Topics in this issue include blood pathogen cleaning system, Iranian compliance with the nuclear deal, the high costs of FirstNet and the obsessions with films on mass destruction.
In This Article
Keeping Society Safe from CBRN Threats
The effect a CBRN attack can have on society can be minimized by using sensors deployed on stationary units, vehicles and personnel, and by exchanging real-time warnings and reports between forces and headquarters via a CBRN AWR system (Automatic Warning and Reporting). Decision support is also crucial as it helps the operator make fast and accurate decisions, which is a key factor in limiting the effects of CBRN threats. Saab >>
Bomb Disposal Unit Recover Second World War Anti-Tank Mine
On Sunday in Bury St. Edmonds, UK a female dog walker told police she had come across a suspected landmine in the wooded area. Officers arrived at the scene and put in place a 100-metre cordon. Police later confirmed that the device had been identified as a Second World War anti-tank glass mine. East Anglian Daily Times >>
Rigaku Enhances Handheld Chemical Analyzer
Rigaku Analytical Devices today announced a major enhancement of its Progeny ResQ handheld chemical identification tool at the IAFC Hazmat Conference in Baltimore, Maryland. The new feature, dubbed 4C Technology, significantly increases the usefulness of a handheld analyzer used at incidents by indicating the overall threat level posed by the presence of multiple individual chemicals. Global Biodefense >>
BARDA Backs Cerus’ Blood Pathogen Reduction System
The U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) will back Cerus Corporation’s clinical development program for pathogen reduction of red blood cell (RBC) components, funding activities necessary to support an FDA submission and accelerate commercial scale up to facilitate potential adoption by U.S. blood centers. Global Biodefense >>
Whole Community, Any Hazard: The Updated National Planning Frameworks
FEMA’s newly updated National Planning Frameworks were released late last week, including updates to comply with PPD-21, Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience, and EO 13636, Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, among others. The five frameworks, Prevention; Protection; Mitigation; Response; and Recovery, were last updated in May of 2013 and aim to foster a whole community approach to disasters, involving local and national stakeholders. HSDL >>
1 Killed as Ambulance Hits Land Mine in Northeast Kenya
A Kenyan official says one person has been killed when an ambulance hit a land mine in the northeastern county of Garissa. Yusuf Korow, a spokesman for the county, said in a statement late Monday that two others in the ambulance had serious injuries in the incident Monday evening. VOA News >>
California Might Close Its Last Nuclear Plant
California’s biggest electric utility announced a plan on Tuesday to shut down the state’s last remaining nuclear power plant within the next decade. The plant, Diablo Canyon, has been controversial for decades and resurfaced in the news over the last few months as Pacific Gas & Electric approached a deadline to renew, or not, the plant’s operating license. CityLab >>
White House: Uranium Discovered by IAEA Likely Tied to Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program
Obama administration officials concluded that particles of uranium found at Iran’s Parchin military base and revealed in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s final report on the country’s past nuclear activities were likely tied to the regime’s nuclear weapons program. The admission further underscores concerns that the IAEA’s investigation into Iran’s nuclear activities at Parchin should not have been closed following the report’s publication. HSNW >>
U.S. Program Deterring Nuclear Smuggling Can’t Measure Progress
The federal program responsible for detecting and deterring the international smuggling of nuclear and radiological materials cannot measure its progress, a government watchdog says. The program has spent $1 billion over five years to provide equipment and training to other countries to counter nuclear smuggling. It plans to spend $809 million over the next five years. Washington Free Beacon >>
FDNY Fire Chief Killed on 9/11 Gets Proper Burial 15 Years Later
In the years since Safety Battalion Chief Lawrence Stack died in the September 11 attacks, his family hoped and waited for his remains to be found so they could lay him to rest. The family eventually learned how Stack died, but only his jacket was ever recovered. Stack’s family recently discovered that the chief had donated blood before he died. Using the blood as his remains, the family finally felt that they could lay him to rest in a funeral on Friday. The Guardian >>
Tour Secret WWII Lab with Manhattan Project App
A new app called “Los Alamos: Secret City of the Manhattan Project” takes users back to New Mexico in the 1940s, to the facilities where scientists, government administrators and the U.S. military convened to create the most devastating weapons known to humankind. Live Science >>
Why are We Hooked on Films About Mass Destruction?
“They like to get the landmarks,” Jeff Goldblum in the trailer for Independence Day: Resurgence. Not the most tactful comment, given that London is buried by an avalanche of alien debris two seconds later, but maybe Goldblum has seen the city demolished too often for it to bother him anymore. The Guardian >>
Decades Later, Sickness Among Airmen After a Hydrogen Bomb Accident
Alarms sounded on United States Air Force bases in Spain and officers began packing all the low-ranking troops they could grab onto buses for a secret mission. There were cooks, grocery clerks and even musicians from the Air Force band. NY Times >>
Opinion: Donald Trump’s Nuclear Envy Problem, and Ours
Ok, it’s a long time until November, and Donald Trump is going to say a lot of stupid things about nuclear weapons in the intervening months. I am not really sure how many columns I want to write about the terrifying idea of his stubby finger on the nuclear button. But he’s gone and done it again. This time, during a rambling speech in Atlanta best known for a Twitter account of the crowd, Trump said, “Our nuclear is old. Putin’s is tippy-top, from what I hear. We’ve got to be careful.” Foreign Policy >>
CTBTO Executive Secretary Visits Israel
The Executive Secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), Lassina Zerbo, is visiting Israel this week meeting with Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and other political leaders and high-level representatives. CTBTO >>
Much-Delayed Destruction of Chemical Weapons Begins in Pueblo
Despite plumbing problems that delayed things until September, officials say they are on track to start the production-line destruction of more than 780,000 mustard gas munitions stored at the site and could finish work by 2020. The Gazette >>
Report: Nuclear Weapons Plant Mercury Cleanup Could Cost $3B
A U.S. Department of Energy report says the cleanup of mercury contamination at a Tennessee nuclear weapons plant could cost between $1 billion and $3 billion. The Knoxville News Sentinel reports that the report outlines technology plans for mercury cleanup at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant at Oak Ridge, which used mercury during the Cold War to develop hydrogen bombs. Chem.info >>
Agencies Get High Marks in Nuclear Exercise
The test was intended to probe how well agencies, other organizations and the utility itself would react to a crisis involving the Cooper Nuclear Station — positioned along the Missouri River three miles south of Brownville, Nebraska. The exercise covered such sectors as emergency operations management, protective action decision making, and emergency notifications and public information. Emergency Management >>
When Kodak Accidentally Discovered A-Bomb Testing
The ground shook, a brilliant white flash enveloped the sky, and the world changed forever. Code name “Trinity,” the bomb test at dawn on July 16, 1945 in Alamogordo, New Mexico. More than 1,900 miles away from Alamogordo, at NY headquarters of Eastman Kodak, a flood of complaints came in from business customers who had recently purchased sensitive X-ray film from the company. Black exposed spots on the film, or “fogging,” had rendered it unusable. This perplexed many Kodak scientists, who had gone to great lengths to prevent contaminations like this. Popular Mechanics >>
The Disturbing Number of Nuclear Bombs Detonated Throughout History
On July 16, 1945, the US conducted the world’s first test of a nuclear weapon. Less than a month later, two bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bringing about the end of World War II. No nuclear bombs have been used as weapons since the attacks on Japan, but thousands of tests have been conducted — primarily by the US and USSR throughout the Cold War. Business Insider >>
Even Without Detonation, 4 Hydrogen Bombs from ’66 Scar Spanish Village
Alarms sounded on United States Air Force bases in Spain and officers began packing all the low-ranking troops they could grab onto buses for a secret mission. There were cooks, grocery clerks and even musicians from the Air Force band. It was a late winter night in 1966 and a fully loaded B-52 bomber on a Cold War nuclear patrol had collided with a refueling jet high over the Spanish coast, freeing four hydrogen bombs that went tumbling toward a farming village called Palomares. NY Times >>
Enhancing Information Exchange for Emergency Preparedness and Response
The use of the latest online emergency preparedness and response (EPR) tools and information sharing on national arrangements, capabilities and best practices were among the topics discussed at the eighth meeting of the representatives of competent authorities under the Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident and the Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency, held at IAEA headquarters last week. IAEA >>
FirstNet CEO: ‘$7 Billion Doesn’t Go As Far As It Used To’
Lawmakers are concerned that federal plans for nationwide public safety broadband won’t progress on schedule. Weeks after FirstNet — a group within the National Telecommunications and Information Administration — collected proposals from the businesses hoping to provide the network’s backbone, lawmakers probed officials on its deployment. NextGov >>
A Nuclear Weapon That America Doesn’t Need
President Obama spoke last month in Hiroshima about charting a course to a future free of nuclear weapons. He discussed the “persistent effort” necessary to eliminate the threat of nuclear war. To advance that goal, the president should reconsider the Defense Department’s effort to develop a new nuclear weapon called the Long-Range Standoff Weapon. NY Times >>
How Do You Stop a Future Terrorist When the Only Evidence Is a Thought?
The first time Larossi Abballa appeared on the radar of French terrorism investigators, the only act of violence they could pin on him was killing bunnies. He had joined a small group of men, all bent on waging jihad, on a trip to a snowy forest in northern France five years ago, when he was 19. There, they videotaped themselves slaughtering the rabbits, bought so the men could grow used to the feel of killing. NY Times >>