Conflicting reports on whether a US carrier group steaming toward North Korea plans to intervene militarily if North Korea tests a nuclear weapon or a missile this weekend to celebrate the anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s birth. Seems like a bad idea. More about North Korea’s strategy. China is calling for restraint. Read More
The Trump circus in the White House continues. You have undoubtedly seen more than enough articles about Michael Flynn’s resignation as National Security Advisor because of his (not fully explained) telephone conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, or maybe it was because he lied to Vice President Michael Pence, or maybe it was because someone leaked about the whole mess to the media.
So I won’t link to much of that; in any case, I am working on posts relating to it and the question of just how connected the White House is to Russia. Flynn is the third to resign from Trump’s service for too much connection to Russia, along with Paul Manafort and Carter Page. You have probably seen news reports about calls for an independent investigative body to look at the whole mess. Read More
The enormous containment built to house the damaged Chernobyl reactor was sucessfully installed today. That link contains a time-lapse video of the arch’s movement from where it was constructed.
The damaged building and reactor are now protected from the elements, and cleanup work can take place inside the containment. Dust from the building had been subject to scattering by the wind.
European Commission statement This is some of the good stuff that the European Union does.
A Dutch-led investigation of the downing of Malaysia Airlines MH17 over Ukraine in July 2014 concludes that it was downed by a Buk missile fired from a rebel-held area, implicating Russia. Read More
Photo: No love lost here. Read More
It seems like there is a competition for worldwide attention. Donald Trump has it wrapped up at the moment, but Vladimir Putin is making a strong attempt. We can expect Kim Jong Un to weigh in soon, especially since his deputy ambassador to the UK has defected to South Korea (photo of North Korean embassy in London from here).
Here’s some of the news about Russia. Read More
Two more fragments of information about Donald Trump’s ties to Russia. One identifies another Trump advisor with business ties, and the other says, without showing clearly, that Trump’s strategy toward Ukraine changed after Paul Manafort came on board his campaign. Thin stuff. Read More
The anniversaries of Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9) are coming up. Peace organizations are planning observances. But we’re not hearing much about them, because Donald Trump and the possibility of his little hands on the nuclear button are getting all the attention. And maybe that’s the most meaningful observance this year. Read More
Today is the thirtieth anniversary of the reactor explosion at Chernobyl. Here are some of the best articles. The coverage, overall, is surprisingly good, not just the standard “Radiation – Be very afraid!” Read More
Nuclear weapons didn’t disappear with the end of the Cold War, and, with Russia’s new aggressiveness, Elbridge Colby looks at the balance. As he points out, there are many reasons that Russia and the US should be talking again about that balance and how to make the world safer from nuclear war. Photo of Russian missiles on parade in 2015 from BBC. Read More
