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The Media’s sloppy use of the word “conservative” – (when “fascist” would be the accurate one )


paulrodenlearning, 4 Apr 24

I wish the so called “Liberal,” “Failing,” “fake,” “Mainstream News Media,” (MSM) would stop using the word “conservative,” when referring to politicians, organizations, companies and associations that are anti-democratic with a small d, oppose all environmental and safety legislation and regulations, and blindly worship the unregulated “invisible hand of the free-market” as their god & over ridding political ideology.

“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell.” Eventually the cancer cell will kill it’s host. How much profit is enough? Belief and worship of this “laissez-faire” view of government regulations, oversite and the market place is not sustainable nor ethical. There would be no “checks and balances,” of businesses in the marketplace by the government if businesses where left to their own devices.

Calling them “conservative,” when they want to actively take us back to the 19th Century or earlier is changing things for the worst, not keeping things as the are. The want to regress and go backwards. That is not “freedom,” that is fascism, racism, sexist, xenophobic and wrong.

April 4, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | 3 Comments

TODAY. Why I am really a CONSERVATIVE, and you should be, too.

Years ago, when I was a member of the Australian Labor Party, I was shocked when someone accused me of being really a conservative at heart. Sacrilege! to a Leftie, to be given such an accusation!

Now I know that it is true.

Conservative – “holding traditional values.”

Conservation – “seeking the proper use of nature, a careful preservation and protection of natural resources to prevent exploitation, pollution, destruction, or neglect.”

It is fashionable, and of course, attention-grabbing in the media – to condemn things that are “old” and claim that “youth opinion” and “feelings” (rather than facts) are what matter , to downgrade our institutions of justice, and representative democracy that have served us well over time.

How is it that now there is worldwide acceptance of the idea that Donald Trump, and indeed the USA Republican Party, the Tories in Britain, and the Australian Liberal-National Coalition are CONSERVATIVES?

They are not conservative at all. They are out to wreck the natural environment, in the interests of a few rich corporations. They are out to wreck the social environment in spurning domestic courts and other legal institutions, like the International Court of Justice. They have attitudes of unfairness to non-white people, indigenous people, refugees, at times of suppression of women’s rights, especially, over their own bodies. This is not conservative. This is RADICAL – uprooting Christian values, and the natural world.

Admittedly, there was a time when the Western world held cruel “Christian” values, – like divine right of kings, slavery, racism, severe suppression of women’s rights, of religious and political rights…. Hanging on to those ideas was then conservatism.

But that’s a while back. In Western countries, values like Christian ideas of equal human rights, compassion and fairness, and also proper care of land, water, and animals – have been around for a long time now.

And that’s why we need to be conservatives There’s really no point in being left-wing or right-wing. No point in slavishly supporting your political party. A genuine conservativism is in looking beyond all the guff, and using those common sense traditional values. The political parties seem to get ever closer together, in the radical new doctrine of ever-increasing profit as the main purpose in life.

April 4, 2024 Posted by | Christina's notes | 3 Comments

Holy See: ‘Nuclear deterrence is an illusion’

Addressing the UN Disarmament Commission in New York, the Vatican Permanent Observer to the United Nations reaffirms that the logic of deterrence is illusionary and calls for the adoption of a binding international treaty to regulate artificial intelligence modelled on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

By Lisa Zengarini, 4 Apr, 24,  https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2024-04/holy-see-nuclear-deterrence-is-an-illusion.html

Amid growing military expenditures and rising conflict around the globe, the Holy See has once again reiterated its urgent plea to reject nuclear deterrence which offers only an illusion of peace. “Rather than preventing conflict the availability of weapons encourages their use and increases their production”, create mistrust and divert resources, warned Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the United Nations.

A moral duty

In a statement addressed on Monday to the UN Disarmament Commission, the Vatican Nuncio reaffirmed that weapons proliferation, stockpiling and use make disarmament “a moral duty”, which calls upon “all members of the great family of nations, to move from an equilibrium of fear to an equilibrium of trust”,  the only basis, he said, upon which lasting peace can be achieved.

“The illusory logic of deterrence – Archbishop Caccia noted – is often used to justify the unjustifiable, that is the continued possession of nuclear arms, “any use of which would have catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences, which do not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.“

He therefore reiterated the Holy See’s call urging all States to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) thereby “contributing to the replacement of a negative conception of security with a positive one.”

The treaty,  which includes a comprehensive set of prohibitions on participating in any nuclear weapon activities, was adopted by 122 States in 2017

Need  for a legal framework for artificial intelligence

In his statement Archbishop Caccia also referred to the urgent need to develop a normative and operational framework regarding the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

In this regard, he reiterated the Holy See’s proposal to consider the creation of an international agency on AI, while simultaneously urging the global community of nations to work together in order to adopt a binding international treaty that regulates the development and use of artificial intelligence in its many forms modelled on the TPNW.

Such a governance regime, he said, “can help ensure that emerging technologies serve humanity as a whole, rather than particular interests.”

“Many parallels can be drawn between the international governance of nuclear technology and the urgent need to develop a normative and operational framework regarding the use of artificial intelligence.”

Peace is not built  with weapons

Concluding Archbishop Caccia, renewed the Holy See’s unceasing “call for arms to be silenced”, and for the path of gradual but complete disarmament to be resolutely pursued insisting that “peace is built not with weapons, but through patient listening, dialogue and cooperation, which remain the only means worthy of the human person in resolving differences.”

