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Amid ‘staggering’ Ukrainian toll and souring US polls, Biden seeks billions more for war

the Zelensky government does appear to be a willing partner in McConnell’s sacrifice ritual. Ukrainian defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov is said to have told US officials that flooding Ukraine with weapons allows NATO allies to “actually see if their weapons work, how efficiently they work and if they need to be upgraded. For the military industry of the world, you can’t invent a better testing ground.”

As Ukraine faces “staggering” losses and US public mood shifts, the Biden administration seeks billions more to prolong the war.

Aaron Maté, AUG 15, 2023,  https://mate.substack.com/p/unlocked-amid-staggering-ukrainian?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=100118&post_id=135995766&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email—

The Biden administration is asking Congress for an additional $24 billion for the Ukraine proxy war, more than half of it in military aid. The request comes one week after a CNN poll showed, for the first time, that a majority of Americans oppose additional funding to Kiev.

For a White House committed to ensuring a Russian “quagmire” in Ukraine, public opinion is of secondary importance. Two months into a widely hyped yet now faltering Ukrainian counteroffensive, a fresh influx of NATO weaponry appears necessary to prolong the war. In one of several gloomy assessments to appear in US establishment media, a senior western diplomat tells CNN that the prospect that Ukrainian forces can “make progress that would change the balance of this conflict” is “extremely, highly unlikely.” Ukraine’s “primary challenge” is breaking through Russia’s heavily fortified defensive lines, where “Ukrainian forces have incurred staggering losses.” According to Democratic Rep. Mike Quigley, US military assessments of the war are “sobering,” with Ukraine now facing “the most difficult time of the war.”

This picture, CNN’s Jim Sciutto observes, represents “a marked change from the optimism at the start of the counteroffensive,” with Western officials now acknowledging that “those expectations were ‘unrealistic.’” The battlefield reality is so dire that it is even “now contributing to pressure on Ukraine from some in the West to begin peace negotiations, including considering the possibility of territorial concessions.”

But as Biden’s new spending request suggests, there is no sign that the US is among those Western states applying pressure for peace. After all, the stated US aim, as top officials have made clear, is not to defend Ukraine and its long-term future but to instead “weaken” Russia (Lloyd Austin) and ensure “a strategic failure for Putin,” so that Russian can “pay a longer-term price in terms of the elements of its national power.” (Jake Sullivan)

Whereas CNN’s Western sources now allow themselves to admit that their publicly voiced “optimism at the start of the counteroffensive,” was “unrealistic”, it was in fact, dishonest. As Pentagon leaks and subsequent disclosures have confirmed, US officials were well aware that Ukraine was not prepared to take on Russia’s heavily fortified defenses, but kept that assessment under wraps. Accordingly, while Ukraine’s battlefield losses are indeed “staggering”, what is perhaps most “sobering” is the fact that the Biden administration both anticipated and encouraged them.

But just like souring US public opinion, Ukrainian casualties are also a secondary concern, as the Biden administration’s more candid neoconservative proxy war partners continue to make clear.

To push through the new spending package , the White House is “counting on help from Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader,” the New York Times reports. At a public event, McConnell detailed his rationale: The US, he explained, hasn’t “lost a single American in this war,” – not accurate if one counts mercenaries and private citizens, but correct in its implicit recognition that Ukraine has lost tens of thousands of lives on its American sponsors’ behalf. According to McConnell, there are additional benefits of the war that do not extend to ordinary Ukrainians: “Most of the money that we spend related to Ukraine is actually spent in the US, replenishing weapons, more modern weapons. So it’s actually employing people here and improving our own military for what may lie ahead.”

Therefore, according to prevailing Biden-McConnell policy, the US must continue to fund a war that will sacrifice many more Ukrainian lives, all so that domestic war profiteers can reap taxpayer largesse for “replenishing weapons”, and so that the US – not having its soldiers die in Ukraine – can use the opportunity for “improving our own military” for a war that it might actually fight.

Although US officials have reportedly “expressed frustration” at Ukraine’s efforts to minimize military casualties, the Zelensky government does appear to be a willing partner in McConnell’s sacrifice ritual. Ukrainian defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov is said to have told US officials that flooding Ukraine with weapons allows NATO allies to “actually see if their weapons work, how efficiently they work and if they need to be upgraded. For the military industry of the world, you can’t invent a better testing ground.”

For the benefit of weakening Russia, enriching US military contractors and serving as a NATO “testing ground,” Ukrainian lives are not the only staggering sacrifice. According to the Wall Street Journal, “20,000 and 50,000 Ukrainians who have lost one or more limbs since the start of the war,” a scale unseen for a Western military since the First World War, and a potential undercount “because it takes time to register patients after they undergo” surgery.

According to veteran State Department bureaucrat Aaron David Miller, the Biden administration has no other choice but to continue sacrificing Ukrainians. The US, he explained, “is in an investment trap in Ukraine with no clear way out. Chances of a military breakthrough or a diplomatic solution are slim to none; and slim may have already left town. We’re in deep and lack the ability to do much more than react to events.” The key term here is “investment trap”: having invested in a proxy war aimed at bleeding Russia, the US is therefore obliged to continue it.

But if the US were driven by other concerns – such as Ukrainian well-being – it could consider supporting the diplomatic opportunities that it has blocked to date. Prior to Russia’s invasion, the Biden administration encouraged the Ukrainian government to crack down on political opponents; further integrate its military into NATO; avoid implementing the Minsk accords for ending its post-2014 civil war; and assault the Russian-allied Donbas. When Russia submitted detailed proposals in December 2021 to address its concerns, the White House effectively balked. And after Russia’s invasion, the US blocked a tentative peace deal that would have seen Russia withdrew to its pre-February 2022 lines. More recently, the US has pushed Ukraine into a counteroffensive that it knew had no chance, and rejected a Ukrainian NATO bid that it had long encouraged for the apparent purpose of baiting Moscow.

In short, the Biden administration has provoked this war and is now seeking a new influx of taxpayer money to prolong it. Even the latter goal is now openly admitted. At last month’s NATO summit in Lithuania, the New York Times reported, “several American and European officials acknowledged” that their “commitments” to Ukraine “make it all the more difficult to begin any real cease-fire or armistice negotiations.” Additionally, US-led “promises of Ukraine’s eventual accession to NATO — after the war is over —create a strong incentive for Moscow to hang onto any Ukrainian territory it can and to keep the conflict alive.”

So long as keeping the conflict alive comes predominantly at the cost of Ukrainian lives, then Washington’s bipartisan proxy warriors clearly have no qualms about forcing a war-weary public to foot the bill.

August 15, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Small Modular reactors- a US view

we now have ‘an echo chamber, with each outlet clambering over the next to crow about the great benefits of nuclear power in misleading language that suggests this technology is already entirely proven out’. 

It all fits into what see she see as an emerging pro-SMR mind set, with there being a lot of speculative investment venture cash still around- and a lot of press support. She says that though ‘very few of the proposed SMRs have been demonstrated and none are commercially available, let alone licensed by a nuclear regulator’, the media has been promoting them as the way ahead.

August 12, 2023  https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2023/08/small-modular-reactors-us-view.html

Allison Macfarlane, who was Chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) from 2012-2014, has been looking at Small Modular Reactors in the USA and elsewhere. She thinks they are likely to be uneconomic, much like the their larger brethren, which, as she describes, have recently been doing very poorly in the USA. 

Indeed, just like the EPR story in the EU, it makes for a sorry saga: ‘The two units under construction in South Carolina were abandoned in 2017, after an investment of US$9 billion. The two AP-1000 units in Georgia were to start in 2016/2017 for a price of US$14 billion. One unit started in April, 2023, the second unit promises to start later in 2023. The total cost is now over US$30 billion.’

Big reactors do look increasingly hard to fund and build on time and budget, while it is argued that smaller ones could be mass produced in factories at lower unit costs and finished units installed on site more rapidly. However, that would mean foregoing conventional economies of (large) scale, and, overall, Macfarlane claims that SMRs may end up being worse that large plants in operational and economic terms. 

For example, she says ‘one of the reasons SMRs will cost more has to do with fuel costs’ with some designs requiring ‘high-assay low enriched uranium fuel (HALEU), in other words, fuel enriched in the isotope uranium-235 between 10-19.99%, just below the level of what is termed “highly enriched uranium,” suitable for nuclear bombs.’ She notes that ‘currently, there are no enrichment companies outside of Russia that can produce HALEU, and thus the chicken-and-egg problem: an enrichment company wants assurance from reactor vendors to invest in developing HALEU production. But since commercial-scale SMRs are likely decades away, if they are at all viable, there is risk to doing so.’

