WASHINGTON: The US is as many as 15 years behind China on developing high-tech nuclear power as Beijing’s state-backed technology approach and extensive financing give it the edge, a report said on Monday.
China has 27 nuclear reactors under construction with average construction timelines of about seven years, far faster than other countries, said the study by Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute.
“China’s rapid deployment of ever-more modern nuclear power plants over time produces significant scale economies and learning-by-doing effects, and this suggests that Chinese enterprises will gain an advantage at incremental innovation in this sector going forward,” the report said.
The US has the world’s largest fleet of nuclear power plants and President Joe Biden’s administration considers the virtually emissions-free electricity source to be critical in curbing climate change.
But after two large plants in Georgia came online in 2023 and 2024 billions of dollars over budget and delayed by years, no US nuclear reactors are being built. A high-tech plant that had been planned to be built at a US lab was canceled last year.
China’s state-owned banks can offer loans as low as 1.4 percent, far lower than available in Western economies. Its nuclear power industry has benefited from sustained state support and localization strategies that has allowed China to dominate sectors like renewable power and EVs.
The world’s first so-called fourth-generation high-temperature gas cooled reactor at Shidao Bay came online last December. The China Nuclear Energy Association claims that the project involved the development of more than 2,200 sets of “world-first equipment” with a total localization rate of domestically produced materials of 93.4 percent.
Backers of high-tech reactors say they are safer and more efficient than current plants. Critics say some new reactors introduce proliferation and material risks.
It has not all been smooth sailing for China. The China Nuclear Energy Association has warned that there was a severe glut in nuclear component production, and “excessive competition” was driving down prices and causing losses.
Stephen Ezell, the report’s author, said if the US is serious about nuclear it should develop a robust national strategy involving more investment in research and development, identifying and accelerating promising technologies, and supporting development of a skilled workforce.
“While America is behind, it can certainly catch up technologically,” said Ezell.
The US Department of Energy did not comment on the report.
US as many as 15 years behind China on nuclear power, report says
https://arab.news/mvbyu
US as many as 15 years behind China on nuclear power, report says
- China has 27 nuclear reactors under construction with average construction timelines of about seven years
- A high-tech plant that had been planned to be built at a US lab was canceled last year
Far-right Israeli minister Ben-Gvir visits Yale after Mar-a-Lago fundraiser
LONDON: Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, made an appearance at Yale University on Wednesday just a day after attending a fundraiser at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Ben-Gvir, who has past convictions for racist incitement and supporting a terrorist group, was previously considered persona non grata by the Joe Biden administration.
At Tuesday’s event in Palm Beach, he addressed a room of Republican figures and business leaders, where he outlined harsh new measures against Palestinian prisoners, according to a report in The Guardian.
“I love the American people very much,” Ben-Gvir told attendees through a translator. “We have a joint war against the jihad.”
While the Israeli minister did not meet Trump, who was not in attendance at the event, he did hold talks with “dozens of senior businessmen from Miami” and Republican House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, according to The Times of Israel.
Ben-Gvir later posted on X that he “had the honor and privilege” of meeting senior Republican officials at Mar-a-Lago, though he did not name them, and in the post he further claimed they endorsed his call to bomb Gaza’s food and aid depots to ramp up pressure for the release of Israeli hostages.
The minister has repeatedly sparked controversy both within Israel and abroad. Since entering Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government in 2022, he has threatened to quit if the Gaza war ends and has advocated for the mass deportation of Arab citizens.
His US visit has prompted condemnation from Jewish organizations and human rights groups alike.
At Yale, protests were held ahead of his scheduled appearance at a meeting hosted by Shabtai, a Jewish society at the university. Demonstrators from Yale’s Students for Justice in Palestine led campus opposition.
Yale did not respond to a request for comment.
Khaled Elgindy, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, said Ben-Gvir’s warm reception in the US was “deeply disturbing.”
He added: “That the GOP is aligned with the most fanatical elements in Israeli politics, while perhaps not surprising, is extremely alarming and does not bode well for the stability of the region.”
