nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Week to 21st August – in nuclear news

A bit of good news. Montana Rules a Healthful Environment Is a Constitutional Right.

TOP STORIES 

Assange Be Weary: The Dangers of a US Plea Deal.  

Nuclear Power Plants as Targets of War — A New Worry?.

Ukraine likely to fail in key counteroffensive aim, says US intelligence. Amid ‘staggering’ Ukrainian toll and souring US polls, Biden seeks billions more for war. Why the Glut of ‘Wonder Weapons’ to Ukraine Won’t Make a Difference. 

Huge study of nuclear workers in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States confirms low dose radiation as a cause of cancer. Risk of cancer death after exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation underestimated, suggests nuclear industry study.

Climate.  Climate Scientists warn nature’s ‘anaesthetics’ have worn off, now arth is feeling the pain, as ocean heating hits record.

Nuclear.  You’d think that the  fact that the Ukraine ‘counter-offensive’ is stalling might induce a Western mindset more favorable to the idea of a negotiated end to the war.  Not so  -the US-NATO plan is for more, and more lethal weapons.  It might even put off the idea of a war against China. But no  -and sadly, in Australia the mood among the “top people” is all for throwing $billions at preparing for the China war.  (The bottom people aren’t consulted) 

Christina notes. Bribery and Blackmail: these are the tools for continuing success of the nuclear industry.  Perfecting “planned obsolescence” – how the USA and its allies’ taxpayers are locked into perpetual buying of useless weapons.

CLIMATE. The nuclear icebreakers enabling drilling in Russia’s Arctic .

ECONOMICS. 

ENERGY. US climate law introduces billion-dollar ‘game-changer’ for nonprofits.

ENVIRONMENT. Anger as Hinkley Point C allowed to discharge sewage into Bristol Channel and drop fish protection.

ETHICS and RELIGION. The Oppenheimer Imperative: Normalising Atomic Terror. Japanese and US Bishops pledge partnership for a nuclear-free world. Poisoning the planet. Big Brave Western Proxy Warriors Keep Whining That Ukrainian Troops Are Cowards.

HEALTH. Japan mothers’ group fears Fukushima water release could revive health concerns.

LEGAL.  For What Crime? – Good Journalism?.     Marshall Islands reacts to US expansion of nuclear compensation.

MEDIA. The Connection between Oppenheimer and Gentilly-2: Edward Teller and the H bomb

NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY. Risks of further delays at Hinkley Point C, EDF warns. Even the UK’s very first small nuclear reactor could  could not be decided upon until 2029   . Nuclear Fusion: Energy Breakthrough or Ballyhoo?.

OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . South Korea’s opposition party to file UN complaint against Japan over nuclear waste .

PERSONAL STORIES. The Financial Legacy of the Nuclear Tests on Bikini Atoll/

POLITICS. 

POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. 

PROTESTS. Gwynedd anti-nuclear march ‘sent powerful message’. Japanese citizens’ group protests nuclear discharge.

SAFETY. 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Risky Rule Change Ignores History. More Nuclear Emergency Planning Needed, Not Less. 

Power-Line Cut Raises Alarm Over Russian-Held Nuclear Plant In Ukraine, But Expert Says Little Has Changed. Russia And Ukraine Trade Blame Over Outages At Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Plant.

SECRETS and LIES. Most ‘experts’ pushing for endless conflict in Ukraine share a common benefactor.

WASTES. Japan’s nuclear plants are short of storage for spent fuel. A remote town could have the solution.

WAR and CONFLICT. Ralph Nader: Develop an Exit Strategy for the Endless War in Ukraine. The Inevitable Defeat: Retired US Colonel Speaks Candidly On Ukraine’s Losing Battle Against Russia. Back in another quagmire – in Biden’s relentless “Big Muddy” of Ukraine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXnJVkEX8O4   US, Finland Negotiating Defense Agreement That Would See Deployment of American Troops.

Niger is Far From a Typical Coup.

WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. 

