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Truth About Tanks: How NATO Lied Its Way to Disaster in Ukraine

Above: Ukrainian soldiers repair a tank January 2023

Sputnik International, Scott Ritter 29 Jan 23

Tank warfare has evolved. The large force-on-force armored battles that were the hallmark of much of WWII, the Arab-Israeli conflicts, which served as the foundation of operational doctrine for both NATO and the Soviet Union (and which was implemented in full by the United States during Operation Desert Storm in 1991), has run its course.

Like most military technological innovations, the ability to make a modern main battle tank survivable has been outstripped by the fielding of defensive systems designed to overcome such defenses. If a modern military force attempted to launch a large-scale tank-dominated attack against a well-equipped peer-level opponent armed with modern anti-tank missiles, the result would be a decisive defeat for the attacking party marked by the smoking hulks of burned-out tanks.

Don’t get me wrong: tanks still have a vital role to play on the modern battlefield. Their status as a mobile bunker is invaluable in the kind of meat-grinder conflicts of attrition that have come to define the current stage of large-scale ground combat. Speed and armor still contribute to survivability, and the main gun of a tank remains one of the deadliest weapons on the modern battlefield.

But the modern tank performs best as part of a combined arms team, supported by infantry (mounted and unmounted) and copious amounts of supporting arms (artillery and close air support.) As part of such a team, especially one that is well-trained in the art of close combat, the tank remains an essential weapon of war. However, if operated in isolation, a tank is simply an expensive mobile coffin.

Much has been made about the recent decision made by NATO and allied nations to provide Western main battle tanks to Ukraine. The politics of this decision is its own separate topic. This article will address the operational practicalities of this decision, namely has the military capability of Ukraine been enhanced through the provision of these new weapons systems.

To answer this question, one needs to examine three basic issues: training, logistical sustainability, and operational employment.

Training

It takes 22 weeks to train a basic American M1 Abrams crewmember. That training just gives the soldier the very basic skill set to be functional. Actual operational expertise is only achieved through months, if not years, of additional training in not just the system itself, but employing it as part of a similarly trained combine arms team………………………………….

Training is expensive. NATO is currently providing Ukraine with three types of Western main battle tank: the British Challenger 2, the German Leopard 2, and the American M1A2. There is no unified training course—each tank requires its own unique training prospectus that is not directly transferable to another system.

The decentralized training processes created by such a diverse approach promotes inefficiencies and generates discrepancies in outcome…………………….

Moreover, these problems will only be enhanced by the emphasis that will be placed on rapid outcomes. The reality is whatever training programs that are developed and delivered by the nations providing the tanks will be insufficient to the task, resulting in poorly trained crews taking extremely complicated weapons systems into the most dangerous environment in the world for a tank—the teeth of a Russian Army designed and equipped to kill these very same tanks.

Logistical Sustainability

Tanks are among the most technically challenging weapons systems on a modern battlefield. They are constantly breaking down, especially if not properly maintained……………………

This means that the tanks that are being provided to Ukraine will need to be returned to NATO nations for any significant repairs of equipment that is damaged through simple usage or actual combat. ……………….

Operational Employment

Ukraine’s commander in chief of the Armed Forces, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, told The Economist last month that he needed 300 tanks, 500 infantry fighting vehicles, and 500 artillery pieces, if he were going to have any chance of defeating Ukraine.

Following the January 20 meeting of the Ramstein Contact Group, and subsequent follow-on discussions about the provision of tanks, NATO and its allied partners have agreed to provide less than 50% of the number of tanks requested, less than 50% of the number of infantry fighting vehicles requested, and less than 20% of the artillery requested.

Moreover, the timetable for delivery of this equipment is staggered incoherently over a period that stretches out for many months, and in some cases extends into the next year. …………..

The truth about tanks is that NATO and its allied nations are making Ukraine weaker, not stronger, by providing them with military systems that are overly complicated to operate, extraordinarily difficult to maintain, and impossible to survive unless employed in a cogent manner while supported by extensive combined arms partners.

The decision to provide Ukraine with Western main battle tanks is, literally, a suicide pact, something those who claim they are looking out for the best interests of Ukraine should consider before it is too late.  https://sputniknews.com/20230128/truth-about-tanks-how-nato-lied-its-way-to-disaster-in-ukraine-1106786081.html

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January 29, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Julian Assange’s Biggest Fight in Notorious Prison Isn’t Over Extradition

NewsWeek, BY SHAUN WATERMAN ON 01/27/23 “…………………………………………….. Assange’s physical and mental health have declined severely during more than a decade in confinement — first sheltering from U.S. authorities in the Ecuadorian embassy in London from 2012-2019, where he lived in two rooms and never left the building, and for the last almost four years, since he was dragged from the embassy by British police in April 2019, in Belmarsh fighting extradition.

…………………… The proceedings in London continue to drag on. It has been more than a year since the High Court cleared the way for his extradition and his appeal was filed in August. But the court continues to weigh it, with no deadline to reach a decision. Even if he loses, there remains the possibility of an appeal to the British Supreme Court, or to the European Court of Human Rights. Assange could be in the U.S. within months, but he might remain in Britain for years.

His family says that with uncertainty about his extradition hanging over him like the sword of Damocles, he has lost weight and become depressed and anxious.

A confinement of uncertain duration

The worst part about the confinement is having no idea when or how he would be able to leave, Stella Assange said. “It is the uncertain duration that makes it so hard to bear … It’s a kind of torture.”…………..

The uncertainty has exacerbated Assange’s physical and mental deterioration, his wife said. In October 2021, during a High Court hearing about his extradition, Assange, attending via video link from Belmarsh, suffered a “transient ischaemic attack” — a mini-stroke. He has been diagnosed with nerve damage and memory problems and prescribed blood thinners.

“He might not survive this,” she said.

As a remand prisoner, not convicted or sentenced, and facing extradition, not prosecution, Assange is an anomaly in Britain’s most secure prison — designed to hold “Category A” inmates such as IRA militants, jihadis and murderers. One of a tiny handful of unconvicted prisoners, prison regulations require him to be treated differently, his wife said.

“He’s supposed to be able to get visits every day, he’s supposed to be able to work on his case,” she said, “But that’s only on paper. The way the prison system works, it is more efficient to treat everyone like a Cat A prisoner rather than to try to adapt the rules for individuals. In reality, that just doesn’t translate at all.” She said Assange is allowed one or two legal visits, and one or two social visits each week.

