TODAY. Nuclear “sacrifice zones” and “sponges”- a new revelation
Only recently revealed: – “The silos are basically meant to divert and absorb the incoming nuclear missiles from important and critical areas in the country, like cities.”
OnFrom its beginning in the 1940s the global nuclear industry set up “sacrifice zones”- Nevada nuclear test sites, though the residents didn’t know this – a sort of “unconscious” one – where the outcomes of cancer and birth defects were not fully understood.
Twas the Russians who first put the concept clearly into practice – setting up City 40, Ozersk the birthplace of the Soviet nuclear weapons programme . City 40’s inhabitants were told they were “the nuclear shield and saviours of the world”. This was absolute nuclear sacrifice. The residents of this secret city knew that their role was to accept both the cancerous consequences of nuclear weapons-making and their status as a nuclear target – all for the supposed glory of making all of Russia “safe”.
The residents were compensated – financial stability, private apartments, plenty of food – including exotic delicacies such as bananas, condensed milk and caviar – good schools and healthcare, a plethora of entertainment and cultural activities.
In exchange, the residents were ordered to maintain secrets about their lives and work. For the first eight years, residents were forbidden from leaving the city, writing letters or making any contact with the outside world.
The Americans did it more subtly. They chose areas where the indigenous population would would have little awareness of the issues – a much cheaper system than the Russian one. The US military set up nuclear silos of InterContinental Ballistic Missile (ICBMs.) as “sponges” “The role of the ICBM is to force an adversary to use many nuclear weapons if they decided to attack the U.S. The silos are basically meant to divert and absorb the incoming nuclear missiles from important and critical areas in the country, like cities.”
Wherever there are nuclear weapons systems, there are these “sponges”, – places where the uninformed local community, preferably indigenous are put in danger. for the presumed safety of the more important city residents.
The very latest one is in the UK, in Suffolk, where the US is about to bring back nuclear weapons,
The women of Greenham Common previously got rid of American nuclear weapons bases.
UK needs a new Greenham Common to fight this new nuclear target, sponge, sacrifice zone.
COP28: Hopes of fossil fuel ‘phase out’ hit by revelations of Saudi plan to boost oil demand.
The scale of the challenge faced by diplomats pushing
for a new global agreement to ‘phase out’ unabated fossil fuels at the
upcoming UN Climate Summit in Dubai was underscored yesterday by reports
detailing how both the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia are
privately working to sustain long term demand for oil and gas.
Just hours after the BBC reported yesterday that COP28 hosts the UAE had used
bilateral meetings with governments ahead of the Summit to promote new oil
and gas investments, Channel 4 News and the Centre for Climate Reporting
revealed how Saudi Arabia is using its Oil Demand Sustainability Programme
(ODSP) to drive long term demand for oil from developing economies.
Business Green 28th Nov 2023
US nuclear bombs ‘set to return to UK’ for first time in 15 years – making Lakenheath a “nuclear target”
“they will make us a nuclear target. “
US nuclear weapons are expected to return to the UK after 15 years following a visit to RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk by American Deputy Defence Secretary Kathleen Hicks
By Ben Glaze, Deputy Political Editor1, 29 Nov 2023
American nuclear bombs are set to return to Britain after 15 years.
A senior US defence official has visited an RAF base in the Suffolk countryside, paving the way for the controversial arms to come back to the UK. Deputy Defence Secretary Kathleen Hicks went to RAF Lakenheath for a tour of “infrastructure improvements” at the air station, according to The Daily Telegraph.
The Pentagon is planning a £39.5million dormitory for troops with the military site due to be used for “surety” – a US defence term to describe operations related to nuclear weapons, the paper reported. The last American nuclear arms were removed from Britain in 2008, when approximately 110 tactical B61s stored at Lakenheath were stripped out.
The weapon – a low to intermediate-yield strategic and tactical nuclear bomb – remains part of the US’ “enduring stockpile” following the end of the Cold War. It could be dropped by US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle fighter-bombers. The aircraft are still based at Lakenheath as part of the USAF 48th Fighter Wing – known as The Liberty Wing – its main air defence mission in Europe………………………………………..
Deployment of American nuclear arms to Britain would generate fresh controversy. Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament general secretary Kate Hudson told the Mirror: “Kathleen Hicks’ visit to RAF Lakenheath is further proof that Washington intends to use Britain as a launch pad for its nuclear arsenal in Europe. The lack of transparency surrounding this deployment is shocking, given how dangerous it is.
“Russia has already retaliated – it has stationed its own nuclear weapons in Belarus in response. A YouGov poll found that almost two thirds of the British public don’t want US nuclear weapons stationed here. That’s not surprising – they will make us a nuclear target. CND calls on the UK Government to say that US nuclear weapons are not welcome in Britain.”
Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer said: “The world feels like an increasingly dangerous place with conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and many other places. However, the positioning of US nuclear weapons at Lakenheath will not help ease tensions – it is far more likely to increase them. Over 100 nuclear bombs were stored at the airbase but they were removed in 2008. The UK Government should be working much harder to reduce the threat of nuclear war by actively supporting the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and seeking to reverse the collapse of other international arms control treaties which were designed to protect us.”
Previous deployments of American nuclear weapons have triggered outrage. Greenham Common in Berkshire saw years of anti-nuclear demonstrations, and was the UK’s biggest women-led movement since the Suffragettes. The protest began in 1981 and lasted 19 years until the airbase was decommissioned. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/nuclear-bombs-set-return-uk-31552964?link_id=3&can_id=0a448bf4278898648e02a8f6dea4650f&source=email-a-senior-us-defence-official-just-visited-raf-lakenheath&email_referrer=email_2128400&email_subject=a-senior-us-defence-official-just-visited-raf-lakenheath
Ralph Nader: An Open Letter to Members of the United States Congress
By Ralph Nader / Nader.org November 29, 2023
RE: Hamas-Israel-Gaza-Genocide
We are writing to exercise our First Amendment to petition Congress for redress of grievances. We are urging Congress to end the United States’ unconditional, close, and continual military and intelligence support of Israel in its ongoing physical destruction of 2.3 million Palestinians residing in Gaza. The United States is responsible for genocide under any plain reading of the Genocide Convention.
Congress commands plenary power over the foreign policy of the United States. It employed the power of the purse to end United States combat in Indochina on August 16, 1973. It prohibited the CIA from intermeddling in Angola with the Clark Amendment in 1975. And by statute, Congress has insisted that Israel receive weapons that ensure a Qualitative Military Edge over its neighbors.
Words only diminish our revulsion at the congressional dereliction in enabling President Joe Biden to transfer weapons and share real-time intelligence with Israel to destroy Palestinian civilians in Gaza in violation of multiple laws: the Genocide Convention, the federal prohibition of genocide,18 U.S.C. 1091, the Leahy Amendments, the Declare War Clause of the Constitution, and the statutory restriction on the use of American arms for defensive purposes only.
Why has Congress neglected public hearings to expose and redress these offenses to the rule of law?
Congress should enact a Joint Resolution endorsing a two-state solution featuring a Palestinian state initially administered by a United Nations caretaker mission to organize free and fair elections.
The United States’ current unlawful foreign policy is indistinguishable from “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” voiced by Thucydides in History of the Peloponnesian War.
Section 2 of the Genocide Convention defines the crime as including “intentionally creating conditions of life calculated to physically destroy a racial, religious, ethnic, or national group in whole or in part.” Evidence in the public domain authoritatively establishes that Israel is intentionally creating conditions of life in Gaza intended to physically destroy the 2.3 million Palestinian occupants. Israeli officials, without dissent, announced a siege of Gaza including the genocidal refrain, “no food, no water, no power, no electricity, no medicine, no shelter, no anything.” See e.g., “‘Erase Gaza’: Conflict Unleashes Inflammatory Rhetoric From Israeli Leaders,” New York Times, A7, November 16, 2023. Palestinians are even prohibited from collecting or storing rainwater which is considered the property of the Israeli government.
The siege of Gaza’s population has been fortified by a land invasion and bombings of hospitals, clinics, ambulances, bread bakeries, water mains, schools, apartment buildings, marketplaces, fleeing refugee families to nowhere, journalists, mosques, churches, and clearly marked United Nations schools and relief sites. Death certificates are prepared before the ink on birth certificates dries. Fires cannot be extinguished. Diseases are spreading. Deaths are at least 20,000 and probably twice or three times that number increasing by the hour, from lack of water, food, and urgent medical treatment, for those homeless battered families being driven south under Israeli bombardment and communications blackouts. There are no safe sanctuaries whether in North or South Gaza – even in hospitals they blockaded. Gaza is a free fire zone for the IDF.
Israel has turned its brutal war machine on the entire Palestinian population in Gaza. Israel’s President declaimed, “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true about civilians not aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true.” An Israeli Knesset member echoed, “The Children of Gaza brought it upon themselves.” The Defense Minister insisted, “We are fighting human animals and will treat them accordingly.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu added that the Gaza conflict is between 21st century progress and “the barbaric fanaticism of the Middle Ages” and a “struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness.” He reminded Israeli Jews of the Lord’s ordering the destruction of Amalek in the Book of Samuel, “This is what the Lord Almighty says,” the prophet Samuel tells Saul. “I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”
The Nazis in World War II attempted to conceal the Holocaust fearing legal accountability. Israel’s genocide is unfolding in plain view confidant of impunity, including unconditional callous congressional support and gross misdirection of taxpayer dollars for violence, in lieu of satisfying the critical needs of the American people.
