Iran Strongly Rejects Obama Interpretation of Nuclear Deal

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By Ben Shapiro 

On Tuesday, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard news agency FARS released a statement from the Foreign Ministry denouncing the version of the Iranian nuclear deal released by the Obama administration on Sunday. “What has been released by the website of the White House as a fact sheet is a one-sided interpretation of the agreed text in Geneva and some of the explanations and words in the sheet contradict the text of the Joint Plan of Action (the title of the Iran-powers deal), and this fact sheet has unfortunately been translated and released in the name of the Geneva agreement by certain media, which is not true,” said Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham.

Afkham said that the negotiations between the White House, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany were lengthy and rigorous due to disputes over wording – and she added that the deal points explanation released by the White House was inaccurate. FARS released its own version of the agreement, which matched the text released to the press over the weekend.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry did not state what in the White House explanation of the deal it found objectionable, but its opposition to the White House’s version of the deal demonstrates that Iran is already working to undermine the supposed freeze on its nuclear program.

Iran also recognizes that it now has the White House boxed in, since President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry have been so adamant in pushing the Iranian deal; reinterpreting the deal by Iran puts both Obama and Kerry in the unpalatable position of having to disown a deal that was supposedly designed to buy time to come up with further negotiation points with Iran.

Valerie Jarrett, Chicago, and the Iran Deal

breitbart

By Joel B. Pollak 

www.trevorloudon.com

Last week, the Times of Israel reported that senior presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett had been leading talks with Iran in secret for a year before the formal negotiations in Geneva this month. While the White House denied the report "100 percent," the existence of back-channel talks has been confirmed by other reporting. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that President Barack Obama had "personally overseen" the talks.

Almost anything "personally overseen" by the President Obama is likely to bear the heavy stamp of Ms. Jarrett, who is the president's closest adviser, despite a shocking track record of failure. In foreign policy, her most important mistake was her effort to dissuade the president from proceeding with the raid on Osama bin Laden. It was one of the few times that President Obama overruled her counsel--and one of his few successes.

Jarrett's involvement in Iran is cause for concern for three additional reasons--two minor and one major. One minor reason is that she was born there. That should not automatically disqualify anyone, of course, any more than being born in the Soviet Union would have disqualified an anti-Soviet dissident. But Jarrett was born in 1956 to American expatriates in the aftermath of the CIA-assisted coup that deposed Mohammad Mossadegh.

The Iranian regime remains obsessed with the Mossadegh coup as proof of America's innate evil--and for decades, some Americans have felt a sense of post-colonial guilt about it. That feeling may be particularly acute for an American born in the shadow of that event. The temptation to show contrition by acceding to Iran's goals, as a kind of restorative justice, could well shape Jarrett's involvement, and Obama's approach.

The second minor reason to worry about Jarrett's involvement in Iran is her political background. Her entrée into the world of left-wing politics in Chicago was through her father-in-law, Vernon Jarrett, a journalist with somewhat radical views. Jarrett spoke out against antisemitism in the black community, for example, but also took anti-Israel stands, accusing pro-Israel Jews of "support of genocide" in the Lebanon War, for example.

These two reasons for concern are fairly minor, because they are based on mere speculation, and would have to be balanced out by other factors, such as Ms. Jarrett's personal associations with leaders of the pro-Israel community in Chicago. But the major reason for concern about her role is simply that Jarrett has banished, and repulsed, most of the Obama administration's most competent appointees from the White House.

One of the most important departures was that of Dennis Ross, who was brought into the White House early in the Obama presidency to advise the president on the Middle East. Ross, who advocated a tough approach to Iran, is widely thought to have been marginalized by the president's inner circle. He left the White House in 2011, ostensibly because he had only promised to serve two years, but likely because he was not being utilized.

Finally, it is worth noting that Jarrett, despite her expatriate origins, has little experience in international affairs, and is said to manage Obama's policies through a domestic political lens. If she was as involved in the talks as reports suggest, that could be a major reason for the president's eagerness to sign almost any deal, even one the French rejected as too weak. In any other administration, she likely would have been ignored.

Behind the Scenes of the Geneva Accord with Iran

theinnoplex

baroness ashton and kerry

..Not only in Israel, but among Arab allies of the U.S., the belief that America is no longer a reliable partner in the Middle East is gaining momentum. After the failures of American plans in Iraq and Afghanistan, the countries of the region have reason to doubt the ability of the U.S. to guarantee a predictable outcome in the Middle East. Now it is unclear how the situation in Egypt will play out, what awaits the region in connection with the nascent revival of relations between America and Iran, how...

read more >>

World powers, Iran seek nuclear deal despite Israeli opposition

Talks between Iran and six world powers on Tehran's nuclear program entered their third day in Geneva on Friday, despite fierce opposition from Israel over negotiations that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls the ‘deal of the century’ for Iran.

Secretary of State John Kerry and counterparts from Britain, France and Germany negotiating with Iran consulted on how to resolve the obstacles at the talks, including differences on ways to reduce Tehran's ability to make atomic weapons using plutonium and enriched uranium

Keep reading on Fox News >>

Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

Follow The Money

en.wikipedia.org

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24429621

Researchers at a US lab have passed a crucial milestone on the way to their ultimate goal of achieving self-sustaining nuclear fusion.

Harnessing fusion – the process that powers the Sun – could provide an unlimited and cheap source of energy.

But to be viable, fusion power plants would have to produce more energy than they consume, which has proven elusive.

Now, a breakthrough by scientists at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) could boost hopes of scaling up fusion.

NIF, based at Livermore in California, uses 192 beams from the world’s most powerful laser to heat and compress a small pellet of hydrogen fuel to the point where nuclear fusion reactions take place.

The BBC understands that during an experiment in late September, the amount of energy released through the fusion reaction exceeded the amount of energy being absorbed by the fuel – the first time this had been achieved at any fusion facility in the world.

This is a step short of the lab’s stated goal of “ignition”, where nuclear fusion generates as much energy as the lasers supply. This is because known “inefficiencies” in different parts of the system mean not all the energy supplied through the laser is delivered to the fuel.

But the latest achievement has been described as the single most meaningful step for fusion in recent years, and demonstrates NIF is well on its way towards the coveted target of ignition and self-sustaining fusion.

For half a century, researchers have strived for controlled nuclear fusion and been disappointed. It was hoped that NIF would provide the breakthrough fusion research needed.

Wrecked Fukushima nuke plant leaking 330 tons of contaminated water a day

worldnews

By Arata Yamamoto, Producer, NBC News

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday ordered increased efforts to stop radiation-contaminated water from spilling into the Pacific Ocean from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant.

A government official told reporters Wednesday that an estimated 300 metric tons (330 tons) of contaminated water was leaking into the ocean every day from the Daiichi plant, which was devastated by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Reuters reported.

The official also said the government believed the leaks had been happening for two years.

Few people are granted access to the radioactive Fukushima exclusion zone in Japan, which remains abandoned and frozen in time on March 11, 2011 — the day a massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami caused a triple nuclear meltdown in the city. Channel 4's Alex Thomson reports.

The plant’s operators Tokyo Electric Power Company has been building an underground wall by injecting “liquid glass” into the ground in an attempt to contain the contaminated water.

TEPCO has insisted that so far the level of contamination in the ocean does not pose a risk to health.

But some of the contaminated water has made its way through parts of the underground barrier and started to rise above ground.

In response, TEPCO announced that it would begin pumping out the contaminated underground water at a rate of 100 metric tons (110 tons) a day starting this week.

The main government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, told the press that the government was considering providing financial assistance to help with the project.

The cleanup operation is expected to take more than 40 years and cost $11 billion, Reuters reported.

Feds: Nuclear waste may be leaking into soil from Hanford site

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Mark Ralston / AFP - Getty Images file

Government officials said radioactive waste might be leaking into the soil from a nuclear site in Hanford, Washington state. Governor Jay Inslee said the situation should be treated with the "utmost seriousness."

By Shannon Dininny, The Associated Press

An underground tank holding some of the worst radioactive waste at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site might be leaking into the soil.
The U.S. Energy Department said workers at Washington state's Hanford Nuclear Reservation detected higher radioactivity levels under tank AY-102 during a routine inspection Thursday.
Spokeswoman Lori Gamache said the department has notified Washington officials and is investigating the leak further. An engineering analysis team will conduct additional sampling and video inspection to determine the source of the contamination, she said.
State and federal officials have long said leaking tanks at Hanford do not pose an immediate threat to the environment or public health.
The largest waterway in the Pacific Northwest — the Columbia River — is still at least 5 miles away and the closest communities are several miles downstream.
However, if this dangerous waste escapes the tank into the soil, it raises concerns about it traveling to the groundwater and someday potentially reaching the river.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement that the situation "must be treated with the utmost seriousness."
Inslee said additional testing is expected to take several days.
"Our state experts confirm that there is no immediate public health threat. Given the relatively early detection of this potential leak, the river is not at immediate risk of contamination should it be determined that a leak has occurred outside the tank," he said.
Tom Carpenter, executive director of the Seattle-based advocacy group Hanford Challenge, said, "this is really, really bad. They are going to pollute the ground and the groundwater with some of the nastiest stuff, and they don't have a solution for it."
AY-102 is one of Hanford's 28 tanks with two walls, which were installed years ago when single-shell tanks began leaking. Some of the worst liquid in those tanks was pumped into the sturdier double-shell tanks.
The tanks are now beyond their intended life span. The Energy Department announced last year that AY-102 was leaking between its two walls, but it said then that no waste had escaped.
Two radionuclides comprise much of the radioactivity in Hanford's tanks: cesium-137 and strontium-90. Both take hundreds of years to decay, and exposure to either would increase a person's risk of developing cancer.
At the height of World War II, the federal government created Hanford in the remote sagebrush of eastern Washington as part of a hush-hush project to build the atomic bomb. The site ultimately produced plutonium for the world's first atomic blast and for one of two atomic bombs dropped on Japan, and it continued production through the Cold War.
Today, it is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, with cleanup expected to last decades. The effort — with a price tag of about $2 billion annually — has cost taxpayers $40 billion to date and is estimated will cost $115 billion more.
The most challenging task so far has been the removal of highly radioactive waste from the 177 aging, underground tanks and construction of a plant to treat that waste.
The Energy Department recently notified Washington and Oregon that it may miss two upcoming deadlines to empty some tanks and to complete a key part of the plant to handle some of the worst waste.
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz visited the site Wednesday for the first time since being confirmed by the Senate in May. He said he intends to have a new plan by the end of the summer for resolving the technical problems with the waste treatment plant.

'Gone nuclear': Iran ramps up uranium production

worldnews

Mehdi Ghasemi / ISNA via AP, file

Two technicians in Iran adjust their protective wear alongside a container of yellow cake uranium.

By Yeganeh Torbati, Reuters

Iran said on Tuesday it had started production at two uranium mines and a yellow-cake plant, declaring that Western opposition would not slow its nuclear program days after talks between Tehran and world powers failed to reach an accord.

The country opened the Saghand 1 and 2 uranium mines in the central city of Yazd, which will extract uranium from a depth of more than 1,100 feet, and the Shahid Rezaeinejad yellow-cake plant at Ardakan to mark Iran's National Nuclear Technology Day, state news agency IRNA said.

The Ardakan plant is capable of producing 66 tons of yellow cake -- raw uranium -- annually, IRNA said.

The United States and some allies suspect Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons capability, but Iran insists that its atomic program, including its enrichment of uranium, is for purely peaceful purposes. Talks between Iran and world powers held in Kazakhstan last week failed to reach a breakthrough.

"They [world powers] tried their utmost to prevent Iran from going nuclear, but Iran has gone nuclear," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech at Iran's Atomic Energy Organization on Tuesday.

"This nuclear technology and power and science has been institutionalized. … All the stages are in our control, and every day that we go forward a new horizon opens up before the Iranian nation."

Leaking at Hanford nuclear site worse than thought

usnews

Mark Ralston / AFP - Getty Images file

By M. Alex Johnson, staff writer, NBC News

The leaking of radioactive liquids at the Hanford, Wash., Nuclear Reservation is more extensive than previously reported, with six storage tanks affected, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday.

In a conference call with reporters Friday after a meeting with Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Inslee disclosed that six of the 177 tanks were leaking at the nuclear facility in Richland, in eastern Washington about 50 miles southeast of Yakima. 

Inslee said Chu told him that evaluation system of the tank levels wasn't used correctly, raising the prospect that there may be even more leaks. But he said he was told that there was no immediate threat, a point the Energy Department reiterated in a statement Friday evening.

Hanford — which houses millions of gallons of radioactive waste left over from plutonium production for nuclear weapons — is already considered one of the most contaminated sites on Earth, the U.S. government says.

Last week, the U.S. Energy Department said that only one tank was leaking at Hanford.

"We need to get to the bottom of this," Inslee said. He called the disclosure "very disturbing news" and contended that the Energy Department needed a new plan to remove liquid from tanks that can't be repaired.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and an outspoken critic of containment efforts at Hanford, toured the site this week — before Friday's announcement — and judged conditions there "an unacceptable threat to the Pacific Northwest for everybody," NBC station KING of Seattle reported.  The Associated Press quoted Tom Towslee, a Wyden spokesman, as saying the senator will be asking the Government Accountability Office to investigate Hanford's tank monitoring and maintenance program.

An estimated 1 million gallons of waste has seeped out of the underground tanks and reached groundwater that will eventually reach the Columbia River, scientists say. The U.S. plans to build a plant to turn the waste into low-level radioactive glass for safe storage, but that facility is years behind schedule for its projected opening in 2019.

In a statement Friday evening, Inslee warned that the federal budget impasse — which could lead to a "sequestration," or cuts, of $1.2 trillion in federal spending over 10 years — made the Hanford predicament even more alarming.

"Frankly, the state Department of Ecology is not convinced that current storage is adequate to meet legal and regulatory requirements," Inslee said.

"With potential sequestration and federal budget cuts looming, we need to be sure the federal government maintains its commitment and legal obligation to the cleanup of Hanford," he said. "To see Hanford workers furloughed at the exact moment we have additional leakers out there is completely unacceptable."

Graham Robertson of NBC News contributed to this report.

China World's Top Nuclear Power Generator by 2030

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Tank at Hanford nuclear site leaking radioactive liquids, Washington governor says

usnews

U.S. Department Of Energy

The disposal facility for mixed and low-level radioactive waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state is shown in an aerial image.

By Mike Baker and Shannon Dininny, The Associated Press

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- A tank that holds radioactive liquids is leaking at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, Wash. Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday, raising concerns about the integrity of other storage facilities at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

The U.S. Department of Energy said liquid levels are decreasing in one of 177 underground tanks at the nuclear reservation. Monitoring wells near the tank have not detected higher radiation levels, the agency said. Inslee said the leak could be in the range of 150 gallons to 300 gallons over the course of a year.

"I am alarmed about this on many levels," Inslee said at a Friday afternoon news conference. "This raises concerns, not only about the existing leak ... but also concerning the integrity of the other single shell tanks of this age."

The tanks hold millions of gallons of a highly radioactive stew left from decades of plutonium production for nuclear weapons.

Inslee said the state was told such problems had been dealt with years ago and were under control.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the federal government must not waiver in its commitment to clean up the highly contaminated site, Inslee told reporters.

The tank in question contains about 447,000 gallons of sludge, a mixture of solids and liquids with a mud-like consistency. The tank, built in the 1940s, is known to have leaked in the past, but was stabilized in 1995 when all liquids that could be pumped out of it were removed.

Inslee said the tank is the first to have been documented to be losing liquids since all Hanford tanks were stabilized in 2005.

At the height of World War II, the federal government created Hanford in the remote sagebrush of eastern Washington as part of a hush-hush project to build the atomic bomb. The site ultimately produced plutonium for the world's first atomic blast and for one of two atomic bombs dropped on Japan, effectively ending the war.

Plutonium production continued there through the Cold War, but today, Hanford is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site. Cleanup will cost billions of dollars and last decades.

Central to that cleanup is the removal of millions of gallons of a highly toxic, radioactive stew — enough to fill dozens of Olympic-size swimming pools — from 177 aging, underground tanks. Over time, many of those tanks have leaked, threatening the groundwater and the neighboring Columbia River, the largest waterway in the Pacific Northwest.

Construction of a $12.3 billion plant to convert the waste to a safe, stable form is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. Technical problems have slowed the project, and several workers have raised lawsuits in recent months, claiming they were retaliated against for raising concerns about the plant's design and safety.

Iran: U.N. nuke inspectors are spies

wnd

By Reza KahliliThe head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Wednesday accused the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog of leaking confidential information on Iran’s nuclear program.

Fereydoon Abbasi, in an announcement on the organization’s website, also insinuated that some inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency work for foreign intelligence agencies. He said that because the agency does not have adequate security, Iran should not provide it with sensitive information.

Abbasi said the media did not uncover any secrets on Iran’s nuclear program, but that the IAEA did leak reports to the media. Although he mentioned reports on the installation of new-generation centrifuges at Natanz, he has not yet confirmed or denied explosions at the Fordow plant.

WND reported exclusively on Jan. 24 that explosions rocked Iran’s nuclear facility at Fordow on Jan. 21 with updates on Jan. 27, 29, 30, 31, and Feb. 3 and 6. The blasts at first trapped 219 workers, including 16 North Koreans. The bodies of at least 40 people, including two North Koreans, have been recovered.

Iranian media reported Wednesday that the IAEA and the Islamic regime had failed for a second time in less than a month to agree on further inspections of Iran’s nuclear activities.

Since WND’s initial report on the explosions, all Iranian media have avoided mentioning Fordow, after initially denying the incident occurred.

As reported in a WND update, a high-ranking Iranian diplomat serving in Asia said the regime has ordered a total news blackout on the Fordow incident, referring only to statements by the White House and IAEA. A former Iranian diplomat now in Tehran verified the order and said that since the WND report, the regime’s Supreme National Security Council has met several times and issued directives to all of its branches on the Fordow incident.

Two days after WND’s initial report on Fordow, Iran notified the IAEA of its intention to install its new-generation centrifuges at Natanz and it now has informed the IAEA that the installation has already begun and that it plans to install thousands more. The regime had 2,700 of these machines, which enrich uranium at a much faster speed, at Fordow.

Al-Manar, a Lebanese TV station affiliated with the terrorist group Hezbollah, echoed a claim by the Islamic regime’s official news agency IRNA and other media that the author of the WND reports, Reza Kahlili, is a lying defector and that Hamidreza Zaker, a former Iranian intelligence officer who has provided information on the Fordow incident, is another defector notorious for lying.

In a bizarre comparison, Al-Manar said that in the run-up to the Iraq war, many publications, including The New York Times, put out false reports about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, which the Bush administration used as a pretext to war. No WMDs were ever found.

Al-Manar is under the direct supervision of the office of Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hezbollah who was placed on the U.S. terrorist list in 2004.The media organization is funded by Iran and is used as a propaganda machine against Israel and America.

Al-Manar referred to the White House statement that called the WND report not credible and said that the IAEA backed Iran’s denial of the incident. It said Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful, stating that, “U.S. officials have recently said that the assessment included in the 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, which claims that there is no evidence whatever of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, remains the consensus view of the U.S.’s 16 intelligence agencies.”

Al-Manar claimed WND’s report is a part of an Israeli campaign to spread false information on the Iranian nuclear program and that shortly after the initial WND story, the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot supported the WND report, which was echoed by the Times of London’s sources in Israeli intelligence.

“Recently and after having scored a heavy defeat in the last parliamentary elections, where he and his right-wing partner Avigdor Lieberman lost 25 percent of their seats in the Knesset, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to hide his current political weakness by shifting the public’s attention to Iran,” Al-Manar said. “In his ‘victory speech,’ he insisted that his first challenge would be preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.”

IRNA, in a report Jan. 30, called WND a “mouthpiece of the CIA” and Kahlili a CIA agent whose reporting was mere propaganda by the West before the start of renewed negotiations between Iran and the 5-plus-1 powers – the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China, plus Germany. The next round of talks is set to take place on Feb. 26 in Kazakhstan.

In what may be an ominous development, North Korea conducted another nuclear bomb test one day prior to President Obama’s State of Union Address. Iran and North Korea collaborate closely on their missile and nuclear bomb programs, and as reported in December 2010, Iranian scientists monitor North Korean tests.

With both North Korea and Iran having launched satellites into space, a sign of intercontinental ballistic missile delivery capability, a source in the Revolutionary Guards intelligence division said that with Monday’s test in North Korea of a more powerful and more militarized bomb, the two countries are much closer to clearing the last obstacle to arming their missiles with nuclear warheads.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/iran-u-n-nuke-inspectors-are-spies/#jqWv2mYVflV0yLI4.99

U.N. official: Alleged nuclear testing site was probably sanitized by Iran

By Joby Warric, 

The United Nations’ chief nuclear official urged Iran on Thursday to allow inspection of a military base where Iranian scientists are suspected of conducting secret nuclear-weapons research, although he acknowledged that any traces of illicit activity have probably been removed.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Yukiya Amano said the nuclear watchdog would try again next week to visit the Parchin military base, a sprawling complex where Iran is tho

Iran has repeatedly refused to let IAEA inspectors visit the base, on the outskirts of Tehran. Instead, in the months since the agency requested access, satellite photos have revealed what appears to be extensive cleanup work around the building where tests are alleged to have occurred.

“We are concerned that our capacity to verify would have been severely undermined,” Amano told a gathering of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. He noted Iran’s “extensive” cleanup effort at the site, which has included demolishing buildings and stripping away topsoil.

“We cannot say for sure that we would be able find something,” Amano said.

The IAEA chief made the remarks six days before a scheduled visit to Iran by IAEA inspectors to try to resolve a standoff over the country’s refusal to clear up suspicions about research projects conducted by Iranian scientists nearly a decade ago. The experiments, described in documents obtained by Western spy agencies, appear to show Iranian scientists seeking to master specific technologies used in making nuclear weapons. Iran claims the documents are forgeries and insists that the country’s nuclear program is peaceful.

In his remarks, Amano noted a “sense of urgency” in the effort to clear up questions about Iran’s nuclear past. The Obama administration said last month that Iran must fully cooperate with the IAEA’s investigation by March or face the prospect of being brought before the U.N. Security Council for further action, possibly including new sanctions.

The nuclear agency chief also acknowledged that computer hackers have made several attempts to break into the IAEA’s sensitive files in recent months. Agency officials recently disclosed an intrusion by a group that swiped data from IAEA computer networks and posted some of it on a Web site.

Amano said he could not confirm reports that the hackers were Iranians. “The group . . . has an Iranian name, but that doesn’t mean that the origin was Iranian,” he said.

San Onofre nuclear plant generator might have been tampered with, utility says

Mike Blake / Reuters

The San Onofre nuclear power plant lies along the coast between Los Angeles and San Diego.

By NBC News staff and wire reports

Security has been beefed up at the San Onofre nuclear power plant in Southern California after it was discovered that a generator there might have been tampered with, the plant operator said. The plant has been out of service since January due to a leak in a steam generator.

Southern California Edison said it discovered engine coolant in an oil system in the backup diesel generator in late October during routine monitoring. An internal probe found evidence of potential tampering, though it could not be confirmed.

The presence of coolant posed no safety risk, the company said.

The news is the latest blow to San Onofre's majority owner, which earlier this month said the cost of the prolonged outage at the damaged nuclear power plant has topped $317 million. San Onofre's Unit 2 and Unit 3 reactors have been shut down since January after operators discovered a leak in a steam generator tube in Unit 3.  More >>

Iran Nuclear Talks Fail

European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton (L) meets with Iran’s Chief Negotiator Saeed Jalili in Moscow, June 18, 2012. — Reuters Photo

Frederick W. Kagan
Director, Critical Threats Project
The threat of Iran's illicit nuclear program is mounting as another round of meetings between the P5+1 and Iran ended in failure this week. Tehran’s continued intransigence suggests that the regime will not compromise on its pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability, despite the impact of recent economic sanctions.

Iran's ongoing enrichment activities at the Natanz and Fordow facilities are increasing its enriched uranium stockpile, which is now large enough to produce fuel for five nuclear weapons after conversion to weapons-grade, and reducing the time it would need to produce bomb-grade fuel. Iran would need one month to produce 25 kilograms weapons-grade uranium at the larger Natanz enrichment facility (using its 3.5% and 20% enriched uranium stockpiles) and approximately eight months total to produce 25 kilograms weapons-grade at the smaller, buried Fordow enrichment facility (using its 20% enriched uranium stockpile). Iran has already produced enough 20% enriched uranium with which to produce the 15 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium needed to fuel a warhead designed with a high level of technical capability in 2-8 weeks. For technical notes and further information on these estimates, see “The Iranian Nuclear Program: Timelines, Data, and Estimates.”

There is no indication that Iran is prepared to verifiably dismantle its nuclear program (including ending uranium enrichment and heavy water related activities), remove nuclear material from Iran, adhere to the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, or cooperate with the IAEA’s ongoing inquiry into Iran’s weaponization work. Iranian negotiators have continued to invoke the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)--a treaty they are in standing violation of--as the basis for their supposed “right” to enrichment; the NPT does not, in fact, bestow any right to enrichment. Even the limited, short-term proposal put forth by the P5+1 aimed at curbing Iran’s 20% enriched uranium production--which would have limited impact on Iran’s ability to quickly produce weapons-grade fuel and fails to address the broader threat posed by the nuclear program--was dismissed in Moscow by Iran’s negotiator Saeed Jalili.

Are Mysterious Illnesses Linked to Fukushima?

By TheAlexJonesChannel Hundreds of Alaska Airlines flight attendants have filed a formal complaint about uniforms they suspect might be causing their skin to rash and develop lesions, and their hair to fall out. But based on the timing of the symptoms and their relation to similar symptoms in local marine life and polar bear populations, it appears as though radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster may also be a potential culprit.

The politics of nuclear power in Japan

By EconomistMagazine

Mentes retorcidas: Complaciendo a Fidel en sus delirios paternales

Es una maxima en los "socio-lismos" de cualquier signo o tendencia, apresurarse en las promociones y reconocimientos publicos cuando los funerales del capo de tutti capi estan cercanos. Solo ello explica  el título de Doctor Honoris Causa a Fidelito  "...por su destacada obra científica y social indisolublemente ligada al desarrollo del programa nuclear cubano", concretada en el desastre del unico proyecto nuclear que en mas de medio siglo emprendio para complacer los delirios de grandeza de su padre: la central electronuclear de Juragua  en Cienfuegos. 

Fidel Castro que nunca se ocupo de sus hijos, mujeres, padres, hermanos y que incluso fusilo a un primo hermano mientras le aseguraba a su tio Julio Ruz que ya estaba siendo liberado, se le reactive la mollera senil y ordena que a los dos buenos para nada  preferidos playboys -Fidelito y Tony- se les reconozcan los genes geniales  heredados de quien si no y completen el altar donde arde su egocentrismo paranoide y esquizoide y el culto absoluto a la personalidad.

Ruinas abandonadas de la CEN de Juragua

Como parte de la comitiva lame-botas designada para hacer quorum en el homenaje no a Fidelito sino a los suenos paternales del Viejo, se encontraba Homero Acosta Alvarez, designado como secretario del Consejo de Estado en el proceso de limpieza de Lage y Perez Roque, con la explicita acotacion que "el cargo de Secretario del Consejo de Estado no constituye en sí mismo una instancia con facultades de decisión en el ámbito estatal, ni desempeña protagonismo alguno en la dirección del Estado" y que su funcion era "...asistir y auxiliar al Presidente, el Primer Vicepresidente, los Vicepresidentes y demás miembros del Consejo de Estado en el cumplimiento de las atribuciones definidas a este órgano en los artículos 89, 90 y 93 de la Constitución de la República.

Entonces que cojones esta haciendo Homero en esta y otras apariciones publicas recientes?

One year after disaster at Fukushima nuclear plant, town remains frozen in time

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Iran boosts nuclear site defences, warns EU on oil

Iran deployed warplanes and missiles Monday in an "exercise" to protect nuclear sites threatened by possible Israeli attacks and warned it could cut oil exports to more EU nations unless sanctions were lifted.

The European Union said it could cope with any halt in Iranian supplies.

Tehran's stance marked a hardening of its defiance in an international standoff over its nuclear programme -- and suggested it was readying for any eventual confrontation.

The moves came the same day as officials from the UN nuclear watchdog agency arrived in Tehran for a second round of talks they said were focused on "the possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear programme."  More >>