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Nuclear submarines challenge trains 10 year old children for war

By Sue WarehamSep 11, 2023  https://johnmenadue.com/nuclear-subs-challenge-trains-10-year-old-children-for-war/

It’s time for education ministers across the country to show leadership and protect our children from vested interests and pro-war propaganda.

On 19 June, the Defence Department launched its Nuclear-Powered Submarine Propulsion Challenge, for years 7 – 12 students across the nation. The program seeks to engage the enthusiasm of young people for the complex and hugely controversial nuclear submarine program, in the hope that some of the students will want to contribute to this form of war-fighting when they leave school.

The nuclear submarine proposal has implications that go far beyond the understanding of the students targeted for this program (which include those as young as 11 years). They include the nuclear weapons proliferation potential, the consequences of a war – possibly nuclear war – with China, for which the submarines are planned, the problem of high-level, long-lived nuclear waste for which there is no solution anywhere, and the matter of what else will suffer financially as we attempt the gargantuan task of paying for this program. In the absence of any awareness or understanding of this context, the schools program is little more than propaganda.

The program fits with the growing prevalence of private weapons company-sponsored STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) programs in schools. Their purpose is to create positive brand name associations, such as happy memories, from which can flow varying degrees of attachment to the corporate brand. Company logos are displayed on all materials, and there is often direct contact between students, teachers and company representatives. An underfunded public education system is perfect for the companies’ purposes, because overstretched teachers will welcome material that might make their job a little easier.

There is ample evidence that children are very susceptible to the creation of positive associations with an advertised product. Even into adolescence, children don’t necessarily have the skills to critically assess the intentions behind persuasive marketing tactics, or understand what a brand or product really represents.

The militarisation of STEM education is not confined to our schools (and universities, which comprise a huge network in themselves of weapons company partnerships). The National Youth Science Forum has as its primary sponsor Lockheed Martin, the world’s biggest weapons maker. The Questacon National Science and Technology Centre in Canberra receives major funding for its Engineering is Elementary program from the Defence Department, with ADF engineers being actively involved in delivering the program.

The industry’s need is for a workforce socialised to accept warfare as inevitable and the industry itself as always a force for good. The “Minors and Missiles” report of the Medical Association for Prevention of War outlines the problem, its extent in Australia and how it can be addressed. The new organisation Teachers for Peace works to this end also.

In relation to the nuclear submarine challenge for schools, on 1 July the Adelaide Advertiser published an article “Kids, 10, training for to build a workforce for AUKUS, SA’s $368bn nuclear submarine project”, about the Beacon program in some schools, run in conjunction with weapons giant BAE Systems. Among other activities, it allows students to virtually load and fire weaponry, one student stating “It’s a lot more fun, it’s like playing a video game but it’s a lot more educational”. Such presentation of warfare and its associated hardware to children as a game – which extends also to our war commemoration – is an abuse of their right to aspire to live in a peaceful society.

An additional concern with the Nuclear-Powered Submarine Propulsion Challenge is that it anti-democratically circumvents strong community opposition to a technology – nuclear power – which has been consistently rejected by the Australian people. Barely a person in the country, including in our parliament, was even asked about the nuclear submarines, and yet the opposition to the proposal is strong, with much highly critical commentary. To ignore all that and go straight to the next generation with exciting prizes is reprehensible.

On 31 August, the Federal Executive of the Australian Education Union (AEU) passed a strong resolution reaffirming the AEU’s deep commitment to peace and its opposition to militarism. In relation to the nuclear submarine challenge, the resolution stated that the AEU “condemns this program, and the use of Australian schools by the Defence Department, in drawing secondary students into the government’s development of new industries focused on armament manufacture and industries associated with warfare.”

It continued “A politicised pro-AUKUS curriculum has no place in our schools, alongside other private industries who attempt to use schools as a vehicle for promotion of their own products and profits hidden behind spurious educational benefits for students.”