August 21, 2023 Posted by | Christina's notes | 2 Comments

Big Brave Western Proxy Warriors Keep Whining That Ukrainian Troops Are Cowards

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, AUG 19, 2023

Amid continuous news that the Ukrainian counteroffensive which began in June is not going as hoped, The New York Times has published an article titled “Troop Deaths and Injuries in Ukraine War Near 500,000, U.S. Officials Say.” 

Reporting that Ukrainian efforts to retake Russia-occupied territory have been “bogged down in dense Russian minefields under constant fire from artillery and helicopter gunships,” The New York Times reports that Ukrainian forces have switched tactics to using “artillery and long-range missiles instead of plunging into minefields under fire.”

Then the article gets really freaky:

“American officials are worried that Ukraine’s adjustments will race through precious ammunition supplies, which could benefit President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and disadvantage Ukraine in a war of attrition. But Ukrainian commanders decided the pivot reduced casualties and preserved their frontline fighting force.

“American officials say they fear that Ukraine has become casualty averse, one reason it has been cautious about pressing ahead with the counteroffensive. Almost any big push against dug-in Russian defenders protected by minefields would result in huge numbers of losses.”

I’m sorry, US officials “fear” that Ukraine is becoming “casualty averse”? Because safer battlefield tactics that burn through a lot of ammunition don’t chew through lives like charging through a minefield under heavy artillery fire?

What are the Ukrainians supposed to be? Casualty amenable? If Ukraine was more casualty amenable, would it be more willing to throw young bodies into the gears of this proxy war that the US empire actively provoked and killed peace deals to maintain?

Something tells me that the US officials speaking to The New York Times about their “fear” of Ukrainian casualty aversiveness do not know what real fear is. Something tells me that if you marched these US officials through Russian minefields under constant fire from artillery and helicopter gunships, then they would understand fear.

Western officials have been spending the last few weeks whining to the media that Ukraine’s inability to gain ground is due to an irrational aversion to being killed. They’ve been decrying Ukrainian cowardice to the press under cover of anonymity, from behind the safety of their office desks.

In an article published Thursday titled “U.S. intelligence says Ukraine will fail to meet offensive’s key goal,” The Washington Post cited anonymous “U.S. and Western officials” to report that the massive losses Ukraine has been suffering in this counteroffensive had been “anticipated” in war games ahead of time, but that they had “envisioned Kyiv accepting the casualties as the cost of piercing through Russia’s main defensive line.”

The same article quotes Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba telling critics of the counteroffensive to “go and join the foreign legion” if they don’t like the results so far, adding, “It’s easy to say that you want everything to be faster when you are not there.”

In an article published last month titled “U.S. Cluster Munitions Arrive in Ukraine, but Impact on Battlefield Remains Unclear,” The New York Times reported unnamed senior US officials had “privately expressed frustration” that Ukrainian commanders “fearing increased casualties among their ranks” were switching to artillery barrages, “rather than sticking with the Western tactics and pressing harder to breach the Russian defenses.”

“Why don’t they come and do it themselves?” a former Ukrainian defense minister told The New York Times in response to the American criticism.

In an article last month titled “Ukraine’s Lack of Weaponry and Training Risks Stalemate in Fight With Russia,” The Wall Street Journal reported that unnamed western military officials “knew Kyiv didn’t have all the training or weapons” needed to dislodge Russia, but that they had “hoped Ukrainian courage and resourcefulness would carry the day” anyway. 

“It didn’t,” Wall Street Journal added.

In the same article, The Wall Street Journal cited a US Army War College professor named John Nagle admitting that the US itself would never attempt the kind of counteroffensive it’s been pushing Ukrainians into attempting.

“America would never attempt to defeat a prepared defense without air superiority, but they [Ukrainians] don’t have air superiority,” Nagl said, adding, “It’s impossible to overstate how important air superiority is for fighting a ground fight at a reasonable cost in casualties.”

And now we’re seeing reports in the mass media that US officials — still under cover of anonymity of course — are beginning to wonder if perhaps it might have been better to try to negotiate peace instead of launching this counteroffensive that they knew was doomed from the beginning. 

In an article titled “Milley had a point,” Politico cites multiple anonymous US officials saying that as “the realities of the counteroffensive are sinking in around Washington,” empire managers are beginning to wonder if they should have heeded outgoing Joint Chiefs chair Mark Milley’s suggestion back in November that it was a good time to consider peace talks.

“We may have missed a window to push for earlier talks,” one anonymous official says, adding, “Milley had a point.”

Oops. Oops they made a little oopsie poopsie. Oh well, it’s only Ukrainian lives.

Imagine reading through all this as a Ukrainian, especially a Ukrainian who’s lost a home or a loved one to this war. I imagine white hot tears pouring down my face. I imagine rage, and I imagine overwhelming frustration.

This whole war could have been avoided with a little diplomacy and a few mild concessions to Moscow. It could have been stopped in the early weeks of the conflict back when a tentative peace agreement had been struck. It could have been stopped back in November before this catastrophic counteroffensive.

But it wasn’t. The US had an agenda to lock Moscow into a costly military quagmire with the goal of weakening Russia, and to this day US officials openly boast about all this war is doing to advance US interests. So they’ve kept it going, using Ukrainian bodies as a giant sponge to soak up as many expensive military explosives as possible to drain Russian coffers while advancing US energy interests in Europe and keeping Moscow preoccupied while the empire orchestrates its next move against China.

Last month The Washington Post’s David Ignatius wrote an article explaining why westerners shouldn’t “feel gloomy” about how things are going in Ukraine, writing the following about how much this war is doing to benefit US interests overseas:

“Meanwhile, for the United States and its NATO allies, these 18 months of war have been a strategic windfall, at relatively low cost (other than for the Ukrainians). The West’s most reckless antagonist has been rocked. NATO has grown much stronger with the additions of Sweden and Finland. Germany has weaned itself from dependence on Russian energy and, in many ways, rediscovered its sense of values. NATO squabbles make headlines, but overall, this has been a triumphal summer for the alliance.”

Other than for the Ukrainians” he says, as a parenthetical aside.

Everyone who supported this horrifying proxy war should have that paragraph tattooed on their fucking forehead.

August 21, 2023 Posted by | Religion and ethics, Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

New York governor blocks discharge of radioactive water into Hudson River from closed nuclear plant.

A measure to block discharges of radioactive
water into the Hudson River as part of the Indian Point nuclear plant’s
decommissioning was signed into law Friday by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.

The bill was introduced to thwart the planned release of 1.3 million
gallons of water with traces of radioactive tritium from the retired
riverside plant 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of New York City.

The plan sparked a groundswell of opposition in the suburban communities along the
river. Many feared the discharges would depress real estate values and
drive away sailors, kayakers and swimmers after decades of progress in
cleaning up the Hudson River.

AP 18th Aug 2023

https://apnews.com/article/indian-point-hudson-river-nuclear-pollution-2c8d0f5d31acc701bbc41bdb573bfac5

August 21, 2023 Posted by | politics, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

OPPENHEIMER AUTHOR ENDORSES NORTON BILL –  Nuclear Abolition and Conversion Act, H.R. 2775  

New York (August 16, 2023) more https://www.nuclearban.us/kai-bird/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kai-bird– 

Kai Bird, co-author of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning book on which Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer movie is based, issued the following statement endorsing a bill by Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), the  Nuclear Abolition and Conversion Act, H.R. 2775:  

“My book chronicles the birth of the nuclear age. Since the first nuclear testing and bombing in 1945, the man-made nuclear danger has continually increased. Now, today’s 13,000 atomic weapons are unthinkably destructive, indiscriminate, climate-altering devices that can be unleashed by design, by sabotage, or by accident. Therefore, I strongly endorse Congresswoman Norton’s Nuclear Abolition and Conversion Act, H.R. 2775. The bill calls for the US to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as a first step to safely, fairly, verifiably eliminating all nuclear weapons from all countries, and eventually converting the nuclear weapons jobs, brainpower, money, and infrastructure to genuine climate solutions and other pressing human needs.”

“Kai Bird is keenly aware of how the nuclear arms race started, and where it has taken us,” said Vicki Elson of NuclearBan.US. “He has said that ‘humanity missed a crucial opportunity at the outset of the nuclear age’ to eliminate the risk of nuclear catastrophe. But with this new movie reminding us of the urgency, and the Nuclear Ban Treaty offering a sensible pathway to global disarmament, maybe it’s not too late.”

The bill’s original co-sponsors are Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Mark Pocan (D-WI). 

August 21, 2023 Posted by | media, politics, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Poisoning the planet

Radioactive water dump is just latest example our reckless destruction of habitat

By Linda Pentz Gunter, 20 Aug 23, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/08/20/poisoning-the-planet/

Much has been made — and rightly so — about the potential impact on human health and the Japanese fishing industry if Japan moves forward with its proposal to dump 1.2 million cubic meters — that’s 1.3 million tons —of radioactively contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean from the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant site.

Unfortunately, this looks likely to happen sometime this month or next despite the worldwide outcry. But when I say “happen”, that rather suggests a one-off dump. Instead, the discharge of these liquid nuclear wastes could go on for at least 17 years according to the Atomic Energy Society of Japan, but likely longer as decommissioning work at the site is expected to take at least 30-40 years.

It is perfectly right and reasonable that the Japanese fishing community sees its livelihood under threat from this proposal. Indeed, it has already taken a hit, as imports of Japanese fish stock to South Korea were down by 30% in May, before the dumping even began. This was clearly driven by jitters around the on-going safety of Japanese fish supplies once those radioactive discharges get underway.

And Pacific Island nations, along with an international team of scientific experts, have equally decried the plan as premature, unnecessary and in need of far greater confidence and further study before such discharges are executed, if ever.

But there is a greater moral issue here, one that speaks to humankind’s reckless and selfish behavior on planet Earth ever since mechanization and the various so-called industrial revolutions began.

For almost three centuries in the developed world, we have continuously and wantonly destroyed vast areas of precious habitat for numerous species. We have clear cut forests, sliced the tops off mountains, broken open the earth to mine minerals, exploded atomic weapons, spewed mercury and carbon into our air, drilled for oil, sprayed pesticides at will and filled the oceans with plastics, to name just a few environmental atrocities.

The toxic mess these activities leave behind has been dumped into rivers, streams, lakes and oceans, or on the lands where the less influential and powerful amongst us live — in the United States almost always in communities of color or on Native American reservations.

One of the worst offenders on this list is nuclear waste. In keeping with our heedless irresponsibility we have kept making lethal radioactive waste without the slightest idea how to safely manage or store it for the longterm. For years, barrels of the stuff were dumped into the sea, until a 1994 amendment to the London Dumping Convention, put an end to it.

But of course the nuclear industry found a way around this. Routine liquid discharges through a pipe circumvented this law. Institutions such as the LaHague reprocessing site on the northern French coast, have discharged radioactive liquids (and gases) for decades. Didier Anger, the now retired expert activist on the environmental crimes at La Hague, uses this history to warn us urgently and eloquently of the folly of discharging nuclear waste into our oceans.

At times, the liquid wastes from La Hague, measured at the discharge point by vigilant groups such as Greenpeace, could have been classified as high-level radioactive waste that would normally require a deep geological repository. 

As we approach the moment when radioactive liquids are once more poured into the sea, this time in Japan, imposing a toxic burden on the creatures who are already struggling to survive there, we must ask whether human beings have some sort of divine right of kings to trash the habitat of other living things? 

The answer should surely be ‘no’. That humans can generate a radioactive mess and “dispose” of it into some other creatures’ habitat, poisoning their environment is, frankly, both arrogant and abhorrent.

We have already done this everywhere and it has come with a terrible price to other creatures as well as to ourselves. The destruction and contamination of habitat has led to mass extinctions. The US has lost three billion birds since 1970. That’s one in four birds. We may have thought the birds were back in abundance during the start of the covid pandemic, but that was just us hearing what’s left of them more clearly, in the quiet of lockdown.

Bees, who perform around 80% of all pollination, are dying out and hives collapsing, all due to human activities. These include pesticides, drought, habitat destruction, nutrition deficit, air pollution, and, of course, the climate crisis.

Absent these and other essential members of the web of life, our own extinction is not far behind.

We need to stop this behavior and we need to stop it now. We should do it not only for ourselves but for the countless innocent creatures who should not be expected to offer up their homes as our dustbins.

Loading up the Pacific Ocean with liquid radioactive waste — whether it dilutes and disperses or not — is a crime of immorality representative of so many that have come before. If we are truly to change our plundering, polluting and profligate ways, banning the radioactive water dump at Fukushima would be an excellent place to start.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and curates Beyond Nuclear International. 

August 21, 2023 Posted by | environment, Japan, oceans, Religion and ethics, wastes | Leave a comment

Niger is Far From a Typical Coup

Rather than send troops in response to the coup, France and the U.S. seem to favor a “Rwanda” type solution applied in Mozambique earlier this year, writes Vijay Prashad. Only this time ECOWAS would apply force.

SCHEERPOST, By Vijay Prashad / Peoples Dispatch 20 Aug 23  

In July 26, 2023, Niger’s presidential guard moved against the sitting president—Mohamed Bazoum—and conducted a coup d’état. A brief contest among the various armed forces in the country ended with all the branches agreeing to the removal of Bazoum and the creation of a military junta led by Presidential Guard Commander General Abdourahamane “Omar” Tchiani. This is the fourth country in the Sahel region of Africa to have experienced a coup—the other three being Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Mali

The new government announced that it would stop allowing France to leech Niger’s uranium (one in three lightbulbs in France is powered by the uranium from the field in Arlit, northern Niger). Tchiani’s government revoked all military cooperation with France, which means that the 1,500 French troops will need to start packing their bags (as they did in both Burkina Faso and Mali).

Meanwhile, there has been no public statement about Airbase 201, the US facility in Agadez, a thousand kilometers from the country’s capital of Niamey. This is the largest drone base in the world and key to US operations across the Sahel. US troops have been told to remain on the base for now and drone flights have been suspended. The coup is certainly against the French presence in Niger, but this anti-French sentiment has not enveloped the US military footprint in the country.

Hours after the coup was stabilized, the main Western states—especially France and the United States—condemned the coup and asked for the reinstatement of Bazoum, who was immediately detained by the new government. But neither France nor the United States appeared to want to lead the response to the coup. Earlier this year, the French and US governments worried about an insurgency in northern Mozambique that impacted the assets of the Total-Exxon natural gas field off the coastline of Cabo Delgado. Rather than send in French and US troops, which would have polarized the population and increased anti-Western sentiment, the French and the United States made a deal for Rwanda to send its troops into Mozambique. Rwandan troops entered the northern province of Mozambique and shut down the insurgency. Both Western powers seem to favor a “Rwanda” type solution to the coup in Niger, but rather than have Rwanda enter Niger the hope was for ECOWAS—the Economic Community of West African States—to send in its force to restore Bazoum.

A day after the coup, ECOWAS condemned the coup. ECOWAS encompasses fifteen West African states, which in the past few years has suspended Burkina Faso and Mali from their ranks because of the coups in that country; Niger was also suspended from ECOWAS a few days after the coup. Formed in 1975 as an economic bloc, the grouping decided—despite no mandate in its original mission—to send in peacekeeping forces in 1990 into the heart of the Liberian Civil War. Since then, ECOWAS has sent its peacekeeping troops to several countries in the region, including Sierra Leone and Gambia. Not long after the coup in Niger, ECOWAS placed an embargo on the country that included suspending its right to basic commercial transactions with its neighbors, freezing Niger’s central bank assets that are held in regional banks, and stopping foreign aid (which comprises forty percent of Niger’s budget).

The most striking statement was that ECOWAS would take “all measures necessary to restore constitutional order.” An August 6 deadline given by ECOWAS expired because the bloc could not agree to send troops across the border. ECOWAS asked for a “standby force” to be assembled and ready to invade Niger. Then, ECOWAS said it would meet on August 12 in Accra, Ghana, to go over its options. That meeting was canceled for “technical reasons.” Mass demonstrations in key ECOWAS countries—such as Nigeria and Senegal—against an ECOWAS military invasion of Niger have confounded their own politicians to support an intervention. It would be naïve to suggest that no intervention is possible. Events are moving very fast, and there is no reason to suspect that ECOWAS will not intervene before August ends.

Coups in the Sahel

When ECOWAS suggested the possibility of an intervention into Niger, the military governments in Burkina Faso and Mali said that this would be a “declaration of war” not only against Niger but also against their countries…………………………………………………………………………….. https://scheerpost.com/2023/08/20/niger-is-far-from-a-typical-coup/

August 21, 2023 Posted by | Niger, Uranium, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Austria cautions against nuclear power in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

The following is a statement delivered by George-Wilhelm Gallhofer, diplomat at the Austrian Mission to the United Nations, on behalf of the Government of Austria, on 8 August 2023, during the First Session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2025 Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty in Vienna, Austria.

Austria fully respects the inalienable right of all Parties to the NPT to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. At the same time, Austria calls on all States to limit “the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes” to those applications not raising concerns for possible military applications. This is specifically laid out in Art. IV of the NPT, which simultaneously requires conformity with Article I and II.

In this regard, we see the use of nuclear power differing significantly from any other application of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Any expansion of nuclear power necessarily increases the risk of proliferation while applications in health, agriculture, imaging and physical measurement do usually not raise this risk.

For this reason, full scope safeguards and ideally an Additional Protocol must accompany each nuclear program.

Let me also caution against advertising nuclear power as an appropriate source of electricity to combat negative climate effects and answer to the climate crises. The comparatively low CO2 emissions of nuclear power do not compensate for disadvantages inevitably connected to nuclear power. Let me give you three examples:

1) The safe and permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel is still unresolved. To date, not a single repository for such waste is in operation worldwide. Even if such repositories were to become operational in the foreseeable future, today’s knowledge cannot guarantee the safe enclosure required for hundred thousands of years.

2) We cannot completely exclude severe accidents from nuclear power plants involving large and early releases of radionuclides with significant adverse consequences, including contamination even on the territory of other countries.

3) There is only a limited supply of uranium and thorium available and a nuclear “fuel cycle” does not exist so far. If there would be such a cycle, it would trigger more challenges regarding safety, security and safeguards

This list is by far not exhaustive but underlines my previous point: Austria does not consider nuclear power to be compatible with the concept of sustainable development. In our view, reliance on nuclear power is neither a viable nor a cost-efficient option to combat climate change. Both the polluter-pays principle and the precautionary principle are grossly violated in nuclear power use……………………………………………………………….. more https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/08/20/revisiting-the-inalienable-right/

August 21, 2023 Posted by | politics international | Leave a comment

Germany will ‘never’ place troops in Ukraine – Scholz

The chancellor says it is his aim to prevent a war with Russia amid talk of long-range missile deliveries to Kiev

 https://www.rt.com/news/581498-germany-scholz-never-troops-ukraine/ 20 Aug 23

Germany will not get involved in the Ukraine conflict, but will continue to supply Kiev with weaponry, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said. The comment comes amid a public discussion on whether Berlin should supply long-range Taurus missiles to Kiev.

Speaking at an event organized by the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper on Friday, Scholz was asked whether there is a danger of Germany becoming “actively involved in the war.” He replied by saying that it is his “aim to prevent this,” and that this is why there are “no German soldiers in Ukraine and there won’t be any.”

The chancellor said, however, that Berlin will continue to supply Ukraine with weapons. He added that each decision in this respect has been taken cautiously and in coordination with allies. According to Scholz, the West does not want the conflict to develop into a “war between Russia and NATO.”

Earlier this month, Ukrainian lawmaker Egor Chernev said that many of his German colleagues were in favor of providing Kiev with the Taurus missile, which has a range of around 500km.
Chernev claimed that a broad consensus on the issue had been reached among German political parties, and that Ukraine is now awaiting an official decision.

Germany’s RTL and n-tv commissioned a poll which indicated that 66% of Germans are opposed to the idea, with only 28% in favor.

Ukraine has been asking Germany for this type of missile since at least late May, though senior officials, including Scholz and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, have so far rejected the requests.

The German leadership, however, also hesitated for several months on Leopard battle tank deliveries, before eventually acquiescing in late January.

With Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive falling short of initial expectations, as acknowledged by senior officials in Kiev and Western capitals, NATO member states have vowed to continue to support the country for ‘as long as it takes.’

Russia has warned Western nations that by sending weapons to Ukraine, they are only prolonging the conflict, while increasing the risk of a direct confrontation between NATO and Moscow.

August 21, 2023 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Financial Legacy of the Nuclear Tests on Bikini Atoll

WSJ, 18 Aug 23

As part of the U.S. nuclear tests after World War II, a total of 23 nuclear weapons were detonated on and around Bikini Atoll. Eventually, the U.S. set aside funding to help the people of Bikini and their descendants. But, as WSJ’s Dan Frosch reports, those compensation funds have been drained.

TRANSCRIPT – (sections of)

“……………. Jessica Mendoza: One test site was the American territory of Bikini Atoll. Over 12 years, a total of 23 atomic bombs were detonated at and around the chain of islands. But before it was a nuclear test site, it was home to more than a hundred people. The US government evacuated those islanders ahead of the experiments. And for decades, they were nuclear nomads, hopping from island to island, often facing harsh conditions, sometimes starvation. Eventually the US government agreed to set aside funding to help the people of Bikini and their descendants. Descendants like Jessy Elmi, whose grandmother was 15 when she was forced to leave Bikini Atoll.

Jessy Elmi: Three islands were disintegrated and they can never go back. It’s radioactive.

Jessica Mendoza: Jessy now lives in Florida, but she has relied on the funds to help with everyday expenses.

Jessy Elmi: I would be able to get diapers or baby food or whatever. It would help pay for school books and papers and pens and things like that.

Jessica Mendoza: Those payments were dependable until earlier this year.

Jessy Elmi: In February, we just stopped getting our payments. The date came up, it passed, and then another two weeks passed by and now it turned into a month. And then after that, the next payment, and we’re like, “Hmm, so is there no money anymore? Something’s going on here.”

Jessica Mendoza: Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business and power. I’m Jessica Mendoza. It’s Friday, August 18th. Coming up on the show, Compensation Funds were set aside for the descendants of Bikini Atoll. What happened to their money? Where exactly is Bikini Atoll?

Dan Frosch: It’s kind of in-between the Philippines and Hawaii. That’s sort of a good way of looking at it………………………………

Jessica Mendoza: Bikini Atoll is part of the larger chain of islands known as the Marshall Islands. More than 80 years after those nuclear tests, Bikini Atoll is still uninhabitable. So what would you find if you were to visit Bikini Atoll now? If you were walking around on the beach, what would you see? Can you drink the well water? Lay on the sand?

Dan Frosch: So you would find a largely deserted series of islands. You can’t drink the groundwater there. According to researchers, it is still radioactive, as are the coconuts. And you will see coconut crabs who typically feast on these coconuts, but are also radioactive because of the nuclear fallout from decades earlier.

Jessica Mendoza: There were 167 people living on Bikini Atoll ahead of the blasts. The US government relocated those families and told them two things. First, that the residents would be able to return to Bikini eventually. And second…

Anderson Jibas: What you’re doing is in service to humanity. It’s going to help.

Dan Frosch: I mean, they were told that their actions would help end all wars.

Jessica Mendoza: Quite a promise to be making……………………………..

Jessica Mendoza: The government set up two separate funds to help. The first pot of money was a $110 million trust fund.

Dan Frosch: Now, this money was initially intended to clean up Bikini Atoll and hopefully at some point get people back onto the islands chain to their homeland.

Jessica Mendoza: But it quickly became clear that cleanup from 23 nuclear bombs was not feasible. So that money went to the remote government representing the Bikinian diaspora spread across other islands.

Dan Frosch: And so the US government decided to let that money be used to help the Bikinians who are essentially living in existence in exile, operate their own government and pay for various expenses, schools, housing, scholarships, operating expenses for their government in the two places that they had largely resettled, which were Kili and Ejit.

Jessica Mendoza: Think of it as an operations fund. And the Bikinian government had some freedom to spend this money the way they wanted to. The second fund was for compensating Bikinians and their descendants.

Dan Frosch: We created something called the Bikini Claims Trust, a totally different fund. And the purpose of that fund was to disperse quarterly payments to Bikinians and their descendants, which in a single year typically amounted to about $500.

Jessica Mendoza: This fund allocated $75 million for Compensation. It was to be doled out every three months to some 7,000 descendants of those original residents. People now spread across the Marshall Islands and the United States. So the people of Bikini Atoll had two funds worth millions, one main operations fund for running the remote government and a second fund for compensation checks. For decades, the operations fund was overseen by the US Interior Department.

Dan Frosch: And every year, the Bikinian people would go to the Interior department and say, “We need several million dollars to help operate our government and to build houses on the island of Kili and Ejit where our people are living.” And there would be a back and forth and they’d finally come up with a figure and that money would be used for those purposes. And there would be a sort of an extensive auditing process to ensure that the money from that fund was used for exactly what the Bikinian people and their government said it was going to be used for. And that process went largely unencumbered until 2017. And then something happened in 2017 that would change everything for the Bikinian people and how that money was dispersed.…………………………………………………………………

Jessy Elmi: The United States promised to take care of the people of Bikini if they would move and leave their island, so that they could do their bomb testing. They trusted them and they failed them. Now, after all of that, their own leaders decided to let them down by not taking care of what little bit they had, and there they are. It’s just too sad. https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal/the-financial-legacy-of-the-nuclear-tests-on-bikini-atoll/22abaedd-aa37-41d6-9966-991fabdaaa53

August 21, 2023 Posted by | OCEANIA, PERSONAL STORIES | Leave a comment

The Pentagon Is Spending $1 Billion a Year on ‘Directed Energy Weapons’

Washington is interested in the weapons but worries they’ll end up in the ‘valley of death’ if the Pentagon isn’t careful.

By Matthew Gault, 02 June 2023, 

The Pentagon is spending $1 billion a year developing laser and microwave weapons, and Washington is worried that money will go to waste. 

According to new reports from the Government Accountability Office, the U.S. military faces serious challenges trying to get what it calls directed energy weapons out, but should consolidate efforts so that the weapons don’t fall into what it called the “valley of death.”

The U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force have all worked to develop various kinds of direct energy weapons. The most prominent are high energy lasers (HEL) and high power microwaves (HPM) weapons……………………………………………. https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkagjk/pentagon-is-spending-dollar1-billion-a-year-on-directed-energy-weapons

August 21, 2023 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

General Mark Milley had a point – USA should have pushed for peace talks on Ukraine

Politico, By ALEXANDER WARD, LARA SELIGMAN, MATT BERG and ERIC BAZAIL-EIMIL 08/18/2023

The conversation about Ukraine’s counteroffensive has shifted from one of excitement to disappointment, as Kyiv’s slow gains lead some U.S. officials and insiders alike to whisper: Should we have listened to Gen. MARK MILLEY?

In November, the Joint Chiefs chair said Ukraine’s strong military position and upcoming winter season combined to make a good time to consider peace talks. Plus, operations to expel Russian forces out of the whole of Ukraine –— which VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY demands — had a slim chance of success. Administration officials immediately scrambled to assure their counterparts in Kyiv that Milley was riffing and not reflecting a secret sentiment in the White House.

But listen to Milley lately, and you can hear the implicit “I told you so.”

“If the end state is Ukraine is a free, independent, sovereign country with its territory intact, that will take a considerable level of effort yet to come,” he told The Washington Post this week. “That’s gonna take a long, long time, but you can also achieve those objectives — maybe, possibly — through some sort of diplomatic means.”

One U.S. official, who didn’t want to run afoul of the administration by offering real views on the record, said the realities of the counteroffensive are sinking in around Washington. Ukraine’s tactics to preserve troops and equipment, Russia’s dug-in positions and the fight on multiple fronts have led to slow advances, shifting a possible breakthrough further into the future.

While the U.S. still backs Ukraine’s fight, the official said, “We may have missed a window to push for earlier talks………………………………… more https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2023/08/18/milley-had-a-point-00111878

August 21, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment