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UK: Julian Assange Dangerously Close to Extradition Following High Court Rejection of Appeal

byEDITORJune 8, 2023

By Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is deeply concerned by the UK High Court’s decision rejecting WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange’s appeal against his extradition order, bringing him dangerously close to being extradited to the United States, where he could face the rest of his life in prison for publishing leaked classified documents in 2010. 

 In a three-page written decision issued on 6 June, a single judge, Justice Swift, rejected all eight grounds of Assange’s appeal against the extradition order signed by then-UK Home Secretary Priti Patel in June 2022. This leaves only one final step in the UK courts, as the defence has five working days to submit an appeal of only 20 pages to a panel of two judges, who will convene a public hearing. Further appeals will not be possible at the domestic level, but Assange could bring a case to the European Court of Human Rights.

“It is absurd that a single judge can issue a three-page decision that could land Julian Assange in prison for the rest of his life and permanently impact the climate for journalism around the world. The historical weight of what happens next cannot be overstated; it is time to put a stop to this relentless targeting of Assange and act instead to protect journalism and press freedom. Our call on President Biden is now more urgent than ever: drop these charges, close the case against Assange, and allow for his release without further delay.Rebecca Vincent, RSF’s Director of Campaigns

Stella Assange, Julian’s wife, made a statement on Twitter: “On Tuesday next week my husband Julian Assange will make a renewed application for appeal to the High Court. The matter will then proceed to a public hearing before two new judges at the High Court and we remain optimistic that we will prevail and that Julian will not be extradited to the United States where he faces charges that could result in him spending the rest of his life in a maximum security prison for publishing true information that revealed war crimes committed by the U.S. government.”

This is the latest stage in more than three years of legal proceedings in UK courts, as the US government has made its case to extradite Assange in order to try him on 18 counts in connection with WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked classified documents that informed public interest reporting around the world. Although the first instance court ruled against extradition on mental health grounds, the Court of Appeals overturned the decision in consideration of diplomatic assurances presented by the US government. Assange would be the first publisher prosecuted under the Espionage Act, which lacks a public interest defence. He faces a combined total sentence of a possible 175 years in prison.

RSF is the only NGO to have monitored the entire extradition proceedings despite extensive barriers to observation. In April 2023, RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire and Director of Campaigns Rebecca Vincent were arbitrarily barred access to visit Assange in Belmarsh prison, where he has been held on remand for more than four years. RSF continues to seek access to the prison and to campaign globally for Assange’s release.

June 11, 2023 Posted by | Legal, UK | 1 Comment

Ukraine rebuffs Vatican peace attempt

 https://www.rt.com/russia/577589-ukraine-vatican-peace-meeting/ 9 June 23

An envoy of Pope Francis visited Kiev in search of ways to end the conflict

The only end to the conflict that Kiev considers acceptable is the Ukrainian “peace formula,” President Vladimir Zelensky told the Holy See envoy Cardinal Matteo Zuppi in a meeting on Tuesday. 

“Ukraine welcomes the willingness of other states and partners to find ways to achieve peace, but since the war is on our territory, the formula for achieving peace can only be Ukrainian,” Zelensky said after meeting the papal emissary in Kiev.

Zelensky added that he discussed the situation in Ukraine and the humanitarian cooperation with the Vatican “within the framework of the Ukrainian peace formula,” and urged the Holy See to join the efforts to pressure Russia.

Zuppi arrived in Ukraine on Monday, in what the Vatican called a “search for paths to a just and lasting peace.” In addition to Zelensky, he met with other Ukrainian officials, including parliamentary commissioner for human rights Dmitry Lubinets.

“The results of these talks, like those with religious representatives as well as the direct experience of the atrocious suffering of the Ukrainian people as a result of the ongoing war, will be brought to the Holy Father’s attention,” the press office of the Holy See said in a statement on Tuesday evening.

This is the second time in two months that Zelensky has declined an offer by Pope Francis to mediate in the conflict with Russia. After his meeting with the pontiff at the Vatican last month, the Ukrainian president told Italian media outlets that Kiev was only interested in its own vision of peace.

“It was an honor for me to meet His Holiness, but he knows my position: the war is in Ukraine and the [peace] plan must be Ukrainian,” Zelensky told talk show host Bruno Vespa. 

The “peace formula” in question is a list of Zelensky’s demands first revealed 

The “peace formula” in question is a list of Zelensky’s demands first revealed in November 2022, ranging from Russia’s withdrawal from all territories Ukraine claims – including Crimea and the Donbass – payment of reparations, war crimes trials for the Russian leadership, and Ukraine’s membership in NATO. 

Moscow has rejected Zelensky’s “peace platform” as delusional. Russia understands that any peace talks will not be held “with Zelensky, who is a puppet in the hands of the West, but directly with his masters,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters last month.

