Nuclear liability issues not yet resolved for Jaitapur project: French company EDF
Delays despite assurances by Minister Jitendra Singh that all technical, commercial, legal issues would be sorted by “early 2023”
The Hindu, SUHASINI HAIDAR April 24, 2023
Two years after the French energy company Electricite de France (EDF) submitted its techno-commercial offer for the construction of six nuclear power reactors in Maharashtra’s Jaitapur, talks between Indian and French officials over several issues, including liability, have not resulted in any breakthrough yet.
According to sources in Delhi and Paris, the talks over the high cost of power per unit has also become a major issue in the conclusion of the agreement for the 9,900 MW project, which is the world’s biggest nuclear power generation site under consideration at present.
“The topic [of liability] has been discussed between the French and Indian governments and my understanding is that it is progressing towards convergence. It is a key topic for France and the EDF, and so this topic would have to be solved before any contract can be signed,” an EDF official said in response to a question from The Hindu, as part of a presentation to a larger group of international journalists invited to Paris.
The statement is significant, as in October 2022, the Minister of Space and Atomic Energy, and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (MoS PMO), Jitendra Singh, promised an early resolution to all the issues, within months………………..
PM to visit Paris in July……………………
The EDF official, who requested not to be identified, but spoke on behalf of the company, said that the issue, arising from India’s Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act that India passed in 2010, remains an item on the “agenda for both countries”. India’s CLND Act, which was brought in addition to the International Convention on Supplementary Compensation (CSC), is considered excessive by foreign companies, which could be liable to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in the event of a nuclear accident. As a result, despite signing civil nuclear deals with a number of countries, including the U.S, France and Japan, the only foreign presence in India is that of Russia in Kudankulam, projects that predate the Law.
A recent report in Al Jazeera also points to the fact that despite planning an insurance pool of ₹1,500 crores ($200 million) in 2015, the government’s ‘India Nuclear Insurance Pool” (INIP) has only been able to collect about half, ₹700 crore-₹800 crore, thus far. Concerns over safety after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, prompted Germany to switch off its last nuclear power reactor this month.
Another factor will be the time taken by the Jaitapur project, for which the original MoU was signed in 2009 with EDF’s predecessor Areva. In 2016, EDF and NPCIL signed a revised MoU, and in 2018, the heads of both signed an agreement on the “industrial way forward” in the presence of Mr. Modi and Mr. Macron. However, officials said nuclear projects do take time, pointing to EDF’s latest construction of an EPR in Finland, Olkiluoto 3. Its work began in 2005 and was completed after a delay of about 14 years, finally starting regular production on April 16 this year. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/nuclear-liability-issues-not-yet-resolved-for-jaitapur-project-french-company-edf/article66774668.ece
S.Korea’s Yoon to meet Biden as doubts grow over nuclear umbrella
By Hyonhee Shin, SEOUL, April 24 (Reuters) – South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol set off on Monday for the for the United States and a summit with President Joe Biden at a time of rare questioning in South Korea of an alliance that has guaranteed its security for decades.
………….. as North Korea races ahead with the development of nuclear weapons and missiles to carry them, there are growing questions in South Korea about the relying on “extended deterrence”, in essence the American nuclear umbrella, and calls, even from some senior members of Yoon’s party, for South Korea to develop its own nuclear weapons.
A recent poll by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies showed that more than 54% of respondents believed the U.S. would not risk its safety to protect its Asian ally.
More than 64% supported South Korea developing its own nuclear weapons, with about 33% opposed.
Yoon has been pushing to boost South Korea’s say in operating the U.S. extended deterrence but exactly what that might entail has not been spelt out…………… https://www.reuters.com/world/skoreas-yoon-meet-biden-doubts-grow-over-nuclear-umbrella-2023-04-24/
Three nuclear superpowers, rather than two, usher in a new strategic era
Beijing and Moscow point to the overhaul as a motivating factor for their own upgrades. Arms controllers see a spiral of moves and countermoves that threatens to raise the risk of miscalculation and war.
BY DAVID E. SANGER, WILLIAM J. BROAD AND CHRIS BUCKLEY, THE NEW YORK TIMES Apr 23, 2023
WASHINGTON – On the Chinese coast, just 215 kilometers (135 miles) from Taiwan, Beijing is preparing to start a new reactor the Pentagon sees as delivering fuel for a vast expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal, potentially making it an atomic peer of the United States and Russia. The reactor, known as a fast breeder, excels at making plutonium, a top fuel of atom bombs.
The nuclear material for the reactor is being supplied by Russia, whose Rosatom nuclear giant has in the past few months completed the delivery of 25 tons of highly enriched uranium to get production started. That deal means that Russia and China are now cooperating on a project that will aid their own nuclear modernizations and, by the Pentagon’s estimates, produce arsenals whose combined size could dwarf that of the United States.
………………………………………………………………“By the 2030s the United States will, for the first time in its history, face two major nuclear powers as strategic competitors and potential adversaries,” the Pentagon said last fall in a policy document. “This will create new stresses on stability and new challenges for deterrence, assurance, arms control, and risk reduction.”
