Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Podcast of the week

WTF is going on in Saudi?

StrategyPage discusses.

Earlier podcast on Turkey.

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In other news: General Flynn seems to be in trouble for an international scheme that included Russia, Saudi and the USA to build nuclear power plants in the Middle east that can't be diverted to make nuclear weapons.

apparently his only crime was not listing this on his resume: A major sin since  although he was working for an American company, Russia Russia RUSSIA was involved.

n June 2015, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn took a little-noticed trip to Egypt and Israel, paid for by a U.S. company he was advising. The company hoped to build more than two dozen nuclear plants in the region, in partnership with Russian interests.

not new news: Scribd has the proposal on line.

ACU Strategic Partners LLC 815 Connecticut Ave., NW 12 th Floor Washington, DC 20006 ACU / International Power Generators / X-Co Dynamics A U.S.-Based Project Providing Nuclear Power Plants, a Secure Fuel Cycle and a Shared Security Partnership for the Middle East Overview
Over 20 nuclear power projects are now under development in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan and the UAE, among others, are now constructing nuclear power plants or examining ways of establishing their nuclear power capabilities.
These development efforts present a number of major challenges involving the potential proliferation of nuclear weapons.
ACU, a U.S. company, has developed a practical strategy to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation in the Middle East that simultaneously reinforces shared interests of the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel and other Mid-East countries in security, stability, and shared prosperity.
ACU is developing International Power Generators (IPG), a partnership among the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and the UAE that is designed to own and operate 40 nuclear power reactors in the Middle East with a fully integrated secure in-and-out fuel service. Of these reactors, 18 will be in Saudi Arabia, a minimum of 10 are designated for Egypt and the remainder will be constructed in Kuwait, the UAE and Jordan. IPG is also establishing X-Co Dynamics, a new public/private partnership developed in concert with relevant U.S. government agencies and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, to protect the nuclear power plants, related infrastructure, and the surrounding region, in order to provide zones of security, stability and prosperity for at least the full life of the reactors, approximately 80 years. Together, the com ponents of the IPG project create a Middle East “Marshall Plan” funded by the Mid -East governments.
No U.S. government funding or guarantees are required to finance the IPG project as it will be funded entirely by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries. The two essential features of the IPG nuclear power project that distinguish it from the nuclear power plants already under construction and in the planning stage in the Mid-East are: 1) its extensive and pervasive shared security partnership; and 2) its secure in-and-out fuel cycle.
These features make the IPG project starkly different from the Mid-East nuclear plants currently under construction and proposed by Korea, Russia, France, and China, which provide neither a secure fuel cycle nor the type of advanced and broad security protections required to ensure the reliability of operation and the safety of the reactors from hostile elements such as ISIS ...
ACU profile on Bloomberg


a 2016 article on the proposal from an Alabama newspaper about ACU taking over a nuclear power plant there... and use the plant to train people to run similar plants in the middle east.

Above my head: I'm a doctor, not a nuclear engineer, and know even less about international finance.

On the other hand, as one who loves conspiracy theories, why do I think his prosecution is actually pay back for spilling the beans (and confirming the conspiracy theories going around back then) and telling people that yes, Obama made a mistake to pull out of Iraq, signing an agreement with Iran that lets them get the bomb, and yes, he spilled the beans: the CIA did fund ISIS.


  ALJ link the main problem is that Flynn can't answer a question without the interviewer interrupting him.

But lower in the interview, he discusses Russia's link in supplying nuclear power to the region, so if there is a scheme to make such plants that can't be diverted to weapons production, then Russia has to be involved.

Despite their oil, the Middle East and Iran have a great need for cheap power, and Nuclear is the way to go. Either the west helps them or Russia will.

a lot of what he says in the interview seems to be related to the recent Saudi moves. moves by Jarad Kutchner, stuff being done by TRex, etc.




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