In between visits, time can stretch. And the isolation has been hard on him……………………………..

Phone calls, his half-brother Gabriel Shipton told Newsweek from Assange’s native Australia, are limited to 10 minutes. “You’ll just be getting into it and click, it’s over.”

Neither the governor’s office at Belmarsh, nor the press office for the British Prison Service, responded to emails requesting responses to detailed questions.

A source of inspiration and power

Assange gets thousands of letters and parcels from all over the world, Stella Assange said, but the authorities interdict banned items, such as books about national security, paintings and other forbidden objects.

His father, John Shipton, told Newsweek from Australia that Assange draws a lot of inspiration and power from the letters that people write to him. During their phone conversations, he will often read snippets or recall memorable letters, Shipton said. “He loves getting them … You can hear him light up a bit” when he talks about them………………………………………… more https://www.newsweek.com/2023/02/10/julian-assanges-biggest-fight-notorious-prison-isnt-over-extradition-1774197.html

January 29, 2023 Posted by | civil liberties, health, Legal | Leave a comment

The Belmarsh Tribunals Demand Justice for Julian Assange

Never before has a publisher been charged under the U.S. Espionage Act. The Assange prosecution poses a fundamental threat to the freedom of speech and a free press.

President Biden, currently embroiled in his own classified document scandal, knows this, and should immediately drop the charges against Julian Assange

JANUARY 26, 2023, By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan  https://www.democracynow.org/2023/1/26/the_belmarsh_tribunals_demand_justice_for

“The first casualty when war comes is truth,” U.S. Senator Hiram W. Johnson of California said in 1929, debating ratification of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, a noble but ultimately failed attempt to ban war. Reflecting on World War I, which ended a decade earlier, he continued, “it begins what we were so familiar with only a brief period ago, this mode of propaganda whereby…people become war hungry in their patriotism and are lied into a desire to fight. We have seen it in the past; it will happen again in the future.”

Time and again, Hiram Johnson has been proven right. Our government’s impulse to control information and manipulate public opinion to support war is deeply ingrained. The past twenty years, dominated by the so-called War on Terror, are no exception. Sophisticated PR campaigns, a compliant mass media and the Pentagon’s pervasive propaganda machine all work together, as public intellectual Noam Chomsky and the late Prof. Ed Herman defined it in the title of their groundbreaking book, “Manufacturing Consent,” borrowing a phrase from Walter Lippman, considered the father of public relations.

One publisher consistently challenging the pro-war narrative pushed by the U.S. government, under both Republican and Democratic presidents, has been the whistleblower website Wikileaks. Wikileaks gained international attention in 2010 after publishing a trove of classified documents leaked from the U.S. military. Included were numerous accounts of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the killing of civilians, and shocking footage of a helicopter gunship in Baghdad slaughtering a dozen civilians, including a Reuters journalist and his driver, on the ground below. Wikileaks titled that video, “Collateral Murder.”

The New York Times and other newspapers partnered with Wikileaks to publish stories based on the leaks. This brought increased attention to the founder and editor-in-chief of Wikileaks, Julian Assange. In December, 2010, two months after release of the Collateral Murder video, then-Vice President Joe Biden, appearing on NBC, said Assange was “closer to being a hi-tech terrorist than the Pentagon papers.” Biden was referring to the 1971 classified document release by Daniel Ellsberg, which revealed years of Pentagon lies about U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam.

With a secret grand jury empanelled in Virginia, Assange, then in London, feared being arrested and extradited to the United States. Ecuador granted Assange political asylum. Unable to make it to Latin America, he sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He lived inside the small, apartment-sized embassy for almost seven years. In April 2019, after a new Ecuadorian president revoked Assange’s asylum, British authorities arrested him and locked him up in London’s notorious Belmarsh Prison, often called “Britain’s Guantánamo.” He has been held there, in harsh conditions and in failing health, for almost four years, as the U.S. government seeks his extradition to face espionage and other charges. If extradited and convicted in the U.S., Assange faces 175 years in a maximum-security prison.

While the Conservative-led UK government seems poised to extradite Assange, a global movement has grown demanding his release. The Progressive International, a global pro-democracy umbrella group, has convened four assemblies since 2020 called The Belmarsh Tribunals. Named after the 1966 Russell-Sartre Tribunal on the Vietnam War, convened by philosophers Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sarte, The Belmarsh Tribunal has assembled some of the world’s most prominent, progressive activists, artists, politicians, dissidents, human rights attorneys and whistleblowers, all speaking in defense of Julian Assange and Wikileaks.

We are bearing witness to a travesty of justice,” Jeremy Corbyn, a British Member of Parliament and a former leader of the Labour Party, said at the tribunal. “To an abuse of human rights, to a denial of freedom of somebody who bravely put himself on the line that we all might know that the innocent died in Abu Ghraib, the innocent died in Afghanistan, the innocent are dying in the Mediterranean, and innocents die all over the world, where unwatched, unaccountable powers decide it’s expedient and convenient to kill people who get in the way of whatever grand scheme they’ve got. We say no. That’s why we are demanding justice for Julian Assange.”

Corbyn is joined in his call by The New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais and Der Spiegel–major newspapers that published articles based on the leaked documents. “Publishing is not a crime,” the newspapers declared.

Never before has a publisher been charged under the U.S. Espionage Act. The Assange prosecution poses a fundamental threat to the freedom of speech and a free press. President Biden, currently embroiled in his own classified document scandal, knows this, and should immediately drop the charges against Julian Assange.

January 29, 2023 Posted by | civil liberties, legal, media, USA | Leave a comment

Clear and present danger- Ukraine’s reactors remain at risk

Grossi and others insist that the nuclear plants themselves are not the problem. “It’s very simple, the problem in Ukraine and in Russia is they are at war. The problem is not nuclear energy,” he told the BBC in an interview.

Except that it IS the nuclear plants that are the problem. After all, if Ukraine was powered by renewables and not nuclear plants, this wouldn’t even be an issue.

Bombardments in Ukraine keep reactors in the crosshairs

Ukraine’s reactors remain at risk as one-year anniversary of war looms

Clear and present danger, Beyond Nuclear, By Linda Pentz Gunter 29 Jan 23

A year ago, even before Russia invaded Ukraine, we ran our first article about the very real dangers of commercial nuclear power plants being caught up in a war.

A year later, we can thank only luck that what we predicted could happen, hasn’t.  And the pinnacle — or, more accurately, nadir — of that “could” would be a catastrophic attack resulting in a major radioactive release.

Since the war began, the 15 Ukraine reactors situated at four sites, along with the defunct Chornobyl nuclear plant, have been at the center of media attention, once again bringing to light the inherent and extreme dangers of nuclear power plants at any time, let alone during an armed conflict. And, on a few occasions, all of those sites have also been in the crosshairs of actual fighting, most notably the six-reactor Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest both in Ukraine and all of Europe.

Despite pleadings by the International Atomic Energy Agency and its director, Rafael Grossi, not to engage in combat close to the nuclear plants, no effective deterrent or peaceful protective measure has been found or implemented, even as the IAEA continues to urge the creation of safe zones around the nuclear sites.

Grossi and others insist that the nuclear plants themselves are not the problem. “It’s very simple, the problem in Ukraine and in Russia is they are at war. The problem is not nuclear energy,” he told the BBC in an interview.

Except that it IS the nuclear plants that are the problem. After all, if Ukraine was powered by renewables and not nuclear plants, this wouldn’t even be an issue. As an Austrian government briefing paper, collected under “Fairy tales by the nuclear lobby,” said: “A ‘successful’ attack on a nuclear power plant in densely populated Europe would have radiological and economic consequences far beyond those experienced after Chernobyl or Fukushima. So far, no terrorist attacks on wind turbines or solar panels have been reported.”

An attack or other precipitating events caused by the war in Ukraine, could still result in such a disaster. Sadly, with the war raging on, nothing has really changed since the February 24, 2022 invasion.

Since it’s the most dangerous, being the largest, and also the closest to the worst of the fighting, let’s take Zaporizhzhia as our test case. 

There are approximately 200 different radioactive isotopes contained in any given nuclear reactor and its waste inventories. Zaporizhzhia houses at least 2,204 tons of highly radioactive waste within the reactors and the irradiated fuel pools, according to a March 2022 Greenpeace analysis, looking at 2017 figures, the latest data available. At least 855 tons of those wastes are in the pools. The quantities are so high because the reactors have been in operation for several decades. The first unit came on line in 1985, the sixth in 1996.

Among those 200 isotopes are iodine-131, which attacks the thyroid, cesium-134 that accumulates in muscle and strontium-90 which acts like calcium in the body and is easily incorporated into bone. Since all reactors also make plutonium-239 — with a half-life of 24,000 years — as part of the fission process, it, too, could be propelled into the environment. As an alpha-emitting particle, it is most dangerous when inhaled, attacking lungs, kidneys and other organs.

As we have written frequently at Beyond Nuclear since our first article appeared and the Russian war on Ukraine followed, there are a number of scenarios that could precipitate such a catastrophe. It could involve a full or partial reactor meltdown, an irradiated fuel pool fire or hydrogen explosion, or a breach of the radioactive waste storage casks.

The specific scenarios for this are described with essential detail and great clarity in the special section on “Nuclear Power and War” in the 2022 edition of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report.

“Unlike all other types of power plants, the safety of a nuclear power plant depends on continuously functioning cooling systems,” the WNISR authors write in the chapter introduction. “The physical reason for this is the radioactive decay of the fission products and transuranic elements produced by neutron capture on uranium. During this decay, considerable amounts of heat are generated, so-called decay heat. If it is not continuously removed by cooling, this leads to strong heat buildup, which can cause melting, fires, or other events that can cause major releases of radioactive materials. During operation and directly after a reactor shutdown, cooling requirements are particularly high.”

This also means that even when the reactors are shut down, as at least four have been at Zaporizhzhia, they are not out of danger. And the fuel pools present the greatest threat, as the radioactive waste inventory they contain is more radioactive than the fresh fuel before it is loaded into the reactor.

But it need not take a full blown attack to cause at least some of these disastrous outcomes. It could be as simple as a loss of power, or human error. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

As we ponder this in the context of the perils of war, we must also remember that war just makes this outcome [a Chornobyl type disaster] more likely. A major nuclear disaster is still possible — and even probable — on a daily basis at any nuclear power plant anywhere and at any time. Loss of power and human error remain key causes, along with violent weather events — occurrences that will continue to become more frequent and more severe as the climate crisis worsens. Sabotage and terrorism are an ever-present possibility as well.

This means that striving for the unrealistic goal, as the IAEA does, of ensuring nuclear reactors are not caught up in a war zone, doesn’t make us all that much safer. Only the complete elimination of nuclear power as an energy source will achieve that. 

Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and curates Beyond Nuclear International.  https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/01/29/clear-and-present-danger/

January 29, 2023 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

In Just Under Three Weeks, Ukrainian-Fired Prohibited “Petal” Mines Maim At Least 44 Civilians, Kill 2, in Donetsk Region

Covert Action Magazine, By Eva Bartlett, August 23, 2022 Excellent photographs

Ukraine continues to fire internationally-banned anti-personnel mines on civilian areas of Donetsk and other cities in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), in violation of international law and of the mine ban convention Ukraine signed in 1999 and ratified in 2005.

Since July 27, Ukraine has been firing rockets containing cluster munitions filled with banned PFM-1 “Petal” (or “Butterfly”) anti-personnel mines all over Donetsk and surrounding areas. Each rocket contains over 300 of the mines. Already by August 3, the DPR’s Ministry of Emergency Situations noted that Ukraine had fired several thousand of the prohibited mines on Donetsk.

As of August 15, 44 civilians, including two children, have suffered gruesome injuries. Another mine victim died in hospital.

Some days ago, such mines grotesquely maimed a 15 year old boy in Donetsk.

Younger children don’t know that the mines aren’t toys, and elderly often simply don’t see them, or likewise don’t understand the danger, as was the case with an elderly lady with dementia who, on August 8, lost a foot as a result of stepping on a mine while she was going to work in her garden plot.

Tiny but powerful, these insidious mines are designed not to kill but to tear off feet or hands. Their design allows them to float to the ground without exploding, where they easily blend in with most settings and generally lie dormant until stepped on or otherwise disturbed.

According to Konstantin Zhukov, Chief Medical Officer of Donetsk Ambulance Service, a weight of just 2 kg is enough to activate one of the mines. Sometimes, however, they explode spontaneously. An unspoken tragedy on top of the already tragic targeting of civilians is that dogs, cats, birds and other animals are also victims of these dirty mines.

