Nuclear bomb tests at Maralinga triggered Hedley Marston to study fallout over Australia
ABC Radio Adelaide / By Daniel Keane 10 Aug 22,
Hedley Marston could be charming, genial and witty but he was not above fulmination, especially where fulminations of a different kind were concerned.
In the mid-1950s, the CSIRO biochemist emerged as arguably the most significant contemporary critic of Britain’s nuclear weapons testing program, which was launched on Australia’s Montebello Islands almost 70 years ago in October 1952.
Despite the imminent anniversary Marston remains an obscure figure, but his biographer Roger Cross believes that should change.
“He appears to be totally unknown to the Australian public and, of course, to South Australians — he was a South Australian after all,” Dr Cross said.
Marston’s reservations about the nuclear program were far from spontaneous; indeed, his strongest concerns weren’t voiced until several years after the first test, when he recorded a radioactive plume passing over Adelaide.
The source of that plume was Operation Buffalo, a series of four nuclear blasts in 1956, and Marston was especially outraged by the fact that the general population was not warned.
“Sooner or later the public will demand a commission of enquiry on the ‘fall out’ in Australia,” he wrote to nuclear physicist and weapons advocate Sir Mark Oliphant.
“When this happens some of the boys will qualify for the hangman’s noose.”
What made Marston’s fury difficult to dismiss, especially for those inclined to deride opposition to nuclear testing as the exclusive preserve of ‘commies’ and ‘conchies’, was the fact that he was no peacenik.
Detractors might have damned him as an arriviste, but never as an activist: his cordial relations with Oliphant and other scientific grandees demonstrate that Marston was, in many respects, an establishment man.
Dr Cross has described Marston’s elegant prose as “Churchillian”, and the adjective is apposite in other ways.
While the roguish Marston might not have gone as far as the British wartime leader’s assertion that, during conflict, truth is so precious “that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies”, he had, in a 1947 letter to the editor, publicly defended scientific secrecy:
Under present conditions of fear and mistrust among nations it is obvious that military technology must be kept secret; and to achieve this end it should be conducted in special military laboratories where strictest security measures may be observed.”
But by late 1956, Marston’s alarm at radioactive fallout across parts of Australia was such that he was privately demanding greater disclosures to the general public.
Much of his ire was aimed at the Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee — a body established before the Maralinga tests, but after blasts had already occurred at Emu Fields* and the Montebello Islands.
“He was the only senior Australian scientist to express concerns and, because of his character, the concerns that he expressed were very forthright,” said Dr Cross, whose biography of Marston, aptly entitled Fallout, inspired the documentary Silent Storm.
“When the safety committee after each explosion said there was absolutely no effect on Australians, he believed that they were lying.”
‘If the wind changes, we need to go’
The experiments that led Marston, whose reputation largely rested on his expertise in sheep nutrition, to reach this conclusion were two-fold.
In the more protracted one, he analysed the presence of radioactive iodine-131 — a common component of nuclear fallout — in the thyroids of sheep.
“One group he kept penned up under cover eating dried hay, which had been cut some time before. The other group, he put outside eating the grass,” Dr Cross said.
“He tested the thyroids in each group – the ones on the hay only had background amounts of iodine-131.
“But the ones in the fields had a tremendously high concentration of this radioactive isotope, both north and south of the city.”
A fallout map from the 1985 royal commission, which stated that while fallout at Maralinga Village from the October 11, 1956, test was “considered to be ‘negligible from a biological point of view’ it does suggest difficulties with the forecast prior to the test”.(Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia)
For the other experiment, Marston conducted air monitoring in Adelaide.
He was especially alarmed by what he found for the period following the Maralinga test of October 11, 1956.
“There was a wind shear and at least part, maybe the major part, of that cloud, blew in a south-easterly direction and that took it towards Adelaide and the country towns in between,” Dr Cross said.
“The safety committee — who must have known of the wind shear — had done nothing about warning Adelaide people perhaps to stay indoors.”……………………………………………………
Despite Marston’s reservations, the nuclear program carried on regardless.
Less than a year after the Operation Buffalo tests, Maralinga was hosting Operation Antler.
