Chinese President Xi Jinping urges international co-operation on nuclear security
Chinese president charts course for strengthening global nuclear security system, New China WASHINGTON, April 1 (Xinhua) –– Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday urged countries around the world to increase national input and expand international cooperation so as to further firm up the global nuclear security architecture.
He made the appeal in a speech delivered here at the opening plenary of the fourth Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) and titled “Strengthen Global Nuclear Security Architecture and Promote Global Nuclear Security Governance.”
A FOUR-PRONGED PROPOSAL
In his speech, Xi noted that the NSS process has provided a major boost to international nuclear security, including developing common goals, establishing key priorities and mapping out the blueprint for the future.
However, he pointed out, new threats and challenges keep emerging in the security field, the root causes of terrorism are far from being removed, and nuclear terrorism remains a grave threat to international security.
“A more robust global nuclear security architecture is the prerequisite for the sound development of nuclear energy,” he said.
Recalling that he envisioned the building of a global nuclear security system featuring fairness and win-win cooperation at the third NSS in The Hague in 2014, Xi laid out a four-pronged proposal for the international community to make fresh efforts.
Countries across the world need first to step up political input and stick to the direction of addressing both symptoms and root causes, said the Chinese president.
“As national leaders, we have the responsibility to ensure that nuclear security gets adequate attention,” he said, adding that only with a solution that addresses both symptoms and root causes can the world “remove the breeding ground of nuclear terrorism at an early date.”……..http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-04/02/c_135245822.htm
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China, USA, strike deals on climate and nuclear security
Despite disputes, U.S., China strike climate, nuclear deals David Jackson, USA TODAY April 1, 2016 WASHINGTON — Despite ongoing disputes over cyber espionage, intellectual property, and the South China Sea, the United States and China struck deals Thursday on nuclear security and climate change.
The two nations agreed to sign the new global climate change agreement on April 22, the day it becomes operational; the agreement reached in Paris late last year calls on countries to develop plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“We’re committing to formally join it as soon as possible this year, and we urge other countries to do the same,” President Obama said before meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the bi-annual nuclear security summit.
As for that topic, the United States and China issued a joint statement pledging more cooperation on efforts to improve the storage and security of nuclear material in an effort to prevent nuclear terrorism………http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/03/31/obama-xi-jinping-china-climate-change/82483840/
USA and China – joint statement: both will sign Paris climate deal
US and China to sign Paris climate deal http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/us-and-china-to-sign-paris-climate-deal/news-story/94b6ac23151ca2d99645372ed0bf9269
The United States and China have confirmed that they will sign the Paris climate change agreement in New York on April 22, a move that officials hope will help the accord enter into force this year.
The world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters issued a joint presidential statement on Thursday in which they called on other countries to sign the accord next month “with a view to bringing the Paris Agreement into force as early as possible”.
Leaders from nearly 200 countries forged the landmark agreement to transform the world’s fossil fuel-driven economy on December 12 after four years of fraught negotiations.
But the Paris climate agreement needs at least 55 countries, representing at least 55 per cent of global emissions, to formally accede to it before it can enter into force.
Stern has stepped down from his role as the chief US climate negotiator, and will be replaced by his former deputy, Jonathan Pershing, on April 1.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said earlier this month that he expected 120 or more countries would sign the accord at the April 22 ceremony at its New York headquarters.
Australia unwise to sell uranium to Ukraine
The Zaporizhia nuclear facility is Europe’s largest and is only 200 kilometres from the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine. Some commentators have described nuclear plants in the region as pre-deployed nuclear targets and there have already been armed incursions during the recent conflict period.
Australia shouldn’t sell its uranium to Ukraine http://www.smh.com.au/comment/australia-shouldnt-sell-its-uranium-to-ukraine-20160331-gnv0no.html, Dave Sweeney, 31 Mar 16 Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop’s announcement this week to sell Australian uranium to Ukraine is an ill-advised and dangerous retreat from responsibility.
With timing and placement that a satirist could only dream of emulating – April Fool’s Day, the month of the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl meltdown and while attending a nuclear security summit – Bishop is set to sign a uranium supply agreement this week with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
Australia, the country that directly fuelled Fukushima now plans to sell uranium to Ukraine, the country that gave the world Chernobyl – hardly a match made in heaven.
Thirty years ago the Chernobyl nuclear disaster spread fallout over large swathes of eastern and western Europe and five million people still live in contaminated areas in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia.
Serious containment and waste management issues remain at Chernobyl with a massive concrete shield now under construction in an attempt to enclose the stricken reactor complex and reduce the chances of further radioactive releases.
Against this backdrop there are deep concerns over those parts of the Ukrainian nuclear sector that are not yet infamous names, including very real security concerns about nuclear facilities being targeted in the current conflict with Russia.
The Zaporizhia nuclear facility is Europe’s largest and is only 200 kilometres from the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine. Some commentators have described nuclear plants in the region as pre-deployed nuclear targets and there have already been armed incursions during the recent conflict period.
Australia has already suspended uranium sales to Russia – it makes scant sense to start selling uranium to Ukraine now. Along with security concerns there are serious and unresolved safety and governance issues that have dropped off the Foreign Minister’s radioactive radar with the sales plan.
Ukraine has 15 nuclear reactors – four are currently running beyond their design lifetime while a further six will reach this in 2020. That means two thirds of Ukraine’s nuclear reactors will be past their use-by date within five years.
On top of that, there is growing regional concern over the risks associated with the Poroshenko administration focus on keeping the reactors running. In rushing to extend operating licences Ukraine is cutting process and safety corners and not complying with its obligations under the Espoo Convention – an international framework agreement around transboundary environmental impact assessment.
In 2013 the Eastern Partnership, a leading East European civil society forum, declared that the absence of environmental impact assessment for nuclear projects posed “a severe threat to people both in Ukraine and in neighbouring states, including EU member states”.
These concerns have been amplified after a series of recent shutdowns, fires and safety concerns at Ukrainian nuclear facilities. Kiev’s response was a 2015 government decree preventing the national nuclear energy regulator from carrying out facility inspections on its own initiative. This coupled with increased pressure on industry whistle-blowers and critics has done nothing to address the real risks facing the nations aging nuclear fleet.
None of these issues have even been touched on by Bishop or by the Mineral Council of Australia’s yellowcake cheer squad who continue to champion a sector that remains in freefall post Fukushima. Price and production has fallen and the high risk, low return uranium sector has been hard hit with an independent market research report showing there are fewer than 1000 jobs in Australia’s embattled uranium sector.
There can be no nuclear business-as-usual in the shadow of Fukushima – a disaster that was fuelled by Australian uranium.
Following Fukushima the UN Secretary-General called for Australia to have a dedicated risk analysis of the impacts of the uranium sector. This has not happened and should take place before any new uranium deals are inked.
This new deal with Ukraine and the recent deal with India – which was signed despite a recommendation by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT) that Australia not supply uranium to India at this time or on these terms – are deeply irresponsible policy positions. They put the interests of a small and under-performing mining sector ahead of Australia’s national interest and international responsibilities.
And this persistent failure to either respect or reflect the profound human and environmental lessons of past nuclear errors bodes poorly for avoiding future ones.
US govt no longer worried about Japan’s plutonium stockpiling as weapons proliferation risk?
U.S. official changes stance on Japan’s nuclear policy http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002840098 By Seima Oki / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent , 29 Mar 16, WASHINGTON — U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Countryman said in a press conference by telephone on Monday that Japan’s nuclear fuel cycle project, which reuses spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants to extract plutonium, does not raise concerns about nuclear nonproliferation, effectively changing his earlier position on the matter.
At a hearing of the U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee on March 17, the assistant secretary in charge of international security and nuclear nonproliferation had voiced his concerns about Japan’s nuclear policy and said that it would be desirable for Japan to halt its nuclear fuel reprocessing project.
In the press conference, Countryman said that Japan was a pioneer in the civilian use of nuclear energy and that no other country was closer or more important as a partner to the United States than Japan.
Japan’s stockpiling of plutonium has been criticized by China at U.N. meetings and on other occasions. To this, Countryman said that Japan has been proceeding in a transparent manner, which was understandable to the rest of the world.
He also expressed his stance that the U.S. government will cooperate with Japan as an ally to wipe out anxiety in the international community.Speech
USA minimising effect of Fukushima nuclear radiation: Clinton’s secret food pact.
Radiating Americans: Fukushima rain, Clinton’s secret food pact, Examiner, Deborah Dupre
Human Rights Examiner , 27 Mar 16, Government agreed to downplay Fukushima radiation Fukushima is far from stabilized according to energy advisor veteran with 39 years of nuclear power engineering experience, Arnie Gundersen who told Solar IMG Saturday that Americans, not just in the northwest, are unaware of being rained on with Fukushima nuclear hot particles and eating Fukushima contaminated food because the US government has deliberately minimized the catastrophe, partially due to a pact Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed with Japan. Gundersen, with a team of other scientists, intends to prove government statements about Fukushima are false.
“The United States came up with a decision to downplay Fukushima,” said Gundersen who is awakening the public with information such as hot particles in rain will continue falling in the U.S., not just in the Pacific Northwest, for another year, and mentioning high-level fallout in Oklahoma a few days ago.
Gundersen told SolarIMG that high-level people he knows in the State Department said Hillary Clinton signed a pact with her counterpart in Japan agreeing for the United States to continue buying food from Japan, despite that food not being properly tested for radioactive materials.
“So we are not sampling the food coming into the United States,” he said, repeating, “The US government has come up with a decision at the highest levels of the State Department, as well as other departments who made a decision to downplay Fukushima.”
In April, the month after the powerful tsunami and earthquake crippled Japan including its nuclear power plant, “Hillary Clinton signed a pact with Japan that she agreed there is no problem with Japanese food supply and we will continue to buy them so we are not sampling food coming in from Japan” according to Gundersen.
Due to this high degree of secrecy enshrouding the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, that Gundersen said is ongoing, he has called on Americans with Geiger counters to send samples to him for an independent research team’s study.
Gundersen says the new study will prove that what the U.S. government is telling Americans is false………
One reason millions will die from Fkushima is what some experts in July called scandalous collusion to cover-up the horrendous facts about the nuclear holocaust occurring.
Fukushima stabilized? Many children to suffer thyroid cancer in three to five years
“The reactors are better than since the accident,” said Gundersen, but “they all have holes on them, so they are not holding water.” “Until a couple of weeks ago, they had to constantly add water. Now there’s a system in place that’s cleaning the water enough that they can pump it back into the reactor.”
Gundersen stated that the reactors are still creating “an enormous amount of waste” and that “the filters are hotter than a pistol.” “I still believe water is leaking into the ocean and I know water’s leaking into the ground table,” he said.
Gundersen said it is a concern that there are indications that there is still iodine on site plus, ‘enormous amounts of iodine have been in the water.” “There’s an awful lot of kids that are going to have thyroid problems in the next three to five years as the result of this.”
Kicking the nuclear can, Worst to come: Unit 4, Contaminated food and water, Children and cancer……….http://www.examiner.com/article/radiating-americans-fukushima-rain-clinton-s-secret-food-pact
Former general says Israel could destory Iran’s Nuclear Program
Ex-IAF General: Israel Capable Of Destroying Iran’s Nuclear Program, Breitbart, TEL AVIV 27 Mar 16 – The IDF is capable of destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities with a preemptive strike, the head of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) said on Saturday.
“The Israeli Air Force can meet the challenge of destroying Iran’s nuclear reactors if necessary,” Maj Gen (ret.) Amos Yadlin said in a speech reported by Channel 10 news.
Yadlin, who served as an IAF commander as well as the IDF’s military attaché to Washington, stated that if Israel were to find itself at an “intersection where you have to choose between two alternatives: One is whether Iran will have a bomb and we do nothing … and the second is whether to conduct a preemptive action to prevent Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon,” then Israel would be capable of destroying the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities.
Yadlin also made reference to similar operations in the past that met with success. These include Operation Opera, in which Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981, and the destruction of a Syrian nuclear facility in 2007.
He noted that both operations drew sharp criticism of Israel, even though the country never claimed responsibility in the case of Syria……..http://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2016/03/27/ex-iaf-general-israel-capable-of-destroying-iranian-nuclear-program/
Video from North Korea depicts Nuclear Strike on Washington
North Korean Propaganda Video Depicts Nuclear Strike on Washington, NYT By CHOE SANG- HUNMARCH 26, 2016 SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea released a propaganda video on Saturday that depicts a nuclear strike on Washington, along with a warning to “American imperialists” not to provoke the North.
The four-minute video clip, titled “Last Chance,” uses computer animation to show what looks like an intercontinental ballistic missile flying through the earth’s atmosphere before slamming into Washington, near what appears to be the Lincoln Memorial. A nuclear explosion follows.
“If the American imperialists provoke us a bit, we will not hesitate to slap them with a pre-emptive nuclear strike,” read the Korean subtitles in the video, which was uploaded to the YouTube channel of D.P.R.K. Today, a North Korean website. “The United States must choose! It’s up to you whether the nation called the United States exists on this planet or not.”
Such remarks are in line with recent threats and assertions from North Korea about its nuclear and missile capabilities………http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/world/asia/north-korea-propaganda-video-nuclear-strike.html?_r=0
Russia funding and building new nuclear power station in Finland
Russian nuclear corporation to start construction of Hanhikivi NPP in Finland in 2017 http://tass.ru/en/economy/864293 NOVO-OGAREVO, March 22. /TASS/. Construction of the Hanhikivi 1 nuclear power plant in Finland to be implemented by the Russian nuclear corporation Rosatom will start in 2017. Such information is contained in materials for the working visit of Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto to Moscow.The power plant is expected to start generating electric power in 2024.
In December 2013, Rusatom Overseas [Rosatom’s subsidiary – TASS] and Finnish Fennovoima signed the contract for construction of Hanhikivi-1 nuclear power plant. Along with the construction contract, a ten-year fuel contract was signed with Russia’s company TVEL.
Russia’s revenues from the Hanhikivi-1 nuclear power plant project will amount to €17.5 bln , head of Rosatom Sergey Kiriyenko said earlier. Of this amount only taxes to the federal budget will exceed €3 bln, he added.
According to Finnish media, the project’s cost will reach €6-7 bln, of which €1.6 bln will be invested by Fennovoima and the rest by Rosatom. The commissioning of the new nuclear power plant is scheduled for 2024.
Rusatom Overseas is to supply 1,200Mt reactor for Hakhikivi-1.
Growing risk of nuclear war in Europe
Risk of nuclear war in Europe growing, warns Russian ex-minister, Reuters, BRUSSELS | BY ROBIN EMMOTT, 20 Mar 16, The East-West standoff over the Ukraine crisis has brought the threat of nuclear war in Europe closer than at any time since the 1980s, a former Russian foreign minister warned on Saturday.
“The risk of confrontation with the use of nuclear weapons in Europe is higher than in the 1980s,” said Igor Ivanov, Russia’s foreign minister from 1998 to 2004 and now head of a Moscow-based think-tank founded by the Russian government.
While Russia and the United States have cut their nuclear arsenals, the pace is slowing. As of January 2015, they had just over 7,000 nuclear warheads each, about 90 percent of world stocks, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
“We have less nuclear warheads, but the risk of them being used is growing,” Ivanov said at a Brussels event with the foreign ministers of Ukraine and Poland and a U.S. lawmaker.
NATO’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg has warned Russia of intimidating its neighbors with talk about nuclear weapons, publicly voicing concerns among Western officials.
MISSILE DEFENSE
Ivanov blamed a missile defense shield that the United States is setting up in Europe for raising the stakes. Part of that shield involves a site in Poland that is due to be operational in 2018. This is particularly sensitive for Moscow because it brings U.S. capabilities close to its border………http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-russia-idUSKCN0WL0EV
USA worried about weapons proliferation risks in China’s Nuclear Recycling plan
China’s Plans to Recycle Nuclear Fuel Raise Concerns U.S. energy secretary airs worries about proliferation risks ahead of nuclear-security summit WSJ, By BRIAN SPEGELE, 17 MAR 16, BEIJING—China’s plans to process spent nuclear fuel into plutonium that could be used in weapons is drawing concern from the U.S. that Beijing is heightening the risk of nuclear proliferation.
U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, in Beijing for talks, said Thursday that China’s plans to build a nuclear-recycling facility present challenges to global efforts to control the spread of potentially dangerous materials……..
Mr. Moniz’s comments marked a rare public expression by the Obama administration of concern over China’s reprocessing plans. The differences, which the governments have discussed privately, are being aired ahead of a visit by President Xi Jinping to Washington this month for a summit with President Barack Obama and other world leaders on nuclear security.
The issue comes down to the different choices countries make over how to handle potentially dangerous waste created by commercial nuclear reactors. In the U.S., spent fuel is treated as sensitive material and is stored, and reprocessing is banned out of proliferation concerns.
Elsewhere, including in France and Japan, spent fuel is recycled to extract plutonium to be used in nuclear reactors. The U.S.’s concern is that the bigger the stockpiles of plutonium, the higher the risk that some of it could be refined for use in nuclear weapons or taken by terrorists……
U.S. concerns about nuclear reprocessing and proliferation are particularly acute in the Asia-Pacific region, “where the perception is there is less international cooperation, less transparency,” said Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace………
larger Chinese stockpiles of isolated plutonium could prompt Japan, especially, to build up its caches.
Civilian plutonium stockpiles reached 271 metric tons by the end of 2014, up from around 150 metric tons in the 1990s, the International Panel on Fissile Materials, an independent group looking at nonproliferation policy, said in its latest annual report.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported in September that construction of China’s reprocessing facility may start in 2020 and take a decade to complete. The project is expected to have a processing capacity of 800 metric tons of spent fuel a year…..
Previously, the U.S. has questioned the economic viability of such projects, which are expensive to build and operate, as well as proliferation issues, Ernest Moniz said……
Mr. Hibbs from the Carnegie center said China’s decision to pursue reprocessing couldn’t be justified on economic or commercial grounds, given the billions of dollars needed to construct one large-scale facility. But China may be acting strategically, guaranteeing future fuel supply by recycling, he added.
Last June, state-owned China National Nuclear Corp. and France’sAreva SA agreed to speed up negotiations on building the facility. Areva didn’t respond to a request for comment on Mr. Moniz’s remarks and CNNC said its press officers weren’t available.
Write to Brian Spegele at brian.spegele@wsj.com http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-plans-to-recycle-nuclear-fuel-raise-concerns-1458228504
Political importance to world’s nuclear powers, of getting Hinkley project happening
“The governments of the UK, France, and China have invested huge amounts of political capital in seeing Hinkley Point C come to the point of construction,” he said.
“This political capital lies with the public, convincing them that nuclear is part of a low-carbon future; [with the] the financial institutions, convincing them that when the UK makes a decision it sticks to it and hence the UK is an investable proposition; and with international governments—when the UK makes an international agreement it is binding.”
The UK’s Next Nuclear Power Plant Could Collapse Before It’s Built Motherboard, BY NICOLE KOBIE 15 March 2016 The UK could face power outages and missing emissions targets if the nuclear plant isn’t built – but that doesn’t mean it should be
Nuclear power stations are always controversial, but the UK’s proposed Hinkley Point C is particularly so. It may well be the most expensive object ever built; it guarantees higher power bills; and it’s already taken down executives, despite construction yet to start.
Hinkley Point C is set to be the first new nuclear power station built in the UK since 1995, poised to hit the grid as older nuclear sites and coal are ditched. However, its high costs are now leaving the project—and the future of the UK’s power supply—in danger.
Set to be built in Somerset by energy company EDF, which is majority-owned by the French government, there’s a chance Hinkley Point C may collapse before it’s built, and it’s nothing to do with protesters or environmental complaints. The problem with Hinkley is money: its costs risen to £18 billion ($25 billion)—with some projecting the final cost to be £24 billion ($34 billion)—and EDF has yet to finalise funding. Though it is expected to sign off on the project soon, financial analysts stressed last week that EDF can’t afford to build it.
The delays may already cause shortages in the UK’s electricity supply as it’s currently planned, which would naturally worsen if the project fails to get off the ground. The plant is supposed to start operations in 2025, when several older nuclear sites are decommissioned and the deadline hits for shutting down coal plants. Tony Roulstone, a professor setting up the University of Cambridge’s new MPhil in nuclear energy, believes the project will take ten years to construct, and given work isn’t expected to start until 2018 or 2019, will miss its deadline. “This will put the UK in a difficult position because they were counting on electricity from Hinkley by 2025,” Roulstone said.
“As some have said, the UK does not have a plan B,” he added. “The AGRs [advanced gas-cooled reactors, which make up most of the UK power stations] will close down by 2030 and at that stage we would have just one nuclear power station, Sizewell B.”
Hinkley Point C is expected to provide 7 percent of the UK’s energy. At the moment, about a fifth of the UK’s power comes from the eight currently-operating nuclear plants, but seven of those are due to be decommissioned. That, alongside theplanned closure of coal plants, which make up 22 percent of our power today, led the Institution of Mechanical Engineers to claim in a report we could see a potential supply gap of 40 to 55 percent by 2025…………..
EDF is set to make a final decision on funding the project soon, ahead of a board meeting in April, after multiple delays. However, back in February the project’s director, Chris Bakken, stepped down to “pursue new professional opportunities,” and more recently the company’s finance director, Thomas Piquemal, departed, with rumours suggesting he believed the project would damage EDF’s finances too much.
The board-level turmoil might actually be a sign that EDF’s remaining executives plan to approve the project, according to Martin Freer, director of the Birmingham Centre of Nuclear Education and Research and a professor of physics at the University of Birmingham. “My take on the resignation of the chief of finance signals that the HPC [Hinkley Point C] decision is being pushed through against the judgement of financial caution,” Freer told me. “EDF are at a point in their history where they roll the dice and hope to be lucky.”
Roulstone noted that the new plant’s construction cost is the same as EDF’s capitalisation. “Only major sales of assets and/or funding by the French government can rescue EDF and hence Hinkley,” he said………
Freer suggested that there’s more than power supply and emissions targets at risk. “The governments of the UK, France, and China have invested huge amounts of political capital in seeing Hinkley Point C come to the point of construction,” he said. “This political capital lies with the public, convincing them that nuclear is part of a low-carbon future; [with the] the financial institutions, convincing them that when the UK makes a decision it sticks to it and hence the UK is an investable proposition; and with international governments—when the UK makes an international agreement it is binding.” http://motherboard.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-uks-next-nuclear-power-plant-could-collapse-before-its-built
Iran says that its missile tests don’t violate nuclear agreement, U.N. resolution
Iran: Missile tests don’t violate nuclear agreement, U.N. resolution John Bacon, USA TODAY March 10, Iran on Thursday rejected claims that missile tests conducted this week violate the nuclear agreement it reached with the U.S. and other nations or a United Nations resolution.
Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said the missiles were conventional armaments for “legitimate defense” and not designed for carrying nuclear warheads, the state-controlled IRNA news agency reported……..
The nuclear deal does not directly address missile restrictions. The U.N. Security Council lifted its ban on such testing when the deal was struck, but passed a resolution that “calls upon Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles … including launches using such ballistic missile technology.”……….. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/03/10/iran-missile-tests-violate-no-deals/81578348/
International Atomic Energy Agency reports that Iran is abiding by nuclear agreement
Iran Abiding by Nuclear Deal, UN Agency Says International Atomic Energy Agency’s report says Tehran keeping within limits of July agreement, WSJK By LAURENCE NORMAN Feb. 26, 2016 Iran has carried out most of its commitments under the nuclear agreement reached in July, the United Nations’ atomic agency said Friday, although for a time it exceeded the permitted amount of heavy water, which can be used to produce plutonium.
In its first report on Iran’s compliance deal since the agreement went into effect in mid-January, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran’s stock of heavy water had reached 130.9 tons, above the 130 tons limited permitted by the deal, the diplomats said.
However, the stockpile fell when Iran shipped 20 tons of heavy water out of the country on Wednesday. The IAEA verified the amount that was shipped, the report said.
One diplomat said the IAEA allows for a margin of error of 1 percentage point in such measurements, which means that Iran wasn’t technically over the limit…..
The nuclear deal saw Iran agree to scale back its nuclear activities and infrastructure in exchange for the lifting of tight, related sanctions imposed by the U.S., the European Union and the United Nations……. http://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-abiding-by-nuclear-deal-un-agency-says-1456515699
USA govt’s position: its nuclear companies should be exempt from civil or criminal liability
How American Penalties Dwarf the Liability US Nuclear Firms Will Face in India, The Wire BY AMIT BHANDARI, INDIASPEND.ORG ON 21/02/2016 A $48-billion (Rs 3.26 lakh crore) penalty claimed by the US government from Volkswagen for cheating on diesel-car emissions is about 200 times as large as the $225 million (Rs 1,500 crore) insurance pool set up by Indian insurance companies to compensate US nuclear companies for mishaps in India.
If a US nuclear company were to build a reactor in India that suffered a catastrophe, and people were to die in India, the US government’s position seems to be that American suppliers shouldn’t face
. The US believes the Indian civil nuclear liability law, which calls for both penalties, is unduly harsh. Rather than say so directly, US officials keep repeating that the “Indian law is inconsistent with the international liability regime.”
The Indian civil nuclear liability law holds the equipment supplier responsible for any incident caused by the supplier or its employees. The Indian liability law differs from those of other countries because it was drafted keeping in mind the 1984 Bhopal tragedy – where despite 5,000 deaths and effects across generations, no one was held criminally liable.
Although the Indian government wants to protect US nuclear companies against the Indian liability law, critics argued that these companies are using India’s eagerness to avoid any liability, if something goes wrong…….
Indian firms also fined in the US
While the US nuclear industry wants to avoid any liability in India for acts of omission or commission, Indian companies have often been slapped with large fines for violations of US law.
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