In the grass, or surprisingly even on sidewalks and streets, it is very easy to overlook them or mistake them for a leaf. Even when I’ve seen such mines marked with warning signs or circled, it still took me quite a bit to actually see them.

In its relentless deploying of these mines, Ukraine has targeted all over Donetsk, as well as Makeevka to the east and Yasinovataya to the north. Ukraine has fired them elsewhere, including the hard-hit northern DPR city of Gorlovka, as well as regions in the Lugansk People’s Republic in previous months.

In fact, according to DPR authorities, Ukraine began using the mines in March, during battles for Mariupol, and in May was already firing them into DPR settlements. Also in early May, while in Rubiznhe in the Lugansk People’s Republic, I was warned that Ukraine had been littering nearby areas with the mines, something confirmed by locals when I went to nearby Sievierodonetsk on August 12.

Ukraine turns Donetsk into a minefield

I first saw the Ukrainian-fired mines on July 30, in Kirovskiy, western Donetsk, just days after Ukraine began showering the city with them.

Mine clearance sappers had isolated mines scattered in a field, to detonate after they had destroyed mines in the courtyard of an apartment complex. Amidst the tall grass, wild plants and garden plots, the mines would have been impossible for a non-sapper to spot, and very easy to disturb and lose a foot or hand in doing so.

Although I’d been assured that sappers had cleared the path, I still watched every step I took. And generally for the duration of my time in the DPR, I looked down while walking, watching for mines that could have been moved by wind or rain.

Behind a wall at one end of the apartment complex courtyard, sapper timer-detonated the eight mines they’d found scattered around the playground, lanes and walkways.

That evening, Ukraine fired more rockets with petal mines at Donetsk, this time targeting the centre of the city. People driving in the streets unknowingly set some off.

On a central Donetsk street the next morning, I saw a grouping of seven mines on a curbside, gathered either by sappers or some courageous local, with warnings to pedestrians and drivers of their presence.

They were so plentiful that marking them however possible was the only way to mitigate the immediate danger of someone randomly stepping or driving over them until they could be neutralized by the sappers……………………………………………………………

Media Claims Russia is Laying the Mines

As with most of its war crimes against the civilians of the Donbass, Ukraine and NATO media invert reality and claim Russia is the guilty party. They cry crocodile tears for the Donetsk children Ukraine has targeted, also disingenuously claiming the now-famous video of a DPR soldier detonating a mine by throwing a tire at it was a Ukrainian soldier demining Russian-fired mines.

The notion that Russia would explode mines over the city is not a reality-based idea. Most of the population are ethnic Russians, a significant number who now happily hold Russian citizenship. And further, it is Russian and DPR sappers putting themselves at risk to clear the streets, walks and fields of the mines.

In fact, a 21 year old DPR sapper lost a foot to such mine. Director of the Department of Fire and Rescue Forces of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Colonel Sergey Neka, told me of his injury: “After the cleansing of territories from explosive objects, returning back to the transport, a mine fell from the building, as a result of which it exploded under his feet and he lost his foot.”

In Makeevka, Igor Goncharov, the Chief Physician of the bombarded orphanage, spoke to me about his anger that Ukraine was targeting the property, insisting it had been deliberate, that since 2001 the orphanage was well-known to various international organizations, as well as Kiev, because, “It was the only one specialized in HIV.”

According to him, “American law allowed the adoption of HIV-positive children, so the United States was the only state that adopted HIV-infected children, so we were well known both within Ukraine and the Russian Federation and abroad. When they shoot, they know where they shoot,” he said of Ukraine.

“I think that this is not just inhumane, it is without morality, without conscience and without honour.”

I asked him to address Ukrainian and Western claims that it was Russia which deployed the mines, Russia which is shelling Donetsk and surrounding areas, knowing full well any average local resident could likewise easily debunk the claims.

“Even without being educated in military matters, it’s easy to localize the craters. Which way they are located indicates which side they were sent from. We know perfectly well where they shoot from. It’s all from Peski, Avdeevka, Nevelskoye. You can hear the crash and the whistle coming first. Ballistics can be defined. All the shelling comes from the Ukrainian side, it is unambiguous.”

Even without that logical thinking, let’s recall that Ukraine has been committing war crimes in the Donbass for over eight years, violating the Minsk Accords signed in 2014 and 2015. That Ukraine would use Petal mines from its enormous stockpile, after already shelling and sniping civilians, it not at all out of the question.

Ukrainian nationalists openly declare they view Russians as sub-human. School books teach this warped ideology. Videos show the extent of this mentality: teaching children not only to also hate Russians and see them as not humans, but also brainwashing them to believe killing Donbass residents is acceptable. The Ukrainian government itself funds Neo-Nazi-run indoctrination camps for youths.

As mentioned at the start, Ukraine signed the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, under which Ukraine was obliged to destroy its 6 million stock of the mines. However, reportedly, its stockpile remains over 3.3 million such mines.

The convention, “prohibits the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel landmines (APLs).” Further, as outlined, Ukraine is, “in violation of Article 5 of the Mine Ban Treaty due to missing its 1 June 2016 clearance deadline without having requested and being granted an extension.”

Ukraine’s firing of rockets containing these mines is against international law and the Geneva Conventions. Ukraine is specifically targeting civilian areas with them. It is pure terrorism. And it is another Ukrainian war crime in a very long list of war crimes stretching back over eight years.  https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/08/23/in-just-under-three-weeks-ukrainian-fired-prohibited-petal-mines-maim-at-least-44-civilians-kill-2-in-donetsk-region/

January 29, 2023 Posted by | Reference, secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Cracking Under Pressure: Inside the Race to Fix France’s Nuclear Plants

Macron’s government wants to help EDF build six new large reactors and begin preparatory studies on another eight units by 2050.

But building 14 new reactors is “absolutely not within EDF’s reach with its current balance sheet,” said Celine Cherubin, a senior credit officer at Moody’s Investors Service………..

“The plan to fix seven safety cooling systems in 2023 is “not the end of the story,”… “It’s possible that we have to carry long and complex works. I think that 2023, ’24 and ’25 will continue to entail issues related to the stress corrosion.”

Yahoo News, Francois De Beaupuy, Sat, January 28, With assistance from Samuel Dodge and Patricia Suzara.

(Bloomberg) — Behind layers of security and a thick concrete wall, a team of welders work in shifts to fix the crippled Penly nuclear plant in northern France. Sweating under protective gear, they’re replacing cracked pipes in the emergency cooling system which protects against a reactor meltdown.

