Reporters Without Borders leads 16 organisations urging UK Home Secretary to intervene in extradition of Julian Assange.
UK: RSF leads a coalition of 16 organisations in urging Home Secretary Suella Braverman to urgently intervene in Assange extradition
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has led a coalition of 16 organisations in urging the new UK Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, to intervene in the US government’s request to extradite Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange. These groups, representing press freedom, free expression, and journalists’ organisations, have also requested a meeting with Braverman to discuss concerns in the case, after a request for a meeting with former Home Secretary, Priti Patel, went unanswered. The full text of the letter is below.
The Rt. Hon Suella Braverman
Secretary of State for the Home Department
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
7 October 2022
Dear Home Secretary,
We, the undersigned press freedom, free expression and journalists’ organisations, are writing to raise the case of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange and request you to urgently intervene to ensure he is not extradited to the United States.
In June your predecessor, Priti Patel, signed the order to extradite Mr Assange, despite widespread international concern that his extradition would have alarming implications for journalism and press freedom. In fact, many of the signatories in this letter wrote to Ms Patel warning that Assange’s prosecution “would set a dangerous precedent that could be applied to any media outlet that published stories based on leaked information, or indeed any journalist, publisher or source anywhere in the world.”
Our request for a meeting was unfortunately left unanswered. We are therefore now asking you, Home Secretary, to meet with the signatories of this letter to discuss the case in detail.
We urge you, Home Secretary, to intervene in this extradition request as a matter of priority. In the US, Mr Assange would face trial on 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one count under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which combined could see him imprisoned for up to 175 years. He is highly likely to be detained there in conditions of isolation or solitary confinement despite the US government’s assurances, which would severely exacerbate his risk of suicide.
Further, Mr Assange would be unable to adequately defend himself in the US courts, as the Espionage Act lacks a public interest defence. This would not align with the values of fairness, justice and a public commitment to media freedom that the UK continues to promote.
You now have an opportunity to ensure that this extradition does not proceed. An opportunity to demonstrate through action that the UK means what it says in its commitment to media freedom. And most importantly, the opportunity to reunite Mr Assange with his young family after many years of separation – an act that may ultimately save his life. We ask you to seize this opportunity as a matter of urgency and ensure that the UK government acts in the interest of journalism and press freedom and does not enable the US government to continue to pursue this more than decade-old, politically motivated case.
We look forward to hearing from you and discussing the case further. We would be grateful for a prompt response. Please reply via Azzurra Moores at Reporters Without Borders (RSF) at amoores@rsf.org.
Sincerely,
Rebecca Vincent, Director of Operations and Campaigns, Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
Laurens Hueting, Senior Advocacy Officer, European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
Séamus Dooley, Assistant General Secretary, National Union of Journalists
Ricardo Gutiérrez, General Secretary, European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)
Ruth Smeeth, Chief Executive, Index on Censorship
Mark Johnson, Legal & Policy Officer, Big Brother Watch
Peter Tatchell, Director, Peter Tatchell Foundation
Dr Suelette Dreyfus, Executive Director, Blueprint for Free Speech
Romana Cacchioli, Executive Director, PEN International
Daniel Gorman, Director, English PEN
Ricky Monahan Brown, President, Scottish PEN
Alix Parodi, President, PEN Suisse Romand
Tanja Tuma, President, Slovene PEN
Alix Parodi, President, PEN Suisse Romand
Zoë Rodriguez, joint President, PEN Sydney, and Chair of the PEN International Women Writers
Jesper Bengtsson, President, Swedish PEN
Talk World Radio: Dennis Kucinich: Democrats Should Not Make Support for War a Test of Party Loyalty
Australia changes policy tack – moves in the direction of supporting the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
Australia drops opposition to treaty banning nuclear weapons at UN vote
After former Coalition government repeatedly sided with US against it, Labor has shifted position to abstain
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/29/australia-drops-opposition-to-treaty-banning-nuclear-weapons-at-un-vote— Daniel Hurst, 29 Oct 22,
Australia has dropped its opposition to a landmark treaty banning nuclear weapons in a vote at the United Nations in New York on Saturday.
While Australia was yet to actually join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the shift in its voting position to “abstain” after five years of “no” is seen by campaigners as a sign of progress given the former Coalition government repeatedly sided with the United States against it.
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said through a spokesperson that Australia had “a long and proud commitment to the global non-proliferation and disarmament regime” and that the government supported the new treaty’s “ambition of a world without nuclear weapons”.
The previous Coalition government was firmly against the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a relatively new international agreement that imposes a blanket ban on developing, testing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons – or helping other countries to carry out such activities.
Australia voted against opening negotiations on the proposed new treaty in late 2016 and did not participate in those talks in 2017. Since 2018 it has voted against annual resolutions at the UN general assembly and first committee that called on all countries to join the agreement “at the earliest possible date”.
That changed early on Saturday morning when Australia shifted its voting position to abstain. Indonesia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Ireland were among countries to co-sponsor this year’s supportive UN resolution.
Australia traditionally argued the treaty would not work because none of the nuclear weapons states had joined and because it “ignores the realities of the global security environment”.
It also argued joining would breach the US alliance obligations, with Australia relying on American nuclear forces to deter any nuclear attack on Australia.
But the treaty has gained momentum because of increasing dissatisfaction among activists and non-nuclear states about the outlook for disarmament, given that nuclear weapons states such as the US, Russia and China are in the process of modernising their arsenals.
The treaty currently has 91 signatories, 68 of which have formally ratified it, and it entered into force last year.
The Nobel peace prize-winning International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (Ican) had been urging Australia to vote in favour of the UN resolution on Saturday – or at least abstain in order to “end five years of opposition to the TPNW under the previous government”.
Three in four members of the Labor caucus – including Anthony Albanese – have signed an Ican pledge that commits parliamentarians “to work for the signature and ratification of this landmark treaty by our respective countries”.
Labor’s 2021 national platform committed the party to signing and ratifying the treaty “after taking account” of several factors, including the need for an effective verification and enforcement architecture and work to achieve universal support.
These conditions suggest the barriers to actually signing may still be high. But Gem Romuld, the Australia director of Ican, said the government was “heading in the right direction” and engaging positively with the treaty.
Romuld said it “would be completely self-defeating to wait for all nuclear-armed states to get on board” before Australia joined.
“Indeed, no disarmament treaty has achieved universal support and Australia has joined all the other disarmament treaties, even where our ally – the US – has not yet signed on, such as the landmine ban treaty,” Romuld said.
In 2017 the US, the UK and France declared that they “do not intend to sign, ratify or ever become party” to the new treaty, and the Trump administration actively lobbied countries to withdraw.
Wong told the UN general assembly last month that Australia would “redouble our efforts” towards disarmament because Russian president Vladimir Putin’s “weak and desperate nuclear threats underline the danger that nuclear weapons pose to us all”. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/29/australia-drops-opposition-to-treaty-banning-nuclear-weapons-at-un-vote—
Cuban missile crisis, 60 years on: new papers reveal how close the world came to nuclear disaster
In 1962, a Soviet submarine commander nearly ordered a nuclear launch, newly translated accounts show, with modern parallels over Ukraine all too clear
Guardian, Julian Borger in Washington 27 Oct 2022
The commander of a nuclear-armed Soviet submarine panicked and came close to launching a nuclear torpedo during the Cuban missile crisis 60 years ago, after being blinded and disoriented by aggressive US tactics, according to newly translated documents.
Many nuclear historians agree that 27 October 1962, known as “Black Saturday”, was the closest the world came to nuclear catastrophe, as US forces enforced a blockade of Cuba to stop deliveries of Soviet missiles. On the same day a U-2 spy plane was shot down over the island, and another went missing over Siberia when the pilot lost his way.
Six decades on from the “world’s most dangerous day”, last week’s revelation that a Russian warplane fired a missile near a British Rivet Joint surveillance plane over the Black Sea has once more heightened concerns that miscalculation or accident could trigger uncontrolled escalation.
In October 1962, the US sent its anti-submarine forces to hunt down Soviet submarines trying to slip through the “quarantine” imposed on Cuba. The most perilous moment came when one of those submarines, B-59, was forced to surface late at night in the Sargasso Sea to recharge its batteries and found itself surrounded by US destroyers and anti-submarine planes circling overhead.
In a newly translated account, one of the senior officers on board, Captain Second Class Vasily Arkhipov, described the scene……………………………………………………………
In his account, Arkhipov played down his role and how close the B-59 submarine commander, Savitsky, came to launching the submarine’s one nuclear-tipped torpedo. However, Svetlana Savranskaya, the director of the National Security Archive’s Russian programmes, interviewed another submarine commander from the same brigade, Ryurik Ketov, who said Savitsky was convinced they were under attack and that the war with the US had started.
The commander panicked, calling for an “urgent dive” and for the number one torpedo with the nuclear warhead to be prepared. However, because the signalling officer was in the way, Savitsky could not immediately get down the narrow stairway through the conning tower, and during those few moments of hesitation, Arkhipov realised that the US forces were signalling rather than attacking, and deliberately firing off to the side of the submarine.
“He called to Savitsky and said: ‘calm down, look they are signalling, not attacking, let’s signal back.’ Savitsky turned back, saw the situation, ordered the signalling officer to signal back,” Savranskaya said. She added that two other officers would have had to confirm any order from Savitsky before the nuclear torpedo could have been launched.
Tom Blanton, the director of the National Security Archive, said the aggressive tactics used by the American submarine hunters contributed to the close shave…………………………………………….
Saved ‘primarily because of luck’
The B-59 incident was just one of a cascade of crises that day. A U-2 went missing over Siberia when the pilot lost his bearings, blinded by the aurora borealis and misled by compass malfunction close to the north pole.
Some F-102 interceptor jets were scrambled to protect the U-2, but the joint chiefs of staff who gave the order for their launch were not aware they had been armed with nuclear missiles as a matter of course once the alert level was raised to Defcon 2.
