Nuclear

People Died at Three Mile Island
By Harvey Wasserman | NukeFree.org

People died---and are still dying---at Three Mile Island.

As the thirtieth anniversary of America's most infamous industrial accident approaches, we mourn the deaths that accompanied the biggest string of lies ever told in US industrial history.

As news of the accident poured into the global media, the public was assured there were no radiation releases.

That quickly proved to be false.

The public was then told the releases were controlled and done purposely to alleviate pressure on the core.

Both those assertions were false.

The public was told the releases were "insignificant."

Ruling clears way for EnergySolutions to store depleted uranium in Utah
By Judy Fahys | Salt Lake Tribune

Depleted uranium is not your ordinary radioactive waste.

Most hot waste gets less hazardous over time, like most of the stuff buried at EnergySolutions Inc.'s disposal site in Tooele County.

But not DU, as it's called. The uranium enrichment by-product becomes more hazardous as it decays. And that's the reason the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's latest decision on depleted uranium is causing such a controversy.

On Wednesday, the commission voted 3-to-1 to regulate DU as Class A low-level waste. And, in doing so, it made up to 1.4 million tons of DU potentially eligible to go to EnergySolutions' Utah site.

NRC » Anti-nuclear groups say waste doesn't belong here; EnergySolutions applauds panel's decision.
By Judy Fahys, Salt Lake Tribune

Depleted uranium is not your ordinary radioactive waste.

Most hot waste gets less hazardous over time, like most of the stuff buried at EnergySolutions Inc.'s disposal site in Tooele County.

But not DU, as it's called. The uranium enrichment by-product becomes more hazardous as it decays. And that's the reason the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's latest decision on depleted uranium is causing such a controversy.

On Wednesday, the commission voted 3-to-1 to regulate DU as Class A low-level waste. And, in doing so, it made up to 1.4 million tons of DU potentially eligible to go to EnergySolutions' Utah site.

Iran Nuke Myth Heats up

Report: Slain US Nazi hated Obama, had parts for 'dirty bomb'
Claim: Depleted uranium purchased over the Internet from an American company
By Stephen C. Webster | Raw Story

Trust fund millionaire James G. Cummings, an American Nazi sympathizer from Maine who was slain by his wife Amber in December, allegedly had the radioactive components necessary to construct a "dirty bomb," a newly released threat analysis report states.

The man, allegedly furious over the election of President Obama, purchased depleted uranium over the Internet from an American company.

"According to an FBI field intelligence report from the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center posted online by WikiLeaks, an organization that posts leaked documents, an investigation into the case revealed that radioactive materials were removed from Cummings’ home after his shooting death on Dec. 9," reported the Bangor Daily News.

"Amber (Cummings) indicated James was very upset with Barack Obama being elected President," reported the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center (PDF link). "She indicated James had been in contact with 'white supremacist group(s).' Amber also indicated James mixed chemicals in the kitchen sink at their residence and had mentioned 'dirty bombs.'"

Officials: Iran does not have key nuclear material
By Pam Hess | Google News

Iran does not yet have any highly enriched uranium, the fuel needed to make a nuclear warhead, two top U.S. intelligence officials told Congress Tuesday, disputing a claim by an Israeli official.

U.S. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Michael Maples said Tuesday that Iran has only low-enriched uranium — which would need to be refined into highly enriched uranium before it can fuel a warhead. Neither officials said there were indications that refining has occurred.

Tehran missiles 'can hit Israel' | Gulf Daily News

Iranian missiles can now reach Israeli nuclear sites, a top Iranian military commander said yesterday.

"Today, Iran has missiles with the range of 2,000km, and based on that all Israeli land including that regime's nuclear facilities are in the range of our missile capabilities," Revolutionary Guards commander Mohammad Ali Jafari said in comments carried by the ISNA news agency.

However, Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said a breakthrough was possible if negotiations were conducted on an "equal footing" and insisted on Iran's right to nuclear power.

'Israel is mulling Iran military action'
By Hilary Leila Kreieger | JPost

Israel is seriously considering taking unilateral military action to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, according to a report by top US political figures and experts released Wednesday.

The report also says Israel's time frame for action is growing shorter, not only because of Iranian advances, but because Teheran might soon acquire upgraded air defenses and disperse its nuclear program to additional locations.

Rachel Maddow Interviews Duke Energy's Jim Rogers

Starts around 3:33 mins.; total run time 11:09 mins.

U.S, Russia Deny Secret Deal On Missile Defense
by Mary Louise Kelly | NPR

Both the U.S. and Russia are denying that any secret deal is in the works concerning missile defense and Iran.

The denials follow a front-page story in Tuesday's New York Times reporting that President Obama sent a "secret letter" to Moscow, suggesting he would back off deploying a missile defense system in Eastern Europe if Moscow would help stop Iran from developing its nuclear weapons program.

At the White House on Tuesday, President Obama was quick to throw cold water on the Times story.

"I think that the report that was in the New York Times didn't accurately characterize the letter," Obama said.

Iran's uranium 'enough for bomb' | BBC

Iran has enough nuclear material to build a bomb, the United States' most senior military commander has said.

"We think they do, quite frankly," Adm Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN.

"And Iran having a nuclear weapon, I've believed for a long time, is a very, very bad outcome for the region and for the world," he said.

Iran says its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful, but the West suspects it is seeking nuclear weapons.

Iran conducts nuclear plant test | al Jazeera.net

Iran says it has successfully carried out a test run of its first nuclear plant, a move that will raise concerns in the West over Tehran's atomic ambitions.

The long-delayed reactor, in the southern port city of Bushehr, could come on line within months, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, said on Wednesday.

"Today was one of the most important days for the Iranian nation,'' Aghazadeh said.

Russia sees no concern over nuclear Iran | Press TV

There is no room for Western concern over Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran, says the head of the Rosatom State Atomic Corporation.

Sergei Kiriyenko, in a joint Wednesday press conference with head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization (AEO) Gholam-Reza Aqazadeh in Bushehr, addressed Western opposition to Moscow's nuclear cooperation with Tehran.

"Cooperation between Iran and Russia is based on international norms and conventions and it should be said that nothing is being done outside the non-proliferation framework," explained the Russian nuclear official in response to a question by Press TV's correspondent Gisoo Misha Ahmadi.

Kiriyenko added that those who seek to make excuses to hinder the Iranian nuclear program should "lose all hope as they witness the level of progress at the Bushehr power plant."

Israel lobbies for war on Iran | Press TV

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak says he advocates a war on Iran, following the country's successful test-runs at the Bushehr power plant.

Tehran edged closer towards the final launch of a light-water reactor in the southern port of Bushehr on Wednesday, after it staged pre-commission operations at the 1000-megawatt reactor.

Simulated fuel rods made of lead were reportedly used instead of virtual nuclear fuel in the pilot operation, which was launched in the presence of Iranian and Russian dignitaries -- including Russian nuclear agency chief Sergei Kiriyenko.

While the incident was hailed in Iran as a huge leap in the construction of the country's first power reactor, the test-run immediately raised hackles in Israel.

The Iran-Israel nuclear endgame is now much closer
Edwin Black | The Jerusalem Post

In recent days, four key developments have clicked in to edge Iran and Israel much closer to a military denouement with profound consequences for American oil that the nation is not prepared to meet.

What has happened?

A Choice Between Peace and Peril
By Chris Hedges | Truth Dig

Bibi Netanyahus assumption of power in Israel sets the stage for a huge campaign by the Israeli government, and its well-oiled lobby groups in Washington, to push us into a war with Iran.

Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, according to U.S. and European intelligence agencies. But reality rarely impedes on politics. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama, along with Netanyahu, all talk as if Iran is on the brink of dropping the big one on the Jewish state.

Netanyahu on Friday named Iran as Israels main threat after he was called to form a new government following the Feb. 20 elections.

Sources: Obama cuts funds for US nuclear dump | Jakarta Post

President Barack Obama is taking the first step toward blocking a proposed repository for U.S. nuclear waste, by slashing money for the program in his first budget, according to congressional sources.

Obama's budget to be announced Thursday (Friday in Jakarta) will eliminate virtually all funding for the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada with the exception of money needed for license applications submitted last year to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said the sources, who asked not to be identified because the document had not been made public.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who has fought the Yucca Mountain dump for years, said Obama's decision to cut funding "represents our most significant victory to date in our battle to protect Nevada from becoming the country's toxic wasteland."

Zardari: We Underestimated Taliban Threat - 100 Nukes

12:12 mins.

By Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor, The Nation

With George W. Bush back in Texas and President Barack Obama--an advocate for a nuclear-free world--in the White House, there is reason for hope that the frayed and shredded arms control regime will be rebuilt. But President Obama also faces a looming, high noon showdown over such a move towards real security and peace--in the form of Bush holdover, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

Gates is a relentless supporter of building the next generation of nuclear weapons--the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program. He praises the RRW as "a more reliable deterrent." At this moment--when we need the Obama Administration to push for Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and negotiations to get the US and Russia's nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert while also reducing the countries' stockpiles--a Gates-led policy would be a real defeat for arms control and a sane security and foreign policy.

U.N. Powers to Confer on Iran | Global Security Newswire

The five permanent U.N. Security Council member nations and Germany plan to hold talks in early February on Iran's disputed nuclear activities, Reuters reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 16).

The group has led the U.N. Security Council to issue three sets sanctions resolutions in recent years aimed at pressuring Iran to halt nuclear work that could support nuclear weapons development. Iran has insisted its nuclear program is strictly peaceful.

"Political directors are scheduled to meet at the beginning of February in Berlin. That will be the first meeting this year. They will brainstorm the opportunities of further action with regard to this issue," said Yuri Fedotov, Russia's ambassador to the United Kingdom.

U.S. Must Back Down on Iranian Uranium Enrichment
by Gary Leupp | Dissident Voice

There’s really only one solution. Only one way for Obama to get himself out of the box his predecessor Bush, Dick Cheney and the neocons have put him in. He has to affirm Iran’s inalienable right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium.

Somewhere along the road American public opinion, which history shows can be easily persuaded of things that just aren’t true, has bought several highly questionable propositions:

1. Iran has a nuclear weapons program.

2. Iran’s nuclear program can have only one purpose, the production of nuclear weapons.

3. The Iranian leadership wishes to, and has threatened to, wipe Israel off the face of the map.

4. Given all of the above, Iran’s progress towards nuclear enrichment must be stopped in order to prevent a second, “nuclear” Holocaust.

These propositions — Big Lies that that become better established with each retelling — are in fact easily refutable.

By Dave Lindorff

Congress should do now what it should have done back in the fall: kill the Wall Street bailout program.

After wasting $350 billion on a program that was misrepresented from the outset, and investing hundreds of billions of dollars in failing financial institutions that it could have bought outright for less than it was investing in them (AIG was worth only a few billion dollars in total at the time that the government bailed the company out with an initial investment of $85 billion and Citicorp today is worth less than the $45 billion the government has invested in that failing firm), the Treasury Department, now acting at the direction not of the Bush administration and outgoing Treasurer Hank Paulson, but the Obama administration, is asking for the other half of the Troubled Assets Relief Fund (TARP).

U.S. Rejected Aid for Israeli Raid on Iranian Nuclear Site
By David Sanger | NYTimes.com | Submitted by Michael Munk | www.MichaelMunk.com

President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel last year for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran’s main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran’s suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials.

By Dave Lindorff

A new congressional report is belatedly confirming what many have long known: that the White House and in particular then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, lied to Congress in 2004 when he told them the Bush administration was not repeatedly warned by the CIA not to make the claim that Saddam had tried to buy uranium ore from Niger.

What is astonishing about this report, which documents that the CIA at least four times tried to prevent Bush and other top officials from presenting that lie to Congress and the American public in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, is not that it documents what has long been known, but that Congress and the corporate media are still pretending that the claim itself was an acceptable justification for launching a war.

The Half-Life of the Lesser Evil
Dr. Chu's Nuclear Prescription
By Karl Grossman | CounterPunch.org

The reaction from safe-energy advocates is mixed to the proposed appointment of Steven Chu as U.S. energy secretary by President-Elect Barak Obama. Mixed is a charitable response to the prospects of Chu being in charge of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Although he has a keen interest in energy efficiency and solar power and other clean forms of renewable energy, Chu is a staunch advocate of nuclear power.

“Nuclear has to be a necessary part of the portfolio,” declared Chu, the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, at an economic gathering last March in Palo Alto, California organized by Stanford University.”

U.S. Plans to Sign Nuclear Pact With U.A.E.
By Jay Solomon | WSJ.com

The Bush administration plans to sign its first nuclear-cooperation agreement with a Middle Eastern nation within the next few weeks, according to a senior U.S. official, raising concerns among congressional critics who say the deal could fuel nuclear proliferation in the region.

The proposed deal with the United Arab Emirates has attracted attention because the U.A.E.'s largest trading partner is Iran. The U.A.E. has served in the past as a transshipment point for technology with military applications headed to Iran.

Iran discovers Israeli spy network | ChinaView.cn

Commander of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari said that Iran has discovered an Israeli spy network recently, Iran's state TV (IRIB) website reported Monday.

"Recently, a network which was spying the country's military organizations was detected and traced. After some intelligence work, we discovered that it related to the Israeli intelligence services (Mossad). The agents were arrested thereafter," Jafari was quoted as saying.

"The spy network intended to collect nuclear information and information of sensitive parts of IRGC, and then transfer the information to the Zionist regime," he said, adding that "some advanced and complicated communication systems were also discovered in the spying network."

Intelligence study sees risks in rapid global power shift
By Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The risks of a nuclear weapon being used and wars being fought over dwindling resources will grow during the next 20 years as diminishing U.S. power, a shift of wealth from West to East, the rise of India and China and climate change reshape the world, a new U.S. intelligence study warned Thursday.

"The international system — as constructed following the Second World War — will be almost unrecognizable by 2025 owing to the rise of emerging powers, a globalizing economy, an historic transfer of relative wealth and economic power from West to East, and the growing influence of non-state actors," the report said.

By Dave Lindorff

A CBS/Associated Press story yesterday reported that the man who runs the Pentagon’s anti-missile program, Lt. Gen. Henry Obering III, had warned incoming President-elect Barack Obama that any reversal of Bush/Cheney administration plans to install anti-ballistic missile missiles in Poland would “severely hurt” American interests.

It was a classic “stupid” story of the type that we now expect to get from our corporate media—basically a regurgitation of the statement of one self-interested official, backed up by a few supporting quotes from other government officials, and the usual “anonymous” official sources, and lacking any context or opposing viewpoints.

Add your voice to the call for a world free of nuclear weapons.