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  • The Fight Over Fukushima’s Dirty Water

    The Fight Over Fukushima’s Dirty Water

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    The numbers were climbing on a radiation dosimeter as the minibus carried me deeper into the complex. Biohazard suits are no longer required in most parts of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant, but still, I’d been given a helmet, eyewear, an N95 mask, gloves, two pairs of socks, and rubber boots. At the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, you can never be too safe.

    The road to the plant passes abandoned houses, convenience stores, and gas stations where forests of weeds sprout in the asphalt cracks. Inside, ironic signs, posted after the disaster, warning of tsunami risk. In March 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck off Japan’s Pacific coast and flooded the plant, knocking out its emergency diesel generators and initiating the failure of cooling systems that led to a deadly triple-reactor meltdown.

    Now, looking down from a high platform, I could see a crumpled roof where a hydrogen explosion had ripped through the Unit 1 reactor the day after the tsunami hit. The eerie stillness of the place was punctuated by the rattle of heavy machinery and the cries of gulls down by the water, where an immense metal containment tank has been mangled like a dog’s chew toy. Great waves dashing against the distant breakwater shook the metal decks by the shore. Gazing out across this scene, I felt like I was standing at the vestibule of hell.

    A dozen years after the roughly 50-foot waves crashed over Fukushima Daiichi, water remains its biggest problem. The nuclear fuel left over from the meltdown has a tendency to overheat, so it must be continuously cooled with water. That water becomes radioactive in the process, and so does any groundwater and rain that happens to enter the reactor buildings; all of it must be kept away from people and the environment to prevent contamination. To that end, about 1,000 dirty-water storage vats of various sizes blanket the complex. In all, they currently store 343 million gallons, and another 26,000 gallons are added to the total every day. But the power plant, its operator claims, is running out of room.

    On August 24, that operator—the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO—began letting the water go. The radioactive wastewater is first being run through a system of chemical filters in an effort to strip it of dangerous constituents, and then flushed into the ocean and potentially local fisheries. Although this plan has official backing from the Japanese government and the International Atomic Energy Agency, many in the region—including local fishermen and their potential customers—are frightened by its implications.

    “The IAEA has said this will have a negligible impact on people and the environment,” Junichi Matsumoto, a TEPCO official in charge of water treatment, told reporters during a briefing at Daiichi during my visit in July. Only water that meets certain purity standards would be released into the ocean, he explained. The rest would be run through the filters and pumps again as needed. But no matter how many chances it gets, TEPCO’s Advanced Liquid Processing System cannot cleanse the water of tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen that is produced by nuclear-power plants even during normal operations, or of carbon-14. These lingering contaminants are a source of continuing anxiety.

    Last month, China, the biggest importer of Japanese seafood, imposed a blanket ban on fisheries’ products from Japan, and Japanese news media have reported domestic seafood chains receiving numerous harassing phone calls originating in China. The issue has exacerbated tensions between the two countries. (The Japanese public broadcaster NHK responded by reporting that each of 13 nuclear-power plants in China released more tritium in 2021 than Daiichi will release in one year.) In South Korea, the government tried to allay fears after thousands of people protested in Seoul over the water release.

    Opposition within Japan has coalesced around potential harms to local fishermen. In Fukushima, where the season for trawl fishing has just begun, workers are worried that seafood consumers in Japan and overseas will view their products as tainted and boycott them. “We have to appeal to people that they’re safe and secure, and do our best as we go forward despite falling prices and harmful rumors,” one elderly fisherman told Fukushima Broadcasting as he brought in his catch.

    Government officials are doing what they can to protect that brand. Representatives from Japan’s environmental agency and Fukushima prefecture announced last week that separate tests showed no detectable levels of tritium in local seawater after the water release began. But even if its presence were observed, many experts say the environmental risks of the release are negligible. According to the IAEA, tritium is a radiation hazard to humans only if ingested in large quantities. Jukka Lehto, a professor emeritus of radiochemistry at the University of Helsinki, co-authored a detailed study of TEPCO’s purification system that found it works efficiently to remove certain radionuclides. (Lehto’s earlier research played a role in the development of the system.) Tritium is “not completely harmless,” he told me, but the threat is “very minor.” The release of purified wastewater into the sea will not, practically speaking, “cause any radiological problem to any living organism.” As for carbon-14, the Japanese government says its concentration in even the untreated wastewater is, at most, just one-tenth the country’s regulatory standards.

    From 1976: Richard Rhodes on the benefits, costs, and risks of nuclear energy

    Opponents point to other potential problems. Greenpeace Japan says the biological impacts of releasing different radionuclides into the water, including strontium-90 and iodine-129, have been ignored. (When asked about these radionuclides, a spokesperson for the utility told me that the dirty water is “treated with cesium/strontium-filtering equipment to remove most of the contamination” and then subsequently processed to remove “most of the remaining nuclides except for tritium.”) Last December, the Virginia-based National Association of Marine Laboratories put out a position paper arguing that neither TEPCO nor the Japanese government has provided “adequate and accurate scientific data” to demonstrate the project’s safety, and alleged that there are “flaws in sampling protocols, statistical design, sample analyses, and assumptions.” (TEPCO did not respond to a request for comment on these claims.)

    If, as these groups worry, the water from Fukushima does end up contaminating the ocean, scientific proof could be hard to find. In 2019, for example, scientists reported the results of a study that had begun eight years earlier, to monitor water near San Diego for iodine-129 released by the Fukushima meltdown. None was found, in spite of expectations based on ocean currents. When the scientists checked elsewhere on the West Coast, they found high levels of iodine-129 in the Columbia River in Washington—but Fukushima was not to blame. The source of that contamination was the nearby site where plutonium had been produced for the nuclear bomb that the U.S. dropped on Nagasaki.

    Concerns about the safety of the water release persist in part because of TEPCO’s history of wavering transparency. In 2016, for instance, a commission tasked with investigating the utility’s actions during the 2011 disaster found that its leader at the time told staff not to use the term core meltdown. Even now, the company has put out analyses of the contents of only three-fifths of the dirty-water storage tanks on-site, Ken Buesseler, the director of the Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, told me earlier this summer. Japan’s environmental ministry maintains that 62 radionuclides other than tritium can be sufficiently removed from the wastewater using TEPCO’s filtration system, but Buesseler believes that not enough is known about the levels of those contaminants in all of the tanks to make this claim. Instead of flushing the water now, he said, it should first be completely analyzed, and then alternatives to dumping, such as longer on-site storage or using the water to make concrete for tsunami barriers, should be considered.

    It looks like that radioactive ship has sailed, however. The release that began in August is expected to continue for as long as the plant decommissioning lasts, which means that contaminated water will continue to flow out to the Pacific Ocean at least until the 2050s. In this case, the argument over relative risks—and whether Fukushima’s dirty water will ever be made clean enough for dumping to proceed—has already been decided. But parallel, and unresolved, debates attend to nuclear power on the whole. Leaving aside the wisdom of building nuclear reactors in an archipelago prone to earthquakes and tsunami, plants such as Daiichi provide cleaner energy than fossil-fuel facilities, and proponents say they’re vital to the process of decarbonizing the economy.

    Some 60 nuclear reactors are under construction around the world and will join the hundreds of others that now deliver about 10 percent of global electricity, according to the World Nuclear Association. Meltdowns like the one that happened in Fukushima in 2011, or at Chernobyl in 1986, are very rare. The WNA says that these are the only major accidents to have occurred in 18,500 cumulative reactor-years of commercial operations, and that reactor design is always improving. But the possibility of disaster, remote as it may be in any given year, is ever-present. For instance, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station, Europe’s largest, has been threatened by military strikes and loss of electricity during the war in Ukraine, increasing the chances of meltdown. It took just 25 years for an accident at the scale of Chernobyl’s to be repeated.

    Read: Reckoning with the legacy of the nuclear reactor, 75 years later

    “We are faced with a difficult choice, either to continue using nuclear power while accepting that a major accident is likely to occur somewhere every 20 or 30 years, or to forgo its possible role in helping slow climate change that will make large swaths of the globe uninhabitable in coming decades,” says Azby Brown, the lead researcher at Safecast, a nonprofit environmental-monitoring group that began tracking radiation from Fukushima in 2011.

    The Fukushima water release underscores the fact that the risks associated with nuclear energy are never zero and that dealing with nuclear waste is a dangerous, long-term undertaking where mistakes can be extremely costly. TEPCO and the Japanese government made a difficult, unpopular decision to flush the water. In the next few decades, they will have to show that it was the right thing to do.

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    Tim Hornyak

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  • Biden’s pick for ambassador to Israel defends record on Iran | CNN Politics

    Biden’s pick for ambassador to Israel defends record on Iran | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden’s pick for ambassador to Israel, former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, defended his record related to the Iran nuclear deal during his confirmation hearing Wednesday and made clear that he believes the US is dealing with “an evil, malign government that funds its evil and malign activities first.”

    Lew was grilled by Republican members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, particularly over questions related to his role in lifting sanctions against Iran as part of the 2015 nuclear deal. He was also pressed on whether the Biden administration can prevent Tehran from using funds returned by the US with the lifting of additional sanctions for malign activities.

    Lew played a key role in the original Iranian nuclear deal in 2015, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fiercely opposed, saying it gives Iran a clear path to an atomic arsenal. Former President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018, a move that was supported by Israel.

    Iran “is not a rational economic player” and will continue to prioritize funding its malign activities over providing humanitarian support for its own people – regardless of sanctions imposed by the US, Lew told lawmakers.

    “It’s not a pure economic question. It’s a question of who are we dealing with,” Lew told Senate lawmakers when asked if there is any way for the Biden administration to guarantee Iran will only use additional funds returned with the lifting of sanctions only for humanitarian purposes.

    “It’s not a tradeoff between guns and butter. Guns come first,” he said. “You are dealing with an evil, malign government that funds its evil and malign activities first.”

    Lew also said that the vast majority of money returned to Iran with the lifting of sanctions is used for humanitarian purposes and any misappropriated funds “won’t change the thrust of what they do.”

    “When Iran gets access to food and medicine for its people, that’s food and medicine it otherwise would not have. I can’t say that there’s no leakage,” Lew added.

    “To the extent that there’s leakage, it won’t change the thrust of what they do. Sadly, supporting terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah – that’s not very expensive. … Under maximum pressure, (Iran) still was doing their malign activities,” Lew said.

    Lew also said Wednesday he is “proud” of Biden for “taking the stand that he’s been taking” following the hospital blast in Gaza, referring to the president’s recent comments asserting he believes Israel was not behind the explosion as Hamas initially claimed.

    “I’m proud to see President Biden taking the stand that he’s been taking. And even this morning, when I heard his comments on the horrible bombing of a hospital in Gaza, you know, he was not giving into disinformation. He was shooting straight in the fog of the moment. You don’t have perfect information. And he said, from everything he sees, it was not Israel that did it.”

    Prior to Wednesday’s hearing, some Republicans were already signaling that they may slow down consideration of Lew’s nomination on the Senate floor.

    Several top GOP senators have expressed their concerns over Lew’s involvement in the Iran nuclear deal during the Obama administration, arguing that although it’s important to confirm a new ambassador as quickly as possible, given the conflict in the region, he may not be the right man for the job.

    Sen. Marco Rubio, a senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo, “I think we should have an ambassador in every country, it has to be the right person. In the case of Mr. Lew, I have real concerns that he has misled and lied to Congress in the past, in terms of some of the financial arrangements that were made under the Obama Administration.”

    Another Republican on the panel, Sen. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, told CNN, “We have to have his hearing, but I have some very serious concerns about him and his involvement with the Iran nuclear deal, a deal that in my opinion is giving nuclear weapons to Iran, facilitating that. So, we’ll have to see what he says in there and take it from there.”

    While Lew only needs 51 votes to be confirmed, assuming his nomination is advanced by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, any one senator can slow the process down on the Senate floor. Senate Minority Whip John Thune, the no. 2 Republican in the Senate, told CNN’s Manu Raju on Monday there is “a lot of resistance” to Lew’s nomination.

    Another top Republican in leadership, Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, told CNN on Tuesday that he believes one of his colleagues may place a hold to delay Lew’s confirmation. “I would expect so,” he said, though he would not say who he thinks would take that step.

    Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican who has attacked Lew as an “Iran sympathizer who has no business being our ambassador,” indicated on Tuesday that he may block a speedy confirmation of Lew.

    “Certainly Jack Lew will have to go through all the procedural steps that we go through for any random district judge or assistant administrator of the EPA,” he said. When asked if they would have unanimous consent to skip some of those steps, as the Senate often does, Cotton replied, “We’re not going to skip those for a soft-on-Iran ambassadorial nominee to Israel in the middle of a war with Iran’s proxies in Israel.”

    Senate Democrats have pushed back, saying that Lew is qualified and that confirming a new ambassador to Israel should be one of their highest priorities.

    Senate Foreign Relations Chair Ben Cardin told reporters on Tuesday, “He’s highly qualified, he’s the right person for the right job, but we want to be most effective as possible in helping Israel to deal with the hostages, to deal with the humanitarian needs, to deal with normalization.”

    The Maryland Democrat added, “We need a confirmed ambassador in Israel as soon as possible.”

    However, Republicans remain unconvinced. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a member of Senate GOP leadership, said that he is also “very troubled by some of what Sen. Cotton addressed in terms of his appeasement, and, frankly, the appeasement approach of the Biden administration and the Obama administration. Iran is still the number one state sponsor of terrorism.”

    He continued, “Proxies, like Hezbollah and Hamas are determined to wipe Israel off the map. And they’ve pretty much circumvented sanctions, which were supposed to have been imposed by the Treasury Department under Jack Lew, and selling oil on the open market and relieving some of the pressure that was there to get them to stop their nuclear program.”

    Iran is the main backer of terror groups Hamas, based in Gaza, and Hezbollah, based in Southern Lebanon.

    Cotton argued that rejecting Lew will send a powerful signal.

    “I know Democrats are saying that we need to confirm Jack Lew quickly to show our support for Israel. I would say it’s the exact opposite. We need to defeat Jack Lew’s nomination to show that we have a new approach to Iran,” he said in an interview on Fox News.

    In a post on X, Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri agreed.

    “As Obama’s Treasury Secretary Jack Lew was a key figure in the disastrous Iran Nuclear Deal. Iran is the chief sponsor of Hamas. Jack Lew has no business being the US Ambassador to Israel,” Schmitt wrote.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • IAEA chief ‘completely convinced’ it’s safe to release treated Fukushima nuclear wastewater | CNN

    IAEA chief ‘completely convinced’ it’s safe to release treated Fukushima nuclear wastewater | CNN

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    Tokyo
    CNN
     — 

    Japan’s plan to release treated radioactive water into the ocean is safe and there is no better option to deal with the massive buildup of wastewater collected since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog told CNN.

    Japan will release the wastewater sometime this summer, a controversial move 12 years after the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown. Japanese authorities and the IAEA have insisted the plan follows international safety standards – the water will first be treated to remove the most harmful pollutants, and be released gradually over many years in highly diluted quantities.

    But public anxiety remains high, including in nearby countries like South Korea, China and the Pacific Islands, which have voiced concern about potential harm to the environment or people’s health. On Friday, Chinese customs officials announced they would ban food imports from ten Japanese prefectures including Fukushima, and strengthen inspections to monitor for “radioactive substances, to ensure the safety of Japanese food imports to China.”

    Speaking in an interview during a visit to Tokyo Friday, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said that while fears over the plan reflect a “very logical sense of uncertainty” that must be taken seriously, he is “completely convinced of the sound basis of our conclusions.”

    “We have been looking at this basic policy for more than two years. We have been assessing it against … the most stringent standards that exist,” he said. “And we are quite certain of what we are saying, and the scheme we have proposed.”

    Grossi told CNN he had met with Japanese fishing groups, local mayors and other communities affected by the 2011 disaster – and whose livelihoods may be hurt by the release – to listen to those concerns.

    “My disposition … is one of listening, and explaining in a way that addresses all these concerns they have,” he said.

    “When one visits Fukushima, it is quite impressive, I will even say ominous, to look at all these tanks, more than a million tons of water that contains radionuclides – imagining that this is going to be discharged into the ocean. So all sorts of fears kick in, and one has to take them seriously, to address and to explain.

    “This is why I’m here, to listen to all those who in good faith have questions and criticism and question marks, and to address them.”

    On Tuesday, Grossi formally presented the IAEA’s safety review to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The report found the wastewater release plan will have a “negligible” impact on people and the environment, adding that it was an “independent and transparent review,” not a recommendation or endorsement.

    exp iaea fukushima lyman intvw 070512ASEG3 cnni world_00035521.png

    IAEA approves plan for Fukushima’s wastewater

    Japanese authorities have said the release is necessary because they are running out of room to contain the contaminated water – and the move will allow the full decommissioning of the Fukushima plant.

    The 2011 disaster caused the plant’s reactor cores to overheat and contaminate water within the facility with highly radioactive material. Since then, new water has been pumped in to cool fuel debris in the reactors. At the same time, ground and rainwater have leaked in, creating more radioactive wastewater that now needs to be stored and treated.

    That wastewater now measures 1.32 million metric tons – enough to fill more than 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

    Japan has previously said there were “no other options” as space runs out – a sentiment Grossi echoed on Friday. When asked whether there were better alternatives to dispose of the wastewater, the IAEA chief answered succinctly: “No.”

    It’s not that there are no other methods, he added – Japan had considered five total options, including hydrogen release, underground burial and vapor release, which would have seen wastewater boiled and released into the atmosphere.

    But several of these options are “considered industrially immature,” said Grossi. For instance, vapor release can be more difficult to control due to environmental factors like wind and rain, which could bring the waste back to earth, he said. That left a controlled release of water into the sea – which, Japanese officials and some scientists point out, is frequently done at nuclear plants around the world, including those in the United States.

    The IAEA will also remain on site for years to come, with a new permanent office set up in Fukushima to help monitor progress.

    “We have the benefit of science,” Grossi said. “Either you have a certain radionuclide in a water sample or you don’t have it … it’s a measurable thing. We have the science, we have the laboratories … to ensure the credibility and the transparency of the process.”

    Japan fukushima 12 years later reactors stewart pkg contd intl hnk vpx_00023612.png

    CNN goes inside the Fukushima nuclear plant where wastewater is being treated

    But some critics have cast doubt on the IAEA’s findings, with China recently arguing that the group’s assessment “is not proof of the legality and legitimacy” of the wastewater release.

    Many countries have openly opposed the plan; Chinese officials have warned that it could cause “unpredictable harm,” and accused Japan of treating the ocean as a “sewer.” The Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum, an inter-governmental group of Pacific island nations that includes Australia and New Zealand, also published an op-ed in January voicing “grave concerns,” saying more data was needed.

    And in South Korea, residents have taken to the streets to protest the plan. Many shoppers have stockpiled salt and seafood for fear these products will be contaminated once the wastewater is released – even though Seoul has already banned imports of seafood and food items from the Fukushima region.

    IAEA chief Rafael Grossi during an inspection in Fukushima, Japan, on July 5, 2023.

    International scientists have also expressed concern to CNN that there is insufficient evidence of long-term safety, arguing that the release could cause tritium – a radioactive hydrogen isotope that cannot be removed from the wastewater – to gradually build up in marine ecosystems and food chains, a process called bioaccumulation.

    While Grossi said he takes these objections seriously, he added that he “cannot exclude” the possibility some are driven more by politics than science.

    “We understand that there is a political environment … which is tense. Geopolitical divisions are very, very strong these days so we cannot exclude these things,” he said.

    Grossi also denied media reports that the IAEA had shared a draft of its final report with the Japanese government ahead of its publication. “It’s absurd,” he said. “This is the DNA of the IAEA – to be the nuclear watchdog for nuclear operations, the nuclear watchdog for nuclear safety and security. When we come to a conclusion, it is our independent conclusion.”

    And more broadly, the future of nuclear as an alternative energy source relies on the success of the Fukushima release, he said. Though there has been heightened public alarm toward nuclear plants recently – for instance, regarding the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant in Ukraine – “the problem there is war, the problem is not nuclear energy,” Grossi said.

    “If there was one lesson that came clearly after the Fukushima accident, it’s that the nuclear safety standards should be observed to the letter,” he added. “If you do that, the probability of having what happened in Fukushima is extremely low.”

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  • US aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan to make port call in Vietnam

    US aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan to make port call in Vietnam

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    Nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan is only the third US aircraft carrier to visit Vietnam since the war ended in 1975.

    The US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan is due to stop in Central Vietnam’s port city of Danang in a rare visit by a United States warship to a once wartime enemy.

    The aircraft carrier will arrive on Sunday afternoon and stay at Danang until June 30, local media reported a spokesperson for Vietnam’s foreign affairs ministry as saying on Friday.

    The visit is only the third by a US aircraft carrier in the 48 years since the withdrawal of American forces and the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.

    The scheduled arrival of the Ronald Reagan comes as Washington is seeking to upgrade relations with Vietnam and against a backdrop of increased tension in which Hanoi has had frequent disputes with its larger neighbour over maritime border boundaries in the South China Sea.

     

    On Thursday and Friday, Chinese-language social media was awash with rumours that a Chinese air force H-6K bomber plane flying at low altitude on June 18 had been able to approach the USS Ronald Reagan undetected and lock on to the vessel with its weapons radar before flying off.

    No evidence of such an event accompanied the social media reports, though several did reference a report on Monday by China’s State-run Global Times news organisation which reported Chinese H-6K bombers were carrying out “nighttime sorties encircling the island of Taiwan”.

    In addition to “encircling the island of Taiwan at night”, the bomber group had also carried out “far sea exercises over the Pacific Ocean” as well as “combat patrols in the South China Sea”, Global Times reported.

    According to the US Naval Institute, the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group, which comprises several ships operating in formation, is currently in the South China Sea.

    China claims almost the entirety of the South China Sea, including the exclusive economic zones of Vietnam and other countries in the region. US aircraft carriers that frequently cross the energy-rich sea are often shadowed by Chinese vessels.

    Last month, the US accused a Chinese fighter jet of performing an “unnecessarily aggressive” manoeuvre against one of its aircraft during a flight over the South China Sea.

    The US Indo-Pacific Command — the armed forces branch overseeing the region — said its aircraft was flying in international airspace when it was intercepted by the Chinese J-16 fighter jet.

    The Chinese pilot “flew directly in front of the nose of the RC-135, forcing the US aircraft to fly through its wake turbulence”, the US military said in a statement.

    All countries in the region should use international airspace in accordance with international law, the statement added.

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  • Ukraine accuses Russia of ‘ecocide’ as critical dam near Kherson destroyed sparking evacuations | CNN

    Ukraine accuses Russia of ‘ecocide’ as critical dam near Kherson destroyed sparking evacuations | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A major dam in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine was destroyed early Tuesday, prompting mass evacuations and fears for large-scale devastation as Ukraine accused Moscow’s forces of committing an act of “ecocide.”

    Residents downstream from the Nova Kakhova dam on the Dnipro River in Kherson were told to “do everything you can to save your life,” according to the head of Ukraine’s Kherson region military administration, as video showed a deluge of water gushing from a huge breach in the dam.

    Two videos posted to social media and geolocated by CNN showed the destroyed dam wall and fast-moving torrents of water flowing out into the river. Multiple buildings at the entrance to the dam were also heavily damaged.

    The critical Nova Kakhova dam spans the Dnipro River, a major waterway running through southeastern Ukraine and there are multiple towns and cities downstream, including Kherson, a city of some 300,000 people before Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor.

    Ukraine’s Operational Command South on Tuesday confirmed the dam’s destruction in a post on its official Facebook page, saying they were assessing the scale of the damage and calculating likely areas of flooding.

    Following the dam breach, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said its destruction “only confirms for the whole world” that Russian forces “must be expelled from every corner of Ukrainian land.”

    He also convened an emergency meeting of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

    Other senior Ukrainian officials blamed Russia.

    “This is ecocide,” Andriy Yermak, the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said of the dam’s destruction.

    “The Russians will be responsible for the possible deprivation of drinking water for people in the south of Kherson region and in Crimea, the possible destruction of some settlements and the biosphere,” he added.

    In a video statement posted on Telegram, Oleksandr Prokudin, the Ukraine-appointed head of the Kherson region military administration, said the water “will reach critical level in five hours.”

    “The Russian Army has committed another act of terror. It has blown up Kakhovka Hydro Power Plant… Evacuation in the area of danger has started,” he said.

    Prokudin said evacuations in the “area of danger” around the dam had started and asked citizens to “collect your documents and most needed belongings and wait for evacuation buses.”

    “I ask you to do everything you can to save your life. Leave the dangerous areas immediately,” he added.

    Units of Ukraine’s National Police and the state emergency service of the Kherson region have been put on alert to warn and evacuate civilians from potential flood zones, Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs said.

    Those zones are on the west bank of the Dnipro River, including “the villages of Mykolaivka, Olhivka, Liovo, Tiahynka, Poniativka, Ivanivka, Tokarivka, Poniativka, Prydniprovske, Sadove, and part of the city of Kherson – Korabel Island,” the ministry said.

    With the water level rising, authorities urged everyone in the flood zone to turn off all electrical appliances, take documents and essentials, take care of loved ones and pets, and follow the instructions of rescuers and police.

    The Russian-installed mayor of Nova Kakhovka, Vladimir Leontiev, initially on Tuesday denied information about the dam collapsing in an interview with Russian state media RIA Novosti, calling it “nonsense.”

    He later confirmed the destruction of parts of the dam in what he called “a serious terrorist act” but said there was “no need to evacuate.”

    “Overnight strikes on the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant destroyed gate valves, causing water to be spilled downstream uncontrollably,” Leontyev said.

    CNN was not immediately able to verify the claims made by Ukrainian and Russian officials attributing blame.

    Throughout the course of the war in Ukraine both Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of plotting to blow up the Soviet-era dam.

    The escaping torrent of water has the potential to cause major destruction around Kherson city and other populated areas along the Dnipro River, according to analysts who have been fearing a breach could occur in the fighting.

    And President Zelensky had previously warned that a breach of the dam could have catastrophic consequences for those living downstream.

    “Destroying the dam would mean a large-scale disaster,” he said in October last year.

    However, a Russian-installed Kherson official Andrey Alekseenko said the situation along the areas of the banks of Dnipro was “under control.”

    “There is no threat to people’s lives,” Alekseenko said, adding that Ministry of Emergency Situation staff are in control of water levels in the river.

    “If necessary, we are ready to evacuate the residents of embankment villages, buses are prepared,” Alekseenko added.

    The dam is a critical piece of infrastructure, holding around 18 cubic kilometers in the Kakhovka Reservoir, about equal to the Great Salt Lake in the US state of Utah, according to Reuters news agency.

    The 30-meter-high, 3.2-kilometer (2 miles)-long structure is one of six dams along the Dnipro and supplies water for much of southeastern Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula which was annexed by Russia in 2014.

    It also supplies water for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which lies upstream and is also under Russian control.

    On Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern command said the dam’s destruction will “certainly” affect the operation of the nuclear power plant but there was “no need to escalate the situation now and draw the most critical conclusions.”

    “Because all experts are involved and will try to create better conditions to avoid the next technogenic catastrophe,” said Natalia Humeniuk, adding that “the situation is currently under control.”

    And the International Atomic Energy agency said “no immediate nuclear safety risk” exists at the Zaporizhzhia plant and their experts are “closely monitoring the situation.”

    In November, the Nova Kakhovka dam was damaged in shelling and satellite images from Maxar Technologies obtained by CNN showed water flowing out of three sluice gates at the dam.

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  • Ukraine claims Russia planning ‘massive’ incident at nuclear site

    Ukraine claims Russia planning ‘massive’ incident at nuclear site

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    Ukraine’s defence ministry has warned that Russia plans to simulate a major accident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, which is under the control of Russian forces, in a bid to thwart the expected counteroffensive by Ukraine to retake its territory captured by Moscow.

    The Zaporizhzhia plant, which lies in an area of Russian-occupied southern Ukraine, is Europe’s biggest nuclear power station and the area has been repeatedly hit by shelling with both sides blaming each other for the dangerous attacks.

    Ahead of Ukraine’s expected counteroffensive, fears have increased that a nuclear disaster could occur amid rising military activity around Zaporizhzhia.

    “Russians are preparing massive provocation and imitation of the accident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in the nearest hours,” the Ukrainian defence ministry’s intelligence directorate said on Friday.

    “They are planning to attack the territory of the ZNPP [Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant]. After that, they will announce the leakage of the radioactive substances,” the intelligence directorate said in a statement and later on social media channels.

    Reports of radioactive material leaking from the plant would cause a global incident and force an investigation by international authorities, during which all hostilities would be stopped, the directorate said. Russia would then use that pause in fighting to regroup its forces and better prepare to stop the Ukrainian counteroffensive, the intelligence service said.

    “They obviously will blame Ukraine,” the directorate said, adding that the attack’s aim would be to “provoke the international community” into investigating the incident and forcing a pause in fighting.

     

    Experts say that reports of a radiation leak at the plant would be followed by immediate evacuations, which could be extremely complex in a war zone. According to experts, for many people, the fear of being contaminated by radiation could also be more dangerous than the radiation itself.

    Last week, witnesses said Russian military forces were enhancing defensive positions in and around the nuclear power plant ahead of Ukraine’s much-anticipated counteroffensive.

    In preparation for the planned radioactive incident, Russia had disrupted the scheduled rotation of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who are based at the plant, Ukraine’s intelligence directorate said.

    The report of a planned incident at Zaporizhzhia was repeated in a tweet by Ukraine’s representative to the United Nations in New York, Sergiy Kyslytsya, who said the events could unfold “in the coming hours”.

    The directorate statement did not provide any proof to support its claims and the Vienna-based IAEA, which frequently posts updates on the situation at the power plant, has made no mention of any disruption to its timetable.

    Kyiv and Moscow have repeatedly accused each other of attacking the plant.

    In February, Russia said Ukraine was planning to stage a nuclear incident on its territory and pin the blame on Moscow.

    Moscow has also repeatedly accused Kyiv of planning “false-flag” operations with non-conventional weapons, using biological or radioactive materials.

    No such attacks have taken place so far.

    The IAEA’s Director General Rafael Grossi will brief the UN Security Council next week on the security situation at Zaporizhzhia and his plan for safeguards at the site. Grossi, who last visited the plant in March, has upped his efforts to reach an agreement with Ukraine and Russia to ensure the plant’s protection during the fighting.

    In a statement last week, Grossi said: “It is very simple: don’t shoot at the plant and don’t use the plant as a military base”.

    “It should be in the interest of everyone to agree on a set of principles to protect the plant during the conflict,” he added.

    Zaporizhzhia once supplied approximately 20 percent of Ukraine’s electricity and continued to function in the early months of Russia’s invasion, despite frequent shelling, before halting power production entirely in September.

    None of Ukraine’s six Soviet-era reactors has since generated electricity but the Zaporizhzhia facility remains connected to the Ukrainian power grid for its own needs, notably to cool the plant’s nuclear reactors.

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  • US bombs unlikely to reach underground Iran nuclear site: Report

    US bombs unlikely to reach underground Iran nuclear site: Report

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    Near a peak of the Zagros Mountains in central Iran, workers are building a nuclear facility so deep in the earth that it is likely beyond the range of a last-ditch United States weapon designed to destroy such sites, according to experts and satellite imagery analysed by The Associated Press news agency.

    The photos and videos from Planet Labs PBC show Iran has been digging tunnels in the mountain near the Natanz nuclear site, which has come under repeated sabotage attacks amid Tehran’s standoff with the West over its atomic programme.

    With the country now producing uranium close to weapons-grade levels after the collapse of its nuclear deal with world powers, the installation complicates the West’s efforts to halt Tehran from potentially developing an atomic bomb, which Iran denies seeking.

    The report on Monday comes amid a spike in Iran-US tensions and stalled diplomacy between the two countries.

    Completion of such a facility “would be a nightmare scenario that risks igniting a new escalatory spiral,” warned Kelsey Davenport, the director of nonproliferation policy at the Washington-based Arms Control Association.

    “Given how close Iran is to a bomb, it has very little room to ratchet up its programme without tripping US and Israeli red lines. So at this point, any further escalation increases the risk of conflict,” Davenport told AP.

     

    This month marked five years since former President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from a multilateral nuclear deal that saw Iran scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for a lifting of international sanctions against its economy.

    The administration of US President Joe Biden has continued to impose and enforce a strict sanctions regime against Iran and its oil and petrochemicals industries. Meanwhile, Tehran has been advancing its nuclear programme.

    Biden, who was vice president to Barack Obama when the 2015 agreement was signed, had promised to revive the pact, but numerous rounds of indirect talks over the past two years have failed to restore it.

    Since the demise of the nuclear accord, Iran has said it is enriching uranium up to 60 percent – up from the 3.67 percent limit it observed under the deal. Inspectors also recently discovered the country had produced uranium particles that were 83.7 percent pure, just a short step from reaching the 90 percent threshold of weapons-grade uranium.

    As of February, international inspectors estimated Iran’s stockpile was more than 10 times what it was under the Obama-era deal, with enough enriched uranium to allow Tehran to make “several” nuclear bombs, according to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

    The US and Israel – which is widely believed to have its own covert nuclear arsenal – have said they won’t allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon. “We believe diplomacy is the best way to achieve that goal, but the president has also been clear that we have not removed any option from the table,” the White House said in a statement to the AP.

    Iran’s mission to the United Nations, in response to questions from the AP regarding the construction, said that “Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities are transparent and under the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.”

    Iran says the new construction will replace an above-ground centrifuge manufacturing centre at Natanz struck by an explosion and fire in July 2020. Tehran labelled the attack at that time as “nuclear terrorism” and blamed it on Israel.

    Tehran has not acknowledged any other plans for the facility, though it would have to declare the site to the IAEA if authorities planned to introduce uranium into it. The Vienna-based IAEA did not respond to questions about the new underground facility.

    The new project is being constructed next to Natanz, about 225km (140 miles) south of Tehran. Natanz has been a point of international concern since its existence became known two decades ago.

    Protected by anti-aircraft batteries, fencing and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, the facility sprawls across 2.7sq km (1sq mile) in the country’s arid central plateau.

    Satellite photos taken in April by Planet Labs PBC and analysed by the AP show Iran burrowing into the Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, or “Pickaxe Mountain”, which is just beyond Natanz’s southern fencing.

    A different set of images analysed by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies reveals that four entrances have been dug into the mountainside, two to the east and another two to the west. Each is 6m (20 ft) wide and 8m (26 ft) tall.

    The scale of the work can be measured in large dirt mounds, two to the west and one to the east. Based on the size of the spoil piles and other satellite data, experts at the centre told AP that Iran is likely building a facility at a depth of between 80m (260 ft) and 100m (328 ft). The centre’s analysis, which it provided exclusively to AP, is the first to estimate the tunnel system’s depth based on satellite imagery.

    “So the depth of the facility is a concern because it would be much harder for us. It would be much harder to destroy using conventional weapons, such as… a typical bunker buster bomb,” said Steven De La Fuente, a research associate at the centre who led the analysis of the tunnel work.

    The new Natanz facility is likely to be even deeper underground than Iran’s Fordow facility, another enrichment site that was exposed in 2009 by the US and others. That facility sparked fears in the West that Iran was hardening its programme from air attacks

    Such underground facilities led the US to create the GBU-57 bomb, which can plow through at least 60m (200 ft) of earth before detonating, according to the US military.

    US officials reportedly have discussed using two such bombs in succession to ensure a site is destroyed, according to AP. It is not clear that such a one-two punch would damage a facility as deep as the one at Natanz.

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  • Fact check: Trump falsely claims Putin didn’t boast of Russia’s nuclear might during the Trump presidency | CNN Politics

    Fact check: Trump falsely claims Putin didn’t boast of Russia’s nuclear might during the Trump presidency | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump has tried to mount an argument that he was a formidable deterrent to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the foreign leader Trump has for years been criticized for praising and defending. But Trump has been making a demonstrably false claim to support his case.

    On Friday, in a speech to a National Rifle Association conference in Indianapolis, Trump said that leaders should never use the word “nuclear,” which he described as one of two forbidden “N-words,” but that, under President Joe Biden, Putin has started boasting of Russia’s nuclear capabilities.

    “Now it’s talked about every single day, including by Putin. He goes, ‘You know, we’re a great nuclear power.’ He says that publicly now – he never said that when I was here,” Trump said. “Because you don’t talk about it. It’s too destructive. You don’t talk about it. Now they’re talking about it all the time.”

    Trump made a broader claim in a video statement in late January, declaring that the word “nuclear” wasn’t even mentioned while he was in the White House.

    “If you take a look right now, the ‘nuclear’ word is being mentioned all the time. This is a word that you’re not allowed to use. It was never used during the Trump administration. But now other countries are using that word against us because they have no respect for our leadership,” Trump said then.

    Facts First: Trump’s claims are false. During his time in the White House, Putin repeatedly referred to Russia as a “major nuclear power” – in fact, Putin called both Russia and the US “major nuclear powers” as he stood beside Trump at a joint press conference in 2018 – while warning of the catastrophic consequences of a nuclear war and boasting about what he claimed were Russia’s nuclear capabilities.

    During a speech in 2018, Putin touted Russia’s nuclear weapons in detail (including a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile he claimed was “invincible”), told the world to “listen now” after supposedly ignoring Russia’s “nuclear potential” in the past, and played a video depiction of nuclear warheads raining down on what appeared to be the state of Florida, home of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and resort. Trump sharply criticized Putin over the video in a phone call later in the month, the news outlet Axios reported in 2018.

    Putin issued a particularly dramatic warning about nuclear war at a forum later in 2018. Repeating his usual line about how he would only use nuclear weapons upon learning of an attack on Russia, he continued, according to a Moscow Times translation, “An aggressor should know that vengeance is inevitable, that he will be annihilated, and we would be the victims of the aggression. We will go to heaven as martyrs, and they will just drop dead. They will not even have time to repent for this.”

    Simon Saradzhyan, founding director of the Russia Matters project at the Harvard Kennedy School, said in an email on Monday: “Putin has repeatedly referred to Russia as a ‘nuclear power’ as well as ‘nuclear superpower’ since being elected to the post [of] president of Russia in 2000. Such references did not stop when Trump came to power and they continued after Trump left the White House.”

    Saradzhyan said his impression is that “Putin began to refer to Russia’s status of a nuclear power more frequently after Feb. 24, 2022,” when Russia invaded Ukraine, “and he used stronger language in an effort to (a) intimidate Ukraine into suing for peace; and (b) deter the US and its allies from greater/direct involvement in the war.” He said Putin toned down his language at least somewhat last fall after Chinese President Xi Jinping called for an end to nuclear threats related to Ukraine.

    Regardless, it’s clearly not true that Putin “never” boasted of Russia’s nuclear might, or spoke of nuclear war, under Trump.

    “Trump is incorrect here,” Pavel Podvig, senior researcher at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research and director of the Russian Nuclear Forces Project research initiative, said in an interview on Monday. “You cannot say that during the Trump presidency, Putin never mentioned nuclear war or anything like that.” Podvig described the 2018 speech in which Putin touted Russia’s missile capabilities as “one big boast.”

    Podvig said the context around Putin’s comments on nuclear weapons is obviously different now, given the war in Ukraine, but that “fundamentally there was no change” in Putin’s message between the Trump era and the Biden era: Russia would have the means to respond and would respond to a US attack.

    Putin’s boasts under Trump about Russia’s supposed nuclear capabilities were explicit and numerous, though his assertions about Russia’s weaponry were often greeted with skepticism by US officials and outside experts.