Minutes later, the joint chiefs heard that another U-2 had been shot down over Cuba and assumed it was a deliberate escalation by Moscow. In fact, the order had been given independently by two Soviet generals in Cuba. The joint chiefs were also unaware that there were 80 nuclear warheads on the missiles already in Cuba when they gave their recommendation for the US to carry out airstrikes and then an invasion of Cuba.
The recommendation was overruled by president John Kennedy, as negotiations with Soviet representatives, some of them in a Washington Chinese restaurant, were making progress, leading ultimately to the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba while US missiles were pulled back from Turkey.
Tom Collina, the director of policy at the Ploughshares Fund, a disarmament advocacy group, said Black Saturday “reminds us that the reason we’ve gotten out of things like that in the past is primarily because of luck”.
“We had some good management, we had some good thinkers,” Collina, co-author of The Button, a book on the nuclear arms race, said. “But basically, we got lucky in the closest situations where we could have gotten involved in nuclear war.”……………………………..
“The lesson we should have learned in 1962 is that humans are fallible, and we should not combine crises with fallible humans with nuclear weapons,” Collina said. “Yet here we are again.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/27/cuban-missile-crisis-60-years-on-new-papers-reveal-how-close-the-world-came-to-nuclear-disaster
Every nuclear power plant is a ‘dirty bomb’ in waiting: watchdog
https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/a-dirty-bomb-in-waiting/ Brett Wilkins and Common Dreams October 26, 2022, With Ukraine and Russia each trading renewed accusations that the other is planning to weaponize Ukrainian atomic reactors, a leading anti-nuclear group warned Wednesday that all such power plants have the potential to become radioactive “dirty bombs.”
“Like all nuclear power plants, Ukraine’s reactors are inherently dangerous pre-deployed nuclear weapons,” Maryland-based Beyond Nuclear said in a statement. “Nuclear power plants—and their mounting inventory of high-level nuclear waste—are inherently dangerous and their use should be permanently discontinued.”
The group’s warning comes as Russian officials this week doubled down on unfounded allegations that Ukraine is planning to weaponize a nuclear reactor, while Ukrainian officials accused Russia of carrying out secret construction work at the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest such facility in Europe.
Russia’s August shelling of Zaporizhzhia, as well as last month’s Russian missile strike a few hundred meters from the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant near Yuzhnoukrainsk, have raised eyebrows and alarm among nuclear experts and other observers around the world. Experts also fear that possible Russian destruction of Ukrainian dams and other hydroelectrical infrastructure could leave the Zaporizhzhia plant without enough water to cool its reactors.
“The reality all of this exposes is that nuclear power plants are inherently dangerous with their large inventories of radioactive materials that must be protected for hundreds to thousands of years from escaping into the environment,” Paul Gunter, Beyond Nuclear’s director of reactor oversight, said in Wednesday’s statement.
With Ukraine and Russia each trading renewed accusations that the other is planning to weaponize Ukrainian atomic reactors, a leading anti-nuclear group warned Wednesday that all such power plants have the potential to become radioactive “dirty bombs.”
“Like all nuclear power plants, Ukraine’s reactors are inherently dangerous pre-deployed nuclear weapons,” Maryland-based Beyond Nuclear said in a statement. “Nuclear power plants—and their mounting inventory of high-level nuclear waste—are inherently dangerous and their use should be permanently discontinued.”
The group’s warning comes as Russian officials this week doubled down on unfounded allegations that Ukraine is planning to weaponize a nuclear reactor, while Ukrainian officials accused Russia of carrying out secret construction work at the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest such facility in Europe.
Russia’s August shelling of Zaporizhzhia, as well as last month’s Russian missile strike a few hundred meters from the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant near Yuzhnoukrainsk, have raised eyebrows and alarm among nuclear experts and other observers around the world. Experts also fear that possible Russian destruction of Ukrainian dams and other hydroelectrical infrastructure could leave the Zaporizhzhia plant without enough water to cool its reactors.
“The reality all of this exposes is that nuclear power plants are inherently dangerous with their large inventories of radioactive materials that must be protected for hundreds to thousands of years from escaping into the environment,” Paul Gunter, Beyond Nuclear’s director of reactor oversight, said in Wednesday’s statement.
“The only reason there is such justifiably high anxiety right now about the possibility of these plants being used as dirty bombs—as well as the very real threat of a missile attack—is because of the lethal radioactivity that would be released, sickening and killing countless people and contaminating land and water indefinitely,” Gunter continued. “This sends a clear message that using this already highly expensive form of electricity generation is, and was always, a mistake.”
War, propaganda, and blindness
We are easy to convince because we know nothing about Ukrainian history and culture.
Nato propaganda tells us about the real sufferings of the Ukrainians, but it does not mention the eight years of torture, murder and massacres that preceded it.
We do not see that we are supporting the very ideas we believe we are fighting against
VoltaireNet by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé 28 Oct 22
Propaganda makes you stupid. We know that the Ukrainian integral nationalists have committed abominable massacres, especially during the Second World War. But we don’t know what they have been doing on our doorstep for the last thirty years, including the civil war they have been waging for the last eight years. Our own stupidity allows us to endure the war cries of our political leaders on the side of these criminals.
When war comes, governments always believe that they must boost the morale of their people by showering them with propaganda. The stakes are so high, life and death, that debates get tougher and extremist positions become popular. This is exactly what we are witnessing, or rather how we are being transformed. In this game, the ideas defended by some and others have nothing to do with their ideological presuppositions, but with their proximity to power
In the etymological sense, propaganda is just the art of convincing, of propagating ideas. But in modern times, it is an art that aims at reconstructing reality in order to denigrate the adversary and magnify one’s own troops.
Contrary to a widespread idea in the West, it was not the Nazis or the Soviets who invented it, but the British and the Americans during the First World War [1].
Today, Nato coordinates efforts in this area from its Strategic Communication Centre in Riga, Latvia [2]. It identifies the points on which it wants to act and organizes international programs to carry them out.
For example, NATO has identified Israel as a weak point: while former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a personal friend of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, his successor, Naftali Bennett, recognized the validity of Russian policy. He even advised the return of Crimea and Donbass and, above all, the denazification of Ukraine. The current Prime Minister, Yair Lapid, is more hesitant. He does not want to support the fundamentalist nationalists who massacred a million Jews shortly before and during the Second World War. But he also wants to stay on good terms with the West.
To bring Israel back into line, Nato is trying to persuade Tel Aviv that in case of a Russian victory, Israel would lose its position in the Middle East [3]. To this end, it is spreading the lie that Iran is Russia’s military ally as widely as possible. The international press is constantly claiming that Russian drones are Iranian on the battlefield, and soon the medium-range missiles will be too. Yet Moscow knows how to manufacture these weapons and has never asked Tehran for them. …………………….
The British, on the other hand, traditionally excel in activating networked media and enlisting artists. MI6 relies on a group of 150 news agencies working within the PR Network [4]. They convince all these companies to take up their imputations and slogans.
They are the ones who successively convinced you that President Vladimir Putin was dying, then that he had gone mad, or that he was facing strong opposition at home and that he would be overthrown by a coup. Their work continues today with cross interviews with soldiers in Ukraine. You hear Ukrainian soldiers say they are nationalists and Russian soldiers say they are afraid but must defend Russia. You hear that Ukrainians are not Nazis and that Russians, living under a dictatorship, are forced to fight.
………………………………………………… We are easy to convince because we know nothing about Ukrainian history and culture.
………….. We in Ukraine are unaware of the atrocities of the interwar period and the Second World War, and have a vague idea of the violence of the USSR. We ignore that the theoretician Dontsov and his disciple Stepan Bandera did not hesitate to massacre all those who did not correspond to their “integral nationalism”, first the Jews in this Khazar country, then the Russians and the Communists, the anarchists of Nestor Makhno, and many others. The “integral nationalists”, who had become admirers of the Führer and deeply racist, returned to the forefront with the dissolution of the USSR [6]. …………………………………
Modern Ukraine has patiently built its Nazi regime. After proclaiming the “genetic heritage of the Ukrainian people”, it enacted various laws. The first one grants the benefit of human rights by the state only to Ukrainians, not to foreigners. The second defines who the majority of Ukrainians are, and the third (enacted by President Zelensky) who the minorities are. The trick is that no law speaks about Russian speakers. Therefore, by default, the courts do not recognize them the benefit of human rights.
Since 2014, a civil war has pitted the integral nationalists against the Russian-speaking populations, mainly those of Crimea and Donbass. 20,000 deaths later, the Russian Federation, applying its “responsibility to protect,” launched a special military operation to implement Security Council Resolution 2202 (Minsk Agreements) and end the martyrdom of Russian speakers.
…………………………. Nato propaganda tells us about the real sufferings of the Ukrainians, but it does not mention the eight years of torture, murder and massacres that preceded it. It talks about “our common values with Ukrainian democracy”, but what values do we share with the integral nationalists and where is the democracy in Ukraine?
We do not have to choose between one or the other, but only to defend peace and therefore the Minsk Agreements and resolution 2202.
War drives us crazy. There is a reversal of values. The most extremist triumph. Some of our ministers speak of “stifling Russia” (sic). We do not see that we are supporting the very ideas we believe we are fighting against https://www.voltairenet.org/article218325.html#social
‘Small but important step’: Australia’s shift on treaty banning nuclear weapons applauded
Australia abstained from voting on the UN treaty banning nuclear weapons for the first time in five years. Previously, the country had opposed the treaty.
SBS News 29 Oct 22,
Anti-nuclear campaigners welcomed the shift in the Australian government’s position on a UN treaty banning the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Australia was among 14 nations to abstain from voting. There were 43 nations who voted against the UN resolution co-sponsored by New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Ireland. A total of 124 nations voted in favour of the motion.
The Australian branch of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) described the move as “a small but important step forward”.
“ICAN looks forward to a formal decision by the Albanese government to sign and ratify the TPNW (the treaty) – in line with its pre-election pledge,” the group said.
The overwhelming majority of Australians support joining this treaty, and progress towards disarmament is more urgent than ever.”
ICAN said it was encouraging to see that the majority of nations stood united on the risks of nuclear war, particularly “in light of the war in Ukraine”.
It ends years of Canberra siding with the United States by actions on the treaty to ban the deadly weapons and comes as Australia looks to nuclear submarines to boost its navy…………………………………
Australia also recently faced criticism from nuclear powers for joining a Pacific push to help deal with the consequences of nuclear testing.
New Zealand, a signatory to the nuclear weapons ban, has previously pushed for Australia to join.
A total of 93 countries have signed the treaty, including 68 nations that have formally ratified it. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/small-but-important-step-australias-shift-on-treaty-banning-nuclear-weapons-applauded/j3cz2yr7l
Scotland ‘could fund England’s nuclear plants after independence’ under “regulated asset base” (RAB) model
the RAB model was favoured by the Tory government because “the fact is the market has fled nuclear”.
“The market has fled nuclear because of the risk and liability. The only way of getting nuclear through is with vast public subsidy, and this is a way of disguising that public subsidy.
the RAB model had been tried before in the US – under the name Early Cost Recovery – “and failed miserably”.
And that public money would come at the very start of construction. They would be paying right from the word go, so this is essentially free money. Even with that there really doesn’t seem to be much interest from the market.”
SCOTTISH bill payers could still be funding nuclear projects south of the Border through additional fees on their energy bills even after independence, one expert has said.
It comes as the UK Government looks to award the first contracts for new nuclear stations in England, which will be funded through the “regulated asset base” (RAB) model.
This RAB model will see electricity suppliers pay a levy to “relevant licensee nuclear companies”, with the costs passed on to consumers in the form of additional fees on top of their energy bills. Under conservative UK Government estimates, this could mean Scottish households’ energy bills rising by around £100 a year.
Dr Paul Dorfman, the chair of the non-profit Nuclear Consulting Group and associate fellow at the University of Sussex’s Science Policy Research Unit, told The National that the RAB model was favoured by the Tory government because “the fact is the market has fled nuclear”.
“RAB is absolutely, unequivocally all about trying to incentivise the market,” he said, “and it is doing it with public money.”
Dorfman went on: “And that public money would come at the very start of construction. They would be paying right from the word go, so this is essentially free money. Even with that there really doesn’t seem to be much interest from the market.”
The nuclear expert, who will give evidence on the topic to a Westminster committee next week, said the RAB model had been tried before in the US – under the name Early Cost Recovery – “and failed miserably”.
He said: “It can work for projects which you know will come in on time, but nuclear has huge liabilities and huge over-runs, and that’s precisely why it doesn’t work. RAB doesn’t work for projects with high liability and high risk.
“The market has fled nuclear because of the risk and liability. The only way of getting nuclear through is with vast public subsidy, and this is a way of disguising that public subsidy.
Dorfman warned that once the UK Government started sinking billions of pounds into efforts to begin construction of eight new nuclear stations by 2030, it would “become a fait accompli”.
He said that even after 17 years – the amount of time he estimates it will take from a contract being awarded to a nuclear plant being finished – “the UK public, and the Scots public, who may no longer be part of the UK, will still be liable for that”.
Dorfman said the first RAB nuclear contracts looked set to be awarded in 2023, estimating that would mean a completion date of the first nuclear plants around 2040.
“That’s too late for our climate,” he said. “It’s far too late for the current energy crisis. The point is of course, why do this when last year solar and wind made up three-quarters of all total new electricity generation capacity installed worldwide?”
“
The Nuclear Consulting Group chair further cautioned that no one knows for certain what the RAB funding arrangements will be.
Craig Dalzell, the head of policy and research at Common Weal, a think tank which has recently produced a report on the RAB funding model, said the “ongoing liability” for new nuclear projects in England should “not be outsourced to Scotland post-independence”.
Dalzell told The National: “The idea that Scottish energy users could be paying for the UK’s nuclear RAB schemes even after independence will surely be something that should be resisted. The Scottish Government should do everything it can to extract guarantees from the UK Government that this will not be the case and that the ongoing liability for these plants will not be outsourced to Scotland post-independence.
“At the very least, any payments for these plants should be taken into account when the time comes for independence negotiations and I would expect these charges to be offset against other debts or added to an equivalent payment from the remaining UK to Scotland to compensate for their mismanagement of energy policy.”
The UK Government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy declined to comment, saying only that its policy has not changed despite a new Secretary of State, Grant Shapps, taking control.
You can read Dr Dorfman’s written evidence on nuclear power to the House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee here.
Together Against Sizewell and other groups to fight on, despite legal setback
Campaigners have pledged to fight on after the High Court rejected their
appeal against the Government’s decision to approve the new Sizewell C
nuclear power station. Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) and other
campaign groups are seeking an oral hearing through the judicial review
process after an initial assessment by the legal authority deemed the
appeal should be rejected.
The review of the approval had been sought on
the grounds that the decision was unlawful amid concerns about the
maintenance of a water supply to the new £20bn station and the resilience
of the coastline. The provision of fresh water to the site was one of the
key issues raised by the Planning Inspectorate when considering the plans.
