My Turn: Martin Luther King’s quest to stop the nuclear arms race https://www.concordmonitor.com/KIngs-quest-to-stop-the-nuclear-arms-race-22786447By WILLIAM LAMBERS For the Monitor January 21, 2019, Civil rights champion Martin Luther King Jr. was also an activist for nuclear disarmament. Dr. King used his voice for peace during the Cold War nuclear arms race.
He can inspire us today to finish the journey of eliminating all nuclear weapons.
The year was 1958. The Soviet Union and the United States were developing and testing nukes at an alarming rate. In March, Dr. King received a letter from Norman Cousins and Clarence Pickett of the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. King was asked to support a statement urging an end to nuclear testing.
He joined the SANE movement right away. In April, Dr. King also signed an appeal by Protestant clergyman on halting nuke tests.
The public outcry against nuclear tests helped encourage President Dwight Eisenhower to start negotiations with the Soviets on a test ban treaty in 1958. In October, King joined a statement to the U.S. and Soviet negotiators in Geneva.
It read “an important beginning has to be made on one vital part of the problem of world peace, the permanent internationally inspected ending of nuclear weapons tests.”
Eisenhower proposed a suspension of nuclear tests during the talks. There were no nuclear tests by the U.S. or the Soviets from late 1958 into 1961. His successor President John F. Kennedy was able to produce a limited treaty with the Soviets in 1963 banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere, underwater and outer space. Underground tests did continue.
The 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, banning all tests including underground, has yet to be ratified by the U.S. Senate. President Donald Trump could ask the Senate to ratify this treaty and fulfill one of Dr. King’s goals of ending nuke tests forever.
Ending nuclear testing was seen as a critical step toward stopping the arms race. Dr. King understood the threat of nukes.
In 1957, in Ebony Magazine, King wrote “I definitely feel that the development and use of nuclear weapons of war should be banned. It cannot be disputed that a full-scale nuclear war would be utterly catastrophic. Hundreds and millions of people would be killed outright by the blast and heat, and by the ionizing radiation produced at the instant of the explosion.”
Dr. King recognized that spending on nuclear armaments robbed from society. King said, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
The goal of eliminating nuclear weapons has been shared by successive leaders including presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. President Trump has yet to take action on eliminating nuclear weapons. Instead Trump has sought to scrap the Iran nuclear deal and the INF Treaty with Russia.
We have lost any momentum in reducing the nuclear danger. There are still close to 15,000 nukes worldwide, according to the Arms Control Association. Dr. King’s words can inspire us to jumpstart nuclear disarmament.
In his sermon “Loving Your Enemies” Dr. King said, “It is an eternal reminder to a generation depending on nuclear and atomic energy, a generation depending on physical violence, that love is the only creative, redemptive, transforming power in the universe.”
King wanted all people, all nations, to come together to work out their differences. Through what Dr. King called “a great fellowship of love” the world can achieve peace and nuclear disarmament.
Instead of nation’s wasting dollars on nukes we could feed the hungry, end disease and save the environment. As we celebrate Martin Luther King Day listen to his words and be inspired to take action for world peace.
(William Lambers is the author of “The Road to Peace” and “Ending World Hunger.”)
Business Green 21st Jan 2019 New York has embraced the campaign for a ‘Green New Deal’, with Governor
Andrew Cuomo declaring last week he will launch a major programme to build
a zero carbon economy for the state.
New York’s Green New Deal was hailed
as a “nation-leading clean energy and jobs agenda” by the Governor’s
office, as it pledged to “aggressively put New York State on a path to
economy-wide carbon neutrality”. The plan includes doubling the state’s
solar capacity by 2025 and quadrupling its offshore wind capacity by 2035,
as part of a legally binding goal to deliver 100 per cent zero-carbon power
for the state by 2040. https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/3069581/new-york-unveils-green-new-deal-with-plan-to-build-net-zero-economy
The Chronicle – Duke University By Carter Forinash | 01/21/2019 At the height of the Berlin Crisis of 1961, a University committee developed plans to house nearly 50,000 Duke and Durham community members in shelters across campus. …….
Nuclear disaster planning was based on the worst-case scenario—the use of a nuclear weapon on Greensboro, N.C. The committee’s report stated that prevailing winds would send more fallout toward the Durham community than a similar nuclear strike on Raleigh, N.C., despite its proximity.