She also notes that the use of HALEU, so as to offset the smaller size of the reactor core, will ‘result in increased security and safeguards requirements that will add to the price tag’. As she has explored in a PNAS paper with others, smaller cores mean more neutron escapes and so a need for more shielding, which will become activated, adding to the waste burden to be dealt. Indeed she says, overall, some SMRs may produce ‘significantly more high-level waste by volume that current light water reactors.’ That view did not go down well with SMR promoters, who sometimes portray SMRs as being cleaner than standard reactors.  

Some advanced SMRs may use molten salt fluids as a reactant and also coolant, and the waste chemistry then is different, although there will still be wastes to deal with. But for the moment, the focus is on simpler technology – just scaled down versions of the standard  Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR). Macfarlane notes that one of these, NuScale, is the only SMR design to received ‘design certification’ for its 50MW unit from the NRC

However, the company has now decided to submit a new application to the NRC to build a larger version, presumably in the expectation that this would be more economic. It’s also proposed to have multiple units on one site, sharing some common services.  That might offset some of the extra costs of small systems, but not much. Macfarlane says ‘cost estimates for the reactor have risen from US$55/megawatt electric (MWe) in 2016 to $89/MWe in 2023, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.’

Arguably, to be economic, they need to be bigger. That seems to have been the logic behind another mini-PWR, the Rolls Royce SMR being developed in the UK by Rolls Royce. Although at 470MW, that one is hardly ‘small’. 

By contrast, Oklo, another US company, is going in the opposite direction. It has been developing Auora, an advanced micro-nuclear power plant. It’s a tiny (1.5 MW) liquid sodium cooled fast neutron reactor. However, it was outright rejected by the NRC. Macfarlane says that ‘the NRC rarely outright rejects an application, instead working with licensees until they either get the application right or decide to walk away. In this case, Oklo refused to fill “information gaps” related to “safety systems and components.’ But Oklo persevered. And she notes it has gone for public finance via a merger with AltC Acquisition Corporation. 

It all fits into what see she see as an emerging pro-SMR mind set, with there being a lot of speculative investment venture cash still around- and a lot of press support. She says that though ‘very few of the proposed SMRs have been demonstrated and none are commercially available, let alone licensed by a nuclear regulator’, the media has been promoting them as the way ahead.

Even usually sane US outlets like the Atlantic Policy journal seem to have joined in. She says we now have ‘an echo chamber, with each outlet clambering over the next to crow about the great benefits of nuclear power in misleading language that suggests this technology is already entirely proven out’. 

 So she concludes, a bit pessimistically, that, in the USA, ‘in the nuclear celebratory mood of the moment, there is little patience or political will for sober voices to discuss the reality that new nuclear power is actually many decades away from having any measurable impact on climate change – if at all’.

The situation in Europe is a bit different. Although nuclear is also being supported in some countries, like the UK and France, anti-nuclear views are also apparent. For example a recent academic paper in Joule claims that ‘relying on nuclear new-builds to achieve the EU climate targets is virtually impossible.’ And overall it concludes ‘in solving the climate crisis, new nuclear is a costly and dangerous distraction.’ Whereas SMRs will be any better is unclear. There are quite few speculative SMR ventures around the word, as a UK review noted, but a recent study of 19 proposed SMR designs found that they were likely to be generally more expensive than conventional nuclear, and even more so than renewables. So, why bother?

As Macfarlane says, the battle lines are drawn on this issue around the world, with much of it being a PR battle – there is no real hardware yet. While the likes of Forbes magazine are pushing SMRs as the ‘go-to energy source’, in a hard hitting article in Fortune, Stephanie Cookes says ‘the billions currently being spent on nuclear are crowding out viable, less costly solutions for decarbonizing the power sector.’ 

Place your bets…but, for some, the outcome already looks clear. As David Schlissel said in US trade journal Utility Drive, ‘an old adage is that anything that sounds too good to be true probably is. Given the history of the nuclear power industry, everyone – utilities, ratepayers, legislators, federal officials and the general public – should be very skeptical about the industry’s current claim the new SMRs will cost less and be built faster than previous designs.’

