nuclear-news

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

Fresh Trident safety fears as submarines’ ‘life expectancy’ extended repeatedly

NEW concerns have been raised about the safety of Britain’s nuclear
fleet – with two submarines still in action previously predicted to have
been out of commission by this year. Former top government adviser Dominic
Cummings (below) sparked interest in the state of Britain’s nuclear fleet
at the beginning of this month when he revealed he had attempted to secure
assurances the Government would address the “horror show” of the
arsenal in return for his help in Rishi Sunak’s election campaign.

 The National 14th Jan 2024

https://www.thenational.scot/news/24046989.fresh-trident-safety-fears-submarines-life-expectancy-extended-repeatedly/

January 15, 2024 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

This week’s nuclear news

TOP STORIES. 

Israel Is Terrified the World Court Will Decide It’s Committing Genocide.  

The ‘Ghost Budget’: How America Pays for Endless War.  US prepares for nuclear war at foreign bases – with “Steadfast Noon”.  

 ‘PR Fairy Dust’ Has Canada Tripling Nuclear Capacity by 2050. Cancelled 

NuScale contract weighs heavy on new nuclear.   

Nuclear Continues To Lag Far Behind Renewables In China Deployments.

‘Do or die’: MPs launch urgent bid to spare Assange from US extradition.   

****************************Covid. Yes, it’s still there – it’s NOT over yet.

Climate.  Analysis: Record opposition to climate action by UK’s right-leaning newspapers in 2023.  2023 confirmed as world’s hottest year on record. Human ‘behavioural crisis’ at root of climate breakdown, say scientists.

Nuclear. It’s all over the UK media  – enthusiasm for Civil Nuclear Roadmap  – methinks the ladies and gentlemen do protest too much.   Meanwhile – back at the Israel-Palestine-Lebanon-USA-Iran ranch – it’s all getting perilous –   while I try to keep that stuff out of this newsletter

Noel’s notes. Aw gee! Did ya know that Australia is partnering USA in making multiple strikes on Yemen?. Who can be believed?       New heights of folly as UK government releases its Civil Nuclear Roadmap.

            *************************************

CLIMATE. “The defense of nuclear power as a low-carbon energy weakens the European Union’s action against climate change”.

ECONOMICS. Nuclear power and net zero: Too little, too late, too expensive.       Sizewell C: UK and France-owned EDF look to raise £20bn for Suffolk nuclear site.     Housing unaffordability – implications for Somerset with huge increase in nuclear workers for Hinkley Point C.

EDUCATION. Peace Pod: an aural adventure in anti-militarist activism. With teacher resources.

EMPLOYMENT. Nuclear defence workers to strike over pay.  Hotel near Bridgwater could be repurposed to house Hinkley Point C workers.

ENERGY. Reducing energy demand- technologies are available, scalable and affordable today.   ’The potential is extraordinary’: Business action on energy efficiency could save $2tr a year, new research claims.       Unplanned nuclear power outages are reducing UK’s electricity output.

ENVIRONMENT.

ETHICS and RELIGION.  ‘The Evidence of Genocide Is Not Only Chilling, It Is Also Overwhelming and Incontrovertible’: Quotes from International Court of Justice.

HEALTH. The mystery of a Truchas woman who died with extraordinary amounts of plutonium in her body.

HISTORY. The Spectacular Failure of the Zionist Project

INDIGENOUS ISSUES.  Commission decision a ‘gut-punch’, so years-long battle over radioactive waste mound will continue.

LEGAL. An international law expert explains why South Africa’s case at the ICJ is so important. Craig Murray: Observations on Israel’s defense in the International Court of Justice.

MEDIA. Nuclear technology: the shady beginnings and the uncertain future. Book (fiction): The Secret of the Three Bullets- How New Nuclear Weapons Are Back on Battlefields

OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . No to nuclear power: stop the expansion. Will Sizewell nuclear project go ahead? Campaigners question the timetable and the funding.

POLITICS. Energy Transition Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher enthuses over “the rebirth of France’s nuclear industry”. Mr President, saying that nuclear power will save the climate is a lie. France Moves Away from Renewable Targets in Favor of Nuclear Power. 

UK Government unveils biggest nuclear expansion in 70 years. Mini nuclear plants to be built almost anywhere in UK.  On the road to nowhere… UK Ministers launch nuclear ‘Roadmap’ in election year. UK’s Nuclear Roadmap is Pure Fantasy.  UK Government’s nuclear power expansion plans branded hot air.   Bradwell Nuclear – Falling Off the (Road)Map. Allan Dorans: Scottish Labour’s support for nuclear fuel poses a risk.  Government remains committed to Sizewell C timetable before a general election. Ministers told to say how Sizewell C will be funded as new nuclear plan launched. 

 Setback for Japan’s Nuclear Revival as Reactor Restart Delayed. NZ’s anti-nuclear stance is at risk of compromise but must be upheld.

POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.   What Does ‘Rules-Based International Order’ Mean When US Can Bomb Yemen at Will?      Peace from River to Sea.– (pages 21-25).  Net-Zero and Nonproliferation: Assessing Nuclear Power and Its Alternatives.

SAFETY. UK’s dwindling nuclear fleet – four ageing reactors to be kept going beyond their planned closure date. Sellafield nuclear safety and security director to leave. Nuclear convoys: Blacked-out lorries carry ‘deadly cargo’ through the village.  Fresh Trident safety fears as submarines’ ‘life expectancy’ extended repeatedly.  

Japan’s Hokuriku Elec reports second oil leak from Shika nuclear plant. Japan’s NRA orders probe on quake damage at Shika nuclear power plant. Japan quake stressed nuclear plant beyond design limit: panel. Japanese nuclear plant admits 20,000 litres of oil leaked when it was hit by 10ft tsunami sparked by New Year’s Day earthquake – as officials call for drones to monitor radiation levels.

SECRETS and LIES. Dutch engineer spread Stuxnet in Iran nuclear plant in 2008: report. New Revelations Shed More Light On Sabotage Of Iran Nuclear Program.   

Outrage as Government admits it kept medical results on nuke test veterans a ‘state secret’ in a move Tory grandee Sir John Hayes said ‘beggars belief’. Nuclear Free Local Authorities question the Chief Constable on alleged misconduct among Civil Nuclear Constabulary. 

SPINBUSTER. In the name of ‘fake news,’ NewsGuard extorts sites to follow the government narrative.

TECHNOLOGY. Killer Robots: UN Vote Should Spur Action on Treaty.  Dissension in the nuclear lobby – it had to happen – Small Nuclear versus Big Nuclear.  Touting a ‘new age of nuclear fusion‘. Nuclear, CCS & LNG Are Distractions As Shipping Goes Low Carbon.

