Saudi Arabia to extract uranium for 'self-sufficient' nuclear program
Saudi Arabia plans to extract uranium domestically as part of its nuclear power program and sees this as a step towards "self-sufficiency" in producing atomic fuel, a senior official said on Monday.
Extracting its own uranium also makes sense from an economic point of view, said Hashim bin Abdullah Yamani, head of the Saudi government agency tasked with the nuclear plans, the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (KACARE).
In a speech at an international nuclear power conference in Abu Dhabi, he did not specify whether Saudi Arabia seeks to also enrich and reprocess uranium – steps in the fuel cycle which are especially sensitive as they can open up the possibility of military uses of the material.
The world's top oil exporter says it wants to tap atomic power for peaceful purposes only in order to diversify its energy supply and will award a construction contract for its first two nuclear reactors by the end of 2018.
Meanwhile, women will be allowed to attend sporting events at stadiums. And here's a message for the skeptics (editorial).
Also at Newsweek.
Previously: Saudi Arabia Will Lift Ban on Women Drivers Next Year
Saudi Arabia Planning $500 Billion Megacity and Business Zone
Robot Granted "Citizenship" in Saudi Arabia, Sparking Backlash
Related Stories
Saudi Arabia will lift its ban on women drivers in June 2018, in a move the interior minister said would "transform traffic safety":
Saudi Arabia's lifting of a much criticized ban on women drivers will reduce the number of car crashes in a country with one of the world's worst traffic-related death rates, its interior minister said on Thursday.
King Salman announced the historic change on Tuesday, ending a conservative tradition which limited women's mobility and was seen by rights activists as an emblem of their suppression in the kingdom where Islam originated.
Saudi Arabia was the only remaining country in the world to bar women from driving, a policy that will officially end in June 2018 after a ministerial committee reports on measures needed for implementation.
Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Nayef, the interior minister who took over from his uncle in June, said security forces were ready to apply traffic laws to men and women, though he did not mention if women would be recruited as traffic police.
"Women driving cars will transform traffic safety into a pedagogical practice which will reduce human and economic losses caused by accidents," he was quoted as saying on the ministry's official Twitter feed. He did not elaborate.
The current King of Saudi Arabia was crowned on January 23, 2015.
Also at the Washington Post. NYT has teaching activities for your students.
Related: Saudi Arabia, UAE to Donate to Women Entrepreneurs Fund
Saudi Arabia to Lift Ban on Online VoIP and Video Calling Services
Saudi Arabia is planning to build a new $500+ billion city on the coast of the Red Sea. The zone will be connected to Jordan by land and Egypt by a bridge across the Red Sea. SoftBank's Vision Fund will buy a stake in the state-owned Saudi Electricity Co., which will power the city using clean energy. The project is called NEOM:
Saudi Arabia has unveiled plans to build a new city and business zone - a project that will be backed up by more than $500bn (£381bn) in investment.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman says the 26,500 sq km (10,232 sq mile) NEOM zone will be developed in the north-west, extending to Egypt and Jordan.
It will focus on nine sectors including food technology and, energy and water.
The crown prince has been leading a drive to move Saudi Arabia away from its dependence on oil revenues.
In August, the Gulf kingdom launched a massive tourism development project to turn 50 islands and other sites on the Red Sea into luxury resorts.
However, the extremely ambitious nature of Mohammed bin Salman's vision is sure to raise questions about how realistic it is, the BBC's economics correspondent Andrew Walker says.
What is "NEOM"? "Neo" (Latin for "new") + "Mostaqbal" (Arabic for "future").
Also at Bloomberg (alternate editorial) and Reuters.
Related: SoftBank's $80-100 Billion "Vision Fund" Takes Shape
SoftBank May Sell 25% of ARM to Vision Fund; Chairman Meets With Saudi King
A feminine robot has apparently been granted "citizenship" in Saudi Arabia, sparking a heated discussion over a lack of rights for women and foreign workers:
A robot woman in Saudi Arabia was granted citizenship this week, sparking a backlash that said the robot appeared to have more rights than millions of human women and foreigners living in the Gulf nation. Sophia, a robot with human female features that can make facial expressions and hold conversations, wooed the crowd when it debuted at a economic summit in the country's capital, Riyadh, this week.
