News from Ukraine, N Korea and France

UKRAINE – Massive shelter is placed atop Chernobyl nuclear reactor

(from AP at CBS) – Workers completed a massive shelter over the Chernobyl nuclear plant’s exploded reactor last Tuesday (Nov.30), one of the most ambitious engineering projects in the world.

The half cylinder-shaped shelter [named The New Safe Containment] was locked in place over the plant’s reactor No. 4 after being moved in on hydraulic jacks for two weeks. It marks a significant step toward containing the consequences of the world’s worst nuclear accident, which occurred 30 years ago in what [was then part of the Soviet Union and] is now Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko described the new shelter as “the biggest moving construction that humanity has ever created.”

Workers will now begin dismantling unstable parts of the original cover, the so-called sarcophagus, which was built over the reactor shortly after the 1986 disaster to contain radiation.

The new shelter is 843 feet wide and 354 feet tall, took several years to build and cost about 1.5 billion euros, according to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development [EBRD]. More than 40 governments have contributed to funding its construction, which involved 10,000 workers.

Vince Novak, the ERBD’s nuclear safety director said, “The New Safe Confinement is an unprecedented engineering success. It is an extremely complex structure built in a contaminated area.”

“It’s one of the most important projects ever done. People in Ukraine and not only Ukraine — across Europe and large parts of the world — still remember the 1986 accident,” Mr. Novak told Reuters.

The hi-tech covering of the disaster zone has been “eagerly awaited” and is “huge news and not only for people of Ukraine, for people of Europe, people of the world. It’s a huge technological achievement.”

To minimize risk to those involved the structure was mostly built away from the site and slid onto the area [last] week. Even with the concrete sarcophagus that has encased the failed reactor, there was still the chance radiation could leak out or the concrete building would collapse.

The huge steel arch was moved into place over several weeks, and the completion of this procedure was celebrated with a ceremony at the site on Tuesday (Nov. 29), attended by the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, diplomats and site workers.

Over the coming year, work will continue on the structure to make it airtight and dismantle parts of the sarcophagus inside, using remote-controlled cranes inside the structure. When it is completed in November 2017, the final structure should ensure that the site is airtight for 100 years.

Reactor Number 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded during an experimental safety check in the middle of the night on April 26, 1986. It spewed radioactive contents up to one kilometre into the sky, some falling as debris in the area while the rest was blown by the wind as far as western Europe.

Thirty rescue workers and plant staff, receiving abnormally high doses of radiation, were killed at the site either immediately or in the coming weeks. The noxious plumes drifted to the northwest, polluting the Soviet republics of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. The harmful clouds then reached Scandinavian countries before swinging southward and westwards, dropping contaminated rain on central Europe and the Balkans, Italy, France, Britain and Ireland.

Soviet authorities remained silent on the disaster for three days without informing people in nearby villages about the need to evacuate. The official news agency TASS only reported on the accident on April 28 after the Forsmark nuclear plant in Sweden detected unusually high radiation in the environment.

One hundred thousand people were eventually evacuated from an area within 30 kilometres of the plant only weeks later.

In November 1986 a 50-metre-high concrete shelter, dubbed a sarcophagus, was completed to prevent further leakage of radiation from tonnes of highly radioactive magma and allow the other three reactors at Chernobyl to continue producing power for Ukraine.

The concrete sarcophagus was only meant to be temporary and expected to last a couple of decades. But in 1993 its lifespan was estimated at only seven years.

In December 2000 after years of international pressure, the Ukraine government finally agreed to switch off the last reactor at the site and close down the Chernobyl facility.

NORTH KOREA – Government hit with stronger sanctions by U.N. Security Council

(by Pamela Falk, CBS News) – The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday unanimously passed a tough, loophole-closing resolution, written by the U.S. and China, that severely tightens sanctions on North Korea and takes aim at its coal exports – the principal source of revenue for the cash-starved regime of Kim Jong Un.

A U.S. diplomat familiar with the negotiations said that the new resolution strengthens sanctions against North Korea in order to lower the revenues that the country, known officially as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), “uses to raise hard currency to fund its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and slashes the DPRK’s exports by more than $800 million per year.”

The 17-page resolution refers to the “gravest concern” caused by the nuclear test conducted by North Korea on Sept. 9, a test that was the country’s most powerful detonation to date.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meets nuclear scientists and technicians in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency in Pyongyang on March 9, 2016.

The reaction by world powers to the September test was swift: South Korea called an emergency meeting of its security officials; U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the test as a “brazen breach” of U.N. resolutions; President Obama said the U.S. “does not and never will” accept North Korea as a nuclear state; U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said that the U.N. must “demonstrate to North Korea that there are consequences for its unlawful and dangerous actions.”

At the time, the U.N. called an emergency meeting of the Security Council and has been negotiating for a new redoubling of sanctions that would be targeted at the leadership of North Korea that are not intended to have adverse humanitarian consequences on the civilian population.

Thomas Byrne, president of the nonprofit Korea Society and former head of Moody’s Asia division, told CBS News that the September nuclear test pushed China to act.

“They see North Korea as hell-bent on developing its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles programs and that is ultimately very destabilizing,” he said. …

The goal of Wednesday’s resolution was to convince Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table in order to agree to verifiable denuclearization. Byrne added that it was important to tamp down North Korean resources without having a negative effect on China’s economy.

And that is precisely what this resolution achieves. According to the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, China produced 3.7 billion metric tons of coal in 2015 and is on track to produce the same or more in 2016, so the loss of North Korean imports will be less than one-half of 1 percent of what China produces. …

What type of negotiations the North Koreans would return to, however, is unclear. Six-party talks between China, the U.S., North and South Korea, Japan and Russia began in 2003 but stalled by 2009 and have not restarted; in 2011, the U.S. and North Korea had bilateral talks to restart the multi-party negotiations, but those also failed.

Ban, the outgoing secretary-general, who is South Korean, tried to bring the talks back and was invited to North Korea in 2015 but was rebuffed at the last minute by Pyongyang. …

FRANCE – France’s Hollande throws in the towel

French President François Hollande said on Thursday he would not seek re-election next year, bowing to historically low approval ratings after a troubled term in power.

The withdrawal means the 62-year-old Socialist leader is the first president of France’s fifth republic, founded in 1958, to step aside after only one term.

“I have decided that I will not be a candidate,” a stony-faced Hollande said in a solemn televised statement from the Élysée Palace in Paris during which he defended his record.

French President François Hollande

He conceded that he was unable to unite his deeply divided Socialist Party behind his candidacy ahead of the presidential election in April and May next year.

“In the months to come, my only duty will be to continue to lead my country,” he said.

Hollande’s approval ratings have hit rock bottom after a term in office marked by U-turns on major policies, terror attacks, high unemployment and embarrassing revelations about his private life.

He is the most unpopular president in French polling history, a fact he tacitly acknowledged in his speech on Thursday.

“I am aware today of the risk that going down a route that would not gather sufficient support would entail, so I have decided not to be a candidate in the presidential election,” he said.

A new poll on Wednesday predicted he would win just seven percent of votes in the first round of next year’s election in April – strengthening Socialist critics who view him as a lame duck.

A divided left

Voter surveys currently tip rightwing Les Républicains party candidate François Fillon to become the next president, with the far-right National Front candidate Marine Le Pen seen as his closest challenger.

But with the full range of candidates still unknown and the role of independents such as 38-year-old former economy minister Emmanuel Macron difficult to predict, analysts urge caution about the forecasts. …

Mr Normal’s rollercoaster ride

Hollande took office in 2012 promising to be “Mr Normal” after what were seen as the excesses of the years under president Nicolas Sarkozy, who married supermodel Carla Bruni and was often pictured with millionaire friends.

But his presidency has been anything but normal.

France has faced three major terrorist attacks since January 2015 – first against the Charlie Hebdo magazine, then in Paris in November and in Nice in July.

On economics, Hollande started with a leftist program that included a wealth super-tax of 75 percent on top-earners but he shifted course mid-way through his term to embrace pro-business reforms, soon alienating grassroots supporters on the left.

And his colorful personal life has never been far from the headlines, leading his opponents to claim he has demeaned one of the most powerful political offices in Europe.

In January 2014, celebrity magazine Closer published pictures of him arriving on a scooter at an apartment near his official residence for secret trysts with a French actress, Julie Gayet.

The revelations led to the break-up of Hollande’s relationship with partner Valérie Trierweiler, who went on to write an eviscerating book that claimed the president mocked poor people as “the toothless”.

A mixed legacy 

Hollande listed his achievements on Thursday night, saying he had worked to “get France back on track and make it more fair” through reforms to the economy, social security and education.

He pointed to a global accord on climate change signed in Paris last year as part of his legacy, as well as his handling of the terror attacks when he had sought to heal and comfort a wounded country.

On unemployment — which Hollande had promised to lower before the election – he said “the results are coming, later than I had promised them, but they are there.”

His decision not to seek re-election came on a day when Le Monde, France’s newspaper of record, delivered a withering assessment of his time in office.

Le Monde wrote in an editorial that the Socialists risked tearing themselves apart ahead of the presidential election as well as a parliamentary vote in June.

“The person who is most responsible is François Hollande, who has not given a meaning to his time in office, occupied the job with authority or imposed himself as the legitimate candidate for his party,” it said.

(The news briefs above are from wire reports and staff reports posted at CBSNews on Nov. 29 [Ukraine], November 30 [NKorea] and France24 on Dec. 2 [France].)