bananas
bananas's JournalBelgium's neighbours fret over reboot of ageing nuclear reactors
Source: France 24
Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg have raised concerns over two ageing Belgian nuclear reactors recently brought back to life after being shut down for more than two years over safety concerns.
German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks this week demanded a meeting with Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon to express the concerns of German citizens who live in close proximity to the problem-riddled nuclear reactors.
The meeting, which will take place in Brussels on Monday, comes after similar requests from Dutch and Luxembourgish officials worried about the safety of people who live near Belgium’s Doel 3 and Tihange 2 reactors.
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Meanwhile, a petition on the activism website Avaaz.org urged European citizens to “avoid the next Chernobyl” by calling for an independent safety evaluation of the Doel 3 and Tihange 2 reactors. More than 192,000 people had signed the petition by 3pm on Thursday.
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Read more: http://www.france24.com/en/20160128-belgium-nuclear-reactors-doel-tihange-security
Fukushima nuclear crisis far from over, Kan says
Source: Kyodo
Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Tuesday the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant is not over five years since a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered the meltdowns.
“There is no doubt” radioactive materials have been seeping into the sea after mixing with groundwater, Kan, who has been a vocal critic of nuclear energy since the crisis started, told the National Press Club in Washington.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly said the issue of water contaminated with radioactive substances at the Fukushima plant is “under control,” including when he was making a pitch for Tokyo as host of the 2020 Olympic Games.
Kan disputes this. “The accident is still unfolding,” he said.
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Read more: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/01/28/national/politics-diplomacy/fukushima-nuclear-crisis-far-kan-says/
Kan is absolutely correct - and this accident will continue to unfold for a very long time.
Shinzo Abe is a sleazy neocon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism_in_Japan
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017170298
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141078433
NASA holds Day of Remembrance on Challenger Anniversary to remember all fallen astronauts
Source: WHNT TV
January 28, 2016 marks 30 years since the Shuttle Challenger had a booster engine fail, causing the shuttle to break apart and kill all seven crewmembers on board. It happened just 73 seconds after launch on the morning of January 28, 1986.
President Ronald Reagan eulogized the crew, quoting from the poem High Flight: “We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.'”
NASA has a day of events planned for today’s “Day of Remembrance” across the nation for members of NASA who “lost their lives while furthering space exploration and discovery.”
Below is a schedule of events (all times central):
8:00 a.m. – Administrator Charles Bolden begins the day with other agency officials for a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.
9:00 a.m. – Wreath-laying ceremony at the Space Mirror Memorial located at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.
10:00 a.m. – NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will observe the day with a candle-lighting ceremony for center employees, as well as a public event at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, Marshall’s official visitor center.
10:00 a.m. – NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, will hold an event for employees that includes placing flowers at the Apollo, Challenger and Columbia Trees at the center.
The NASA.gov website has special videos produced for each of the three major disasters: Challenger, Apollo 1 and Columbia. We encourage you to follow the link to watch all three in their entirety.
Read more: http://whnt.com/2016/01/28/nasa-holds-day-of-remembrance-on-challenger-anniversary-to-remember-all-fallen-astronauts/
Chinese national gets 9 years for smuggling nuclear materials to Iran
Source: Boston Business Journal
A Chinese national was sentenced Wednesday in federal court in Boston in connection with obtaining technology from a Massachusetts company that could be used to make nuclear weapons-grade uranium and exporting it to Iran.
Sihai Cheng, also known as Chun Hai Cheng or Alex Cheng, 35, a citizen of China, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Chief Judge Patti B. Saris to nine years in prison. One of Cheng's co-conspirators, Iranian national Seyed Abolfazl Shahab Jamili, was part of a prisoner swap with Iran earlier this month.
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At today’s sentencing, prosecutors argued that Cheng’s "conduct gravely harmed and jeopardized the national security of the United States as well as other countries throughout the world. Cheng even invoked the threat of war between Iran and the United States as a means of increasing his profits."
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office:
Cheng’s network was responsible for supplying Iran thousands of components for its nuclear proliferation activities and advancing Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Cheng knew he was providing Iran critical components for use in the development of weapons-grade uranium and that the parts he was supplying were going Iran’s nuclear program. Indeed, in 2009, according to evidence at the sentencing hearing, when Cheng supplied his first four shipments of pressure transducers, Iran was secretly constructing the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant for the purpose of developing nuclear weapons. Further, based upon expert testimony, from 2009 to 2011, when Cheng supplied Iran 1,185 MKS pressure transducers, Iran was engaged in nuclear proliferation activities.
In imposing the nine-year sentence, Saris found that Cheng “knowingly provided material support to develop a nuclear weapon.”
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Read more: http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2016/01/27/chinese-national-gets-9-years-for-smuggling.html
Why Bernie Sanders doesn't participate in organized religion
Source: Washington Post
Growing up, Bernie Sanders followed the path of many young American Jews. He went to Hebrew school, was bar mitzvahed and traveled to Israel to work on a kibbutz.
But as an adult, Sanders drifted away from Jewish customs. And as his bid for the White House gains momentum, he has the chance to make history. Not just as the first Jewish president — but as one of the few modern presidents to present himself as not religious.
“I am not actively involved with organized religion,” Sanders said in a recent interview.
Sanders said he believes in God, though not necessarily in a traditional manner.
“I think everyone believes in God in their own ways,” he said. “To me, it means that all of us are connected, all of life is connected, and that we are all tied together.”
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bernie-sanders-finally-answers-the-god-question/2016/01/26/83429390-bfb0-11e5-bcda-62a36b394160_story.html
Bill O’Reilly defies Roger Ailes to interview Donald Trump as Fox News debate drama intensifies
Source: Salon
“I don’t know what games Roger Ailes is playing,” an enraged Donald Trump said at a Tuesday night press conference announcing his planned boycott of this week’s upcoming Fox News republican presidential debate after the power cable news boss signed-off on a snarky press release mocking Trump’s complaints.
“That was Roger 100 percent,” an unnamed source tells Fox News observer and New York Magazine reporter Gabriel Sherman.
“Who would ever say something so nasty and dumb?” Trump asked on Tuesday, dumbfounded that the network that had once hosted him for weekly “Fox & Friends” segments had finally turned to releasing a press statement joking that “a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to” meet with Putin and the Ayatollah as president.
Well, according to both Sherman’s reporting and reporting by CNN’s Brian Stelter, Ailes did indeed approve of the network’s diss. In fact, Ailes has cooled off his past relationship with Trump so much that Sherman reports “last night, Ailes directed Sean Hannity to cancel Trump’s [scheduled] interview.”
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Read more: http://www.salon.com/2016/01/27/bill_oreilly_defies_roger_ailes_to_interview_donald_trump_as_fox_news_debate_drama_intensifies/
Exclusive: Fox News Statement Taunting Trump Was '100 Percent' Roger Ailes
Source: New York Magazine
As the war between Fox News and Donald Trump ratchets up, Roger Ailes is fighting off criticism from his senior executives over his handling of the crisis. According to one highly placed source, last night, Ailes sent out the now-famous statement mocking Trump as being scared to meet with the “Ayatollah” and “Putin” if he became president. “That was Roger 100 percent,” the source explained. “A lot of people on the second floor” — where top Fox executives work — “didn’t think it was a good idea.”
Fox executives are also troubled that Ailes’s principal adviser right now is his longtime personal lawyer and Fox & Friends contributor Peter Johnson Jr. “He wrote the statement with Peter,” the source explained. “Peter is running the war room,” another Ailes friend told me. Fox executives are worried that Ailes is relying on an attorney with scant communications experience as the network is reeling from the biggest PR crisis in recent memory. Historically, during a crisis like this Ailes would have huddled with his veteran communications guru Brian Lewis. But Ailes fired Lewis in 2013 over his concerns that Lewis had been a source for my 2014 Ailes biography. Since Lewis’s ouster, Johnson has taken on the role of media counselor.
Fox spokesperson Irena Briganti did not return a call. When asked about his role advising Ailes, Johnson responded to me with an ad hominem statement. "If you were ever actually fair, any semblance of integrity was swamped by your reaction to the failure of your critically panned hit job on Fox and Ailes," he said. "Just like your latest tweets and articles, your questions today are based on your own malicious fabrication."
New signs emerged today at just how frantic Ailes has become to get Trump back to the table. The two men have not spoken since yesterday, sources told me. This morning, Joe Scarborough reported that Ailes called Trump's daughter Ivanka and wife, Melania, to get through to the GOP front-runner. But Trump is saying he'll only talk to Rupert Murdoch directly. In a further challenge to Ailes's power, Bill O'Reilly is scheduled to host Trump. Last night, Ailes directed Sean Hannity to cancel Trump's interview. O'Reilly's refusal to abide by a ban adds a new dynamic to the clash of egos. For O'Reilly, this is an opportunity to take back star power from Kelly. Sources say O'Reilly feels he made Kelly's career by promoting her on his show, and he's been furious that Kelly surpassed him in the ratings.
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Read more: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/01/fox-statement-taunting-trump-was-all-roger-ailes.html
Marvin Minsky, Pioneer in Artificial Intelligence, Dies at 88
Source: New York Times
Marvin Minsky, who combined a scientist’s thirst for knowledge with a philosopher’s quest for truth as a pioneering explorer of artificial intelligence, work that helped inspire the creation of the personal computer and the Internet, died on Sunday night in Boston. He was 88.
His family said the cause was a cerebral hemorrhage.
Well before the advent of the microprocessor and the supercomputer, Professor Minsky, a revered computer science educator at M.I.T., laid the foundation for the field of artificial intelligence by demonstrating the possibilities of imparting common-sense reasoning to computers.
“Marvin was one of the very few people in computing whose visions and perspectives liberated the computer from being a glorified adding machine to start to realize its destiny as one of the most powerful amplifiers for human endeavors in history,” said Alan Kay, a computer scientist and a friend and colleague of Professor Minsky’s.
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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/business/marvin-minsky-pioneer-in-artificial-intelligence-dies-at-88.html?_r=0
EDF delays decision on £18bn Hinkley Point nuclear power plant
Source: Financial Times
The French energy group EDF has postponed giving final approval to the construction of a new £18bn nuclear power plant in Somerset as the board attempts to reassure unions and private investors about the deal.
People close to the company confirmed on Tuesday that the final investment decision to build a station at Hinkley Point would not be taken on Wednesday, as had been expected.
Two people with knowledge of the process told the Financial Times that the item had been taken off the agenda because of last-minute concerns expressed by some of the company’s most important backers.
One said: “There are apparently some serious concerns among the private investors about how this will be financed.”
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Read more: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2f249254-c451-11e5-b3b1-7b2481276e45.html
Doomsday Clock stuck near midnight due to climate change and nuclear war
Source: Guardian
The Doomsday Clock, the symbolic countdown to humanity’s end, remained stuck on the brink of the apocalypse for a second year on Tuesday, because of the continued existential threats posed by nuclear war and climate change.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the group which created the clock in 1947, said it was keeping the clock hands set at three minutes to midnight – the closest the clock has come to destruction since the throes of the cold war in 1984.
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“The decision not to move the hands of the clock in 2016 is not good news,” Lawrence Krauss, who chairs the Bulletin’s board of sponsors, said in announcing the new clock setting.
The scientists, reinforced by former US cabinet secretaries William Perry and George Shultz, based their dire symbolic forecast on challenges of a global scale such as nuclear war and climate change.
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Leaders needed to focus on the big challenges of the age, said Jerry Brown, California’s governor.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/26/doomsday-clock-three-minutes-to-midnight-climate-change-nuclear-war
Video of the announcement is at http://clock.thebulletin.org/2016
and is worth watching.
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