Israel Lies About Being A Victim So That It Can Victimize
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, MAR 30, 2024, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-lies-about-being-a-victim?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=143090068&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The Washington Post reports that in recent days the Biden administration has quietly signed off on sending Israel billions of dollars worth of fighter jets and the 2,000-pound bombs that have been causing so much death and destruction in Gaza, even as Israel prepares to launch a bloody assault on the strip’s densely-populated southernmost point.
Literally just completely ignore every single thing US officials say about the need to protect civilians and how Biden’s feelings are privately “frustrated” with Netanyahu. Just ignore their entire narrative about what their goals are in Gaza. Their actions make it clear.
Protesters from Palestine Action have forced Israel-based arms dealer Elbit Systems to permanently close one of its factories in the UK as demonstrators have made it too difficult for the factory to operate. We’ll never vote the empire away, but we might someday be able to direct action it away.
Video footage has surfaced of IDF troops murdering two unarmed Palestinians in cold blood and then burying their bodies with bulldozers to conceal their crime. This is surely not anywhere close to the first time such a thing has happened in Gaza, and is yet another sign that the death toll from this onslaught is probably a massive undercount.
Israel’s assault on Gaza features heavy earth-moving equipment more extensively than any other military operation anyone’s ever seen. One reason is because it’s a great way to destroy Palestinian homes. Another reason is because it’s a great way to hide dead Palestinian bodies.
An IDF commander has told Israeli media that on October 7 he made the decision to fire on vehicles he knew could have Israelis in them because “it’s better to stop the abduction and that they not be taken,” adding more weight to the mountain of evidence that Israeli troops fired on Israelis on October 7 to prevent them from being taken hostage. Israeli bombs and blockades have been picking off the remaining hostages ever since, with Israel now estimating that only 60 to 70 of the 134 hostages are still alive.
Whenever you run into an Israel apologist who is defending against criticisms of Israel’s actions in Gaza by saying “Hamas just needs to release the hostages and this all ends,” maybe go ahead and remind them of this.
ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt just went on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and compared wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh to wearing a Nazi armband. The mass media keep having this lunatic on as an expert analyst and he keeps saying the most bat shit insane things imaginable. Any screaming schizophrenic off the street would be just as qualified as Greenblatt.
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A former ranking IDF officer has told Haaretz that Israel is conducting “a war of cruel rich people” which is causing many times more destruction than necessary to accomplish its stated objectives against Hamas.
“In principle, it would be possible to arrive at similar achievements with 10 percent of the destruction we have caused,” the unnamed source told Haaretz.
Ten percent. Israel is causing ten times more damage than it needs to to achieve its stated objectives because its stated objectives are false — Israel’s real goal is not to defeat Hamas, it’s to grab a bunch of land from a Palestinian territory.
Of all the pants-on-head idiotic things Israel and its apologists ask us to believe, “The UN just hates Israel for no good reason so all its claims should be dismissed” is definitely among the dumbest.
Israel apologists constantly claiming the UN is antisemitic and treats Israel unfairly remind you of a boy who never does any homework and keeps saying his bad grades are because his teacher hates him. The UN talks about Israel a lot because Israel is a murderous criminal regime.
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If you still have any doubt that we live in a profoundly sick dystopia as deranged as anything that’s ever been imagined in fiction, take note of the fact that the most powerful empire in history is currently trying to propagandize you into thinking an obvious genocide is fine.
They lied about decapitated babies so that they could kill babies.
They lied about rape so that they could rape.
They lied about Hamas using civilians as human shields so that they could use civilians as human targets.
They lie about being victims so that they can victimize.
Special nuclear flights between the US and UK: the dangers involved
CND, March 24
Despite claiming to have an independent nuclear weapons system, for more than sixty years Britain and the United States have been transferring and sharing technical
information, nuclear materials, and warhead components for use in each other’s nuclear weapons programmes.
One important way in which transfers of nuclear materials and technology are carried out between Britain and the US is through special flights into and out of Royal Air Force (RAF) Brize Norton, near Carterton in Oxfordshire. Read more about these special nuclear flights in this briefing, written in association with Nukewatch. https://cnduk.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Special-nuclear-flights-between-the-US-and-UK-1.pdf
UN expert says she faces threats after Israel-Gaza genocide report
Francesca Albanese had stated there were clear indications Israel has violated three acts in the UN Genocide Convention.
A United Nations expert who published a report saying there were reasonable grounds to believe Israel has committed genocide in its war on Gaza says she has received threats throughout her mandate.
Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, presented a report entitled “Anatomy of a Genocide” to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday, which Israel said it “utterly rejects
In the report, Albanese said there are clear indications that Israel has violated three of the five acts listed under the UN Genocide Convention in its war on Gaza.
Asked whether her work on the report had caused her to receive threats, Albanese said: “Yes, I do receive threats. Nothing that so far I considered needing extra precautions. Pressure? Yes, and it doesn’t change either my commitment or the results of my work.”
Albanese, who has held the position since 2022, did not elaborate on the nature of the threats, nor did she say who had issued them.
“It’s been a difficult time,” she said. “I’ve always been attacked since the very beginning of my mandate.”
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Israel has criticised Albanese, saying she was “delegitimising the very creation and existence of the State of Israel”. Albanese denied the accusation.
Albanese said one of her key findings was that Israel’s executive and military leadership and soldiers have intentionally “subverted their protection functions in an attempt to legitimise genocidal violence against the Palestinian people”.
“The only reasonable inference that can be drawn from the unveiling of this policy is an Israeli state policy of genocidal violence toward the Palestinian people in Gaza,” she said, adding that it was a “long-standing settler colonial process of erasure”.
She called for the “ongoing Nakba” to stop, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948.
Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva said the use of the word genocide was “outrageous” and said the war was against Hamas and not Palestinian civilians.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, is one of dozens of independent human rights experts mandated by the United Nations to report on specific themes and crises.
The views expressed by special rapporteurs do not reflect those of the global body as a whole.
‘Nuclear Dinosaurs’ Roam New Brunswick, Ontario as ‘Jurassic’ Partnership Looms
how would this serve the interests of Ontario ratepayers and taxpayers? OPG’s nuclear liabilities are ultimately underwritten by Ontario taxpayers. Could Ontario end up on the hook for NB Power’s nuclear debts and liabilities as a result of OPG’s extra-provincial activities?
March 29, 2024, Susan O’Donnell and Mark Winfield , ore https://www.theenergymix.com/nuclear-dinosaurs-roam-new-brunswick-ontario-as-jurassic-partnership-looms/
Two lonely nuclear dinosaurs finding each other in the Jurassic forest: perhaps an appropriate image for a planned partnership between NB Power and Ontario Power Generation (OPG).
Each is stuck in the past, the only two utilities left in Canada operating nuclear power reactors. Both have rejected modern, efficient, decentralized, nimble, distributed energy systems powered by low-cost renewable energy in favour of keeping their aging CANDU reactors alive. Together, the two lumbering public utilities plan to bring forth a revitalized New Brunswick Point Lepreau reactor, hoping their new progeny will reverse its previous ailing fortunes.
From NB Power’s perspective, it’s a pairing made in uranium heaven. The utility is carrying a C$3.6 billion nuclear debt from the original 1975-1983 Lepreau reactor build that cost triple the original estimate, then the 2008-2012 refurbishment that was a billion dollars over budget. Both projects ran years behind schedule.
Since the refurbishment, the poor performance of the Lepreau reactor has been the primary reason NB Power loses money almost every year. By shedding the reactor off to a new entity co-owned with OPG, NB Power can move its debts and potential future losses off its books, and onto those of OPG and NB Power’s new creation.
OPG has already established a three-year, $2 million-per-year contract to supply staff to manage the Lepreau facility. This is an expensive arrangement for NB Power, at double the cost of the American manager OPG has replaced. Presumably this is a loss leader for NB Power to help cement its budding relationship with OPG.
What would then happen with the Lepreau reactor’s debt, representing about three-quarters of NB Power’s liabilities? Maybe the new partnership would use Ontario’s approach to making the nuclear debt disappear. More than 25 years ago, the effectively bankrupt provincial utility Ontario Hydro was split up (ch. 5 and 6). A new Crown corporation, OPG, inherited Ontario Hydro’s hydropower, coal, and nuclear plants. With them would have come $20 billion in stranded debt, largely left over from the nuclear construction program that was instrumental to Ontario Hydro’s demise. But servicing that debt would have left OPG economically unviable, so the $20 billion was hived off to Ontario taxpayers and then electricity ratepayers via a “debt retirement charge” on their bills.
Between 2002 and 2016, OPG’s rates rose by 60%, largely to pay for the refurbishment of two reactors at the Pickering A plant (two other attempted refurbishments at the plant were write-offs), contributing to a political crisis over electricity rates that ultimately led to the defeat of Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government in 2018. New Brunswick’s much smaller population with a lower average household income is likely to be even less accepting of increased rates to service OPG’s nuclear ambitions.
Why would OPG, whose mandate to undertake out-of-province business activities is at best unclear, and which is deeply engaged in its own reactor refurbishment megaprojects at the Darlington and Pickering B nuclear plants, want to take on a money loser like the Lepreau reactor in the long term?
The refurbishments of the eight reactors at Darlington and Pickering B, both on the Lake Ontario shoreline just east of Toronto, will cost more than $25 billion. Along with the $25-billion refurbishment of six reactors at the Bruce facility on Lake Huron, these projects will stretch the industry’s capacity to the limit. Why take on another reactor needing an expensive rebuild on the Bay of Fundy?
Perhaps the partnership with NB Power simply offers the Ontario utility the promise of new horizons, expanding from its dominant position in Ontario to another province. But how would this serve the interests of Ontario ratepayers and taxpayers? OPG’s nuclear liabilities are ultimately underwritten by Ontario taxpayers. Could Ontario end up on the hook for NB Power’s nuclear debts and liabilities as a result of OPG’s extra-provincial activities?
OPG may have its eyes on another prize—an opportunity to expand its ambition to develop small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). OPG has plans for four such reactors at Darlington. So far, the Canada Infrastructure Bank is the only investor in the project, which has yet to receive any regulatory approvals and whose technical and economic viability has been the subject of many serious questions. Undeterred, OPG is heavily promoting the concept to potential customers across Canada and in Europe. NB Power has backed two different small reactor designs, but both have failed to secure adequate financing for development after six years of trying. OPG may see New Brunswick as a potential demonstrator host for its small reactor ambitions.
In both provinces, the lumbering provincial utilities have ignored developments aggressively pursued by other jurisdictions in North America and around the world: converging and mutually reinforcing technological revolutions in energy efficiency and productivity, demand management and response; renewable energy and energy storage; distributed energy resources; and electricity grid management and integration (smart grids). These innovations offer the potential for lower-cost, lower-risk, faster, and more flexible pathways for providing decarbonized electricity than large, centralized nuclear systems.
Instead of pursuing these options, the new NB Power and OPG partnership would be doubling down on approaches to energy supply and planning stuck decades into the past. Ratepayers and taxpayers in both provinces would do well to ask hard questions about their looming Jurassic-scale coupling, and its implications for their futures.
Susan O’Donnell is Adjunct Research Professor in the Environment and Society Program and lead researcher of the CEDAR project at St. Thomas University in Fredericton. Mark Winfield is Professor in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change and co-chair of the Faculty’s Sustainable Energy Initiative at York University in Toronto.
Assange Extradition Delayed Unless US Provides ‘Assurances’ He Won’t Be Executed for Revealing the Truth
By Diego Ramos ScheerPost, March 26, 2024, https://scheerpost.com/2024/03/26/assange-extradition-delayed-unless-us-provides-assurances/
If the U.S. fails to file assurances in three weeks, Assange will be granted permission to appeal.
The British High Court has accepted three elements of Julian Assange’s appeal against his extradition to the U.S., delaying the process for some time. Unless the U.S. provides “assurances” for Assange’s appeals, including protection against the death penalty, the WikiLeaks founder will be granted a new appeal.
Despite U.S. officials promising Assange would not be subject to capital punishment, the court ruled “nothing in the existing assurance explicitly prevents the imposition of the death penalty.”
The U.S. government has until April 16 to file these assurances and if done so, Assange will have until April 30 to respond and the U.S. is to answer back by May 14, with a hearing considering the leave to appeal on May 20. If the U.S. fails to file assurances in three weeks, Assange will be granted permission to appeal.
Judges Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson of the British High Court agreed with the following points in Assange’s appeal:
- a) if extradited, the applicant might be prejudiced at his trial by reason of his nationality (contrary to section 81(b) of the 2003 Act), and
- b) as a consequence of a), but only as a consequence of a), extradition is incompatible with article 10 of the Convention. [In the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), article 10 protects the right to freedom of expression.]
- The applicant has established an arguable case that the Secretary of State’s decision was wrong because extradition is barred by inadequate specialty/death penalty protection.
The judges dismissed appeal of Assange’s other points including:
- The UK-US Extradition treaty (the Treaty) prohibits extradition for a political [offense] (and the [offenses] with which the applicant is charged fall within that category).
- The extradition request was made for the purpose of prosecuting the applicant on account of his political opinions (contrary to section 81(a) of the 2003 Act).
- Extradition is incompatible with article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the Convention) (which provides there should be no punishment without law).
- Extradition is incompatible with article 6 of the Convention (right to a fair trial).
- Extradition is incompatible with articles 2 and 3 of the Convention (right to life, and prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment).
The judges acknowledged that extradition for “political opinions” has been barred in English law, citing the Extradition Act 1870 and 1989. However, in examining the Extradition Act 2003, the judges separate “political [offense]” from “political opinions,” stating “[The Extradition Act 2003] says nothing, however, about preventing extradition for a political [offense]. Although there may be a degree of overlap, the two are separate concepts.”
Stella Assange, Julian Assange’s wife, spoke outside the court stating, “The Biden administration should not issue assurances. They should drop this shameful case, which should never have been brought.”
Significantly, the court also rejected “fresh evidence” from the Assange team with regards to the Yahoo News article written by Zach Dorfman, Sean D Naylor and Michael Isikoff that exposed a plot by former CIA Director Mike Pompeo and others to kidnap or assassinate Assange during his time at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
Despite the evidence exposed by the article, the judges ruled, “Extradition would result in him being lawfully in the custody of the United States authorities, and the reasons (if they can be called that) for rendition or kidnap or assassination then fall away.”
Assange enters his fifth year of imprisonment inside Belmarsh Prison, where his physical and mental health has significantly deteriorated.
ChatGPT’s boss claims nuclear fusion is the answer to AI’s soaring energy needs. Not so fast, experts say
CNN, 26 Mar 24,
Artificial intelligence is energy-hungry and as companies race to make it bigger, smarter and more complex, its thirst for electricity will increase even further. This sets up a thorny problem for an industry pitching itself as a powerful tool to save the planet: a huge carbon footprint.
Yet according to Sam Altman, head of ChatGPT creator OpenAI, there is a clear solution to this tricky dilemma: nuclear fusion.
Altman himself has invested hundreds of millions in fusion and in recent interviews has suggested the futuristic technology, widely seen as the holy grail of clean energy, will eventually provide the enormous amounts of power demanded by next-gen AI.
“There’s no way to get there without a breakthrough, we need fusion,” alongside scaling up other renewable energy sources, Altman said in a January interview. Then in March, when podcaster and computer scientist Lex Fridman asked how to solve AI’s “energy puzzle,” Altman again pointed to fusion.
Nuclear fusion — the process that powers the sun and other stars — is likely still decades away from being mastered and commercialized on Earth. For some experts, Altman’s emphasis on a future energy breakthrough is illustrative of a wider failure of the AI industry to answer the question of how they are going to satiate AI’s soaring energy needs in the near-term.
It chimes with a general tendency toward “wishful thinking” when it comes to climate action, said Alex de Vries, a data scientist and researcher at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. “It would be a lot more sensible to focus on what we have at the moment, and what we can do at the moment, rather than hoping for something that might happen,” he told CNN.
A spokesperson for OpenAI did not respond to specific questions sent by CNN, only referring to Altman’s comments in January and on Fridman’s podcast.
The appeal of nuclear fusion for the AI industry is clear. Fusion involves smashing two or more atoms together to form a denser one, in a process that releases huge amounts of energy.
It doesn’t pump carbon pollution into the atmosphere and leaves no legacy of long-lived nuclear waste, offering a tantalizing vision of a clean, safe, abundant energy source.
But “recreating the conditions in the center of the sun on Earth is a huge challenge” and the technology is not likely to be ready until the latter half of the century, said Aneeqa Khan, a research fellow in nuclear fusion at the University of Manchester in the UK.
“Fusion is already too late to deal with the climate crisis,” Khan told CNN…………………………………
As well as the energy required to make chips and other hardware, AI requires large amounts of computing power to “train” models — feeding them enormous datasets —and then again to use its training to generate a response to a user query.
As the technology develops, companies are rushing to integrate it into apps and online searches, ramping up computing power requirements. An online search using AI could require at least 10 times more energy than a standard search, de Vries calculated in a recent report on AI’s energy footprint.
The dynamic is one of “bigger is better when it comes to AI,” de Vries said, pushing companies toward huge, energy-hungry models. “That is the key problem with AI, because bigger is better is just fundamentally incompatible with sustainability,” he added.
The situation is particularly stark in the US, where energy demand is shooting upward for the first time in around 15 years, said Michael Khoo, climate disinformation program director at Friends of the Earth and co-author of a report on AI and climate. “We as a country are running out of energy,” he told CNN.
In part, demand is being driven by a surge in data centers. Data center electricity consumption is expected to triple by 2030, equivalent to the amount needed to power around 40 million US homes, according to a Boston Consulting Group analysis.
“We’re going to have to make hard decisions” about who gets the energy, said Khoo, whether that’s thousands of homes, or a data center powering next-gen AI. “It can’t simply be the richest people who get the energy first,” he added…………………………………………………………………..
There has been a “tremendous” increase in AI’s efficiency, de Vries said. But, he cautioned, this doesn’t necessarily mean AI’s electricity demand will fall.
In fact, the history of technology and automation suggests it could well be the opposite, de Vries added. He pointed to cryptocurrency. “Efficiency gains have never reduced the energy consumption of cryptocurrency mining,” he said. “When we make certain goods and services more efficient, we see increases in demand.”
In the US, there is some political push to scrutinize the climate consequences of AI more closely. In February, Sen. Ed Markey introduced legislation aimed at requiring AI companies to be more transparent about their environmental impacts, including soaring data center electricity demand.
“The development of the next generation of AI tools cannot come at the expense of the health of our planet,” Markey said in a statement at the time. But few expect the bill would get the bipartisan support needed to become law…………https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/climate/ai-energy-nuclear-fusion-climate-intl/index.html
Israel Remains Intent on Genocide Despite World Court Orders
After the ICJ told Israel not to commit genocide, it killed, wounded and denied aid to tens of thousands of Gazans.
By Marjorie Cohn , TRUTHOUT, 27 Mar 24
srael is continuing its genocidal campaign against the Palestinians in Gaza and hindering humanitarian relief efforts despite specific orders from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), or the World Court, to refrain from these very actions.
On January 26, in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, the ICJ ordered the following provisional measures be taken:
- Israel shall prevent the commission of all genocidal acts, especially (a) killing Palestinians in Gaza; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to Palestinians in Gaza; (c) deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part; and (d) imposing measures intended to prevent Palestinian births in Gaza;
- Israel shall immediately ensure that its military does not commit any of the acts listed above;
- Israel shall punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
- Israel shall immediately enable urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza;
- Israel shall prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence; and
- Israel shall submit a report to the ICJ on all measures taken to carry out this order within one month.
Since the ICJ issued the order, Israel has consistently flouted its mandate.
Israel Continues to Kill, Wound and Deny Humanitarian Aid
Gaza’s Health Ministry reported that between January 26 and February 23, more than 3,400 Palestinians in Gaza had been killed. Israeli forces repeatedly killed and wounded civilians fleeing or taking shelter in areas the Israeli military had declared “safe zones.” As of this writing, more than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 75,000 have been wounded in Gaza.
One month after the ICJ’s ruling, Human Rights Watch reported that, “Israel continues to obstruct the provision of basic services and the entry and distribution within Gaza of fuel and lifesaving aid, acts of collective punishment that amount to war crimes and include the use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war. Fewer trucks have entered Gaza and fewer aid missions have been permitted to reach northern Gaza in the several weeks since the ruling than in the weeks preceding it,” citing a study by the United Nations Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
“The Israeli government is starving Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians, putting them in even more peril than before the World Court’s binding order,” said Omar Shakir, who is Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. “The Israeli government has simply ignored the court’s ruling, and in some ways even intensified its repression, including further blocking lifesaving aid.”
On March 18, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the world’s leading tracker of humanitarian crises, reported that a state of famine is “imminent” in Gaza unless there is an immediate ceasefire and full access granted to protect civilians; provide food, water and medicine; and restore health, water, energy and sanitation services.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor found that “The ongoing Israeli massacre in Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Medical Complex and surrounding areas has left at least 100 Palestinians dead, many of whom were victims of extrajudicial executions after their arrest. The international community must intervene immediately to put an end to this atrocity.”
South Africa Asks the ICJ to Order Additional Measures……………………………………………
The Empire Slowly Suffocates Assange Like It Slowly Suffocates All Its Enemies
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, MAR 27, 2024, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-empire-slowly-suffocates-assange?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=142993532&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The British High Court has ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may potentially get a final appeal against extradition to the United States, but only within a very limited scope and only if specific conditions are met.
The court ruled that Assange may appeal only on the grounds that his freedom of speech might be restricted in the US, and that there is a possibility he could receive the death penalty. If the US provides “assurances” that neither of these things will happen, then the trial moves to another phase where Assange’s legal team may debate the merits of those assurances. If the US does not provide those assurances, then the limited appeal will move forward.
Absurdly, the court determined that Assange’s lawyers may not argue against extradition on matters as self-evidently critical as the fact that the CIA plotted to assassinate him, or on the basis that he is being politically persecuted for the crime of inconvenient journalism.
The mass media are calling this a “reprieve”, even “wonderful news”, but as Jonathan Cook explains in his latest article “Assange’s ‘reprieve’ is another lie, hiding the real goal of keeping him endlessly locked up,” that’s all a bunch of crap.
“The word ‘reprieve’ is there — just as the judges’ headline ruling that some of the grounds of his appeal have been ‘granted’ — to conceal the fact that he is prisoner to an endless legal charade every bit as much as he is a prisoner in a Belmarsh cell,” writes Cook. “In fact, today’s ruling is yet further evidence that Assange is being denied due process and his most basic legal rights — as he has been for a decade or more.”
Cook writes the following:
“The case has always been about buying time. To disappear Assange from public view. To vilify him. To smash the revolutionary publishing platform he founded to help whistleblowers expose state crimes. To send a message to other journalists that the US can reach them wherever they live should they try to hold Washington to account for its criminality.
