TODAY. Oh it’s a great time to be an American – with shares in “Defense” companies!
The USA Congress knows this. These worthy persons understand that their job is to enrich weapons companies and the people “wise” enough to have shares in them. After all, “defense” is the USA’s fastest growing and most successful industry. And of course, that’s the job of a patriotic American government – to promote American business.
Some think that the proper role of government is not solely protection of people from attack, but also to provide for the general well-being of the people. But that second purpose is not a goal of American government. And I would argue that even the first purpose is not a real goal – as the practices of diplomacy, negotiation, discussion and respect for other countries would be the best methods – rather than bullying and sabre-waving.
Anyway, the U.S. Senate just passed a $95Billion Bill for weapons for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Law-makers of both stripes are keen to promote weapons. Probably the Congress will approve this.
The U.S. Congress has the power to pull back, to prevent wars. But once they’ve given the White House the money for weapons – then the President (advised by warmongers like Jake Sullivan and Antony Blinken) can go ahead and wage war – Congress will then have no say.
Once the Congress approves an appropriation the President as commander-in chief can use the money any way he likes. If the aim of warmongers is eventual war against Iran, providing money for weapons will be Congress’s role in following this aim. Think tanks and media enthusiastically go along with this.
There seems to be no awareness that USA’s endless strikes on distant countries – Iraq , Syria, backing Israel against Palestine, Iran – are arousing fierce anger among millions of people. In Ukraine whole generations of men are being wiped out.
Weapons get used. Then you make and sell more weapons. That means continuing, endless wars. That’s the business. It’s great when there’s no, or relatively few, American soldiers killed. Terrific – only “the others” are dying.
It’s great for business. Lockheed Martin’s shares are up. Investing advice enthuses “Where there’s war, there’s money to be made, and rising geopolitical tension in the Middle East, and the two-year-long war in Ukraine are leaving investors to shield their portfolios with defense stocks………….no better time than being in the business of defense contracting than right now“
But one day – the shit will hit the fan! Shock horror – it might even happen in the lifetime of those making $millions from weapons sales.
Israeli Strikes in Rafah Kill 22, Including 18 Children
The bombardment came after the House approved $26 billion in spending to support the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians
by Dave DeCamp April 21, 2024 https://news.antiwar.com/2024/04/21/israeli-strikes-kill-22-in-rafah-including-18-children/
Israeli strikes hit the southern Gaza city of Rafah Saturday night into Sunday morning, killing 22 people, including 18 children, The Associated Press reported.
The bombardment came just hours after the US House of Representatives passed a $26 billion bill that includes about $17 billion in military aid for Israel to support the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.
According to AP, one of the overnight strikes killed a man, his wife, and their three-year-old child. The woman was 30 weeks pregnant, and medical staff at the nearby Kuwaiti hospital were able to save the baby. The second strike killed two women and 17 children.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Sunday that the number of Palestinians killed in the Strip has reached 34,097, and 76,980 more have been wounded. The death toll is considered a low estimate since it doesn’t take into account people who are dead under the rubble.
Rafah is packed with over 1 million Palestinian civilians and has been getting hit with near-daily Israeli strikes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been threatening to launch a full-scale invasion of the city.
The US has claimed that it’s concerned about Netanyahu’s plans to invade Rafah but is not putting any real pressure on Israel since it continues to provide military aid and political support. US and Israeli officials discussed the potential assault last week, and the White House said the two sides had a “shared objective to see Hamas defeated in Rafah.”
On Sunday, Netanyahu thanked the US for the new aid being passed through Congress and vowed to escalate in Gaza. “In the coming days, we will increase the military and diplomatic pressure on Hamas because this is the only way to free our hostages and achieve our victory,” he said.
Where are France’s nuclear reactors and what is planned for more?
the six new sites will by no means triple French production, particularly since the older plants will increasingly be closed for repair and maintenance.
