Barak Ravid, "Israel gives UN watchdog secret briefing on Iran," Ha'aretz, June 26, 2008.

[Arabs are not the only ones critical of Israel's nuclear secrecy--a policy it likes to describe as "ambiguous." And Israel is critical of the IAEA. More going on here than meets the eye. -jlt]

Foreign Ministry Director General Aaron Abramovich secretly visited the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna Wednesday and briefed a group of ambassadors from countries involved in the agency's efforts to stop Iran's nuclear project. Abramovich emphasized that the IAEA must act more quickly and efficiently to block Iranian nuclear ambitions.

The unusual visit was the first senior Israeli briefing of IAEA member ambassadors in several years. The IAEA is considered relatively hostile to Israel, a tool in Arab world attacks on Israel for rebuffing efforts to monitor the Dimona nuclear reactor.

About a week ago, the New York Times reported that over 100 IAF fighter planes and cargo craft as well as special forces drilled a simulated attack on an Iranian nuclear facility at a site near Greece, 1,500 kilometers from Israel. An Israeli source told The Times of London, "This was a general rehearsal for an Iran attack."

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"Hiroshima survey on nuclear weapons," Beyond Nuclear Bulletin.

The Hiroshima Peace Media Center, based in Hiroshima, Japan, is appealing to the global community to complete a survey on public opinion regarding nuclear weapons. In July, the G8 Summit will be held in Hokkaido, Japan and in September, the G8 Summit of Lower House Speakers will be held in Hiroshima. Nuclear proliferation will be one of the key issues addressed at the G8 Summit while peace and disarmament will be the main theme of the Speakers Summit. The Peace Media Center is gathering views on nuclear proliferation, nuclear disarmament, and nuclear abolition and will report the results to the participants of both summits. The Center asks that we respond “so that the G8 leadership will hear the will of the world’s people.”

Beyond Nuclear expresses the view that "It’s essential that the G8 countries receive a loud and clear message that nuclear weapons serve no purpose and that the world demands they be eliminated."

Click here to fill out and submit your views.

This questionnaire has plenty of room for comments. For what it's worth, here is part of my response:

The US under Bush has followed a provocative nuclear policy, abrogating the ABM Treaty and touching off a new round of nuclear weapons design and expanded deployments (so-called missile defense). While all the weapons states have made more than token reductions to their arsenals, these have been accompanied by the developments mentioned above stimulated in the west by terrorism and in Russia and China by both terrorism/separatism and by the US missile defense deployment. The nuclear weapons states have set poor examples and cannot truly be said to have lived up to their NPT commitments. They HAVE gone beyond mere tokenism, but they do not demonstrate any commitment to a clear plan that would eliminate nuclear weapons--and that is their obligation under the treaty.

Israel, India, and Pakistan further aggravate the bad examples set by the nuclear weapons states (Cause 1). Making a bad situation even worse, the US adopts differing types and degrees of acceptance toward each. Toward Israel it turns a blind eye; toward India it offers to end its boycott and to treat India as a "responsible nonproliferator," even though Indian companies provided dual use products to Saddam Hussein for his nuclear program, for instance; Pakistan it vilifies for developing nuclear weapons while it depends on them for the war in Afghanistan and supplies advanced fighter-bomber aircraft that are capable of delivering nuclear weapons. This isn't a double standard. It is raw opportunism, racism and a militaristic version of self-interest that has criminal consequences for large populations and leads directly to Cause 3.

The scientific principles required to design and build nuclear weapons are not difficult to master. It is to be expected that non-state and "deep state" groups will develop nuclear weapons capability that is well beyond the scope or influence of international agreements or democratic institutions. Unfortunately, this third likelihood is being taken as the operative reality and as an excuse for ignoring the primary responsibility of the US and the other nuclear weapons states. It is no solution at all to devlop anti-terrorist military units. What has to happen is for the US to become a good example, something completely unprecedented where nuclear weapons are concerned. The real problem is that Uncle Sam is afraid of his own shadow--and that could have devastating consequences.

Nuclear deterrence was insane (mutually assured destruction = MAD), but it clearly worked. That doesn't mean that it is the only way that could have worked.

I think it will face the demise of the NPT. A lot will depend on what the new US administration does between now and then, but much damage has already been done to a regime that was in some jeopardy even before Bush. If the US doesn't change its imperial and militaristic ways (unlikely), I think more countries (including Japan) will be looking at ways to develop their own arsenal. For practical people, the disarmament model is being replaced by the NRA model. That's the National Rifle Association which takes the position that everyone is safer if everyone is armed. I think it would take inspired and inspiring leadership to turn that trend around.

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"Canadians Are Cautious About Revamping Nuclear Power Use," Angus Reid Forum Newsflash, June 24, 2008.

Half of respondents want to build more reactors, but the vast majority express concern over safety issues and environmental impact.

Canadians appear to hold conflicting views on nuclear energy, mainly because of reservations over safety. In the online survey of a representative national sample, 50 per cent of respondents are in favour of building more nuclear power stations in Canada-although only 19 per cent express strong support. More than a third of respondents (36%) are opposed to this idea. Canadians are not quite ready to accept a full shift towards nuclear energy. While 42 per cent of respondents think Canada should further pursue its nuclear capabilities in order to reduce toxic emissions that are the norm in the energy-producing industry, 40 per cent say the country should completely avoid nuclear energy and focus on developing other carbon-free sources of power instead.

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Lawrence Solomon, "Darlington reactors are not really new," Financial Post, June 16, 2008.

The NDP completed Darlington A in 1993, a decade late, for $14.4-billion, almost six times the initial estimates. Hydro then went bankrupt in what was called 'the biggest corporate financial meltdown in Canadian history.' Darlington A was one of the last nuclear reactors to be built in the western world...

[...]

Ontarians, in fact, thought they had stopped it in 1985 when they threw out the Tory government of the day in favour of David Peterson's Liberals, who had promised to stop Darlington. By 1985, Darlington was wildly late (its planned completion date had been 1983) and wildly over budget (the $3.5-billion that had then been spent exceeded the project's estimated $2.5-billion price tag of 1978). Rather than stop the bleeding, the Liberals instead voted to complete Darlington.

Ontarians again thought they had stopped Darlington in 1990, when they threw out the Liberals in favour of the New Democratic Party of Bob Rae, who had campaigned on a promise to impose a moratorium on nuclear power. By then, Darlington's costs had soared to $12.9-billion and was close to completion. The NDP completed Darlington A in 1993, a decade late, for $14.4-billion, almost six times the initial estimates. Hydro then went bankrupt in what was called "the biggest corporate financial meltdown in Canadian history."

Darlington A was one of the last nuclear reactors to be built in the western world -- Ontario was slower than most in recognizing the foolhardiness of relying on nuclear. Now Ontario is poised to become one of the first western jurisdictions to return to nuclear, despite Darlington's role in the province's demise -- Hydro's nuclear program cost the province its AAA credit rating and Ontarians are still paying off Hydro's stranded debt of $20-billion.

[...]

Nuclear's uncontrollable costs, in fact, have been a constant over its history in Ontario and they remain a constant elsewhere in the western world. France -- the only country to go full bore for nuclear -- has found nuclear to be so ruinously expensive that it's bringing its old oil-fired stations back into service, some of which were built in the 1960s.

In Finland, the first western country to have actually begun construction on a new nuclear plant in recent years, delays proved so serious that, two and a half years after the start of construction, the project had fallen behind schedule by more than two years. The project is already 50% over budget. Cost estimates for other nuclear plants that are being considered have soared even more.

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China Hand, "Twilight of the NPT? The US, Syria, Iran, North Korea and the Control of Nuclear Weapons," Japan Focus, May 9, 2008.

The United States has pushed the international non-proliferation regime to the breaking point.

Anxiety over US attempts to define and direct the international non-proliferation regime may be provoking some dangerous decisions in the Middle East.

The alleged clandestine nuclear facility at al Kibar in Syria that Israel bombed in September 2007 is a riddle wrapped in an enigma.

The Syrian government emphatically denies that there was a nuclear facility there.

Experts aren’t sure there was a reactor, and are even less sure, if there was one, that its purpose was weapons-related.

The United States and Israel insist that North Korea assisted Syria in building a clandestine reactor that would produce plutonium from un-enriched uranium.

But instead of celebrating their vigilance and decisiveness in pre-empting the devious nuclear machinations of a rogue state, in the months after the Israeli bombing, Washington and Tel Aviv remained remarkably diffident about publicly pointing fingers at Damascus or Pyongyang. This has led to accusations that the State Department was more concerned about preserving the Six Party Agreement on North Korea than putting paid to full and cadet members of the Axis of Evil.

And there is still no good explanation as to why, seven months after the Israeli Defense Force bombed the facility to rubble—and six months after a frantic session of demolition, dismantling, and construction by Syria to bury whatever was at al Kibar under a new concrete box—the Bush administration decided to resuscitate its long dormant obligation to keep Congress and the IAEA informed with a dog-and-pony show including aerial photography, alleged photos from inside the Syrian facility and a video leaning on computer reconstructions.

And this was only after elements inside the Bush administration had spun a competing story that al Kibar was a non-nuclear SCUD assembly facility.

Somebody’s got to be lying.

Or maybe everybody is.

But one thing is for certain.

The International Atomic Agency was left holding the short end of the stick again.

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"Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, IAEA Achieve Agreement to Implement Two Projects (video)," Trend News, June 11, 2008.

Azerbaijan, Baku, 11 June /Trend News corr I. Alizade/ The National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan (NASA) and the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) achieved an agreement on implementation of two projects to construct a research reactor in Azerbaijan. “One of the projects deals with complex universal gamma radiation source and the other with development of a research nuclear reactor,” Adil Garibov, Director of NASA Radiation Institute, said to Trend News on 11 June.

On 11 June, IAEA representatives held negotiations in Baku. IAEA gave official permission to construct the first nuclear reactor in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijani Government agreed to construct the first nuclear reactor. Construction is expected to commence in 2009, to be completed in 2010.

The Radiation Institute developed and submitted to the Government, a set of proposals to construct a nuclear station in Azerbaijan. Institute thinks it is important to create an alternative power source in the country.

“Sterilization and radiation of food may be held during the first project,” Garibov said.

According to Garibov, a final decision to implement these projects must be made by the Azerbaijani Government. “It is Government to allot place and funds for these projects. The issues will be elucidated in the near future,” he said.

Garibov said that IAEA representatives were satisfied with the results of talks.

The correspondent can be contacted at trend@trend.az

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Global Security Institute, Spring newsletter table of contents

Disarmament and Peace Education Activities

* India Celebrates 20 years of the Rajiv Gandhi Plan
* Overcoming Nuclear Dangers Conference, Harvard University
* GSI Board Member Christie Brinkley Receives Smart Cookie Award from Condé Nast
* Thinking Outside the Bomb: Action on nuclear weapons, the environment and health
* California State University lecture: Religious, ethical and legal dimensions of WMD
* Nobel Peace Laureates for a Better World, Haverford College
* Educating Students at the Model United Nations, New York
* American Bar Association Showcase Presentation with Richard Belzer
* Israeli Civil Society Experts Reach Out to International Community


Middle Powers Initiative Activities

* Article VI Forum, Dublin
* Advancing a Nuclear Weapons-Free NATO
* MPI Events at the NPT PrepCom, Geneva
* MPI Chairman’s Address to the IPPNW Congress, New Delhi
* Expert Seminar in Canada

Bipartisan Security Group Activities

* Letter to Congress Opposing RRW
* US-India deal: Advocacy for responsibility in nuclear trade
* Advocating for a High-Level Panel on Space Security
* Statement on Wall Street Journal op/ed

Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament Activities

* NATO Parliamentary Assembly event
* PNND Co-Presidents' Statement on International Women's Day
* Pugwash, Parliamentarians and Political Will, July 10-12 2008
* PNND in Africa

Global Security Institute In the Media

* Jonathan Granoff on Air America Radio
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Pervez Hoodbhoy, "Ten years later," PakPoint Network, May 29, 2008,

[One of Musharraf's accomplishments has been the growth of a strong press. -jlt]

The official celebration of violence, and the encouragement of public joy at successful bomb-making, proved to be the most lasting and pernicious legacy of the May 1998 nuclear tests.

IT’S May 1998 and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif congratulates wildly cheering citizens as the Chagai mountain trembles and goes white from multiple nuclear explosions. He declares that Pakistan is now safe and sound forever.

Bomb makers become national heroes. Schoolchildren are handed free badges with mushroom clouds. Bomb and missile replicas are planted in cities up and down the land. Welcome to nuclear Pakistan.

Fast-forward the video 10 years. Pakistan turns into a different country, deeply insecure and afraid for its future. Grim-faced citizens see machine-gun bunkers, soldiers crouched behind sandbags, barbed wire and barricaded streets. In Balochistan and Fata, helicopter gunships and fighter jets swarm the skies.

Today, we are at war on multiple fronts. But the bomb provides no defence. Rather, it has helped bring us to this grievously troubled situation and offers no way out. On this awful anniversary, it is important that we relate the present to the past.

Some say that India forced Pakistan to test. This could indeed be true. India lied about its ‘peaceful’ nuclear programme, India tested first, India then hurled threats at Pakistan, India jeered as Pakistan agonised over its response. But once Pakistan followed suit, it forgot that it had done so reluctantly and under provocation. The bomb immediately generated its own dynamics.

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Pervez Hoodbhoy is a Professor of Nuclear Physics, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan. His regular column, Particle Politics, appears in Chowk.

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"Stopping the wrong sort of chain reaction," The Economist, May 22, 2008.

REDISCOVERING the charm of nuclear power throws up some odd results. America and Saudi Arabia have just signed a deal that may mean that the world's biggest oil-producer imports American-made uranium fuel for (as yet unbuilt) reactors. Japan's prickly relations with Russia did not stop Toshiba agreeing on joint reactor-construction and fuel-production efforts with state-owned Atomenergoprom. Diplomats, engineers and businessmen from Argentina, India, Pakistan, South Korea and elsewhere tout nuclear know-how around the globe. Yet behind the potential profits is a danger: that the spread of the peaceful atom will, as in the past, fuel military rivalry.

Cost, safety concerns and scarce skills mean that many of 200-plus new power reactors now proposed or planned (in addition to more than 400 operating worldwide and almost 30 under construction) may never actually be built. Yet curbing the most proliferation-prone nuclear technologies is already proving tricky. Efforts to persuade countries to forgo uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing (usable but not vital in civilian power programmes, but abusable for bomb-making) have sometimes backfired.

Canada, for example, is staunchly against proliferation, yet its government is lobbying hard for a loosening of proposed tighter rules for the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), an informal cartel that oversees nuclear trade. Four years ago, President George Bush urged the NSG to bar the sale of uranium and plutonium technologies to any country that at the time did not already possess “full-scale, functioning” plants. Canada doesn't, but has large uranium reserves and wants to keep the option open. So do Argentina, Brazil (which has a pilot enrichment facility) and South Africa, all NSG members. Australia used to, but its new government has gone cooler on the idea. Uranium-rich Namibia, a non-member, hankers after its own enrichment business too.

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Mustafa Adam-Noble, "Libya and nuclear energy," Pambazuka News, May 27, 2008.

[Those who are waiting for salvation to arrive as a Democratic victory in the American elections this November may be disappointed to learn that Bush's demolition of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is already spawning long-term consequences. Nuclear power isn't just a "solution" to climate change. It's a "futures" investment in the opportunity to develop nuclear weapons. -jlt]

Libya is getting the backing of Ukraine to build nuclear reactors. Mustafa Adam-Noble looks at the implications of an oil-rich country going nuclear and the possible impact on Libyan people.

A honeymoon is rapidly emerging between Libya and the Ukraine.

Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian President, has declared his intention to help Libya develop its use of “peaceful” nuclear energy. According to Afrique En Ligne, an online African magazine, bilateral economic projects have been emphasised by Yushschenko. They include the granting of a Libyan contract to a Ukrainian oil and gas company in return for the use of Ukrainian agricultural land by Libya. The Ukraine has also offered to build roads and railways in the North African country and has recently supplied Libya with an Antonov AN-124-100, the world’s largest cargo plane.

Such a large scale of political and economic bartering and investment is bound to raise a few eyebrows.

On the one hand, the rush for oil by the Ukrainians makes sense: Moscow’s threat of turning off Russian-Ukranian pipelines is ever-present. Libya’s need for cheaper food amid rising food prices is a very real concern, and Gaddafi can’t seem to fix agriculture domestically. However, this eager international relationship is murky and far from straightforward.

Libya is awash with corruption amongst its officials and desperation within its population. Decades of crippling policies by Gaddafi, and subsequent trade sanctions, have left the country in tatters.

Libya was an active sponsor of terrorism until only recently when, in 2003, Gaddafi admitted to bombing a Pan American flight over Lockerbie in 1998, killing 270 people. The dictator also admitted to bombing the French UTA airliner over Niger in 1989 that killed all 170 civilians on board.

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Emma Graham-Harrison, "China's ambitious plan for more nuclear power," Reuters, May 27, 2008.

[An environmental movement that concentrates on renewable energy and green companies as solutions to climate change will eventually have to deal with the view that fast-breeder reactors are "renewable" and nuclear power is "emission free." Simply declaring these ideas to be false isn't going to be enough. -jlt]

BEIJING: Nuclear power companies in China aim to join automobile and electronics makers as export powerhouses, but big domestic expansion plans may not leave them the capacity to make an overseas push for more than a decade, analysts say.

A $1 billion deal signed last week with Russia to build and supply a uranium enrichment plant in China was another step toward civilian nuclear independence, less than two decades after China's first nuclear generator came on line.

The country sealed deals last year with Areva of France and Westinghouse for several third-generation reactors and the blueprints to allow them to develop domestic versions.

The nuclear power companies have mastered the construction of older models at a speed that is impressing Asian neighbors who cannot afford nuclear models sold by Western companies or are not allowed to buy them.

Countries like Vietnam and Indonesia are eager to build plants to convey a sense of modernity and to cut their fuel bills, and they see Beijing as the answer to financial and political problems.

"They know the Chinese have a lot of money and they're not necessarily as rigid as Western investors," said Bob Herrerra Lim, an analyst for Eurasia Group, a consulting firm based in the United States. "The Chinese could be the accelerator. They could say, 'We're willing to take a longer term look, because these countries have a strategic value to us.' And obviously there's a lot of policy behavior in many of their companies."

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"India quietly observes 10th anniversary of nuclear tests," AP, May 11, 2008.

NEW DELHI, May 11 (Kyodo) - India on Sunday quietly observed the 10th anniversary of its underground nuclear tests that stunned the world and served as the occasion for India to declare itself a nuclear weapons state.

No official ceremonies were held to commemorate May 11-13, 1998, when India tested five nuclear devices in near the desert village of Pokhran, in the northern state of Rajasthan, and subsequently faced years of international condemnation, sanctions and isolation.

Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was in power at the time, reportedly had no special observance to mark the occasion.

"Today being Sunday, it is a day of rest for him," Vajpayee's personal aide was quoted as saying by the Indo-Asian News Service. "There is no special program on the Pokhran anniversary," he added.

Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party, which led the National Democratic Alliance government in 1998, also reportedly held no celebrations -- even though its senior leader Lal Krishna Advani had earlier criticized the ruling United Progressive Alliance for not marking the 10th anniversary.

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Wade Boese, "US Joins Others Seeking Nuclear Export Criteria," Arms Control Today, May 08.

The United States recently gave up its campaign to convince other nuclear suppliers to prohibit certain sensitive nuclear exports. It has now joined an alternative effort to adopt criteria to strictly limit such transactions, although Canada and a few other countries have objected to some aspects of the initiative.

A week after the Feb. 4, 2004, revelation of the Abdul Qadeer Khan nuclear black-market network, President George W. Bush proposed several initiatives to curb the spread of nuclear material and technology. (See ACT, March 2004.) One of those proposals urged suppliers not to transfer uranium-enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technologies to states without existing facilities for those purposes. Both capabilities can be used to produce nuclear fuel as well as nuclear weapons, but Bush argued that “enrichment and reprocessing are not necessary for nations seeking to harness nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.”

Although not all of them are currently operating, enrichment and/or reprocessing facilities exist in 15 countries: Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Of those states, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands have not developed nuclear weapons or are not under suspicion of covertly pursuing such arms.

[...]

Canada, as well as South Africa reportedly to a lesser extent, have objected to the black box approach, arguing that it conflicts with an NPT provision allowing countries to acquire and develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Both countries have significant uranium deposits and are eyeing the option of trying to profit more from developing the capacity to enrich the uranium for sale as nuclear fuel rather than simply exporting uranium.

...Canada’s well-known opposition to the US black box approach casts doubt on whether it will again support extending the moratorium [by the G8 on enrichment and reprocessing technology transfer.]

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Energy Probe springs into action

Energy Probe seems recently to have sprung into action, especially Lawrence Solomon who has made himself a force to be contended with. In a nutshell, Solomon takes on Wikipedia and the infamous enviro-weenies in order to oppose nuclear, advocate for clean coal, revive the fear of "freezing in the dark" and say things like "This risk of blackouts would also be impossible in a free market, competitive grid."

"The real climate Martians," by Lawrence Solomon, National Post, April 26, 2008.

Fred Singer, one of the world’s renowned scientists, believes in Martians. I discovered this several weeks ago while reading his biography on Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. “Do you really believe in Martians?” I asked him last week, at a chance meeting at a Washington event. The answer was “No.” Wikipedia’s error was neither isolated nor inadvertent. Full story =>

"Europe's coal renaissance," by Lawrence Solomon, National Post FP Comment, April 24, 2008.

Coal is back, despite -- and perhaps also because of -- attempts to beat it back. Full story =>

"Hide your name on Wicked Pedia," by Lawrence Solomon, National Post, April 19, 2008.

Apparently, there is a very good and practical reason to maintain anonymity in Wikipedia. Full story =>

"Don't deny yourself," National Review Online, April 22, 2008.

"One size fits all solutions — whether a Kyoto Treaty or a rush to renewable energy or a crash program to install compact fluorescent light bulbs — is fundamentally anti-environmental." A Q&A with Deniers author, Larry Solomon. Full story =>


"Climate change not a done deal," by Mike Hawryluk, pgcitizen.ca, April 20, 2008.

"I believe every literate person in the world should read the 40 columns of Mr. Solomon" comprising his climate change series. Full story =>

"A time to deny," by Shawn Macomber, The American Spectator, April 18, 2008.

"I have met very few people who have strong convictions about global warming. In their bones, they don't believe the end of the world is nigh." A Q&A with Deniers author, Lawrence Solomon. Full story =>


"The new dissidents: review of The Deniers," by Kenneth P. Green, The American, April 17, 2008.

"Reading The Deniers, however, has strengthened my resolve." Full story =>


Deniers is ranked Canada's top environmental book by Amazon

In its second week of release, The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud And those who are too fearful to do so, by Lawrence Solomon, ranked #1 as Canada's bestselling book on the environment.

On Friday, April 18, Lawrence Solomon will make an appearance as guest speaker of the Capitol Hill Book Forum, at the invitation of The Cooler Heads Coalition.

The Deniers: review by David Forsmark, FrontPageMagazine.com, April 17, 2008.

"Most enviro-weenies with whom you're apt to argue trumpet Al Gore's "consensus" and go straight to name-calling. While The Deniers answers that larger point very well, it is also a handy reference for those who try to argue specific science, as it is logically laid out and puts real science conveniently at your fingertips." Full story =>

"Wikipedia's zealots," by Lawrence Solomon, National Post, April 13, 2008.

If you have read a climate change article on Wikipedia -- beware. Full story =>



"Winning the debate: The Deniers," by George Gilder, Health Status.com, April 7, 2008.

"The book is fascinating and even profound on the flaws of computer modelling, the irrelevance of consensus to science, the crippling effects of excessive specialization, and the mounting evidence of a coming cooling trend." Full story =>


"Europe's banana republic," by Lawrence Solomon, National Post FP Comment, April 11, 2008.

Thanks to a banana plant import from Iceland and a solar-powered commercial greenhouse, Greenland has just produced its first banana crop. Full story =>


"Waterfront Toronto considers selling naming rights to public parks, spaces," by Canadian Press, April 7, 2008.
"I don't think this should be a decision for governments. I think it's something that should go to a referendum, and let citizens within municipalities decide what their comfort level is." -- Larry Solomon Full story =>


"Apocalypse now?" by Lawrence Solomon, National Post, March 29, 2008.

The peaceful atom is safe compared to Hiroshima. The Cold War gave governments a rationale they could use to absolve the commercial nuclear industry of the risks that would otherwise have prevented its entry into society. Full story =>

Blogs by Lawrence Solomon, National Post, March 25, 2008.

Taking the temperature on climate change: public support for global warming, by some measures, is overwhelming. By other measures, public support more resembles lip-service. As, for example, when the public is asked to put its money where it's mouth is. Full story =>


Natural gas firms crave the spotlight by Tyler Hamilton, Toronto Star, April 1, 2008.

With all the talk of building new nuclear power plants and expanding the use of renewable power and conservation programs in the province, the natural gas sector is looking for a little love these days. But Norm Rubin of Energy Probe said he is concerned with the "huge uncertainties" related to the future price of natural gas and its availability. Supply of conventional natural gas has been declining in North America, while plans for liquefied natural gas plants have failed to deliver because of problems in finding overseas gas supply. Full story =>.

"A simple lesson with a powerful reach," CBC Radio, March 28, 2008.

Energy Probe's Norm Rubin joined CBC Radio One's Here and Now program
recently to talk about Earth Hour. Norm hoped that Earth Hour would open people's eyes to how changing energy-use patterns can help the environment.

"Most of us energy and environment wonks were first triggered by something simple, mostly as kids," says Norm. "And Earth Hour could do that for a bunch of future activists -- even if Anthropogenic Global Warming turns out to be wrong!" For Here and Now show listings, see here =>



"Smart bulbs save the environment," by Norman Rubin, Toronto Star Letter to the Editor, March 22, 2008.

Re: Switching off incandescents: a no-brainer?

"Some Star readers might still dislike fluorescent bulbs, or government bans on incandescents, but they shouldn't be misled by confused arguments." Norm Rubin Full story =>

"Nuclear power making comeback," by Lauren Krugel, Sudbury Star, March 15, 2008.

The nuclear industry has a dismal record of keeping projects on budget and on schedule and once plants are built, they're prone to breakdown, warns Norman Rubin of the Energy Probe think tank.

"There are two kinds of nuclear generating stations in the world. There are the future theoretical ones, which are wonderful. And there are the real world ones which break your heart and destroy your wealth and run the risk of leaving you in the dark if you actually depend on them,'' he said. Full story =>


"Ontario's roadmap," by Ken Silverstein, EnergyBiz Insider, March 10, 2008

Energy Probe admonishes the nation and Ontario in particular to pay heed to the risks surrounding nuclear power. Taxpayers in Ontario, it says, are footing the multi-billion bill to refurbish two nuclear plants there a process that is now 60 percent complete and which will add 1,500 megawatts of capacity. The group also says that large and centralized facilities use imported fuel from outside the province that leaves open the question of where to bury the radioactive waste. More of the province's finite resources, it concludes, must be directed to solar and wind. Full story =>Recommend this Post

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Chernobyl and the "superstitious distrust of genetic modification"

Feature

This is the last time World Report will appear as a segment on Nelson Before Nine. I was getting ready to commemorate the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (April 26, 1986), when one of my correspondents in the Midnight Research Network mailed me an article from The Economist which he called “The looming global food crisis.”

For those who may not be familiar with it, The Economist is a rich person's Time magazine that's produced in the UK.

Several decades ago, when I still had a day job and was even then searching for an unbiased publication on international affairs, I subscribed to The Economist for several years.

It presents a lot of good information in a lively writing style. It's also a megaphone for what eventually became known alternately as neoliberal globalization or the Washington consensus or market fundamentalism.

I like to think I am more mature now and better able to hold up to such arm-twisting while I still get the information I am looking for. Nevertheless, The Economist was so ideologically encumbered that I finally let my subscription lapse even though I could still afford it.

So I was surprised when this article's anonymous author claimed that “the food crisis of 2008 has revealed market failures at every link of the food chain.”

Hardcore market fundamentalists believe that markets are self-correcting which is why they should be left alone—laissez-faire etc. The concept of “market failure” is an oxymoron. It makes no sense, to believers in the “invisible hand of the market,” an image Adam Smith only used once or twice, but which is frequently used among capitalism's extremists.

Two sentences on, The Economist judges that “In general, governments ought to liberalise markets, not intervene in them further.” So their market fundamentalism returns after an all too brief exile. Market failure evidently has a special meaning when it's used in The Economist.

The article explains, “Food is riddled with state intervention at every turn, from subsidies to millers for cheap bread to bribes for farmers to leave land fallow. The upshot of such quotas, subsidies and controls is to dump all the imbalances that in another business might be smoothed out through small adjustments onto the one unregulated part of the food chain: the international market.”

Still, over the last few decades, The bandwagon corporate globalization and trade has had a bumpy ride. Post-Soviet Russia was nearly destroyed by a western notion of freedom that some have described as a corporate bill of rights. Argentina, Mexico, and Japan took enough of a beating that China has decided, with considerable success, to buy into the market economy on its own terms, not those of neoliberals.

By the end of the article, it was clear The Economist was squirming.

“There is an occasional exception to the rule that governments should keep out of agriculture.”

Keep in mind, these are "rules" that, when the occasion suits, are presented as if they were rules of the universe the way gravity and electromagnetism follow an inverse square rule. Are there exceptions to gravity or electromagnetism? Are we meant to believe that food is some remote cosmic construct like a quark or a black hole that doesn't quite fit the principles of Newtonian mechanics? Who decides these exceptions? God or The Economist?

More likely, the exceptions occur when they are convenient to buttress a failing theory, a theory that always was intended to guarantee the profits and privileges of a few at the expense of the rest.

Governments, The Economist's self-appointed rule-maker allows, “can provide basic technology: executing capital-intensive irrigation projects too large for poor individual farmers to undertake, or paying for basic science that helps produce higher-yielding seeds. But be careful” The Economist commands.

“Too often,” it says, “as in Europe, where superstitious distrust of genetic modification is slowing take-up of the technology—governments hinder rather than help such advances” (Economist The silent tsunami Apr 17 08).

It was that bit about the “superstitious distrust of genetic modification” that brought me back to my original subject: Chernobyl.

Back in the night of April 25 and the morning of the 26th, 1986, the operating crew of reactor number 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in what is now Ukraine planned a test to find out if the generators could produce enough energy to keep the coolant pumps running in the event of a loss of power until the emergency diesel generator was activated.

Operators deliberately switched off the safety systems in order to keep the test run from being interrupted. For the test, they powered the reactor down to 25 per cent of its capacity.

In the words of the Chernobyl dot info website maintained by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation as an international platform on the longterm consequences of the Chernobyl disaster “This procedure did not go according to plan: for unknown reasons, the reactor power level fell to less than 1 per cent. The power therefore had to be slowly increased. But 30 seconds after the start of the test, there was a sudden and unexpected power surge. The reactor's emergency shutdown (which should have halted the chain reaction) failed.

Within fractions of a second, the power level and temperature rose many times over. The reactor went out of control. There was a violent explosion. The 1000-tonne sealing cap on the reactor building was blown off. At temperatures of over 2000°C, the fuel rods melted. The graphite covering of the reactor then ignited. In the ensuing inferno, the radioactive fission products released during the core meltdown were sucked up into the atmosphere. (3.7; 22.3)

The fire burned and radioactive emissions continued out of control for 11 full days with disastrous consequences for workers and members of the local community. A flood of information is available from numerous sources, each representing its own interests. "Even more serious is the effect that this situation has had on aid programmes: many major organisations and key countries have been reluctant to act because they do not have reliable information...." (Chernobyl.info).

Chernobyl was not an isolated incident. As a nuclear accident, it helped to dim the public's memory of Three Mile Island, a reactor in Harrisburg, Pennasylvania where a similar accident had been narrowly averted 7 years before in 1979. (March 28). The town of Harrisburg had been evacuated. Nuclear scientists said the Chernobyl reactor was a bad design, nothing at all like American designs or the CANDU. It did turn out the Hanford N-reactor was nearly identical to Chernobyl No. 4 except that it had been designed to produce plutonium for bombs instead of electricity.

In those days Chernobyl—and Three Mile Island--were just the most recent in a growing chain of environmental disasters initially concealed and then disputed by both interested governments and corporations. The Love Canal, the Mobro garbage barge that wandered the Caribbean for months seeking a place to dump its load--also the Khian Sea. The Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Cuyahoga River near Cleveland that burst into flames. The list goes on. The sinking of the Kursk, the death of the Aral Sea.

Five years before Chernobyl, on Dec 2-3, 1984, a toxic gas leak in Bhopal, India had killed some 10,000 people overnight. Bhopal survivors are still trying to reach a settlement that would deliver compensation to what remains of their families.

Meanwhile, Chernobyl, Bhopal, and Three Mile Island had brought back memories of Thalidomide. Thalidomide was first made available to patients as a prescription for morning sickness and sleeplessness on October 1, 1957. It became available in "sample tablet form" in Canada late in 1959 and was licensed for prescription use on April 1, 1961.

Taken during pregnancy, it caused startling birth malformations, and death to thousands of babies. Birth defects included: deafness, blindness, disfigurement, cleft palate, many other internal disabilities, and the disabilities most associated with Thalidomide known as phocomelia.

Around the world, victims of the drug Thalidomide and their families entered into or threatened legal actions and were eventually awarded settlements. However, in Canada no case ever reached a trial verdict. Families were forced to settle out-of-court with gag orders imposed on them not to discuss the amounts of their settlements.

From where I sit, what The Economist likes to call a “superstitious distrust of genetic modification,” looks more like a rational caution based on decades of miserable experience with denial and deceit from both government and corporate sources. It's true that the case against genetically modified crops has a lot of gaps and speculation. But that isn't the point.

Chernobyl, Bhopal, and Thalidomide symbolize something profoundly wrong with the relation between government, industry, innovation and the public. This isn't news. Post-World War II organizations like the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Physicians for Social Responsibilty, and Union of Concerned Scientists are well aware and actively provide much needed leadership. It may be we are on the threshhold of an era when publications like The Economist, amusing themselves with the public's “superstitious distrust of genetic modification,” will find their own patronizing attitude blowing back in their faces. Where have they been for the last sixty years?Recommend this Post

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Carbon capture requires government intervention

According to a Reuters report on a speech prepared for delivery in Brussels, Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer, explained why the "invisible hand of the market" lacks the power to make carbon capture a solution for climate change.

"Because CO2 capture and storage adds costs and yields no revenues, government action is needed to support and stimulate investment quickly on a scale large enough to affect global emissions."

The need to "stimulate investment quickly" suggests not only that the market failure is real but also that the time frame is urgent.

The Reuters article (Story by Paul Taylor, editing by Margaret Orgill) points out that

"Some EU lawmakers argue that energy companies should be reinvesting part of the windfall profits they have made from higher energy prices and from receiving CO2 permits free under the current ETS [Emissions Trading]system to fund investment in carbon storage."

The question of profit from using the stored CO2 as feedstock is also relevant even though the technology is still at the pie-in-the-sky stage.

Meanwhile, a leak in the emssion-free nuclear fuel cycle killed two workers at a heavy water plant on Tuesday (Reuters Apr 8 08).

A spokesman for the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission explained that the "situation," which was closed for annual maintenance, "was immediately brought under control."

"No radiation was involved," he said. "It was some chemical gas. The situation is fully under control," and, of course, (everybody sing) "There is no threat to the public."

The article reminds us that Pakistan built its first nuclear power station in 1972 with Canadian help. Western cooperation ended under pressure from the United States, but China continues to help with Pakistan's nuclear program.

Pakistan, India, and Israel are the only three countries not to have signed the Nonproliferation Treaty. Recommend this Post

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Terry Macalister, "Dawn of a new nuclear world," The Guardian, March 22, 2008.

[...]

Bullish statements from the government over recent weeks about the desirability of building a new generation of atomic power stations - and perhaps even more than before - has caused its own nuclear reaction.

The revelation that Britain is to collaborate with France - which generates 79% of its electricity from nuclear stations - on future projects reinforces the sense that Britain is about to enter a new nuclear age.

[...]

The rest names companies and sites =>
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Citizen's Inquiry on the Impacts of the Uranium Cycle

The Citizen's Inquiry is a project of the Community Coalition Against Mining Uranium (CCAMU). It originated as a response to the proposed exploration for and development of a uranium mine north of Sharbot Lake and upriver of Ottawa. The local First Nation communities have taken action to stop the drilling on their ancestral lands.

Presentations can include written; electronic; audio and video formats; poems, plays, skits, and songs. Presentations will be limited to 10 minutes and will be documented.

Scope of the Inquiry: “Getting to Know Uranium”

CCAMU suggests the following themes as guidelines for presentations and submissions.

Uranium Cycle

Claim staking
Exploration
Mining
Transportation
Processing
Waste

Uses: Power Generation, Weapons, Medical

Resource Management and the Alternatives

Economics
Medical
Resource Limitation

Alternative Energy

Within each theme, the following subjects could be addressed:
• Public and Environmental Health & Safety
• Social Responsibility
• Economics
• Political Responsibility
• Self Determination of a Community

Registration

You must register to make a presentation. The deadline for registration is:

Mar 18 for Sharbot Lake

March 25th for Kingston

April 1st for Peterborough

April 8th for Ottawa

To register on-line, click here. Or,

email: info@uraniumcitizensinquiry.com
Phone: 613-259-9988
fax: 613-259-5022
mail: 2799 McDonald's Corners Rd, R.R.#3 Lanark, K0G 1K0

Registrations will be acknowledged prior to the scheduled date of the location requested and will confirm your participation during the afternoon or evening session.

Locations & Dates

When: 1-5 p.m., 6-9 p.m. daily

Where: The Citizens Inquiry will be held in four locations in eastern
Ontario.

Information regarding venues and dates will be announced soon:

Sharbot Lake Public Hearings:
beginning April 1st, 2008
St.Andrew Anglican Church
1028 Elizabeth Street

Kingston Public Hearings:
beginning April 8th, 2008
Queen St. United Church
Corner of Queen and Clergy Streets

Peterborough Public Hearings:
beginning April 15th, 2008
Sadlier House
751 George St. N.

Ottawa Public Hearings:
beginning April 22, 2008
Rideau Park United Church
2203 Alta Vista Drive K1H 7L9
Located one block north of Kilborn Ave.
on the east side of Alta Vista Drive.
http://www.rideaupark.ca/location.htm

Contact Information

• email: info@uraniumcitizensinquiry.com
• Phone: 613-259-9988
• fax: 613-259-5022
• mail: 2799 McDonald’s Corners Rd, R.R.#3 Lanark, K0G 1K0Recommend this Post

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India OK to test nuclear weapons: US ambassador

This week the US Ambassador clarified a crucial question about India's nuclear program. At the same time, division within the Conservative caucus over Canada's position on the nuclear deal between India and the US may still be the most charged issue to fight an election on, but opposition parties don't appear to have a clue. Stay tuned to find out the real meaning of "step up to the plate."

Is it just me? Or is has the pace of events, especially those that suggest a coming apart at the seems, been picking up in the new year?

Just to get you in the mood, I've added a new polling question to the blog. Are you ready? It goes like this: Which of the following do you see as the most urgent security threat? nuclear attack? or climate change? peak oil? economic dependence on the US? the end of commercial fisheries? what about media concentration? or the demise of corporate agriculture? remember terrorism? a pandemic such as HIV/AIDS or Avian Flu? Gun crime? or civil unrest? It's a list that could go on, but that seemed like a good place to stop. Polls on the World Report blog aren't intended to provide big, statistically valid results. But they are helpful for what they tell me about your thoughts and opinions. And I hope that they help to open discussion up to more than just the one or two possibilities typically reported in the traditional media.

Contributing to that increase in the pace of events is Harper's apparent belief that he and US Defense Secretary Robert Gates can, with the help of the press, spin NATO's lack of enthusiasm for its m