Bolton’s remarks on CBS’ ”Face the Nation” appeared to be the first time the Trump administration had publicly suggested a timeline for North Korea to fulfill the commitment leader Kim Jong Un made at a summit with President Donald Trump last month for the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula.
Donald Trump ready to go to war against Iran?
Don’t Let Trump Go to War With Iran https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/07/dont-let-trump-go-to-war-with-iran/565082/ Fifteen years after the U.S. entered Iraq, the president is inching us closer to another unnecessary fight. TIM KAINE
UK’s Ministry of Defence secretive about safety ratings for the Trident nuclear weapons system
Trident nuclear safety ratings kept secret by MoD, Herald Scotland, Rob Edwards , 14 July 18
US to open new military bases in Iraq, Kuwait
US to open new military bases in Iraq, Kuwait: Reports , Press TV , 14 July 18
New reports say the United States will open new bases in Iraq and Kuwait in defiance of widespread calls to end its military presence in the region.
The Erbil-based BasNews reported on Friday that the US is planning to inaugurate its third military base in Iraq, near the town of al-Qa’im in western Anbar Province bordering Syria.
The report quoted a source from Anbar Province as saying that the new American facility will join the already operating US airbases in Iraq, namely Ain al-Assad in Anbar and Habbaniya, both in Anbar.
The source also noted that the new base will oversee several Anbar cities, the western desert of Iraq and the strategic international road connecting Baghdad to Damascus………
Iraqi officials have in numerous occasions called on the US-led coalition forces to withdraw from their homeland.
Separately on Friday, Kuwait’s al-Rai newspaper reported that the US will soon open a major military air hub near the country’s international airport.
Citing a statement from the US command in Kuwait, the Kuwaiti daily said the facility is intended to serve as a strategic military logistics supply point and the largest aerial port of debarkation in the Middle East.
The facility, the statement said, is further meant to fill the gap until the opening of West Al-Mubarak Airbase in Kuwait in 2023.
“Once finished, the total functional space at ‘Cargo City’ will feature an area of nearly 33,000 square meters,” said Captain Sean Murphy, a civil engineering flight officer in charge of the $32 million project……https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/07/14/568063/Iraq-Anbar-Kuwait-base
USA to send f B61 guided nuclear gravity bombs to NATO bases in European countries, including Turkey.
US to send next-generation nuclear weapons to Turkey: Russian report http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/us-to-send-next-generation-nuclear-weapons-to-turkey-russian-report-13407 Nerdun Hacıoğlu – MOSCOW 6 July 18
Russian state media claimed on July 2 that the United States is preparing to send the next generation of B61 guided nuclear gravity bombs to NATO bases in European countries, including Turkey.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) and the U.S. Air Force completed two non-nuclear system qualification flight tests of the B61-12 gravity bomb on June 9 at Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, according to a June 29 statement by DOE/NNSA.
The test, which was reportedly the first of its kind, was aimed at extending the B61 bomb’s service life by adapting it to next generation aircraft, including B-2A Spirit Bomber.
“The B61-12 LEP will consolidate and replace the existing B61 bomb variants in the [U.S.] nuclear stockpile. The first production unit is on schedule for completion in fiscal year 2020,” the statement said.
Russia’s state-run RIA news agency claimed on July 2 that the nuclear bomb will also be adapted to the F-35 aircrafts.
“The United States continues to invest in weapons of mass destruction. The NATO bases in Turkey, Germany and Italy will receive the new bombs in 2020,” Russian nuclear expert Alexandr Jilin was quoted as saying by the agency.
The United States has a total of 150 nuclear weapons in five NATO member countries, including Turkey, according to a report on worldwide nuclear arms prepared by the Turkish Parliament in October 2017.
Among those weapons, B61 type bombs are still in the İncirlik air base in the southern Turkish province of Adana.
According to data from the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), the number of B61s in Turkey is estimated to be nearly 50.
U.S. officials neither confirm nor deny reports about NATO’s nuclear weapons in Turkey.
Britain should clean up its fleet of decaying cold war nuclear-powered submarines
New Statesman 4th July 2018 ,Since the 1960s, the Navy has put 30 nuclear-powered submarines into
action, and 20 of these have since been retired, yet none of these 20 have
been dismantled.
