power plant accident.
‘It has been a challenging two years, especially for the people and Government of Japan, but also for the IAEA. However, the worst elements of the accident are behind us and we are now in the post-accident phase,’ Amano told the IAEA board members gathered to discuss the agency’s work on nuclear verification, safety, security and the peaceful use of nuclear technologies.
Incidentally, March 11, 2011 marks the second anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident, which was damaged after an earthquake and tsunami struck Japan. The incident was reported to be the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
‘The Agency continues to work hard to help Japan deal with the consequences of the accident. Member States are also making serious efforts to implement the lessons learned from this and from previous accidents,’ Amano added.
IAEA says not yet contacted by Syria rebels about ex-nuclear site
The U.N. investigation appears to have died down since the national revolt against President Bashar al-Assad broke out in 2011, with the armed opposition increasingly capturing military sites in rural areas and on the edges of cities
VIENNA | Mon Mar 4, 2013 11:06am EST
(Reuters) – Syrian rebels who have reportedly captured a suspected nuclear reactor site – destroyed by Israel six years ago – have not been in contact with U.N. inspectors about visiting it, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said on Monday.
The U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has long sought access to a site in Syria’s desert Deir al-Zor region that U.S. intelligence reports say was a nascent, North Korean-designed reactor geared to producing plutonium for nuclear weapons before Israel bombed it in 2007.
On February 24, opposition sources in eastern Syria said rebels had captured the destroyed site near the Euphrates River.
“Certainly we are aware of the report on (the) rebel group’s offer to invite us to the site of Deir al-Zor but we are not aware of any communication to that effect,” Amano, IAEA director general, told a news conference, referring to a media report last month.
The Vienna-based watchdog has also been requesting information about three other sites that may have been linked to Deir al-Zor.
Syria says Deir al-Zor was a conventional military facility but the IAEA concluded in May 2011 it was “very likely” to have been a reactor that should have been declared to its anti-proliferation inspectors.
The U.N. investigation appears to have died down since the national revolt against President Bashar al-Assad broke out in 2011, with the armed opposition increasingly capturing military sites in rural areas and on the edges of cities.
U.N. inspectors examined the site in June 2008 but Syrian authorities have barred them access since.
“I renew my call to Syria to fully cooperate with us in connection with unresolved issued related to the Deir al-Zor site and other locations,” Amano earlier on Monday told the IAEA’s 35-nation governing board, according to a copy of his speech.
(Reporting by Fredrik Dahl; editing by Andrew Roche)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/04/us-syria-nuclear-iaea-idUSBRE9230QN20130304
Deal at Czech nuclear power plant fuels US-Russia economic rivalry
“The Czech Republic simply does not need another 2.5 gigawatts of power and with demand falling all round Europe and not likely to bounce back soon, the export market is risky,” says Steve Thomas, a professor of energy policy at Greenwich University in England.
[…]
Companies with ties to the US and Russia are battling for a contract to expand a Czech nuclear power plant, which analysts say may be the gateway to kickstarting other nuclear power projects in Eastern Europe.
Prague, Czech Republic
The nuclear power plant that towers over the green fields outside the small Czech village of Temelin is quickly becoming a frontline in the economic rivalry between the United States and Russia.
Image ; Czech Republic’s Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, left, and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, right, arrive for their press conference in Prague, Czech Republic, Monday, Dec. 3, 2012. Secretary of State Clinton is lobbying the Czech Republic authorities to approve an American contract bid for an expansion of a nuclear power plant. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)
Companies with ties to both countries are vying for a contract to build two new reactors at the site, a move that analysts say could open new nuclear energy markets across the region.
“The energy equation has changed…. [Globally] nuclear energy is in decline,” says Michal Snobr, an energy analyst at the Czech J&T Bank. “The Temelin contract is not about nuclear energy in the Czech Republic, but about breaking into the European market.”
Competing for the tender are two energy companies: Russia’s Rosatom, and Westinghouse, which is owned by the Japanese Toshiba Group but based in the United States.
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