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Japan’s nuclear waste pools, the nuclear restart, and the terrorism risks in Northeast Asia

text-risk-assessmentJapan’s choices have global significance for the threat of nuclear terrorism, and therefore demands serious consideration as part of a national and international risk-benefit assessment of the future evolution of nuclear power
Nuclear terrorism risks in Northeast Asia: Japan’s reactor restarthighly-recommended and spent fuel Nautilus Peace and Security NAPS Net Special Report by Peter Hayes 23 March 2015 

 SUMMARY

In this report Peter Hayes examines the risk of nuclear terrorism in Northeast Asia with particular reference to Japan. He states that Japan is no more immune to nuclear terrorism than it was to a catastrophic reactor accident. In this context, the combination of safety and security concerns represented by spent fuel pools at reactors is a critical variable in the risk profile arising from the threat of nuclear terrorism. Japan’s choices have global significance for the threat of nuclear terrorism, and therefore demands serious consideration as part of a national and international risk-benefit assessment of the future evolution of nuclear power.

Peter Hayes is Co-founder and Executive Director of Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability; Honorary Professor at the Center for International Security Studies, Sydney University, Australia.

II. REPORT BY PETER HAYES

Introduction

In the post-Fukushima era, spent fuel management is recognized as a significant contributor to increased risk of nuclear terrorism. In the immediate weeks after the tsunami-earthquake, the situation at the spent fuel pools at Fukushima unit 1 was dire. The pools were damaged by debris from the hydrogen explosion, inaccessible due to intense local radiation from the melted reactor core, and losing coolant, underscored the argument that spent fuel pools are potential sources of radiological risk in themselves.   The orthodox definition of nuclear terrorism based on the diversion of fissile material for use in a nuclear or radiological weapon, with similar potential scales of damage to entire cities as releases from a spent fuel pool, is only part of the nuclear risk story. The Fukushima incident conjoined the issue of nuclear terrorism conceived of as diversion and use of fissile material and nuclear weapons/nuclear energy dual-use technology with possible radiological attack via a dirty bomb or attack on nuclear facilities or on radiological materials in transport.

terrorism-targets-2

The Japanese authorities themselves recognized this linkage: “The accident revealed the possibility that terrorism at a nuclear facility may have the same serious effects on society [as a natural disaster].”[1] Indeed, Japanese nuclear security authorities now recognize not only that nuclear reactors and other nuclear facilities in which nuclear fuel or nuclear fuel materials are stored may be attacked, but that attacks also may target ancillary support systems such as power supply, and reactor core and spent fuel coolant supply, and that terrorists, including insiders, may attack at these points— with potentially the same devastating effect—or worse—than the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011 had on the Fukushima plants.[2]

Post-Fukushima Response Continue reading →

March 25, 2015 Posted by | 2 WORLD, safety | Leave a comment

Perilous risks to Ukraine’s nuclear power plants in escalating war

I believe that this is an important factor in why Putin has stayed his hand. The risk is not worth it. He cannot trust what NATO and the USSA might do as the Ukrainian positions would be overrun. Would they resort to a radioactive, scorched earth retreat? Would they blow the nuclear power plants and falsely blame the destruction on the Russian army?
The Northern Hemisphere’s Nuclear Power Plant Problem, Event Horizon Chronicle, 24 Mar 15 
“……It Gets Even Worse  Of course you have heard of the failed, exploded nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine. That plant has never been and cannot be repaired. It will remain dangerously radioactive for untold thousands of years to come. The surrounding region is a poisonous no man’s land.
What many people overlook, including many prominent analysts and commentators, such as Paul Craig Roberts, is that there are several other nuclear power plants in the Ukraine. Please click here to see their locations.

Note that the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant is just to the west of the present combat zone in the eastern region of the Ukraine, and not far north of the Crimea, which is now part of the Russian Federation. It is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and the fifth largest in the world. It is also right on the banks of the Dnieper River, which empties into the Black Sea, which in turn empties into the Mediterranean Sea. Failure of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant will massively radioactively contaminate the Dnieper River, which will then flow into the Black Sea and radioactively contaminate the Black Sea, which then flows into the Mediterranean Sea, etc. You see the problem.

Map-Ukraine-nuke-reactors

Just northeast of Odessa is another, the South Ukraine nuclear power plant.

Many armchair analysts, including commentators such as Paul Craig Roberts, have publicly advocated, or come very close to doing so, that Vladimir Putin send his military racing across the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, in a blitzkrieg from the Russian border all the way toTransnistria, on the border between Moldova and the Ukraine, in order to incorporate that swath of territory into the Russian Federation, and present NATO and the regime in Kiev with a military fait accompli. 

In my view, Putin has not done that because no military operation is ever as simple as it appears on paper; what can go wrong frequently does go wrong. And there are always unexpected complications.

Continue reading →

March 25, 2015 Posted by | safety, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Global nuclear power industry caught in a web of uncertainties

terrorism-targets-2 Nuclear terrorism risks in Northeast Asia: Japan’s reactor restart and spent fuel Nautilus Peace and Security NAPS Net Special Report by Peter Hayes 23 March 2015  “…….the nuclear power industry itself is snared in a web of interdependent uncertainties. These include:

  1. a) How many light water reactors will be restarted and when, and relatedly, will authorities allow reactor operating life to be extended beyond forty years, and will new reactor construction be allowed?
  2. b) Will reprocessing continue to separate plutonium?
  3. c) When will the Japanese Mixed Oxide (MOx) fuel fabrication plant be complete?
  4. d) What level of excess separated plutonium is acceptable domestically and internationally?
  5. e) Will the breeder reactor be reactivated and if so, for what purpose?
  6. f) Will uranium-235 recovered from spent fuel be recycled (affecting the already dismal economics of Japan’s enrichment program); and
  7. g) Will another massive unanticipated nuclear accident in Japan or elsewhere occur? Even ardent pro-nuclear advocates admit that such an event likely would end the use of nuclear power in Japan.[12]

With such massive uncertainty affecting each of these linked variables, any one of which can serve as a binding constraint on the others, the key actors in the Japanese nuclear power sector are unable to make strategic decisions and as a consequence are in a holding pattern until political waters clarify.

Consequently, to the outsider, the safety and security of spent fuel pools in Japan remains unsatisfactory. It is even unclear whether the leadership of the Japanese nuclear power sector recognizes that the risk of loss of coolant arising from malevolent attack exists for spent fuel pools.[13]   However, the choices that Japan makes with regard to light water reactor (LWR) restart, reprocessing, the recycling of plutonium (Pu) through the production and use in LWRs of MOx fuel, the eventual use of fast reactors for actinide disposal, the future development of a plutonium-breeding fast reactor, and Japan’s enrichment activities, are all linked directly to the issue of nuclear terrorism and the risk of diversion of spent fuel and separated plutonium. In turn, choices made in each of these fuel cycle activities will determine how spent fuel is managed in Japan, starting with the management of spent fuel pools. Continue reading →

March 25, 2015 Posted by | 2 WORLD, safety | Leave a comment

Nuclear terrorism danger would be magnified, if Japan reactivated nuclear reprocessing

fast-breeder-MonjuNuclear terrorism risks in Northeast Asia: Japan’s reactor restart and spent fuel Nautilus Peace and Security NAPS Net Special Report by Peter Hayes 23 March 2015 “…..Japan’s Post-Fukushima Choice

Due to Fukushima, Japan now must choose to go in one of two directions that are largely exclusive: either towards a reactor restart choice that leads to a minimalist phase-out of separated plutonium over time; or towards a maximalist reliance on separated plutonium over time in a closed fuel cycle………

Should Japan opt to start enough reactors to justify reactivating the plutonium fuel cycle, then the implications for nuclear terrorism would be substantial. The train of logic for maximum spent fuel arising from a closed nuclear fuel cycle is radically different to that for the once-through fuel cycle.  In this trajectory, the following would occur:

  • Japan starts many more light water reactors, sooner rather than later, and extends reactor lifetimes beyond forty years, and constructs new reactors
  • This choice enables far more MOx fuel fabrication and recycling of MOx fuel to these reactors than in the once-through fuel cycle usage; this choice would either slowly reduce or rapidly increase the stockpile of separated plutonium that would be supplemented (if the central state is willing to subsidize heavily the utilities for using MOx fuel) by reprocessing the spent fuel from the operation of the light water reactors
  • Thereby generating a new stream of separated and un-separated plutonium in Japan to store and secure, and available for diversion or attack.

Although it does not follow automatically, this vision of the revived closed fuel cycle also implies that:

  • The fast reactor is developed in order to burn actinides to reduce the waste disposal problem (whether it would do so is debatable)
  • The fast reactor would be developed to breed plutonium based on the argument that doing so makes Japan more independent from external nuclear fuel supply.

All the steps in this second path which maximizes separated fuel involves more transport, more bulk processing and storage, and creates more opportunity for non-state actors to divert fissile material or to attack directly the spent fuel stocks in pools or other nuclear materials process sites in the envisioned “closed” fuel cycle.    In short, this trajectory maximizes the nuclear terrorist threat, directly and indirectly, over the next thirty years, especially when the demonstration effect on other states to follow suit are taken into account.  For exactly this reason, the United States has reaffirmed recently that it does not favor MOx use and breeder activity in Japan or elsewhere……..[19]http://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-special-reports/nuclear-terrorism-risks-in-northeast-asia-japans-reactor-restart-and-spent-fuel/

 

March 25, 2015 Posted by | Japan, reprocessing, safety | Leave a comment

USA alarmed at South Africa’s nuclear burglary – unsolved after 8 years

safety-symbol1flag-S.AfricaA break-in at a South African nuclear complex alarms Washington and strains relations years later  Two teams of raiders penetrated a site holding enough explosives to fuel six nuclear bombs, but no one was ever caught, Center for Public Integrity , 21 Mar 15  By Douglas BirchemailR. Jeffrey Smith 

Key findings:

Washington remains spooked by a break-in at Pelindaba, the South African storage site for nuclear explosives, eight years ago.

No one was ever prosecuted for the Pelindaba break-in, even though a nonpublic South African report concluded in 2009 it posed a serious security threat.

South Africa’s government claims the break-in was a petty burglary, but U.S. officials and independent experts worry that the attackers were after nuclear explosives.

The nonpublic South African report described how at every step, the attackers displayed a detailed knowledge of Pelindaba’s layout and security systems, as well as the expertise needed to overcome the site’s defenses.

The incident led to unpublicized collaboration between a U.S. nuclear weapons laboratory and the nuclear site on stronger security measures, but White House officials are convinced more needs to be done at Pelindaba……….http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/03/20/16917/break-south-african-nuclear-complex-alarms-washington-and-strains-relations-years

March 21, 2015 Posted by | safety, South Africa | Leave a comment

The many ways in which fracking is radioactively contaminated

Radioactive isotopes that contaminate fracking industry waste and its machinery include radon, radium-226, uranium-238, and thorium-232. According to the Health Department’s website, these long-lived radioactive pollutants come in six forms:

* “Produced water” which is injected underground but later brought to the surface as waste;

* “Sulfate scales,” which are hard, insoluble deposits that accumulate on frack sand and inside drilling and processing equipment;

* Contaminated soil and machinery;

* Filter socks, contaminated by  filtering “produced water”;

* Synthetic “proppants” or sand; and

* Sludge and “filter cake” solids of mud, sand, scale and rust that  precipitate or are filtered out of contaminated “produced water. They build up in “filter socks,” and in waste water pipes and storage tanks that can leak


Fracking Radiation- North Dakota Considers Weaker Landfill Rules, Less Oversight , CounterPunch, MARCH 19, 201 by JOHN LaFORGE Radioactive waste produced by hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” is making headlines all over gas land, particularly in North Dakota’s booming Bakken gas and oil field. Continue reading →

March 21, 2015 Posted by | radiation, Reference, safety | 2 Comments

South Africa’s stockpile of nuclear fuel – a target for terrorists

Terrorists could steal SA nuclear fuel: US IOL, March 15 2015  By Douglas Birch and R Jeffrey Smith New York – Enough nuclear explosive to fuel half a dozen bombs, each powerful enough to obliterate central Washington or most of Lower Manhattan, is locked in a former silver vault at a nuclear research centre near Pretoria.

Technicians extracted the highly enriched uranium from the apartheid regime’s nuclear weapons in 1990, then melted the fuel down and cast it into ingots. Over the years, some of the cache has been used to make medical isotopes, but roughly 220kg remains, and South Africa is keeping a tight grip on it.

That gives this country – which has insisted that the US and other world powers destroy their nuclear arsenals – a theoretical ability to regain its former status as a nuclear-weapons state. But the US is worried that the nuclear explosives here could be stolen and used by militants to commit the worst terror attack in history.

Senior current and former US officials say they have reason to be concerned given that in November 2007, raiders breached the fences at the Pelindaba research centre and some fear they were after the bomb-grade uranium.

Washington has waged a discreet diplomatic campaign to persuade South Africa to get rid of its stock of nuclear-weapons fuel.

But President Jacob Zuma, like his predecessors, has resisted the White House……..http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/terrorists-could-steal-sa-nuclear-fuel-us-1.1832093#.VQX8RNKUcnk

March 16, 2015 Posted by | safety, South Africa | Leave a comment

Web traffic for the UK’s nuclear weapons agency routed through Russian telecom by error

A network error routed traffic for the UK’s nuclear weapons agency through Russian telecom, The Verge By Russell Brandom March 13, 2015 
For the past week, something strange has been going on in the European internet. For five days, web traffic from Texas to certain addresses in the UK has been routed through Ukrainian and Russian telecoms, taking a detour thousands of miles out of the way. Network traffic often takes a circuitous route as a result of network congestion or interconnection difficulties, but neither one would be enough to account for these routes. Instead, this was the result of a bad route announced by Ukraine’s Vega telecom, inserting itself in between. “At this point, I have to believe this was an innocent mistake by Vega,” said Dyn’s Doug Madory, who first discovered the redirection, “but it’s concerning nonetheless.”
This phenomenon is known as “route hijacking,” and it’s a common security concern for network engineers and security researchers alike. It’s particularly disconcerting because of the sensitive nature of many of the sites involved. Among the dozens of sites involved was the UK’s Atomic Weapons Establishment, which is tasked with managing and delivering the UK’s nuclear warheads, ……..

It’s still likely that the redirection was simply an innocent error, but it underscores the insecure nature of the global routing system. While much of the web has grown more wary of digital attack, routing is still based on trust, with networks freely announcing routes and friendly telecoms adopting them as a matter of habit. As a result, inefficient and potentially insecure routes like this one can linger for days without being corrected, without the parties involved ever being aware of them.

The full traceroute is below, with the Ukrainian telecom visible at line 11 and Russian interconnection at 12 and 13:…..http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/13/8208413/uk-nuclear-weapons-russia-traffic-redirect

March 14, 2015 Posted by | incidents, UK | Leave a comment

Crash in Bosnia of van carrying radioactive materials

Van transporting radioactive material crashes in Bosnia Rt.com 13 Mar 15, A van carrying radioactive isotope Iridium-192 has crashed in north Bosnia, local media reported. The vehicle ran off the road after colliding with a car.

The police blocked the area around the crash site. Bosnia’s nuclear safety agency reported that no radiation leak had been detected.

The van was transporting “apparatus with radioactive material” from the Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences, the Banja Luka-based Nezavisne Novine newspaper reported.

After the collision, the van overturned. The radioactive material, however, which is in a solid state and poses no risk of large-scale contamination, remained contained, the authorities said……..

The driver of the car was killed in the crash, while the van driver and a passenger traveling with him survived.

Iridium-192 is a radioactive isotope with a half-life of 73.83 days. It is also a strong gamma ray emitter and is commonly used as a gamma ray source in radiography and radiotherapy as a radiation source.

According to the UN, Iridium-192 is the isotope that most frequently goes missing when radioactive materials are used to make a dirty bomb.http://rt.com/news/240425-bosnia-herzegovina-nuclear-crash/

March 14, 2015 Posted by | EUROPE, incidents | Leave a comment

Pakistan earthquake prone, non signatory to NPT -but China is building nuclear reactors there

Buy-China-nukes-1flag-pakistanChina Builds Nuclear Reactors in Earthquake-Prone Pakistan by Nick Cunningham Oil Price.com e, 10 March 2015 

China has decided to defy international norms and build new nuclear reactors in Pakistan.

While the U.S. and Europe see stagnant growth for commercial nuclear power, the same is not true in Asia. China is not only building nuclear reactors at home, but it is exporting its technology abroad. Of particular concern is its construction of nuclear reactors in Pakistan. China helped build two reactors at Chashma, which came online in 2000 and 2011 respectively. More recently, it has decided to double the size of the Chashma power plant, with two additional reactors under construction. And it is also constructing a new nuclear power plant near Karachi, using China’s next generation ACP-1000 design.

But China’s plans in Pakistan are facing global criticism.

The problem is that Pakistan is not a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), which should disqualify it for any international help in building nuclear power plants. The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is a coalition of nuclear technology exporting countries who have banded together to create guidelines and norms around the sale of nuclear technology in order to ensure its safe use while guarding against the spread of nuclear weapons capabilities. One of the core tenets of the NSG is to not trade nuclear technology to countries that have not signed up to the NPT. Pakistan is one of the world’s four remaining holdouts to the NPT (the other three are India, Israel, and South Sudan).

That is why China’s decision to build nuclear reactors in Pakistan has received criticism. As a member of the NSG, China is defying the guidelines on nuclear trade. China says that its promise to Pakistan predates its 2004 accession to the suppliers group……..http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/China-Builds-Nuclear-Reactors-in-Earthquake-Prone-Pakistan.html

March 11, 2015 Posted by | China, Pakistan, safety | 2 Comments

Chinese physcst points out the danger of inland nuclear power plants

CPPCC eyes inland nuke power  By Cao Siqi Source:Global Times 2015-3-11 :”………..He Zuoxiu, a theoretical physicist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, argued against the proposal.

He Zuoxiu told the Global Times that an inland nuclear power plant may raise bigger safety concerns, as accidents could occur closer to populous areas.

Compared with coastal plants, inland nuclear plants have more complicated requirements where location and geological conditions are concerned, and authorities must take population growth into careful account, as well as emergency evacuation and radioactive exhaust emissions, said the physicist.

He Zuoxiu added that such projects would carry with them tremendous potential danger, which in turn necessitates thorough consideration prior to any construction.

March 11, 2015 Posted by | China, safety | Leave a comment

Increasing number of nuclear safety incidents at Britain’s top secret Trident nuclear submarine base,

safety-symbol-Smflag-UKMore than 450 nuclear safety incidents reported at Britain’s Royal Navy submarine base  Mirror,  2 March 2015 By  The incidents took place between 2008/09 and 2013/14 at Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde, where the country’s nuclear armed Trident subs are housed

More than 450 “shocking” nuclear safety incidents have been reported at Britain’s top secret Trident nuclear submarine base, new figures show.

Up to 451 safety incidents happened between 2008/ 9 and 2013/14, which involved at least 71 fires and major equipment failures at the Faslane base.

In the last year alone the number of accidents has almost doubled from 68 in 2012/13 to 107 in the following year 2013/14.

The incidents happened at Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde, where Britain’s shadowy nuclear armed Trident submarines are based……. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/more-450-nuclear-safety-incidents-5261415

March 7, 2015 Posted by | incidents, UK | Leave a comment

Every country’s nuclear weapons facilities are vulnerable to insider terrorism

safety-symbol1Break-In at Y-12 How a handful of pacifists and nuns exposed the vulnerability of America’s nuclear-weapons sites .New Yorker, BY ERIC SCHLOSSER , 9 March 15 “…….The United States is far more open about its nuclear-weapons programs than any other nation. But that openness, and the many security problems it has revealed, should not imply that the greatest threat of nuclear terrorism comes from sites in the United States. On the contrary, America may have the best nuclear-security systems in the world. The management challenges that the United States has faced are now being encountered by every other country that possesses nuclear weapons.

Pakistan tops the list of nations that cause terrorism experts the greatest concern. It has the world’s fastest-growing nuclear arsenal. It has dispersed nuclear weapons to multiple locations, making them less vulnerable to attack by a foreign nation but more vulnerable to theft by terrorists. It has extremist groups seeking to infiltrate the military. And few people outside Pakistan know how its nuclear enterprise is really being run. One of the top-secret documents obtained by Edward Snowden in 2013 says that American intelligence agencies have little “knowledge of the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and associated material.” The question deeply concerns Russia as well. A classified State Department document released by WikiLeaks describes a meeting between Russian and American diplomats in Washington. “Islamists are not only seeking power in Pakistan but are also trying to get their hands on nuclear materials,” an official at Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Perhaps a hundred and twenty-five thousand people were directly involved in Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons and missile programs. The Russian official warned that “regardless of the clearance process for these people, there is no way to guarantee that all are 100% loyal.”

Remarkably little is known about the security arrangements at India’s nuclear facilities. Its weapons aren’t as widely dispersed as Pakistan’s. But in both countries terrorists and extremists are more likely to seek plutonium and weapons-grade uranium. Fissile materials are easier to steal than nuclear weapons and much lighter to carry. An improvised explosive device can be made with just a hundred and twenty pounds of uranium or twenty pounds of plutonium. And those amounts don’t have to be stolen all at once.

An insider at a nuclear facility might secretly remove a few ounces of fissile material every so often and accumulate a significant amount of it over time. That happened at a nuclear laboratory south of Moscow in 1992……
Russia has the most nuclear weapons and the largest amount of fissile material in the world. For more than twenty years after the end of the Cold War, the United States and Russia worked closely together to improve nuclear security and reduce the danger of nuclear terrorism. Thousands of nuclear weapons were safely transported from former Soviet republics and dismantled. New storage facilities were built in Russia; modern security systems were introduced; fissile materials were removed from unguarded sites and locked away. But in December, 2014, Congress voted against additional funding for the nuclear-threat-reduction program. And Russia announced that it would end most of its coöperative work with the United States, despite the need to upgrade security at more than two hundred buildings. Sam Nunn, the former U.S. senator who helped to create the program, has often called the effort to prevent nuclear terrorism “a race between coöperation and catastrophe.” The Russian decision, Nunn thinks, just made the latter more likely. Russia still has about two hundred and fifty thousand pounds of plutonium and about 1.4 million pounds of weapons-grade uranium……..http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/09/break-in-at-y-12?mbid=social_twitter

 

March 7, 2015 Posted by | 2 WORLD, safety | Leave a comment

The nuclear terror motivations of extremists of Salafi jihadists and of White Supremacists

elephant-terror-in-roomBreak-In at Y-12 How a handful of pacifists and nuns exposed the vulnerability of America’s nuclear-weapons sites .New Yorker, BY ERIC SCHLOSSER , 9 March 15 “…….After considering the threat of nuclear terrorism for many years, William C. Potter, the director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, and Gary Ackerman, the director of the Unconventional Weapons and Technology Division, at the University of Maryland, outlined some of the motives that could drive a terrorist group to obtain a nuclear weapon. The group might hope to create mass anxiety or mass casualties. It might want to deter attacks by a state with nuclear weapons. It might want to destroy a large area belonging to an adversary. It might want the prestige that nuclear weapons seem to confer, the status of being a world power. And it might seek to fulfill a religious goal. Groups that have an apocalyptic outlook—that believe “an irremediably corrupt world must be purged to make way for a utopian future,” that celebrate violence as a means of achieving those aims—could be especially drawn to nuclear weapons, Potter and Ackerman found. Today, the number of those groups seems to be multiplying.

“The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it,” Osama bin Laden declared in 1998. Al Qaeda’s current leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has said that his mood won’t improve until America vanishes. And he quoted, with approval, a radical imam’s view that using a nuclear weapon against the United States would be sanctified by God: “If a bomb were dropped on them, destroying ten million of them and burning as much of their land as they have burned of Muslim land, that would be permissible without any need to mention any other proof.”

The Salafi jihadist world view promoted by Al Qaeda stresses the religious duty to purify corrupt states through violence, drive out infidels, and create a new caliphate—a perfect state in which religious and political leadership will be merged. Seth G. Jones, the director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation, estimates that there are about fifty Salafi jihadist groups worldwide. They focus primarily on local struggles, battling the “near enemy,” not the “far enemy”: the United States. The groups most likely to commit terrorist acts on American soil are Al Qaeda, its offshoot Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). None have thus far engaged in nuclear terrorism, preferring more conventional and reliable forms of violence.

Salafi jihadists aren’t the only millenarian group that might be drawn to nuclear weapons. During the early nineties, the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo (Supreme Truth) attempted to buy nuclear weapons in Russia, purchased land in Australia to mine for uranium, and sought technical assistance from scientists at Moscow’s leading institute for nuclear research…….
White supremacists in the United States have also fantasized about using nuclear weapons to purify society. Before Timothy McVeigh destroyed Oklahoma City’s federal building with a truck bomb, in 1995, he travelled the country selling copies of “The Turner Diaries,” a 1978 novel long considered the bible of the white-power movement. It features a protagonist who flies a plane carrying a nuclear weapon into the Pentagon, committing suicide in order to destroy Washington, D.C. In the book’s “happy” ending, white patriots use nuclear weapons stolen from Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California, to annihilate inferior races throughout the world. Although the threat of Islamic terrorism has received a great deal of media attention, since 9/11 more people have been killed in the United States by American extremists than by foreign jihadists……….http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/09/break-in-at-y-12?mbid=social_twitter

 

March 7, 2015 Posted by | psychology - mental health, safety, social effects | Leave a comment

Nuclear power nightmare unfolding in Karachi?

exclamation-Smflag-pakistanOutcry and fear as Pakistan builds new nuclear reactors in dangerous Karachi WP, By Tim Craig March 5 KARACHI, Pakistan — World leaders have fretted for years that terrorists may try to steal one of Pakistan’s nuclear bombs and detonate it in a foreign country. But some Karachi residents say the real nuclear nightmare is unfolding here in Pakistan’s largest and most volatile city. Continue reading →

March 6, 2015 Posted by | Pakistan, safety | Leave a comment

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