President Macron wants to triple atomic energy production by 2050
Richard Henshell, Saturday 20 April 2024
France is the third biggest producer of nuclear energy in the world and hopes to triple production by 2050. We look at where the country’s nuclear sites are and at President Macron’s plans for more.
Nuclear power represents up to 70% of the electricity produced in France at 282 Terawatt-hours (TWh), behind only China (395TWh) and the US (772TWh) and far ahead of the UK (42TWh).
However, many of its plants are approaching the end of their life-cycle. The majority of France’s 56 reactors date from the 1980s, and only two have been built since the year 2000.
In order to meet the requirements of the 2015 Paris Climate Accords, President Macron announced his plans to reinvest in France’s ageing nuclear plants during last year’s COP28 climate meeting in Dubai.
“Nuclear energy is back,” said Mr Macron (in English), adding that it was time to recognise the “essential role that nuclear energy can play in efforts to reach zero carbon dioxide emissions on a global level”.
“We will triple our capacity to produce nuclear energy between 2020 and 2050,” he said.
France’s 56 reactors are shared between 19 sites. Another reactor is scheduled to power up at Flamanville this summer, bringing the total to 57 reactors.
There are also plans to construct six new reactors at three existing plants:
- Two at Penly (Seine-Maritime) for 2035
- Two at Gravelines (Nord) for 2038
- Two at Le Bugey (Ain) for 2042
Construction is scheduled to start in summer 2024 on first of these new reactors in Penly, which like the others, will use the powerful new EPR-2 design. The estimated total cost for the six reactors is around €67.4 billion.
However, the six new sites will by no means triple French production, particularly since the older plants will increasingly be closed for repair and maintenance.
Indeed, in December 2021, the discovery of cracks in the emergency cooling systems of France’s four newest reactors led to them being shut down for over a year
Regardless, Mr Macron announced in February 2022 that France’s older plants could conceivably operate far into the future – beyond their 60th year or until they are no longer capable of producing electricity, or no longer safe.
Iran says nuclear weapons have no place in its nuclear doctrine
By Reuters, April 22, 2024,
Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Editing by Alex Richardson, William Maclean, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-says-nuclear-weapons-have-no-place-its-nuclear-doctrine-2024-04-22/
DUBAI, April 22 (Reuters) – Nuclear weapons have no place in Iran’s nuclear doctrine, the country’s foreign ministry said on Monday, days after a Revolutionary Guards commander warned that Tehran might change its nuclear policy if pressured by Israeli threats.
“Iran has repeatedly said its nuclear programme only serves peaceful purposes. Nuclear weapons have no place in our nuclear doctrine,” ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said during a press conference in Tehran.
Following a spike in tensions with Israel, the Guards commander in charge of nuclear security Ahmad Haghtalab said last week that Israeli threats could push Tehran to “review its nuclear doctrine and deviate from its previous considerations.”
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last say on Tehran’s nuclear programme, banned the development of nuclear weapons in a fatwa, or religious decree, in the early 2000s.
Russia: West military support for Ukraine could lead to confrontation between world’s nuclear powers
Monday, 22 April 2024, https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/04/22/724164/Russia-Lavrov-Warns-Direct-War-With-West-Over-Ukraine
Moscow has warned of a direct confrontation between Russian troops and Western forces over the conflict in Ukraine that could end in catastrophe.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday the United States and NATO countries were obsessed with the idea of inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia, adding that their military support for Ukraine has pushed the world to the brink of a direct clash between the world’s biggest nuclear powers that could end in catastrophe.
“The Westerners are teetering dangerously on the brink of a direct military clash between nuclear powers, which is fraught with catastrophic consequences,” Lavrov said at a conference on non-proliferation in Moscow.
“Of particular concern is the fact that it is the ‘troika’ of Western nuclear states [US, Britain and France] that are among the key sponsors of the criminal Kiev regime, the main initiators of various provocative steps. We see serious strategic risks in this, leading to an increase in the level of nuclear danger,” Lavrov warned.