June 11, 2023 Posted by | Religion and ethics, Ukraine, weapons and war | 1 Comment

ASSANGE JUDGE IS 40-YEAR ‘GOOD FRIEND’ OF MINISTER WHO ORCHESTRATED HIS ARREST

Julian Assange’s fate lies in the hands of an appeal judge who is a close friend of Sir Alan Duncan – the former foreign minister who called Assange a “miserable little worm” in parliament.

MATT KENNARD AND MARK CURTIS, 2 DECEMBER 2021, Declassified UK

Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett, the judge that will soon decide Julian Assange’s fate, is a close personal friend of Sir Alan Duncan, who as foreign minister arranged Assange’s eviction from the Ecuadorian embassy. 

The two have known each other since their student days at Oxford in the 1970s, when Duncan called Burnett “the Judge”. Burnett and his wife attended Duncan’s birthday dinner at a members-only London club in 2017, when Burnett was a judge at the court of appeal.

Now the most powerful judge in England and Wales, Burnett will soon rule on Assange’s extradition case. The founder of WikiLeaks faces life imprisonment in the US. ……………………………….

Duncan served as foreign minister for Europe and the Americas from 2016-19. He was the key official in the UK government campaign to force Assange from the embassy. 

As minister, Duncan did not hide his opposition to Julian Assange, calling him a “miserable little worm” in parliament in March 2018. 

In his diaries, Duncan refers to the “supposed human rights of Julian Assange”. He admits to arranging a Daily Mail hit piece on Assange that was published the day after the journalist’s arrest in April 2019. 

Duncan watched UK police pulling the WikiLeaks publisher from the Ecuadorian embassy via a live-feed in the Operations Room at the top of the Foreign Office. 

He later admitted he was “trying to keep the smirk off [his] face”, and hosted drinks at his parliamentary office for the team involved in the eviction.

Duncan then flew to Ecuador to meet President Lenín Moreno in order to “say thank you” for handing over Assange. Duncan reported he gave Moreno “a beautiful porcelain plate from the Buckingham Palace gift shop.” 

“Job done,” he added.  https://declassifieduk.org/assange-judge-is-40-year-good-friend-of-minister-who-orchestrated-his-arrest/

June 11, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Ukrainian dam is destroyed; nuclear plant lives in a ‘grace period’

Bulletin, By François Diaz-Maurin | June 6, 2023

In the early hours of Tuesday, June 6, video footage circulated of a destroyed dam in southern Ukraine with large swaths of water flowing through. The Kakhovka dam—located about 70 kilometers upstream of the city of Kherson—is a critical piece of infrastructure, hosting a hydroelectric power plant and managing a reservoir that supplies water for drinking, irrigation, and cooling of the upstream six-reactor Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant—Europe’s largest.

It was unclear on Tuesday what or who caused the breach in the dam, which is under Russian control, although it was hard not to blame Russia given the timing of the attack, which happened one day after Ukraine reportedly launched its long-awaited spring counteroffensive. Both countries denied responsibility and have blamed each other throughout the day. Ukraine said Russia was responsible for the explosion of an engine room of the hydroelectric plant, in part to prevent Ukrainian troops from crossing the Dnipro River downstream, while Russia said Ukrainian forces conducted a sabotage attack. Russia’s defense minister Sergei Shoigu made the acrobatic suggestion that because Ukraine wanted to transfer some military units and equipment from Kherson to other parts of the front to help with its counteroffensive, making the river wider downstream would make it easier to defend Kherson with fewer forces.

A third scenario being advanced on Tuesday was that the dam might have suffered from a structural failure after the water level of the Kakhovka reservoir had reached a 30-year high, leading it to be at beyond-design storage capacity since May. No evidence of any of those scenarios had emerged on Tuesday night…………

The destruction of the dam caused immediate life-threatening flooding and evacuation of thousands of people living downstream of the dam along the Ukrainian-controlled right bank of the Dnipro River. Early satellite imagery was showing large areas being flooded a few hours only after the breach. While the water was quickly rising to dangerous levels downstream, the water level in the upstream Kakhovka Reservoir was dropping, which could have severe nuclear safety implications for the nearby plant.

The Kakhovka Reservoir serves as the Zaporizhzhia plant’s ultimate heat sink, an essential safety function of removing the radioactive decay heat generated by the fuel inside the shutdown reactors and spent fuel pools. The plant has a cooling pond that pumps its water from the Kakhovka Reservoir. According to the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi, the water level of the Kakhovka Reservoir was dropping on Tuesday at a rate of 5 centimeters per hour, adding that “water in the reservoir was at around 16.4 meters at 8 am. If [it] drops below 12.7 meters, then it can no longer be pumped.” This would theoretically leave operators with about three days to pump as much water as possible to fill up the pond. But local Ukrainian military officials estimated that the water level was dropping at the much higher rate of about 15 centimeters per hour; leaving only 24 hours for the operators to do so.

Commenting on Twitter, Edwin Lyman, a nuclear safety expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, described the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant as a “slow-motion disaster.” “The impact on the plant is something we are going to see unfold over time,” Lyman further explained to the Bulletin. “There is a grace period to address this problem, but it’s not infinite.”………………………………………………

In his statement, Grossi said that there was “no immediate risk to the safety of the plant.” But that is “assuming nothing else happens,” Lyman told the Bulletin. “The plant is stable for now, but it is becoming increasingly more vulnerable.” Grossi conceded that “it is vital that this cooling pond remains intact.”

“Nothing must be done to potentially undermine its integrity.” https://thebulletin.org/2023/06/ukrainian-dam-is-destroyed-nuclear-plant-lives-in-a-grace-period/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=ThursdayNewsletter06082023&utm_content=NuclearRisk_UkrainianDam_06072023

June 11, 2023 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

France says nuclear power is ‘non-negotiable’

EURACTIV.com with AFP 9 June 23

French nuclear power is “an absolute red line” and non-negotiable, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said Thursday (8 June), following Franco-German disagreements over the role of nuclear energy in Europe.

Nuclear-reliant Paris has already irked Berlin by insisting on giving nuclear energy a starring role in European plans to produce more green technology in Europe.

“Nuclear power is an absolute red line for France, and France will not relinquish any of the competitive advantages linked to nuclear energy”, Le Maire insisted as he closed the annual conference of the French Electricity Union.

France’s 56 ageing reactors normally provide some 70% of France’s electricity needs.

“French nuclear power is non-negotiable and will never be negotiable. We will have to live with it, and we are convinced that it is not only in France’s interest, but also in the interest of the European continent”, he added.

Spat over EU’s renewable energy directive

Earlier, at the same meeting, German state secretary for economic affairs and climate action Stefan Wenzel acknowledged that France and Germany “often have different approaches in energy policy, especially concerning nuclear energy”

Germany “respects diverging choices for other fossil fuel energy sources by other member states as France that may similarly contribute to achieve climate neutrality,” he added.

However “what we cannot accept is when nuclear energy is defined as renewable, or low-carbon hydrogen is equated with green hydrogen”.

Agreement on the EU’s revised renewable energy directive was delayed last month as France requested further “guarantees” to limit the share of renewable hydrogen production for countries that already have significant amounts of low-carbon hydrogen derived from nuclear power……………………  https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/france-says-nuclear-power-is-non-negotiable/

June 11, 2023 Posted by | France, politics international | Leave a comment

The warmonger neocons, run the show of the puppet figurehead Biden.

Contribution from readers Tom and Sue Millon, 10 July 23

For Republicans and corrupt democrats, it’s never been about the debt of the USA or ending devastating military conflict. It has never been about domestic tranquility. As the arch neocon Dick Cheney said, “Reagan taught us that the debt doesn’t matter.” It’s about re-allocating the federal budget to the people who put you in office: arms makers, the military. oil companies, slumlords, tech giants. If you don’t have a lobbyist, a PAC or a dark money conduit, you don’t count for a damn thing in Washington dc. America and the world is paying the price of this. The neocons run Biden now. Their think tanks and focus, are heavily funded by arms makers and the military. The warmonger neocons, run the show of the puppet figurehead Biden.
Their goals are out of touch with anything that is rational. They are not preventing the escalation of this potential nuclear confrontation, they are encouraging it.

Eve Ottenberg
From the human-caused climate catastrophe to a nuclear showdown between Washington and Moscow or Beijing, to fascism ascendant, three terrifying disasters loom over humanity like the shadow of death. These threats have lurked for some years, but the Ukraine war, facilitated by Joe Biden’s arrival in the white house in 2021 and his pronounced aggressiveness toward Moscow, shifted nuclear Armageddon to center stage and pushed the doomsday clock close to midnight.

Trust between the Kremlin and western governments vanished long ago, so it’s hard to see how this calamity ever gets resolved. Russian officials watched the U.S. fork over more than $30 billion in armament to Ukraine with billions more in the pipeline, arm neo-Nazis, whitewash them and cover Kiev’s government payroll. They’ve seen (and often destroyed) the weapons Washington sent. Those weapons would never include long-range missiles that could strike inside Russia, Biden promised. Well, that oath wasn’t worth the toilet paper it was written on. The U.S. would never provide Ukraine with tanks, Biden swore up and down – until he changed his mind. American fighter jets, he gave his word, would not fly in Ukraine. Well, now we see what his word is worth. What next? NATO troops in Ukraine? Because then the bombing of U.S., European and Russian cities will commence. It’s called World War III. Biden knows this. So do the Russians. And despite their loud protests in the face of this nonstop U.S. escalation, they have become ominously quiet about their red lines.

