News Archive - Page 7 of 13

TPNW is now officially halfway towards entry into force!

Sophia MerynAugust 6, 2019August 8, 2019

On August 6th, 1945 at 8:16 am, a nuclear bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, killing over 140,000 people and wiping out most of the city. 74 years later, the bomb’s catastrophic consequences are still affecting people’s lives.

Today, tens of thousands of people have gathered in Hiroshima, and around the world, to commemorate the victims and echo the call of the Hibakusha – the survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – that such a thing must never happen again. And at the UN in New York, one such commemoration took a very special form today: Bolivia has just marked Hiroshima Day by depositing its ratification instrument for the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). With this ratification, TPNW is now officially halfway towards entry into force!
Read more about this special moment

Did Trump Just Threaten to Attack Iran With Nukes?

Sophia MerynJuly 29, 2019May 6, 2025

He said he could destroy Afghanistan but was signaling elsewhere. The scary part is there’s already a plan.

Did Trump Just Threaten to Attack Iran With Nukes? He said he could destroy Afghanistan but was signaling elsewhere. The scary part is there's already a plan. — (By KREML/Shutterstock)

BY SCOTT RITTER | theamericanconservative.com July 25, 2019

On Monday during a press conference between Donald Trump and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, Trump spoke rather casually of having reviewed plans to annihilate Afghanistan.

“I could win that war in a week. I just don’t want to kill 10 million people,” Trump said. “I have plans on Afghanistan that if I wanted to win that war, Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the earth, it would be gone. It would be over in, literally, in 10 days. And I don’t want to go that route.”

Trump’s seemingly blasé reference to a hypothetical mass murder on a scope and scale never seen in the history of mankind (it took Nazi Germany more than four years to kill six million Jews) was stunning. We know, given the state of play in Afghanistan, that it will never happen. But it wasn’t offhand. Such a policy of total destruction could also be seen as applying to Iran, and the potential for the use of nuclear weapons in the event of a U.S.-Iranian conflict is far from hypothetical. He knew exactly what he was doing.
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Yukiya Amano, Head of the I.A.E.A. Nuclear Watchdog Group, Dies at 72

Sophia MerynJuly 29, 2019July 29, 2019

BY MEGAN SPECIA & DAVID E. SANGER | nytimes.com July 22, 2019

Yukiya Amano, a Japanese diplomat who played a central role in inspecting Iran’s compliance with the landmark 2015 nuclear deal as the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, has died, the organization announced on Monday. He was 72.

The agency, part of the United Nations, did not cite a cause of death or say when and where he died, but word had begun to spread last week that Mr. Amano had planned to step down from his position as director-general after nearly a decade because of an unspecified illness. He was two years into a third term as the agency’s leader.

His death left the agency leaderless at a critical moment: just as Iran is edging away from the nuclear agreement and beginning carefully calibrated violations of the limits on how much nuclear material it can produce, and at what level of purity.

Sophia MerynJuly 25, 2019July 25, 2019

Congress Introduces Legislation to Expand Compensation for Radiation Exposure

Scott KovacJuly 17, 2019December 17, 2024

Luján, Members of Congress Introduce Legislation to Expand Compensation for Individuals Impacted by Radiation Exposure

Washington, D.C. – Today, Congressman Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), the U.S. House Assistant Speaker, introduced legislation to expand compensation for individuals exposed to radiation while working in and living near uranium mines or downwind from nuclear weapon test sites.
Tens of thousands of individuals, including miners, transporters, and other employees who worked directly in uranium mines, along with communities located near test sites for nuclear weapons, were exposed during the mid-1900s to dangerous radiation that has left communities struggling from cancer, birth defects, and other illnesses.

Peace Activists Cut into Nuclear Weapons Base, Foiling Increased Security

Sophia MerynJuly 16, 2019February 6, 2020

International peace activists cut through new “security” fencing meant to keep nuclear weapons under control.

BÜCHEL, Germany — Calling themselves “Treaty Enforcement Action,” four peace activists (from the United States, Germany, Great Britain, and the Netherlands) cut through two perimeter fences and quickly entered the Büchel Air Base here around 4 p.m. July 10, 2019, carrying banners declaring the US and German Air Force’s planned use of nuclear weapons here makes the base a “crime scene.” While posing for photographs, the four were detained by air base security personnel, and later taken to jail in Koblenz and held overnight. All eight were released early Thursday.Continue reading

Iran’s Uranium Enrichment Breaks Nuclear Deal Limit. Here’s What That Means

Sophia MerynJuly 9, 2019December 17, 2024

An Iranian security official in protective clothing walks through a uranium conversion facility in 2005. Iran says it is now enriching uranium above the limit set in the 2015 nuclear deal. Vahid Salemi/AP — An Iranian security official in protective clothing walks through a uranium conversion facility in 2005. Iran says it is now enriching uranium above the limit set in the 2015 nuclear deal.
Vahid Salemi/AP

BY GEOFF BRUMFIEL | npr.org July 7, 2019

Iran has crossed another line set in the 2015 nuclear deal between it and major world powers.

According to state media, Iran has begun enriching uranium above levels enshrined in the agreement. The move sends a signal that Iran is losing patience with a deal that has not provided the economic relief promised, more than a year after the United States withdrew from the agreement.

By Monday, Iran had reached levels of around 4.5% enrichment, Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told the semiofficial Fars news agency. He warned that Iran could go as high as 20% in the future, though that level is “not needed now.”

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Iran has crossed the line.

Dangerous chromium plume closer to Los Alamos County well

Sophia MerynJune 25, 2019June 25, 2019

Chemical contamination more than four times the state limit was detected late last month at the edge of a plume in the aquifer roughly 1,000 feet below Los Alamos National Laboratory.

BY REBECCA MOSS | santafenewmexican.com June 21, 2019

It is the closest high-level measurement of hexavalent chromium detected near the well used to pump drinking water to Los Alamos County, roughly a third of a mile away.

“Our drinking water supply is safe, and we are vigilantly working to keep it that way,” said Tim Glasco, utilities manager for Los Alamos County.

Hexavelent chromium, an industrial chemical tied to lung and other cancers, was found pooled below Sandia and Mortandad canyons in 2005, and environmental managers have since been working to define the full scope of the contamination. It spans at least a mile long and half-mile wide, and abuts San Ildefonso Pueblo.

New Mexico land boss concerned with nuclear waste proposal

Sophia MerynJune 24, 2019June 24, 2019

BY SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN | apnews.com

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard says southeastern New Mexico, which is home to one of the world’s most prolific oil and gas basins, is not the right place for storing spent nuclear fuel.

In a letter to Holtec International, she outlined her concerns about plans to build a multibillion-dollar facility that would be capable of temporarily storing tons of high-level radioactive waste from commercial reactors around the U.S.

Nearly 2,500 oil and gas wells and other mineral developments operated by dozens of different businesses are located within a 10-mile (16-kilometer) radius of the proposed site. Garcia Richard contends that storing the waste above active oil, gas and mining operations raises serious safety concerns.

She accused the company of not addressing the potential safety issues and suggested that it hasn’t been forthcoming in its filings with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is considering whether to issue a 40-year license for the facility.

“There is no guarantee that high-level nuclear waste can be safely transported to and through New Mexico. There is no guarantee that there won’t be a hazardous interaction between the storage site and nearby oil, gas and mining activities. There is no guarantee that this site will truly be ‘interim’ and won’t become the permanent dumping ground for our nation’s nuclear waste,” she said in a statement.

Holtec International has argued that the federal government has unmet obligations to find a permanent solution for dealing with the tons of waste building up at nuclear power plants and the proposed facility is needed.

LANL cleanup costs continue piling up

Scott KovacJune 24, 2019June 24, 2019

By Rebecca Moss | rmoss@sfnewmexican.com
Jun 22, 2019 Updated Jun 22, 2019

The U.S. Department of Energy in 2016 drafted a list of 17 projects at Los Alamos National Laboratory and in the surrounding town to clean up soil and groundwater that remained contaminated decades after the Manhattan Project and Cold War nuclear weapons work.

At the time, more than $2 billion had been spent in a decade on environmental cleanup projects. The Department of Energy estimated it would cost another $1.1 billion to $1.5 billion to finish the job — and up to 25 more years.

The work is far from complete.

Jay Coghlan, director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, said cleanup costs have been “woefully underestimated,” and that an updated cost analysis is overdue.

Nuclear Waste Storage Concerns Raised By Panel Members During Santa Fe Forum

Scott KovacJune 21, 2019June 21, 2019

Participating in a panel on nucelar waste in New Mexico Wednesday in Santa Fe — Participating in a panel on nucelar waste in New Mexico Wednesday June 19, 2019 in Santa Fe were, from left, Don Hancock, Sally Rodgers, Rep. Christine Chandler and State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com

BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com

Multiple concerns were raised by panel members Wednesday June 21, 2019 during a forum on nuclear waste in the state of New Mexico hosted by the Santa Fe Democratic Party Platform and Resolutions Committee at the Center for Progress and Justice in Santa Fe.

Land Commissioner Garcia Richard said her office has direct oversight of mineral leasing at the proposed Holtec site. She made public a letter she sent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission expressing her concerns about representations made by Holtec to the NRC and New Mexicans about its control of the proposed site as well as agreements it claims to have secured from the state Land Office. She said while the Eddy-Leah County Energy Alliance LLC privately owns the surface of the proposed site, the State Land Office owns the mineral estate and that has not been disclosed by Holtec.

Government watchdog finds 3 issues disrupting US nuclear modernization efforts

Sophia MerynJune 20, 2019June 20, 2019

Sandia National Laboratories researchers perform series of tests to study fragmenting explosives. The lab is part of the NNSA. (Courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories)

BY KELSEY REICHMANN | defensenews.com June 20, 2019

WASHINGTON — The U.S. agency responsible for making explosive materials used in nuclear weapons is facing challenges that could impact the country’s planned modernization of its nuclear arsenal, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, a semiautonomous agency within the Energy Department, is facing three main challenges, according to the report: a dwindling supply of explosive materials, aging and deteriorating infrastructure, and difficulty in recruiting and training qualified staff.

This report comes amid congressional debate over the cost of modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal, an effort driven by President Donald Trump.

NNSA’s supply of materials, which are “highly specialized” with specific chemical and physical characteristics, are in low supply, the report says. Furthermore, the NNSA is lacking the knowledge base to produce the materials, as the recipes to make them were not well-documented, or the processes themselves infrequently practiced, the report notes.

Billion-dollar LANL building has plumbing problem

Scott KovacJune 3, 2019June 5, 2019

BY MARK OSWALD / JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
Saturday, June 1st, 2019 at 12:05am Copyright © 2019 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE – A building at Los Alamos National Laboratory with a price pegged at more than $1 billion apparently has some bad plumbing.

A federal safety oversight board recently reported that the operations staff at the Radiological Laboratory Utility Office Building found a leak in the building’s radioactive liquid waste system.

…

Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, a frequent LANL critic who called attention to the recent safety board report, said the plumbing problem is symptomatic of the lab’s history of safety issues, which has included using the wrong kind of cat litter as a desiccant when packing a radioactive waste drum. A reaction in the drum caused it to breach in 2014 and contaminate the nation’s nuclear waste storage facility near Carlsbad.

Read the complete article here

Federal nuclear board nixes request for hearing on New Mexico waste facility

Scott KovacMay 8, 2019January 22, 2020

ELEA/Holtec storage ground view — Artist Rendering of proposed ELEA/Holtec “storage” plan for commercial reactor spent fuel rods in southeast New Mexico

By Rebecca Moss | rmoss@sfnewmexican.com

May 7, 2019

A federal board that oversees commercial nuclear materials and licenses said Tuesday it has rejected a request by a group of opponents over a proposed nuclear waste storage site in Southern New Mexico.

Holtec International, a New Jersey-based company specializing in nuclear reactor technology, is waiting on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to approve its license for an expansive facility that could be used to hold all of the nation’s spent nuclear fuel — radioactive uranium left over from power production.

The U.S. Wanted to Hide Nukes in Arctic Ice Tunnels. The Plan Blew Up in Their Faces.

Sophia MerynMay 7, 2019June 3, 2025

A Greenlander with his dog sleigh looks at the radars at Thule Air Base in Northern Greenland in 1966. NF/AFP/Getty Images

BY VINCE HOUGHTON | time.com May 7, 2019

As far as these things go, Camp Century was a pretty good cover. It was nominally designed as an underground military research station, located about 150 miles east of the American air base at Thule, Greenland. The stated purpose of Camp Century was to improve the American defense capability in the Arctic — to develop better survival and transportation techniques, and to obtain more useful knowledge about the harsh climate and the physical properties of the region. In essence, we covered up for a super-secret operation using a kinda-secret one.

Sophia MerynApril 18, 2019April 18, 2019

2020 Democratic Candidates on the Issue of Climate Change

The New York Times sent a climate policy survey to the 18 declared candidates. They all want to stick to the Paris Agreement. Beyond that, they diverge.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand spoke at a rally for the Green New Deal at the Capitol last month.CreditCreditSarah Silbiger/The New York Times

BY LISA FRIEDMAN & MAGGIE ASTOR | nytimes.com

The nuclear option

The most divisive policy among the candidates was nuclear energy. Many climate change activists reject nuclear plants, even though they emit no carbon dioxide, because of safety concerns and a general preference for wind, solar and other purely renewable sources. And only seven candidates were unequivocally in favor of new nuclear energy development.

Mr. Sanders, who has called for a moratorium on nuclear power license renewals in the United States, rejected nuclear energy, as did Ms. Gabbard and Mr. Messam, the mayor of Miramar, Fla.

The F-35 Fighter Jet Will Cost $1.5 Trillion. It’s Time for New Priorities.

Sophia MerynApril 11, 2019April 18, 2019

An F-35 Lightning II sits on stage during the United Kingdom F-35 delivery ceremony on July 19, 2012, at Lockheed Martin Corporation in Fort Worth, Texas. TOM PENNINGTON / GETTY IMAGES

BY WILLIAM R. PITT | TRUTHOUT.ORG April 11, 2019

U.S. taxpayers are no strangers to getting saddled with monstrously expensive weapons programs at the expense of basic needs like food, shelter and education. The Pentagon paid $44 billion for 21 very fragile B-2 stealth bombers, few of which still fly in combat roles. The F-22 fighter, coming in at more than $350 million per plane, was built to combat Cold War adversaries who ceased to exist six years before the first jet rolled off the production line. The sticker price for Ronald Reagan’s harebrained “Star Wars” missile defense program stands at around $60 billion.

Until we find a better way, we will continue to spiral ever downward to dissolution.

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The One Place in the US Google Earth Stopped Mapping

Sophia MerynApril 10, 2019April 18, 2019

BY DRUV MEHROTRA & BRENDAN BYRNE | vice.com

The Tonopah Gap, which was recently, finally updated by Google. Image: Google Earth

Tonopah is a subsection of the Nellis Test and Training Range, which is jointly operated by the Department of Energy and Air Force. Since the early 1950s, the Nellis Range has been the site of extensive government aerospace and weapons testing.

The Nellis Complex contains the drone pilot HQ Creech Air Force Base, the site of extensive nuclear detonations formerly known as the Nevada Proving Grounds, and what is colloquially referred to as Area 51. The F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter, experimental unpersoned aerial vehicles, and, most recently, the delivery vehicle of the much-thunkpieced B61-12, a “steerable,” variable yield nuclear bomb, have been tested there.

Original article: vice.com

Sophia MerynApril 4, 2019April 4, 2019

Budget compilation, PR, & more on DOE/NNSA nuclear weapons budget for FY 2020 at: https://t.co/nXsWLKtAAd
• Weapons up 11.8%, cleanup down 9.8%
• NNSA plans to cut "Nonproliferation & Arms Control" by 2/3's in FY 2021
•"Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy" cut by 85.6%

— Nuclear Watch NM (@NuclearWatchNM) April 2, 2019

Sophia MerynApril 2, 2019April 4, 2019

#NMED met with stakeholders today to discuss legacy contamination in New Mexico – this is what #collaboration looks like! pic.twitter.com/rfayv6Zld7

— New Mexico Environment Department (@NMEnvDep) April 2, 2019

US underground nuclear waste dump explained

Sophia MerynMarch 25, 2019March 25, 2019

BY SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN | stripes.com March 23, 2019

WHAT IS THE WASTE ISOLATION PILOT PLANT? WIPP is the United States’ only permanent underground repository licensed to take what is known as transuranic waste, or waste generated by the nation’s nuclear weapons program that’s contaminated with radioactive elements heavier than uranium.

North Korea, One More Time

Sophia MerynMarch 20, 2019March 22, 2019

BY ROBERT ALVAREZ | washingtonspectator.org

March 18, 2019

Less than a week after the collapsed talks, reports of the restarting of a missile testing site the North Koreans had previously promised to dismantle do not bode well.

Given Bolton and Pompeo’s bellicose proclivities—and despite Trump’s assertions to the contrary—resumption of joint U.S./South Korean military exercises may still be in the cards, delivering a blow to newly kindled hopes for an end to the nearly 70-year Korean War. Alvarez reported that North Korea wanted to be recognized and treated as a nuclear weapons state with potential long-range missiles.

India, Pakistan threatened to unleash missiles at each other: sources

Sophia MerynMarch 17, 2019March 25, 2019

REUTERS FILE PHOTO: An Indian police officer fires a tear gas shell towards demonstrators, during a protest against the recent killings in Kashmir, in Srinagar May 8, 2018. REUTERS/Danish Ismail/File Photo

Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan almost went to war. “Diplomatic experts said that the latest crisis underlined the chances of misread signals and unpredictability in the ties between the nuclear-armed rivals, and the huge dangers.”

BY SANJEEV MIGLANI & DRAZEN JORGIC | reuters.com March 16, 2019

NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – The sparring between India and Pakistan last month threatened to spiral out of control and only interventions by U.S. officials, including National Security Advisor John Bolton, headed off a bigger conflict, five sources familiar with the events said.

At one stage, India threatened to fire at least six missiles at Pakistan, and Islamabad said it would respond with its own missile strikes “three times over”, according to Western diplomats and government sources in New Delhi, Islamabad and Washington.

Watch incredible restored footage of the first nuclear bomb detonation

Sophia MerynMarch 14, 2019March 14, 2019

Original Trinity Footage restoration includes removing dirt and scratches and minimizing some defects in the processing of the original negative.

On July 16, 1945, US Army detonated the first nuclear weapon in New Mexico’s Jornada del Muerto desert. Codenamed Trinity, the test was part of the Manhattan Project. Three weeks later, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From the Atom Central page about Trinity:

The bomb was detonated, producing an intense flash and a fireball that expanded to 600 meters in two seconds. The explosive power was equivalent to 18.6 kilotons of TNT. It grew to a height of more than 12 kilometers, boiling up in the shape of a mushroom. Forty seconds later, the blast of air from the bomb reached the observation bunkers, along with a long and deafening roar of sound.

youtube.com| boingboing.net

Sophia MerynMarch 8, 2019March 8, 2019

Women are at the forefront of the radical campaign for Scottish independence which seeks to break the exploitative British union and free Scotland to pursue a fairer, more just and nuclear weapon free independent nation. Women are the heart of the peace movement from the Greenham Common Peace Camp (1981 — 2000) to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

Read Tommy Sheridan’s article outlining the “giant tapestry which represents the progressive role and contribution of women everywhere to our world.”

https://sputniknews.com/