Congress is poised, without even public hearings and witnesses, to spend an additional $14.3 billion of taxpayer dollars to compensate for a staggering blunder of Israeli intelligence. Why?
Israel has taken an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth standard of justice of Leviticus to a criminal, genocidal level: 10,000 eyes for an eye, 10,000 teeth for a tooth. It is turning Gaza into a vast sick and dying huddle of civilian families exposed to American bombs and missiles. As the Washington Post reported, “hunger, thirst and disease are quickly spreading.” Babies are dying alone having lost their parents.
Had the touted Israeli defenses and intelligence not been colossally AWOL, the October 7th attack could never have occurred. As one elderly Holocaust survivor told The New York Times, “It should never have happened…”
President Biden has made the United States a belligerent and co-belligerent with Israel against Hamas without a constitutionally required declaration of war by Congress. Systematically providing the IDF with massive weapons made us a co-belligerent and sharing real-time battlefield intelligence made us a belligerent.
Such presidential wars are impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors as Mr. Biden himself vigorously underscored in his presidential campaign for the 2008 Democratic nomination in an interview with Chris Matthews on Hardball on December 4, 2007.
Listen further to the fundamental, historical provocation of the war as elaborated by David Ben-Gurion, founder and first Prime Minister of Israel:
“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true, God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” Printed in “The Jewish Paradox,” (p. 121) by Nahum Goldmann.
Ben Gurion’s recognition was echoed by Israel’s acclaimed war hero Moshe Dayan. Standing close to the Gaza border in 1956 eulogizing a 21-year-old Israeli security officer who had been slain by Palestinian and Egyptian assailants, Dayan reflected, “Let us not today cast blame on his murderers. What can we say against their terrible hatred of us? For eight years now, they have sat in refugee camps of Gaza and watched how, before their very eyes, we have turned their land and villages, where they and their forefathers previously dwelled, into our home.”
Also often forgotten by most Members of Congress is P.M Netanyahu’s widely quoted strategy of supporting and funding Hamas over the years to thwart a two-state solution with the Palestinian Authority. Roger Cohen of the New York Timeswrote on October 22, 2023, “All means were good to undo the notion of Palestinian statehood. In 2019, Mr. Netanyahu told a meeting of his center-right Likud party: ‘Those who want to thwart the possibility of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy.’”
The “From the river to the sea” expression originated with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party pressing for a “Greater Israel” in all of Palestine, not with Hamas. Further, the idea is also consistent with peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Jews, by people advocating a one-state solution.
Dante observed, “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.” The Congressional positions against Palestinian civilians, three-quarters of whom are children and women, are far beyond neutrality. Read the front-page article of the New York Times (November 26, 2023) headlined: “Israel Has Killed More Women and Children Than Have Been Killed in Ukraine.”
Congress should follow the example of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 who interceded in the Suez crisis to stop the attacks by Israel, France, and the United Kingdom, on Egypt. He also initiated the United Nations peacekeeping force in the Sinai.
Congress should conduct public hearings in the House and Senate featuring prominent and longtime Israeli peace advocates, holding past high-level government positions, along with Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups. Their voices have been excluded from Capitol Hill since 1948. You know why? Shame!
Congress cannot escape the judgment of history which will endure for the ages over its defining role in the annihilation of innocent Palestinian families – mostly children and women – inside Gaza – long described as Israel’s illegally blockaded open-air prison.
We look forward to a congressional response, from U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives respectful of citizen petitions.
Sincerely,
Bruce Fein, Esq., Ralph Nader, Esq.
Why Britain’s mini-nukes dream is hanging by a thread
Scuppered American power deal throws the UK’s promise of a green transition into doubt
Telegraph UK, By Howard Mustoe, 29 November 2023
It was meant to provide cheap, clean power to towns in the Midwest of the US.
But a scuppered nuclear power deal has thrown the promise of green power in the region into doubt, and could have repercussions in Britain.
NuScale Power said earlier this month that its maiden deal to build six of its mini-nukes in Utah was dead, after several towns that were backing the project pulled out over soaring costs…………………………………
In Britain, the Government wants a quarter of all electricity to come from nuclear power by 2050, and has launched a competition to find developers who can build SMRs by the mid-2030s. Last month, it unveiled a shortlist of six contenders, including NuScale.
However, the Portland, Oregon-based company’s struggles raise the spectre that SMRs may be beset to the same cost overruns that have long haunted the industry, casting doubt over whether mini-nukes can actually deliver on their promise.
NuScale is the only SMR developer with a design approved by a regulator.
The Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), which provides power to local areas across the Midwest, first signed a deal with NuScale in 2015.
The ambition of the project changed over time, with UAMPS eventually settling on plans to buy six NuScale reactors that could deliver 77 megawatts (MW) of electricity each, collectively enough to power almost 1.4 million homes.
However, members of UAMPS, small towns and local areas, were uneasy with the long timeline and high costs of the project.
When the Utah city of Logan pulled out in 2020, its finance chief Richard Anderson told the Salt Lake City paper Deseret News: “We don’t have the experience to be swimming in these waters. I didn’t feel good about it.”
The death knell for NuScale came in January when new estimates showed a 53pc increase in costs. The price of steel and other raw materials had leapt, sending the price of power from the plant from $58 per MW hour to $89.
The sharp increase came despite a promise of $4bn (£3.2bn) in US taxpayer support under President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
Several member towns pulled out over soaring costs, leaving the project dead in the water.
Tony Roulstone, a lecturer in nuclear energy at the University of Cambridge and a former Rolls-Royce engineer, said the deal coming unstuck was “bad for the broader market”.
“They’re the one with a ticket from a safety authority,” he said of NuScale. “They’re the one with a project, which has been supported by the US government.”
SMRs offered the promise of bringing the cost discipline of mass production to nuclear engineering. They were touted as a way to pull the industry away from unwieldy megaprojects that were subject to cost overruns and delays……………………………..
the rising costs in Utah evoke worrying parallels to the industry of old. Hinkley Point C in Somerset was estimated to cost about £26bn in 2015, for example, but could now end up costing £33bn, according to the latest estimate.
While the scale of costs is different, the unpredictability is a worry……………………………….
The market is also quite crowded. France’s EDF, US-Japanese alliance GE-Hitachi, Rolls-Royce and US companies Holtec, NuScale and Westinghouse are all competing for part of the SMR market in the UK through the Government’s competition.
With costs rising and interest waning, the industry has complained the Government is moving too slowly…………………………………..
To succeed in delivering the economies of scale promised by factory production, SMRs must be developed en masse………………………………………………………. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/11/29/soaring-costs-mini-nuclear-dream-left-on-thread/
EDF to “build 1 reactor a year in 2030s” – CEO
EDF to “build 1 reactor a year in 2030s” – CEO. French utility EDF
plans to build at least one nuclear reactor per year in the next decade in
Europe, its CEO told the World Nuclear Exhibition in Paris late on Tuesday.
“We’re counting on an accelerated rate of construction capacity for large
reactors, from what we have today, which is one or two per decade… and
gradually moving up to one or even 1.5 per year” for the next decade, Luc
Remont said on the sidelines of the conference. “We have already built
four reactors per year” in the 1970s-80s.
Montel 29th Nov 2023
https://www.montelnews.com/news/1532125/edf-to-build-1-reactor-a-year-in-2030s–ceo
Pentagon struggling to pay for Middle East buildup – Politico
https://www.rt.com/news/588180-pentagon-struggle-middle-east-deployment/ 29 Nov 23
The US military has to make do with a stopgap budget that freezes defense funding at the previous year’s levels
The Pentagon is scrambling to find money to pay for a military buildup in the Middle East amid the Hamas-Israel conflict due to gridlock in the US Congress, which has so far been unable to approve full defense funding, Politico reported on Tuesday.
The US Department of Defense, along with many other federal agencies, is now operating under a stopgap funding bill which was signed by US President Joe Biden earlier this month to avert a potential government shutdown. The measure, which did not satisfy Biden’s request for additional money for Israel and Ukraine, also freezes other types of defense spending at the previous year’s levels.
Pentagon spokesman Chris Sherwood told Politico that since no one planned for a massive redeployment of US forces to the Middle East after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the military “had to pull money from existing operations and maintenance accounts.” This means less funding for exercises and deployments that had already been planned.
“We’re taking it out of hide,” the spokesman said.
Since the start of the Middle East crisis, the US has deployed two aircraft carriers with escorts, additional missile and air defense systems, more than 1,000 troops, and an Ohio-class nuclear-powered missile submarine to the region.
The military buildup came as the US declared unequivocal support for Israel in its conflict with the Palestinian armed group Hamas, as well as fears that hostilities could lead to a major regional escalation involving Iran and Islamist organizations with ties to Tehran.
US defense officials had previously sounded the alarm about the congressional stalemate, warning that a lack of funding could harm not only shipbuilding and procurement programs, but the industrial base itself.
Speaking to Defense News, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Radha Plumb did not rule out the possibility of an “additive domino effect of delays,” noting that suppliers could be especially hard-hit by this.
Meanwhile, Under Secretary of Defense Bill LaPlante warned of potential layoffs in contractor companies due to the lack of Pentagon funding.
According to Politico, if US lawmakers are unable to pass a full spending bill by spring, the Pentagon and other federal departments will have to cut their overall expenses by 1%.
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