August 15, 2023 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

Australia: Civil Society faces imposition of an AUKUS military High Level nuclear waste dump

 https://nuclear.foe.org.au/wp-content/uploads/AUKUS-nuclear-waste-David-Noonan-brief-13Aug2023.pdf Updated Briefing by David Noonan, Independent Environment Campaigner 13 August 2023


The Federal ALP belatedly disclosed a secret pre-condition in AUKUS plans to buy existing US nuclear submarines: for Australia to keep the US subs military High Level nuclear waste forever.

In a breach of trust the ALP is seeking to ‘normalise’ High Level nuclear waste in Australia. Claims of
‘nuclear stewardship’ in taking on US nuclear subs and in retaining the US sub wastes are a farce.

Disposal of High Level nuclear waste is globally unprecedented, with our AUKUS ‘partners’ the US
and UK having proven unable to do so in over 60 years since first putting nuclear submarines to sea.

New military Agencies are being set up with an ‘Australian Submarine Agency’ (ASA) set up to:
“enable the necessary policy, legal, non-proliferation, workforce, security and safety arrangements”.

A new military nuclear regulator, the statutory ‘Australian Nuclear-Powered Submarine Safety
Regulator’ is to be established. Both Agencies will report directly to the Minister for Defence.

An array of federal legislation is required to manage nuclear submarines, supporting infrastructure
and facilities, from acquisition through to disposal. The Reforming Defence Legislation Review
proposes to take on Defence Act powers to override State and Territory legislation to ‘provide
certainty’ to Defence roles, operations and facilities.

Minister for Defence Richard Marles MP has stated there will be ‘an announcement’ by early 2024 on
a process to manage High Level nuclear waste and to site a waste disposal facility, saying “obviously
that facility will be remote from populations” (ABC News 15 March 2023).

Defence is already working to identify potential nuclear waste disposal sites. Political leaders in WA,
Queensland and Victoria have rejected a High Level nuclear waste disposal site. The SA Labor
Premier has so far only said it should go to a safe ‘remote’ location in the national interest.

AUKUS compromises public confidence in government and sets up a serious clash with

hcivil society:

  • Defence must be transparent and made accountable over AUKUS policy, associated rights and
    legal issues, and the proposed High Level nuclear waste dump siting process;
  • Defence must commit to comply with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
    Peoples Article 29 provision of Indigenous People’s rights to “Free, Prior and Informed Consent”
    over storage or disposal of hazardous materials on their lands.
  • Defence must declare whether the SA Nuclear Waste Storage (Prohibition) Act 2000 is intended
    to be over-ridden to impose an AUKUS dump on lands and unwilling community in SA.

The public has a right to know who is targeted and a right to Say No to imposition of nuclear wastes.
The ALP National Platform (2021, Uranium p.96-98) makes a commitment to oppose overseas waste:

  • Labor will: 8. d. Remain strongly opposed to the importation and storage of nuclear waste
    that is sourced from overseas in Australia.

In contrast, AUKUS proposes Australia buy existing US military nuclear reactors in subs that are to be
up to 10-12 years old, loaded with intractable US origin weapons grade High Level nuclear wastes.

An AUKUS military nuclear dump is likely to be imposed on community in SA or in NT, with override
of State laws, compulsory land acquisition, and disregard for Indigenous Peoples rights to Say No.

Woomera is being targeted as a ‘favoured location’ for an AUKUS nuclear dump, in an
untenable affront to democratic rights in SA and to Indigenous People’s rights

SA community and the Barngarla People have just overcome federal plans to store ANSTO nuclear
fuel wastes and ILW on agricultural land near Kimba that had divided community on Eyre Peninsula.

The Bargarla People won a hard fought court case against the Federal Government that set aside the
Kimba dump siting decision by Coalition Minister Pitt as affected by bias and pre-judgement.

In response, Labor Minister Hon Madeleine King MP decided to not appeal the Judge’s finding of
apprehended bias, saying “The judgement was clear, and the Government is listening.”

The next day the national press reports: “Woomera looms as national nuclear waste dump site
including for AUKUS submarine high-level waste (afr.com) (11 August 2023). The article states the
AFR understands the Woomera rocket range is the ‘favoured location’ for the submarine waste.

The federal gov may also decide to ‘co-locate’ AUKUS submarine waste with ANSTO nuclear fuel
wastes and long lived ILW. However, the regulator says ANSTO wastes can be securely retained at the
Lucas Heights reactor site for decades. An imposed AUKUS dump will discredit any associated plans.