    For example, in January 2020, Putin said, according to the official Kremlin translation, “For the first time ever – I want to emphasize this – for the first time in the history of nuclear missile weapons, including the Soviet period and modern times, we are not catching up with anyone, but, on the contrary, other leading states have yet to create the weapons that Russia already possesses.” (Kremlin translations sometimes differ in grammar and vocabulary from independent translations of Putin’s remarks.)

    In December 2018, Putin criticized the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty under President George W. Bush and said, according to the official translation: “After that, we were forced to respond by developing new weapons systems that could breach these ABM systems. Now, we hear that Russia has gained an advantage. Yes, this is true.” He also issued his standard warning against nuclear war, saying it “might destroy the whole of civilization or perhaps the entire planet.”

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  • ‘A new era’: Germany quits nuclear power, closing its final three plants | CNN

    ‘A new era’: Germany quits nuclear power, closing its final three plants | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Germany’s final three nuclear power plants close their doors on Saturday, marking the end of the country’s nuclear era that has spanned more than six decades.

    Nuclear power has long been contentious in Germany.

    There are those who want to end reliance on a technology they view as unsustainable, dangerous and a distraction from speeding up renewable energy.

    But for others, closing down nuclear plants is short-sighted. They see it as turning off the tap on a reliable source of low-carbon energy at a time when drastic cuts to planet-heating pollution are needed.

    Even as these debates rumble on, and despite last-minute calls to keep the plants online amid an energy crisis, the German government has been steadfast.

    “The position of the German government is clear: nuclear power is not green. Nor is it sustainable,” Steffi Lemke, Germany’s Federal Minister for the Environment and Consumer Protection and a Green Party member, told CNN.

    “We are embarking on a new era of energy production,” she said.

    The closure of the three plants – Emsland, Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim – represents the culmination of a plan set in motion more than 20 years ago. But its roots are even older.

    In the 1970s, a strong anti-nuclear movement in Germany emerged. Disparate groups came together to protest new power plants, concerned about the risks posed by the technology and, for some, the link to nuclear weapons. The movement gave birth to the Green Party, which is now part of the governing coalition.

    Nuclear accidents fueled the opposition: The partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania in 1979 and the 1986 catastrophe at Chernobyl that created a cloud of radioactive waste which reached parts of Germany.

    In 2000, the German government pledged to phase out nuclear power and start shutting down plants. But when a new government came to power in 2009, it seemed – briefly – as if nuclear would get a reprieve as a bridging technology to help the country move to renewable energy.

    Then Fukushima happened.

    In March 2011, an earthquake and tsunami caused three reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to melt down. For many in Germany, Japan’s worst nuclear disaster was confirmation “that assurances that a nuclear accident of a large scale can’t happen are not credible,” Miranda Schreurs, professor of environment and climate policy at the Technical University of Munich, told CNN.

    Three days later then-Chancellor Angela Merkel – a physicist who was previously pro-nuclear – made a speech called it an “inconceivable catastrophe for Japan” and a “turning point” for the world. She announced Germany would accelerate a nuclear phase-out, with older plants shuttered immediately.

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however, provided another plot twist.

    Fearful of its energy security without Russian gas, the German government delayed its plan to close the final three plants in December 2022. Some urged a rethink.

    But the government declined, agreeing to keep them running only until April 15.

    For those in the anti-nuclear movement, it’s a moment of victory.

    “It is a great achievement for millions of people who have been protesting nuclear in Germany and worldwide for decades,” Paul-Marie Manière, a spokesperson for Greenpeace, told CNN.

    For critics of Germany’s policy, however, it’s irrational to turn off a low-carbon source of energy as the impacts of the climate crisis intensify.

    “We need to keep existing, safe nuclear reactors operating while simultaneously ramping up renewables as fast as possible,” Leah Stokes, a professor of climate and energy policy at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told CNN.

    The big risk, she said, is that fossil fuels fill the energy gap left by nuclear. Reductions in Germany’s nuclear energy since Fukushima have been primarily offset by increases in coal, according to research published last year.

    Germany plans to replace the roughly 6% of electricity generated by the three nuclear plants with renewables, but also gas and coal.

    More than 30% of Germany’s energy comes from coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels – and the government has made controversial decisions to turn to coal to help with energy security.

    In January, protestors including Greta Thunberg converged on the west German village of Lützerath in an unsuccessful attempt to stop it being demolished to mine the coal underneath it.

    “Building new coal capacity is the opposite of what we need,” said Stokes. Fossil fuels are a climate problem, but they’re also a health risk, she pointed out. Air pollution from fossil fuels is responsible for 8.7 million deaths a year, according to a recent analysis.

    Veronika Grimm, one of Germany’s leading economists, told CNN that keeping nuclear power plants running for longer would have allowed Germany more time “to electrify extensively,” especially as renewable energy growth “remains sluggish.”

    A new solar energy park near Prenzlau, Germany. The German government is seeking to accelerate the construction of both solar and wind energy parks.

    But supporters of the nuclear shutdown argue it will ultimately hasten the end of fossil fuels.

    Germany has pledged to close its last coal-fired power station no later than 2038, with a 2030 deadline in some areas. It’s aiming for 80% of electricity to come from renewables by the end of this decade.

    While more coal was added in the months following Fukushima, Schreurs said, nuclear shutdowns have seen a big push on clean energy. “That urgency and demand can be what it takes to push forward on the growth of renewables,” she said.

    Representatives for Germany’s renewable energy industry said the shutdown will open the door for more investment into clean energy.

    “Germany’s phase-out of nuclear power is a historic event and an overdue step in energy terms,” Simone Peter, president of the German Renewable Energy Federation (BEE), told CNN. “It is high time that we leave the nuclear age behind and consistently organize the renewable age.”

    The impacts of nuclear power shouldn’t be overlooked either, Schreurs said, pointing to the carbon pollution created by uranium mining as well as the risk of health complications for miners. Plus, it creates a dependency on Russia, which supplies uranium for nuclear plants, she added.

    Nuclear has also shown itself to have vulnerabilities to the climate crisis. France was forced to reduce nuclear power generation last year as the rivers used to cool reactors became too hot during Europe’s blistering heatwave.

    The Gorleben nuclear waste storage facility, an interim storage facility for spent fuel elements and high-level radioactive waste.

    Now Germany must work out what do with the deadly, high-level radioactive waste, which can remain dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years.

    Currently, the nuclear waste is kept in interim storage next to the nuclear plants being decommissioned. But the search is on to find a permanent location where the waste can be stored safely for a million years.

    The site needs to be deep – hundreds of meters underground. Only certain types of rock will do: Crystalline granite, rock salt or clay rock. It must be geologically stable with no risks of earthquakes or signs of underground rivers.

    The process is likely to be fraught, complex and breathtakingly long – potentially lasting more than 100 years.

    BGE, the Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal, estimates a final site won’t be chosen until between 2046 and 2064. After that, it will take decades more to build the repository, fill it with the waste and seal it.

    Plenty of other countries are treading paths similar to Germany’s. Denmark passed a resolution in the 1980s not to construct nuclear power plants, Switzerland voted in 2017 to phase out nuclear power, Italy closed its last reactors in 1990 and Austria’s one nuclear plant has never been used.

    But, in the context of the war in Ukraine, soaring energy prices and pressure to reduce carbon pollution, others still want nuclear in the mix.

    The UK, in the process of building a nuclear power plant, said in its recent climate strategy that energy nuclear power has a “crucial” role in “creating secure, affordable and clean energy.”

    France, which gets about 70% of its power from nuclear, is planning six new reactors, and Finland opened a new nuclear plant last year. Even Japan, still dealing with the aftermath of Fukushima, is considering restarting reactors.

    The Neckarwestheim nuclear power plant, Germany.

    The US, the world’s biggest nuclear power, is also investing in nuclear energy and, in March, started up a new nuclear reactor, Vogtle 3 in Georgia – the first in years.

    But experts suggest this doesn’t mark the start of a nuclear ramp up. Vogtle 3 came online six years late and at a cost of $30 billion, twice the initial budget.

    It encapsulates the big problem that afflicts the whole nuclear industry: making the economics add up. New plants are expensive and can take more than a decade to build. “Even the countries that are talking pro-nuclear are having big trouble developing nuclear power,” Schreurs said.

    Many nuclear power plants in Europe, the US and elsewhere are aging – plants have an operating life of around 40 to 60 years. As Germany puts an end to its nuclear era, it’s coming up to crunch time for others, Schreurs said.

    “There will be a moment of decision as to whether nuclear really has a future”

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  • Libyan armed group says barrels of missing natural uranium recovered | CNN

    Libyan armed group says barrels of missing natural uranium recovered | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A Libyan armed group claims to have found the barrels of natural uranium that went missing in southern Libya.

    A spokesman for the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), Khaled Al Mahjoub said on Facebook that the barrels were found 3 miles (5 km) from a warehouse where they were being stored.

    A video posted by Mahjoub showed a man wearing a hazmat suit vocally counting 18 blue barrels that allegedly contain the missing natural uranium. The IAEA had said that “10 drums” were missing from the warehouse.

    A total of 2.5 tons of natural uranium in the form of uranium ore concentrate were reported missing by the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] this week, after inspectors conducted verification activities Tuesday.

    “We are aware of media reports that the material has been found, the Agency is actively working to verify them,” the IAEA said on Thursday. CNN reached out to the IAEA to confirm whether the barrels found by the LNA are the same ones reported missing by the UN nuclear watchdog.

    The barrels were stored in a guarded warehouse in southern Libya, but the guards were stationed further away over concerns of radioactivity, Mahjoub said in a post on Facebook.

    A barrel-sized hole was found cut open to the side of the storage warehouse, Mahjoub added.

    Mahjoub claimed that a Chadian group might have been responsible for stealing the barrels thinking it was arms, but abandoned the barrels after not properly knowing what was inside. The LNA did not provide evidence to support that claim.

    The group also said that forces were tasked with guarding the warehouse after an IAEA team visited the warehouse in 2020 and marked the barrels containing uranium.

    The IAEA had said that the missing uranium posed “little radiation hazard but it requires safe handling.”

    “The loss of knowledge about the present location of nuclear material may present a radiological risk as well as nuclear security concerns,” the IAEA said before the LNA statement.

    Libya has had little peace or stability since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising against Moammar Gadhafi. The country split in 2014 between warring factions in the east and west.

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  • China has shattered the assumption of US dominance in the Middle East | CNN

    China has shattered the assumption of US dominance in the Middle East | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    With a grandiose diplomatic flourish China brokered a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, in the process upending US calculus in the Gulf and beyond.

    While the United States has angered its Gulf allies by apparently dithering over morality, curbing arms supplies and chilling relations, Saudi Arabia’s King-in-waiting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, has found a kindred spirit in China’s leader Xi Jinping.

    Both are bold, assertive, willing to take risks and seemingly share unsated ambition.

    Friday’s announcement that Riyadh and Tehran had renewed diplomatic ties was unexpected, but it shouldn’t have been. It is the logical accumulation of America’s diplomatic limitations and China’s growing quest to shape the world in its orbit.

    Beijing’s claim that “China pursues no selfish interest whatsoever in the Middle East,” rings hollow. It buys more oil from Saudi Arabia than any other country in the world.

    Xi needs energy to grow China’s economy, ensure stability at home and fuel its rise as a global power.

    His other main supplier, Russia, is at war, its supplies therefore in question. By de-escalating tensions between Saudi and Iran, Xi is not only shoring up his energy alternatives but, in a climate of growing tension with the US, also heading off potential curbs on his access to Gulf oil.

    Xi’s motivation appears fueled by wider interests, but even so the US State Department welcomed the surprise move, spokesman Ned Price saying, “we support anything that would serve to deescalate tensions in the region, and potentially help to prevent conflict.”

    Iran has buy-in because China has economic leverage. In 2021 the pair signed a trade deal reportedly worth up to $400 billion of Chinese investment over 25 years, in exchange for a steady supply of Iranian oil.

    Tehran is isolated by international sanctions and Beijing is providing a glimmer of financial relief.

    And, in the words of Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last year, there’s also the hope of more to come as he sees geopolitical power shifting east.

    “Asia will become the center of knowledge, the center of economics, as well as the center of political power, and the center of military power,” Khamenei said.

    Saudi has buy-in because war with Iran would wreck its economy and ruin MBS’s play for regional dominance. His bold visions for the country’s post fossil-fuel future and domestic stability depend on inwardly investing robust oil and gas revenues.

    US State Department spokesman Ned Price pictured in July 2022.

    It may sound simple, but the fact the US couldn’t pull it off speaks to the complexities and nuance of everything that’s been brewing over the past two decades.

    America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have burned through a good part of its diplomatic capital in the Middle East.

    Many in the Gulf see the development of the war in Ukraine as an unnecessary and dangerous American adventure, and some of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s territorial claims over Ukraine not without merit.

    Chinese and Saudi flags in Riyadh in December 2022.

    What the global West sees as a fight for democratic values lacks resonance among the Gulf autocracies, and the conflict doesn’t consume them in the same way as it does leaders in European capitals.

    Saudi Arabia, and MBS in particular, have become particularly frustrated with America’s flip-flop diplomacy: dialling back relations over the Crown Prince’s role in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi (which MBS denies); then calling on him to cut oil production swiftly followed by requests to increase it.

    These inconsistencies have led the Saudis to hew policy to their national interests and less to America’s needs.

    During his visit to Saudi last July, US President Joe Biden said: “We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia, or Iran.” It seems now that the others are walking away from him.

    On Beijing’s part, China’s Gulf intervention signals its own needs, and the opportunity to act arrived in a single serving.

    Xi helped himself because he can. The Chinese leader is a risk taker.

    His abrupt ending of austere Covid-19 pandemic restrictions at home is just one example, but this is a more complex roll of the dice.

    Mediation in the Middle East can be a poisoned chalice, but as big as the potential gains are for China, the wider implications for the regional, and even global order, are quantifiably bigger and will resonate for years.

    US President Joe Biden (center-left) and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (center) in Jeddah in July 2022.

    Yet harbingers of this shake-up and the scale of its impact have been in plain sight for months. Xi’s high-profile, red-carpet reception in Riyadh last December for his first overseas visit after abandoning his domestic “zero-Covid” policy stirred the waters.

    During that trip Saudi and Chinese officials signed scores of deals worth tens of billions of dollars.

    China’s Foreign Ministry trumpeted Xi’s visit, paying particular attention to one particular infrastructure project: “China will deepen industrial and infrastructure cooperation with Saudi Arabia (and) advance the development of the China-Saudi Arabia (Jizan) Industrial Park.”

    The Jizan project, part of China’s belt and road initiative, heralds huge investment around the ancient Red Sea port, currently Saudi’s third largest.

    Jizan lies close to the border with Yemen, the scene of a bloody civil war and proxy battle between Riyadh and Tehran since 2014, sparking what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

    Significantly since Xi’s visit, episodic attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Jizan have abated.

    There are other effects too: the plans to upscale Jizan’s container handling puts Saudi in greater competition with the UAE’s container ports and potentially strains another regional rivalry, as MBS drives to become the dominant regional power, usurping UAE’s role as regional hub for global businesses.

    Xi will have an interest seeing both Saudi Arabia and the UAE prosper, but Saudi is by far the bigger partner with higher potential global economic heft and, importantly, massive religious clout in the Islamic world.

    Where the UAE and Saudi align strongly is eschewing direct conflict with Tehran.

    A deadly drone attack in Abu Dhabi late last year was claimed by the Houthis, before the rebels quickly rescinded it. But no one publicly blamed the Houthis’ sponsors in Tehran.

    A once shaky ceasefire in Yemen now also seems to be moving toward peace talks, perhaps yet another indication of the potential of China’s influence in the region.

    Beijing is acutely aware of what a continued war over the Persian Gulf could cost its commercial interests – another reason why a Saudi/Iran rapprochement makes sense to Xi.

    Iran blames Saudi for stoking the massive street protests through its towns and cities since September.

    Saudi denies that accusation, but when Iran moved drones and long-range missiles close to its Gulf coast and Saudi, Riyadh called on its friends to ask Tehran to de-escalate. Russia and China did, the threat dissipated.

    Tehran, despite US diplomatic efforts, is also closing in on nuclear weapons capability and Saudi’s MBS is on record saying he’ll ensure parity, “if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible.”

    Late last week US officials said Saudi was seeking US security guarantees and help developing a civilian nuclear program as part of a deal to normalize relations with Israel, an avowed enemy of Iran’s Ayatollahs.

    Indeed, when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel late January, concerned over a rising Palestinian death toll in a violent year in the region, potential settlement expansions and controversial changes to Israel’s judiciary Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Blinken about “expanding the circle of peace,” and improving relations with Arab neighbours, including Saudi Arabia.

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (left) with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in May 2021.

    But as Saudi seems to shift closer to Tehran, Netanyahu’s mission just got harder. While both Saudi and Israel strongly oppose a nuclear-armed Iran, only Netanyahu seems ready to confront Tehran.

    “My policy is to do everything within Israel’s power to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons,” the Israeli leader told Blinken.

    Riyadh favors diplomacy. As recently as last week the Saudi foreign minister said: “It’s absolutely critical … that we find and an alternative pathway to ensuring an (Iranian) civilian nuclear program.”

    By improving ties with Tehran, he said, “we can make it quite clear to the Iranians that this is not just a concerns of distant countries but it’s also a concern of its neighbors.”

    For years this is what America did, such as brokering the Iran nuclear deal, or JCPOA, in 2015.

    Xi backed that deal, the Saudis didn’t want it, Iran never trusted it, Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump’s withdrawal confirmed Iran’s fears and sealed its fate, despite the ongoing proximity talks to get American diplomats seated at the table again.

    Iran has raced ahead in the meantime, massively over-running the bounds of the JCPOA limits on uranium enrichment and producing almost weapons-grade material.

    What’s worse for Washington is that Trump’s JCPOA withdrawal legacy tainted international perceptions of US commitment, continuity and diplomacy. All these circumstances perhaps signaled to Xi that his time to seize the lead on global diplomacy was coming.

    Yet the Chinese leader seems to accept what Netanyahu won’t and what US diplomacy is unable to prevent: that sooner, rather than later, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. As such, Xi may be fostering Saudi-Iran rapprochement as a hedge against that day.

    So Netanyahu looks increasingly isolated and the Israeli leader, already under huge domestic pressure from spiking tensions with Palestinians and huge Israeli protests over his proposed judicial reforms, now faces a massive re-think on regional security.

    The working assumption of American diplomatic regional primacy is broken, and Netanyahu’s biggest ally is now not as hegemonic as he needs. But by how much is still far from clear.

    It’s not a knockout, but a gut blow, to Washington. How Xi calculates the situation isn’t clear either. The US is not finished, far from it, but it is diminished, and both powers are coexisting in a different way now.

    Earlier this month, the Chinese leader made unusually direct comments accusing the US of leading a campaign against China and causing serious domestic woes.

    “Western countries led by the United States have contained and suppressed us in an all-round way, which has brought unprecedented severe challenges to our development,” Xi told a group of government advisers representing private businesses on the sidelines of an annual legislative meeting in Beijing.

    Meanwhile, Biden has defined the future US-China relationship as “competition not confrontation,” and he has built his foreign policy around the tenets of standing up for democracy.

    It is striking that neither Xi, nor Khamenei, nor MBS are troubled by the moral dilemmas that circumscribe Biden. This is the big challenge the US president warned about, and now it’s here. An alternative world order, irrespective of what happens in Ukraine.

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  • Australia, the UK and US are joining forces in the Pacific, but will nuclear subs arrive quick enough to counter China? | CNN

    Australia, the UK and US are joining forces in the Pacific, but will nuclear subs arrive quick enough to counter China? | CNN

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    Canberra, Australia
    CNN
     — 

    More than a year after the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia dropped the tightly held news they were combining submarine forces, the trio released more details Monday of their ambitious plan to counter China’s rapid military expansion.

    Under the multi-decade AUKUS deal, the partners will build a combined fleet of elite nuclear-powered submarines using technology, labor and funding from all three countries, creating a more formidable force in the Indo-Pacific than any of them could achieve alone.

    But the long timeline and huge financial costs – running into the hundreds of billions for Australia alone – poses questions about how far the partners’ plans could stray from their “optimal pathway” in the decades to come as governments, and potentially priorities, change.

    In a joint statement Monday, US President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and UK counterpart Rishi Sunak said the “historic” deal will build on past efforts by all three countries to “sustain peace, stability, and prosperity around the world.”

    The plan begins this year with training rotations for Australian personnel on US and UK subs and bases in the expectation that in roughly 20 years, they’ll commandeer Australia’s first ever nuclear-powered fleet.

    But there’s a long way to go between now and then, as outlined in a series of phases announced by the leaders as they stood side-by-side in San Diego Harbor.

    From 2023, along with training Australians, US nuclear-powered subs will increase port visits to Australia, joined three years later by more visits from British-owned nuclear-powered subs.

    Come 2027, the US and UK subs will start rotations at HMAS Stirling, an Australian military port near Perth, Western Australia that’s set to receive a multibillion dollar upgrade.

    Then from the early 2030s, pending Congress approval, Australia will buy three Virginia-class submarines from the US, with an option to buy two more.

    Within the same decade, the UK plans to build its first AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine – combining its Astute-class submarine with US combat systems and weapons.

    Soon after, in the early 2040s, Australia will deliver the first of its homemade AUKUS subs to its Royal Navy.

    As a series of bullet points on the page, the plan seems straightforward.

    But the complexities involved are staggering and require an unprecedented level of investment and information sharing between the three partners, whose leaders’ political careers are set to be far shorter than those of the man they are working to counter: China’s Xi Jinping.

    Last week China’s political elite endorsed Xi’s unprecedented third term, solidifying his control and making him the longest-serving head of state of Communist China since its founding in 1949.

    The most assertive Chinese leader in a generation, Xi has expanded his country’s military forces and sought to extend Beijing’s influence far across the Indo-Pacific, rattling Western powers.

    Richard Dunley, from the University of New South Wales, said Australia was under pressure to respond after years of inaction and the proposal is an impressive scramble for a workable plan.

    “It’s a last roll of the dice. And they’ve managed to just about thread the eye of a needle coming up with something that looks plausible.”

    A rush of diplomacy took place before Monday’s announcement, partly to avoid the shock impact of the initial announcement in 2021, when French President Emmanuel Macron accused former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison of lying to him when he pulled out of a 90 billion Australian dollar deal to buy French subs.

    That deal would have delivered new submarines on a faster timeline, but they would have been conventional diesel-powered vessels instead of state of the art nuclear ones.

    Australia learned from that diplomatic row and its senior leaders – including Albanese – made around 60 calls to allies and regional neighbors to inform them of the plan before it was announced, according to Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles.

    China wasn’t one of them.

    Biden told reporters Monday that he plans to speak with Xi soon but declined to say when that would be, adding that he was not concerned Xi would see the AUKUS announcement as aggression.

    That contrasts with the sentiment emerging from Beijing including its accusations the trio is fomenting an arms race in Asia.

    At a daily briefing Monday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the AUKUS partners had “completely ignored the concerns of the international community and gone further down a wrong and dangerous road.”

    He said the deal would “stimulate an arms race, undermine the international nuclear non-proliferation system and damage regional peace and stability.”

    Peter Dean, director of Foreign Policy and Defense at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, said the Chinese claims are overblown.

    “If there is an arms race in the Indo-Pacific, there is only one country that is racing, and that is China,” he told CNN.

    The US will sell up to five Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines to Australia.

    Smaller countries around the region are watching the AUKUS plan with concern that a greater presence in their waters could lead to unintended conflict, said Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto, from the Strategic & Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University.

    “With more rotational presence of US and UK subs in Australia, there is a greater necessity for China to surveil these units and thereby, increase the likelihood of accidents or incidents at sea,” he said.

    Biden stressed Monday that he wanted “the world to understand” that the agreement was “talking about nuclear power not nuclear weapons.”

    According to a White House fact sheet, the US and UK will give Australian nuclear material in sealed “welded power units” that will not require refueling. Australia has committed to disposing of nuclear waste in Australia on defense-owned land. But that won’t happen until at least the late 2050s, when the Virginia-class vessels are retired.

    Australia says it doesn’t have the capability to enrich it to weapons grade, won’t acquire it and wants to abide by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) principles on non-proliferation.

    The AUKUS plan is an admission by Australia that without submarines that can spend long periods of time at great depths, the country is woefully unprepared to counter China in the Indo-Pacific.

    “It is hugely complex and hugely risky,” said Dunley from the University of New South Wales.

    “But when the original announcement and decision was made in 2021, there were very few good options left for Australia. So I think they’ve come out as well as they could have done,” he added.

    Multiple challenge are posed by a project of this scale, which includes many moving parts with potential knock-on effects to the timeline and cost.

    The deal involves upgrades to ports and fleets, including expanding the operational life of Australia’s Collins-class submarines to the 2040s, to aid in the transition to nuclear.

    “You’re having to take submarines out for quite a significant chunk of time to refit them, and if there are delays or issues that could cascade and you could see issues where Australia actually doesn’t have enough submariners to maintain its current forces of mariners, let alone augment that,” Dunley said.

    As all three countries race to expand their fleets, training enough staff could become a serious challenge, Dunley said.

    The security element of the roles mean the pool of skilled workers is inevitably shallow. Efforts are being made in all countries to entice trainees to a life below the surface of the sea for months at a time – potentially not an easy sell in a competitive jobs market.

    And then there’s the funding.

    The Australian government says it’ll find 0.15% of gross domestic product every year for 30 years – a cost of up to $245 billion (368 billion Australian dollars).

    Max Bergmann, the director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the deal will ultimately require healthy economies, and all three countries are dealing with cost of living pressures.

    “The UK economy is not doing great. And part of what it will need is a thriving economy, such that it can maintain the level of spending needed,” he told a reporter briefing.

    Xi’s move to allow himself to retain the Chinese leadership for life means he could be approaching his 90s by the time Australia and Britain have launched their new AUKUS fleets.

    By then, the landscape of the Indo-Pacific could be vastly changed.

    Xi, 69, has made it clear that the issue of Taiwan, an island democracy that China’s Communist Party claims but has never ruled, cannot be passed indefinitely down to other generations.

    For now, Australia says it is confident of continued bipartisan support in Washington for program, which will rely on the ongoing transfer of nuclear material and other weapons secrets from the US.

    “We enter this with a high degree of confidence,” Defense Minister Marles said Monday.

    However the risk remains that in future years an inward-facing US leader in the style of former President Donald Trump – or even perhaps Trump himself – could emerge to threaten the deal.

    Charles Edel, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the deal was about much more than a combined effort to change China’s calculations about its security environment.

    “It’s meant to transform the industrial shipbuilding capacity of all three nations, it’s meant as a technological accelerator, it’s meant to change the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, and, ultimately, it’s meant to change the model of how the United States works with and empowers its closest allies.”

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  • Former Ohio House speaker convicted in $60 million bribery scheme | CNN Politics

    Former Ohio House speaker convicted in $60 million bribery scheme | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A former Republican speaker of Ohio’s House of Representatives was convicted by a federal jury Thursday on racketeering conspiracy charges in connection with a $60 million bribery scheme.

    Former Speaker Larry Householder and former Ohio Republican Party Chair Mathew Borges, who was also convicted Thursday, could face up to 20 years in prison for orchestrating the scheme to accept bribes in exchange for ensuring the passage of a billion-dollar bailout for a nuclear energy company.

    “As presented by the trial team, Larry Householder illegally sold the statehouse, and thus he ultimately betrayed the great people of Ohio he was elected to serve,” said US Attorney Kenneth Parker.

    Steven Bradley, an attorney for Householder, expressed disappointment with the verdict.

    “We will take some time to discuss and evaluate our legal options moving forward and will most certainly pursue an appeal,” he said. “Larry is looking forward to going home and spending time with his family after what has been an exhausting seven week trial.”

    CNN reached out to an attorney for Borges for comment.

    The release did not explicitly identify the nuclear energy company involved in the scheme but noted that utility company FirstEnergy Corp. previously agreed to pay a $230 million penalty for “conspiring to bribe public officials and others” as part of a deferred prosecution settlement.

    Jennifer Young, a manager for external communications at FirstEnergy Corp., told CNN that “while it would be inappropriate to comment on the verdict, FirstEnergy has taken decisive actions over the past several years to strengthen our leadership team and ensure a culture of strong ethics, integrity and accountability across the company.”

    Jeffrey Longstreth, Householder’s longtime campaign and political strategist, and Juan Cespedes, a lobbyist, previously pleaded guilty to their roles in the racketeering conspiracy.

    Beginning in March 2017, FirstEnergy began making quarterly $250,000 payments to Householder’s tax-exempt social welfare account named Generation Now, US attorneys in Ohio’s southern district laid out in their case.

    Householder’s team then used that money to support the passage of House Bill 6, a $1 billion bailout that saved two nuclear power plants operated by FirstEnergy Corp., and stop a ballot effort to overturn the law.

    Millions of those dollars went to Householder’s bid for speaker, to other state House candidates likely to support him and to his team’s own pockets.

    Householder spent over $500,000 of those funds to “pay off his credit card balances, repair his Florida home and settle a business lawsuit,” according to prosecutors.

    Borges used about $366,000 for his own benefit and used another $15,000 to bribe an Ohio Republican operative for information on the number of signatures collected on the ballot referendum opposing HB 6, the news release said.

    Householder and his associates were arrested and charged with racketeering conspiracy in July 2020.

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  • Turkey’s earthquake caused $34 billion in damage. It could cost Erdogan the election | CNN

    Turkey’s earthquake caused $34 billion in damage. It could cost Erdogan the election | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.


    Abu Dhabi, UAE
    CNN
     — 

    The devastating earthquake that hit Turkey on February 6 killed at least 45,000 people, rendered millions homeless across almost a dozen cities and caused immediate damage estimated at $34 billion – or roughly 4% of the country’s annual economic output, according to the World Bank.

    But the indirect cost of the quake could be much higher, and recovery will be neither easy nor quick.

    The Turkish Enterprise and Business Confederation estimates the total cost of the quake at $84.1 billion, the lion’s share of which would be for housing, at $70.8 billion, with lost national income pegged at $10.4 billion and lost working days at $2.91 billion.

    “I do not recall… any economic disaster at this level in the history of the Republic of Turkey,” said Arda Tunca, an Istanbul-based economist at PolitikYol.

    Turkey’s economy had been slowing even before the earthquake. Unorthodox monetary policies by the government caused soaring inflation, leading to further income inequality and a currency crisis that saw the lira lose 30% of its value against the dollar last year. Turkey’s economy grew 5.6% last year, Reuters reported, citing official data.

    Economists say those structural weaknesses in the economy will only get worse because of the quake and could determine the course of presidential and parliamentary elections expected in mid-May.

    Still, Tunca says that while the physical damage from the quake is colossal, the cost to the country’s GDP won’t be as pronounced when compared to the 1999 earthquake in Izmit, which hit the country’s industrial heartland and killed more than 17,000. According to the OECD, the areas impacted in that quake accounted for a third of the country’s GDP.

    The provinces most affected by the February 6 quake represent some 15% of Turkey’s population. According to the Turkish Enterprise and Business Confederation, they contribute 9% of the nation’s GDP, 11% of income tax and 14% of income from agriculture and fisheries.

    “Economic growth would slow down at first but I don’t expect a recessionary threat due to the earthquake,” said Selva Demiralp, a professor of economics at Koc University in Istanbul. “I don’t expect the impact on (economic) growth to be more than 1 to 2 (percentage) points.”

    There has been growing criticism of the country’s preparedness for the quake, whether through policies to mitigate the economic impact or prevent the scale of the damage seen in the disaster.

    How Turkey will rehabilitate its economy and provide for its newly homeless people is not yet known. But it could prove pivotal in determining President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s political fate, analysts and economists say, as he seeks another term in office.

    The government’s 2023 budget, released before the earthquake, had planned for increased spending in an election year, foreseeing a deficit of 660 billion liras ($34.9 billion).

    The government has already announced some measures that analysts said were designed to shore up Erdogan’s popularity, including a near 55% increase in the minimum wage, early retirement and cheaper housing loans.

    Economists say that Turkey’s fiscal position is strong. Its budget deficit, when compared to its economic output, is smaller than that of other emerging markets like India, China and Brazil. That gives the government room to spend.

    “Turkey starts from a position of relative fiscal strength,” said Selva Bahar Baziki of Bloomberg Economics. “The necessary quake spending will likely result in the government breaching their budget targets. Given the high humanitarian toll, this would be the year to do it.”

    Quake-related public spending is estimated at 2.6% of GDP in the short run, she told CNN, but could eventually reach as high as 5.5%.

    Governments usually plug budget shortfalls by taking on more debt or raising taxes. Economists say both are likely options. But post-quake taxation is already a touchy topic in the country, and could prove risky in an election year.

    After the 1999 quake, Turkey introduced an “earthquake tax” that was initially introduced as a temporary measure to help cushion economic damage, but subsequently became a permanent tax.

    There has been concern in the country that the state may have squandered those tax revenues, with opposition leaders calling on the government to be more transparent about what happened to the money raised. When asked in 2020, Erdogan said the money “was not spent out of its purpose.” Since then, the government has said little more about how the money was spent.

    “The funds created for earthquake preparedness have been used for projects such as road constructions, infrastructure build-ups, etc. other than earthquake preparedness,” said Tunca. “In other words, no buffers or cushions have been set in place to limit the economic impacts of such disasters.”

    The Turkish presidency didn’t respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    Analysts say it’s too early to tell precisely what impact the economic fallout will have on Erdogan’s prospects for re-election.

    The president’s approval rating was low even before the quake. In a December poll by Turkish research firm MetroPOLL, 52.1% of respondents didn’t approve of his handling of his job as president. A survey a month earlier found that a slim majority of voters would not vote for Erdogan if an election were held on that day.

    Two polls last week, however, showed the Turkish opposition had not picked up fresh support, Reuters reported, citing partly its failure to name a candidate and partly its lack of a tangible plan to rebuild areas devastated by the quake.

    The majority of the provinces worst affected by the quake voted for Erdogan and his ruling AK Party in the 2018 elections, but in some of those provinces, Erdogan and the AK Party won with a plurality of votes or a slim majority.

    Those provinces are some of the poorest in the country, the World Bank says.

    Research conducted by Demiralp as well as academics Evren Balta from Ozyegin University and Seda Demiralp from Isik University, found that while the ruling AK Party’s voters’ high partisanship is a strong hindrance to voter defection, economic and democratic failures could tip the balance.

    “Our data shows that respondents who report being able to make ends meet are more likely to vote for the incumbent AKP again,” the research concludes. “However, once worsening economic fundamentals push more people below the poverty line, the possibility of defection increases.”

    This could allow opposition parties to take votes from the incumbent rulers “despite identity-based cleavages if they target economically and democratically dissatisfied voters via clear messages.”

    For Tunca, the economic fallout from the quake poses a real risk for Erdogan’s prospects.

    “The magnitude of Turkey’s social earthquake is much greater than that of the tectonic one,” he said. “There is a tug of war between the government and the opposition, and it seems that the winner is going to be unknown until the very end of the elections.”

    Nadeen Ebrahim and Isil Sariyuce contributed to this report.

    This article has been corrected to say that the research, not the survey, was conducted by the academics.

    Sub-Saharan African countries repatriate citizens from Tunisia after ‘shocking’ statements from country’s president

    Sub-Saharan African countries including Ivory Coast, Mali, Guinea and Gabon, are helping their citizens return from Tunisia following a controversial statement from Tunisian President Kais Saied, who has led a crackdown on illegal immigration into the North African country since last month.

    • Background: In a meeting with Tunisia’s National Security Council on February 21, Saied described illegal border crossing from sub-Saharan Africa into Tunisia as a “criminal enterprise hatched at the beginning of this century to change the demographic composition of Tunisia.” He said the immigration aims to turn Tunisia into “only an African country with no belonging to the Arab and Muslim worlds.” In a later speech on February 23, Saied maintained there is no racial discrimination in Tunisia and said that Africans residing in Tunisia legally are welcome. Authorities arrested 58 African migrants on Friday after they reportedly crossed the border illegally, state news agency TAP reported on Saturday.
    • Why it matters: Saied, whose seizure of power in 2021 was described as a coup by his foes, is facing challenges to his rule at home. Reuters on Sunday reported that opposition figures and rights groups have said that the president’s crackdown on migrants was meant to distract from Tunisia’s economic crisis.

    Iranian Supreme Leader says schoolgirls’ poisoning is an ‘unforgivable crime’

    Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday said that the poisoning of schoolgirls in recent months across Iran is an “unforgivable crime,” state-run news agency IRNA reported. Khamenei urged authorities to pursue the issue, saying that “if it is proven that the students were poisoned, the perpetrators of this crime should be severely punished.”

    • Background: Concern is growing in Iran after reports emerged that hundreds of schoolgirls had been poisoned across the country over the last few months. On Wednesday, Iran’s semi-official Mehr News reported that Shahriar Heydari, a member of parliament, said that “nearly 900 students” from across the country had been poisoned so far, citing an unnamed, “reliable source.”
    • Why it matters: The reports have led to a local and international outcry. While it is unclear whether the incidents were linked and if the students were targeted, some believe them to be deliberate attempts at shutting down girls’ schools, and even potentially linked to recent protests that spread under the slogan, “Women, Life, Freedom.”

    Iran to allow further IAEA access following discussions – IAEA chief

    Iran will allow more access and monitoring capabilities to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), agency Director General Rafael Grossi said at a press conference in Vienna on Saturday, following a trip to the Islamic Republic. The additional monitoring is set to start “very, very soon,” said Grossi, with an IAEA team arriving within a few days to begin reinstalling the equipment at several sites.

    • Background: Prior to the news conference, the IAEA released a joint statement with Iran’s atomic energy agency in which the two bodies agreed that interactions between them will be “carried out in the spirit of collaboration.” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said he hopes the IAEA will remain neutral and fair to Iran’s nuclear energy program and refrain from being affected “by certain powers which are pursuing their own specific goals,” reported Iranian state television Press TV on Saturday.
    • Why it matters: Last week, a restricted IAEA report seen by CNN said that uranium particles enriched to near bomb-grade levels have been found at an Iranian nuclear facility, as the US warned that Tehran’s ability to build a nuclear bomb was accelerating. The president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Mohammad Eslami, rejected the recent IAEA report, which detected particles of uranium enriched to 83.7% at the Fordow nuclear facility in Iran, saying there has been ‘“no deviation” in Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities.

    A new sphinx statue has been discovered in Egypt – but this one is thought to be Roman.

    The smiling sculpture and the remains of a shrine were found during an excavation mission in Qena, a southern Egyptian city on the eastern banks of the River Nile.

    The shrine had been carved in limestone and consisted of a two-level platform, Mamdouh Eldamaty, a former minister of antiquities and professor of Egyptology at Ain Shams University said in a statement Monday from Egypt’s ministry of tourism and antiquities. A ladder and mudbrick basin for water storage were found inside.

    The basin, believed to date back to the Byzantine era, housed the smiling sphinx statue, carved from limestone.

    Eldamaty described the statue as bearing “royal facial features.” It had a “soft smile” with two dimples. It also wore a nemes on its head, the striped cloth headdress traditionally worn by pharaohs of ancient Egypt, with a cobra-shaped end or “uraeus.”

    A Roman stela with hieroglyphic and demotic writings from the Roman era was found below the sphinx.

    The professor said that the statue may represent the Roman Emperor Claudius, the fourth Roman emperor who ruled from the year 41 to 54, but noted that more studies are needed to verify the structure’s owner and history.

    The discovery was made in the eastern side of Dendera Temple in Qena, where excavations are still ongoing.

    Sphinxes are recurring creatures in the mythologies of ancient Egyptian, Persian and Greek cultures. Their likenesses are often found near tombs or religious buildings.

    It is not uncommon for new sphinx statues to be found in Egypt. But the country’s most famous sphinx, the Great Sphinx of Giza, dates back to around 2,500 BC and represents the ancient Egyptian Pharoah Khafre.

    By Nadeen Ebrahim

    Ziya Sutdelisi, 53, a former local administrator, receives a free haircut from a volunteer from Gaziantep, in the village of Buyuknacar, near Pazarcik, Kahramanmaras province on Sunday, one month after a massive earthquake struck southeast Turkey.

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  • Is a new nuclear deal with Iran possible?

    Is a new nuclear deal with Iran possible?

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    From: Inside Story

    The UN’s nuclear agency says Iran has pledged to cooperate with the monitoring of its sites.

    The United Nations’ nuclear agency says Iran has pledged to cooperate with the monitoring of its sites.

    It comes after a visit to Tehran by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi.

    His trip followed reports that the IAEA had found particles of uranium that had been enriched to near-weapons grade level at Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility.

    Tehran denies its intention to develop a nuclear weapon.

    But it has ramped up its enrichment programme since then-President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018.

    So how will Western powers react? Have sanctions against Iran worked?

    Presenter: Mohammed Jamjoom

    Guests:

    Fouad Izadi – Associate professor at the Faculty of World Studies, University of Tehran

    Sahil Shah – Nuclear policy specialist and senior Iran policy adviser at the European Leadership Network

    Alex Vatanka – Director and senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and founding director of its Iran programme

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  • Near bomb-grade level uranium found in Iranian nuclear plant, says IAEA report | CNN

    Near bomb-grade level uranium found in Iranian nuclear plant, says IAEA report | CNN

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    Abu Dhabi, UAE
    CNN
     — 

    Uranium particles enriched to near bomb-grade levels have been found at an Iranian nuclear facility, according to the UN’s nuclear watchdog, as the US warned that Tehran’s ability to build a nuclear bomb was accelerating.

    In a restricted report seen by CNN, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that uranium particles enriched to 83.7% purity – which is close to the 90% enrichment levels needed to make a nuclear bomb – had been found in Iran’s Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP), an underground nuclear facility located some 20 miles northeast of the city of Qom.

    The report says that in January, the IAEA took environmental samples at the Fordow plant, which showed the presence of high enriched uranium particles up to 83.7% purity.

    The IAEA subsequently informed Iran that these findings were “inconsistent with the level of enrichment at the Fordow plant as declared by Iran and requested Iran to clarify the origins of these particles,” added the report.

    Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched up to 60% had also grown from 25.2 kg to 87.5 kg since the last quarterly report, according to the confidential IAEA report.

    The IAEA report said discussions with Iran to clarify the matter are ongoing, noting that “these events clearly indicate the capability of the IAEA to detect and report changes in the operation of nuclear facilities in Iran.”

    In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian did not directly respond to a question on reports of the enrichment.

    Amir-Abdollahian said that the deputy director general of the IAEA, Massimo Aparo, had visited Iran on two occasions in the past weeks and that the IAEA’s director general Rafael Grossi has been invited to visit the country.

    “We have a roadmap with the IAEA. And on two occasions, Mr. [Massimo] Aparo, Mr. [Rafael] Grossi’s deputy, came to Iran in the past few weeks, and we had constructive and productive negotiations. And we have also invited Mr. Grossi to come and visit Iran soon,” Amir-Abdollahian told CNN. “Therefore our relationship with the IAEA is on its correct, natural path.”

    Last year, Iran removed all of the IAEA equipment previously installed for surveillance and monitoring activities related to the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

    The move had “detrimental implications for the IAEA’s ability to provide assurance of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme,” the IAEA report stated.

    A US State Department spokesperson on Tuesday said the IAEA report potentially poses a “very serious development.”

    “We are in close contact with our allies and partners in Europe and the region as we await further details from the IAEA on this potentially very serious development,” added the spokesperson.

    Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl on Tuesday said that “Iran’s nuclear progress since” the Trump administration withdrew the US from the 2015 nuclear deal “has been remarkable,” adding that in 2018, when the US withdrew, “it would have taken Iran about 12 months to produce one fissile, one bomb’s worth of fissile material.”

    “Now it would take about 12 days,” he said.

    More than a year of indirect negotiations between the US and Iran to try to restore the 2015 nuclear deal broke down in September 2022. Tensions between the two countries only worsened after Iran’s crackdown on nationwide protests at home, and as Tehran supplied Russia with drones in the Ukraine war.

    Kahl said Tuesday that the agreement is “on ice.”

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  • Why are South Koreans losing faith in America’s nuclear umbrella? | CNN

    Why are South Koreans losing faith in America’s nuclear umbrella? | CNN

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    Seoul
    CNN
     — 

    They have them, so we need them.

    That is the fundamental argument for South Koreans who want their country to develop its own nuclear weapons. It’s about the need to protect themselves from an aggressive northern neighbor that is already a nuclear power in all but name and whose leader Kim Jong Un has vowed an “exponential increase” in his arsenal.

    The counter-argument, which has has long stopped Seoul from pursuing the bomb, lies in the likely consequences. Developing nukes would not only upset the country’s relationship with the United States, it would likely invite sanctions that could strangle Seoul’s access to nuclear power. And that is to say nothing of the regional arms race it would almost inevitably provoke.

    But which side of the argument South Koreans find themselves on appears to be changing.

    Ten years ago, calling for South Korean nuclear weapons was a fringe idea that garnered little serious coverage. Today it has become a mainstream discussion.

    Recent opinion polls show a majority of South Koreans support their country having its own nuclear weapons program; a string of prominent academics who once shunned the idea have switched sides; even President Yoon Suk Yeol has floated the idea.

    So what’s changed?

    For supporters, Seoul developing its own nukes would finally answer the age-old question: “Would Washington risk San Francisco for Seoul in the event of nuclear war?”

    At present, South Korea comes under Washington’s Extended Deterrence Strategy, which includes the nuclear umbrella, meaning the US is obligated to come to its aid in the event of attack.

    For some, that is enough reassurance. But the details of exactly what form that “aid” might take aren’t entirely clear. As that age-old question points out, faced with the possibility of a retaliatory nuclear strike on US soil, Washington would have a compelling reason to limit its involvement.

    Perhaps better not to ask the question then. As Cheong Seong-chang of the Sejong Institute puts it, “If South Korea has nuclear weapons, we can respond ourselves to North Korea’s attack, so there is no reason for the United States to get involved.”

    There are other reasons for South Koreans to question their decades-old leap of faith in US protection, too. Looming large among them is Donald Trump. The former US president, citing the expense involved, made no secret of his desire to pull 28,500 US troops out of South Korea and questioned why the US had to protect the country. Given Trump has already announced his presidential bid for the 2024 election that’s an issue that still plays heavy on people’s minds.

    “The US simply isn’t perceived to be as reliable as it once was,” Ankit Panda of Carnegie Endowment for Peace said. “Even if the Biden administration behaves like a traditional US administration and offers all the right reassurance signals to South Korea… policy makers will have to keep in the back of their mind the possibility of the US once again electing an administration that would have a different approach for South Korea.”

    But the loss of faith goes beyond Trump.

    South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul on August 17, 2022.

    More recently, President Yoon Suk Yeol floated the idea of US tactical nuclear weapons being redeployed to the peninsula or South Korea possessing “its own nuclear capabilities” if the North Korean threat intensifies. Washington’s rejection of both ideas has been conspicuous. When Yoon said this month that Seoul and Washington were discussing joint nuclear exercises President Joe Biden was asked the same day whether such discussions were indeed underway. He responded simply, “No.”

    Following Yoon’s comments, US Defense Department Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder reiterated the US’ commitment to the Extended Deterrence Strategy, saying that “to date, (the strategy) has worked and it has worked very well.”

    In a Chosun Ilbo newspaper interview published on January 2, Yoon said of these guarantees, “it’s difficult to convince our people with just that.”

    But in another interview, with The Wall Street Journal on the sidelines of Davos last week, Yoon walked those comments back saying, “I’m fully confident about the US’ extended deterrence.”

    An inconsistent message rarely soothes concerns on either side of the argument.

    On Thursday, US think-tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), suggested what might seem a middle ground – the creation of “a framework for joint nuclear planning” that could “help to develop stronger bonds of trust between the allies in the current environment.”

    It said this framework could be “similar to a NATO planning group for nuclear weapons use, with planning conducted bilaterally and trilaterally (with Japan) and control remaining in the hands of the United States.”

    But the CSIS made clear it did not support “the deployment of US tactical nuclear weapons to the peninsula or condoning South Korea purchasing its own nuclear weapons.”

    Other experts too, like Professor Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear non-proliferation expert at Middlebury Institute in California, see joint planning and exercises as “more realistic options than either nuclear weapons or nuclear sharing.”

    For some in Yoon’s conservative party that is simply not enough. They see a nuclear-weapons-free South Korea being threatened by a nuclear-armed North Korea and want nothing less than US nukes redeployed to the Korean Peninsula.

    They seem destined to be disappointed. Washington moved its tactical weapons out of South Korea in 1991 after decades of deployment and there are no signs it will consider reversing that decision.

    “Putting US nukes back on the peninsula makes no military sense,” said Bruce Klingner of Heritage Foundation.

    “They currently are on very hard to find, very hard to target weapons platforms and to take weapons off of them and put them into a bunker in South Korea, which is a very enticing target for North Korea, what you’ve done is you’ve degraded your capabilities.”

    That leaves many South Koreans seeing just one option – and some are losing patience.

    Cheong, a recent convert to South Korea acquiring the bomb, believes the Extended Deterrence Strategy has already reached its limit in dealing with North Korea and only a nuclear-armed South Korea can avert a war.

    “Of course, North Korea does not want South Korea’s nuclear armament. Now they can ignore the South Korean military,” Cheong said.

    “But they must be nervous, (because if South Korea decides to pursue the bomb) it has the nuclear material to make more than 4,000 nuclear weapons.”

    Still, it’s not just fear of upsetting the relationship with the US that holds Seoul back from such a course. If South Korea were to leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) the effect on its domestic nuclear power system would likely be swift and devastating.

    “First of all, the nuclear suppliers group would cut off fissile material to South Korea, which is reliant for all of its fissile material on outside suppliers. It could lead to international sanctions,” Klingner said.

    South Korean and US jets take part in a joint air drill on Nov. 18, 2022.

    Then there is the regional arms race it would likely provoke, with neighboring China making clear it will not tolerate such a build up.

    “Probably China is going to be unhappy and it’ll basically stop at nothing to prevent South Korea from going nuclear,” said professor Andrei Lankov, long time North Korea expert from Kookmin University.

    Given the likely fallout, Seoul might do better to take comfort in the guarantees already on offer from the US.

    “The 28,500 US troops on the peninsula have a very real tripwire effect. In the event of a breakout of hostilities between the two Koreas, it is simply unavoidable for the US not to get involved. We have skin in the game,” Panda said.

    Finally, there are also those cautioning that even if South Korea did acquire nuclear weapons, its problems would hardly disappear.

    “So the funny thing about nuclear weapons is that your weapons don’t offset their weapons,” said Lewis at Middlebury Institute.

    “Look at Israel. Israel is nuclear armed and is terrified of Iran getting nuclear weapons, so Israel’s nuclear weapons don’t in any fundamental way offset the threat they feel from Iran’s nuclear weapons.”

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  • Tokyo High Court acquits three former Tepco executives over 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident: NHK | CNN

    Tokyo High Court acquits three former Tepco executives over 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident: NHK | CNN

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    Tokyo
    CNN
     — 

    The Tokyo High Court on Wednesday acquitted three former Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) executives, finding them not guilty of manslaughter over the 2011 triple reactor meltdown at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reported Wednesday.

    The High Court’s ruling was a decision on an appeal against a 2019 judgment by the Tokyo district court that found former Tepco chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and former executive vice presidents Ichiro Takekuro and Sakae Muto were not guilty of professional negligence on the grounds they could not have foreseen the tsunami that wrecked the plant.

    On March 11, 2011, an earthquake off Japan’s northeastern coast triggered the tsunami that flooded the plant’s reactors, causing the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.

    The High Court case focused on whether the tsunami could have been predicted and whether the accident at the nuclear plant could have been prevented.

    The criminal case against the executives follows a civil case in which a Tokyo court in July 2022 ordered the three men – along with Tepco’s former President Masataka Shimizuto – to pay 13 trillion yen ($95 billion) in damages to the operator of the wrecked plant.

    That ruling, which came after shareholders filed a lawsuit in 2012, was the first to find former Tepco executives legally responsible for the nuclear plant disaster.

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  • Executions aren’t new in Iran, but this time they’re different | CNN

    Executions aren’t new in Iran, but this time they’re different | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: A version of this story appears in today’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, CNN’s three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.


    New York and Amman
    CNN
     — 

    The Islamic Republic of Iran has long ranked among the world’s top executioners. But with the recent death sentences handed down to protesters, critics say the regime has taken capital punishment to a new level.

    Last weekend, Iran executed two more protesters charged with killing security personnel, causing an international outcry. Critics said that the executions were a result of hasty sham trials.

    The regime executed 314 people in 2021, 20% more than the previous year, rights group Amnesty International said in a report from May 2022. Many of those had to do with drug-related crimes.

    This year, a number of protesters are entangled in Iran’s court system, many of whom face a particularly unjust judicial process, according to activists.

    Human rights activists have warned there’s a real risk that many of them could become another number in the growing list of those executed by the Islamic Republic. At least 43 people are currently facing execution in Iran, according to a CNN count, but activist group 1500Tasvir says the number could be as high as 100.

    “Defendants are systematically deprived of access to lawyers of their choice during the trial, are subjected to tortured and coerced confessions and then rushed to the gallows,” Tara Sepehri Far, an Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch, told CNN.

    United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk on Tuesday accused Iran of “weaponizing” criminal procedures, saying it amounts to “state sanctioned killing”

    With this round of protests, critics say, the authorities are using charges that carry the death penalty more liberally than they have before, widening the application of such laws to cover protesters.

    According to Iranian state media, dozens of government agents, from security officials to officers of the basij paramilitary force, have been killed in the protests. Activist groups HRANA and Iran Human Rights say that 481 protesters have been killed.

    Security personnel have died in previous protests as well, Sepehri Far said, “but it is crucial to point out in this (time) round Iranian authorities are using the death penalty way beyond (the) intentional killing of security officers.”

    The regime appears to have capitalized on the executions, using them as a deterrent to people eager to speak out and flood the streets, as was seen after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini in the custody of the nation’s morality police.

    “The trials and executions are yet another piece of the repression machine serving to demonstrate power and control and spread fear and publicize (the) government’s narrative about protesters,” Sepehri Far explained.

    Iran has used Islamic Sharia law to prosecute protesters with crimes carrying the death penalty, namely “waging war against God” or “moharebeh” and “corruption on earth,” according to the UN Office of Human Rights.

    The process has been criticized within the country too.

    Mohsen Borhani, a professor at Tehran University and an expert in Islamic jurisprudence, has also challenged the use of such religiously based charges against protesters. In a television debate last month, he argued that the protesters executed were charged with waging war against God when their role in the protests did not in fact merit such a charge.

    The brandishing of weapons by protesters, he said, was meant to intimidate, not injure security personnel. “This is fundamentally out of the realm of moharebeh because the person’s opposition is towards the government, not civilians.”

    Sepehri Far said that Mohsen Shekari, one of the first protesters to be executed, was accused of injuring an officer. “Others have received the death penalty for extremely vague charges such as destruction and arson of public property or using a weapon to spread terror,” she said.

    Activists say Iranian authorities have developed sophisticated methods of spreading disinformation on how, why and when executions will be carried out. Civil rights activist Atena Daemi said in a tweet, for example, that several Iranian news outlets had reported that activists on death row had been released, news that was refuted by the prisoners’ families.

    Activists have said that condemning the protests is not enough. The European Union has taken note, and as the bloc continues to discuss imposing a fourth round of sanctions on Iran, some members have supported moves to classify its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.

    Saudi Arabia to lift restrictions on pilgrim numbers for 2023 Hajj season

    Saudi Arabia aims to host a pre-pandemic number of Muslim pilgrims for the Hajj in 2023, the Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah said in a tweet on Monday. No age limits will be imposed on Hajj pilgrims this season, which starts on June 26.

    • Background: The kingdom had limited the number of pilgrims to 1,000 in 2020 and in 2021 increased the quota to almost 60,000, but only for residents of Saudi Arabia. In 2022, the kingdom authorized one million Muslims to perform the rites. The holy sites in the cities of Mecca and Medina normally host over 2 million people during the pilgrimage.
    • Why it matters: Performing the Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam which all able-bodied Muslims are required to perform at least once in their lives. Saudi Arabia has identified the pilgrimage as a key component of a plan to diversify its economy. According to Mastercard’s latest Global Destination Cities Index, Mecca attracted $20 billion in tourist dollars in 2018.

    Egypt commits to IMF to slow projects, increase fuel prices

    Egypt committed to a flexible currency, a greater role for the private sector and a range of monetary and fiscal reforms when it agreed to a $3 billion financial support package with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Reuters reported, citing an IMF staff report released on Tuesday. Among its pledges is one to slow investment in public projects, including national projects, so as to reduce inflation and conserve foreign currency, without specifying where cuts might fall. Egypt also said it would allow most fuel product prices to rise until they were in line with the country’s fuel index mechanism to make up for a slowdown in such increases over the last fiscal year.

    • Background: In a letter of intent to the IMF, Egypt said it sought support after the war in Ukraine increased existing vulnerabilities amid tighter global financial conditions and higher commodity prices. Under the support, the IMF will provide Egypt with about $700 million in the fiscal year that ends in June.
    • Why it matters: Egypt is already suffering from economic hardship and rising inflation that has caused discontent at home. The 2011 revolution was partly triggered by economic matters and the cost of living.

    Saudi Arabia plans to use domestic uranium for nuclear fuel

    Saudi Arabia plans to use domestically-sourced uranium to build up its nuclear power industry, Reuters cited Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman as saying on Wednesday. He added that recent exploration had shown a diverse portfolio of uranium.

    • Background: Saudi Arabia has a nascent nuclear program that it wants to expand to eventually include uranium enrichment, a sensitive area given its role in nuclear weapons. Riyadh has said it wants to use nuclear power to diversify its energy mix.
    • Why it matters: Atomic reactors need uranium enriched to around 5% purity, but the same technology in this process can also be used to enrich the heavy metal to higher, weapons-grade levels. This issue has been at the heart of Western and regional concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. It is unclear where Saudi Arabia’s ambitions end, since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said in 2018 that the kingdom would develop nuclear weapons if Iran did. The neighboring United Arab Emirates has committed not to enrich uranium itself and not to reprocess spent fuel.

    German exports to Iran rose by 12.7% last year, Reuters reported. Despite a significant deterioration in political ties between the two countries due to Iran’s brutal crackdown on protesters, trade ties remained intact, with the value of trade climbing to $1.6 billion between January and November. Berlin is currently pushing for a fourth package of European Union sanctions on Iran.

    The Gulf nation of Oman become the latest in the small group of countries that are considering a move to a four-day workweek.

    The government has said that it is studying the possibility of expanding weekends to three days instead of two, citing other nations’ success in pilots to test the move.

    Salem bin Muslim Al Busaidi, an undersecretary at the labor ministry, told local media that the nation’s workforce has already increased flexibility, adopting remote work, part-time work and other initiatives to modernize the work environment.

    Several countries have experimented with a four-day work week, including Iceland, Spain and Ireland, and the trials suggest that the move improves productivity.

    Oman’s neighbor, the UAE, has seen some of the most dramatic changes to the country’s work environment. Besides shifting the country’s weekend to Saturday and Sunday instead of Friday and Saturday, the country adopted a four-and-a-half-day workweek in 2022.

    The UAE emirate of Sharjah took that a step further by adopting a four-day work week across all government sectors and allowing private companies to do the same.

    The emirate reported a 40% drop in traffic accidents in the first 8 months, a boost in employee productivity, and a drop in gas emissions due to the decrease in commutes, according to local media.

    The onset of Covid-19 drastically changed the working environment of the Gulf region as companies were forced to adapt to new ways of working under restrictions.

    By Mohammed Abdelbary

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  • Exclusive: Biden task force investigating how US tech ends up in Iranian attack drones used against Ukraine | CNN Politics

    Exclusive: Biden task force investigating how US tech ends up in Iranian attack drones used against Ukraine | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The Biden administration has launched an expansive task force to investigate how US and western components, including American-made microelectronics, are ending up in Iranian-made drones Russia is launching by the hundreds into Ukraine, multiple officials familiar with the effort tell CNN. 

    The US has imposed tough export control restrictions and sanctions to prevent Iran from obtaining high-end materials, but evidence has emerged that suggests Iran is finding an abundance of commercially-available technology. 

    Last month, the UK-based investigative organization  Conflict Armament Research examined  several drones that had been downed in Ukraine and found that 82% of their components were manufactured by companies based in the US. 

    Among the components found in some of the drones are processors built by the Dallas-based technology company Texas Instruments, according to an investigation by the Ukrainian Armed Forces and a source familiar with the US inquiry, as well as an engine made by an Austrian firm owned by Canada’s Bombardier Recreational Products. Both companies have condemned any use of their technology for illicit purposes. 

    Their apparently unintentional ensnarement in Iran’s drone manufacturing industry underscores how inexpensive products intended for civilian use can be easily retrofitted for military purposes, and often fall just outside the bounds of sanctions and export control regimes.  

    Texas Instruments said in a statement to CNN that “TI is not selling any products into Russia, Belarus or Iran. TI complies with applicable laws and regulations in the countries where we operate, and partners with law enforcement organizations as necessary and appropriate. Additionally, we do not support or condone the use of our products in applications they weren’t designed for. ”

    Bombardier Recreational Products  said in a statement that it was launching an investigation into how the engines ended up in the drones.

    The investigation has intensified in recent weeks amid intelligence obtained by the US that the Kremlin is preparing to open its own factory for drone production inside Russia as part of a deal with Iran, the officials said. 

    Iran has already begun transferring blueprints and components for the drones to Russia to help with production there, CNN has reported, in a dramatic expansion of the countries’ military partnership. 

    Agencies across Washington are involved in the task force, including the departments of Defense, State, Justice, Commerce and Treasury, with one official describing the inquiry as an “all hands on deck” initiative. The effort is being overseen by the White House National Security Council as part of an even bigger, “holistic approach” to dealing with Iran, a senior administration official said, from its crackdown on protesters and its nuclear program to its deepening role in the war in Ukraine.

    But the drone issue is particularly urgent given the sheer volume of US-made components, many of them manufactured in the last couple years, that have been found in the Iranian drones Russia has been deploying across Ukraine against civilians and critical infrastructure. 

    Conflict Armament Research found that the Iranian drones they examined in Ukraine in November had “higher-end technological capabilities,” including tactical-grade sensors and semiconductors sourced outside of Iran, demonstrating that Tehran “has been able to circumvent current sanction regimes and has added more capabilities and resiliency to its weapons.”

    National Security Council official John Kirby told reporters earlier this month that the US would be sanctioning three Russian companies involved in acquiring and using the Iranian drones, and is “assessing further steps we can take in terms of export controls to restrict Iran’s access to sensitive technologies.” 

    Much of that work has fallen to the task force, officials said, and among its first tasks has been to notify all of the American companies whose components have been found in the drones. Congressional staffers briefed on the effort told CNN that they hope the task force provides lawmakers with a list of US companies whose equipment is being found in the drones in an effort to force greater accountability by urging the companies to monitor their supply chains more closely.

    The task force is also having to coordinate with foreign allies, since the components being used in the drones are not limited to those produced by American companies.  Conflict Armament Research also found that “more than 70 manufacturers based in 13 different countries and territories” produced the components in the Iranian drones they examined.

    In October, CNN obtained access to a drone that was downed in the Black Sea near Odesa and captured by Ukrainian forces. It was found to contain Japanese batteries, an Austrian engine and American processors. 

    An Iranian-made drone, the Mohajer-6.

    Iran may also be acquiring near-exact replicas of western components from China, according to a study published last month by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. “China plays a larger role than previously assessed in enabling Iran to manufacture and supply drones to Russian forces,” the report found. “It appears that Chinese companies are supplying Iran with copies of Western commodities to produce UAV combat drones.”

    The White House believes it is successfully driving home the scale of the issue with allies. The senior administration official told CNN that there was “growing broad and deep international consensus on Iran, from the EU to Canada to Australia and New Zealand, which is being led by US diplomacy.”

    There is no evidence that any of the western companies are knowingly exporting their technology to be used in the drones, and that is partly why the task force’s job has been so difficult, officials said. 

    The task force has its work cut out for it in tracing supply chains for the microelectronics industry, which relies heavily on third party distributors and resellers. The microchips and other small devices ending up in so many of the Iranian and Russian drones are not only inexpensive and widely available, they are also easily hidden. 

    Parts of a drone after Russian strike on fuel storage facilities in Kharkiv, Ukraine October 6, 2022.

    Iran also uses front companies to buy equipment from the US and EU that may have a dual use, like the Austrian engines, that Tehran can then use to build drones, according to the Treasury Department, which sanctioned several of those companies in September. 

     That makes supply chain monitoring a challenge, though experts say US and European companies could be doing a lot more to track where their products are going. 

    “American companies should be doing a lot more to track their supply chains,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, the former chief technology officer at the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. 

    Keeping better track of resellers is a first step, he said, but the task is admittedly difficult because so many of these companies’ products are so commoditized and available off-the-shelf and online for civil purposes. Ultimately, neutering some Iranian front companies with sanctions and cutting off their supply from some western companies will be akin to “a game of whack a mole,” Alperovitch said, noting that they “can easily find another supplier.”

    He added that the real “weak underbelly” of US policy when it comes to export controls is enforcement—and prosecuting the specific individuals involved in the illicit transactions. 

    “We have to beef up the resources for enforcement of our sanctions to achieve the desired effect,” Alperovitch said.

    “You can put companies on the [sanctioned] entities list,” he added, “but if you don’t actually go after the people involved, it doesn’t mean a whole lot.” 

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