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U.S. government offers meaningless assurances on Julian Assange’s well-being, as it gets right to appeal on UK court ruling against his extradition

UK High Court grants US government right to appeal on Assange extradition, World Socialist Website, Laura Tiernan7 July 2021  Stella Moris, the partner of imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, spoke outside Britain’s High Court yesterday warning he is “still at risk of extradition” after a judge decided the US government can appeal an earlier court ruling that blocked his extradition on health grounds.


The judge also ruled that Assange must remain in prison until the appeal is heard, effectively extending his incarceration for at least many more months.The ruling underscores the Biden administration’s determination to ensure Assange’s removal to the US. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, based on excerpts of the judge’s ruling supplied by the UK Crown Prosecution Service, the US government offered “assurances” that Assange would not be imprisoned in oppressive conditions and could be permitted to serve any sentence in Australia.Such assurances are meaningless. Once Assange is in US custody, those pledges will be cast aside. The Wall Street Journal reported: “The US said it reserved the right to impose special measures on Mr. Assange, or hold him in a Supermax jail, if ‘he were to do something subsequent to the offering of these assurances’ that meets the test for applying them.”

Assange has been denied bail and remains detained in London’s Belmarsh Prison despite a January decision by District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser denying his extradition to the US. Assange faces trumped-up charges under the Espionage Act over his exposure of war crimes, illegal mass surveillance and torture by the US and its allies. He has been held captive in the UK for a decade.

Baraitser ruled January 4 that Assange’s extradition to a US federal prison would be “oppressive” because of his compromised mental health and risk of suicide. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) under President Donald Trump immediately appealed Baraitser’s decision. Two days later, Trump mounted a fascist coup attempt in Washington D.C. The Democrats under Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris have seamlessly continued US imperialism’s political vendetta against Assange.The WikiLeaks publisher is being held in violation of his First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of the press and in breach of international human rights law.
Britain’s High Court has reportedly granted a right of appeal to the US on three grounds. The court will decide whether Baraitser applied the Extradition Act correctly; whether sufficient advance notice was given of the court’s decision, and whether “assurances” by the US over mitigating the risk of suicide were properly considered.A date for the appeal hearing has not been announced, but it will likely take place after the courts’ summer recess. This leaves Assange imprisoned at Belmarsh indefinitely in conditions long condemned by doctors and human rights lawyers as “psychological torture.”

In a letter sent yesterday to Biden and US Attorney General Merrick Garland by Doctors for Assange, 250 doctors from 35 countries demanded the dropping of all charges against the WikiLeaks publisher. They denounced his ongoing imprisonment due to the US appeal as “amounting to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in the UK.”……….. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/07/08/gnkp-j08.html?pk_campaign=assange-newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws

July 10, 2021 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

UK residents face higher electricity bills, paying in advance, for the construction of new nuclear reactors

Consumers face higher energy bills to pay for new nuclear power. EDF wants to recoup some of the £20bn cost of the new Sizewell C plant in Suffolk before it starts producing electricity. Households face higher energy bills to help pay for the planned £20bn Sizewell C plant in Suffolk as the Government seeks to replace the UK’s ageing nuclear power stations.

 
Ministers are preparing to introduce legislation so that nuclear developers can recoup some of their costs through energy bills while a new plant is being built, rather than having to wait until it has been developed, the Financial Times reported. Supporters stress the so-called regulated asset base model can help cut the huge costs of nuclear power because it reduces risk for developers, although critics argue it unfairly heaps risk onto consumers. EDF has been in negotiations with the Government since December over a funding deal for its proposed Sizewell C plant amid public debate about the role nuclear power should play in the energy ecosystem.

It was estimated in 2019 that energy bills could rise by about £6 a year if the regulated asset base model is used for Sizewell. The financing model is used for other infrastructure projects such as the Thames Tideway Tunnel
but not yet for power generation, meaning new legislation is needed. The nuclear industry has been increasingly vocal in recent months about the importance of replacing the UK’s nuclear plants, most of which are due to close by the end of the decade.

