Washington Examiner 28th April 2018 ,The Trump administration’s plan to add two new varieties of nuclear
weapons into the U.S. arsenal will face one of its first legislative tests
this month. The House Armed Services Committee is teeing up a debate on the
proposed sea-based cruise missiles and lower-yield ballistic missiles
launched from submarines on May 9. The focus: whether these weapons will
make nuclear war with Russia more or less likely. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/lawmakers-get-ready-to-fight-over-mini-nuclear-weapons
In a recent episode of “On Contact,” his video series on the RT network, Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges speaks with Mark Crispin Miller, a professor of media studies at New York University, about the destruction of the independent press in the United States.
Hedges calls attention to the algorithms of Facebook, Google and Twitter, and how they steer traffic away from anti-war and progressive websites, while Miller speaks of the frightening historical precedent of the homogenization of the press.
“I think what we have seen over the decades since the mid-’70s, and I’m going to make a provocative comparison here, is something analogous to what the Nazis called gleichschaltung, which means streamlining,” Miller says. “When they came to power, they made it their business to make sure that not only all media outlets but all industries, all sectors of the culture, would be streamlined, which meant getting rid of anyone who was not fully on board with the Nazi program.”
Miller adds that this is “unprecedented in American experience.” He says, “Even ten years ago I would have flinched if someone compared our press to the Nazi press.”
Watch the full conversation in the player above. [on original]
What’s at Stake If Trump Kills the Iran Nuclear Deal? Bloomberg. By Lin Noueihed and David Wainer, April 28, 2018,
From oil to business to politics, the impact could be global
Trump has May 12 deadline for decision on sanctions waiver
U.S. President Donald Trump has until May 12 to decide whether to perhaps fatally undermine a years-in-the-making nuclear deal with Iran, with the consequences likely to be felt from Middle East war zones to oil markets. If the U.S. refuses to continue to waive sanctions under the six-nation agreement reached in 2015, there’s a real threat Iran will also walk away. European powers are scrambling to persuade Trump to preserve the agreement, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Washington on Friday on the heels of French President Emmanuel Macron. So what’s at stake if the U.S. withdraws?
· Oil Markets A “snap-back” in Iran sanctions by the U.S. would almost certainly reduce Iran’s oil exports, further stretching an oil market that’s seen prices rise 11 percent this year. What’s more uncertain is exactly how far shipments would fall.
……….Doing Business A resumption in U.S. sanctions could derail tens of billions of dollars in business deals. While a U.S. exit may not render signed deals illegal, new sanctions would make it risky for international companies to continue working in Iran due to potential ramifications for their U.S. business or banking transactions.
It’s not just companies involved in Iran that are worried. Privately, business leaders increasingly fret about the growing risk of conflict in the region if Iran resumes uranium enrichment in response to a U.S. withdrawal — and what that could mean for world trade…….
………Global Power Balance On the international stage, the biggest winners from a resumption of American sanctions could be two other signatories to the deal — China and Russia, whose influence has gradually spread in the Middle East as the U.S. has scaled back its engagement…….
Nuclear Risks The collapse of the accord could hamper denuclearization efforts, and not just in the Middle East. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned this week that if the U.S. exits, his country might resume its nuclear program. Iranian officials have also threatened to leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty if the deal crumbles. Iran denies its enrichment was ever intended to build weapons as the U.S., Israel and others had charged.
North Korea, which does have a nuclear arsenal, will be watching developments closely. Ditching a deal the U.S. helped shape could undermine American credibility at the negotiating table as it seeks denuclearization in the Korean peninsula. Some analysts say the upcoming talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un might be weighing on Trump — and leave him more inclined to preserve Iran’s agreement.
Iranian Political Dynamics A collapse of the nuclear deal would be a blow for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the reformists who championed a diplomatic settlement to the nuclear standoff that had left Iran increasingly isolated. The nuclear deal is a rare concrete achievement for Rouhani, who was re-elected last year but has been weakened by demonstrations, a currency crisis and problems in the banking sector.
Hardliners, who warned through years of talks that the U.S. was not a trustworthy partner, would emerge strengthened………
Risk of Conflict If the deal collapses and Iran restarts its nuclear program, the risk of confrontation could increase. Washington’s leading Middle East allies — Israel and Saudi Arabia — are both determined to roll back Iranian influence in their neighborhood. Israel in the past has threatened to bomb Iranian nuclear sites to prevent it obtaining a weapons capability.
The potential for a broader conflict is compounded by the war in Syria, which has already drawn in Iran, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Russia, the U.S., Turkey and Israel.
Defying the U.S. The amount of turbulence, especially for businesses, will depend on how Iran, and other powers, respond to any U.S. exit. “If the Americans wind up walking away from the deal but the rest of the world is able to say ‘we are sticking to our approach,’ then this might not be so catastrophic for investments in Iran,” said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-27/what-s-at-stake-if-trump-kills-the-nuclear-deal-with-iran
Donald Trump likely to scrap Iran deal amid ‘insane’ changes of stance, says Macron, Guardian, Julian Borger 27 Apr 18
French president’s frank comments come after Congress address in which he stood up for policies his US counterpart has sought to destroy
Emmanuel Macron conceded he had probably failed in his attempt during a three-day trip to Washington to persuade Donald Trump to stay in the Iran nuclear deal, describing US flip-flopping on international agreements as “insane”.
The French president had hoped to convince Trump to continue to waive sanctions on Iran, as agreed by the 2015 nuclear deal, in which Iran agreed to accept strict curbs on its nuclear activities. Macron offered Trump the prospect of negotiations on a new complementary deal that would address Iranian missile development and Tehran’s military intervention in the Middle East.
But speaking to US reporters before leaving Washington, Macron said: “My view – I don’t know what your president will decide – is that he will get rid of this deal on his own, for domestic reasons.”
Noting that Trump had also pulled the US out of the Paris climate change accord – another commitment of the Obama administration – Macron said such frequent changes in the US position on global issues “can work in the short term but it’s very insane in the medium to long term”.
For his part, Trump implied in a phone interview on Thursday morning with the TV show Fox and Friends, which mainly focused on matters involving his attorney Michael Cohen, that he thought he had swayed Macron closer to his way of thinking on the Iran deal………
Over the course of a 50-minute address to a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday, the French president said he was “sure” the US would one day return to the Paris climate change accord, and vowed that France would not abandon the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Programme of Action (JCPOA).
More broadly, Macron presented himself to the US legislature as an unabashed advocate of the liberal world order of global institutions and free trade – the very opposite of the America First nationalism that fuelled Trump’s rise to the White House. The speech – delivered in English – was interrupted by frequent standing ovations, many from both sides of the aisle.
“We will not let the rampaging work of extreme nationalism shake a world full of hopes for greater prosperity,” Macron said. “It is a critical moment. If we do not act with urgency as a global community, I am convinced that the international institutions, including the United Nations and Nato, will no longer be able to exercise a mandate and stabilising influence.”
……..
Macron also made a full-throated argument for global action to combat climate change, built around the 2015 Paris accord, which Trump announced in June he was walking away from.
The LA Times reported last month that when workers tried to move spent fuel from a cooling tank to dry storage tanks–that are kept a mere 100-feet from the shoreline–broken bolts were found in the long-term storage tanks. Those tanks are meant to hold and stabilize the spent fuel rods indefinitely.
Work stopped for ten days after the bolts were found, but has since resumed, angering nearby residents and people opposed to the plan to store waste at San Onofre, who were already worried about the safety of keeping nuclear waste so near the ocean and major population centers.
Now that broken bolts have been found, those fears are heightening.
The broken bolts are part of a system that helps keep the rods balanced in the storage tanks. They’re apparently a new design, and four of them have already been filled with radioactive waste. Unfortunately, there’s no way for Southern California Edison to test the already-filled containers for the same issue.
Edison is trying to assuage fears and insists there’s no threat to the public. And they’ve resumed filling more storage tanks, but not the newly-designed tanks with bolt issues.
But for watchdog groups who were already warning that unforeseen problems made storing this waste highly dangerous, malfunctioning tanks so early in the relocation process isn’t sitting very well.
“We warned them that this was going to happen, and nobody listened to us,” Donna Gilmore of SanOnofreSafety.org told the LA Times. “Now they are trying to tell us: ‘Everything is OK. Don’t worry.’ This is insane. Edison has proven they can’t keep us safe.”
As part of a lawsuit settlement, Edison has agreed to look into options to store the spent fuel permanently in New Mexico or Arizona, far from millions of Orange County and San Diego County residents.
For now though, the waste is still headed to San Onofre, busted bolts and all. All 3.6 million pounds of it.
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 24th April 2018 , During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union manufactured
enormous quantities of plutonium for use in nuclear weapons. When that era
ended, the United States and the newly formed Russian Federation began to
reduce their nuclear arsenals. Both nations possessed large stockpiles of
plutonium—a problem that posed both a sustained threat to the environment
and a risk of future nuclear weapons proliferation.
In 2000, the United States and Russia pledged to dispose of their excess plutonium in order to
mitigate the security concerns, safety risks, and storage costs. They
signed the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement, which requires
each country to dispose of at least 34 metric tons of weapons plutonium.
Unfortunately, the agreement failed to solve the excess plutonium problem. Eighteen years later, the United States has been unable to develop a
successful strategy to safely, affordably, and permanently dispose of
plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons, despite a high degree of
industrial capability and technical expertise. Why has the United States
been unable to either implement its obligations under the disposition
agreement or execute its own policy? And how can the Plutonium Disposition
Program finally become effective? https://thebulletin.org/what-went-wrong-us-plutonium-disposition11733
IN 1961, AS JOHN F. Kennedy was inaugurated, Cold War tensions were running high, and the military had planes armed with nuclear weapons in the air constantly. These planes were supposed to be ready to respond to a nuclear attack at any moment. If the planes were already in the air, the thinking went, they would survive a nuclear bomb hitting the United States.
But one of the closest calls came when an America B-52 bomber dropped two nuclear bombs on North Carolina.
In January, a jet carrying two 12-foot-long Mark 39 hydrogen bombs met up with a refueling plane, whose pilot noticed a problem. Fuel was leaking from the plane’s right wing. The wing was failing and the plane needed to make an emergency landing, soon. But before it could, its wing broke off, followed by part of the tail. The plane crash-landed, killing three of its crew. (Five other men made it safely out.)
In the plane’s flailing descent, the bomb bays opened, and the two bombs it was carrying fell to the ground.
As it fell, one bomb deployed its parachute: a bad sign, as it meant the bomb was acting as if it had been deployed deliberately. It started flying through the seven-step sequence that would end in detonation. The last step involved a simple safety switch. When a military crew found the bomb, it was nose-up in the dirt, with its parachute caught in the tree, still whole. As the Orange County Register writes, that last switch was still turned to SAFE.
The second bomb had disappeared into a tobacco field. Only “a small dent in the earth,” the Register reports, revealed its location.
It took a week for a crew to dig out the bomb; soon they had to start pumping water out of the site. Though the bomb had not exploded, it had broken up on impact, and the clean-up crew had to search the muddy ground for its parts. When they found that key switch, it had been turned to ARM. To this day, it’s unclear why the bomb did not go off.
The crew didn’t find every part of the bomb, though. The secondary core, made of uranium, never turned up. Today, the site where the bomb fell is safe enough to farm—but the military has made sure, using an easement, that no one will dig or erect a building on that site.
LA Times 23rd April 2018,As crews demolished a shuttered nuclear weapons plant during 2017 in
central Washington, specks of plutonium were swept up in high gusts and
blown miles across a desert plateau above the Columbia River.
The releases at the Department of Energy cleanup site spewed unknown amounts of
plutonium dust into the environment, coated private automobiles with the
toxic heavy metal and dispensed lifetime internal radioactive doses to 42
workers.
The contamination events went on for nearly 12 months, getting
progressively worse before the project was halted in mid-December. Now,
state health and environmental regulators, Department of Energy officials
and federal safety investigators are trying to figure out what went wrong
and who is responsible. http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2018/04/why_was_plutonium_dust_left_to.html
Feds bash Hanford nuclear waste plant troubles, question DOE priorities, Tri City Herald, BY ANNETTE CARY, acary@tricityherald.com 2018RICHLAND, WA 26 Apr 18
Problems first identified six years ago continue the plague the multi-billion-dollar Hanford vitrification plant, according to federal investigators with the Government Accountability Office.
The Department of Energy and its contractor have not shown that the plant has the quality needed to operate safely when it starts treating some of the nation’s deadliest nuclear waste.
The contractor, Bechtel National, has not fully completed planned corrections, and the corrections it has made have not prevented continuing quality assurance problems, the GAO said.
The $17 billion plant has been under construction since 2002 to turn up to 56 million gallons of radioactive waste into a stable glass form for disposal. The waste is left from the past production of plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program.
Its quality assurance program is intended to make sure that equipment, materials, workmanship and systems have the high quality — and quality that is verified through stringent recordkeeping — to make certain the plant will operate safely.
The GAO said that the Hanford DOE office responsible for the plant, the Office of River Protection (ORP), is under pressure to get part of the plant operating.
If serious quality assurance problems are identified, they could threaten the ability of ORP to meet cost and schedule targets, the report said.
Two ORP quality assurance experts said that both local DOE management and Bechtel place cost and schedule performance above identifying and resolving quality tracking issues.
“One quality assurance expert specified that ORP’s culture does not encourage staff to identify quality assurance problems or ineffective corrective measures,” the GAO report said.
“This expert said that people who discover problems are not rewarded,” it said. “Rather, their findings are met with resistance, which has created a culture where quality assurance staff are hesitant to identify quality assurance problems or problems with corrective measures.”
The expert compared the plant to the Zimmer Power Plant, a plant in Ohio that was never licensed because of unresolved quality assurance problems and a focus on schedule over construction quality, the report said.
The GAO recommended that ORP should revise its organizational structure so the quality assurance function is independent of its upper management.
In a written response to the GAO, Anne White, the new DOE assistant secretary for environmental management, said that the current ORP quality assurance reporting relationship meets all established requirements.
But White did concede that the report identifies some instances in which independence of quality assurance could be strengthened.
Stop-work orders recommended
In another of the three recommendations in the report, the GAO said the energy secretary should direct ORP to use its authority to stop work in areas in which quality assurance problems are recurring.
Work should not restart until the office’s experts can verify the problems are corrected and will not recur, the report said.
In December 2012 the ORP vitrification plant engineering division recommended that all activities affecting engineering design, construction, and installation of components be stopped because it could not be verified that completed work met quality and safety requirements for handling nuclear waste, the GAO report said.
Stopping work would help DOE avoid future nuclear safety and quality compromises and substantial rework, according to the engineering division.
Instead of stopping all work, ORP management halted only the work on facilities with the most significant technical challenges.
……DOE now is required to start operating part of the plant to start turning some low-activity radioactive waste into a stable glass form for disposal in 2023. Construction on parts of the plant that will handle high-level radioactive waste have been stopped since 2012.
There have been problems related to the delay in construction with components stored outside and affected by water, sand or animals. There also was a significant water leak at one of the large processing buildings in 2016, the GAO report said. http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article209749064.html
Trump, Macron call for ‘new’ nuclear deal with Iran US President Donald Trump and French counterpart Emmanuel Macron called for a “new” deal with Iran Tuesday, looking beyond divisions over a landmark nuclear accord that now hangs in the balance. SBS News 25 Apr 18 Trump pilloried a three-year old agreement designed to curb Iran’s nuclear program as “insane” and “ridiculous”, despite European pleas for him not to walk away from the accord.
Instead, Trump eyed a “grand bargain” that would also limit Iran’s ballistic missile program and support for militant groups across the Middle East.
“I think we will have a great shot at doing a much bigger, maybe, deal,” said Trump, stressing that any new accord would have to be built on “solid foundations.”………
Macron, visiting Washington on a landmark state visit, admitted after meeting Trump that he did not know whether the US president would walk away from the nuclear deal when a May 12 decision deadline comes up.
“I can say that we have had very frank discussions on that, just the two of us,” Macron told a joint press conference with Trump at his side.
Putting on a brave face, he said he wished “for now to work on a new deal with Iran” of which the nuclear accord could be one part.
Trump — true to his background in reality TV — teased his looming decision.
…… Neither Trump nor Macron indicated what Iran would get in return for concessions on its ballistic programs or activities in the Middle East.Iran, meanwhile, has warned it will ramp up enrichment activities if Trump walks away from the accord, prompting Trump to issue a blunt warning.
Trump considers adding a military branch – for space, News Target , 04/21/2018 / By David Williams “……..President Trump himself has declared that creating an entirely new branch of the military, one that’s dedicated solely for matters of defense and war in space – is now in the cards.
Indeed, the POTUS said in a speech recently that the U.S. could benefit from the creation of a so-called Space Force, which would be built with a focus on preparing the country for space-related war efforts. Its existence would be in line with the idea that space is the “ultimate high ground” that needs to be protected at all costs.
According to the POTUS, space really is just like all the other areas that the current branches of the military are meant to protect. “My new national strategy for space recognizes that space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air and sea,” he said during a speech to service members in San Diego. “We may even have a Space Force.”
The President shared the details of how the idea for this new military branch came to be. He said that he had been musing recently about the possibility of adding such a division to the military, in addition to the ones that already exist – Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marines, and Navy. “I said, ‘Maybe we need a new force. We’ll call it the Space Force,’” he said. “And I was not really serious. And then I said, ‘What a great idea. Maybe we’ll have to do that. That could happen.’”
It might seem like a joke or something that’s going to be impossible to do for now, but there are certainly those who support this idea in the military itself. It is said that the idea aligns quite well with the renewed focus of the military forces on maintaining U.S. space dominance.
….. According to Navy Vice Adm. Charles A. Richard, the deputy commander of U.S. Strategic Command, having a working space force could be beneficial in the same way that nuclear weapons are, by serving as deterrents. “Just as nuclear assets deter aggression by convincing potential adversaries there’s just no benefit to the attack, we have to maintain a space posture that communicates the same strategic message,” he explained. “I submit [that] the best way to prevent war is to be prepared for war, and we’re going to make sure that everyone knows we’re going to be prepared to fight and win wars in all domains, to include space.”…… https://www.newstarget.com/2018-04-21-trump-considers-adding-a-military-branch-for-space.html
Today is the day that net neutrality’s “slow and insidious” death at the hands of the Republican-controlled FCC officially begins, and Congress is facing urgent pressure to save the open internet before it’s too late.
With Monday marking 60 days after the FCC’s net neutrality repeal entered the Federal Register, parts of the GOP-crafted plan — spearheaded by agency chair and former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai — will now slowly begin taking effect, while some still need to be approved by the Office of Management and Budget.
Net neutrality backers in Congress, meanwhile, are still struggling to compile enough votes to repeal Pai’s new rules, despite the fact that they are deeply unpopular among the American public.
The Senate needs just one more vote to pass a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to restore net neutrality protections before it can move to the House, where it would face an uphill battle. An official vote in the Senate has yet to be scheduled, but could come in the next few weeks.
In a recent Twitter thread, the advocacy group Fight for the Future warned against sensationalistic headlines proclaiming that net neutrality will immediately be gone on Monday, noting that large telecom companies will ensure that the open internet’s death is as quiet and subtle as possible in order to minimize public backlash.
“The ISPs aren’t going to immediately start blocking content or rolling out paid prioritization scams. They know Congress and the public are watching them,” the group noted. “And that’s the worst part. What will happen is over time ISP scams and abuses will become more commonplace and more accepted. They’ll roll out new schemes that appear good on their face but undermine the free market of ideas by allowing ISPs to pick winners and losers.”
Westinghouse CEO opens up about collapse of 2000s ‘nuclear renaissance’, (Mainichi Japan) WASHINGTON— The CEO of the U.S. nuclear power firm Westinghouse Electric Co. — which used to be under the Toshiba Corp. umbrella and which filed for bankruptcy in March 2017 — has told the Mainichi Shimbun that the “nuclear renaissance” in the 2000s “was not realistic.”……..
Westinghouse Electric was acquired by Toshiba in 2006. At the time, nuclear power was gaining attention as a countermeasure to tackle global warming, with a spate of power plant construction projects emerging across the world, particularly in the U.S.
However, after a drop in demand for electricity caused by the global financial crisis triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, as well as the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant disaster in 2011, demand for new nuclear power plants has plunged worldwide.
Looking back at this time, Gutierrez acknowledges that the nuclear renaissance, whereby firms would build plants, never actually happened, and says that Westinghouse Electric senior management’s bold plans to build dozens of new plants across the world was not realistic…….
Since the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, the world has been in a state of readiness for nuclear combat. In this secretive domain, mistakes and mishaps are often hidden: This week we’re telling the stories of five nuclear accidents that burst into public view. THE WAR WAS OVER—JAPAN HAD surrendered. The third plutonium core created by the United States, which scientists at Los Alamos National Lab had been preparing for another attack, was no longer needed as a weapon. For the moment, the lab’s nuclear scientists were allowed to keep the sphere, an alloy of plutonium and gallium that would become known as the demon core.
In a nuclear explosion, a bomb’s radioactive core goes critical: A nuclear chain reaction starts and continues with no additional intervention. When nuclear material goes supercritical, that reaction speeds up. American scientists knew enough about the radioactive materials they were working with to be able to set off these reactions in a bomb, but they wanted a better understanding of the edge where subcritical material tipped into the dangerous, intensely radioactive critical state.
One way to push the core towards criticality involved turning the neutrons it shedback onto the core, to destabilize it further. The “Critical Assembly Group” at Los Alamos was working on a series of experiments in which they surrounded the core with materials that reflected neutrons and monitored the core’s state.
The first time someone died performing one of these experiments, Japan had yet to formally sign the terms of surrender. On the evening of August 21, 1945, the physicist Harry Daghlian was alone in the lab, building a shield of tungsten carbide bricks around the core. Ping-ponging neutrons back the core, the bricks had brought the plutonium close to the threshold of criticality, when Daghlian dropped a brick on top. Instantly, the core reacted, going supercritical and Daghlian was doused in a lethal dose of radiation. He died 25 days later.
His death did not dissuade his colleagues, though. Nine months later, they had developed another way to bring the core close to that critical edge, by lowering a dome of beryllium over the core. Louis Slotin, another physicist, had performed this move in many previous experiments: He would hold the dome with one hand, and with the other use a screwdriver to keep a small gap open, just barely limiting the flow of neutrons back to the bomb. On a May day in 1946, his hand slipped, and the gap closed. Again, the core went supercritical and dosed Slotin, along with seven other scientists in the room, with gamma radiation.
In each instance, when the core slipped over that threshold and started spewing radiation, a bright blue light flashed in the room—the result of highly energized particles hitting air molecules, which released that bolt of energy as streams of light.
The other scientists survived their radiation bath, but Slotin, closest to the core, died of radiation sickness nine days later. The experiments stopped. After a cooling-off period, the demon core was recast into a different weapon, eventually destroyed in a nuclear test.
nuclear-news 