2021 May 27 « nuclear-news

May 26 Energy News — geoharvey

Opinion: ¶ “To Understand Its Energy Future, The US Should Look Down To Australia.” • One of the issues in the US regarding transition from fossil fuels to renewables has been whether the country accepts the loss of oil and gas and coal production, and the jobs associated with it. Americans might look at a […]
May 26 Energy News — geoharvey

May 27, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

US military running a massive undercover army and conducting warrantless surveillance of Americans

US military running a massive undercover army and conducting warrantless surveillance of Americans, WSW

Kevin Reed21 May 2021 Two reports over the past week have revealed that the Pentagon is carrying out secret operations within the US and internationally without congressional oversight and in violation of basic constitutional rights.

An exclusive report by Newsweek on Monday explained that the US military is operating “[T]he largest undercover force the world has ever known.” The secret army of 60,000 people works under “masked identities and in low profile” and is part of a special program called “signature reduction.”

The Newsweek report—written by journalist William M. Arkin following a two-year investigation of the program—says that the secret military force is “more than ten times the size of the clandestine elements of the CIA, carries out domestic and foreign assignments, both in military uniforms and under civilian cover, in real life and online, sometimes hiding in private businesses and consultancies, some of them household name companies.”

Arkin examined “over 600 resumes and 1,000 job postings, dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests, and scores of interviews with participants and defense decision-makers” to uncover the “completely unregulated practice” of the US military. The giant clandestine operation has never been the subject of a hearing in Congress, and Arkin says that it “challenges U.S. laws, the Geneva Conventions, the code of military conduct and basic accountability.”

The infrastructure of the Pentagon’s covert “signature reduction” program is based upon 130 private companies with the support of dozens of “little known and secret government organizations” that award “classified contracts” and “oversee publicly acknowledged operations.”

Among the functions of these private businesses are creating false documentation; paying the taxes of individuals operating under assumed identities; manufacturing disguises and other devices used to avoid identification; building invisible devices used to photograph and listen in on the conversations and activity of people around the world…………….

The fact that the Pentagon has been conducting warrantless surveillance of Americans was exposed in a May 13 letter from Senator Ron Wyden (Democrat from Oregon) to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin that was published by Vice’s Motherboard Tech.

Wyden asked the Department of Defense (DoD) for detailed information about its data purchasing practices after Motherboard revealed special forces were buying location data last February. The initial DoD responses—which revealed that the military or intelligence agencies were using internet browsing and other types of data—prompted Wyden to demand more answers about warrantless spying on American citizens.

Wyden wrote that his investigation had confirmed that the Internal Revenue Service, Customs and Border Protection, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency were all purchasing from private companies the location data of Americans without a warrant…………..https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/05/22/cong-m22.html

May 27, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Corrosion in the fuel cladding at France’s Chooz and Civaux nuclear stations

An investigation is underway at the Chooz and Civaux nuclear power plants
(6 GW) following the discovery of corrosion on the fuel cladding, in order
to prevent any radioactive leakage, announced EDF and the Nuclear Safety
Authority (ASN).

Montel 25th May 2021

https://www.montelnews.com/fr/story/-edf-examine-les-tubes-du-combustible-%C3%A0-chooz-civaux-6-gw/1223762

May 27, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, incidents | Leave a comment

The Doomsday Clock

Chernobyl Alert and The Doomsday Clock The Conversation, BY ROBERT HUNZIKER 21 May 21, ” ……………..The Doomsday Clock

Along those lines, the world-famous Doomsday Clock, initially based upon the threat of nuclear warfare, measures humanity’s nearness to utter annihilation: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (“BAS”) a global organization of science and policy experts, has set the famous clock at 100 seconds to midnight: “The bad news is that we’re still closer to midnight than we’ve been at any time since the clock was introduced more than 60 years ago because: (1) widespread mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic in nations worldwide (2) little progress in eliminating nuclear weapons (3) insufficient mitigation of destructive climate change, and (4) threats to national security by rightwing extremists, the BAS decided to hold the clock at the present unsettling time slot, as a warning and “wake-up call.” (Source: Do0msday Clock Stands at 100 Seconds to Midnight, LiveScience)

The perilous setting of the clock so close to midnight is warranted on several counts, e.g., COVID pulled back the wizard’s curtain, revealing a cartoonish figurine of irresponsibility by governments of the world to handle emergencies: “An historic wakeup call that governments are woefully unprepared to handle pandemics,” Ibid.

Throughout history, political parties that rely upon lies bring society down to its knees with shameless destruction, for example, the fall of Rome, the 5^th century AD: “By the time of Augustine (354-430 AD), the Roman Empire had become an Empire of lies. It still pretended to uphold the rule of law, to protect the people from the Barbarian invaders, to maintain the social order. But all that had become a bad joke for the citizens of an empire by then reduced to nothing more than a giant military machine dedicated to oppressing the poor in order to maintain the privileges of the rich. The Empire itself had become a lie: that it existed because of the favor of the Gods who rewarded the Romans because of their moral virtues. Nobody could believe in that anymore: it was the breakdown of the very fabric of society; the loss of what the ancient called the auctoritas, the trust that citizens had toward their leaders and the institutions of their state.” (Source: Cassandra’s Legacy, The Empire of Lies, February 8, 2016).

Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com. https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/05/21/chernobyl-alert-and-the-doomsday-clock/

May 27, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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