Biden Administration Defies Australia’s Call To End Assange Case, Submits ‘Assurances’ To UK Court
Streamed live on 17 Apr 2024Join Kevin Gosztola, author of “Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange,” as he covers the U.S. government’s “assurances” that were submitted to a British appeals court. They represent a clear indication that President Joe Biden’s administration is not going to end the case. If Biden was “considering” a plea deal for Assange, as was reported, he has made the decision to keep pursuing extradition and a U.S. trial on Espionage Act charges.
Nuclear expert fears flooded radioactive dump sites in Siberia can threaten Arctic Ocean
Floodwaters in Tomsk region threatens to submerge the river banks in Seversk where highly radioactive liquid waste from the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons program for decades were injected into two unprotected underground reservoirs.
Water level on Monday continues to rise in the Tom River in Western Siberia.
The record floods are among the worst ever in the region and local emergency services help in evacuation of people living near tributaries of the Ob river system, including Tobol, Irtysh and Tom rivers.
Thousands of houses and tens of thousands of people live in the emergency zones, according to Kremlin information platform RIA Novosti. High snow falls in winter combined with swiftly rising spring temperatures and heavy rains are the reasons for the current extreme flood, Reuters reports.
Drone photos by RIA Tomsk shows how the swelling Tom River is inundating villages on the westside river banks. According to NEXTA news channel, water in Tom River has risen by nearly a meter over the day.
On the east side, a short 15 kilometers north of the city of Tomsk, is the closed city of Seversk. Until 1992, the secret city was code-named Tomsk-7 and was home to one of three production facilities for weapons-grade plutonium for the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons program.
“There ain’t one single public message that Rosatom is monitoring the situation, that they have the situation under control,” says Aleksandr Nikitin, an exile nuclear safety expert working for the environmental foundation Bellona.
Nikitin was until the all-out war against Ukraine a member of Rosatom’s Public Council. The Council involved civic organizations and scientists in Russia and was aimed at raising public awareness of Rosatom’s core operations
“It’s surprising that there aren’t even simple statements like we have everything under control,” Nikitin adds.
According to the World Nuclear Association, the Siberian Chemical Combine in Seversk had five plutonium production reactors, an uranium enrichment plant and a processing plant for plutonium warheads. Although shut down, enormous amount of nuclear waste is still on site.
Most challenging are the liquid radioactive waste, both on the surface and pumped down in deep-well injections. The nuclear dump is likely Russia’s largest, by IAEA estimated to be 70 million cubic meters.
Widespread contamination in an area up to 28 kilometers came after a concrete cover blew off a reaction vessel at the plutonium extraction facility in 1993. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) listed it as a major radiological accident.
In 2000, a joint U.S.-Russian study found dangerous levels of radioactivity flowing into Russia’s Tom River from the Siberian Nuclear Combine.
Critics crumbled
Local environmentalists in Tomsk filed a lawsuit against the company in the late 1990s in an attempt to revoke a dumping permit for highly radioactive liquid waste down under. They feared for the city’s drinking water.
In Putin’s Russia, critical voices are gone. Environmental groups like Greenpeace, World Wide Fund for Nature, and Bellona are all listed as undesirable by law.
TV2 in Tomsk, known for its independent journalism and free debate since the early years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, got its broadcast shut down in 2014. After the start of the full-scale war in 2022, the reporters closed their YouTube producing newsroom and left Russia.
Aleksandr Nikitin is worried radioactivity could leak out to the river system under the current flood, but that information will not come before it is too late.
“Putin doesn’t give a fuck about these floods and other shitty lives of people in Russia.., he has a war and geopolitical goals of fighting the damned West,” Nikitin says.
For Rosatom, he adds, the logic is simple: “.. if you say that everything is under control, and then something happens, then you will have to answer for it.”
Nikitin says Rosatom is sure that in any case it will not bear any responsibility.
“Rosatom is today Putin’s “favorite child,” he explains.
It was Lavrenty Beria, director of Joseph Stalin’s secret police, who lead the establishment of the first plutonium production facilities east of the Ural mountains in the late 1940ties, early 1950ties. KGB and the Soviet nuclear establishment walked hand-in-hand for decades. What nowadays is Ulitsa Pervomayskaya (May 1st Street) in Seversk, was previously named Ulitsa Beria.
Arctic Ocean
A major concern for Aleksandr Nikitin and Bellona is that no one can exclude that leakages from a possible overflowed radioactive waste site could reach the Arctic Ocean.
Tom River is a tributary of the Ob which flows out in the Ob Bay and Kara Sea above the Arctic Circle.
During the years 1948-56, liquid radioactive waste from the Mayak reprocessing plant north of Chelyabinsk was discharged directly into the nearby river Techa which is connected to the river system Iset, Tobol, Irtysh and Ob. Especially Strontium-90, but also other isotopes, were carried by the water more than 2,000 kilometers downstream and measured in the Kara Sea, first time in 1951.
A joint Norwegian-Russian expedition to the Kara Sea in 1994 found traces of the same radionuclides, although in lower levels.
“Everything is now possible,” says Aleksandr Nikitin when seeing the photos of the flooded riverbanks of the Tom River.
“It all depends on the scale of leakages.”
“I’m sure the Siberian Chemical Combine sit quietly and wait. Hoping for it all to go over,” Nikitin says to the Barents Observer.
The climate crisis and nuclear weapons
It seems we haven’t the money to save the planet, but we can stump up any amount to fund nuclear death
NORTH EAST BYLINES, by Caroline Westgate, 15-04-2024
A massive and accelerating crisis faces all of us on Planet Earth: the climate is warming, and we will rapidly reach a point where the damage to our ecosystem will be irreversible. Dismayed by the political inertia which fails to address this emergency, increasing numbers of people are resorting to protest through nonviolent direct action.
International conferences regularly agree on aims but fail to implement action with the urgency and on the scale needed to challenge the hegemony of Big Oil. We are told that the money simply isn’t there.
But here in the UK there is one hugely costly project which, if it were cancelled, would release an income-stream which could be directed to the electorate’s real priorities: the climate crisis, the NHS, education and transport. I’m talking about Trident.
Nuclear weapons
I was five years old when America’s atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those events ended WW2 but triggered the Cold War. When the Soviet Union, the UK, France and China acquired their own nuclear arsenals, the Cold War settled into a 35-year stalemate of Mutually Assured Destruction (appropriately dubbed MAD), in which it was assumed that a nuclear exchange would be prevented by a ‘balance of terror’.
But in the 1980s, NATO strategists dropped the MAD policy, because advances in military technology gave them the confidence that they could fight and win a nuclear war: their new nuclear-armed Cruise missiles could launch pre-emptive strikes, capable of destroying the Soviets’ nuclear weapons in their silos.
Ordinary people rapidly realised that this development posed an existential threat to millions of civilians on both sides of the Iron Curtain: we had all been conscripted as front-line troops, expendable pawns in NATO’s nuclear game. A re-energised peace movement vociferously opposed Cruise missiles when they arrived on British soil: they were totally under American control, but they made the UK a target.
Embrace the Base at Greenham Common
Greenham Common in Berkshire was one of the Cruise sites. In the summer of 1981, a small group of women from South Wales established a peace camp there. During the first winter of their protest they struggled to get any support or publicity. In conditions of great hardship, they kept the camp going. Their protest grew amid evictions, arrests, imprisonments, and physical attacks. One woman was killed. All of this was accompanied by often viciously mendacious press coverage.
In December 1982, I was one of 30,000 women who responded to an unsigned chain letter, inviting us to ‘Embrace the Base’. We joined hands and encircled Greenham’s 9-mile perimeter fence. We decorated it with objects of significance to us, transforming it into a nine mile work of art.
‘Embrace the Base’ was a high-profile event, but small-scale protests were frequently staged with daring, creativity and humour, either by the women who lived at the camp or by autonomous groups of women who travelled to Berkshire to carry out some anarchic plot of their own devising.
In September 1985, with a group of women from the North East, I made the 300-odd mile journey to Greenham again.
My group had hatched a plan to enter the base to access a small outbuilding on which they were going to paint anti-nuclear slogans, and I was there to support them. By that stage it was ludicrously easy to get through the fence because hundreds of women with bolt cutters had reduced it to shreds. The army kept patching it up, but their efforts were futile. The women from my group walked on to the base, slapped a lot of blue gloss paint on the wall of the outbuilding, then stood quietly, dripping brushes in hand, waiting to be arrested. A group of policemen duly arrived and handcuffed them. To my surprise, I was also arrested, even though I was outside the fence and hadn’t actually done anything wrong. We were all charged with criminal damage and summonsed to appear at Newbury Magistrates’ Court a few weeks later.
From the dock, I made a stirring speech to justify protesting at the base. It cut no ice whatsoever. I was found guilty of criminal damage and ordered to pay a fine and costs, which amounted to £67.75p. I refused to pay. The magistrates, who had seen it all before, wearily referred my case to my local court in Hexham. I knew that the length of time to be spent inside would be calculated pro rata from the amount of the fine I’d refused to pay. It worked out at less than a week in prison, which I felt confident I could cope with.
However, time wore on and nobody arrived to take me away. It was getting perilously near Christmas, when I really didn’t want to be away from my family. I enquired of the clerk to Hexham’s Magistrates when the law would come for me. He said:
“They don’t put people like you in prison. It’s much too expensive. We will contact your employer and put an Attachment of Earnings order on your salary.” I realised that my gesture of defiance would pointless if the only person who knew about it would be the wages clerk at County Hall. Since I was going to have to pay anyway, I decided to turn it into a stunt by making the payment on a novelty cheque……………………………………………………………………………………..
The carbon footprint of the UK military
All this is good for a laugh, but what it says about our priorities is far from funny. It is high time we looked at this issue from the perspective of the climate catastrophe, factoring-in what the military contributes to the UK’s carbon footprint. Dr Stuart Parkinson, of Scientists for Global Responsibility, calculates that the annual carbon footprint of the UK military is roughly equivalent to the carbon emissions of six million average cars. Trident must account for a sizeable proportion of that. Of course, the government omits all mention of those figures when it claims we are progressing nicely towards net zero.
The cost of Trident
We also need to challenge why we spend such colossal amounts of money on Trident, when there are so many urgent rival claims on the public purse. The arguments against the possession of nuclear weapons are as valid now as they were when I wrote my novelty cheque nearly forty years ago.
- the moral objection to threatening the deaths of countless numbers of people.
- nuclear weapons make their possessors a target.
- early-warning systems make it more likely that nuclear war will be triggered by accident.
- nuclear war will be followed by nuclear winter, causing ecocide and wrecking forever any chance of addressing climate change.
But let’s focus on the cost of Trident, which falls on the UK at a time when serious investment in public services is urgently needed on a huge scale. The figures bandied about are quoted not in millions but in billions. The difference between those two quantities is so vast it is hard to grasp, so try this analogy: a million seconds would last for about eleven days, but a billion seconds would last for 31 and a half years.
The Nuclear Information Service calculates the cost of Trident as £172 billion (including its new warheads and its running costs over its projected lifetime). That is a stupendous amount of money to lavish on maintaining the fiction that the UK is a world-class power. Neither the Tories nor Labour dares to question that expenditure. By contrast, Labour’s new idea for a Green Investment Fund (a mere £28 billion) was recently cancelled as unaffordable.
Apparently, we haven’t the money to save the planet, but we can stump up any amount to fund nuclear death.
Why are our priorities so badly skewed? https://northeastbylines.co.uk/the-climate-crisis-and-nuclear-weapons/
US Issues Assurances on Assange
The U.S. Tuesday filed assurances on the death penalty and the 1st Amendment, the latter of which Stella Assange called a “non-assurance.”
Joe Lauria, in London, Consortium News, 17 Apr 24, https://consortiumnews.com/2024/04/16/us-issues-assurances-assange/
The United States Embassy on Tuesday filed two assurances with the British Foreign Office saying it would not seek the death penalty against imprisoned WikiLeaks‘ publisher Julian Assange and would allow Assange “the ability to raise and seek to reply upon at trial … the rights and protections given under the First Amendment,” according to the U.S. diplomatic note.
Assange’s wife Stella Assange said the note “makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution’s previous assertion that Julian has no First Amendment rights because he is not a U.S citizen. Instead,” she said, “the US has limited itself to blatant weasel words claiming that Julian can ‘seek to raise’ the First Amendment if extradited.”
The note contains a hollow statement, namely, that Assange can try to raise the First Amendment at trial (and at sentencing), but the U.S. Department of Justice can’t guarantee he would get those rights, which is precisely what it must do under British extradition law based on the European Convention on Human Rights.
The U.S. Department of Justice is legally restricted to assure a free speech guarantee to Assange equivalent to Article 10 of the European Convention, which the British court is bound to follow. But without that assurance, Assange should be freed according to a British Crown Prosecution Service comment on extraditions.
In USAID v. Alliance for Open Society, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that non-U.S. citizens outside the U.S. don’t possess constitutional rights. Both former C.I.A. Director Mike Pompeo and Gordon Kromberg, Assange’s U.S. prosecutor, have said Assange does not have First Amendment protection.
Because of the separation of powers in the United States, the executive branch’s Justice Department can’t guarantee to the British courts what the U.S. judicial branch decides about the rights of a non-U.S. citizen in court, said Marjorie Cohn, law professor and former president of the National Lawyers’ Guild.
“Let’s assume that … the Biden administration, does give assurances that he would be able to raise the First Amendment and that the [High] Court found that those were significant assurances,” Cohn told Consortium News‘ webcast CN Live! last month.
“That really doesn’t mean anything, because one of the things that the British courts don’t understand is the U.S. doctrine of separation of powers,” she said.
“The prosecutors can give all the assurances they want, but the judiciary, another [one] .. of these three branches of government in the U.S., doesn’t have to abide by the executive branch claim or assurance,” Cohn said.
In other words, whether Assange can rely on the First Amendment in his defense in a U.S. court is up to that court not Kromberg or the Department of Justice, which issued the assurance on Tuesday.
The United States has issued a non-assurance in relation to the First Amendment,” said Stella Assange
Assange’s legal team now has the right to challenge the credibility and validity of the U.S. assurances filed on Tuesday. The U.S. would then have a right to reply to Assange’s legal submissions to the court, which will hold a hearing on May 20 to determine whether or not to accept the U.S. assurances.
If the court does, Assange can be put on a plane to the U.S. theoretically that day. If not Assange would be granted a full appeal against the Home Office’s 2022 order to extradite him. Assange is wanted in the U.S. on 17 charges under the 1917 Espionage Act and one on conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. He faces up to 175 years in a U.S. dungeon.
“The diplomatic note does nothing to relieve our family’s extreme distress about his future — his grim expectation of spending the rest of his life in isolation in US prison for publishing award-winning journalism,” Stella Assange said.
In its 66-page ruling on March 26, the two High Court judges wrote Kromberg wouldn’t have said Assange would be without First Amendment rights at trial “unless that was a tenable argument that the prosecution was entitled to deploy with a real prospect of success.”
“If such an argument were to succeed it would (at least arguably) cause the applicant [Assange] prejudice on the grounds of his non-US citizenship (and hence, on the grounds of his nationality),” the judges said. They added:
“The applicant wishes to argue, at any trial in the United States, that his actions were protected by the First Amendment. He contends that if he is given First Amendment rights, the prosecution will be stopped. The First Amendment is therefore of central importance to his defence to the extradition charge.”
This is the statement Stella Assange put out on X Tuesday at 11:36 am EDT:
“The United States has issued a non-assurance in relation to the First Amendment, and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty. It makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution’s previous assertion that Julian has no First Amendment rights because he is not a U.S citizen. Instead, the US has limited itself to blatant weasel words claiming that Julian can ‘seek to raise’ the First Amendment if extradited. The diplomatic note does nothing to relieve our family’s extreme distress about his future — his grim expectation of spending the rest of his life in isolation in US prison for publishing award-winning journalism. The Biden Administration must drop this dangerous prosecution before it is too late.”
No Russian heavy weapons at Zaporozhye plant – IAEA boss
https://www.rt.com/russia/596018-no-heavy-russian-arms-zaporozhye/—16 Apr 24
Europe’s largest nuclear power plant was attacked by drones last week
Russia has not stationed heavy weapons at Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi told reporters on Monday.
Moscow and Kiev have accused each other of shelling Europe’s largest nuclear plant, which sits close to the front line. Ukraine and its Western backers have also accused Moscow of using the facility as cover for its troops.
“There is no heavy weaponry there,” Grossi told reporters, after a UN Security Council meeting dedicated to the renewed strikes on the plant.
Although there are Russian “armored vehicles and some security presence at the plant,” IAEA monitors did not see any prohibited weapons, such as multiple rocket launchers, tanks, and artillery, Grossi explained.
He added that the IAEA does not have the mandate to determine which side has been attacking the facility, and argued that “indisputable evidence” is needed to establish who is responsible.
Addressing the Security Council, Grossi confirmed that Europe’s largest nuclear power plant was struck on April 7, which was the first direct attack on the site since November 2022. Inspectors have determined that the apex of the containment dome of the Unit 6 reactor building was hit, he added. “Whilst the damage to the structure is superficial, the attack sets a very dangerous precedent of the successful targeting of the reactor containment,” Grossi stressed, warning that “these reckless attacks must cease immediately.”
Russian UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council that Ukrainian forces have been “systematically” targeting the plant and surrounding areas. The Russian army has been “spotting and intercepting up to 100 drones per week,” Nebenzia added, insisting that Moscow has never placed heavy weapons at the facility or used the plant to stage attacks on Ukraine.
Officials in Kiev have denied striking the nuclear plant. “The position of Ukraine is clear and unequivocal: we are not conducting any military activities or provocations against nuclear sites,” Andrey Yusov, spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence, told national TV this month. Andrey Kovalenko, the head of the state-run Center for Countering Disinformation, has accused Moscow of spreading false information and “manipulating the IAEA.”
The agency said in its report this week that all of the facility’s six reactors are currently in cold shutdown. According to the plant’s management, only one reactor had been working since 2022 in order to keep the site operational. IAEA inspectors were deployed to monitor the facility in September 2022.
Survey by East Lindsay District Councillor and Guardians of the East Coast (GOTEC) say ‘85% don’t want nuclear dump’
A new survey by a Theddlethorpe campaign group has shown that after years of the campaign, public opinion remains the same – it’s still a ‘no’ to a nuclear waste dump.
Lincolnshire World, By The Newsroom, 16th Apr 2024,
Travis Hesketh, East Lindsey District Councillor for the Withern and Theddlethorpe Ward, joined forces with the Guardians of the East Coast to host public consultation events during March to gather public opinion on Nuclear Waste Services plans to store nuclear waste at Theddlethorpe Gas Terminal.
As well as asking residents of Theddlethorpe and Sutton on Sea in person and online, village hall events were also held in Carlton, Reston, Mablethorpe, Maltby le Marsh, and Withern.
The results showed that of the 1,008 registered votes, 85 percent of respondents did not want the GDF – the same result found in 2022’s survey – while 7.7 percent were undecided, and the remaining 7.7 percent were for a GDF.
In a statement within the results, Ken Smith, chairman of the GOTEC, said: “After a three year project, the view of the community remains the same – this community does not want a GDF. It is not a willing community.
“There is no change of opinion taking place despite NWS lobbying. It is reasonable therefore to conclude that there is no prospect of gaining community support for the GDF.”………………………………………………….. https://www.lincolnshireworld.com/news/environment/survey-by-eldc-councillor-and-gotec-say-85-dont-want-nuclear-dump-4592761
Eve of destruction. Can war in the Middle East be avoided?
by Stuart McCarthy | Apr 17, 2024 https://michaelwest.com.au/israel-iran-and-the-prospect-of-war/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2024-04-18&utm_campaign=Michael+West+Media+Weekly+Update—
Stuart McCarthy dissects the forever conflict.
Spectacular footage of Iranian missiles being intercepted by Israeli air defences in the night skies last weekend is only a portend of what’s at stake if Middle East tensions continue to spiral. As horrific as the human suffering in Gaza has been since October, there’s a risk of worse to come if cool heads don’t prevail. According to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, there is now “a real danger of a devastating full-scale conflict.”
“Benjamin Netanyahu has completely lost his mental balance due to the successive failures in Gaza and his failure to achieve his Zionist goals.”
A history of tension
Tensions between Israel, Iran, and other Middle East and Western actors involved in the escalation go back decades, pre-dating the emergence of Hamas and Al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001 attacks, which drew the West into a ‘global war on terror’ that shaped many of the current animosities.This broader context is crucial in understanding how the Israel-Gaza conflict might reach a ceasefire or the prospects of an enduring two-state solution.
Western interests in the region have long revolved around the flow of oil to the global economy, a too-easily forgotten strategic vulnerability previously exploited by Middle East states in targeting the West’s support for Israel.
Organisation of Arab Oil Exporting Countries’ embargo that triggered the first oil shock of 1973 was a response to western support for Israel during the fourth Arab-Israeli war. That war, in turn, was an attempt by Egypt and Syria to recover the territories lost to Israel during the third Arab-Israeli war in 1967. Those territories included the Golan Heights (Syria), the Sinai Peninsula (Egypt), and the Israeli-occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
of 1973 was a response to western support for Israel during the fourth Arab-Israeli war. That war, in turn, was an attempt by Egypt and Syria to recover the territories lost to Israel during the third Arab-Israeli war in 1967. Those territories included the Golan Heights (Syria), the Sinai Peninsula (Egypt), and the Israeli-occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The second oil shock was a consequence of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. While the complex causes of that revolution remain the subject of debate, among them was a conservative backlash against the country’s secularisation of the Shah of Iran’s western-backed monarchy. The country is now a Shia Islamic theocracy.
The genesis of September 11 and the ensuing Afghanistan and Iraq wars is similarly complex, however among Al Qaeda’s grievances was the predominantly Sunni Arab states’ support of western military presence in the Middle East. Their main strategic objective was to provoke the West into invading the Holy Lands, thus sparking a popular Muslim uprising that would bring about regional or even global theocratic rule under a Wahhabi Caliphate.
The West obliged with its ill-fated 20-year military campaign in Afghanistan and the epic strategic blunder of invading Iraq on a false pretext. Among the outcomes of the latter was the rise of ISIS in Iraq, Syria and its affiliates elsewhere.
Status quo
Today’s Middle East instability – including the role of Islamist terrorism – is largely the result of western interventionism and strategic incompetence, even before we consider the specific question of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
As the West lost its way in a series of quagmires, Iran sought to bolster itself against the threat posed by Israel and its Western allies. Allegiances were forged with Hamas and other regional actors, motivated not necessarily by shared religious ideology but by shared strategic interests in countering Israel, its Western allies, and their Arab state enablers, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
Other allies include Hezbollah in Lebanon and, more recently, the Houthis in Yemen. Both have been designated as terrorist organisations by Western governments, each is estimated to have more than 100,000 fighters in addition to significant arsenals of conventional weapons.
Saturday night’s retaliatory missile strikes against Israel have been dismissed by some as a strategic miscalculation, a futile escalation easily thwarted by Israel’s sophisticated air defence systems.
“To dismiss this event so lightly would be to fail to appreciate the broader context, the details of the attack and Iran’s obvious strategic interests.”
Hamas’ importance
The name Hamas translates to “Islamic Resistance Movement.” The significance of the Iran-led strikes last weekend is that these are being heralded – even celebrated by some – as a transition from ‘shadow war’ to overt, conventional military confrontation by a more unified resistance against the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
In the case of Hamas, at least, this movement transcends Sunni-Shia sectarian interests. The movement now also seems prepared to defy western military support for Israel despite the high risks involved, evidenced by the Saudi and western bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen.
The resistance movement’s rhetoric has become popular among Western protesters who are pressuring their governments to withdraw support for Israel over concerns about violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza. Protest organisers are now using the explicit threat of “causing pain to the economy.”
Missile strikes no surprise
Saturday’s missile strikes, dubbed Operation True Promise by the IRGC, were telegraphed by Iran for a week. Not only did Iran forewarn Israel and the US, some reports suggest the IRGC also warned Jordan and other Arab states not to intervene “during the punitive attack against the Zionist regime.”
The aerial assault was preceded by the IRGC’s seizure of an Israeli-linked commercial vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, several days after the IRGC’s naval commander boasted of their ability to close the critical shipping lane. The prospect of an actual blockade triggering another global economic shock is one of the main reasons for western naval presence in the Persian Gulf, a subject we will return to in a moment.
According to Israeli and other military sources, the projectiles fired towards Israel on Saturday night included 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and 110 ballistic missiles, launched from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Iranian military leaders announced soon after the launches that this would end their retaliation for Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus if there was no further Israeli escalation.
Hezbollah said it also fired two barrages of rockets at an Israeli military base in the Golan Heights. Most of the Iranian projectiles appear to have been intercepted by Israeli air defences and aircraft from Israel, the US, the UK, France and Jordan. Among those reportedly destroyed by the US were a ballistic missile on its launcher and seven drones in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.
The drone and missile attacks apparently targeted Israeli military installations, including the Nevatim Air Force Base in southern Israel. Nevatim is home to Israel’s F-35 fighter jets, including those thought to be involved in the 1 April attack on the Damascus consulate. Four missiles reportedly struck the air base, A fifth was reportedly aimed at a military radar site in northern Israel but missed the target. One child was reportedly injured in southern Israel when an Iranian drone was intercepted overhead.
Iran’s strategy
While Israeli officials have played down any Iranian successes, several independent experts have suggested the strikes were ‘well calibrated’ by Iran. They wanted the strategic effect of retaliating for Israel’s attack on the consulate while deterring further escalation by Israel and minimising the risk of direct military intervention by the US and other Western allies. Ali Vaezoff of the International Crisis Group told CNN:
“This attack crossed a psychological threshold. It’s the first time Iran is striking Israel directly from its own soil, but I think it was also an attack that was designed to be flashy but not fatal.
At time of writing. the Netanyahu war cabinet is reportedly engaged in a “heated debate” over how to respond, while the head of the Iranian military has said, “Our response will be much larger than [Saturday night’s] military action if Israel retaliates against Iran.” President Biden, Arab state leaders and other world leaders have called for Israel and Iran to de-escalate.
The stakes for escalation into full-scale war stretch well beyond the Middle East, including the possibility of another global economic shock. As concerned as many Australians may be for the civilian population of Gaza, such a shock would likely hit home in a way few yet appreciate. One-fifth of the world’s total oil consumption transits through the Strait of Hormuz, with Iran well placed to cause a major disruption using supersonic or hypersonic anti-ship missiles should it wish to do so.
Risk for Australia
Australia is one of the advanced Western economies most vulnerable to such a shock. The demand-led economy of the Covid-19 pandemic saw a decrease in national petroleum fuel consumption of as little as 7%, a decline accounted for mainly by the collapse in air travel, while the road transport sector remained functional.
Our near total dependence on imported oil and refined fuels, our long and vulnerable supply chains, and our negligence in failing to make the necessary preparations promise a significantly worse shock should a full-scale Middle East war break out.
While civil society’s efforts towards an Israel-Palestine ceasefire are laudable, those criticising the parties to this conflict from the comfort of their lounge rooms should perhaps reflect on how their own complacent dependence on a non-renewable resource contributes to the cycle of violence once again engulfing the region.
They might also contemplate life under the theocratic rule espoused by some of the conflict’s main actors. None of this is to diminish Israel’s atrocities in Gaza, but it should give pause to those cheering their favoured ‘side’ in a conflict threatening to spiral out of control.
Meanwhile, let’s hope cool heads prevail in the Middle East.
“Rules-Based Order” Means Rules For Thee But Not For We
Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix, CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, APR 18, 2024 https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/rules-based-order-means-rules-for?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id
Israel’s allowed to bomb an Iranian consulate, but Iran’s not allowed to strike back. The US is allowed to surround China with war machinery, but it would be World War Three if China ever tried to militarily encircle the US. NATO is allowed to expand to Russia’s doorstep and amass proxy forces on its border, but the last time Moscow placed a credible military threat anywhere near the United States, the US responded so aggressively that the world almost ended.
The “rules-based international order” that the US-centralized power structure purports to uphold just means an order in which the US makes up the rules and nations had better obey them. It means rules for thee but not for me.
Democrats are currently committing genocide, pushing through terrifying NSA surveillance powers, and working to imprison a journalist for life for telling the truth about US war crimes, but it’s very important to support Biden because if Trump wins, fascism might come to America.
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The Assange extradition case is like if the mafia was demanding a snitch be extradited to Italy and multiple nations collaborated with them to help make this happen, except in this case the snitch is a journalist who told the truth, and the mob happens to run a global superpower.
The imperial media are once again trotting out John Bolton to help sell the idea of war with Iran. This monster belongs in a cage, not on camera. The fact that the mainstream western press keep having this completely discredited bloodthirsty psychopath on their shows to advocate every possible US war proves that our entire civilization is diseased.
Israel’s actions over the last six months have made it abundantly clear that Biden’s stated goal of preventing the outbreak of more war in the middle east and his stated “ironclad” support for Israel are two mutually exclusive positions. You can do one or the other, but not both.
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Outside the mainstream press the news about Ukraine is a nonstop deluge of stories about how badly things are going for them.
Here are some recent articles from Antiwar.com:
“Ukraine’s Top General Says Situation on the Battlefield Has ‘Significantly Worsened’” discusses Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi’s acknowledgement that Russia is making steady gains and that the frontlines in Ukraine are at risk of collapsing wherever Russia focuses its offensive.
“US General Says Russia’s Military Is Bigger Than Before Ukraine Invasion” quotes General Christopher Cavoli saying “The army is actually now larger — by 15% — than it was when it invaded Ukraine,” an acknowledgement that Washington’s stated goal of using this proxy war to “weaken” Russia has failed.
“Russia Quickly Restores Oil Refinery Capability Hurt By Ukrainian Attacks” discusses how badly Russia is damaging Ukraine’s energy infrastructure compared to the damage Ukraine has been able to deal to Russia’s.
Here are a couple more from The Libertarian Institute:
“US Official Admits Ukraine Proxy War Failing to Weaken Russia” features an acknowledgement from Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell that Russia has reconstituted nearly all of its military losses in Ukraine.
“Ukraine Tightens Rules on Military Service, Angering Soldiers” reports on how “Ukraine’s legislature advanced multiple new laws that tighten rules on conscription and extend military services for those already in uniform.”
It’s absolutely criminal how the west pushed this country into sacrificing a generation to a war they always knew was unwinnable.
So much suffering and loss has been caused by the way people decided a long time ago that killing one person is murder and therefore immoral but killing thousands of people is “war” and therefore fine. The actual act is the same; only the narrative and the scale are different.
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Around the mid-1800s humanity began to notice it doesn’t make sense for a small group of rich people to own everything and for everyone else to continually give that group labor, rent and expenses just to stay alive, and ever since then the media, the mainstream culture and the foreign policy of the ruling class have been intensely devoted to aggressively erasing this realization from humanity’s memory.
Analysis of Canada’s Budget 2024 provisions related to nuclear.
Budget 2024 proposes to provide $3.1 billion over 11 years, starting in 2025-26, with $1.5 billion in remaining amortization, to Atomic Energy of Canada Limited to support Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ ongoing nuclear science research, environmental protection, and site remediation work.
16 Apr 2024, Susan O’Donnell
There’s no new money announcements for nuclear reactor development such as more money in the Strategic Innovation Fund, a bit of good news.
Overall, a ton of references to nuclear stuff, it’s all over this budget.
The big money announcement, which is not a surprise if you’re following goings-on at Chalk River, is $3.1 billion over 11 years “to Atomic Energy of Canada Limited to support Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ ongoing nuclear science research, environmental protection, and site remediation work.” see highlight in red below. I have no idea if this is the amount CNL asked for or more or less than that amount. I assume this is new money in addition to the $1.2B or so AECL already gets every year just to run the place.
There’s this one under Indigenous initiatives that could potentially mean funding for nuclear development, but it’s not enough to do anything much with: $36 million, over three years, starting in 2024-25, to renew support for the Strategic Partnerships Initiatives’ Clean Energy program to promote Indigenous participation in clean growth opportunities.
The other money stuff, refundable tax credits for new equipment, means a company needs to spend money to get the credit, which is not what the industry is looking for.
Unrelated to funding but of definite interest is the three-year target for nuclear project reviews and to avoid duplication between the CNSC and IAAC. I wasn’t aware there was duplication so if anyone has insight on the potential impact of this, please share.
Related is broad text for the revised IAA including “measures that include increasing flexibility in substitution of assessments to allow for collaboration and avoid interjurisdictional duplication” which I don’t like the sound of, maybe someone can offer insight.
There’s a long section on the “Canada-US Energy Transformation Task Force” which includes a worrying reference to that pre-written media release at COP 28 to triple nuclear energy, calling it an initiative between “government and like-minded partners” – I say this is worrying because I suspect there’s a battle royale going on as to whether this media stunt at the COP in Dubai by the nuclear industry is an official government commitment. Last time I looked, it wasn’t on the website of Environment and Climate Change Canada which is responsible for COP commitments. But it’s in the budget, so maybe that’s supposed to make it official.
Then there’s a nothing-statement about maintaining a robust Arctic presence, referring to Russia as “today’s most hostile nuclear power” which I guess it is from Canada’s perspective although most of the world’s countries would likely name a different candidate for that honour. Why this is concerning is the reference by PM Trudeau just a week or so ago about needing nuclear submarines to maintain Arctic sovereignty. A file to watch for sure.
So, in summary, a LOT of nuclear references in the budget which is interesting and unsettling but the only big money is for Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, that private company run by Atkins-Réalis/SNC Lavalin and two U.S. companies involved in nuclear weapons development.
So, that’s where our country is at, at this point in history.
Budget 2024 Fairness for every generation https://budget.canada.ca/2024/home-accueil-en.html
Page numbers refer to the pdf page.
Page 29:
Extending for an additional year collaboration with our largest trading partner through the Canada-U.S. Energy Transformation Task Force, which is bolstering critical mineral and nuclear energy supply chain integration.
Page 200:
A 15 per cent refundable tax credit rate for eligible investments in new equipment or refurbishments related to: Low-emitting electricity generation systems using energy from wind, solar, water, geothermal, waste biomass, nuclear, or natural gas with carbon capture and storage.
Page 206:
Set a three-year target for nuclear project reviews, by working with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, and consider how the process can be better streamlined and duplications reduced between the two agencies.
To advance the principle of “one project, one review”, Budget 2024 proposes to: Amend the Impact Assessment Act to respond to the October 2023 Supreme Court of Canada decision that ruled that elements of the Act are unconstitutional. The proposed amendments will ensure the Act is constitutionally sound, facilitating efficient project reviews while advancing Canada’s clean growth and protecting the environment. An amended Act will provide certainty for businesses and investors through measures that include increasing flexibility in substitution of
assessments to allow for collaboration and avoid interjurisdictional duplication, clarifying when joint federal-provincial review panels are possible, and allowing for earlier Agency screening decisions as to whether a full impact assessment is required after the Planning phase. The amended Act will remain consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act;
Page 208
Advancing Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Research, and Environmental Remediation
Non-emitting, nuclear energy is one of the key tools in helping the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Canada stands out as one of the few countries to have developed and deployed its own nuclear technology, the CANDU. And the robust Canadian supply chains built around CANDU not only generate highskilled jobs and foster research and development but also play a role in creating affordable and clean electricity. Canada’s nuclear sector also produces medical isotopes essential for radiation therapy and diagnosing heart disease.
Page 209
Canada is a Global Nuclear Energy Leader
Continue readingWyden Says Spying Bill Would Force Americans to Become an ‘Agent for Big Brother’
“If you have access to any communications, the government can force you to help it spy,” said Sen. Ron Wyden.
JAKE JOHNSON, Apr 17, 2024, Common Dreams
Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden took to the floor of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday to speak out against a chilling mass surveillance bill that lawmakers are working to rush through the upper chamber and send to President Joe Biden’s desk by the end of the week.
The measure in question would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for two years and massively expand the federal government’s warrantless surveillance power by requiring a wide range of businesses and individuals to cooperate with spying efforts.
“If you have access to any communications, the government can force you to help it spy,” said Wyden (Ore.), referring to an amendment that was tacked on to the legislation by the U.S. House last week with bipartisan support. “That means anyone with access to a server, a wire, a cable box, a Wi-Fi router, a phone, or a computer. So think for a moment about the millions of Americans who work in buildings and offices in which communications are stored or pass through.”
“After all, every office building in America has data cables running through it,” the senator continued. “The people are not just the engineers who install, maintain, and repair our communications infrastructure; there are countless others who could be forced to help the government spy, including those who clean offices and guard buildings. If this provision is enacted, the government can deputize any of these people against their will, and force them in effect to become what amounts to an agent for Big Brother—for example, by forcing an employee to insert a USB thumb drive into a server at an office they clean or guard at night.”
Wyden said the process “can all happen without any oversight whatsoever: The FISA Court won’t know about it, Congress won’t know about it. Americans who are handed these directives will be forbidden from talking about it. Unless they can afford high-priced lawyers with security clearances who know their way around the FISA Court, they will have no recourse at all.”……………
Despite its grave implications for civil liberties, the bill has drawn relatively little vocal opposition in the Senate. A final vote could come as soon as Thursday.
Titled Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA), the legislation passed the Republican-controlled House last week after lawmakers voted down an amendment that would have added a search warrant requirement to Section 702.
The authority allows U.S. agencies to spy on non-citizens located outside of the country, but it has been abused extensively by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Security Agency to collect the communications of American lawmakers, activists, journalists, and others without a warrant………………………………………..more https://www.commondreams.org/news/wyden-says-spying-bill-would-force-americans-to-become-an-agent-for-big-brother
Coral bleaching: Fourth global mass stress episode underway – US scientists
Coral around the world is turning white and even dying as recent record
ocean heat takes a devastating toll. It has triggered the fourth global
mass coral bleaching event, according to the US National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Bleaching happens when coral gets
stressed and turns white because the water it lives in is too hot. Coral
sustains ocean life, fishing, and creates trillions of dollars of revenue
annually.
Ocean heat records have been falling for months but this is the
first global evidence of how this episode is affecting sea life. The US
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed the mass
stress in all oceans (the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean) after weeks
of receiving reports from scientists globally. The bleached coral can look
beautiful in pictures but scientists that dive to examine the reefs say
that up close the coral is clearly ill and decaying.
BBC 15th April 2024
Nuke authorities approve loading fuel at Niigata nuclear plant
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, April 15, 2024 https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15229991
KASHIWAZAKI, Niigata Prefecture–The Nuclear Regulation Authority gave the go-ahead on April 15 to loading nuclear fuel into a reactor at the long-idled Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant here.
The approval is an important step toward restarting the plant, which has remained offline for more than a decade.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. will start loading 872 fuel assemblies into the plant’s No. 7 reactor at around 4 p.m. The loading process is expected to take a couple of weeks to complete.
The reactor will then undergo a series of safety inspections before regulatory approval for a restart is granted.
In 2017, the reactor passed new safety regulatory standards mandated following the 2011 nuclear disaster at TEPCO’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
However, regulators suspended the restart process in 2021 due to deficiencies in the plant’s anti-terrorism measures. The NRA eventually approved the plant’s upgraded security measures in December last year.
Despite progress toward restarting the reactor, the governor of Niigata Prefecture has not yet granted his consent. Local communities remain divided, with ongoing debate and concerns regarding the plant.
Labour and nuclear weapons: a turbulent ideological history
BY CHAS NEWKEY-BURDEN, THE WEEK UK, 15 Apr 24
From the 1940s to Keir Starmer, the party leadership has zigzagged in and out of love with the bomb
“We’ve got to have this thing over here, whatever it costs,” Labour’s then foreign secretary Ernest Bevin reportedly said in the 1940s, and “we’ve got to have the bloody Union Jack on top of it”.
That “thing” was the atomic bomb, but since being acquired by the UK, nuclear weapons have been a “divisive issue” within Labour, said the BBC.
Anti-nuke ‘fixture’
Michael Foot, who became Labour leader in 1980, was a founder member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and “a fixture at anti-nuclear demonstrations”, said socialist magazine Tribune.
When Neil Kinnock took over as leader in 1983, the party’s policy, which he supported, was unilateral nuclear disarmament and the removal of all US nuclear weapons and bases from British soil. But this policy was only supported by a minority of the British public, and Labour lost the 1987 general election.
By 1989, Kinnock had convinced the party to drop these policies, but “many” on the Labour left remain “vehemently opposed” to that decision, said the BBC.
Previously ‘unthinkable’
As a young MP, Tony Blair was a member of CND, but he was never strongly in favour of unilateral disarmament, and as party leader, he was on board with the party’s pro-nuclear policy……………………………………………
A ‘nuclear-free world’
Like Foot and Blair, Jeremy Corbyn was also a CND member, rising up to be vice-president of the campaign group before he became party leader in 2015. Corbyn told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme that if he became prime minister, he would instruct the UK’s defence chiefs never to use the Trident nuclear weapons system.
“I am opposed to the use of nuclear weapons,” he said. “I am opposed to the holding of nuclear weapons. I want to see a nuclear-free world. I believe it is possible.”……………………
‘Unshakeable’
Corbyn’s successor, Keir Starmer, has moved the party back to a staunchly pro-nuclear policy. In an article in the Daily Mail last week, he said that his commitment to the UK’s nuclear weapons was “unshakeable” and “absolute”……………………
Asked by ITV News if he would be willing to push the nuclear button as PM if Britain were under attack, Starmer said that “deterrence only works if there is a preparedness to use it”. https://theweek.com/defence/labour-nuclear-weapons-history
Two days of strikes planned at Dounreay nuclear power complex
Workers at the Dounreay nuclear power complex have voted to go on strike
next month. The Prospect union said its members would walk out on 1 and 2
May followed by a work to rule. Workers from Unite and the GMB had
previously voted in favour of industrial action after rejecting a 4.5%
offer backdated to April 2023. Dounreay’s operator, Nuclear Restoration
Services (NRS), has said previously it was disappointed by the result of
the votes. The site employs about 1,200 people.
BBC 15th April 2024
Theberton faces nightmare Sizewell C roadworks disruption
Fed-up villagers living along a B-road near Leiston have been left upset,
sleep-deprived and out of pocket after weeks of roadworks for Sizewell C. A
night-time operation to resurface the B1122 through Theberton and towards
Middleton between March 18 and April 10 left residents at the end of their
tether. Middleton Parish Councillor Charles Macdowell – who lives along the
road – said his house was shaking as they planed the surface of the road
and the noise kept him and his wife awake at night.
East Anglian Daily Times 15th April 2024
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/24252702.theberton-faces-nightmare-sizewell-c-roadworks-disruption
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