nuclear

Ukraine on the brink of a nuclear disaster; Ukrainian saboteurs nearly caused another Fukushima

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  1. When Ukrainian terrorists blew up power lines to Crimea last month (to punish Crimeans for seceding from Ukraine), the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant was “one millimeter away from an emergency.” Nuclear reactors require grid electricity to keep reactor cores and fuel rods cool. Without it, they will overheat, explode, and meltdown, just like Fukushima.
  2. Ongoing gas and coal shortages in Ukraine and the resulting electricity blackouts threaten the nuclear power plants in Ukraine every day.
  3. Necessary preventative maintenance, including replacing worn parts at the plants, is not being done or is delayed, creating a dangerous situation.

From Fort Russ

In the coming year the world will observe a sad date, the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl explosion. Could it happen again?

Pavel SHIPILIN,

In Экспресс Газета, December 15, 2015

Translated from Russian by Tom Winter, December 25, 2015

Come January 1, Europe will start draining the last juice from the “Square.” Few gave noted the fact that cutting the power lines to de-energize Crimea nearly led to fatal consequences at the South Ukrainian nuclear power plant, which is located in the Mykolaiv region, – an accident on a Chernobyl scale. A miracle saved us all: workers at the station succeeded in a few hours to restore the electricity to the security system. [Nuclear power plants produce electricity, but they need a constant supply of it to avoid meltdown, as in Fukushima, for instance — tr.]

For nearly two years now Ukraine has been teetering on the brink of default, techno disaster, popular revolt. And every time that there is a miracle, and the dire predictions don’t come true, a cure is declared – a victory over Russia, over the elements with the unpredictable laws of nature, over the skeptics. But in the end – common sense.

Last winter was surprisingly warm. As if the one who is responsible for the top temperature, specifically decided to lull the already careless Ukrainian government. Today it is once again assuring the public: there is enough gas — unless there’s a problem.

And it may be right – if a miracle happens again. Experts also warn that if the miracles do not happen, and the temperature in the apartments can’t be maintained at least at + 14 ° C, a catastrophe is imminent. Pipes will burst; heat and electricity will go off-line. In response, experts are declared fear-mongering pessimists. After all, last year they said the same thing – they warned and frightened, backing up arguments with some tricky formulas incomprehensible to the ordinary Maidanists.

There is only one thing: for the power system go off line for decades, would need only a couple of weeks really severe frosts – lower than -15 – 20 ° C. At least at night.

Such cold weather is rare, but still it happens. This is what experts are always taking into account, because no one of them can confidently forecast, but a technological disaster in the middle of winter – is inevitably a tragedy with deadly outcomes. Therefore, the gas must be redundant and not “just enough.”

The lack of gas and coal can lead to accidents in which the entire metropolitan area will be without heat and light. Unfortunately, the amateurs in Kiev may well make a more global catastrophe whose consequences will impact not only the public, but residents of neighboring countries. We are talking about the atomic energy plant.

There are four of them in Ukraine – a total of 16 units. That is 16 potential nuclear bombs. Experts say that it’s thanks to a miracle that new Chernobyls haven’t yet happened.

Vasili Volga, Ukrainian politician and nuclear-energy specialist: “What happened when these, so to speak, “activists” brought down the power lines? Immediately the South Ukrainian nuclear power plant lost a huge amount of electricity, which the system has to have. According to the accounts of shift managers, the guys were on one millimeter away from an emergency. Only the dedicated work of the station staff prevented it.” A state of emergency was miraculously avoided. But Kiev have provided us all with new problems connected with nuclear power. As Vasily Volga spelled out, the specific operation of nuclear power plants requires precise timing of preventive maintenance. Otherwise, every time there is a risk of accidents on the scale of Chernobyl. “As for the core of the nuclear reactor and all the systems and mechanisms that serve it, we just can’t say,” You know, we do not have money just now, and you work, the way you have, and we’re putting off scheduled preventive maintenance.”

“If it clearly states that the gasket in the main centrifugal pump should be changed after a year, then it should be changed after a year.” All the systems and mechanisms that are around Ukrainian nuclear reactors, are produced either in Ukraine or in Russia. Today, due to the rupture of relations, there have been huge time lapses, when scheduled preventive maintenance at nuclear power plants has not been carried out. They know about this in Kiev, but are silent about the problem, because in order to solve it, you have to call Moscow. Or they do not realize how dangerous it is to finance nuclear power on installments.

The eternal question of our Svidomy opponents is why we are so keenly interested in Ukrainian affairs, instead of dealing with our own problems, has a simple answer: because you’re close. Because your refugees are with us. Because thanks to Maidan our trade and economic relations, which made both our countries stronger, have been disrupted. Not to mention the friendship and kinship between our people. Finally, because your problems are directly linked to our own. After all, Kiev does not pay its debts and yet asks worldwide for offensive weapons. It is understandable that systemic problems come up here and there – Ukraine has no money. However, there is one more miracle in Ukraine – for the second year it has managed to avoid a default. A fact the talking heads and the Kiev politicians proudly remind us of. Moreover, on December 8, the IMF decided that even a default can not be an obstacle to Ukraine getting more credit [!].

That is, the entire civilized world, led by the United States, has defended the winners of Maidan. Pessimists and “Moscalis” again notwithstanding. That’s where the real win lay. Let us, however, remember how many loans have been promised and how many have been issued: The European Union promised in 2015 to provide $1.8 billion., USA – $2 billion. Nearly one billion promised to other countries on a bilateral basis. From the IMF, Ukraine was to receive $10 billion. The World Bank has promised to lend $500 million for injection of gas into underground storage [just like in Los Angeles, where over 2000 residents have been evacuated due to leaking methane gas?], but recently began to doubt that this would happen.

So actually this year, Ukraine has received less than half of the promised amounts, two tranches of 6.7 billion from the IMF. Catastrophically short. All other potential lenders under one pretext or another have not fulfilled promises. No one is sure that Ukraine pays debts.

However, the decision of the International Monetary Fund to continue the lending program says that global players will not desist until that unfortunate country undresses to the skin. Kiev will receive new loans so it can pay the old ones — weights hung around the neck of future Ukrainian generations.

“Square” optimists nailed it: declaring a default is not allowed. They will kill Ukraine. The problem can be solved only if nenka* learn how to produce and sell their products, filling the budget with the taxes of successful entrepreneurs and ordinary citizens. But there are practically no prospects.

From 1 January, 2016 a free trade area (FTA) will be in full force between Ukraine and the European Union. Where previously only Ukrainian duty-free goods were sold, now, the direction of trade changes – European goods crossing the Ukrainian border also will not be surrounded by cushioning duties.

To protect its market Russia will put up a customs barrier starting next year. Therefore, in Kiev, they very much expect compensation in Brussels. And Yatsenyuk’s regime has received signals that there will be compensation. We have heard rumors that the EU will allocate $ 600 million. Not much, but at least something.

However, recently the European Union dropped its promises. “We will say frankly, already since we agreed on an FTA, it was no secret that after the introduction, the Russian Federation could act in response, whether we like it or not. And there was plenty of time to prepare for this,” said the European Commissioner Johannes Khan, cynically.

The year and a half that the FTA has been acting in one direction – from east to west, has demonstrated very feeble opportunities for the Ukrainian economy. The miracle did not happen – trade with the West simply collapsed, and was not able to compensate for the loss of the Russian market.

And it’s not working, of course – it was not for this that the Ukrainians were lured to the Association Agreement, to lose money. Come January 1, Europe will begin to receive attachments back. As is customary in the civilized world, ten times over, sucking the last juices out of the colony.

Now Johannes Hahn can afford to speak plain, without hints. In Ukraine there is no way back – just to the economic abyss a millimeter away. Or maybe it is not. ______________________________

*Ukrainian slang term for Ukraine. I’ve been getting used to it. — Tr.

http://www.fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/12/ukraine-on-brink-of-nuclear-disaster.html

U.S. will station 20 nuclear bombs in Germany against Russia

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By Eric Zuesse
Global Research, September 22, 2015

Germany’s ZDF public television network headlines on Tuesday September 22nd, “New U.S. Atomic Weapons to Be Stationed in Germany,” and reports that the U.S. will bring into Germany 20 new nuclear bombs, each being four times the destructive power of the one that was used on Hiroshima. Hans Kristensen, the Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, says, “With the new bombs the boundaries blur between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons.” 

A former Parliamentary State Secretary in Germany’s Defense Ministry, Willy Wimmer, of Chancellor Merkel’s own conservative party, the Christian Democratic Union, warns that these “new attack options against Russia” constitute “a conscious provocation of our Russian neighbors.”

German Economic News also reports on Chancellor Merkel’s decision to allow these terror-weapons against Russia:

“The Bundestag decided in 2009, expressing the will of most Germans, that the US should withdraw its nuclear weapons from Germany. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel did nothing.”

And now she okays the U.S. to increase America’s German-based nuclear arsenal against Russia.

Maria Zakharova, of the Russian Foreign Ministry, says: “This is an infringement of Articles 1 and 2 of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” which is the treaty that provides non-nuclear states the assurance that the existing nuclear powers will not try to use their nuclear status so as to take over the world.

German Economic News says:

“The federal government had demanded the exact opposite: The Bundestag decided in March 2010 by a large majority, that the federal government should ‘press for the withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from Germany.’ Even the coalition agreement between the CDU and FDP, the German government in 2009 had promised the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Büchel. But instead there will be these new bombs.”

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

The US and EU owe Iran over $100 billion in seized assets – the real reason behind stalled negotiations?

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By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Global Research, July 02, 2015

Another deadline in the nuclear negotiation between Iran and the Permanent 5 +1 (or EU3 + 3) over the restrictions on the Iranian nuclear energy program was not reached on June 30, 2015. To some it may look like the United States and its allies have had a change of heart while others may think that Washington and its allies are trying to secure more concessions from the Iranians. The US and its European Union allies, however, are clearly trying to maintain the sanctions and trying to avoid returning Iranian financial assets and funds that they have withheld due to the sanctions regime against Iran. Could this be because Iran’s frozen financial assets and funds have been illegally channeled elsewhere by the US and the EU?

The Stonewalling of a Nuclear Agreement

Since the Lausanne Agreement was reached in Switzerland, the US team negotiating with Iran has, so to speak, changed the goal posts for the nuclear negotiations. In other words, Washington has ignored the framework of the Lausanne Agreement that it made with Iran on April 2, 2015. Instead US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Obama Administration have asked for new concessions from the Iranians on things that an understanding was already reached about. These demands appear to be excuses or pretexts.

During the negotiations between the P5+1 and Iran a good and bad cop strategy has clearly been used by the US and France where either Washington has or Paris has stonewalled the negotiations. Even the split between the US Congress and the Obama Administration could be part of this two-track approach. Is the Republican Party faction in the US genuinely acting as a spoiler or does some level of establishment cooperation exist between it and the Obama Administration?

Are parallel foreign policies at work or not in the US? While the Obama Administration is engaged in a dialogue with Iran to get as much concessions from it as possible on its nuclear energy program, pressure is being exerted by the US Congress and the Republican Party, which are threatening to disrupt the nuclear negotiations and keep the sanctions regime against Iran. Regardless of what their strategy is or strategies are, the saber rattling definitely helps give an edge to the US negotiating team.

Obama Threatens to Walk Out While Sending Secret Messages

On the eve of the June 30 deadline, when the US Department of State confirmed that the negotiations with Tehran were being extended for another week, US President Barack Obama made the threat of “walking away” from the negotiating table with Iran on June 29. “I will walk away from the negotiations if in fact it’s a bad deal,” Obama told reporters during a press conference with his visiting Brazilian counterpart, Dilma Rousseff.

As a response to the fog of war that has deliberate been created around the nuclear negotiations, on the same day that Obama threatened to “walk away” from the negotiations, the Iranian parliamentarian Mehrdad Bazrpash told Fars News Agency that the US leader had sent Iran another secret letter. The letter is believed to have been delivered to the Iranian side by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi sometime during his visit to Tehran either on June 17 or 18, 2015. MP Bazrpash took the opportunity to point out that the contents of Obama’s letter where very different from the public position of Washington. The point is that Washington’s private messages to Iran are very different from what the Obama Administration is saying in public and that Washington’s public threats are meant to create the impression that it is negotiating from a position of strength.

In reality, it is the US that needs a nuclear deal with Iran. In the first place, the US only began negotiations with Iran when it saw that it had no means left to pressure Tehran. A war with Iran is too dangerous and unpredictable for the US. Moreover, it was becoming increasingly clear that the sanctions were going to crumble as the Chinese, Russians, and others began to show signs that they would normalize trade with Iran even if a nuclear agreement was not reached.

Washington needs a deal with Iran to deactivate tensions with Tehran. Deactivating or freezing tensions with Iran are important for Washington, because it will be able to focus more on Russia and China. An accommodation with Iran will allow the US and the EU to tighten sanctions on Russia. It will additionally help the European Union eventually substitute energy imports from Russia with energy imports from Iran. In this regard, one of Washington’s major objectives is to co-opt the Iranians against the Russians.

In Vienna the US Team Acted As If the US Never Signed the Lausanne Agreement

Although the nuclear negotiations for a final deal or what is called the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” were extended until July 7, 2015 under what the negotiating teams have dubbed the “Joint Plan of Action” (JPA), a major stumbling block has been the release of the immense holdings of Iranian financial assets and funds that have been frozen or seized under the justification of sanctions. Months before the June 30 deadline, US Secretary of State John Kerry told the US Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs that the Iranians had well over one hundred billion US dollars that were seized and frozen. In addition, he testified that since 2012 that the US has denied the Iranians access to two hundred billion US dollars in lost exports and funds held in restricted accounts.

The Lausanne Agreement was reached by Iran and the P5+1 on the basis of an understanding between Iran, the US, and the EU that there would be simultaneous gives-and-takes of equal substance. That means that sanctions would be dropped at the same time that Iran made nuclear concessions. Tehran has been very adamant about this point, refusing to make any concessions without having sanctions reciprocally dropped and having access to its appropriate financial assets.

During the negotiations at the Palais Coburg or Palais Saxe-Coburg Hotel in the Austrian capital of Vienna, the US government took backward steps and reversed its track. In Vienna, the US no longer recognized the terms of the Lausanne Agreement and the understanding that the US side had reached with the Iranians and committed itself to respecting. There was a return by the US team to arguing over the number of Iranian centrifuges that could be in operation, demands for restrictions on nuclear research and scientific development, demands for inspections of Iran’s military bases, and a refusal not to prolong the economic sanctions against the Iranians.

Siphoning Iran’s Money: Have Frozen Funds Been Funneled Elsewhere?

The US and the EU are no strangers to looting from others. When financial sanctions were imposed on Libya by the US and the EU, Libyan funds and the interest they accumulated were appropriated and even illegally used by these actors. In this regard there are important questions about why the US is trying to keep the sanctions on Iran or to end them in gradual phases.

Are Iranian financial assets and funds really frozen or are they also being utilized as loans or collateral? In other words, have Iran’s frozen funds been channeled elsewhere by the US and the EU to make up for their own economic problems and the economic war against Russia? Do the financial liabilities of those holding Iranian funds exceed their financial assets? More simply asked: can the countries that froze Iran’s money pay Tehran its money back or are they stalling, because they cannot return all the money that was frozen under sanctions?

The position of the US and France are excuses to avoid lifting the sanctions on Iran and to avoid returning Iranian funds. Their goal is to neutralize the Iranian nuclear energy program while keeping the sanctions and appropriating Iranian funds. This is why the frame of time for Washington’s promises to remove the sanctions have no guarantees. What the US is doing is trying to impose legal obligations on Iran without giving any guarantees on the removal of sanctions. Washington’s promises to remove the sanctions also gradually became longer, changing from six months to a year to over a year, and have had additionally conditions placed on them.

Aside from the strategic considerations and dimensions of the nuclear negotiations, it should come as no surprise if Washington is stonewalling a final agreement to help the US and the EU continue siphoning Iran’s earnings. After all the US is in the midst of an economic war and fighting to keep the US dollar’s position as the top currency of the world while the EU is experiencing economic decline. The EU, however, is in a predicament; even if it wanted to keep Iranian funds and continue the sanctions, it still needs to start large-scale trade with Iran to mitigate its economic decline and negative effects from the EU sanctions against Russia.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/is-a-nuclear-deal-with-iran-being-stalled-because-the-west-cant-pay-tehrans-money-back/5459994

Interview with Michel Chossudovsky: US/NATO playing war games on Russia’s doorstep, threatening Russia with a first-strike nuclear attack

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By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, June 28, 2015
Press TV

Press TV has conducted an interview with Michel Chossudovsky, of the Centre for Research on Globalization in Montreal, concerning NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg calling on Moscow to stop “supporting” pro-Russia forces in eastern Ukraine.
Press TV: Do you think it is in the role of NATO Secretary General to warn Russia against the situation in eastern Ukraine?

Chossudovsky: I think NATO has the ability of turning the realities upside down, because recent reports confirm that it is not Russia which is supporting the rebels but NATO and the United States which are supporting Ukraine not only with so-called nonlethal weapons but also with military advisers, training and so on. Moreover, they are now providing core support not only to the armed forces but also to the neo-Nazi National Guard. And the US Congress has debated this issue and they said yes, we will support the National Guard but we will not support the Neo-Nazi Azov battalion.

Other countries such as Canada are supporting the Azov battalion, but I should say that while the Azov battalion has been recognized as a neo-Nazi entity, the Right Sector Nazi party has an oversight and control over the entire National Guard.

In recent developments, Ukraine’s military has been bombing civilian areas including schools. There is ample evidence to that effect, and ironically NATO is accusing the separatist forces of Donbass of killing their own people, so to speak, when in fact those strikes were perpetrated by the Ukrainian armed forces.

Press TV: Basically you are saying that the US and NATO have set the grounds to ensure this grace period that there is of relative calm in eastern Ukraine is used to basically once again increase hostilities and ensure that there is no separatist movement left within eastern Ukraine. However, my question to you is what does NATO get out of it?

Chossudovsky: I think we have to look at the broader military agenda, because NATO – and when we say NATO we are saying the United States – the United States and NATO are involved in war games on Russia’s doorstep.

They have several initiatives, they are moving military hardware to Eastern Europe, and this serves as an act of provocation directed against the Russian Federation; and they accuse Russia without evidence of supporting the rebels when in fact they have their own troops right on Russia’s doorstep supporting the Ukrainian government, which is an illegitimate government.

And I think there is another element which has not been understood or even reported in the media, is that the president of Ukraine, President Poroshenko, has made the statement and it is with Ukraine Constitutional Court that the coup directed against his predecessor Yanukovych was an illegal act rather than a “transition towards democracy” n.

So within Ukraine there is there is division within the leadership. The country is in crisis situation following the imposition of the IMF’s deadly microeconomic reforms and the impoverishment of large sectors of the population. And within the armed forces there are also divisions and there is also a movement at the grassroots to refuse to fight, in other words not to join the armed forces, not to be involved in a civil war in eastern Ukraine.

Press TV: So if Russia is the big enemy here, what do you make of that? Is Russia a threat to the West – militarily or strategically speaking?

Chossudovsky: I think that Russia is not a threat and neither is China. The United States is engaged on a very dangerous path, because they have adopted the doctrine of preemptive war and they are in fact also saying that they can use nuclear weapons against Russia on a preemptive first strike basis.

Now that type of discourse is extremely dangerous, because it could ignite a World War III scenario.

First of all, they say that the new generation of nuclear weapons, namely the tactical nuclear weapons, are harmless to civilians and can be used against non-nuclear states; this is an outright lie.

And now they that they are threatening Russia with nuclear weapons, and this is very clear, the nuclear option has been debated in the US Congress.

We are at a very dangerous crossroads in our history – the unthinkable: a possible World War III scenario.

And this is no longer at the abstract level, it has been envisaged by decision makers in the Pentagon and it could unleash World War III.

Order Michel Chossudovsky’s Book directly from GR,  

Towards a World War III Scenario, TheDangers of Nuclear War,

Global Research, Montreal, 2011, also available in pdf.

WWIII Scenario

Nuclear war has become a multibillion dollar undertaking, which fills the pockets of US defense contractors. What is at stake is the outright “privatization of nuclear war”.

The Pentagon’s global military design is one of world conquest. The military deployment of US-NATO forces is occurring in several regions of the world simultaneously.

Central to an understanding of war, is the media campaign which grants it legitimacy in the eyes of public opinion. A good versus evil dichotomy prevails. The perpetrators of war are presented as the victims. Public opinion is misled.

Breaking the “big lie”, which upholds war as a humanitarian undertaking, means breaking a criminal project of global destruction, in which the quest for profit is the overriding force. This profit-driven military agenda destroys human values and transforms people into unconscious zombies.

The object of this book is to forcefully reverse the tide of war, challenge the war criminals in high office and the powerful corporate lobby groups which support them.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/06/26/417607/Russia-Ukraine-NATO-US-Europe

http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-nato-playing-war-games-on-russias-doorstep-threaten-russia-with-a-first-strike-nuclear-attack-michel-chossudovsky/5458752

Ukrainian nuclear waste is stored in open air, 120 miles from front line

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Note: the unlabeled picture of fire below is of the recent Chernobyl fire.

Posted on Global Research
From RT

Serious concerns have been raised by experts and environmentalists over the ‘shocking’ way spent nuclear fuel is being stored at Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, just 200km away from the front line in Donbass.

More than 3,000 spent nuclear fuel rods are being stored in the open air in metal casks close to the perimeter fence at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in conditions that have shocked environmentalists, The Guardian reports.

Nuclear experts say the waste should have another secondary containment structure, such as a building with a roof.

“With a war around the corner, it is shocking that the spent fuel rod containers are standing under the open sky, with just a metal gate and some security guards waltzing up and down for protection. It is unheard of when, in Germany, interim storage operators have been ordered by the court to terror-proof their casks with roofs and reinforced walls,” Patricia Lorenz, a Friends of the Earth nuclear spokeswoman who visited the plant on a fact-finding mission, told the paper.

Although the front line is for now too far away from the nuclear plant to be at any risk, the potential consequences of the conflict engulfing the power station is major worry to locals.

The memory of the Chernobyl explosion in the north of Ukraine 30 years ago, which poisoned vast tracts of land, is still fresh in many people’s minds.

“Given the current state of warfare, I cannot say what could be done to completely protect installations from attack, except to build them on Mars,” said Sergiy Bozhko , the chairman of the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine (SNRIU).

The current Zaporizhia nuclear fuel storage unit was built to a US design and did involve testing to withstand a terrorist attack.

However a dry storage container with a bomb resilient roof and contained ventilation system would offer much greater protection.

However this would be impossible to build on the current site and it would have to be constructed somewhere else nearby and then all the nuclear casks would have to be moved inside at even greater expense.

“It is obvious that if you do not have an array of dry cast [interim] [dry cask?] stores with secondary containment around it, then that will have a greater risk of release of radioactive material,” said Antony Froggatt, a senior research fellow and European nuclear specialist at Chatham House, London.

Although sources at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) told The Guardian that any request for funding for such a structure would be seriously considered. The bank has already made 300 million euros available to extend the lifespan of Ukraine’s ageing nuclear plants.

Since the conflict in Donbass has severely limited the supply of Russian gas, Ukraine’s reliance on its 15 Soviet-era reactors has increased by 10 percent; the country now gets 60 percent of its energy from nuclear power.

Nuclear energy is one area where Ukraine and Russia still cooperate, and Ukraine still depends almost entirely on Russia’s Rosatom for enriched uranium.

But in the long term Ukraine aims to diversify its nuclear fuel contract between the US company Westinghouse and European companies as well as Rosatom.

But deals with Westinghouse and the French company Areva are still sketchy and market diversification will be slow.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukrainian-nuclear-waste-stored-in-open-air-200km-from-warzone/5449617

Also:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/06/nuclear-waste-stored-in-shocking-way-120-miles-from-ukraine-front-line

Robert Parry: How the New York Times falsifies the Ukraine narrative

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Posted on Helen Caldicott Foundation, January 28, 2015

Robert Parry is one of the speakers at the Symposium: The Dynamics of Possible Nuclear Extinction on February 28 to March 1 in New York City. Here he writes about the New York Times’ false narrative of the Ukraine crisis.
————————————————————
In late February, a conference is scheduled in New York City to discuss the risk of nuclear war if computers reach the level of artificial intelligence and take decisions out of human hands. But there is already the old-fashioned danger of nuclear war, started by human miscalculation, fed by hubris and propaganda.

That possible scenario is playing out in Ukraine, where the European Union and the United States provoked a political crisis on Russia’s border in November 2013, then backed a coup d’etat in February 2014 and have presented a one-sided account of the ensuing civil war, blaming everything on Russia.

Possibly the worst purveyor of this Cold War-style propaganda has been the New York Times, which has given its readers a steady diet of biased reporting and analysis, including now accusing the Russians for a resurgence in the fighting.

One way the Times has falsified the Ukraine narrative is by dating the origins of the crisis to several months after the crisis actually began. So, the lead story in Saturday’s editions ignored the actual chronology of events and started the clock with the appearance of Russian troops in Crimea in spring 2014.

The Times article by Rick Lyman and Andrew E. Kramer said: “A shaky cease-fire has all but vanished, with rebel leaders vowing fresh attacks. Civilians are being hit by deadly mortars at bus stops. Tanks are rumbling down snowy roads in rebel-held areas with soldiers in unmarked green uniforms sitting on their turrets, waving at bystanders — a disquieting echo of the ‘little green men’ whose appearance in Crimea opened this stubborn conflict in the spring.”

In other words, the story doesn’t start in fall 2013 with the extraordinary U.S. intervention in Ukrainian political affairs – spearheaded by American neocons, such as National Endowment for Democracy president Carl Gershman, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland and Sen. John McCain – nor with the U.S.-backed coup on Feb. 22, 2014, which ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych and put one of Nuland’s chosen leaders, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, in as Prime Minister.

No, because if that history were included, Times readers might actually have a chance for a balanced understanding of this unnecessary tragedy. For propaganda purposes, it is better to start the cameras rolling only after the people of Crimea voted overwhelmingly to secede from the failed state of Ukraine and rejoin Russia.

Except the Times won’t reference the lopsided referendum or the popular will of the Crimean people. It’s better to pretend that Russian troops – the “little green men” – just invaded Crimea and conquered the place against the people’s will. The Russian troops were already in Crimea as part of an agreement with Ukraine for maintaining the Russian naval base at Sevastopol.

Which leads you to the next paragraph of the Times story: “The renewed fighting has dashed any hopes of reinvigorating a cease-fire signed in September [2014] and honored more in name than in fact since then. It has also put to rest the notion that Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, would be so staggered by the twin blows of Western sanctions and a collapse in oil prices that he would forsake the separatists in order to foster better relations with the West.”

That last point gets us to the danger of human miscalculation driven by hubris. The key error committed by the EU and compounded by the U.S. was to assume that a brazen bid to get Ukraine to repudiate its longtime relationship with Russia and to bring Ukraine into the NATO alliance would not prompt a determined Russian reaction.

Russia sees the prospect of NATO military forces and their nuclear weapons on its borders as a grave strategic threat, especially with Kiev in the hands of rabid right-wing politicians, including neo-Nazis, who regard Russia as a historic enemy. Confronted with such a danger – especially with thousands of ethnic Russians inside Ukraine being slaughtered – it was a near certainty that Russia’s leaders would not succumb meekly to Western sanctions and demands.

Yet, as long as the United States remains in thrall to the propagandistic narrative that the New York Times and other U.S. mainstream media outlets have spun, President Barack Obama will almost surely continue to ratchet up the tensions. To do otherwise would open Obama to accusations of “weakness.”

During his State of the Union address, Obama mostly presented himself as a peacemaker, but his one major deviation was when he crowed about the suffering that U.S.-organized sanctions had inflicted on Russia, whose economy, he boasted, was “in tatters.”

So, with the West swaggering and Russia facing what it considers a grave strategic threat, it’s not hard to imagine how the crisis in Ukraine could escalate into a violent clash between NATO and Russian forces with the possibility of further miscalculation bringing nuclear weapons into play.

The Actual Narrative

There’s no sign that the New York Times has any regrets about becoming a crude propaganda organ, but just in case someone is listening inside “the newspaper of record,” let’s reprise the actual narrative of the Ukraine crisis. It began not last spring, as the Times would have you believe, but rather in fall 2013 when President Yanukovych was evaluating the cost of an EU association agreement if it required an economic break with Russia.

This part of the narrative was well explained by Der Spiegel, the German newsmagazine, even though it has generally taken a harshly anti-Russian line. But, in a retrospective piece published a year after the crisis began, Der Spiegel acknowledged that EU and German leaders were guilty of miscalculations that contributed to the civil war in Ukraine, particularly by under-appreciating the enormous financial costs to Ukraine if it broke its historic ties to Russia.

In November 2013, Yanukovych learned from experts at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine that the total cost to the country’s economy from severing its business connections to Russia would be around $160 billion, 50 times the $3 billion figure that the EU had estimated, Der Spiegel reported.

The figure stunned Yanukovych, who pleaded for financial help that the EU couldn’t provide, the magazine said. Western loans would have to come from the International Monetary Fund, which was demanding painful “reforms” of Ukraine’s economy, structural changes that would make the hard lives of average Ukrainians even harder, including raising the price of natural gas by 40 percent and devaluing Ukraine’s currency, the hryvnia, by 25 percent.

With Putin offering a more generous aid package of $15 billion, Yanukovych backed out of the EU agreement but told the EU’s Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Nov. 28, 2013, that he was willing to continue negotiating. German Chancellor Angela Merkel responded with “a sentence dripping with disapproval and cool sarcasm aimed directly at the Ukrainian president. ‘I feel like I’m at a wedding where the groom has suddenly issued new, last minute stipulations,” according to Der Spiegel’s chronology of the crisis.

After the collapse of the EU deal, U.S. neocons went to work on one more “regime change” – this time in Ukraine – using the popular disappointment in western Ukraine over the failed EU agreement as a way to topple Yanukovych, the constitutionally elected president whose political base was in eastern Ukraine.

Assistant Secretary of State Nuland, a prominent neocon holdover who advised Vice President Dick Cheney, passed out cookies to anti-Yanukovych demonstrators at the Maidan Square in Kiev and reminded Ukrainian business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their “European aspirations.”

Sen. McCain, who seems to want war pretty much everywhere, joined Ukrainian rightists onstage at the Maidan urging on the protests, and Gershman’s U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy deployed its Ukrainian political/media operatives in support of the disruptions. As early as September 2013, the NED president had identified Ukraine as “the biggest prize” and an important step toward toppling Putin in Russia. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Neocons’ Ukraine-Syria-Iran Gambit.”]

By early February 2014, Nuland was telling U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt “fuck the EU” and discussing how to “glue this thing” as she handpicked who the new leaders of Ukraine would be; “Yats is the guy,” she said about Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

As violent disorders at the Maidan grew worse – with well-organized neo-Nazi militias hurling firebombs at police – the State Department and U.S. news media blamed Yanukovych. On Feb. 20, when mysterious snipers – apparently firing from positions controlled by the neo-Nazi Right Sektor – shot to death police officers and protesters, the situation spun out of control – and the American press again blamed Yanukovych.

Though Yanukovych signed a Feb. 21 agreement with three European countries accepting reduced powers and early elections, that was not enough for the coup-makers. On Feb. 22, a putsch, spearheaded by neo-Nazi militias, forced Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their lives.

Remarkably, however, when the Times pretended to review this history in a January 2015 article, the Times ignored the extraordinary evidence of a U.S.-backed coup – including the scores of NED political projects, McCain’s cheerleading and Nuland’s plotting. The Times simply informed its readers that there was no coup. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “NYT Still Pretends No Coup in Ukraine.”]

But the Times’ propaganda on Ukraine is not just wretched journalism, it is also a dangerous ingredient in what could become a nuclear confrontation, if Americans come to believe a false narrative and thus go along with more provocative actions by their political leaders who, in turn, might feel compelled to act tough because otherwise they’d be attacked as “soft.”

In other words, even without computers seizing control of man’s nuclear weapons, man himself might blunder into a nuclear Armageddon, driven not by artificial intelligence but a lack of the human kind.

http://www.helencaldicott.com/nyt-lost-ukraine-propaganda/

Are Ukraine and U.S. NATO preparing for a nuclear false flag to frame Russia?

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From Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2014/12/is-ukraine-preparing-for-nuclear-false.html

Russia’s State Advisor, Director of The Institute of Problems of Globalization, Doctor of Economics, author Mikhail Delyagin tells Anton Chelyshev on Komsomolskaya Pravda radio that Ukraine is preparing a new large-scale anti-Russian provocation. Below is the excerpt from a 40-minute interview, published on December 11, 2014/

The rest of the Russian text of the interview can be found on Delyagin’s personal website Delyagin.ru.
http://delyagin.ru/articles/83509-zadacha-amerikantcev-otorvat-rossiyu-ot-evropy.html#.VIc493VQ2Jg.facebook
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Chelyshev:

– Hello, Mikhail Gennadievich. Are we going to discuss President Putin’s adress?

Delyagin:

– The address of President Vladimir Putin to the Federal Assembly is extremely important. And, of course, it would be necessary to discuss it in the first place. Moreover, it gives us some quite certain distinct new perspectives. After Crimea I have great respect for the President. I had different stages of my assessment of the President, but after Crimea I have no doubts. But, unfortunately, as American Secretary of Defense once said -“there are more important things in the world”. Today, I hope you listened to this address and you can always read, listen to the experts. I want to talk about things and information of a unique character, unfortunately. It is of a pretty nasty character and threatens us all very much.

Chelyshev:

– What kind of information?

Delyagin:

– It is connected with geopolitics. Why did Ukrainian crisis happen, what is the fundamental reason? Why did Americans get into it so deep? The Europeans got there because of the assets, as the Germans in 1941 – to take more land, factories, power lines and other existing businesses – ports, mines. The Americans got in because in the world objectively, there are three global players: the US, China and the EU. But the European Union is independent and a player equal to America and China only in case of cooperation with Russia. Not integration, of course, but at least close and tight relationship. The destruction of EU cooperation with Russia eliminates it as an independent participant in global competition, which is what we see now. The Americans did not get into this to get Russia. With all my patriotism, 2.5 percent of global GDP at market prices, up to 3 %, almost 4 percent of global GDP in purchasing power parity, it is not something that plays a global role. The global role is affected when instead of three actors in the global competition, if you tear the European Union and Russia, only two will remain. The EU will be no more. And this was the strategic objective of the Americans, which, unfortunately, neither we nor the Europeans realized. We possibly realized, but we were focused on a local task – how to appease Yanukovych. How could we explain to him that he should take money from us, than give it to the Europeans.

As a result, Americans have achieved outstanding success. We are in a real cold war. Ukraine is in a hot civil war. The talk about some sort of a ceasefire… let’s not bring out the horrible details, but peaceful civilians are killed every day. But the problem isn’t solved. Because despite the fact that the Russian Federation did not invade Ukraine, did not get involved in the war, despite the fact that we turned ourselves into a trash can for spitting, despite the aggressiveness of the European Union, the European Union has very strong sentiments in favor of not quarreling with the Russians. The mood is the following: the Russians may be right or wrong, but they are big, and we need to trade with someone. It is cool to trade with them. If they are wrong, well, we will believe our political bosses, let us trade with them from a distance. Why break up the relationship. But Europe suffers from many ailments. It suffers from our poverty too. Because if only 40% of our tourists now travel to Europe from a year ago, this is a very severe blow to many tourist economies of Europe. And they think it’s a result of their sanctions, and not a result of our stupidity. And there is a very strong mood to restore relations with Russia, whether we’re right or wrong.

Here is what happened in Milan recently. Our delegation of businessmen in suits and ties, after difficult negotiations, not very successful, were looking for an authentic restaurant. Where local Italians eat. Found this restaurant, went inside. There is a sudden moment of silence, because the guys are in suits. Who are they? This is a local neighborhood restaurant. The guys decided to relax, asked if there is any Russian vodka by chance? They were asked: you are probably Russians? Well, Yes, we are Russians. Whispers. Vodka comes out on the house. But that’s not the point. After the whispers subsided in about five minutes the locals stood up and applauded. And chanted: “Putin! Russia!” This lasted for about five minutes. Then everyone went about their business, not to bother the Russians. But this would be unimaginable even a year ago. Or two years ago. People in Europe feel that their rulers have sold them to the Americans. What has never happened before. Well, almost never. In the 1950’s, maybe it did.

Because democracy, albeit perverted, is still preserved, this pressure seeps upward. And the task of the Americans – to finally rip Russia from Europe – is not solved. Europe does not want to switch to the American shale gas – it is more expensive and it is unstable. Europe likes Russian pipeline gas. Europe does not want to abandon Russia as a market for selling cars and wine. It doesn’t want to destroy the relationship. The brilliant affair with the Malaysian Boeing failed. Nothing came of it. Now the British can demonstrate after some time the replaced fragments of the Boeing with fragments of Buk with a factory number stuck in them. But no one will believe this anymore. Because everyone remembers how the anti-Russian hysteria had stopped, as soon as the Russian General staff began to ask questions. It just halted all of a sudden. And this was the answer to who shot down the Boeing in reality.

The sequel is coming. there will be another provocation. And what will the next provocation be? We got some information. Moreover, first the information came from former Novorossia, from Kharkov. And this information I was not very inclined to trust, because Ukraine is embraced in a mass psychosis, and it’s saturated with rumors. But then came an indirect confirmation of this information from the West. I really hope that it’s a fake. I really hope that this is hostile propaganda. But you know, better be safe than sorry. The point is: Ukrainian army goes on the offensive. Yes, it doesn’t have the strength for the offensive and the level of demoralization is monstrous. Therefore it pretends to attack. Valiant soldiers carry out a massive artillery preparation. And all the Western media, not to mention Ukrainian, shout in unison about the liberation of another 300 square meters of Donetsk airport, for example. After that a tactical nuclear warhead explodes in the zone of the offensive of the Ukrainian army. Then everyone shouts that the monstrous Russia used nuclear weapons. Conversations about changing our military doctrine are moving in that direction. The liberal intelligentsia is already hysterically screaming about it. This is that which will be extremely difficult to clean up from. That which our military is not capable of, in principle, even theoretically. And that which is quite normal for the Americans, because both times of the use of nuclear weapons in the history of mankind it was them. To use it the third time is not so difficult.

Moreover, there were reports about wonderful Estonian port Paldiski – former Baltic, there is now a large warehouse of radioactive waste from all over Estonia, may be even from across the Baltic States. Spent x-ray medical devices and so on. And there NATO, U.S. military reportedly delivered some cargo, which also radiates, but in no case is it a waste to be disposed of. Just that the stock of radioactive waste is used as a disguise for the background. Similarly, there are a few other strange stories. For example, there have been some experts from the private military companies in the beginning of the conflict. And the man (his name and last name are known) was placed in the deepest quarantine due to radiation sickness. Apparently, he died there. Former father of chemical weapons is a bit of a different story, but under Saddam Hussein, the man who created chemical weapons, went to negotiations with representatives of the European Union in the center of Kiev, and there in the center of Kiev he was assassinated. Democracy, who would pay attention? But such episodes are very disturbing. Now the scheme is as follows. Unable to explain to anyone that Malaysian Boeing was hit by damned Russian animals, damned Russian barbarians. So we will explain to everyone that the damned Russian barbarians had used nuclear weapons against defenseless Ukrainian army.

Chelyshev:

– If possible, do you have information about how this warhead would be delivered to the zone of the Ukrainian army?

Delyagin:

– No. Understand, I am not the competent authority. I just don’t know. In principle, it could be a cruise missile that will fly somewhere from afar, just on a low flight, below all of the locators. This could be a fixed delivery.

Chelyshev:

– Is the follow up script known?

Delyagin:

– It’s very simple. They all begin to shout, as we have just seen with the story of Malaysian Boeing that Putin is personally to blame. Actually no officer in the Russian Federation, no general of the Russian Federation, no last idiot in the Russian Federation can deploy a tactical nuclear weapon without the direct order from the Supreme Commander. After that all the liberal intelligentsia of the Russian Federation in unison begins to apologize to the West for the despicable criminal regime. We just went through this with the Malaysian Boeing. With all these Makareviches and others. Next – the regime is declared criminal, all relations are broken, including banking transactions. And here no European politician, at least from Germany, from France, and others, will be able to say: no, guys, they certainly did something not very good, but we will still continue to buy their gas, because it is advantageous. Because they will be shown Ukrainian children burnt with radiation disease and all that is necessary to present in such cases. And this is not Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Because then the Americans were the winners. Now we will be the losers. That’s the difference. Global media is tightly controlled by the Americans. I think that Russia Today will be banned in all Western countries and in Japan, and all countries that want to trade with the West and Japan, just on demand. It is quite possible, which seems theoretically impossible. Given the infinite cynicism of our American, as many say – “colleagues”.

Given that Mr. Obama now, if not a lame rooster, anyway lame duck in the American classification. Because he has a hostile Parliament. His power is very limited. And he needs to do something, just to survive, not to be eaten slowly and piece by piece. He has to radically change the situation. Poroshenko is in a similar situation. He tried to radically change the situation on November 1st. There almost began a large-scale frontal attack. The militia, as far as I can tell, knew about it in advance. So a preventive artillery preparation took place, and in some cases there was no one left to attack. A mini-Kursk happened. It is unpopular to talk about it here, and in the West, and in Ukraine. Everywhere for different reasons. It’s like what happened to the Georgian special forces during the war in 2008? Also no one likes to remember that. But this provocation can have terrible consequences, not just for the history of Russia, not just for Europe but for the whole humanity. I coined the phrase, I loved it and was very proud of, I kept saying that they tried to ignite a third world war in Ukraine, but it didn’t work out, because the firewood was wet. Some people who are fighting and dying there were offended. But from the perspective of a third world war it is true – the firewood is wet. It’s not an Islamic state.

But suddenly there is a prospect that it will still be able to ignite. Because it is an absolute crime. And no evidence will be left. This is not Malaysian Boeing, from which there are three tons of cargo left. And everyone walked around and took pictures. There will be nothing to photograph. And to prove that it’s not us, will be impossible. Western representatives under the guise of Russian journalists are sitting in Donetsk and intensely searching for the Russian military. Were looking during the peak of hostilities. We know these people. Top professionals and with that professionally absolutely debilitated people. They don’t take care of themselves and don’t know what to look for. They sat there during all the hot months and saw nothing. But it is not a proof for anyone. And for themselves it is not a proof. They say: we do not see anything, but we know that they are there. No one cares about the reality. They invented the myth that Russia is to blame, and they work with this myth to the fullest. And impose sanctions on the next day after Russia forces to sign a peace agreement. Violate these peace agreements, shelling cities, carrying out genocide on the eve of the winter. And Russia is to blame. This is normal.

But when this position is supported by a tactical nuclear explosion, gentlemen, we will not clear ourselves. It will be impossible to defend. Given the proportion of liberal propaganda in Russia. Given the idiotism of the liberal propaganda in Russia. Given the influence of liberal institutions in the state authorities. Given the helplessness of people who would like to live in Russia, before the liberals who work here just on a rotational basis. Sorry, this will be a catastrophic situation. And it is unlikely to happen right now, in mid-December. Because for a shock value it must happen on a Holy day. So I think that the threat exists before Christmas. The strongest threat. I may be wrong on the details. Because this is an indirect data. I didn’t hold the candle, I have no blood writings and I don’t have agents, to bring you hard evidence. And moreover, I sometimes make mistakes with dates. I thought a coup by Ukrainian Nazis will happen on the first day of the Olympics, but it happened on the last day of the Olympics. Colleagues, I made a mistake, it happens.

 

Translated by Kristina Rus for FortRuss.blogspot.com