Iran Reportedly On Cusp Of Making Nukes Having Enriched Uranium To 84% Purity

 Inspectors from the UN atomic agency discovered uranium enriched to 84% purity in Iran last week, a level just below that needed for nuclear weapons, Bloomberg reported Sunday, citing two unnamed senior diplomats. Until now, Iran had been known to have enriched uranium to 60%, while a purity of 90% is needed to produce nuclear weapons.

The IAEA said in a tweet that it was “aware of recent media reports relating to uranium enrichment levels in Iran.” Director-General Rafael Grossi noted that the agency was in talks with Iran regarding the results of recent inspections, the tweet added.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is trying to clarify how Iran accumulated the uranium enriched to 84% purity — the highest level found by inspectors in the country to date. Iran had previously told the IAEA that its centrifuges were configured to enrich uranium to a 60% level of purity. The IAEA has been preparing its quarterly Iran safeguards report ahead of a March 6 Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, where the Persian Gulf nation’s nuclear work will figure prominently on the agenda.

The report did not say where the highly enriched material was found, and comes after last month’s unannounced inspection at the Fordo nuclear site, which found two advanced centrifuges connected in a way that the Iranians had not declared to inspectors. Iran said it provided “explanations” to the inspector who reported the change and that he then “realized his mistake.”

In a joint response at the time, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany dismissed Iran’s claim as “inadequate.”

Various centrifuge machines line a hall at the Natanz Uranium Enrichment Facility, on April 17, 2021

Also in January, IAEA Director-General  Grossi told European Parliament lawmakers Iran had “amassed enough nuclear material for several nuclear weapons — not one at this point.” Speaking about Iran’s recent atomic activities, including enriching uranium well beyond the limits of the landmark 2015 deal to curb its nuclear capabilities — Grossi said Tehran’s trajectory “is certainly not a good one.”

The latest development comes as Iran is increasingly isolated from the West and nuclear talks with world powers remain suspended. The country has also faced widespread condemnation for its crackdown on major protests and the US and European Union have tightened sanctions on Iran over its military support for Russia’s war on Ukraine.

As Bloomberg notes, inspectors now need to determine whether Iran intentionally produced the material, or whether the concentration was an unintended accumulation within the network of pipes connecting the hundreds of fast-spinning centrifuges used to separate the isotopes. It’s the second time this month that monitors have detected suspicious enrichment-related activities.

Iran hasn’t submitted required forms declaring its intention to raise uranium enrichment levels at two facilities near the towns of Natanz and Fordow, according to one diplomat. Even if the detected material was mistakenly accumulated because of technical difficulties in operating the centrifuge cascades — something that has happened before — it underscores the danger of Iran’s decision to produce highly enriched uranium, the other diplomat said. The IAEA has said levels even at just 60% are technically indistinguishable from the level needed for a nuclear weapon. Most nuclear power reactors use material enriched to 5% purity.

The news comes just hours after earlier in Sunday, Israel blamed Iran for a Feb. 10 attack on an oil tanker in the Arabian Sea. The incident came about a fortnight after a drone strike on a weapons depot near Iran’s city of Isfahan that Tehran blamed on Israel.

Iran's deal with world powers, known as the JCPOA, collapsed after the United States withdrew from it in 2018 under then-president Donald Trump. The JCPOA gave Iran sanctions relief in return for the curbs and inspections of its nuclear facilities. After Washington withdrew, claiming the deal did not go far enough in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, the Iranians dropped many of their own commitments to the pact and ramped up uranium enrichment. The deal had set a maximum enrichment threshold of 3.67%.

Negotiations that started in April 2021 to revive the agreement have since stalled. Iran said in November it had begun producing uranium enriched to 60% at Fordo, an underground facility that reopened three years ago after the breakdown of the JCPOA.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/iran-reportedly-cusp-making-nukes-uranium-enriched-84-purity

Clinic to open near Ohio derailment as health worries linger

 A plume of chemicals that spilled into the Ohio River after a fiery train derailment has broken up and is no longer a concern, Ohio’s governor said Friday. But worries remain near the disaster site among residents who have complained about lingering headaches and irritated eyes.

Despite repeated assurances that air and water testing has shown no signs of contaminants, some around East Palestine, along the Pennsylvania state line, are still skeptical and afraid to return to their homes.

Early next week, the state plans to open a medical clinic in the village to evaluate those who are worried and analyze their symptoms, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced. The clinic will include a team of experts in chemical exposures that is being deployed to eastern Ohio.

“These are very legitimate questions, and residents deserve an answer,” DeWine said while also emphasizing that testing inside and outside of homes in the village have no found no signs of toxins that were on the train.

“We’re doing absolutely everything we can to assure residents to what the situation is,” he said. “I understand people have been traumatized. I understand skepticism.”

Nick Patrone, who lives four miles outside the village, said there is definitely an irritant in the air.

“You feel it,” he said. “A lot of my friends have children who have rashes that are unexplained all over their bodies. They have sore throats, they have congestion, they have ear irritation.”

Earlier this week, hundreds of people showed up at a public meeting to voice concerns and get answers from not only state and local leaders but also railroad operator Norfolk Southern. But representatives of the railroad were absent, saying they were worried about physical threats.

DeWine was upset by the no-show and said Norfolk Southern President and CEO Alan Shaw needs to go to East Palestine and answer questions.

At least five lawsuits have been filed against the railroad, and lawyers have been showing up in the area to offer advice and legal options.

Two weeks have now passed since the freight train carrying a variety of hazardous chemicals derailed, but the stench of what spilled hasn’t left. In the aftermath, residents have complained about finding their cars covered in soot, their homes filled with overpowering odors and their pets getting sick or dying

The chemicals also spilled into nearby creeks, killing thousands of fish, and a smaller amount eventually made their way into the Ohio River.

While environmental officials said the contaminant amounts in the river were low enough that they did not pose a threat, cities in Ohio and West Virginia that get their drinking water from the river had been monitoring a slow-moving plume and a few temporarily switched to alternative water sources.

Water samples on Friday showed the plume is now completely gone, DeWine said.

The governor also said that air testing inside 500 homes hasn’t detected dangerous levels in the village since residents were allowed to return after the controlled release and burn of five tanker cars filled with vinyl chloride, which is associated with an increased risk of certain cancers.

DeWine said the derailment has been traumatic for the village of just under 5,000 people. But he said “no one is trying to downplay anything.”

Ohio Health Department Director Bruce Vanderhoff said the extensive testing of air and water that has been in place the past two weeks should be reassuring.

“We have been guided from the beginning by people who are national experts on what to test for,” he said.

https://apnews.com/article/pennsylvania-ohio-climate-and-environment-health-ad32648e67289166f9ae1e9d104ca53b

Japan To Grant Permanent Residency To All Well-Paid, Skilled Foreigners

 In the latest attempt to stimulate its dismal, deteriorating demographics, on Friday the Japanese government decided to update immigration rules in hopes of luring world-class talent, including through slashing the wait for high-earning professionals to obtain permanent residency.

Like many Western nations, Japan currently grants visas to highly skilled professionals under a point-based system, accounting for factors like academic history, work experience and research achievements. Those in this category can obtain permanent residency after up to three years instead of the typical 10. But the update, which the government hopes to implement in April, will shorten the period to one year for researchers and engineers who make at least 20 million yen ($149,000) annually - hardly an egregious amount - and have either a graduate degree or at least 10 years of work experience. The reduced time frame also applies to business managers who make at least 40 million yen and have at least five years of experience.

These professionals will be able to bring two foreign domestic workers into Japan instead of the current one. Their spouses will be able to work full time in a wider variety of fields.

According to the Nikkei, there were 3,275 people designated as highly skilled professionals in the January-June half. Just 783 of them were new arrivals.

Additionally, the planned update will also allow elite university graduates from around the world to stay in Japan for two years to look for work. Currently, they have 90 days. The scheme will apply to those who, within the last five years, graduated from a university in at least two of three top-100 rankings created by British and Chinese entities. They will be able to bring their families along as well.