In September 1957, newspapers around Australia reported on an upcoming “second test” that would, weather permitting, proceed as part of a “spring series”.
If it hadn’t been for the presence of the words “atomic” and “radioactive”, a reader might easily have inferred that what was being described was as commonplace as a game of cricket.
 |
EDF sues French government for €8.4bn after Macron forces it to sell energy at a loss
EDF is suing the French government for €8.3bn (£7bn) after Emmanuel
Macron forced the nuclear giant to sell energy at a loss.
The company has filed a compensation claim with the Conseil d’Etat, the French
administrative supreme court, over “losses incurred” as a result of a
price cap extended in January. Paris ordered EDF, which is currently 84pc
state owned, to sell more of its power to French rivals at below market
prices in an attempt to support households and businesses as energy costs
soared.
EDF, which is in the process of being fully nationalised by the
French state, said the €8.3bn figure reflected losses “estimated to
date”, suggesting the price cap could cost it €15bn over the full year.
EDF estimated the changes would cost it between €7.7bn and €8.4bn when
they were first announced and said it would consider “any measure to
protect its interests”. Before the measure was enacted, competitors were
allowed to buy 100TWh of EDF’s electricity at a heavy discount to balance
its monopoly position. In January, the Elysée ordered that cap to be
increased by a fifth.
Telegraph 9th Aug 2022
Very high radiation risks amid shelling at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
The head of Ukraine ‘s state nuclear power firm has warned of “very high”
radiation risks amid shelling at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Energoatom’s chief, Petro Kotin, said it was vital Kyiv regains control
over the facility in the Russian-occupied south in time for winter.
He added that last week’s shelling had damaged three lines that connect the
plant to the Ukrainian grid and that Russia wanted to connect the facility
to its grid. Some of the shelling landed near storage facilities for spent
fuel, an area that has 174 containers of highly radioactive material, Kotin
said. He warned of the dangers of them being hit, saying: “This is…the
most radioactive material in all the nuclear power plant.
Mirror 10th Aug 2022
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/ukraines-nuclear-chief-warns-very-27702181
French Nuclear Giant Sues Government For $8 Billion
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/French-Nuclear-Giant-Sues-Government-For-8-Billion.html— By Charles Hugh Smith – Aug 10, 2022,
French nuclear giant EDF, forced to sell power to competitors below market value, is now suing the French government for over $8 billion in compensation.
EDF says it has lost 8.3 billion euros (nearly $8.6 billion at today’s exchange rate) as of the date of filing the claim against the government, and anticipates losing more than 15 billion euros for the full year.
The French power company, which is already 84% owned by the government and is in the process of being fully nationalized, is forced to sell electricity it produces to rival power plants to increase competition as EDF holds a monopoly.
The initial government decree states that suppliers can purchase up to 25% of EDF’s annual nuclear output between July 2011 and December 2025 at a fixed, discounted price of about $47 per MWh. However, in January this year, the government implemented a larger cap at one-fifth in order to reduce consumer energy bills for this year. Then, in March, the government issued additional decrees, further increasing the volume and reducing the price for EDF.
The losses cited by EDF stem from this time period.
In June, EDF reported earnings showing its largest ever half-year loss. EDF lost 5.3 billion euros in the first half of this year, compared to 4.2 billion euros in profit for the same period of 2021.
EDF’s power stations account for 70-75% of France’s power consumption, and the government is keen on nationalizing the giant in order to ensure energy supplies amid a looming crisis that began when Russia invaded Ukraine.
Losses are mounting for EDF in other areas, as well.
Last week, EDF was forced to slash output at nuclear power stations on two rivers as a heatwave spreading across Europe has rendered the rivers too hot to cool the units.
Britain’s electricity needs for winter cannot depend on France’s unreliable nuclear power
Dave Toke: Oliver Wright writes that National Grid planning “assumes that Britain will be able to import 5.7GW of electricity via interconnectors, including from France” (“Ministers vow to keep lights
on as winter power squeeze looms”, Aug 9).
However, the French electricity system is in crisis owing to the fact that about half of France’s nuclear power station fleet is offline because of corrosion and other problems. Ageing reactors need urgent repair. There seems little prospect that these problems will be fully resolved by this winter.