Once upon a time in Bucharest back in 2008, Moscow basically told the west that if its neighbor Kiev joined NATO, that would be the end of Ukraine. Feckless Eurocrats and birdbrain American presidents did not listen. Years passed. Washington sponsored a coup against the duly, legally elected leader of Ukraine in 2014, then installed a west friendly, Russophobic regime, or perhaps more accurately a puppet, whose idiotic economic policies led to a population outflow of millions of Ukrainians, as Washington proceeded massively to arm and train far-right fanatics.

Through all of this, until December 2021, Moscow only protested about its red lines in general terms. It also periodically indicated it might snap. Then, in late 2021, the Kremlin sent detailed letters to Washington, listing Russian security concerns, chiefly that Ukraine should not join NATO. Moscow also was alarmed at the fate of Donbas Russians, 12,000 of whom Ukraine had slaughtered since 2014 and on whose borders Kiev had massed troops and, in early 2022, dramatically stepped up assaults, as noted by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Such a deadly uptick signaled assault and possibly ethnic-cleansing for Russian-speaking Ukrainians. But the U.S. blithely responded with hokum about NATO being a defensive organization. Hokum any half-wit can see right through by looking at U.S. missiles in Poland and Romania, two countries that border Russia.

Washington also insisted on every country’s sacred right to join NATO, though decades ago when Moscow mentioned joining, it got the cold shoulder; apparently Russia did not have that right. So the Kremlin could be excused for regarding NATO as a hostile military axis. Indeed, as our leading public intellectual Noam Chomsky said, “Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was clearly provoked, while the U.S. invasion of Iraq was clearly unprovoked.” (He also said whataboutism is “otherwise known as elementary honesty.”) Both invaders wrecked the target country, Russia more slowly, but make no mistake, that will be the outcome if this war doesn’t end soon.

The moral of the story is that if you can avoid war, that is a very good idea. If someone says “I will attack, if you don’t stop threatening me,” well, listen. The peacemakers are blessed, but sadly they were absent from the world’s imperial capital, Washington, in December of 2021. Currently they are absent everywhere they are needed, period.

So now, thanks to Biden, we stare down the barrel of nuclear war. The alternative in 2024 will likely be Trump, who promises accessories like martial law, a presidency for life, show trials of his political enemies and possibly nuclear war with China, in short, fascism. For this lousy choice we can blame our corrupt plutocracy and its media parasites. Put another way, those who rise to the top in Washington are not the cream of the crop, but the cream that curdled, years ago. Obama, Bush, Clinton – slick hustlers all, who slaughtered innocents across the globe, and all very short-sighted about anything other than looking out for the main chance, even if it meant bombing helpless residents of impoverished nations.


Meanwhile in the U.S. imperial capital, blood-soaked neocons run the show. This led to events May 26, when Russia’s foreign ministry summoned U.S. diplomats “over what it called ‘provocative statements’ by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan,” according to RT. “The American official was de facto supporting Ukrainian strikes against Russian territory.” Given that Sullivan’s up to his elbows in blood for his responsibility in this Ukrainian debacle, the blood of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and tens of thousands of Russian ones, I’m not surprised he was, de facto or otherwise, basically advocating World War III. Moscow called his endorsement of Ukrainian attacks on Russia “hypocritical and untruthful.” That’s called understatement.

Sullivan, secretary of state Antony Blinken and his undersecretary Victoria Nuland are in charge in Washington, instead of the unfocussed, forgetful figurehead, Joe Biden, and they want war, for decades, if they so choose.

Inauspiciously, sane, non-neocons now resign from the Biden regime en masse, a development covered in depth by Moon of Alabama May 25. Rick Waters, head of the state department’s “China House” leaves his post. After the ridiculous spy balloon hysteria, with its wild delusions of assault and evil designs by a mortal enemy, Waters was one of the more rational actors, trying to limit the damage, reportedly emailing state department staff to postpone some sanctions and export controls on China, you know, moves that could have been viewed as, um, hostile.

Also dispiriting to those hoping to restrain imperial war schemes, deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman announced her retirement. Sherman backed the original Iran nuclear pact and pushed hard to get an inept Biden administration to return to it, something, contrary to campaign promises, Biden couldn’t manage to do. As a result, the Middle East teeters constantly on the edge of regional war, which the pact would have helped prevent. Colin Kahl, a defense undersecretary departs this summer. He opposed escalating the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine. Nor was he popular with lunatic Sinophobes. To make the loss of these realists even worse, Biden tapped a ferocious China hawk to head the joint chiefs of staff, thus replacing the less rabid though rather ineffectual Mark Milley. All these moves spell trouble. They mean maniacal warmongers run the empire.

So the situation has deteriorated dangerously, and this is what Chomsky predicted if Washington didn’t face the “ugly” post-invasion choice of rewarding Moscow by enforcing Kiev’s neutrality and the Minsk Accords for the Donbas. No one has documented the U.S. empire’s depravity as long and relentlessly as Chomsky. His new book, Illegitimate Authority, continues this effort, singling out the triad of cataclysms – climate collapse, nuclear war and fascism – thundering in humanity’s front yard like the crack of doom. These interviews, collected from Truthout, at first zero in on how rich countries burning oil, gas and coal have crushed anything resembling a normal climate, with a few that focus on rising fascism.

For Republicans and corrupt democrats, it’s never been about the debt. As the arch neocon Dick Cheney said, “Reagan taught us that the debt doesn’t matter.” It’s about re-allocating the federal budget to the people who put you in office: arms makers, the military. oil companies, slumlords, tech giants, If you don’t have a lobbyist, a PAC or a dark money conduit, you don’t count for a damn thing in washington dc. Same goes for the , neocons whose think tanks are and focus, are heavily funded by arms makers and the military. The warmonger neocons, that run the show of the demented old, puppet figurehead biden.
Their goals are out of touch with anything that is rational. They are not preventing the escalation of this potential nuclear confrontation, they are encouraging it.

But when the book reaches early 2022, it shifts its emphasis to Ukraine. Chomsky is well aware of Washington’s provocations, while regarding Moscow’s response to them as criminal. He quotes Eastern Europe specialist Richard Sakwa: “NATO’s existence became justified by the need to manage threats provoked by its enlargement.” Well, now NATO has provoked a threat that, according to one whose hands are red with blood from this war, Nuland, could last “16 years.”

Chomsky also addresses the imbecilic fantasy of regime change, noting that historically this has led to worse, more extreme leaders, for which he cites a convincing discussion by Andrew Cockburn. Chomsky called NATO dreams of overthrowing Vladimir Putin “foolish,” because someone far more menacing would very likely take over. Among Kremlin leaders, Putin is, in fact, a moderate, with far less of an appetite for war than the others who advocated invading Ukraine for years, while he demurred.

In March 2022, when neutral countries sponsored talks between Moscow and Kiev, Chomsky warned, “negotiations will get nowhere if the U.S. persists in its adamant refusal to join…and if the press continues to insist that the public remain in the dark by refusing even to report Zelensky’s proposals.” Well, nowhere is exactly where they went, thanks to the then U.K. prime minister, the buffoonish Boris Johnson, who jetted into Kiev, allegedly at Biden’s behest, and clarified to Zelensky that while the Ukrainian president might be ready for peace, the west was not. That scuttled the talks.

That’s where we are now. Washington just extracted itself from losing a 20-year military quagmire in Afghanistan. Now it’s up to its neck in a proxy war its boosters say could last decades. Unfortunately for the imperial team, its opponent in this latest bloodletting is armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons. This is not some helpless undeveloped country that Washington can bully and then prevaricate about pusillanimous American behavior not amounting to a military defeat. Russia is a great power and a nuclear one.

June 11, 2023 Posted by | politics, Reference, USA | 1 Comment

Nuclear-Powered Cargo Ships Are Trying to Stage a Comeback

Faced with the difficult task of decarbonizing, some shipping companies are taking another look at a polarizing solution—nuclear fission.

Wired, CHRIS BARANIUK, JUN 9, 2023

“………………………………………..Eisenhower agreed to authorize a nuclear-powered merchant ship that would carry both cargo and passengers. As well as goodwill, naturally.

The nuclear ship Savannah, capable of hauling 14,000 tons of cargo, entered service in 1962. Its reactor was encased behind 4 feet of concrete, as well as thick layers of steel and lead. In the glitzy passenger lounge stood an 8-foot-long table topped with white marble—and an early CCTV system so passengers could keep an eye on the reactor while sipping martinis.

…………….. heed this cautionary tale of nuclear hubris. The NS Savannah was a failure. During its first year at sea, the ship dumped 115,000 gallons of radioactive waste into the ocean. It had inadequate cranes and poorly designed cargo hatches. Egregiously expensive to run, the vessel carried passengers for a mere three years, and cargo alone for another five, before retiring.

Other countries also tried—and struggled—to make nuclear merchant ships work during the 20th century. West Germany’s demonstration nuclear cargo ship, the Otto Hahn, was refused entry to some ports and the Suez Canal on safety grounds. The Mutsu, a Japanese vessel, suffered a minor failure in its reactor’s radiation shielding in 1974, causing outcry. Indignant fishers blocked the ship’s return to port for several weeks.

As of 2023, there is only one active nuclear-powered merchant ship in the world, the Russian-built container-carrying NS Sevmorput. It is tiny compared to most fossil-fuel-powered container ships and has been plagued by breakdowns.

…………………………In February, a gaggle of organizations based in South Korea, including those behind multiple shipping lines, signed a memorandum of understanding. The group aims to develop nuclear-powered merchant ships equipped with small modular reactors. But they won’t say much else about the project.

“We believe it is too early to mention details on the tangible results of this partnership,” Hojoon Lee, a spokesperson for HMM, one of the shipping lines involved, tells WIRED. “We still have a long way to go to achieve the commercial viability of nuclear energy sources.”