WASTES. Carlsbad depositary- 79% of waste came from nuclear wastes from Idaho National Laboratory.  Kebaowek First Nation strongly opposes nuclear waste storage facility in Chalk River.  Behind the (somewhat dirty) scenes of nuclear waste processing.

WAR and CONFLICT. Could Israel’s War in Gaza Spiral Into a Regional War? Defence Minister Marles announces Australia has joined in U.S. attacks on Yemen.

WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. Israel’s nuclear arsenal: what we know. Nuclear Arms Buildup Isn’t Just about War. It Also Harms People and Communities.  IG report finds Pentagon failed to account for more than $1B in weapons sent to Ukraine. Biden’s $582 Million Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia. Can It Be Blocked?.


 

January 15, 2024 Posted by | Christina's notes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Dissension in the nuclear lobby – it had to happen – Small Nuclear versus Big Nuclear.

Comment. As the UK fumbles its way through its “Civil Nuclear Roadmap” folly, the Rolls Royce lobby paints Hinkley and Sizewell projects as obsolete trash, and touts Rolls Royce’s non existent small reactors as Britain’s energy salvation .

 Jeremy Warner: Outsourcing Britain’s nuclear renewal is insanity.
Rolls-Royce’s modular reactors are an obvious way to break free of EDF’s
grip.

Here we go again. Einstein’s definition of insanity is to keep doing
the same thing and expecting different outcomes. You would think that the
Government had learned its lesson on nuclear renewal after the debacle of
Hinkley Point C. Clearly not.

Having already made the same mistake once, by
pledging a replica of the ruinously costly Hinkley at Sizewell on the
Suffolk coast, ministers are doubling down and promising a third such
monstrosity somewhere else.

According to the Government’s “Nuclear
Roadmap”, published last week, another of these leviathans in an as yet
unspecified location is to be given the go-ahead later this year. On the
most recent estimates, Hinkley Point C is expected to cost at least 80pc
more than its original budget and is years behind schedule. Some fear that
it won’t be until the early 2030s before the reactors are fully
operational, such have been the technical and safety complications
encountered in the construction phase.

Ministers have also had to agree to
punishingly expensive output prices to persuade the main developer,
France’s state-controlled EDF, to build in the first place, committing
consumers to high electricity costs for decades to come. So much for the
promise once made by the ever courteous Vincent de Rivaz, the one-time boss
of EDF in Britain, that Hinkley Point would be cooking our Christmas
lunches by 2017.

Even allowing for the learning process – theoretically,
later projects to the same design should cost less, with past mistakes
taken on board – it beggars belief that the Government should attempt to
repeat such a tried and demonstrably poor value for money technology.

Given the experience of Hinkley Point C, why are we still pursuing the hugely
costly, largely obsolete technology of EDF’s gigawatt stations when there
are perfectly viable, but smaller, homegrown alternatives just waiting for
the opportunity to fill the gap? If we are to spend £28bn a year of
taxpayers’ money on going green, as promised by Labour, we should at
least be confident that a large part of the wider economic benefit is
reserved for UK supply chains, and is not instead squandered on supporting
jobs abroad in France, China, Denmark and the US.

 Telegraph 13th Jan 2024

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/01/13/uk-go-full-nuclear-ensure-solutions-british/

January 15, 2024 Posted by | technology, UK | Leave a comment

  “The defense of nuclear power as a low-carbon energy weakens the European Union’s action against climate change”

 “The defense of nuclear power as a low-carbon energy weakens the
European Union’s action against climate change”.

The Renewable Energies for All association denounces, in a column in “Le Monde”, the
deleterious effects of the inclusion of nuclear power in the French and
European objectives for the deployment of renewable solutions.

Seeking to relaunch nuclear power whatever the cost, France is not only missing a
historic opportunity for a rapid and less costly transition to renewable
energies and decarbonization.

It weakens the climate ambition of theEuropean Union (EU). The reintegration of current nuclear production in Europe – 6% of its final energy – into the objective of 42.5% renewable
energies set by the RED III directive [Renewable Energy Directive III]
would create an accounting artifice and lead to vagueness strategic in a
field which nevertheless needs a long-term vision.

 Le Monde 13th Jan 2024

https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2024/01/13/la-defense-du-nucleaire-comme-energie-bas-carbone-affaiblit-l-action-de-l-union-europeenne-contre-le-changement-climatique_6210624_3232.html

January 15, 2024 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE | Leave a comment

What Does ‘Rules-Based International Order’ Mean When US Can Bomb Yemen at Will?

NORMAN SOLOMON, Jan 12, 2024, Common Dreams,  https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/rules-based-order-yemen

What US foreign policy shamelessly amounts to is this: ‘We make the rules so we get to break the rules.”

Have you heard the one about the U.S. government wanting a “rules-based international order”?

It’s grimly laughable, but the nation’s media outlets routinely take such claims seriously and credulously. Overall, the default assumption is that top officials in Washington are reluctant to go to war, and do so only as a last resort.

The framing was typical when the New York Times just printed this sentence at the top of the front page: “The United States and a handful of its allies on Thursday carried out military strikes against more than a dozen targets in Yemen controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia, U.S. officials said, in an expansion of the war in the Middle East that the Biden administration had sought to avoid for three months.”

So, from the outset, the coverage portrayed the U.S.-led attack as a reluctant action—taken after exploring all peaceful options had failed—rather than an aggressive act in violation of international law.

On Thursday, President Biden issued a statement that sounded righteous enough, saying “these strikes are in direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea.” He did not mention that the Houthi attacks have been in response to Israel’s murderous siege of Gaza. In the words of CNN, they “could be intended to inflict economic pain on Israel’s allies in the hope they will pressure it to cease its bombardment of the enclave.”

In fact, as Common Dreams reported, Houthi forces “began launching missiles and drones toward Israel and attacking shipping traffic in the Red Sea in response to Israel’s Gaza onslaught.” And as Trita Parsi at the Quincy Institute pointed out, “the Houthis have declared that they will stop” attacking ships in the Red Sea “if Israel stops” its mass killing in Gaza.

But that would require genuine diplomacy—not the kind of solution that appeals to President Biden or Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The duo has been enmeshed for decades, with lofty rhetoric masking the tacit precept that might makes right. (The approach was implicit midway through 2002, when then-Senator Biden chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s hearings that promoted support for the U.S. to invade Iraq; at the time, Blinken was the committee’s chief of staff.)

Now, in charge of the State Department, Blinken is fond of touting the need for a “rules-based international order.” During a 2022 speech in Washington, he proclaimed the necessity “to manage relations between states, to prevent conflict, to uphold the rights of all people.” Two months ago, he declared that G7 nations were united for “a rules-based international order.”

But for more than three months, Blinken has provided a continuous stream of facile rhetoric to support the ongoing methodical killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Days ago, behind a podium at the U.S. Embassy in Israel, he defended that country despite abundant evidence of genocidal warfare, claiming that “the charge of genocide is meritless.

The Houthis are avowedly in solidarity with Palestinian people, while the U.S. government continues to massively arm the Israeli military that is massacring civilians and systematically destroying Gaza. Blinken is so immersed in Orwellian messaging that—several weeks into the slaughter—he tweeted that the United States and its G7 partners “stand united in our condemnation of Russia’s war in Ukraine, in support of Israel’s right to defend itself in accordance with international law, and in maintaining a rules-based international order.”

There’s nothing unusual about extreme doublethink being foisted on the public by the people running U.S. foreign policy. What they perpetrate is a good fit for the description of doublethink in George Orwell’s novel 1984: “To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it . . .”

After news broke about the attack on Yemen, a number of Democrats and Republicans in the House quickly spoke up against Biden’s end-run around Congress, flagrantly violating the Constitution by going to war on his own say-so. Some of the comments were laudably clear, but perhaps none more so than a statement by candidate Joe Biden on Jan. 6, 2020: “A president should never take this nation to war without the informed consent of the American people.”

Like that disposable platitude, all the Orwellian nonsense coming from the top of the U.S. government about seeking a “rules-based international order” is nothing more than a brazen PR scam.

The vast quantity of official smoke-blowing now underway cannot hide the reality that the United States government is the most powerful and dangerous outlaw nation in the world.

January 15, 2024 Posted by | politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Craig Murray: Observations on Israel’s defense in the International Court of Justice

In the UK, the BBC and Sky both ran almost all the Israeli case live, having not run any of the South African case live. I believe something similar was true in the USA, Australia and Germany too.

a hardline and uncompromising start. The judges appeared to be paying very close attention when he opened with the 7 October self-defence argument, but very definitely some of them become started to fidget and become uncomfortable when he started to talk of Hamas operating from ambulances and UN facilities. In short, he went too far and I believe he lost his audience at that point.

Malcolm Shaw speaks for Israel because he actually wants Israel to be able to continue killing Palestinian women and children to improve the security of Israel, in his view.

SOTT, Craig Murray, craigmurray.org.uk, Sun, 14 Jan 2024

As with the South African case, according to court procedure the Israeli case was introduced by their “agent”, permanently accredited to the court, Tal Becker of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He opened with the standard formula “it is an honour to appear before you again on behalf of the state of Israel”, managing to imply purely through phrasing and tone of voice that the honour lay in representing Israel, not in appearing before the judges.

Becker opened by going straight to the Holocaust, saying that nobody knew more than Israel why the Genocide Convention existed. 6 million Jewish people had been killed. The Convention was not to be used to cover the normal brutality of war.

The South African case aimed at the delegitimisation of the state of Israel. On 7 October Hamas had committed massacre, mutilation, rape and abduction. 1,200 had been killed and 5,500 maimed. He related several hideous individual atrocity stories and played a recording he stated to be a Hamas fighter boasting on WhatsApp to his parents about committing mass murder, rape and mutilation.

The only genocide in this case was being committed against Israel. Hamas continued to attack Israel, and for the court to take provisional measures would be to deny Israel the right to self-defence. Provisional measures should rather be taken against South Africa and its attempt by legal means to further genocide by its relationship with Hamas. Gaza was not under occupation: Israel had left it with great potential to be a political and economic success. Instead Hamas had chosen to make it a terrorist base.

Hamas was embedded in the civilian population and therefore responsible for the civilian deaths. Hamas had tunnels under schools, hospitals, mosques and UN facilities and tunnel entrances within them. It commandeered medical vehicles for military use.

South Africa had talked of civilian buildings destroyed, but did not tell you they had been destroyed by Hamas booby traps and Hamas missile misfires.

The casualty figures South Africa gave were from Hamas sources and not reliable. They did not say how many were fighters? How many of the children were child soldiers? The application by South Africa was ill-founded and ill-motivated. It was a libel.

This certainly was a hardline and uncompromising start. The judges appeared to be paying very close attention when he opened with the 7 October self-defence argument, but very definitely some of them become started to fidget and become uncomfortable when he started to talk of Hamas operating from ambulances and UN facilities. In short, he went too far and I believe he lost his audience at that point.

Next up was Professor Malcolm Shaw KC. Shaw is regarded as an authority on the procedure of international law and is editor of the standard tome on the subject. This is an interesting facet of the legal profession, where standard reference books on particular topics are regularly updated to include key extracts from recent judges, and passages added or amended to explain the impact of these judgments. Being an editor on this field provides a route to prominence for the plodding and pedantic.

I had come across Shaw in his capacity as a co-founder of the Centre for Human Rights at Essex University. I had given a couple of talks there some twenty years ago on the attacks on human rights of the “War on Terror” and my own whistleblower experience over torture and extraordinary rendition. For an alleged human rights expert, Shaw seemed extraordinarily prone to support the national security interests of the state over individual liberty.

I do not pretend I gave it a great deal of thought. I did not know at that time of Shaw’s commitment as an extreme Zionist and in particular his long term interest in suppressing the rights of the Palestinian people. After 139 states have recognised Palestine as a state, Shaw led for Israel thelegal oppositionto Palestine’s membership of international institutions, including the International Criminal Court. Shaw’s rather uninspired reliance on the Montevideo Convention of 1933 is hardly a legal tour de force, and it didn’t work.

Every criminal deserves a defence, and nobody should hold it against a barrister that they defend a murderer or rapist, as it is important that guilt or innocence is tested by a court. But I think it is fair to state that defence lawyers do not in general defend those accused of murder because they agree with murder and want a murderer to go on murdering. That however is the case here: Malcolm Shaw speaks for Israel because he actually wants Israel to be able to continue killing Palestinian women and children to improve the security of Israel, in his view.

That is the difference between this and other cases, including at the ICJ. Generally the lead lawyers would happily swap sides, if the other side had hired them first. But this is entirely different. Here the lawyers (with the possible exception of ) believe profoundly in the case they are supporting and would never appear for the other side. That is just one more way that this is such an extraordinary case, with so much drama and such vital consequences, not least for the future of international law.

