America’s role in shaping the North Korea nuclear crisis
Rooting Out the North Korean Nuclear Crisis: the Past and Present U.S. Role, CounterPunch, by CHRISTINE HONG – PAUL LIEM, 15 Sept 16, North Korea’s nuclear test of September 9, 2016, the fifth and largest measuring twice the force of previous blasts, prompted a predictable round of condemnations by the United States and its allies along with calls for China to step up its enforcement of sanctions on North Korea. Yet few “expert” analyses suggest that China will risk destabilizing North Korea or that further United Nations resolutions and international sanctions will succeed in deterring North Korea from pursuing its nuclear weapons and missile programs.
The Obama administration’s reliance on China to rein in North Korea is at odds with its efforts to contain China’s influence in Asia, a quixotic goal in itself. It reflects an unrealistic desire for China to be influential just enough to do the bidding of the United States but not powerful enough to act in its own interests.
North Korea is, after all, China’s strategic ally in the region, and it is in South Korea that the United States plans to deploy THAAD, a defense system with radar capable of tracking incoming missiles from China. It is simply not in China’s interest to risk losing an ally on its border only to have it replaced by a U.S.-backed state hosting missile-tracking systems and other military forces targeting it. And China knows it is not the target of North Korea’s nukes. If the United States cannot punt the problem of North Korea’s nuclear weapons to China it must deal with North Korea directly.
Indeed, in response to U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter’s recent condemnation of China’s “role” and “responsibility” in failing to restrain North Korea’s nuclear pursuits, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling on the United States to take a long hard look at its own foreign policy:……….
Despite President Barack Obama’s efforts over his two terms in office to “pivot” or “rebalance” U.S. foreign policy to Asia and the Pacific and his repeated identification of the United States as a Pacific power, the memory of nuclear ruin in the region is shadowed by the history of the United States as a first-user of atomic weapons against civilian populations in Japan at the close of World War II and as a tester of devastating nuclear technology, including human radiation experiments, in the Marshall Islands during the Cold War. Moreover, it has not gone unnoticed that President Obama, despite his professed commitment to nuclear de-escalation, has refused to issue an “unequivocal no-first-use pledge.”
In Korea, the one place on the planet where nuclear conflagration is most likely to erupt, given the current state of affairs, President Obama can still end the threat of nuclear warfare. This would require what few in his administration appear to have entertained, namely, the elimination of the demand for North Korea to agree to irreversible denuclearization as a precondition for bilateral talks. This rigid goal makes it virtually impossible for the United States to respond positively to any overture from North Korea short of a fantastic offer by that country to surrender all its nuclear weapons. The premise that the denuclearization of North Korea is necessary to ensure peace and stability on the Korean peninsula needs to be shelved, and all possibilities for finding common ground upon which to negotiate the cessation of hostilities on the Korean peninsula should be explored…….
Let us also recall that North Korea offered to halt testing of its nuclear weapons if the United States agreed to put an end to the annual U.S.-South Korea war games.[6] Combining live artillery drills and virtual exercises, these war games, as of this year, implemented OPLAN 5015, a new operational war plan that puts into motion a preemptive U.S. nuclear strike against North Korea and the “decapitation” of its leadership. Unsurprisingly, North Korea considers this updated operational plan to be a rehearsal for Libya-style regime change……..
President Obama should prioritize any and all possibilities for achieving a halt to North Korea’s nuclear programs by diplomacy, over the goal of achieving an illusory agreement for complete denuclearization. As an achievement, halting North Korea’s nuclear advances is far short of the peace treaty needed to bring an end to the Korean War and a lasting peace to Korea. It is far short of creating international conditions for the Korean people to achieve the peaceful reunification of their country. And it is a far cry from achieving nuclear disarmament on a global scale. Yet, as a redirection of U.S. policy towards engagement with North Korea, it would be the greatest achievement in U.S. Korea policy of the last fifteen years, and a concrete step towards achieving denuclearization in the region, and worldwide… (extensive references) http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/15/rooting-out-the-north-korean-nuclear-crisis-the-past-and-present-u-s-role/#_edn3
The ex-Westinghouse employee accused of helping a foreign power with nuclear secrets
Nuclear secrets: The ex-Westinghouse employee accused of helping a foreign power Power Source By Anya Litvak / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette September 15, 2016 Following the arrest of Allen Ho this spring, FBI agents appeared on the doorsteps of nuclear scientists across the United States.
In Murrysville, they met with Charles Beard, a retired Westinghouse Electric Co. software engineer who first connected with Mr. Ho in the 1980s when both men worked for that company. In 2011, Mr. Ho had approached Mr. Beard to consult for his Delaware-based firm Energy Technology International, according to documents in the case.
Mr. Beard had just retired and wasn’t sure it was worth it. He quoted an hourly rate so high it was intended to repel the advances, Mr. Beard told the FBI. But Mr. Ho agreed to the money, and so did Mr. Beard.
And thus he became part of a group of consultants — retired nuclear specialists, many from Cranberry-based Westinghouse — that Mr. Ho assembled on behalf of the China General Nuclear Power Corp. (CGN), one of several state-owned nuclear firms in one of the world’s largest commercial nuclear markets.