TASC chair Pete Wilkinson described the rejection verdict as ‘predictable
and wholly unreasonable,’ adding there appeared to be a ‘presumption’
that judicial reviews should be dismissed rather than used as a forum for
democracy.
East Anglian Daily Times 28th Oct 2022
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/23082932.high-court-rejects-sizewell-legal-challenge/
60 years ago today, this man stopped the Cuban missile crisis from going nuclear
Why a Soviet submarine officer might be “the most important person in modern history.”
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/10/27/23426482/cuban-missile-crisis-basilica-arkhipov-nuclear-warBy Bryan Walsh@bryanrwalsh Oct 27, 2022,
Homo sapiens have existed on the planet for about 300,000 years, or more than 109 million days. The most dangerous of all those days — the day when our species likely came closer than any other to wiping itself off the face of the Earth — came 60 years ago today, on October 27, 1962. And the person who likely did more than anyone else to prevent that dangerous day from becoming an existential catastrophe was a quiet Soviet naval officer named Vasili Arkhipov.
On that day, Arkhipov was serving aboard the nuclear-armed Soviet submarine B-59 in international waters near Cuba. It was the height of the Cuban missile crisis, which began earlier that month when a US U-2 spy plane spotted evidence of newly built installations on Cuba, where it turned out that Soviet military advisers were helping to build sites capable of launching nuclear missiles at the US, less than 100 miles away.
That led to the Cold War’s most volatile confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union — 13 days of high-stakes brinkmanship between two nuclear powers that seemed one misstep away from total war.
President John F. Kennedy had ordered what he called a “quarantine” of Cuba, stationing a flotilla of naval ships off the coast of the island to prevent Soviet ships from carrying weapons to Cuba and demanding that the USSR remove the missiles. On October 27, the Russian sub B-59, which had been running submerged for days, was cornered by 11 US destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph. The US ships began dropping depth charges around the sub.
The intention wasn’t to destroy it but to force it to surface, as US officials had already informed Moscow. But unknown to Washington, the officers aboard B-59 were out of contact with their superiors and had every reason to believe that their American counterparts were trying to sink them.
“We thought, ‘That’s it, the end,’” crew member Vadim Orlov recalled to National Geographic in 2016. “It felt like you were sitting in a metal barrel, which somebody is constantly blasting with a sledgehammer.”
The end in this case meant not just the fate of the submarine and its crew, but potentially the entire world. Cut off from outside contact, buffeted by depth charges, its air conditioning broken, and temperatures and carbon dioxide levels rising in the sub, the most obvious conclusion for the officers of B-59 was that global war had already begun. But the sub had a weapon at its disposal that US officers didn’t know about: a 10-kiloton nuclear torpedo. And its officers had permission from their superiors to launch it without confirmation from Moscow.
Two of the sub’s senior officers wanted to launch the nuclear torpedo. That included its captain, Valentin Savitsky, who according to a report from the US National Security Archive, exclaimed: “We’re gonna blast them now! We will die, but we will sink them all — we will not become the shame of the fleet.”
Thankfully, the captain didn’t have sole discretion over the launch. All three senior officers had to agree, and Vasili Arkhipov, the 36-year-old second captain and brigade chief of staff, refused to give his assent. He convinced the sub’s top officers that the depth charges were indeed meant to signal B-59 to surface — there was no other way for the US ships to communicate with the Soviet sub — and that launching the nuclear torpedo would be a fatal mistake. The sub returned to the surface, headed away from Cuba, and steamed back toward the Soviet Union.
Arkhipov’s cool-headed heroics didn’t mark the end of the Cuban missile crisis. The same day, US U-2 pilot Maj. Rudolf Anderson was shot down while on a reconnaissance mission over Cuba. Anderson was the first and only casualty of the crisis, an event that could have led to war had President Kennedy not concluded that the order to fire had not been given by Soviet Premier Nikolai Khrushchev.
That close call sobered both leaders, leading them to open back-channel negotiations that eventually led to a withdrawal of Soviet missiles in Cuba, a later pullback of US missiles in Turkey in response, and the end of the closest the world has yet come to total nuclear war.
In a situation as complex and pressured as the Cuban missile crisis, when both sides were operating with limited information, a ticking clock, and tens of thousands of nuclear warheads (most, it should be noted, possessed by the US), no single act was truly definitive for war or peace. But Arkhipov’s actions still deserve special praise. Trapped in a diesel-powered submarine thousands of miles from home, buffeted by exploding depth charges and threatened with suffocation and death, Arkhipov kept his head. Had he assented to the decision to fire a nuclear torpedo, likely vaporizing a US aircraft carrier and killing thousands of sailors, it would have been far more difficult for Kennedy and Khrushchev to step back from the brink. And the most dangerous day in human history may well have been one of our last.