Indeed these problems are exacerbating European power problems, already severe because of the war in Ukraine. Apart from the fact that this causes potentially serious issues for the UK, it emphasises that nuclear power is by no means as reliable as may otherwise be assumed.
Times 10th Aug 2022
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/times-letters-conserving-energy-and-saving-money-wjrh0kcxn
Nishnawbe Aski Nation opposes possible site for storage of nuclear waste
Globe and Mail, MARSHA MCLEOD, 11 Aug.22,
Nishnawbe Aski Nation’s chiefs-in-assembly passed a resolution Wednesday “vehemently” opposing the possibility of an underground repository for nuclear waste in Northern Ontario.
The chiefs’ resolution calls on Nishnawbe Aski Nation, or NAN, which represents 49 First Nation communities within Northern Ontario, to take action to stop such a possibility, including through protest and possible legal action.
We’re fighting for our young people. We’re talking hundreds of years from now – that’s who we’re speaking up for,” said Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Derek Fox in an interview. “NAN is going to do all it can – and I was mandated by the chiefs to do all we can – to stop this from happening.”
Chiefs, youth leaders and women’s advocates raised concerns during NAN’s annual Keewaywin Conference, which is being held in Timmins, Ont., this week. Some leaders also expressed anger at a lack of consultation of NAN’s communities over the possible site. The chiefs’ resolution speaks to a years-long search by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, or NWMO, for a site to build a “deep geological repository,” or GDR, which would see Canada’s spent nuclear fuel stored in a facility located at least 500 metres below-ground.
That search has been narrowed to two possible sites: one located between Ignace and Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation in Northern Ontario, which is the site of concern to NAN, and another near South Bruce, Ont. A decision between the two sites is expected by the end of 2023, said Bob Watts, NWMO’s vice-president of Indigenous relations and strategic programs.
If the site near Ignace is selected, the township of Ignace, as well as Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation, would hold approval power over the project going forward, Mr. Watts confirmed.
Wabigoon Lake is not a member of NAN and the site would sit just south of NAN’s territory – within Treaty 3, but Mr. Fox pointed out that any issue with the site will not just affect Treaty 3, but the entire region.
“All rivers flow north from that area,” he said. “Nuclear waste doesn’t know treaty boundaries. A spill does not know treaty boundaries. A nuclear waste accident is not going to say, okay, well, we only agreed to pollute Treaty 3.”
Any kind of pollution in the rivers, lakes and waterways of the region would have “devastating” effects, he said………………………………….
In discussions ahead of Wednesday’s vote on the resolution, chiefs and other leaders expressed their concerns about the possible location of the site.
“Northern Ontario is not a garbage can,” said Constance Lake First Nation Chief Ramona Sutherland. “We work for seven generations of our people – I don’t want to pass this down to my son, my grandson, and then his sons.”
Neskantaga First Nation Chief Wayne Moonias called the proposal “disturbing,” and added, “the thought of having a nuclear waste site in our area – it’s just not something that we can live with.” https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-nishnawbe-aski-nation-opposes-possible-site-for-storage-of-nuclear/—
President Biden’s new weapons package for Ukraine is the largest one yet, Pentagon says
President Biden has sent $9.8 billion in security aid to Ukraine since entering office, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/president-bidens-new-weapons-package-ukraine-largest-yet-pentagon By Anders Hagstrom | Fox News 10 Aug 22
The Pentagon unveiled its latest $1 billion weapons package to support Ukraine against Russia’s invasion on Monday.
The Department of Defense says the massive delivery is the largest weapons package the U.S. has sent to Ukraine under President Joe Biden’s administration. The U.S. has sent a total of $9.8 billion in security assistance for Ukraine since Biden gained office, far eclipsing the $2 billion the U.S. sent between 2014 and 2021.
“To meet Ukraine’s evolving battlefield requirements, the United States will continue to work with its Allies and partners to provide Ukraine with key capabilities calibrated to make a difference,” the Pentagon wrote in a statement.
Archbishop Wester apologizes for harms caused by nuclear weapons industry
Catholic News Service, August 10, 2022
A New Mexico archbishop whose archdiocese is home to two major federal nuclear weapons research facilities and an Air Force base apologized for the atomic bombings of Japan and to Indigenous New Mexicans, uranium miners and scientists suffering from ill health related to the nuclear weapons industry.
Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe said the time has come for the world to fervently work to undertake the long process to achieve nuclear disarmament.
He made the comments in a homily during a Mass Aug. 9 marking the 77th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan…………………..
He called on American and Japanese people to “drive the international will to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used again.”
The appeal follows the January release of his pastoral letter, “Living in the Light of Christ’s Peace: A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament.” In it, he invited people in New Mexico in particular, but around the world as well to begin conversations on how to end the nuclear threat facing the planet.
Archbishop Wester said he believes the Santa Fe Archdiocese must lead the call for nuclear disarmament because it is where the Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories are located. The labs conducts high-level weapons research and development.
The archbishop’s apology extended to other communities of people affected by research, development and manufacturing of nuclear weapons:
— Residents of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, where dozens of nuclear explosion tests were conducted from 1946 to 1958, drenching atolls with radiation.
— Native American communities in the Tularosa Basin of southeastern New Mexico near wear the first above-ground nuclear explosion was conducted.
— The 7,700 scientists and other lab workers who have filed claims with the government for serious illnesses linked to their work.
He called Tularosa Basin residents the “first nuclear victims.”
Radioactive fallout from the first atomic test explosion July 16, 1945, blanketed the basin. Residents have experienced high rates of cancer, including rare forms of the disease, according to numerous studies by health experts.
Archbishop Wester recognized the work of several members of Catholic parishes in the affected area who have seen family members die from cancer. He also pointed to their work for “just compensation” from the federal government for survivors and their families through the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium.
He also lamented plans by the federal government to spend up to $2 trillion over the next 30 years to modernize weapons and build new missiles, submarines and bombers to deliver them.
“This is nuclear weapons forever,” he said. “We are in a new nuclear arms race that is arguably more dangerous than the first.”………………………….
A Buddhist, Roshi Joan Halifax, founder of the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, urged people to understand human suffering and to strive for “being peace” in the world.
She also encouraged each person to expand their “moral circle” and “practice radical inclusion” of all life on earth to understand the imperative of acting to eliminate nuclear weapons.
https://catholicnews.com/archbishop-wester-apologizes-for-harms-caused-by-nuclear-weapons-industry/—
New leader of Canada’s New Brunswick Liberals breaks ranks with the party’s previous support for Small Nuclear Reactors
New Liberal leader questions small nuclear reactors. Susan Holt says it’s not clear the technology is a responsible energy solution
Jacques Poitras · CBC News · Aug 10, 2022
The new leader of the New Brunswick Liberals is questioning whether small modular nuclear reactors are the answer to the province’s energy needs, a more cautious stance than her party’s previous full-throated support for the technology.
Susan Holt said after winning the leadership Saturday that while the potential jobs created by SMRs would be good for the province, she was looking for more evidence they were the right bet for clean energy.
“It’s an interesting project on the economic development level … but I’m not sure it’s the solution for electricity generation for our province,” Holt told reporters.
“I think it’s not clear yet if it will really give us energy in a way that’s responsible and efficient with our investments, so there’s still more to determine there.”
Two companies based in Saint John, ARC Clean Energy and Moltex Energy, have received tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding to develop reactors………..
Last year the province handed ARC $20 million, while Moltex received more than $50 million from the federal government.
The previous provincial Liberal government gave each of them $5 million.
Holt held the title of chief of business relationships at the Jobs Board secretariat under then-Liberal Premier Brian Gallant at the time ARC and Moltex got that initial funding.
Both the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives have been enthusiastic supporters of SMRs until now, ………………..
at legislative committee hearings in January, former N.B. Power CEO Gaëtan Thomas and officials from Saint John Energy warned that SMRs may not be ready in time to replace electricity from the Belledune generating station, which must stop using coal by 2030.
Louise Comeau, the director of climate change and energy solutions for the Conservation Council of New Brunswick, welcomed Holt’s comments.
“It sounds to me like the new leader is open to more information and analysis, which is what we desperately needed on the question of small modular nuclear reactors,” she said.