In order to prepare for such an event, the Fallout Committee also organized community-wide presentations on the dangers of nuclear fallout, plans for fallout protection and housekeeping in shelters……..
A shelter for Durham?
Chief among the committee’s responsibilities was a plan to house University community members in on-campus fallout shelters in the event of a nuclear disaster.
By 1966, the committee has identified more than 100,000 approved spaces for fallout shelters in Duke buildings and had supplied more than 80,000 of them with fallout survival supplies, including nonperishable food, fresh water, medical supplies and bedding.
Along with standard medical supplies, each shelter would include a clergy member, a licensed physician and two nurses, according to a letter from Robert Cushman, dean of the Divinity School in 1962.
The thousands of shelters included room for 800 people in the basement of the Chapel and more than 1,000 across two floors of Page Auditorium. These spaces were mostly on West Campus or in the Duke Medical Center.
North American glaciers melting much faster than 10 years ago – study
Satellite images show glaciers in US and Canada, excluding Alaska, are shrinking four times faster than in previous decade , Guardian, Emily Holden in Washington, Sat 19 Jan 2019
Glaciers in western North America, excluding Alaska, are melting four times faster than in the previous decade, with changes in the jet stream exacerbating the longer-term effects of climate change, according to a new study.
The retreat hasn’t been equal in the US and Canada. The famous alpine ice masses in the Cascade Mountains in the north-west US have largely been spared from the trend.
“The losses we would expect were reduced because we got a lot of additional snow,” said David Shean, a co-author at the University of Washington. “Moving forward we may not be so lucky.” The jet stream – the currents of fast-flowing air in the atmosphere that affect weather – has shifted, causing more snow in the north-western US and less in south-western Canada, according to the study released in Geophysical Research Letters, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. Changes in the northern hemisphere jet stream are increasingly firmly linked to global warming.
That warming from humans burning fossil fuels is also expected to continue to melt alpine glaciers, even under scenarios for more moderate greenhouse gas levels.
While some of the fourfold increase in the melting rate in western North America is related to manmade climate change, the researchers can’t say with certainty how much.
“We’re starting to understand these shorter cycles that have real impacts on how the glaciers are behaving and how much water is stored in the glaciers,” Shean explained.
Alaskan glaciers get much of the attention in North America because Alaska is warming faster than the continental US. Mount Hunter in Denali national park, is seeing 60 times more snow melt than it did 150 years ago.
Major Problems at Hanford Nuclear Waste Site – King 5 Reports
by Anna KingFollow and John Notarianni Follow OPB Jan. 18, 2019 A new proposal from the Trump administration could dramatically change the way the government cleans up radioactive tank waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington.
In fall 2018, the Department of Energy released a proposal to downgrade the rating of some of the country’s high-level radioactive waste to a lower status. But critics say it could be bad news for places like Hanford.
The Hanford site in Washington is already “one of the most contaminated nuclear waste sites in North America,” according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Cleaning up the radioactive waste stored there is an ongoing process, and a federal report due out later this month estimates it will cost more than $240 billion to clean up the site.
Reporter Anna King covers Hanford and spoke to OPB “Weekend Edition” host John Notarianni about what’s at stake for waste reclassification.
John Notarianni:How much of the nuclear waste at Hanford could be subject to this reclassification?
Anna King: Congress is asking the U.S. Department of Energy things like, “What are you talking about? How much will this new plan save? And how much radioactive and chemical waste will be left at Hanford?” But so far, there have been few answers from the DOE.
Most at stake is 56 million gallons of radioactive sludge stored in aging underground tanks, not far from the Columbia River.
What’s at stake in this conversation is a proposed shift of some radioactive waste from high-level to low-level classification. What’s the difference?
The main difference between high-level and low-level radioactive waste is currently defined by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. High-level waste is so hazardous that federal law requires it to be stored in a deep geologic repository, a la Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
That’s because it contains highly radioactive material. But that Yucca project has been on hold since the beginning of the Obama administration. Low-level waste could be buried at Hanford in shallow or near-surface disposal facilities under both DOE and NRC regulations.
Some of the tank waste will likely be classified TRU waste — or transuranic — which means it contains extremely long-lived radionuclides, and the Nuclear Waste Policy Act requires that waste to also be stored in a deep geologic repository. And that waste would have to be taken down to New Mexico to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP — the only place that will take transuranic waste.
State officials and other Hanford watchdogs say they have several major concerns: There’s 56 million gallons of tank waste held in aging underground steel and concrete containers not far from the Columbia River.