Each weld takes at least three days to complete, with workers often on their knees or backs to reach for the correct angle. Even in radiation suits, health regulations limit work in that environment to a maximum 40 hours a year.

The complicated procedures, replicated across sites this winter, have hampered the ability of Electricite de France SA to get its reactors back online after lengthy shutdowns.

Deadlines have slipped. The two Penly reactors were scheduled to be back online this month and next. Instead, EDF has been forced to delay the restarts to May and June.

“These are complex situations, in a noisy and radioactive environment,” Laurent Marquis, a manager at Altrad Group-Endel which is coordinating the repairs for EDF at Penly, said last month, before the restarts were pushed back. “Workers can sometimes only hold their position for just a few minutes before they need to be replaced.”

The power station, below a cliff on France’s northern coast, normally provides electricity for about 3.6 million households. Its two reactors have been, in effect, grounded by faulty plumbing — the same cracked pipes first discovered by EDF at another plant in late 2021. That reactor, at Civaux in central France, only came back online on Wednesday after extensive repairs.

The discoveries plunged the operator into a crisis with repercussions for all of Europe. EDF called it an “annus horribilis,” and from early May to late October, about half of its 56 reactors sat idle due to the repair and maintenance backlog.

It flipped France from Europe’s biggest electricity exporter into a net importer last year, just as the continent needed it more than ever. After gas imports from Russia dried up, energy prices soared, governments spent billions helping consumers with their bills and Europe was threatened with shortages and blackouts.

So far, Europe has avoided the worst-case scenario, thanks to efforts to conserve energy and a relatively mild winter that reduced heating demand

But the crisis is far from over, and EDF needs to find a way to avoid a repeat next winter. That challenge — finding problems, fixing them, doing checks — is already a mammoth task, and it’s being compounded by financial issues and staff shortages………………………………………………………….

By May, the utility had concluded that 16 of its reactors had pipes more prone to stress corrosion. Significantly, they were actually the group’s newest reactors, where the French nuclear plant builder Framatome — a unit of EDF — had modified the original Westinghouse Electric Co. design used for the 40 older units………………………………….

EDF has a history of missed maintenance deadlines, which an external audit published in June blamed on inadequate management of data, staff shortfalls and inexperienced teams in charge of turnarounds.


The company is still trying to figure out the speed at which cracks progress through pipes once they appear, meaning it faces tighter, more frequent monitoring of its reactors. Future setbacks can’t be ruled out.

The plan to fix seven safety cooling systems in 2023 is “not the end of the story,” Cedric Lewandowski, EDF’s senior executive vice-president for nuclear and thermal production, said at a parliamentary hearing this month. “It’s possible that we have to carry long and complex works. I think that 2023, ’24 and ’25 will continue to entail issues related to the stress corrosion.”

If that caps nuclear output, that means less power for France, and less to export to Europe.

Compounding the pipe issues is the broader maintenance work needed on what’s an aging fleet. Most of EDF’s reactors were built from the late 70s to the mid-90s, and now require longer down time. The utility wants to coincide the corrosion repairs with the other halts to maintain production, Lewandowski said.

On top of that, the utility is still repairing 122 faulty welds at a new flagship reactor in Flamanville in Normandy, which it wants to commission in the first half of 2024. The project is already over a decade behind schedule, and about €10 billion over budget.

All of which raises significant questions for EDF and the French government……………..

Macron’s government wants to help EDF build six new large reactors and begin preparatory studies on another eight units by 2050.

But building 14 new reactors is “absolutely not within EDF’s reach with its current balance sheet,” said Celine Cherubin, a senior credit officer at Moody’s Investors Service………………………..

The bigger question is whether EDF and the government can now reverse the sense of decline in France’s nuclear industry.

January 29, 2023 Posted by | France, safety | Leave a comment

The dirty secret of US nuclear energy

JOHN GREEN recommends an exposé of dangerous malpractice at the oldest and largest nuclear site in the US

Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America
By Joshua Frank

A DESCRIPTION of Hanford in Washington state — the place where the US stores much of its plutonium waste — sounds like something out of a dystopian novel by Kurt Vonnegut.

The town of Richland, a stone’s throw from Hanford’s boundary fence and where many of the workers’ families live, is an odd place. No rich mineral deposits, no surrounding agricultural landscape, no ski slopes or well-heeled tourists.

Richland was established by the atom bomb project and celebrates that history. The local pub is called Atomic Ale Brewpub. It showcases beers like Plutonium Porter, half-life Hefeweizen and Atom Bustin’ IPA.

The local school coat of arms boasts an exploding mushroom cloud. There is “a fervent mystifying patriotism” running deep in Richland, says Frank. The town also boasts more PhDs than any similar sized town in the state but voted overwhelmingly for Trump in recent elections.

Hanford’s B reactor has been designated a National Historic Landmark and was the first full scale plutonium production plant in the world. Those acting as guides do not appear to reflect on its legacy or suggest, perhaps, a moment of silence for the victims of nuclear bombs; for them it is a reason to rejoice at the ingenuity and superiority of the US war machine

Atomic Days reads at times like a political thriller, involving government lying and cover-ups, corruption, private-sector rapaciousness, spying on union “troublemakers” or anyone concerned about health and safety, and even the attempted murder of a whistleblower. There is no transparency and little accountability.

Many Hanford workers and their families have suffered serious illness as a result of radioactive contamination, from hyperthyroidism to miscarriages, disabilities and cancers, and numbers of unexplained deaths.

All this has been largely ignored by the national media, despite the fact that Hanford poses not only a danger to local people but to the whole country.

While focusing on Hanford, Frank encompasses the nuclear story on a global scale, from the US army injecting unsuspecting human guinea-pigs with plutonium in the 1940s, to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Chernobyl, Fukushima and the air crash over Spain involving nuclear weapons, to the legacy of nuclear bomb testing.

During the Cold War, the project expanded to include nine nuclear reactors and five large plutonium processing complexes, the last of which was decommissioned in 1987.

Once home to the US largest plutonium production site, the Hanford Nuclear complex is laced with 56 million gallons of radioactive waste. There have been numerous releases of radioactive isotopes into the ground water and into the atmosphere, but it has all been shrouded in secrecy. Today, the EPA has designated Hanford the most toxic place in America; it is also the most expensive environmental clean-up job the world has ever seen, with a soaring price tag of £553 billion.

