Researchers show that Syria’s supposed nuclear site is a textile factory
That secret nuclear facility in Syria? It’s a textile factory, researchers say in new report, Washington Post By Joby Warrick 4 Nov After a four-year search for hidden atomic facilities in Syria, U.N. officials appeared this week to have finally struck gold: News reports linked a large factory in eastern Syria to a suspected clandestine effort to spin uranium gas into fuel for nuclear bombs.
But after further probing by private researchers, Syria’s mystery plant is looking far less mysterious. A new reportconcludes that the facility and its thousands of fast-spinning machines were intended to make not uranium, but cloth — a very ordinary cotton-polyester.
“It is, and always has been, a textile factory,” said one of the researchers, Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear policy expert at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies and publisher of the blog Arms Control Wonk…..
Canadian army never told soldier about his depleted uranium test results
The 2001 lab results, copies of which were supplied to The Canadian Press by Lacoste, were performed two years before tests conducted by a civilian doctor also found high levels of uranium in his hair.
Lacoste’s fight is also directed at helping other ex-soldiers he believes might be suffering from the health effects of depleted-uranium exposure, but might not even be aware of it.
Hunger-striking vet says Ottawa never disclosed his positive uranium tests, Winnipeg Free Press, By: Andy Blatchford, The Canadian Press, 11/2/2011 MONTREAL – A former soldier battling a series of health problems says the Canadian Forces failed to inform him that medical tests showed he was carrying an unusually high level of uranium.
Pascal Lacoste eventually filed a request under the Access to Information Act to see his own medical files, which revealed his hair samples contained “abnormally elevated” amounts of the metal. Continue reading
United Nations passes Iran’s nuclear disarmament bill
UN passes Iran’s bid for N disarmament, Press TV 1 Nov 11The UN General Assembly’s First Committee has endorsed an Iran-sponsored resolution on nuclear disarmament despite attempts by the US and the Israeli regime to kill the bid.
The resolution calls for the implementation of pledges made at the three most recent Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conferences. It also reiterates the urgency for a nuclear-free Middle East and demands that the Israeli regime must sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Israel, widely believed to be the sole possessor of a nuclear arsenal in the Middle East with over 200 undeclared nuclear warheads, pursues the policy of “deliberate ambiguity” for its nuclear program.
Tel Aviv has so far rejected all global demands to join the NPT and does not allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to inspect and monitor its controversial nuclear program.
The Israeli regime has never denied or confirmed the existence of its nuclear arsenal as part of its long-held ‘nuclear ambiguity’ policy. Despite international objections to such dubious policy, the UN and its nuclear regulatory agencies have never taken serious steps to censure or impose sanctions on the defiant regime. Tehran has also proposed a draft resolution on missiles, which is to be discussed in the committee’s next session.
UN investigators suspect nuclear weapons site in Syria
Syria nuclear weapons site revealed by UN investigators, Guardian UK 1 Nov 11, IAEA identifies uranium enrichment plant design at Hasakah and finds correspondence with Pakistan atomic expert, sources claim
UN investigators have identified a previously unknown complex in Syria that bolsters suspicions the government in Damascus worked with Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan‘s atomic bomb, to acquire nuclear weapons technology. Continue reading
World’s nuclear powers to splurge on nuclear weapons
Nuclear powers to boost spending, November 1, 2011, SMH, THE world’s nuclear powers are planning to spend hundreds of billions of dollars modernising and upgrading weapons warheads and delivery systems over the next decade, according to an authoritative report.
Despite government budget pressures and international rhetoric about disarmament, evidence points to a new and dangerous ”era of nuclear weapons”, the report for the British American Security Information Council warns.
It says the US will spend $700 billion ($A653 billion) on the nuclear weapons industry over the next decade, while Russia will spend at least $70 billion on delivery systems alone. Other countries, including China, India, Israel, France and Pakistan, are expected to devote formidable sums on tactical and strategic missile systems.
The report is the first in a series of papers for the Trident Commission, an independent cross-party initiative set up by the council. Pakistan and India, it warns, appear to be seeking smaller, lighter nuclear warheads so they have a greater range or can be deployed over shorter distances for tactical or ”non-strategic” roles….http://www.smh.com.au/world/nuclear-powers-to-boost-spending-20111031-1ms18.html#ixzz1cUhuaHky
New nuclear weapons complex makes a mockery of USA’s nuclear disarmament posture
“The warhead cores of these “plants,” would be “the successors to the bombs used on Nagasaki. They’d each have a yield that’s 50 times greater than the bomb used there in World War II.”Despite President Obama’s campaign rhetoric of a world without nuclear weapons, despite the recent catastrophe at Japan’s Fukushima complex, and despite the new START nuclear arms control treaty between the U.S. and Russia last February, it seems the desire among our leaders for nuclear power and nuclear weaponry remains as strong today as it was at the height of the Cold War. What’s just as disturbing, though, is the disregard our government shows for any input from its citizenry — pro or con. Continue reading
Radiation caused illness in Britain’s nuclear veterans and their children
MoD survey shows three in four nuclear test veterans fear radiation has affected their health, Mirror, by Susie Boniface, 30/10/2011 A devastating new report shows that eight in 10 of Britain’s nuclear test veterans went on to develop multiple medical conditions.
Asked if they believe their health had been affected by being at a nuclear test site, 28 per cent said they were certain it had, 23 per cent thought it had and 24 per cent said it may have done – a total of 75 per cent. Only eight per cent said it definitely had not.
The study, the first MoD funded-research since 1993, vindicates 10 years of campaigning by the Sunday Mirror which has highlighted the crippling legacy of ill health veterans have suffered. Many have developed cancers and rare medical complaints.
Studies have shown they have six times the national rate of leukaemia and 10 times the rate of birth defects among their children. It was only after massive pressure from the veterans and this newspaper that the last government finally agreed to fund a £412,000 study into their health.
SPENDING SLASHED The Coalition slashed the spend to £75,000 but 633 veterans still came forward to answer questions developed by two doctors with the British Nuclear Test Veterans’ Association.
The survey shows only 18 per cent of those polled are in “good health” and of those with a serious condition, only 16 per cent thought it was because of other than radiation. Veterans made a series of demands in the study, including a medical centre, better access to service medical records and a detailed genetic study of their descendants.
But experts did not look at the illnesses of vets’ children and grandchildren, saying the evidence was “of too variable a quality”. Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/10/30/mod-survey-shows-three-in-four-nuclear-test-veterans-fear-radiation-has-affected-their-health-115875-23524038/#ixzz1cOe5PLWA
USA to spend $600 billion or more on nuclear weapons
The Bloated Nuclear Weapons Budget, NYT October 29, 2011 Twenty years after the end of the cold war, the United States still has about 2,500 nuclear weapons deployed and 2,600 more as backup. The Obama administration, in an attempt to mollify Congressional Republicans, has also committed to modernizing an already hugely expensive complex of nuclear labs and production facilities. Altogether, these and other nuclear-related programs could cost $600 billion or more over the next decade. The country does not need to maintain this large an arsenal. It should not be spending so much to do it, especially when Congress is considering deep cuts in vital domestic programs. Continue reading
The danger of dismantling nuclear submarines in a city
It is the magnitude of the consequences of a nuclear accident that make it unacceptable to locate such a facility in the middle of a city of 250,000 people….
Devonport is not immune from accidents. There have been nine radioactive leaks since 1997. The impact of a significant accident in the dockyard would be devastating. It would not remain confined behind its walls but would affect a much wider area.
Should N-subs be dismantled in city? Plymouth Herald, October 28, 2011 ONE of the most controversial proposals to affect Plymouth in generations is set to be thrust firmly into the public domain from today.
The Ministry of Defence has today begun a 16-week consultation exercise exploring the options for dismantling decommissioned nuclear-powered submarines. The consultation aims to find a permanent home for The Submarine Dismantling Project (SDP) – either in Plymouth, or Scotland. Continue reading
Radioactive cores of B53 nuclear bombers remain dangerous
The announcement of the disassembly of the last B53 may seem to imply that everything has been taken apart and made safe. This is correct as far as the direct risk of a nuclear explosion is concerned; but the reality is that the highly radioactive cores of B53 and other dismantled weapons, known as “pits”, are simply being put into protected storage. 
…..many have been dismantled, but the pits are still there and will remain so for many years to come…
learning the lessons of the cold war is a matter as much for the future as for the past.
Mad Men: Nuclear Pasts, Human Futures The dismantling of a powerful nuclear bomb closes a chapter of the cold war. But the choices and responsibilities embedded in the story of the B53 make this a 21st-century story too.ISN By Paul Rogers for OpenDemocracy, 28 Oct 11 The last of the most powerful thermonuclear bombs in the United States arsenal – the B53 – was dismantled in Texas on 25 October 2011. Is this a significant moment, or is it scarcely relevant in a world of slow nuclear proliferation? Continue reading
Canada could be drawn into USA military operations
By participating in such a program, … there’s a risk of making Canada more likely to become involved in future U.S. military operations.
