nuclear-news

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

Nuclear news (still too long) this week

  Some bits of good news  –   An Indigenous-led effort in Canada offers a hopeful alternative to traditional conservation practices. Kauai, Hawaii rapidly transitioned to greener energy by shifting from a for-profit utility to a locally owned cooperative.        Portugal made great strides in renewable energy.   

TOP STORIES.        Classified! The secret radiation files. 

‘We’re a War Machine as a Nation’: The Truth About American Politics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTP-W9VoFKA US Says It’s Powerless To Stop The Genocide That It Is Directly Funding And Supplying. Israel Wages War Against Gaza’s Remaining Hospitals. 

‘Buying influence’: top US nuclear board advisers are tied to arms business. 

NuScale Power, UAMPS agree to terminate small modular nuclear reactor project.         Failed U.S. Nuclear Project Raises Cost Concerns for Canadian Small Modular Reactor (SMR) Development.  Small Nuclear Reactor Contract Fails, Signaling Larger Issues with Nuclear Energy Development in U.S.Climate. THE CRISIS IN OUR OCEANS THREATENS ALL LIFE AS WE KNOW IT – INCLUDING OUR OWN.

Nuclear. Industry in crisis as NuScale’s small nuclear reactor fails.

Christina notes. “Suspicious website” -Hooray -I have earned this award. The absurdity, and the sinister situation, surrounding small nuclear reactors (SMRs).

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 CLIMATE. Is Nuclear Energy Really the Solution for a Greener Future? Investing in nuclear energy is bad for the climate, NGOs say.

CIVIL LIBERTIES. Detained Under UK Terrorism Law, Whistleblower Says Police Questioned His Support for Assange.         ‘Israel targets journalists intentionally’: Gaza reporters share their stories with RT.          Alison McDermott’s Courageous Whistleblower Journey at Sellafield Nuclear Site https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsIxR5gVFnQ

ECONOMICS. NuScale shares plunge as it cancels flagship small nuclear reactor project. The First Small-Scale Nuclear Plant in the US Died Before It Could Live. Deal to build pint-size nuclear reactors canceled, ‘avoiding a giant financial debacle.’ Uncertainties in estimating production costs of future nuclear technologies: A model-based analysis of small modular reactors.            No American money left for Ukraine – USAID.

EDUCATION. Nuclear lobby and NASA propagandising to schoolkids.

EMPLOYMENT. Accident proves Japan’s toxic water plan dubious.

ENERGY. Portugal made great strides in renewable energy.

ENVIRONMENT. Oceans. Pacific island nations express concern over Fukushima water release.

ETHICS and RELIGION. Chris Hedges: The Horror, The Horror. Getting Called A Nazi For Opposing A Genocide.

LEGAL. Court of Appeal: Together Against Sizewell v Sec of State for Energy Security. Anti-Nuclear Activist Goes on Trial Amid the Fallout of Oppenheimer’s Legacy.

MEDIA. Propaganda Blitz: How Mainstream Media Is Pushing Fake Palestine Stories. ‘Movement Media Has Really Emerged in Its Own Right’. ABC journalists criticise broadcaster’s coverage of Gaza invasion – not allowed to use the word “Palestine“.

NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY. UK small nuclear competition: Rolls Royce in, Bill Gates snubbed.

OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . 20 years after campaign began, the fight to ban deadly depleted uranium weapons goes on.

POLITICS. 

POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. 

  

PROTESTS. 300,000 March in Washington, D.C. for Palestine.

SAFETY. Disputes over safety, cost, swirl a year after California OK’d plan to keep last nuke plant running. Accidents/Incidents. Top 9 Worst Nuclear Disasters of All Time

SECRETS and LIES. Wikileaks cable: Israeli intelligence chief encouraged Hamas takeover of Gaza Strip.

SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. Book Review: Are We Ready to Head to Mars? Not So Fast. At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk’s rush to Mars. U.S. Space Force and the dangerous clutter of human-produced stuff in space. US military gives Lockheed Martin $33.7 million to develop nuclear spacecraft.

SPINBUSTER. Nuclear energy is not ‘clean’ or ‘green’ in the European Union’s taxonomy.

WASTES. Russia raises alarm about nuclear waste storage in Ukraine reaching unsafe levels.

WAR and CONFLICT . No possibility of Gaza ceasefire – Biden. ‘Can You Hear the Screams?’     Physician Says Western Leaders Complicit in Israeli Attacks on Gaza Hospitals.          ‘We Are Being Killed Here, Please Do Something’: Nurses and Doctors Plead for Gaza Cease-Fire.                                                    Iran warning: Israel provoking ‘inevitable expansion’ of war after IDF conducts flag-raising ceremony in Gaza .     The moniker ‘Genocide Joe’ beginning to fit President Biden. Biden’s Pathetic Response to Israel’s Bombing of Gaza (w/ Chris Hedges). Biden Could End All This With One Phone Call.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive is finished – governor. 

WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. 

November 14, 2023 Posted by | Christina's notes | Leave a comment

Classified! The secret radiation files.

most of the exposure people received came in the form of internal exposures from ingesting radioactivity, not from exter­nal, ambient gamma rays in the environment.

Medical examinations of people in contaminated regions showed a significant increase in the general number of chromosomal mutations in newborns, and the frequency of birth defects in southern Belarus was found to be significantly higher than the control. In terms of general health, Konoplia reported, adults showed an increase in diseases of the circulatory system, hyperten­sion, coronary illness, heart attacks, and myocardial problems, plus a rise in respiratory diseases.

Researchers on the UN team who had security clearances had access to classified studies that showed that 79 percent of children in the Marshall Islands exposed to American bomb blasts under the age of ten had developed thyroid cancer. Seventy-nine percent of several hundred children had thyroid cancer when the background rate was one in a million.

Health physicists fear lawsuits more than nuclear accidents

By Kate Brown, 12 Nov 23,  https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/11/12/classified-the-secret-radiation-files/

In 1987, a year after the Chernobyl accident, the US Health Physics Society met in Columbia, Maryland. Health physicists are scientists who are responsible for radiological protection at nuclear power plants, nuclear weapons plants, and hospitals. They are called on in cases of nuclear accidents. The conference’s keynote speaker came from the Department of Energy (DOE); the title of his talk drew on a sports analogy: “Radiation: The Offense and the Defense.” Switching metaphors to geopolitics, the speaker announced to the hall of nuclear professionals that his talk amounted to “the party line.” The biggest threat to nuclear industries, he told the gathered professionals, was not more disasters like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island but lawsuits.

After the address, lawyers from the Department of Justice (DOJ) met in break-out groups with the health physicists to prepare them to serve as “expert witnesses” against claimants suing the US government for alleged health problems due to exposure from radio­activity issued in the production and testing of nuclear weapons during the Cold War. That’s right: the DOE and the DOJ were preparing private citizens to defend the US government and its corporate contractors as they ostensi­bly served as “objective” scientific experts in US courts.

Health physics is an extremely important field for our everyday lives. Health physicists set standards for radiation protection and evaluate damage after nuclear emergencies. They determine where radiologists set the dial for CT scans and X-rays. They calculate how radioactive our food can be (and our food is often radioactive) and determine acceptable levels of radiation in our workplaces, environments, bodies of water, and air. Despite its importance, as it is practiced inside university labs and government organizations, health physics is far from an independent field engaged in the objective, open-ended pursuit of knowledge.

Compromised Science

The field of health physics emerged inside the Manhat­tan Project along with the development of the world’s first nuclear bombs. From the United States, it migrated abroad. For the past seventy-five years, the vast major­ity of health physicists have been employed in national nuclear agencies or in universities with research under­written by national nuclear agencies. As much as we in the academy like to make distinctions between apoliti­cal, academic research and politicized paid research outside the academy, during the Cold War those distinc­tions hardly made sense. From the end of World War II until the 1970s, federal grants paid for 70 percent of university research. The largest federal donors were the Department of Defense, the US Atomic Energy Agency, and a dozen federal security agencies.

Historian Peter Galison estimated in 2004 that the volume of classified research surpassed open literature in American libraries by five to ten times. Put another way, for every article published by American academics in open journals, five to ten articles were filed in sealed repositories available only to the 4 million Americans with security clear­ances. Often, the same researchers penned both open and classified work. Health physics benefited from the largesse of the Pentagon and the Atomic Energy Com­mission, which produced nuclear weapons for US arse­nals. Correspondingly, the field suffered from a closed circle of knowledge that has had a major impact on our abilities to assess and respond to both nuclear emergen­cies and quotidian radioactive contamination.

Tracking the production of knowledge in the field of health physics shows how the effective renunciation of facts has played a major role in this branch of science. More generally, it demonstrates how the boundary between open and classified research is critical yet rarely acknowledged. The response of international health physicists to the Chernobyl disaster, which occurred in Soviet Ukraine in April 1986, shows heavily politicized science in action. History reveals that the official, feder­ally sponsored cultivation of “alternative facts” is not new but has deep roots in the twentieth century.

Chernobyl came at an unfortunate time for nuclear professionals. As the Cold War creaked to an end, law­suits abounded. In the 1980s, Marshall Islanders—their homes blasted in nuclear tests, their bodies subjected to classified medical study by scientists contracted by the Atomic Energy Agency—went to court. In Utah and Nevada, those who lived downwind from the Nevada Test Site were lining up for lawsuits. Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Edison Company in Pennsylvania faced lawsuits from plaintiffs living near the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, which suffered a partial meltdown in 1979.

 In the late 1980s, reporters and congressional investigators began to inquire into US government agencies’ wide-scale engagement in human radiation experiments, which included exposing tens of thou­sands of soldiers to nuclear blasts. These legal actions and investigations constituted an existential threat for nuclear industries, civilian and military. Chernobyl cast into doubt industry statements that nuclear energy is safer than coal, than flying, than living in high-altitude Denver. If another nuclear accident were to occur, UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Hans Blix told the IAEA board of governors a few weeks after the Chernobyl explosions, “I fear the general public will no longer believe any contention that the risk of a severe accident was so small as to be almost negligible.”

Because radioactivity is insensible, society relies on scientists and their technologies to count ionizing radiation and analyze its effect on biological organ­isms. In 1986, the three-decades-old Life Span Study of Japanese bomb survivors served in the West as the “gold standard” for radiation exposure. It became the chief referent in lawsuits over health damage from radioactive contaminants. The Life Span Study started in 1950. In subsequent decades, American and Japanese scientists followed bomb survivors and their offspring, looking for possible health effects from exposure to the bomb blasts. By 1986, the group had detected a signifi­cant increase in a handful of cancers and, surprisingly, no birth defects, though geneticists had expected them.

The Life Span Study told scientists a great deal about the effects of a single exposure of a terrifically large blast of radiation lasting less than a second but little about the impact of chronic, low doses of radioactivity—the kind of exposures served up by the Chernobyl accident and related to the ongoing lawsuits in the United States. At the time, like now, scientists confessed they knew very little about the effects of low doses of radioactivity on human health. For that reason, after Chernobyl, leading scientific administrators in UN agencies and national health agencies called for using the Chernobyl accident to carry out a long-term, large-scale epidemiological study to determine the effects of low doses of radiation on human health. Unfortunately, those requests went nowhere at first because Soviet officials asserted that health damage was limited to the two dozen firefighters who died from acute radiation poisoning. They insisted that they were monitoring the health of neighboring residents and found no change in their health. Soviet spokespeople told the international community that they did not need help, thank you very much.

Silos of Knowledge

Health physics, a moribund field in the West and a secretive field in the Soviet Union, suddenly appeared in the spotlight after the Chernobyl accident. Archival records show that two silos of knowledge about the ef­fects of low doses of radiation on human health emerged in the wake of the Chernobyl accident. Western health physicists oriented around the Life Span Study, while Soviet health physicists worked from specialized, closed clinics producing literature that mostly was filed in clas­sified libraries. A few months after the accident, Western health physicists— extrapolating from Hiroshima—an­nounced that, given the reported levels of radioactivity released in the accident, they expected to see no detect­able health problems as a result. From the Soviet side, spokespeople gave vague assurances, but scientists were silent. For security reasons, Soviet health physicists did not take the podium. Anyway, they were busy.

Behind the Iron Curtain, Soviet scientists near the accident quietly got to work figuring out the extent of the damage. A few days after the accident, Anatolii Romanenko, minister of health in Ukraine, called up medical brigades to examine evacuees and villagers in contaminated areas. Several thousand doctors and nurses fanned out across the Soviet countryside. The effort would have been unimaginable outside of a socialist state highly skilled in the art of mass mobilization. In Ukraine alone, doctors examined seventy thousand children and over one hundred thousand adults in the summer following the accident. People judged to have received high doses were sent to hospitals in Kiev, Leningrad, and Moscow. By late May, the number of hospitalized citizens rose to the tens of thousands.

For the subsequent five years, the last years of the Soviet Union, doctors and medical researchers in Ukraine and Belarus tracked health statistics in contaminated regions. They reported the results in classified documents each year. Their reports show that after the accident, frequencies of health problems in five major disease categories grew annually. Soviet doctors did not have access to ambient measurements of radioactivity in the environment and the food chain because that information was classified, so doctors did what they had long done in the Soviet Union. They used their patients’ bodies as biological barometers to determine doses of radioactivity. Medical practitioners counted white and red blood cells, held radiation detec­tion counters to the thyroids of their patients, measured blood pressure, and scanned urine. They looked for chromosomal damage in blood cells and counts of radioactivity in tooth enamel. Using these biomarkers, Soviet doctors determined the doses of radioactivity their patients had encountered externally and ingested internally. Doctors calculated the range of radioactive isotopes lodged in their patients’ bodies. A KGB general who ran his own KGB clinic in Kiev for KGB agents and their families counted twelve different radioactive isotopes in organs and tissue of his patients.

In 1986, in neighboring Belarus, which received the majority of Chernobyl fallout, scientists at the Belarusian Academy of Science set up case-control studies to track the impact in real time on the health of children and pregnant women, two populations judged to be especially vulnerable. The academy also commissioned dozens of studies of radioactive contamination in the atmosphere, soils, plants, agricultural products, and live­stock. They drew on a body of knowledge that Soviet scientists had clandestinely developed over four decades in clinics stationed near secret nuclear installations that had suffered a large number of accidents and spills of radioactive effluents during the Cold War rush to produce weapons. In April 1989, the respected president of the Belarusian Academy of Science sent to Moscow a twenty-five-page report that reflected the renaissance of science in the fields of radioecology and radiobiol­ogy that had flourished in the contaminated regions as a result of the Chernobyl disaster. Evgenii Konoplia laid out what his Institute of Radiobiology had found.

Almost the entire territory of Belarus had been con­taminated, Konoplia wrote, except for a few northern regions.

Continue reading →

November 14, 2023 Posted by | radiation, Reference, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 37: Al-Shifa Hospital No Longer Functioning as Israeli Ground Troops Surround the Hospital

Thousands of lives are at risk as Al-Shifa Hospital becomes non-operational, with ICUs and incubators shutting down due to lack of fuel, and medical staff and patients trapped waiting to die. Israeli forces continue to shell hospitals in north Gaza.

SCHEERPOST, By Mustafa Aby Sneineh / Mondoweiss, November 13, 2023

Casualties

  • 11,078 killed*, including 4,506 children, and 27,490 wounded in Gaza
  • 184 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
  • Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,200

*The casualty numbers from Gaza have not been updated in at least 2 days, as the “collapse of services and communications” has made it nearly impossible for the health ministry to document and update the numbers

Key Developments

  • Israeli heavy fire targeting Al-Shifa trapped thousands of people who were displaced, wounded, sick, and medical staff inside it, without electricity, food, water, or fuel.
  • Al-Jazeera reported that Israeli forces are located approximately 700 meters from the Al-Shifa hospital’s gates, and firing, and armed clashes could be heard in the distance.
  • WHO: “There are reports that some people who fled the hospital have been shot at, wounded and even killed.”
  • Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City stopped working completely after running out of fuel to generate electricity.
  • Doctors at al-Ahli Arab Hospital say it is now the last functioning hospital in Gaza City and the northern areas and that it is “overwhelmed” with casualties. 
  • Israeli forces are surrounding the medical quarter in the center of Gaza City, where three major hospitals are located, including Al-Nasr Medical Complex, Al-Rantisi, and St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital.
  • Israel said 43 soldiers were killed since October 28, and Hamas released footage of targeting tanks in Gaza.
  • Hamas’s Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades spokesperson said that fighters documented the destruction, completely or partially, of 160 Israeli military vehicles, which includes tanks, bulldozers and personnel carriers.
  • The Israeli army said that it killed 150 Hamas fighters last week during battles in the Al-Shati refugee camp northwest of Gaza City, and claimed that it captured a station of Hamas’s Badr unit.
  • Thousands protest worldwide while Israel carries on arrest campaign in the occupied West Bank.

Al-Shifa Hospital ‘completely out of service’: Patients dying, bodies piling up outside

Following days of relentless attacks from the air and land on northern Gaza’s hospitals, the healthcare system in the north has seen a near-complete collapse, with only one hospital, the previously-bombed Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, remaining functional.

Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa Hospital, is“completely out of service”, Gaza’s health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra told Al Jazeera. Several people, including at least two premature infants and five ICU patients, have already died due to a lack of oxygen, medical supplies, and the inability of doctors and medical staff to perform life-saving surgeries as a result of power outages and no fuel. 

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Ministry of Health spokesperson Mai al-Kaila released a statement on Sunday detailing the desperate conditions at the Al-Shifa hospital.

“The Israeli occupation army does not evacuate hospitals, but rather throws the wounded and sick into the street to certain death,” al-Khaila said, referring to reports and eyewitness testimony that Israeli forces were shooting at people inside the hospitals, as well as those attempting to evacuate. 

“This is not an evacuation, but an expulsion at gunpoint,” she said. 

Among the patients dying or facing imminent death, al-Kaila said, are children and adults on kidney dialysis who “die in their homes without receiving dialysis sessions.”

Al-Kaila confirmed the death of 12 patients inside the Al-Shifa Medical Complex so far. She added that all 3,000 cancer patients who were being treated at the Al-Rantisi and Al-Turki Hospital in Gaza “have now been left to die” after they were forcibly expelled from the hospitals due to Israeli bombardment.  

“All pregnant women and those with dangerous pregnancies are at risk, as women do not find anyone to provide them with treatment and medical services in Gaza. Every woman about to give birth will not find anyone to provide her with any medical service,” Al-Kaila went on to say.

Early on in Israel’s bombardment, medical officials reported that there were an estimated 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza, including around 5,000 expecting mothers due to deliver at any moment. Over the weeks, several reports have emerged of pregnant women among those killed by Israeli airstrikes, causing doctors to have to cut out their unborn fetuses in an attempt to save the babies.  

In addition to sick patients in the hospital who can’t be treated, as well as chronically ill patients being left to die, hundreds of Palestinians who are becoming wounded and sick as a result of Israeli bombardment cannot reach the hospital itself. Over the past month of Israeli bombardment, Gaza’s infrastructure, including roads around hospitals, have been decimated, making it nearly impossible for ambulances to move to and from the hospital to reach bombed-out buildings and the wounded. 

Additionally, medical staff inside the hospital cannot physically move inside the hospital, as Israeli drones and ground forces “fire at everyone who moves inside the complex.” Doctors and staff, as well as the sick and displaced, have little to no food, while water has been completely cut off in the complex. 

Medical waste is piling up inside the departments, while the hospital’s blood reserves have spoiled due to power outages, meaning that needy patients can no longer receive life-saving blood transfusions.

Outside the hospital, bodies of Palestinian martyrs are piling up, with medical teams unable to reach them safely without coming under Israeli fire. 

According to al-Kail, the bodies have begun to decompose in the hospital courtyard. She added that stray dogs have “mauled” some of the bodies. 

Wafa news agency’s correspondent reported Sunday that dozens of martyrs’ bodies were still lying in the hospital’s courtyard and the surrounding area. Paramedics could not reach them due to the intensity of Israeli fire, and since 9 p.m. local time on Saturday, up until 9 a.m. on Sunday, no ambulances were seen leaving or arriving at Al-Shifa Hospital.

Patients, medical staff unable to evacuate al-Shifa 

Al-Shifa Hospital saw a mass exodus of Palestinians over the weekend, including patients, their families, some medical staff, and thousands of Palestinians who were seeking shelter at the hospital.

It remained unclear exactly how many people, including patients, medical staff, and internally displaced persons, remained inside the hospital, but several reports put that number around several thousand. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Al-Qudra said the only safe way to evacuate the 650 patients at al-Shifa would be to Egypt, not to southern Gaza, as the hospitals there are overwhelmed and are also under imminent threat of shutting down due to fuel shortages. 

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, among the patients still at Al-Shifa are nearly 60 patients in ICUs, dozens of premature babies in incubators, and more than 500 patients in the dialysis department.

Calling for an immediate ceasefire, the WHO said: “Patients seeking health care should never be exposed to fear, and health workers who have taken an oath to treat them should never be forced to risk their own lives to provide care.”……………………………………………………………………………

Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City stopped working completely

On Sunday morning, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) announced that Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City stopped working completely after running out of fuel to generate electricity………………………………………………………………………………………………

Israeli forces shell UN agency headquarters as thousands of Palestinians take shelter

On Sunday morning, Israeli forces shelled the compound of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), where thousands of Palestinians are sheltering in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip.

UNDP said that it was “deeply distressed” upon hearing the development. It vacated its staff from the location on 13 October.

“The shelling has reportedly resulted in a significant number of deaths and injuries,” the UNDP said in a statement. Wafa reported that at least five were killed till Sunday afternoon. ……………

Israel says 43 soldiers killed, Hamas releases footage targeting tanks in Gaza………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Thousands protest worldwide while Israel carries on arrest campaign in occupied West Bank

Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Europe’s major cities and in the U.S., calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, and showing their support and solidarity with the Palestinians.

Pro-Palestine protests rallied near U.S. President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, as frustration grew at his administration’s failure to call for a ceasefire and the unwavering support of Israel……………………………………………………………………………..

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, tweeted on Saturday that “the relentless bombardment of hospitals and civilians in Gaza is intolerable. It’s against international humanitarian law – it must stop and stop now.”…………..

Arrests continue in the West Bank

In the occupied West Bank, Israel has continued its mass arrest campaign. ……………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/13/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-37-al-shifa-hospital-no-longer-functioning-as-israeli-ground-troops-surround-the-hospital/

November 14, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Republicans and Democrats Unite to Push for Assange’s Freedom

Sixteen members of Congress signed a letter to President Biden urging him to drop the case against the WikiLeaks founder.

By Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com  https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/12/republicans-and-democrats-unite-to-push-for-assanges-freedom

Abipartisan group of 16 members of Congress has called on President Biden to drop the case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, warning of the grave threats to press freedom if he is convicted.

The lawmakers made the call in a letter sent to President Biden on Wednesday. The effort was led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and James McGovern (D-MA), who began circulating the letter to their colleagues for signatures last month.

“It is the duty of journalists to seek out sources, including documentary evidence, in order to report to the public on the activities of government,” the letter reads, according to a press release from Assange Defense. 

“The United States must not pursue an unnecessary prosecution that risks criminalizing common journalistic practices and thus chilling the work of the free press. We urge you to ensure that this case be brought to a close in as timely a manner as possible,” the letter states.

The letter was also signed by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Greg Casar (D-TX), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Cori Bush (D-MO), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Eric Burlison (R-MO), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Jesús García (D-IL), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Matthew Rosendale (R-MT), and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).

The letter comes as the Biden administration has been under pressure from the Australian government to free Assange, who is an Australian citizen. In September, a delegation of Australian members of parliament from across the political spectrum visited Washington and met with US officials to lobby for Assange. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese brought up the case with President Biden when he visited the White House in October.

Assange faces up to 175 years in prison if extradited to the US and convicted for exposing US war crimes. The charges stem from documents published by WikiLeaks that Assange obtained from his source, former Army Private Chelsea Manning, a standard journalistic practice. Assange has been held in London’s Belmarsh Prison since April 2019 as his legal team is fighting against US efforts to extradite him.

November 14, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Israel Wages War Against Gaza’s Remaining Hospitals

The Al-Shifa hospital ran out of fuel due to the ongoing siege by Israeli forces. Occupation snipers and drones have been positioned all around the hospital complex, opening fire at any sign of movement.

By  Tanupriya Singh and Ana Vračar / Peoples Dispatch,  https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/12/israel-wages-war-against-gazas-remaining-hospitals/

The Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, the largest medical facility in the besieged strip, was forced to suspend its operations on the morning of November 11 after it ran out of fuel. Patients have already begun to die as Israeli occupation forces have laid siege to the hospital.

Israeli snipers and drones positioned all around the hospital have opened fire at any sign of movement.

Abed Ghazal, a health activist from Palestine with the People’s Health Movement, said on Saturday, that it is “astounding that hospitals are being treated as legitimate targets.” As Ghazal provided updates, the people working at Al-Shifa, as well as those sheltering there, remained under direct attack.

Health workers at Al-Shifa are now forced to provide care with access to virtually no medical supplies at all, and patients are forced to cram in the corridors, Ghazal said. As many nurses and doctors have spent weeks in the hospitals without stopping, with little news about families and friends, the pressure is now getting worse.

While Al-Shifa’s health workers vowed to remain as long as patients needed care, they have criticized the international response to what has been happening around the hospital. The international reaction to the attacks on Al-Shifa and other hospital complexes in Gaza is far from enough, Ghazal said, and it should be denounced for what it is.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Al-Shifa’s director, Muhammad Abu Salmiya had said, “Patients are dying by the minute, victims and wounded are also dying”, confirming that one baby in an incubator had died, as well as a young man in the intensive care unit.

Gaza’s Deputy Health Minister, Dr. Youssef Abu Alreesh later told the news publication that all generators and power sources in the hospital were off. There are 39 newborn babies in incubators at Al-Shifa, now kept alive by manual support as both generators and solar panels have become non-operational.

Shortly after the power blackout on Saturday, Al-Shifa’s yard was also struck by shelling, causing a fire. Ambulances have been prevented from entering or leaving the hospital complex.

The IOF has cordoned off the hospital complex, while buildings in its vicinity have been shelled non-stop for over 12 hours as of Saturday morning. “Any moving person within the compound is targeted”, Salmiya said, adding that one member of the medical personnel had been shot and killed by a sniper as he tried to reach the babies in the incubator.

“A few families tried to leave but they were targeted, now they are lying dead outside the hospital”, Alreesh told Al Jazeera, adding that the hospital’s intensive care unit had also been hit by mortar fire.

Al-Shifa no longer has electricity and internet, and has been left without fuel, food, water, and medical supplies. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) stated early on Saturday that it was unable to contact any of its staff inside Al-Shifa, adding that there were patients in the hospital who were in critical condition and unable to move.

Tens of thousands of people displaced by the Israeli bombardment who were seeking shelter in the hospital yard are currently also trapped.

Palestinian Health Ministry’s Director-General, Mounir Al-Barsh has stated that a mass grave would have to be dug at Al-Shifa on Saturday to bury the bodies of 100 people who have died at the hospital– “We cannot move within or outside the perimeter of the hospital. We are surrounded, we cannot bury our dead.”

Israel had bombed the Al Shifa Hospital at least five times between November 9 and 10, as confirmed by the spokesperson of the Palestinian Health Ministry, Ashraf al-Qudra. At least 13 people were killed after Israel bombed Al-Shifa’s obstetrics department and courtyard early on Friday.

The Israeli forces also dropped internationally-banned white phosphorus bombs on neighborhoods around Al-Shifa on Friday, the Wafa News Agency reported.

Two people were also killed in an attack in the vicinity of the Al-Nasr Medical Center. The attack forced the closureof the facility’s children’s hospital which is the sole remaining specialized pediatric care unit in North Gaza, according to the World Health Organization.

In a separate statement on Friday night, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) condemned a direct attack by occupying forces on Al-Quds hospital, including the direct firing of live ammunition at its intensive care unit (ICU). The attack killed one displaced person and injured 28 others.

As of Friday, the hospital had remained isolated for the fifth consecutive day amid shortages of food, water and medical supplies, due to continuous Israeli shelling destroying buildings and streets in the vicinity, and cutting off access routes to Al-Quds.

The head of the Al-Nasr hospital and the Al Rantisi Pediatric Hospital, Mustafa al-Kahlout, told CNN that the facilities were “completely surrounded” and that Israeli tanks were positioned outside. Al-Rantisi Hospital was also directly hit on November 9, which caused fires and damage, according to an update by the UN OCHA. The Al Awda hospital in Jabalia was also bombarded on November 10, in what is being called a “day of war against hospitals”.

According to an update published by the UN OCHA on November 10, 20 out Gaza’s 36 hospitals are no longer functioning because of Israel’s attacks. Israel has killed at least 11,078 Palestinians since the start of its genocidal bombardment of Gaza on October 7. Another 27,490 people have been injured during this period.

November 14, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The U.S. Is Paying Billions to Russia’s Nuclear Agency.

This week, the Department of Energy issued a long-awaited draft of a request for proposals to scale up domestic enrichment, particularly for plants like TerraPower’s. Kathryn Huff, the department’s assistant secretary for nuclear energy, said the draft was an “important step” in stopping American “reliance on Russia.”

NYT. 13 Nov 23

Nuclear power companies rely on cheap enriched uranium made in Russia. ………………………………………………………….

Today, American companies are paying around $1 billion a year to Russia’s state-owned nuclear agency to buy the fuel that generates more than half of the United States’ (so-called) emissions-free energy.

It is one of the most significant remaining flows of money from the United States to Russia, and it continues despite strenuous efforts among U.S. allies to sever economic ties with Moscow. The enriched uranium payments are made to subsidiaries of Rosatom, which in turn is closely intertwined with Russia’s military apparatus.

The United States’ reliance on nuclear power is primed to grow as the country aims to decrease reliance on fossil fuels. But no American-owned company enriches uranium. The United States once dominated the market, until a swirl of historical factors, including an enriched-uranium-buying deal between Russia and the United States designed to promote Russia’s peaceful nuclear program after the Soviet Union’s collapse, enabled Russia to corner half the global market. The United States ceased enriching uranium entirely.

The United States and Europe have largely stopped buying Russian fossil fuels as punishment for the Ukraine invasion. But building a new enriched uranium supply chain will take years — and significantly more government funding than currently allocated.

That the vast facility in Piketon, Ohio, stands nearly empty more than a year into Russia’s war in Ukraine is a testament to the difficulty.

Roughly a third of enriched uranium used in the United States is now imported from Russia, the world’s cheapest producer. Most of the rest is imported from Europe. A final, smaller portion is produced by a British-Dutch-German consortium operating in the United States. Nearly a dozen countries around the world depend on Russia for more than half their enriched uranium.

The company that operates the Ohio plant says it could take more than a decade for it to produce quantities that rivaled Rosatom. The Russian nuclear agency, which produces both low-enriched and weapons-grade fuel for Russia’s civilian and military purposes, is also responsible in Ukraine for commandeering the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s biggest, sparking fears that a battle over it could cause leaks of radioactive material or even a larger meltdown.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… This week, the Department of Energy issued a long-awaited draft of a request for proposals to scale up domestic enrichment, particularly for plants like TerraPower’s. Kathryn Huff, the department’s assistant secretary for nuclear energy, said the draft was an “important step” in stopping American “reliance on Russia.”…  https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/14/climate/enriched-uranium-nuclear-russia-ohio.html

November 14, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear weapons sharing, 2023

Bulletin, By Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns, Mackenzie Knight, November 8, 2023

The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: director Hans M. Kristensen, senior research fellow Matt Korda, research associate Eliana Johns, and Scoville fellow Mackenzie Knight. The Nuclear Notebook column has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1987. This issue’s column examines the current state of global nuclear sharing arrangements, which include non-nuclear countries that possess nuclear-capable delivery systems for employment of a nuclear-armed state’s nuclear weapons.

ollectively, the world’s estimated 12,512 nuclear warheads belong to just nine countries. However, there are more than two dozen additional countries that participate in nuclear mission-related arrangements. While these countries do not have direct launch authority over any nuclear warheads, they play an important role in their storage, planning, delivery, and safety and use-control, and therefore merit a degree of scrutiny alongside their nuclear-armed peers.

Nuclear sharing: what it is and is not

A common misconception surrounding nuclear sharing is that it refers to one country simply handing its nuclear weapons or launch authority to another country. While there have been specific instances during the Cold War when the United States’ allies maintained a relatively high degree of control over the nuclear weapons stationed on their soil, this is no longer the case in peacetime.