“We’ve been more in a phase of hype and boosterism. … I think what she’s said is we need to have more information, we need to look at all options, and we would really agree with that. Wind and solar and efficiency and other options all have to be part of the portfolio.”
Susan O’Donnell, a member of the Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick, said she was happy Holt was “reading the independent research about SMRs instead of the nuclear industry sales and promotional materials.”…………………..
In January, the Pembina Institute, a clean energy think tank, released a report that said small nuclear reactors would be more expensive and generate less electricity than a combination of renewable energy and energy efficiency measures. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/susan-holt-questions-small-nuclear-reactors-1.6545007
Further cuts in output predicted, from France’s nuclear reactors as heat wave continues.
State owned French energy major EDF is reducing output at nuclear power
stations on the Rhône and Garonne rivers as heatwaves push up river
temperatures, restricting its ability to use river water to cool the
plants. EDF, which is Europe’s biggest producer of nuclear energy, has
said it would extend output cuts at several NPPs on the two rivers as the
hot spell continues, but that a minimum level of output, 400 MW, would be
maintained.
Further cuts in output are likely in the near future at nuclear
power plants Tricastin (3.6 GW), St Alban (2.6 GW, but now at 700 MW) and
Golfech (2.7 GW) owing to high temperatures in the Rhône and Garonne
rivers. EDF started imposing production restrictions in mid-July at
Tricastin, St Alban and Bugey on the Rhône and Blayais at the mouth of the
Garonne as temperature rose to unusually high levels.
Modern Power Systems 9th Aug 2022
https://www.modernpowersystems.com/news/newsedf-cuts-output-from-nuclear-generation-9915875
“Shell” companies purchase radioactive materials, prompting push for nuclear licensing reform
Defense News, By Bryant Harris, 10 Aug 22,
WASHINGTON – Late last year, government employees forged a copy of a license to buy hazardous, radioactive material. They created shell companies, then placed orders, generated invoices and paid two U.S.-based vendors.
The scheme worked. The employees successfully had the material shipped, complete with radioactive stickers on the side, then confirmed delivery.
But the workers were actually investigators from the Government Accountability Office, the congressional watchdog, and they were testing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s ability to regulate the sale and procurement of dangerous materials.
The act, and a subsequent report from the GAO, alarmed Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., who is now calling on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to overhaul its licensing system as a way to avoid a national security disaster.
“Anyone could open a shell company with a fraudulent license to obtain dangerous amounts of radioactive material that could be weaponized into a dirty bomb,” Torres told Defense News in an interview on Wednesday. “Disperse radioactive material in a city as densely populated as New York, and it could cause catastrophic damage.”
The commission classifies radioactive material into five categories of risk. Only categories one and two currently are subject to its independent license verification system – a loophole that Torres and the GAO fear that an individual or group could exploit to wreak havoc by building a dirty bomb that combines combines conventional explosives with category three radioactive materials.
Torres, who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, is pressing the NRC to immediately expand its independent license verification system to include category three quantities of radioactive materials. He formally made the licensing overhaul request in a letter seen by Defense News on Wednesday. This request is in line with the GAO’s recommendations in what Torres called an “alarming report.”………………………
more https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2022/08/10/shell-companies-purchase-radioactive-materials-prompting-push-for-nuclear-licensing-reform/
Utility company Eon talks about possibility of delaying the closure of Germany’s last nuclear reactor
German utility Eon is open to discuss the operational extension of its 1.4
GW nuclear reactor Isar 2 as a way for Germany to secure supplies this
winter in the face of an energy crisis, its CFO said on Wednesday.
“Our last nuclear power station will go offline at the end of the year,” said
Mark Spieker, CFO of Eon, in a speech published prior to the presentation
of the company’s interim results. “If, as part of the ongoing stress
test, the federal government reassess the situation, we’re open to
discussions,” he added.
Germany is due to close its last three nuclear
reactors with a total capacity of 4.1 GW by the end of 2022, but the recent
energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has spurred calls to
extend the reactors’ lifetimes to avoid blackouts over the winter.
Montel 10th Aug 2022
https://www.montelnews.com/news/1341852/eon-open-to-discussion-on-nuclear-lifetime-extension
Legal challenge to Sizewell C nuclear project
Campaign group Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) has now sent a
pre-action protocol letter, signalling the start of judicial review process
challenging the decision, which it contends is “unlawful”. The Planning
Inspectorate’s report to the business secretary stated that “unless the
outstanding water supply strategy can be resolved”, the case for granting
consent was “not made out”.
Building 9th Aug 2022
https://www.building.co.uk/news/sizewell-c-approval-faces-legal-challenge/5118719.article
The United States, in decline but still able to kill us all
The march of folly in American strategic policy has enshrined the madness of control by a giant defence industry and defence budget now past $800 billion.
The fiercely presented wearisome trope of commitment to a Rules Based International Order is quite suddenly unmasked as an American Establishment desire to maintain a unipolar control of the world, with violence.
The fiercely presented wearisome trope of commitment to a Rules Based International Order is quite suddenly unmasked as an American Establishment desire to maintain a unipolar control of the world, with violence.
The global dominance of the United States, in so many fields, from space, to science, to entertainment, to sport, to novelty in the development of the English language, has been taken for granted, is part of our fabric of Australian existence.
Reinforced by the Covid Era of Isolation, Netflix, Facebook, and Computer Games and inability even to get to Bali or Thailand let alone China, we are now in a noisy metal barrel where even dissident voices seem projections from the dissident voices of the US, similarly muted and squeezed. At a time when the US and its roles in the world are suddenly dramatically changing.
The undoing of the United States, the collapse of the imperial centre, is happening with little awareness in Australia. Our generally oblivious mindframes affect the capacity of political leaders to reflect upon or point to core problems of our world. Richard Adams, the author of Watership Down, that great rabbit adventure full of meaning for human society, coined the rabbit language word ‘tharn’ for the mental state of rabbits caught in the headlights and stuck. We are a tharn nation, gabbling about entertainments and irritations, eyes glued to the seatback monitor, not wanting to know that the plane is crashing.
Heed these markers:
- The Americans were first to the moon, but NASA after the retirement of the space shuttle has depended on Russian rockets to get to their joint space station. The Russians are now planning to remove the propulsion units of the station which keep it from crashing, their property, for use on a bigger new venture. America is losing in space, though US private business has appallingly taken the lead in cluttering near space with junk.
- The fiercely presented wearisome trope of commitment to a Rules Based International Order is quite suddenly unmasked as an American Establishment desire to maintain a unipolar control of the world, with violence. This is being unmasked in much of the world if not NATO and AUKUS and the conservative acolytes in Japan and ROK. Ideological assertions of democracy versus autocracy, built by vilification and isolation of China and Russia, is rotting from the head as big democracies are in serious trouble.
- We are doing OK in Australia, our minds from age 12 filled with bubblegum flavoured vape and Tiktok, graduating to Facebook and the metaverse, and with a newer, kinder, kinda-tealish government we can all go to sleep, take off our masks and order American franchised fast food. Or real Aussie drinks. But while we have had a narrow focus on bad boys in the SAS we fail to review our complicity in the great crimes of the twenty first century, led by champions of democracy, smashing the lives of people in a number of countries far more violently than has the Ukraine war so far. Biden and his Secretary of State were advocates for invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, so appallingly bringing down bad governments and making countries ungovernable. Creating Al Qaeda and ISIS in the process, directly through funding and arming extremists (in Afghanistan beginning before the Russians were invited into Afghanistan) and via embitterment of ordinary people. The world is destabilised, American control is widely undone.
- The march of folly in American strategic policy has enshrined the madness of control by a giant defence industry and defence budget now past $800 billion. Poverty of foreign policy has led to regimes of sanctions which have been substantially shaped by Richard Nephew whose book reveals that far from focusing on potentates and oligarchs, the targets of sanctions must be ordinary people and the purpose is to inflict pain and weaken resolve (his words). Consider sanctions related deaths in Iraq Venezuela Cuba, Afghanistan Pain but no loss of resolve, hatred not submission. The US official study of the effects of strategic bombing on Germany in World War II by J K Galbraith and others long ago suggested morale and resolve were increased by the bombing of cities and civilians. And yet we have the ongoing commitment to defend and achieve democracy by mass murder, with constant focus on disruption, regime change, and violence… not on peace.
- Jeffrey Sachs has recently returned to the themes of his 2013 book on the 50th anniversary of President John Kennedy’s Commencement Speech at American University in 1963. Speaking in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy spoke of peace not as an event or a state but a constant process of engagement. We now have no such thing, we are in an Age of Hostility, Meanness, Folly, and Decay.right wing is fervently in support. Stanley Kubrick made a movie about such madness, we are sleeping through it.
Australia recognises, as does the United States, that Taiwan is part of China. Though the media vague up the history, China kicked the Portuguese and Dutch out of Taiwan early in the 1600s, long before the greatest land grab in history, of Britain over the Australian continent, could even be imagined as the British didn’t know it was there then. The government in Taipei is the Government of the Republic of China. The large opposition party in the National Assembly is the Kuomintang, ruling party of the government of the Republic of China that lost the revolutionary war on the mainland in 1949 and retreated to Taiwan. The ROC held the China seat in the UN until 1971 with American backing. The majority of local governments in Taiwan are governed by the KMT because the party of the national government is on the nose both because of its independence-advocating foreign policy and corruption allegations. Pelosi’s visit risks great power war as not seen since 1945. The American right wing is fervently in support. Stanley Kubrick made a movie about such madness, we are sleeping through it.
The US economy is in serious trouble………………………………….
The US campaign for unipolar dominance has included partly fabricated propaganda against China and Russia. This no longer convinces or concerns a wide sweep of the world beyond NATO, the G7, the EU and AUKUS. Mix in enough lies and it all seems lies.
The summit meeting of BRICS in June seemed a more constructive meeting than the G7. The countries of Eurasia also have the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation SCO. The Iran,Russia, Turkey summit meeting in Tehran in July 2022 seems to have been more successful than President Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia to meet also other Arab leaders, a visit described by the Wall Street Journal as worse than an embarrassment,…………………………..more https://johnmenadue.com/the-united-states-in-decline-but-still-able-to-kill-us-all/
Nagasaki urges the elimination of nuclear weapons as city marks 77th A-bomb anniversary
August 9, 2022 (Mainichi Japan) NAGASAKI (Kyodo) — Nagasaki marked the 77th anniversary Tuesday of the U.S. atomic bombing of the southwestern Japan city during World War II, with Mayor Tomihisa Taue calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons amid mounting concern over their potential use following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The atomic bombing of Nagasaki, three days after a similar bomb was dropped on Hiroshima around 300 kilometers to the northeast, had taken the lives of an estimated 74,000 people by the end of 1945, with many others suffering from the effects of burns and radiation-related illnesses long after the attack.
A moment of silence was observed at 11:02 a.m., the exact time on Aug. 9, 1945, when a plutonium bomb codenamed “Fat Man” dropped by a U.S. bomber exploded over the port city, only the second time a nuclear weapon has been used in war.
In a Peace Declaration delivered during a memorial ceremony at the city’s Peace Park, the mayor called on nuclear weapons states to present a concrete way forward to achieve nuclear disarmament at the ongoing review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Taue also demanded that the Japanese government lead discussions on a possible nuclear weapons free-zone in Northeast Asia, as well as sign and ratify a U.N. treaty banning nuclear weapons………………………………………………….
In the Peace Park, atomic bomb survivors and relatives of the victims gathered to offer prayers, some with flowers in their hands, from the early morning as cicadas sang in the trees.
“I heard a loud boom and saw a bright spark on that day even though I had escaped to an air raid shelter after seeing a plane approach,” said Michiko Kaida, 89. She said she was around 8 kilometers from the hypocenter with her friends.
“It is difficult for me to recall that day and the aftermath. It was so devastating,” she said………………
Over a one-year period through the end of July, the city confirmed the deaths of 3,160 atomic bomb survivors. Its list of those officially recognized as victims of the atomic bombing now bears the names of 192,310 people.
The combined number of officially recognized survivors of the two nuclear attacks, known as hibakusha, stood at 118,935 as of March, down 8,820 from a year earlier, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said. Their average age was 84.53. https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220809/p2g/00m/0na/010000c
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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