February 2024: 10th anniversary of the conflict in Ukraine
Russia preferred to maintain the Ukrainian state and did not recognize the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. It strove to find a solution that would protect the rights of Russian speakers (language, administrative autonomy) without removing them from Ukraine. The Minsk I (September 2014) and Minsk II (February 2015) agreements were neutralized by the Western signatories who later admitted having signed them only to give themselves time to arm and train the Ukrainian forces.
Russia’s categorical refusal to the inclusion of Ukraine into NATO since this would be followed by the installation of American missiles on its southern flank.
February 24, 2022, was not the beginning of a war with Ukraine but the last stage of the war that had begun in 2014.
Used as a disposable tool by the United States and NATO against Russia, Ukraine is in ruins and its future is in jeopardy.
22.02.24 – Europe – Samir Saul – Michel Seymour https://www.pressenza.com/2024/02/february-2024-10th-anniversary-of-the-conflict-in-ukraine/
In the coming days, we will surely hear about the so-called second anniversary of the war in Ukraine. Western governments, corporate media broadcasting the official pro-US line all day long, and “experts”-propagandists of this line will deliver their pseudo-analyses. All will be based on the double premise that the conflict in Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, and that it consists of a Russo-Ukrainian war unilaterally provoked by Russia to satisfy the expansionist ambitions of “dictator” Putin.
According to the US/NATO/Kiev “narrative”, everything was peaceful and normal before February 24. On that day, without the slightest justification and warning, like lightning in a blue sky, a Russian invasion descended on innocent Ukraine. As good Samaritans, the USA and its camp rushed to the aid of the victim by becoming its source of dollars and weapons, not to mention mercenaries and NATO “advisers” to operate these weapons systems. The conflict was supposed to last at most a few weeks, which was all the time that was needed to bleed Russia, while economic “sanctions” would bludgeon it and open the way to a “popular uprising” on the model of the “colored revolutions” (i.e. a putsch sponsored by the Western camp to carry out regime change and install a new leadership which would place Russia under the control of US imperialism).
That is the official “story”, rehashed ad nauseam, by “major” media, with all analysis of what is happening shut out. Only pro-US/NATO/Kiev propaganda is permitted because it would not survive if serious analyses were also allowed. It turns out that censorship, presented as the practice solely of “authoritarian regimes” against which Western “democracies” are leading a worldwide struggle in the name of “values”, is very much at home in the West. It is endorsed, sometimes hypocritically, sometimes proudly.
In propaganda and the now culture, there is no history. Events occur as sudden appearances or random occurrences based on spontaneous impulses. The “good guys” (the US and those who are aligned with them) and the “bad guys” (those who stand up to them) are known in advance, nothing else. With this simplistic and distorting grid, a conflict only begins when the “bad guys” retaliate, and never before, when the “good guys” have taken the initiative to threaten or attack them, leading to the retaliation. These initial actions are simply erased from memory.
Choosing February 24, 2022 as the starting date of the conflict in Ukraine shows bias, myopia and ignorance. It is equivalent to becoming a sounding board for the official “narrative”, the primary aim of which is to conceal the central role of Western governments as initiators of the conflict in Ukraine. Their aim is less Ukraine itself than the utilization of Ukraine, first against the Soviet Union, then against Russia.
A conflict that dates back to 1945
The Ukrainian question went through four phases: from 1945 to 1956, it was a war of sabotage and terrorism; from 1956 to 1990, there was a lull; from 1990 to 2014, a new conflict was brewing; in 2014, the war began.
As early as 1945, well before February 24, 2022, the ancestor of the CIA recruited German Nazis and their Ukrainian collaborators. Surrendering to the Americans, Reinhard Gehlen put his network of agents in Eastern Europe at the service of the US. Ukrainian ultranationalist collaborator Stepan Bandera joined Gehlen in Germany and, with his organization, waged a bloody war against the USSR in Ukraine, a Soviet territory. The USSR won and the KGB assassinated Bandera in 1959. It was in 1954 that Khrushchev transferred the Crimean peninsula to the Republic of Ukraine, then part of the USSR.
Latent tension since 1991
Continue readingAssange’s final appeal – Your man in the public gallery, part 2
Craig Murray, Sott.net, Wed, 21 Feb 2024
Comment: This is the continuation of Craig Murray’s coverage of Julian Assange’s final extradition hearing in the UK Royal Court on February 21, 2024. Read the first part here.
Julian Assange is a person in political conflict with the view of the United States, who seeks to affect the policies and operations of the US government.
Section 87 of the Extradition Act 2003 provides that a court must interpret it in the light of the defendant’s human rights as enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights. This definitely brings in the jurisdiction of the court. It means all the issues raised must be viewed through the prism of the ECHR and from not other angle.
To depend on the treaty yet ignore its terms is abuse of process and contrary to the ECHR. The obligation in UK law to respect the terms of the extradition treaty with the USA while administering an extradition under it, was comparable to the obligation courts had found to follow the Modern Slavery Convention and Refugee Convention
(quotes given here)
Mark Summers KC then arose to continue the case for Assange. A dark and pugnacious character, he could be well cast as Heathcliff. Summers is as blunt and direct as Fitzgerald is courteous. His points are not so much hammered home, as pile-driven.
This persecution, Summers began, was “intended to prohibit and punish the exposure of state level crime”. The extradition hearing had heard unchallenged evidence of this from many witnesses. The speech in question was thus protected speech. This extradition was not only contrary to the US/UK Extradition Treaty of 2007, it was also plainly contrary to Section 81 of the Extradition Act of 2003.
(quotes given here)
This prosecution was motivated by a desire to punish and suppress political opinion, contrary to the Act. It could be shown plainly to be a political prosecution. It had not been brought until years after the proposed offence; the initiation of the charges had been motivated by the International Criminal Court stating that they were asking the Wikileaks publications as evidence of war crimes. That had been immediately followed by US government denunciation of Wikileaks and Assange, by the designation as a non-state hostile intelligence agency, and even by the official plot to kidnap, poison, rendition or assassinate Assange. That had all been sanctioned by President Trump.
This prosecution therefore plainly bore all of the hallmarks of political persecution.
The magistrates’ court had head unchallenged evidence that the Wikileaks material from Chelsea Manning contained evidence of assassination, rendition, torture, dark prisons and drone killings by the United States. The leaked material had in fact been relied on with success in legal actions in many foreign courts and in Strasbourg itself.
The disclosures were political because the avowed intention was to affect political change. Indeed they had caused political change, for example in the Rules of Engagement for forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and in ending drone killings in Pakistan. Assange had been highly politically acclaimed at the time of the publications. He had been invited to address both the EU and the UN.
The US government had made no response to any of the extensive evidence of United States state level criminality given in the hearing. Yet Judge Baraitser had totally ignored all of it in her ruling. She had not referred to United States criminality at all.
At this point Judge Sharp interrupted to ask where they would find references to these acts of criminality in the evidence, and Summers gave some very terse pointers, through clenched teeth.
Summers continued that in law it is axiomatic that the exposure of state level criminality is a political act. This was protected speech. There were an enormous number of cases across many jurisdictions which indicate this. The criminality presented in this appeal was tolerated and even approved by the very highest levels of the United States government. Publication of this evidence by Mr Assange, absent any financial motive for him to do so, was the very definition of a political act. He was involved, beyond dispute, in opposition to the machinery of government of the United States.
This extradition had to be barred under Section 81 of the Extradition Act because its entire purpose was to silence those political opinions. Again, there were numerous cases on record of how courts should deal, under the European Convention, with states reacting to people who had revealed official criminality.
In the judgment being appealed Judge Baraitser did not address the protected nature of speech exposing state criminality at all. That was plainly an error in law.
Baraitser had also been in error of fact in stating that it was “Purely conjecture and speculation” that the revelation of US war crimes had led to this prosecution. This ignored almost all of the evidence before the court.
The court had been given evidence of United States interference with judicial procedure over US war crimes in Spain, Poland, Germany and Italy. The United States had insulated its own officials from ICC jurisdiction. It had actively threatened both the institutions and employees, of the ICC and of official bodies of other states. All of this had been explained in detail in expert evidence and had been unchallenged. All of it had been ignored by Baraitser.…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Political persecution was also apparent in the highly selective prosecution of the appellant. Numerous newspapers had also published the exact same information, as had other websites. Yet only Assange was being prosecuted. Baraitser had simply ignored numerous facts which were key to the case, and therefore her judgment was plainly wrong.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Separately, the Secretary of State had failed in her specific duty to obtain assurances that the death penalty would not be implemented, before agreeing an extradition. The United States could add further charges at any time were Assange in the US, including aiding and abetting treason or other Espionage Act charges which attract the death penalty. It was routine in these circumstances to obtain assurances against the death penalty, and it was sinister they had not been obtained.
The law on this point was very clear; in the absence of assurances against the death penalty, the extradition must be stopped by the Home Secretary and the defendant discharged.
On this rather sombre point, Judge Sharp called the end of the day, and we staggered out into a wet London evening. It was a huge amount to pack into our heads in a day for those of us with brains smaller than Mr Fitzgerald, and the large crowd that roared its approval as we emerged hardly registered with me at all.
It had gone better than I expected……………………………………………. https://www.sott.net/article/489199-Assanges-final-appeal-Your-man-in-the-public-gallery-part-2
What’s fueling the commercial fusion hype?
Despite its lack of promise for civilian use, the Energy Department and the White House have used the Livermore controlled fusion experiment results to boost the effort to harness fusion power for civilian purposes. In December 2022, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced with great fanfare that a laser pulse ignited a fusion reaction that produced more energy than was supplied by the light beams
In her energy balance, however, the energy secretary forgot to account for the energy it took to create the laser beams. This energy input, when added, drastically reverses her conclusion
By Victor Gilinsky | February 20, 2024,
https://thebulletin.org/2024/02/whats-fueling-the-commercial-fusion-hype/
Recent White House and Energy Department pronouncements on speeding up the “commercialization” of fusion energy are so over the top as to make you wonder about the scientific competence in the upper reaches of the government.
In April 2022, the White House launched what it called a “bold decadal vision” for a 10-year program to “accelerate the realization of commercial fusion energy.” The “bold” part is the proposal, in questionable analogy with high-speed computing, to do in parallel all the development steps that are typically done sequentially to bring a new technology to the market. According to the White House, this parallel processing would include: technology development, preparing a regulatory system (including rules for fusion reactor exports), securing the supply chain, identifying high-value markets, training a diverse workforce, and gaining public support, all “to support the rapid scale-up of fusion energy facilities.”
The special attraction of fusion is of course that it offers a potential source of abundant carbon-free energy that does not generate radioactive nuclear waste. But just because it would be nice if controlled fusion could work doesn’t mean it’s on the verge of doing so. The hard truth is that scientists and engineers don’t even know yet whether controlled fusion can be achieved to make useful work, at least anywhere outside the sun (and other stars, of course).
A historical perspective is useful to understand where the hype about commercial fusion is coming from.
We have known about fusion powering the sun since Hans Bethe explained it in 1939. This was also almost exactly when Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann discovered uranium fission (and Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Frisch explained it). Then in 1942, Enrico Fermi and a small number of co-workers demonstrated a controlled fission chain reaction in a squash court at the University of Chicago. Fermi spent about $50 million in today’s dollars on building his 20-foot-tall atomic pile.
More than 80 years later, the corresponding control-of-fusion principle has yet to be demonstrated experimentally and the US government already made $35 billion in cumulative fusion expenditure—with probably a comparable investment abroad—without yet knowing what works.
The White House’s approach to attain success appears based on the idea that enthusiasm and coordination of all diverse stakeholders backed up with enough money can solve a so-far-unsolved scientific problem. Administration spokespersons mention projects that were successfully accelerated in this way, like the 1969 trip to the moon. Sure, this was indeed a hugely successful monumental project at the time, but no one involved doubted it was possible to do. All the necessary component technologies, like rockets and communications, were in hand on a smaller scale. In the case of fusion power reactors, no one is yet sure what they would look like, let alone if they will turn out to be possible and practicable.
The main research track today in fusion energy is “magnetic confinement”—configuring magnetic fields to keep in place a plasma of thermonuclear fuel 10 times hotter than the sun’s core within a donut-shaped magnetic “bottle.” Dozens of such machines—known as “tokamaks,” a Russian-language transliteration for toroidal chamber with axial magnetic field—have been built around the world since the 1950s, but none got close to demonstrating a net energy gain. Controlled fusion, it turns out, is an extremely difficult problem. To solve it, fusion experts have concluded the key is to have a large enough facility.
The world’s largest experimental fusion machine—ITER (initially the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, also meaning “the way” in Latin)—is nearing completion in France. It is a highly complex scientific and engineering project. ITER publicity describes the building housing the reactor as “slightly taller than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris,” and that the building foundation will support some 400,000 metric tons—“more than the weight of New York’s Empire State Building.” Started in 2006, ITER is a 35-country megaproject that was supposed to be completed in 2016 at a cost of $6 billion. The reactor is currently projected to start up in 2025, but even that appears to be an optimistic date, as is the total budget estimate of about $22 billion.
The initial design objective is to produce a fusion plasma with thermal power 10 times greater than the injected thermal power. Even if successful, this net power output would not yet be the fusion equivalent of Fermi’s 1942 experimental nuclear pile, which proved the controlled fission concept. Nor would ITER’s more ambitious subsequent goal of maintaining this plasma for eight minutes. To get to proof of principle would likely take another step or an upgrading of ITER.
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s weapons laboratory pursued another approach of “internal confinement,” to create a fusion reaction at its National Ignition Facility (NIF) and claimed it could have power application. NIF uses light pulses from a concentric battery of powerful lasers to heat a small target containing a tiny bead of frozen thermonuclear fuel. This is, in effect, a miniature (secondary) thermonuclear bomb, with the lasers playing the role of the triggering fission reactions (primary). The light heats the container material sufficiently to ablate and swiftly compress the fuel to the point of detonation, which lasts some billionths of a second. The experiment was directed primarily at developing a useful diagnostic tool for weapons research. In power application, you would have to repeat the explosions at an extraordinarily fast rate, which is a tall order.
Despite its lack of promise for civilian use, the Energy Department and the White House have used the Livermore controlled fusion experiment results to boost the effort to harness fusion power for civilian purposes. In December 2022, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced with great fanfare that a laser pulse ignited a fusion reaction that produced more energy than was supplied by the light beams: “This milestone moves us one significant step closer to the possibility of zero carbon abundant energy powering our society … a huge step forward to the president’s goal of achieving commercial fusion within a decade.” (Update: In less than nine years from now.)
In her energy balance, however, the energy secretary forgot to account for the energy it took to create the laser beams. This energy input, when added, drastically reverses her conclusion, with the fusion output then amounting to only about one percent of the input. This is not disqualifying from a scientific point of view, but it obviously is in a power generating application. Still, this hasn’t stopped the Energy Department from including Livermore’s fusion ignition experiment in a promotional video on the “7 moments that changed nuclear energy history.” The clip claims “[t]he Lab was the first to produce more energy from a fusion reaction than was used to start the process,” again forgetting the energy it took to power the lasers.
Ukraine: how nuclear weapons continue to increase the risks, two years on
nuclear weapons industry has profited shamelessly off the world’s concerns over nuclear war. Since the conflict in Ukraine and the increased nuclear tensions that followed, profits for the companies that produce nuclear weapons drove up, with an $15.7 billion increase in share and bond holding and $57.1 billion increase in loans and underwriting.
https://www.icanw.org/ukraine_two_years_how_nuclear_weapons_increase_the_risks— 24 Feb 24
Two years after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the risk of nuclear weapons use continues to escalate, while the looming threat of their use protracts this conflict with a high civilian cost. Nuclear-armed states and their allies waver between condemning nuclear threats and engaging in irresponsible practices such as nuclear sharing and championing their own nuclear deterrent. But the rest of the world is pushing back, condemning these behaviors and demanding the total elimination of these weapons of mass destruction through the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
Melissa Parke, Executive Director of ICAN, said: “This terrible war with its use of nuclear blackmail and overt threats to use nuclear weapons is a wake up call that the world needs to heed – as long as the nuclear-armed states hang on to their arsenals and cling to the misguided doctrine of deterrence, we face the likelihood these weapons will be used sooner or later. Nuclear weapons should be abolished before it is too late.”
The escalating nuclear risk
Following Vladimir Putin’s initial explicit threats to use nuclear weapons, we have seen nuclear-armed states and their allies continue to erode the decades-long nuclear taboo over the past two years. The escalation in nuclear rhetoric has not just been seen in Russia (Medvedev made explicit threats just this last weekend) but also in Israel and North Korea, and in recent calls by Polish and German politicians and NATO leaders for a European nuclear weapon. Nuclear threats heighten tensions in an already dangerous environment, reduce the threshold for use of nuclear weapons, and greatly increase the risk of nuclear conflict and global catastrophe.
The risk is also increased by the irresponsible practice of nuclear sharing, or stationing nuclear weapons, which seems to be on the rise. In June 2023, Vladimir Putin said Russia delivered its first tactical weapons to Belarus, though it is unclear how many nuclear weapons were transferred. This is a reckless and dangerous escalation that was widely condemned. But for NATO states, and particularly the five states that host US nuclear weapons, simply condemning Russia’s nuclear sharing without taking any action is insufficient and hypocritical. Particularly as the US and the UK also seemingly explore the return of US nuclear weapons to Lakenheath. Any nuclear sharing complicates decision making and increases the risk of miscalculation, miscommunication and potentially catastrophic accidents. It is time to end this practice that threatens peace and security and puts us all at risk.
Deterrence theory and nuclear weapons profiteers at the heart of the problem
The use of nuclear blackmail by Russia in the context of the Ukraine war has demonstrated the flawed nature of nuclear deterrence which, instead of ensuring stability, gave Russia the cover to commense its brutal and devastating invasion. Yet Russia’s nuclear threats have failed to deter the US and European countries from supplying Ukraine with weapons and money to fight Russia.
With current conflicts directly involving two nuclear-armed states, it is clear that nuclear deterrence doesn’t keep the peace. NATO states are playing into Putin’s hands by insisting nuclear weapons are a necessary deterrent. It only strengthens Putin’s position to promote his own “deterrent” now, whereas rejecting deterrence and reinforcing the nuclear taboo would limit his options.
Meanwhile, the conflict has also accelerated the global nuclear arms race, with the nine nuclear-armed states increasing spending to $82.9 billion in 2022. As a result, the nuclear weapons industry has profited shamelessly off the world’s concerns over nuclear war. Since the conflict in Ukraine and the increased nuclear tensions that followed, profits for the companies that produce nuclear weapons drove up, with an $15.7 billion increase in share and bond holding and $57.1 billion increase in loans and underwriting.
The global response to nuclear risk: the TPNW
The way to respond to the heightened risk of nuclear war is not to increase nuclear arsenals or threaten nuclear retaliation. The answer is for all countries to condemn nuclear threats, end their reliance on nuclear deterrence and join the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The TPNW specifically outlaws the threat to use nuclear weapons, as well as the irresponsible practice of nuclear sharing.
All nuclear-armed states need to take urgent steps to de-escalate tensions and to break free from the dangerous doctrine of nuclear deterrence, and nuclear disarmament must be an essential element of a negotiated peace between Russia and Ukraine. Multilateral nuclear disarmament is the only guarantee to prevent other nuclear-armed countries from following Russia’s lead and using their nuclear weapons as a shield to commit war crimes and terrorize civilian populations. Joining the TPNW is a crucial step to delegitimize nuclear deterrence and eliminate nuclear weapons.
Over the past two years, the states parties of the TPNW have been central in pushing back against any and all nuclear threats and challenging the false narrative of nuclear deterrence. At the First Meeting of States Parties in 2021, they condemned unequivocally “any and all nuclear threats, whether they be explicit or implicit and irrespective of the circumstances.” At the second meeting in New York,they agreed “to challenge the security paradigm based on nuclear deterrence by highlighting and promoting new scientific evidence about the humanitarian consequences and risks of nuclear weapons and juxtaposing this with the risks and assumptions that are inherent innnuclear deterrence.” It is time for all responsible states to join the TPNW.
Private Financiers Pour Billions Into Nuclear Weapons Production
the new nuclear arms race is about more than just wildly misguided strategic thinking or a stubborn ideology that holds fast to the absurd notion that more, “better” nuclear weapons can somehow make us safer.
There is money to be made.
between January 2021 and August 2023 investors held $477 billion in shares and bonds in 24 major nuclear weapons producing firms located in six countries. In addition, nuclear arms companies received $343 billion in loans and underwriting. This private financing is in addition to the hundreds of billions that governments are spending on new nuclear weapons.
William Hartung, Contributor.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhartung/2024/02/22/private-financiers-pour-billions-into-nuclear-weapons-production/?sh=7a7a3b3b6286
I am a defense analyst, and cover the economics of Pentagon spending.
The world is on fire, from Israel’s brutal, inhumane attacks on Gaza to the civil war in Sudan to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now two years old. The last thing we need is a new nuclear arms race. But it is already well under way, with the big three nuclear weapons states – the United States, Russia and China – allocating hundreds of billions of dollars towards building a new generation of nuclear-armed missiles, bombers, and submarines over the next decade.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists summarized our current predicament when it announced earlier this year that it was keeping its “Doomsday Clock” – a symbolic measurement of how close we are to annihilating life on earth through nuclear war or environmental catastrophe – at an uncomfortably close 90 seconds to midnight:
“Ominous trends continue to point the world toward global catastrophe. The war in Ukraine and the widespread and growing reliance on nuclear weapons increase the risk of nuclear escalation. China, Russia, and the United States are all spending huge sums to expand or modernize their nuclear arsenals, adding to the ever-present danger of nuclear war through mistake or miscalculation.”
The conventional wisdom holds that nuclear buildups are designed to maintain deterrence – a balance in which no nuclear weapons state would dare to attack another for fear of being completely destroyed in return. Deterrence itself is not as stable as most experts would have us believe, dependent as it is on human judgment, imperfect risk assessments, and extremely short decision making windows upon warning of an attack.
There’s no way to precisely gauge the prospects of a nuclear exchange, but the possibility of a nuclear war launched by design or accident is real, and the job of political leaders should be to reduce the risks to the lowest possible levels. The only way to guarantee that we don’t witness a war that could kill billions of people while ending the prospects for sustaining life on earth is to get rid of nuclear weapons altogether, as called for in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The treaty is now ratified by 70 nations, but so far by none of the states that possess these potentially world-ending systems.
Nuclear abolition is a long-term undertaking. In the meantime the safest course would be to reduce their numbers, forgo the production of new ones, increase crisis communications protocols among major nuclear powers, forswear first use of nuclear weapons in a crisis, and begin a serious dialogue about how to reduce and eventually eliminate the world’s nuclear arsenals. Unfortunately, things are heading in exactly the wrong direction at this moment, as embodied in a recent U.S. Congressional commission report that calls for an across-the-board nuclear weapons buildup and the actions of China and Russia, including Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats made in the context of its war against Ukraine.
But the new nuclear arms race is about more than just wildly misguided strategic thinking or a stubborn ideology that holds fast to the absurd notion that more, “better” nuclear weapons can somehow make us safer. There is money to be made.
The economic drivers of the arms race were present from the earliest years of the nuclear age, when a fight over budgetary resources between the Navy and the Air Force sparked the creation of the nuclear triad, which called for the development of systems that could deliver a warhead from air, land or sea. And an intense lobbying effort by the Air Force and major arms contractors designed to pressure his administration into building a costly new nuclear bomber was one of the primary reasons that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the dangers of the military-industrial complex.
The economic underpinnings of the global nuclear enterprise are laid bare in a new report produced jointly by PAX and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), entitled “Untenable Investments: Nuclear Weapons Producers and Their Financiers.” The report found that between January 2021 and August 2023 investors held $477 billion in shares and bonds in 24 major nuclear weapons producing firms located in six countries. In addition, nuclear arms companies received $343 billion in loans and underwriting. This private financing is in addition to the hundreds of billions that governments are spending on new nuclear weapons. The PAX/ICAN report underscores the critical importance of this private funding to the continuation of the nuclear arms race:
For companies that build the key components needed to maintain and expand countries’ nuclear arsenals, access to private funding is crucial. As such, the banks, pension funds, asset managers and other financiers that continue to invest in or grant credit to these companies allow for the production of inhumane and indiscriminate weapons to proceed. By divesting from their business relationships with these companies, financial institutions can reduce available capital for nuclear weapon related activities and thereby be instrumental in supporting the fulfillment of the TPNW’s [nuclear ban treaty’s] objectives.”
A nuclear divestment campaign, spearheaded by Don’t Bank on the Bomb, is well under way. A 2023 report by the organization cited 55 institutions with comprehensive policies of avoiding investments in nuclear weapons producers, with dozens more imposing at least some restrictions.
The divestment campaign supplements efforts to get governments to reduce their spending on new nuclear weapons, which is skyrocketing, as evidenced by a 37% growth in cost for Northrop Grumman’sNOC +1.3% “Sentinel” intercontinental ballistic missile. Hopefully the huge and growing price of these dangerous, unnecessary missiles will strengthen efforts to get rid of them altogether, not just make some schedule adjustments, or slap the relevant contractors on the wrist.
The world is facing a lethal combination of new risks, from climate change to pandemics to unprecedented inequality and massive refugee flows. In the midst of these intersecting crises, wasting public and private resources on a new nuclear arms race is unconscionable. Pressuring financial institutions to stop supporting this madness is one way to reverse the tide and get back on track towards eliminating nuclear weapons.
UK to consider suspending arms exports to Israel if Rafah offensive goes ahead
As situation in Gaza worsens, diplomatic pressure is mounting on UK to follow other countries and suspend arms sales to Israel
Patrick Wintour, 23 Feb 24, Guardian,
The UK government will consider suspending arms export licences to Israel if Benjamin Netanyahu goes ahead with a potentially devastating ground offensive on the Palestinian city of Rafah in southern Gaza.
As the humanitarian situation in Gaza has worsened, diplomatic pressure has been mounting on the UK to follow other countries and suspend arms exports to Israel.
Ministerial sources said that while no decision had been made about a suspension of arms export licences, the UK had the ability to respond quickly if the legal advice to ministers said that Israel was in breach of international humanitarian law.
The UK has joined other allies in pressuring Israel to avoid a ground offensive in Rafah. In a letter to the foreign affairs select committee about arms export controls to Israel published on Tuesday, David Cameron, the foreign secretary, said he could not see how an offensive in Rafah could go ahead without harming civilians and destroying homes.
In the Commons, the UK foreign minister Andrew Mitchell underscored that an offensive in Rafah represented a red line for the UK government, telling MPs on Wednesday that the UK was urging the Israeli government not to launch an attack that could have “devastating consequences”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Earlier this month The Hague district court ordered the Dutch government to stop the export of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel within seven days due to the risk of serious violations of international humanitarian law and referred to the ATT and EU policy. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/21/uk-to-consider-suspending-arms-exports-to-israel-if-rafah-offensive-goes-ahead
Alexei Navalny Was an Ultra-Right Nationalist Who Compared Muslims to Cockroaches
Medium, Matthew Puddister 23 Feb 24
The death of Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison camp Feb. 16 prompted a wave of eulogies from Western politicians and media, Canada summoning the Russian ambassador in protest, and the immediate accusation that Russian President Vladimir Putin had had the Western-backed opposition leader killed. Such accusations may or may not be true; the authoritarian Putin has long been credibly linked to the assassination of his political rivals. But the campaign to portray Navalny as some liberal hero of democracy and human rights — perhaps reaching its height with the 2022 film Navalny, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature — is pure fiction, a Western propaganda invention.
In reality, Navalny was a far nastier piece of work: an ultra-right racist and Russian nationalist, who railed against immigration and compared Muslims to “flies and cockroaches”. It’s ironic that Western liberals who view Donald Trump as a puppet of Russia/Putin and the very incarnation of evil are mourning a figure whose politics in all essentials are very similar to Trump’s. Consider Trump’s infamous attack on illegal immigrants launching his 2016 U.S. presidential campaign — “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best … They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists” — to Navalny’s remarks in a 2012 interview stating, “Immigrants from Central Asia bring in drugs [to Russia].”
Like Trump, Navalny encouraged and welcomed support from the most extreme fringes of the far right. In 2007, Yabloko, Russia’s oldest liberal party, kicked out Navalny for his “nationalist views” and participation in the Russian March, an annual rally that brings together thousands of far-right Russian nationalists, monarchists, and white supremacists under the slogan “Russia for ethnic Russians”. Shortly thereafter, Navalny released a video in which he presents himself as a “certified nationalist” who wants to exterminate “flies and cockroaches”, his rant intercut with shots of bearded Muslim men. In the video, Navalny then takes out a gun and shoots an actor wearing a keffiyeh, who is portrayed as trying to attack him……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
the fawning tributes to Navalny by reformist politicians and celebrities beggar belief in their willful disregard for this man’s racist, far-right politics. Instead, they adhere to the bourgeoisie’s standard rubric by which those who support the interests of U.S. imperialism are hailed as champions of “freedom”, while those who oppose the interests of U.S. imperialism are vilified…………………………………………
Contrary to what Joe Biden, Cornel West, and Bono would have us believe, the mere fact of being Russian and opposing Vladimir Putin does not make someone an icon of freedom. U.S. imperialism and its allies have a long tradition of funding far-right forces abroad as proxies………………………………………. https://medium.com/@matthew.puddister/alexei-navalny-was-an-ultra-right-nationalist-who-compared-muslims-to-cockroaches-1864e0cda000
Nuclear route does Scotland no favours – Tommy Sheppard
As we limp towards a general election later this year, energy policy will feature high on the political agenda.
By Tommy Sheppard, 23rd Feb 2024, https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/nuclear-route-does-scotland-no-favours-tommy-sheppard-4529234
Sadly, though, it looks as if one aspect of that debate will escape serious scrutiny due to a cosy consensus between the main parties at Westminster. Nuclear power.
Earlier this week Parliament debated the government’s recently published civil nuclear roadmap. This hare-brained scheme sets out an ambition to quadruple the current 5.9 gigawatts of nuclear energy production by 2050. Sadly, not only does the Labour party support this Conservative plan, it accuses the government of dragging its feet on implementation, suggesting that if anything a Starmer administration will accelerate the nuclear programme.
It’s crazy that this 20th century technology still commands such widespread political support in the UK. A quick recap. Nuclear power is – by far – the most expensive way of generating electricity ever devised by mankind. Contrary to claims it is not a renewable energy source. It is fuelled by uranium ore of which there is approximately 90 years supply left, less if programmes expand. Most of this is in Kazakhstan so it hardly qualifies as a secure energy source.
Moreover, it produces toxic waste which has to be kept isolated from human beings for generations. The new roadmap by the way suggests a new form of reactor which will produce twice as much waste and has no credible plan to safeguard it.
You can only spend a pound once – and if the government spends billions on nuclear that investment will be siphoned off renewable energy development. The craziest part of Labour’s plan is to argue for a further windfall tax on oil and gas in order to subsidise new nuclear plants in England. Don’t get me wrong, corporations should pay fair taxes, especially on excess profits. But of all the things you might spend that revenue on, subsidising nuclear power must surely be the worst.
If this continues, our children will look back mid-century and wonder why we didn’t make use of the phenomenal natural energy resources from sun, sea and air. We can stop this nonsense by the simple measure of putting Scotland’s energy policy in the hands of the people who live here. Another reason why Scotland should be an independent country.
Tommy Sheppard is SNP Scotland & Constitutional Affairs Spokesperson
Navalny had a mixed past – was an “ultra nationalist”
Radio Free Europe, February 25, 2021
1 “…………………………On February 23, the prominent NGO Amnesty International withdrew Navalny from its list of “prisoners of conscience,” a designation reserved for people imprisoned for who they are or what they believe. Amnesty said Navalny, who is in prison on what he and his supporters call trumped-up charges aimed at silencing him, fell short of its criteria because of past statements the rights watchdog perceived as reaching the “threshold of advocacy of hatred.”
Amnesty’s recent probe into Navalny, who has come under scrutiny for his association with Russian nationalists and statements seen as racist and xenophobic, was prompted by a wave of complaints that appeared part of “a coordinated campaign” to discredit him after he was named a “prisoner of conscience” in January.
One anonymous Amnesty employee told Russian media that a Twitter thread about Navalny by Katya Kazbek — a U.S.-based freelance columnist and translator who has written for Russia’s state-funded media outlet RT and for RFE/RL — lists examples of objectionable comments made by Navalny and was cited by a wave of e-mails sent to the organization.
Kazbek, whose real name is Yekaterina Dubovitskaya, told RFE/RL she has “never been knowingly in touch with anyone connected to Amnesty International.”
In response, the liberal Yabloko party expelled Navalny from its ranks, but under the banner of a new group called the National Russian Liberation Movement in 2007 he released YouTube videos describing himself as a “certified nationalist” and advancing thinly veiled xenophobia.
In one clip, Navalny is shown in a dentist’s outfit as footage of migrants in Moscow is interspersed with his references to harmful tooth cavities. “I recommend full sanitization,” he says. “Everything in our way should be carefully but decisively be removed through deportation.”
In subsequent years Navalny publicly softened his tone but continued promoting conservative immigration policies, campaigning to introduce a visa regime with Central Asia, a major source of labor migrants to Russia, ahead of the 2018 presidential election from which the Kremlin ultimately barred him. He also railed against “Islamism” in posts to his blog as late as 2015.
Navalny has repeatedly stated in interviews that he doesn’t regret his past comments or videos, and suggested that an ability to engage both liberals and nationalists is part of his strength as a politician.
Environment Agency and Natural England behind Hinkley Point wetland plan, says MP
THE Environment Agency (EA) and Natural England (NE) were both ‘clearly
implicated’ in a plan to turn nearly 1,000 acres of prime West Somerset
farmland into wetland, said local MP Ian Liddell-Grainger. Mr
Liddell-Grainger accused the two agencies of hiding behind a smokescreen
while they promoted a project which had already aroused a lot of anger
among local people.
West Somerset Free Press 21st Feb 2024
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