April 4, 2024 Posted by | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

45 years after Three Mile Island, we need a ‘No Nukes’ comeback

“A tsunami of nuclear power propaganda is sweeping the globe.” According to Gunter, this propaganda is backed by a multi-billion-dollar nuclear promotion campaign funded by taxpayers via the Biden administration’s Department of Energy. “

Billions of dollars in nuclear subsidies were loaded into Biden’s infrastructure bill, with billions more in the Inflation Reduction Act.

As Biden sinks billions into nuclear energy, members of the historic Clamshell Alliance are reuniting to spark a new wave of anti-nuke resistance.

Arnie Alpert , WAGING NON VIOLENCE, March 25, 2024

When a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania went from a technological miracle to a pile of radioactive rubble in a matter of moments in 1979, the Portsmouth, New Hampshire office of the Clamshell Alliance became a hive of activity. I was working there at the time, fielding calls from activists and journalists from around the world. Everyone wanted our opinion since — over the previous few years — our nonviolent demonstrations to prevent the construction of the Seabrook nuclear power plant put us at the forefront of a growing social movement.

From the arrests of 18 New Hampshire residents in our first act of civil disobedience in 1976 to more than 1,400 arrests the following spring to a permitted rally that drew some 18,000 protesters in 1978, the Clamshell Alliance touched off a grassroots anti-nuclear rebellion that brought the “No Nukes” message to communities across the country and into the popular culture.

With that groundwork in place, Three Mile Island took our message to the next level. The idea that “nuclear power is a bad way to generate electricity” soon became accepted knowledge across the United States. Everyone from Wall Street tycoons to congressional staffers to ordinary voters now understood that the nuclear industry’s promise of safe, clean and affordable power was a fraud.

Unfortunately, in recent years this understanding has slowly eroded, as the industry has worked to tout its product as the answer to climate catastrophe. With the Biden administration now sinking billions into nuclear energy — and Congress on the verge of passing legislation to ease regulatory precautions on new reactors — the nuclear fraudsters are aiming for a comeback.

Whether they call it a ‘nuclear renaissance’ or a ‘nuclear enlightenment,’ nukes aren’t the answer to the climate crisis,” said Paul Gunter, who was one of the first 18 Clamshell members arrested at Seabrook in 1976.

Now the co-director of Beyond Nuclear, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Takoma Park, Maryland, Gunter says “Nukes are just too expensive, take too long to build and feature too many pathways to catastrophic accidents.” What’s more, as he maintains, their continued use — along with building costly new reactors — make climate change worse and the world less safe.

With this in mind, “seasoned Clams,” as we jokingly call ourselves, have been holding regular meetings over Zoom — and occasionally in person — to strategize on how to bring our anti-nuclear message to younger generations, as well as fellow boomers, for whom Three Mile Island has become a faded memory. We ultimately want to refute the nuclear industry’s claims that it has solved the problems posed by the old reactors.

In a statement on our new website, we assert: “A tsunami of nuclear power propaganda is sweeping the globe.” According to Gunter, this propaganda is backed by a multi-billion-dollar nuclear promotion campaign funded by taxpayers via the Biden administration’s Department of Energy. “They even have a plan to convert coal-fired power plants to nuclear generation,” he said.

Billions of dollars in nuclear subsidies were loaded into Biden’s infrastructure bill, with billions more in the Inflation Reduction Act. Meanwhile, the Atomic Energy Advancement Act — which sailed through the U.S. House 365-36 last month — extends nuclear subsidies further by continuing the $16.6 billion cap on liability from nuclear accidents for the next 40 years.

“The still unrealized total damage costs of a severe nuclear accident, as evidenced by ongoing nuclear catastrophes at Fukushima (13 year ago) and Chernobyl (38 years ago), are already running into the hundreds of billions of dollars,” Gunter said, adding that Congress didn’t even hold a public hearing on the liability cap extension.

As the new Clamshell website maintains, new nukes are not needed to avert a climate crisis. “Far better options are being built much faster than nuclear power plants, at a fraction of the cost and without the grave hazards. They include solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, efficiency and conservation.”………………………………………………………….. https://wagingnonviolence.org/2024/03/three-mile-island-45th-anniversary-no-nukes-comeback-clamshell-alliance/

April 4, 2024 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

‘Obscene’: Biden Quietly OKs More 2,000-Pound Bombs, Warplanes for Israel

U.S. support for Israel—which already included nearly $4 billion in annual military aid—has continued unabated, with the Biden administration seeking an additional $14.3 million in armed assistance and repeatedly bypassing Congress to fast-track emergency weapons shipments.

“Arming a war criminal makes you a war criminal,” one critic admonished the U.S. president.

BRETT WILKINS, Mar 29, 2024,  https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-military-aid-to-israel-2667634511

Despite growing worldwide calls for an arms embargo, the Biden administration in recent days has approved the transfer of billions of dollars worth of new weapons shipments to Israel, including warplanes and 2,000-pound bombs that have been dropped on densely populated areas of Gaza with devastating results.

The Washington Postreported Friday that the administration has “quietly” authorized arms shipments including more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, as well as 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines worth approximately $2.5 billion. The transfers are the latest of more than 100 arms shipments authorized by the Biden administration since the October 7 attacks on Israel.

“‘Quietly,'” Palestinian American writer and political analyst Yousef Munayyer scoffed in response to the report. “This is cowardly from the administration. If you are going to be full backers of genocide, own it. We see you and history sees you as well.”

“It is scary to think of the world U.S. support for Israel is creating. A world with no rules, no limits in war, where norms don’t exist, and where genocide is supportable,” he added. “Good luck getting anyone to listen to you about international law after this.”

Edward Ahmed Mitchell, deputy executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, said in a statement: “We strongly condemn the Biden administration’s unbelievable and unconscionable decision to secretly send hundreds of new 2,000-pound bombs and other weapons to support Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocide. Arming a war criminal makes you a war criminal.”

According to the Post:

The 2,000-pound bombs, capable of leveling city blocks and leaving craters in the earth 40 feet across and larger, are almost never used anymoreby Western militaries in densely populated locations due to the risk of civilian casualties.

Israel has used them extensively in Gaza, according to several reports, most notably in the bombing of Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp October 31. U.N. officials decried the strike, which killed more than 100 people, as a “disproportionate attack that could amount to war crimes.” Israel defended the bombing, saying it resulted in the death of a Hamas leader.

The Biden administration’s arms shipments to Israel continue despite urgent pleas from United Nations officials, international human rights groups, and some progressive U.S. lawmakers to stop arming Israel’s 175-day Gaza onslaught, during which Israeli bombs and bullets have killed more than 32,600 Palestinians—mostly women and children—while wounding over 75,000 others and damaging or destroying hundreds of thousands of homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, and other structures.

The International Court of Justice in January found that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza and ordered the country to prevent genocidal acts. However, Israel has been accused of ignoring the ICJ order, and amid ongoing atrocities—including the forced starvation of Palestinians—the court on Thursday issued another order demanding that Israel allow desperately needed humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Last December, when the death toll in Gaza stood at approximately 18,000, President Joe Biden implored the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing” of Palestinian civilians in the embattled enclave.

However, U.S. support for Israel—which already included nearly $4 billion in annual military aid—has continued unabated, with the Biden administration seeking an additional $14.3 million in armed assistance and repeatedly bypassing Congress to fast-track emergency weapons shipments.

“The U.S. cannot beg Netanyahu to stop bombing civilians one day and the next send him thousands more 2,000-pound bombs that can level entire city blocks,” U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said on social media Friday. “This is obscene. We must end our complicity: No more bombs to Israel.”

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told the Post that “the Biden administration needs to use their leverage effectively and, in my view, they should receive these basic commitments before greenlighting more bombs for Gaza. We need to back up what we say with what we do.”

Biden administration officials have claimed they don’t have any leverage over Israel, drawing ridicule from observers who point to the indispensable military and diplomatic support the U.S. provides.

The staggering death and destruction wrought by Israel’s assault on Gaza has drawn criticism from even staunch supporters of the key U.S. ally.

Referring to the worsening famine in Gaza—which one U.S. State Department official acknowledged anonymously to Reuters on Friday—New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote on social media: “Really, POTUS? With Gaza facing starvation and Netanyahu defying you over Rafah, you ship billions of dollars in additional weapons to Israel, including 2,000-pound bombs, without end-use restrictions? Bibi is rolling you.”

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April 4, 2024 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

April 29 – May 2 Free public events during Not-the-Nuclear-Lobby Week in Ottawa

 https://stop-smrs.weebly.com/not-nuclear.html

Monday, April 29, 6:30 PM (pay what you can)
Film Screening Radioactive – The Women of Three Mile Island​
Tuesday, April 30, 7 PM (free)
Workshop reading of the play The Children
Wednesday, May 1, 7 PM (free)
Community Forum: Canada’s Nuclear Future – Renaissance or Relic?

April 4, 2024 Posted by | opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Dennis Kucinich: the US engineered a coup to drag Ukraine into a conflict

by Donald A. Smith, PhD, 3 Apr 24, https://progressivememes.org/ukraine/Dennis-Kucinich-on-Ukraine.html

In this April 2, 2024 interview with Judge Napolitano, Dennis Kucinich says: “What’s happened is that the U.S. State Department and U.S. Government basically engineered a coup in Ukraine and used that to drag Ukraine into a conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas and ignited this war which Russia has been horrible in the way they have come in and attacked. There’s been six hundred thousand people, the flower of Ukraine, who have been killed. This thing is heartbreaking. But we cannot ignore the role that the U.S. has played in helping to impel it, and we cannot ignore the fact that, as you point out, there was a chance to resolve this two years ago.”  (He’s referring to how in March of 2022 the U.S. forced the Zelensky government to step back from a peace deal that was being negotiated with Russia.)

Kucinich says that it will be impossible for the U.S. and NATO to defeat the Russian military.  “There needs to be an end to this war, an effort to repair Ukraine.”  Stop this “vainglorious effort to build up NATO.” Napolitano said that the neocons Victoria Nuland, Anthony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and Joe Biden think they can use Ukraine as a battering ram to weaken Russia, but Putin is popular and the Russian economy is thriving.  Napolitano says, “The war was started in 2014 by the United States with the coup, as you pointed out.”   (For more details about how the U.S. engineered the war, see this.  The CIA was deeply involved. Numerous senior U.S. diplomats warned that aggressive NATO expansion would lead to a war. RAND Corporation recommended arming Ukraine as the best way to weaken Russia. The U.S. government always lies about its wars.)

Napolitano asks Kucinich why all the Dems in Congress are behind the war in Ukraine. Kucinich replies that it’s partly due to the desire not to be shunned by their caucus and partly due to a desire to support the incumbent Democratic president.

Kucinich said that Senator Biden supported the disastrous war in Iraq, and the same sort of thinking that led to that war exists in the U.S. government today. Indeed, many of the same people are making  policy. They’re leading us to war with Russia and in the Middle East (Gaza and possibly Iran) and are preparing for war with China. “It’s madness. It’s against the interest of the American people. It’s against the taxpayers of this country. It’s driving our national debt. It’s leading to the collapse of America, not the collapse of Russia, not the collapse of China.” Instead of trying to rule the world by military force, we should take care of our own needs.

Kucinich also condemns U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza and calls what Israel is doing “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide.” Israel bombed the Iranian embassy in Syria, also a crime according to international law.  On the one hand, President Biden  says Israel should not invade Rafah and should respect Palestinian lives. On the other hand, Biden gives billions of dollars of weapons. Netyanahu has got the “Biden government over a barrel because of the politics of this. And he knows that and will keep going on.”  “You can’t give someone a gun who has a record of killing innocent people and say, ‘Don’t kill innocent people'” (without being complicit).

“We cannot afford to be the policeman of the world”  with a $34 trillion debt.

Naopolitano (who has been interviewing a lot of lefty peace activists) ends by calling Kucinich a “fierce defender of civil liberties, constitutional government and peace.”

April 4, 2024 Posted by | politics, Ukraine, USA, USA elections 2016 | Leave a comment

I Could Not Stay Silent: Annelle Sheline Resigns from State Dept. over U.S. Gaza Policy

DEMOCRACY NOW, MARCH 28, 2024

A State Department official working on human rights issues in the Middle East resigned Wednesday in protest of U.S. support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. Annelle Sheline, who worked as a foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, was not planning on publicly resigning, but her colleagues asked her to “please speak out” against the Biden administration’s unconditional support for Israel. “At the end of the day, many people inside [the State Department] know that this is a horrific policy, and can’t believe that the United States government is engaged in such actions that contravene American values so directly, but the leadership is not listening,” says Sheline.

“I’m trying to speak on behalf of those many, many people who feel so betrayed by our government’s stance.” Sheline describes being moved by the words of Aaron Bushnell, the active-duty U.S. airman who set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in protest of the war on Gaza, who implored everyone to take a stand against genocide. “I have a young daughter, and I thought about, in the future, if she were to ask me, ‘What were you doing when this was happening? You were at the State Department.’ I want to be able to tell her that I didn’t stay silent.”

Transcript…………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/28/annelle_sheline

April 4, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Lawsuit challenges $1 billion in federal funding to sustain California’s last nuclear power plant

BY MICHAEL R. BLOOD, 10, April 4, 2024

LOS ANGELES (AP) — An environmental group has sued the U.S. Energy Department over its decision to award over $1 billion to help keep California’s last nuclear power plant running beyond a planned closure that was set for 2025. The move opens another battlefront in the fight over the future of Diablo Canyon’s twin reactors.

Friends of the Earth, in a complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, argued that the award to plant operator Pacific Gas & Electric last year was based on an outdated, flawed analysis that failed to recognize the risk of earthquakes or other serious events.

The complaint called the safety assessment “grossly deficient” and accuses the Energy Department of relying on a 50-year-old environmental analysis.

“The environmental impacts from extending the lifespan of this aging power plant at this point in time have not been adequately addressed or disclosed to the public,” the complaint said.

An email seeking comment was sent to the Energy Department.

Diablo Canyon lies on a bluff overlooking the Pacific midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. It began operating in the mid-1980s and supplies up to 9% of the state’s electricity on any given day.

In 2016, PG&E, environmental groups and unions representing plant workers agreed to close the facility by 2025. But the Legislature voided the deal in 2022 after Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom reversed his position and said the power is needed to ward off blackouts as the state transitions to renewables and climate change stresses California’s energy system.

Since then, disputes have swirled about the safety of Diablo Canyon’s decades-old reactors, whether taxpayers might be saddled with hundreds of millions of dollars in additional costs and even if the electricity is needed in the age of solar and other green energy.

PG&E has long said the twin-domed plant is safe, an assessment endorsed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Biden administration approved $1.1 billion in Energy Department funding in January. The financing came through the administration’s civil nuclear credit program, which is intended to bail out financially distressed owners or operators of nuclear power reactors as part of the administration’s effort to cut planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 compared with 2005 levels.

PG&E has said it wants to keep the plant open to “ensure statewide electrical reliability and combat climate change” at the direction of the state.

The utility is seeking a 20-year extension of its federal licenses, typical in the industry, but emphasized the state would control how long the plant actually runs. A state judge has conditionally approved a blueprint to keep it operating for an additional five years, until 2030.

California is the birthplace of the modern environmental movement and for decades has had a fraught relationship with nuclear power. The fight over Diablo Canyon is playing out as the long-struggling nuclear industry sees a potential rebirth in the era of global warming. Nuclear power doesn’t produce carbon pollution like fossil fuels, but it leaves behind waste that can remain dangerously radioactive for centuries.

April 4, 2024 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Are US, Israel Heading for Divorce?

It’s unclear how much longer Netanyahu can hold on to power in Israel in the face of a torrent of bad news for Israel about declining international support for — and dire economic consequences derived from — its ongoing military operation in Gaza

Scott Ritter, Washington, Apr 1, 2024,  Energy Intelligence Group,  https://www.energyintel.com/0000018e-9900-d183-abef-9f430f020000

The crisis in Gaza that has been ongoing since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel has resulted in a sea change in political opinion on the question of Israeli security prerogatives and Palestinian statehood. While international opinion has decisively shifted to the Palestinian cause, Israel has until recently been ably backstopped by the US, which has wielded its veto at the UN Security Council to shield Israel from any binding consequences. But shifting global priorities, coupled with turbulent domestic political realities, have caused the US stance on Israel to shift, creating the possibility of Israel, for the first time, standing alone in the crosshairs of global condemnation.

On Mar. 25, the 10 non-permanent members of the UN Security Council tabled a draft resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza during Ramadan, the immediate release of hostages and humanitarian access. The resolution was the latest in a succession of similar calls from the Security Council seeking an end to the violence that has wracked Gaza and the region since Oct. 7.

Prior to the Mar. 25 draft resolution being tabled, all previous efforts to bring an end to violence in Gaza had failed, with the draft texts either vetoed by the US or, on one occasion, Russia and China. But the latest call for a ceasefire passed muster, receiving 14 “yes” votes, zero “no” votes, and one abstention — from the US.

The Security Council resolution has no enforcement clause, making it little more than a formal notice of disapproval by the UN of Israeli actions. The administration of President Joe Biden made it clear that it continued to blame Hamas over Israel when it comes to the root cause of the current crisis, and that the US supported the overall Israeli objective of destroying Hamas both militarily and politically. Circumstances at home and abroad, however, raise questions about the sustainability of this policy position.

Changing Times

The Israeli government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu is the most conservative in its history, the byproduct of a desperate politician (Netanyahu) seeking to bury his personal legal problems under the weight of governing what has, for several election cycles, become an increasingly ungovernable state. To accomplish this, Netanyahu made common cause with Israel’s extreme right-wing political element, crafting a coalition that not only rejected the notion of a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian question but also embraced the idea of a greater Israel that would do away with the idea of a Palestinian state in general.

Israel was able to capitalize on the general apathy of the global collective to the plight of the Palestinian people, allowing the dream of a viable Palestinian state to be supplanted by a road map toward regional economic connectivity and prosperity defined by the normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab world. This generated schemes such as the India-Middle East Economic Corridor (Imec), an ambitious sea-rail collaboration designed to link India with Europe via the Gulf Arab states, Jordan and Israel.

The Hamas attack of Oct. 7 and Israel’s heavy-handed response changed all that. Imec is dead in the water, alongside any notion of normalized relations with Arab countries until the question of Palestinian statehood is resolved. The resilience of Hamas militarily and politically has compelled Israel to undertake military action that has resulted in the deaths in Gaza of over 30,000 civilians (some 19,000 of whom are children). This has prompted allegations of genocide presented to the International Court of Justice. Cities across the world are full of protesters condemning Israel and praising the cause of a free and independent Palestine. More and more US cities are hosting such actions.

The tidal wave of public sentiment has moved the needle of government policy in many nations. The US State Department has put the White House on notice that the US is in danger of losing the support of the Global South at a time when US policy objectives are centered on slowing the pace of multipolarity and preserving the rules-based international order that serves as the centerpiece of US foreign and national security policy. The US abstention at the Security Council reflected a new reality, where the US must weigh its own foreign policy objectives against the established principle of unquestioned support for Israel.

Local Politics

The US and Israel could attempt to ride out the storm of international protest, waiting for a world that had long been indifferent to the plight of the Palestinian people to lose interest again and shift its attention to a new crisis — in a world fully capable of generating one at a moment’s notice.

But as Tip O’Neill, a former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, once quipped, “all politics is local,” and the Gaza crisis is no exception. The UN abstention was an attempt at damage control which, under normal circumstances, might have allayed the concerns of people more interested in words over action. But 2024 is a US presidential election year, with incumbent Joe Biden set to face former President Donald Trump in a race that is expected to be every bit as heated — or more — than the tumultuous 2020 election.

The 2020 election, like the 2016 one before it, was won on the margins, in so-called “battleground states” where the difference between winning and losing came down to a few thousand votes derived from distinct demographics. One such demographic is the Muslim-American community, which is overwhelmingly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

The UN abstention was an effort to dampen the negative feelings of this community. But void of any meaningful follow-on action by the Biden administration to enforce the will of the Security Council, this won’t be enough to secure this demographic come election time. As a result, the US political theater is witnessing previously unimaginable scenes, such as the ardently pro-Israeli Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calling for the removal of Netanyahu or Biden threatening to withhold military aid, something previously unimaginable in US politics, should Israel not yield to the demand for a ceasefire.

It’s unclear how much longer Netanyahu can hold on to power in Israel in the face of a torrent of bad news for Israel about declining international support for — and dire economic consequences derived from — its ongoing military operation in Gaza. Netanyahu, who failed in his bid to cloak himself with judicial immunity, faces not just political defeat but also personal ruin should he be removed from office.

Netanyahu’s political viability is linked to his ability to sustain the current conflict in the hope that he can pull a miraculous victory over Hamas out of the hat. Netanyahu, however, is running into a brick wall of US political opposition where the presidential political imperative is starting to trump loyalty to Israel. No Israeli prime minister has survived without US political support. And no US presidential candidate has prevailed in an election where the cause of Israel was forsaken. The question now is who will blink first, Netanyahu or Biden — the answer to which remains very much up in the air.

April 4, 2024 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Killing Humanitarians: Israel’s War on Aid Workers in Gaza

April 3, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark,  https://theaimn.com/killing-humanitarians-israels-war-on-aid-workers-in-gaza/

Eulogies should rarely be taken at face value. Plaster saints take the place of complex individuals; faults transmute into golden virtues. But there was little in the way of fault regarding Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom’s messianic purpose, whose tireless work for the charity, World Central Kitchen (WCK) in northern Gaza had not gone unnoticed. Sadly, the Australian national, along with six other members of WCK, were noticed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) around midnight of April 1 and 2 and targeted in a strike that killed all of them. 

Other members of the slain crew included Polish citizen Damian Sobol, three British nationals whose names are yet to be released, a US-Canadian dual citizen, and the driver and translator Saif Abu Taha.

The charity workers had been unloading food supplies from Cyprus that had been sent via sea in a designated “deconflicted” area. All three vehicles, two armoured and one “soft skin”, sported the WCK logo. Even more galling for the charity was the fact that coordinating efforts between WCK and the IDF had taken place as it left the Deir al-Balah warehouse, where the individuals had been responsible for uploading over 100 tonnes of humanitarian food aid.

On April 2, Haaretz reported that three missiles had been fired in rapid succession at the convoy by a Hermes 450 UAV on direction of a unit guarding the aid transport route. The troops in question claimed to have spotted what they thought was an armed figure riding a truck that had entered one of the aid storage areas with three WCK vehicles. The armed figure, presumed to be a Hamas militant, never left the warehouse in the company of the vehicles.

In a public relations war Israel is increasingly losing, various statements of variable quality and sincerity could only confirm that fact. IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari stated that he had spoken to WCK founder Chef José Andrés “and expressed the deepest condolences of the Israel Defense Forces to the families and the entire World Central Kitchen family.”

Hagari went on to add the IDF’s expression of “sincere sorrow to our allied nations who have been doing and continue to do so much to assist those in need.” This was a bit rich given the programmatic efforts of the IDF and Israeli officials to stifle and strangulate the provision of aid into the Gaza Strip, from the logistical side of keeping land crossings closed and delaying access to existing ones, to aggressive efforts to defund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). 

As for the operation itself, Hagari announced that “the highest levels” of military officialdom had been “reviewing the incident” to comprehend the circumstances that led to the deaths. “We will get to the bottom of this and we will share our findings transparently.” Again exalting the prowess of his organisation in investigating such matters, he promised that the army’s General Staff Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism – yet another independent body designed to give the impression of thoroughness and impartiality – would look into this “serious incident” to “reduce the risk of such an event from occurring again.” 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a better barometric reading of the mood, and it was certainly not one of grieving or feeling aggrieved. The killings had merely been “a tragic instance of our forces unintentionally harming innocent people in the Gaza Strip. It happens in war.” Israel would “investigate it” and had been “in contact with the governments and we will do everything we can so that it doesn’t happen again.”

This is mightily optimistic given the butcher’s toll of 173 aid workers from UNRWA alone, with 196 humanitarians said to have died as of March 20, 2024 since October 7 last year. Aid workers have been killed in IDF strikes despite the regular provision of coordinates on their locations. Be it through reckless indifference, conscious intent, or a lack of competence, the morgues continue to be filled with humanitarian workers.

A bristling CEO of WCK, Erin Gore, proved blunter about the implications of the strike. “This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organisations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war.”

Project HOPE’s Executive Vice President, Chris Skopec, drew attention to the obvious, yet repeatedly neglected fact in the Gaza conflict that aid workers are protected by international humanitarian law. Gaza had become “one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a humanitarian worker. This is unacceptable and demands accountability through the International Criminal Court.”

Responsibility for the killings is unlikely to translate into accountability, let alone any public outing of the individuals involved. This is not to say that such exercises are impossible, even with Israel not being a member of the International Criminal Court. The pageantry of guilt can still be pursued. 

When Malaysian Airlines MH17 was downed over Ukraine in July 2014 by a Buk missile, killing all 298 on board, international efforts of terrier-like ferocity were initiated against those responsible for the deadly feat. The MH17 Joint Investigation Team (JIT), comprising the Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia, Belgium and Ukraine, identified the missile as having come from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian armed forces from Kursk. Four suspects were identified. Of the four, one was acquitted, with the district Court of The Hague handing down three life sentences in November 2022 along with an order to pay over €16 million in compensation to the victims. The individuals remain at large, and the Kremlin largely unmoved, but the point was made. 

In this case, any hope for seeking an external accounting for the event is likely to be kept in-house. Excuses of error and misidentification are already filling press releases and conferences. Doing so will enable the IDF to continue its program of quashing the Palestinian cause while pursuing an undisclosed war against those it considers, publicly or otherwise, to be its ameliorating collaborators. With an announcement by various humanitarian groups, including WCK, Anera and Project Hope, that their operations will be suspended following the killings, starvation, as a policy in Gaza, can receive its official blessing.  

April 4, 2024 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, Religion and ethics, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Russia’s state-owned energy company Rosatom is drumming up new nuclear business in Africa

 As the sabre-rattling over possible sanctions against Russia’s nuclear
industry intensifies, the country’s state-owned energy company Rosatom is
busily drumming up new business in Africa.

Last month, speaking at the
African Energy Indaba in Cape Town, Rosatom’s chief executive for central
and southern Africa, Ryan Collyer, urged the continent’s most
industrialised country, South Africa, to press go on its nuclear programme
to ensure “stable, affordable and environmentally friendly” power. It
was a message that resonated with South Africa’s energy minister Gwede
Mantashe, who said the country, which has been battling electricity
blackouts for the past 16 years, expects nuclear energy to be part of the
fix.

“The proposal to develop 2,500MW of nuclear power is not a dream —
there’s already an agreement, and the procurement capacity is being
worked on. We’re going to be investing in that capacity,” he told the
conference. While nuclear power provides about 10 per cent of electricity
generated globally, according to the Paris-based International Energy
Agency, the Koeberg plant in Cape Town is the only nuclear power station on
the African continent. Yet a number of African countries have announced
plans to build nuclear power plants in the past year — including Uganda,
Rwanda and Kenya.

 FT 2nd April 2024

https://www.ft.com/content/4f1d0d1d-3a98-4b03-8771-54d88ed0a023

April 4, 2024 Posted by | AFRICA, business and costs, politics international, Russia | Leave a comment

United Arab Emirates in talks to invest in European nuclear power infrastructure

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is exploring opportunities to invest in
nuclear power infrastructure across Europe, including in Britain, Reuters
has reported.

The state-owned Emirates Nuclear Energy Company (ENEC) is
considering becoming a minority investor in several nuclear power assets.
ENEC, which is owned by Abu Dhabi’s investment fund, the Abu Dhabi
Developmental Holding Company, has ambitions to expand its international
footprint by acquiring minority stakes in nuclear projects.

The company has
been in discussions to invest in the UK, specifically in the Sizewell C
nuclear project, which is currently seeking additional private investment
following the exit of a Chinese investor. Alongside Saudi Arabia, the UAE
is looking to diversify its economy beyond oil, while Britain is actively
seeking private investment to support its nuclear energy ambitions.

 Power Technology 2nd April 2024

https://www.power-technology.com/news/uae-invest-european-nuclear-infrastructure

April 4, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, United Arab Emirates | Leave a comment

The Case for Nuclear Diplomacy

COMMENT. In this lengthy article about treaties – why no mention of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) ?

Trend Research, 04 Apr 2024, Gina Bou Serhal, Senior researcher/ Strategic Studies Section

Due to the heightened danger of the potential use of nuclear weapons – a precarious biproduct of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the fear of nuclear war has surged to its highest levels since the era of the Cold War. Concerns over a wider conflict loom with the possibility of drawing in NATO countries – some of which possess nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, US backing for Ukraine’s war effort has further strained its relations with Russia, raising concerns that Cold War deterrence strategies, which shaped their relationship for decades, may be less effective in today’s geopolitical landscape.

As nuclear weapons proliferated throughout the Cold War, the stark reality of potential annihilation spurred the US and the Soviet Union to embark on a new era of negotiation, seeking innovative approaches to manage their deep-seated ideological and strategic rivalries.  The risk of escalation and potential for nuclear conflict compelled the US and the Soviet Union to explore alternative methods of engagement, including holding regular summits with top leadership, resulting in opening direct lines of communication.

Arms control negotiations, including the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT I in 1967 and SALT II in 1972), limited the number of nuclear missiles in their respective arsenals by setting limits on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and limited anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defenses. Such an agreement helped prevent an unconstrained arms race, reduced the risk of miscalculation, and were considered trust-building measures geared toward de-escalating tensions. More importantly, these conducive interactions laid the groundwork for future cooperation, including the landmark 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which eliminated an entire class of intermediate-range nuclear missiles.

These types of treaties are not perfect; they are typically non-binding, and are far from a guarantee in ensuring nuclear non-proliferation.  Enforcement challenges and non-compliance by some nations remain. A lack of transparency also creates challenges and increases the level of distrust among nations. Furthermore, the rise of non-state actors and heightened terrorist activity globally intensify the chilling possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands, increasing the risk of a conflict spiraling out of control.

Such dangers underscore the urgent need for continued non-proliferation efforts, even amidst deep mistrust and rising tensions among major nuclear powers, particularly the permanent members of the UN Security Council. In today’s precarious global security environment, effective nuclear diplomacy remains a critical tool to navigate the complex geopolitical landscape and prevent nuclear catastrophe. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Why do states pursue nuclear weapons?

As we navigate an era of heightened geopolitical uncertainty and intensifying competition between major powers, a crucial question emerges: does the Cold War logic of nuclear deterrence still hold true? This reasoning, often referred to as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), suggests that nuclear-armed states with similar capabilities are unlikely to attack each other for fear of devastating retaliation. According to this logic, nuclear weapons can prevent large-scale war and promote stability. International Relations realist scholar Kenneth Waltz who famously stated “those who like peace should love nuclear weapons,” believes this rationale explains the relative peace during the Cold War.

There remain two overarching arguments as to why states may look to obtain nuclear weapons, despite their obvious potential for mass destruction – not to mention the economic and political baggage. First, nuclear weapons are seen as the ultimate guarantor of security. No nuclear-armed state has ever faced a full-scale conventional war with another nuclear power (except for India and Pakistan, who have fought several wars over Kashmir). This historical trend fuels the perception that nuclear weapons provide a shield against existential threats. Secondly, nuclear weapons carry a powerful symbolic weight. Possession elevates a state’s international standing and prestige. It is no coincidence that all five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the most powerful decision-making body in the world, are nuclear-armed nations………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Challenges to global non-proliferation efforts: treaty withdrawals

The Cold War fostered a tense environment where both the US and the Soviet Union rapidly developed nuclear weapons. This arms race gave rise to the concept of nuclear deterrence – a defense strategy that relies on the premise that nuclear powers will never launch a full-scale nuclear attack because such a conflict would be devastating for both sides.[16] To mitigate the risk of accidental escalation and limit the number of nuclear-armed nations, treaties became a crucial tool for managing this precarious new global reality.

The Non-Proliferation Treaty………………………………………………………………

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty…………………………………………

The New START Treaty……………………………………………

………………………………………….Inaction on nuclear diplomacy can lead to a dangerous cascade of consequences. At one extreme lies nuclear proliferation, potentially culminating in a devastating war. However, a more likely scenario is the normalization of performative nuclear threats and brinkmanship by the international community. This passive approach to nuclear saber-rattling increases the risk of miscalculation. Leaders desensitized to such threats might underestimate their seriousness, potentially leading to the erosion of deterrence – the concept that has prevented nuclear war for over 70 years. https://trendsresearch.org/insight/the-case-for-nuclear-diplomacy/

April 4, 2024 Posted by | politics international | Leave a comment

UKRAINIAN WAR PEACE TALKS: To Be or Not To Be?

Russian and Eurasian Politics by GORDONHAHN, April 2, 2024

Despite Western media reports over recent months and weeks regarding supposed secret talks between Westerners and Russians to settle or at least stop the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War, there are no such talks ongoing. But this does not mean that they cannot emerge.

First we heard of supposedly secret talks between Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff Chief Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhniy and Russian General Staff Chief Gen. Valerii Gerasimov. Then there were Russian President Vladimir Putin’s alleged ‘signals’ indicating that he seeks negotiations. In reality, there are no peace talks underway between Russia, on the one hand, and the West and/or Ukraine, on the other hand. There are no signals that Putin is seeking negotiations. Although he is willing to hold talks, he expects that any negotiations be requested first by the West and/or Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy. The New York Times piece about ‘Putin’s signals’ published just before Christmas was nothing more than another attempt to portray Russia and Putin as ‘losing the war’ and desperate for an exit ramp, and it was nothing less than a contribution in support of US President Joseph Biden’s desperate re-election prospects as the American presidential campaign is about to kickoff.

Nothing could be further from the truth than the tale of Russian desperation told since the war began. This is most evident now for anyone following the recent course of events on the front; a front that is collapsing on the Ukrainian side. In Zelenskiy’s eternal PR mode, the Ukrainian front’s collapse will be framed as an orderly retreat to new defense lines and part of a new defensive strategy replacing the offensive one that so ignominiously failed with this summer’s predictably disastrous counteroffensive. Nevertheless, the hard, cold realities of the summer campaign’s defeat following the fall of the strategic hub of Bakhmut (Artyomevsk) and preceding the fall of the heavily fortified town of Avdiivka (Avdeevka) are trumping Zelenskiy’s simulated reality productions both in the West and Ukraine ever so gradually.  

As Russian forces slowly but but surely advance westward across the entire front ranging from Zaporozhe (and perhaps soon Kherson) to Kharkov — an advance that is likely to accelerate in spring and summer, the Kremlin has no burning need to negotiate. To be sure, Moscow would prefer ending the war, but on its own terms. The longer Washington, Brussels, and Kiev refuse negotiations, the more fluid the situation becomes and the less likely Moscow will be easy to negotiate with before its forces reach the Dnieper River. Some Russian officials are trumpeting a hard line. For example, a month ago Russian ambassador to the UN Dmitri Polyanskiy said that Kiev’s chance for talks had passed and now only capitulation talks are possible (https://t.me/RusskajaIdea/5265 and https://t.me/Slavyangrad/79622).

But Putin appears open to talks. However, he certainly is not desperate for them and may prefer holding off until more Ukrainian military force and territory is attritted. He has indicated numerous times since the war began that he is open to talks…………………..

The lack of talks is best explained by the West’s and Ukraine’s unwillingness to negotiate. In fact, since December 2022 Ukrainian law forbids Ukrainians from conducting peace talks with Putin’s Russia. The U.S. has apparently held to its proclaimed policy of ‘no talks about Ukraine without Ukraine’ at least in terms of any peace negotiations, though the US’s CIA chief, William Burns, and his Russian counterpart, SVR chief Sergei Narynskii met a few months back for discussions on undisclosed issues.

Therefore, Zelenskiy consistently rejects talks until such time as Russia has withdrawn all of its troops beyond Ukraine’s 1991 borders—the core of his supposed ‘peace plan.’ Obviously, without defeat on the battlefield Russia will not give up Crimea and the four oblasts it now considers to be its sovereign territory. Recently, Zelenskiy rejected negotiations out of hand. Several weeks ago, visiting Turkey, Zelenskiy spurned Turkish President Tayyip Recep Erdogan’s entreaties to start talks with Moscow under Ankara’s mediation………………………………………………………………………….  https://gordonhahn.com/2024/04/02/ukrainian-war-peace-talks-to-be-or-not-to-be/—

April 4, 2024 Posted by | politics international, Russia, Ukraine | Leave a comment