Former defence minister urges discussion Japan hosting nuclear weapons
Times 7th Sept 2017, Japan should discuss hosting nuclear weapons on its territory, a former
defence minister said in a sign that the North Korean threat is changing
the military balance in the region. In what would once have been a shocking
breach of taboo in the only country to have suffered the ravages of atomic
bombs, Shigeru Ishiba said that Japan should debate the abolition of what
are known as the “three non-nuclear principles” — not producing or
possessing nuclear weapons or allowing them on Japanese soil.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/we-should-break-taboo-around-nuclear-weapons-former-japan-minister-says-jpr6sppl2
A-bomb survivors stage sit-in
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20170910_02/ People in the Japanese city of Nagasaki have staged a sit-in to voice their opposition to the use of nuclear weapons. This comes amid growing concerns over North Korea’s military provocations.
The protest was held on Saturday as North Korea marked the 69th anniversary of the country’s founding.
Nagasaki suffered an atomic bombing toward the end of World War Two. The attack occurred on August 9th, 1945. A group of survivors and others hold an event to remember the bombing on the 9th of every month at the city’s Nagasaki Peace Park.
About 80 people, including survivors of the atomic bombing and high school students, took part in Saturday’s protest.
Koichi Kawano, who heads a group of survivors, says he wants to urge the Japanese government to do more to discourage Pyongyang from conducting nuclear tests.
Another participant, Sachiho Mizoguchi, is one of the high school students who ask people to sign a petition calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. She said she took part in the sit-in to protest against the North’s nuclear tests.
Eiji Okumura, a survivor of the atomic bombing, says North Korea conducted a nuclear test after the United Nations took a step toward the creation of a nuclear-free world by adopting a treaty that banned nuclear weapons. Okamura said he cannot tolerate the North’s latest nuclear test, and he wants to express his anger through the sit-in.
Radioactive particles from North Korea nuclear tests now found in South Korea’s air, land and water
South Korea detects radioactive material following North Korean nuclear test, http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/09/08/south-korea-detects-radioactive-material-following-north-korean-nuclear-test.html, September 08, 2017 Traces of radioactive material were detected in South Korea by the nation’s nuclear safety agency Friday, less than a week after North Korea conducted its most powerful nuclear test.
South Korea’s Nuclear Safety and Security Commission discovered trace amounts of xenon gas, a radionuclide, in an analysis of samples from the air, ground and water collected following North Korea’s nuclear test, according to Yonhap News Agency.
North Korea defied international warnings Sunday, conducting its sixth and most powerful nuclear test. The country said it detonated a hydrogen bomb that can fit on an intercontinental ballistic missile. South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said Thursday he expects its neighbor to launch a missile Saturday while celebrating its founding day. North Korea has already fired 21 missiles this year.
The radioactive material’s inflow is still being tracked to determine definitively if it came from the nuclear test, according to the agency.
The agency added the level of radioactive material detected in the analysis is not enough to cause any effects on South Koreans’ health.
Underground complex of tunnels ready for Kim Jung Un’s escape, if nuclear war occurs
How Kim Jong-un would escape in caves if a nuclear war occurs A NORTH Korea expert has revealed how Kim Jong-un could flee, warning he could be harder to find than Osama bin Laden. news.com.au 8 Set 17 Sam Webb, Grant Rollings and Martin Phillips, The Sun NORTH Korean dictator Kim Jong-un will escape to a vast complex of underground tunnels if a nuclear war breaks out — with a huge supply of his favourite cheese.
Satellites show landslides and land disturbances at North Korea’s nuclear site
North Korea nuclear test site experiencing landslides: researchers, https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/north-korea-nuclear-test-site-experiencing-landslides-researchers-20170907-gycjvb.html, By William Broad, New York: Analysts peering at satellite images of North Korea after the latest nuclear test on Sunday, report they have spotted many landslides and wide disturbances at the country’s test site, in the North’s mountainous wilds. Tunnels for the nuclear blasts are deep inside Mount Mantap, a mile-high peak.
“These disturbances are more numerous and widespread than what we have seen from any of the five tests North Korea previously conducted,” three experts wrote in an analysis for 38 North, a website run by the US-Korea Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
Early readings from global networks that monitor shock waves suggest that the nuclear blast on Sunday had a destructive power equal to 120,000 tons of high explosives. If correct, that is roughly six times more powerful than the North’s test of September 2016, and eight times larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
The new satellite images of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site were taken Monday, the day after the nuclear detonation. Planet, a company in San Francisco that owns swarms of tiny satellites, reconnoitered the secretive nuclear test site.
The three analysts, Frank Pabian, Joseph Bermudez jnr and Jack Liu, said the wide disturbances appeared to include numerous landslides throughout the rugged site “and beyond”.
They added that they could find no evidence of a surface crater that would have formed if the cavern carved out within the mountain by the blast’s violence and high temperatures had suddenly collapsed.
Sunday’s underground test resulted in two earthquakes, with other analysts suggesting the second could have been a tunnel collapse.
t comes as a nuclear scientist said the mountain could collapse due to the impact of five underground nuclear tests at the same Punggye-ri site, on the southern side of Mount Mantap. China Institute of Atomic Energy’s Wang Naiyan said it could cause an environmental disaster as “many bad things” could leak out.
Earthquake risk to Japan’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant
Japanese nuclear plant may be on quake fault line https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jul/19/nuclear.japan
· Leak during tremor worse than originally admitted
· IAEA calls for openness in investigation of errors Justin McCurry in Tokyo , July 2007 The world’s biggest nuclear power station faces an uncertain future after it emerged yesterday that it may lie directly above the fault line that triggered Monday’s earthquake in which nine people died and more than 1,000 were injured.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant – the biggest in the world in terms of output capacity – shook violently when a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck Niigata prefecture in northern Japan on Monday morning. The plant was not designed to resist shaking caused by earthquakes of greater than magnitude 6.5.
On another day of embarrassment for Japan’s nuclear power industry, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which operates the plant, said the amount of radioactivity in water that leaked into the sea during the earthquake was 50% higher than it had originally said. The firm blamed a calculation error and said the levels were still well within safety standards.
Late yesterday it also said that 400 drums – not 100 as first reported – of low-level radioactive waste had toppled over during the quake. About 40 lost their lids, spilling their contents on to the ground as they fell. The spillage was one of more than 50 malfunctions the plant experienced in the immediate aftermath of the quake.
International nuclear inspectors said they were concerned by Tepco’s apparent lack of preparedness for such a powerful quake.
“It is clear that this earthquake … was stronger than what the reactor was designed for,” Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters in Kuala Lumpur. “I would hope and I trust that Japan would be fully transparent in its investigation.”
The mayor of Kashiwazaki, Hiroshi Aida, ordered Tepco to close the plant indefinitely. “The safety of the plant must be assured before it is reopened,” he said. The closure has forced the firm to ask six other power utilities to supply it with additional electricity through to the end of September to avoid power cuts when demand peaks later this summer.
Tepco is under pressure to explain why it took so long to inform the authorities of radioactive leaks and why just four employees were on hand to tackle a fire inside an electrical transformer that was extinguished only after firefighters arrived almost 90 minutes later.
The mishaps have raised questions about the wisdom of building nuclear power stations in a country where earth tremors are recorded, on average, every few minutes. New safety regulations were brought in last year, but upgrading ageing reactors to withstand larger tremors will require huge investment.
Akira Fukushima, of Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said no irregularities had been found in critical areas of the plant, but added: “It is possible that the epicentre fault line does run beneath the power plant.”
Inspectors reportedly identified four fault lines in the area while conducting a geological survey before work began on the Kashiwazaki plant in 1980, but concluded that they were inactive.
The Citizen’s Nuclear Information Centre said that the fault believed to have triggered the earthquake was not discovered during pre-construction surveys. “Clearly Japan’s earthquake safety standards are inadequate,” it said in a statement.
Tepco’s president, Tsunehisa Katsumata, defended the firm. “It is hard to make everything go perfectly … I think fundamentally we have confirmed that our safety measures work,” he said.
Japan, which has very few indigenous energy sources, depends on 55 nuclear plants for 30% of its electricity. Despite mounting public opposition, it plans to increase capacity to 40% by the end of the decade.
Despite earthquake risks, Japan’s Kashiwasaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant might be restarted
World’s Largest Nuclear Power Plant One Step Closer To Operation http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Worlds-Largest-Nuclear-Power-Plant-One-Step-Closer-To-Operation.html
While the watchdog could issue a formal approval for Kashiwasaki-Kariwa’s restart later this fall, according to the Nikkei Asian Review, the actual resumption of the reactors is questionable: there is strong local community opposition to nuclear power as fears of another meltdown still linger.
Regulators have conducted technical safety evaluations of the plant, whose reactors are of the same kind as those that melted down in Fukushima, but there are still some reservations regarding Tepco’s safety efforts. The NRA has requested that Tepco’s proposed safety measures for Kashiwasaki-Kariwa be made more legally binding, and has set up a panel to devise ways to guarantee the utility keeps its word.
Tepco first applied for approval to restart two of Kashiwasaki-Kariwa’s seven reactors back in 2013, and has since worked to fulfill all safety requirements that regulators imposed. The company’s shares, however, jumped 3 percent on the news of NRA’s approval despite the slim chance of Kashiwasaki-Kariwa actually returning to operation.
The Fukushima disaster, caused by a tsunami in 2011, displaced 160,000 people, many of them permanently, and led to the shut down of all 50 nuclear reactors in the country. The cost of the disaster is estimated at US$197 billion.
Kim Jong Un’s nuclear aim is to save his regime, not to attack Los Angeles
Kim’s Nukes Aren’t a Bargaining Chip. They’re an Insurance Policy Climb into the North Korean dictator’s mind, and you can see that his aim isn’t to destroy Los Angeles but to save his regime. Bloomberg Michael Schuman, 7 Sept 17,
North Korea looks pretty scary at the moment, firing off missile after missile, threatening to target Guam, and, on Sept. 3, testing what the regime claims was its first hydrogen bomb. And the country’s dictator, Kim Jong Un—so ruthless he may have had members of his own family murdered—might be just crazy enough to push the button to initiate a catastrophic war.
Or maybe not. Look deeper, and you’ll find a North Korea that isn’t as much of an immediate danger to the U.S. as the headlines and rhetoric suggest. That’s because Pyongyang isn’t very likely to use its nukes and missiles against the U.S.—or anyone else.
But climb into the mind of Kim—as terrifying as that may sound—and we can conclude that his aim isn’t to destroy Los Angeles but to save his own skin. This is a regime that was never expected to still be around in 2017. When the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union unraveled more than a quarter century ago, North Korea was supposed to vanish with them. The regime has since outlasted economic and political isolation, stiff international sanctions, and famines so severe that they may have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. But through it all, the Pyongyang government has persisted. That speaks to the cunning of the Kim family, which has lorded over the country since its founding by the current Kim’s granddaddy in 1948. They’re survivors.
Here’s where the nukes come into play. Pyongyang believes they’re the best, and possibly only, deterrent against evaporation, absorption, or annihilation. That’s why the regime has never been truly willing to trade its nuclear program for other benefits—something Washington has tried to do since the 1990s. The nukes aren’t a bargaining chip. They’re an insurance policy.
Yet the very same weakness that drives Kim’s mania for nuclear weapons is why he can never use them, at least not as an aggressor. As President Trump has already warned, any such attack would be met by “fire and fury.” That comment was irresponsible, but the point is true nevertheless. Kim likely isn’t delusional enough to think his country could survive an all-out war with the U.S. and its allies. Proactively launching a nuclear-topped ballistic missile against the U.S. would mean his own destruction. That’s why it won’t happen. The U.S. Defense Department in its 2015 report said that even though the country remains a continuing threat, “North Korea is unlikely to attack on a scale that would risk regime survival.”
If we see Pyongyang’s motivations in this light, the policy course the Trump administration is taking is all wrong. Threats of fire and fury will only make Kim more paranoid and more certain that he needs nukes to defend himself or deter an aggressive Washington—……
At this stage, with Kim already in possession of nukes and maybe the ability to deliver them, the only viable option for Washington is to accept this reality and deal with Pyongyang as it does with any of the world’s other nuclear powers. This may sound terribly distasteful, and the course presents its own risks—mainly, that North Korea’s neighbors, especially Japan and South Korea, will feel the need for nuclear weapons of their own, leading to a regionwide, potentially destabilizing arms race. Washington would also have to work hard to ensure Pyongyang doesn’t spread its know-how to other rogue states or terrorist organizations that might be less wary of using it—such as Islamic State.
But the U.S. has successfully dealt with the appearance of other nuclear powers, whether China, India, or Pakistan, and it may have to do so again, this time by containing the North Korean threat instead of attempting to eliminate it. ……https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-07/kim-s-nukes-aren-t-a-bargaining-chip-they-re-an-insurance-policy
Japan’s Nuclear Regulator Not Agreeing to Tepco’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP Reactor Restart Plans
Nuclear regulator does dizzying U-turn on TEPCO reactor restart plans
From left, the No. 5, 6 and 7 reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant are seen in Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, in this April 21, 2016 file photo.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the utility responsible for the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant and its March 2011 triple meltdown, is aiming to get the reactors at its other power plants back on line.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), which must approve any restarts, had been holding to a very strict line on TEPCO applications. However, on Sept. 6 the NRA abruptly changed track, taking a more sympathetic attitude and indicating that the No. 6 and 7 reactors at the utility’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture would likely pass their safety inspections — a prerequisite for restart approval.
Despite the NRA’s suddenly sunny attitude, the prefectural government has not budged from its more cautious position. And TEPCO, which has made the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant a chief pillar of its business recovery plans, cannot flip the reactors’ “on” switch without the prefecture’s imprimatur, meaning the plant still has no clear restart schedule.
When the NRA summoned TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa and other top managers on July 10 this year to testify on the utility’s competence to keep running nuclear plants, authority chairman Shunichi Tanaka was unequivocal and unforgiving.
Nuclear Regulation Authority Chairman Shunichi Tanaka speaks to the Mainichi Shimbun during an Aug. 29, 2017 interview. (Mainichi)
“If TEPCO is unwilling or unable to finalize the decommissioning of the Fukushima (No. 1 station) reactors, it is simply not qualified to restart the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant,” Tanaka told the executives, adding, “I don’t see TEPCO showing any independent initiative whatsoever.”
The NRA chairman was referring to the longstanding problems with contaminated water and radioactive waste disposal plaguing TEPCO’s Fukushima plant decommissioning efforts. The utility tends to focus too much on trying to read the government’s mind on any and all Fukushima issues — an attitude that has long drawn NRA criticism.
When the NRA inspected the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant’s No. 6 and 7 reactors, it added a new evaluation category to the usual technological checklist, though it was not part of the new safety standards: “eligibility.” That is, TEPCO’s eligibility to run a nuclear power plant at all. After all, it was one of TEPCO’s plants that had succumbed to the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. “TEPCO is different from other (power) companies,” Tanaka had said.
TEPCO President Kobayakawa and Chairman Takashi Kawamura are also a source of NRA concern. The two had no role in the utility’s response to the 2011 meltdowns, and Kobayakawa replaced a much more experienced hand in Naomi Hirose, a TEPCO managing director when the disaster struck. After his NRA dressing-down in July, Kobayakawa apparently visited the Fukushima disaster zone seven times.
However, there has been an apparent U-turn in Tanaka’s stance. A document submitted on Aug. 25 to the NRA under Kobayakawa’s name was sewn with phrases like, “We will carry the (Fukushima) reactor decommissioning through to the end,” and other terms suggesting a determined TEPCO attitude. At the same time, the document was bereft of details on specific preparedness measures or progress benchmarks for the decommissioning work.
Nevertheless, when Kobayakawa again appeared before the NRA on Aug. 30, the body indicated its acceptance of TEPCO’s position. Taking the contaminated water problem “as one example,” Tanaka stated that he recognized TEPCO’s lack of concrete countermeasure planning couldn’t be helped under the circumstances. One NRA executive revealed to the Mainichi Shimbun, “We avoided demanding a detailed (disposal measures) plan because we don’t legally have that authority, and doing so could pose legal risks.”
Pro-TEPCO sentiment was on conspicuous display when the NRA met again on Sept. 6, including acting Chairman Toyoshi Fuketa’s declaration that he “felt TEPCO’s drive to pass on the lessons of the (Fukushima nuclear) accident.”
Committee member Nobuhiko Ban stated that while the document the utility had submitted in the summer was a “declaration of intent,” he was “concerned over whether this alone can constitute eligibility” to run a nuclear plant. However, Tanaka wrapped up discussion by saying that “circumstances are not such that we can deny (TEPCO’s) eligibility.”
Tanaka will leave his NRA post on Sept. 18 after completing his five-year term in the chairmanship, and at a post-meeting news conference he was asked if he had wanted to bring the TEPCO issue to a close while in office.
“I can’t say that I’ve never felt that way,” Tanaka replied.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170907/p2a/00m/0na/019000c
NRA doubts TEPCO’s safety vow in Niigata, plans legal move
Tokyo Electric Power Co. wants to restart the No. 6 and No. 7 reactors, shown in the forefront, at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority, skeptical of Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s promise to put safety ahead of profits, plans to gain legal assurances before allowing the embattled utility to start operating nuclear reactors again.
TEPCO has applied to restart two reactors at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata Prefecture, which would be the first run by the company since the disaster unfolded at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in March 2011.
Although NRA members agreed that the No. 6 and No. 7 reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant passed new regulations on technological aspects, they could not agree on whether the company has learned its lessons about safety management since the triple meltdown at the Fukushima plant.
To ensure TEPCO will put safety at the forefront of its operations, the NRA is considering holding the utility legally responsible for completing the entire decommissioning process of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
The regulator expects to draft a checklist to verify the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant’s safety and other steps before it makes a final decision on whether to allow TEPCO to restart the reactors. The next meeting is scheduled for Sept. 13.
The NRA had previously determined that 12 reactors at six nuclear plants met new nuclear reactor regulations shortly after completion of their technological examinations.
The NRA also finished its technological examinations of the No. 6 and No. 7 reactors, the newest ones at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant.
The plant has seven reactors, making it one of the largest nuclear power stations in the world. The two reactors that TEPCO wants to put online each has a capacity of 1.36 gigawatts.
TEPCO has said the resumption of the reactors are needed to turn around its business fortunes.
But NRA commissioners are reluctant to allow TEPCO to bring the plant online based solely on the results of the technological screening.
After the chairman and president of the utility were replaced in June, the NRA summoned the new top executives in July.
The watchdog demanded that they give a written response to the regulator’s position that TEPCO “is not qualified to operate the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, given the seeming lack of determination and spotty track record to take the initiative in decommissioning (the Fukushima No. 1 plant).”
In August, the company submitted a paper to the NRA promising to “take the initiative in addressing the problem of victims of the nuclear disaster and to fulfill the task to decommission the plant.”
The paper also said the company “has no intention whatsoever to place economic performance over safety at the (Kashiwazaki-Kariwa) plant.”
Tomoaki Kobayakawa, the new president of TEPCO, called the paper a “promise to the public.”
Although the NRA commissioners on Sept. 6 recognized TEPCO’s commitment to safety to a certain degree, doubts remained.
Nobuhiko Ban, an NRA member who is a specialist on radiological protection, called for a system that would keep TEPCO committed to safety management in the future.
“Is it all right for us to take TEPCO’s vow at face value?” he said.
The NRA then decided to consider legal ways to hold TEPCO accountable for safety issues.
Past and present world nuclear state leaders brought the North Korea crisis on themselves
How the nuclear-armed nations brought the North Korea crisis on themselves https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/05/nuclear-armed-nations-brought-the-north-korea-crisis-on-themselves
Failure to honour terms of the 1970 nuclear non-proliferation treaty has helped create ground for Kim Jong-un’s recklessness, Guardian, Simon Tisdall, 5 Sept 17, North Korea’s defiant pursuit of nuclear weapons capabilities, dramatised by last weekend’s powerful underground test and a recent long-range ballistic missile launch over Japan, has been almost universally condemned as posing a grave, unilateral threat to international peace and security.
The growing North Korean menace also reflects the chronic failure of multilateral counter-proliferation efforts and, in particular, the longstanding refusal of acknowledged nuclear-armed states such as the US and Britain to honour a legal commitment to reduce and eventually eliminate their arsenals.
In other words, the past and present leaders of the US, Russia, China, France and the UK, whose governments signed but have not fulfilled the terms of the 1970 nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), have to some degree brought the North Korea crisis on themselves. Kim Jong-un’s recklessness and bad faith is a product of their own.
The NPT, signed by 191 countries, is probably the most successful arms control treaty ever. When conceived in 1968, at the height of the cold war, the mass proliferation of nuclear weapons was considered a real possibility. Since its inception and prior to North Korea, only India, Pakistan and Israel are known to have joined the nuclear “club” in almost half a century.
To work fully, the NPT relies on keeping a crucial bargain: non-nuclear-armed states agree never to acquire the weapons, while nuclear-armed states agree to share the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology and pursue nuclear disarmament with the ultimate aim of eliminating them. This, in effect, was the guarantee offered to vulnerable, insecure outlier states such as North Korea. The guarantee was a dud, however, and the bargain has never been truly honoured.
Rather than reducing their nuclear arsenals, the US, Russia and China have modernised and expanded them. Britain has eliminated some of its capability, but it is nevertheless renewing and updating Trident. France clings fiercely to its “force de frappe”. Altogether, the main nuclear-weapon states have an estimated 22,000 nuclear bombs. A report by the non-governmental British-American Security Information Council in May said nuclear security was getting worse.
“The need for nuclear disarmament through multilateral diplomacy is greater now than it has been at any stage since the end of the cold war. Trust and confidence in the existing nuclear non-proliferation regime is fraying, tensions are high, goals are misaligned and dialogue is irregular,” the report said.
“Internationally, relationships between the nuclear-weapon states have deteriorated, in particular between the US and Russia, and to some extent, China … All nuclear-armed states are modernising their nuclear forces, at a worldwide cost of $1tn per decade … Attention tends to be focused on specific cases of proliferation concern, such as North Korea and Iran, at the expense of the bigger picture.”
Multilateral forums for advancing nuclear disarmament are in crisis. The next NPT review conference is not due until 2020. Like its 2015 predecessor, it is not expected to achieve much. The UN-backed conference on disarmament, which helped produce conventions banning biological and chemical weapons and initiated the 1996 comprehensive test ban treaty, is politically polarised and struggling to agree key measures such as a fissile material cut-off treaty.
Meanwhile, as South Korea and Japan consider acquiring nuclear weapons, Donald Trump appears irrationally determined to scrap one of the few recent arms control successes – the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.
There has been one big breakthrough this year, the under-reported adoption by 122 countries at the UN in July of a new treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons, which envisages an outright ban on the use of all nukes. It has, however, been potentially fatally undermined by a boycott by the nuclear powers. The US, Britain and France declared, cynically as critics saw it, that they preferred to stick with the never-ending NPT route to disarmament. “This initiative clearly disregards the realities of the international security environment,” they said in a joint statement.
The ineffectiveness of current arms control and counter-proliferation efforts has helped to create an environment in which North Korea, allegedly using smuggled, Russian-designed ballistic missile engines, is rapidly advancing its nuclear ambitions with apparent impunity, at great risk to international stability.
Multilateral arms control failures also mean the Korean “solution” Trump talks about with increasing frequency – the use of preventive military action, notwithstanding its illegality under international law – could, if applied, spell the end of deterrence and the beginning of an unchecked global nuclear arms race.
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, warns against escalating nuclear crisis: more sanctions on North Korea are useless,
North Korea nuclear crisis: Putin warns of planetary catastrophe As Kim Jong-un reportedly prepares further missile launch, Russian president says further sanctions would be ‘useless’, Guardian, Justin McCurry in Tokyo and Tom Phillips in Beijing, 6 Sept 17, The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has warned that the escalating North Korean crisis could cause a “planetary catastrophe” and huge loss of life, and described US proposals for further sanctions on Pyongyang as “useless”.
“Ramping up military hysteria in such conditions is senseless; it’s a dead end,” he told reporters in China. “It could lead to a global, planetary catastrophe and a huge loss of human life. There is no other way to solve the North Korean nuclear issue, save that of peaceful dialogue.”
On Sunday, North Korea carried out its sixth and by far its most powerful nuclear test to date. The underground blast triggered a magnitude-6.3 earthquake and was more powerful than the bombs dropped by the US on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the second world war.
Putin was attending the Brics summit, bringing together the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Speaking on Tuesday, the final day of the summit in Xiamen, China, he said Russia condemned North Korea’s provocations but said further sanctions would be useless and ineffective, describing the measures as a “road to nowhere”.
Foreign interventions in Iraq and Libya had convinced the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, that he needed nuclear weapons to survive, Putin said.
“We all remember what happened with Iraq and Saddam Hussein. His children were killed, I think his grandson was shot, the whole country was destroyed and Saddam Hussein was hanged … We all know how this happened and people in North Korea remember well what happened in Iraq.
“They will eat grass but will not stop their [nuclear] programme as long as they do not feel safe.” …….https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/05/south-korea-minister-redeploying-us-nuclear-weapons-tensions-with-north
Chance of mountain collapse, environmental disaster, in North Korea’s nuclear test area
Kim Jong-un’s North Korea nuclear test mountain may collapse, let out ‘many bad things’, SMH SEPTEMBER 6 2017 Beijing: North Korea has conducted all of its underground nuclear tests beneath one mountain, Chinese scientists believe, prompting one to express concern the mountain may collapse, causing an environmental disaster.
“We call it taking the roof off,” the China Institute of Atomic Energy’s Wang Naiyan told the South China Morning Post.
geophysicists from the University of Science and Technology of China have examined seismograph records and say Sunday’s underground nuclear test by North Korea was the fifth nuclear bomb to be exploded at the same mountain at Punggye-ri.
Professor Wen Lianxing from the university’s Key Laboratory of Earthquake and Earth Physics said nuclear explosions were previously staged at the mountain in September 2016, January 2016, February 2013 and May 2009.
The researchers used satellite images and seismic data from 112 Chinese seismic bureaus in their study, which gave the positions of the tests accurate to within 100 metres, according to a statement published on the university’s website……http://www.smh.com.au/world/kim-jonguns-north-korea-nuclear-test-mountain-may-collapse-let-out-many-bad-things-20170905-gyb8dp.html
North Korea’s latest threats against USA
Pyongyang issue new threats against the US http://www.skynews.com.au/news/politics/international/2017/09/06/pyongyang-issue-new-threats-against-the-us.html, 6 September 2017 Amid international uproar over North Korea’s latest and biggest nuclear weapons test, one of its top diplomats says it’s ready to send ‘more gift packages’ to the United States.
Han Tae Song, ambassador of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to the UN in Geneva, on Tuesday addressed the UN-sponsored Conference on Disarmament two days after his country detonated its sixth nuclear test explosion.
‘I am proud of saying that just two days ago on the 3rd of September, DPRK successfully carried out a hydrogen bomb test for intercontinental ballistic rocket under its plan for building a strategic nuclear force,’ Han told the Geneva forum.
‘The recent self-defence measures by my country, DPRK, are a ‘gift package’ addressed to none other than the US,’ Han said. ‘The US will receive more ‘gift packages’ from my country as long as its relies on reckless provocations and futile attempts to put pressure on the DPRK,’ he added without elaborating.
Military measures being taken by North Korea were ‘an exercise of restraint and justified self-defence right’ to counter ‘the ever-growing and decade-long US nuclear threat and hostile policy aimed at isolating my country’.
US disarmament ambassador Robert Wood said North Korea had defied the international community once again with its test.
‘It can no longer be business as usual with this regime.’
The White House said on Monday President Donald Trump had agreed ‘in principle’ to scrap a warhead weight limit on South Korea’s missiles in the wake of the North’s latest test.
The United States accused North Korea’s trading partners of aiding its nuclear ambitions and said Pyongyang was ‘begging for war’. Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said on Tuesday that a US aim for the United Nations Security Council to vote on Monday on new sanctions on North Korea over its latest nuclear test is ‘a little premature’.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Japanese Prime Minister spoke by telephone on Tuesday and agreed that sanctions against Pyongyang should be stepped up.
‘She agreed with Prime Minister Abe that North Korea’s latest nuclear test threatened the security of the entire world and that this massive violation of the UN Security Council’s resolution must result in a resolute reaction from the international community as well as tougher sanctions,’ spokesman Steffen Seibert said.
North Korea’s nuclear ramp-up is damaging to China’s ambitions to be major power in Asia
North Korea’s Nuclear Arsenal Threatens China’s Path to Power, NYT, SEPT. 5, 2017 “………China has made little secret of its long-term goal to replace the United States as the major power in Asia and assume what it considers its rightful position at the center of the fastest-growing, most dynamic region in the world.
Danger: Plutonium nuclear fuel being transported by sea in the North Korean missile influence area.
Robin des Bois 30th Aug 2017, Within a few days, unless an accident occurs, the Pacific Egret will enter the North Korean missile influence area. The Pacific Egret carries 8 tons of MOX, a nuclear fuel made in France containing 8 to 10% of plutonium mixed with enriched uranium.
This civil bomb left the French port of Cherbourg on July 5, 2017. After having sailed down the Atlantic Ocean, passed off South Africa, crossed the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, the MOX is expected to be unloaded in the small private port of the Japanese nuclear power plant in Takahama, facing North Korea.
Once again, the French government, Areva and the Nuclear Safety Authority have taken the irresponsible risk of permitting and undertaking a nuclear expedition bound for an unsteady zone in all political, geological and climatic respects. http://www.robindesbois.org/en/moxquitue-n2/
1 This Month
of the week – THE ONENESS of HUMANITY
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
1st July – Webinar Waste of Space: The Environmental Harm of Military and Civil Space Activity st July, 7 pm
Report Launch Online: We are seeing an increasing exploitation of space for military and commercial purposes. This must change.
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
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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