Ben-Gvir’s history has long drawn scrutiny.
In 2007, he was convicted of inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organization. He once displayed in his home a photo of Baruch Goldstein, who killed 29 Muslim worshipers in the 1994 Hebron massacre. In 2022, the US State Department condemned his visit to the memorial of extremist rabbi Meir Kahane, whose violent ideology Ben-Gvir has expressed admiration for in the past.
“Celebrating the legacy of a terrorist organization is abhorrent. There is no other word for it,” US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said at the time.
“We urge all parties to maintain calm, exercise restraint and to refrain from actions that only serve to exacerbate tensions, and that includes in Jerusalem,” he added.
Despite international rebukes, Ben-Gvir has continued to court controversy. His provocative visits to Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound, most recently earlier this month, have drawn fierce criticism across the region, including a rare public reprimand from Netanyahu last year.
The White House did not comment on Ben-Gvir’s US visit.
Following his Yale appearance, the minister was scheduled to speak at another event in New York City, billed as a discussion on “securing Israel post-Oct. 7.”
Macron urges Putin to ‘stop lying’ over Ukraine ceasefire
He accused the Russian leader of telling US negotiators “he wants peace” but then continuing “to bombard Ukraine“
ANTANANRIVO: France’s President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin needed to “stop lying” over wanting peace in Ukraine while continuing to strike the country.
“The only thing to do is for President Putin to finally stop lying,” Macron said during a visit to Madagascar.
He accused the Russian leader of telling US negotiators “he wants peace” but then continuing “to bombard Ukraine.”
A Russian missile attack on Kyiv earlier Thursday killed at least nine people, one of the deadliest strikes on the Ukrainian capital since Moscow launched its invasion more than three years ago.
The attacks throw yet more doubt on already fraught US efforts to push Russia and Ukraine to agree to a halt in fighting.
“In Ukraine, they only want a single answer: Does President Putin agree to an unconditional ceasefire?” Macron said.
Macron said Putin was the only person holding up the US-proposed and European-backed proposal.
“If President Putin says yes, the weapons will fall silent tomorrow, lives will be saved.”
“US anger should be directed at only one person, President Putin,” he added.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has been floating the idea of recognizing Russian control of Crimea as part of a peace settlement.
Trump on Wednesday said Crimea — a lush Black Sea peninsula with longtime Soviet and Russian naval facilities — was “not even a point of discussion” and was “lost years ago,” a position welcomed by the Kremlin.
Macron however said he thought the priority should be first agreeing to a ceasefire, and that the status of Crimea was not something to be discussed “for now.”
Israel president says ‘moral imperative’ to bring home Gaza hostages
- “With a broken heart, I remind us all that even though after the Holocaust we swore ‘never again’,” Herzog said
- Nearly 60 “of our brothers and sisters remain held by terrorist murderers in Gaza, in a horrific crime against humanity“
OSWIECIM, Poland: Israel’s president said in Poland on Thursday the return of hostages held by Palestinian militants in Gaza was a “universal moral imperative” and called on the international community to help end “this horrific humanitarian crime.”
Isaac Herzog spoke from the southern city of Oswiecim, the site of the former Nazi German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, on the occasion of the annual March of the Living to commemorate its victims.
Auschwitz was the largest of the extermination camps built by Nazi Germany and has become a symbol of the Holocaust of six million European Jews. One million Jews and more than 100,000 non-Jews died at the site between 1940 and 1945.
“With a broken heart, I remind us all that even though after the Holocaust we swore ‘never again’, today — here and now — the souls of dozens of Jews are once again yearning within a cage, longing for water and freedom,” Herzog said at a ceremony.
Nearly 60 “of our brothers and sisters remain held by terrorist murderers in Gaza, in a horrific crime against humanity,” he added.
“The return of the hostages is a universal moral imperative, and I call from here — from this sacred place — for the entire international community to mobilize and end this horrific humanitarian crime.”
Some 251 people, including women and children, were seized during Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, which left 1,218 Israelis dead according to an AFP tally based on official data, and sparked a deadly war in Gaza.
Fifty-eight hostages are still being held there, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s military response in Gaza has unleashed a humanitarian crisis and killed at least 51,355 people, mainly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Herzog did not mention Israel’s military operations in Gaza at the ceremony in Auschwitz.
Qatar, with the United States and Egypt, brokered a truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas which began on January 19 and enabled a surge in aid, alongside the exchange of hostages and prisoners.
Israel resumed its intense air strikes and ground offensive across Gaza on March 18 amid disagreement over the next phase in the ceasefire that for two months had largely halted the fighting.
Last month, Herzog said he was shocked that the hostage issue was no longer a top priority in the country and criticized the war policy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Thousands of Israelis have been holding daily protests in Jerusalem, angry over the government’s policies including a return to war, which many see as forsaking the hostages still being held in Gaza.
A French high school student is arrested after fatally stabbing another student and wounding 3
- The circumstances of the attack were not immediately clear
- A national police official said the attack occurred at the private Catholic Notre-Dame-de-Toutes-Aides High School in Nantes
PARIS: A student at a French high school stabbed four other students at his school Thursday, killing at least one and injuring three others before being arrested, police said.
The circumstances of the attack were not immediately clear. Fatal attacks are quite rare in French schools.
A national police official said the attack occurred at the private Catholic Notre-Dame-de-Toutes-Aides High School in Nantes on France’s Atlantic coast.
The student stabbed four people with a knife during a lunch break before teachers subdued him, and he was later taken in by police, the official said. The official was not authorized to be publicly named according to national police policy.
Students at the school told French media at the scene that they had received an email from the assailant earlier in the day with unspecified grievances.
Education Minister Elisabeth Borne said on X that she is heading to the school with Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau to show “solidarity with victims and the school community.” The regional prosecutor announced a news conference for later Thursday.
Images from the scene showed police and armed military forces surrounding the school as the investigation got underway.
An official at the school, which is part of a complex housing a primary and middle school, would not comment on what happened, saying the school is concentrating on caring for the students who were on campus at the time. The school website was down.
Gangs in Haiti kill 4 soldiers and 4 civilians in bid to seize full control of the capital
- Lionel Lazarre, spokesman for Haiti’s National Police, told Radio Caraïbes that two soldiers and four civilians were killed in Kenscoff
- In videos posted on social media, gunmen are seen mutilating several bodies
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: Gangs trying to seize full control of Haiti have killed at least four soldiers and four armed civilians who worked with law enforcement to protect their communities, an official said Thursday.
Lionel Lazarre, spokesman for Haiti’s National Police, told Radio Caraïbes that two soldiers and four civilians were killed in Kenscoff, a once peaceful community on the outskirts of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Two other soldiers and an undetermined number of civilians were killed in the community of Pacot inside the capital, he said.
On Wednesday night, the government said that at least four police officers and armed civilians from the community of Canapé-Vert, one of the few neighborhoods not controlled by gangs, were killed in the attacks.
In videos posted on social media, gunmen are seen mutilating several bodies and picking up severed heads as trophies, saying, “We got the dogs.”
Haiti’s transitional presidential council and the prime minister’s office condemned the attacks in separate statements and said that multiple people were injured.
“The government reaffirms that the fight against insecurity remains its top priority,” the office said.
Gangs that control at least 85 percent of Port-au-Prince have launched recent attacks on previously peaceful areas that police and armed residents are trying to protect.
More than 260 people were killed in attacks on Kenscoff and Carrefour earlier this year, according to the UN political mission in Haiti.
Haitian police are working alongside a UN-backed mission led by Kenyan police to repel gangs, although they have struggled in their efforts. The mission is underfunded and only has some 1,000 personnel out of the 2,500 envisioned.
More than 5,600 people were killed in Haiti last year, with gang violence leaving more than one million people homeless, according to the UN