………………………………………………… The dynamic is, indeed, more complicated now — the Cold War involved only two major players, the United States and the Soviet Union; China was an afterthought. Its force of 200 or so nuclear weapons was so small that it barely figured into the discussion, and Beijing never participated in the major arms control treaties.
…………………………….Deepening tensions between Beijing and Washington appear to have hardened Xi’s judgment that China must counter “all-around containment,” including with a more robust nuclear deterrent……………………………………………………………
In Russia and the U.S., rolling out new weapons
…………………………… The Pentagon sees at least one of the emerging weapons as potentially threatening, in part because it could, if perfected, outwit the United States’ anti-missile defenses. The weapon is a long-range nuclear-powered undersea torpedo that, once unleashed, could move autonomously toward one of the nation’s coasts. Its warhead, as described by Russia, would create “areas of wide radioactive contamination that would be unsuitable for military, economic, or other activity for long periods of time.” Kristensen said the torpedo was close to operational.
For its part, the Biden administration has announced plans to make the first new warhead for the nation’s nuclear arsenal since the Cold War — an update that the White House says is long overdue for safety reasons. The weapon, for submarine missiles, is a small part of a gargantuan overhaul of the nation’s complex of atomic bases, plants, bombers, submarines and land-based missiles. Its 30-year cost could reach $2 trillion.
Beijing and Moscow point to the overhaul as a motivating factor for their own upgrades. Arms controllers see a spiral of moves and countermoves that threatens to raise the risk of miscalculation and war.
Like all top nuclear arms, the new warhead, known as the W93, is thermonuclear. That means a small atom bomb at its core acts as a match to ignite the weapon’s hydrogen fuel, which can produce blasts a thousand times stronger than the Hiroshima bomb. The atomic triggers are usually made of plutonium. Experts say that is true of Beijing’s arsenal and explains its building of breeder reactors.
The United States has about 40 tons of plutonium left over from the Cold War that is available for weapons and needs no more. It is, however, building two new plants that can fashion the old plutonium into triggers for refurbished and new thermonuclear arms, such as the W93. Recently, the agency that does investigations for Congress estimated the new plants could cost up to $24 billion.
Many arms-controllers decry the new facilities. They say Washington has in storage at least 20,000 plutonium triggers from retired hydrogen bombs and that some of them, if needed, could be recycled.
Despite such criticism, the Biden administration is pushing ahead, insisting that trigger recycling is risky. Jennifer M. Granholm, the energy secretary, has declared the new plants essential for “a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent.”
………………………….. “We don’t know what to do,” said Henry D. Sokolski, a former Pentagon official who now leads the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. “What’s the response to this — do we just build more, and are we going to be able to build many more than they are?” https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/04/23/world/china-russia-us-nuclear-arsenal-buildup/
G7’s statement on nuclear issue hypocritical and pale
By Da Zhigang
As a diplomatic barometer for the upcoming Group of Seven (G7) summit to be held in Hiroshima next month, the G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting concluded recently. It is worth noting that the tone of this G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting was filled with an increasingly strong tone, and the subtext of the agenda was also permeated with a nervy atmosphere.
……………………………………………………..finding new excuses to demonize China has become a consensus among the G7 countries. Against the backdrop of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the increasing new sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Europe on Russia, and the increasingly complex and changing international situation, it is easy to find fault with China. Therefore, the new excuse targeting China’s nuclear weapons has emerged. In fact, the U.S. possesses the largest and most advanced nuclear arsenal in the world, and it has deployed nuclear weapons in many of its allies. In recent years, the U.S. has been engaged in strategic nuclear deterrence and the expansion of nuclear sharing while withdrawing from and violating multiple international arms control agreements in the global military control field.
Secondly, the emphasis on the so-called Chinese nuclear weapons issue highlights the hypocrisy of the G7’s advocacy of nuclear disarmament. The joint statement of the G7 foreign ministers repeatedly emphasized that member countries have reached consensus on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation and confirmed that the G7 will promote corresponding measures. As the rotating chair of this G7 foreign ministers’ meeting and next month’s Hiroshima Summit, Japan has once again promoted the initiative to build a World without Nuclear Weapons based on the Hiroshima Action Plan and the historical experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki being bombed with atomic bombs. This move has been welcomed by other G7 members.
However, when we peel off the clamor of nuclear disarmament and a World without Nuclear Weapons, we seem to see more clearly the hypocritical intentions outlined in the joint statement of the G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting. This can be seen from the establishment of the AUKUS security alliance by the U.S., Australia, and the UK. The open transfer of nuclear submarine power reactors and weapons-grade highly enriched uranium to Australia clearly violates the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
……………………………………..There is no doubt that China has always firmly followed the nuclear strategy of self-defense, adhered to the policy of no first use of nuclear weapons, and kept its nuclear force at the minimum level required to maintain national security. China is the only country among the five nuclear-weapon states to have made this pledge. The G7 selectively ignores China’s solemn commitment, tramples on China’s image of peaceful development, as well as the concept of international peace and development.
…………………………………………… Pointing fingers at other countries’ strategic security while downplaying their own military control obligations, the joint statement of the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting pointed at the so-called “China’s nuclear weapons issue” and made irresponsible remarks. The international community disagrees with this today, and so will it in the future.
