Profiteering from the pandemic, the Pentagon and nuclear industry exploit the situation
Beware the Pentagon’s Pandemic Profiteers, Hasn’t the Military-Industrial Complex Taken
enough of Our Money? POGO, BY MANDY SMITHBERGER | FILED UNDER ANALYSIS | MAY 04, 2020 This piece originally appeared on TomDispatch.com.
At this moment of unprecedented crisis, you might think that those not overcome by the economic and mortal consequences of the coronavirus would be asking, “What can we do to help?” A few companies have indeed pivoted to making masks and ventilators for an overwhelmed medical establishment. Unfortunately, when it comes to the top officials of the Pentagon and the CEOs running a large part of the arms industry, examples abound of them asking what they can do to help themselves.
It’s important to grasp just how staggeringly well the defense industry has done in these last nearly 19 years since 9/11. Its companies (filled with ex-military and defense officials) have received trillions of dollars in government contracts, which they’ve largely used to feather their own nests. Data compiled by the New York Times showed that the chief executive officers of the top five military-industrial contractors received nearly $90 million in compensation in 2017. An investigation that same year by the Providence Journal discovered that, from 2005 to the first half of 2017, the top five defense contractors spent more than $114 billion repurchasing their own company stocks and so boosting their value at the expense of new investment.
To put this in perspective in the midst of a pandemic, the co-directors of the Costs of War Project at Brown University recently pointed out that allocations for the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health for 2020 amounted to less than 1% of what the U.S. government has spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alone since 9/11. While just about every imaginable government agency and industry has been impacted by the still-spreading coronavirus, the role of the defense industry and the military in responding to it has, in truth, been limited indeed. The highly publicized use of military hospital ships in New York City and Los Angeles, for example, not only had relatively little impact on the crises in those cities but came to serve as a symbol of just how dysfunctional the military response has truly been.
Bailing Out the Military-Industrial Complex in the COVID-19 Moment
Demands to use the Defense Production Act to direct firms to produce equipment needed to combat COVID-19 have sputtered, provoking strong resistance from industries worried first and foremost about their own profits. Even conservative Washington Post columnist Max Boot, a longtime supporter of increased Pentagon spending, has recently recanted, noting how just such budget priorities have weakened the ability of the United States to keep Americans safe from the virus. “It never made any sense, as Trump’s 2021 budget had initially proposed, to increase spending on nuclear weapons by $7 billion while cutting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding by $1.2 billion,” he wrote. “Or to create an unnecessary Space Force out of the U.S. Air Force while eliminating the vitally important directorate of global health by folding it into another office within the National Security Council.”
In fact, continuing to prioritize the U.S. military will only further weaken the country’s public health system. ……..
How Not to Deal With COVID-19
Along with those military-industrial bailouts came the fleecing of American taxpayers. While many Americans were anxiously awaiting their $1,200 payments from that congressional aid and relief package, the Department of Defense was expediting contract payments to the arms industry. Shay Assad, a former senior Pentagon official, accurately called it a “taxpayer rip-off” that industries with so many resources, not to speak of the ability to borrow money at incredibly low interest rates, were being so richly and quickly rewarded in tough times. Giving defense giants such funding at this moment was like giving a housing contractor 90% of upfront costs for renovations when it was unclear whether you could even afford your next mortgage payment.
Right now, the defense industry is having similar success in persuading the Pentagon that basic accountability should be tossed out the window. ……..
Unfortunately, as COVID-19 spread on the aircraft carrier the USS Theodore Roosevelt, that ship became emblematic of how ill-prepared the current Pentagon leadership proved to be in combatting the virus. Despite at least 100 cases being reported on board—955 crewmembers would, in the end, test positive for the disease and Chief Petty Officer Charles Robert Thacker Jr. would die of it—senior Navy leaders were slow to respond. Instead, they kept those sailors at close quarters and in an untenable situation of increasing risk. When an emailed letter expressing the concerns of the ship’s commander, Captain Brett Crozier, was leaked to the press he was quickly removed from command. But while his bosses may not have appreciated his efforts for his crew, his sailors did. He left the ship to a hero’s farewell. ……… https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2020/05/beware-the-pentagons-pandemic-profiteers/
Nuclear fraud in Norway could affect nuclear safety in other countries
 Faked-data scandal might jeopardize safety at unknown number of nuclear power plantsAn investigation at Norway’s now-closed Halden research reactor reveals that results from a number of nuclear fuel experiments were tampered with in an effort that was “planned and well hidden,” according to the facility’s operator — a discovery that could have consequences for numerous nuclear power utilities around the world. Bellona, May 15, 2020 by Charles Digges
Many of Halden’s former customers are foreign governments and nuclear utilities that relied on Halden’s data to make decisions about how to fuel their own nuclear reactors. The purpose of research facilities like Halden is to simulate how various nuclear fuels behave under different circumstances, thus allowing nuclear power companies a greater margin of safety in their operations. While officials have not revealed which nuclear operators might have been impacted by the falsifications, the say the report casts doubt on seven fuel experiments that took place between 1990 and 2005. “What scares us is that companies around the world operating nuclear reactors may have relied on data from the Halden reactor,” says Frederic Hauge, Bellona’s president. “If data has been manipulated, security can be jeopardized, because the research is used to make decisions about how the reactors are operated.” The Halden reactor, which is one of four research reactors run in Norway, began operations in 1955 and was shuttered in 2018 after a long period of financial difficulties and technical problems. Kvamme Associates, an Oslo-based anti-corruption research group, led the investigation into the suspect data. The group provided its results to the Institute of Energy Technology, or IFE, Halden’s operator, earlier this week. According to investigators, the IFE’s suspicions about data manipulation arose last summer. The ensuing inquiry revealed fraud so serious that the IFE reported it to Norway’s economic crimes unit. The investigation report, which IFE released to Bellona this week, shows that a number of fuel tests were fabricated either because researchers failed to meet test requirements, or because they ran up against deadlines they were unable to meet. “We have found that data was changed,” IFE director Nils Morten Huseby, told Norway’s national broadcaster, NRK. “What was reported to customers is not what the tests actually showed. It can potentially be serious, but we need to know more about how the customers used the data.”……. Three other projects carried out at Halden are also under suspicion and are currently under review, NRK said. Bellona’s Hauge questioned the IFE’s oversight of the experiments in question, and called for a broader investigation into the institute’s management practices……… According to NRK, the Kvamme Associates report states that four international projects conducted at the Halden reactor were found to contain fabricated data. Independent experts found that two of the cases involved no security or safety risks, the broadcaster reported, while two other cases have not been fully evaluated. Three other projects carried out at Halden are also under suspicion and are currently under review, NRK said. ……The revelations come as a blow to the IFE, which until Halden’s closure had struggled with criticism that the reactor was too costly to the Norwegian public and had battled allegations that it was unsafe following a 2016 iodine leak. “The fact that IFE’s reputation as a research institution is at stake here is one thing,” said Hauge. “But that it may have affected the safety of an unknown number of nuclear power plants in an unknown number of countries – that’s very, very serious.”….. Bellona’s Hauge questioned the IFE’s oversight of the experiments in question, and called for a broader investigation into the institute’s management practices. https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2020-05-faked-data-scandal-might-jeopardize-safety-at-unknown-number-of-nuclear-power-plants |
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Dirty tricks department – FirstEnergy in Ohio as a prime example
Let this be a lessen all the conspiracy people who fell for the “we need to save Davis Besse, and Nuclear energy.” It appears that tax payers were scammed by big business once again by listening to scare tactics. Now the consumers will pay more while the business and shareholders reap the benefits.
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But FirstEnergy specializes in that kind of bad math. Consider, for instance, that the bankrupt company argued it was in such dire financial straits that only a consumer bailout could save Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants. Without the bailout, FirstEnergy would become insolvent, the plants would close, jobs would be lost, electric bills would climb, they warned. So the General Assembly approved House Bill 6, which adds a surcharge to bills of Ohio’s electric customers from 2021 to 2027. But at the same time, FirstEnergy gave $1.88 million to Generation Now Inc. to fight a referendum campaign to roll back the bailout. FirstEnergy and its employees also contributed more than $1 million to lawmakers, candidates, and other public officials between 2017 and 2019, when the measure to add a bailout charge to consumers’ bill passed the General Assembly. FirstEnergy has since emerged from bankruptcy and spun off FirstEnergy Solutions, which was then renamed Energy Harbor. That company owns the nuclear power plants. And its stockholders stand to benefit from the stock buyback plan. Companies use stock buybacks to repurchase their own stock and drive up the price of the rest of the shares. Energy Harbor officials say the buyback and the bailout are unrelated because the surcharge won’t show up on consumers’ bills until 2021. That explanation doesn’t add up, but keep in mind this company is prone to fishy math. The stock buyback plan is a brazen slap in the face to every Ohio customer who will have to pony up to subsidize a pair of nuclear power plants that are financially troubled in the age of cheap oil and natural gas. Ohio’s lawmakers and its utility regulators should comb through every law and agreement relating to Energy Harbor in search of a way to claw back some of the money the company is sucking out of this state. And failing that, they must, at the very least, remember this episode the next time the energy company comes with hat in hand, demanding its customers cough up even more. comment
Let this be a lessen all the conspiracy people who fell for the “we need to save Davis Besse, and Nuclear energy.” It appears that tax payers were scammed by big business once again by listening to scare tactics. Now the consumers will pay more while the business and shareholders reap the benefits.
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Torture would await Assange in the US prison system
From the frying pan into the fire. The torture that awaits Julian Assange in the US.https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2020/05/10/from-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire-the-torture-that-awaits-julian-assange-in-the-us/
Tom Coburg 10th May 2020 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is currently held in Belmarsh prison awaiting hearings that could see him extradited to the US to face prosecution for alleged espionage-related offences.
Award-winning US journalist Chris Hedges described the torture that would await Assange in the US prison system, adding “they will attempt to psychologically destroy him”. If extradited, Assange would likely be detained in accordance with ‘Special Administrative Measures’ (SAMs). One report equates this to a regime of sensory deprivation and social isolation that may amount to torture.
Journalists speak out
US journalist Chris Hedges spoke about the treatment Assange is likely to receive in the US. He argues that the US authorities will “psychologically destroy him” and that conditions imposed could see him turned into a ‘zombie’ to face life without parole:
Australian journalist John Pilger agrees:
If Julian is extradited to the US, a darkness awaits him. He’ll be subjected to a prison regime called special administrative measures… He will be placed in a cage in the bowels of a supermax prison, a hellhole. He will be cut off from all contact with the rest of humanity.
From the frying pan…
Assange is already in a precarious position, alongside all other UK prisoners. Belmarsh is a high-security Category A facility and, as with all other prisons in the UK, inmates there are at risk to infection from coronavirus (Covid-19).
On 28 April, the BBC reported that there were “1,783 “possible/probable” cases of coronavirus – on top of 304 confirmed infections across jails in England and Wales”. Also that there were “75 different “custodial institutions”, with 35 inmates treated in hospital and 15 deaths”.
Vaughan Smith, who stood bail for Assange, reported that the virus was “ripping through” Belmarsh:
We know of two Covid-19 deaths in Belmarsh so far, though the Department of Justice have admitted to only one death. Julian told me that there have been more and that the virus is ripping through the prison.
Assange has a known chronic lung condition, which could lead to death should he become infected with coronavirus. Assange’s lawyers requested he is released on bail to avoid succumbing to the virus, but that request was rejected.
As for the psychological effects of segregation, a European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment report argued that it can “can have an extremely damaging effect on the mental, somatic and social health of those concerned”.
…and into the fire
It’s likely that Assange will be placed under SAMs if he is extradited to the US. The Darkest Corner, a report authored by the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic and The Center for Constitutional Rights, describes how SAMs work.
In its summary, the report explains that:
SAMs are the darkest corner of the U.S. federal prison system, combining the brutality and isolation of maximum security units with additional restrictions that deny individuals almost any connection to the human world. Those restrictions include gag orders on prisoners, their family members, and their attorneys, effectively shielding this extreme use of government power from public view.
It continues:
SAMs deny prisoners the narrow avenues of indirect communication – through sink drains or air vents – available to prisoners in solitary confinement. They prohibit social contact with anyone except for a few immediate family members, and heavily regulate even those contacts. And they further prohibit prisoners from connecting to the social world via current media and news, limiting prisoners’ access to information to outdated, government-approved materials. Even a prisoner’s communications with his lawyer – which are supposed to be protected by attorney-client privilege – can be subject to monitoring by the FBI.
It ominously adds that: “Many prisoners remain under these conditions indefinitely, for years or in some cases even decades”. Moreover, these conditions can be used as a weapon to force a prisoner to plead guilty:
In numerous cases, the Attorney General recommends lifting SAMs after the defendant pleads guilty. This practice erodes defendants’ presumption of innocence and serves as a tool to coerce them into cooperating with the government and pleading guilty.
The report provides further details on how SAMs incorporate sensory deprivation and social isolation measures that “may amount to torture”. Also, it argues that the SAMs regime contravenes both US and international laws.
ECHR article 3
Should the UK courts agree to extradite Assange, he could face months, if not decades, of psychological torture. However, Article 3 of the European Court of Human Rights states clearly: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. Under that article, the US extradition request should be rejected by the UK courts.
For a publisher to be subjected to such a nightmare scenario would be intolerable.
Alabama joins Kentucky, South Dakota and West Virginia to criminalize fossil fuel protests
In March, Kentucky, South Dakota and West Virginia passed laws restricting pipeline protests. Alabama is poised to become the fourth.
By Alexander C. Kaufman 10 May 20 Alabama lawmakers this week advanced legislation to add new criminal penalties to nonviolent protests against pipelines and other fossil fuel projects, setting a course to become the fourth state to enact such measures amid the chaos of the coronavirus pandemic.
Kentucky, South Dakota and West Virginia enacted similar measures in March, just as states started implementing lockdowns to contain the outbreak of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus.
The Alabama Senate passed the bill on March 12, just befohe Alabama Senate passed the bill on March 12, just before state officials, alarmed at the spread of the virus, postponed legislative hearings for a month. When the capitol reopened in Montgomery on May 4, state Democrats remained in their home districts, but enough Republican lawmakers returned to restart work on the legislation. On Monday, the House version of the bill was introduced and referred to the committee that oversees utilities and infrastructure. Continue reading
A potential US extradition of Assange poses existential threats to democracy.
In his fight against extradition to the US, where he faces 175 years in prison and being subjected to harsh conditions under “Special Administrative Measures”, Assange is rendered defenseless. He is in effective solitary confinement, being psychologically tortured inside London’s maximum-security prison. With the British government’s refusal to release him temporarily into home detention, despite his deteriorating health and weak lung condition developed as consequences of long detention, Assange is now put at risk of contracting coronavirus. This threatens his life.
Now, as the world stands still and becomes silent in our collective self-quarantine, Assange’s words spoken years ago in defense of a free internet call for our attention from behind the walls of Belmarsh prison:
“Nuclear war, climate change or global pandemics are existential threats that we can work through with discussion and thought. Discourse is humanity’s immune system for existential threats. Diseases that infect the immune system are usually fatal. In this case, at a planetary scale.”
Assange’s US extradition, Threat to Future of Internet and Democracy, CounterPunch by NOZOMI HAYASE 8 May 20 On Monday May 4, the British Court decided that the extradition hearing for WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, scheduled for May 18, would be moved to September. This four month delay was made after Assange’s defense lawyer argued the difficulty of his receiving a fair hearing due to restrictions posed by the Covid-19 lockdown. Monday’s hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court proceeded without enabling the phone link for press and observers waiting on the line, and without Assange who was not well enough to appear via videolink.
Sunday May 3rd marked World Press Freedom Day. As people around the globe celebrated with online debates and workshops, Assange was being held on remand in London’s Belmarsh prison for publishing classified documents which exposed US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. On this day, annually observed by the United Nations to remind the governments of the importance of free press, Amnesty International renewed its call for the US to drop the charges against this imprisoned journalist.
The US case to extradite Assange is one of the most important press freedom cases of this century. The indictment against him under the Espionage Act is an unprecedented attack on journalism. This is a war on free speech that has escalated in recent years turning the Internet into a battleground.
Privatized censorship Continue reading
Michael Flynn’s involvement in shady nuclear deals with Saudi Arabia
Nov. 29, 2017 The overture follows an intense and secretive lobbying push involving Michael Flynn, Tom Barrack, Rick Gates and even Iran-Contra figure Robert McFarlane. The Trump administration is holding talks on providing nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia — a move that critics say could upend decades of U.S. policy and lead to an arms race in the Middle East.
The Saudi government wants nuclear power to free up more oil for export, but current and former American officials suspect the country’s leaders also want to keep up with the enrichment capabilities of their rival, Iran.
Saudi Arabia needs approval from the U.S. in order to receive sensitive American technology. Past negotiations broke down because the Saudi government wouldn’t commit to certain safeguards against eventually using the technology for weapons.
Now the Trump administration has reopened those talks and might not insist on the same precautions. Continue reading
U.S. Congress kept in the dark about government nuclear negotiations with Saudi Arabia
U.S. should keep Congress informed about nuclear talks with Saudis: GAO, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-nuclearpower/us-should-keep-congress-informed-about-nuclear-talks-with-saudis-gao-idUSKBN22G2X Timothy Gardner
6 May 20, WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Departments of State and Energy should commit to regular briefings to relevant committees in Congress on talks about nuclear power cooperation with Saudi Arabia, a congressional watchdog said in a report on Monday.
The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, report said Congress should consider amending the 1954 Atomic Energy Act, or AEA, to require the briefings for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations about negotiations on nuclear power sharing.
Lawmakers concerned about nonproliferation issues associated with nuclear power development had complained they were being kept in the dark about Trump administration talks with Saudi Arabia, many of which were led by former Energy Secretary Rick Perry. Concern grew after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told CBS in 2018 that the kingdom did not want to acquire a nuclear bomb, but would do so if its rival Iran did so.
Some U.S. lawmakers want the United States to insist that Saudi Arabia agree to a so-called gold standard that restricts enrichment and reprocessing, potential pathways to making fissile material for nuclear weapons. The United States struck such an agreement with the United Arab Emirates in 2009. If Saudi Arabia develops nuclear power without the gold standard, the UAE would likely seek to be released from its agreement.
Senators Robert Menendez, a Democrat, and Marco Rubio, a Republican, had asked the GAO last year to review U.S. agency negotiations with Saudi Arabia on nuclear power, partially because they were concerned the Energy Department, not the State Department took the lead.
The senators said they would explore legislative changes recommended by the GAO. “Congress must reassert its critical role in reviewing nuclear cooperation agreements to ensure these agreements do not pose an unnecessary risk to the United States” they said.
The senators said they would explore legislative changes recommended by the GAO. “Congress must reassert its critical role in reviewing nuclear cooperation agreements to ensure these agreements do not pose an unnecessary risk to the United States” they said.
UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) gags staff on subject of Trident nuclear weapons in Scotland.
Ferret 3rd May 2020, The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has banned its military and civilian staff
from speaking publicly about Trident nuclear weapons in Scotland. All
members of the armed forces and MoD civil servants have been instructed not
make any public comment, or have any contact with the media, on
“contentious topics” such as “Trident/Successor” and “Scotland
and Defence”. The instructions have been condemned as a “gagging order
worthy of a dictatorship” by campaigners. They have also been criticised
by the Scottish National Party as “an infringement too far”.
https://theferret.scot/ministry-of-defence-trident-scotland-gag/
Netanyahu’s deceitful push to try to get USA to attack Iran
 Netanyahu pushed U.S. to attack Iran with fabricated nuclear documents: report, Tehran Times May 1, 2020 – TEHRAN — The Iranian nuclear documents presented by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were an Israeli fabrication designed to trigger U.S. into a war with Iran, according to an investigation.U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal on May 8, 2018 partly based on Netanyahu’s claim that Iran was determined to build nuclear weapons, the investigation said.
In April 2018, Netanyahu claimed publicly that Israel’s Mossad spy agency had stolen Iran’s entire nuclear archive from Tehran. “You may well know that Iran’s leaders repeatedly deny ever pursuing nuclear weapons…” he declared. “Well, tonight, I’m here to tell you one thing: Iran lied. Big time.” However, an investigation of the supposed Iranian nuclear documents by The Grayzone reveals them to be the product of an Israeli disinformation operation that helped trigger the most serious threat of war since the conflict with Iran began nearly four decades ago. The following is an excerpt of an article published in The Grayzone on Wednesday: This investigation found multiple indications that the story of Mossad’s heist of 50,000 pages of secret nuclear files from Tehran was very likely an elaborate fiction and that the documents were fabricated by the Mossad itself. According to the official Israeli version of events, the Iranians had gathered the nuclear documents from various locations and moved them to what Netanyahu himself described as “a dilapidated warehouse” in southern Tehran. Even assuming that Iran had secret documents demonstrating the development of nuclear weapons, the claim that top secret documents would be held in a nondescript and unguarded warehouse in central Tehran is so unlikely that it should have raised immediate alarm bells about the story’s legitimacy. Even more problematic was the claim by a Mossad official to Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman that Mossad knew not only in what warehouse its commandos would find the documents but precisely which safes to break into with a blowtorch. The official told Bergman the Mossad team had been guided by an intelligence asset to the few safes in the warehouse contained the binders with the most important documents. Netanyahu bragged publicly that “very few” Iranians knew the location of the archive; the Mossad official told Bergman “only a handful of people” knew. No proof of authenticity Netanyahu’s April 30 slide show presented a series of purported Iranian documents containing sensational revelations that he pointed to as proof of his insistence that Iran had lied about its interest in manufacturing nuclear weapons. The visual aides included a file supposedly dating back to early 2000 or before that detailed various ways to achieve a plan to build five nuclear weapons by mid-2003. Another document that generated widespread media interest was an alleged report on a discussion among leading Iranian scientists of a purported mid-2003 decision by Iran’s defense minister to separate an existing secret nuclear weapons program into overt and covert parts. Left out of the media coverage of these “nuclear archive” documents was a simple fact that was highly inconvenient to Netanyahu: nothing about them offered a scintilla of evidence that they were genuine. For example, not one contained the official markings of the relevant Iranian agency…… Withholding access to outside experts In fact, even the most pro-Israeli visitors to Tel Aviv have been denied access to the original documents. David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security and Olli Heinonen of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies – both stalwart defenders of the official Israeli line on Iranian nuclear policy – reported in October 2018 that they had been given only a “slide deck” showing reproductions or excerpts of the documents. When a team of six specialists from Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs visited Israel in January 2019 for briefings on the archive, they too were offered only a cursory browse of the supposedly original documents. Harvard Professor Matthew Bunn recalled in an interview with this writer that the team had been shown one of the binders containing what were said to be original documents relating to Iran’s relations with the IAEA and had “paged through a bit of it.” But they were shown no documents on Iran nuclear weapons work. As Bunn admitted, “We weren’t attempting to do any forensic analysis of these documents.”………….. The role of the MEK in passing the massive tranche of supposed secret Iranian nuclear documents to the BND and its hand-in-glove relationship with the Mossad leaves little room for doubt that the documents introduced to Western intelligence 2004 were, in fact, created by the Mossad. For the Mossad, the MEK was a convenient unit for outsourcing negative press about Iran which it did not want attributed directly to Israeli intelligence. To enhance the MEK’s credibility in the eyes of foreign media and intelligence agencies, Mossad passed the coordinates of Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility to the MEK in 2002. Later, it provided to the MEK personal information such as the passport number and home telephone number of Iranian physics professor Mohsen Fakhrizadh, whose name appeared in the nuclear documents, according to the co-authors of a best-selling Israeli book on the Mossad’s covert operations. By trotting out the same discredited technical drawing depicting the wrong Iranian missile reentry vehicle – a trick he had previously deployed to create the original case for accusing Iran of covert nuclear weapons development – the Israeli prime minister showed how confident he was in his ability to hoodwink Washington and the Western corporate media. Netanyahu’s multiple levels of deception have been remarkably successful, despite having relied on crude stunts that any diligent news organization should have seen through. Through his manipulation of foreign governments and media, he has been able to maneuver Donald Trump and the United States into a dangerous process of confrontation that has brought the U.S. to the precipice of military conflict with Iran.https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/447377/Netanyahu-pushed-U-S-to-attack-Iran-with-fabricated-nuclear |
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Hundreds of foreign companies procuring nuclear materials for India and Pakistan
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Reuters 30th April 2020, Hundreds of foreign companies are actively procuring components for India and Pakistan’s nuclear programmes, taking advantage of gaps in the global
regulation of the industry, according to a report by a U.S.-based research group.https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-india-pakistan-nuclear-exclusive/exclusive-india-pakistan-nuclear-procurement-networks-larger-than-thought-study-shows-idUKKBN22C2JO?rpc=401& |
France’s unfairly heavy monitoring of anti-nuclear activists, treating them as violent criminals
Justice has massively monitored Bure’s anti-nuclear activists Reporterre, April 27, 2020 / Marie Barbier (Reporterre) and Jade Lindgaard. Dozens of people tapped, a thousand retranscribed discussions, more than 85,000 conversations and intercepted messages, more than 16 years of cumulative telephone surveillance time: the judicial information opened in July 2017 is a disproportionate machine of intelligence on the movement antinuclear from this village of the Meuse, according to the documents consulted by Reporterre and Mediapart.
Faces caught in a web of arrows and diagrams. Under each photo: date and place of birth, nickname, organization. The individuals are grouped into “clans”, linked to places and ratings of the investigation file. Some faces are magnified, others reduced to the size of a pinhead. Some people are entitled to a photo, others appear in the form of a pictogram – blue for men, fuchsia pink for women.
This diagram [on original] was produced by the Anacrim criminal analysis cell of the national gendarmerie. Its software, Analyst’s notebook, makes it possible to visualize the links between people via their telephone numbers, places, events. This technique is usually used to solve particularly serious crimes: it recently emerged from the Gregory of legal darkness case, and is currently used in the investigation of the multi-repeat killer Nordahl Lelandais.
Examining magistrate Kévin le Fur used it to dissect the organization of the opposition movement at Cigeo, the radioactive waste landfill center planned next to the village of Bure, in the Meuse. Scheduled to come into operation in 2035, it is one of the largest industrial facilities in project today in France, and a very sensitive site for the nuclear industry.
The Anacrim diagram appears in the file of the judicial information for association of criminals, where ten antinuclear militants are under investigation for various reasons in connection with degradations committed in a hotel and the organization of an undeclared demonstration in August 2017. Subject to strict judicial control, those under investigation are prohibited from seeing each other, talking to each other and even being in the same room.
In the Bure case, Anacrim produced a total of fourteen diagrams on “the role and involvement” of the accused and the interactions between collectives and associations. This method leaves its mark on education. Seven people, among the ten indicted, are for criminal association, but 118 individuals are listed in the organization chart of the gendarmes placed in the investigation file.
Dozens of people tapped, more than a thousand transcribed discussions, tens of thousands of conversations and intercepted messages, more than fifteen years of cumulative telephone interception time: the judicial information opened in July 2017 looks like a real intelligence machine on the anti-nuclear movement of Bure, according to the investigation file consulted by Reporterre and Mediapart, and of which Liberation had unveiled part of the content in November 2018. An extraordinary investigation, extremely intrusive and focused on the surveillance of political activists whom the justice system seems to consider as enemies of democracy.
Molotov cocktails and stones fly. Gendarmes were injured and a protester mutilated by a grenade on the foot. Those charged are for different reasons from each other: participation in a gathering after summons, participation in a criminal association for the preparation of an offense punishable by five or ten years’ imprisonment, detention (or complicity) in an organized gang of incendiary product, damage to the property of others by dangerous means, concealment of property from an aggravated theft, voluntary violence in meetings.
From the first days of the investigation, the gendarmes were worried about “criminal designs” unrelated to the “legitimate challenge in a democratic state” of the militants implicated. “These actions can no longer be considered as a legitimate social and societal protest” or “as a form of democratic opposition”, they write in a report, July 27, 2017. According to them, “some of the opponents deliberately choose a violent path. They attack the property associated with the contested projects, but sometimes also the people working for the development of these industrial installations and at the same time against the police. ” In the eyes of the investigators, “opponents criminalize themselves”.
Part of the seals is sent to the Anti-Terrorism Office, a unit of the gendarmerie responsible for the prevention and suppression of acts of terrorism. To take the measure of the surveillance of the militants of Bure and their entourage, Reporterre and Mediapart evaluated the means deployed by the gendarmerie and the justice in their mission. Almost 765 telephone numbers have been the subject of identity verification requests from telephone operators. At least 200 other requests were made to find out the call histories, their places of emission, the bank details of the holders subscription, PUK codes to unlock a phone when you don’t know your PIN.
According to Me Raphaël Kempf, one of the lawyers for the indictments: Listening for so long is proof that we are not in a classic criminal judicial procedure intended to collect evidence of the commission of crimes, but that we are using the means of law and criminal procedure for the purpose of intelligence, which is political in nature. ”
If we add up all these sequences, we get a cumulative time spent listening to activists equivalent to more than sixteen years! According to the minutes, most of these people were listened to permanently by a team of gendarmes taking turns behind their screens. In total, more than 85,000 conversations and messages were intercepted, according to our estimates. And no less than 337 conversations were transcribed on trial- verbal, to which are added some 800 messages reproduced by the Technical Assistance Center (CTA). Are these means proportionate to the crimes being prosecuted? Joined by Reporterre and Mediapart, Olivier Glady, public prosecutor of Bar-le-Duc answers: “I cannot answer that. This is a dossier that makes fifteen volumes. You have files of other kinds (traffic in vehicles or narcotics) which are roughly equivalent, I am not sure that the proportionality of the investigations is simply to relate to a number as you give it to me. ”
During these innumerable hours spent listening to the militants, the gendarmes tracked the indications, sometimes tiny, of each other’s responsibilities in organizing the protest. These are two cultures which, behind closed doors of a judicial investigation, seem to confront each other from a distance. On the one hand, the gendarmes. On the other, anti-nuclear, libertarian culture, who refuse hierarchy and formal assignments to roles. Inevitably, the vision of gendarmes stumbles on the spontaneous and horizontal practices of regulars at the Maison de la Résistance. This old farm in Bure was bought in 2004 by anti-nuclear activists to create a place of struggle. It has become a place of collective life where people come to sleep during a gathering, get together, work, cook, party……. https://reporterre.net/1-3-La-justice-a-massivement-surveille-les-militants-antinucleaires-de-Bure
A dire need to closely scrutinize Indian procurement and export practices in defense and nuclear deals.
South Asian Nuclear Muddle – OpEd, April 22, 2020 Rabia Javed,
Indeed, the origin of nuclear episode in South Asia occurred when India detonated its first plutonium device characterizing it as a “peaceful nuclear explosive”. While scratching around some pages from the history, one comes to the conclusion that the nuclear arms race in South Asia is intensifying, thanks, amply, to New Delhi’s designs to be a hegemonic regional power. Over the past decade, South Asia has increasingly become alarmed by Indian ability to wage conventional war and their ambitious nuclear weapon capabilities are also a threat to peace.
According to a report published by financial times titled “India raise nuclear stakes” re-counted that India can now build nuclear weapons with the same destructive power as those in the arsenals of the world’s major nuclear powers according to New Delhi’s senior atomic officials.
Similarly, a statement published in The Hindu by Indian Atomic Energy Chairman R.K. Sinha mentioned, “India will continue its nuclear programme without any interruption, irrespective of decisions taken by other countries and there is no reason to follow Germany, Japan which are cutting down on nuclear energy.” Has the international community accepted India as a determined proliferator which can’t be stopped?
Similarly, a report shows India’s dependence on nuclear weapons is increasing miles after every passing year and will be devastating in near future. Some newspapers also published this report with a label of China being a sole reason for such development. However, Zachary Keck once argued that India’s nuclear development was just a mistake to be remembered because it has not served the purpose of what India has aimed for (deterring China).
India has long sought to carve out a special exception for itself in the nuclear sphere. Brig. Naeem Salik in his book titled, The Genesis of South Asian Nuclear Deterrence: Pakistan’s Perspective, traces the origin of India’s nuclear programme and the aspects of its nuclear double standards. He provides a comparative study of the dynamics of the South Asian nuclearization which concludes that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and father of the Indian bomb, Dr. Homi Bhabha recognized the dual nature of nuclear technology, and believed it could be beneficial for India.
During New Delhi’s early period in nuclear history, it achieved nuclear technology to utilize it for peaceful purposes but the demonstration in 1974 evoked a totally different situation. Isn’t it a mischief that India tested its first nuclear device in May 1974 and now has full capabilities of nuclear fuel cycle under the cover of civilian nuclear technology? How did this come to pass when there were strict safeguards in place to prevent misuse of the peaceful atom? The further depressing dilemma is that India’s nuclear programme is moving forward, steadily, without any hindrance from great powers. It secretly pursued nuclear weapons, declared in the late 1990s, whereas, the International community engaged with New Delhi, constantly extending a hand of friendship exemplified by different diplomatic measures such as the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal.
That being said, New Delhi continues to sign nuclear deals without being hindered by any of the so-called nuclear non-proliferation purists. Despite not signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty, India has also assigned the uranium deal with Australia which has raised various important questions regarding the use of Australian uranium in India. As of now, India has signed civil nuclear agreements with more than a dozen countries which include; Argentina, Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Namibia, Russia, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United States and Vietnam. Has India succeeded enough to bury her proliferation record over decades and shove it under the carpet? Isn’t it a lethal hoax?
Under these circumstances, it is also astonishing that there is even a possibility to grant India, the membership of Nuclear Supply Group (NSG), which is, in turn, a reactionary measure to India’s own disconcerting pursuit of nuclear weapons. Interestingly, India has been building its case for international recognition as a (Normal) nuclear weapon state for years, seeking admission to the Group, where, permitting an NPT-outlier like India will create the domino effect, when it will become a compulsion for states like Pakistan to opt for strategies commanded by their security concerns. While, on the other hand, it was also revealed that India has been busy in developing a secret nuclear city. Henceforth, it is important for NSG to abide by the criteria established by their own policies and must consider that its decision will also affect strategic stability in the region of South Asia.
As the world seeks to shrink global stockpiles of nuclear weapons, India continues to modernise its arsenal which increases Pakistan’s security dilemmas, compelling it to give a befitting yet restrained response. North Korean and Iranian nuclear programmes must not be the only concern, the concern should be regarding the rate of proliferation everywhere. Nuclear sales may benefit the corporate bottom-line, however, the spread of nuclear technology and ultimately nuclear weapons undermines the security of the planet.
Last but not the least, there is a dire need to closely scrutinize Indian procurement and export practices in defense and nuclear deal. AT TOP https://www.eurasiareview.com/22042020-south-asian-nuclear-muddle-oped/
Opening the lid on Russia’s super-secretive nuclear industry
“Our country will receive waste from foreign nuclear power plants built by Rosatom from time to time” https://realnoevremya.com/articles/4406-vladimir-slivyak-on-import-of-radioactive-waste-to-russia By 
Matvey Antropov, 14.04.2020
Environmentalist Vladimir Slivyak on the industry that “always kept its affairs secret”
On March 19 and April 6 of this year, German eco-activists protested against the export of new shipments of radioactive waste to Russia, “cynically undertaken in the midst of the pandemic to safely avoid protests.” Realnoe Vremya spoke with Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman of the Russian environmental group Ecozaschita!, author of the book From Hiroshima to Fukushima, about how nuclear waste is imported to Russia, how open information is about Rosatom’s activities, and whether a nuclear power plant will be built in Tatarstan.
“We will know that certain wastes are imported to Russia after their transportation or arrival”
Vladimir, let’s first determine what is considered to be radioactive waste.
There are different points of view on this issue. There is a view of the nuclear industry, which is the position of the state, and there is a view of environmentalists, which, of course, is fundamentally different. The first is that if you plan to use radioactive waste (RW) further, then they are not considered waste. Environmentalists believe that any action with radioactive materials leaves waste (by-products). This can be work at nuclear power plants, in places where uranium is extracted and enriched — there are a lot of such places. In general, the discussion about what is considered waste in Russia has been going on for many years.
It should also be noted that when it comes to importing nuclear waste to Russia, it is most often waste from uranium enrichment — depleted uranium hexafluoride UF6 or spent fuel from nuclear power plants.
How many tonnes of radioactive waste are imported to Russia and who is their main exporter?
There is a contract, under which from 2019 to 2022, 12,000 tonnes of depleted uranium hexafluoride should be imported to our country from the plant in Gronau (North Rhine —Westphalia), owned by Urenco. Approximately 6,000 tonnes have already been imported. Of course, we don’t know about all the contracts. From 2016 to at least 2019, Russia received depleted uranium hexafluoride from the British plant in Capenhurst of the same company Urenco. It is unknown exactly how much it was imported.
The nuclear industry has always kept its business secret and still does. All the words that they want to be open and engage with the public are conversations in favour of the poor. Of course, all the information in Rosatom is classified. We will know that certain wastes are imported to Russia after their transportation or arrival to Russia. We have colleagues abroad who monitor the movement of nuclear waste. So we will only find out about this through our own channels of civil cooperation of activists. Reports from representatives of the nuclear industry are very rare in the media, so it is quite difficult for us to navigate. But the data on the movement of uranium hexafluoride from the plant in Gronau are accurate — they were obtained by a member of the Bundestag from the official response of the German government.
It should also be noted that Rosatom builds nuclear power plants in different countries of the world. Last year, we conducted the first independent study in Russia to find out where Rosatom operates, where nuclear power plants are actually being built, and where only the appearance of construction is being created. We have a corresponding report on our website. Usually, the priority option when signing an agreement on the construction of a nuclear power plant involves the return of spent nuclear fuel to Russia, of course, for a lot of money. In other words, our country will receive waste from foreign nuclear power plants built by Rosatom from time to time. Ecologists consider them to be one of the most dangerous among the nuclear waste.
“They say that this is not waste but valuable raw materials. At the same time, a million tonnes of ‘raw materials’ lie idle for decades”
As far as I know, the import of nuclear waste in Russia was not always allowed, right?
Yes, in the ’90s, spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants could not be transported. And then it was considered waste. There was also a complete ban on the import of other raw materials. The nuclear industry (then ministry of atomic energy) came out of the situation in the following way: referring to long-concluded agreements that need to be fulfilled, the ministry for atomic energy asked to make an exception for them. And the government agreed with these arguments.
And in 2001, a bill was passed allowing the import of spent fuel from foreign nuclear power plants and removing it from the category of waste (because it can be used further). Although the essence of the question on this topic is as follows: during the production of electricity at nuclear power plants, nuclear waste occurs. Whether you use them in the future or not -it’s still waste. Besides, not all spent fuel is used in any way in industry.
Our legislation has done everything for Rosatom’s comfortable operation. If the latter has indicated somewhere that it plans to use the waste in some way in the future, this means that it ceases to be radioactive waste. But this is absurd.
Rosatom is committed to disposing of all depleted uranium hexafluoride available in Russia by 2080. Here is a quote on this topic from Novaya Gazeta: “But against the background of the international outcry, Rosatom announced the launch of a programme for the management of DUHF, in which uranium “tails” are called raw materials for nuclear power of the future, a source of hydrogen fluoride and fluorine. One of the goals of the programme is the complete elimination of DUHF reserves at all Russian landfills by 2080. “Our activities can be designated with the Recycling sign,” said the acting CEO of Techsnabexport (Rosatom’s subsidiary) Yury Ulyanin.”
Does anyone believe that Rosatom will be able to recycle millions of tonnes of UF6 by 2080? In Russia, any documents that speak of such a distant time are perceived as absurd. At the moment, more than one million tonnes of depleted uranium hexafluoride are stored at enterprises and in places where radioactive waste is stored in Russia. A very small part has been converted to a different form that is more convenient for storage, but this is not even disposal or recycling.
Now, when the issue of importing UF6 from Germany has been raised, Rosatom insists that it is not waste but insanely valuable and necessary raw materials. But at the same time, they have a million tonnes of this raw material without any use for decades
“We were brought and showed absolutely nothing”
Under what conditions are nuclear waste stored? How safe is it?
For example, waste from Germany is being transported to a landfill in the closed city of Novouralsk in Sverdlovsk Oblast. No one is allowed in this city to see what kind of radioactive waste is stored there. There are satellite photos that show that the containers are under the open sky. In some photos in Google Maps or Google Earth, one can see that some containers are subject to corrosion.
This information is also available from government agencies, but it is from the second half of the 2000s. Since then, publication of information on nuclear waste had been restricted. In the 2000s, Rostekhnadzor made reports on dangerous types of industry in Russia, in which the risks were described in detail. It said that a significant number of containers are subject to corrosion and there is a threat of their depressurization.
Now Rosatom says that everything is fine, take our word for it. Word — because an ordinary person can not get to the places where any radioactive waste is transported. For the most part, these are closed cities with access control. Even if someone is allowed on them as an exception, they only show a small piece of territory. You can’t freely study containers, you don’t decide what they show you.
I had a single experience of visiting a closed city in the 2000s. Then there was a fire at one of the enterprises of the uranium industry in the city of Lesnoy, Sverdlovsk Oblast. We distributed information about the fire through our channels, and a representative of Rosatom told us something like this: “Let’s take you to that company, and you will see for yourself that the information about the fire is not true.” My colleague and I were brought and showed absolutely nothing. We were taken to the house of culture, where the employees of this enterprise were sitting, and they began to express something to us. We asked: “Will you show us anything?” They told us they wouldn’t show us anything, and sent us back.
Apart from satellite images, there is no other open information on radioactive waste in closed cities.
Where and how are other types of radioactive waste stored in Russia? Are there any radiation leak?
If we take spent nuclear fuel from a nuclear power plant, then after removing it from the reactor, it is stored in pools, where it lies in the water for several years and cools down. Spent fuel can be stored dry for a long time in containers on special sites.
By default, we should assume that in theory, radiation leakage is always possible, and therefore we need to achieve the most reliable barrier between RW and the environment. Once radiation enters the environment, you can no longer control it. The rain or wind blows, and the radioactive trace spreads further and further. The only chance to contain radiation is to organize very well the places where radioactive substances are stored.
A person cannot imagine all the combinations of extreme circumstances that can lead to the depressurization of a container with radioactive substances or to the destruction of a storage facility. Accidents happen because people can’t calculate everything. Each accident is an example of some new combination of circumstances that we could not have predicted.
The nuclear industry remains the most classified in Russia. They try never to talk about any problems or accidents, and this is contrary to the interests of public safety. From the latest news, we can recall how last year the media reported about a suspected radiation leak in Novouralsk. We haven’t really found out what happened there.
Impacts of coronavirus on the technical, financial and legal mess that is the Vogtle nuclear project in Georgia, USA
 Work continues on Georgia nuclear reactors as coronavirus hits, The Bond Buyer, By Shelly Sigo
April 15, 2020, Construction continues on new nuclear reactors in Georgia as COVID-19 impacts workers, and as a Florida city tries in court to vacate its contract with a public power agency that has a stake in the nuclear project.
Georgia Power Co., the investor owned utility heading up construction, reports that 35 employees have tested positive for the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, which has killed more than 26,000 people in the United States since late February. More than 9,000 workers are on site at Plant Vogtle in Waynesboro, Georgia, about 25 miles from Augusta. GPC owns 45.7% of the reactor project, while three public power agencies have a majority stake and combined ownership of 54.3%. …… The Georgia Department of Health reported 14,987 positive cases of the virus, 552 deaths, and 2,922 hospitalizations across the state Wednesday….. The impacts from the virus “could disrupt or delay construction, testing, supervisory and support activities at Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4,” the notice said. “It is too early to determine what impact, if any, the COVID-19 outbreak will have on the current construction schedule or budget for Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4,” the notice concluded. With the onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic, S&P Global Ratings revised the North America regulated utility industry outlook to negative from stable on April 2. Southern’s A-minus long-term rating was placed on creditwatch negative, though it already had a negative outlook due to the Vogtle project’s construction and financial risks….. While GPC is overseeing construction and owns a minority stake in the nearly $30 billion project, three public power agencies hold a majority interest. Those are Oglethorpe Power Corp. with 30%, Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (or MEAG Power) with 22.7% and Dalton Utilities with 1.6% of the ownership. MEAG remains locked in a federal lawsuit with the city of Jacksonville, Florida, and its utility, JEA. JEA has a 20-year, take-or-pay power purchase agreement to pay debt service on a portion of bonds MEAG issued to finance part of its stake in the Vogtle project. Under the agreement, JEA is paying 41% of MEAG’s cost to finance the new reactors, and will also receive power from the units when completed. In a limited public offering memorandum last year, MEAG said the capital requirements for JEA’s PPA were estimated at about $2.9 billion, most of which were financed with $2.004 billion of long-term Project J bonds and $575.7 million of U.S Department of Energy loan guarantees. As project costs rose, JEA and MEAG sued each other in September 2018 over the PPA, with JEA and Jacksonville contending that the agreement was improperly approved and should be vacated. The legal challenge landed in the Atlanta Division of the United States District Court Northern District of Georgia. In December, MEAG filed a motion for a declaratory judgment in an attempt to enforce the PPA. JEA opposed MEAG’s motion and filed its own for a declaratory judgment stating, in part, that neither JEA nor the city can be bound by Georgia’s bond validation proceedings…….. In other arguments in the case, JEA and Jacksonville have cited increased costs from the delayed nuclear reactors, most of which occurred when the first primary contractor, Westinghouse, filed for bankruptcy. After that, GPC and the public utilities sharing costs in the project voted to continue construction. JEA said it complained about what it considers a subsequent “new uncapped cost-plus construction contract.”…… https://www.bondbuyer.com/news/work-continues-on-georgia-nuclear-reactors-as-coronavirus-hits |
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1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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