The consulting team was to “provide technology transfer in design, manufacturing, related training and technical support,” Mr. Ho wrote in an e-mail later obtained by the FBI. “They said budget is no issue.”
Since mid-April, Mr. Ho, 66, has been in jail in Tennessee awaiting a trial in which he faces a potential life sentence for violating a 60-year statute that has never before been tested in court. He spends 23 hours in a cell, in solitary confinement, according to his attorney.
In its case, the government has said that Mr. Ho’s consulting services amount to nuclear espionage and that he was acting as a foreign agent when he recruited nuclear scientists to educate China’s nuclear engineers on aspects of commercial reactors.
Mr. Ho, and one of his former consultants Ching Ning Guey whose plea deal last year helped the government build a case, are the first people to be charged under a statute of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 that says people who help make special nuclear material outside of the U.S. have to ask the Secretary of Energy for permission.
They are the only two people that have been charged in this case.
The “special nuclear material” in question is plutonium — a byproduct of the nuclear reaction that takes place inside commercial power plants. By helping a Chinese company with its operations, Mr. Ho was involved in making plutonium, the government said.
Last month, despite a slew of character letters from friends, some of which pledged their homes as collateral, Mr. Ho was denied bail.
Even if he were stripped of his U.S. and Chinese passports, and outfitted with a tracking anklet that confined him to his home, Chinese operatives might shepherd him out of the country, prosecutors warned. They cited his expensive house in Delaware, an apartment in China and a child he fathered there nine years ago………
Mr. Ho had, in fact, applied for the special authorization required by the Atomic Energy Act.
In 2013, he sent two letters to the U.S. Department of Energy describing his activities in China. One said he and his consultants were engaged in IT support work, such as converting code from one language to another and updating it with more recent fission and heat transfer models.
In less than two months, the energy agency replied to Mr. Ho that these activities don’t need special permission……..
Special permission
The government’s argument on the dangers of Mr. Ho’s actions follow two paths. On the one hand, the FBI has alleged Mr. Ho was selling commercial secrets, violating intellectual property protections and helping Chinese companies get ahead by bypassing the expense and time of research and development.
On the other hand, the government and the FBI agents that conducted the interviews with Mr. Ho’s consultants have sprinkled in questions about possible security concerns, given that the plutonium produced at commercial nuclear power plants can be used for military purposes.“Our idea of how China works, is that at the end of the day, whatever’s good for commercial is also good for military,” the federal agent told Mr. Ho after his arrest.
That dynamic is the focus of the Atomic Energy Act, a law passed in 1954 that guides how the U.S. balances the promotion of nuclear trade in the electric sector with the goal of keeping nuclear proliferation at bay.
There are 50 countries for which a special authorization is not required. For all others — including China — activities ranging from document transfers and e-mails to the “transfer of knowledge and expertise” in the area of nuclear reactors call for special permission from the Secretary of Energy.
George Rudy, who consulted for Mr. Ho, told an FBI agent on April 15 that Mr. Ho didn’t seem to understand the logic behind the authorization rules. “He felt that the requirements were the NSA and DOE trying to impede his progress,” Mr. Rudy told the FBI.
A 2014 Government Accountability Office report looking at how the Department of Energy handles the special authorization statute found that U.S. nuclear firms and the Nuclear Energy Institute commonly felt the requirements and the long approval times put U.S. firms and the interest of commercial nuclear development at a disadvantage to suppliers in other countries.
It’s OK for Westinghouse………
China’s nuclear ambitions are second to none. It is gobbling up Western nuclear technology and expertise, and developing its own in service of an aggressive plan to build dozens of reactors in the next decade.
“This whole thing doesn’t make any sense, because Westinghouse sold AP1000 reactors to China along with all of their proprietary information,” Mr. Rombough said this month. “If doing nuclear reactors in China is so off limits, why did they allow Westinghouse to do that?”
David Seel, another retired Westinghouse engineer, told FBI agents in April that his concerns “were mitigated by the assumption (Westinghouse’s) presence in China and AP1000-related business dealings illustrated consulting such as his was not prohibited.”………
While he declined to speak about Mr. Ho’s case in detail, Mr. Zeidenburg said it “falls into a long and depressing line of cases where the Department of Justice has arrested a Chinese-American first and asked questions later.”
In court filings, he has argued that the government — unable to find an espionage statute that sticks — has tried to “shoehorn” Mr. Ho’s legitimate commercial work into a statute that has never been tested in court.
Mr. Ho’s trial is scheduled to begin in January.
Anya Litvak: alitvak@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1455.http://powersource.post-gazette.com/powersource/companies/2016/09/15/Nuclear-secrets-The-ex-Westinghouse-employee-accused-of-helping-a-foreign-power/stories/201609140193
US COULD LOSE NEARLY HALF ITS NUCLEAR POWER FLEET
US COULD LOSE NEARLY HALF ITS FLEET, ALEXANDER SAYSBy 2038, 48 US reactors will be at least 60 years old, Alexander said, adding that the country would lose about half of its reactor fleet if their NRC operating licenses are not extended beyond 60 years. NRC’s initial operating licenses for power reactors are for 40 years. Most units have received, or are seeking, a 20-year license renewal, putting their total operating time at 60 years.
Exelon Generation said June 7 it will seek a second 20-year renewal, also known as a subsequent license renewal, of its NRC operating license for the Peach Bottom units 2 and 3 boiling water reactors in Delta, Pennsylvania. If NRC approves the renewal, the Peach Bottom units would be licensed to operate for a total of up to 80 years.
Exelon’s announcement came after Dominion said in November that it plans to seek subsequent license renewal for the two pressurized water reactors at its Surry station in Virginia.
–Elaine Hiruo, elaine.hiruo@spglobal.com
–Edited by Valarie Jackson, valarie.jackson@spglobal.com http://www.platts.com/latest-news/electric-power/washington/progress-on-waste-issue-key-to-support-for-nuclear-21519625
Protect Freedom of The Press! Drop Arrest Warrant for Amy Goodman
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/268/169/575/protect-freedom-of-the-press-drop-arrest-warrant-for-amy-goodman/ By: Kelsey Bourgeois Target: North Dakota police
She was doing her job of reporting what was happening, which was security guards pepper spraying protectors and forcing attack dogs to bite protectors that didn’t pose a threat. Obviously, this is intimidation of the freedom of the press.
The pipeline threatens water supplies, sacred Native American sites, and the environment broadly and the amazing Native Americans and allies standing up against it deserve fair coverage from the press. The authorities want this pipeline so badly that they are willing to cover up reporting on misconduct at the construction site.
“This is an unacceptable violation of freedom of the press,” said Amy Goodman in a statement. “I was doing my job by covering pipeline guards unleashing dogs and pepper spray on Native American protesters.” Amy Goodman is an award-winning journalist.
This warrant sets a horrifying precedent. It restricts the freedom of the press, a constitutional right that our society requires to thrive. We demand this warrant be dropped immediately. The reporting Amy Goodman and Democracy Now did that day is crucial and we cannot allow them to silence it.
Major USA utility sees Renewables and Efficiency as a Better Deal Than Nuclear
How a Major Utility Came to See Renewables and Efficiency as a Better Deal Than Nuclear Greeen Tech Media by Tam Hunt September 14, 2016 Pacific Gas & Electric, California’s biggest utility, made a historic proposal to shut down California’s last nuclear power plant, called Diablo Canyon. PG&E is arguing that replacing Diablo’s output with a mix of energy efficiency and renewables will not only cost less than relicensing Diablo, but will also lead to a more reliable and flexible grid. ……..
Energy efficiency and renewables come with none of the downsides of nuclear power. There is no radioactive waste that must be stored for literally thousands of years, there is no terrorist target, there is no ticking time bomb waiting for an earthquake to trigger it. There is a much larger footprint for renewables like solar and wind, but many countries around the world are demonstrating now that these resources can reach high penetration levels without spoiling views, impacting wildlife overly much, or taking up too much land.
Another benefit of shutting down Diablo that PG&E highlights in the joint application is the ability to better absorb increasing amounts of renewable energy. Diablo is a very large non-flexible “baseload” resource. It can’t be turned up or down to accommodate variable renewable resources — it’s either on or off. And as we push toward the current goal of 50 percent renewables by 2030, which is now mandated by law (SB 350), we need more flexible resources to accommodate an ever-increasing share of renewables.
Moreover, having such large, inflexible resources on the grid requires its own share of backup power, because if Diablo experiences a scheduled or unscheduled outage, such an outage will generally require replacement resources to make up for this loss. Renewables like wind and solar get a lot of negative attention for being variable and needing some grid backup, but this problem is actually far worse with very large inflexible generation assets like Diablo. By shutting down Diablo at the end of its current license, system-reserve requirements will actually be reduced.
How to avoid further nuclear boondoggles
The recent shutdown of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in Southern California turned into an extremely contentious battle over a number of issues, but primarily over who should bear the cost of this extremely expensive power plant.
PG&E’s joint application may entail some similar issues, as it requests a full reimbursement of all costs for the plant to date, without specifying exactly what those costs will be. As described above, the net cost of replacing Diablo with preferred resources will be about one-third less than the equivalent cost of relicensing Diablo.
That said, PG&E will need to present more information about the full costs of the shutdown, including the costs of decommissioning. With respect to SONGS, the total shutdown and decommissioning costs became a major issue. To avoid a similar fate, PG&E should be as transparent as possible as early as possible……http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/how-a-major-utility-came-to-see-renewables-as-a-better-deal-than-nuclear
The sugar industry joins the throng corrupting science
How the Sugar Lobby Skewed Health Research Archival documents reveal how the sugar industry secretly funded heart disease research by Harvard professors, Time, Alexandra Sifferlin @acsifferlin Sept. 12, 2016 The sugar industry has a long history of skewing nutrition science, a new report suggests. By combing through archival documents from the 1950s and 1960s, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), report that the sugar industry sponsored research that turned attention away from the sweetener’s link to heart disease and toward fat and cholesterol as the bigger culprits.
The documents the researchers reviewed in their report, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, included correspondence between the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) and nutrition professors at the Harvard School of Public Health. The letters discussed the SRF’s effort to respond to growing research linking sugar to coronary heart disease.
In 1954, SRF then-president Henry Hass gave a speech to the American Society of Sugar Beet Technologists that highlighted opportunities for the sugar industry to expand by encouraging people to adopt a low-fat diet. He said:
“Leading nutritionists are pointing out the chemical connection between [Americans’] high-fat diet and the formation of cholesterol which partly plugs our arteries and capillaries, restricts the flow of blood, and causes high blood pressure and heart trouble… if you put [the middle-aged man] on a low-fat diet, it takes just five days for the blood cholesterol to get down to where it should be… If the carbohydrate industries were to recapture this 20 percent of the calories in the US diet (the difference between the 40 percent which fat has and the 20 percent which it ought to have) and if sugar maintained its present share of the carbohydrate market, this change would mean an increase in the per capita consumption of sugar more than a third with a tremendous improvement in general health.”
What appears to have happened next were efforts by the SRF to increase skepticism over sugar’s link to heart troubles. In 1967, an SRF-funded report led by Harvard nutrition professors was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The report reviewed the available evidence that linked various nutrients to heart disease and argued that epidemiological and animal studies that linked sugar with heart disease were limited, and suggested the available science wasn’t up to snuff. The review also highlighted studies that linked saturated fat to heart problems, without the same critiques. The review was published in the journal without disclosing the sugar industry’s funding or role in making the study happen in the first place. (Later, in 1984, the NEJM began requiring disclosure of conflicts of interest.)……….
It’s not the first time researchers have found links between sugar industry connections and nutrition science. The same team of UCSF researchers behind the new study previously used sugar industry documents to reveal how advocacy groups influenced federal cavity prevention recommendations.
“What struck me was that I thought the evidence the researchers summarized in the review was stronger and more consistent for a sugar effect [on coronary heart disease] than for a fat effect,” says study author Stanton Glantz of UCSF. “No matter how good the evidence was linking sugar to heart disease, there was something wrong with it. But for fat, the evidence was fine. They set up a false dichotomy.”
In an editorial published alongside new study, Marion Nestle, a professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at NYU, writes that the Harvard professors who conducted the review knew what the funders wanted and provided those findings. “Whether they did this deliberately, unconsciously, or because they genuinely believed saturated fat to be the greater threat is unknown,” Nestle writes. “But science is not supposed to work this way. The documents make this review seem more about public relations than science.”………http://time.com/4485710/sugar-industry-heart-disease-research/
Subsidising NewYork’s nuclear power stations – not agood plan
Nuclear power vs. other carbon-free fuels While power markets do indeed undervalue low-carbon fuels, all of the other premises underlying the nuclear industry approach are flawed. In California and in Nebraska, utilities plan to replace nuclear plants that are closing early for economic reasons almost entirely with electricity from carbon-free sources. Such transitions are achievable in most systems as long as the shutdowns are planned in advance to be carbon-free.
In California these replacement resources, which include renewables, storage, transmission enhancements and energy efficiency measures, will for the most part be procured through competitive processes. Indeed, any state where a utility 
threatens to close a plant can run an auction to ascertain whether there are sufficient low-carbon resources available to replace the unit within a particular time frame. Only then will regulators know whether, how much and for how long they should support the nuclear units.
Closing the noncompetitive plants would be a clear benefit to the New York economy. This is why a large coalition of big customers, alternative energy providers and environmental groups opposed the long-term subsidy plan.
Compete or Suckle: Should Troubled Nuclear Reactors Be Subsidized? http://www.theenergycollective.com/energy-post/2387838/compete-or-suckle-should-troubled-nuclear-reactors-be-subsidized September 13, 2016 by Energy Post, by Peter Bradford, Adjunct Professor Vermont Law School. Courtesy The Conversation. Since the 1950s, U.S. nuclear power has commanded immense taxpayer and customer subsidy based on promises of economic and environmental benefits. Many of these promises are unfulfilled, but new ones take their place. More subsidies follow.
Today the nuclear industry claims that keeping all operating reactors running for many years, no matter how uneconomic they become, is essential in order to reach U.S. climate change targets. Continue reading
USA-China rivalry complicates their reaction to North Korea’s nuclear testing
Simmering US-China rivalry prompts North Korea nuclear test finger-pointing, CNBC News, Huileng Tan | @huileng_tan, 13 Sept 16 China has lashed out at the U.S. after Washington accused Beijing of not doing enough to arrest North Korean‘s nuclear ambitions, underscoring tensions between the two world powers in the geopolitically sensitive Korean Peninsula.
“The cause and crux of the Korean nuclear issue rest with the U.S. rather than China,” added Hua in an official transcript from the foreign affairs ministry. “The core of the issue is the conflict between (North Korea) and the U.S. It is the U.S. who should reflect upon how the situation has become what it is today, and search for an effective solution. It is better for the doer to undo what he has done. The U.S. should shoulder its due responsibilities,” she said.
Hua was responding to Carter who singled out the East Asian giant at a news conference in Norway as bearing the responsibility for North Korea’s recalcitrant nuclear testing……..
On Tuesday, two U.S. B-1 bombers flew over South Korea in a show of solidarity with South Korea while Sung Kim, the U.S. envoy on North Korea, said the world’s largest economy remained open to a meaningful dialogue with Pyongyang, Reuters reported……..
The Chinese foreign affairs ministry’s Hua urged for dialogue among all parties to address security concerns. “It has been proven time and again that sanctions alone cannot solve the problem,” she added………
“China is very worried about the North Korean regime but it does not want a collapse of that regime and a unified Korea under the current the South Korea regime which they would regard as a mortal threat to their interest (with) American security forces right alongside their border,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box“.
That explained Beijing’s intense opposition to the deployment of the U.S. Thaad defense system on South Korean soil even though Seoul was an ally which had repeatedly explained that the weapon was for self-defense.
“(There is) a larger sense that China feels that they are in a long term rivalry (with the U.S.)… In my view, there is a troubling chill over U.S.-China relations and I don’t see either presidential candidates really offering a sensible way to lower the temperatures in this rivalry. But if China is locked into this rivalry as it sees it, then it is taking measures that we don’t like at all,” Lyle Goldstein, a professor at the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College told CNBC. http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/13/simmering-us-china-rivalry-prompts-north-korea-nuclear-test-finger-pointing.html
New York downstate lawmakers resent subsidising upstate nuclear reactors
Feeling the heat: Downstate legislators aren’t keen on subsidies for upstate nukes Watertown Daily Times , SEPTEMBER 12, 2016 Some downstate lawmakers don’t appreciate the fact that their constituents must now subsidize a form of energy produced in upstate regions.
The legislators take issue with the state Public Service Commission’s decision to include subsidies for nuclear power in the Clean Energy Standard approved Aug. 1. The CES calls for half of New York’s energy to come from renewable sources by 2030.
The nuclear energy subsidies, though, will benefit power plants located hundreds of miles away from the districts of these legislators.
“Members of the New York State Assembly, including James Brennan from Brooklyn, Amy Paulin from Westchester County, Jeffrey Dinowitz from the Bronx, and Charles Lavine and Stephen Englebright from Long Island, sent a letter to Audrey Zibelman, chair of the New York State Public Service Commission, saying that the commission’s order forcing downstate electric customers to pay nearly 60 percent of the electric rate increase to bailout the Exelon Corp. and keep four upstate nuclear units was unfair,” according to a news release issued Wednesday. “They said there was no way downstate electric customers used 60 percent of the output of the nuclear reactors and that the amounts should be reduced. Electric generation in the NYC-Westchester service territory, and purchases of electricity from other sources, account for the overwhelming percentage of the use of electricity there. Long Island’s situation is similar — the overwhelming percentage of its power does not come from upstate New York.”…
Trans Pacific Partnerships’ major problem – Investor-State Dispute Settlements
The Big Problem With The Trans-Pacific Partnership’s Super 
Court That We’re Not Talking About, Huffington Post, David Dayen Financiers will use it to bet on lawsuits, while taxpayers foot the bill. August 30, 2016 A secretive super-court system called ISDS is threatening to blow up President Barack Obama’s highest foreign policy priority.Investor-state dispute settlement — an integral part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal — allows companies to sue entire countries for costing them money when laws or regulations change. Cases are decided by extrajudicial tribunals composed of three corporate lawyers. Buzzfeed, in a multi-part investigation launched Sunday, called it “the court that rules the world.”
The ISDS system ― which is now written into over 3,000 international trade treaties, including NAFTA ― was designed to solve a specific problem. When corporations invest abroad, they fear that their factories might be nationalized or their products expropriated by governments that also control the local courts. ISDS is meant to give companies confidence that if a country seizes their accounts or factories, they’ll have a fair, neutral place to appeal.
Here’s how it works: Wealthy financiers with idle cash have purchased companies that are well placed to bring an ISDS claim, seemingly for the sole purpose of using that claim to make a buck. Sometimes, they set up shell corporations to create the plaintiffs to bring ISDS cases. And some hedge funds and private equity firms bankroll ISDS cases as third parties — just like billionaire Peter Thiel bankrolled Hulk Hogan in his lawsuit against Gawker Media.
It’s the same playbook that hedge funds were following when they bought up Argentine, Puerto Rican and other U.S. housing debt for pennies on the dollar. As The Huffington Post reported in May, the financiers were betting they could use lawsuits and lobbying to influence the political system in favor of the creditors like them and reap huge rewards.
Indeed, the damage of ISDS goes far beyond the money that investors manage to extract from public coffers and extends to the corruption of a political system by investors who buy off scholars, economists and politicians in pursuit of whatever policy outcome leads to a payoff. And there’s nothing stopping plutocrats with agendas that go beyond profit-making from getting involved ― again the way Thiel did with Gawker. That alone changes the power dynamic: If you’re the government of Thailand, the billionaire you’re negotiating with has one extra threat at his disposal.
If these investors are able to cement ISDS as part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the opportunities for hedge funds to do what they’ve already done to Argentina will be endless ― possibly even in cities and states under financial pressure in the U.S., like Detroit and Illinois.
So-called third-party funding of “international arbitration against foreign sovereigns” has been expanding quickly, according to Selvyn Seidel, a pioneer in the litigation finance industry and now CEO of the advisory firm Fulbrook Capital Management.
“You can get an award for billions of dollars when that award would never come out in domestic law,” said Gus van Harten, a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University in Toronto. “It’s just a jackpot for speculators.”……….
Third-party funding shields corporations from the upfront costs of litigation, making it easier to sue. Since companies generally don’t have to disclose that they’ve received third-party funding for an ISDS case, and since international arbitration usually proceeds in comparative secrecy, pursuing a claim through ISDS can shield companies from the public criticism that accompanies challenging a law in regular courts. “You can actually ask for enormous amounts of money without anybody criticizing you,” said Verheecke of Corporate Europe Observatory.
With ISDS permitted under some 3,000 treaties, there are a huge number of opportunities to sue. And “unlike some other legal systems, the default remedy is a cash payment,” said Todd Tucker, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute with a decade of experience researching trade and investment policy. The awards are also uncapped, meaning they can be enormous. If a corporation sought damages on future profits in perpetuity and the arbitrators agreed, the sovereign would have no recourse. Dozens of cases have resulted in awards of over $100 million, according to a 2016 report from van Harten, the law professor.
Those possibilities have the ISDS claim-financing industry booming. Hedge funds, private equity firms and institutional investors are flocking to fund lawsuits as they would any other speculative asset, according to experts in the field. And the lack of transparency means that lawyers acting as arbitrators or advocates in one case could be unnamed investors in other cases, and nobody would ever know.
Defenders of ISDS argue that the outcome of any case is uncertain and that companies win only about one-quarter of the time. But that’s only the cases that have been publicly identified and it doesn’t include settlements, where the corporation can also extract a monetary award. If funding ISDS suits was really such a bad bet, the industry probably wouldn’t be expanding so quickly.
Fulbrook Capital Management’s primer on the litigation finance industry, updated this year, includes a section entitled “International, the name of the game.” It lists numerous big-city hubs for arbitration: London, New York, Paris, Toronto. About ISDS in particular, the primer reads, “Investment claims against Sovereigns are often subject to Treaty and, within the Treaty, subject to arbitration. This promotes investments. … While investors are known to shy away from financing claims in ‘third world’ courts, particularly claims against the host court’s sovereign, they view international arbitration in a far more favorable light.”
Between 2009 and 2015, rulings in 16 ISDS cases have noted the existence of third-party funding, according to a report from Jean-Christophe Honlet, a partner at the global law firm Dentons. But the scale of third-party funding for ISDS cases is probably significantly larger than that number suggests. The International Council for Commercial Arbitration suggests that at least 60 percent of ISDS cases “enquired about (but not necessarily sought or obtained) third-party funding before their cases were lodged.” Just this month, Canadian gold mining company Rusoro won a $1.2 billion claim against Venezuela that was “third-party funded,” according to Global Arbitration Review………..
Giving financiers the ability to extract taxpayer dollars from around the globe transfers wealth upwards. It’s another way the rich get richer by accessing tools unavailable to most citizens. That has massive follow-on effects for economic and political power worldwide, including right here in the U.S.
Now, upcoming trade agreements would dramatically expand this system. Public Citizen estimates that 9,000 new companies would gain ISDS rights to sue the United States under TPP alone. That’s 9,000 new opportunities for financiers to reach down into state and local coffers, in addition to the federal government, to grab cash. TPP would also expand the “minimum standard of treatment” clause, which sets up the most flexible type of ISDS claim, to cover financial services companies, meaning almost any change in the expected future profits of a bank could be challenged. “TPP was a win for the banks on ISDS,” said van Harten, the law professor……..
the easiest way to fix ISDS is to throw it out. Several countries, including India,Indonesia and Ecuador, have told their trade partners they’re considering terminating bilateral treaties because of ISDS. Some experts question whether the system is necessary even in the situations it was originally designed for……http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/isds-lawsuit-financing-tpp_us_57c48e40e4b09cd22d91f660
Clinton Asserts USA Will Not Allow North Korea To Have Deliverable Nuclear Weapon
US Will Not Allow North Korea To Have Deliverable Nuclear Weapon: Clinton, News 18.com September 11, 2016 Washington: The US will not allow North Korea to have deliverable nuclear weapons, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said on Sunday.
“I absolutely believe that it has to be made very clear we will not allow North Korea to have a deliverable nuclear weapon, and we will approach this from a number of perspectives,” Clinton said.
we have got to make it clear missile defense is going in as quickly and broadly as possible,” Clinton said.
“Our message to the North Koreans and everyone else listening, they will not be permitted to acquire a nuclear weapon that has a deliverable capacity on a ballistic missile. And we have got to start intensifying our discussions with the Chinese, because they can’t possibly want this big problem on their doorstep,” she said……..http://www.news18.com/news/world/us-will-not-allow-north-korea-to-have-deliverable-nuclear-weapon-clinton-1291551.html
Strange ethics in USA media – about weapons sales to Saudi Arabia
The War Economy: CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Warns About Job Loss If US Stops Arming Saudi Arabia http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-09/war-economy-cnns-wolf-blitzer-warns-about-job-loss-if-us-stops-arming-saudi-arabia by Tyler Dur Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg,
Ladies and gentlemen, it appears the long anticipated moment of peak mainstream media stupidity may have finally arrived.
This is what passes for journalism in America today.
The Intercept reports:
Sen. Rand Paul’s expression of opposition to a $1.1 billion U.S. arms sale to Saudi Arabia — which has been brutally bombing civilian targets in Yemen using U.S.-made weapons for more than a year now — alarmed CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Thursday afternoon.Blitzer’s concern: That stopping the sale could result in fewer jobs for arms manufacturers.
“So for you this is a moral issue,” he told Paul during the Kentucky Republican’s appearance on CNN. “Because you know, there’s a lot of jobs at stake. Certainly if a lot of these defense contractors stop selling war planes, other sophisticated equipment to Saudi Arabia, there’s gonna be a significant loss of jobs, of revenue here in the United States. That’s secondary from your standpoint?”
Paul stayed on message. “Well not only is it a moral question, its a Constitutional question,” Paul said. “Our founding fathers very directly and specifically did not give the president the power to go to war. They gave it to Congress. So Congress needs to step up and this is what I’m doing.”
Saudi Arabia began bombing Yemen in March 2015, and has since been responsible for the majority of the 10,000 deaths in the war so far. The U.S.-backed bombing coalition has been accused of intentionally targeting civilians, hospitals, factories, markets, schools, and homes. The situation is so bad that the Red Cross has started donating morgue units to Yemeni hospitals.
The Obama administration has sold more weapons to the Saudis than any other administration, pledging more than $115 billion worth of small arms, tanks, helicopters, missiles, and aircraft.
But hey, the Saudis aren’t really that bad, right. No, they’re just one of the most barbaric, inhumane terrorist supporting states on planet earth.
Need some proof?
Here you go:
U.S. Government Reaffirms Total Support for Saudi War Crimes in Yemen
Saudi Arabia Forces the United Nations to Remove it from a List of Child Killers
Record Beheadings and the Mass Arrest of Christians – Is it ISIS? No it’s Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia Sentences Journalist to Five Years in Prison for Insulting the Kingdom’s Rulers
German Intelligence Warns – Saudi Arabia to Play “Destabilizing Role” in the Middle East
And yes, I could go on — and on and on and on.
Finally, let’s end with the clip referenced in the article at the top. [on original]
After 40 years to build – nuclear power plant never worked, now for sale at peppercorn price
US Nuclear Plant up for Sale at Fraction of Cost, abc news, By JAY REEVES, ASSOCIATED PRESS HOLLYWOOD, Ala. — Sep 11, 2016 After spending more than 40 years and $5 billion on an unfinished nuclear power plant in northeastern Alabama, the nation’s largest federal utility is preparing to sell the property at a fraction of its cost.
The Tennessee Valley Authority has set a minimum bid of $36.4 million for its Bellefonte Nuclear Plant and the 1,600 surrounding acres of waterfront property on the Tennessee River. The buyer gets two unfinished nuclear reactors, transmission lines, office and warehouse buildings, eight miles of roads, a 1,000-space parking lot and more………
The sale is bittersweet for site manager Jim Chardos, who went to work at Bellefonte in 1994 expecting it to be finished as a nuclear power plant. All these years later, he commutes 90 minutes each way to work to oversee a plant that has never been stocked with radioactive fuel or used either of its reactors to generate a single watt of electricity.
Work began at Bellefonte in the mid-’70s on the backside of the nuclear energy boom in the United States, Chardos said. The utility initially planned to construct four reactors at the site, but demand for power in the region never met those early expectations and work halted in 1988. A series of starts and stops preceded TVA’s decision earlier this year to sell Bellefonte……….http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/us-nuclear-plant-sale-fraction-cost-42010576
Climate change is a threat to nuclear power, with reactors over-heating and high water demand
Amid climate concerns, nuclear plants feel the heat of warming water , Midwest Energy 
News, Kari Lydersen, 10 Sept 16 Nuclear power proponents say the energy source is crucial to reducing the impact of climate change.
But ironically, “We’ll have to solve global warming if we want to keep using nuclear power,” says Union of Concerned Scientists nuclear safety expert Dave Lochbaum.
That’s because nuclear power plants need large amounts of water for cooling, and overheating can present a major safety risk. As the lakes and rivers that typically supply cooling water become hotter thanks to climate change — and as droughts dry up some water bodies — nuclear power plants face problems, researchers say.
They may need to temporarily shut down or scale back their generation on hot days, which is just when their power is needed most.
This challenge is the focus of ongoing research spearheaded by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and also involves the national laboratories at Sandia, Los Alamos and Argonne. Researchers are modeling predictions about population, temperature, electricity demand, precipitation, land use and other factors to predict the water-related stress on power plants.
“You need to have enough water to cool the power plants and have drinking water and water for agriculture and other industries,” said Melissa Allen, a leader of the team effort and a post-doctoral researcher at Oak Ridge’s Climate Change Science Institute.……..
Hitting limits
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission sets limits on how warm the cooling water can be for each nuclear plant.
The owners of the Millstone plant in Connecticut, Turkey Point in Florida andBraidwood in Illinois have sought and obtained permission from the NRC to increase the maximum temperature limit for their cooling water, Lochbaum noted.
“Millstone uses the Atlantic Ocean, Turkey Point uses a canal system supplemented by water from the Atlantic Ocean, and Braidwood uses river water,” he said. “As global warming increases the temperature of oceans, lakes and rivers, they will hit these limits more often. There are two choices: to reduce power because you can’t exceed those limits. Or do what Turkey, Braidwood and Millstone did — do the homework to get the limit raised.”
Lochbaum analyzes reports from the NRC showing when nuclear plants scale back generation because of warm water.
In June, nuclear plants in Georgia, South Carolina and Pennsylvania scaled back their generation multiple times because of hot temperatures warming their cooling water. The Limerick power plant on the Schuylkill River near Philadelphia has scaled back because of high temperatures frequently over the past decade, according to the reports.
The Dresden and Quad Cities plants in Illinois had to scale back because of high water temperatures multiple times over the past five years. The Duane Arnold plant in Iowa and the Monticello plant in Minnesota also reported scaling back generation because of temperatures.
When cooling water is warmer, greater volumes are needed to cool the reactor. Plants also typically need approval from the NRC to increase the amount of water they use for cooling or to install new technology — like larger pumps — in order to deal with warmer conditions.
Such changes cost money, and scaling back generation means less profit.
“With plants in the Midwest and Northeast facing competition from natural gas and so on, it’s difficult to find the money even if you can make the justification that the money [invested in new cooling systems] would pay off in two years,” said Lochbaum……..http://midwestenergynews.com/2016/09/09/nuclear-plants-feel-the-heat-of-warming-water/
USA Republicans opposing Obama’s Planned ratification of Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
Senate GOP Protests Obama’s Planned Nuclear Test Ban Push Warning to the White House concerns the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, an international treaty prohibiting nuclear test explosions , WSJ, PAUL SONNE Sept. 8, 2016 The Obama administration’s pursuit of a possible United Nations Security Council resolution against nuclear weapons tests has riled a group of Republican lawmakers, who have warned President Barack Obama not to take action that would circumvent the U.S. Senate’s constitutional power to ratify treaties.
A group of 33 Republican senators sent a letter to Mr. Obama on Thursday threatening to withhold congressional funding for an existing international monitoring system for nuclear tests, if the administration signs up for any international obligations through the U.N. that the Senate has rejected previously.
“We urge you to respect your constitutional obligations and warn that if you do not, your efforts at the United Nations on this issue are likely to set back any supposed progress on achieving a testing ban,” the group of senators, including Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), John McCain(R., Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), wrote.
Their warning to the White House concerns the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, or the CTBT, an international treatyprohibiting nuclear test explosions. Former President Bill Clintonsigned the treaty in 1996, but the Senate declined to ratify it in a vote three years later.
The Obama administration, which favors U.S. ratification of the test ban treaty but hasn’t won backing for its ratification in the Senate, now is pursuing action in the United Nations to reaffirm the U.S.’s support for the treaty and keep its spirit alive—part of a final push by Mr. Obama to advance his nuclear disarmament agenda before leaving office. The U.S. independently has obeyed a national moratorium on nuclear testing since 1992……..
The White House and the State Department say the administration is proposing a U.N. Security Council resolution and separate statement from the council’s five permanent members, known as the P5. The resolution will call for an end to nuclear testing and strengthen the detection system the test ban treaty established to monitor nuclear explosions around the world, which functions even though the treaty hasn’t entered into force…….
Thomas Graham Jr., a former State Dept. arms negotiator and supporter of the CTBT’s ratification, said nations poised to develop nuclear arms agreed decades ago to stand down on the condition that countries with nuclear arsenals would cease testing and development. He said nuclear weapons states must strengthen their resolve against tests to avoid proliferation stemming from an erosion of trust among those nonnuclear states.
Former State and Defense Department officials also said the White House may see the U.N. Security Council action as an additional way to put pressure on North Korea and further engage China in the effort to stop Pyongyang’s advancing nuclear program.
The U.N. Security Council is meeting Sept. 22 on the sidelines of the General Assembly in a special session on the CTBT. U.N. Security Council diplomats said they expect the Obama-introduced resolution to pass unanimously………http://www.wsj.com/articles/senate-gop-protests-obamas-planned-nuclear-test-ban-push-1473360939
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