There is another project afoot, in Norway, called NuProShip (Nuclear Propulsion of Merchant Ships). The team behind it has come up with a short list of six possible reactor designs that could work in a demonstrator vessel, says project manager Jan Emblemsvåg of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. “The progress is quite OK,” he adds, via email. He and colleagues plan to convert a liquefied natural gas tanker called the Cadiz Knutsen to run on nuclear power.

Both the South Korean and Norwegian efforts are considering molten salt reactors. Instead of solid fuel rods, the nuclear fuel in these devices is dissolved into, for example, molten fluoride salts. Such reactors first operated in the 1960s and are nothing new, but technical issues, including corrosion occurring inside the reactors, have hampered their widespread rollout. Despite concerns from some over the viability of this technology, multiple countries are pursuing it.

………………………………………. while there are lots of nuclear reactors operating at sea right now, they tend to be on vessels with some of the highest security in the world. Commercial ships are occasionally subject to piracy and accidents, including large fires and explosions—the thought of adding nuclear fuel to such scenarios is unlikely to be met with enthusiasm.

The task of switching to a world in which nuclear-powered vessels are commonly welcomed at commercial ports is “not trivial,” says Stephen Turnock, professor of maritime fluid dynamics at the University of Southampton. “You have to have protocols in place to say what would happen in the event of an emergency associated with a nuclear-powered vessel,” he explains.

Simon Bullock, a shipping researcher at the University of Manchester, says that there is not enough of a regulatory framework to define how nuclear ships would operate globally in the commercial sector, including detail on who would bear responsibility for any mishaps. Would it be the ship owner, the ship operator, the manufacturer of the nuclear reactor, or the country where the ship is registered, known as the flag state? There are six “decade-long problems” of this kind regarding nuclear vessels that the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and other agencies would have to sort out if nuclear-powered commercial ships were ever to become widespread, he says……………………….

The crews on nuclear ships would also require special training and expertise, which raises the cost of running such vessels. Is it worth dealing with all these challenges, given the need to decarbonize right now? Probably not, says Bullock. “The critical thing here is the next 10 years,” he says, referring to the urgency of tackling emissions and climate change right now. “Nuclear can do nothing about that.”

Even the Norwegian NuProShip project won’t convert its first demonstrator ship until at least 2035. Meanwhile, there are other low- or zero-emissions fuels already being deployed in vessels—from methanol to ammonia, electric batteries, and hydrogen. None of these is perfect, and all will jostle for supremacy in the coming years. Nuclear, with its many complications, is “possibly a dangerous distraction” from the main horse race, says Bullock………………..  https://www.wired.com/story/nuclear-cargo-ships/

June 11, 2023 Posted by | 2 WORLD, technology | Leave a comment

‘Minor’ leak at nuclear submarine dock

At a glance

  • There has been a “minor” seawater leak at a naval base in Plymouth where nuclear submarines are stored
  • A £3m contract has been awarded to repair the leak
  • Thirteen decommissioned nuclear submarines are stored at 3 Basin at Devonport dockyard
  • The Ministry of Defence said there was no environmental risk from the leak

Jonathan Morris, BBC News, 8 June 2023  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjejyq3e499o

HMS Valiant, a nuclear-powered attack submarine that was decommissioned in 1994, is set to be the first submarine in Devonport to undergo dismantling.

An MoD spokesperson said: “Work is planned at 3 Basin at HMNB Devonport to address minor seawater leakage from the basin and weathered stone edgings.

“The leak does not present an environmental risk and both the basin and entrance gate remain structurally sound.”

The MoD was criticised in 2019 over its failure to dispose of obsolete nuclear submarines.

It said it would dispose of them “as soon as practically possible”.

There are 20 decommissioned submarines in storage at Devonport and Rosyth.

The estimated cost of fully disposing of a submarine is £96m, the National Audit Office has said.

June 11, 2023 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Trump held secret nuclear documents |

June 11, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Mayors call for action against nuclear war

Beyond Nuclear, June 9, 2023

At the close of its 91st Annual Meeting in Columbus, Ohio, on June 5, 2023, the final business plenary of the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) unanimously adopted a new resolution, titled, “Calling for Urgent Action to Avoid Nuclear War, Resolve the Ukraine Conflict, Lower Tensions with China, and Redirect Military Spending to Meet Human Needs.” This is the eighteenth consecutive year that the USCM has adopted a resolution submitted by U.S. members of Mayors for Peace.

The resolution’s lead sponsor, Mayor Frank Cownie of Des Moines, Iowa, (pictured) and U.S. Vice-President of Mayors for Peace, commented: “This resolution carries on the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ proud tradition for nearly two decades of standing for the non-use and global elimination of nuclear weapons.”

Jackie Cabasso, Mayors for Peace North American Coordinator, added: “For the first time, a U.S. Conference of Mayors resolution on nuclear disarmament lends the organization’s support to a specific legislative measure, H. Res. 77, ‘Embracing the Goals and Provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons’.”

Res. 77, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) on January 31, 2023, calls on the United States to adopt the Back from the Brink Campaign’s comprehensive policy prescriptions for reducing nuclear risks and preventing nuclear war. More than 70 cities, towns, counties and states have passed Back from the Brink resolutions, and more than 400 organizations have endorsed the Back from the Brink platform………………………………………………… more https://beyondnuclear.org/mayors-call-for-action-against-nuclear-war/

June 11, 2023 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

Starve the Poor; Feed the Pentagon

As Hartung writes, Congress is bought by the weapons industry. It is a kind of money laundering scheme where increased military spending comes back as campaign donations, a perfect example of the legalized bribery that is the real governing system of the U.S.

BY PATRICK MAZZA, CounterPunch 8 June 23

Once again, while other needs are squeezed, a federal budget deal will literally starve the poor to feed the military. While new work requirements are placed on SNAP recipients that will drive some from the food support program, the military budget (never call it defense) remains untouched. The recent debt ceiling deal leaves Joe Biden’s $886 billion 2024 Pentagon budget request intact while domestic programs are slashed.

In real terms it is the largest military budget in U.S. history, the only exceptions being World War II and the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that came after 9-11. Larger by far than during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, or the Reagan military buildup.

The real military budget is even higher. Adding in nuclear weapons, foreign military aid and “intelligence,” the project puts the current 2023 budget at $920 billion. That is still an undercount. William Hartung, an expert on military spending, calculates that even in fiscal year 2020 the total military expenditure was $1.25 trillion, adding in other costs such as support for veterans and debt service. It’s easily pushing $1.5 trillion by now.

The U.S. by far is the biggest military spender on Earth, with 39% of the total, exceeding the next 10 nations combined, as this chart [on original] shows:

So why is the military budget so unassailable? Why, no matter how often bloated military spending is denounced, does the budget climb toward ever greater heights? Even after Dwight Eisenhower made the famous warning in his farewell address:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Ike would have known, being one of the progenitors of that complex as the general leading U.S. forces that invaded Europe during D-Day and as the president during the nuclear buildup of much of the early Cold War. One clue as to why his warning went unheeded is in the fact he originally wanted to call it the military-industrial-congressional complex, the “iron triangle” that keeps pumping up military expenditures. As Hartung writes, Congress is bought by the weapons industry. It is a kind of money laundering scheme where increased military spending comes back as campaign donations, a perfect example of the legalized bribery that is the real governing system of the U.S.

But there are deeper reasons, explaining why that “alert and knowledgeable citizenry” for which Ike called has never appeared, at least to the level able to tie back the power of the complex. War and militarism are rooted deep in the U.S. of American experience. As former President Jimmy Carter said, “If you go around the world and ask people which is the most warlike country on Earth, which one do you think they would respond? The United States. Since we left the Second World War, and even before, the United States has constantly been at war in some part of the world. We’ve been in about 30 combats with other countries since the Second World War . . .  So I would say that the military-industrial complex, the manufacturers of all kinds of weapons, are very influential in the country and the Congress as well.”

Carter noted that the U.S. hasn’t been at war with someone only 16 years of its 242-year history. (Even that is doubtful ……………………………………………….

 We are enmeshed in the ways of empire.

“Empire became so intrinsically our American way of life that we rationalized and suppressed the nature of our means in the euphoria of the enjoyment of the ends . . . It is perhaps a bit too extreme, but only by a whisker, to say that imperialism has been the opiate of the American people.”………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

more https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/06/07/starve-the-poor-feed-the-pentagon/?fbclid=IwAR027Cfl-CuWXfhJtwKUqVF6O75t0JDCpssHaD-8hbwlpWXSGLKdM41g46A

June 11, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A reader’s scathing rebuke on this site’s use of Tucker Carlson article

Cher , 9 June 23, Tucker Carlson wants to start a nuclear war with China. He is from a very rich rightwing family. He is no independent thinker. He preached overt racism, and hate propaganda, for Murdoch, for years. Murdochs ego, could not take the competiton, so Murdoch fired him. He continues his racist hate.

Carlson took the side of mass shooters that killed many school children and innocents, in the large uptick of racist mass shootings and murders, that has occured because of, and since Trump started more rampages.

Carlson defended anyone, being able to get military assault rifles. He has put so many children, black people, chinese people, brown people, women, gay people at risk for harm and murder, with his subtle and not so subtle bigotry and propaganda, that it it is beyond belief

Carlson has championed martial law, show trials for political enemies, fascist dictators, and other authoritarian governments. People in the Usa, know him
https://www.newsweek.com/tucker-carlson-mass-shooting-male-privilege-fourth-july-parade-robert-crimo-1722071
He blames women and minorities for many things. Typical fascist scapegoater. How can you say, a monster like him is an independent thinker?

June 11, 2023 Posted by | PERSONAL STORIES | Leave a comment

The planet’s economist: has Kate Raworth found a model for sustainable living?

Her hit book Doughnut Economics laid out a path to a greener, more equal society. But can she turn her ideas into meaningful change?

by Hettie O’Brien, Guardian, 8 June 23

The problem is that there are few templates for an economy that
radically shrinks the world’s carbon footprint without also shrinking our
quality of life. The economist Kate Raworth believes she has a solution.

It is possible, she argues, to design an economy that allows humans and the
environment to thrive. Doing so will mean rejecting much of what defined
20th-century economics. This is the essential premise of her only book,
Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist,
which became a surprise hit when it was published in 2017.

The book, which
has been translated into 21 languages, brings to mind a charismatic
professor dispensing heterodox wisdom to a roomful of students. “Citizens
of 2050 are being taught an economic mindset that is rooted in the
textbooks of 1950, which in turn are rooted in the theories of 1850,”
Raworth writes.

By exposing the flaws in these old theories, such as the
idea that economic growth will massively reduce inequality, or that humans
are merely self-interested individuals, Raworth wants to show how our
thinking has been constrained by economic concepts that are fundamentally
unsuited to the great challenges of this century.

 Guardian 8th June 2023

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/08/the-planets-economist-has-kate-raworth-found-a-model-for-sustainable-living

June 11, 2023 Posted by | 2 WORLD, business and costs, resources - print | Leave a comment

Canada’s controversial nuclear waste disposal design for Chalk River

June 11, 2023 Posted by | Canada, wastes | Leave a comment

Chalk River: Radioactive Wastes and the Honour of the Crown

Background:     May 9, 2023

A consortium of multinational corporations, operating under the banner CNL (Canadian Nuclear Laboratories), is contracted to manage all of the federal government’s nuclear facilities. The contract obliges CNL to “reduce the liability” associated with the multibillion dollar legacy of radioactive wastes created in the name of the Crown by uranium processing (mainly at Port Hope, Ontario) and by nuclear fission (mainly at Chalk River). CNL has been given close to a billion dollars a year for the last five years from Canadian taxpayers. 

The Port Hope and Chalk River nuclear facilities are outgrowths of the  World War II Atomic Bomb project and the subsequent Cold War era. Canada sold uranium and plutonium almost exclusively for nuclear weapons use from 1941 to 1965. In a very real sense, the “legacy radioactive wastes” at these two sites are in large part leftovers of the American bomb program and the Cold War arms buildup.

How does CNL propose to deal with the radioactive legacy of the nuclear age? At Chalk River, CNL proposes to build a huge earthen mound of “low-level” radioactive and toxic chemical wastes within one kilometre of the Ottawa River.  The low-level waste is a minute fraction of the total radio-toxic burden at Chalk River, which includes highly radioactive reactor cores, tanks of reprocessing liquid, plutonium handling facilities, and large quantities of high-level and intermediate-level radioactive wastes for which there is as yet no plan at all. The mound is a cheap and convenient way of dealign with the most voluminous material, clearing the decks for building new facilities that will produce even more challenging forms of nuclear wastes, while ignoring the bulk of the radioactivity that afflicts this “Nuclear Sacrifice  Zone”.

The engineered mound – a glorified landfall 5 to 7 stories high – will hold a million cubic metres of toxic waste, on a site that drains into Perch Lake and then into the Ottawa River. Called a “Near Surface Disposal Facility” (NSDF), this megadump is planned to be built on lthe unsurrendered territory of several Algonquin communities that have inhabited the Ottawa Valley for thousands of years.

Canada’s nuclear regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) conducted an environmental assessment of the NSDF and held a week of public hearings in February 2022. Since then, two Algonquin communities – the Keboawek First Nation (KFN) and the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg (KZA) community, have demonstrated their strong opposition to the proposed megadump, as have more than a hundred communities downstream from Chalk River, including the 18 municipalities comprising the Montreal City Agglomeration Council. KFN has done outstanding work in documenting several key species inhabiting the proposed site that have been totally ignored by the environmental assessment process.CNL is now asking CNSC to grant CNL a licence amendment to prepare the contested site for the NSDF. 

Public hearings will be held remotely on June 27 with no opportunity for intervenors to appear in person before the Commission, despite strong requests from the Indigenous communities to allow face-to-face meetings.

All those who intervened in the February 2022 hearings are allowed no more than 5000 words to give their final input on this issue before CNSC renders its decision. Here is the final submission from the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.

Radioactive Wastes and the Honour of the Crown

Final report submitted to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission

by Gordon Edwards, president, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility

www.ccnr.org/CCNR_CNSC_NSDF_final_2023.pdf 

Contents –

1. The Honour of the Crown
2. Protecting the Environment & the Health and Safety of Persons 

3. Communicating with Future Genera>ons
4. Safety Culture and the Justification Principle
5. A Tale of Two Dumps
6. List of radioactive poisons 

June 11, 2023 Posted by | Canada, wastes | Leave a comment