Lavrov said that the Western countries were building a global missile system capable of eliminating rivals. He added that the US-led Western countries were placing nuclear weapons in military bases all across Europe, while medium- and shorter-range missiles were being planted in other regions across the globe and preparations were made to deploy nuclear weapons into space.
According to both Russian and US diplomats, the present clash between the West and Russia over Ukraine is the worst breakdown of diplomatic relations by the two sides in decades, ever since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis cut bilateral ties.
Despite the risky tension, Western leaders have vowed to continue to work with and to provide support to Kiev to cause “strategic defeat” of Russian forces in Ukraine, while ruling out any deployment of American or European troops in the former Soviet republic.
Lavrov’s remarks come just two days after US lawmakers approved billions of dollars in additional military aid to Ukraine.
Since Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022 to prevent NATO’s eastward expansion, it has repeatedly warned the US-led Western counties against arming Kiev and the rising nuclear risks – warnings which the US leadership says it has to take seriously, though the officials say they have seen no change in Russian nuclear posture.
Zionism Is In Its Flop Era
The hysterical reaction to the Columbia protests is proof.
JACK MIRKINSON, APR 22, 2024 https://www.discourseblog.com/p/zionism-is-in-its-flop-era?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=38606&post_id=143849689&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
As a New York City resident, I take an interest in where my tax dollars are spent. Yesterday, at least some of those dollars were being spent to pay NYPD cops to hang around—in riot helmets—outside the locked gates of Columbia University. (Presumably, Columbia paid for the festive balloons on the gates.)
The vibes at Columbia were exactly as strange and slightly ridiculous as that picture when I swung by on Sunday. I’m on record as saying that I don’t think we should spend much time as a society stressing about what happens on fancy college campuses, but the Columbia leadership’s wildly over-the-top reaction to the decision by some students to sit in tents on the quad as part of a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” had turned the school into a national news story, and the students are being very courageous in the face of the full repressive force of both Columbia and New York City. Besides (looks down shamefacedly) I am technically a Columbia alum, so I was intrigued.
Even two blocks away, you wouldn’t have known anything was going on. Morningside Heights was its usual placid self. At 116th and Broadway, a small clutch of protesters was penned in by barricades and chanting, watched over by yet more cops. It’s no slight on the protesters to say that this hardly seemed like a national security crisis.
But I suppose that’s in the eye of the beholder. As I strolled past the protesters, I passed a guy screaming into his phone, “I don’t fucking care! There’s a riot on campus! People are in danger!” Reader, there was no riot on campus. There wasn’t even much noise.
I didn’t stay long; you couldn’t get into the campus without a student ID and there wasn’t actually that much to see. But within hours, both New York Mayor Eric Adams and the White House (lol) had issued statements portraying the protests as dangerous bastions of antisemitic hate. (As far as I can tell, a couple of people who showed up to support the students said some stupid shit. The students themselves, many of whom are Jewish, have pointed out that this has nothing to do with them.)
Why is the president of the United States involving himself in this situation? Why are the cops parked in riot gear in front of a locked gate where basically nothing is happening? Why, for that matter, did Columbia President Minouche Shafik treat a peaceful encampment on the lawn as a declaration of war? Why did Columbia’s own security force try to shut down the student radio station that was reporting on the protests? Why, in other words, are these people freaking out so much?
Obviously, they want to nip all of this protest stuff in the bud. They want to show students, and Columbia’s donors, and the fanatical politicians hounding them, that they will make it dangerous to step out of line. And to do that, they are willing to go way, way overboard.
But there is something else you can sense in all of this—another current running through the crackdown. That current is desperation. This is the kind of wild swing you take when you sense your grip on things slipping away—when you are trying to contain something that is becoming stronger than you ever imagined possible.
We’ve all been there. We all know what it feels like when you’re in your flop era—when you’re throwing everything at the wall and nothing is sticking. And Zionism is going through a flop era in America.
The White House, and Eric Adams, and Columbia University are all looking around and noticing that the old rules about Israel and Palestine are no longer working like they used to. A majority of Americans oppose the genocide in Gaza, and have for months. Young people like the Columbia students strongly oppose it. They are not listening to the likes of Joe Biden anymore about this stuff.