As it stood on stage during a panel Wednesday, the robot learned from the moderator, CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin, that Saudi Arabia had granted it what Sorkin called "the first Saudi citizenship for a robot." "I'm very honored and proud for this unique distinction," Sophia said, to applause. "This is historical to be the first robot in the world to be recognized with a citizenship."
[...] Soon after, though, social media users pointed out that Sophia had quickly achieved more rights than millions of women and foreign workers in Saudi Arabia, which has been criticized globally for repressing women's and civil rights.
For one, Sophia appeared on stage alone, without the modest dress required of Saudi women; she donned no hijab, or headscarf, nor abaya, or cloak. She also did not appear to have a male guardian, as required by Saudi law for women in the country. Male guardians, often a male relative, must give permission before women can travel abroad, open bank accounts or carry out a host of other tasks -- and they accompany women in public. Sophia also seems to have leapfrogged foreign workers in the Saudi kingdom, many of whom have fled poor working conditions but are prevented by law from leaving the country.
The robot also trolled Elon Musk:
Something is definitely going on in Saudi Arabia:
Saudi authorities arrested at least 11 princes, several current ministers and dozens of former ministers in a sweeping move reportedly designed to consolidate power for the son of King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud. According to media reports citing Saudi-owned television network Al Arabiya, an anti-corruption committee ordered the arrests hours after King Salman directed the creation of the committee, headed by his favorite son and adviser, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The committee was established by the royal decree, The Associated Press reports, "due to the propensity of some people for abuse, putting their personal interest above public interest, and stealing public funds." Billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is among those detained, The Wall Street Journal reports. Alwaleed holds stakes in some of the world's major companies, including Apple and Twitter.
Remember Prince Alwaleed? Bitcoin could outlive him.
It's unclear what those arrested are accused of doing, but Al-Arabiya reported that new investigations into the 2009 Jeddah floods and 2012 MERS virus outbreak have been launched.
Separately, the heads of the Saudi National Guard and Saudi Royal Navy have also been replaced.
BBC notes that the reform faction is in control here:
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says Prince Mohammed is moving to consolidate his growing power while spearheading a reform programme. [...] Prince Mohammed recently said the return of "moderate Islam" was key to his plans to modernise Saudi Arabia. Addressing an economic conference in Riyadh, he vowed to "eradicate the remnants of extremism very soon". Last year, Prince Mohammed unveiled a wide-ranging plan to bring social and economic change to the oil-dependent kingdom.
Some Soylentils have been skeptical of Saudi Arabia's recent moves towards liberalization (some listed below). Has this apparent purge of internal political opposition changed your mind about the viability of these reforms?
Saudi Aramco and Alphabet/Google may cooperate on a "technology hub" within Saudi Arabia, or at least build some data centers:
Saudi Aramco, the world's largest energy company, and Google parent Alphabet have entered discussions to create a technology hub in Saudi Arabia, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The kingdom is embarking upon an ambitious plan, led by the 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to diversify the nation's oil-dependent economy. The foundation of the effort is a plan to create a huge sovereign wealth fund, underwritten by selling shares in the state-owned Aramco.
The initial public offering, which could happen this year, is expected to be the world's biggest-ever share sale. Aramco President and CEO Amin Nasser recently told CNBC his company is ready for the IPO this year, but is waiting on the government to choose an international list venue.
Alphabet and Aramco have discussed forming a joint venture that would build data centers around the kingdom, sources familiar with the matter tell the Journal. It remains to be seen which customers the data centers would serve and how large the joint venture would be, but it could be listed in the Saudi stock exchange, the sources said.
Data centers are just a "tangible" area of cooperation, not necessarily the entire purpose of the joint venture. Saudi Arabia has talked about building a $500+ billion "megacity" that would be technology-focused.
Meanwhile, slightly-less-of-a-billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has been put back to work:
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 31 2017, @07:02PM (5 children)
Saudi Arabia was OK with not having nukes as long as Iran didn't have nukes.
So then we fuck around, make a terrible nuke deal with Iran, maybe worse (could well be OUR uranium via Canada and Russia, not that Iran should need it), and pretty much just let things happen.
Just as more-or-less promised, Saudi Arabia follows through. On the bright side, the Saudi monarchy isn't likely to start nuking anybody. One should wonder how well they can prevent a few misbehaving fanatics from doing an unapproved launch. One should also wonder about stability:
It has been shown that governments frequently topple when they seem to be most strongly in control. This has something to do with suppressed anger, an unstable tipping point, and cascading unrest. For example, Syria and Libya and Egypt all had opposition pretty well suppressed before they suddenly changed, as did much of eastern Europe right before the end of the cold war. Oh, and also thanks Obama for the issues with Syria and Libya and Egypt. Letting the secretary of state fuck around, and then letting it leak out due to poor security, sure contributed to that.
Hey, why not antagonize Russia and risk World War III while we're at it? Oh yeah. Thanks Obama!
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday November 01 2017, @12:39AM (3 children)
"One should wonder how well they can prevent a few misbehaving fanatics from doing an unapproved launch. One should also wonder about stability"
The same applies to the US.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @01:38AM
Granted, we do have 1% or 2% muslim in the USA, and leftist groups like Antifa are constantly starting violence. Being a bit less politically correct when granting security clearances would stop that potential problem entirely.
Stability is currently quite good; there are outlets for expressing frustration. We do have a growing population of people who hate America (see above) that must be reduced.
Nothing is perfect. It's hard to find a country that combines low ethnic/religious hatred with the high purity needed to preserve itself. Maybe Iceland has us beat.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:54PM (1 child)
I use the word unpredictable. You want to be unpredictable. And somebody recently said I made a great business deal. And the person on the other side was interviewed by a newspaper. And how did Trump do this? And they said, he's so unpredictable. And I didn't know if he meant it positively or negative. It turned out he meant it positively. I’m never going to rule anything out, because, at a minimum, I want them to think maybe we would use it, OK? You know, we need unpredictability. The enemy, we have enemies. ISIS is a enemy. And it’s an enemy not wearing uniforms, so we don’t even know who the enemy is. You know, in the old days we’d have Japan or we’d have Germany or we’d have some country. And they would have soldiers. They would be dressed, we’d be dressed, we’d know who we were fighting. We don’t know who these people are. The fact is, we need unpredictability. I frankly don’t want the enemy to know how I’m thinking.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday November 02 2017, @01:44AM
Gotta try harder, there was some sense in there.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:20AM
In addition, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hats, and age of consent has been raised to eight years old. Dziękuję.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday October 31 2017, @07:13PM (5 children)
So, they're Muslim, have got a lot of oil, fund terrorists, and will be producing materials for weapons of mass destruction.
I need to buy an 8K TV, and a whole lot of popcorn. The excuses against invading them are gonna be amazing...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday October 31 2017, @07:21PM
I wonder if we will get 16K TV or if VR will supplant it instead.
Probably VR [techcrunch.com]. Explore the world from the comfort of your basement.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by n1 on Tuesday October 31 2017, @07:23PM
Much like with concerns about all the killing of civilians in Yemen, the UK/US/UN will seek assurances from the Saudi government that it's not intentional... They'll do this the next time they meet to sell KSA some more weapons or position to get in on the Saudi Aramco IPO.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Tuesday October 31 2017, @11:31PM
It's all part of the super secret master plan to avoid nuking Iran.
3 easy steps:
1. We just have the Saudis do it!
2. Invest heavily in oil in other parts of the world just before it happens.
3. Profit!
What could possibly go wrong?
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:07PM
We are not being reimbursed for our protection of many countries, including Saudi Arabia. You know, Saudi Arabia, for a period of time, now the oil has gone down, but still the numbers are phenomenal, and the amount of money they have is phenomenal. But we protect countries, and take tremendous monetary hits on protecting countries. That would include Saudi Arabia, but it would include many other countries, as you know. We have, there’s a whole big list of them. We lose, everywhere. We lose monetarily, everywhere. And yet, without us, Saudi Arabia wouldn’t exist for very long. It would be, you know, a catastrophic failure without our protection. And I’m trying to figure out, why is it that we aren’t going in and saying, "At a minimum, I’m sorry folks, but you have to, under no circumstances can we continue to do this." You know, we needed, we needed oil desperately years ago. Today, because -- again, because of the new technologies, and because of places that we never thought had oil, and they do have oil, and there’s a glut on the market, there’s a tremendous glut on the market, I mean you have ships out at sea that are loaded up and they don’t even know where to go dump it. But we don’t have that same pressure any more, at all. And we shouldn’t have that for a long period of time, because there’s so many places. I mean, they’re closing wells all over the place.
So, I would say this, I would say at a minimum, we have to be reimbursed, substantially reimbursed, I mean, to a point that’s far greater than what we’re being paid right now. Because we’re not being reimbursed for the kind of tremendous service that we’re performing by protecting various countries. Now Saudi Arabia’s one of them. I think if Saudi Arabia was without the cloak of American protection of our country’s, of U.S. protection, think of Saudi Arabia. I don’t think it would be around. It would be, whether it was internal or external, it wouldn’t be around for very long. And they’re a money machine, they’re a monetary machine, and yet they don’t reimburse us the way we should be reimbursed. So that’s a real problem.
And frankly, I think it’s a real, in terms of bringing our country back, because our country’s a poor country. Our country is a debtor nation, we’re a debtor nation. I mean, we owe trillions of dollars to people that are buying our bonds, in the form of other countries. You look at China, where we owe them $1.7 trillion, you have Japan, $1.5 trillion. We’re a debtor nation. We can’t be a debtor nation. I don’t want to be a debtor nation. I want it to be the other way. One of the reasons we’re a debtor nation, we spend so much on the military, but the military isn’t for us. The military is to be policeman for other countries. And to watch over other countries. And there comes a point that, and many of these countries are tremendously rich countries. Not powerful countries, but – in some cases they are powerful – but rich countries. At some point, there is going to be a point at which we just can’t do this any more. And, I know the upsides and the downsides. But right now we’re protecting, we’re basically protecting Saudi Arabia, and we are, every time an enemy raises its head, you know, we get calls from everybody and "DO SOMETHING!" And there’ll be a point at which we’re just not going to be able to do it any more.
Now, does that mean nuclear? It could mean nuclear. It’s a very scary nuclear world. The biggest problem, to me, in the world, is nuclear, and proliferation. At the same time, you know, we’re a country that doesn’t have money. You know, when we did these deals, we were a rich country. We’re not a rich country. We were a rich country with a very strong military and tremendous capability in so many ways. We’re not any more. We have a military that’s severely depleted. We have nuclear arsenals which are in very terrible shape. They don’t even know if they work. They have to protect themselves or they have to pay us. They have to pay us or we have to let them protect themselves. Maybe, probably, they want nuclear weapons. I will never give them nuclear weapons. But can I be honest with you? It's going to happen anyway. It's going to happen anyway. It's only a question of time. They're going to start having them or we have to get rid of them entirely. But you have so many countries already, China, Pakistan, you have so many countries, Russia, you have so many countries right now that have them. Now, wouldn’t you rather in a certain sense have Saudi Arabia have nuclear weapons when Israel has nuclear weapons? And they do have them. They absolutely have them. 🇺🇸
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @09:35PM
You only need the One:
Petrodollars
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 31 2017, @07:16PM (2 children)
So, the country with the second largest oil reserves in the world, and some of the best solar potential in the world needs to extract uranium for energy? Uh-huh, sure.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Funny) by takyon on Tuesday October 31 2017, @07:21PM (1 child)
Don't put all your eggs in one basket. The Sun could go out any day now.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @11:44AM
It could. There is a non-zero probability of that. But then we would be fucked anyway, so no need to bother.
If you want a car analogy, consider all your baskets being in a back of your car and then 10m above your car, on a beautiful sunny day, a 150MT Tzar Bomba [wikipedia.org] explodes. As you can imagine, it doesn't matter how many baskets you use for your eggs and where you put them. They will be cooked, fried and evaporated anyway.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Sulla on Tuesday October 31 2017, @07:48PM (7 children)
So they bought the American anti-missile system, they bought the Russian anti-missile system, they bought some 200B of military equipment in total, and now they are looking to refine for use in power plants. Seems to me the Saudis are preparing for a play at the peninsula to make up for the end of their oil reserves.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Tuesday October 31 2017, @08:41PM (6 children)
Also they have one neighbor that is formerly the Persian Empire and another neighbor that conquered and took over western civilization.
I have kind of a hobby of nuclear physics for a couple decades now. Its pretty easy to build and monitor a plant optimized for weapons production vs power production. They're not remotely similar. Its a hell of a lot easier to turn a pesticide plant into a nerve gas plant than to turn a power plant into a plutonium production plant. Just saying, from a purely technological standpoint its very easy to build an monitor a non-weapons plant. One classic example is there are some "icky" isotopes of plutonium that require weird fuel processing cycles to avoid its formation, its easy to run a plant such that you can't get usable "boom" plutonium out of it. Even stuff like the design of the fuel rods impacts production of energy vs Pu. They are probably lying to us, sure, but technically its possible, easy even, to have a non-proliferation nuke plant.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Wednesday November 01 2017, @02:50AM (3 children)
is there any gain to be gotton from just getting -experience- playing with radioactive material?
even if its not bomb-grade, perhaps there is still things they can learn by going down this path. ie, when they do decide to go serious, some of the background learning would have been done.
I don't know the subject matter at all - would this apply or not?
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 3, Informative) by driverless on Wednesday November 01 2017, @08:45AM (2 children)
Not really. Getting uranium up to 3-5% is pretty straightforward, the cascades of ultracentrifuges you need to get to HEU is a very different matter.
There are also much scarier things you can do with a reactor than use it to breed plutonium. Want to depopulate New York? Create a good quantity of some strong alpha emitter like Po210 and disperse it over the city as an aerosol so it gets into and onto everything. Then announce what you've done, and sit back and watch the mayhem. No-one will ever want to live in NY again no matter how many times you scrub it clean and declare it safe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @10:13AM (1 child)
Great, as if we weren't on enough watchlists already :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:48PM
It is a testament to humanity that we haven't already wiped ourselves off the planet. Came close quite a few times though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:13AM
It'll be all subcontracted out to foreign outfits.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:27AM
Who? When? Wouldn't that mean not more western civ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 31 2017, @08:09PM (19 children)
Extracting reactor-grade uranium, much less weapons-grade, is expensive, dirty, and time-consuming.
Can't they just donate to the Clinton foundation and get a sweet deal on some American stuff?
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 31 2017, @08:28PM (1 child)
> Can't they just donate to the Clinton foundation and get a sweet deal on some American stuff?
Or since Clinton is currently not the one in power -- shocking, I know -- they could also ask the Kush-boy to twiddle daddy a bit. [cnn.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 31 2017, @11:38PM
Or since Clinton is currently not the one in power
HA! That's what they want you to think! Trump calls her every day, asking what to do next. She'll have more power than the next five presidents, just like Kissinger held sway over the last nine...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by turgid on Tuesday October 31 2017, @09:17PM (4 children)
Thorium is useless for making nuclear weapons, apparently. The only excuse for using Uranium is to make the isotopes of Plutonium needed for nuclear weapons, so it goes. If Saudi gets nuclear power, using Uranium fuel, then there really is something wrong with the world.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:51AM
Scaling up Thorium reactors hasn't been really done yet despite India's investment. Not exactly a straightforward replacement option.
(Score: 3, Informative) by driverless on Wednesday November 01 2017, @08:48AM
Well, in theory you can bread U233 from it, but India hasn't been going too well with that option.
Mind you, this is India we're talking about here...
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @11:47AM
1. No, it's not useless.
2. Nations like India would prefer Thorium over Uranium because they have lots of Thorium but no Uranium
3. Almost everyone else prefers Uranium over Thorium because we already have supply chain for Uranium
Everything else is pretty much similar in the two fuels. Already there are reactors that burn either of the fuels or combination thereof. And safety has nothing to do with either fuel - both are equally safe and unsafe.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:42PM
To make Th work you need U or Pu (unless you go with accelerators).
Also U is dirt cheap today and has established supply and distribution (Th lacks this), also U-reactors are easier to make than Th reactors.
And talking about weapons the critical mass of U-233 (which is what creates the energy in Th-reactors) has a critical mass of about 15kg while that of Pu-239 is 10kg (U-235 is about 50kg).
Then we shouldn't neglect to mention that Th-reactors needs reprocessing (or enriched U) while U-reactors doesn't (heck, the CANDU doesn't even need enrichment) so you will basically have to solve all basic problems to get the materials for a bomb just to be able to run it (not hard to begin with)
And why would it matter if they get U-reactors*? If your eally are that freaked about it then lobby for having them send all spent fuel to russia (or get australia to start accepting spent fuel).
Oh, and most countries doesn't do their own reprocessing but pays for the service..