A suite of public interests are already at stake. For instance, which Ports will be requisitioned for
roles in AUKUS nuclear waste plans? (the federal gov previously targeted the Port of Whyalla).

AUKUS nuclear waste dump plans trigger the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples (adopted by United Nations, Sept 2007) in Indigenous People’s Article 29 rights to “Free,
Prior and Informed Consent” over storage or disposal of hazardous materials on their lands.

Traditional owners must have a right to Say No to nuclear wastes, see “AUKUS nuclear waste dump
must be subject to Indigenous veto” (By Michelle Fahy May 2023): “Bipartisan secrecy and Defence’s
poor record with Indigenous groups at Woomera are red flags for consultations over an AUKUS
nuclear waste dump. Human rights experts say government must establish an Indigenous veto right.”

The “Woomera Protected Area” (WPA) a large Defence weapon testing range in SA had already been
flagged by other State Premiers as a site for a military High Level nuclear waste disposal facility.

Most of the WPA is State owned Crown land and not federal owned Defence lands. Siting a nuclear
dump on the WPA would be imposed through compulsory land acquisition and over-ride of SA laws.

Storage and disposal of nuclear wastes compromises the safety and welfare of the people of South
Australia, that is why it is prohibited by the SA Nuclear Waste Storage (Prohibition) Act 2000.
The Objects of this Act cover public interest issues at stake, to protect our health, safety and welfare:

“The Objects of this Act are to protect the health, safety and welfare of the people of South
Australia and to protect the environment in which they live by prohibiting the establishment
of certain nuclear waste storage facilities in this State.”

Defence are already ignoring Aboriginal Heritage law and contravening protections in SA, see
“Defence bombing Indigenous site in Woomera” (May 2023). Defence is now further ‘angling for
exemption from State laws it admits serve important public purposes’.

The SA Premier is yet to say if he will support an Indigenous right to Say No to an AUKUS dump in SA.

South Australians have a democratic right to decide their own future and to reject an AUKUS dump.

August 15, 2023 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

2 minor earthquakes strike near North Korea’s nuclear test site

Sunday’s tremors latest in series of earthquakes to hit Kilju region in recent months

By Anadolu staff  13.08.2023  https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/2-minor-earthquakes-strike-near-north-koreas-nuclear-test-site/2966671

ANKARA

Two minor earthquakes struck on Sunday near North Korea’s nuclear test site, the latest in a series of natural earthquakes to hit the region in recent months, South Korea’s state weather agency said.

There were no reports of any damage.

The first earthquake of 2.7 magnitude struck about 40 kilometers (24.8 miles) north-northwest of Kilju, North Hamgyong Province, at 3:13 a.m. (local time), while the second of 2.3 magnitude struck 42 km (26 m) north-northwest of Kilju at 7:55 a.m, Seoul-based Yonhap News reported.

Kilju is home to the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, where North Korea conducted all six of its nuclear tests.

Eight natural earthquakes were reported to have struck the area in 2022 alone.

August 15, 2023 Posted by | North Korea, safety | Leave a comment

Who decides whether Bataan should go nuclear?

The plant is located near to not one but four volcanoes, in an area prone to earthquakes’

Rappler.com, AUG 13, 2023 LOLITA CASTILLO

Bataan, a beautiful peninsula located west of the Philippine capital, Manila, is most famous for a couple of things. One, it was where the Death March began following the defeat of the allied forces of American and Filipino soldiers led by Gen. Douglas McArthur against the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. Two, it is where the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) with a price tag of $2.3 billion idly resides, unoperated for nearly four decades.

Bataan residents did not have any sort of control or say in these two circumstances that brought their province to prominence. The former, BNPP’s construction amid opposition, was decided without their consent, and the latter a byproduct of the irrationalities of war and the fight for democracy.  

Bataan is my birthplace and remains dear to my heart. Although I have been away for a few decades, I keep abreast of the potential threats to its security and stability. BNPP’s construction began when I was in grade school, and most people in Bataan were not even aware of it until cause-oriented groups  outside of Bataan and the local informal leaders bravely protested against its operation in a militarized,  political climate. Now, it’s an issue that has resurfaced, and it will test how democracy is manifested and mediated in local and national settings, and how crucial decisions and trade-offs will be made regarding  safety, equity, and sustainable development. 

