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Central American immigration driven by climate change, but this fact is being ignored

Climate change is the overlooked driver of Central American migration, https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-02-06/climate-change-overlooked-driver-central-american-migration, Living on Earth. February 06, 2019 Adam Wernick As people from Guatemala and Honduras continue to seek sanctuary in the US for a variety of reasons, including violence and poverty, another factor driving their migration has gotten much less attention: climate disruption.Many members of the migrant “caravans” that made headlines during the 2018 US midterm elections are fleeing a massive drought that has lasted for five years.

The drought has hit harder in some places than in others, says John Sutter, senior investigative reporter for CNN, who went to rural Honduras to report on climate change and immigration. In the area of Central America known as the “dry corridor,” for example, drought is not uncommon. But, Sutter says, some of the climate scientists he spoke with say they are seeing unprecedented effects.

“In particular, spring rains, which are incredibly important for corn crops — a staple in this region — just haven’t been coming,” Sutter reports. “They’re almost completely missing when you look at the average rainfall by the month. It’s partly that rains have decreased; it’s partly that they’ve shifted and are no longer falling in the seasons when they have been so useful to farmers in the past. But it’s been very troubling and created a lot of hardship.”

Many people who live in the dry corridor of Central America are subsistence farmers, completely reliant on what they grow for their survival. Unlike in the US and parts of Europe, there is no crop insurance or other programs to tide farmers over in bad years. Often, there are no irrigation systems, either. So, if the rains don’t fall, crops simply don’t grow.

“If you have one bad year and the rains don’t fall, that creates a certain stress,” Sutter says. “If you have year after year after year — and, at this point, essentially five years of very bad drought conditions — then that’s when conditions can lead to hunger and starvation.”

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization says 2 million people in the region are at risk for hunger, Sutter points out.

“I think that’s [something] people underestimate about the caravan, or any migration story, really, when you hear about it: It has to be really bad for you to want to flee a problem,” Sutter says. “There’s an incredible attachment to a sense of home and place, especially among people who are farmers, who are attached to the land. It’s a big deal to think about leaving. That gives you a hint at how intense the situation is for many farmers.”

While President Donald Trump claims that caravans of migrants heading from Central America to the US are an “invasion” of “gang members and very bad people,” his own commissioner of the US Customs and Border Protection says that crop failure is one of the main drivers of migration.

“Migration stories are always complex,” Sutter says. “It’s not untrue that violence is driving people out; it’s not untrue that poverty is driving people out. But it is also true that climate change and severe drought are causing people to move from Central America, and from other [regions]. And I think that we have to look at that in a clear-eyed way and think about what that means.”

He adds: “I wish the administration, or really anyone in Washington, would talk about this issue of migration in terms of climate change, because the projections for how many climate migrants or climate refugees there will be in the world are uncertain, and we’re not preparing for that.”

If anything, Sutter says, the United States and some European countries are doing the opposite. They are putting up walls and barriers and trying to slow the movement of people — fully knowing that climate change is going to push people out their homes.

The United States has done more than any other country to cause global warming, while many of the people suffering from the worst effects of this warming have done little, if anything, to cause it, Sutter points out.

“I think it’s a really important moral question we need to ask ourselves: We’re causing this hardship in parts of the world many of us may never travel through or see, but it’s real and it’s causing repercussions, one of which is that people are on the move to try to make ends meet, to try to make a livelihood,” Sutter says. “It doesn’t invalidate the other stories that we’ve heard about the caravan, but it certainly complicates them.”

Many climate experts believe the big, industrialized countries — the US, Europe, China — owe it to these people to tell this part of the story to the world.

This article is based on an interview that aired on PRI’s Living on Earth with Steve Curwood.

February 7, 2019 Posted by | climate change, politics international | 2 Comments

Ireland will not be a dumping ground for Britain’s nuclear and chemical waste. -Sinn Féin

Newry Times 6th Feb 2019 Sinn Féin MLA Cathal Boylan has said Ireland will not be a dumping groundfor Britain’s nuclear and chemical waste. The Newry/Armagh MLA said, “I welcome that earlier British government plans to use parts of counties
Armagh and Down as sites to dispose of nuclear waste have now been ruled
out. “Britain cannot use the north as a dumping ground for this hazardous
and toxic material. “Sinn Féin are totally against the use of nuclear
power, the British Government should be looking at ways to phase out their
use of nuclear power, not planning for more.
http://newrytimes.com/2019/02/06/ireland-will-not-be-britains-nuclear-dumping-ground-local-mla/

February 7, 2019 Posted by | politics international, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Countries going into deep nuclear debt to Russia; Hungary the latest victim of this political blackmail

Hungary seeks to postpone loan payback to Russia for Nuclear power plant: What will the final cost be?Bellona  February 1, 2019 by Charles Digges Budapest is seeking to modify the terms of a loan it must repay to Russia for building two new VVER-1200 type reactors that will eventually replace Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant, according to a report from Reuters.

The reactors, which will constitute a plant called Paks II, will be built by Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear power company, at a cost of 10 billion euro ($12 billion), and will replace the older Soviet-built nuclear plant that supplies half of the country’s electricity.

Rosatom’s construction contract, which includes the loan for Paks II, was the subject of a hotly-debated probe by the EU’s Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, which investigated whether the Russian bid violated European competition statutes.

At the time, EU officials and commentators viewed the deal as a Trojan Horse to help cement Moscow’s influence over the right-leaning, rabidly anti-globalist government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The EU eventually dropped its investigation in 2017 and granted Hungary permission to build the reactors – partly in an effort to entice Orban, who was insistent about contracting Rosatom, back into the democratic fold. Now Budapest is citing the delay caused by the competition review as reason to renegotiate when it begins paying Rosatom back.

Hungarian financial authorities plan to ask Moscow to postpone collecting on the debt until after the new reactors begin to generate electricity – but it is as yet unclear whether Rosatom will accept new terms. The plant’s construction, meanwhile, is running late. The build was supposed to begin last year………

While the terms of the Paks II loan remain in the shadows, other financing arrangements Moscow has made for building nuclear reactors in other countries suggest that the interest alone could prove to be very expensive for Budapest.

An $11.4 billion, 30-year agreement Rosatom signed with Bangladesh to build the Roopur nuclear plant will net Moscow $8 billion in interest. A $25 billion deal Rosatom is pursuing with Egypt to build that country’s Dabaa plant could, over the 35-year term of that loan, swell to $71 billion.

Another enormous $76 billion deal between Rosatom and South Africa was eventually thwarted by environmentalists when it was revealed the project had been secretly negotiated. Had the deal held it would have siphoned off a quarter of South Africa’s gross domestic product before the reactors even began operation.

Terms like this could spell trouble for Hungary in light of Moscow’s tendency to be a kneecapping creditor when it comes to energy projects ­– especially when Russia sours on the politics of its debtors.

In 2014, at the height of East-West tensions over Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Kremlin officials threatened to cut nuclear fuel supplies to Ukraine’s Soviet built reactors – which would have interrupted their chain reactions and likely caused a catastrophic accident.

Rosatom eventually walked the threat back. But the lurid message in Moscow’s head-fake toward igniting a second Chernobyl was clear: Russian-built reactors are a useful new tool for political blackmail………..

Many in Europe – Hungary included – subsequently sought to diversify their energy supply in favor of nuclear. Yet, in a devious twist, Rosatom has emerged as the most stable and eager nuclear builder on the international market.

For now, Rosatom can afford to offer risky loans thanks to the enormous state subsidies it receives. These subsidies can be funneled into more loans, and the loans then boost the company’s profits on paper. But for the past several years, it has become clear that these subsidies to the company will likely decrease or dry up altogether in 2020.

As a result, Rosatom is amassing so-called memorandums of understanding from any country vaguely interested in nuclear power. The company says is currently has dozens of these MOUs amounting to more than $130 billion in incoming business.

But that claim should be viewed skeptically, as many of the countries for which Rosatom is promising to build reactors – countries like Jordan, Algeria, Nigeria, the Republic of Congo and Bolivia – won’t have the infrastructure to support nuclear power for decades.

For now, it’s not difficult to imagine Moscow extending the terms of its loan to Hungary for as long as Budapest likes. It will, after all, remain profitable on paper. But in the end, Budapest will be left holding the bag for Rosatom’s over extended balance sheet. But so long as Orban’s government continues it rightward lurch, Moscow is unlikely to call in its marker. http://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2019-02-hungary-seeks-to-postpone-loan-payback-to-russia-for-nuclear-power-plant-what-will-the-final-cost-be

 

February 4, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, marketing, politics, politics international, Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

China urges dialogue, as Russia and USA ramp up nuclear weaponry, pull out of weapons treaty

Russia withdraws from Cold War-era nuclear weapons treaty with US  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-02/russia-withdraws-from-cold-war-era-nuclear-weapons-treaty/10774536 Russia has suspended a Cold War-era nuclear weapons treaty, President Vladimir Putin said, after the United States accused Moscow of violations and said it would withdraw from the arms control pact.

Key points:

  • Russia will start work on new missiles, including hypersonic ones
  • US and Russia both allege the other has violated the INF treaty
  • China urges dialogue amid fears of nuclear arms race

The Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty prevents the two superpowers from possessing, producing or test-flying ground-launched nuclear cruise missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometres.

The United States announced it will withdraw from the INF treaty in six months unless Moscow ends what it says are violations of the pact, but Russia denied violating the treaty.

“The American partners have declared that they suspend their participation in the deal, we suspend it as well,” Mr Putin said during a televised meeting with foreign and defence ministers.

Mr Putin said Russia will start work on creating new missiles, including hypersonic ones, and told ministers not to initiate disarmament talks with Washington, accusing the United States of being slow to respond to such moves.

“We have repeatedly, during a number of years, and constantly raised a question about substantiative talks on the disarmament issue,” Mr Putin said.

“We see that in the past few years the partners have not supported our initiatives.”

The US alleges a new Russian cruise missile violates the important pact, signed by former leaders Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987.

The missile, the Novator 9M729, is known as the SSC-8 by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

Russia said the missile’s range put it outside the treaty, and accused the US of inventing a false pretext to exit a treaty it wants to leave anyway so it can develop new missiles.

Russia also rejected the demand to destroy the new missile.

During the meeting with Mr Putin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the US of violating the INF and other arms deals, including the non-proliferation treaty.

Mr Putin said Russia would not deploy its weapons in Europe and other regions unless the US did so.

Fears of new arms race

The row over the INF treaty is yet another twist in Russia’s worsening relations with the United States and the West, with tensions over Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine as well as allegations of it meddling with the presidential election in the US and being behind a nerve agent attack in Britain.

The treaty’s suspension has drawn a strong reaction from Europe and China.

European nations fear the treaty’s collapse could lead to a new arms race with possibly a new generation of US nuclear missiles stationed on the continent.

In a statement, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the bilateral treaty was important to maintain “global strategic balance and stability”.

“China is opposed to US withdrawal action and urges the United States and Russia to handle their differences properly through constructive dialogue,” the statement said, warning that unilateral withdrawal could trigger “negative consequences”.

February 4, 2019 Posted by | China, politics international, Russia, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Russia also to withdraw from Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, weakening weapons control

Nuclear arms control is increasingly strained as Russia steps back from treaty, Quartz, By John Detrixhe, February 3, 2019 The nuclear arms controls that have been in place since the end of the Cold War appear increasingly strained. The US said yesterday (Feb. 1) that it will withdraw from a landmark treaty for such weapons that it signed with the Soviet Union in 1987. Russia responded today by saying it will also suspend its obligations under the agreement.

The US is pulling back from the treaty with the backing of its NATO allies because officials say Russia has built a cache of missiles and refuses to destroy them. Vladimir Putin, who claims his county is in compliance, has likewise complained that the Americans are potentially in breach of the agreement, which banned the use of short- and medium-range missiles by both countries. The Russian president said his country will begin developing new missiles.

“Our American partners announced that they are suspending their participation in the treaty, and we are suspending it too,” Putin said, according to the BBC.

The breakdown follows several years of failed negotiations. Carl Bildt, co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said on Twitter that the end of the treaty would allow Russia to deploy cruise missiles from ground launchers that would quickly threaten Europe. He says both sides should commit to not deploying new weapons, then address Russia’s controversial 9M729 missile systems “in detail.”……..

Under the terms of the treaty, it will take six months for the agreement to dissolve. The US has given Russia six months to return to compliance with the treaty, and all parties should make the most of that window to find a resolution….https://qz.com/1541032/russia-withdraws-from-inf-treaty-amid-fears-of-nuclear-arms-race/

February 4, 2019 Posted by | politics international, Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

IAEA criticises USA’s efforts to sabotage Iran nuclear deal

UN Nuclear Watchdog Warns Against Meddling Over Iran, Bloomberg By Jonathan Tirone, February 2, 2019,
  •  IAEA calls pressure on Iran monitoring ‘extremely harmful’
  •  
    Comments follow criticism at Tel Aviv event sponsored by U.S.
………Late Wednesday, at a private reception for diplomats, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano lashed out at efforts to hamstring an organization that’s been at the forefront of nuclear security for decades, according to two foreign officials who were there. Without naming Israel and the U.S., the career Japanese diplomat made it clear those countries were the source of his ire, they said.

“The agency’s independence must not be undermined,” Amano said, according to the IAEA’s website. “If attempts are made to micro-manage or put pressure on the agency in nuclear verification, that is counterproductive and extremely harmful.”

An IAEA official said on Saturday that the U.S. wasn’t Amano’s intended target. He declined to specify which countries prompted the rebuke.

Three years into an agreement that was meant to be a hallmark of the Obama administration, in which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear activities in return for sanctions relief, IAEA inspectors say Tehran is in full compliance.

That hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from backing out of the agreement, piling on new penalties and trying to use the agency to turn the screws with help from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Iran Abides Nuclear Limits

Enriched uranium has remained below thresholds agreed under deal

President Donald Trump’s hardline stance on Iran has heightened tensions with the other signatories to the agreement: China, France, Germany, Russia and the U.K. It’s also sowed divisions between the White House and America’s spy agencies, with Trump castigating his own intelligence officials this week for being “passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran.”

Netanyahu went to the U.S. Congress to lobby against the agreement before it was signed and has continued to criticize the deal since, arguing that it won’t prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons……..

fake newscast in Israel came as Iran’s deputy foreign minister was in Vienna for talks with the IAEA, which is trying to keep the accord from unraveling.

Iran’s leadership has said the country’s ready to re-start its enrichment program using more advanced technology if the agreement fails. The country is considering making the kind of nuclear fuel used in naval propulsion, implying it could enrich uranium closer to the levels needed for weapons.

Meanwhile, the European Union is moving to help countries evade the sanctions that the Trump administration imposed to stop countries from trading with Iran.

On Thursday, the 28-member bloc finalized a new financial mechanism for bypassing the U.S. restrictions. The special purpose vehicle, called the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges, will be headquartered in Paris and staffed with German leadership.

The vehicle will have a positive “impact on trade and economic relations with Iran, but most importantly on the lives of Iranian people,” a draft of the joint communique seen by Bloomberg says.

The U.S. mission to the IAEA in Vienna said in an emailed response to questions that the watchdog “can continue to count on the full support of the United States” as it carries out its “important mandate in Iran.” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-01/fake-news-goes-nuclear-as-iaea-sees-u-s-israel-meddling-on-iran

February 4, 2019 Posted by | Iran, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Russia’s Plan to Solve the North Korea Nuclear Crisis?

Does Russia Have a Plan to Solve the North Korea Nuclear Crisis? https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/does-russia-have-plan-solve-north-korea-nuclear-crisis-43022 2 Feb 19, Some think so. by Stratfor Worldview 

What Happened: The Russian government reportedly made a secret proposal to North Korea in the fall of 2018 to construct a nuclear power plant in the country in exchange for North Korea dismantling its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, The Washington Post reported Jan. 29, citing unnamed U.S. officials. The Russian envoy to North Korea, meanwhile, denied the report.

Why It Matters: Russia’s alleged offer would imply attempts to insert itself into the negotiation process over North Korea’s nuclear program. U.S. President Donald Trump is slated to hold a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in late February.

Background: Kim placed a significant emphasis on rectifying North Korea’s electricity problems during his New Year’s speech. Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov received a delegation from North Korea’s Foreign Ministry in Moscow on Jan. 29.

February 4, 2019 Posted by | North Korea, politics international, Russia | Leave a comment

IAEA urges Japan to slow the Fukushima wastes clean-up – delay release to Pacific till after Olympic Games

IAEA urges Japan to take ample time in Fukushima cleanup https://phys.org/news/2019-01-iaea-urges-japan-ample-fukushima.html   January 31, 2019 by Mari Yamaguchi The International Atomic Energy Agency urged Japan on Thursday to spend ample time in developing a decommissioning plan for the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant and to be honest with the public about remaining uncertainties.

In a report based on a visit by an IAEA team to the plant in November, the agency urged the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., to secure adequate space and finish plans for managing highly radioactive melted fuel before starting to remove it from the three damaged reactors.

The cores of the three reactors melted after a massive 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Utility and government officials plan to start removing the melted fuel in 2021, but still know little about its condition and have not finalized waste management plans.

“The IAEA review team advises that before the commencement of the fuel debris retrieval activities, there should be a clear implementation plan defined to safely manage the retrieved material,” the report said. “TEPCO should ensure that appropriate containers and storage capacity are available before starting the fuel debris retrieval.”

The report also urged the government and TEPCO to carefully consider ways to express “the inherent uncertainties involved” in the project and develop “a credible plan” for the long term. It advised TEPCO to consider adopting contingency plans to “accommodate any schedule delays.”

Dale Klein, a former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman who heads a TEPCO reform committee, said in a recent interview that the decommissioning should not be rushed, even if the government and TEPCO have set a schedule and people want to see it move faster.

“It’s much better to do it right than do it fast,” he said, adding that it’s also good not to rush from a health and safety perspective. “Clearly, the longer you wait, the less the radiation is.”

He said he would be “astounded” if the current schedule ends up unchanged.

In order to make room in the plant compound to safely store the melted fuel and for other needed facilities, about 1 million tons of radioactive waste water currently stored in hundreds of tanks will have to be removed. The IAEA team, headed by Xerri Christoph, an expert on radioactive waste, urged the government and TEPCO to urgently decide how to dispose of it.

Nuclear experts, including officials at the IAEA and Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority, have said a controlled release of the water into the Pacific Ocean is the only realistic option. A release, however, is unlikely until after the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in order to avoid concerns among visitors from overseas.

February 2, 2019 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, politics, politics international, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Donald Trump confirms US withdrawal from INF nuclear treaty

 Guardian, Julian Borger, World affairs editor, Sat 2 Feb 2019 
Announcement gives Russia 180 days to destroy violating missiles and launchers to avoid new arms race Donald Trump has confirmed that the US is leaving the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, saying “we will move forward with developing our own military response options” to Russia’s suspect missile.In a written statement, Trump said that the US would be suspending its compliance with the 1987 treaty on Saturday, and would serve formal notice that it would withdraw altogether in six months.

He left the door open to the treaty being salvaged in that 180-day window, but only if Russia destroys all of its violating missiles, launchers and associated equipment. Since 2013, the US has alleged that Russia has developed a new ground-launched cruise missile which violated the INF prohibition of missiles with ranges between 500km and 5,500km.

Russia for several years denied the missile existed but has more recently acknowledged its existence, saying its range does not violate INF limits.

“This is in reality, under international law, Russia’s final chance,” a senior administration official said. “If there is to be an arms race, it is Russia that has undermined the global security architecture.”

In his statement, Trump warned that unless Russia destroyed its missile by August: “We will move forward with developing our own military response options and will work with Nato and our other allies and partners to deny Russia any military advantage from its unlawful conduct.”

Washington’s European allies have been anxious that the death of the INF treaty would lead to a return to the tense days of the 1980s, and an arms race involving short- and medium-range missiles on European soil………

, neither the Trump nor Pompeo gave any indication whether the administration would agree to extend the 2010 New Start treaty, the last remaining arms control agreement constraining the arsenals of the two major nuclear weapons powers.

Both the US and Russia have abided by the New Start limit of 1,550 deployed, strategic nuclear warheads, but the treaty expires in 2021, leaving little time to negotiate a five-year extension.

Alexandra Bell, a former state department arms control official and senior policy director at the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said: “New Start is working, it’s good for American national security and this administration is putting global security at risk by foot-dragging on extension.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/01/inf-donald-trump-confirms-us-withdrawal-nuclear-treaty

February 2, 2019 Posted by | politics international, USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

India’s Kudankulam nuclear power station means big debt to Russia

Kudankulam: Nuclear power utility struggles to repay Russia for supplies https://indianexpress.com/article/india/kudankulam-nuclear-power-utility-struggles-to-repay-russia-for-supplies-5563744/    The sanctioning of lower than requisite funds comes at a time when NPCIL’s budgetary support requirement has gone up in light of the utility taking up 10 new projects that had been cleared by the government in May 2017.  by Anil Sasi |New Delhi  February 1, 2019  Inadequate budgetary support to the strategic nuclear energy sector over the last two financial years has squeezed funds earmarked under the investment head for the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), resulting in India’s frontline nuclear utility slipping back on its repayment obligations to the Russians for equipment supplies to the Kudankulam nuclear project.

The sanctioning of lower than requisite funds comes at a time when NPCIL’s budgetary support requirement has gone up in light of the utility taking up 10 new projects that had been cleared by the government in May 2017.

The problem of non-payment of Russian credit on account of a reduction in the provision for Russian credit to NPCIL was discussed before a parliamentary panel, responding to which the Department of Expenditure in the Finance Ministry subsequently “conveyed” the concerns to the Budget Division of the Department of Economic Affairs in the same Ministry for “further necessary action”.

Under a credit arrangement between the governments of Russia and India, as soon as equipment leaves Russia for Indian projects such as the nuclear station in Kudankulam, that much money is released by the Russian government to the suppliers, which then becomes a loan on the Government of India. This loan is then supposed to be routed to NPCIL by way of a budgetary provision. Against that, the same money would be given back to the Government of India so that it becomes a loan on NPCIL.

This arrangement has come under strain due to the reduction in budgetary allocation under the ‘investment in PSUs’ head, which has affected the loans payable to NPCIL towards ‘Russian credit utilisation’ that is outstanding in the books of the Controller of Aid Accounts and Audit. The CAAA is the division within the Department of Economic Affairs entrusted with the responsibility for withdrawal of loan and grant proceeds for all official development assistance where India is the recipient.

While the extent of the slip-up in the payment obligation to the Russians could not be ascertained, the trend was seen as serious enough for the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment and Forests to flag this an issue to which the Ministry of Finance responded in the affirmative, a senior government official involved in the exercise confirmed. Queries sent to K N Vyas, Secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy and Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, did not elicit a response.

According to official estimates, while budgetary support to NPCIL had gone up from Rs 370 crore in the budget estimate for 2017-18 to Rs 1435 crore in the revised estimate for the year (entailing a total of Rs 685 crore under the investment head and Rs 750 crore as loan), the actual requirement in form of budgetary support submitted by the DAE was thrice that amount — Rs 4305 crore. The higher amount, official said, was primarily on account of a shortfall of earlier years in receipt of equity to the tune of Rs 402 crore and obligations under the Russian Credit of Rs 3,903 crore.

For 2018-19, while the allocation was hiked to Rs 1,665 crore in the budget estimate, it still left a funding gap of around Rs 2,870 crore, according to DAE estimates. The situation was exacerbated by 10 new projects based on the indigenous 700 MWe (mega watt electric) pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs) that had been sanctioned in mid-2017, due to which budgetary support requirement had also increased.
NPCIL is currently operating 22 commercial nuclear power reactors with an installed capacity of 6,780 MWe, while it has another eight reactors under various stages of construction totaling 6200 MWe capacity.

Russia and India had, in 2015, agreed to actively work on projects deploying 12 additional Light Water Reactor (LWR) nuclear reactors, for which, the localisation of manufacturing in India under the NDA government’s flagship ‘Make in India’ initiative and the commencement of serial construction of nuclear power plants was flagged as a joint initiative.

In this context, the Programme of Action for localisation between Russian state-owned utility Rosatom and the DAE was finalised during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Moscow visit in 2015. At the Kudankulam site, where the two Russian-designed VVER-1000 series reactors have being installed, nearly 100 Russian companies and organisations are involved in documentation, supply of equipment and controlling construction and equipping process. At the same site, four more Russian reactor units are slated to come up in the coming years.

February 2, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, India, politics international, Russia | Leave a comment

Russia secretly offered North Korea a nuclear power plant: officials 

SMH, By John Hudson and Ellen Nakashima, 30 January 2019  Washington: Russian officials made a secret proposal to North Korea last northern fall aimed at resolving deadlocked negotiations with the Trump administration over its nuclear weapons program, said US officials familiar with the discussions.

In exchange for dismantling its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, Moscow offered the country a nuclear power plant.

The Russian offer, which intelligence officials became aware of in late 2018, marks a new attempt by Moscow to intervene in the high-stakes nuclear talks as it reasserts itself into a string of geopolitical flash points from the Middle East to South Asia to Latin America. Its latest bid is expected to unsettle Chinese and US officials wary of granting Moscow an economic foothold on the Korean Peninsula.

As a part of the deal, the Russian government would operate the plant and transfer all byproducts and waste back to Russia, reducing the risk that North Korea uses the power plant to build nuclear weapons while providing the impoverished country a new energy source……. https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/russia-secretly-offered-north-korea-a-nuclear-power-plant-officials-20190130-p50ufz.html

January 31, 2019 Posted by | North Korea, politics international, Russia | Leave a comment

Scotland kow tows to UK and Australian govts – rejects courageous Aboriginal appeal against nuclear waste transport

Last ditch aborigine appeal to Scotland to stop nuclear waste transfers to Australia, https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17391290.last-ditch-aborigine-appeal-to-scotland-to-stop-nuclear-waste-transfers-to-australia/?ref=fbshr&fbclid=IwAR3r2Lqdv0V66rc7I8PrKJme4mkAsIx2Wtd5bv-Vy_XeT1i3GOgi_Mr    By Martin Williams  29 Jan 19, SOME of the Aborigines who live in and around a sacred burial place in South Australia can still remember the clouds of poison that were the result of Britain’s nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s.

Many of the indigenous population claimed they were exposed to radiation as a result of the post-war atomic weapons tests in the desert and received compensation from the Australian government.

But a new kind of radiation could be heading to the remote sacred area of Wallerberdina – nuclear waste. The concerns are centred over a spot 280 miles north of Adelaide, which has become a potential location for Australia’s first nuclear dump.

The movement of waste is part of a deal that returns spent fuel processed at the nuclear facility currently being decommissioned to its country of origin.

Despite campaigners’ efforts it has emerged that David Peattie, chief executive of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), has insisted that there can be no change.

And now Aboriginal elder Regina McKenzie has made a last-ditch direct appeal to the First Minister for help to halt Dounreay’s dumping plans, calling for her “not to be part of the cultural genocide of Australian Aboriginal people”.

Mr Peattie said in a letter to UK campaigners who are fighting against the dumping: “The NDA does not have an option of retaining the waste in the UK.”

The Dounreay Waste Substitution Policy, agreed in 2012, sees waste from Australia, Belgium, Germany and Italy processed at the Scottish facility to make it safe for storage being returned to its country of origin.

The UK Government has previously confirmed that “a very small quantity of Australian-owned radioactive waste” is currently stored in the country.

Scottish Government policy allows for the substitution of the Dounreay nuclear waste with a “radiologically equivalent” amount of materials from Sellafield in Cumbria.

The proposed dump site is next to an indigenous protected area where Aborigines are still allowed to hunt, and is part of the traditional home of the Adnyamathanha people, one of several hundred indigenous groups in Australia. And Ms McKenzie, an Adnyamathanha woman who lives at Yappala in South Australia and leading campaigner against any dump, has told the Nicola Sturgeon in a letter that the substitution policy is “culturally inappropriate”.

Ms McKenzie, who has been trying to get a meeting with the First Minister since the start of last year, said: “Adnyamathanha people have lived and practised culture in our country since the beginning of time. We understand and have connections with our land in a way the Australian Government does not. It is our duty to care for our country, song/storylines for future generations.

“We know we have friends in Scotland and in the UK. My great grandfather was Joseph Thomas McKenzie from Aberdeen, so we have a great respect for our Scottish heritage. We ask that you do all in your power to cancel the agreement made with the British Government and send a message of support to our people that Scotland stands with us in our fight to protect our country.

“We have previously offered to crowdfund money to travel to Scotland to raise our concerns with you in person, and we extend the offer for you to visit us here on our country at the sacred women’s waterhole Pungka Pudinah so you can hear why we must protect our country, for all of our futures.

She has said the UK should not make the mistakes they did when the nuclear tests were conducted between 1956 and 1963 at Maralinga, part of the Woomera Prohibited Area in South Australia.

“Please do not be a part in cultural genocide of Australian Aboriginal people, the past atrocities that were practiced on all the nations of Aboriginal people, must be something of the past and not committed further,” she told Ms Sturgeon.

“This waste facility is just that, cultural genocide, it will stop future generations’ access to a significant site.

“Again I ask please listen with your ears and heart, be a voice for my people and help stop cultural genocide on a minority group only trying to keep our culture strong and survive.”

The local Aboriginal people claimed they were poisoned by the tests and, in 1994, the Australian Government reached a compensation settlement with Maralinga Tjarutja of $13.5 million in settlement of all claims in relation to the nuclear testing.

Despite the governments of Australia and the UK paying for two decontamination programmes, eight years ago concerns were expressed that some areas of the Maralinga test sites are still contaminated 10 years after being declared “clean”.

Campaigner Gary Cushway, a dual Australian-British citizen living in Glasgow, said the new appeal came after the reached deadlock on any movement in ditching the substitution policy. He said: “My argument remains the same, that the material shouldn’t be returned, at least until the final destination is known.”

the Aborigines from supporters in the UK was turned down by the First Minister. Rory Hedderly, the diary team manager, wrote back: “Unfortunately, due to considerable diary pressures, the First Minister is unable to meet with Ms McKenzie at this time.”

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “The Scottish Government believes any concerns expressed by indigenous people must be addressed and we sympathise with concerns relating to the location of the planned radioactive waste facility in Australia.

“However, this issue is a matter for the Australian authorities, who are responsible for waste arising from historic reprocessing of Australian spent fuels, carried out under contract at Dounreay.”

January 29, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, indigenous issues, opposition to nuclear, politics international, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear disarmament, non proliferation, “peaceful use” on the agenda as France, Russia, Britain and the United States meet in China

World’s nuclear weapons club to meet in China as trade talks and Meng Wanzhou extradition deadline loom
Eyes will be on Beijing, Washington and Vancouver in week of high-stakes diplomatic meetings, SCMP, Lee Jeong-ho   Liu Zhen, 26 January, 2019 China will host a key nuclear weapons meeting in Beijing next week, the outcome of which could affect efforts to stop the spread of nuclear arms around the globe.

The meeting on Wednesday of five major nuclear powers – China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States – will coincide with the start of a new round of high-stakes trade talks between China and the US in Washington.

In Beijing on Thursday, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying confirmed “nuclear disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation and peaceful uses of nuclear energy” would be on the agenda of the nuclear club known as the “P5”.

“The theme will be strengthening coordination of the five nuclear-weapon states and safeguarding the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons mechanism,” Hua said.

……..Zhao Tong, from the Carnegie-Tsinghua Centre for Global Policy’s nuclear policy programme, said the Beijing gathering would also lay the groundwork for a five-yearly conference in 2020 to review the non-proliferation treaty.

At the last review conference in New York in 2015, member countries failed to reach agreement on how to advance the treaty. …….

Zhao said Hua’s remarks suggested that next week’s meeting would also be a crucial chance for the US and Russia to discuss their differences over the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which US President Donald Trump said the US would withdraw from.

“The US and Russia should take this important opportunity to discuss ways to ease the INF dispute. If INF is abandoned, the New START that remains between them will also suffer … which will be a very dangerous trend,” Zhao said.

New START is a nuclear arms reduction treaty Moscow and Washington signed in 2010. The INF Treaty was signed by the US and the then Soviet Union to eliminate short and intermediate-range missiles.