(* = The Pu will get too much Pu-240 in it after some 3GWD/t burnup while power reactors run at about 40-65GWD/t burnup [grossly oversimplified] so you'd notice darn quick if they tried to get weaponsgrade Pu [mainly due to having to refuel every secind ween compared to normal 12-24 months])
(Score: 5, Informative) by Nobuddy on Tuesday October 31 2017, @09:42PM (11 children)
I knew I could count on one of these ignorant posts. you did not disappoint.
The deal was for a stake in the company. It is illegal to sell uranium outside the US without a license that has NEVER been issued, and none has been exported. They bought shares of profits, not uranium.
The only reason it needed a 9 agency sign-off (yes, 9 agencies, Clinton did not sell Russia anything) is because if they took the company belly up it would reduce US uranium production and impact our power grid. Russia gained no uranium, and no control over our strategic uranium production.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 31 2017, @10:42PM
Gotta spin some fake news to take the heat off Cheeto the *wall lover.
* you may think I'm only referring to the Mexico/US border, but I'm pretty sure Melania has wall like properties at such times...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 31 2017, @11:43PM (8 children)
Why are we letting foreign nationals gain control over American corporations?
This hurts us. We shouldn't allow it, even if the product is only as important as the Pet Rock.
Selling out our nation is harmful to our nation.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Wednesday November 01 2017, @12:26AM
Because everyone else did it and now it's your turn to submit to corporate rule.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Wednesday November 01 2017, @02:54AM (6 children)
go to silicon valley and check out the home prices and who is buying/owning.
more so, check out who the landlords are.
rich chinese come here, buy houses that cost $1M and more IN CASH and locals can't even compete.
china is buying up the US. and we are stupidly letting them.
other countries don't sell their own country out so fast. I wonder what's wrong with us, that we keep doing things against our own best (long term) interests.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:04AM (3 children)
> other countries don't sell their own country out so fast. I wonder what's wrong with us, that we keep doing things against our own best (long term) interests.
You were on the "buying" side for so long, you don't know what it means to "be bought". Just like "interfering with" and " be interfered with" :)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @07:13AM (2 children)
When we do it, it's "investment" and good for them. When they do it, it's blah whatever that guy said.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @10:01AM (1 child)
I am not aware of Americans massively buying homesteads in other countries. America is global battleground for power. Whichever group of humans (ethnicity, language, religion, race, ...) dominates it, dominates the world. Chinese people, even they already are the single most numerous group of the world, can't exert their proportional influence upon the rest of the planet without first taking over America.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @10:27AM
Why buy a homestead in a shittier country when you can just buy up their entire economy and improve your homestead at home?
In a ~100 meter radius around my apartment there are two McDonald's', at least one Starbucks, one each of Dunkin' Donuts, Pizza Hut, and Domino's Pizza, several 7-11s, and a Walmart. As you can see from me using the word "meter", I don't live anywhere close to the US :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @10:55AM
If a country requires 51 percent domestic land ownership, we require the same of their nationals in our country.
If a country requires 51 percent domestic corporate ownership, we require the same of corporations in our country with corporate creation or majority stakeholders being of their legal jurisdiction.
This may be a complicated idea to audit and enforce, but it is the only way to get countries like China to either play ball with competitive rules, or stop buying us up part and parcel until they defacto control the country, and our traitor barons have sold us out on their way to a foreign vacation homes in countries with even less domestically favorable laws than the US.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:10PM
substitute 1980s for now, and Japanese for Chinese, and you have the same situation. So yes, 1980s called and they want their anti-Japanese phobia back.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:19PM
It was for Uranium One, a Canadian company. A Canadian company *I* had a small state in and that *I* was one of the shareholders that voted to sell to Russians.
Except it didn't because Uranium One never had any major assets. They had some smaller assets *in the US*, but US doesn't have uranium resources like in northern Saskatchewan (in Canada for those foreigners). If you want major Uranium play company, look no further than Cameco. And they have enough resources to take care of any demand by any US power company going forward.
But this entire thing is bullshit. Russians wasted a lot of money because they were betting on nuclear renaissance. And that most likely now will not happen, especially since CO2 limits are simply going to be ignored anyway. This was a strategic investment in uranium resources by a Russian state company. It was not a political decision by Putin or Clinton. Remember people, assets like mines are fixed. And it is always possible to nationalize such things later, so WTF is the hoopla about?? Certainly not a rational problem.