For the reason I have just explained, Shaw’s role here is not that of a simple barrister plying his trade. His attempt to extend the killing should see him viewed as a pariah by decent people everywhere, for the rest of his doubtless highly-paid existence.

Shaw opened up by saying that the South African case continually spoke of context. They talked of the 75 years of the existence of the state of Israel. Why stop there? Why not go back to the Balfour Declaration or the British Mandate over Palestine? No, the context of these events was the massacre of 7 October, and Israel’s subsequent right of self-defence. He produced and read a long quote from mid-October by European Commission President Ursula von Der Leyen, stating that Israel had suffered a terrorist atrocity and had the right of self-defence.

……………………………………………………………. It was South Africa which was guilty of complicity in genocide in cooperation with Hamas. South Africa’s allegations against Israel “verge on the outrageous”.

Israel’s next lawyer was a lady called Galit Raguan from the Israeli Ministry of Justice. She said the reality on the ground was that Israel had done everything possible to minimise civilian deaths and to aid humanitarian relief. Urban warfare always resulted in civilian deaths. It was Hamas who were responsible for destruction of buildings and infrastructure…………………………….

Next up was lawyer Omri Sender. He stated that more food trucks per day now entered Gaza than before October 7. The number had increased from 70 food trucks to 109 food trucks per day. Fuel, gas and electricity were all being supplied and Israel had repaired the sewage systems………………………

Perhaps noting that nobody believed him, Sender stated that the court could not institute provisional measures but rather was obliged to accept the word of Israel on its good intentions because of the Law of the Unilateral Declarations of States……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

It is important to realise this. Israel is hoping to win on their procedural points about existence of dispute, unilateral assurances and jurisdiction. The obvious nonsense they spoke about the damage to homes and infrastructure being caused by Hamas, trucks entering Gaza and casualty figures, was not serious. They did not expect the judges to believe any of this. The procedural points were for the court. The rest was mass propaganda for the media.

In the UK, the BBC and Sky both ran almost all the Israeli case live, having not run any of the South African case live. I believe something similar was true in the USA, Australia and Germany too.

While the court was in session, Germany has announced it will intervene in the substantial case to support Israel. They argue explicitly that, as the world’s greatest perpetrator of genocide, they are uniquely placed to judge. It is in effect a copyright claim. They are protecting Germany’s intellectual property in the art of genocide. Perhaps they might in future license genocide, or allow Israel to continue genocide on a franchise basis.

I am sure the judges want to get out of this and they may go for the procedural points. But there is a real problem with Israel’s “no dispute” argument. If accepted, it would mean that a country committing genocide can simply not reply to a challenge, and then legal action will not be possible because no reply means “no dispute”. I hope that absurdity is obvious to the judges. But they may of course wish not to notice it…

What do I think will happen? Some sort of “compromise”. The judges will issue provisional measures different to South Africa’s request, asking Israel to continue to take measures to protect the civilian population, or some such guff. Doubtless the State Department have drafted something like this for President of the Court [Joan] Donoghue already.

Comment: As Murray has previously written:

“The President of the Court, Joan Donoghue, is a US State Department, Clinton hack who has never formed an original idea in her life, and I should be astonished if she starts now. I half-expected her strings to actually be visible, emerging from holes in the hall’s magnificent deep relief-panelled wooden ceiling.”

I hope I am wrong. I would hate to give up on international law. One thing I do know for certain. These two days in the Hague were absolutely crucial for deciding if there is any meaning left in notions of international law and human rights. I still believe action by the court could cause the US and UK to back off and provide some measure of relief. For now, let us all pray or wish, each in our way, for the children of Gaza.

Comment: Mr Murray also detailed the immense efforts he went to in order to report on these proceedings:

There was a very good feel at the end of the South African presentation on day one. Everyone felt it had gone extremely well, and left very little room for the court to wriggle away from provisional measures. We left the public gallery, and I went with [Jeremy] Corbyn and [Jean Luc] Mèlenchon to meet the South African delegation. This caused some concern to the security officials, who told us that members of the public had to leave immediately and not meet delegates or speak to the media, who were grouped outside the court but still within the precincts.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………..more https://www.sott.net/article/487825-Craig-Murray-Observations-on-Israels-defense-in-the-International-Court-of-Justice

January 15, 2024 Posted by | Israel, Legal | Leave a comment

Killer Robots: UN Vote Should Spur Action on Treaty

technological advances are spurring the development of autonomous weapons systems that operate without meaningful human control, delegating life-and-death decisions to machines. The machine rather than the human operator would determine where, when, or against what force is applied.

January 3, 2024,  https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/01/03/killer-robots-un-vote-should-spur-action-treaty

Guterres Should Seek to Tackle Autonomous Weapons Systems

(New York, January 3, 2023) – Countries that approved the first-ever United Nations General Assembly resolution on “killer robots” should promote negotiations on a new international treaty to ban and regulate these weapons, Human Rights Watch said today. Autonomous weapons systems select and apply force to targets based on sensor processing rather than human inputs.

On December 22, 2023, 152 countries voted in favor of the General Assembly resolution on the dangers of lethal autonomous weapons systems, while four voted no, and 11 abstained. General Assembly Resolution 78/241 acknowledges the “serious challenges and concerns” raised by “new technological applications in the military domain, including those related to artificial intelligence and autonomy in weapons systems.”

“The General Assembly resolution on autonomous weapons systems stresses the urgent need for the international community to deal with the dangers raised by removing human control from the use of force,” said Mary Wareham, arms advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The resolution’s wide support shows that governments are prepared to take action, and they should move forward on a new international treaty without delay.”

Some autonomous weapons systems have existed for years, but the types, duration of operation, geographical scope, and environment in which such systems operate have been limited. However, technological advances are spurring the development of autonomous weapons systems that operate without meaningful human control, delegating life-and-death decisions to machines. The machine rather than the human operator would determine where, when, or against what force is applied.

The resolution asks UN Secretary-General António Guterres to seek the views of countries and other stakeholders on ways to address the challenges and concerns raised by autonomous weapons systems “from humanitarian, legal, security, technological and ethical perspectives,” and reflect those views in a report to the General Assembly by September 2024.

The resolution adds an agenda item on “lethal autonomous weapons systems” to the provisional agenda of the UN General Assembly in 2024, providing a platform for states to pursue action to address this issue. The General Assembly provides an inclusive and accessible forum in which any UN member state can contribute. Tackling the killer robots challenge under its auspices would allow greater consideration of concerns that have been overlooked in discussions held to date, including ethical perspectives, international human rights law, proliferation, and impacts on global security and regional and international stability, including the risk of an arms race and lowering the threshold for conflict, Human Rights Watch said.