 Telegraph 7th July 2021

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/07/07/consumers-face-higher-energy-bills-pay-new-nuclear-power/

July 10, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Rapid growth of renewable energy: it’s the major energy source in Europe

Renewable energy capacity around the world grew by a record amount during 2020, even as China continued to build new fossil-fuel burning coal plants. Capacity of wind and solar power grew by 238GW globally – about 50pc larger
than any previous expansion, according to the latest annual review of world energy by oil and gas giant BP.

The jump in renewable output amounts to about seven times the total installed capacity in the UK, and came in a
year marked by a slump in energy use as the pandemic triggered a slowdown in global travel. The share of renewable power, including wind and solar, in the global power mix also rose from 10.3pc to 11.7pc. In Europe, that share reached 23.8pc, making it the first region where renewables are the main source of fuel, BP said.

 Telegraph 8th July 2021

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/07/08/wind-solar-power-surges-record-year/

July 10, 2021 Posted by | EUROPE, renewable | 1 Comment

As Germany’s election approaches, political parties differ on the future of U.S. nuclear weapons based there,

Germany’s upcoming election and the future of nuclear sharing,  https://www.brookings.edu/research/germanys-upcoming-election-and-the-future-of-nuclear-sharing/    Steven PiferJuly 2021   In a paper for the Brookings-Robert Bosch Foundation Transatlantic Initiative (BBTI), Steven Pifer describes the views of the major German political parties regarding the presence of U.S. nuclear weapons and “nuclear sharing” ahead of September’s federal elections, how negotiations for likely coalitions might address these issues, and how the U.S. can influence those negotiations.

The United States has long deployed nuclear weapons in Germany under “programs of cooperation” in which the weapons are maintained under U.S. custody but, in a conflict, and with proper authorization, could be turned over to the German military for use. The current delivery system is the German Air Force’s Tornado aircraft, which is dual-capable — it can deliver both conventional and nuclear weapons — but nearing the end of its service life.

Participation in this nuclear role is often referred to as “nuclear sharing” in Germany. However, the presence of U.S. nuclear weapons is not popular with the German public. With national elections which will determine who replaces long-serving chancellor Angela Merkel to be held September 26, two of the three leading political parties have called for an end to nuclear sharing and the withdrawal of U.S. nuclear arms — although with some ambiguity regarding timing. The issues of nuclear sharing and replacement of the Tornado with another dual-capable aircraft may not arise as major questions in the campaign, but these issues will figure in the coalition negotiation between the parties that will form the next government. This paper describes the views of the major German political parties regarding nuclear sharing and the presence of U.S. nuclear weapons and how the possible coalition negotiations might address these issues.

The United States has an interest in how that negotiation turns out. At a minimum, the U.S. government does not want a German policy that seeks to end nuclear sharing in a unilateral manner, which could unravel NATO’s current deterrence and defense posture. Given the contribution of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe to extended deterrence and, in particular, to assurance of allies across the continent regarding the U.S. commitment to NATO’s defense, changes to the alliance’s nuclear posture should come about as the result of an alliance process, not as the result of one country’s unilateral decision. Washington can take steps in the coming months, such as articulating its approach to nuclear arms control, that could help shape how the coalition negotiation in Berlin addresses the nuclear sharing issue.

July 10, 2021 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear arms control hasn’t worked. We need a new approach.


Why nuclear arms control is dead, The Hill, BY WARD WILSON, — 07/09/21 :   This year the MacArthur Foundation said it will cease funding anti-nuclear weapons efforts by 2023. That means the largest foundation working in the nuclear weapons field is throwing in the towel. Ten million dollars a year of scholarly research, diplomatic conferences, track II meetings, and other work to limit nuclear weapons will disappear within two years.

Why would MacArthur do such a thing? They aren’t doing it because nuclear weapons have been eliminated. Perhaps it is because of a loss of faith in the cautious, step-by-step effort to slowly limit the number of nuclear weapons and, over time, work down to zero. 

If MacArthur’s board decided that the step-by-step approach isn’t working, they wouldn’t be the first to come to that conclusion. The John Merck Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the Compton Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Skoll Foundation — all these funders evidently have concluded the same. And a report in the Washington Post last week seems to confirm that they are right.

…………………  we are entering a new and dangerous era of international competition and tension. The Cold War may have ended 20 years ago, but arms races often signal impending hot wars — and a nuclear arms race is the gravest of signs. Time is short. The cautious, step-by-step approach of arms control, with the minimalist goal of “limiting” nuclear weapons, indeed has failed.