“And worst of all, to provide a final solution for the nuisance Assange had become for the global superpower by trapping him in an endless process of incarceration and trial that, if it is allowed to drag on long enough, will most likely kill him.”
This kind of slow motion strangulation is how the empire operates all the time these days, across all spheres. Helping Israel starve Gaza while slowly pretending to work toward solutions. Drawing out a proxy war in Ukraine for as long as possible to bleed Russia. Slowly killing Assange in prison without trial under the pretense of judicial proceedings.
The US-centralized empire hunts not like a tiger, killing its prey with one fatal bite to the jugular, but more like a python: slowly suffocating the life out of its prey until it perishes. It favors the long, drawn-out, confusing strangulation of inconvenient populations and individuals, carried out under the cover of bureaucracy and propaganda spin. In today’s world it prefers sanctions, blockades and long proxy conflicts over the big Hulk-smash ground invasions we saw it carry out in places like Iraq and Vietnam.
These slow suffocations can take more time, but what they lack in efficiency they make up for in the quality of perception management. It’s bad PR to just openly invade countries and murder people, which is why the leaders of the western empire have been able to wag their fingers at Putin despite their being quantifiably far more murderous than Russia. People start snapping out of the propaganda matrix you spent so much time building for them and begin organizing against the political status quo your power is premised on.
So they opt for slow strangulation strategies where they can confuse the public about what’s happening and who’s responsible, outsourcing the blame to other parties while posing as the good guy who’s trying to bring peace and stability. It takes time, but the empire has time to burn. That’s what happens when you’re the most powerful empire in the history of civilization; you have the luxury of biding your time while orchestrating large-scale, long-term operations to advance your power agendas.
Meanwhile Gaza starves, Ukraine bleeds, and Assange languishes in prison, each needing this to end with more urgency every day.
Putin says Russia will not attack NATO, but F-16s will be shot down in Ukraine
By Reuters, March 28, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-tells-pilots-f16s-can-carry-nuclear-weapons-they-wont-change-things-2024-03-27/
- Summary
- Russia will not attack NATO, Putin says
- Putin says Russia will not attack Poland, Baltic states
- Putin says Western F-16s will be shot down in Ukraine
MOSCOW, March 28 (Reuters) – Russia has no designs on any NATO country and will not attack Poland, the Baltic states or the Czech Republic but if the West supplies F-16 fighters to Ukraine then they will be shot down by Russian forces, President Vladimir Putin said late on Wednesday.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has triggered the deepest crisis in Russia’s relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Speaking to Russian air force pilots, Putin said the U.S.-led military alliance had expanded eastwards towards Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union but that Moscow had no plans to attack a NATO state.
“We have no aggressive intentions towards these states,” Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript released on Thursday.
“The idea that we will attack some other country – Poland, the Baltic States, and the Czechs are also being scared – is complete nonsense. It’s just drivel.”
The Kremlin, which accuses the U.S. of fighting against Russia by supporting Ukraine with money, weapons and intelligence, says relations with Washington have probably never been worse.
Asked about F-16 fighters which the West has promised to send to Ukraine, Putin said such aircraft would not change the situation in Ukraine.
“If they supply F-16s, and they are talking about this and are apparently training pilots, this will not change the situation on the battlefield,” Putin said.
“And we will destroy the aircraft just as we destroy today tanks, armoured vehicles and other equipment, including multiple rocket launchers.”
Putin said that F-16 could also carry nuclear weapons.
“Of course, if they will be used from airfields in third countries, they become for us legitimate targets, wherever they might be located,” Putin said.
Putin’s remarks followed comments earlier in the day by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba that the aircraft should arrive in Ukraine in the coming months.
Ukraine, now more than two years into a full-fledged war against Russia, has sought F-16s for many months.
Belgium, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands are among countries which have pledged to donate F-16s. A coalition of countries has promised to help train Ukrainian pilots in their use.
France will help Brazil develop nuclear-powered submarines, Macron says
President Emmanuel Macron and counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday celebrated the launch of Brazil’s third French-designed submarine, which will help secure the country’s immense coastline, dubbed the “Blue Amazon.”
France 24 By:NEWS WIRES|: Video by:Angela DIFFLEY 27/03/2024
The two men highlighted the importance of their countries’ defense partnership during a time of major global unrest, at a ceremony at Brazil’s ultra-modern naval base in Itaguai near Rio de Janeiro…
Despite differences, notably on the Ukraine war, Macron said “the great peaceful powers of Brazil and France” had “the same vision of the world.”…………………………………..
The construction of the submarines was outlined in a 2008 deal between Lula and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, which also included the purchase of 50 Caracal helicopters.
The fourth submarine, the Angostura, will be launched in 2025.
France skirts around nuclear sub
Brazil is also planning to build its first nuclear-powered submarine, the Alvaro Alberto, a project that has suffered significant delays, mainly due to budget constraints.
The French naval defense manufacturer Naval Group is supporting the design and construction of the submarine, except for the nuclear boiler which is being designed by the Brazilians.
Brasilia is however trying to convince Paris to increase technology transfers to help it integrate the reactor into the submarine and sell it equipment linked to nuclear propulsion.
France has been reticent to transfer such technology due to the challenges of nuclear proliferation.
“If Brazil wants to have access to knowledge of nuclear technology, it is not to wage war. We want this knowledge to assure all countries that want peace that Brazil will be at their side,” said Lula.
Macron told Brazil “France will be at your side” during the development of the nuclear-powered submarines, without announcing specific assistance.
“I want us to open the chapter for new submarines… that we look nuclear propulsion in the face while being perfectly respectful of all non-proliferation commitments,” he said……………………… https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20240327-france-to-help-brazil-develop-nuclear-technology-for-submarines
2
Scotland’s National Party attacks £200m extra for nuclear deterrent and industry
By Kathleen Nutt, 25 Mar 24
The SNP have criticised an announcement by Prime Minister to commit a further £200m on strengthening the nuclear deterrent and boosting the nuclear industry saying the money would be better spent on improving the NHS or alleviating the cost of living crisis for households.
Martin Docherty-Hughes MP, the party’s defence spokesman, condemned the plans to “waste another £200 million” on nuclear and accused the Conservatives and Labour, which backed the plans, of focusing on “the wrong priorities”.
“Westminster has already wasted billions of taxpayer’s money on nuclear weapons and expensive nuclear energy. It is grotesque to throw another £200million down the drain when the Tories and Labour Party both claim there is no money to improve our NHS, to help families with the cost of living or to properly invest in our green energy future.
“This money would be much better spent on a raft of other priorities – not least investing in the green energy gold rush, which would ensure Scotland, with its wealth of renewable energy potential, can be a green energy powerhouse of the 21st century.
“And while the UK government wastes millions of pounds misfiring Trident missiles at Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, the urgent priority is more money for conventional defence and for our armed forces, who are underpaid and under-resourced.
“With both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer focused on the wrong priorities – it is only the SNP standing up for Scotland’s interests and Scotland’s values.”……………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24208207.snp-attack-200m-extra-nuclear-deterrent-industry/
New nuclear reactor types will not solve waste and safety issues
26 March 2024 https://www.modernpowersystems.com/news/newsnew-nuclear-reactor-types-will-not-solve-waste-and-safety-issues-11634478
Novel nuclear power plant designs do not resolve the technology’s fundamental challenge of hazardous nuclear waste, a 22 March report commissioned by Germany’s Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE) has concluded. “None of the alternative reactor types would make a final repository redundant,” the government agency said, according to a report by online news agency Clean Energy Wire.
Despite efforts by producers of Generation IV reactors to “intensively advertise” the concept’s supposed benefits, said BASE, it “could not detect any trends that would make the construction of alternative reactor types at an industrial scale likely in the next years.” On the contrary, the disadvantages and uncertainties from a security perspective would continue to outweigh the technology’s advantages, the study led by the Institute for Applied Ecology (Öko-Institut) found.
New nuclear plant designs, such as small modular reactors (SMR), would not only perpetuate the difficult long-term question of nuclear waste disposal, but also had little to offer for solving short-term climate action problems, BASE added.
The report looked at seven novel reactor types, which according to their producers are more efficient in nuclear fuel use and run more safely and reliably, are economically viable, and cause less radioactive waste. While some of these improvements seem plausible, the report said that central questions regarding safety remain unanswered with all new concepts. “In some areas, there are even disadvantages compared to today’s light water reactors,” which remain the favoured technology in six surveyed countries (USA, Russia, China, South Korea, Poland and Belgium). Alternative reactor types still required “substantial“ research and development, and it would likely still take several decades before they can be deployed at a relevant scale, the researchers added. Promises about new concepts in nuclear technology as a potential boost for climate action therefore had to be considered “not realistic,” they concluded.
While Germany closed down its three last reactors in spring 2023 after a decades-long debate, many other countries continue to rely on nuclear technology or even plan to considerably expand it in a bid to bring down their energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. At the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) first ever nuclear energy summit in Brussels earlier March, more than two dozen states called for a revival of the technology, including France, the Netherlands, the USA and Japan. “Without the support of nuclear power, we have no chance to reach our climate targets on time,” International Energy Agency (IEA) chief Fatih Birol said in a report carried by news agency Reuters.
Nuclear power in Europe
The role of nuclear power in Europe’s emissions reduction plans has been a contentious issue for many years, with Germany and France emerging as the main opposing forces between two groups of countries aiming to rely entirely on renewable power or to also use nuclear power in a future climate neutral energy system. While Germany has achieved a substantial expansion of its renewable power capacity and now sources more than half of its electricity that way, the country still faces challenges regarding the required grid modernisation and back-up and storage capacity to complement wind turbines and solar panels. France, on the other hand, has the largest share of nuclear power production of any country but struggles to secure funding for new projects and to comply with cost and construction time plans for existing ones.
Most Americans now disapprove of Israel’s military action in Gaza new poll reveals as tensions rise between allies.
By Ryan King, March 27, 2024, https://nypost.com/2024/03/27/us-news/most-americans-now-disapprove-of-israels-military-action-in-gaza-poll/
A majority of Americans disapprove of Israel’s military operations against the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip.
A Gallup survey released Wednesday found that 55% of US adults disapprove of the Jewish state’s actions in Gaza while just 36% approve — a dramatic turnaround from November, when 50% approved of Israeli action in Gaza while 45% disapproved in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack.
The poll was published as relations between the Biden administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit a new low over the conduct of the nearly six-month-old war — including plans for the Israel Defense Forces to conduct operations in the densely populated southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Wednesday’s poll found that just 18% of self-identified Democrats approved of Israeli action in Gaza, down from 36% in November, while 75% disapproved.
Pro-Israel feeling has also waned among self-identified Republicans, with 64% approving of the military response (down from 71% in November) and 30% disapproving.
Fewer than three in 10 self-described independents approve of Israel’s actions, while 60% say they disapprove.
Support for Israel was higher among respondents who said they were following the war in the Middle East “very closely.”
Among that group, 43% said they approved of Israel’s action, compared with 37% approval among those tracking events “somewhat closely” and 27% who said they were “not following closely.”
Last week, Gallup revealed that Biden’s approval rating for his handling of the Middle East conflict stood at just 27%, his lowest for any major issue.
On Monday, the US allowed the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution calling for an “immediate” cease-fire in Gaza by abstaining rather than exercising its veto. The measure notably did not condition a cease-fire on the release of an estimated 100 hostages held in Gaza since Oct. 7, along with the remains of around 30 prisoners believed to have died in captivity.
Top Israeli officials publicly lashed out at the Biden administration over the move and Netanyahu scrapped plans to dispatch a delegation to Washington to discuss the Rafah situation.
Still, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and national security adviser Jake Sullivan this week.
Negotiations taking place in Qatar meant to secure the release of hostages also quickly broke down after Hamas demanded Israel withdraw its troops from Gaza and approve an exchange of Palestinian prisoners.
The Gallup poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points and was taken from March 1 to 20 among 1,016 adults.
US, Germany Supplied 99% of Israel Weapons Import Despite Pressure: Data
JOE SABALLA, MARCH 26, 2024, https://www.thedefensepost.com/2024/03/26/us-germany-israel-weapons/
“At the end of 2023, the US rapidly delivered thousands of guided bombs and missiles to Israel,” the SIPRI report noted, adding that 61 combat aircraft from the US and four submarines from Germany are pending delivery.
SIPRI claimed that the weapons Israel imported from its allies have played a major role in its military actions against Hamas and Hezbollah.
Global Pressure
The data was released amid international calls to stop arming Israel, which has been carrying out relentless ground and aerial attacks on Gaza.
Since the war broke out between Hamas militants and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in October last year, more than 32,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed.
Canada recently ordered a halt in arms exports to Jerusalem as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau weighed in on Israel’s right to defend itself and the alleged lack of action to protect civilian lives.
Eight American senators have also sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to stop supplying weapons to the country’s Middle Eastern ally.
They said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s actions against humanitarian operations have prevented Washington from safely and easily delivering aid to Gaza.
Media reports have claimed that the relationship between the two leaders has been strained following Biden’s call to scale down the Israeli offensive in the Palestinian territory.
Nuclear and weapons industry propaganda to schools
NRS Dounreay and socio economic partners hosted the second FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge North Highland Tournament in March with local schools taking part.
North Highlands team headed for international robot challenge. NRS
Dounreay and socio-economic partners hosted the second FIRST® LEGO®
League Challenge North Highland Tournament in March with local schools
taking part. Each team participated in 3 short robot games and presented to
a panel of judges where they were judged on their robot design, innovation
project and core values such as team work. They are also judged throughout
the tournament and games on their ‘gracious professionalism’; their
behaviours within their own team and towards other teams.
Nuclear Restoration Services 25th March 2024
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/north-highlands-team-headed-for-international-robot-challenge
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