Each year, the government allocates more than $1 million for the BNPP’s upkeep and maintenance. It remains a losing and wasteful investment that does not give back. It is important that a decision is made about the white elephant as delays in the decision come with opportunity costs.  

The plant, the first of its kind in Southeast Asia, was designed to provide 620 megawatts of electricity, and was completed in 1984 in response to the oil crisis in the ’70s – but has never produced any single watt of electricity due to a combination of factors. The biggest of these factors are safety concerns. 

The administration of Aquino and Ramos had ordered it mothballed in spite of its extremely high costs     based on the findings from the technical audit conducted by the National Union of Scientists (NUS) in 1986, 1988, and 1990, citing over 4,000 technical defects concerning cover design, construction, quality assurance, workmanship, etc.

The plant is located near to not one but four volcanoes, in an area prone to earthquakes. Fear and uncertainty about the location, and the wake of the Three Mile Island accident in the US in 1979, the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, and the more recent 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster restrained efforts to revive it.

As the Philippines seeks to retire its coal plants to meet its pledge and climate goals, as the impact of climate change around the globe, especially among the most vulnerable island countries, intensifies, and as demand for electricity increases, the discussions and debates whether to revive the BNPP or not, or whether to repurpose it, continues.  

Nuclear energy is depicted as “cleaner” than coal, and Bataan’s power plants that send electricity to the Luzon grid rely heavily on fossil fuel. As of November 30, 2022, the total capacity of existing power plants in Bataan equals 3,676.7 MW. Renewable energy accounts only for 92.4 MW while fossil fuel-fired plants account for 3,528 MW. More solar and wind farms are slated for construction and operation by 2026, which will increase the output to 4,920.7 MW.

………………………………………  there are compelling dangers or risks as well: the plant is nearly 40 years old and would need  substantial rehabilitation that require further spending. Rigorous safety protocols are imperative to ensure safety, as it is sitting on earthquake-prone area. It generates radioactive waste, and the disposal of waste is expensive, as well as poses potential environmental risks. The cost of repair, maintenance,  and operation might be higher than if the government were to build and operate renewable sources of energy. In 2017, a South Korean firm estimated that rehabilitation and upgrade of BNPP would be up to $1.19 billion.

………………………….The residents of Bataan must always be included in decision-making on the path to development, as they are the ones who directly suffer from the consequences of bad economic and environmental policies. Moreover, Bataan is already disproportionally carrying the heavy burden of supplying energy to Luzon. It will be unequitable to force it to host an old nuclear plant that faces considerable uncertainties. 

Whatever Bataan decides, the following questions loom: Would the national government respect its decision and local autonomy? Would it allow Bataan the right to self-determination? If Bataan were to demand the national government to fund the rapid expansion of renewable sources of energy and repurpose BNPP, would the current president support it or would he follow the path of his father? – Rappler.com  https://www.rappler.com/voices/imho/opinion-who-decides-whether-bataan-should-go-nuclear/

August 15, 2023 Posted by | Indonesia, politics | Leave a comment

Egypt rejects multiple US requests to arm Ukraine: Report

PRESS TV , 12 August 2023

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has reportedly rejected multiple requests from the United States to send arms and military equipment to Ukraine.

The New York-based Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin received a “noncommittal” reply in March when he asked Sisi to send weapons to Ukraine.

The American daily said Washington had asked Cairo to provide Kiev with artillery shells, antitank missiles, air defense systems and small arms, but Egyptian officials privately said they had no intention of sending arms to Ukraine.

It added that since Austin’s meeting with the Egyptian president, senior US officials have made multiple requests for Cairo to follow through on the request to no avail……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/08/12/708774/Egyptian-President-Abdel-Fattah-el-Sisi-multiple-requests-US-arms-military-equipment-Wall-Street-Journal-

August 15, 2023 Posted by | Egypt, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukraine facing ‘difficult’ autumn – foreign minister

12 Aug 23,  https://www.rt.com/russia/581192-ukraine-kuleba-difficult-autumn/

Kiev’s Western backers will increasingly push the country to negotiate with Russia, Dmitry Kuleba predicts

Ukraine is heading for a “very difficult political season,” with the country likely to be pushed into negotiating with Russia, Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba has said.

He promised to do everything to resist efforts to coerce the country into seeking a diplomatic solution to the ongoing conflict.

“It will be a very difficult political season, I warn everyone. These voices [calling for talks] are getting louder. We will do everything within the framework of international and criminal law to ensure that these voices fade away,” Kuleba said on Saturday, as quoted by Ukrainian media.

Kiev has repeatedly rejected any possibility of negotiating with Russia, with the country’s President Vladimir Zelensky even introducing specific legislation last fall that explicitly banned such a move. On the other hand, Moscow has repeatedly expressed readiness to engage in meaningful negotiations to resolve the conflict, which has continued for a year-and-a-half.

Kuleba’s take on the upcoming autumn was ridiculed by Russian Senator Sergey Tsekov, who represents Crimea in the country’s upper chamber, the Federation Council. He suggested the diplomat and the Ukrainian leadership as a whole were actually worried about Western aid eventually drying up.

“He believes that autumn will be a difficult test for Ukraine due to calls for negotiations, as he and the Kiev elite are held hostage by easy money coming from the West,” Tsekov told Russian media.

The longer the fighting goes on, the more they will earn, the more they demand from the US, the EU. Still, the people of Ukraine will not see most of the funds since the aid will be ransacked,” the senator suggested.

Over the course of the ongoing conflict, the West has poured extensive military and financial aid into Ukraine, with the US alone allocating around $100 billion. Moscow has repeatedly urged Kiev’s Western backers to stop “pumping” Ukraine with weaponry, arguing that this will only prolong the hostilities rather than change their outcome.

August 15, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Is it “Hello” or “Goodbye” to Great British Nuclear Power?

13 August 2023  https://www.banng.info/news/regional-life/hello-or-goodbye-great-british-nuclear/

Andrew Blowers contemplates this question in the BANNG column for Regional Life, August, 2023

The frenzied relaunch of Great British Nuclear (GBN) as the vehicle to produce 24GW of nuclear power (i.e. a quarter of Britain’s electricity) was long on rhetoric and short on commitment. The prospect of low carbon nuclear power sometime in the future – albeit costly, slow, accident-prone and with a legacy of dangerous wastes – seemed a soothing distraction from the present reality of heatwaves, wildfires, warming oceans and rapidly melting ice.

But, nuclear power cannot escape the reality of an insecure and unsafe future with global warming and sea-level rise. In the immediate future, individual nuclear stations will be affected by floods, storms, heatwaves and droughts. Increasing temperatures will affect cooling systems reducing power output as thermal efficiency decreases. In the longer-term, nuclear power may face an existential crisis especially where stations, like Bradwell, are sited on coasts prone to flooding, erosion and storm surges as sea-level rises.

One day this summer my grandson and I built a fortified sandcastle on West Mersea beach. With a willing suspension of disbelief, it can be imagined as a nuclear power station, let’s call it Bradwell B. My grandson is standing on the ‘nuclear island’ which is ringed by a high wall to protect it from the sea.

But, as time goes by, the sea rises (by as much as 3 or 4 metres in the next century) and surges threaten the doomed station, until the walls are breached, the island invaded and power station and highly radioactive wastes are cast into the waters. The station, like our sandcastle, will eventually be no more.

Despite the long-term risks from climate change, developers seem still to be eyeing up the prospects for building at Bradwell. By a process called ‘adaptive management’ they envisage increasing the height of the walls, to the point where the nuclear island becomes, literally, an island. If such an idea sounds crazy, that’s because it is.

In 1953 The Great Tide surged down the East Coast, flooding the Essex coastlands, leaving death and destruction in its wake.

Back then, the floods receded and the land was reclaimed. Under climate change there will be no turning back and the land and all that is upon it will be gone for ever.

Sooner or later, GBN will signify “Good-Bye” Nuclear.

August 15, 2023 Posted by | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

McCarthyism Is Back, and It’s Coming for the Peace Movement

 https://portside.org/2023-08-12/mccarthyism-back-and-its-coming-peace-movement

With rising global tensions, unsurprisingly the same old McCarthyite playbook is again being dusted off. We reject these smears.

Defending Rights & Dissent condemns in the strongest possible terms the increasing McCarthyite attacks on leftwing and peace groups critical of US-policy towards China. As tensions between the US and China escalate, we have unsurprisingly seen attacks against those who dissent from the prevailing foreign policy orthodoxy.

Over the weekend, the New York Times published an inflammatory regurgitation of innuendo, aspersions, and propaganda focusing on a number of groups, including Code Pink and the People’s Forum.

 With the “paper of record” giving these smears a veneer of legitimacy, Senator Marco Rubio sent a letter to the Department of Justice urging them to investigate these activist groups under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. This would not be the first time that biased reporting was used to predicate an FBI investigation.

Defending Rights & Dissent has worked with Code Pink for decades. Just days before the Times published their hit job, we joined with Code Pink to deliver a letter to the State Department about imprisoned journalist Julian Assange. In 2020, we launched our report Still Spying on Dissent: The Enduring Problem of FBI First Amendment Abuse at the People’s Forum. We also co-sponsored the New York session of the Belmarsh Tribunal, which was held at the People’s Forum. In spite of the attempted intimidation of Sen. Rubio, Defending Rights & Dissent fully plans to continue working with both Code Pink and the People’s Forum. 

Code Pink has been a courageous and bold voice and the People’s Forum has been an invaluable space for activists. These efforts to silence them have far-reaching implications beyond just US-China policy.

On October 10, 1960, Defending Rights & Dissent was formed as the National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee. The New York Times covered the event, regurgitating the press release issued by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which noted that HUAC had accused six of our founders of being Communists. Over a decade later when we sued the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act, it was revealed the FBI were the true authors of the HUAC press-release the New York Times dutifully parroted. 

In those days, merely opposing HUAC or questioning the FBI’s vast domestic surveillance leviathan was enough to tar someone with suspicion of something sinister. During the Cold War, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, HUAC, and other forces of political repression all treated the holding of verboten views on anything from civil rights to foreign policy as evidence the speaker was part of a subversive plot. According to Hoover, although it was difficult to prove membership in the Communist Party, it was easy to prove they were speaking the “Communist Line.” The FBI compiled reports on the “Communist Line” and did side-by side comparisons with activist groups or political publications. Both membership in a subversive organization or the belief that one may be influenced by subversives opened one up to the same intensive surveillance and dirty tricks of the FBI.

After restrictions were placed on the FBI in the 1970s, the FBI used its nebulous foreign counterintelligence powers to say it was combatting “active measures” in the form of Soviet disinformation and international terrorism to target dissent. The official reasoning may have changed, but the internal logic was the same, and the FBI set out in pursuit of opponents of Ronald Reagan’s murderous Central American policy arguing they were “foreign agents” or supporting terrorism as evidenced by their political views. 

We saw this same playbook repeated again after September 11, 2001 and applied to critics of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the suppression of civil liberties at home. Repeatedly, supporters of Palestinian rights have also been subject to similar McCarthyite tactics. In many cases, the FBI justified its investigations and inquiries based on information coming from right wing groups. That is precisely what Sen. Rubio and others are hoping will be the result of the Times piece. 

With rising global tensions, unsurprisingly the same old McCarthyite playbook is again being dusted off. We reject these smears.

August 15, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Biden should promote peace over war in Ukraine for 2 good reasons.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace , Glen Ellyn IL 15 Aug 23

President Biden faces a dilemma. He’s running for re-election in what is likely to be an extremely close re-election race.

But he’s locked into promoting endless tens of billions to win an unwinnable proxy war against Russia in Ukraine that the electorate no longer supports.

After 18 months, the electorate is moving on from supporting his war. They know it’s unwinnable. They realize it’s not remotely connected to US national security interests. They understand it could a lurch into nuclear confrontation at any time. A recent CNN poll found voters flipped from 62% feeling Biden should do more, to just 48%. Even a bigger percentage, 55%, oppose more tens of billions in weapons to fuel a lost cause.

But Biden doubles down, saying we’re in this proxy war for the long haul till Ukraine pushes Russia out of the pro Russian Ukraine areas that will never be reunited with the Western oriented two thirds of Ukraine.

To make his point clear, Biden sabotaged a negotiated settlement 16 months ago that would have left Ukraine with more territory that they will now end up with. Result? Tens of thousands of unnecessary Ukraine deaths and further destruction to its economy all to prove an unprovable point.

Republicans would not likely be supporting peace in Ukraine if Trump were president, but more and more are exploiting public opinion against the war as they seek to reclaim the White House next year. If Biden follows sensible voter opinion and pivots toward peace, his electoral chances increase.

But there is a second and better reason for Biden to promote peace instead of war in Ukraine. Politics aside…it’s the right thing to do to save lives, possibly avoid nuclear war.

August 15, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment