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REGAN Vest: Inside Denmark’s secret nuclear bunker

BBC 1 May 23,

A top-secret atomic bunker has opened to the public in Denmark. Built to withstand a nuclear attack, it’s now an astonishing subterranean museum that sheds light on Cold War paranoia.

Hidden in northern Jutland’s Rold Forest, some 400km north-west of Copenhagen, is the sprawling bunker complex of Koldrigsmuseet REGAN Vest (The Cold War Museum REGAN West). Secretly built in the 1960s at the height of Cold War tensions, this is where the Danish government and even the queen would have been evacuated if nuclear war broke out.

The plan was to run the country from inside this shelter, 60m below ground, and its very existence was kept hushed for decades until it was finally revealed in 2012. After years of preparations, it opened to the public for the first time in February 2023 as a museum. Only 50,000 visitors are permitted annually, and access has been limited to small groups of 10 on 90-minute guided tours that explore 2km of the labyrinthine bunker system. It’s an eye-opening journey into the heart of a Cold War-era time capsule…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The resulting nuclear-proof bunker was a staggering 5,500sq m behemoth, shaped like two large, connected rings, each with an upper and lower floor, and more than 230 rooms that would house around 350 personnel. Mostly these would be ministers and civil servants, part of a slimmed down administration tasked with running the nation’s affairs during the darkest of times, plus a few medical staff, several journalists and a priest……………………………………………. more https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230501-regan-vest-inside-denmarks-secret-nuclear-bunker

May 3, 2023 Posted by | Denmark, history | Leave a comment

UK underlines commitment to NATO nuclear capability  and a £3 billion funding uplift for the nuclear enterprise

UKDJ, By Tom Dunlop 1 May 23

Defence Minister Baroness Goldie recently hosted members of the North Atlantic Council and NATO Military Committee at His Majesty’s Naval Base (HMNB) Clyde, emphasising the UK’s commitment to NATO’s nuclear deterrence.

This comes as the UK government announced a £3 billion funding uplift for the nuclear enterprise in the Spring Budget.

  ………………………….. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace commented, “We have declared our nuclear deterrent to the defence of NATO for over 60 years, and our commitment to the security of the NATO Alliance is absolute. The UK’s round-the-clock nuclear deterrent is more crucial than ever, as the ultimate guarantee of our collective security.”  https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/uk-underlines-commitment-to-nato-nuclear-capability/

 

May 3, 2023 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

G-7 Expected to Focus on Nuclear Dangers in Hiroshima


Arms Control Association, May 2023, By Daryl G. Kimball

The leaders of the Group of Seven (G-7) industrialized nations, who will convene this month in Hiroshima, the city destroyed in 1945 by the world’s first nuclear attack, are expected to emphasize measures to address rising nuclear dangers.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who will preside over the summit, chose Hiroshima as the venue “to deepen discussions so that we can release a strong message toward realizing a world free of nuclear weapons.” In response to concerns that Russia might use nuclear weapons in its war in Ukraine, Kishida also said on Jan. 9 that the G-7 needs to “demonstrate a firm commitment to absolutely reject the threat or use of nuclear weapons.”

………………………. According to The Japan Times, the Japanese government is arranging for a meeting between the G-7 leaders and some of the remaining hibakusha, the survivors of the atomic bomb attacks, during a visit to the peace museum on May 19.

………………… Kishida also met representatives from the “Civil 7” group of nongovernmental organizations from 72 countries on April 13 to hear their recommendations on how the G-7 leaders could advance progress on nuclear risk reduction and nuclear disarmament. Among other measures, the civil society group recommended that G-7 leaders meet atomic bombing survivors, unequivocally condemn threats to use nuclear weapons, and endorse urgent negotiations to achieve the complete elimination of nuclear weapons before 2045……………….

 https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2023-05/news/g-7-expected-focus-nuclear-dangers-hiroshima
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May 3, 2023 Posted by | Japan, politics international | Leave a comment

India needs ‘space-based’ weapons – top generals

The space arms race is already ongoing, according to the chiefs of the Air Force and the Defense Staff.’

 https://www.rt.com/news/575556-india-space-based-weapons/ 30 Apr 23

India must boost its defensive and offensive capabilities in the space domain, as the “future lies in having space-based platforms,” Air Chief Marshal Vivek Ram Chaudhari told a national security and geopolitics forum on Saturday.

“

In the future, instead of having purely land-based offensive systems, we should also have space-based offensive systems,” Chaudhari said, according to The Economic Times.

The competition and rivalry between the global powers in space “will have its effects across all other domains of warfare,” he said, predicting that his Air Force will soon turn into an Air Space Force, and “will be called upon to take part in space situational awareness, space denial exercises or space control exercises.”

“The race to weaponize space has already started and the day is not far when our next war would spread across all domains of land, sea, air, cyber and space,” the air force chief warned back in March. On Saturday he stated that the race has actually been ongoing ever since Nazi Germany first launched its V-2 rocket almost 80 years ago.

India’s Chief of Defense Staff, General Anil Chauhan, also recently stated that the “military applications of space is the dominant discourse from which we cannot remain divorced.”

“The aim for all of us should be developing dual-use platforms with special focus on incorporating cutting-edge technology,” he told the Indian DefSpace Symposium on April 11.

It remains unclear what kind of futuristic space weapons the military seeks to obtain, but Chaudhari said India should capitalize on the success of its 2019 anti-satellite missile test. The so-called Mission Shakti destroyed a satellite some 300km away in low-Earth orbit and was hailed at the time as an “unprecedented achievement” by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

ndia has become the fourth “space superpower” after the US, Russia, and China, to openly demonstrate its ASAT missile capability. The space club members have regularly accused each other of weaponizing space, voicing suspicions over secretive military launches and dual-purpose tests, but have never admitted to possessing any orbital weapons systems.

May 2, 2023 Posted by | India, space travel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The long and dirty legacy of nuclear power

The trouble is that nuclear-power adherents are now seriously contemplating for future generations a ghastly rerun of the decommissioning nightmare. Small-to-medium-sized reactors, such as envisaged for Trawsfynydd and Wylfa, are the smart way forward, they chorus. Once more, the probably insoluble decommissioning and nuclear waste-management problem is being blanked out.

 https://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/opinion/the-long-and-dirty-legacy-of-nuclear-power-610039By Patrick O’Brien  Sunday 30th April 2023 

In the normal course of events, you’d know when you were financing a dodgy venture. It’s hard to imagine your money being ploughed into an enterprise doomed from the start and being ignorant of the fact.

So how many of us knew we’re bankrolling an outfit with a boat in the Irish Sea embarked on a mission guaranteed to be a very bad idea all round?

The craft in question operates with a simple instruction: to blast off underwater seismic guns – to the certain detriment of dolphins and porpoises – as part of a madcap exercise to find a subterranean cemetery for large amounts of lethal radioactive waste from Cumbria’s Sellafield nuclear site.

I refer to pollutants that, for the last 70 years, have contaminated seas off vast coastal areas of Wales and Ireland, and parts of England, with radioactive substances that take, literally, tens of thousands of years to decay.

Let me introduce Nuclear Waste Services, an entirely taxpayer-funded public body under the wing of the UK government, which is engaging marine geological surveyors to comb the seabed for an out-of-sight-out-of-mind repository for the terrifying remnants of a dangerous and long discredited system of energy-generation.

Yes, the UK is looking for a storage site for the world’s biggest stockpile of untreated nuclear waste, including 100 tonnes of plutonium.

Currently the search centres on the seabed off Cumbria. The nearby notorious Sellafield nuclear complex having, since 1952, openly discharged substantial quantities of liquid and solid radioactive waste into the Irish Sea, a disreputable industry’s servants are now embarked on a final fling, dressed up, naturally, as a service to the UK population.

Thus Chris Eldred, a Nuclear Waste Services senior manager, expounding on the benefit of the gorgeously clinically named geological disposal facilities (GDFs) his company has set its heart on.

GDFs, he vouchsafes, “will protect future generations from the risks of keeping hazardous radioactive waste in surface stores for thousands of years.” Thank goodness, therefore, that we have the sea at our unfettered disposal, there to hide away nuclear power’s abiding torment – what to do with the reverberating remnants of a spent technology that will never in thousands of years be stilled.

To help us with this vital work”, Mr Eldred says, “we will undertake surveys to provide a better understanding of the deep geology beyond the coast, while doing everything we can to minimise any environmental impact.”

In his apparent innocence, you wonder whether he has in mind earplugs for dolphins and porpoises, which are observed to be disorientated, distraught and damaged by the monstrous decibels of seismic guns. These theoretically protected animals, let it be remembered, are in all probability some of those we marvel at off the Ceredigion coast.

Not that the UK government or Nuclear Waste Services or anyone else has checked with us, the funders of this desperate exploration.

Not that they have seen fit, either, to mention that sea-borne radioactive waste, pumped for seven decades into the sea at Sellafield, has been detected off coasts of Wales, as well as hundreds of miles further south and west of the Cumbria nuclear site.

We’re talking here about insoluble radionuclides, such as highly dangerous plutonium-239, which has a half life of, truly, 24,110 years and can attach to particles in the sea, there to be transported over long distances and timescales and ultimately deposited into fine sediments. such as estuarine and coastal mudflats and salt-marshes. Since the early 1950s, this stuff has floated unhindered down from Sellafield off Wales’s west coast, ending up as far away as the Bristol Channel and the southern North Sea.

Sellafield’s tentacles have even reached inland Wales. In the late 1980s, the then Dyfed County Council commissioned a study of radioactivity in the county which found Caesium-137 – proved to have come from Sellafield sea discharges – in pasture grass seven miles inland from the Cardigan Bay coast. Radiocaesium, which has a 30-year half-life, can increase the risk for cancer.

The size of the current nuclear power-station decommissioning conundrum is mind-boggling. Even the UK government admits the seabed dump site it seeks for the world’s largest stockpile of untreated nuclear waste would need to keep its terrible debris “safe and secure over the hundreds of thousands of years it will take for the radioactivity to naturally decay”.

Meanwhile, councils signed up to the Nuclear Free Local Authorities grouping, including Ceredigion’s and Gwynedd’s, believe the pretty well obvious: no matter how effective the marine storage barriers, some radioactivity would eventually leak to the surface of the sea. They prefer the idea of a “near surface, near site storage of waste” to allow for monitoring and management.

Trying to show willing, they’re seizing on a least-worst option, which is nevertheless woefully inadequate.

The trouble is that nuclear-power adherents are now seriously contemplating for future generations a ghastly rerun of the decommissioning nightmare. Small-to-medium-sized reactors, such as envisaged for Trawsfynydd and Wylfa, are the smart way forward, they chorus. Once more, the probably insoluble decommissioning and nuclear waste-management problem is being blanked out.

All that’s left is for the realists among us to resolve, very firmly, that we will never allow a return to the insanity of a 1950s future.

May 2, 2023 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Why did Russians dig trenches in radioactive Chernobyl woods?

Even Ukrainians who stayed after the nuclear disaster tried to warn their
enemies. On February 24, 2022, the first day of the invasion of Ukraine,
the Russians crossed into the area from Belarus. They stayed for five
weeks, camping out for part of that time in some of the most contaminated
land around the site of the worst nuclear accident in history.

They dug defensive positions in the Red Forest, within a six-mile radius of reactor
No 4, where they lived, ate and slept for a fortnight. Nobody can
understand why.

“Don’t try to find logic,” said Oksana Pyshna, 30, a
tour guide turned employee of the state ministry responsible for the
exclusion zone, who showed us around. “It’s stupid.” The place is
called the Red Forest because that’s the colour the trees went after the
disaster as the cloud of poison spread through Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, on
to the Baltics and Scandinavia.

In 1986 and the years after, teams of men
dug up the topsoil and buried it: under the surface it is far more
poisonous. Carving trenches there was a terrible idea, said Pyshna.
“It’s the most dangerous territory in the special zone, because under
the ground we have nuclear waste.”

Perhaps the Russians felt safer there
because they knew the Ukrainians wouldn’t shell the area around the
nuclear plant. Perhaps the beauty of the woods blinded them to the danger.
Catfish throng the reactor’s cooling channel, deer shy through the silver
birches when visitors pass. There are, apparently, bears in the forests;
wolves too, wild ponies. In the autumn, the trees hang heavy with the most
perfect apples, green and pink.

But their pips can hold radioactive
isotopes: caesium-137 or strontium-90. Some Russian soldiers stationed in
the forest got radiation sickness, diplomats have confirmed. Kicking up the
dust or walking on the moss can contaminate you. Digging is much worse. The
few dozen locals – average age, 86 – who remained here after the
disaster have become unspeakably blasé about the risks of nuclear
radiation. Even they were shocked.

 Times 29th April 2023

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-chernobyl-nuclear-putin-russia-invasion-rgjzskfvq

May 2, 2023 Posted by | environment, Ukraine | Leave a comment

“We won’t be scapegoats!” — French opposition to nuclear waste dumping

“This land is our land.” French goats bleat against nuclear fuel pool threat

“We won’t be scapegoats!” — Beyond Nuclear International

Contrary to popular propaganda, nuclear reprocessing is not recycling. This has never been more evident than in the current crisis at La Hague, where the irradiated fuel pools are now full to capacity. Part of the reason is the country’s insistence on producing mixed-oxide reactor fuel from the plutonium and uranium separated at La Hague. So much of it has proven defective, that is has been returned to La Hague, filling up the fuel pools.

opposing French plans to extend the licenses of current reactors and to build new ones with, as they point out, absolutely no consideration of what will happen to the radioactive waste.

A new tongue-in-cheek rebellion has risen in France, but the cause is deadly serious

By Linda Pentz Gunter,   https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/04/30/we-wont-be-scapegoats/

In France, civil disobedience and defiance of authority — and authoritarianism — is in the national DNA. We have seen it most recently in the demonstrations against the raising of the retirement age, and against proposed agricultural reservoirs known as mega-basins. Before that it was the “yellow vests”, angered at a rise in fuel prices. Further back came the Resistance during World War II, and even further back, of course, the Revolution of 1789.

The French anti-nuclear movement is no exception and has engaged in protests that deliver considerable numbers and abundant creativity — and sometimes a lot of useful tractors as well.

It’s no surprise then to learn that such continued defiance has now spread: to goats. 

Before continuing, it’s necessary to explain what a ZAD is. In French, it stands for Zone À Défendre (zone to defend.) ZADs are usually occupations or blocades created by citizens protecting something they deem precious from development or destruction. There are scores of ZADs across France, deemed illegal by French authorities. ZADs have sometimes won, most notably at Notre-Dame-des-Landes, where an unpopular airport project was stopped.

But raids on ZADs can sometimes turn violent, and authorities can over-react as they did in February 2018 at Bure, when 500 gendarmes went in to remove just 15 anti-nuclear activists occupying and attempting to protect the forested site targeted to become the country’s high-level radioactive waste dump.

Dressed in riot gear, the gendarmes used bulldozers, trucks, helicopters, drones and chainsaws to confront the occupiers, self-described “owls” who had been living in tree houses and lookout towers for the past 18 months.

Now, activists around the La Hague nuclear reprocessing site on the northern Cherbourg peninsula, have redefined the ZAD acronym to stand for Zone À Déchets  (Waste Zone), and specifically radioactive waste.

Contrary to popular propaganda, nuclear reprocessing is not recycling. This has never been more evident than in the current crisis at La Hague, where the irradiated fuel pools are now full to capacity. Part of the reason is the country’s insistence on producing mixed-oxide reactor fuel from the plutonium and uranium separated at La Hague. So much of it has proven defective, that is has been returned to La Hague, filling up the fuel pools.

A slowdown in reprocessing due to technical failures has also hastened the overcrowding of La Hague’s four spent fuel pools with excess irradiated fuel rods. These pools risk saturation by 2030 and the French safety authority has criticized La Hague owner, Orano’s suggestion that it could pack the pools more densely as this raises safety risks.

The owner of the French nuclear fleet, EDF, is responsible for managing the waste fuel their reactors produce. Its solution to the overcrowding at La Hague is to build a new fuel pool at the site, at a cost of $1.37 billion.

And that has locals up in arms — and hooves.

Normandy, the province in which La Hague is located, is strongly agricultural. Cows — and dairy products — abound. As do goats. While those still domesticated produce cheese, there is also a significant and famous wild goat population, known as les chèvres des fossés, that ranges freely on the coastal cliffs.

Accordingly, a new La Hague opposition group, Piscine Nucléaire Stop (Stop the Nuclear Fuel Pool), found a way to communicate the threat a new fuel would pose to agriculture and the environment by recruiting some goats to their cause.

In an amusing action that was posted on Facebook and was covered in the press, the activists placed an array of artistic — and realistic — cut-out goats at an intersection in the town of Jobourg, one of the communities that would be affected by the health and environmental risks of a new nuclear fuel pool. The town gives its name to the famous wild Jobourg goats and has erected a statue in their honor.

Then the goats put out their own statement. It read:

“We nanny and billy goats of Jobourg, claim our right to decide the fate of our land, and affirm today our opposition to the EDF spent fuel storage pool project. 

Continue reading →

May 2, 2023 Posted by | France, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Japanese authorities doubtful of removal process of Fukushima radioactive sandbags

 https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-05-01/Japanese-authorities-doubtful-of-removal-process-of-Fukushima-radioactive-sandbags-1jrKQmaC652/index.html

Japanese authorities have expressed doubt over the removal of radioactive sandbags at the Fukushima nuclear plant as the plant operator aims to start the recycling procedure this fiscal year, NHK reported on Monday.

Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority said the recycling approach needs to be fully verified, adding that it was unclear whether the procedure can be carried out as expected.

The zeolite-packed sandbags were put on the basement floors of the factory building as an emergency measure to lower radiation levels of contaminated water after the 2011 nuclear disaster.

Although their radiation levels have weakened with time, the sandbags can still emit radiation levels of up to 4.4 sieverts per hour, which could kill people exposed to the high reading for two hours.

The plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) plans to use robots to collect the sandbags and store them in other receptacles. The company is expecting the plan to be approved in September.

The regulator said tests need to be carried out this summer to verify the plan’s safety.

May 2, 2023 Posted by | Japan, wastes | Leave a comment

Dealing with a debacle: A better plan for US plutonium pit production

Bulletin, By Curtis T. Asplund, Frank von Hippel | April 27, 2023

For two decades, the Pentagon and Congress have been increasingly concerned that the United States does not have a reliable capability to produce plutonium “pits,” the cores of US thermonuclear warheads. In 2018, the agency responsible for the production and maintenance of US nuclear warheads, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), responded with a plan to build, on a crash basis, pit production lines in New Mexico and South Carolina at the same time, with a combined production capacity of 80 pits per year.

One of the production lines is in an advanced state of installation at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the home of US pit-production expertise. The other is to be installed at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina, where there is no pit-production expertise, in a massive building that the Department of Energy built for another purpose and was then forced to abandon because of huge cost overruns. South Carolina’s congressional delegation, led by Sen. Lindsey Graham, successfully prevailed on the Trump administration to repurpose this $6 billion building—once known as Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility and intended to downblend surplus military plutonium for use as commercial reactor fuel—to plutonium pit production. History is repeating itself, however. The NNSA’s cost estimate for using the Savannah River facility to manufacture warhead pits has already risen from $3.6 billion in 2017 for an 80 pit-per-year production capacity to $11.1 billion for a 50 pit-per-year capacity in 2023.

The NNSA’s rationale for its ambitious pit production program is, to say the least, questionable. The agency proposes to first build 800 pits for new US intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) warheads, which would be needed only if the US decides to increase the number of warheads on each missile from one to three. Previous US administrations have considered such uploading destabilizing; silo-based ICBMs are targetable and increasing the number of warheads they each carry would make them more attractive targets. Loading the ICBMs with more warheads would also make compliance with the New START arms control agreement with Russia extremely difficult, should that agreement be extended in 2026.

After producing the ICBM warheads, the NNSA plans to replace all 1,900 US submarine-launched ballistic missile warheads with new warheads, equipped with what is known as insensitive high explosive, which is shock resistant and therefore less susceptible to accidental explosions that could disperse a warhead’s plutonium. No such accident has ever happened with ballistic missile warheads, and it is unclear how much this program would actually improve safety. The warheads in the Trident II missile used by US submarines are located near the missile’s third stage, which carries propellant that is as detonable as conventional explosive.

There is also another concern about the NNSA’s  plans: The designs of new warheads in which new plutonium pits would be used may depart from designs that have been previously tested. This could result in demands to resume explosive testing, which would undermine the moratorium on nuclear testing that has been observed by all nuclear-weapon states (other than North Korea) since 1998.

Given these questionable production plans and the already out-of-control cost and schedule of the Savannah River pit production facility, and because the remaining life expectancy of the pits in current US warheads is at least 60 years and perhaps much longer, we propose that the Savannah River facility be put on hold and that the Los Alamos program be focused on demonstrating reliable production of 10 to 20 pits per year. Such a demonstration production line would establish that the United States has the capacity to produce pits and would reduce the time required to build additional production lines, if they are needed.

The NNSA should also renew research programs at the Livermore and Los Alamos Laboratories to study the aging of the already existing plutonium pits in the US arsenal and also the older pits from retired warheads. ……………………………………………………………………………….. more https://thebulletin.org/2023/04/dealing-with-a-debacle-a-better-plan-for-us-plutonium-pit-production/

May 2, 2023 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment

Statement by the G7 Parliamentarian Forum for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons

 https://www.icanw.org/g7_mp_statement 29 Apr 23,

Ahead of the G7 Leaders’ Summit taking place in Hiroshima in May, ICAN convened the G7 Parliamentarian Forum for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons in Tokyo and Hiroshima. The adopted statement urges the G7 governments to recognize the humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons, condemn threats to use nuclear weapons and to recognise the TPNW as a the comprehensive and effective legal tool for the abolition of nuclear weapons. See the full statement and list of participants below.

We parliamentarians from G7 countries reiterate our commitment to nuclear disarmament on the occasion of the G7 Summit in the city of Hiroshima, a city that  is marked by nuclear obliteration due to the dropping of the first atomic bomb on August 6, 1945. We are reminded of the 140,000 lives lost in the city as well as over 70,000 lives lost in Nagasaki, by the end of 1945 and the ongoing physical, social, and psychological suffering of the Hibakusha. Their fate remains at the centre of our political agenda towards complete global nuclear disarmament. 

We recognize that the risk of nuclear war increases over time as long as nuclear weapons exist. The repeated missile tests and continued nuclear programs of the DPRK have dangerously and irresponsibly increased this risk. We condemn Russia’s illegal war of aggression on Ukraine, which exposed the unacceptable risks associated with nuclear weapons. The Russian plans to station nuclear weapons in Belarus highlight the importance of halting and reversing such actions and ensuring that nuclear weapons are never again used as tools of aggression and intimidation. The ongoing nuclear arms race, in which all nuclear weapon states are involved, increases the risk of the use of these weapons either by accident or design, with devastating consequences for humanity and the planet and must therefore be stopped as a matter of international urgency.

In order to strengthen the norm of not using and not threatening to use nuclear weapons, we condemn any and all nuclear threats and reiterate that the only guarantee of non-use is the total elimination of nuclear weapons. To this end, we commit to strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which provide the crucial, mutually-reinforcing framework for achieving a world free of nuclear weapons. We underline the importance of Article VI of the NPT, which calls for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons, and we welcome the TPNW’s comprehensive provisions as an important reinforcement of the nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation regime especially in a time of heightened risks. Complementary to the TPNW’s explicit prohibition of nuclear weapons testing, the norms of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) must be upheld. 

As representatives of their peoples, parliamentarians have a vital role to play in building support for disarmament and ensuring that our governments prioritise the elimination of nuclear weapons. Let us collaborate with states parties to the TPNW and civil society to achieve our shared goal of a safer and more peaceful world, free from the threat of nuclear war. We encourage all non-signatory states to observe the second Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW and urge our governments to explore options to collaborate with states parties, particularly in the area of victim assistance and environmental remediation, as set out in Article 6 and 7 of the TPNW. We will intensify our political efforts to encourage our countries to sign and ratify the TPNW, with the goal of achieving its universalization at the earliest possible time. 


In the upcoming Hiroshima Summit, we urge the leaders of the G7 to meet with and listen to the Hibakusha, to acknowledge the devastating harm caused by the use of nuclear weapons on people and the environment, to unequivocally condemn any and all threats to use nuclear weapons, and to recognize the significance of the TPNW in advancing global nuclear disarmament efforts. We maintain that all countries should engage in sincere and constructive negotiations to achieve the total elimination of nuclear weapons so that never again will any person be subjected to the fate endured by the Hibakusha.

Participants of the G7 Parliamentarian Forum on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons:  

Boldrini, Laura / Camera, Partito Democratico, Italy

McPherson, Heather / House of Commons, NDP, Canada

Satouri, Mounir / European Parliament, Green, France/EU  (video message)

Spellerberg, Merle / German Bundestag, Green, Germany (video message)

Ribeiro-Addy, Bell / House of Commons, Labour, UK (video message)

Inoguchi, Kuniko  / House of Councillors, LDP, Japan

Minoru, Terada / House of Representative, LDP, Japan (video message)

Hiraguchi, Hiroshi / House of Representatives, LDP, Japan

Taniai, Masaaki / House of Councillors, Komeito, Japan

May 2, 2023 Posted by | 2 WORLD, politics international | Leave a comment

US deployed Nuclear Disablement Teams to S. Korea in March

The Dong-A Ilbo . 01, 2023 

It was confirmed that South Korea and the U.S. conducted training during the Freedom Shield joint exercise in March to enter North Korea and disable its nuclear weapons in case of emergency. The U.S. Department of Defense released the details and pictures of the March training on the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service on Wednesday, the day of the summit between the two countries. It is deemed a warning against North Korea, following the ‘Washington Declaration’ made by the two countries’ leaders, which mentions measures to strengthen extended deterrence, including setting up the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG).

According to the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army’s Nuclear Disablement Teams (NDT) trained with the South Korean Army’s Nuclear Characterization Teams (NCT) from March 20 to March 24. The training was for entering North Korean territory and removing warheads mounted on missiles in case of emergency. This is the first time that the U.S. Army’s deployment of NCT to South Korea and its joint training with the South Korean Army were revealed.

In the pictures, the members of South Korean and the U.S. armies are inspecting protective equipment during the training. The Department of Defense explained that NDT disables the infrastructure and components of nuclear and radioactive weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to remove the enemy’s capabilities, making the following WMD removal operations easier. The South Korean Army’s NCT is part of the ROK Army CBR Defense Command under the Ministry of National Defense and conducts similar missions as the U.S. NDT…………………….more https://www.donga.com/en/article/all/20230501/4125589/1

May 2, 2023 Posted by | politics international, South Korea | Leave a comment

Foiled Escape: UC Global, the CIA and Julian Assange

Even better will be the abandoning of the entire proceeding, the reversal of the extradition order made in June 2022 by then Home Secretary Priti Patel, and a finding by the UK authorities that the case against Assange is monstrously political, compromised from the start and emptied of legal principle.

April 30, 2023, Dr Binoy Kampmark  https://theaimn.com/foiled-escape-uc-global-the-cia-and-julian-assange/

However described, the shabby treatment of Julian Assange never ceases to startle. While he continues to suffer in Belmarsh prison awaiting the torments of an interminable legal process, more material is coming out showing the way he was spied upon while staying at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Of late, the Spanish daily El País has been keeping up its exemplary coverage on the subject, notably on the conduct of the Spanish-based security firm, UC Global SL.

There is a twist in the latest smidgens of information on the alleged bad conduct by that particular company. As luck would have it, UC Global was commissioned by Rommy Vallejo, the chief of Ecuador’s now defunct national intelligence secretariat, SENAIN, to give the London embassy premises a security and technological touch-up.

Vallejo may have sought their services, but seemed blissfully ignorant that he had granted the fox access to the chicken coop. This access involved the installation of hidden microphones throughout the embassy by UC Global at the direction of its owner, David Morales. Morales, it seems, was updating the US Central Intelligence Agency with information about Assange’s meetings with his legal team throughout.

Much of this was revealed in the trial against Assange conducted at the Central Criminal Court in 2020, though the presiding Judge Vanessa Baraitser seemed oddly unmoved by the revelations, as she was by chatter among US intelligence operatives to engineer an abduction or assassination of the WikiLeaks founder.

The link between UC Global and the CIA was the fruit of work between Morales and one of his most notable clients, the casino company, Las Vegas Sands. Morales was responsible for supplying the owner of the company, the late billionaire magnate and Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, with personal security. In the merry-go-round of this field, one of those on Adelson’s personal security detail was a former CIA officer.

On December 20, 2017, Michelle Wallemacq, the head of operations at UC Global, penned a note to two technicians responsible for monitoring security at the embassy. “Be on the lookout tomorrow to see what you can get… and make it work.” The request was related to a scheduled meeting between Assange and Vallejo. The theme of the discussion: to get the Australian publisher out of the embassy, grant him Ecuadorian citizenship and furnish him with a diplomatic passport. This had a heroic, even quixotic quality to it: the grant of a diplomatic passport would not have necessarily passed muster; and the chances of Assange being arrested could hardly be discounted.

Eleven months prior to Morales passing on the tip that scuttled Assange’s escape plans, Morales was already chasing up his staff from one of Adelson’s properties, The Venetian Resort in Las Vegas. One technician received the following: “Do you have status reports on the embassy’s computer systems, and networks? I need an inventory of systems and equipment, the guest’s [Assange] phones, and the number of networks.” He also warned his technicians to be wary “that we may be monitored, so everything confidential should be encrypted… Everything is related to the UK subject… The people in control are our friends in the USA.”

On June 12, 2017, Morales, enroute to Washington, DC, requested his contact to activate a File Transfer Protocol server and web portal from their Spanish headquarters. The portal in question: the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Material began being collected on Assange’s guests, eclectic and of all stripes: journalists, doctors, lawyers, diplomats. Mobile phone data was also hoovered up. After his Washington stop, Morales popped into Las Vegas Sands, where he met his eager “American friends” to reveal the information so far gathered about Assange.

Over this time, it becomes clear, in Morales’s own words, that “he had gone over to the dark side” and that “they were working in the Champions League”. Emails sent on September 8 speak of offering “our information collection and analysis capability to the American client.” Discussions with a UC Global technician focus on gathering information from the microphones in the embassy. “The guest [Assange] has three rooms and uses two quite frequently… We would have all the audio from there except in one room.”

On September 21, it was clear to Morales that they had gotten sufficiently mired in the business of spying on Assange to be wary of any potential surveillance from SENAIN. “I would like my whereabouts to be kept confidential, especially my trips to the USA.” Instructions are distributed to gather data on the embassy’s Wi-Fi network, photos of the interior and furnishings of the embassy, and any data on Assange’s primary visitors, notably any members of his legal team.

The recording of one meeting would prove critical to upending plans to get Assange out of the embassy. Present Assange, his lawyer, now wife Stella Morris, Ecuadorian consul Fidel Narváez and Vallejo. The date for the getaway was slated for December 25, with the plan that Assange leave via one of the ambassador’s cars which would make its way through the Eurotunnel to Switzerland or some designated destination on the continent. “It’s very late,” wrote one of the technicians a few hours after the meeting’s conclusion to Morales. “Because it’s so big, I put the file in a shared Dropbox folder. Someone with experience in audio can make it more intelligible.” While Vallejo could be heard fairly clearly, the voices of Assange and Morris were “very muffled”.

Within a matter of hours, Morales had relayed the material to those “American friends” of his, greasing the wheels for proceedings that would culminate in Assange’s expulsion in 2019 and the indictment listing 18 charges, 17 of which are drawn from the Espionage Act of 1917. The plan to leave the embassy was never executed.

There are two significant events that also transpired before Vallejo’s visit to Assange. The first involved an advisor to the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister who is said to have had information about the plan regarding Assange’s escape. He was assaulted by a number of hooded men at Quito Airport on his return from the United States.

On December 17, 2017, it was time for hooded assailants to turn their attention to the Madrid law offices of Baltasar Garzón and Aitor Martínez. Their target: a computer server. The timing was ominous; both lawyers had just returned from meeting Assange in the London embassy. The intruders proved untraceable by the Spanish police, despite leaving prints.

In hindsight, it does seem remarkable that Vallejo and SENAIN remained ignorant of the rotten apples in UC Global. As things stand, Morales is facing a formal complaint filed by Assange in the Spanish National Court. He is also facing an investigation for alleged breaches of privacy, the violation of attorney-client confidentiality, misappropriation, bribery and money laundering. The presiding magistrate on the case, Santiago Pedraz, has requested the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to press the CIA in supplying information about the embassy spying.

Even better will be the abandoning of the entire proceeding, the reversal of the extradition order made in June 2022 by then Home Secretary Priti Patel, and a finding by the UK authorities that the case against Assange is monstrously political, compromised from the start and emptied of legal principle.

May 1, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | 1 Comment

Russian troops ‘went FISHING in the nuclear reactor cooling channel at Chernobyl’ and are now suffering from radiation sickness

  • Russian troops spent a fortnight in the vicinity of the radioactive nuclear reactor
  • Some 37 years ago it exploded and spilled reactor core into the environment

Daily Mail, By CHRISTIAN OLIVER , 30 April 2023[excellent photos]

Putin‘s men were struck down with radiation sickness after they camped in a forest near Chernobyl‘s nuclear disaster amid their infiltration of Ukraine last year. 

Ukrainians living in Chernobyl have told of how they warned their Russian enemies of the dangers despite last year’s invasion, with soldiers even fishing in the nuclear reactor’s cooling chamber.

The Russian soldiers spent around a fortnight in the vicinity of the radioactive nuclear reactor in March last year, which 37 years ago exploded and spilled reactor core into the environment.

Ukrainians have told how the Russian men crossed from Belarus and dug defensive positions in the nearby ‘Red Forest’, named after the colour the trees turned after the nuclear disaster.

Some suggested that the Russians chose the area as they knew they would not come under attack from Ukrainian shelling. 

Speaking to The Sunday Times, Oksana Pyshna, 30, an official responsible for the exclusion zone, said ‘don’t try to find logic’ regarding the upheaval of radioactive soil by Putin’s men in Chernobyl’s nearby forest.

Russian soldiers are said to have spent two weeks with six mile vicinity of the radioactive reactor No 4, where they slept, ate, and drank.

‘It’s the most dangerous territory in the special zone, because under the ground we have nuclear waste.’

Some suggested that Russian troops made their base there as they knew Ukrainian forces would not attack the area as they knew the catastophic dangers around the nuclear plant.

The Russians are also said to have fished in the reactor’s cooling chamber, catching the catfish that swim in the destroyed nuclear base.

But others were struck down with radiation sickness from simply being in the area, walking around, and kicking up the dust………………………………………………………….. more https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12030417/Invading-Russian-troops-radiation-sickness-camped-Chernobyl-forest.html

May 1, 2023 Posted by | health, UK | Leave a comment

A means to dispose of nuclear waste remains elusive and Canada continues to store the most per capita.

Maybe we could store nuclear waste at Saskatchewan legislature, Murray Marien, Saskatoon  https://thestarphoenix.com/opinion/letters/letter-maybe-we-could-store-nuclear-waste-at-saskatchewan-legislature 29 Apr 23

With all the talk about small nuclear reactors (SMR), I thought I would do some research on how the nuclear waste is being disposed of. Apparently it’s not being disposed of at all! There are no plans to dispose of the waste.

It’s “managed” at the facilities that produce it. So 75 years of discussion about nuclear waste disposal hasn’t produced a solution.

There also are some other interesting facts that you can search online. Canada has the largest amount of nuclear waste per person in the world, according to the Nuclear Waste Management Organization website. We have 3.2 million used nuclear bundles as of 2022.

As quoted from the organization’s website: “While the hazard continues to diminish over time, for practical purposes, used nuclear fuel remains hazardous, essentially indefinitely.”

Since it’s highly toxic and the current solution is to store it in a safe place where it can be monitored, I might suggest that we store it in the legislature building in Regina. That building has been known to contain some toxic stuff.

So while we’re already monitoring that toxic waste, adding the nuclear waste would be at no extra cost. Another solution would be for those that support SMRs to take some nuclear waste home with them to dispose of it as they see fit. You just can’t beat hands-on experience when looking for a solution.

May 1, 2023 Posted by | Canada, wastes | Leave a comment

Hinkley fish deterrent farce makes mockery of Environment Agency and Minister

 https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/prize-spratts-hinkley-fish-deterrent-farce-makes-mockery-of-environment-agency-and-minister/ 28 Apr 23

In a humiliating climbdown, the Environment Agency now recommend that EDF Energy be excused from installing an acoustic fish deterrent at Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant, and they have had the cheek to ask for the public’s endorsement of the Agency’s inexplicable volte face in a further consultation.

The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities for one will not be giving it.

NFLA England Forum Chair Councillor David Blackburn said: “After a late hour supper of humble lamprey pie, senior executives at the Environment Agency appear to have shown themselves to have less spine than jellyfish. The requirement to install a deterrent was first made after representations from the public and campaign groups, including the NFLA; a detailed analysis of the impact of the plant on fish stocks and pain-staking deliberations; and the personal intercession of the Secretary of State George Eustice to ensure that it became part of the permitting conditions.

“This new recommendation makes a mockery of the Environment Agency inspection team and the Secretary of State who previously had the courage to stand up to nuclear interests. It also represents a massive slap in the face with a wet kipper for public consultation, because what is the point responding again and again to consultations and presenting to inquiries demonstrating conclusively the validity of your case when senior civil servants simply cave into any clamour from EDF Energy?”

Nonetheless, the NFLA, in a last-ditch effort, will be joining local campaigners by responding robustly to oppose this proposal – for the sake of the fish.

Councillor Blackburn added: “It looks like someone at EDF Energy is following the adage of Robert the Bruce ‘to try, try, try again’ as clearly the company remains determined to pressurise the Environment Agency to recuse it from installing an acoustic fish deterrent at Hinkley Point C to save time and money, for this is a project well behind schedule and massively over budget. French shareholders will be happy, but the fish will not.

“The Severn Estuary is one of the most important fish habitats in the UK, and the fear is that millions of fish will die every day once this plant finally becomes operational as they are sucked to their deaths along with the cooling water.

“We would urge members of the public, elected members and local groups opposed to this plan to respond to the Environment Agency consultation before 25 May 2023. This is your last chance to save the fish!”

Details of the latest Environment Agency consultation can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/hinkley-point-c-water-discharge-activity-permit-variation

May 1, 2023 Posted by | oceans, UK | Leave a comment

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