For his courage, Arkhipov was the first person to be given the Future of Life award by the Cambridge-based existential risk nonprofit the Future of Life Institute (FLI), in 2017. It was posthumous — Arkhipov died in 1998, before the news of his actions was widely known. But he may well be, as FLI president Max Tegmark said at the award ceremony, “arguably the most important person in modern history.”
No nuclear weapon has been used in war since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. But as tensions between the US and Russia only grow over the war in Ukraine, and as Russian President Vladimir Putin makes veiled threats about wielding his country’s nuclear arsenal, we should remember the awful power of these world-ending weapons. And we should celebrate those, like Vasili Arkhipov, who in moments of existential decision, choose life rather than extinction.
George Monbiot leads the “left” into being cheer- leaders for USA’s endless wars
HOW THE LEFT BECAME CHEERLEADERS FOR US IMPERIALISM
Mint Press, Jonathon Cook 27 Oct 22
One of the biggest problems for the left, as it confronts what seems like humanity’s ever-more precarious relationship with the planet – from the climate emergency to a potential nuclear exchange – is that siren voices keep luring it towards the rocks of political confusion and self-harm.
And one of the loudest sirens on the British left is the environmental activist George Monbiot.
Monbiot has carved out for himself a figurehead role on the mainstream British left because he is the only big-picture thinker allowed a regular platform in the establishment media: in his case, the liberal Guardian newspaper………………………………
In the case of the Ukraine war, Monbiot has insisted on adherence to the NATO narrative, decrying any dissent as “Westplaining”. Throughout this shift ever more firmly into the imperial NATO camp, Monbiot has besmirched prominent anti-war leftists, from the famed linguist Noam Chomsky to the journalist John Pilger, as “genocide deniers and belittlers”…………………………….
Monbiot lashes out at anyone who dissents, calling them apologists for dictators, or war crimes. And he brings many on the left with him, helping to divide and weaken the anti-war movement.
…………………… He is a zealot for the West’s wars when they can be presented either as humanitarian or as battling Russian imperialism. (For examples, see here, here, and here.)
………………………… It might – just might – be that Russia is both sinner in Ukraine and sinned against. Or that Ukrainian civilians are victims both of Russian militarism and of more covert U.S. and NATO intrigues. Or that in a country like Ukraine, where a civil war has been raging for at least eight years between far-right (some of them exterminationist) Ukrainian ultra-nationalists and ethnic Russian communities, we would be better jettisoning our narrative premises of a single “Ukraine” or a single Ukrainian will. This kind of simple-mindedness may be obscuring far more than it illuminates.
………………. In such circumstances, Monbiot’s dictum that we must “side against the oppressor, and with the oppressed” starts to sound like nothing more than unhelpful sloganeering. It makes a complex situation that needs complex thinking and sophisticated problem-solving harder to understand and all but impossible to resolve.
Throw nuclear weapons into the mix, and Monbiot the environmentalist is playing games not only with the lives of Ukrainians, but the destruction of conditions for most life on Earth……………………..
Historically, the lands that today we call Ukraine have been the gateway through which invading armies have attacked Russia. Long efforts by Washington, through NATO, to recruit Ukraine into its military fold were never likely to be viewed dispassionately in Moscow.
…………………….. there was the problem of the Crimean Peninsula, hosting Moscow’s only warm-water naval port and viewed as critically important to Russia’s defenses. It had been Russian territory until the 1950s when the then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gifted it to Ukraine, at a time when national borders had been made largely redundant within the Soviet empire. The gift was supposed to symbolize the unbreakable bond between Russia and Ukraine. Khrushchev presumably never imagined that Ukraine might one day seek to become a forward base for a NATO openly hostile to Russia…………………
So where does all this leave Monbiot’s rule: “Whatever the situation around the world is, you side against the oppressor, and with the oppressed”?
Not only does his axiom fail to acknowledge the complex nature of global conflicts, especially between great powers, in which defining who is the oppressor and who is the oppressed may be no simple matter, but, worse, it disfigures our understanding of international power politics.
Russia and China may be great powers, but they are not – at least, not yet – close to being equal to the US super-power.
Neither can match the many hundreds of U.S. military bases around the world – more than 800 of them. The U.S. outspends both of its rivals many times over on its annual military budget. That means Washington can project lethal power around the globe on a scale unmatched by either Russia or China. The only deterrence either has against the military might of the U.S. is a last-resort nuclear arsenal.
Overwhelming U.S. military supremacy ……………………….
Both militarily and economically, the United States molds the world we live in……………………….
……a power-politics analysis of the playground. And yet it passes for neutral reporting and informed commentary in all establishment Western media. Catastrophically, Monbiot has played a crucial part in seeding these destructive ideas – ones that can only lead to intensified conflict and undermine peacemaking – into the anti-war movement. https://www.mintpressnews.com/how-george-monbiot-left-became-cheerleaders-imperialism/282308/
USA upgrades its B61-12 nuclear bombs in Europe
US Accelerates Upgraded Nuke Delivery To Jittery European Allies: Cable, Zero Hedge BY TYLER DURDEN, 28 Oct 22,
On the same day that Russia hailed completion of its ‘successful’ annual nuclear drills, Politico published a bombshell report describing that the US has accelerated plans to maintain upgraded nuclear weapons in Europe.
Specifically, US defense officials informed NATO allies earlier this month that Europe will host a B61-12 air-dropped gravity bomb, to be transferred by December. Politico reported Wednesday that a classified cable it has seen confirmed this.
The upgraded bomb was expected to arrive in Europe next spring, but the timeline was accelerated amid Russia’s growing nuclear rhetoric surrounding the war in Ukraine. President Biden recently raised eyebrows in saying nuclear “armageddon” is a real possibility for the first time since the close of the Cold War.
On an official level the Pentagon is disputing that its planned nuclear upgrade for NATO’s Europe arsenal is in any way connected to events in Ukraine, however, Politico cites the following sources:
Two people familiar with the issue of the upcoming shipment to Europe confirmed the accelerated timeframe reported in the diplomatic cable. They asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.
The cable, which has not previously been made public and was written to be distributed throughout the Pentagon and State Department to give policymakers a rundown of what was discussed among defense ministers at the NATO meeting, clearly indicates that allies are jittery.
The document says that during the meetings, 15 NATO allies raised concerns that the alliance “must not give in to Putin’s nuclear blackmail.”
The cable is further quoted by Politico as follows: “Given the rising volume and scale of Russia’s nuclear rhetoric, a subset of allies requested continued consultations at NATO to ensure continued readiness and consistent messaging.”……………..
The upgraded B61-12 is designed to allow the bomb to be carried by a fuller array of US and allied bombers and fighter jets, while older versions had more limited delivery options. The upgraded version is also said to be more accurate. https://www.zerohedge.com/military/us-accelerates-upgraded-nuke-delivery-jittery-european-allies-cable
“The voices in this world which have the most power belong to those who are destroying it”, writes Greta Thunberg
“The voices in this world which have the most power belong to those who
are destroying it”, writes Greta Thunberg in the outro of her spectacular
new book. It is a sentence which encapsulates the skill with which she can
speak the blatant truths our society can scarcely acknowledge, but it is
also a damning conclusion and part of a revolutionary call to arms.
Her zero-tolerance level for bulls*** is the beacon which has not only won her
acclaim, but also lights the way through this collection of essays, evidence and potential solutions written by an astonishing list of experts,
scientists, activists and authors.
Independent 27th Oct 2022
‘No need’ for nuclear strikes on Ukraine, Putin says
9 News, By Associated Press Oct 28, 22
Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied having any intentions of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine but described the conflict there as part of alleged efforts by the West to secure its global domination, which he insisted were doomed to fail.
Speaking at a conference of international foreign policy experts, Putin said it’s pointless for Russia to strike Ukraine with nuclear weapons.
“We see no need for that,” Putin said.
“There is no point in that, neither political, nor military.”
Putin said an earlier warning of his readiness to use “all means available to protect Russia” didn’t amount to nuclear sabre-rattling but was merely a response to Western statements about their possible use of nuclear weapons.
He particularly mentioned Liz Truss saying in August that she would be ready to use nuclear weapons if she became Britain’s prime minister, a remark which he said worried the Kremlin.
“What were we supposed to think?” Putin said.
“We saw that as a coordinated position, an attempt to blackmail us.”……………………………………………….
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters today that the US has still not seen anything to indicate that Putin has decided to use a dirty bomb……………………………………………………. more https://www.9news.com.au/world/russia-ukraine-vladimir-putin-says-kremlin-not-intending-to-use-nuclear-weapons/7ab0234c-cadb-41f9-b8c2-05305c1eb464
Biden to scrap Trump missile project but critics attack US ‘nuclear overkill’
Arms control advocates say changes from Trump era outlined in Nuclear Posture Review do not go far enough
Guardian, Julian Borger , 28 Oct 22,
The Biden administration has confirmed it will cancel a submarine-launched nuclear cruise missile programme begun by Donald Trump, as part of its review of nuclear policy.
The administration will also retire a gravity bomb, the B83-1, from its arsenal as part of its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), but arms control advocates argued the changes from the Trump era did not go far enough.
The administration is retaining another weapon variant introduced by Trump, a low-yield warhead called the W76-2, intended to deter an adversary like Russia using a low-yield weapon. The Democratic party manifesto in 2020 had called the W76-2 “unnecessary, wasteful, and indefensible”……………………..
Jon Wolfsthal, who was special assistant to Barack Obama on arms control and nonproliferation issues, expressed disappointment in the Biden NPR.
“The world is a dangerous place and our allies and we still rely on nuclear deterrence but this document ignores the role the US can play to make nukes less usable, less likely,” Wolfsthal said on Twitter……………………………………
In response to the NPR, Jessica Sleight, partner for policy at Global Zero, a disarmament advocacy group, said: “Contrary to President Biden’s stated intentions to reduce the role of nuclear weapons, this Nuclear Posture Review continues decades of nuclear overkill, doubles down on needless weapons programs, and fails to advance overdue reforms to policy and posture that would make the United States, its allies, and the world safer.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/27/biden-trump-missile-nuclear-posture-review
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