India boosting its nuclear weapons with nuke sub of 3,000 km strike range
India to get Russian nuclear attack sub in days: Report , Economic Times, 28 DEC, 2011,MOSCOW: Indian Navy is set to receive a major boost when the much-awaited Russian ‘Nerpa’ nuclear attack submarine would join its fleet “in the next few days” on a 10-year lease worth USD 920 million. …. The Akula-II class submarines are equipped with 28 nuclear-capable cruise missiles with a striking range of 3,000 km. The Indian version is reportedly expected to be armed with the 300-km Club nuclear-capable missiles. ………http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/india-to-get-russian-nuclear-attack-sub-in-days-report/articleshow/11280048.cms
Australia should rethink policy on uranium sales to India – safety and corruption risks
Australian senator slams India’s nuclear sector, Australia network news, 27 Dec 2011 An Australian Greens Senator has said India’s nuclear sector is set to become more irresponsible, and wants Australia to rethink its policy to sell uranium to the country. Senator Scott Ludlum made his comments after India announced plans to replace its independent nuclear regulator with a government-controlled body.
The decision comes just weeks after Australia announced it would begin selling uranium to India’s civilian nuclear program. Senator Ludlum told Connect Asia after Japan’s nuclear disaster in March this year, governments around the world were having second thoughts about how to regulate uranium.
“Because the technology is so unforgiving, and when things go wrong they go so seriously wrong, you need to have an exquisite safety culture to maintain this equipment,” the Western Australian Senator said.
Corruption risk The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board will be replaced with a safety authority answerable to government ministers, which Senator Ludlum said could suffer from government interference. “On a day to day basis they will actually have the ability, from the prime minister down, to direct the regulator, force it to investigate or not investigate certain kinds of activities and, I think, quite improper use of national interest tests to decide what the regulator should do.
“Not just in India, but everywhere around the world where this technology is used, you need to be completely at arms length and you need have a fiercely independent regulator to stick its nose in wherever it thinks it’s appropriate,” he said.
“The last thing you want is something that’s just a puppet of the top tiers of government and that’s what the Indian movement and Indian officials are telling us is occurring here,” the senator said. http://australianetworknews.com/stories/201112/3398569.htm?desktop
The West needs to recognise political theatre in the issue of Iran’s nuclear development
Concerns built around the fiery anti-western and anti-Israeli rhetoric of Ahmadinejad and his clerical contemporaries again seem to be purposefully ignoring the realities of political theatre,
US troops have been deployed along two of its major borders for more than a decade. Perhaps it is because, despite assisting coalition forces against the Taliban in 2001, Iran was singled out as one of the major targets of George W Bush’s infamous 2002 ‘Axis of Evil’ speech. Perhaps, with an unrivalled number of American-backed and led regime changes in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa over the past 10 years, Tehran is getting even more wary of the impact of US exceptionalism in the region. Perhaps Tehran knows that, had Saddam actually possessed nuclear weapons in 2003 there is no way in hell the US would have pulled a blitzkrieg on Baghdad.
Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear arsenal makes perfect sense from a defensive and deterrence standpoint.
Stop worrying and learn to love the Iranian bomb, The Drum, Ben Rich 28 Dec 11, Prominent figures within the Israeli and US governments are beating the war drum over the issue of Iran’s progress towards nuclearisation. Regardless of whether or not Iran will actually seek to weaponise its nuclear program, the chances of it utilising WMDs for anything more than posturing remain next to zero.
Critics of Iran’s nuclear program loudly contend that Tehran is irrational and will not operate within the accepted nuclear paradigm of modern states. This claim is at best, obtuse conjecture, and in all likelihood, purposeful disinformation.
Iranian foreign policy has traditionally been cautious, and post-revolutionary Iran has never initiated a conventional conflict. Claims that Tehran’s willingness to engage in clandestine operations demonstrate an inherent irrationality and hold little credibility when held up against the plethora of other states, many of them Western, who engage in the same activities and are still considered wholly rational. Continue reading
AREVA’s losses due to falling uranium prices, and drop in nuclear reactor sales
Tough times for French nuclear giant Areva, Daily Press, Virginia, 27 Dec 11 These are difficult days for French nuclear giant Areva. The company announced earlier this month it would shed 1,500 jobs in Germany and suspend a controversial nuclear enrichment plant project in Idaho. It is trying to offset losses this year that could exceed $2 billion, the Associated Press reported.
Areva partnered with Newport News Shipbuilding to build a $363 million plant that would manufacture nuclear power plant components. Located off Huntington Avenue in Newport News, the plant is stalled indefinitely due to a lack of new nuclear projects in the U.S.
Another pertinent detail about Areva: the company said its earnings could be hurt by the drop in new reactors being built worldwide — fallout from the nuclear disaster in Japan. The company said this will also depress the price of uranium….. http://www.dailypress.com/news/science/dead-rise-blog/dp-tough-times-for-french-nuclear-giant-areva-20111227,0,2218239.story?track=rss
Japan’s nuclear nightmare
No-man’s land attests to Japan’s nuclear nightmare NewsDay, December 27, 2011 By The Associated Press DAVID GUTTENFELDER , ERIC TALMADGE “……In the ghost towns around Fukushima Dai-ichi, vines have overtaken streets, feral cows and owner-less dogs roam the fields. Dead chickens rot in their coops.
The tens of thousands of people who once lived around the plant have fled. They are now huddling in gymnasiums, elementary school classrooms, bunking with friends, sometimes just sleeping in their cars, moving from place to place as they search for alternatives.
For those who lived on the perimeter of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, fliers used to come in the mail every so often explaining that someday this might happen. Most recipients saw them as junk mail, and threw them away without a second glance. For those who did read them, the fliers were always worded to be reassuring — suggesting that although a catastrophic nuclear accident was extremely unlikely, it could require evacuating the area.
Never was it even hinted that the evacuation could last years, or decades.
At most of the shelters, food is doled out military-style, at set times. Personal space is extremely limited, often just big enough to fit a futon and the collective snoring at night makes sleep fitful, at best. Baths are public, cramped, dark.
The total amount of radiation released from the plant is still unknown, and the impact of chronic low-dose radiation exposures in and around Fukushima is a matter of scientific debate.
Recent studies also suggest Japan continues to significantly underestimate the scale of the disaster — which could have health and safety implications far into the future.
According to a study led by Andreas Stohl the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, twice as much radioactive cesium-137 — a cancer-causing agent — was pumped into the atmosphere than Japan had announced, reaching 40 percent of the total from Chernobyl. The French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety found 30 times more cesium-137 was released into the Pacific than the plant’s owner has acknowledged.
Under a detailed roadmap, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. will remove the melted nuclear fuel, most of which is believed to have fallen to the bottom of the core or even down to the bottom of the larger, beaker-shaped containment vessel, a process that is expected to begin in 10 years. http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/no-man-s-land-attests-to-japan-s-nuclear-nightmare-1.3413018
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 