2022 November 29 « nuclear-news

Nuclear news -week to 29 November

Some bits of good news: The coming culture peace. Good News on Tuberculosis in Tanzania, Crime in the United Kingdom, and Forests in Nepal.

Coronavirus. Omicron variant now prevalent – more infectious but fewer severe sases.

Climate. COP27 was disappointing, but 2022 remains an historic year for international climate policy. 1.5C warming threshold to be passed in 9 years as emissions hit record high

Nuclear. The two main issues are the danger of nuclear war, sparking from the Ukraine conflict, and the drive for small nuclear reactors simultaneously with the news that their true costs are astronomic. I can only ponder on whether Kamala Harris really has any brain – as she’s off and away trying to sell USA’s small nuclear reactors to poorer “Third World” countries.

AUSTRALIA.

What caused the Anthony Albanese China change? Better advisors?
Defence Minister Richard Marles delighted to welcome American nuclear-powered Virginia Class fast-attack submarine.
Upurli Upurli people say no to uranium mining at Mulga Rock, Western Australia.
Nukes Corp Australia carries on.
Australia’s debt to the world greater given our ‘real’ carbon emissions. This case has made legal history’: young Australians just won a human rights case against an enormous coal mine

ARTS and CULTURE Russia’s former southern capital renounces its past: How Ukraine is destroying its heritage.

CLIMATE. It’s high time to defuse the military carbon bomb. No country has the solution to nuclear waste. Nuclear is no preventer of global heating – in fact, it’s quite the reverse. New Talking Points delivers all the reasons why small modular reactors have no role to play for climate change. “Environmental Social and Corporate governance” – EDF and the nuclear lobby try to trick the world with fake “green” credentials.

Take it from the soup throwers, COP’s a cop-out. Fears that oil exporters will control the next COP climate summit. The COP27 promise to fund climate help for poor countries – will it really be kept? The Amazon forest is reaching a tipping point and starting to collapse

CIVIL LIBERTIES. Videos showing execution of Russian POWs in Ukraine are authentic.

ECONOMICS.

Jobs. New Mexico’s revolving nuclear door: top environment officials sell out to nuclear weapons lab.
The projected cost of new nuclear power has risen by fourfold since 2008 – and it is still rising. Costs of NuScam’s Small Modular Nuclear Reactors revised upwards – yet again! Small Modular Nuclear Reactor cost overruns: the same old problems haunt new nuclear in Utah. Ineos corporation to join Rolls Royce’s messy consortium, to push for Small Nuclear Reactors in the Great British Nuclear Swindle. UK government underestimated the cost to the public of Regulated Asset Base financing of nuclear power.
U.S. Nuclear Reactors Among the Oldest in the World. A billion down the drain for Diablo.
Marketing: B1 USA Vice-President For the Nuclear Industry Kamala Harris on a marketing jaunt for NuScam’s Small Nuclear Reactors to Southeast Asia. Kamala Harris, nuclear saleswoman extraordinaire, touting small nuclear reactors to Thailand.

ENERGY. EDF Delays Restart of Three Nuclear Reactors as Winter Hits. Amongst alternative energy sources, nuclear power’s prospects are not good.

HISTORY. France opens archives related to nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific.

INDIGENOUS ISSUES. The consequences of nuclear imperialism and colonialism.

LEGAL. Nuclear Industry Liability under the Paris Convention. Legal challenge to UK nuclear plan by groups Stop Sizewell C and Together Against Sizewell C (TASC), and others. Mayor of Ukraine’s second-largest city fined for speaking Russian.

MEDIA. ‘Publishing is not a crime’: media groups urge US to drop Julian Assange charges.The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine remains under Russian control, despite media reports.

NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY. Nuclear power no solution for Canada’s North West Territory . Putin touts Russia’s ‘Arctic power’ with new nuclear icebreaker. NuScam’s Utah small nuclear reactor project in doubt – needs $billions of tax-payer support. World’s Biggest Nuclear-Fusion Project Faces Delays as Component Cracks.

OPPOSITION TO NUCLEAR. The Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG) strongly opposes new Bradwell nuclear proposal.

POLITICS.

