Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- April 26, 2016

Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg: Ignoring the Lessons of Chernobyl

The presidents of Ukraine and Belarus, the two countries most affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, used the meltdown's 30-year anniversary on Tuesday to make political statements. It looks like neither of them -- nor Russian President Vladimir Putin -- has drawn the right conclusions from the tragedy, which probably hastened the Soviet Union's demise.

Unit 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant blew up on April 26, 1986, as its operators were testing a new generator. The explosion itself only killed one person, but its consequences were momentous: 116,000 people had to be resettled, 49 people died trying to mop up the fallout and the World Health Organization estimated the number of premature deaths at 4,000. The fallout made huge swaths of land in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia unsuitable for agriculture and rendered bodies of water too dangerous for swimming. Radiation levels are still higher than normal in many of these places, children are still born with deformities and cancer incidence is higher than in neighboring regions.

Read more ....

Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- April 26, 2016

The Chernobyl Conundrum: Is Radiation As Bad As We Thought? -- Manfred Dworschak, Spiegel Online

30 Years After the Chernobyl Meltdown, Why Is the Ukrainian Government Pushing Nuclear Energy? -- Dusty Christensen, The Nation

U.S. Quietly Sinks Deeper Into Syria With Another 250 Troops -- Nancy Youssef, Daily Beast

Why Obama is Sending More Americans to Syria -- Paul D. Shinkman, US News and World Report

Step by step, we are sleepwalking back to Assad's Syria -- Faisal Al Yafai, The National

Iran and Russia move closer but their alliance has limits -- Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Lidia Kelly, Reuters

The tricky triangle of Iran, Russia and Israel -- Gareth Smyth, The Guardian

Yemenis have not lost hope -- Ahmed Awad Bin Mubarak, Al Jazeera

5 Ways to Respond If North Korea Tests Another Nuke -- Doug Bandow, National Interest

Pakistan's China Connection to Nuclear Trouble -- Eli Lake, Bloomberg

Egypt’s Military Regime Grows More Brutal -- Doug Bandow, CATO

Abu Sayyaf: Islamist extremists or profiteering criminals? -- Georgia McCafferty, for CNN

Why Al Qaeda thinks ISIS has no future -- Howard LaFranchi, CSM

Russia: What to Expect From Putin -- Council on Foreign Relations

The Catalan cauldron: The prospect of the break-up of Spain poses yet another challenge to Europe. -- Brendan Simms and Montserrat Guibernau, New Statesman

The CIA Kidnapper Facing Jail in Italy -- Christopher Dickey and Barbie Latza Nadeau, Daily Beast