Meanwhile in Washington, all eyes will be watching to see whether US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin can reach a trade deal with the Chinese delegation led by Vice-Premier Liu He. …….. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2183726/worlds-nuclear-weapons-club-meet-china-trade-talks-and-meng

January 29, 2019 Posted by | politics international, weapons and war | 1 Comment

North Korea’s Nukes and the ‘Forgotten War’

Hampton Sides, author of a new book about a turning point in the Korea war, explores the state of the Koreas and Trump’s forthcoming visit.  Interview, Bloomberg, By Tobin Harshaw, January 28, 2019,

“……It is a cliche that the so-called police action in Korea from 1950 to 1952 is America’s “forgotten war.” But, like most cliches, there is a lot of truth to it. American ignorance about the Korean War is a shame, and not only because it devalues the sacrifices of those who fought in it. With North Korea’s nuclear arsenal now threatening the U.S. mainland (not to mention Hawaii, Japan and the folks on the southern end of the peninsula), and President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un set to meet again next month, a little historical perspective might be helpful.

………. HS: Be mindful of the fact that North Korea’s fear and loathing of the U.S., however warped it seems, does have legitimate historical roots. During the Korean War, the U.S. bombed that country back to the Stone Age: Every building, every bridge, every village. The stated goal was to not leave a single brick standing upon another brick. That air campaign was gratuitous and cruel. We killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. We’re a country that has a habit of bombing people and then wondering why those people hate us. As we parse the madness that is the Kim regime, we should always keep in mind that this underlying history of “terror from above” figures into that madness.

Kim strikes many as a lunatic, but his nuclear strategy has actually been quite rational and effective in achieving his goals. So coaxing him to give up his nukes will take some extremely creative and forceful negotiating. The Hermit Kingdom desperately needs many, many things from the outside world — food, medicines, capital, technology, expertise and so on, and Kim knows this. A big question is whether he would really allow his own people to benefit in any meaningful way from the flow of goods and amenities that a removal of sanctions would usher in. Another question is whether he’d actually allow outside experts to come in and closely monitor his regime’s nuclear compliance. Caveats aside, we can only hope the talks continue. I’m highly skeptical of Trump’s much-avowed skills as a deal-maker, but a deal is certainly in the interest of the whole wide world.

……….. HS: It was repeatedly said during the 2016 campaign that Douglas MacArthur is Trump’s “favorite general.” I don’t get the sense that Trump reads history — or anything else, for that matter — but it’s a telling detail. Because with Douglas MacArthur you had a grandiose and vainglorious autocrat who had surrounded himself with sycophants and yes-men. He was a colorful and interesting character — in narrative terms, a gift that keeps on giving. But he was a thoroughgoing narcissist. It was said that he didn’t have a staff; he had a court. He didn’t want to hear inconvenient information. He didn’t like experts — he was the expert. He was in love with the vertical pronoun. It was all about him.This sounds extremely familiar to me.

………. Of course, Korea should never have been divided in the first place — drawing that line created one of the great geopolitical tragedies of modern times. Many thousands of families were torn apart and never allowed to see each other again. Historically speaking, there’s no difference between northern and southern Korea. It’s one country, one language, one culture, one people.

Or at least it was. After more than 70 years of living apart, a reunification, if by some miracle it ever happened, would be a wrenching and doubtless violent process. It’s not clear how a brainwashed and traumatized people from an impoverished police state integrates into the dynamic capitalist society that is modern South Korea. Still, I believe it’s destined to happen one day.https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-27/korean-war-in-current-events-from-the-1950s-to-a-nuclear-north

January 29, 2019 Posted by | history, North Korea, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

South Korea looks for nuclear dismantling pledge by Kim at second summit with Trump

Japan Times, 26 Jan 19,  DAVOS, SWITZERLAND – North Korea must make concrete pledges toward curbing its nuclear weapons program, such as dismantling its main nuclear complex and allowing international inspections to confirm the process, when leader Kim Jong Un meets U.S. President Donald Trump as soon as next month, South Korea’s foreign minister said.

Kang Kyung-wha said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos that she is optimistic North Korea will agree to concrete steps toward abandoning its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, developed in violation of United Nations resolutions.

“The (North Korean) leader has promised to his people many times that ‘I’m going to take this country toward economic development.’ He has to deliver that, and he’s not going to get the kind of significant assistance unless he takes concrete steps toward denuclearization and somehow eases the sanctions regime,” she said on Thursday.

“Given the strong political will on the part of the top leaders of the two sides. … I think we will see concrete results.”

Trump and Kim held a historic first summit in Singapore in June. The White House said last week a second summit would be held in late February but did not say where………https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/01/25/asia-pacific/south-koreas-looks-nuclear-dismantling-pledge-kim-summit-trump/#.XEttNNIzbGg

January 26, 2019 Posted by | politics international, South Korea | Leave a comment

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