Free Republic

BRUSSELS — As a dragnet aimed at Islamic State operatives spiraled across Brussels and into at least five European countries on Friday, the authorities were also focusing on a narrower but increasingly alarming threat: the vulnerability of Belgium’s nuclear installations. The investigation into this week’s deadly attacks in Brussels has prompted worries that the Islamic State is seeking to attack, infiltrate or sabotage nuclear installations or obtain nuclear or radioactive material. This is especially worrying in a country with a history of security lapses at its nuclear facilities, a weak intelligence apparatus and a deeply rooted terrorist network. On Friday,...

Sebastien Berg, a spokesman for Belgium’s federal agency, told the Times that their fears lie on several fronts, including “exploding a bomb inside the plant” or “flying something into the plant from the outside.” That could potentially stop the cooling process of used fuel and shut down the plant, Berg said. According to the New York Times, Belgium has already had its issues with security at its plants. The nuclear agency’s computer network was hacked this year and was shut down briefly. Three years ago, two people were able to jump a fence surrounding a reactor in Mol, break into...

Terrorists have the “means, knowledge and information” to create a nuclear bomb, the head of the UN atomic watchdog has warned in the wake of the Brussels attacks. The warnings of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano come just days before world leaders meet for an important summit against “nuclear terrorism”. “Terrorism is spreading and the possibility of using nuclear material cannot be excluded,” Mr. Amano told AFP. “Member states need to have sustained interest in strengthening nuclear security.” […] “Dirty bombs will be enough to [drive] any big city in the world into panic,” Mr. Amano...

Brussels suicide bombers Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui were planning attacks on Belgian nuclear power stations, Dernier Heure newspaper has reported. The newspaper exclusively reported that the arrest of Paris attacker Salah Abdeslam accelerated the plans of the terrorists. The brothers planted a hidden camera in front of the home of the director of the Belgian nuclear research program, the paper said. Evidence obtained by the authorities shows that the same terrorist cell was behind the Paris attacks in November that killed more than 130 people and this week’s Brussels bombings, which claimed the lives of 31 people and injured...

Psychiatrist Dr. Robert Lifton studied Nazi Doctors, cults and especially relevant to the fact that ISIS is going nuclear, Aum Shinryko. A nuclear event was detected in the Australian Outback years afterwards, only by researchers looking at legacy-historical seismographs--such a remote area, nobody noticed an apparent nuclear test, except on paper and by accident. Dr. Lifton's book is Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism.

The Tihange power plant, an hour's drive from the Belgian capital in the province of Liege, and the Doel power plant in Antwerp have been cleared amid heightened fears of another attack. Security has been stepped up at both Doel, which houses four reactors, and Tihange, which houses three. Armed police and the Belgian military have been on site since the weekend following growing calls from the energy industry to beef up security at the potentially vulnerable plants. . . .

Vice President Joe Biden reassured a leading pro-Israel group the Obama administration stands firmly by its Mideast ally and said the Iran nuclear agreement will make the region more safe. He told a meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Sunday night that: “Iran is much, much further away from obtaining a nuclear weapon than they were a year ago.” He said the U.S. is watching and “if Iran violates the deal, the United States will act.” …

President Barack Obama says the benefits of the Iranian nuclear deal are “undeniable” although it may still take time for people to begin enjoying them. Obama says the deal makes it possible for Iran to rejoin the global economy through increased trade and investment, creating jobs and opportunities for Iranians to sell their goods around the world. …

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said Saturday its military is ready to pre-emptively attack and "liberate" the South in its latest outburst against the annual joint military drills by the United States and South Korea. In a statement carried through state media, the General Staff of the North's Korean People's Army said its frontline units are prepared to strike first if they see signs that American and South Korean troops involved in the drills were attempting to invade the North. The KPA said it will counter the drills by the United States and South Korea it says are...

North Korea’s provocative nuclear rhetoric has gotten so bad even the Kremlin has come out against the hermit kingdom, warning continued nuclear threats could justify an invasion. The warning was issued in the form of a written statement from the Russian foreign ministry. It follows North Korea’s threat it would engage in a “preemptive and offensive nuclear strike” in reaction to the start of joint U.S.-South Korean war games Monday. “We consider it to be absolutely impermissible to make public statements containing threats to deliver some ‘preventive nuclear strikes’ against opponents,” said the statement, as translated by the Russian TASS...

U.S. commanders say country has capability to make weapons small and light enough. Tokyo • North Korea has been able to make its nuclear warheads small enough to fit onto ballistic missiles, the state media claimed Wednesday in Pyongyang's latest boast about improvements in its weapons capabilities. North Korea has made the claim before and it is not known whether it is true, but the timing of the announcement is inauspicious. The United States and South Korea are conducting huge military exercises that North Korea views as a pretext for an invasion. On Tuesday, South Korea unleashed a wave of...

North Korea has threatened "indiscriminate" nuclear strikes against South Korea and the US if they push ahead with joint military drills.

There's a compelling argument that the world ought to be building many more nuclear power plants. We'll need vast amounts of carbon-free energy to stave off global warming. It's not at all clear that renewables can do the job alone. And nuclear is a proven technology, already providing 11 percent of electricity globally. So what's the catch? Cost. More than safety or waste issues, cost is nuclear's Achilles' heel. Modern-day reactors have become jarringly expensive to build, going for $5 billion to $10 billion a pop. Worse, the price tag seems to be rising in many places. Back in the...

The Department of Commerce today announced its affirmative preliminary determinations in the anti-dumping duty investigations of imports of cold-rolled steel flat products from Brazil, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the United Kingdom. In the Brazil investigation, mandatory respondent Companhia Siderurgica Nacional received a calculated preliminary dumping margin of 38.93%. The second mandatory respondent, Usiminas Siderurgicas de Minas Gerais, did not respond to all of Commerce’s requests for information, and therefore received a dumping margin based on adverse facts available. Usiminas and all other producers/exporters in Brazil also received a preliminary dumping margin of 38.93%. China Receives Heavy Duties...

When Vermont Yankee was set to close, activists such as Bill McKibben claimed that Vermont “is completely capable of replacing (and far more) its power output with renewables, which is why my roof is covered with solar panels.”[i] This isn’t what happened. Instead, natural gas generation expanded in New England. As a result, carbon dioxide emissions increased 7 percent in 2015. Vermont Yankee Closed in 2014 Vermont Yankee, a 604-megawatt nuclear plant, provided New England with 42 years of reliable, carbon dioxide-free power before its closure at the end of 2014. The plant’s capacity factor exceeded 80 percent over its...

The Mexican government has placed six states on high alert following the theft of a vehicle with radioactive material. That alert comes less than a year after Mexico had an almost identical case where authorities throughout most of southern Mexico spent days searching for the missing material. The warning was issued on Sunday evening by Mexico’s Secretariat of the Interior, just one day after the theft of a commercial pickup that had been transporting industrial material, including a yellow container with a rod of Iridium-192. (...)

Days before North Korea's latest nuclear-bomb test, the Obama administration secretly agreed to talks to try to formally end the Korean War, dropping a longstanding condition that Pyongyang first take steps to curtail its nuclear arsenal. Instead the U.S. called for North Korea's atomic-weapons program to be simply part of the talks. Pyongyang declined the counter-proposal, according to U.S. officials familiar with the events. Its nuclear test on Jan. 6 ended the diplomatic gambit.

Iran's economy minister said his country is seeking $45 billion in foreign investment following the implementation of a landmark nuclear deal with world powers last month. Ali Tayebnia told reporters Saturday that Iran expects $15 billion in direct foreign investment alone in the next Iranian calendar year, which begins March 20. ...

Gwynne Dyer: Turks and Saudis know any Russia fight will be lonely one 9:32 AM Wednesday Feb 17, 2016 Between last Thursday and Monday, the Turkish government, in league with Saudi Arabia, made a tentative decision to enter the war on the ground in Syria - and then got cold feet about it. Or more likely, the Turkish army simply told the government that it would not invade Syria and risk the possibility of a shooting war with the Russians. The Turkish government bears a large share of the responsibility for the devastating Syrian civil war. From the start, Turkey's...

Exclusive: President Obama, who once called the idea of “moderate” Syrian rebels a “fantasy,” has maintained the fiction to conceal the fact that many “moderates” are fighting alongside Al Qaeda’s jihadists, an inconvenient truth that is complicating an end to Syria’s civil war, explains Gareth Porter. By Gareth Porter Secretary of State John Kerry insisted at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday that the agreement with Russia on a temporary halt in the war in Syria can only be carried out if Russia stops its airstrikes against what Kerry is now calling “legitimate opposition groups.” But what Kerry did not...