Nuclear sharing, not to be confused with burden sharing, generally refers to the practice of allowing non-nuclear countries to operate specially configured launchers to employ a nuclear-armed state’s nuclear weapons in time of war. The nuclear sharing mission is a subset of a much broader range of nuclear-related activities that can take several forms (see also Figure 1 on original):

  • Maintain nuclear forces to provide nuclear protection for non-nuclear countries;
  • Permanently hosting another country’s nuclear weapons or delivery systems;
  • Providing delivery systems to be capable of employing another country’s nuclear weapons;
  • Providing conventional capabilities to support another country’s nuclear strike mission; or
  • Cooperating with another country on nuclear planning and targeting.

In recent years, nuclear sharing arrangements have reentered the international spotlight. The United States is modernizing the infrastructure that supports its nuclear sharing mission in Europe and is preparing to deploy its new B61-12 gravity bombs to European air bases for delivery by US and allied aircraft. Meanwhile, following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia says it is transferring nuclear-capable delivery systems to Belarus, training Belarusian military personnel on how to use them, and claiming to have deployed Russian nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory.

Participation in nuclear-related arrangements will increase in the coming years, as new NATO members Sweden and Finland join the Alliance’s Nuclear Planning Group and potentially decide to participate in NATO’s annual nuclear strike exercise, and countries like Poland and South Korea have advocated a role in the United States’ nuclear mission as well.

US-NATO nuclear sharing

The governance of US nuclear weapons deployments in Europe is administered through distinct types of parallel agreements with the host or “user nation:”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Nuclear sharing during the Cold War………………………………………………………………………………..

Nuclear sharing today

Today, approximately 100 US nuclear weapons are estimated to be stored at six bases in five countries, with one additional base (RAF Lakenheath) currently undergoing modernization to potentially store nuclear weapons in the future.

The United States is preparing to replace all legacy versions of the B61 gravity bomb deployed in Europe with the incoming B61-12, which uses a modified version of the warhead used in the current B61-4 gravity bomb. In addition to US heavy bombers, the B61-12 will also be integrated onto US- and allied-operated tactical aircraft, ………………………………………………………………………………

—Kleine Brogel Air Base, Belgium……………………….

—Volkel Air Base, the Netherlands……………………………

—Aviano Air Base, Italy……………………………………..

—Ghedi Air Base, Italy……………………………….

—Lakenheath Royal Air Force Base, United Kingdom………………………………….

Nuclear sharing and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty………………………………………………. Nuclear authorization and consultation

Russia-Belarus nuclear sharing…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Other nuclear arrangements and national views

South Korea and Japan………………………………..

Poland………………………………..

Sweden and Finland……………………………………

Belgium and Germany……………………………………….

more https://thebulletin.org/premium/2023-11/nuclear-weapons-sharing-2023/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=ThursdayNewsletter11092023&utm_content=NuclearRisk_NuclearWeaponsSharing_11082023—

November 14, 2023 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel’s Nuclear Weapons in the Spotlight

 Nov 13, 2023, Author, Scott Ritter, Washington,  https://www.energyintel.com/0000018b-c8be-dac7-a7ab-ddfe44520000

As the war between Israel and Hamas enters its second month, one of the top priorities of all parties involved is to prevent the conflict from expanding regionally. Israeli concerns over the emergence of a northern front with Hezbollah along Israel’s border with Lebanon have prompted the US to deploy significant military power to the eastern Mediterranean Sea as a show of force to deter both Hezbollah and Iran from intervening. The prospect of a larger war between Israel and Iran has also shone an uncomfortable light on Israel’s nuclear weapons capability, and the possibility of these weapons being used if the fighting in Gaza were to expand regionally. Both Israel and the US have accused Iran of pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program, which Iran vehemently denies.

Recent comments by Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, where he alluded to the possibility that one of Israel’s options in the war against Hamas could be to use nuclear weapons in the Gaza Strip, thrust the reality of Israel’s unacknowledged nuclear weapons program into the international spotlight. Eliyahu’s comments were quickly disavowed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the heritage minister was suspended from attending cabinet meetings.

Eliyahu, a member of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, made his comments while answering a question during a live radio interview. “Your expectation is that tomorrow morning we’d drop what amounts to some kind of a nuclear bomb on all of Gaza, flattening them, eliminating everybody there?” the interviewer asked. “That’s one way,” Eliyahu responded.

It should be noted that Eliyahu never mentioned nuclear weapons himself. Likewise, the questioner did not speak of an actual nuclear weapon, but rather something “that amounts to” a nuclear weapon. Many observers of the ongoing Gaza conflict have made comparisons with the volume of high explosives that have been dropped on Gaza by the Israeli Air Force since Oct. 7, when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israeli military and civilian infrastructure surrounding Gaza, killing some 1,400 Israelis, most of them civilians. The tonnage dropped on Gaza is estimated at more than 20,000 tons, the equivalent of a 20 kiloton nuclear bomb, which is larger than either of the atomic bombs dropped by the US on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the World War II.

Nuclear Ambiguity

That the mere allusion to the existence and possible use of nuclear weapons by an Israeli government official, however vague and indistinct, could attract such attention underscores the controversy that surrounds Israel’s nuclear weapons program.

The Israeli nuclear weapons program dates to the mid-1950s, when the country’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, ordered the Israeli military to develop a nuclear insurance plan designed to offset the combined conventional military superiority of Israel’s Arab neighbors. Developed in great secrecy with the assistance of France, the Israeli program was centered on a nuclear weapons production facility located at Dimona, in the Negev Desert, where Israel, under the guise of a civilian nuclear power program, began to produce the plutonium necessary for a nuclear weapon.

US President John F. Kennedy confronted Ben-Gurion about Dimona during a May 1961 meeting. Under pressure, Ben-Gurion stated that the Dimona plant had a pilot plutonium extraction capability that could be used for military purposes but sought to mollify US concerns by declaring that Israel had “no intention to develop weapons capacity now.”

The administration of President Richard Nixon subsequently worked with Israel to craft a policy of mutual obfuscation, where Israel promised that it would not be the first to “introduce” nuclear weapons to the Middle East, but premised this on the notion that the term “introduce” meant the acknowledgement of the existence of such a weapon — in short, “introduction” was not about physical possession, but about public acknowledgment of that possession.

While Israel has sought to assiduously maintain its policy of nuclear ambiguity, there have been some notable incidents that strain the credulity of this posture. In 2004, while speaking at a political party gathering in Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made an indirect comparison between the nuclear ambitions, real and imagined, of Libya and Iran, which he indicated should be halted, and Israel, which Sharon said, “must not be touched when it comes to its deterrent capability.”

In a December 2006 interview with German television, Sharon’s successor, Ehud Olmert, appeared to openly acknowledge Israel’s nuclear status when he criticized Iran for aspiring “to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia.”

The Israeli Deterrence Model

In 1986 Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli nuclear technician who had been employed at the Dimona facility, went public with information about the technical capacity of Israel to produce the fissile material necessary for nuclear weapons. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute currently estimates that Israel’s nuclear arsenal consists of 80 weapons — 50 for delivery using ballistic missiles, and 30 for delivery by aircraft. Israel is also believed to possess an unknown number of nuclear artillery shells and atomic demolition munitions.

How Israel might transition from its posture of nuclear ambiguity to being a self-declared nuclear state remains unknown. However, given Israel’s close collaboration with South Africa over the development and probable testing of nuclear weapons, the South African model of making its nuclear deterrence public is likely to resemble Israel’s approach. This involves a three-phase strategy, with phase one being nuclear ambiguity. Phase two involves what is known as covert conditioning, involving a variety of non-attributable methods to reveal nuclear capacity as a means of inducement, persuasion and/or coercion. The third phase involves overtly acknowledging possession of weapons capability, followed by a series of escalating steps — public announcement, public display, demonstration (e.g. a nuclear test), threatened use, and lastly, battlefield use.

Existential Threat

In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, Israel faces a crisis that its senior-most leadership describes as existential in nature. In 2022 and 2023, Israel carried out large-scale military exercises designed to test the Israel Defense Forces’ ability to respond to simultaneous attacks from all known enemies of Israel — Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. While the official results of these exercises remain a state secret, some conclusions have been alluded to by Israeli military sources. First, any military conflict between Israel and Iran could only be conducted with significant military assistance from the US, which might not be forthcoming. Second, Hezbollah possesses sufficient missile capacity to overwhelm Israeli air defenses, enabling them to inflict serious harm to Israeli economic, political and military infrastructure. Thirdly, the Israeli exercises did not envision a major attack by Hamas that would consume so much of Israel’s conventional military power in response.

If the current conflict with Hamas were to escalate to involve both Hezbollah and Iran, Israel most probably lacks the conventional military capability to defeat this combined threat. At this juncture, Israel would face the decision of initiating the third phase of its nuclear deterrent posture: overt acknowledgement followed by escalatory steps. The decision to publicly declare an Israeli nuclear capability is a matter of great political sensitivity which, if done improperly, could turn even its US ally against it. This is why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded so harshly to the indiscreet ruminations of an obscure Israeli minister. Any step of this magnitude must be conducted in a very controlled fashion, with very specific objectives in mind — all of which should be linked to deterring the potential for operational use, not encouraging it.

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer whose service over a 20-plus-year career included tours of duty in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control agreements, serving on the staff of US Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf during the Gulf War and later as a chief weapons inspector with the UN in Iraq from 1991-98. The views expressed in this article are those of the author.

November 14, 2023 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

U.S. Space Force and the dangerous clutter of human-produced stuff in space

What Does the U.S. Space Force Actually Do? Inside the highly secretive military branch responsible for protecting American interests in a vulnerable new domain

NYT, By Jon Gertner,  Nov. 8, 2023

Chief Master Sgt. Ron Lerch of the U.S. Space Force sat down in his office in Los Angeles one morning in September to deliver a briefing known as a threat assessment. The current “threats” in space are less sci-fi than you might expect, but there are a surprising number of them: At least 44,500 space objects now circle Earth, including 9,000 active satellites and 19,000 significant pieces of debris.

What’s most concerning isn’t the swarm of satellites but the types. “We know that there are kinetic kill vehicles,” Lerch said — for example, a Russian “nesting doll” satellite, in which a big satellite releases a tiny one and the tiny one releases a mechanism that can strike and damage another satellite. There are machines with the ability to cast nets and extend grappling hooks, too. China, whose presence in space now far outpaces Russia’s, is launching unmanned “space planes” into orbit, testing potentially unbreakable quantum communication links and adding A.I. capabilities to satellites.

An intelligence report, Lerch said, predicted the advent, within the next decade, of satellites with radio-frequency jammers, chemical sprayers and lasers that blind and disable the competition. All this would be in addition to the cyberwarfare tools, electromagnetic instruments and “ASAT” antisatellite missiles that already exist on the ground. In Lerch’s assessment, space looked less like a grand “new ocean” for exploration — phrasing meant to induce wonder that has lingered from the Kennedy administration — and more like a robotic battlefield, where the conflicts raging on Earth would soon extend ever upward.

The Space Force, the sixth and newest branch of the U.S. military, was authorized by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump in December 2019. Its creation was not a partisan endeavor, though Trump has boasted that the idea for the organization was his alone. The initiative had in fact been shaped within the armed forces and Congress over the previous 25 years, based on the premise that as satellite and space technologies evolved, America’s military organizations had to change as well……………………………………………………………………………….

 nearly every aspect of modern warfare and defense — intelligence, surveillance, communications, operations, missile detection — has come to rely on links to orbiting satellites………………

the strategic exploitation of space now extends well beyond military concerns. Satellite phone systems have become widespread. Positioning and timing satellites, such as GPS (now overseen by the Space Force), allow for digital mapping, navigation, banking and agricultural management. A world without orbital weather surveys seems unthinkable. Modern life is reliant on space technologies to an extent that an interruption would create profound economic and social distress…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Guardians tend to think of the realm they patrol as a kind of structured multilevel terrain — Earth as being surrounded by three highways, or three rings. The nearest level, low Earth orbit (LEO), is host to constellations like SpaceX’s Starlink network and the International Space Station, which moves about 250 miles above us at 17,500 miles per hour. A medium Earth orbit (MEO), between 1,200 and 22,000 miles above, is where GPS satellites circle. At the highest ring — at least for now — is a track known  as “geosynchronous” orbit (GEO), because an object in such an orbit keeps pace with Earth’s rotation. This band is home to DirectTV satellites, weather-tracking instruments from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and crucial Defense Department communication links.

It’s a technological zoo up there. The satellite mix is foreign and domestic, young and old, sinister and peaceful. The technologies are all different sizes, flying at different speeds and altitudes. The challenge for the force is to monitor all movement but also to track the threatening presence of debris, some of which is naturally occurring (tiny rocks, for instance) and some of which has human origins (like shards of old rockets). Because space junk can move at extraordinary velocities, a floating screw might pack a destructive punch equivalent to a small bomb……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 Capt. Raymond Pereira, drawing on a white board, pointed me to another concern: the crowd of satellites in low Earth orbit. “I would say we’re probably already entering into an area where congestion is a problem,” he said, “and anything that would generate debris would be catastrophic for the domain.” One plausible theory is known as the Kessler Syndrome, named after the former NASA scientist Donald Kessler, which posits that a release of wreckage and fragments in this orbit could eventually lead to a domino effect of unstoppable destruction. Pereira pointed out that if someone (or something) were to touch off such an event, “they would not only be harming their adversary; they would be harming themselves.”  But even short of that, a single collision or attack might hamstring science missions to the moon, or to Mars, or lead to failures for GPS and communications systems, a problem that could have huge consequences for life on Earth.

………………………. A treaty from the late 1960s, signed by most of the major nations on Earth, prohibits the use of nuclear weapons in space and designates the moon for peaceful purposes. But recently, I was told, satellites from foreign adversaries have been coming close to machines from the United States and its allies. The treaty says nothing about such provocations — or about grappling hooks, nesting dolls and cyberwarfare.

Space Force leaders readily describe their guardians as working toward a state of combat readiness…………………………………………………………..

Debris has led military strategists to ponder a related issue: In space, it’s difficult to get out of the way of conflict……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………….. “And then potentially every satellite becomes more debris,” Saltzman remarked. “Every peaceful satellite could become a weapon accidentally.”…………………………………………………………………………………. more https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/magazine/space-force.html

November 14, 2023 Posted by | space travel, USA | Leave a comment

Taiwan ELECTION 2024/Presidential aspirants agree on renewables, diverge on nuclear energy

Focus Taiwan, 11/12/2023 , By Alison Hsiao, CNA staff reporter

Taiwan’s four presidential candidates have all proposed policies on Taiwan’s energy future, but with different levels of clarity.

Among them, there is broad agreement on the importance of renewable energy in Taiwan’s energy mix in the future. Three of the four have proposed generating increasingly larger chunks of renewable energy over time, though they are vague on the details.

At the same time, however, there is considerable disagreement on whether Taiwan should continue to use nuclear power and in what form………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Nuclear power debate

That nuclear power has been at the center of the energy policy debate is disconcerting when parties of all stripes agree on a green future, Tsui contended.

That might be the case, however, because nuclear power is the area in which opposition candidates strike a distinctly different tone from the incumbent DPP.

Lai has followed the policy line of the DPP and Tsai in saying that the Jinshan (No. 1) Nuclear Power Plant, the Kuosheng (No. 2) Nuclear Power Plant, and the Ma-anshang (No. 3) Nuclear Power Plant would be decommissioned in accordance with the law should he be elected.

The Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act and other nuclear licensing laws stipulate that operating licenses for nuclear reactors are valid for no more than 40 years at the longest, but their lifetimes can be extended if an application to renew the license is filed by the licensee five to 15 years before the license expires.

The No. 1 and No. 2 nuclear plants began their decommissioning processes (to span 25 years) in 2018 and 2021, respectively.

The No. 3 plant, which started operations in 1984, will enter into the decommissioning process starting next year, based on existing regulations.

Lai said the Longmen (No. 4) Nuclear Power Plant, which was mothballed in 2014 amid anti-nuclear protests after nearing completion, will not be operated as a referendum on its operation in 2021 did not pass.

Under Taiwan’s Referendum Act, an issue can be resubmitted for another referendum two years after an initial referendum on that same issue is held………………………………………………………………………………….

The candidates could all find efforts to build up Taiwan’s nuclear program complicated by legal and practical barriers, even if Lai argued that nuclear power could be available in the future as an emergency source of power……………………………………

Greenpeace has argued that increasing the use of nuclear energy by 2030 would be “scientifically and legally” unviable.

Legally, Chen said, the period of time nuclear power plants can be operated are regulated by existing laws, and extending their life spans requires applications five to 15 years before their legal periods of operation expire.

Scientifically, he said, work to complete nuclear power projects that had been suspended has averaged about 118 months around the world, according to a study by Greenpeace. Applied to this scenario, the No. 4 plant would not start operations until 2034………………

more https://focustaiwan.tw/politics/202311120006

November 14, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Collective calls on Pacific leaders to oppose Fukushima nuclear wastewater discharge

 https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-11-12/Pacific-leaders-urged-to-oppose-Fukushima-nuclear-wastewater-discharge-1oG0b179xE4/index.html

The Pacific Collective on Nuclear Issues has denounced once again the dumping of radioactive wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean, calling on Pacific leaders to suspend Japan’s status as a Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) dialogue partner.

The Collective, composed of civil society groups, non-governmental organizations and movements in the Pacific, issued a statement this week, during which the 52nd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting was held in the Cook Islands.

The statement condemned the Japanese government and the facility operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), for insisting on this flawed and dangerous course of action.

“The findings of the independent panel of scientific experts commissioned by the Pacific Islands Forum were unequivocal – the data provided so far, to support Japan’s claim that the treated wastewater is safe, is inconsistent, unsound and therefore far from reliable,” the statement said, adding that “if the Japanese government and TEPCO believe the radioactive wastewater is safe, they should be prepared to safely dispose of it within terrestrial Japan.”

The Collective also declared that such dumping into the Pacific Ocean is a direct violation of human rights.

Aside from being a brazen violation of international law, the Collective said, Japan’s behavior and handling of this matter is an affront to the very sovereignty of Pacific states and unbecoming of a dialogue partner of the PIF.

Founded in 1971, the PIF is the region’s premier political and economic policy organization which comprises 18 members.

The Collective called on the Pacific leaders to reaffirm the long-held position of the Pacific to keep their region nuclear-free and to review diplomatic relations with Japan at the next Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in 2024.

They also called on the international community not to turn a blind eye to the threat that dumping radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean poses to Pacific peoples, their livelihoods, safety, health and well-being.

Japan conducted the third round of release of nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean earlier this month, despite numerous and repeated objections by governments and communities, environmental groups, NGOs, and anti-nuclear movements in Japan and the Pacific

November 14, 2023 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, OCEANIA, oceans, politics international, wastes | Leave a comment

Biden Moves To Reduce U.S. Reliance On Russian Nuclear Supply Chain

The U.S. depends on Russian state-operated firm Rosatom for nearly 50% of
global uranium enrichment, essential for the nation’s nuclear energy
production. America’s reliance on Russian nuclear supply chains continues
despite sanctions, inadvertently funding Russia’s defense sector and
creating a critical vulnerability in energy security. The Biden
administration is seeking $2.16 billion to boost domestic uranium
enrichment capabilities, emphasizing the urgency to diminish dependence on
Russian nuclear fuel for national security and energy independence.

Oil Price 11th Nov 2023

https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Biden-Moves-To-Reduce-US-Reliance-On-Russian-Nuclear-Supply-Chain.html

November 14, 2023 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment