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Japan’s government ignores U.N. nuclear ban treaty, puts out feeble anti-nuclear weapons resolution

Japan submits anti-nuclear resolution with no mention of ban pact,  https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/10/16/national/japan-un-nuke-resolution-ban-pact/ NEW YORK – Japan submitted an anti-nuclear resolution to a panel at the United Nations on Thursday, but the text made no direct reference to a U.N.-adopted nuclear ban treaty likely to go into effect early next year.

Opting not to mention the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which is expected to cross the needed threshold of ratification soon and take effect 90 days later, apparently reflects Japan’s ties with the United States, its key security ally which opposes the pact and provides security assurances to Japan under its so-called nuclear umbrella.

Tokyo’s stance on the matter appears to have remained unaltered after the first change to the country’s leadership in nearly eight years, with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga replacing former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last month.

As the only country in the world to have suffered atomic bombings, Japan has submitted an anti-nuclear resolution to the United Nations every year since 1994. But versions of the annual resolution submitted since the nuclear ban pact was adopted in 2017 make no mention of it.

So far, 47 countries and regions have completed ratification procedures for the nuclear ban treaty, with a total of 50 ratifications needed for it to take effect.

Japan opposed the nuclear ban pact along with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, which are all nuclear powers.

The nation’s latest resolution preserves phrasing from last year about the devastating humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons, which was worded less strongly than previous versions that until 2018 expressed deep concern on the matter.

Japan’s resolution is likely to pass the U.N. General Assembly’s First Committee on disarmament issues by early November before being adopted at the General Assembly by the end of the year.

October 17, 2020 Posted by | Japan, politics international | Leave a comment

Elimination of nuclear weapons is vital to the “survival of life on this planet”

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Guterres: Only way to remove nuclear risk, ‘completely eliminate nuclear weapons’        The elimination of nuclear weapons is vital to the “survival of life on this planet”, the UN chief told the final major event of the General Assembly’s high level week on Friday.   https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/10/1074532

Secretary-General António Guterres told delegates gathered to commemorate the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, it was the only way “to completely eliminate nuclear risk.”

And although nuclear disarmament has been a UN priority since its founding 75 years ago, he reminded the plenary meeting that “the world continues to live in the shadow of nuclear catastrophe”.

For security’s sake

Progress towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons has “stalled and is at risk of backsliding”, the UN chief warned.

Against the backdrop of growing distrust and tension between Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) – and programmes that modernize arsenals for faster, stealthier and more accurate weapons, with costs Mr. Guterres called “simply staggering” – he said, pointedly, that the only treaty restricting the size of the world’s largest nuclear arsenals is set to expire early next year – threatening a return to “unconstrained strategic competition”.

“For the sake of all of our security, the world must return to a common path towards nuclear disarmament”, he underscored, adding that it is “imperative” for Russia and the United States to extend, “without delay”, the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) for the maximum duration of five years.

Among other things, START calls for halving the number of strategic nuclear missile launchers and establishing a new inspection and verification regime within seven years from the date the treaty enters into force.

The Secretary-General upheld that NWS “have a responsibility to lead”, including by honouring their existing commitments and taking steps to reduce nuclear risks.

“Especially in today’s tense international security environment, with rising friction between major powers, such steps are more necessary than ever”, he spelled out.

n conclusion, the Secretary-General advocated for “a strengthened, inclusive and renewed multilateralism built on trust” with human security at its centre, to “guide us to our shared goal of a world free of nuclear weapons”.

Stop wasting time

Meanwhile, Volkan Bozkir, President of the 75th session of the General Assembly, noted that amidst rising global tensions, the disarmament architecture is “under significant strain”.

“Parties have withdrawn from nuclear-related agreements and others are set to expire”, he elaborated, adding that “some Member States have threatened to restart nuclear testing”.

Mr. Bozkir stressed the need to return to “the common goal” of a nuclear-weapons free world weapons and flagged the cornerstone Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and Secretary-General’s Agenda for Disarmament, as the right tools to achieve it.

Noting that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the NPT, the Assembly president urged its States’ Parties to use the postponed 2020 NPT Review Conference next year, to renew their commitments and discuss “practical steps in nuclear disarmament”.

“Nuclear disarmament must remain a priority to all of us”, he underscored. “We cannot afford to waste any more time”.

October 17, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Policy of no uranium enrichment, no reprocessing, essential for Middle East to prevent nuclear arms proliferation

To Prevent Proliferation, Stop Enrichment and Reprocessing in the Middle EastThere is a risk of a nuclear cascade across the region. The United States can stop it by enforcing the gold standard of nonproliferation. Foreign Policy, BY VICTOR GILINSKY, HENRY SOKOLSKI,  OCTOBER 15, 2020, 

If Washington is serious about blocking the further spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, it must apply a firm rule: no spent reactor fuel reprocessing or uranium enrichment—by anyone in the region. Uranium enrichment allows production of bomb-grade uranium, and spent fuel reprocessing extracts plutonium, the other important nuclear explosive.

Washington insiders, including nuclear lobbyists and nuclear enthusiasts within the Trump administration, oppose such a restriction. The nuclear power industry is still dangling deals before receptive Middle Eastern rulers, notably the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and pressing Congress to allow accommodative “agreements for cooperation” with Middle Eastern countries to make the deals more attractive. Although the United Arab Emirates accepted the gold standard—obligating it to forgo enriching or reprocessing—Saudi Arabia, with more on its mind than the generation of electricity, detests this condition. Middle East experts claim it is offensive to Riyadh’s pride, and Washington should therefore take a softer approach.

The problem is, softer approaches are inconsistent with nonproliferation. Even proponents of relatively lax nuclear deal-making admit there is a “security dimension” to the Saudi  interest in nuclear power.
 It leaked this summer that the Saudis secretly contracted with China to help the kingdom mine and process uranium, which suggests interest in an independent fuel cycle. Combined with the brutality the world knows the crown prince is capable of, and his proven dishonesty, the U.S. government should not even be thinking of supplying Saudi Arabia with nuclear technology.

Washington will soon face other decisions: U.S. agreements for civilian nuclear cooperation are coming up for renewal with Egypt and Morocco in 2021, and with Turkey in 2023. The nuclear industry will try to keep Congress from imposing strict rules—industry seldom has to worry about the executive branch, as both Democratic and Republican administrations traditionally support U.S. nuclear exports—but it is vital to maintain the of the gold standard for all three.

Ideally, it should be U.S. policy to eliminate fuel facilities that can produce nuclear explosives from Morocco to Iran. This would have to include Israel. It would not affect Israel’s existing nuclear  arsenal but would cap it and point the way for its security to depend less on nuclear weapons.

Enforcing the gold standard for the region would signal a serious effort to end the spread of nuclear weapons there as opposed to the standing policy of minimizing proliferation—in effect, acquiescing to it so long as it proceeds at a slow pace.   In past Middle East agreements (with the exception of the one with the UAE), the United States controlled reprocessing and enrichment, but only of U.S.-origin nuclear materials. That’s not good enough. Washington must insist on a ban covering nuclear materials from any source……

The truth is the United States has more to gain from being firm than not. The prospects for major U.S. nuclear reactor exports are nearly nonexistent; there are no longer any major U.S. nuclear reactor vendors.

 Westinghouse, which is often put in this category, hasn’t been U.S.-owned for 20 years. Its last two nuclear construction projects drove it into bankruptcy and almost bankrupted its Japanese owners. A Canadian firm, Brookfield Asset Management, bought what remained of it.  

Westinghouse’s U.S.-based division exports fresh reactor fuel and earns fees for managing and advising nuclear operators. It is a shadow of its former self. Nuclear lobbyists and boosters are pushing for federal financial support to revive U.S. nuclear reactor manufacturing and to grant generous loan terms for foreign customers. ……..

In fact, nuclear power is no longer a pathbreaking technology that defines a country’s scientific status, nor is it commercially competitive. For example, large light-water reactors will never be built again in the United States—they’re simply too expensive. Small reactors have some advantages, but they will likely be even more expensive per unit of energy. The Middle East’s energy future lies in investments in renewables, natural gas, and the integration of pipelines and electric grids. That should be part of Washington’s message.

The main U.S. objective, however, should be to make the Middle East’s security consistent with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Earlier this month, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry called for a nuclear weapon-free zone in the Middle East to help bolster the treaty.

Our proposal for a no-enrichment and no-reprocessing zone for all countries in the area may be more feasible, and if achieved, have more lasting significance—it would preclude the possibility of non-nuclear states making nuclear weapons and would thereby undercut the argument for any state in the region to possess such weapons to defend itself. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/10/15/to-prevent-proliferation-stop-enrichment-and-reprocessing-in-the-middle-east/

October 17, 2020 Posted by | MIDDLE EAST, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Putin suggests extending the START nuclear weapons control treaty for another year

Russia’s Vladimir Putin proposes yearlong extension of New START nuclear treaty with U.S.   “It would be extremely sad if the treaty ceases to exist without being replaced by another fundamental document of the kind,” Putin said.  Oct. 17, 2020, NBC News, By The Associated Press,   MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday made a strong call to save the last existing nuclear arms control pact between his country and the United States, proposing to extend it at least for one year.Putin’s statement comes amid conflicting signals from Russian and U.S. diplomats about the fate of the New START treaty that is set to expire in February unless Moscow and Washington agree on its extension.

Speaking at a meeting of his Security Council, Putin said that “it would be extremely sad if the treaty ceases to exist without being replaced by another fundamental document of the kind.”

“All those years, the New START has worked, playing its fundamental role of limiting and containing an arms race,” he noted.

The New START treaty was signed in 2010 by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The pact limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers, and envisages sweeping on-site inspections to verify compliance.

After both Moscow and Washington withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty last year, New START is the only nuclear arms control deal between the two countries still standing.

Russia previously offered its extension for five years without any conditions, while the U.S. administration pushed for a new arms control agreement that would also include China. Moscow has described that idea as unfeasible, pointing at Beijing’s refusal to negotiate any deal that would reduce its much-smaller nuclear arsenal.

Putin on Friday proposed to “extend the existing treaty without any conditions for at least one year” to allow for “substantive talks,” instructing Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to get a quick U.S. answer to the offer. He emphasized that Russia is ready to discuss the new weapons it deployed in future arms talks with the United States.

Earlier this week, Lavrov voiced skepticism about reaching a deal on New START, noting that Russia can’t accept the conditions put forward by the United States for its extension.

Lavrov specified that Russia can’t agree to the U.S. proposal to limit battlefield nuclear weapons alongside nuclear warheads that arm strategic missiles and bombers until the U.S. agrees to withdraw its tactical nuclear weapons from Europe.

He also noted that Moscow wouldn’t accept the U.S. demand to have intrusive verification measures like those that existed in the 1990s when inspectors were positioned at missile factories……… https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-s-vladimir-putin-proposes-yearlong-extension-new-start-nuclear-n1243741

October 17, 2020 Posted by | politics international, Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

In Scotland, UK’s old nuclear submarines are left to rot

The nuclear graveyard just five miles from Edinburgh, where Cold War submarines are left to ‘rot’There has been repeated criticism of the fact seven contaminated nuclear subs have been laid up at Rosyth dockyard since the 1980s.  Edinburgh Live,  By

Hilary Mitchell, Editor, 16 OCT 2020 

A recent viral tweet has brought fresh attention to a decades-old controversy in Edinburgh’s back yard: namely, a hulking fleet of decommissioned, but still radioactive, Cold War nuclear submarines.  The seven defunct submarines – Dreadnought, Churchill, Swiftsure, Revenge, Resolution, Repulse and Renown – have been laid up since the 1980s, stored at Rosyth in Fife while arrangements are made to safely dispose of them.

All of the subs have had their toxic fuel removed, but parts of the vessels, including the reactor compartments, are still contaminated with radiation.

Seven of the submarines have been in storage for longer than they were in service with the Royal Navy.

A lack of money and a lack of suitable disposal sites are amongst the issues causing lengthy delays to the disposal process. In 2016 the Ministry of Defence admitted it could take until 2040 to completely dispose of the retired fleet.

This week, an Edinburgh Twitter user took to the social media platform to complain about the fact the historic submarines were still in the Forth, saying they had been ‘dumped’ to ‘rust’ in the dockyard. The tweet has since been shared over 800 times………

The MoD has said it will dispose of the fleet “as soon as practically possible”.

According to an article on Scottish investigative journalism site The Ferret, in the 1980s the UK government tried to hatch a secret plan to dump the radioactive hulks of the problematic and hard-to-dispose of subs in the sea off north west Scotland, documents released by the National Archives reveal.

The Ferret say that a survey for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 1989 identified six sites for “seabed storage” of defunct naval submarines near the islands of Skye, Mull and Barra for up to 60 years – and probably longer.

According to one MoD official the aim was “to remove submarines from public view”. Another hoped that “everyone will forget about these submarines and that they will be allowed to quietly rot away indefinitely.”

The 1989 sea-dumping plan was dropped in the end, but the continuing presence of these ancient nuclear behemoths in the Forth makes it very clear that the MoD’s problem of what to do with the Cold War relics isn’t going away any time soon. https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/nuclear-graveyard-just-five-miles-19118105

October 17, 2020 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Global heating is unravelling the Arctic, much faster than expected

The Arctic is in a death spiral. How much longer will it exist?
The region is unravelling faster than anyone could once have predicted. But there may still be time to actThe great thaw: global heating upends life on Arctic permafrost – photo essay, Guardian, 
Gloria Dickie, Tue 13 Oct 2020 At the end of July, 40% of the 4,000-year-old Milne Ice Shelf, located on the north-western edge of Ellesmere Island, calved into the sea. Canada’s last fully intact ice shelf was no more.On the other side of the island, the most northerly in Canada, the St Patrick’s Bay ice caps completely disappeared.

Two weeks later, scientists concluded that the Greenland Ice Sheet may have already passed the point of no return. Annual snowfall is no longer enough to replenish the snow and ice loss during summer melting of the territory’s 234 glaciers. Last year, the ice sheet lost a record amount of ice, equivalent to 1 million metric tons every minute.

The Arctic is unravelling. And it’s happening faster than anyone could have imagined just a few decades ago. Northern Siberia and the Canadian Arctic are now warming three times faster than the rest of the world. In the past decade, Arctic temperatures have increased by nearly 1C. If greenhouse gas emissions stay on the same trajectory, we can expect the north to have warmed by 4C year-round by the middle of the century.

There is no facet of Arctic life that remains untouched by the immensity of change here, except perhaps the eternal dance between light and darkness. The Arctic as we know it – a vast icy landscape where reindeer roam, polar bears feast, and waters teem with cod and seals – will soon be frozen only in memory.

A new Nature Climate Change study predicts that summer sea ice floating on the surface of the Arctic Ocean could disappear entirely by 2035. Until relatively recently, scientists didn’t think we would reach this point until 2050 at the earliest. Reinforcing this finding, last month Arctic sea ice reached its second-lowest extent in the 41-year satellite record………

At outposts in the Canadian Arctic, permafrost is thawing 70 years sooner than predicted. Roads are buckling. Houses are sinking. In Siberia, giant craters pockmark the tundra as temperatures soar, hitting 100F (38C) in the town of Verkhoyansk in July. This spring, one of the fuel tanks at a Russian power plant collapsed and leaked 21,000 metric tons of diesel into nearby waterways, which attributed the cause of the spill to subsiding permafrost.

This thawing permafrost releases two potent greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, into the atmosphere and exacerbates planetary warming.

The soaring heat leads to raging wildfires, now common in hotter and drier parts of the Arctic. In recent summers, infernos have torn across the tundra of Sweden, Alaska, and Russia, destroying native vegetation………..

Melting ice has made the region’s abundant mineral deposits and oil and gas reserves more accessible by ship. China is heavily investing in the increasingly ice-free Northern Sea Route over the top of Russia, which promises to cut shipping times between the Far East and Europe by 10 to 15 days.

The Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago could soon yield another shortcut. And in Greenland, vanishing ice is unearthing a wealth of uranium, zinc, gold, iron and rare earth elements. In 2019, Donald Trump claimed he was considering buying Greenland from Denmark. Never before has the Arctic enjoyed such political relevance………….

Stopping climate change in the Arctic requires an enormous reduction in the emission of fossil fuels, and the world has made scant progress despite obvious urgency. Moreover, many greenhouse gases persist in our atmosphere for years. Even if we were to cease all emissions tomorrow, it would take decades for those gases to dissolve and for temperatures to stabilize (though some recent research suggests the span could be shorter). In the interim, more ice, permafrost, and animals would be lost.

“It’s got to be both a reduction in emissions and carbon capture at this point,” explains Stroeve. “We need to take out what we’ve already put in there.”………..

The Arctic of the past is already gone. Following our current climate trajectory, it will be impossible to return to the conditions we saw just three decades ago. Yet many experts believe there’s still time to act, to preserve what once was, if the world comes together to prevent further harm and conserve what remains of this unique and fragile ecosystem. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2020/oct/13/arctic-ice-melting-climate-change-global-warming?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco&fbclid=IwAR0SmRG-W9vZp_dvqJIA_s4rUHo4CXVjgWSgnapv_EsoboQgosU8OsTL78A

October 15, 2020 Posted by | ARCTIC, climate change | Leave a comment

Tuvalu – the 47th nation to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

October 15, 2020 Posted by | OCEANIA, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Donald Trump’s pre-election plan for nuclear deal with Russia has fizzled out badly

Trump Thought He Had a Nuclear Deal With Putin. Not So Fast, Russia Said.
Trump administration officials want to broaden the New START accord and warn that the price of a new deal will rise after the election. Joe Biden supports a straight five-year extension of the deal.  NYT, By David E. Sanger and Andrew E. Kramer  14 Oct 20, President Trump had a pre-election plan to show he had gotten something out of his mysteriously friendly relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

In the weeks before the election, the two men would announce that they had reached an agreement in principle to extend New START, the last remaining major arms control agreement between the two countries. It expires on Feb. 5, two weeks after the next presidential inauguration.

Mr. Trump has long refused to sign off on a clean five-year extension of the agreement, a step both leaders could take without Senate approval. He has described the Obama-era treaty as deeply flawed — the same thing he said about the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Iran nuclear accord — because it did not cover all of Russia’s nuclear arms, or any of China’s….

On Tuesday, Marshall Billingslea, Mr. Trump’s lead negotiator, announced that the two leaders had an “agreement in principle, at the highest levels of our two governments, to extend the treaty.” Mr. Billingslea described an added “gentleman’s agreement” to cap each country’s stockpile of weapons not currently deployed on missiles, submarines or bombers. Details needed to be worked out, he cautioned, including the tricky work of verifying compliance.

It sounded like a promising solution, for a few hours.

Then the Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei A. Ryabkov, shot back that this was a figment of someone’s election-season imagination. “Washington is describing what is desired, not what is real,” he said in a statement.

With less than three weeks to Election Day, it seems no agreement is in the offing, and Trump administration officials are saying that, after the election, the price will go up. Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee who was involved in the negotiation of the original agreement in 2010, has indicated that, if elected, he will agree to a straightforward, immediate extension of the accord for five years, the maximum allowed under the current terms, and then work to expand its scope. ……..

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, joined the Kremlin’s dismissal of prospects for an agreement before the election, saying the Trump administration’s one-sided announcement of a nuclear limitation deal was an “unclean” diplomatic maneuver…….https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/14/us/politics/trump-russia-nuclear-deal.html

October 15, 2020 Posted by | politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

North Korea, with its new intercontinental-range ballistic missile makes it clear that it is a nuclear weapons nation

A Nuclear North Korea’s Wake-up Call, A spectacular pre-dawn parade on Saturday served to remind the world of North Korea’s continuing missile progress.  The Diplomat, By Ankit Panda, October 13, 2020  On Saturday, October 10, North Korea celebrated the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), the country’s ruling party. The occasion was celebrated in a grand way, with an unprecedented pre-dawn military parade. Thousands of uniformed military personnel marched through Pyongyang’s renovated Kim Il Sung Square in perfect unison, trailed by scores of heavy military vehicles……..

A ‘New Strategic Weapon,’ As Promised

The parade reached its climax with the reveal of an all-new intercontinental-range ballistic missile (ICBM) design. Prior to the parade, North Korea’s largest known nuclear-capable ballistic missile was the Hwasong-15, the ICBM that was tested for the first (and so far only) time in November 2017. After four Hwasong-15s rolled through Kim Il Sung Square, an even larger missile appeared in its wake. Four of these super-large ICBMs followed in the wake of the Hwasong-15s, in a single file formation. Not only were these missiles the largest ever to be seen in North Korea, they were the largest road-mobile missiles on integrated launchers seen anywhere in the world……….

For the United States, this missile is not good news. Not only does it underscore the failure of the Trump administration’s diplomatic attempts to constrain North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs; it also emphasizes the continuing growth of Pyongyang’s qualitative capabilities. A lot remains unknown about the precise capabilities of this new missile, but its sheer size certainly implies that it would be capable of carrying and delivering multiple nuclear reentry vehicles to likely the entire continental U.S. As North Korea’s weapons-grade fissile material stocks continue to grow, it likely will have enough fissile material on hand to justify allocating resources toward a multiple reentry vehicle capability. ………

By adding warheads to its ICBMs, North Korea will improve the probability that at least one of its thermonuclear reentry vehicles successfully penetrates U.S. missile defenses. To keep up with changes in North Korea’s growing force, the U.S. will have to spend hundreds of millions adding interceptors. North Korea, meanwhile, even under economic sanctions, appears fully capable of continuing to expand its ICBM capabilities………

Despite the nighttime setting, Kim’s reveal of his new ICBM made it clear as day that North Korea remained a capable and growing nuclear state………

What the parade does in the end is clarify the big picture about North Korea’s status as a nuclear weapons possessor: its nuclear forces grow larger and more refined with every passing week. Having largely crossed the qualitative thresholds it felt were needed for a rudimentary and minimally credible deterrent in 2017, Pyongyang is continuing to evolve its force.

Ankit Panda is editor-at-large at The Diplomat, the Stanton senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and author of ‘Kim Jong Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea’ (Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2020). Follow him on Twitter at @nktpnd. https://thediplomat.com/2020/10/a-nuclear-north-koreas-wake-up-call/

October 15, 2020 Posted by | North Korea, weapons and war | Leave a comment

35 crew on secretive HMS Vigilant £3billion nuclear submarine tested positive for Covid

Quarter of crew on £3billion nuclear submarine dubbed ‘HMS sex and cocaine’ test positive for coronavirus after defying orders and going drinking at bars and strip clubs near US naval base

  • 35 crew on secretive HMS Vigilant tested positive for Covid, source revealed
  • Among those who tested positive were a doctor and an executive officer
  • Nuclear weapons codes are known by that executive officer and 1 other person
  • Sailors defied orders while docked at the Kings Bay US Navy base in Georgia

Daily Mail By JEMMA CARR FOR MAILONLINE 14 October 2020   A £3billion nuclear submarine dubbed ‘HMS Sex and Cocaine’ has seen a coronavirus outbreak among its rule-breaking crew.

Highly-secretive HMS Vigilant saw more than 35 crew members test positive after several left the Kings Bay US Navy base in Georgia, a source has revealed.

Among those who tested positive – a quarter of the vessels team – was a doctor and an executive officer.

The codes to deploy the nuclear weapons stored on the submarine are known only by that executive officer and one other person, reports suggest.

Sailors defied orders to go to strip clubs, bars and restaurants in Georgia – which has seen 318,000 coronavirus cases and 7,282 deaths.

One trip saw them travel 200 miles away to a beach in Florida, an insider said…….. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8837335/Quarter-crew-3billion-nuclear-submarine-dubbed-test-positive-coronavirus.html

October 15, 2020 Posted by | health, UK | Leave a comment

Confusion as USA- Russia nuclear arms talks fail

Nuclear arms talks spiral into confusion as Russia rejects US ‘delusion’,  Top US negotiator claimed there was ‘an agreement in principle’ between Trump and Putin, Guardian, Julian Borger in WashingtonWed 14 Oct 2020  US-Russian nuclear arms control talks have sunk into confusion after the top American negotiator claimed there was “an agreement in principle” between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, a claim Moscow quickly rejected as a “delusion”. ………

The US had previously insisted that China be included in any future arms control negotiations rather than extending the bilateral arrangements in New Start, but Billingslea has dropped that demand in recent weeks, accepting that trilateral talks could be arranged later.

Alexandra Bell, a former state department official and now senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said the pre-election urgency followed “literally months of the Trump administration saying there’s plenty of time to do this – there’s no rush”.

The Trump administration has been keen to showcase foreign policy achievements before the election, but over the past four years, it has pulled out of three arms control agreements and signed none……..

Senior parliamentarians from across Europe wrote to their US counterparts on Tuesday urging them to support a New Start extension.

In the letter, organised by the European Leadership Network, the MPs from 19 countries said: “As officials who strive to protect the health and security of millions of European citizens, we feel distressed by the possibility that New Start may lapse in less than six months.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/13/us-russia-arms-control-talks-new-start-treaty

October 15, 2020 Posted by | politics international, Russia, USA | Leave a comment

Ohio lawmakers likely to repeal the tainted nuclear bailout law, after November 3

October 15, 2020 Posted by | politics, USA | 1 Comment

800-meter-long seawall being constructed, as Japan plans to reopen damaged Onagawa nuclear complex

October 15, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, Japan, politics | Leave a comment

USA starts off $3.2 billion subsidy program with $80 million each for “next generation” nuclear reactors

October 15, 2020 Posted by | politics, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

UK: consultation with 2300 people about radioactive waste dump – only 13 people supported it.

Northern Echo 13th Oct 2020, THOUSANDS of people have written to the Environment Agency over concerns that plans to dump radioactive waste in Teesside will pose a risk to
communities. An application has been made by Augean North Ltd for a low
level radioactive waste permit at their existing Port Clarence site,
between Stockton and Billingham.

The Environment Agency, which held a
consultation which ended in January, published its report yesterday. About
2,300 people took part in the four-month exercise, with only 13 supporting
the application.

The Environment Agency is now considering these in
determining whether to grant the permit, taking into account information
submitted by Augean North. The operator has been asked to provide further
information, with a decision expected to be made by the end of January
2021.

Members of the public, as well members of Stockton on Tees Borough
Council and Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council commented on the
socioeconomic impact and the general impact on the area, as well as the
potential impact on regeneration plans. Last year, Tees Valley Mayor Ben
Houchen criticised the plans, which he said were against the interests of
those living in surrounding areas. The report can be viewed by visiting
consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/north-east/port-clarence-landfill-permit-application

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/18791632.2-000-objections-made-augean-north-port-clarence-nuclear-plans/

October 15, 2020 Posted by | public opinion, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

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