Catherine Collins

This was a shocking expose on the business of "farming" salmon.
People may not realize that the majority of the salmon they buy in their favorite supermarket was actually raised in crowded, unsanitary "fish pens", anchored in the ocean. No room to move, fed with unnatural food, rife with diseases.
Even more dangerous, the fish pens are polluting the traditional native salmon waters, and causing native fish to become diseased and die. The author points out, "As often happens when humans tinker with nature, the law of unintended consequences turned plans for a new industry into a threat to both the environment and to the survival of wild salmon".
The book is loaded with evidence of the problem. A few transnational corporations are the controlling factors in the business (Norway). Using their considerable weight, they bully and threaten governments into allowing the continuation of the disaster. Despite overwhelming evidence, the governments are too afraid of losing jobs, or perhaps losing campaign donations, to act.
As a resident of the Pacific Northwest, and a fisherman, this book really struck home with me. I remember a couple of years ago when one of the fish pens "collapsed" in Puget Sound, releasing thousands and thousands of tainted, sick, and non-native salmon into the water. It's no wonder we have observed the crashing of native salmon in our area.
Thankfully, the authors offer some hope. They discuss efforts and programs in the works to stop the fish pens.
We're up against some powerful people, a true David vs. Goliath battle. Let's hope lots of people read this book and get involved. Or, for their own health and well-being, stop buying these fish pen raised salmon.
Fingers crossed!… (mehr)

An engaging survey of CIA counter-proliferation efforts over the past several decades. At its best, the book provides a window into real intelligence operations. The authors' argument that the CIA over-prioritized information over counter-proliferation, however, falls short. It is all well and good to observe that, in hindsight, it seems misguided to not prevent A. Q. Kahn from stealing centrifuge designs in 1975. The authors overreach, however, when they repeatedly argue that the CIA continued to mistakenly let proliferation activities continue out of an excessive interest in gathering more information. Perhaps that is what happened, but the evidence provided does not prove that. When rendering such a biting judgment (and one that has serious policy consequences), the standards of proof are high.

A surprising oversight in the book is the Syrian nuclear program, which receives scant attention. The 2007 Israeli air strike ("Operation Orchard") on a Syrian nuclear reactor occurred within the timeframe of this book. To omit this major event, as well as its implications for the scope of the proliferation network, seriously undermines the book's utility as anything approaching a comprehensive survey.

In short, read this as an introduction to the scope of the A. Q. Kahn proliferation network but do not draw overly-broad policy conclusions from it.… (mehr)

More than a high-stakes espionage thriller, Fallout painstakingly examines the huge costs of the CIA’s errors and the lost opportunities to halt the spread of nuclear weapons technology long before it was made available to some of the most dangerous and reckless adversaries of the United States and its allies. At its heart, this book stands as a sober warning to citizens and policymakers in the United States and throughout the world. Only sheer luck has allowed us to avoid a nuclear catastrophe so far. If failures like those recounted in Fallout are not remedied, and if fighting nuclear proliferation does not become the number one priority of the world’s governments, we will assuredly run out of luck one of these days.… (mehr)