|
Contents Of The United States Diplomatic Cables Leak (Africa)
Content from the United States diplomatic cables leak has depicted Sub-Saharan Africa and related subjects extensively. The leak, which began on 28 November 2010, occurred when the website of WikiLeaks — an international new-media non-profit organisation that publishes submissions of otherwise unavailable documents from anonymous news sources and news leaks — started to publish classified documents of detailed correspondence — diplomatic cables — between the United States Department of State and its diplomatic missions around the world. Since the initial release date, WikiLeaks has been releasing further documents. Burundi ; Chemical-weapons cache In June 2007, the U.S. Embassy in Bujumbura, Burundi, reported that an elderly Congolese man to whom they were introduced had indicated he had found a large quantity of chemical items hidden in a stationary concrete bunker on the same property as where a Belgian family had resided during Burundi's Belgian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contents Of The United States Diplomatic Cables Leak
This is a list of notable content from the United States diplomatic cables leak that reveals the United States' political opinion towards a variety of international affairs. Beginning on November 28, 2010, WikiLeaks had been publishing classified documents of detailed correspondence—diplomatic cables—between the United States Department of State and its diplomatic missions around the world. On 1 September 2011, it released all of the Cablegate documents in its possession without redaction. By subject The United States Department of State requires the reason for classification to be specified on all classified cables according to these classification categories: Of the 3,420 cables published as of February 3, 2011, 2,647 are classified confidential or secret. Of these, the vast majority are labeled 1.4 (b) or 1.4 (d), or both, indicating that they contain information about foreign relations or governments. 107 of the cables are labeled 1.4 (c). By transnational org ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Mercury
Red mercury is purportedly a substance of uncertain composition used in the creation of nuclear weapons, as well as other weapons systems. Because of the great secrecy surrounding the development and manufacturing of nuclear weapons, there is no proof that red mercury exists. However, all samples of alleged "red mercury" analyzed in the public literature have proven to be well-known, common red substances of no interest to weapons makers. Red mercury is therefore considered a hoax, perpetrated by con artists who sought to take advantage of gullible buyers on the black market for arms. There have been reports of "red mercury" on the international black markets since 1979, but the hoax seems to have been most common in the early 1990s, with very high asking prices. History References to red mercury first appeared in major Soviet and western media sources in the late 1980s. The articles were never specific as to what exactly red mercury was, but nevertheless claimed it was of gre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vital Kamerhe
Vital Kamerhe (born 4 March 1959) is a Congolese politician who is the chief of staff of President Félix Tshisekedi and leader of the Union for the Congolese Nation (UNC) opposition party. Previously he was the President of the National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 2006 to 2009. After resigning from that office, he went into the opposition and founded the UNC. Kamerhe was a candidate in the 2011 presidential election. In 2018 Kamerhe supported Félix Tshisekedi for president and was made his chief of staff after the election. Kamerhe was charged with corruption in April 2020, and was incarcerated in the Makala Prison. Kamerhe was found guilty on 20 June 2020 and sentenced to 20 years of forced labour due to embezzling more than USD 48 million of public funds. It was the first time in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that a high-level politician was convicted of corruption. Despite the fact that he was convicted, he still is the chief of staff of Pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Kabila
Joseph Kabila Kabange ( , ; born 4 June 1971) is a Congolese politician who served as President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between January 2001 and January 2019. He took office ten days after the assassination of his father, President Laurent-Désiré Kabila in the context of the Second Congo War. He was allowed to remain in power after the 2003 Pretoria Accord ended the war as the president of the country's new transitional government. He was elected as president in 2006 and re-elected in 2011 for a second term. Since stepping down after the 2018 election, Kabila, as a former president, serves as a senator for life.Bujakera, Stanis (15 March 2019)Congo ex-leader Kabila's coalition wins decisive senate majority ''Reuters''. Accessed 21 March 2019. Kabila's term was due to expire on 20 December 2016, according to the terms of the constitution adopted in 2006. Officials suggested that elections would be held in November 2016, but on 29 September 2016, the nation' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uranium-235
Uranium-235 (235U or U-235) is an isotope of uranium making up about 0.72% of natural uranium. Unlike the predominant isotope uranium-238, it is fissile, i.e., it can sustain a nuclear chain reaction. It is the only fissile isotope that exists in nature as a primordial nuclide. Uranium-235 has a half-life of 703.8 million years. It was discovered in 1935 by Arthur Jeffrey Dempster. Its fission cross section for slow thermal neutrons is about 584.3±1 barns. For fast neutrons it is on the order of 1 barn. Most but not all neutron absorptions result in fission; a minority result in neutron capture forming uranium-236. Natural decay chain :\begin \ce \begin \ce \\ \ce \end \ce \\ \ce \begin \ce \\ \ce \end \ce \end Fission properties The fission of one atom of uranium-235 releases () inside the reactor. That corresponds to 19.54 TJ/ mol, or 83.14 TJ/kg. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enriched Uranium
Enriched uranium is a type of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 (written 235U) has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes: uranium-238 (238U with 99.2739–99.2752% natural abundance), uranium-235 (235U, 0.7198–0.7202%), and uranium-234 (234U, 0.0050–0.0059%). 235U is the only nuclide existing in nature (in any appreciable amount) that is fissile with thermal neutrons. Enriched uranium is a critical component for both civil nuclear power generation and military nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency attempts to monitor and control enriched uranium supplies and processes in its efforts to ensure nuclear power generation safety and curb nuclear weapons proliferation. There are about 2,000 tonnes of highly enriched uranium in the world, produced mostly for nuclear power, nuclear weapons, naval propulsion, and smaller quantities for research reactors ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uranium-238
Uranium-238 (238U or U-238) is the most common isotope of uranium found in nature, with a relative abundance of 99%. Unlike uranium-235, it is non-fissile, which means it cannot sustain a chain reaction in a thermal-neutron reactor. However, it is fissionable by fast neutrons, and is ''fertile'', meaning it can be transmuted to fissile plutonium-239. 238U cannot support a chain reaction because inelastic scattering reduces neutron energy below the range where fast fission of one or more next-generation nuclei is probable. Doppler broadening of 238U's neutron absorption resonances, increasing absorption as fuel temperature increases, is also an essential negative feedback mechanism for reactor control. Around 99.284% of natural uranium's mass is uranium-238, which has a half-life of 1.41 seconds (4.468 years, or 4.468 billion years). Due to its natural abundance and half-life relative to other radioactive elements, 238U produces ~40% of the radioactive heat pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Triga II
TRIGA (Training, Research, Isotopes, General Atomics) is a class of nuclear research reactor designed and manufactured by General Atomics. The design team for TRIGA, which included Edward Teller, was led by the physicist Freeman Dyson. Design TRIGA is a swimming pool reactor that can be installed without a containment building, and is designed for research and testing use by scientific institutions and universities for purposes such as undergraduate and graduate education, private commercial research, non-destructive testing and isotope production. The TRIGA reactor uses uranium zirconium hydride (UZrH) fuel, which has a large, prompt negative fuel temperature coefficient of reactivity, meaning that as the temperature of the core increases, the reactivity rapidly decreases. Because of this unique feature, it has been safely pulsed at a power of up to 22,000 megawatts. The hydrogen in the fuel is bound in the uranium zirconium hydride crystal structure with a vibrational ene ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Reactor Technology
A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid (water or gas), which in turn runs through steam turbines. These either drive a ship's propellers or turn electrical generators' shafts. Nuclear generated steam in principle can be used for industrial process heat or for district heating. Some reactors are used to produce isotopes for Nuclear medicine, medical and industrial radiography, industrial use, or for production of weapons-grade plutonium. , the International Atomic Energy Agency reports there are 422 nuclear power reactors and 223 nuclear research reactors in operation around the world. In the early era of nuclear reactors (1940s), a reactor was known as a nuclear pile or atomic pile (so-called because the graphite moderator blocks of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Fuel
Nuclear fuel is material used in nuclear power stations to produce heat to power turbines. Heat is created when nuclear fuel undergoes nuclear fission. Most nuclear fuels contain heavy fissile actinide elements that are capable of undergoing and sustaining nuclear fission. The three most relevant fissile isotopes are uranium-233, uranium-235 and plutonium-239. When the unstable nuclei of these atoms are hit by a slow-moving neutron, they frequently split, creating two daughter nuclei and two or three more neutrons. In that case, the neutrons released go on to split more nuclei. This creates a self-sustaining chain reaction that is controlled in a nuclear reactor, or uncontrolled in a nuclear weapon. Alternatively, if the nucleus absorbs the neutron without splitting, it creates a heavier nucleus with one additional neutron. The processes involved in mining, refining, purifying, using, and disposing of nuclear fuel are collectively known as the nuclear fuel cycle. Not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cassava
''Manihot esculenta'', commonly called cassava (), manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America. Although a perennial plant, cassava is extensively cultivated as an annual crop in tropical and subtropical regions for its edible starchy tuberous root, a major source of carbohydrates. Though it is often called ''yuca'' in parts of Spanish America and in the United States, it is not related to yucca, a shrub in the family Asparagaceae. Cassava is predominantly consumed in boiled form, but substantial quantities are used to extract cassava starch, called tapioca, which is used for food, animal feed, and industrial purposes. The Brazilian farinha, and the related ''garri'' of West Africa, is an edible coarse flour obtained by grating cassava roots, pressing moisture off the obtained grated pulp, and finally drying it (and roasting both in the case of farinha and garri). Cassava is the third-la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Kinshasa
The University of Kinshasa (french: Université de Kinshasa), commonly known as UNIKIN, is one of the three major universities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, together with the University of Kisangani and University of Lubumbashi. Originally founded in 1954 as Lovanium University during Belgian colonial rule, the current university was established following the division of the National University of Zaire (UNAZA) in 1981. It is located in Kinshasa. The university had an enrollment of 29,554 and a faculty and research staff of 1,929 in the 2018–19 academic year, and currently has twelve academic divisions. Campus The university is located about south of central Kinshasa, in the suburb of Lemba. Many of the campus facilities have deteriorated and are in poor condition, or lack proper instructional tools - in 2003, the science library had as few as 300 titles in its collection. Since 2001, the university has hosted Cisco Academy, a joint project sponsored by the Ameri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