The need for a more aggressive approach ought to have been obvious, if for no other reason than the rest of the world already has given up hope for arms control. In 2017, more than 60 percent of the world’s nations — 122 countries — voted for a United Nations treaty not to limit, not to “one day” eliminate, but to abolish nuclear weapons now. If the apparent loss of faith in arms control by funders isn’t enough, the loss of faith by much of the world ought to be unmistakable proof.

Clearly, a more muscular approach is needed. Continuing to try long-term, careful approaches to the problem guarantees that efforts to oppose nuclear weapons eventually will wither and die. It is time for a stronger, more aggressive strategy — and past time to directly challenge the fundamental beliefs of nuclear weapons advocates. The arms control approach clearly has failed. 

It has failed because it took the claims and assumptions of nuclear weapons advocates at face value. Nuclear weapons experts said that nuclear weapons were the “ultimate guarantee” of safety, and arms control nongovernmental organizations and scholars then tried to work within that assumption………..

Nuclear weapons advocates say that nuclear weapons are the “ultimate weapon.” Arms control advocates asked themselves, “How can we persuade people that a ban on the ultimate weapon would ever work?” They should have asked: “Isn’t utility the measuring stick of a weapon? How can a weapon be the ultimate weapon if it’s never used? Isn’t it possible that nuclear weapons are too clumsy, too poisonous, too dangerous to be useful? Isn’t it possible that they aren’t used because they aren’t militarily useful? And isn’t that why nearly 75 years have passed with them sitting idly in silos?”

Arms control is dead. The second nuclear arms race is on. The hour is late — but it is, perhaps, not too late to aggressively challenge the Cold War assumptions and the blinkered mindset that have kept us from seeing the reality of nuclear weapons.  https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/561786-why-nuclear-arms-control-is-dead

July 10, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

North Korea Needs the Bomb to Protect Itself From America

North Korea Needs the Bomb to Protect Itself From America

Pyongyang isn’t crazy, just focused on a credible threat. 

Foreign Policy,By Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. 9 July 21,  ”’…………..  North Korea’s quest for nukes has helped make it an economic disaster, turning it into a global pariah and diverting resources from economic investment. That’s one reason the country, as Kim admitted in public recently, is facing another critical food crisis. However, it now is an unofficial member of the world’s exclusive nuclear club.

Nevertheless, the mere possession of nuclear weapons does not mean it threatens America with them. North Korea makes no pretense of having global concerns, other than using diplomatic relations for profit when possible. In the abstract, the Kim dynasty has no interest in the United States or even the Western Hemisphere. Pyongyang’s priority is regional, especially avoiding domination by another power.China exerted substantial influence (Russia less so) over the ancient Korean kingdom, long known as a shrimp among whales. Japan was a colonial oppressor during the first half of the 20th century. Most important today is North Korea’s relations with South Korea, as the two states remain engaged in a de facto civil war, short-circuited by outside intervention in 1953. One reason China’s importunities against North Korea’s nuclear program fall flat is because such weapons help Pyongyang preserve its independence from Beijing.

However, the United States has intruded in Northeast Asia. America intervened in the Korean War, maintains forces in and around the Korean Peninsula, is prepared to intervene in a future conflict, and regularly threatens to wage preventive war.

Indeed, Washington’s willingness to routinely oust governments on Uncle Sam’s naughty list makes the United States particularly dangerous. Washington can’t even be trusted to live up to a denuclearization accord, as Libya’s Muammar al-Qaddafi discovered a decade ago. The Iranians learned that one president’s word does not bind their successor.The North desires a deterrent. At the party congress earlier this year, Kim explained, according to a summary report by state media, that “Korea was divided by the U.S., the world’s first user of nukes and war chieftain, and the DPRK has been in direct confrontation with its aggressor forces for decades, and the peculiarities of the Korean revolution and the geopolitical features of our state required pressing ahead uninterruptedly with the already-started building of nuclear force for the welfare of the people, the destiny of the revolution and the existence and independent development of the state.”

That is a prolix way of saying Pyongyang needs the bomb to protect itself from Washington………… https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/07/north-korea-nuclear-weapons-united-states-deterrence/

July 10, 2021 Posted by | North Korea, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Investors won’t back the nuclear ”white elephant”, neither should the UK taxpayers

 The City won’t back new nuclear power stations – so why should we? The nuclear industry has a wretched track record when it comes to building new reactors. Giant cost overruns are practically a given; so too extraordinary delays.

Take EDF, the French state-backed outfit. Its nuke in Flamanville, Normandy was originally meant to come on line in 2009. Instead it won’t be ready until next year, 14 years later than originally planned and £10bn over budget.

Then there’s Hinkley Point C, Britain’s first new nuclear plant in three decades. Initially pencilled in for completion in 2017, it is now not expected until 2026 with a £23bn bill instead of £16bn.

No wonder, then, that the City has baulked at helping to finance Sizewell C, a project so radioactive that Sir Iain Duncan Smith has dubbed it “the next Huawei” because of the involvement of Beijing-backed CGN. The politics of
that are enough to put off most investors, but there are plenty of other risks that traditional fund managers will struggle to square with the environmental, social and governance (ESG) guidelines they are increasingly governed by.

But is this really the way to go about it? It is eight years since the influential Energy and Climate Change Committee called for the Government to come up with a plan B because of repeated problems with building new nuclear power. Yet we seem no closer to having one.

 T elegraph 7th July 2021

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/07/07/city-wont-back-new-nuclear-power-stations-should/

July 10, 2021 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

If They Chose, Biden and Putin Could Make the World Radically Safer

If They Chose, Biden and Putin Could Make the World Radically Safer,   By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, June 11, 2021

The danger of nuclear apocalypse is at an all-time high. Understanding of the damage that would result from a nuclear war is of a greater horror than ever previously understood. The historical record of threats of nuclear weapons use, and of near-misses through misunderstandings, has mushroomed.

The influence of the Israeli model of aquiring nuclear weapons but pretending not to have done so is spreading. The Western militarism that other nations see as justification for their own nuclear armament continues to expand.

Demonization of Russia in U.S. politics and media has reached a new level. Our luck will not hold out forever. Much of the world has banned the possession of nuclear weapons. Presidents Biden and Putin could very easily make the world dramatically safer and redirect massive resources into benefitting humanity and the earth, if they were to choose to abolish nuclear weapons.

The American Committee for U.S.-Russia Accord has made these three excellent proposals:…….. https://worldbeyondwar.org/if-they-chose-biden-and-putin-could-make-the-world-radically-safer/

July 10, 2021 Posted by | politics international, Russia, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear weapons testing has never really stopped. We just call underground testing ”subcritical”

10 July 21, We never ended nuclear detonations. The US has performed and continues to perform over 100 nuclear tests explosions 1000 feet below the desert floor on Western Shoshone holy land in Nevada where we have blown up plutonium with high explosive chemicals,

But because it doesn’t cause a chain reaction, Clinton characterized them in 1992, as “ subcritical” tests which he asserted don’t violate the not so comprehensive Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty!! Of course Russia immediately followed  our lead and does these nuclear test explosions at Novaya Zemlya in the fragile arctic area. .

July 10, 2021 Posted by | Reference, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Dialogue between Russia and USA must include subject of offensive weapons in outer space – says Russian Foreign Minister

US plans to deploy arms in space should be taken into account in bilateral dialogue-LavrovAmericans are working on a program for the deployment of offensive weapons in outer space in the context of the global missile defense system, Russian Foreign Minister said  https://tass.com/politics/1311759

VLADIVOSTOK, July 8. /TASS/. The Russian-US dialogue on strategic stability should reckon with the US program for the deployment of offensive weapons in outer space, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday.

“Naturally, when we speak about the necessity to discuss strategic stability in all of its dimensions, we mean all the factors influencing this strategic stability. They include nuclear weapons, non-nuclear strategic weapons, offensive and defensive strategic systems, and, of course, we cannot ignore the fact that the Americans are working on a program for the deployment of offensive weapons in outer space in the context of the global missile defense system,” he said in a lecture he delivered at the Far Eastern Federal University..