(The author is a researcher at the Institute of Northeast Asian Studies at Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Social Sciences and the chief expert of the Northeast Asia Strategic Research Institute.) http://eng.chinamil.com.cn/OPINIONS_209196/Opinions_209197/16219295.html
French-Russian nuclear relations turn radioactive
Ukraine and several EU countries want France to cut commercial ties with Russia’s atomic sector.
Politico, BY VICTOR JACK, APRIL 20, 2023
BRUSSELS — Pressure is building on France to fully cut ties with Russia’s atomic sector as the EU mulls its latest sanctions package against Moscow.
The European Commission is set to meet with diplomats from the EU’s 27 member countries on Friday to start discussions on the bloc’s 11th round of Russia sanctions. Hitting Moscow’s state-run nuclear company Rosatom — a divisive issue for some EU countries reliant on Russia for nuclear fuel — is likely come under the spotlight once again.
That means increased scrutiny of France’s ties to Rosatom, the Moscow-based atomic firm…………………………..
“I am sure” that Paris has a moral duty to encourage its state-backed companies to cut ties with Rosatom, Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushchenko told POLITICO last month, adding that Kyiv wants all EU countries with links to Russian’s nuclear industry to cut them.
“All of our public scrutiny has been on Germany and not so much on France,” for ties with Russia, said a diplomat from one EU country, who spoke on condition of anonymity, “whereas I think if you look closely … they haven’t been the best kid in the class either.”…………………………………………..
Paris and Moscow’s nuclear ties, which date back to the Cold War, are most apparent in the links between Rosatom and state-controlled EDF, France’s largest utility that runs the country’s nuclear fleet. It signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Rosatom on green hydrogen in 2021, as well as a joint declaration to develop research cooperation.
The Rosatom spokesperson called it “a win-win partnership” that is “a driver of development both in the field of nuclear energy and scientific projects.”……………………….
When Rosatom builds a nuclear plant abroad, it often relies on technology from French companies — typically spending up to €1 billion per project, Faudon said. Those orders usually include command and control systems from Framatome, which is majority-owned by EDF.
Framatome has an ongoing role in Russian nuclear construction projects around the world, including at Paks. The company aims to set up a joint venture with Rosatom to produce nuclear fuel in western Germany, a project that has been sharply criticized by local authorities.
The French firm also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Rosatom in December 2021 to expand collaboration on fuel fabrication and other technologies.
Framatome didn’t comment on its ongoing contracts but with reference to the 2021 agreement, a company spokesperson said: “Everything has been postponed until further notice,” adding that Framatome will “re-examine the agreement if and when that is appropriate.”
EDF declined to comment…………………………..
And while France isn’t dependent on Russia for its nuclear fuel and security of supply, it bought enriched uranium worth €359 million from Moscow last year, more than three times the amount it bought in 2021.
It’s not the only such sale to the West. The U.S. bought $830 million of enriched uranium from Russia last year. Moscow also supplies fuel to reactors in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Slovakia and Hungary…………………
In February, the European Parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling on Rosatom to face sanctions. ……………………………….
https://www.politico.eu/article/french-russian-nuclear-relations-radioactive-rosatom-sanctions/
Chinese Diplomacy Seen as Threat to US ‘Peace,’ ‘Stability’
FAIR, GREGORY SHUPAK 21 Apr 23
China has undertaken a diplomatic blitz that has seen it broker a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, warm relations with France, and put forth a proposal to end the war in Ukraine. US media coverage of these developments has involved illusion-peddling about America’s potentially waning empire, and calls for the US to escalate what amounts to a new cold war with China.
In Foreign Policy (3/14/23), Michael McFaul and Abbas Milani say that China “now shares the burden of keeping the peace in the Middle East. This is not an easy assignment, as the United States has learned bitterly over the decades.”
The US has done the opposite of “keeping the peace in the Middle East.” Nor has it sought to, as the Iraqi case makes tragically clear. Since the US-led 2003 invasion, Brown University’s Costs of War Project notes,………………………………………………………
Power = ‘peace’
Walter Russell Mead of the Wall Street Journal (3/27/23) claimed that while “American power” results in “peace and prosperity,” “challengers like China, Russia and Iran undermine the stability of the American order.” “Peace” and “stability” must seem like odd ways of characterizing that order to, say, Libyans, who had their country flattened by a US-led intervention (Jacobin, 9/12/13), and endured years of a brutal war, and even slavery.
David Ignatius of the Washington Post (3/16/23) asserted that
if Chinese President Xi Jinping wants to take on the role of restraining Iran and reassuring Saudi Arabia, good luck to him. The United States has been trying since 1979 to bend the arc of the Iranian revolution toward stability.
Washington supported Iraq’s invasion of Iran, to the point of helping Iraq use chemical weapons against the country. The US has also levied sanctions that have immiserated the country, undercutting Iranians’ access to food and medicine. Describing such aggression as attempts to engender “stability” inverts reality—to say nothing of Ignatius’ strange desire to “reassur[e]” Washington’s execution-happy longtime client in Riyadh.
In the case of the war that turned Yemen into the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, McFaul and Milani exculpate the US, writing that “the Biden administration, supported by other countries with a commitment to stopping this war, helped negotiate a truce.”
Like McFaul and Milani, Ignatius accuses China of “harvest[ing] the goodwill” after the US allegedly “laid the groundwork for a settlement of the horrific war in Yemen.” This omits the rather salient point that the United States is a major reason the war has gone on for as long as it has, with as high a price as it has had for Yemenis.
The Obama, Trump and Biden administrations prolonged and escalated the war……………………………………………………………………..
Looking just at wars in this century, the United States carried out a 20-year occupation of Afghanistan, and its troops remain in Iraq 20 years after it invaded and overthrew that country’s government. US troops still occupy parts of Syria against the will of that country’s government. Washington has carried out bombing campaigns against Libya, as noted, as well as Somalia and Pakistan.
Given that it is also the “major patron” of Israel, which invaded Lebanon in the relevant period (on top of occupying and annexing Syrian and Palestinian land), and of Saudi Arabia, the main aggressor against Yemen, there’s a strong case to be made that Uncle Sam is the world’s “most destabilizing state.”
If China overtakes the US’s position atop the global order, it’s uncertain exactly what the world system will look like. What is clear, however, is that US hegemony has been “anything but peaceful.”
It’s High Time the US Signed a Peace Treaty with North Korea
Halt the Endless and Futile Condemnation of the DPRK
by Alice Slater* 21 Apr 23, https://www.indepthnews.net/index.php/armaments/nuclear-weapons/6110-it-s-high-time-the-us-signed-a-peace-treaty-with-north-korea
NEW YORK, 21 April 2023 (IDN) — It is far beyond hypocrisy for the US and its allies to condemn North Korea for testing a long-range missile when the US boasts about its Air Force Global Strike Command of more than 33,700 Airmen and civilians responsible for the nation’s three intercontinental ballistic missile wings capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
Indeed, a US Minute Man Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (IBM) was tested this past February, with another scheduled for this August.
The 1950-1953 Korean War is the longest-standing US conflict. It has never actually ended. It was only suspended by a truce and armistice between North Korea, representing the Korean People’s Army and the Chinese People’s Volunteers and the United States, representing the multinational UN Command.
During this endless armistice, we have had US troops stationed in South Korea, amassed on North Korea’s border, organizing “war games” and manoeuvres with South Korean troops in a continuous series of threats over the years against a heavily armed North Korea.
Various peace initiatives were contemplated, but the US withdrew from them or didn’t follow through. During those years, North Korea persisted in requesting a peace treaty, offering to stop enriching “peaceful” reactor material to bomb-grade in return for a lifting of punishing sanctions that were causing great stress and poverty to the people of North Korea.
It froze its nuclear program after an agreement with the Clinton administration but started it up again when President Bush in 2002 stopped honouring the Clinton agreements and characterized North Korea as part of the “axis of evil”.
In 2017, South Korea elected a new President, Moon Jae-in, who campaigned for a “Sunshine Policy” and for peaceful Korean reunification.
Ironically, at a United Nations First Committee Meeting for Disarmament in 2017, when the amazing International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) succeeded in its ten-year campaign to bring a vote to the UN floor for negotiations on a treaty to ban the bomb, five western nuclear powers, the US, UK, France, Russia, and Israel voted NO.
China, Pakistan, and India abstained, and North Korea was the only nuclear weapon state to vote YES for negotiations on the new Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which was adopted later that year at a special UN negotiating session!
It was clear that North Korea was sending a signal to the world as the only nuclear weapon state to approve the talks to negotiate a ban treaty. But just as the Western reporting about North Korea today fails to acknowledge the extraordinary provocations North Korea suffers at the hand of the Western colonial powers and their allies, not a word about North Korea’s startling vote was reported in the mainstream media.
During the Trump Presidency, some progress was made in negotiations between the US and North Korea, with a supportive new peace president in South Korea, but Congress refused to honour Trump’s promise to Kim Jong Un that the US would remove some of our troops from South Korea as part of a peace deal for North Korea to forego the development of nuclear weapons.
In the United States, there is a growing movement of people inspired by the Women Cross DMZ, which in 2015 organized an unprecedented crossing of the De-Militarized Zone that separates North and South Korea, where 30 women, including Nobel Peace laureates and feminist leaders, joined with 10,000 Korean women on both sides of the DMZ.
Through their efforts, and on behalf of an estimated 100,000 people who cannot visit their families in the Koreas—two nations which continue to live in a perpetual state of war—there is legislation pending in the US House of Representatives, H.R. 1369, Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act, calling for a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War. It also calls for a review of the travel restrictions to North Korea and the establishment of liaison offices in both countries.
It is time to reevaluate our perception of North Korea, and treat it, not as a country planning to attack us with nuclear bombs but as a country that wants relief from the harsh sanctions and isolation it has endured these long 76 years.
The sooner we understand how the Empire has contributed to the “evil doings” of North Korea, the more true security we will gain. In the memorable words of Pogo Possum, the Walt Kelly comic character who entertained us during the red scare of the 1950s, “We have met the enemy and he is us!”
* Alice Slater serves on the boards of World Beyond War and the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space and is an NGO representative to the UN for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. [IDN-InDepthNews]
Biden willing to damage US economy to counter China – US Treasury
21 Apr 23, https://www.rt.com/news/575100-china-sanctions-impact-us-economy-yellen/
Janet Yellen has conceded that protecting national security may come at an economic cost
President Joe Biden will stop at nothing to protect America against security threats posed by China, even if it means damaging the US economy, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has claimed.
“National security is of paramount importance in our relationship with China,” Yellen said during a speech in Washington in Wednesday. She gave the example of blocking China from obtaining certain technologies, adding, “We will not compromise on these concerns, even when they force trade-offs with our economic interests.”
Yellen accused China of “unfair” economic practices and of “taking a more confrontational posture” toward the US and its allies in recent years. Washington has a “broad set of tools” to deal with security threats from China, she added, such as export controls and sanctions against entities that provide support to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
The Treasury Department has sanctions authorities to address threats related to cybersecurity and China’s military-civil fusion,” Yellen said. “We also carefully review foreign investments in the United States for national security risks and take necessary actions to address any such risks. And we are considering a program to restrict certain US outbound investments in specific sensitive technologies with significant national security implications.”
The Biden administration has already taken steps to block Chinese companies from securing advanced semiconductor technologies, such as restricting exports of chip-making equipment. Yellen insisted that Washington doesn’t take such actions to gain an economic advantage or to stifle China’s growth and modernization.
Yellen also scolded China for alleged human rights abuses and alleged “no limits” support for Russia amid the Ukraine crisis. She warned that consequences would be severe if China provided material support or helped Russia evade sanctions, and she added that the US would use its “tools” to deter human rights abuses.
“Like national security, we will not compromise on the protection of human rights,” Yellen said. “This principle is foundational to how we engage with the world.”
Beijing has balked at US accusations, suggesting that Washington should “make more effort in solving its own human rights problems.” Chinese leaders also have faulted Washington for a “Cold War mentality” in which Beijing is demonized as a security threat as Biden’s administration tries to contain its economic progress.
“Containment and suppression will not make America great again, nor will it stop China from moving towards national rejuvenation,” Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang told reporters last month.
Yellen admitted earlier this week that Washington’s use of its leverage over the global financial system to sanction other countries could diminish the role of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Asked about “weaponization” of the US currency, she told CNN that such tactics “could undermine the hegemony of the dollar.”
Germany, Poland and others are pushing for new sanctions on Russia’s nuclear energy.
CNBC, APR 19 2023, Silvia Amaro @SILVIA_AMARO
- In a document seen by CNBC, Poland and the Baltic States called for sanctions on the civil nuclear energy activities too.
- According to data published by Europe’s statistics office Eurostat in 2021 — the year that preceded Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — Moscow was the third biggest provider of uranium to the EU.
- Asked whether a new set of actions to target Russia would feature nuclear energy, a spokesperson for the European Commission said the institution has no comment on ongoing confidential discussions.
…………………………………… “Across the EU, we must keep making ourselves independent from Russia,” Robert Habeck, the German economy and climate minister, said over the weekend.
“The nuclear sector is still outstanding. It is not justifiable that this area is still given preferential treatment. Nuclear technology is an extremely sensitive area, and Russia can no longer be seen as reliable partner within it,” he said.
In a document seen by CNBC, Poland and the Baltic States also called for sanctions on civil nuclear energy activities.
“Between March and December 2022, Russia exported just over $1 billion-worth of materials and technology of relevance to the nuclear energy sector,” the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank, said in a report in February.
“This trade included exports to members of NATO and the EU. In fact, not only has the value of Russian nuclear-related exports not shrunk since February 2022, the data reviewed by the author suggests that it may be expanding, with a handful of loyal customers still eager to do business with Russia’s nuclear sector,” the same report said.
According to data published by Europe’s statistics office Eurostat in 2021 — the year before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — Moscow was the third biggest provider of uranium to the EU.
Ukrainian officials, as well as environmental groups, have previously criticized how the European Union has so far not curbed nuclear revenues for the Kremlin.
……………………… Further highlighting the complexity of the matter, Hungary announced in August that it would build two new nuclear reactors with the Russia state-owned firm Rosatom.
US warns Russia not to touch American nuclear technology at Ukrainian nuclear plant
By Natasha Bertrand and Tim Lister, CNN
The US has sensitive nuclear technology at a nuclear power plant inside Ukraine and is warning Russia not to touch it, according to a letter the US Department of Energy sent to Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy firm Rosatom last month.
In the letter, which was reviewed by CNN and is dated March 17, 2023, the director of the Energy Department’s Office of Nonproliferation Policy, Andrea Ferkile, tells Rosatom’s director general that the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Enerhodar “contains US-origin nuclear technical data that is export-controlled by the United States Government.”
Goods, software and technology are subject to US export controls when it is possible for them to be used in a way that undermines US national security interests.
The Energy Department letter comes as Russian forces continue to control the plant, which is the largest nuclear power station in Europe and sits in a part of the Zaporizhzhia region that Russia occupied after its invasion of Ukraine last February. The plant has frequently been disconnected from Ukraine’s power grid due to intense Russian shelling in the area, raising fears across Europe of a nuclear accident.
While the plant is still physically operated by Ukrainian staff, Rosatom manages it. The Energy Department warned Rosatom in the letter that it is “unlawful” for any Russian citizens or entities to handle the US technology.
CNN has reached out to Rosatom for comment………………………. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/18/politics/us-warns-russia-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant/index.htm
Macron speaks out against war with China- the furious USA reaction shows American insecurity?
Confronting Russia and China is an integral part of Washington’s imperial game, as is the American need to subordinate Europe as a colony of vassals.
Macron speaks out in a rare moment of clarity and the American backlash is knee-jerk and nasty… because how dare those European vassals get out of line!
| Macron’s musings on Europe’s ‘Strategic Autonomy’: Much ado about nothing, but US insecurity is palpable Finian Cunningham, Strategic Culture, 2023-04-12 |
French President Emmanuel Macron has got the Americans in a flap with his comments advocating greater European strategic autonomy and for the old continent to avoid becoming embroiled in a U.S.-China confrontation over Taiwan.
Macron made his remarks while traveling back from China where he appeared to have been well received by President Xi Jinping. The trip reportedly garnered several lucrative trade deals for French businesses at a time when Élysée Palace is assailed with nationwide public protests and strikes over economic woes.
The American chagrin over Macron’s musings about European strategic autonomy is revealing in at least two ways.
The New York Times sniffily accused Macron of playing the “Gaullist card” while the Wall Street Journalcensured the French leader for “blundering on Taiwan”, adding, “He weakens deterrence against Chinese aggression and undermines U.S. support for Europe”.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio was palpably miffed and demanded that Macron should clarify “quickly” whether he was speaking for Europe as a whole or for France alone. In a huff, Rubio said, “You guys [European leaders] handle Ukraine” because the U.S. would henceforth focus its attention on “China’s threats”.
You have to laugh at the misplaced sense of American chivalry. This is the usual American trope of believing that they are once again salvaging Europe from conflict, as in the First and Second World Wars. Uncle Sam, as Rubio suggests, is going to abandon Europe to its bloody squabbling while getting on with “dealing” with purported “Chinese aggression”.
The reality is diametrically opposite. Europe is embroiled in the worst war since the Second World War precisely because its supine leaders are slavishly following Washington’s agenda of waging a proxy against Russia and destroying the strategic Russian-European energy trade. U.S.-led NATO expansionism over decades – under the guise of “protecting Europe – has produced this dangerous juncture. The war in Ukraine is driven by Washington’s need to shore up its unwieldy hegemonic ambitions. Confronting Russia and China are an integral part of Washington’s imperial game, as is the American need to subordinate Europe as a colony of vassals.
It’s an audacious affectation for American politicians and media to project that they are doing Europe some kind of noble favor over Ukraine and saving the European damsels from the “barbarian Russians”. It’s so corny and false, yet thanks to Western media brainwashing the old trope still works.
What the furore over Macron’s comments shows is just how under the American thumb (make that heel) the European leaders are. For a European president to aver that his country and other members of the European Union should make their interests a priority in pursuing independent relations with China and in particular to avoid a conflict over Taiwan is, one would think, a rather mundane matter of common sense, reason and normal prerogative. That the American political class has reacted in such a furious way shows, ironically, just how abjectly subordinate the Europeans really are. Macron speaks out in a rare moment of clarity and the American backlash is knee-jerk and nasty… because how dare those European vassals get out of line!
More importantly, the American anger may be overbearing and bullish but it nonetheless reveals how fragile the sense of insecurity in Washington is.
The American establishment is increasingly sensing that there is a chronic systemic crisis in U.S. global power. The presumed unipolar American order is waning and a multipolar world is ineluctably emerging. The once-mighty U.S. dollar is no longer affording the security it once did. China, Russia, and the Global South are pushing more and more strongly for a multipolar order that will make the American dollar and its unique, arbitrary privileges redundant. When that fully happens, the debt-strapped U.S. capitalist economy and its erstwhile global dominance will crash like so many empires before it.
This is why Washington is so apoplectic about Macron’s “insolent” outburst. American power relies on subservience and adherence to its diktat. Mutterings by vassals of independence must be stamped out ruthlessly so that the idea does not get around or maybe even be adopted………………………
despite his geopolitical impotence and reliable vassalage, the American fury at Macron’s comments is instructive. That’s the real story. The mere whiff of dissent is enough to send Washington into a near-panic because it knows how fragile its imperial power has become.
Macron is irrelevant but the torrid American reaction is notable. https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/04/12/macron-musings-europe-strategic-autonomy-much-ado-about-nothing-but-us-insecurity-palpable/
Finland’s NATO Move Leaves Others to Carry On the “Helsinki Spirit”
Finland’s membership in NATO marks the end of the nation’s admirable tradition as a global peacemaker.
MEDEA BENJAMINNICOLAS J.S. DAVIES, Apr 11, 2023
On April 4, 2023, Finland officially became the 31st member of the NATO military alliance. The 830-mile border between Finland and Russia is now by far the longest border between any NATO country and Russia, which otherwise borders only Norway, Latvia, Estonia, and short stretches of the Polish and Lithuanian borders where they encircle Kaliningrad.
In the context of the not-so-cold war between the United States, NATO and Russia, any of these borders is a potentially dangerous flashpoint that could trigger a new crisis, or even a world war. But a key difference with the Finnish border is that it comes within about 100 miles of Severomorsk, where Russia’s Northern Fleet and 13 of its 23 nuclear-armed submarines are based. This could well be where World War III will begin, if it has not already started in Ukraine.