The AEU is to be applauded. It’s time for education ministers across the country to show the same leadership in protecting our children from vested interests and pro-war propaganda.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, Education | Leave a comment

Australia: Sovereignty mocked in the ‘proxy war’ in Ukraine

https://youtube.com/watch?v=u9pEotvlW-s%3Fsi%3DevQXNoQoOHM1AXV8

By William Briggs | 11 September 2023 https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/sovereignty-mocked-in-the-proxy-war-in-ukraine,17887

The cliché that truth is the first casualty of war may be a tired one but it is still true.

But in the war in Ukraine, if truth loses out, then hypocrisy is surely the biggest winner. The war shows this to be the case. Sides get taken in war. The protagonist states win allies to their banner. Third-party countries quickly “prove” to their people that right rests with one side or another. The media quickly step in to do their bit and heaven help any dissenting voice. Such has been the trajectory of the protracted war in Ukraine.

Our own government, in close alignment with the USA, NATO and the majority of the West, quickly made the determination that it was a relatively black-and-white affair. There is a “goody” and a “baddy” and that is as much as the people need to know. The media speak with one voice. There is more than a hint of Animal Farm in this. ‘Four legs good, too legs bad.’ Russia, we must believe, invaded Ukraine to grab territory, to grow an empire, and to return to a faded imperial past.

The courageous Ukrainian people, we must believe, are yearning for freedom, for justice and so they fight back to preserve democracy. It is a nice story, but as more and more authoritative but “dissident” voices have shown, there is a whole lot more to it than cheap slogans.

Three names among these “dissidents” stand out in the current propagandised media world. Seymour Hersch, Jeffrey Sachs and John Pilger. It is a terrible indictment on how distorted reality has become that these most eminent writers and multiple award-winning truth-tellers have been shunted to the sidelines, made virtual pariahs, and ridiculed in some rather important circles.

Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ Orwell was warning against the rise of authoritarianism and of the manipulation of thought. Both seem to have arrived.

Those giant figures have repeatedly stated a simple fact and a fact made more obvious with every passing blood-stained week of this unnecessary war. The fact, which cannot be denied is that the war is a proxy war between the USA, NATO and its allies including Australia on one side, and Russia on the other.

The forces that are waging this war may not have committed battle troops to Ukraine, but they train their forces, both in Ukraine and abroad, have special forces units inside Ukraine, and have spent well over $100 billion on providing materiel to ensure that the war, is, if not won, then will result in the economic and social destruction of Russia. Ukraine, in such a scenario, is simply collateral damage.

The hypocrisy, the propagandising, the manner that collective thought is created and dissent is silenced is complete. This Orwellian view of the world would be questioned by Orwell as being too improbable. No country, regardless of its own worldview is permitted to interact with the “enemy”. There has been much said about whether the government of the Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK) will or will not enter into an arms deal with Russia.

The DPRK has been effectively the subject of sanctions since 1950. It believes that its existence is only guaranteed by perpetually building a deterrence to attack. It sees almost endless war games and drills close to its borders. It believes its sovereignty; its very existence is threatened. It sees no problem with dealing with an enemy of the United States.

White House security adviser Jake Sullivan in a press briefing promised that if Pyongyang provides weapons to Moscow, it is ‘not going to reflect well on North Korea and they will pay a price for this in the international community’.

The two recalcitrant states in this case are both sovereign nations, are both represented at the United Nations and if such a deal eventuates will be doing no more than what 49 nations are doing in pouring weapons, munitions and expertise into Ukraine to assist in the proxy war.

If the media were not quite so blinkered and committed to their role as propagandists for the war, then such a hypocritical position would be clear. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong recently stated that “Russia cannot be allowed to infringe upon another country’s sovereignty”. She is quite right. But in the spirit of hypocrisy and hyperbole, the U.S. pledge to impose all manner of penalties on the DPRK for exercising its own sovereign rights is to admit that the world has run mad.

Australian drones have been used in attacks on Russia. Apparently, this is not an “infringement” of sovereignty.

The war is a fact of life. It is a lamentable fact of life. It would be preferable for the war not to have begun. Reason, logic and humanity would demand that the war end. Every call to sense and humanity has been rejected. The most obvious and possible call came from China and its 12-point peace plan. The USA and its allies would not consider it.

Russia, rightly or not, believes that it is facing an existential crisis. The giants of investigative journalism, who have been all but cancelled, silenced from mainstream media and deemed to be irrelevant agree with the basis of Russia’s claims and are wary of the way this proxy war is being prosecuted. The Ukrainian people have been “sold a pup”. They are being used and manipulated by the West, NATO, and primarily by the USA.

Truth died on day one of this awful war. In its place, hypocrisy has unfurled its banner over the battlefield.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, media | Leave a comment

How the ‘nuclear football’ remains a potent symbol of the unthinkable

CYISRNET, By Georgina DiNardo, Sep 12, 2023

The nuclear threat has been dormant in the public’s mind since the end the Cold War. But renewed attention due to the wild success of the film “Oppenheimer’’ and rising tensions with Russia and China has brought the so-called nuclear football, the activation device for the U.S. arsenal, back into view.

The sighting of a military aide handling the football, closely following President Joe Biden as he exited a meeting with the United Kingdom’s prime minister on July 10, the day before the NATO summit during which the war in Ukraine was discussed, heightened already building tensions between NATO members and Russia.

…………………………………………………..The nuclear football was not always what is today. Over time, the briefcase has had drastic changes to its contents, causing speculation to arise over its morality.

A history of the nuclear football

Following the creation and use of the atomic bomb in the 1940s, a story that “Oppenheimer” deeply explored, then President Dwight D. Eisenhower feared the U.S. would be helpless against a nuclear assault. In the late 1950s, he directed a military aide to carry a bag containing documents that would allow the president to communicate an action plan with military headquarters across the country whenever he left Washington.

Eisenhower’s initial satchel included emergency action documents which would help the president regain control of United States actions if a nuclear attack was launched by another country………………………………………………………………………..

Eisenhower transferred the satchel to his successor, President John F. Kennedy, who changed it over time, as he wanted blueprints for an alternative solution to the all-or-nothing nuclear war strategy of the time…………………………………………………….

Common misconceptions

Russia and Pakistan both have similar nuclear briefcases. Unlike the U.S., which clouds the nuclear football with mystery, Russia unveiled the contents of that country’s nuclear briefcase on television in 2019 ……………………………………………………………………………………………….

The U.S. actually has two footballs — one for the president and one for the vice president……………………………………………………………………………….

The satchel is not all that is required to trigger nuclear weapons in times of crisis. A card with authentication codes, dubbed the “biscuit” which doesn’t have real launch codes but can verify the president’s identity, is supposed to be always carried by the president. Military Times could not confirm the origin of the term.

“The president does not have the launch codes,” Schwartz said. “No president has had launch codes. So, the president can’t physically turn keys or push buttons to do anything, he’s relying on a whole chain of people, hundreds of people down the chain of command to transmit the orders and do all of that.”………………………………………………………………….

Ethical ramifications

The job of carrying the nuclear football can be burdensome, and not only because it weighs about 45 pounds. Patterson says that the psychological impact of holding such monumental power influences the handler……………………………………………………………………………..

While the president has the power to activate it, the military aide is tasked with ensuring that the president is of sound mind before they were to activate the nuclear football……………………………..

more https://www.c4isrnet.com/home/2023/09/11/how-the-nuclear-football-remains-a-potent-symbol-of-the-unthinkable/—

September 13, 2023 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Blinken: US Does Not Oppose Ukrainian Attacks Inside Russia With US-Supplied Missiles

By successfully winding down the clock babbling about what Ukraine has a right to do, Blinken avoided discussing the real issue of what the US itself is doing.

What’s being debated is whether the US should be backing those attacks, because doing so could lead to nuclear war.

Caitlin’s Newsletter CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, SEP 11, 2023

During an appearance on ABC’s This Week with Jonathan Karl, Secretary of State Tony Blinken explicitly said that the US would not oppose Ukraine using US-supplied longer-range missiles to attack deep inside Russian territory, a move that Moscow has previously called a “red line” which would make the United States a direct party to the conflict.

“We understand that the United States is considering sending those long-range missiles that Ukraine has been asking for for a long time,” Karl said in the interview. “These are long-range missiles, 200 miles in range. Are you okay if those missiles allow Ukraine to attack deep into Russian territory?”

“In terms of their targeting decisions, it’s their decision, not ours,” answered Blinken after some bloviation………………………………………………………………………………..

By successfully winding down the clock babbling about what Ukraine has a right to do, Blinken avoided discussing the real issue of what the US itself is doing. Nobody disputes that Ukraine has a right to attack Russian territory; Russia is attacking Ukrainian territory, so of course Ukraine has a right to retaliate. That is not being seriously debated anywhere. What’s being debated is whether the US should be backing those attacks, because doing so could lead to nuclear war.

A year ago when Ukraine first started urging the United States to send it the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) — which has nearly four times the range of the HIMARS weapons the US has been supplying — Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova immediately responded with a warning that their use on Russian territory would make the US a direct participant in the conflict, and Russia would respond accordingly.

“If Washington decides to supply longer-range missiles to Kyiv, then it will be crossing a red line, and will become a direct party to the conflict,” Zakharova said, adding that Russia “reserves the right to defend its territory.”

As Michael Tracey noted on Twitter, Blinken was saying last year that Ukraine had provided assurances to the US that it would not use the other weapons systems the US has been supplying “against targets on Russian territory.” Going by Blinken’s current statements and the attacks we’ve been seeing from Ukraine inside the Russian Federation, this agreement appears no longer to be in place. Blinken has already previously voiced support for Ukrainian use of US-supplied weapons in Crimea, and now he’s saying the US is fine with any US-supplied weapons being used on any Russian territory.

Which means there appears to have been yet another massive escalation between nuclear superpowers, which is once again going alarmingly under-reported by the western press.

In an article published in Antiwar this past July titled “ATACMS: Be Very Afraid of This Acronym,” West Suburban Peace Coalition president Walt Zlotow wrote that this missile system “has potential to draw the US and NATO into all out war with Russia”:

ATACMS are long range US missiles that can strike up to 190 miles. Top US officials, likely including President Biden, are seriously considering giving ATACMS to Ukraine in their battle to take back all Russian gains in Ukraine, including Crimea. They can reach both Crimea and the Russian mainland.

If so used by Ukraine to attack Russia, it may be a missile too far that could ignite Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Further escalation into nuclear confrontation between Russia and the US/NATO alliance seeking Russia’s defeat becomes more likely.

The US and its allies keep providing Ukraine with more and more offensive weapons that they had previously refused to supply for fear of getting drawn into the war and provoking a nuclear conflict. Last year Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov correctly predicted that the US would wind up supplying the tanks, F-16s and ATACMS it had previously deemed too escalatory, because that had already been established as the trend from the beginning of the war.

“When I was in D.C. in November, before the invasion, and asked for Stingers, they told me it was impossible,” Reznikov told The New Yorker last year. “Now it’s possible. When I asked for 155-millimetre guns, the answer was no. HIMARS, no. HARM, no. Now all of that is a yes.” He added, “Therefore, I’m certain that tomorrow there will be tanks and ATACMS and F-16s.”

As Branko Marcetic explained earlier this year in an article for Responsible Statecraft titled “Mission Creep? How the US role in Ukraine has slowly escalated,” this continual pattern of escalation is actually incentivizing Russia to start taking aggressive action against western powers so that its warnings and red lines will cease being ignored.

“By escalating their support for Ukraine’s military, the U.S. and NATO have created an incentive structure for Moscow to take a drastic, aggressive step to show the seriousness of its own red lines,” Marcetic writes. “This would be dangerous at the best of times, but particularly so when Russian officials are making clear they increasingly view the war as one against NATO as a whole, not merely Ukraine, while threatening nuclear response to the alliance’s escalation in weapons deliveries.”

“Moscow keeps saying escalatory arms transfers are unacceptable and could mean wider war; U.S. officials say since Moscow hasn’t acted on those threats, they can freely escalate. Russia is effectively told it has to escalate to show it’s serious about lines,” Marcetic added on Twitter.

And it’s just so strange how this isn’t the main thing everyone talks about all the time. The fact that we are drawing closer and closer to nuclear conflict should dominate headlines every single day, and the subject of how to avoid planetary disaster should be the constant focus of mainstream political discourse. But it isn’t, because that would interfere with the grand chessboard maneuverings of a globe-dominating empire working to secure unipolar planetary domination by undermining disobedient nations like Russia and China.

It’s hard to think about the end of the world. It’s hard to even wrap your mind around it, much less stand staring into the harsh white light of deep contemplation about what it is and what it would mean. A lot of cognitive dissonance and discomfort comes up, and it’s easier to shift one’s attention to something easier to chew on like the presidential race.

But this is something that urgently needs to be looked at. Because the people steering our world today appear to be driving blind.  https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/blinken-us-does-not-oppose-ukrainian?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=136928224&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email

September 13, 2023 Posted by | spinbuster, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Guam residents inch closer to compensation for US nuclear testing

By Marian Faa, 11 Sept 23,  https://www.abc.net.au/pacific/programs/pacificbeat/guam-nuclear-compensation-us-government-testing/102838844

Guam residents are one step closer to being eligible for compensation from the US government if they’ve suffered exposure to nuclear testing.

The US Senate recently endorsed a major expansion to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which would include Guam and New Mexico.

President of the Pacific Association for Radiation Survivors, Robert Celestial, has spent years lobbying for compensation to include Guam.

His campaign started when he was researching de-classified US documents to understand his own exposure to radiation as an army veteran who worked in the Marshall Islands.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Legal, OCEANIA | Leave a comment

With long-range missiles for Ukraine, US crosses own red line

The US will reportedly send ATACMS to Ukraine — yet another advanced weapons system that the White House had previously ruled out.

Substack AARON MATÉ, SEP 12, 2023

The Biden administration is reportedly close to authorizing yet another weapons system for Ukraine that it had previously ruled out. According to ABC News and the Financial Times, the US will send Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, a high priority for Kiev and its most hawkish backers. The long-range missiles, which travel up to 190 miles, would bolster Ukraine’s capacity to hit Crimea and possibly mainland Russia.

The White House previously invoked that very capability to rule out the ATACMS as too dangerous an escalation. As National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan explained in June 2022, President Biden was “not prepared to provide” long-range missiles, given the “key goal” of avoiding “the road towards a third world war.”

Just over one year later, the road towards a third world war is no longer closed…………………….. (subscribers only) more https://mate.substack.com/p/with-long-range-missiles-for-ukraine?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=100118&post_id=136923393&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&utm_medium=email

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

If The US Really Were What It Pretends To Be

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, SEP 12, 2023  https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/if-the-us-really-was-what-it-pretends?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=136958632&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email

It’s wild to consider how many of the world’s problems would not exist if the US really was the thing it advertises itself as.

Ukraine would not be at war right now, because the US empire would not have provoked that war, since the US really would be an upholder of peace and international order.

The world would not be staring down the barrel of nuclear armageddon, because the US really would be a normal country that respects the sovereignty of other nations instead of the hub of a globe-spanning undeclared empire which keeps ramping up aggression against nuclear-armed states who refuse to consent to its planetary rule.

China would not be preparing for war, because the US military really would be used for the defense of the United States instead of rapidly encircling the US empire’s top geopolitical rival with massive amounts of war machinery.

The middle east would not have spent the 21st century being ripped to pieces by western aggression, because the US really would care about the lives of the people who live there and not just pretend to in order to promote regime change interventionism.

Mountains of human corpses would not have been amassed in Yemen by violence, starvation and disease, because the US really would oppose tyrannical dictatorships like Saudi Arabia instead of enthusiastically facilitating their war crimes.

The information ecosystem of the western world would not be strangled by empire propaganda, internet censorship and Silicon Valley algorithm manipulation, because the US really would value free speech and free thought instead of churning out a continual barrage of mass-scale psychological operations designed to dominate the way people think, speak, work, act and vote.

Julian Assange would not be languishing in prison, because the US really would support press freedoms instead of working to set a legal precedent normalizing the persecution of journalists for reporting inconvenient facts.

The people of the United States would not be floundering in poverty and broken infrastructure, because they really would live in a democracy that allows them to influence government policy instead of an oligarchy rigged to benefit the rich and powerful at the expense of normal human beings.

The US would not be a tyrannical police state with the largest incarceration rate on the planet, because the US government really would care about civil rights and liberty instead of only caring about the profits that can be harvested via prison slavery and private prisons from those citizens who don’t make good cogs in the capitalist machine.

Developing nations would be thriving a lot more, because the US really would support their national sovereignty and independence instead of doing whatever’s necessary to facilitate the imperialist extraction of their wealth.

Human civilization would be far more just and equitable than it currently is, because the US really would value every nation’s right to forge its own path, and therefore would not have spent generations aggressively stomping out every attempt to move toward socialism everywhere in the world.

The planet would not be circled by hundreds of foreign US military bases and continually terrorized by US wars of aggression, proxy conflicts, CIA coups and starvation sanctions, because all the US government secrecy which makes this malfeasance possible wouldn’t exist, since the US really would value truth and transparency instead of power and domination.

The world would be a much more healthy and harmonious place if the US really was the peace-loving, tyranny-opposing democracy that it and all its propaganda systems frame it as. But because the US government is actually the most tyrannical regime on earth and values nothing apart from its own ability to dominate as many members of the human species as possible, we live in a world of far greater peril and abuse than we otherwise would. 

I write so much about the US empire because that’s just what you find yourself doing when you set out to describe the problems of our world with an open mind; trace those problems back to their origins, and many of them revolve around this strange and profoundly abusive power structure which manages to evade much criticism and scrutiny because it has the most sophisticated soft power narrative control systems ever devised. 

The US empire depends on keeping the world asleep to its abusiveness. And the world depends on everyone waking up to it.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Religion and ethics, USA | Leave a comment

Don’t underestimate ravages of climate crisis when storing nuclear waste:

Meg Sears, 11 Sept 23, https://preventcancernow.ca/dont-underestimate-ravages-of-climate-crisis-when-storing-nuclear-waste/

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission should heed Mother Nature’s warning and deny the present proposal. In today’s weather, much less the future, the commission is unlikely to meet its goal to keep nuclear waste secure for hundreds of years.

What happens when a federal Environmental Impact Assessment is fundamentally flawed? Will authorities pause for a rethink when a key assumption and design limitation of the assessment is wrong, risking catastrophic failure? 

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is facing this late-day reality test as it is poised to rule whether the Chalk River can go ahead as planned.

The 2021 Environmental Impact Statement for near-surface nuclear waste disposal lists severe rainfall as the top risk for stability of the hillside site. Excessive rain could result in the nuclear waste being swept down the hill and into Perch Lake, Perch Creek, and the Ottawa River a kilometre away. Chemicals would pollute the ecosystem and food sources, as well as drinking water for millions of people in smaller towns, as well as in Ottawa and cities downstream. 

On Aug. 10, 2023, where the Rideau, Ottawa and Gatineau rivers tumble together, chiefs of Kebaowek, Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg and Mitchibikonik Inik First Nations, elders and other experts, made final submissions to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. As they spoke against the nuclear waste disposal site at Chalk River, attendees heard the roar of rain drumming on the roof. 

During this event, Ottawa streets and basements flooded, traffic stopped, power failed, sewers backed up, and more than 300 million litres of untreated water flowed into the Ottawa River. At least, unlike nuclear waste, untreated sewer water degrades within weeks—not years or generations. 

The Environmental Impact Statement weather severity estimates are out of date. It defines “heavy rainfall” to be more than 0.7 cm per hour—one seventh of what fell during the hearing. The statement also cites a 2013 estimate of low tornado risks—an insult to fresh memories of catastrophic tornadoes and derechos in Eastern Ontario.

The acceleration of climate disasters is boggling Canada’s long-term predictions of the scale of extreme weather. The nuclear waste disposal facility was designed to withstand end-of-the century estimates of less than five cm of precipitation in a day for Deep River, and over five cm in a day—not an hour—for Ottawa. 

Ottawa’s not alone in breaking rainfall records. July 2023 brought rainfall disasters to Nova Scotia, with rainfall up to 50 cm per hour measured in one location. Much of the province experienced 20 cm in a day, causing widespread damage. The climate predictions from the federal government call for much less—up to 9 cm in a day by the end of the century.  

If an Environmental Impact Assessment for a bridge was discovered to be flawed—that the bridge would not withstand a storm as severe as what occurred just last month—it would be pause for thought and a good reason to reconsider the plans. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission should heed the warning from Mother Nature and deny the present proposal. In today’s weather, much less the coming years’, the Commission is unlikely to meet its objective to keep nuclear waste secure for hundreds of years.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Canada, climate change, wastes | Leave a comment

Women with medical education to be banned from leaving Ukraine and forced to sign up for military service – Kyiv Post

Exit from Ukraine may be restricted for some women – Kyiv Post

08.09.2023  https://www.voiceofeurope.com/exit-from-ukraine-may-be-restricted-for-some-women-kyiv-post/

Starting from October 1st, women with medical and pharmaceutical education may be required to register for military service but it is not yet clear whether they will be subject to travel restrictions from Ukraine. This might be similar to men aged 18-60 who are subject to mobilization, as reported by the Kyiv Post newspaper.

According to reports published on the parliament’s website and later removed, Fedir Wenisławski, the representative of the President of Ukraine in the Supreme Council and a member of the Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence of the Supreme Council, announced that women must register with military commissions and may not be allowed to leave the country from October 1st.

Wenisławski claimed that after registration, women would be considered conscripts and would be subject to specific procedures regarding foreign travel.

Since the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the declaration of a state of emergency in Ukraine, men aged 18-60 have been unable to leave the country due to mandatory military conscription. However, Andrij Demczenko, the spokesperson for the Border Guard Service of Ukraine, expressed doubts about the implications of women’s registration with military commissions.

Demczenko stated that border guards have not been informed of any additional restrictions on the freedom to leave Ukraine due to women’s registration in military commissions.

He noted, however, that if such changes in regulations come into effect, border guards will monitor and enforce the new rules.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, Women | Leave a comment

Blinken, Assange, And The 20th Anniversary Of The Palestine Hotel Bombing

SCHEERPOST, By Chip Gibbons / The Dissenter, 11 Sept 23

When Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Australia in August, he was, as expected, asked about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Blinken confirmed that he discussed the Assange case with his Australian counterpart Foreign Minister Penny Wong. He stated that while he understood Australians’ views on the matter, Australians needed to recognize the United States’ position. “Mr. Assange was charged with very serious criminal conduct.”

Blinken’s remarks were outrageous for a number of reasons. The most glaring and obvious reason is that Assange is charged with exposing human rights abuses by the U.S. one might label “very serious criminal conduct.” The fact that the U.S. now seeks to extraterritoriality apply its Espionage Act to a journalist for exposing these crimes could reasonably be deemed “very serious criminal conduct.”

But an extra layer of perversity is attached to Blinken’s hypocritical remarks when one considers that the State Department cables published by WikiLeaks document how the U.S. works to evade accountability for its serious crimes. The one that was most on my mind  involved the U.S. efforts to squash criminal indictments of three U.S. servicemembers over their alleged involvement in the death of Spanish photographer Jose Couso…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The U.S. government, unsurprisingly, was vehemently opposed to the indictment and refused extradition. When WikiLeaks released State Department cables given to them by U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning, they revealed new information on how the U.S. had worked behind the scenes to thwart the case.

A May 2007 cable from the U.S. embassy in Madrid made clear that pressuring Spanish officials over the Couso case and indictment of U.S. soldiers was a key goal. The cable stated, “While we are careful to show our respect for the tragic death of Couso and for the independence of the Spanish judicial system, behind the scenes we have fought tooth and nail to make the charges disappear.”………………………………………………………………………….

 the charges brought by Spain involved “serious criminal conduct,” and the juxtaposition between the U.S.’s own attempts to thwart a war crimes prosecution, versus its obsessive pursuit of Assange for exposing U.S. war crimes, make Blinken’s remarks on the political case against the WikiLeaks founder all the more maddening.  https://scheerpost.com/2023/09/11/blinken-assange-and-the-20th-anniversary-of-the-palestine-hotel-bombing/

September 13, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment