US Republican Senators undermine nuclear talks: reactions from Iran and White House
Iran condemns ‘untrustworthy’ America as Senate letter casts doubt over nuclear deal Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, warns that the letter from 47 Republican Senators “could become a spanner in the works” of nuclear talks Telegraph By David Blair, and Peter Foster in Washington 10 Mar 2015Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, warned that the letter “could become a spanner in the works” of the negotiations, due to resume on Monday, with an “unpredictable effect on opinion” inside Iran.
The US senators sent an unprecedented “open letter” to the “leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran”, warning that a future US president might “revoke” any agreement on the country’s nuclear programme “with the stroke of a pen”. Continue reading
USA Republicans tried to derail Iran nuclear talks
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, also poured derision on the Republican letter in a statement expressing astonishment that members of Congress would seek to undermine a US administration by writing directly to a foreign power, and suggesting that the letter’s authors had much to learn about international and even US law.
However, the sharpest reaction to Monday’s open letter came from the White House. President Obama accused its 47 Republican signatories of “wanting to make common cause with the hardliners in Iran”.
The US vice-president, Joseph Biden, said the letter, drafted by Tom Cotton, a freshman senator from Arkansas, was “expressly designed to undercut a sitting president in the midst of sensitive international negotiations”.
It was “beneath the dignity of the institution I revere”, Biden said in a statement. Continue reading
we will need to reduce the power and influence of the fossil fuel companies, kicking their representatives out of government and moving subsidies away from polluting fuels and towards clean energy. Divestment campaigns shouldn’t just call for an end to fossil fuel funding but galvanize a shift in public investments into cleaner alternatives: not corporate renewable schemes but community energy, sustainable local transport and energy efficiency projects.
We can’t just sit back and expect the falling price of solar and wind to sweep away the old energy order. Renewable energy could be a powerful tool for dismantling the current failed system – but we need to use it wisely, and not let it fall into the wrong hands!
Whose renewable future? New Internationalist MARCH 2015 Is big business poised to capture the renewables revolution? Danny Chivers draws up the battle lines. “……..This increasing reliance on companies, not governments, as providers of energy services and infrastructure is driven by a global economic system based on market ‘liberalization’, profit maximization and endless growth. It’s a trend that we need to reverse if we want renewable energy truly to be a force for good.
Luckily, alternative models are appearing all over the world. Renewable energy co-operatives have hundreds of thousands of members and are building and installing their own solar, wind and small-scale hydro projects from Indonesia to Costa Rica. Continue reading
German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Japan to discuss renewable energy co-operation
Merkel to discuss Germany’s nuclear exit, cooperation on renewable energy during Japan trip, Fox Business, March 07, 2015 BERLIN – German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she plans to use her upcoming trip to Japan to discuss how Berlin and Tokyo can cooperate to expand the use of renewable energy.
Merkel will visit Japan on Monday and Tuesday as part of a series of bilateral meetings with G-7 leaders ahead of a June summit in Germany.
Germany sped up its exit from nuclear energy after Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011.
Merkel said in a weekly online address Saturday that Germany was “now strongly emphasizing renewable energy. And I believe Japan should go down this road too — and it is.”….http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/03/07/merkel-to-discuss-germany-nuclear-exit-cooperation-on-renewable-energy-during/
UK and 7 other EU countries want funding to prop up their nuclear industry
UK joins Romanian push for new EU nuclear aid package Guardian, Arthur Neslen, 5 Mar 15 UK and seven other EU countries call on commission for increased nuclear aid funding and support to help meet climate targets and energy security objectives. The UK and seven other countries last month called for a new package of nuclear aid funding and support, in a letter sent to the commission ahead of the EU’s energy union policy launch.The letter, seen by the Guardian, calls for new EU financing mechanisms for nuclear as a low carbon technology, and research and innovation initiatives to deal with the costly and unresolved issues of nuclear waste and decommissioning.
New state aid guidelines are also needed, it says, and these should be based on past EU decisions, including the approval of the UK’s planned Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in Somerset……..
The letter to the commission’s vice president Sefkovic and climate commissioner Miguel Cañete was signed by the Romanian energy minister, Andrei Gerea, on behalf of ministers in seven other countries including the UK, France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Slovenia and Slovakia.
The ministers’ core argument is that many countries would not be able to cost-effectively meet EU climate targets and energy security objectives, without bloc support for new nuclear plant builds and the maintenance of existing reactors.
The cost-effectiveness argument is key, as minutes of a commissioner’s discussion seen by the Guardian indicate that the UK’s planned £17.6bn subsidy for Hinkley was cleared by Brussels partly on the basis that it would have been too expensive to organise a competitive tendering process.
The competition commissioner of the time, Joaquín Almunia, told other commissioners that “the specificities of nuclear technology made it impossible to achieve full competition between operators, at least at the time of the HPC project. For a project like the present one, the costs of preparing a project bid are so considerable that it would seem almost impossible to organise an open and transparent bidding process with several bidders.”
The minutes show that the EU decision largely rested on the imputed common interest in advancing nuclear power outlined in the Euratom treaty. But Hinkley’s approval was resisted by the commission’s environment and climate directorates who argued that it called into question the bloc’s ‘technology neutrality’ and would create market distortions.
“This is really about state aid which is supposed to be for new technologies that haven’t proved themselves viable yet. But nuclear energy has had 70 years and still has not been able to prove itself viable, even when the public pays for its waste disposal and decommissioning. It should not be eligible for subsidies,” said Molly Scott Cato, the Green MEP for South West England and Gibraltar………http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/04/uk-joins-romanian-push-for-new-eu-nuclear-aid-package
Omissions in Netanyahu’s biased speech to US Congress about Iran nuclear negotiations
What Netanyahu left out of his speech to Congress http://warincontext.org/ 03/06/2015
Gary Sick lists five significant omissions: 1. Iran has dramatically reduced its stockpile of enriched uranium. Remember Bibi’s cartoon bomb that was going to go off last summer? Well, it has been drained of fuel, and that will probably continue to be true indefinitely. No mention.
2. Inspections will continue long after the nominal 10-year point, contrary to his claim that everything expires in ten years. No mention.
3. The heavy water reactor at Arak will be permanently modified, so it produces near zero plutonium. Not only did he not mention it, but he listed the reactor and plutonium as one of his threats.
4. His repeated assertion that Iran is actively seeking nuclear weapons ignores the judgment “with high confidence” of both American and Israeli intelligence that Iran has taken no decision to build nuclear weapons. It also contradicts the repeated findings of the IAEA that no materials have been diverted for military purposes.
5. All the major countries of the world are co-negotiators with the United States, so a U.S. congressional intervention that killed the deal will not only affect us but all of our major allies. If we stiff them, there is no reason to believe the international sanctions will hold for long. No mention.
Absolute NO to tax-payer funded nuclear power
Germany says using tax money for nuclear power ‘out of the question’ BY BARBARA LEWIS AND TOM KOERKEMEIER BRUSSELS Thu Mar 5, 2015 (Reuters) – Using taxpayers’ money to fund nuclear power is “absolutely out of the question”, German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Thursday, in an apparent swipe at British plans to finance new atomic generation.
Gabriel was arriving for talks in Brussels on the European Commission’s proposal for an energy union, which would deepen cross-border cooperation on energy across the 28-member EU…….
“There are countries in the EU that want to support nuclear power with tax money. We think that is absolutely out of the question,” Gabriel said.
“We will not agree by any means that nuclear energy be supported by public money. Nuclear energy is the most expensive kind of generation. It has now been around for 50 years, it is not new and it is dangerous.”
Gabriel did not directly mention Britain’s plans to finance new nuclear generation to be built by French utility EDF at Hinkley Point in southwest England.
The European Commission last year approved state aid for the 16 billion pound ($25 billion) plan, drawing fierce criticism and legal action from those who say the subsidy distorts competition.
On Wednesday, a German energy cooperative announced it would take legal action against Britain’s plan to pay a guaranteed price for power produced at Hinkley Point….. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/05/us-eu-energy-nuclear-idUSKBN0M115Q20150305
Theatrics by Israel’s Netanyahu highlight the need for a nuclear agreement with Iran
brings negotiators together, Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/world/julian-borger-global-security-blog/2015/mar/05/iran-nuclear-talks-very-close-to-a-deal-as-netanyahu-brings-negotiators-together Julian Borger, American and Iranian diplomats find common ground rejecting Israeli leader’s combative approach to negotiations, but also agree serious hurdles remain to meeting March deadline. The long and convoluted negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme adjourned on Wednesday amid talk of continuing progress towards a comprehensive deal but of tough political decisions still to be made.The talks will resume on March 15, probably in Geneva, as the latest deadline for agreement looms at the end of the month.
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif said a deal was “very close”,telling NBC that he and his team were prepared to carry on working through the Persian New Year celebration of Nowruz starting on March 21. Continue reading
Iran’s leaders – pragmatic, not fanatic
Iran’s Leaders Are Not Suicidal Critics of a nuclear deal claim the regime in Tehran is fanatical. Where’s their evidence?, The Atlantic PETER BEINART MAR 2 2015, “……..Through its proxies, Iran is fighting a regional cold war. And like the United States, U.S.S.R., and China when they were fighting their global cold war, it is doing so in a distinctly non-suicidal way. Iran is seeking to extend its power without doing something so aggressive that it provokes retaliation that imperils the regime’s survival. Iran isn’t doing truly reckless things like invading a Saudi ally in the Persian Gulf or launching chemical or biological weapons at Israel, either directly or through its terrorist proxies. And it never has. This is a regime, after all, that accepted a UN-sponsored ceasefire rather than fight to the death against Saddam’s Iraq and that cooperated with the United States to depose the Taliban.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks up for the nuclear negotiations between the Westand Iran
U.S. deserves ‘benefit of the doubt’ on getting Iran nuclear deal, Kerry says BY WILL DUNHAM AND DIANE BARTZ WASHINGTON Sun Mar 1, 2015 (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry pressed the case on Sunday for completing nuclear diplomacy with Iran despite Israeli opposition, saying the United States deserves the benefit of the doubt on getting a deal that would prevent any need for military action to curb Tehran’s atomic ambitions.
Two days before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to address the U.S. Congress to warn against an Iran deal, Kerry delivered a stout defense of talks that are entering a critical phase with a key March 31 deadline looming.
Kerry said he hoped Netanyahu’s speech does not turn into “some great political football” but said the Israeli leader is “welcome to speak in the United States, obviously.”
Six powers – the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany – are negotiating with Iran toward an agreement to restrain Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for easing economic sanctions. Netanyahu has spoken scathingly about a possible deal and says a nuclear-armed Iran would pose an existential threat to the Jewish state.
Netanyahu was invited to speak by Republican congressional leaders, but they did not inform President Barack Obama’s administration about the speech in advance. Signs are growing that the speech could damage Israel’s country’s broad alliance with the United States.
In an interview with the ABC program “This Week,” Kerry said of the Iran negotiations: “It is better to do this by diplomacy than to have to do a strategy militarily which you would have to repeat over and over again and which everybody believes ought to be after you have exhausted all the diplomatic remedies.”
Kerry said he could not promise that a deal can be reached, but said that “we are going to test whether or not diplomacy can prevent this weapon from being created.”…..http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/01/us-usa-israel-kerry-idUSKBN0LX1HJ20150301
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu trying to undermine Iran nuclear talks?
Iran’s Zarif says Netanyahu trying to undermine nuclear talks DUBAI Sun Mar 1, 2015 (Reuters) – Iran’s foreign minister has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of trying to undermine Iran’s negotiations towards a nuclear deal with world powers in order to distract from the Palestinian question.
Netanyahu is due to speak against a potential nuclear deal between Iran and the United States before U.S. Congress on Tuesday. His planned appearance, on invitation from the Republicans, has angered U.S. officials for its partisan nature and is likely to worsen his already frosty relations with President Barack Obama as well as undermine the wider U.S.-Israel alliance…….http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/01/us-iran-nuclear-zarif-idUSKBN0LX1IJ20150301
Nuclear deal could work well for both Iran and the West
Win-win nuclear deal for Rowhani and Obama, Al Arabiya News Friday, 27 February 2015 Iran and the six world powers (known as the P5+1: the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia and China) are planning to meet next Monday to finalize the outline for the final accord. The prolonged nuclear negotiations between the two sides resumed last week in Geneva in order to limit Iran’s nuclear program.
The Islamic Republic has added Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) and former foreign minister under the hardline government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Respectively, the United States has brought Ernest J. Moniz, the U.S. energy secretary, to the nuclear negotiations.
The addition of Moniz and Salehi, and the high-level official meetings, reflect the critical stage of the nuclear talks as well as the efforts of both the American and Iranian government to reach a general outline that would preserve their geopolitical, national, and strategic interests……..http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2015/02/27/Win-win-nuclear-deal-for-Rowhani-and-Obama.html
India-Pakistan tensions – how easily a terror attack could trigger nuclear war
Major terror attack against India could trigger nuclear war: experts http://www.deccanchronicle.com/150226/world-neighbours/article/major-terror-attack-against-india-could-trigger-nuclear-war-experts PTI | February 26, 2015, Washington: Pakistan may use nuclear weapons against India if the latter goes for a large scale military assault against it in retaliation for a major terror attack emanating from across the border, two top American experts have warned US lawmakers.
Given the presence of a strong government in New Delhi and the pressure on it from Indian citizens in the event of a repeat of 26/11 type terror attack, the ties between the two neighbours have greater danger of escalating towards a devastating nuclear warfare, in particular from Pakistan.
Such a dangerous scenario can only be avoided by the US working with Islamabad to ensure that there is no further large scale terror attack on India emanating from Pakistan, two top American experts. George Perkovich and Ashley Tellis, told members of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committe and Sub committee on Strategic Forces during a hearing yesterday. Continue reading
Potential for transforming relationships with Iran, with nuclear talks, says EU Foreign-Policy Chief
EU Foreign-Policy Chief Sees Progress on Iran Nuclear Talks Mogherini says an accord could transform ties with Tehran WSJ By LAURENCE NORMANFeb. 26, 2015 BRUSSELS—Nuclear talks between Iran and six major powers are getting close to agreement after more than a decade of diplomacy, the European Union’s foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Thursday.Senior U.S. officials on Monday said there was progress during weekend discussions as Iran and the six powers—the U.S., France, Germany, the U.K., Russia and China—seek to agree on the framework of a final agreement by the end of March. The deadline for the full, detailed agreement is June 30.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said this week that the six powers should know soon whether a deal was attainable. However, officials have warned that significant gaps remain in the diplomacy, which aims to ensure Tehran can’t quickly amass enough material for a nuclear bomb in return for phasing out tough international sanctions.
Asked if she believed the two sides were coming close to a deal, Ms. Mogherini said, “Yes, we are getting close.”…..http://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-six-powers-near-nuclear-deal-1424975896
U.N. report shows that Iran has ceased advanced nuclear centrifuge testing
Iran has stopped questionable nuclear centrifuge testing: IAEA– Daily Star, 20 Feb 15 VIENNA: Iran has refrained from expanding tests of more efficient models of a machine used to refine uranium under a nuclear agreement with six world powers, a U.N. report shows, allaying concerns it might be violating the accord.“The disconnection reflects Iran addressing concerns about its enrichment [of uranium],” said the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), which closely tracks Iran’s nuclear program.
“The disconnection provides additional confidence that Iran is abiding by its commitments under the Joint Plan of Action,” it said, referring to the 2013 agreement………. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/Feb-20/288170-iran-has-stopped-questionable-nuclear-centrifuge-testing-iaea.ashx#sthash.P1yKqZWQ.dpuf
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PLEASE OPPOSE HR 8255 AND S.3639 – bills would accelerate satellite deployment, with no environmental review or safeguards – https://ncstd5li.quorum.us/campaign/169331/
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