The countries voting against the resolution were: Belarus, India, Mali, and Russia. Those abstaining were: China, Iran, Israel, Madagascar, North Korea, Niger, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, Syria, Türkiye, and the United Arab Emirates. Of these states, China, India, Iran, Israel, and Türkiye have been investing heavily in military applications of artificial intelligence and related technologies to develop air, land, and sea-based autonomous weapons systems.

Austria put forward the resolution with 42 co-sponsoring states at the UN General Assembly’s First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, where it passed an initial vote on November 1, by 164 votes in favor, five against, and eight abstentions.

More than 100 countries regard a new treaty on autonomous weapons systems with prohibitions and restrictions as necessary, urgent, and achievable, and during 2023, many states and international organizations have reiterated their support for this objective.

In February, more than 30 countries from Latin America and the Caribbean endorsed the Belén Communiqué, acknowledging the need “to promote the urgent negotiation of an international legally binding instrument, with prohibitions and regulations with regard to autonomy in weapons systems.” In September, 15 Caribbean states endorsed a CARICOM declaration on the human impacts of autonomous weapons at a meeting in Trinidad and Tobago.

On October 5, Secretary-General Guterres and International Committee of the Red Cross President Mirjana Spoljaric issued a joint appeal for UN member states to negotiate a new international treaty by 2026 to ban and regulate autonomous weapons systems.

Most treaty proponents have called for prohibitions on autonomous systems that by their nature operate without meaningful human control or that target people, as well as regulations that ensure all other autonomous weapons systems cannot be used without meaningful human control.

Talks on lethal autonomous weapons systems have been held at the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) in Geneva since May 2014, but have failed to deliver a substantive outcome. The main reason for the lack of progress under the CCW is that its member countries rely on a consensus approach to decision-making, which means a single country can reject a proposal, even if every other country agrees to it. A handful of major military powers have exploited this to repeatedly block proposals to negotiate a legally binding instrument.

On November 17, states at the CCW agreed to meet for up to 20 days across 2024 and 2025 to “consider and formulate, by consensus, a set of elements of an instrument, without prejudging its nature.” The agreement does not mandate states to negotiate and adopt a new CCW protocol.

“Technological change is rapidly advancing a future of automated killing that needs to be stopped,” Wareham said. “To safeguard humanity, all governments should support the urgent negotiation of a new international treaty to prohibit and restrict autonomous weapons systems.”

January 15, 2024 Posted by | global warming, technology | Leave a comment

Israel’s nuclear arsenal: what we know

Dr Kate Hudson, 14 Jan 24,  https://cnduk.org/israels-nuclear-arsenal-what-we-know/

Last week’s attack on Yemen by US, UK and other forces is a dangerous escalation of the war in the Middle East. The attack is intended to halt the Houthi support for the people of Gaza that has taken the form of attacks on Israel-bound shipping. But as the Houthis have made clear, the attacks will not end their support for the Palestinians. The only way to stop this unfolding and escalating conflict in the Middle East, is to stop the war on Gaza: to implement an immediate and permanent ceasefire, and to ensure freedom and sovereignty for Palestine, as enshrined in UN resolutions and international law.

The alternative to this course of action is the further spread of war, to Yemen, Lebanon, and even to Iran. This is the most dangerous time for more than two decades in the Middle East and it clearly raises the spectre of nuclear weapons use. Because not only is Israel heavily armed with the most up to date conventional weaponry, it is also heavily armed with nuclear weapons. Its nuclear arsenal, which it refuses to formally acknowledge – its policy of ‘nuclear ambiguity’ – comes under no international controls or inspections. Yet it has an enormous killing capacity – and Israel is the only nuclear weapons state in the Middle East. Recent rhetoric from a number of Israeli politicians suggests a willingness to use their nuclear weapons; if the conflict were to extend to Iran, who can say that Israel would not use its nuclear weapons on non-nuclear Iran?

So what does the Israeli nuclear arsenal look like? Israel’s lack of transparency means that figures are uncertain, but the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) outlines estimates between 90 and 300 nuclear weapons. SIPRI also reports that since 2021, according to commercial satellite imagery, there has been significant construction taking place at the Negev Nuclear Research Centre near Dimona, in southern Israel. Some may remember that the great Israeli nuclear whistle-blower, Mordechai Vanunu, worked as a technician at Dimona, before revealing details of the secret Israeli nuclear programme to the British press in 1986. The purpose of the recent works isn’t known.

SIPRI information indicates that Israel has air, land and sea-based delivery systems for its nuclear arsenal. Bombs can be dropped from planes, either the F-161 or the F-15 aircraft, and are likely to be stored near air force bases such as Tel Nof airbase in central Israel, or Hatzerim airbase in the Negev desert. Reportedly, when Israel sent six F-16s from Tel Nof to Britain for an exercise in 2019, a US official referred to this as Israel’s ‘nuclear squadron’.

Israel’s nuclear weapons can also be launched on land-based Jericho ballistic missiles. The site of these missiles is thought to be the Sdot Micha Airbase near Zekharia, about 25 kilometres west of Jerusalem. And Israel also operates five German-built Dolphin-class diesel-electric submarines which operate from the port of Haifa on the Mediterranean coast. Some or all of these subs may have been equipped to launch a nuclear-armed cruise missile.

By any estimate, this is a formidable array of weapons of mass destruction and it gives Israel the capacity to inflict catastrophic damage on its neighbours. 

Of course the impact on Israel of any regional use would be considerable too but there is absolutely no guarantee that would deter an Israeli government from nuclear use if it considered its existence was under threat. How such a threat would be defined is also unknown. The fact remains that nuclear-weapons possession allows Israel to act with impunity, in Gaza, and in the wider region. And that possession is also impacting on how others are willing to relate to Israel.

The questions posed in a recent issue of New Left Review, are highly relevant:

“Is the US, blackmailed by the threat of a Middle Eastern Armageddon, now forced to allow Israel to pursue ‘victory’ at any price? Does Israel’s capacity for nuclear war bestow on the Israeli radical right a sense of invincibility, as well as a confidence that they can dictate the terms of peace with or without the Americans, and certainly without the Palestinians?

And what can be done about this? Both the US and UK helped Israel to develop its nuclear weapons, against all international law. In 2005, it was revealed from Whitehall documents discovered at the Public Records Office, by BBC Newsnight investigators, that Britain had secretly supplied the 20 tons of heavy water to Israel nearly half a century before, which enabled it to make nuclear weapons. Britain has known for decades about the Israeli nuclear arsenal, clearly supporting and condoning it, whilst taking an outraged and aggressive approach to the possibility of nuclear proliferation by other countries. The double standards and hypocrisy displayed by successive British governments is deplorable and is absolutely to be condemned.

