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The Growing Environmental Footprint Of Generative AI

tech companies have been reporting whatever they choose, however they choose, about their AI impact

a great deal remains unrevealed about the millions of gallons of water used to cool computers running AI…… The same is true of carbon.

Undark, BY DAVID BERREBY, 02.20.2024

AI runs on power-hungry equipment that uses millions of gallons of fresh water. Policymakers are weighing the costs.

TWO MONTHS after its release in November 2022, OpenAI’s ChatGPT had 100 million active users, and suddenly tech corporations were racing to offer the public more “generative AI.” Pundits compared the new technology’s impact to the Internet, or electrification, or the Industrial Revolution — or the discovery of fire.

Time will sort hype from reality, but one consequence of the explosion of artificial intelligence is clear: this technology’s environmental footprint is large and growing.

AI use is directly responsible for carbon emissions from non-renewable electricity and for the consumption of millions of gallons of fresh water, and it indirectly boosts impacts from building and maintaining the power-hungry equipment on which AI runs. As tech companies seek to embed high-intensity AI into everything from resume-writing to kidney transplant medicine and from choosing dog food to climate modeling, they cite many ways AI could help reduce humanity’s environmental footprint. But legislators, regulators, activists, and international organizations now want to make sure the benefits aren’t outweighed by AI’s mounting hazards.

“The development of the next generation of AI tools cannot come at the expense of the health of our planet,” Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey said in a Feb. 1 statement in Washington, after he and other senators and representatives introduced a bill that would require the federal government to assess AI’s current environmental footprint and develop a standardized system for reporting future impacts. Similarly, the European Union’s “AI Act,” approved by member states last week, will require “high-risk AI systems” (which include the powerful “foundation models” that power ChatGPT and similar AIs) to report their energy consumption, resource use, and other impacts throughout their systems’ lifecycle. The EU law takes effect next year.

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Standardization, a global network that develops standards for manufacturers, regulators, and others, said it will issue criteria for “sustainable AI” later this year. Those will include standards for measuring energy efficiency, raw material use, transportation, and water consumption, as well as practices for reducing AI impacts throughout its life cycle, from the process of mining materials and making computer components to the electricity consumed by its calculations. The ISO wants to enable AI users to make informed decisions about their AI consumption.

Right now, it’s not possible to tell how your AI request for homework help or a picture of an astronaut riding a horse will affect carbon emissions or freshwater stocks. This is why 2024’s crop of “sustainable AI” proposals describe ways to get more information about AI impacts.

In the absence of standards and regulations, tech companies have been reporting whatever they choose, however they choose, about their AI impact, said Shaolei Ren, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC Riverside, who has been studying the water costs of computation for the past decade. Working from calculations of annual use of water for cooling systems by Microsoft, Ren estimates that a person who engages in a session of questions and answers with GPT-3 (roughly 10 t0 50 responses) drives the consumption of a half-liter of fresh water. “It will vary by region, and with a bigger AI, it could be more.” But a great deal remains unrevealed about the millions of gallons of water used to cool computers running AI, he said.

“Data scientists today do not have easy or reliable access to measurements of [greenhouse gas impacts from AI], which precludes development of actionable tactics,” a group of 10 prominent researchers on AI impacts wrote in a 2022 conference paper. Since they presented their article, AI applications and users have proliferated, but the public is still in the dark about those data, said Jesse Dodge, a research scientist at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Seattle, who was one of the paper’s coauthors.

AI can run on many devices — the simple AI that autocorrects text messages will run on a smartphone. But the kind of AI people most want to use is too big for most personal devices, Dodge said. “The models that are able to write a poem for you, or draft an email, those are very large,” he said. “Size is vital for them to have those capabilities.”

Big AIs need to run immense numbers of calculations very quickly, usually on specialized Graphical Processing Units — processors originally designed for intense computation to render graphics on computer screens. Compared to other chips, GPUs are more energy-efficient for AI, and they’re most efficient when they’re run in large “cloud data centers” — specialized buildings full of computers equipped with those chips. The larger the data center, the more energy efficient it can be. Improvements in AI’s energy efficiency in recent years are partly due to the construction of more “hyperscale data centers,” which contain many more computers and can quickly scale up. Where a typical cloud data center occupies about 100,000 square feet, a hyperscale center can be 1 or even 2 million square feet.

Estimates of the number of cloud data centers worldwide range from around 9,000 to nearly 11,000. More are under construction. The International Energy Agency, or IEA, projects that data centers’ electricity consumption in 2026 will be double that of 2022 — 1,000 terawatts, roughly equivalent to Japan’s current total consumption.

However, as an illustration of one problem with the way AI impacts are measured, that IEA estimate includes all data center activity, which extends beyond AI to many aspects of modern life. Running Amazon’s store interface, serving up Apple TV’s videos, storing millions of people’s emails on Gmail, and “mining” Bitcoin are also performed by data centers. (Other IEA reports exclude crypto operations, but still lump all other data-center activity together.)

Most tech firms that run data centers don’t reveal what percentage of their energy use processes AI. The exception is Google, which says “machine learning” — the basis for humanlike AI — accounts for somewhat less than 15 percent of its data centers’ energy use…………………………………………………………………………………….

If global electricity use can feel a bit abstract, data centers’ water use is a more local and tangible issue — particularly in drought-afflicted areas. To cool delicate electronics in the clean interiors of the data centers, water has to be free of bacteria and impurities that could gunk up the works. In other words, data centers often compete “for the same water people drink, cook, and wash with,” said Ren.

In 2022, Ren said, Google’s data centers consumed about 5 billion gallons (nearly 20 billion liters) of fresh water for cooling. (“Consumptive use” does not include water that’s run through a building and then returned to its source.) According to a recent study by Ren, Google’s data centers used 20 percent more water in 2022 than they did in 2021, and Microsoft’s water use rose by 34 percent in the same period. (Google data centers host its Bard chatbot and other generative AIs; Microsoft servers host ChatGPT as well as its bigger siblings GPT-3 and GPT-4. All three are produced by OpenAI, in which Microsoft is a large investor.)

As more data centers are built or expanded, their neighbors have been troubled to find out how much water they take. For example, in The Dalles, Oregon, where Google runs three data centers and plans two more, the city government filed a lawsuit in 2022 to keep Google’s water use a secret from farmers, environmentalists, and Native American tribes who were concerned about its effects on agriculture and on the region’s animals and plants. The city withdrew its suit early last year. The records it then made public showed that Google’s three extant data centers use more than a quarter of the city’s water supply. And in Chile and Uruguay, protests have erupted over planned Google data centers that would tap into the same reservoirs that supply drinking water……………..more https://undark.org/2024/02/20/ai-environmental-footprint/?utm_source=Undark%3A+News+%26+Updates&utm_campaign=01eaa0c93b-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5cee408d66-185e4e09de-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

February 25, 2024 Posted by | environment, technology | Leave a comment

Wikileaks Reveals Alexei Navalny’s US Funding as Washington Exploits His Death

https://youtube.com/watch?v=0uRXkw3_0BE%3Fsi%3DWjjgkI9_Sqz23UaA

21 Feb 2024- Alexei Navalny’s political activities were funded by the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) as part of an effort to repeat US-backed 2014 Ukraine regime change inside Russia itself; – The Western media had previously (and reluctantly) revealed Navalny as far-right, racist, and xenophobic despite efforts to pass him off as a progressive pro-democracy activist; – US government-funded polling agencies consistently found Alexei Navalny extremely unpopular in Russia with single digit approval ratings; – After an alleged 2020 “Novichok” poisoning, Navalny’s popularity “surged” to 20% as the Western media accused Moscow of being behind the incident;

– The US is now exploiting the death of Navalny to advance its anti-Russia policy while the Western media collective omits all relevant context regarding Navalny’s background and US funding;

References:

NYT – Navalny’s Death Raises Tensions Between U.S. and Russia (February 16, 2024): https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/wo…

CNN – Putin saw an existential threat in Navalny, the opposition leader whose name he dared not mention (February 16, 2024): https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/17/eu…

Al Jazeera – Alexey Navalny: An archenemy Putin wouldn’t name and Kremlin couldn’t scare (February 16, 2024): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2…

Reuters – Putin critic Navalny’s approval rating surges in wake of poisoning (October 2020): https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ru…

The New Atlas – CNN + Bellingcat’s Latest Russian Novichok Lies | 12/16/2020 Review (December 2020):

February 25, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Ralph Nader: What the Mass Media Needs to Cover Re: Israel/Gaza Conflict.

By Ralph Nader, February 23, 2024

Last October 27, I suggested subjects the mainstream media needed to cover relating to the saturation bombing of Gaza and its defenseless civilian families and infrastructure. Looking at these topics now, four months later, despite massive reporting, the attention to these subjects is still thin and more deserving of reporting than ever.1. How did Hamas, with tiny Gaza surrounded by a 17-year Israeli blockade, subjected to unparalleled electronic surveillance, with spies and informants, and augmented by an overwhelming air, sea and land military presence, manage to get the weapons and associated technology for their October 7th surprise raid? Readers still do not know how and from where these weapons entered Gaza year after year.
2. What is the connection between the stunning failure of the Israeli government to protect its people on the border and the policy of P.M. Netanyahu? Recall the New York Times (October 22, 2023) article by prominent journalist, Roger Cohen, to wit: “All means were good to undo the notion of Palestinian statehood. In 2019, Mr. Netanyahu told a meeting of his center-right Likud party: ‘Those who want to thwart the possibility of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy.’” (Note: Israel and the U.S. fostered the rise of Islamic Hamas in 1987 to counter the secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)). Readers still need more information about the context of Netanyahu’s declared support for Hamas over the years and his connection to the buildup of Hamas funding and weaponry.
3. Why is Congress preparing to appropriate over $14 billion to Israel in military and other aid without any public hearings and without any demonstrated fiscal need by Israel, a prosperous economic, technological and military superpower with a social safety net superior to that of the U.S.? USDA just reported over 44 million Americans struggled with hunger in 2022. This, in the midst of a childcare crisis. Should U.S. taxpayers be expected to pay for Netanyahu’s colossal intelligence/military collapse? As an elderly Holocaust survivor told the New York Times “It should never have happened” in the first place.
4. Why hasn’t the media reported on President Biden’s statement that the Gaza Health Ministry’s body count (now over 7000 fatalities) is exaggerated? Indications, however, are that it is a large undercount by Hamas to minimize its inability to protect its people. Israel has fired over 8,000 powerful precision munitions and bombs into Gaza so far. These have struck many thousands of inhabited buildings – homes, apartments buildings, over 120 health facilities, ambulances, crowded markets, fleeing refugees, schools, water and sewage systems, and electric networks – implementing Israeli military orders to cut off all food, water, fuel, medicine and electricity to this already impoverished densely packed area the size of Philadelphia. For those not directly slain, the deadly harm caused by no food, water, medicine, medical facilities and fuel will lead to even more deaths and serious injuries.
Note that over three-quarters of Gaza’s population consists of children and women. Soon there will be thousands of babies born to die in the rubble. Other Palestinians will perish from untreated diseases, injuries, dehydration, and from drinking contaminated water. With crumbled sanitation facilities, physicians are fearing a deadly cholera epidemic.

Israel bombed the Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border. Only a tiny trickle of trucks are now allowed there by Israel to carry food and water. Fuel for hospital generators still remains blocked.
The undercount of fatalities/injuries is far greater now. The official figure is about 30,000 lives lost, with hundreds dying every day under the rubble. There is too little media interest in more realistic estimates. Undercounting lessens the pressure on Washington officials’ co-belligerents in the White House to call for a permanent ceasefire.
5. Why can’t Biden even persuade Israel to let 600 desperate Americans out of the Gaza firestorm?

6. Why isn’t the mass media making a bigger issue out of Israel’s long-time practice of blocking journalists from entering Gaza, including European, American and Israeli journalists? The only television crews left are Gazan-residing Al Jazeera reporters. Israeli bombs have already killed 26 journalists in the Gaza Strip since October 7th. Is Israel targeting journalists’ families? The Gaza bureau chief of Al Jazeera, Wael Al-Dahdouh’s family was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday. Israeli commanders now have killed over 100 journalists in addition in some cases to their entire families and continue to block foreign journalists except for a few brief “guided tours” in Israeli armored vehicles. 
7. Why isn’t the mainstream U.S. media giving adequate space and voice to groups advocating a ceasefire and humanitarian aid? The message of Israeli peace groups’ peaceful solutions are drowned out by the media’s addiction to interviews with military tacticians. Much time and space are being given to hawks pushing for a war that could flash outside of Gaza big time. Shouldn’t groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace, the Arab-American Institute, Veterans for Peace and associations of clergy have their views and activities reported? Still being underreported are the activities all over the country of the Veterans for Peace and large labor unions demanding a permanent ceasefire and humanitarian aid. 
8. Why is the coverage of the war overlooking the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations Charter and the many provisions of international law that all the parties, including the U.S., have been violating? (See the October 24, 2023 letter to President Biden). Under international law, Biden has made the U.S. an active “co-belligerent,” of the Israeli government’s vocal demolition of the 2.3 million inhabitants in Gaza, who are mostly descendants of Palestinian refugees driven from their homes in 1948. (See, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide). Coverage has expanded to include the U.S. vetoes on the Security Council and to global reporting on the International Court of Justice proceedings on South Africa’s calling for the Court to address Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
9. What about revealing human-interest stories? For example: How do Israeli F-16 pilots feel about their daily bombing of the completely defenseless Gazan civilian population and its life-sustaining infrastructures? The reporting on the military orders given to Israeli soldiers in Gaza who are slaying indiscriminately thousands of innocents of all ages and snipers attacking people and children in hospitals is inadequate. Why are no Hamas fighters taken as prisoners of war? Is there an order of “take no prisoners” even after capture? What are the courageous Israeli human rights and refuseniks thinking and doing in a climate of serious repression of their views as a result of Netanyahu’s defense collapse on October 7th? The open letter to President Biden on December 13, 2023, by 16 Israeli human rights groups appeared as a paid notice in the New York Times but received very little notice to its clarion call to stop the catastrophe in Gaza. (See the letter here).
10. Where is the media attention on the statements from Israeli military commentators, who, for years have declared high-tech US-backed, nuclear-armed Israel to be more secure than at any time in its history? Israel is reasserting its overwhelming military domination of the Middle East region, fully backed by U.S. militarism. The Israeli government is putting ads in U.S. newspapers wildly exaggerating long-subdued Hamas as an “existential” threat. Without Netanyahu strangely failing to keep the border guarded on October 7, 2023, what followed would not have happened!
Historians remind us that in a grid-locked conflict over time, it is the most powerful party’s responsibility to lead the way to peace.
Establishing a two-state solution has been supported by many Palestinians. All the Arab nations, starting with the Arab League peace proposal in 2002, support this solution as well. It is up to Israel and the U.S., assuming annexation of what is left of Palestine is not Israel’s objective. (See, the March 29, 2002 New York Times article: Mideast Turmoil; Text of the Peace Proposals Backed by the Arab League).More media attention on this subject matter is much needed.
The Rebellious CEO by Ralph Nader was published on November 14th. For more information go to: rebellious.ceo

February 25, 2024 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

U.S. Militarizes Space While Accusing Russia of Doing So

Since the creation of the U.S. Space Force in 2019, Washington has seen the militarization of space as a true strategic priority. At the time, then-American President Donald Trump had made it clear that the country’s objective was to achieve “American dominance in space.” Since then, several activities to increase American military space capabilities have been undertaken – many of them in partnership with other NATO countries and international allies.

In 2022, NATO began drafting a “space doctrine” based on “interoperability”. The following year, the alliance published a document exposing its main interests in space and pursuing American guidelines for the militarization of the orbit.


Lucas Leiroz, Strategic Culture Foundation, Tue, 20 Feb 2024,  https://www.sott.net/article/489189-US-militarizes-space-while-accusing-Russia-of-doing-so

Recently, the U.S. began spreading rumors about alleged Russian space-based nuclear weapons. According to American intelligence, Moscow is developing a powerful anti-satellite weapon to be deployed in space, thus violating international norms that prohibit the militarization of Earth’s orbit.

In 2022, NATO began drafting a “space doctrine” based on “interoperability”. The following year, the alliance published a document exposing its main interests in space and pursuing American guidelines for the militarization of the orbit. According to analysts, the “interoperability” of NATO’s space activities simply means the creation of mechanisms for U.S. allies to help pay the high costs of military space development – while, on the other hand, only the Pentagon maintains real control of the activities and benefits from “space control”.

Mike Turner, head of the House Intelligence Committee, formally asked for the declassification of documents concerning the investigation on the “space-nukes”, stating that a deliberation on the case in the National Congress is necessary. According to Turner, American parliamentarians need to discuss this serious “threat” to U.S. national security, having therefore the requirement to fully release data obtained by intelligence on the subject.

Subsequently, the White House stated that there was no imminent threat to the country’s national security according to the information obtained so far. Spokespersons confirmed they are monitoring the possible existence of a Russian nuclear space program, but denied the existence of any evidence of a high-risk threat at the moment. As a result, once again American officials made contradictory statements, discrediting the image of U.S. authorities.

Moscow denied the accusations and stated that the rumors were intended to strengthen the anti-Russian establishment, pressuring parliamentarians to recognize the existence of a “threat” and thus approve the billion-dollar military aid package to Ukraine. Considering the domestic political stalemate in the U.S., with pro-war sectors failing to convince their opponents to continue aid to Kiev, it is very likely that the intention behind the spread of anti-Russian rumors is to actually increase fear among policymakers about a possible “danger”.

Obviously, as a major military power, the Russian Federation has its own anti-satellite systems and is able to employ them, if necessary, in a possible large-scale conflict scenario. However, the current tensions between Moscow and Washington, despite high, do not bring any need to use military force against American satellites, and there is therefore no “imminent threat” to the U.S. in the Russian arsenal.

In parallel, Moscow remains firmly committed to complying with international space law standards. The deployment of weapons of mass destruction in Earth’s orbit is banned by the treaties that regulate space activities. Therefore, even though it has weapons strong enough to inflict damage on enemy countries’ satellites, Russia is not willing to allocate nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction in outer space, as this would violate current regulations on the matter.

In fact, Russian actions regarding the outer space make it clear that Moscow intends to cooperate to prevent the militarization of Earth’s orbit. Russia, although it has the military capacity to do so, does not invest in “space-based” weapons, focusing its space activities on the peaceful and scientific sphere. This, however, is not the case with the U.S., which openly promotes the militarization of space, with constant efforts to turn Earth’s orbit into a true battlefield.

Since the creation of the U.S. Space Force in 2019, Washington has seen the militarization of space as a true strategic priority. At the time, then-American President Donald Trump had made it clear that the country’s objective was to achieve “American dominance in space.” Since then, several activities to increase American military space capabilities have been undertaken – many of them in partnership with other NATO countries and international allies.

“The U.S. Space Command planning document stated that the U.S. will ‘control and dominate space and deny other nations if necessary access to space (…) At the Space Command HQ in Colorado just above their doorway they have a sign that reads ‘Master of Space (…) Even with all its resources the U.S. can’t afford to pay for its ‘Master of Space’ plan by itself (…) [In order to maintain its dominance], the U.S. sets up a story line that it ‘must protect space’ from the dark forces in Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea (…) Interoperability’ ensures that all NATO members purchase new expensive space technologies mostly from U.S. aerospace corporations like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and others. In addition, ‘interoperability’ means that all space information, surveillance, and targeting is run through the U.S.-dominated system. In other words, NATO allies help pay for these costly space warfare systems but the Pentagon controls the ‘tip of the spear’,” Professor Bruce Gagnon, director of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, once said commenting on the topic.

All these factors lead us to believe that there really was an attempt on the part of the U.S. to create a smokescreen for its own space militarization activities. By pointing out the existence of a “Russian danger”, Washington legitimizes its own “reactive” policies, thus encouraging increased investment in space weapons in NATO. In the same sense, this smokescreen helps to pressure parliamentarians to revise their stance on supporting Ukraine. With the popularity of the anti-Russian war gradually decreasing, the creation of a non-existent threat could serve as a legitimizing factor for the conflict.

In addition to all this, it is curious how contradictory U.S. narratives about Russia fluctuate. Previously, the American media accused the Russians of fighting using shovels due to the lack of weapons. Now, on the other hand, they accuse Russia of deploying nuclear weapons from space. These lies only worsen the mainstream media’s own image among Western public opinion, leading to absolute discredit.

February 25, 2024 Posted by | space travel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Justice Department Announces Nuclear Materials Trafficking Charges Against Japanese Yakuza Leader

Takeshi Ebisawa, Leader within the Yakuza Transnational Organized Crime Syndicate, Allegedly Trafficked Nuclear Materials, Including Uranium and Weapons-Grade Plutonium

A superseding indictment was unsealed in Manhattan today charging a Japanese national with conspiring with a network of associates to traffic nuclear materials from Burma to other countries.

According to court documents, Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, and co-defendant Somphop Singhasiri, 61, were previously charged in April 2022 with international narcotics trafficking and firearms offenses, and both have been ordered detained.

“The defendant stands accused of conspiring to sell weapons grade nuclear material and lethal narcotics from Burma, and to purchase military weaponry on behalf of an armed insurgent group,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “It is chilling to imagine the consequences had these efforts succeeded and the Justice Department will hold accountable those who traffic in these materials and threaten U.S. national security and international stability.”

“As alleged, the defendant brazenly trafficked material containing uranium and weapons-grade plutonium from Burma to other countries,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York. “He did so while believing that the material was going to be used in the development of a nuclear weapons program, and while also negotiating for the purchase of deadly weapons. It is impossible to overstate the seriousness of this conduct. I want to thank the career prosecutors of my office and our law enforcement partners for ensuring that the defendant will now face justice in an American court.”  …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-nuclear-materials-trafficking-charges-against-japanese-yakuza    

February 25, 2024 Posted by | Japan, Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Desperation grows in Ukraine war, two years on

Australia for UNHCR Media Release

Australia for UNHCR is appealing for renewed support for Ukrainians as conditions worsen two years on from Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Since the war began on 24 February 2022, two million homes have been bombed, at least 70,000 people have been killed, and millions have been forced to flee.

“Fierce attacks continue, destroying homes, hospitals and energy infrastructure,” Australia for UNHCR CEO Trudi Mitchell said.

“Families are sheltering in crowded accommodation centres or badly damaged houses with no piped water, gas or electricity, while a bitter winter increases the need for life-saving aid.”

More than 14 million people need humanitarian assistance in Ukraine, a staggering 40 per cent of the population.

In frontline areas such as Donetsk and Kharkiv, constant bombardment means people are forced to spend their days in basements. Children cannot play outside, let alone attend school.

“The fighting has escalated and the humanitarian situation in the country is dramatic and urgent,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said during a recent visit to the country.

“Millions have been forced to flee the war and Russian attacks, and they are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.”

The United Nations Refugee Agency and its partners are providing cash assistance so people can buy food, fuel, medicine and warm clothing.

Teams are also providing repairs to homes, legal aid to help people obtain civil documents damaged or lost in the war, and counselling to help families deal with trauma.

“UNHCR’s dedicated teams have been on the ground since the beginning. We will stay and deliver for the people of Ukraine for as long as is needed – but we can’t do it alone,” Ms Mitchell said.

“When the war first broke out, Australia for UNHCR received record donations. I’m asking Australians once again to think of the people of Ukraine and to donate what they can.”

Donations welcome at Ukraine Crisis Appeal.

February 25, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Ukraine can’t maintain advanced US-supplied weapons – Pentagon

 https://www.rt.com/news/592888-pentagon-audit-weapons-ukraine/ 23 Feb 24

The US reportedly rushed vehicles to Kiev without factoring in necessary repairs

The US has no plan in place to maintain, service or repair tanks, armored vehicles and air defense systems Washington has given to the Ukrainian military, Pentagon Inspector-General Robert P. Storch has admitted. The failure to plan “puts at risk Ukraine’s ability to fight effectively using the US-provided equipment, as well as the DoD’s readiness to address other national security threats if needed,” he added.

Storch revealed in two redacted reports released to the public on Tuesday that the US has delivered 186 Bradley and 189 Stryker Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFV), 31 Abrams main battle tanks, and an unspecified number of Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine. 

Washington’s  Department of Defense “had not developed or implemented a plan” to maintain any of them, according to the inspectors cited in the reports, who warned that there is nothing to suggest the weaponry could be sustained past October 2024.

All of the weapons systems were taken from the US military’s own stocks “without limits,” under the Presidential Drawdown Authority, according to the reports. If this practice continued, it “may require the [Department of Defense] to choose between the readiness of [Ukrainian] units or the readiness of US Army units,” one official told the inspectors.

The US military-industrial complex has struggled to replace the weapons systems sent to Ukraine, due to shortage of parts and the lack of production lines or trained personnel. Maintenance was described in the reports as an “afterthought” for the Pentagon, whose main focus was to arm Ukraine “as quickly as possible.” 

An official with the US European Command told the inspectors that “the current model would not be sustainable or effective over the longer term.” 

“The DoD provided Ukraine with armored vehicles and air defense systems without a plan to ensure their long-term usefulness,” Storch said in a statement. “While the DoD is currently working on developing such a plan, the lack of foresight in this matter is concerning.”

The US military sent “limited spare parts, ammunition, and maintenance support” and “did not coordinate or tailor those efforts into a comprehensive sustainment plan,” according to Storch’s reports.

What was sent included “some” consumables and spare parts for field maintenance, as well as “additional items informed by US experience operating the weapon systems in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria,” Storch noted. 

While the sustainment is not required under the current congressional authority for sending weapons to Ukraine, “the weapon systems are not likely to remain mission capable” without it, the report said.

At least one US Patriot system has been destroyed by hypersonic missiles, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. Last year’s Ukrainian offensive saw multiple Bradley and Stryker vehicles destroyed in attempts to advance against Russian defenses. There have been no public reports of Abrams tanks being used in active combat operations so far.

February 25, 2024 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Shielding US Public From Israeli Reports of Friendly Fire on October 7

FAIR, BRYCE GREENE, 23 Feb 24

Since October, the Israeli press has uncovered damning evidence showing that an untold number of the Israeli victims during the October 7 Hamas attack were in fact killed by the IDF response.

While it is indisputable that the Hamas-led attackers were responsible for many Israeli civilian deaths that day, reports from Israel indicate that the IDF in multiple cases fired on and killed Israeli civilians. It’s an important issue that demands greater transparency—both in terms of the questions it raises about IDF policy, and in terms of the black-and-white narrative Israel has advanced about what happened on October 7, used to justify its ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip.

Indeed, IDF responsibility for Israeli deaths has been a repeated topic of discussion in the Israeli press, accompanied by demands for investigations. But the most US readers have gotten from their own press about the issue is a dismissive piece from the Washington Post about October 7 “truthers.”

Implementing the Hannibal Directive?

In the wake of October 7, after Israel began its genocidal campaign against Gaza, reports began to emerge from the Israeli press of incidents in which Israeli troops made decisions to fire on Hamas targets regardless of whether Israeli civilians were present.

That the IDF’s initial reaction was chaotic at best is well-documented. Much of the early military response came from the air, with little information for pilots and drone operators to distinguish targets but orders to shoot anyway (Grayzone, 10/27/23). Citing a police source, Haaretz (11/18/23) reported that at the Supernova music festival site, “an IDF combat helicopter that arrived to the scene and fired at terrorists there apparently also hit some festival participants.” But there are also mainstream Israeli media reports that credibly suggest the IDF may have implemented a policy to sacrifice Israeli hostages.

Supernova music festival attendee Yasmin Porat had escaped the festival on foot to the nearby village of Be’eri, only to be held hostage in a home with 13 others. One of the captors surrendered and released Porat to IDF troops outside. She described how, after a prolonged standoff, Israeli tank fire demolished that home and killed all but one of the remaining Israeli hostages. Her account was verified by the other surviving hostage (Electronic Intifada, 10/16/23; Haaretz, 12/13/23). One of the Israeli victims was a child who had been held up as an example of Hamas’s brutality (Grayzone, 11/25/23).

Yedioth Ahronoth (1/12/24; translated into English by Electronic Intifada, 1/20/24)—one of Israel’s most widely read newspapers—published a bombshell piece that put these revelations in context. The paper reported that the IDF instructed its members.

to stop “at any cost” any attempt by Hamas terrorists to return to Gaza, using language very similar to that of the original Hannibal Directive, despite repeated promises by the defense apparatus that the directive had been canceled.

The Hannibal Directive—named for the Carthaginian general who allegedly ingested poison rather than be captured by his enemies—is the once-secret doctrine meant to prevent at all costs the taking of IDF soldiers as hostages, even at the risk of harming the soldier (Haaretz, 11/1/11). It was supposedly revoked in 2016, and was ostensibly never meant to be applied to civilians (Haaretz, 1/17/24).

Yedioth Ahronoth reported:

It is not clear at this stage how many of the captives were killed due to the operation of this order on October 7. During the week after Black Sabbath [i.e., October 7] and at the initiative of Southern Command, soldiers from elite units examined some 70 vehicles that had remained in the area between the Gaza Envelope settlements and the Gaza Strip. These were vehicles that did not reach Gaza because on their way they had been hit by fire from a helicopter gunship, a UAV or a tank, and at least in some of the cases, everyone in the vehicle was killed.

Reports that the IDF gave orders to disregard the lives of Israeli captives have caused great consternation in Israel (Haaretz, 12/13/23). An author of the IDF ethics code called it “unlawful, unethical, horrifying” (Haaretz, 1/17/23). Yet any mention of the reports, or the debates they have inspired in Israel, seems to be virtually taboo in the mainstream US media.

The only mention of “Hannibal directive” FAIR could find in a major US newspaper the since October 7 came in a New York Post article (12/18/23) paraphrasing a released hostage who

claimed that Hamas told them the Israel Defense Forces would employ the infamous “Hannibal Directive” on civilians, a revoked protocol that once allegedly called on troops to prioritize taking out terrorists even if it meant killing a kidnapped soldier……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

How many Israeli civilians were actually killed by Hamas, and how many by Israel? Was the Al Aqsa Flood a terrorist attack designed to kill as many civilians as possible? These are important questions that have yet to be conclusively and independently answered, but the Washington Post seems to want to dissuade people from even asking them. In evoking the specter of Holocaust denial, Dwoskin and the Post are not defending the truth, but attempting to protect readers from it.  https://fair.org/home/shielding-us-public-from-israeli-reports-of-friendly-fire-on-october-7/—

February 25, 2024 Posted by | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | 1 Comment

Arms maker BAE Systems makes record profit amid Ukraine and Israel-Gaza wars

the company was “very happy with our London listing”

Jasper Jolly and agencies 22 Feb 24

FTSE 100 company says global instability is making government focus on defence spending.

Increased military spending prompted by Russia’s war on Ukraine and the Israel-Gaza conflict helped the British weapons manufacturer BAE Systems to record profits last year, with further growth expected in the year ahead.

The FTSE 100 company made underlying profits before interest and tax of £2.7bn on record sales of £25.3bn in 2023.

Shares in weapons manufacturers have surged in the past two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 made governments reassess their plans for military spending.

There have also been increased tensions across the Middle East since 7 October, when Hamas, which runs Gaza, killed 1,139 people in an assault on Israel. Israel has responded with months of bombardment of Gaza, killing nearly 30,000 Palestinians.

BAE Systems’ sprawling interests include building nuclear submarines and fighter jets, tanks and ships, as well as guns and ammunition.

Charles Woodburn, the BAE chief executive, said the weapons manufacturer was expecting “sustained growth in the coming years”.

………………………………….. BAE said it expected sales to rise by between 10% and 12% during 2024. Its long-term order book was also boosted last year by the Aukus pact between Australia, the UK and the US to build the next generation of nuclear-powered attack submarines, and the global combat air programme between Italy, Japan and the UK to develop a new fighter jet.

BAE said that the war in Ukraine in particular had highlighted the importance of autonomous technology, while “reinforcing the critical need for munitions and maintaining legacy capabilities”.

Woodburn also said the company was “very happy with our London listing”. Several of the biggest companies listed on London’s stock market have moved to the US because of concerns that UK companies are relatively undervalued. BAE Systems is unlikely to follow their lead because of the deep influence – including a “golden share” – that the UK government holds to prevent it falling into foreign ownership.

Woodburn said: “If you go back a few years, I think we were trading at a discount to some of our US peers, but I think through the strong performance of the business over recent years, I think we’ve, in many ways, closed much of that gap.”

February 25, 2024 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Rolls-Royce will build first mini-nuclear reactor in Europe instead of UK, boss warns

Engineering giant’s boss warns of consequences to Britain’s slow decision making

Matt Oliver, INDUSTRY EDITOR22 February 2024

Rolls-Royce will build first mini-nuclear reactor in Europe instead of UK,
boss warns. Engineering giant’s boss warns of consequences to Britain’s
slow decision making. The first Rolls-Royce mini nuclear reactor will be
built in Europe instead of Britain if ministers fail to accelerate
decision-making, the engineering giant’s boss has warned.

Tufan Erginbilgic said he was confident the Derby-based company’s small modular
reactor (SMR) technology was still far ahead of competitors. But he said
time was running out for the UK to benefit from its “first mover”
advantage, as Rolls has also held talks about deploying SMRs in eastern
Europe.

It comes as Great British Nuclear (GBN), the public body set up to
lead the UK’s nuclear power revival, is preparing to choose which SMR
prototypes to support from a shortlist of six companies, including Rolls.
After delays to the process, GBN has promised to unveil winners this
spring. But Mr Erginbilgic warned the selection would “not mean
anything” unless detailed decisions are taken within months on where the
reactors will be built.

 Telegraph 22nd Feb 2024

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/02/22/rolls-royce-boosted-post-pandemic-jump-demand-jet-engines

February 25, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Racist or revolutionary: The complex legacy of Alexei Navalny

Euro News 16 Feb 2024

……………….’Not a Western liberal democrat’

there is a darker side to him, some say. 

Navalny’s ‘ideal’ image conflicts with his past remarks, McGlynn tells Euronews, pointing to his controversial views on Muslims in the Caucasus, Georgians and Central Asian migrants in Russia.  

“Immigrants from Central Asia bring in drugs [to Russia],” Navalny said in an interview in 2012, defending what he described as a “realist” visa requirement for “wonderful people from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.”

While he has reflected on some of these past remarks, they frequently re-surface, causing some to question if Navalny is what many in the Western world think he is.  

Navalny’s controversial statements stem from his political origins in the nationalist movement, according to McGlynn. 

“He used to attend the Russian march, a very far-right nationalist group generally behind the slogan of ‘Russia for ethnic Russians’. Anybody who expects Navalny to be an ideal Western liberal Democrat has been mistaken,” she tells Euronews. 

His ultra-nationalist sentiment was prominent in a video dating back some 17 years filled with xenophobic comments. 

His ultra-nationalist sentiment was prominent in a video dating back some 17 years filled with xenophobic comments. 

“Everything in our way should be carefully but decisively removed through deportation,” Navalny said in the video dressed as a dentist, comparing immigrants to dental cavities. 

Amnesty International stripped the opposition leader of the “prisoner of conscience” status based on this clip. It reversed this decision in 2021, recognising an “individual’s opinions and behaviour may evolve over time” in a statement.   ………………………………………………………….

His incendiary comments on immigrants and Georgians re-surfaced when Navalny’s daughter, Dasha Navalnaya, was invited to speak at Georgetown University in May 2023. 

Students filed a petition against the speaker selection, calling for a meritocratic appointment and that “being anti-Putin doesn’t imply being a pro-democratic, anti-war, and liberal leader.” 

Following the backlash, two new speakers were added by the university to diversify perspectives, refusing to “disinvite” Navalnaya. ……………………………………..

February 25, 2024 Posted by | politics, Russia | Leave a comment