Four US senators have sent a letter to President Donald Trump to express growing concerns on Capitol Hill that his administration is “inflating threats and bending intelligence” to justify a potential armed confrontation with Iran.

The letter, from Democratic Senators Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley and Chris Van Hollen, as well as Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, and obtained by the Foreign Policymagazine, accuses the Trump administration of leading the US down a “path to another war in the Middle East.”

In the letter, the lawmakers warn that the Trump administration’s Iran strategy is “increasingly inconsistent and counterproductive” and “fits into a larger pattern of inflating threats and bending intelligence to justify dangerous, predetermined policies.”

They asked Trump to respond to their letter by June 15 with more clarification on his Iran policy.

The letter underscores the growing concern in the US Congress that the White House might stumble into an armed confrontation with Iran. It also highlights how rattled Democrats are by the administration’s overall Iran strategy.

Last week, two other Democratic senators, Dick Durbin and Tom Udall, published an op-ed in the Washington Post that delivered similar warnings.

The letter comes amid reports that Trump is angry at his National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other hawks in his administration who are pushing the United States into a military confrontation with Iran.

The four senators also said the administration’s threat assessment on Iran’s nuclear program is “inconsistent” with the findings of America’s own intelligence agencies, as well as those of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In January, the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said in a US congressional hearing, “we do not believe Iran is currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device.”

In February, the IAEA backed up Coats’s assertion and once again reaffirmed Iran’s compliance with its nuclear-related commitments under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

“Your administration, however, is making assertions that are at odds with these findings,” the letter reads, citing Pompeo’s recent accusation that Iran was engaging in “nuclear blackmail.”

They also cited a new US State Department report that suggested Iran was not in compliance with obligations on nonproliferation.

“In sum, we fear that your administration is leading the United States down the path to another war in the Middle East, while spurning our allies and misleading the United States public,” the senators write. 

Earlier this month, Bolton said that Washington was preparing for possible attacks by Iran or its allied forces in the region.

Citing those “threats,” Washington sent military reinforcements to the region, including an aircraft carrier strike group, a squadron of B-52 bombers, and a battery of patriot missiles.

Presstv

Brazilian iron ore miner Vale SA told prosecutors in the state of Minas Gerais that a dam is at risk of rupturing at its Gongo Soco mine, about 40 miles from where its Brumadinho dam collapsed, killing more than 230 people.

According to a document published on Thursday, prosecutors said Vale is predicting the dam in the city of Barao de Cocais may collapse next week if the current rate of movement in the embankment of the mine pit close to the dam is maintained.

The warning underlines ongoing concern about the stability of dams in Brazil’s mining heartland of Minas Gerais in the aftermath of the Brumadinho accident, which itself came less than four years after another deadly dam collapse at a joint venture between Vale and BHP Group.

Vale said in a late afternoon statement it remained unclear whether the slippage in the embankment would actually trigger a collapse of the nearby Sul Superior dam, but said it was raising its level of alert and readiness for such an extreme case.

Earlier this week, Vale had identified movement close to the mine, which has not been active since 2016, the prosecutors said. About 500 people seen at risk from a collapse of the dam have been evacuated from their homes since February under orders from mining regulator ANM.

The dam holds 6 million cubic meters of mining waste, roughly half the amount that was released when the Brumadinho tailings dam burst in late January, burying nearby buildings including a company cafeteria and a bed and breakfast.

“If the movement of the northern embankment of the mine pit continues at the same pace, the rupture may happen between May 19 and May 25, which could cause liquefaction of the south dam,” the prosecutor’s document said.

Liquefaction, in which a dam’s barrier gets weakened as it turns to water, has been pegged as a likely cause of the Brumadinho collapse. Like Brumadinho, the dam at Gongo Soco has an upstream structure, known as the cheapest and least stable type of tailings dam design.

Vale shares fell 3.2% on Thursday, accelerating their drop after the reports on the potential dam burst. Prosecutors ordered Vale to issue urgent warnings about the risks to the local population.

Authorities in Brumadinho are still recovering bodies from the collapse of the Vale tailings dam there.

(Source: Reuters)

UNHCR has called for urgent support for Cameroon’s displaced as violence in the north and south-west regions continues to force thousands to flee.

Violent clashes between Cameroon’s military and armed separatists have displaced some 437,000 within the country’s borders and forced about 35,000 like Agah to seek safety in Nigeria. The displaced, the majority of whom are women and children, are mostly from English-speaking areas. They face great hardship in both countries.

Having fled with very little, their presence in already impoverished host communities is straining food resources and already limited health, education, water and sanitation facilities in these areas.

UNHCR has launched an urgent appeal to increase support for displaced Cameroonians who have survived nearly two years of ongoing violence. But of the US$184 million required for UNHCR’s operations in Cameroon and Nigeria – including US$35.4 million needed urgently for critical life-saving assistance to newly displaced Cameroonians – just four per cent has been raised.

One of three refugee sites hosting Cameroonian refugees has doubled its capacity of 4,000 and currently hosts more than 7,000 refugees. The numbers have further increased as many refugees who previously lived in the host communities have relocated to the settlements since November.

UNHCR is working closely with the Nigerian government to register all new arrivals and provide basic assistance. This includes the harder to reach refugee population living in the host communities in over 47 villages along the border, who make up over 60 per cent of the refugee population.

Source: TVcnews

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres raised concerns Thursday that a concrete dome built last century to contain waste from atomic bomb tests is leaking radioactive material into the Pacific.

Speaking to students in Fiji, Guterres described the structure on Enewetak atoll in the Marshall Islands as “a kind of coffin” and said it was a legacy of Cold War-era nuclear tests in the Pacific

“The Pacific was victimised in the past as we all know,” he said, referring to nuclear explosions carried out by the United States and France in the region.

In the Marshalls, numerous islanders were forcibly evacuated from ancestral lands and resettled, while thousands more were exposed to radioactive fallout.

The island nation was ground zero for 67 American nuclear weapons tests from 1946-58 at Bikini and Enewetak atolls, when it was under US administration.

The tests included the 1954 “Bravo” hydrogen bomb, the most powerful ever detonated by the United States, about 1,000 times bigger than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Guterres, who is touring the South Pacific to raise awareness of climate change issues, said Pacific islanders still needed help to deal with the fallout of the nuclear testing.

“The consequences of these have been quite dramatic, in relation to health, in relation to the poisoning of waters in some areas,” he said.

“I’ve just been with the President of the Marshall Islands (Hilda Heine), who is very worried because there is a risk of leaking of radioactive materials that are contained in a kind of coffin in the area.”

The “coffin” is a concrete dome, built in the late 1970s on Runit island, part of Enewetak atoll, as a dumping ground for waste from the nuclear tests.

Radioactive soil and ash from the explosions was tipped into a crater and capped with a concrete dome 45 centimetres (18 inches) thick.

However, it was only envisaged as a temporary fix and the bottom of the crater was never lined leading to fears the waste is leaching into the Pacific.

Cracks have also developed in the concrete after decades of exposure and there are concerns it could break apart if hit by a tropical cyclone.

Guterres did not directly address what should be done with the dome but said the Pacific’s nuclear history still needed to be addressed.

“A lot needs to be done in relation to the explosions that took place in French Polynesia and the Marshall Islands,” he said.

“This is in relation to the health consequences, the impact on communities and other aspects.

“Of course there are questions of compensation and mechanisms to allow these impacts to be minimised.”

AFP