France’s nuclear-powered ‘Barracuda’ submarine lunched by President Emmanuel Macron
French President Emmanuel Macron unveils France’s nuclear-powered ‘Barracuda’ submarine Euronews 12/07/2019 French President Emmanuel Macron unveiled France’s latest nuclear-powered ‘Barracuda’ class submarine on Friday, a €9 billion stealth vessel programme Paris says is key to maintaining its naval presence for decades to come…….
The French government has placed an order for six of the 5,000-tonne submarines made by Naval Group, in which defence company Thales has a 35 percent stake.
The Australian defence minister Linda Reynolds attended the ceremony unveiling the submarine. Australia recently ordered a non-nuclear attack class submarine fleet from the Naval Group……… https://www.euronews.com/2019/07/12/french-president-emmanuel-macron-to-unveil-france-s-nuclear-powered-barracuda-submarine
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards chief says -The world knows Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapon
Iran threatened on Monday to restart deactivated centrifuges and ramp up enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity as its next potential big moves away from a 2015 nuclear agreement that Washington abandoned last year.
“Why do they globally sanction us about the nuclear issue when the world knows that we are not pursuing a weapon? In reality they are sanctioning us because of knowledge,” he said. “Nuclear weapons have no place in Islam. Islam never approves of weapons of mass destruction.”
Reporting By Babak Dehghanpisheh, Editing by William Maclean
Australia would be wise not to mindlessly follow USA into war against Iran
We must think very carefully before committing to war in the Gulf, The Age, By Hossein Esmaeili, July 8, 2019 Conflict between the United States and Iran is deepening and the two states are marching towards war. The Persian Gulf, where a third of the world’s natural gas and a fifth of the world’s oil is sourced, may soon see another large scale and probably long-lasting international conflict………
the European Union is backing measures, provided by France, United Kingdom and Germany, known as Instruments In Support of Trade Exchange (INSTEX), to facilitate trade between the EU and Iran to partially get around the US sanctions, in order to save the 2015 nuclear deal, to maintain dialogue with Iran and to prevent an international military crisis.
Australia would be much wiser to join the EU’s INSTEX and engage in dialogue with Iran……..
Should Morrison decide to enter into a conflict in one of the most volatile regions of the world, he will not have the decision-making power to end it. He would do well not to drive Australia into such a war, instead, given Australia’s international reputation, he should help European countries, the world community and the United Nations to avoid a useless armed conflict, which will not benefit any country.
Hossein Esmaeili is an associate professor of international law at Flinders University. https://www.theage.com.au/world/middle-east/we-must-think-very-carefully-before-committing-to-war-in-the-gulf-20190708-p52566.html
Fiery Imam suggests missile attack on Israel’s Dimona nuclear power plant
Israel’s Nuclear Reactor, Radio Farda, 7July 19, Tehran’s Friday Prayer Imam has suggested that Iran should launch a missile attack on Israel’s Dimona nuclear power plant.
In his Friday July 5 sermon, Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani, better known as Movahedi, addressed the United States and Israel, saying: “If Iran decides to confront you, a missile strike on the Dimona reactor would be enough,” threatening that the attack “will plough Israel 200 times.”
Dimona is an Israeli city in the Negev region, South of Beersheba and West of the Dead Sea. The city is nicknamed mini-India for its sizeable Indian Jewish community. The Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center is located about 13 kilometers to the southeast of the city.
Movahedi warned the United States and Israel about their vulnerability: “You are living in a glass house. You’d better watch out!”
He also warned the United States against a military attack on Iran………
Last year, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei changed his mind about appointing Movahedi as an interim chairman for the Expediency Council after a few weeks, probably fearing his occasional outlandish remarks could cause havoc in Iran’s domestic or international politics.
Some of Friday Prayer Imams in other Iranian cities have also made passing remarks about tensions in the region, but none was observed to make firebrand violent remarks. https://en.radiofarda.com/a/tehran-s-imam-suggests-missile-strike-on-israel-s-nuclear-reactor/30039265.html
Israel lobby in US pushing for war against Iran: Analyst
Dramatic rise in cancer rates in Basra, where depleted uranium weapons were used
Cancer hits Iraqi oil city of Basra, https://menafn.com/1098716339/Cancer-hits-Iraqi-oil-city-of-Basra MENAFN – Iraq Business News) By Mustafa Saadoun forAl Monitor 3 July 19, The deputy governor of Basra province, Zahra al-Bijari, claimed June 6 that cancer rates have been growing dramatically in the province as a result of pollution, both from oil production and from depleted uranium dust that a doctor says is causing “another Hiroshima.”The province of Basra is registering 800 new cases of cancer per month, according to Iraq’s High Commission for Human Rights, which attributed the cause to ‘multiple reasons, including environmental pollutants, whether in the air such as emanating from oil combustion, in water and soil, and resulting from effects of war.’
Iran has breached the limit of its enriched uranium stockpile
Iran says nuclear stockpile limit breached, Perth Now, AAP News Corp Australia Network July 2, 2019Iran has breached the limit of its enriched uranium stockpile set in a 2015 deal with major powers, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said, defying a warning by European cosignatories to stick to the deal despite US sanctions.
Mr Zarif confirmed to the ISNA news agency that Iran had exceeded the relevant limit of 300kg of uranium hexafluoride (UF6), but Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said Iran’s steps to decrease its commitments to the nuclear deal were “reversible”.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that its inspectors were verifying whether Iran had accumulated more enriched uranium than allowed……….
After talks on Friday in Vienna, Iran said European countries had offered too little in the way of trade assistance to persuade it to back off from its plan to breach the limit, a riposte to US President Donald Trump’s decision last year to quit the deal and reimpose economic sanctions.
Mr Mousavi urged them on Monday to step up their efforts. “Time is running out for them to save the deal,” state TV quoted Mr Mousavi as saying. The deal between Iran and six world powers lifted most international sanctions against Iran in return for restrictions on its nuclear work aimed at extending the time Iran would need to produce a nuclear bomb, if it chose to, from roughly two-three months to a year.
Iran says its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes, including generating power. Its regional adversary Israel, which Iran does not recognise, says the program presents it with an existential threat. ……
Mr Trump has called for negotiations with Iran with “no preconditions”, but Tehran has ruled out talks until the United States returns to the nuclear pact and drops its sanctions. https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/world/iran-says-nuclear-stockpile-limit-breached-ng-60abb6d87a4dd687f54194caf9fd9348
How Close Is Iran to a Nuclear Bomb, Really?
Experts say Tehran has the capability to build a nuclear weapon within a few years but perhaps not the intent. Foreign Policy.com, BY LARA SELIGMAN, JULY 1, 2019,
Iran confirmed on Monday that it has breached the limit on its stockpile of enriched uranium set by the 2015 nuclear deal, renewing concerns that Tehran could, within months, have enough weapons-grade uranium to build a nuclear bomb.
But experts say the violation is more of a symbolic move than a concrete step toward obtaining a nuclear weapon. Though most agree that Iran has the expertise and capability to eventually build such a device, it is not clear that Tehran has the intent or even sees the necessity of doing so.
“This is not a dash to a nuclear bomb,” said Kelsey Davenport, the director of nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association. “It is a calculated move designed to gain leverage in negotiations with the Europeans, Russia, and China on sanctions relief.”
Tehran has recently ratcheted up pressure on the remaining adherents to the nuclear deal to provide some sort of relief to U.S. President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign. Iran has allegedly attacked oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman and most recently shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone, nearly provoking a U.S. missile attack that Trump aborted at the last minute. The regime is also threatening to suspend other commitments under the 2015 deal in just days unless European powers provide sanction relief.
The 2015 deal caps Iran’s levels of uranium enriched to 3.67 percent purity—called “low-enriched uranium” and suitable for producing fuel for nuclear power reactors—at 300 kilograms. But there are still a number of steps Iran would have to take in order to build a bomb, Davenport explained……….. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/01/how-close-is-iran-to-a-nuclear-bomb-really/
Urgent need for international diplomacy: the world facing a renewed nuclear arms race
Without diplomacy, the world’s major powers risk a renewed nuclear arms race, The Hill, BY DR. VIATCHESLAV MOSHE KANTOR, 07/01/19 The reaction to the airing of the HBO series “Chernobyl,” dramatizing the most disastrous nuclear power plant accident in history, and to the news of President Trump’s aborted strike on Iran, amply shows the potential for horrific widescale nuclear catastrophe and the public’s desire to know the true extent of the risk.
Elsewhere, the eyes of the world are trained on the clock that is ticking down to the expiration of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) in August 2019 and the potential end of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in 2021.
These are troubling times. Despite the weekend’s high-profile foray into North Korean territory by President Trump – the first such visit by a sitting U.S. president – substantive progress between the United States and North Korea over the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is at a standstill. ……
The prospects of a multilateral treaty with China are looking slim. In the background, heightening tensions between the U.S., Europe and Russia risks undermining global stability. …..
This instability coincides with a crisis in diplomacy and a discernible lack of dialogue between the world’s major powers. This could not come at a worse time, when for the first time in nearly 50 years the demise of key international treaties means there will be no agreed limits on nuclear weapons. In the absence of substantive bilateral talks, there are no prospects of setting such limits in place. …….
Talks are apparently underway to secure the extension of the New START Treaty by a further five years, although this outcome is by no means certain.
Any future nuclear catastrophic event would not necessarily be the result of the actions of an established government intentionally deploying a nuclear weapon but could occur through a tragic accident like the disaster at Chernobyl…….
Organizations such as The International Luxembourg Forum are important mainstays of dialogue, promoting nuclear nonproliferation and working to reduce the risks of nuclear conflict. Nuclear experts have a key role to play in rebuilding a culture of trust and understanding in our political life. ……. https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/451125-without-diplomacy-the-worlds-major-powers-risk-a-renewed-nuclear
A call for Australia to get nuclear weapons
Nuclear arsenal must be on Australia’s agenda, argues defence expert, SMH, By Harriet Alexander, July 1, 2019 Australia can no longer rely on the United States to protect it in Asia and should consider developing its own nuclear weapons for the event that China becomes hostile, former defence strategist and security analyst Hugh White argues in a controversial new book.
Professor White argues in How to Defend Australia the assumption that the United States would protect the nation against any attack by a major power, which has underpinned Australian defence policy since the Cold War, is no longer true as China emerges as the dominant power in Asia.
For Australia to be self-reliant, it would need to boost defence spending from 2 per cent to 3.5 per cent of GDP – or $30 billion – and consider the “difficult and uncomfortable” question of developing its own nuclear capability, said Professor White, a professor in strategic studies at the Australian National University……..
Although most think tanks and strategic policy institutes in the United States continued to assert that dominance in Asia was a strategic priority, America’s global leadership has not figured as a priority for President Donald Trump nor for the contenders to the Democrat nomination, Professor White said. ……
Professor White said Australia should only consider defensive weapons such as submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
“We need to be extremely careful about how we talk about this and very conscious of the extraordinary cost to us of acquiring nuclear weapons,” Professor White said.
“It would make us less secure in some ways, that’s why in some ways I think it’s appalling.”
The last prime minister to canvass the development of nuclear weapons in Australia was Robert Menzies in the 1960s.
Professor White, a former deputy secretary for strategy and intelligence with the Department of Defence, was dismissed as alarmist when he first foreshadowed in 2010 the demise of American influence in Asia. But the Lowy Institute’s international security program director Sam Roggeveen said he had since been proved correct.
Mr Roggeveen said the regional complications of Australia developing nuclear weapons would be huge, with Indonesia probably having to follow suit, but the logic was inescapable.
“If we ever completely decouple from the [US] alliance then it’s hard to see how we could essentially maintain our independence against China’s coercion if we didn’t have nuclear weapons,” Mr Roggeveen said.
The bipartisan political consensus on Australian defence policy is opposed to the development of nuclear weapons, and the domestic shipbuilding program would leave Australia “hopelessly vulnerable” if it ever came to a fight with China, Mr Roggeveen said.
“According to White, we are locking in a defence force for a generation that will be totally unsuited to the world we are entering,” he wrote in a book review for The Interpreter. “That’s the scandal.”
The Minister for Defence, Linda Reynolds, said: “Australia stands by its Non-Proliferation Treaty pledge, as a non-nuclear weapon state, not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons.”
La Trobe Asia executive director Euan Graham said the US alliance was more resilient than Professor White described and China had shown no signs of aggression, but he agreed Australia should think about developing its nuclear capability.
“We’re talking about 15 to 20 years acquisition timeframe and the security environment that we’re facing will almost certainly be more severe then that it is now,” Dr Graham said.
“I think Australia has to be thinking about what will be be required to move to a nuclear weapon posture because that can’t happen overnight.” https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/nuclear-arsenal-must-be-on-australia-s-agenda-argues-defence-expert-20190701-p52306.html
Putin talks of Russia, USA , resuming negotiations on nuclear arms reduction treaty
Putin was commenting on his meeting with US President Donald Trump the day before, most of which took place behind closed doors.
“We have tasked our respective foreign minister to start lower-level talks on [nuclear disarmament],” Putin said.
The talks, according to Putin’s comments carried by the Russian Interfax news agency, would be related to extending the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), which went into force in 2011 after talks between Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama and Russia’s then-President Dmitry Medvedev.
Fears of restarting nuclear race
The New START limits the number of deployed nuclear warheads ready to use on intercontinental missiles and heavy bomber bases to 1,550. The treaty also imposes various other restrictions to US and Russian nuclear capabilities. It is set to expire in 2021.
According to 2019 data provided by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, both the US and Russia currently have about 1,600 deployed strategic nuclear heads at their disposal. Russia has a total of 6,500 nuclear warheads, compared to 6,185 on the US side.
Russia’s Putin has repeatedly warned that the New START expiry date could signal a new nuclear arms race.
INF on the brink
On Saturday, he refused to give a timeline for the talks and said it was “too early to talk about” the likelihood of getting to an agreement.
Putin’s remarks come after the US accused Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty by developing a new missile system.
The document, signed in 1987 between the US and the now defunct Soviet Union, prohibits the possessing and testing of short- and medium-range nuclear weapons.
Both Russia and the US have since suspended their participation in the accord. The US has pledged to pull out of the agreement if Russia is not in compliance by August 2 this year.
U.S. presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard spells out the danger of nuclear war
Russia threatens military response to any NATO action over nuclear-ready missile
NATO says it will act unless Russia destroys nuclear-ready missile
NATO says it will act unless Russia destroys nuclear-ready missile, CNBC, JUN 26 2019
KEY POINTS
- NATO has said Russia’s SSC-8 missile violates terms of a 1987 missile treaty.
- The U.S. says it will exit the treaty unless Russia stops their production.
- But Russia has continued to develop and site the missiles within range of Europe.
- NATO said Russia must destroy its short-range nuclear-ready cruise missile system, or the alliance will be forced to respond.
The U.S. has previously said it will quit a decades-old missile treaty with Russia if the latter fails to destroy the missile, labeled the SSC-8 by NATO.
The 1987 INF Treaty between the U.S. and Russia sought to eliminate nuclear and conventional missiles, as well as their launchers, with short ranges (310–620 miles) and intermediate ranges (620–3,420 miles).
NATO has said the SSC-8 violates those terms and that Russia has been deploying the system at locations which could threaten countries across Europe.
Speaking at a press conference in Brussels Tuesday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Russia had just five weeks to scrap the system and save the treaty…….. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/25/nato-says-russia-must-end-nuclear-ready-missile-ssc-program.html
Warning to Australia’s Prime Minister: don’t blindly follow Bolton and Pompeo into war against Iran
Acting on Iran has painful shades of joining the US in Iraq The Age, Tony Walker, 1 July 19, Here’s a word of advice to Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Unless he wants to risk a smudge on his reputation of the sort that accompanies John Howard to this day: don’t get involved in conflict with Iran beyond limited naval engagement in a Gulf peace-keeping role.
When we read that Canberra is open to joining an international effort to ratchet up pressure on Iran “in consultation with our allies and partners”, this invites disquieting questions.
If Morrison is talking about involvement in a “global coalition”, as described by the hawkish US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, then he might remind himself of what happened when Australia last lent itself to a so-called “Coalition of the Willing”.
That was 17 years ago in 2002 when John Howard – as one of the “three amigos” with Britain’s Tony Blair and Spain’s Jose Maria Aznar – joined George W. Bush in promoting a disastrous invasion of Iraq.
Only World War II, which absorbed one-third of American GDP, or $4 trillion in today’s dollars, has cost more than the Iraq debacle at $1 trillion (a total $2 trillion if Afghanistan is included).
These are the measurable costs in people, materiel and nation building. Incalculable are the ongoing costs of the destabilisation of the entire Middle East, and the empowerment of Iran…..
In a multi-year assignment in the Middle East I reported the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88); the first Gulf War (1990-1991), in which the US and its allies routed the Iraqi military; and the invasion of Iraq (2003). If I learned anything from those experiences it is that wars are easier to start than to finish. …..
Morrison is surrounded by a weak national security team. The national security committee of cabinet does not include one individual with credible security experience. …….
Morrison might remind himself that Canada’s then-prime minister, Jean Chretien, kept his country out of the Iraq war. The sky did not subsequently fall in on Ottawa.
All this is relevant today given that Morrison found himself last week in the presence over dinner of the two most hawkish members of the Trump administration. Secretary of State Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton both advocated air strikes against Iranian targets in retaliation for suspected Iranian attacks on gulf oil facilities before the President, at the 11th hour, called off military action.
Bolton has been an intemperate advocate of regime change in Tehran. In an interview with The Australian newspaper, Pompeo said Australia had a key role in a “global coalition”. What that means is anyone’s guess.
Morrison would be well advised not to be suckered into joining a counter-punch against Iran. His response to requests for any significant Australian military involvement should be emphatically: No. https://www.theage.com.au/world/middle-east/acting-on-iran-has-painful-shades-of-joining-the-us-in-iraq-20190628-p5227h.html
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