How can I be sure about this? Well, since Columbia moved to shut down the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, similar protests have sprung up at universities across the country. Just this morning, Yale followed Columbia’s lead and forcibly cleared a student encampment. This student movement is growing, not fading. It turns out that a lot of people want to stand against genocide. It turns out that a lot of people think that Israel slaughtering children day after day is a bigger threat to a stable and just world than college students sitting in a tent. And because Columbia, and Eric Adams, and Joe Biden have no real answer to that reality, they are instead choosing to pretend that Kristallnacht II is upon us—to smear the Palestinian flag as the equivalent of a swastika, to turn young people protesting genocide into symbols of evil.
It’s not working.
Polish president: Poland ready to deploy allied nuclear weapons on its territory
by Chris York andThe Kyiv Independent, April 22, 2024
Poland is ready and willing to allow NATO allies to deploy nuclear weapons on its territory, Polish President Andrzej Duda said in an interview published on April 22.
Speaking to Fakt, Duda highlighted how Russia has already taken similar steps with its own allies, having transferred tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus last year.
The president said the topic of placing U.S. nuclear weapons in Poland “has been a topic of Polish-American talks for some time.”
“If our allies decide to deploy nuclear weapons as part of nuclear sharing also on our territory to strengthen the security of NATO‘s eastern flank, we are ready for it,” he said.
“We are an ally in the North Atlantic Alliance, and we also have obligations in this respect, i.e., we simply implement a common policy.”……………………. https://kyivindependent.com/poland-nuclear-weapons-duda/
Russia-Ukraine war: EU ministers fail to pledge Patriot systems to Ukraine at key meeting – as it happened
Yohannes Lowe and Sammy Gecsoyler, 23 Apr 24 https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/apr/22/russia-ukraine-war-live-zelenskiy-chasiv-yar?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with%3Ablock-66261a918f08839e09ac8c8b
Russia says new US aid to Ukraine will not change situation on battlefield
A new US package of military aid to Ukraine will not change the situation on the frontlines, where Russia has the upper hand, the Kremlin said.
“The Russian armed forces are improving their positions at the front … The money allocated and the weapons that will be supplied will not change this dynamic,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“They will lead to new victims on the Ukrainian side. More Ukrainians will die, Ukraine will suffer greater losses.”
In the Ukraine bill, of the $60.7bn, a total of about $23bn would be used by the US to replenish its military stockpiles, opening the door to future US military transfers to Ukraine.
Another $14bn would go to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, in which the Pentagon buys advanced new weapon systems for the Ukrainian military directly from US defence contractors.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday urged Washington to quickly turn the bill into law and proceed with the actual transfer of weapons, saying long-range arms and air defence systems were top priorities.
“I think this support will really strengthen the armed forces of Ukraine and we will have a chance for victory,” Zelenskiy said.
Russia said the American defence industry will be the real beneficiary of the package.
“We also recognise that most of this money will remain in the United States. The United States will become richer and will receive additional dividends by providing assistance to Ukraine. For (President Vladimir) Putin, this was expected,” Peskov said.
Heatwave in India: TV host faints during live broadcast as swaths of country reel from sweltering temperatures
India’s federal weather agency
has issued “severe heatwave” alerts for parts of India with
temperatures soaring to 42-44C. India witnessed the early onset of an
intense heatwave in March and April, leading to a huge impact on
agriculture production. A heatwave alert has been issued for Odisha and
West Bengal till 22 April with temperature peaking above 40C.
Independent 22nd April 2024
Poland: We’re ready to host nuclear weapons, (and work with Trump )
Polish President Andrzej Duda said atomic sharing has been a topic of Warsaw-Washington talks.
Politico, APRIL 22, 2024 , BY CLAUDIA CHIAPPA
Polish President Andrzej Duda said Poland is “ready” to host nuclear weapons on its territory if NATO decides to reinforce its eastern flank.