Middle East investors and French developers for Sizewell C nuclear station to be paid by “an extra tax” on UK public’s bills ? Rolls-Royce calls for formal funding talks over small nuclear plants.
USA government forks out a $billion to keep uneconomic Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant going. USA’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) cleverly worded so it could be a bonanza for small nuclear plant developers.
Lawmaker says Filipinos will be ‘guinea pigs’ in nuclear pact with US.

POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.

Could the Minsk II agreement Have Prevented the War in Ukraine? Merkel explains why she wasn’t surprised by Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Washington’s Iron Curtain in Ukraine.
Philippines to be America’s nuclear guinea-pig for experimental small modular nuclear reactors.
Finland’s Fortum turns to U.S. in bid to replace Russian nuclear fuel.
‘Dangerous rhetoric’ stoking nuclear tensions: UN chief. Future war: NATO holds 75-nation planning session in Berlin. China, Russia and the bomb — IPPNW peace and health blog .
Zelensky trapped by Moscow and Washington.
Iran Media Looks Beyond Nuclear Deal As Negotiations ‘Fail’. Iran ‘not optimistic’ about nuclear deal revival talks.
The coming Sinophobic calamity. Pandora’s box of nuclear progress.

RADIATION. Protecting kids from electromagnetic radiation in school and at home.

SAFETY. Nuclear Guinea Pigs: NRC’s Licensing of Experimental Nuclear Plants . Threat of Possible Nuclear Accident at Zaporizhzhia Sends Tensions Rising. U.N. Supplied Qatar With Tech to ‘Prevent Nuclear Security Incident’ at 2022 World Cup. Electricity production at Olkiluoto 3 reactor delayed until 2023..

SECRETS and LIES. Ukraine quietly abolishes corruption oversight rule. Ukrainian city names street after Nazi collaborator.

WASTES. Confusion over nuclear wastes from small modular reactors. Estonian public concerned about radioactive waste from planned nuclear power plant. Uniting to oppose Japanese plan to dump nuclear waste in Pacific. UK’s costly struggle to deal with dead nuclear submarines.

WAR and CONFLICT. US ‘success’ is Ukraine’s disaster. Republished from 2019 Maligned in Western Media, Donbass Forces are defending their future from Ukrainian shelling. China Prevented Transfer Of Polish MiG-29 Fighter Jets To Ukraine; Kept Russia Away From Nuclear Escalation.

WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES.

US Arms Dealing Is Out of Control. A new nuclear weapons delivery system is the last thing the US needs. U.S. speeds up plans to store upgraded nukes in Europe.
USA hurrying to replace its weapons stocks, after sending so much to Ukraine. Most NATO members have run out of weapons for Ukraine – NYT.
Nuclear weapons convoys through Lancashire and parked close to primary school.
‘Deliberate ambiguity’: Israel’s nuclear weapons are greatest threat to Middle East.
Kim Jong Un Emphasizes Nuclear Development as North Korea’s ‘Ultimate Goal’.

November 29, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's notes | Leave a comment

UK GOVERNMENT DEPLOYED 15 STAFF ON SECRET OPERATION TO SEIZE JULIAN ASSANGE

New information raises further concerns about the politicisation of the WikiLeaks founder’s legal case.

https://declassifieduk.org/uk-government-deployed-15-staff-on-secret-operation-to-seize-julian-assange/ MATT KENNARD, 28 NOVEMBER 2022

Assange had been granted asylum by a friendly country to avoid persecution by the US government for his journalistic activities
But Home Office had eight staff, and the Cabinet Office had seven, working on secret police operation to arrest Assange
Ministry of Justice, which controls England’s courts and prisons, refuses to say if its staff were involved in operation
Foreign Office refuses to say if its premises were used

The British government assigned at least 15 people to the secret operation to seize Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, new information shows.

The WikiLeaks founder was given political asylum by Ecuador in 2012, but was never allowed safe passage out of Britain to avoid persecution by the US government.

The Australian journalist has been in Belmarsh maximum security prison for the past three and a half years and faces a potential 175-year sentence after the UK High Court greenlighted his extradition to the US in December 2021.

‘Pelican’ was the secret Metropolitan Police operation to seize Assange from his asylum, which eventually occurred in April 2019. Asylum is a right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The operation’s existence was only revealed in the memoirs of former foreign minister Sir Alan Duncan which were published last year. The UK government routinely blocks, or obfuscates its answers to, information requests about the Assange case.

But the Cabinet Office recently told parliament it had seven officials working on Operation Pelican. The department’s role is to “support the Prime Minister and ensure the effective running of government”, but it also has national security and intelligence functions.

It is not immediately clear why the Cabinet Office would have so many personnel working on a police operation of this kind. Asked about their role, the Cabinet Office said these seven officials “liaised” with the Metropolitan Police on the operation.

The Home Office, meanwhile, told parliament it had eight officials working on Pelican. The Home Office oversees MI5 and the head of the department has to sign off extraditions to most foreign countries. Then home secretary Priti Patel ordered Assange’s extradition to the US in June.

‘Disproportionate cost’

Other government ministries refused to say if they had staff working on Pelican, including the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).

The MoJ is in charge of courts in England and Wales, where Assange’s extradition case is currently deciding whether to hear an appeal. It is also in control of its prisons, including Belmarsh maximum security jail where Assange is incarcerated.

When asked if any of its staff were assigned to Pelican, the MoJ claimed: “The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.”

It is unclear why the Home Office, a bigger department with more staff, could answer such a question, but the MoJ could not. There is no obvious reason why the MoJ would have staff assigned to Pelican, so revelations that it did would cause embarrassment for the government.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Office told parliament it had no staff “directly assigned” to Pelican, but refused to say if people working on the operation were located on its premises.

‘Julian Assange’s Special Brexit Team’

Sir Alan Duncan, foreign minister for the Americas from 2016-19, was the key UK official in the diplomatic negotiations between the UK and Ecuador to get Assange out of the embassy. In his memoirs he wrote that he watched a live-feed of Assange’s arrest from the Operations Room at the top of the Foreign Office alongside Pelican personnel.

After Assange had been imprisoned in Belmarsh, Duncan had a drinks party at his office for the Pelican team. “I gave them each a signed photo which we took in the Ops Room on the day, with a caption saying ‘Julian Assange’s Special Brexit Team 11th April 2019’”, he wrote.

Ecuador’s president from 2007-17, Rafael Correa, recently told Declassified he granted Assange asylum because the Australian journalist “didn’t have any possibility of a fair legal process in the United States.”

He added that the UK government “tried to deal with us like a subordinate country.”

In September 2021, 30 former US officials went on the record to reveal a CIA plot to “kill or kidnap” Assange in London. In case of Assange leaving the embassy, the article noted, “US officials asked their British counterparts to do the shooting if gunfire was required, and the British agreed, according to a former senior administration official.”

These assurances most likely came from the Home Office.

November 29, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

‘Publishing is not a crime’: media groups urge US to drop Julian Assange charges

First outlets to publish WikiLeaks material, including the Guardian, come together to oppose prosecution

Guardian, Jim Waterson Media editor, 28 Nov 22

The US government must drop its prosecution of the WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange because it is undermining press freedom, according to the media organisations that first helped him publish leaked diplomatic cables.

Twelve years ago today, the Guardian, the New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and El País collaborated to release excerpts from 250,000 documents obtained by Assange in the “Cablegate” leak. The material, leaked to WikiLeaks by the then American soldier Chelsea Manning, exposed the inner workings of US diplomacy around the world.

The editors and publishers of the media organisations that first published those revelations have come together to publicly oppose plans to charge Assange under a law designed to prosecute first world war spies.

“Publishing is not a crime,” they said, saying the prosecution is a direct attack on media freedom.

Assange has been held in Belmarsh prison in south London since his arrest at the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2019. He had spent the previous seven years living inside the diplomatic premises to avoid arrest after failing to surrender to a UK court on matters relating to a separate case.

The then UK home secretary, Priti Patel, approved Assange’s extradition to the US in June but his lawyers are appealing against this decision.

Under Barack Obama’s leadership, the US government indicated it would not prosecute Assange for the leak in 2010 because of the precedent it would set. The media outlets are now appealing to the administration of President Joe Biden – who was vice-president at that time – to drop the charges.