At present, Hanford’s radioactive waste is stored in 177 waste tanks, 149 of them with just a single wall. The facility sits over a huge aquifer, above which 53 million gallons of radioactive and chemically hazardous waste are stored in leaky underground tanks.

These tanks are well past their life expectancy and full of boiling radioactive gunk. They are leaking, infecting groundwater supplies and threatening the nearby Columbia River. It also sits on around 750,000 cubic metres of buried solid waste, spent nuclear fuel and leftover plutonium.

The threat of an explosive accident at Hanford is all too real and could be more catastrophic than Chernobyl. There have already been numerous accidents, mostly unregistered and unknown to the public. It is one of the most radioactive wastelands on Earth.

It used to be home to several indigenous groups who once fished in the fish-rich Columbia River and hunted the deer and other animals in the surrounding woods. They were resettled from their ancestral lands once the US government determined to use the land to build the biggest plutonium production plant and waste dump in the country.

Frank’s chilling account should certainly disabuse the illusions of anyone out there who still views nuclear energy as a means of producing clean energy and saving the planet.

Joshua Frank is co-editor of the radical magazine, Counterpunch.

January 29, 2023 Posted by | culture and arts, media, safety, USA, wastes | 1 Comment

Putin ready for war with NATO and U.S.? Russia plans renewed offensive in Feb over tanks aid.

27 Jan 2023 Russia has warned U.S.-led West and NATO against escalating the conflict in Ukraine. Russian Deputy Ambassador to the OSCE Maxim Buyakevich said that the U.S. and NATO have approached a dangerous line on the way to a full-scale military conflict in Europe after the U.S. and Germany agreed to send modern battle tanks to Ukraine. “Their deliberate actions to escalate the military confrontation in Ukraine, provoking the regime to military action against the population of Russia with the use of Western heavy weapons and targeting based on NATO intelligence is a direct path to a full-scale military conflict in Europe, from which absolutely all residents of our continent will definitely lose.” said Buyakevich at the meeting of the OSCE Post Council. Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing for a new offensive in Ukraine, which will be launched next month. Watch this video for more.

January 29, 2023 Posted by | Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Missing radioactive capsule: Western Australia officials admit it was weeks before anyone realised it was lost

Fire and Emergency Services official says capsule left Rio Tinto mine site on 10 January but was not found missing for 15 days

Guardian, Mostafa Rachwani, 28 Jan 23

Western Australian authorities are scrambling to find a missing radioactive capsule that is a fraction of the size of a 10c coin, conceding it was not found missing until more than two weeks after it left a Rio Tinto mine site.

The 8mm by 6mm capsule is a 19-gigabecquerel caesium 137 ceramic source, commonly used in radiation gauges, and was supposed to be contained in a secure device which had been “damaged” on a truck which travelled from the mine site north of Newman in the Pilbara to a depot in Perth.

Authorities are now searching along the 1,400km stretch of the Great Northern Highway for the capsule, which they warn can cause skin burns, radiation sickness and cancer.

At a news conference on Saturday, Darryl Ray, the acting superintendent for Western Australia’s Department of Fire and Emergency Services, said authorities were largely searching for the capsule at “strategic sites”.

He said an incident management team including the Department of Health and police had been formed.

“We have continued the search on strategic sites along the route that the vehicle had taken, concentrating on sites close to high-population areas within the metropolitan suburbs,” he said. “The search involves the use of radiation survey meters to detect the radiation levels which will help us locate the small device.

“What we are not doing is trying to find a tiny little device by eyesight. We are using the radiation detectors to locate the gamma rays, using the meters, that will help us then locate the small device.

“We have secured the GPS data from the trucking company to determine the exact route and stops that the vehicle has taken on its journey.

“We will continue to use specialist equipment to help us search the remaining known locations … in particular, the Great Northern Highway between Perth and Newman.”

The WA chief health officer, Andrew Robertson, said there were screws missing from the protective gauge holding the capsule when it was discovered missing.

“These gauges are designed to be robust and to be used in industrial settings where they may be exposed to weather and vibration, so it is unusual for a gauge to come apart like this one has,” Robertson said.

“We are conducting an investigation on all of the circumstances from when it was originally transported from the mine site, the whole of the transport route, and then its handling on arrival in Perth.”

Robertson urged anyone who found the capsule not to handle it.

“People could end up developing redness of the skin and eventually burns of the skin from the beta radiation,” he said. “If it were kept long enough and they were exposed long enough, they could also have some acute effects, including impacts on their immune system and the gastrointestinal system.”

Robertson said the capsule was “most dangerous if it is handled or if it is close to the body”.

“If you are further than five metres away from the source, certainly if you are more than 20 metres away from the source, it will pose no danger to you,” he said. “If it is closer than that, and we strongly discourage people from picking it up, certainly don’t put it in your pocket or put it in your car, don’t put it on your sideboard, it will continue to radiate.

“While you may not have immediate health effects, they can occur relatively rapidly over a short period of time if it is close to the body………………

Robertson said officials did not know the date the capsule fell off the truck.

Ray said the capsule was placed on to the pallet on 10 January at the mine site, transited and arrived at the radiation service company in Malaga on 16 January.

“It was not until the 25th, late morning, when they opened it up to reveal that the device had fallen apart, was damaged in transit, and that the actual capsule was discovered missing, which is when authorities were first notified.” ………… more https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/28/missing-radioactive-capsule-wa-officials-admit-it-was-weeks-before-anyone-realised-it-was-lost

January 29, 2023 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, incidents | Leave a comment

‘The day the desert wind cried’: French nuclear tests cast long shadow in Libyan Sahara

Middle East Eye, By Samira Elsaidi,  29 January 2023

Between 1960 and 1966, France detonated 17 bombs in the Algerian Sahara. In neighbouring Libya, the deadly effects are felt to this day

“I search for words that do not exist. My father passed away on the day the desert wind cried, and his absence is still there, like a loud mute cry, like a void that words cannot fill.” 

Abed Alfitory is 64-years old now. But he still remembers his father’s death and the events that led to it.

Alfitory is from Fezzan, the largely desert region of southwestern Libya. It is here, deep in the Sahara, that he spent 20 years collecting material for his book Desert Cry, motivated by the loss of his father’s sight in 1960 and his death a few years later.

Speaking to Middle East Eye from his home in al-Zighan, the professor of philosophy at Sabha university told Middle East Eye that his childhood had come at a great cost, that he struggled amidst hard conditions and that he had been haunted by his father’s blindness.

Later, Alfitory discovered what had caused his father’s condition. He learnt, too, that he was not alone.

Many people in Fezzan had been struck down by respiratory diseases and ophthalmia in 1960. The acute eye infection was so prevalent then that it became known as the “year of ophthalmia”.

This was followed by the “year of smallpox”, the “year of the yellow wind” and the “year of gnawing”. The people of the Fezzan began to get cancer in greater numbers. Acid rain fell. The land was afflicted. What had happened? 

Explosions in the Sahara 

On 13 February 1960, France conducted its first nuclear test at Reggane, an oasis town in southern Algeria. The war for the North African country’s independence had been ongoing since 1954 and French President Charles de Gaulle was keen to show the world that France belonged at the top table of military powers.

To that end, the first French atomic bomb, named Gerboise Bleue after the blue of the tricolour flag and a small desert animal in the Sahara, was detonated in the Algerian desert. It released over four times the amount of energy as that of the US bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

A few months later, as Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was in France for an official visit, a second French bomb was detonated in the Sahara.

Between 1960 and 1966, four years after Algeria gained its independence, France detonated 17 bombs in the Sahara, including four in the atmosphere near Reggane. Witnesses to the tests described them as the most brutal thing they’d ever seen in their lives.

Four underground explosions in the Algerian Sahara “were not totally contained or confined”, according to a French parliamentary report.

Most famous of these was the Beryl incident, during which nine soldiers and a number of local Tuareg villagers were heavily contaminated by radioactivity.

The impact of France’s nuclear testing programme in Algeria was immediate and has been ongoing.

Following the first explosion in 1960, radioactive fallout landed in newly independent Ghana and in Nigeria, which was in its last days as a British colony.

Secret defence documents cited by Le Parisien in 2014 revealed that much larger areas than had been claimed by the government had been affected.

In fact, contrary to Paris’s assertions, radiation from the first bomb alone had covered a region that ran from Algeria to Libya to Mauritania and on to Mali and Nigeria. The impact even reached as far north as Spain and Italy…………………………………… more https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/france-libya-algeria-nuclear-tests-still-haunt-desert-cried

January 29, 2023 Posted by | AFRICA, PERSONAL STORIES, weapons and war | Leave a comment

NATO’s ‘war against Russia’ inches ‘closer to direct conflict’

After all, it is mainly Ukrainians paying the price of the “war against Russia” fueled from afar.

“We are fighting a war against Russia,” the German Foreign Minister says, as the US and Germany authorize tank shipments, and new dangers, in the Ukraine proxy war.

Aaron Mate Substack 29 Jan 23

Since the first week of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron has repeated a mantra on behalf of his NATO partners: “We are not at war with Russia.”

Nearly one year in, that notion has officially been dispelled.  

“We are fighting a war against Russia,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said this week.

Baerbock was trying to assuage NATO allies’ frustration over German reluctance to send Leopard 2 tanks into Ukraine. She can now claim vindication. In a reversal of its initial position, the German government has announced it that will deliver Leopard 2 tanks to the Ukrainian army.

To overcome German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s jitters, the White House engaged in an about-face of its own, approving the shipment of 31 US-made M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. …………………………………………………..

As Gen. Mark Milley learned when he came out in favor of diplomacy with Russia to end the fighting, the Pentagon’s outlook is no match for Washington’s proxy war fever. The White House reversed course, Politico notes, after “a parade of Democrats and Republicans” in Congress “pressured the Biden administration to grant Berlin’s request to send U.S. tanks first.” ……………………………

When President Biden overruled the Pentagon and unveiled the M1 approval, Austin stood by his side. “These tanks are further evidence of our enduring, unflagging commitment to Ukraine and our confidence in the skill of Ukrainian forces,” Biden declared.

Yet the publicly trumpeted US tank shipment comes with a quietly disclosed delay.

The M1s are “probably not for the near fight,” and in fact “are not likely to arrive for many months, if not years,” a US official told the Washington Post………………..

At this stage, NATO has pledged at least 105 tanks for Ukraine, well short of the 300 tanks that the head of Ukraine’s armed forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, has said are “urgent needs” to turn the tide………………………………………..

The F-16’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, is happy to oblige. Lockheed will be “ramping production on F-16s… to get to the place where we will be able to backfill pretty capably any countries that choose to do third party transfers to help with the current conflict,” Frank St. John, the military giant’s chief contracting officer, told the Financial Times. According to European officials, talks on such transfers are at an “early stage.”

Just as the prospect of diplomacy with Moscow is off-limits to Western policymakers, so is serious consideration of Russia’s response. The more advanced NATO weaponry pours in, the more that Russia will play its part in “permanent escalation”

Whatever the impact of the German tank shipments on the battlefield, their utility is not strictly military. By convincing Germany to send tanks for battle with Russian forces, the White House is advancing a goal that long predates the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine: undermine ties between Germany, Western Europe’s biggest power, and neighboring Russia, the United States’ biggest adversary.

……………………………………………………………………………………… “maintaining a powerful wedge between Germany and Russia is of overwhelming interest to the United States.”

………………………… Before Scholz caved to their pressure campaign, US officials noted that the German Chancellor “does not believe the world is ready to see German tanks near the borders of Russia, a reminder of the Nazi invasion in World War II,” according to the New York Times. Although the Times no longer allows itself to acknowledge it, there is another fraught historical irony: Germany is now sending tanks to a Ukrainian military that has formally incorporated what the Paper of Record once described as the “openly neo-Nazi” Azov Battalion.

……………………………. In seeking to force Germany to send its tanks into battle with Russia, the US wants Germany “to draw Russia’s counterfire,” German parliamentarian Sevim Dağdelen writes. “One cannot escape the impression that it is hoped a possible counterstrike would hit Berlin first and foremost. The United States would thus have achieved one of its long-term strategic objectives, namely to prevent cooperation between Germany and Russia for ever.” US officials, Dağdelen warns, are “forcing their ally, like a vassal, to sacrifice itself.”

Dağdelen’s characterization of the US use of Germany applies to Ukraine as well. According to Der Spiegel, Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) is “alarmed by the high losses of the Ukrainian army in the battle for the strategically important city of Bakhmut,” where a “three-digit number” of Ukrainian soldiers are losing their lives daily. Russia’s capture of Bakhmut, the BND warns, “would have significant consequences, as it would allow Russia to make further forays into the interior of the country.” Russian advances on Bakhmut follow a 300,000-plus troop mobilization that has “appeared to tilt the calculus of attrition in Moscow’s favor,” the Wall Street Journal notes.