HMS Dreadnought, Britain’s first ever nuclear submarine,
has been de-fuelled but is still waiting for scrapping – despite being
taken out of service in 1980. It is one of the 11 submarines retired beforethe turn of the century that are still inexplicably moored in British
ports. Given
Theresa May’s recently announced £600m boost to submarine
funding, one can’t help looking at the 20 decaying subs and wondering if
potential savings are being missed. Between 2010-16 alone, £16m was spent
on upkeep costs for subs that will never sail again. In a time when
efficiency is the watchword for the MOD, perhaps we should begin by dealing
with our fleet of Cold War relics.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/07/nuclear-submarines-britain-quietly-forgot-about-cost-16m
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo faces delicate task of negotiating with North Korea on reducing nuclear weapons
Mike Pompeo under pressure to secure nuclear progress in North Korea visit , Guardian Justin McCurry in Tokyo and agencies 5 Jul 2018 Secretary of state faces pressure to establish timeline for denuclearisation as well as duty to reassure regional allies Weeks after Donald Trump declared the world a safer place following his historic summit with Kim Jong-un, Mike Pompeo is due to arrive in Pyongyang on Friday amid growing doubts over the regime’s willingness to abandon its nuclear weapons.
Unnamed US intelligence officials also concluded that North Korea does not intend to completely give up its nuclear stockpile.
Pompeo will also use his visit to consult and reassure Washington’s allies in the region, with meetings planned with Japanese and South Korean officials in Tokyo on Sunday. Japan has voiced support for the leaders’ Singapore declaration, but reacted cautiously to Trump’s decision to cancel a joint US-South Korea military exercise scheduled for August.
Pompeo must establish how far North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes have advanced before US officials can even attempt to draw up a potential timeline for America’s central demand – their complete, irreversible and verifiable dismantlement [CVID].
At present, the US has no reliable information on where all of North Korea’s production and testing facilities are located or the size of its ballistic inventory.
In a tweet this week, Trump said Washington and Pyongyang had been having “many good conversations” with North Korea over denuclearisation. “In the meantime, no Rocket Launches or Nuclear Testing in 8 months, he said. “All of Asia is thrilled. Only the Opposition Party, which includes the Fake News, is complaining. If not for me, we would now be at War with North Korea!”
Sceptics have pointed out that Kim no longer believes such tests are necessary now that the North has successful developed an intercontinental ballistic missile, and that dismantling North Korea’s missile and nuclear infrastructure represents a much tougher diplomatic challenge that could take years and cost billions of dollars, if it happens at all.
“Denuclearisation is no simple task,” Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, wrote in a commentary. “There is no precedent for a country that has openly tested nuclear weapons and developed a nuclear arsenal and infrastructure as substantial as the one in North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.”
Experts have played down Trump’s upbeat appraisal of his 12 June meeting with Kim in Singapore, where the leaders made a loose commitment to work towards the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and agreed goodwill measures such as the possible return of the remains of US soldiers from the 1950-53 Korean war.
There are signs Pompeo might abandon all-or-nothing demands for CVID and replace them with incremental steps that South Korea has reportedly suggested would be more likely to secure Kim’s cooperation…….https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/05/mike-pompeo-north-kroea-visit-pressure-nuclear-progress
The entire USA nuclear weapons industry depends on the civilian nuclear industry
This loss of nuclear competence is being cited by nuclear and national security experts in both the U.S. and in Europe’s nuclear weapons states as a threat to their military nuclear programs. The White House cited this nuclear nexus in a May memo instructing Rick Perry, the Secretary of Energy, to force utilities to buy power from unprofitable nuclear and coal plants. The memo states that the “entire US nuclear enterprise” including nuclear weapons and naval propulsion, “depends on a robust civilian nuclear industry.”
A Double First in China for Advanced Nuclear Reactors, https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/nuclear/a-double-first-in-china-for-advanced-nuclear-reactors By
Both of the design debuts happened in China late last month. On Thursday, June 29 a 1,400-MW EPR designed in France and Germany synced up to the grid at the Taishan nuclear power plant. The next day the U.S.-designed 1,117-MW AP1000 delivered first power at China’s Sanmen plant.
Both projects are coming online years behind schedule, and they are still at least several months away from full commercial operation. But the real problem for the AP1000 and the EPR are the designs’ unfinished Western debuts.