Ottawa to spend up to $477M on U.S. military satellites, NATIONAL POST Canada, By Lee Berthiaume, Oct 26, 2011 OTTAWA — The federal government is planning to spend as much as $477-million to participate in a U.S.-led military satellite program that has been subject to delays and cost overruns over the past decade, Postmedia News has learned.
The Wideband Global Satellite system has been advertised by the U.S. Defense Department as a communications system for “U.S. warfighters, allies and coalition partners during all levels of conflict, short of nuclear war.”
The idea is to have as many as nine military satellites hovering over different parts of the world, ready to provide high-frequency bandwidth for U.S. and allied forces wherever they may be operating….. Continue reading
Why China might put nuclear warheads in underground tunnels
try to understand China’s strategic challenges and why it might go to some fairly extreme lengths to try to solve them.
The “Underground Great Wall:” An Alternative Explanation James M. Acton PROLIFERATION ANALYSIS, OCTOBER 26, 2011 It is tempting to dismiss the story in Monday’s Wall Street Journal claiming that China has around 3,000 nuclear warheads as the kind of reporting that could only be considered “fair and balanced” on Fox News and just ignore it. After all, as long ago as 2004, Jeffrey Lewis tracked down the origin of media reports cited by the Journal that China has 2,350 nuclear weapons. Embarrassingly, the source is an online essay based on bogus U.S. intelligence information that was posted by a Singapore University student. Moreover, it hardly seems worth wasting storage space on the Carnegie server explaining why it is invalid to estimate the size of China’s contemporary arsenal by taking a 1960s U.S. intelligence report that predicted how many warheads China would have in 1973 and then assuming that it has built up at a constant rate since then. Continue reading
New Start nuclear weapons data increases uncertainty
though not yet 1 year old, the New START treaty is already beginning to increase uncertainty about the status of U.S. and Russian nuclear forces,”
U.S. Releases New START Nuke DataNTI Global Security Newswire, Oct. 26, 2011 The United States as of last month officially had 1,790 deployed strategic nuclear warheads, while Russia had fielded 1,566 long-range weapons, according to details from a semiannual information swap mandated under a strategic nuclear arms control treaty between the two countries (see GSN, Aug. 5). Continue reading
The end of one nasty nuclear relic of the cold war
The America’s nuclear arsenal remains enormous; the U.S. will still have 1,500 atomic weapons, by the time the latest U.S.-Russia nuke treaty runs its course. But with the end of the B-53 comes a belated end to a Cold War relic.
Last Nuclear ‘Monster Weapon’ Gets Dismantled, Wired.com, By Spencer Ackerman , October 24, 2011 In the 1960s, the skies above the United States were patrolled by agents of the apocalypse. Air Force B-52 Stratofortresses circled the North American continent, 24 hours a day, cradling two megabombs in their bellies. Those B-53 bombs each weighed 10,000 pounds. Were one to drop on the White House, a nine-megaton yield would destroy all life out into suburban Maryland and Virginia.
It was the ultimate Cold War weapon, the one that Major Kong would have ridden into Armageddon at the end of Dr. Strangelove. And on Tuesday, it will no longer exist. Continue reading
Pakistan pushes for nuclear disarmament
Pakistan calls for talks on nuclear disarmament, Business Recorder, OCTOBER 15, 2011 Pakistan has urged “some major powers” to commence negotiations on the larger issue of nuclear disarmament instead of pushing for a treaty to ban production of fissile material used as fuel for atomic weapons, saying the treaty was a limited non-proliferation goal.
Speaking in the General Assembly’s main committee, Raza Bashir Tarar, the deputy permanent representative of Pakistan, said besides nuclear disarmament, his country was ready to start talks on two other outstanding agenda items negative security assurances for non-nuclear-weapon-states and preventing an arms race in outer space in the Conference on Disarmament, the Geneva-based UN negotiating body.
“After all, the Conference on Disarmament (CD) is not there to only negotiate an FMCT (Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty),” he said in the course of a thematic debate on nuclear weapons. Over the past couple of years, Pakistan has been blocking the launching of negotiations on the proposed treaty at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on the ground that it is prejudicial to its national security interests…… http://www.brecorder.com/general-news/single/599/172/1242266/
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Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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