Since 2002, the latest plan has been to build a massive plant to treat that waste. The idea is to bind it up in glass logs for long-term storage in a Yucca-type repository.
Sources say that if this was no longer the plan, and the waste was reclassified, that tank waste could be instead made into large blocks of grout and stored at Hanford, or hauled to another state or location and stored in a near-surface waste dump………..https://www.opb.org/news/article/hanford-nuclear-waste-federal-cleanup-plans/
Let’s talk about nuclear security — informally, SF Chronicle, By James Goodby and Kenneth Weisbrode Jan. 19, 2019
With the high-profile conclusion of Robert Mueller’s investigation, a U.S. threat to withdraw from a nuclear missile treaty, a worsening political situation in Ukraine, an ongoing conflict in Syria, not to mention recent reports that the FBI began a counterintelligence investigation of President Trump — the citizens of Russia and the United States should worry that their countries are soon reaching a point of no return.
Diplomats will say that few such points exist, and that professionals can and will continue to keep the channels of dialogue open. What’s missing here is not the capacity to talk but a political consensus on both sides to reaffirm why both countries still need to cooperate and how to go about finding it.
Mikhail Gorbachev and George P. Shultz recently called for a “broad strategic dialogue” among Americans and Russians to pull our nations out of their trough, or at least to look beyond it. Gorbachev and Shultz propose an “informal forum,” and that makes sense. The U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission, nuclear arms control talks, and other formal arrangements appear to be stalled. The establishment of dialogue at a higher level — similar to efforts in the 1990s to encourage mutual investments and business opportunities — would probably be a nonstarter. What would an informal forum look like?………. https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Let-s-talk-about-nuclear-security-informally-13547680.php
Seabrook nuclear power plant license to be extended NRC planning to allow an additional 20 years, The Eagle Tribune, By Jack Shea Staff Writer, 20 Jan 19, SEABROOK— The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is set to extend the operating license for the Seabrook nuclear power plant for an additional 20 years, despite an ongoing proceeding related to the plant’s degraded concrete.For several years, NextEra Energy, the plant’s owner, has been seeking a 20-year extension of its current license, which expires in 2030. The plant went online in 1990. Since 2016, NextEra has also been seeking an amendment to the license to express how it plans to deal with concrete degradation caused by alkali-silica reaction, which causes tiny cracks in concrete.
The NRC announced this week that it planned to issue a final no significant hazards consideration determination and license amendment to NextEra “on or about January 22.” The federal commission also said it plans to issue a renewed operating license for Seabrook “on or about January 30.”
………Last year, the local watchdog organization C-10 was granted the right to intervene in an Atomic Safety Licensing Board hearing on concrete degradation at the plant, which is set for this summer. C-10 Executive Director Natalie Hildt Treat expressed frustration this week with the NRC’s decision to approve the license extension before the hearing.
“For the NRC to grant the license amendment — and then approve a license extension out to 2050 – before the public hearing that the ASLB granted on the concrete is just crazy,” Treat said in a press release. “What’s the hurry? Seabrook still has 11 more years on its current operating license. We believe these actions could undermine the safety of the American citizens that NRC is charged with protecting.”
The recent joint operation to remove uranium from Nigeria could provide a template for denuclearisation on the Korean peninsula
Although the two countries have proved they can still work together, the challenges posed by North Korea are likely to prove far more challenging
China and America’s recent joint nuclear non-proliferation mission in West Africa could provide a precedent for dismantling North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, analysts have said, but warned that the scale and political complexity of the task will be far greater.
This week it emerged that Chinese and American nuclear experts had cooperated on a project to remove highly enriched uranium (HEU) from a reactor in Nigeria to prevent the material falling into the hands of terrorists.
The mission last year, which also involved British and Norwegian experts along with contractors from Russia and the Czech Republic, was completed within a day despite violent clashes in Kaduna province where the reactor was located, according to Defensenews.com.
The logistics and security arrangements needed to fly the material to China were completed within six weeks, showing the capacity of both the US and China to set aside their differences and cooperate when their mutual interests are at stake.
The Nigerian operation was not the first time the two countries had worked together to prevent nuclear proliferation in West Africa; a similar operation to remove HEU to China was carried out in Ghana in 2017.
Because neither China nor America’s interests are served by a nuclear-armed North Korea, similar work could be carried out in the future should talks on denuclearisation come to fruition.
Miles Pomper, a senior fellow at the James Martin centre for non-proliferation studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, said: “It is conceivable in the case of denuclearisation that North Korea’s nuclear weapons or material could be taken to China.
“Given the fact that China already has nuclear weapons, the US could likely accept that although the US would likely then push for their disassembly.”
Bruce Bennett, a senior defence researcher at the Rand Corporation, said the two countries would continue to cooperate on dismantling nuclear weapons.
Nuclear’s Bleak Odds in a Green New Deal
Ocasio-Cortez won’t rule out inclusion of nuclear, but some see sector as incompatible with ‘100% renewable’ focus Morning Consult , January 14, 2019 Lawmakers embracing a transition to 100 percent renewable energy under a Green New Deal have largely left out mention of whether nuclear energy should be included in such a policy package. While Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the Green New Deal’s biggest proponents, said she hasn’t ruled out nuclear energy from the platform, other advocates on the left hold long-running concerns that appear to lessen nuclear’s chances of inclusion in the deal.
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) is one of over 40 lawmakers who have issued their support for Green New Deal concepts championed by the freshman Democratic representative from New York, who has floated a draft resolution that calls on lawmakers to work toward supplying 100 percent of U.S. power demand from renewables, building a national smart grid and putting money toward a drawdown of greenhouse gases.
“I think on nuclear energy, we all have a general resistance to it,” Pingree said, because of the unsolved quandary of how to deal with nuclear waste, along with remaining environmental and safety issues. “We all think of Japan.”……..
The Sunrise Movement, an environmental group formed in 2017 that has taken up the Green New Deal cause and staged climate protests last year outside the office of now-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is still “working on a policy outline for what a Green New Deal includes and are consulting with experts and other organizations to develop that,” said Stephen O’Hanlon, who handles communications for the group, in an email. That plan will be ready soon, he said.
If the rest of the environmental community is any indication, nuclear’s outlook in a Green New Deal is even grimmer. The Green Party of the United States’ Green New Deal calls for a full phaseout of U.S. nuclear power. And on Thursday, hundreds of environmental groups wrote an open letter in support of a Green New Deal that supports transitioning completely away from nuclear, along with biomass resources and large-scale hydropower.
Mike McKenna, a Republican strategist who worked on President Donald Trump’s Energy Department transition team, said there is “zero chance” of nuclear getting into a Green New Deal…….
REGION — Nuclear waste storage facilities at the decommissioning San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station are “fatally flawed” and could cost Southern California nearly $13.4 trillion over a 50-year period if a major release of radiation occurs, according to two reports recently published by the Samuel Lawrence Foundation.
The reports were published during an ongoing Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigation into electric supply company Southern California Edison and its contractor, Holtec International, which designed and built the storage facility.
The investigation stems from an incident on Aug. 3, 2018, when a full canister of spent nuclear fuel came within a quarter-inch of falling 18 feet.
Edison’s plan is to move 73 canisters into the oceanfront storage vault, having already moved 29 by the reports’ publication.
After the August incident, regulators stopped any more canisters from being loaded into the vault, built to hold 3.6 million pounds of nuclear waste at the San Onofre site, located on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton on the coastal side of I-5.
The report notes how storage tanks at gas stations in California must be double-walled after experiencing how single-walled containers can leak gasoline into groundwater.
“With a double-walled fuel tank, if a leak occurs it can be detected and the storage container can be repaired or replaced before any gasoline is released,” the report states. “At San Onofre, we certainly should expect that some kind of leak prevention system would be in place to contain extremely toxic high-level radioactive waste.”
At an Aug. 9, 2018, community engagement panel discussing the decommissioning of San Onofre, Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspector David Fritch told attendees about a near-accident at the storage facility.
When workers using a crane were moving a canister containing spent nuclear fuel, it became lodged at the top of the cavity enclosure container into which it was being stored.
Investigations revealed the operators and managers could not see the canister as it was being lowered and became stuck for nearly an hour, hanging 18 feet in the air from the guide ring along the top of the container.
The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) began operating in 1968 and closed in 2012 after continuous leaks were discovered in the plant’s steam generator tubes.
The first report, titled “San Onofre Nuclear Waste Problems,” examines damage caused to the “thin-walled, steel” canisters as they are lowered into the dry storage vaults. The report refers to this damage as “gouging” and considers it the most serious of the issues facing the storage facility.,
The Del Mar-based nonprofit Samuel Lawrence Foundation’s research determined that had the canister fallen, it could have hit the steel-lined concrete floor of the facility with “explosive energy greater than that of several large sticks of dynamite.” The damage could have caused a large radiation release, according to the report, and could have ruined the facility’s cooling system.
According to the report, each nuclear storage canister contains 37 spent fuel assemblies, which generate “enormous amounts of heat” and are cooled by an air duct system, which could have been blocked by the damage from a canister falling.
If that had happened, great quantities of water would be needed to cool the reaction and prevent or control a meltdown. That water would instantly become radioactive steam, similar to what happened during the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan.
In the report, retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Len Hering, Sr., who previously served as a nuclear weapons safety officer, provided a scathing assessment of the storage facility’s management practices.
“I find that virtually none of the protocols that should be expected for the safe handling of this dangerous material are present,” he states in the report. “I find that personnel and companies are being hired virtually off the street, no specific qualification standards are present or for that matter even required, training is not specific to the risks of the material involved, and there is no fully-qualified and certified team assembled for this highly-critical operation.”
The report also addresses the risk of storing them so close to the Pacific Ocean, where rising sea levels, frequent high humidity and coastal fog make metal susceptible to short-term corrosion and stress-induced corrosion cracking.
According to the report, the mean high tide level is about 18 inches below the base of the oceanfront storage facility, which means sea level frequently exceeds that height.
It states it’s likely that the present groundwater table will leach into the vault and result in damp storage, which the vault is not designed for.
Rising sea levels due to climate change could make things worse, potentially causing the bottom seven feet of the storage canisters to be submerged and possibility create a similar crisis to Fukushima, where spent fuel was exposed to moisture.
In the second report, titled “Potential Economic Consequences from an Event at the San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station Interim Spent Fuel Storage Installation,” uses economic impact modeling software to estimate economic losses from diminished activities within evacuation zones of one, 10 or 50 miles over one year to 50 years.
In a scenario looking at contamination across a one-mile radius, the report states the most significant loss is likely the disruption of regional transportation for up to a year costing $266 million.
The 1-mile radius, which would only represent a minor event, would still affect I-5 and the rail line.
Looking at evacuation zones of 10 to 50 miles over a one- to 50-year period, residential property losses could amount to $11 billion to $500 billion depending on the evacuation scenario. In the 50-mile impact scenario, about $13.4 trillion in gross regional product could be at risk over a 50-year period.
The first report concludes that the nuclear waste at San Onofre requires “much better storage configuration” and needs to be moved to a “technically defensible storage facility” further away from major transportation corridors like I-5.
“If an accident, natural disaster, negligence, or an act of terrorism were to cause a large-scale release of radiation, the health and safety of 8.4 million people within a 50-mile radius would be put at risk,” the report states.
It also demands that a “complete analysis of canister loading procedure and comprehensive risk assessment” be conducted transparently by an independent party, and recommends a permanent stop to the loading of nuclear storage canisters into the seaside vault, to begin placing spent fuel into “reliable canisters that can be monitored, inspected and repaired” and to move them to a facility at a much higher elevation.
A national nuclear safety board says long-standing problems at Los Alamos National Laboratory persist several years after work was halted at its plutonium facility and are unlikely to be resolved in less than five years.
Under its former management contractor, the lab in 2017 issued an improvement plan, saying it had created “a significant culture change” at the plutonium facility. But in a report released in late November, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said it disagreed with that assessment, adding managers still have hurdles to overcome.
The board based its conclusions on an August review of incidents in which workers exceeded safety limits for the amount and type of nuclear material that can be placed in a given location, as well as on other rules meant to prevent a runaway nuclear reaction. They said improvements had been slow, staffing levels were inadequate and problems have continued to recur for the same issues.
There also have been several incidents of worker contamination, separate board reports show.
The board is an independent panel that advises the president and Energy Secretary Rick Perry on safety issues at many of the nation’s nuclear weapons facilities.
The lab’s safety program, intended to prevent a runaway chain reaction of nuclear materials, remains short-staffed and has not met many industry standards, the board said in the review, which was sent to Perry in late November.
The board’s report said Los Alamos, which came under a new management contractor in November, has made some improvements — including better labeling of fissile material and some improvements related to safety evaluations — but still failed to fix many recurring problems and likely won’t resolve them in less than five years, in part because of staffing shortages.
Until then, the board wrote, the lab “will continue to operate with elevated risk.”
Matt Nerzig, a spokesman for Los Alamos National Laboratory, declined to comment on the safety board report and referred questions to the U.S. Department of Energy.
In written comments related to the report, board member Joyce Connery wrote, “Given that there is a new prime contractor operating LANL as well as a significant increase in mission scope in the near future, I believe it is important to convey the challenges that remain within the Nuclear Criticality Safety Program.”
In particular, the board found repeated issues at the plutonium facility, known as PF-4, which handles some of Los Alamos’ most high-risk work and is tasked with increasing production of plutonium pits, the grapefruit-sized plutonium metal cores used to trigger nuclear weapons.
The government has outlined plans for Los Alamos to produce dozens of pits every year by 2030, a nuclear weapons modernization mission that has been supported by New Mexico’s congressional delegation.
But the lab so far has developed only five test pits. Production has been plagued by safety concerns, infrastructure problems, work shutdowns and staffing problems, according to letters and reports written by the board and the Department of Energy dating back more than five years.
Increasing plutonium work at Los Alamos could further strain already tenuous conditions at the lab, the safety board said in its report.
Efforts to improve safety procedures are progressing slowly, the board said, in part because the lab did not create clear goals to resolve the problems.
As of October, the board said, the lab had failed to meet standards for more than half of about 400 nuclear safety program measures, and only 11 out of 25 staffers needed for the program were considered fully qualified.
There also are “significant challenges in hiring, qualifying, and retaining sufficient personnel to accomplish … safe operations,” the board said.
In June 2013, federal regulators paused all work at the lab’s plutonium facility for more than a year to address nuclear safety problems.
Since 2017, when the lab reported it had made significant improvements at PF-4, there have been numerous reported safety issues.
In the last two months, the board reported, a four-person crew was contaminated with plutonium-238 at the plutonium facility and a room had to be decontaminated. Los Alamos spokesman Kevin Roark said employees were wearing protective equipment at the time of the event and “all safety systems worked as designed.”
Water also pooled and leaked into a basement in the facility in late November. The board wrote that it was similar to an incident nine months prior, when water had leaked and collected in a basement room that held nuclear waste drums.
Roark, however, said the November incident did not occur where nuclear material is processed, and managers are working to replace the type of faucet that caused the leak with more modern equipment.
US to begin nuclear treaty pullout next month after Russia missile talks fail, Guardian, Julian Borger in Washington, 17 Jan 2019
Officials reject Russian offer to inspect new missile
US says it will suspend observance of INF treaty on 2 February
The US has rejected Moscow’s offer to inspect a new Russian missile suspected of violating a key cold war-era nuclear weapons treaty, and warned that it would suspend observance of the agreement on 2 February, giving six-months’ notice of a complete withdrawal. The under secretary of state for arms control and international security, Andrea Thompson, confirmed the US intention to withdraw from the treaty after a meeting with a Russian delegation in Geneva, which both sides described as a failure.
Donald Trump took US allies by surprise when he announced his intention to leave the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in October. The agreement led to the destruction of thousands of US and Soviet weapons, and has kept nuclear missiles out of Europe for three decades.
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, accused the US of intransigence, saying Moscow had offered to allow US experts to inspect the suspect missile, which it insists does not infringe the limits laid down in the treaty.
“However, US representatives arrived with a prepared position that was based on an ultimatum and centred on a demand for us to destroy this rocket, its launchers and all related equipment under US supervision,” Lavrov said.
Thompson noted that the US had been demanding Russian transparency over the missile for more than five years. She confirmed that the offer of inspections was not enough and that the US was demanding the destruction of the missile system, known as the 9M729……..
She said that there were currently no plans for follow-up talks on the INF before the 2 February deadline laid down by the Trump administration, though US and Russian diplomats would be meeting, including at a summit of the Nato-Russian council next week.
Thompson said that if Russia did not show willingness to comply with the treaty by the deadline, the US would suspend its own obligations, meaning that the US defense department could start research and development on missiles with ranges currently banned by the INF, from 500 to 5,500km.
At the same time, she told reporters, the US would formally give notice of its withdrawal from the treaty, which could come into effect on 2 August.
After that, there would be no restrictions on deployment of medium-range missiles in Europe or the Pacific………..
The Trump administration was criticised by former officials and arms control advocates for not pursuing the Russian offer of inspections.
“We’ve spent years trying to get something – anything – out of the Russians on INF. The Russian offer of an exhibition of the 9M729 is not enough, but it is something,” Alexandra Bell, a former senior state department official who is now senior policy director at the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.
“Perhaps it is a foundation on which to build. Not trying to take advantage of this opportunity is to leave diplomatic options on the table and that’s just foolish.”
Daryl Kimball, the head of the Arms Control Association said: “If the INF is terminated on 2 August, there will be nothing to prevent Russia from deploying nuclear missiles that threaten Europe and the Trump administration will have no hesitation in pursuing the deployment of INF-prohibited weapons in Europe.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/16/us-russia-inf-treaty-nuclear-missile
Straits Times, WASHINGTON (REUTERS) 18 Jan 19, – A top North Korean nuclear envoy met President Donald Trump at the White House after holding talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday (Jan 18) in a diplomatic flurry aimed at laying the groundwork for a second US-North Korea summit.
Kim Yong Chol and Pompeo, with tight smiles, posed together for photographs at a Washington hotel before holding about 45 minutes of talks that could help determine whether the two sides can make headway.
After that meeting, the White House said Trump hosted Kim Yong Chol in the Oval Office to “discuss relations between the two countries and continued progress on North Korea’s final, fully verified denuclearisation.”
There has been no indication of any narrowing of differences over US demands that North Korea abandon a nuclear weapons programme that threatens the United States or over Pyongyang’s demand for a lifting of punishing sanctions.
Hours before Kim Yong Chol’s arrival on Thursday, Trump – who declared after the Singapore summit in June that the nuclear threat posed by North Korea was over – unveiled a revamped US missile defence strategy that singled out the country as an ongoing and “extraordinary threat.”
The State Department said after Friday’s meeting that Pompeo had a “good discussion” with Kim Yong Chol “on efforts to make progress on commitments President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un made at their summit in Singapore.”
To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran,” read the headline of a 2015 New York Times op-ed by now National Security Adviser John Bolton. Writing at the height of nuclear negotiations with Iran, Bolton argued that, “Time is terribly short, but a strike can still succeed.” Almost four years later, all of Iran’s potential pathways to a bomb remain blocked by the very deal Bolton would have traded for war. But like nonbiodegradable plastic adrift at sea, undeterred by the damage left in its wake, Bolton’s views haven’t changed.
On January 13, 2019, news broke that the National Security Council, at Bolton’s direction, asked the Pentagon for military strike options against Iran. The request was reportedly in response to a mortar attack launched in September 2018 by an Iraqi Shiite militia aligned with Iran that landed near the US Embassy in Baghdad, hitting an empty lot and causing no injuries or damage. In other words, Bolton asked the Pentagon to draw up plans for airstrikes over Iran that would start a catastrophic war — all in response to a militia attack with no victims.
Taken on its own, a thoughtful observer might characterize Bolton’s request as a gross overreaction from an overzealous national security adviser. But in the context of this administration’s policies and statements on Iran, it looks more like part of the plan.
Let’s review the lowlights. In the first days of Trump’s presidency, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn ominously announced that the administration was “putting Iran on notice.” In May 2018, Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear agreement despite Iran’s verifiable compliance, and reimposed the full suite of US sanctions lifted under the agreement. Last July, Trump authored a late-night tweetthreatening Iran with “consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before.” In August, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo formed the Iran Action Group, a special team tasked with coordinating the administration’s policies for countering the “Iranian threat.” Earlier this month, Pompeo started an eight-country tour through the Middle East emphasizing the need to counter “the greatest threat of all the Middle East, the Iranian regime.” Next month, the secretary of state is hosting a summit in Poland focused on “making sure that Iran is not a destabilizing influence.” ……….
Picking up on Trump’s general disregard for congressional war powers, Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico introduced legislation last year prohibiting the use of funds for military action against Iran without congressional approval. Legislation like this may prove crucial in preventing a war with Iran, especially given the ever-expanding interpretations of presidential war powers espoused by this administration. If confirmed, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, William Barr, could help expand those interpretations even further, as he tried to do in the lead-up to the Iraq War when he told President Bush that he had “no doubt” about the president’s authority to invade Iraq without congressional authorization.
However Congress moves to stop this march to war, it should move quickly. The administration’s actions suggest a strategy of provocation. Congress would be wise to sound the alarm and demand answers about the administration’s intentions before we find ourselves in another decades-long quagmire in the Middle East with quite imaginable consequences. https://truthout.org/articles/to-stop-boltons-fire-and-fury-fire-bolton/
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
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