The much-awaited Russian-American summit took place in the Swiss capital city of Geneva on June 16. Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Joe Biden of the United States discussed the current state of and prospects for further development of bilateral relations, issues of strategic stability and international matters. The leaders said in a joint statement that the sides planned to launch a comprehensive bilateral dialogue on strategic stability.

July 10, 2021 Posted by | Russia, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

U.S. Space Force opens new centre to facilitate war in space

Space Force opens facility to improve war-fighting capabilities CWISRNET, By Nathan Strout   9 July, 21WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force opened a new satellite operations center July 7 at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico designed to advance the still nascent service’s space war-fighting capabilities.

The Rendezvous and Proximity (REPR) Satellite Operations Center was established by the Space and Missile Systems Center’s Innovation and Prototyping Directorate as a new workspace to drive on-orbit experimentation and demonstrations with prototype satellites and payloads………….

The center is just the latest space-related facility established at Kirtland Air Force Base, which serves as a home to SMC’s Innovation and Prototyping Directorate, the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate, and the Space Rapid Capabilities Office. In November, AFRL opened the Deployable Structures Laboratory, a $4 million building dedicated to developing deployable space structures. A few months later, AFRL began construction on the $3.5 million Skywave Technology Laboratory, which will house its space environment research. Most recently, AFRL announced the opening of a $12.8 million Space Warfighting Operations Research and Development, or SWORD, lab to track objects on orbit,

 advance satellite cybersecurity, and develop autonomous capabilities. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2021/07/08/space-force-opens-up-new-operations-center-to-improve-war-fighting-capabilities/

July 10, 2021 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Who faces the highest risk of deadly heat? — The Earthbound Report

Over the last couple of weeks there have been extraordinary heatwaves in North America. Heat records were broken across the Pacific Northwest, with temperatures over 40 degrees C in usually temperate cities such as Portland or Seattle. The full toll is yet to be counted, but authorities in British Columbia are reporting 500 or so […]

Who faces the highest risk of deadly heat? — The Earthbound Report

July 10, 2021 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

July 9 Energy News — geoharvey

Opinion: ¶ “Climate Change Is About Greed. It’s Time For Big Oil To Pay Us Back” • Four interconnected pieces of climate change-related news from the past two weeks reveal America’s predicament. And they also show the way forward, which ultimately must include oil companies’ paying restitution for damage that they have done to the […]

July 9 Energy News — geoharvey

July 10, 2021 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

UK High Court Allows US to Appeal Ban on Assange Extradition;Doctors Tell Biden: Let Assange Go — Rise Up Times

“Because western media are designed to protect the powerful, most people are more aware of smears about Assange being a Russian agent or a rapist than of his victimization by a tyrannical assault on world press freedoms…”

UK High Court Allows US to Appeal Ban on Assange Extradition;Doctors Tell Biden: Let Assange Go — Rise Up Times

July 9, 2021 Posted by | Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Epidemiology – an important guide to the pandemic – why not to nuclear radiation-caused disease? -theme for July 2021

Epidemiology – a forgotten science?   But now, in the time of pandemic, it has come into its own.

The coronavirus illness is a global phenomenon. Epidemiologists, formerly just boring old farts, in a world that reveres high tech and space scientists, now are called upon for guidance .

Epidemiologists are not industry’s favourite people. Sir Richard Doll, in the 1950s, combined laboratory studies on mice with painstaking epidemiological research, proving that cigarette smoking causes cancer,  British Tobacco  did not like him.

The nuclear industry learned  – to downgrade epidemiological research, and prevent it wherever possible.  Subservient governments complied with the nuclear industry.

BUT – there has been epidemiological research applied to nuclear’s ionising radiation and its effect on health – just a few examples –  on nuclear workers’ health., on residents of Belarus and Ukraine, on the developing foetus,

Right now, the world sees value in identifying cases, clusters – where the invisible coronavirus exists, with its threat of immediate illness and death.

Equally dangerous  the cases and clusters of accumulating radioactive particles lead to the threat of later illness and death.

It is time that epidemiological research on ionising radiation was done, properly, thoroughly, like Richard Doll’s cigarette study. Time to no longer allow the nuclear industry to downplay and stifle such research, (and not to let them rely on  their own biased studies)

July 8, 2021 Posted by | Christina's themes, health | 4 Comments

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