Perhaps the coming influx of NATO tanks will reverse that trend. If not, the proxy war’s NATO architects can point to other victories: Russian forces depleted, Berlin-Moscow ties severed, and US dominance of NATO strengthened. After all, it is mainly Ukrainians paying the price of the “war against Russia” fueled from afar.  https://mate.substack.com/p/natos-war-against-russia-inches-closer?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=100118&post_id=98811692&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

January 29, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel appears to have been behind drone strike on Iran factory, U.S. official says

By Parisa Hafezi and Phil Stewart Reuters 2023-01-28 

A loud blast was heard at a military plant in Iran’s central city of Isfahan, but a security official said there were no casualties, Iranian state broadcaster IRIB said on its website early on Sunday.

“The explosion took place in one of the munitions manufacturing centres of the Defence Ministry and according to an announcement by the political and security deputy head of Isfahan Governorate there were no casualties,” IRIB reported, without giving further details…….  https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/blast-heard-military-plant-irans-central-city-isfahan-state-media-2023-01-28/

January 29, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

AP: NATO powers, Ukraine in “fast-track” talks for long-range missiles, warplanes — Anti-bellum

Associated PressJanuary 28, 2023 Ukraine: ‘Fast-track’ talks underway for missiles, planes Ukraine and its Western allies are engaged in “fast-track” talks on the possibility of equipping the invaded country with long-range missiles and military aircraft, a top Ukrainian presidential aide said Saturday. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Ukraine’s supporters in […]

AP: NATO powers, Ukraine in “fast-track” talks for long-range missiles, warplanes — Anti-bellum

January 29, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

King Charles wants to honour nuclear test heroes but medals are being delayed by MoD red tape

King Charles wants Britain’s nuclear test heroes honoured before his coronation, but the MoD is accused of creating “unreasonable delay”

Mirror, By Susie Boniface. Reporter , 27 Jan 2023

King Charles wants to give a medal to Britain’s nuclear test heroes within months – but Ministry of Defence red tape could hold up the process for at least a year.

The King has told friends he has pencilled in a full “investiture” type ceremony in April, before his coronation.

But two months after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a gong for victims of the Cold War radiation experiments, civil servants say it will take more than a year for the design of the medal to be signed off.

Alan Owen, whose dad died after witnessing 24 bombs in 78 days, said: ““It beggars belief that this country can organise a coronation in 8 months but we’ve been told it will take even longer to do one, simple, medal.

“It took them 70 years to get around to asking the monarch for what we should have had on day one. They know how to make medals, this is just another unreasonable delay by the MoD so that there are as few veterans as possible left to collect it.”

A source close to the King said: “His Majesty is taking a close interest in the issue of nuclear test veterans, and wants to see some form of official ceremony as soon as possible.

“He recognises that those who can be given it are not going to be around for long.

“His staff have pencilled in something for April, depending on approval from government.”…………………………………………….

The Mirror has campaigned for official recognition on their behalf for 40 years, and last year saw the first sign of change when the PM finally asked the King to approve a medal.

Cabinet Office staff have told campaigners that “the usual process” for medal design and delivery is handled by the MoD medal office according to “set procedures”.

It is understood they are still working out criteria, with no date for inviting applications, or for it to be made by the Royal Mint…………………………………….

Mr Sunak also promised a face-to-face meeting with veterans to discuss war pension reform, education packages, and missing records on nuked blood. Despite No10 acknowledging the request, no date has been set.

Campaigners have also been promised meetings with Office of Veterans Affairs staff to discuss grant applications to a £200,000 fund, but none have been arranged.

Labour’s Rebecca Long-Bailey, who campaigns for the veterans, said: “When he announced the medals, the PM witnessed their decades of pain and grief. The families wept as he promised them a meeting. They are still waiting, and time is running out. I urge the PM to meet us as soon as he can.” ………………………………………………
more https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/breaking-britains-nuclear-test-veterans-28544461

January 29, 2023 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

UK’s ‘Protect and Survive’ nuclear attack advice deemed ‘futile’ in face of modern threats

The 32-page booklet Protect and Survive about what to do in the event of a nuclear attack was offered to the public in 1980. But it was widely criticised and mocked at the time, and has since been deemed nothing but a “charade”.

Express UK By RHIANNON DU CANN, Jan 29, 2023 “…………………………….. what should people do if the worst were to happen? Is there any official advice? Here, Express.co.uk looks at the UK’s last official piece of nuclear advice: a booklet titled Protect and Survive.

The booklet told the public “how to make your home and family as safe as possible under nuclear attack”. In the event of a crisis, the 32-page booklet would be distributed with announcements made on the TV, the radio, and in the press. The pamphlets and a series of public information films were only intended to be made known to the public in the event of a crisis. Some 2,000 copies of the pamphlets were sent to senior officials in the emergency services and local authorities.

The apocalyptical pamphlet — which described how no part of the UK would be considered safe in the event of a nuclear bomb or missile attack — advised the public to create a “fall-out room” and “inner refuge” to protect from radiation

The public was ordered to stay in the room furthest from the outside walls and roof for 14 days without leaving “at all”, essentially barricading themselves in to protect against the penetration of radiation. If possible, Britons were advised to build a “lean-to” inside using dense materials, again to resist radiation. If you lived in a flat of more than five floors, then you must head to the basement or ground floor.

Windows were to be painted with white emulsion to reflect the heat and advice was given on how to bury and label those who had died.

The public would be told to put together a survival kit which consisted of three and a half gallons of drinking water and some for washing; tinned or well-wrapped food to last for a fortnight; a portable radio (described as “only link to the outside world”); warm clothing; letter writing paraphernalia; tin and bottle openers

; crockery; bedding and toilet “articles”.

The booklet also included a checklist that asked questions such as “do you know the warning sounds?”; “have you got buckets of water ready on each floor?” and “have you sent the children to the fall-out room?”

The senior curator of the 2017 People Power: Fighting for Peace exhibit at the Imperial War Museum told The Times that year that the pamphlet was “chilling”.

Matt Brosnan said: “The matter-of-fact instructions are written so as to be easy to follow, yet never broach the underlying question that all readers would be likely to ask: in a nuclear strike, would most of this be futile?”……………………………………….more https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1727069/uk-protect-and-survive-booklet-nuclear-attack-advice-spt

January 29, 2023 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

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