In Europe today, only Switzerland, Austria, Ireland and a handful of other small countries remain outside NATO. For 75 years, Finland was a model of successful neutrality, but it is far from demilitarized. Like Switzerland, it has a large military, and young Finns are required to perform at least six months of military training after they turn 18. Its active and reserve military forces make up over 4% of the population–compared with only 0.6% in the U.S.–and 83% of Finns say they would take part in armed resistance if Finland were invaded.
On April 4, 2023, Finland officially became the 31st member of the NATO military alliance. The 830-mile border between Finland and Russia is now by far the longest border between any NATO country and Russia, which otherwise borders only Norway, Latvia, Estonia, and short stretches of the Polish and Lithuanian borders where they encircle Kaliningrad.
In the context of the not-so-cold war between the United States, NATO and Russia, any of these borders is a potentially dangerous flashpoint that could trigger a new crisis, or even a world war. But a key difference with the Finnish border is that it comes within about 100 miles of Severomorsk, where Russia’s Northern Fleet and 13 of its 23 nuclear-armed submarines are based. This could well be where World War III will begin, if it has not already started in Ukraine.
In Europe today, only Switzerland, Austria, Ireland and a handful of other small countries remain outside NATO. For 75 years, Finland was a model of successful neutrality, but it is far from demilitarized. Like Switzerland, it has a large military, and young Finns are required to perform at least six months of military training after they turn 18. Its active and reserve military forces make up over 4% of the population–compared with only 0.6% in the U.S.–and 83% of Finns say they would take part in armed resistance if Finland were invaded.
Only 20 to 30% of Finns have historically supported joining NATO, while the majority have consistently and proudly supported its policy of neutrality. In late 2021, a Finnish opinion poll measured popular support for NATO membership at 26%. But after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, that jumped to 60% within weeks and, by November 2022, 78% of Finns said they supported joining NATO.
As in the United States and other NATO countries, Finland’s political leaders have been more pro-NATO than the general public. Despite long-standing public support for neutrality, Finland joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace program in 1997. Its government sent 200 troops to Afghanistan as part of the UN-authorized International Security Assistance Force after the 2001 U.S. invasion, and they remained there after NATO took command of this force in 2003. Finnish troops did not leave Afghanistan until all Western forces withdrew in 2021, after a total of 2,500 Finnish troops and 140 civilian officials had been deployed there, and two Finns had been killed………………………………
Finland will find that its tragic choice to abandon a policy of neutrality that brought it 75 years of peace and look to NATO for protection, will leave it, like Ukraine, dangerously exposed on the front lines of a war directed from Moscow, Washington and Brussels that it can neither win, nor independently resolve, nor prevent from escalating into World War III………………………..
NATO membership will integrate Finland’s arms industry into NATO’s lucrative arms market, boosting sales of Finnish weapons, while also providing a context to buy more of the latest U.S. and allied weaponry for its own military and to collaborate on joint weapons projects with firms in larger NATO countries. With NATO military budgets increasing, and likely to keep increasing, Finland’s government clearly faces pressures from the arms industry and other interests. In effect, its own small military-industrial complex doesn’t want to be left out……………………..
Finnish law prohibits the country from possessing nuclear weapons or allowing them in the country, unlike the five NATO countries that store stockpiles of U.S. nuclear weapons on their soil–Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Turkey. But Finland submitted its NATO accession documents without the exceptions that Denmark and Norway have insisted on to allow them to prohibit nuclear weapons. This leaves Finland’s nuclear posture uniquely ambiguous, despite President Sauli Niinistö’s promise that “Finland has no intention of bringing nuclear weapons onto our soil.”……………………..
Perhaps most regrettable is that Finland’s membership in NATO marks the end of the nation’s admirable tradition as a global peacemaker………………….more https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/finland-nato-russia-helsinki-spirit
Finland’s NATO entry raises nuclear war stakes
Traditionally neutral nation’s accession to US-led alliance will compel an increasingly encircled Moscow to flex its nuclear muscles
Asia Times, By M.K. BHADRAKUMARAPRIL 10, 2023
The national flag of Finland was raised for the first time at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Brussels on April 4, which also marked the 74th anniversary of the Western alliance. It signifies for Finland a historic abandonment of its policy of neutrality.
Not even propagandistically can anyone say Finland has encountered a security threat from Russia. This is an act of motiveless malignity toward Russia on the part of NATO, which of course invariably carries the imprimatur of the US while being projected to the world audience as a sovereign choice by Finland against the backdrop of Russia’s intervention in Ukraine.
…………………. this will also make Europe’s security landscape even more precarious and make it even more dependent on the US as the provider of its security. The general expectation is that Sweden’s accession to NATO will now follow, possibly in time for the alliance’s summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, in July.
In effect, the US has ensured that the core issue behind the standoff between Russia and the West – that is, the expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders – is a fait accompli no matter the failure of its proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.
……………………………………… Don’t be surprised if NATO missiles are deployed to Finland at some point, leaving Russia no option but to deploy its nuclear weapons close to the Baltic region and Scandinavia.
Suffice to say, the military confrontation between NATO and Russia is set to deteriorate further and the possibility of a nuclear conflict is on the rise…………………………….
the US has long deployed tactical nuclear weapons in European countries, including Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey, which means the US has long deployed its tactical nuclear weapons at Russia’s doorstep…………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://asiatimes.com/2023/04/finlands-nato-entry-raises-nuclear-war-stakes/
Macron sparks outrage, infuriates China hawks over Taiwan comments
German foreign policy scholar and China-watcher Ulrich Speck said Macron’s comments vindicated Australia’s decision to tear up its contract for French-made submarines in favour of the AUKUS pact.
Malcolm Davis from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute described Macron’s comments as “ill-conceived at best, and poorly timed” given the situation in Ukraine, and the need for Europe and the US to work together to support Kyiv
The Age, By Latika Bourke, April 10, 2023
London: French President Emmanuel Macron has sparked outrage after saying Europe should reduce its dependency on the United States and avoid getting involved in any conflict between Washington and Beijing over Taiwan.
Macron made the comments in an interview with Politico on-board COTAM Unité, France’s Air Force One, while travelling home to Paris after a three-day state visit to Beijing where he struck a range of business deals for French companies…………………
Macron said he wanted Europe to adopt “strategic autonomy” from the United States, a concept which is backed by Beijing.
He warned against Europe becoming “America’s followers”.
“If the tensions between the two superpowers heat up … we won’t have the time nor the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals,” Macron told the travelling journalists.
“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers.
“The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the US agenda and a Chinese overreaction.
“Europeans cannot resolve the crisis in Ukraine; how can we credibly say on Taiwan, ‘Watch out, if you do something wrong we will be there’? If you really want to increase tensions that’s the way to do it,” he said.
France has long held out an ambivalence for US power and influence over Europe. France, for example, forced the withdrawal of NATO headquarters from Paris in 1967 over fears of US political sway over the continent. Macron has also supported the creation of a European army that could function in place of NATO…………………………………………………
Macron’s comments sparked widespread dismay and anger across Europe and in the United States, where Republican senator Marco Rubio urged European countries to clarify “pretty quickly” if Macron spoke for Europe or France alone.
“We need to ask Europe does he speak for them, because we’re pretty heavily involved in Ukraine right now, we’re spending a lot of our taxpayer money on a European war,” he said in a video statement.
“if our allies’ position, if in fact Macron speaks for all of Europe, and their position now is they’re not going to pick sides between the US and China over Taiwan, maybe we shouldn’t be picking sides either?
“Maybe we should say we’re going to be focusing on Taiwan and the threats that China poses and you guys handle Ukraine on your own?”
German foreign policy scholar and China-watcher Ulrich Speck said Macron’s comments vindicated Australia’s decision to tear up its contract for French-made submarines in favour of the AUKUS pact.
Malcolm Davis from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute described Macron’s comments as “ill-conceived at best, and poorly timed” given the situation in Ukraine, and the need for Europe and the US to work together to support Kyiv………………………………………… more https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/after-visit-with-xi-macron-warns-europe-on-support-for-taiwan-infuriating-china-hawks-20230410-p5cz6t.html
AUKUS nuclear submarine cooperation seriously jeopardizes peace, stability in Asia-Pacific: embassy
LONDON, April 8 (Xinhua) http://eng.chinamil.com.cn/VOICES/16215442.html
The United States, Britain and Australia have been pressing ahead with nuclear submarine cooperation despite being widely questioned, which creates nuclear proliferation risks and undermines the international non-proliferation system, the Chinese Embassy in Britain has said.
In response to a question concerning the trilateral Australia-UK-U.S. (AUKUS) cooperation on nuclear submarines, the embassy said on Friday that such cooperation will exacerbate the resurgence of the Cold War mentality, trigger a new round of arms race, and further provoke regional security and military confrontation, seriously jeopardizing regional peace, stability and prosperity.
The Asia-Pacific is now the most dynamic and fastest growing region in the world, which hasn’t come easily, the embassy said in a press release. “The AUKUS cooperation is designed to serve the U.S. geopolitical agenda to introduce group politics and Cold War confrontation into the Asia-Pacific with military deterrence. It is aimed at creating a NATO-replica in the Asia-Pacific, which runs counter to peace and stability in the region.”
The AUKUS nuclear submarine cooperation marks the first time for nuclear weapon states to transfer naval nuclear propulsion reactors and weapons-grade highly enriched uranium to a non-nuclear weapon state, it noted.
As the current International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards system is incapable of ensuring effective safeguards, such cooperation poses serious nuclear proliferation risks, seriously compromises the authority of the IAEA, and deals a blow to the agency’s safeguards system, the embassy said.
“If the three countries are set on advancing the cooperation, other countries will likely follow suit, eventually leading to the collapse of the international nuclear non-proliferation regime,” it said.
China urges the three countries to heed the call of the international community and regional countries, discard the outdated zero-sum Cold War mentality and narrow geopolitical mindset, earnestly fulfil their international obligations and do more things that are conducive to regional peace, stability, unity and development, the embassy said.
“This serves the fundamental and long-term interests of regional countries as well as the three countries themselves,” it said. “The UK is not a country in the region and it is unwise to overstretch itself.”
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