Britain has supported numerous resolutions from the UN General Assembly and Security Council, calling for a nuclear weapons free Middle East, without owning up to its role in Israeli nuclear proliferation. Israeli nuclear weapons pose a particular risk to peace and security in the Middle East region and internationally; not surprisingly they are seen as a significant threat by neighbouring non-nuclear states, and the ongoing catastrophe in Gaza and the extending war is exactly the situation in which they are likely to be used.

There can be few clearer examples of how nuclear weapons are actually weapons of terror and weapons of impunity, as well as being weapons of mass slaughter and destruction. The war on Gaza must end; it must end with a ceasefire, and with peace and justice for the Palestinians. And it must end, to stop the unthinkable risk of a nuclear war in the Middle East.

January 15, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Peace Pod: an aural adventure in anti-militarist activism. With teacher resources

Get Your Armies Off Our Bodies is the inaugural series of Peace Pod.

Wage Peace is beyond proud to present our latest creation: a podcast featuring the stories, passions and insights of some of our most treasured collaborators. Tune in, subscribe and immerse yourself in the journeys of artists, activists and academics campaigning for peace on the stolen lands of this continent and further afield.

Peace Pod features some of the foremost academics, journalists and activists for peace on this continent, such as Michelle Fahey, Mujib Abid, Izzy Brown, Ned Hargreaves and Aunty Sue Coleman Haseldine, along with international luminaries such as Anthony Feinstein and Matthew Hoh.

Dr Miriam Torzillo has put together high quality teaching resources for students in years 10-12. Dr Torzillo has included a guide to curriculum placement:

  • Curriculum Areas
  • General Capabilities
  • Australian Cross Curriculum Priorities and
  • Key Concepts

The Teachers Resource sits with the Podcast here, in one easily accessible page

There is a huge resurgence in interest in the role of the weapons companies because of the genocide in Palestine. Young people are trying to make sense of militarism and peace. The podcast introduces militarism against First Nations people in both Australia and West Papua and the way STEM is being used by weapons corporations to reproduce militarism in the classroom. 

January 15, 2024 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, Education | Leave a comment

Will Sizewell nuclear project go ahead? Campaigners question the timetable and the funding.

The Government has announced that the timetable for investing in the new
Sizewell C nuclear power station in Suffolk will be revealed before a
general election. However, the campaign group Stop Sizewell C, which is
opposed to the project, said there was still much that was unknown about
whether the project could go ahead, including how the £20bn would be
raised to pay for the station.

A Stop Sizewell C spokesperson said: “From
our extensive discussions with officials it is clear that a Sizewell C
Final Investment Decision (FID) is still some months away and the time
before the next election is running out, for Rishi Sunak hasn’t ruled out a
May poll.

 East Anglian Daily Times 12th Jan 2024

https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/24046041.campaigners-say-unknown-whether-sizewell-c-will-proceed/

January 15, 2024 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear convoys: Blacked-out lorries carry ‘deadly cargo’ through the village

 A TINY English village could be top of Putin’s nuclear hitlist, locals
fear. Brize Norton is only a stone’s throw away from the largest station in
the Royal Air Force.

Huge convoys of blacked-out lorries, police riot vans,
ambulances and other trucks regularly rumble through, clogging up the
village’s narrow main road. Locals claim they’ve had guns pointed at them
by cops, and even been forced to pull over to make room for the fleet of
“deadly cargo”.

One video shows parents and kids on the school run having
to stand aside as a convoy with blue flashing lights thunders through,
shaking the walls of surrounding buildings and towering over homes just
metres away. The cargo, widely believed to contain “nuclear material”, is a
key part of Britain’s Trident weapons programme.

 The Sun 13th Jan 2024

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/25310004/brize-norton-nuclear-weapons-putin-oxfordshire-cotswolds/

January 15, 2024 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Gaza’s Heath Workers and Aid Agencies Face Impossible Choices

Health workers are at grave risk while trying to provide care to the tens of thousands who are injured due to Israel’s brutal attacks. Both they and aid agencies are also faced with extremely tough choices on how to distribute the scarce medical supplies that are remaining.

By Ana Vračar / Peoples Dispatch, https://scheerpost.com/2024/01/14/gazas-heath-workers-and-aid-agencies-face-impossible-choices/

Triage is the term that most accurately summarizes what is happening to health services in Gaza. Every hour, health workers have to determine who among the dozens of patients lying on the hospital floors should be treated first. Doctors and nurses also have to decide who gets paracetamol or ibuprofen for procedures that would usually be performed while patients are under anesthesia, and who goes without even that.

There is also a third form of triage going on in the proximity of Gaza these days, and that one falls upon the people trying to get supplies into the Strip. Despite reassurances that they would allow aid to be distributed more easily, Israeli authorities are still obstructing deliveries. Knowing that only a fraction of what is needed will eventually be allowed in, international and humanitarian organizations are choosing—very, very carefully—what they will load on to their trucks.

It’s a difficult choice, explained Michael Ryan, Executive Director of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Health Emergencies Program, during the organization’s beginning-of-the-year press conference. “Do you replace a truck of food with a truck of lab supplies? Which truck has more priority?“

There is no good answer to Ryan’s question. Almost everyone in Gaza is facing food insecurity. All children below the age of 5—335,000 of them—are hungry and facing a lifetime of struggle with the consequences of stunting. Due to the food shortage, more than half of pregnant and breastfeeding women only have access to limited types of food, which impacts theirs and children’s health, according to a testimony by Rohan Talbot from Medical Aid for Palestinians, heard by the International Development Committee of the British Parliament.

On the other hand, the lack of medical supplies, combined with relentless bombardments, has brought about the total collapse of the public health system in Gaza. For decades, the Central Public Health Laboratory in Gaza ensured high-quality public health services. Located north of the Wadi Gaza line, the laboratory is no longer functional. The lack of laboratory capacities means that it is only possible to evaluate the spread of infectious diseases from what is obvious at first glance. There is no way to confirm what are the specific causes leading to e.g. respiratory problems

“We don’t have the means to verify why specific communicable diseases are appearing. We don’t have a way to see what particular pathogen is causing them,” said Teresa Zakaria from WHO’s Health Emergency Program. Because of that, it is impossible to know which measures should be put in place to mitigate the increase in morbidity.

Even if the WHO were able to pinpoint which measures are needed right now, it is extremely unlikely they would be permitted to implement them. Like all other organizations trying to maintain a lifeline to Gaza, the UN’s health agency is not really allowed in. “We have the supplies, the teams, and the plans in place. What we don’t have is access,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The WHO had planned 7 missions into Gaza since December 26, but was forced to cancel all of them as Israel failed to provide security guarantees. It’s not just the WHO’s experience. Of the 21 missions that various UN bodies had planned in January 2024 alone, 16 were canceled because of the lack of cooperation by the Israeli occupation, reported Richard Peeperkorn, head of the WHO’s office for the occupied Palestinian territories.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army continues to target hospitals and other medical infrastructure in Gaza. Four members of the Palestine Red Crescent Society staff were killed on January 10 when Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) hit their vehicle. Days before, the 5-year-old daughter of a staff member of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) died from the consequences of an IOF attack on the shelter where MSF workers and their families were seeking refuge.

Those who are still alive share the faith of their patients. Ghada Al Jadba, UNRWA health officer, stressed to the UK International Development Committee that health workers are themselves displaced, having no safe space to sleep or water to drink. Tents, said Al Jadba, are a luxury. She also said that people were increasingly feeling dehumanized and alienated as a result of Israel’s attacks and, presumably, the unwillingness of the international community to act to stop the genocide immediately.

For those on the ground, safeguarding the remnants of the health system in Gaza is looking more and more like “mission impossible,” as Al Jadba put it.

January 15, 2024 Posted by | health, MIDDLE EAST | Leave a comment

Empire Bombs Yemen to Protect Israel’s Genocide

After years of backing Saudi Arabia’s atrocities in Yemen, the U.S and U.K. bombed the poorest country in the Middle East for trying to stop a genocide. This is the U.S. empire.

By Caitlin Johnstone / CaitlinJohnstone.com, https://scheerpost.com/2024/01/14/empire-bombs-yemen-to-protect-israels-genocide/

The US and UK have reportedly struck over a dozen sites in Yemen using Tomahawk missiles and fighter jets, backed by logistical support from Australia, Canada, Bahrain and the Netherlands. A statement from President Biden asserts that the strikes against “targets in Yemen used by Houthi rebels” are a “direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea”. 

What Biden does not mention in his statement about his administration’s “response” to Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea is the fact that those Red Sea attacks are themselves a response to Israeli crimes against humanity in Gaza. Also unmentioned is the fact that the strikes took place after the first day of proceedings in the International Court of Justice in which Israel stands accused by South Africa of committing a genocide in Gaza.

So the US and the UK just bombed the poorest country in the middle east for trying to stop a genocide. Not only that, they bombed the very same country in which they just spent years backing Saudi Arabia’s genocidal atrocities which killed hundreds of thousands of people between 2015 and 2022 in an unsuccessful bid to stop the Houthis from taking power. 

The Houthis, formally known as Ansarallah, threatened ahead of the attack to fiercely retaliate against any strikes from the US and its allies. Abdulmalik al-Houthi, who leads the Houthi movement, said that the response to any American attack “will be greater than” a recent Houthi offensive which used dozens of drones and several missiles.

“We, the Yemeni people, are not among those who are afraid of America,” al-Houthi said in a televised speech. “We are comfortable with a direct confrontation with the Americans.”

An unnamed US official who informed Huffington Post’s Akbar Shahid Ahmed about the imminent strikes on Yemen shortly before they occurred complained that the airstrikes “will not solve the problem” and that the approach “doesn’t add up to a cohesive strategy.” 

Ahmed has previously reported that behind the scenes, officials in this administration have been getting increasingly nervous about the risk of Biden igniting a wider war in the middle east. This latest escalation, along with the Houthi pledge to retaliate, adds a lot of weight to this concern.

And all for what? To protect Israel’s ability to conduct a months-long massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. 

This is what the US empire is. This is what it has always been about. 

These people are showing us exactly who they are. 

We should probably believe them.

January 15, 2024 Posted by | MIDDLE EAST, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Turns Out “Israel Has A Right To Defend Itself” Meant “Israel Has A Right To Commit Genocide”

It’s so dopey how Israel apologists will yell at you if you criticize Israeli criminality without mentioning Hamas and October 7. Literally everyone knows about Hamas and October 7. Literally everyone acknowledges that Hamas attacked Israelis out of hostility to the state of Israel.

Meanwhile Israel and its supporters have adamantly denied the reality of what’s been happening in Gaza since October 7.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, JAN 15, 2024,  https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/turns-out-israel-has-a-right-to-defend?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=140689740&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email

Axios has a ridiculous new article out citing multiple anonymous US officials titled “Biden ‘running out’ of patience with Bibi as Gaza war hits 100 days”. The Biden administration keeps leaking to the press trying to put separation between their guy and the genocide in Gaza, and they are so fulla shit. Biden has had the ability to end this mass atrocity since day one. The slaughter continues because Biden wants it to. He owns this.

❖

Netanyahu delivered a speech commemorating 100 days of Israel’s war on babies and journalists and hospitals and residential buildings saying “We will restore security to both the south and the north. Nobody will stop us — not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anybody else.

If I was standing on the right side of history, I don’t think the side I was standing with would be saying that not even The Hague can stop them from killing everyone they want to kill.

❖

Turns out “Israel has a right to defend itself” actually meant “Israel has a right to commit genocide, and no other countries have a right to stop it.”

We’ve been seeing reports of Israeli sniper drones shooting and killing people in Gaza, which is probably a good time to note that Gaza has long been a live laboratory for the military industrial complex. Data is with absolute certainty being collected on all the newer weapons being field-tested on human bodies there — just like has been happening in Ukraine and in Africa — and that data will be used for the benefit of the war machine and the arms industry.

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It’s so dopey how Israel apologists will yell at you if you criticize Israeli criminality without mentioning Hamas and October 7. Literally everyone knows about Hamas and October 7. Literally everyone acknowledges that Hamas attacked Israelis out of hostility to the state of Israel. Everyone, including Hamas and its most enthusiastic supporters, fully acknowledge that this happened.

Meanwhile Israel and its supporters have adamantly denied the reality of what’s been happening in Gaza since October 7. The western press have been wildly biased in favor of Israel and have been guilty of mountains of journalistic malpractice with their pathetic coverage of the ongoing Gaza massacre. The majority of westerners are still ignorant of the extent to which Israel had been abusing and killing Palestinians prior to October 7.

It is therefore necessary to talk about these things to spread awareness and counteract the propaganda and distortion, and it is not necessary to continually mention Hamas and October 7 while doing so. Literally everyone acknowledges the occurrence of the October 7 attack, while a vast percentage of the population is either uninformed or actively lying about the occurrence of all Israeli crimes from the Nakba on. Only one of these two things requires more emphasis.

Israel demanding that everyone condemn the Hamas attack is like a bunch of thugs punching a man in the face over and over and then demanding that everyone condemn him for hurting their hands. The Hamas attack was the natural result of Israel’s abuses upon the Palestinian people.

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In the mind of the empire simp, the violence of the empire’s enemies always comes completely out of nowhere, without provocation and for no reason. Ansarallah started attacking ships in the Red Sea because they’re pirates who hate freedom of navigation. Hamas attacked Israel because they’re evil and hate Jews. Putin invaded Ukraine because he’s evil and hates democracy. Grown adults portray the enemies of the empire the same way the children’s cartoon show Captain Planet portrayed its villains, cackling evilly about how they’re going to dump toxic waste into the ocean for no reason other than to hurt the environment.

I’ve honestly never gotten used to being called an anti-semite, even after three months of getting it nonstop. It has never stopped being shocking to me that someone would accuse me of harboring the same prejudices which gave rise to the Holocaust in response to my criticisms of horrific mass atrocities backed by the most powerful empire the world has ever seen. It’s just absolutely deranged, despicable behavior, and I am consistently shocked to see grown adults behaving that way in public without the slightest hint of shame.

Someone asked me if I have any advice for dealing with the anxiety which comes with discovering that the western empire is the most murderous and tyrannical power structure on earth, and that we’ve been lied to about this our entire lives.

The painful emotions which come up when we discover an uncomfortable truth aren’t problems which need to be dealt with, they’re feelings which need to be felt. Let the grief, anguish, rage, shame, fear, or whatever it might be say everything it needs to say to you, in the same way you’d let a beloved child tell you about their feelings and concerns. You wouldn’t push the child away or treat them like a problem, you’d hear them out and give them a cuddle and let them know you care about them and that you’ll keep them safe. Once you’ve consciously felt a feeling all the way through and heard out everything it needs to say to you, its energy will dissipate.

Uncomfortable truths and uncomfortable feelings need to be met in the same way: head-on, with an open mind and an open heart. Moving into a truth-based relationship with life means wanting to see everything: uncomfortable truths about the world, uncomfortable truths about ourselves, and uncomfortable feelings we haven’t been allowing full expression to. It can be painful at times, even downright terrifying, but it’s also the only path to health for both our species as a collective and ourselves as individuals.

January 15, 2024 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Mainstream media covers up Israeli calls to drive two million Palestinians into permanent exile

The mainstream U.S. media is almost totally ignoring incendiary statements by powerful Israeli officials who say openly they want to push Palestinians out of Gaza forever.

BY JAMES NORTH    https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/mainstream-media-covers-up-israeli-calls-to-drive-two-million-palestinians-into-permanent-exile/

Stephanie Nolen, now at the New York Times, is a veteran and excellent overseas reporter. She’s spent many years working in South Asia, Latin America and Africa. Her book 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa is a superb look at how that pandemic devastated large swaths of the continent.

So when you see that the Times is running not one but two of her articles on “looming starvation in Gaza,” you have hopes that some important truths are about to be revealed.

But you would be largely disappointed. Nolen does explain that Palestinians in Gaza are going hungry, and one of her reports goes into painful detail about the actual physical impact of severe malnutrition: she notes, for instance, that “children often fail first.”

But nowhere does she report clearly that plenty of people, both in Israel and elsewhere, charge that Israel’s policy is part of a deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing, designed to force many of the 2 million Gazans to actually leave their homeland permanently, just as Palestinians were displaced in 1948 and 1967. Nolen’s failure is actually characteristic of the mainstream U.S. media, which is almost totally ignoring incendiary statements by powerful Israeli officials who say openly they want to push Palestinians out of Gaza forever.

(If you read between the lines in one of Nolen’s reports, you can guess what happened behind the scenes at the New York Times. She briefly outlines the “possible starvation,” but then lets an Israeli military spokesman jump in, right at paragraph 7, to “vigorously deny allegations that it is responsible for the shortage of food in Gaza.” He gets six paragraphs to lie and obfuscate, even claiming that “there is a sufficient amount of food in Gaza,” before she can even get back to the real story. There’s no proof, but you can bet that anxious editors butted in and made her add that long section.)

Mainstream media failure extends beyond Stephanie Nolen. This site has long explained that the Times, and other mainstream media, protect Israel by covering up the far-right Jewish supremacists who have been gaining even more power there in recent years. The whitewash should be even harder to maintain now, because Benjamin Netanyahu depends on the extremists, who are now actually in his government, to stay in power, and they certainly don’t keep quiet about their true views.  

Here’s a recent, astonishing example of how the Times tried to hide the Jewish supremacists in the attic. The January 5 headline was: “As Pressure Mounts, Israeli Minister Proposes Plan for Postwar Gaza.” You think you are finally going to see a long report on the calls for ethnic cleansing from Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, and Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister. 

No such luck. The “Israeli Minister” in the Times headline is actually Yoav Gallant, who has the defense portfolio, and his “plan” is marginally less inhumane: it makes no mention of ethnic cleansing and calls for a “multinational task force” to eventually oversee Gaza. You have to read down to paragraph 6 to find the super extremists quoted. (In a cunning twist, the paper says Ben-Gvir’s views came in a “Facebook post,” insinuating that his opinions are offhand, and actually have little weight.) The Times article successfully diluted Ben-Gvir and Smotrich by sticking them in below Gallant. In fact, the defense minister has no political following; by contrast, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are key elements of the ruling coalition. Without them, Netanyahu’s government will fall; he will lose a new election; and he will probably go on trial. 

One of the paper’s opinion columnists, the excellent Michelle Goldberg, did partly salvage its reputation with a strong article on January 5. Her first sentence got straight to the point:

Two far-right members of Israel’s cabinet — the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich — caused an international uproar this week with their calls to depopulate Gaza. 

Goldberg, who is based in New York, found her way to the truth better than Times reporters who are prowling around on the ground in Israel/Palestine. She heard the “international uproar” that her colleagues somehow missed.

Other mainstream outlets are even worse than the Times. So far, the Washington Post hasn’t mentioned Ben-Gvir and Smotrich at all. National Public Radio has named the two in passing but never quoted their calls to push Gazans out of Gaza permanently. 

The two have never appeared on CNN either. This comprehensive failure by the mainstream is actually astonishing. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich love the limelight and would certainly sing like canaries on TV. They are Israeli versions of Matt Goetz or Marjorie Taylor Greene — except that they are not outside gadflies anymore, but two of the most powerful figures inside the government. 

January 15, 2024 Posted by | media | 1 Comment

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