France will reduce the share of nuclear energy in its electricity mix “as soon as possible”, French junior environment minister Brune Poirson said on Tuesday, although she did not give a target date. Reuters.com

South Korea believes there is “no concrete evidence” that North Korea has mastered the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile, the country’s foreign minister has told CNN. Cnn.com

The workers were evacuated “as a precaution”, authorities in the Manche region said in a statement, adding that firefighters deployed to the Flamanville site on the Normandy coast had contained the smoke. Thelocal.fr

With its aged nuclear power plant scheduled to close in a decade, Armenians are discussing the feasibility of a shift to renewable energy. Eurasianet.org

 

Part 3 of 4 parts (Please read Part 2 first)

      Barrack had known nothing about nuclear power in the Middle East until he was briefed by Bud McFarlane in late 2016, one of the ex-government officials recruited by IP3. McFarlane had been a member of the Reagan administration. He pleaded guilty to withholding information about the Iran-Contra scandal from Congress but was pardoned by George H W Bush.

        In January of this year, Mike Flynn who had been an advisor to the Trump campaign, was appointed as National Security Advisor. McFarland followed up his meeting with Barrack with an email to Flynn with two attached documents. One laid out IP3’s plan in a way that was consistent with Trump’s expressed philosophy. The other document was a memo for Trump to sign that endorsed the project and instructed the members of Trump’s administration to implement it. In the two documents, Barrack was designated as the interagency coordinator for the project. Flynn told his staff to put together a formal proposal based on the IP3 plan to be presented to Trump.

        Members of the National Security Council were upset by this attempt to circumvent the normal process for such major projects. Normally projects would be reviewed by representatives from a number of government agencies about practical and legal aspect of the plan. It was feared that eliminating such multiagency reviews could result in private parties taking advantage of the President for their own benefit. One former official said, “Circumventing that process has the ability not only to invite decisions that aren’t fully vetted but that are potentially unwise and have the potential to put our interests and our people at risk.”

       Derek Harvey, who was the NSC’s senior director for the Middle East, continued to discuss the IP3 plan with Barrack and Rick Gates, Barrack’s representative. Gates was an associate of Paul Manafort and he worked for Barrack’s investment company. Barrack and Gates were seeking investment ideas for the Middle East. Barrack had considered buying a share of Westinghouse, the U.S. nuclear company which had recently declared bankruptcy.      This October, Robert Mueller charged Manafort and Gates with twelve counts. These included conspiracies against the U.S., unregistered foreign lobbying, and money laundering. 

       In the end, it was not the concerns of the NSC staff that derailed the IP3 plan. Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of the President was charged with developing a Middle East peace plan between Arab countries and Israel. He decided that it would be a better idea to shelve the IP3 plan and proceed with simpler alliance-building measures with Saudi Arabia.

        Recently, the IP3 plan has resurfaced as Saudi Arabia requested bids for the construction of their first nuclear power reactor. This October, Saudi Arabia requested information about reactor purchase from U.S., France, South Korea, Russia and China. The IP3 plan was quickly revised to narrow it to focus on putting together a consortium of companies to respond to the Saudi Arabian request. It appears that IP3 is trying to carve out a portion of such a response to handle cyber and physical site security for a Saudi Arabian nuclear power plant.  A representative said, “IP3 has communicated its strategy to multiple government entities and policy makers in both the Obama and Trump administrations.” “We view these meetings and any documents relating to them as private, and we won’t discuss them.”

Please read Part 4

A senior United Nations official arrived in North Korea on Tuesday for a rare visit aimed at defusing soaring tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. Capitalfm.co.ke

In the late 1970s, the rate of new thyroid cancer cases in four counties just north of New York City—Westchester, Rockland, Orange and Putnam counties—was 22 percent below the U.S. rate. Today, it has soared to 53 percent above the national rate. New cases jumped from 51 to 412 per year. Large increases in thyroid cancer occurred for both males and females in each county. Ecowatch.com

Morningstar analysts broke with the pessimistic consensus on nuclear power this fall when they predicted the industry would not just hold its own against renewables and cheap natural gas, it might even grow up to 5 percent. Forbes.com

NAC KazAtomProm will reduce planned uranium production by 20% to better align output with demand, the company announced today. The cuts will be enacted for a period of three years beginning in January 2018, it added. World-nuclear-news.org

Part 2 of 4 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)

        During this same period, the U.S. Obama administration was working on a deal to curb Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. One part of the deal that was worked out was to leave Iran with some enrichment capability. Saudi Arabia supported the Iran deal but insisted that it was entitled to the same capability that Iran had. The U.S. refused to provide comparable technology to Saudi Arabia. The U.S. position was that allowing the spread of possible dual use technology to new countries was not the same as capping an existing technology already possessed by Iran.

       There were critics of the U.S. Iran policy who said that it was wrong to prevent the Saudis from developing the ability to defend themselves given suspicions that Iran would not abandon their quest for nuclear weapons. One of these critics was Michael Flynn, a lieutenant general who was forced out of the Obama Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014 and he took a variety of consulting jobs in the private sector including an advisory post with ACU Strategic Partners. Flynn was only one of many retired military officers recruited by ACU.

       The CEO of ACU was Alex Copson, a British-American inventor and wheeler dealer. In 2015, Copson was telling people that he intended to build up to forty nuclear power reactors in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Copson tried to get the Obama administration interested but officials were concerned that he did not really have the financial backing that he had claimed.

       On behalf of ACU, Flynn flew to Egypt and tried to convince them turn down a Russian offer to build nuclear power reactors in Egypt. He also tried to convince the Egyptians to consider the ACU proposal. Flynn tried to persuade Israel to support ACUs ambitions nuclear plans for the Middle East.

         Copson’s company and efforts eventually fell apart and Michael Hewitt, a retired admiral with ACU struck out on his own in mid-2016 along with Mike Flynn. Hewitt called his new company IP3 International which was short for “International Peace Power & Prosperity.” IP3 signed up prestigious a group of retired military people and government officials. Where ACUs plans included the Russians, IP3 substituted the Chinese. Eventually IP3 changed to an “all American” plan for the provision of new nuclear reactors. Of course, this plan was popular with the U.S. nuclear construction industry which was looking for new customers in other countries.

       Nuclear exports are tightly controlled because the technology can be so dangerous. Obtaining a 123 agreement was only the first step in a long process if a foreign government wants to purchase American made nuclear reactors and technology. The U.S. Department of Energy has to sign off on the transfer of such nuclear technology as nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has to provide licenses for nuclear reactors and the Commerce Department has authority over export of the rest of the equipment used to construct a nuclear power plant.

      IP3 did not want to bother with this complex process so they tried to go around these agencies by appealing directly to the White House. At the beginning of the Trump administration, Tom Barrack, a friend and advisor of Trump as well as a major investor, became interested in the IP3 plan. He wrote a series of white papers about how the IP3 plan would be part of a new approach to the Middle East. It would emphasize economic cooperation which he hoped would reduce terrorism and improve relations.

Please read Part 3

Michael Flynn:

The corporation running the Chalk River Laboratories nuclear facility will take over fire services for the town of Deep River, Ont., after financial problems left the department short-staffed and under-resourced. Cbc.ca

The nuclear power industry contributed £1 billion to Scotland’s economy last year and supports more than 12,000 jobs, according to a new report. Scotsman.com

China’s arsenal is a closely guarded state secret, so it’s not exactly known how powerful their weapons are. Aljazeera.com

A 2.5-magnitude earthquake has been detected in North Korea near where the country recently conducted a nuclear test, Seoul’s weather agency said. Independent.co.uk

The pressure is off South Carolina’s congressional delegation to extend a federal tax deadline for the country’s nuclear power industry following the cancellation of two unfinished reactors at V.C. Summer station.  postandcourier.com

The United Arab Emirates has denied a report that Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired a cruise missile towards its airspace. Aljazeera.com

Pope Francis says the Cold War-era policy of nuclear deterrence is no longer viable and that the mere possession of nuclear weapons is now “irrational.”abcnews.go.com

Pyongyang has accused Donald Trump of “begging” for nuclear war ahead of joint US-South Korea military exercises. The remark came after six US F-22 stealth fighter jets arrived in South Korea ahead of the annual drills. Rt.com