Delays are commonplace in the nuclear industry. For instance, the Korean-built nuclear reactors originally due to begin starting up last year in the United Arab Emirates were recently pushed back to late 2019 or early 2020. But the AP1000 and EPR troubles are in a different league.
The AP1000 is designed to passively cool itself during an accidental shutdown, theoretically avoiding accidents like the one at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi. But AP1000 developer Westinghouse declared bankruptcy last year due to construction troubles, particularly at dual-reactor plants for utilities in Georgia and South Carolina. The latter abandoned their pair of partially built AP1000s after investing US $9 billion. The Georgia plant, initiated in 2012, is projected to be completed five years late in 2022 and at a cost of $25 billion — $11 billion more than budgeted.
Delays for the EPR, whose dual-layered concrete shield protects against airplane strikes, contributed to the breakup of Paris-based nuclear giant Areva in 2015. And the first EPR projects in France and Finland remain troubled under French utility Electricité de France (EDF), which absorbed Areva’s reactor business, Fromatome. The Finnish plant, started in 2005 and expected to take four years, is currently slated for startup next year, and deadlines continue to come and go. In June, Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj announced that startup had slid another four months to September 2019.
The troubled EPR and AP1000 projects show that U.S. and European firms have lost competence in nuclear construction and management. ”It’s no coincidence that two of the four AP1000s in the U.S. were abandoned, and that the EPRs that started much earlier than Taishan’s in Finland and France are still under construction,” says nuclear energy consultant Mycle Schneider, principal author of the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report. “The Chinese have a very large workforce that they move from one project to another, so their skills are actually getting better, whereas European and North American companies haven’t completed reactors in decades,” says Schneider.
This loss of nuclear competence is being cited by nuclear and national security experts in both the U.S. and in Europe’s nuclear weapons states as a threat to their military nuclear programs. The White House cited this nuclear nexus in a May memo instructing Rick Perry, the Secretary of Energy, to force utilities to buy power from unprofitable nuclear and coal plants. The memo states that the “entire US nuclear enterprise” including nuclear weapons and naval propulsion, “depends on a robust civilian nuclear industry.”
Heavy dependence on China, meanwhile, puts the global nuclear industry in a vulnerable position. Total nuclear generation declined last year if one takes out China, notes Schneider. And he says a Chinese nuclear growth gap is coming since it hasn’t started building a new reactor in 18 months.
For more than a decade, the AP1000 has been the presumed successor to China’s mainstay reactors, which employ a 1970s-era French design. Areva’s EPR was a fallback option. The Chinese government may now wait to see how the first reactors actually operate before it approves a new wave of reactor construction.
All the while, nuclear is falling further behind renewable solar and wind power. As Schneider notes, the 3.3 GW of new nuclear capacity connected to the grid worldwide in 2017 (including three in China and a fourth in Pakistan built by Chinese firms) pales in comparison to the 53 GW of solar power installed in China alone.
USA’s B61-12 gravity bomb of limited usefulness, but enormous cost.
Air Force conducts flight testing on new nuclear bomb — but do they need it? SOFREP News, BY 07.04.2018 Late last week, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the U.S. Air Force announced two successful “end to end” non-nuclear system qualification flight tests aboard B-2 Spirits for the newest nuclear bomb to enter into the American arsenal, the B61-12 gravity bomb.
These tests are intended to determine how effectively the bombs can be loaded onto aircraft and deployed using existing methodologies and procedures. Incorporating this new bomb design into existing processes is important for multiple reasons: specialized training for specific weapons systems would dramatically increase the overall cost of the platform’s introduction, and because the B61-12 gravity bomb is slated to slowly replace America’s existing stockpile of B61 nuclear bomb variants, it’s important that the new bombs blend seamlessly into the force. It will take time to transition the old platforms into new ones, and in the meantime, the whole family of B61 bombs needs to be able to play well with one another.
……… Despite rising concerns about the growing expense related to the B61-12 program, these new platforms are expected to enter service within the next two years, phasing out existing B61-3, -4, -7, and -10 bombs by 2025. The last legacy bombs to remain in the arsenal will be the B83-1 and B61-11 gravity bomb, both of which possess superior penetration capabilities intended to access and destroy bunkers and other underground facilities.
…….. Unlike nuclear missiles, the B61 family of bombs are simply dropped over their targets the old-fashioned way, using a tail section for stability and offering no further propulsion or navigation.
With America looking to maintain its reliance on the B-52 Stratofortress as integral to the airborne portion of the nuclear triad, it’s hard to imagine a conflict that could see these bombs being dropped from the aging platform at all. The Air Force acknowledges that the B-52 is too slow and lacks the stealth to fly into contested airspace (where such a bomb would almost certainly be used), and the B-2 is currently slated for retirement once the new B-21 Raider enters service. ……..https://sofrep.com/105418/air-force-conducts-flight-testing-on-new-nuclear-bomb-but-do-they-need-it/
Rocketing costs add to concern that USA’s B61-12 nuclear gravity bombs might not be useful anyway
B-2 Flies First ‘End-To-End’ Tests With New Nuclear Bomb Amid Growing Cost Concerns
The B61-12 nuclear gravity bombs are set to enter service in 2020 and already cost nearly twice their literal weight in gold. The Drive, BY JOSEPH TREVITHICKJULY 2, 2018
The U.S. Air Force, in cooperation with the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, has completed the first end-to-end qualification flight tests of the new B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb on the B-2 bomber. This milestone comes amid continued concerns about the weapon’s cost, including the recent announcement that the Pentagon’s top internal watchdog has started its own audit of the program.
On June 29, 2018, the National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA, revealed the two successful test flights in an official press release. A B-2A Spirit stealth bomber from the Air Force’s 419th Test and Evaluation Squadron, situated at Edwards Air Force Base in California, had dropped the weapons, which did not carry live nuclear warheads, on the Tonopah Test…..
The full stockpile of approximately 400 bombs is supposed to be combat ready by 2025. The B-2A, along with various dual-purpose combat jets, such as the F-16C/D Viper and F-15E Strike Eagle, will be able to carry these weapons. The Air Force plans to integrate the B61-12 on the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter and B-21 Raider bomber in the future, too.
………. while the U.S. military insists that the B61-12 offers superior capabilities compared to the existing bombs and will allow it to consolidate its inventory of B61 bombs, the project has proven to be time-consuming and very costly. On June 28, 2018, a day before NNSA announced the successful test flights, the Department of Defense’s Office of Inspector General announced it was reviewing the price and management of the tail kit portion of the program.
Our objective is to determine whether the Air Force is developing the B61-12 Tail Kit Assembly within cost, schedule, and performance requirements,” the office said in an associated press release. “We will consider suggestions from management on additional or revised objectives.”
This is hardly the first time a U.S. government agency has taken a look into the program, either. In May 2018, the Government Accountability Office, a Congressional watchdog, released its own review of the project.
“GAO recommended in a January 2018 report that NNSA document and justify such decisions, in part because GAO’s prior work has shown that independent cost estimates historically are higher than programs’ cost estimates because the team conducting the independent estimate is more objective and less prone to accept optimistic assumptions,” the May 2018 report said. “In response to the January 2018 report, NNSA agreed to establish a protocol to document management decisions on significant variances between program and independent cost estimates, but it has not yet provided evidence that it has done so.”
Providing an accurate scope of the costs for both the bomb and the tail kit, which are managed and therefore budgeted for separately, has been a major source of controversy from the beginning. Just between 2011 and 2012, NNSA’s estimate of the program’s price tag grew from $4 billion to $10 billion, which did not include the cost of the tail kit and various other ancillary components.
This prompted criticism both within sectors of the U.S. government and among advocacy groups. In 2012, the non-profit Ploughshares Fund, among others, noted that this revised cost split among the 400 700-pound nuclear bombs meant that each one would literally be worth more than its weight in gold. At the current price of gold at the time of writing, each one of the B61-12s could actually be worth nearly twice as much per pound.
A significant increase in cost could magnify existing criticisms, as well as questions about whether or not B61s of any kind still have a place in the U.S. military’s over-arching nuclear modernization plans. The Nuclear Posture Review argues that the gravity bombs, despite their low-yield settings, do nothing to deter potential opponents, primarily Russia, from engaging in a limited nuclear confrontation.
Though this basic premise is highly debatable, under this logic, the utility of the gravity bombs becomes particularly questionable. The U.S. military has deemed the B-52H bomber too vulnerable to deliver nuclear gravity bombs in a future conflict and is rapidly approaching that conclusion, right or wrong, with regards to dual-use combat jets.
………… There is also a separate concern about whether the improved capabilities of the B61-12 will make it more “usable” and, in turn, increase the possibility of a nuclear conflict. It is always important to note that the United States does not have a “no first use” policy, which means it reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in retaliation for non-nuclear actions in certain circumstances, something we at the War Zone have explored in detail in the past. ………. Contact the author: jtrevithickpr@gmail.com http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/21903/b-2-flies-first-end-to-end-tests-with-new-nuclear-bomb-amid-growing-cost-concerns
Fear over nuclear war runs high 50 years after nonproliferation treaty
http://thehill.com/opinion/international/395602-fear-over-nuclear-war-runs-high-50-years-after-nonproliferation-treaty BY GEORGE A. LOPEZ, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 07/05/18
Hitting 50 years of age can be a poignant moment for most individuals. For an international treaty, the half century mark would appear less angst generating, maybe even insignificant. Not so for the 50th anniversary of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968 this month.
The rhetoric of the Singapore summit notwithstanding, the globe has witnessed in the dangerous escalatory rhetoric and nuclear saber rattling between North Korea and the United States a new awareness that fear and misperception increase the likelihood of accidental nuclear war. The U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and the plans announced by both Russia and the United States to spend billions of dollars to upgrade their respective nuclear arsenals in the coming years add to this.
These developments demand a midlife reconsideration of the spirit and letter of the law that has been the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It was designed as a three-legged stool to control the future spread of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. The first leg stated that existing nuclear states would not transfer weapons or weapons grade materials to other states. Solidifying the stability of that pledge was that all non-nuclear states would neither obtain nor develop these weapons.
THIS DUAL PROMISE WAS TIED CLOSELY TO A SECOND LEG THAT NUCLEAR WEAPONS STATES WOULD MOVE TO DRAMATIC REDUCTIONS IN THEIR ARSENALS. CAREFULLY CRAFTED LANGUAGE STRUCTURED AMBIGUITY INTO THE TREATY REGARDING THE AIM OF THOSE NATIONS FOR “GOOD FAITH NEGOTIATIONS” TO PURSUE ARMS CONTROL AND ULTIMATELY COMPLETE NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT. THE THIRD LEG OF THE TREATY STATED THE RIGHT OF ALL STATES TO PURSUE NON-WEAPONS NUCLEAR ENERGY DEVELOPMENT IF THEY ABIDED BY THE SAFEGUARDS OF THE INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY AND OPENED THEIR FACILITIES TO INSPECTIONS.
DURING THE HEIGHT OF THE COLD WAR, AND THROUGH VARIOUS SERIOUS NUCLEAR CRISES, THE TREATY HAS CREATED AND SUSTAINED A REASONABLY SUCCESSFUL GLOBAL REGIME FOR MANAGING THE SPREAD OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS, INCLUDING DISSUADING MOST OF THE NEARLY TWO DOZEN STATES PREDICTED TO DEVELOP THEM FROM DOING SO. ONLY FOUR UNITED NATIONS MEMBER STATES HAVE NEVER SIGNED THE TREATY: INDIA, ISRAEL, PAKISTAN AND SOUTH SUDAN. THE FIRST THREE ARE ACKNOWLEDGED NUCLEAR WEAPON STATES, NOW JOINED BY NORTH KOREA, WHICH WITHDREW FROM THE TREATY IN ORDER TO FINALIZE ITS NUCLEAR AMBITIONS.
THE ENDURING RELEVANCE OF NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION TREATY CAN BE SEEN IN ITS UTILITY FOR THE TRANSFERENCE OF FORMER WEAPONS-FOCUSED URANIUM FROM THE FORMER SOVIET UNION INTO REACTOR FUEL THAT WAS SHIPPED TO THE UNITED STATES IN THE 1990S UNDER THE NUNN LUGAR COOPERATIVE THREAT REDUCTION PROGRAM. CONTINUED ADHERENCE TO THE TREATY IS A CRITICAL CONCERN AS THE WORLD WATCHES TEHRAN IN THE WAKE OF U.S. WITHDRAWAL FROM THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL, AND THE UNITED STATES ATTEMPTS TO GET NORTH KOREA TO DENUCLEARIZE.
BUT, AS OFTEN HAPPENS AT MIDLIFE, THE TREATY HAS BEEN SHAKEN BY CRITICISM ABOUT THE FAILURE TO ATTAIN ITS GOAL. ITS MOST OBVIOUS WEAKNESS HAS BEEN THAT THE FIVE AUTHORIZED NUCLEAR STATES, DESPITE MORE THAN 80 PERCENT REDUCTIONS DURING OVER THE YEARS, STILL WIELD 20,000 WARHEADS. MOREOVER, THOSE CUTBACKS WERE MORE RELATED TO IMPROVED RELATIONS BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES AFTER THE COLD WAR THAN TREATY ADHERENCE.
ONGOING DISGRUNTLEMENT AMONG ALMOST ALL OTHER NATIONS ABOUT THE STAGNATION IN WEAPONS DISARMAMENT LED DIRECTLY TO THE JULY 2017 PASSAGE BY 122 MEMBER STATES IN THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE TREATY ON THE PROHIBITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS, NOW COMMONLY REFERRED TO AS THE NUCLEAR WEAPONS BAN TREATY. UNLIKE EARLIER ARMS CONTROL AGREEMENTS, THE BAN TREATY AIMS FOR THE COMPLETE ELIMINATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN ALL NATIONS. IT IS BEING HAILED IN MANY CAPITALS AS A “GAME CHANGER” IN GLOBAL MOMENTUM, MUCH LIKE THE TREATY OF 50 YEARS AGO.
BUT THE BAN TREATY QUICKLY FACED SIGNIFICANT CONDEMNATION FROM THE NUCLEAR POWERS AND THEIR ALLIES PROTECTED BY THEIR “NUCLEAR UMBRELLA.” IN SEPTEMBER 2017, THE NATO MINISTERS WERE CLEAR WHEN THEY STATED, “THE BAN TREATY IS AT ODDS WITH THE EXISTING NONPROLIFERATION AND DISARMAMENT ARCHITECTURE.” THEY SAID IT RISKS UNDERMINING THE ORIGINAL TREATY, WHICH HAS BEEN AT THE “HEART OF GLOBAL NONPROLIFERATION AND DISARMAMENT EFFORTS FOR ALMOST 50 YEARS.” THE BAN TREATY, IN THEIR VIEW, “DISREGARDS THE REALITIES OF THE INCREASINGLY CHALLENGING INTERNATIONAL SECURITY ENVIRONMENT.”
THE SUPPORT FOR NATO FROM OTHER MEMBERS OF THE NUCLEAR CLUB WAS PRONOUNCED. DESPITE THEIR SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES ON VIRTUALLY ALL CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL AND SECURITY MATTERS, RUSSIA AND CHINA HAVE AGREED WITH THE UNITED STATES AND NATO ON REJECTION OF THE BAN TREATY. THIS AFFIRMATION IS EVEN MORE STRIKING AS THE UNITED STATES AND RUSSIA TRADE BARBS OVER ALLEGED VIOLATIONS OF THE INTERMEDIATE RANGE NUCLEAR FORCES TREATY OF 1987. EMPOWERED WITH THE NEW MODEL FOR GLOBAL SECURITY THAT THE BAN TREATY ARTICULATES, HOWEVER, DOZENS OF NATIONS APPEAR UNDETERRED AND ARE CITING THE NEW COLD WAR, NORTH KOREA AND IRAN TO SUPPORT THEIR EFFORTS.
HEREIN LIES THE CHALLENGE TO THE ARMS CONTROL APPROACH THAT THE NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION TREATY HAS CHAMPIONED. FIVE DECADES AFTER ITS CREATION, THE PROBLEMS THE IT WAS MEANT TO ADDRESS EXIST IN MORE COMPLEX FORM AND FACE AN EVEN MORE PRESSING SET OF RELATED CHALLENGES. THESE KEEP NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT AND THE CAPACITY OF THE ORIGINAL TREATY TO ACHIEVE IT THROUGH ARMS CONTROL AND REDUCTIONS HIGH ON THE GLOBAL AGENDA.
GEORGE A. LOPEZ IS THE HESBURGH PROFESSOR EMERITUS AT THE KROC INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME. HE SERVED ON THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL PANEL OF EXPERTS FOR NORTH KOREA SANCTIONS AND WAS VICE PRESIDENT AT THE UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE
US-UK Mutual Defense Agreement (MDA) of 1958 underpins UK-USA ‘s joint nuclear arms race
David Lowry’s Blog 4th July 2018 , On 3 July 1958 the United States Government signed a bilateral agreement
with the UK, the effect of which has for sixty years to completely undermine the moral authority of Washington and London to preach to atomic aspirant countries that nuclear weapons are bad for national security; and civilian nuclear activities should be kept separate from any military uses.
This deal – often called the US-UK Mutual Defense Agreement (MDA) on atomic energy matters (in which the word defence is spelled with an ‘s’, even in the official UK Treaty series version, indicating its political provenance) – is the agreement that provided the underpinning framework for the subsequent Polaris and Trident nuclear weapons of mass destruction deals with US, as well as facilitating the testing of British nuclear warheads in Nevada, after the 1963 partial nuclear test ban treaty halted the atmospheric testing of nuclear explosive devices.
http://drdavidlowry.blogspot.com/2018/07/how-us-uk-mutual-defense-agreement.html
After the Trump-Kim summit, North Korea is probaably making more nuclear bomb fuel
North Korea agreed at the summit to “work toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” but the joint statement signed by Mr Kim and Mr Trump gave no details on how or when Pyongyang might surrender its nuclear weapons.
Ahead of the summit, North Korea rejected unilaterally abandoning an arsenal it has called an essential deterrent against US aggression.
Where can North Korea’s missiles reach?
North Korea likely making more nuclear bomb fuel despite Trump-Kim talks, report says http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-30/believes-n-korea-making-more-nuclear-bomb-fuel-us-intelligence/9927908
US intelligence agencies believe North Korea has increased production of fuel for nuclear weapons at multiple secret sites in recent months and may try to hide these while seeking concessions in nuclear talks with the United States, NBC News has quoted US officials as saying.
Key points:
- Unidentified US officials told NBC North Korea had stepped up production of enriched uranium
- North Korea may have three or more secret nuclear sites
- Mr Trump said last week North Korea was blowing up four of its big test sites
The Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) policy is alive and well, but hidden under the oceans
Beneath the surface, a quiet superpower race for nuclear supremacy, USA Today
Depleted Uranium and the movement to ban radioactive weapons
“Nuke ‘Em All, and Let Allah Sort It Out”, History News Network by William Schroder, 1 June 18
“……….A left over by-product of Cold War weapons building, thousands of tons of Depleted Uranium(DU) – only 60% as powerful as natural uranium and therefore useless to the thermonuclear arms industry – pile up in temporary storage facilities such as Yucca Mountain, Nevada and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington. What to do with it? In the late 1950s, U.S. and U.K. weapons experts discovered a use for at least some of it. Far denser than lead, a DU coating gives conventional rockets, missiles and small arms ammunition extraordinary armor penetrating capability, a definite advantage against Soviet tanks and other “hard targets.” In the 1990s, as the Cold War waned, the U.S. and British arms manufacturers continued to produce DU ordinance. First used in combat in the Gulf War, an estimated250-300 tons of DU ammunition was expended during Operation Desert Storm and many times that in Bosnia, Kosovo and the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq.
DU munitions persist despite the fact their use violates the Geneva and Hague Conventions and the 1925 Geneva Poison Gas Protocol. DU also meets the definition of a WMD in US Code Title 50, Chapter 40 Sec. 2302: “The term ‘weapon of mass destruction’ means any weapon or device that is intended, or has the capability, to cause death or serious bodily injury to a significant number of people through the release, dissemination, or impact of (A) toxic or poisonous chemicals or their precursors; (B) a disease organism; or (C) radiation or radioactivity.”
In addition, the UN Commission on Human Rights passed resolutions in 1996 and 1997stating the use of uranium ammunition is not in conformity with existing international Human Rights Law.
Although only 40 percent as radioactive as natural uranium, DU has a half-life of 4.5 billion years and places all life forms at risk. As the material decays, alpha, beta and gamma radiation is released into the environment and contaminates the air, water and soil. Laboratory tests on animals show internalized alpha particles do more chromosome damage than 100 times that of an equivalent amount of other radiation. In an article published in the International Journal of Health Services, Dr. Rosalie Bertell wrote during the height of the war in Iraq, “The chief radiological hazard from DU is alpha radiation. In one day, one microgram (one millionth of a gram) of DU can release 107,000 alpha particles, each particle charged with more than four million electron volts of energy – and it only requires 6 to10 electron volts to break a DNA strand in a cell.
In the years following the 1991 Gulf War, tissue analysis reports from a hospital in Basra, Iraq showed a 160 percent increase in uterine cancer among Iraqi civilians, a 143 percent increase in thyroid cancer, a 102 percent increase in breast cancer and an 82 percent increase in leukemia. Doug Weir, the Coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Uranium Weapons, quotes Iraqi oncologist, Dr. Jawad Al-Ali: “We have also seen a rise in the presence of double and triple cancers in patients. We know many carcinogenic factors are available in our environment, but the (cancer) rates increased only a few years after the 1991 war, and now after the 2003 conflict, we have started to have another alarming increase.”
While the U.S. is by far the largest user of DU munitions, a score of other countries have DU weapons in their arsenals. Why? Who profits? In the United States, three companies produce uranium enhanced ordinance – Alliant Techsystems of Edina, Minnesota, Day & Zimmermann of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and General Dynamics of Falls Church, Virginia. According to a November 2007 article in theNew Internationalist, “DU is expensive and hazardous to store, so it is produced at a very low cost to arms manufacturers. Arms manufacturer, Alliant Techsystems has produced more than 15 million 30mm PGU-14 shells for the U.S. Air Force and over a million M829 rounds for the U.S. Army. They also produce small caliber rounds (25mm, 30mm) for guns on U.S. aircraft and fighting vehicles… In February 2006, the U.S. Army placed an order for $38 million of M829 rounds, bringing the total order from Alliant Techsystems to $77 million for that fiscal year.”
Despite the huge profit motive behind the manufacture and use of DU ordinance, the movement to ban radioactive weapons grows. The International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW) has 80 member organizations worldwide and campaigns “for an explicit international treaty that would not only ban uranium weapons but also cover the decontamination of battlefields and rules on compensation for victims.” The European Organization of Military Associations (EUROMIL), consisting of 34 military associations from 22 countries, also calls for a ban. “EUROMIL recognizes that there may be long-term implications for the health of soldiers performing duties in areas where DU weapons were used. To counteract such effects, governments should ensure measures are put into place that guarantee the safety and protection of troops during their missions in areas contaminated as a result of the use of DU. EUROMIL also recognizes that there may be long-term implications for the health of the population in the area where DU weapons were used. Therefore, EUROMIL strongly urges governments to ban the use of DU weapons and to use their influence to appeal to their worldwide partners to abandon the use of these weapons.”
Disseminating nuclear waste among the innocent civilians of the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Syria is malfeasance of the highest order. For America to hold her reputation as a nation of justice and high moral purpose, it must reverse present policy and take the lead in a worldwide ban on depleted uranium weaponry. https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/169193
USA’s national security adviser John Bolton says USA has plan to dismantle NK nuclear program in a year
Bolton: US has plan to dismantle NK nuclear program in year , WP ,nited States has a plan that would lead to the dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs in a year, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser said Sunday, although U.S. intelligence reported signs that Pyongyang doesn’t intend to fully give up its arsenal.
Despite Trump’s rosy post-summit declaration that the North no longer poses a nuclear threat, Washington and Pyongyang have yet to negotiate the terms under which it would relinquish the weapons that it developed over decades to deter the U.S. ……..https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/bolton-us-has-plan-to-dismantle-nk-nuclear-program-in-year/2018/07/01/36cc63d6-7d3d-11e8-a63f-7b5d2aba7ac5_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.bfc
1 This Month
Protect Sazan Island from the Trump family! https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/protect_sazan_island_from_the_trump_family_loc/?bqFCVab&v=174511&cl=22707147157&_checksum=5e9dde668860e8231c33699735e16a1fbf22ab2cb01da50c999fe8732b9775ef&utm_source=email&utm_medium=blast_email&utm_campaign=174511
25 June- THE PUKE ON NUKES
Thursday, June 25, 2026
7pm Central Time (8pm ET, 6pm MT, 5pm PT) UTC – 5
From NRC & DOE Deregulation to Techno-Fascist Billionaires Going Nuclear, Plus a Few Songs from Atomic Cabaret REGISTER
26 June – Radiation Trainwreck at the NRC / Join the Protect Better Campaign – https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/4ZlZ5_qLSHGiLSCg8FF6Bg#/registration
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
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