Nuclear non-proliferation: Pak-EU engagement termed an effective instrument

Experts at a dialogue here on Monday discussed the nuclear non-proliferation challenges for Pakistan and South Asia, said a press release.

The dialogue on “Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Challenges for Pakistan and the Region” was organized by the South Asian Strategic Stability Institute (SASSI) University and attended by security and defence analysts.

EU principal adviser and special envoy for non-proliferation and disarmament Jaeck Bylical said that the EU-Pakistan engagement plan is an effective instrument to counter the threat of nuclear proliferation and global challenges in this domain.

Sassi University Director General Dr Maria Sultan in her opening remarks said Pakistan-EU strategic dialogue will lead towards a positive outcome.

She emphasized that the Indo-US nuclear deal has created serious security concerns for the stability of the region.

While speaking on the occasion, Defence Secretary Asif Yaseen Malik stated that the increase in the Indian defence budget was equal to the entire defence budget of Pakistan. He added that Pakistan continues to believe in minimum deterrence and engaging on non-proliferation with the rest of the international community.

Pakistan’s commitment to nuclear security framework is a testament to this, he added. More

Published in The Express Tribune, June 17^th, 2014.

 

© 2014

San Onofre California nuclear plant to shut

A California nuclear power plant will close permanently amid doubts it could operate safely, 18 months after a small radiation leak was discovered.

The San Onofre plant near Los Angeles halted operations in January 2012 after radioactive water tubes were damaged.

Operator Southern California Edison has faced a series of regulatory inquiries.

San Onofre powered 1.4 million homes but regulators say they can supply sufficient electricity through the summer barring threats to other plants.

"[The plant] has served this region for over 40 years," Chief Executive Ted Craver of parent company Edison International said in a statement.

"But we have concluded that the continuing uncertainty about when or if [the plant] might return to service was not good for our customers, our investors, or the need to plan for our region's long-term electricity needs."

With the plant off-line, officials have warned the wildfires that regularly scorch Southern California during the dry summer months could cause power shortages.

Over the last eight months Southern California Edison had sought permission from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to restart one reactor and run it at reduced power for five months, in hopes of stopping the vibrations that had damaged the tubing. More

 

Drought Hits Policies

GENEVA, Mar 13 2013 (IPS) - Drought has dramatically increased as a consequence of climate change. Most countries react to it only after it has occurred, but don’t have national policies to prevent it. The high-level meeting on national drought policies in Geneva this week is trying to match scientific knowledge with political awareness.

“Drought is a natural phenomenon, but over the last decades, as a consequence of climate change, it has been escalating in frequency and intensity, affecting millions of people across the world,” Loc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCC), said at the meeting.

The meeting, jointly organised by UNCC, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), brings together scientists and government officials to “start a dialogue on national policies,” said Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the WMO. “We have to facilitate the transition from crisis management to catastrophes prevention, like it has been successfully done for tsunamis and other natural catastrophes.”

Drought affects more people than any other natural disaster: since 1900 more than 11 million people have died as a consequence of drought, and over two billion people have been affected. In Africa, a third of the people already live in drought-affected areas.

Half of the world population will live in areas of high water scarcity by 2020. And drought is the single most common cause of food shortages, severely affecting food security in developing countries and jeopardising the FAO’s effort to increase food production by 70 percent by 2050 in order to feed a world population of 9 billion.

“Last year, the U.S. was hit by a severe drought that cost 1 percent of GDP,” Ann Tutwiler, special representative of the FAO in Geneva told IPS in an interview. “It affected the livestock that had to be sent earlier to the slaughterhouse. Damages could be somehow limited since U.S. biofuel policies allow, in cases of emergency, to use the cereals to feed the cattle instead of fuelling the cars. But it did not have much impact of human beings, except for the increase in the prices of cereals.”

In the Horn of Africa, drought affected 13 million people in 2011. In the worst-affected regions of Somalia, cereal prices were up 260 percent and, in Kenya, wheat yields dropped 45 percent compared to the year before.

In the 2007-2008 drought in Syria, 75 percent of the country’s farmers suffered total crop failure. The drought in Northern Mexico between 2010 and 2011 destroyed 900,000 hectares of farmland, and 1.7 million head of livestock were lost.

“The only country in the world that has a full-fledged drought policy is Australia,” Mohamed Bazza, senior official at the land and water division at FAO told IPS. “Kiribati and Morocco have national policies on water that are first steps towards good drought policies, but they are still sectorial and not comprehensive. Water is not the only sector that needs to be well planned, but all sectors do, like agriculture. Or, the strategy exists, but it is not implemented.”

Tackling drought has been at the centre of the FAO’s mandate since its establishment. The Rome-based UN agency has implemented projects in emergency responses, but also in mitigation and preparedness, like establishment of regional drought management networks. More

 

UK Energy Research Centre Summer School 2013 nominations now open

The UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) is holding its ninth annual Energy Summer School from 7-12th July 2013 at the University of Warwick in the English Midlands. There will be 100 places available for UK and international students.

The School has been specifically designed to give second year PhD students an opportunity to look beyond their own research and develop an understanding of energy systems as a whole and pathways to low-carbon and resilient energy systems. We welcome applications from those engaged in energy-related research including technical, physical, social, economic, environmental and business aspects of energy and energy systems.

We would like to invite you to nominate students to attend. There is no charge for registered research students to attend the School; UKERC will provide accommodation and all meals and materials for activities. The School is conducted in English, and as it is highly interactive a good standard of comprehension and spoken English is essential.

Agenda

During the week-long School, which runs in parallel to UKERC’s Annual Assembly, students will:
Understand the global commercial, political, innovation and technological challenges in the transition to a low-carbon system;
Be involved in high level debate on energy technologies and research priorities in a number of key research areas, from demand reduction to future sources of energy;
Be presented with a number of contrasting international perspectives on energy;
Have the opportunity to network with key academic, and energy research contacts;
Research, develop, negotiate and agree a collective vision for a low-carbon energy system with the opportunity to apply your current research and present the work to the UK Energy Research Centre
Develop and practice professional skills in communication and engagement.

The School is professionally facilitated to provide continual support for participants, and includes a number of networking opportunities as well as social events.

Successful applicants will be notified by e-mail from 25th March 2013 and both nominator and nominee will at that time be asked to formally accept the place. Should the delegate subsequently withdraw and a suitable replacement not be found, the nominator will be required to pay for the cost of the unused place. The School is normally heavily over-subscribed, and UKERC will select delegates by giving preference to those in the second year of a PhD, to provide an appropriate mix of specialist disciplines, and a balance of UK and non-UK based students.

Nominations are now open until midnight GMT on the 17th March 2013. For convenience we ask that the student completes the nomination form, but they will need to include your details as confirmation of supervisor endorsement.

The nomination form can be accessed from our website or by clicking on the link below.

http://www.regonline.co.uk/ukercsummerschool2013


 

Playing Politics With Nuclear Security

When a Republican president negotiates reductions in nuclear arsenals, it is statecraft; when a Democratic president does the same, it is treason. That, at least, is the position advanced this week by several leading Republican politicians and their political advisors.

In his remarks at Hankuk University in Seoul last weekend, President Barack Obama again stated his desire to modernize US national security and jettison outdated weapons and strategies. He said:

The massive nuclear arsenal we inherited from the Cold War is poorly suited to today’s threats, including nuclear terrorism. I firmly believe that we can ensure the security of the United States and our allies, maintain a strong deterrent against any threat, and still pursue further reductions in our nuclear arsenal.

This is not a view unique to the president. It represents the broad, bipartisan consensus of America’s national security establishment. Most military and defense leaders recognize that nuclear weapons serve little purpose in the 21st century other than deterring other nations from attacking us with nuclear weapons. That mission does not require the thousands of weapons currently deployed.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell explained two years ago the evolution in his thinking that tracks closely with the views of many senior security experts today:

I became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1989 and I had 28,000 nuclear weapons under my supervision. Every morning I looked to see where the Russian submarines were off the coast of Virginia and how far away those missions were from Washington. I kept track where the Russian missiles were in Europe and in the Soviet Union.

The one thing that I convinced myself after all these years of exposure to the use of nuclear weapons is that they were useless. They could not be used.

If you can have deterrence with an even lower number of weapons, well then why stop there, why not continue on, why not get rid of them altogether…This is the moment when we have to move forward and all of us come together to reduce the number of nuclear weapons and eliminate them from the face of the earth. More