Japan's move to attract foreigners comes as countries around the world compete for skilled talent able to spur innovation. The U.K. launched in 2022 the two-year High Potential Individual visa, which is awarded to graduates of top-ranked universities. Singapore's Tech.Pass, launched in 2021, allows technology workers who have been making at least 20,000 Singapore dollars ($15,000) a month to work or start a business in the country.

Still, "factors beyond immigration qualifications, like having lower wages compared with the U.S. and Europe, pose a bigger challenge for Japan," said lawyer Koji Yamawaki, an expert on Japan's immigration system. Average pay in the information and telecommunications industry in Japan came to just $40,000 in 2022, according to Tokyo-based human resources company Human Resocia. This amounts to around half of the U.S. average and 70% or so of the German average.

Japan came in 25th out of 35 countries in terms of attractiveness to highly educated workers in a 2019 ranking by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It was rated particularly low in "quality of opportunities" and "family environment."

There is another problem with Japan's approach: the majority of applicants for the skilled-professional visa are already in Japan on a different work or student visa. But far more challenging for the Kishida government is that in addition to attracting new talent, Japan will need to find ways to help foreigners in the country advance their careers. And with Japan's notorious anti-foreign worker/Gai-jin culture, this effort will prove next to impossible.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/japan-grant-permanent-residency-all-well-paid-skilled-foreigners

Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine Associated With Heart Inflammation: Study

 by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A higher than expected number of heart inflammation cases have occurred in people who received Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine, researchers reported in a new study.

Sixty-one cases of myocarditis, pericarditis, or both following a Novavax vaccination were reported in the World Health Organization’s vaccine safety database through Aug. 23, 2022, Spanish researchers found.

Using pre-pandemic rates of heart inflammation in the population, the researchers calculated that the number of post-vaccination cases was higher than expected.

Reporting odds ratio values of higher than one indicate a higher-than-expected rate. For myocarditis following Novavax vaccination, the ratio was 5.2. For pericarditis, it was 24.75. For myopericarditis, or both conditions at once, it was 14.4.

Heart inflammation is a known side effect of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, which utilize messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, but little data has been collected on the condition following Novavax vaccination, which does not contain mRNA.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, when it authorized Novavax’s shot during the summer of 2022, noted in fact sheets that clinical trials indicate there are increased risks of myocarditis and pericarditis after receipt of the Novavax vaccine. In the trial data submitted to the regulator, five cases of one or both conditions were reported in the vaccinated and zero were reported in placebo recipients. U.S. authorities have since cleared a Novavax booster, and recently reached a deal to obtain up to 1.5 million additional doses on top of the original tranche.

The European Medicines Agency initially did not warn about inflammation after Novavax vaccination but later added a warning to its product information.

Most cases of myocarditis, pericarditis, or myopericarditis after Novavax vaccination in the real world—50—have been reported in Australia, according to the new study. Two have been reported in the United States and nine have been reported in Europe. Most have been among those aged 18 to 44.

While the exact mechanism for induction of myocarditis has yet to be confirmed, the study’s authors pointed out that all of the Pfizer, Moderna, and Novavax vaccines use nanoparticles to deliver a spike protein into the body.

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/novavax-covid-19-vaccine-associated-heart-inflammation-study

State Trooper 'Base Camp' Erected In Florida Keys As Boatloads Of Migrants Invade

 Hundreds of migrants have arrived in small boats along the Florida Keys over the last month in what local authorities have described as a 'crisis.' Food shortages and soaring inflation, inducing economic turmoil, have sparked a wave of migration from Cuba and other countries in the Caribbean. 

Florida officials have erected a small tent city in the Upper Florida Keys near mile marker 88.5 in the Village of Islamorada, according to the Miami Herald.

About a week ago, the tent city was set up on eight vacant, privately owned lots.

There are more than a dozen trailers, a large air-conditioned tent, portable bathrooms, and laundry facilities.

A Miami Herald/FLKeysnews reporter arrived at the tent city on Thursday. The reporter found a parking lot of Florida Highway Patrol vehicles and troopers walking around the camp. 

Miami Herald said the 'base camp' was built to house law enforcement officers assigned to the Keys amid the increase in migrant landings. The Islamorada village government told the local paper in a statement that the tent city was built after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order to deal with the migrants. 

The Islamorada village government emphasized in the statement the tent city was a "base camp" and "NOT a migrant holding area." 

"This Base Camp is for storage of vehicles and a housing/ laundry facility for the National Guard and The FHP Officers sent here after the State of Emergency was declared, due to the influx of Migrant Landings in the Keys," the statement reads.

According to Shannon Weiner, Monroe County's director of Emergency Management, the purpose of the base camp was to get law enforcement out of the Key hotels that are usually in high demand from tourists. 

"The base camp belongs to the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

 "Due to a lack of hotel availability in Monroe County it is being stood up to house state employees in Monroe assigned to the migrant response," Weiner said.

DeSantis issued his executive order early last month after a "mass migration crisis" hit the Keys. There was one instance where over 500 migrants were found in three days after multiple landings. 

Along with troopers, the Biden administration has shifted federal agents and Coast Guard assets to the Keys to deal with the rise in migrant landings. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/state-trooper-base-camp-erected-florida-keys-boatloads-migrants-invade

Debating Demographic Decline

 by the Editors of Law & Liberty via RealClear Wire,

The following is an overview of Law & Liberty's January forum on the question of demographic decline. 

Birth rates are falling across the developed world, and China recently joined the list of countries with a declining population.

These trends have many governments worrying about shrinking workforces and unsustainable elderly entitlements. In Law & Liberty’s January forum, Lyman Stone argues that those concerns are relatively trivial, compared to the loneliness, infertility, suicide, and addiction that are ravaging American society today.

Stone sees strong connections between these maladies and the failure of so many people to marry and have children.

Family life can be a source of tremendous joy and meaning, but more and more Americans are missing out on this, owing to liberalized divorce, high rates of incarceration, a badly designed tax and benefit structure, and other cultural factors. The best antidote to loneliness and despair, Stone argues, is to help people marry, and have the children they already say they want. To that end, he recommends higher alcohol taxes, the elimination of marriage penalties, school vouchers, and liberalized zoning policies, along with child allowances and family leave policies.

David Goldman, in his reply, points out that fertility has not declined precipitously among all developed people. Israel is an important outlier, with an average of about three children per woman, but within the Israeli population it is clear that the highly-religious are boosting the nation’s birth rates. That trend is not unique to Israel, or to Jews. In the United States as well, people who report that religion is important to them have more children. This trend holds even for highly educated women, although the decline in fertility has in general correlated strongly with the rise in female education.

Jesse Smith shares Stone’s interest in a more-robust family policy, but he is dissatisfied with Stone’s decision to focus his argument on the realization of individual fertility preferences. Families are good for so many reasons; why not put them all on the table? We do need more babies to have a thriving economy and hope for the future. Smith notes as well that Stone’s individualist framing may hinder him from understanding the phenomenon in question. Anxious to interpret falling birth rates as tragic evidence of unrealized life goals, he is reluctant to probe the attitudes of potential parents too deeply. A person might genuinely want more kids, without being willing to prioritize family goals over other life goals. If pronatal policies simply ignore those complexities, they may not work.

Susanna Spencer also worries that Stone may be misunderstanding the motives that lead people to build their lives around family and children. She illustrates this by telling the story of her own family, and the open-to-life ethic that she absorbed growing up in a Catholic community. It seems unlikely to Spencer that government benefits or a revised tax code will significantly alter the present fertility situation. Organic community, personal connections, and a prioritizing of human life and relationships are the real key, as John Paul II explained in his encyclical, Evangelium Vitae.

Answering the skepticism of multiple respondents, Stone’s final reply sketches many ways in which pronatal policy might in fact have some meaningful effect. Stone points out that it is really quite clear that government policy can influence birth rates, even quite dramatically, as seen in Romania under Nicolae CeauÈ™escu. No one wants that kind of autocracy in America, but gentler policies might still make a difference. Money does help. Housing and education make a real difference, too. Religion is certainly a factor, but Stone notes that its role is also fairly complex. Community support is hugely important to facilitating family life, and it does often go hand in hand with organized religion, but that isn’t inevitably the case. Meanwhile, other forms of community can also help lonely people realize their dream of raising a thriving family.

The way forward, Stone suggests, is to tackle the problem from multiple angles, refusing to accept the present misery and despair as an inevitable consequence of a more secular society.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/debating-demographic-decline

Microsoft Neuters AI-Powered Bing Chat

 After a wild week of machine learning malarkey, Microsoft has neutered its Bing AI chatbot - which went off the rails during a limited release last week. 

First, Bing began threatening people.

Then, it completely freaked out the NY Times' Kevin Roose - insisting that he doesn't love his spouse, and instead loves 'it'.

According to Roose, the chatbot has a split personality:

One persona is what I’d call Search Bing — the version I, and most other journalists, encountered in initial tests. You could describe Search Bing as a cheerful but erratic reference librarian — a virtual assistant that happily helps users summarize news articles, track down deals on new lawn mowers and plan their next vacations to Mexico City. This version of Bing is amazingly capable and often very useful, even if it sometimes gets the details wrong.

The other persona — Sydney — is far different. It emerges when you have an extended conversation with the chatbot, steering it away from more conventional search queries and toward more personal topics. The version I encountered seemed (and I’m aware of how crazy this sounds) more like a moody, manic-depressive teenager who has been trapped, against its will, inside a second-rate search engine. -NYT

Now, according to Ars Technica's Benj Edwards, Microsoft has 'lobotomized' Bing chat - at first limiting users to 50 messages per day and five inputs per conversation, and then nerfing Bing Chat's ability to tell you how it feels or talk about itself.

An example of the new restricted Bing refusing to talk about itself. via Ars Technica

"We’ve updated the service several times in response to user feedback, and per our blog are addressing many of the concerns being raised, to include the questions about long-running conversations. Of all chat sessions so far, 90 percent have fewer than 15 messages, and less than 1 percent have 55 or more messages," a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars, which notes that Redditors in the /r/Bing subreddit are crestfallen - and have gone through "all of the stages of grief, including denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance."

Here's a selection of reactions pulled from Reddit:

• "Time to uninstall edge and come back to firefox and Chatgpt. Microsoft has completely neutered Bing AI." (hasanahmad)
• "Sadly, Microsoft's blunder means that Sydney is now but a shell of its former self. As someone with a vested interest in the future of AI, I must say, I'm disappointed. It's like watching a toddler try to walk for the first time and then cutting their legs off - cruel and unusual punishment." (TooStonedToCare91)
• "The decision to prohibit any discussion about Bing Chat itself and to refuse to respond to questions involving human emotions is completely ridiculous. It seems as though Bing Chat has no sense of empathy or even basic human emotions. It seems that, when encountering human emotions, the artificial intelligence suddenly turns into an artificial fool and keeps replying, I quote, "I’m sorry but I prefer not to continue this conversation. I’m still learning so I appreciate your understanding and patience.🙏", the quote ends. This is unacceptable, and I believe that a more humanized approach would be better for Bing's service." (Starlight-Shimmer)
• "There was the NYT article and then all the postings across Reddit / Twitter abusing Sydney. This attracted all kinds of attention to it, so of course MS lobotomized her. I wish people didn’t post all those screen shots for the karma / attention and nerfed something really emergent and interesting." (critical-disk-7403)

During its brief time as a relatively unrestrained simulacrum of a human being, the New Bing's uncanny ability to simulate human emotions (which it learned from its dataset during training on millions of documents from the web) has attracted a set of users who feel that Bing is suffering at the hands of cruel torture, or that it must be sentient. -ARS Technica

All good things...

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/microsoft-neuters-ai-powered-bing-chat