“Russia is increasingly militarizing the Königsberg oblast (Kaliningrad). Recently, it has been relocating its nuclear weapons to Belarus,” Duda said in an interview published Monday by Polish outlet Fakt.
“If our allies decide to deploy nuclear weapons as part of nuclear sharing on our territory as well, in order to strengthen the security of NATO’s eastern flank, we are ready for it,” he added.
………………………………………………………….. Duda, who recently traveled to New York and met Republican 2024 candidate Donald Trump, spoke fondly of the former president, saying that the two have “a lot of common topics.”
“He is a politician with whom I directly cooperated with the United States for four years when he was the president of the United States,” Duda said. “I want to emphasize very strongly that we have been friends since then. I really like talking to him, because he is an extremely interesting personality and has a lot of experience, both political and business.” https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-ready-host-nuclear-weapons-andrzej-duda-nato/
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un Oversees Simulated ‘Nuclear Counterattack’
The drill took place on Monday, according to the report. Seoul’s military had earlier announced that the North had fired several short-range ballistic missiles on Monday, with Tokyo confirming the launch.
World NewsAgence France-Presse April 23, 2024 https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/north-koreas-kim-jong-un-oversees-simulated-nuclear-counterattack-5501429
According to report, Kim Jong Un “appreciated the high hit and accuracy” of the rockets.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has overseen a drill simulating a “nuclear counterattack,” state-run KCNA news agency said Tuesday, the latest in a volley of tests by Pyongyang this year.
The drill took place on Monday, according to the report. Seoul’s military had earlier announced that the North had fired several short-range ballistic missiles on Monday, with Tokyo confirming the launch.
The drill involved “super-large multiple rocket units” which “hit their island target” some 352 kilometres (219 miles) away, the report said.
It added that Kim “appreciated the high hit and accuracy” of the rockets.
South Korea’s military said Monday that the missiles flew from the Pyongyang area for about 300 kilometres before splashing down in the waters east of the Korean peninsula.
The launch is the second in less than a week by Pyongyang, which on Friday tested a “super-large warhead” designed for a strategic cruise missile, state media said. Seoul’s military confirmed it had detected cruise missile launches at the time.
Europe baked in ‘extreme heat stress’ pushing temperatures to record highs
Scorching weather has baked Europe in more days of “extreme heat
stress” than its scientists have ever seen. Heat-trapping pollutants that
clog the atmosphere helped push temperatures in Europe last year to the
highest or second-highest levels ever recorded, according to the EU’s
Earth-watching service Copernicus and the World Meteorological Organization
(WMO).
Europeans are suffering with unprecedented heat during the day and
are stressed by uncomfortable warmth at night. The death rate from hot
weather has risen 30% in Europe in two decades, the joint State of the
Climate report from the two organisations found. “The cost of climate
action may seem high,” said WMO secretary-general Celeste Saulo, “but
the cost of inaction is much higher”.
The report found that temperatures
across Europe were above average for 11 months of 2023, including the
warmest September since records began. The hot and dry weather fuelled
large fires that ravaged villages and spewed smoke that choked far-off
cities. The blazes that firefighters battled were particularly fierce in
drought-stricken southern countries such as Portugal, Spain and Italy.
Guardian 22nd April 2024
Paul Dorfman: “In Ukraine or the Middle East, the risk of a nuclear accident is real”
Nuclear safety . For nuclear safety expert Paul Dorfman, a military attack on a nuclear power plant would be disastrous, both humanly and environmentally.
Comments collected by Baptiste Gauthey, 04/21/2024
Two conflicts, and the same fear. On April 15, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, sounded the alarm about threats posed to infrastructure by the war in Ukraine and tensions in the Middle East nuclear power plants in these regions. “We are getting dangerously close to a nuclear accident [in Zaporizhia, a Ukrainian power plant ],” he even declared on the sidelines of the UN Security Council.
Paul Dorfman, chairman of the Nuclear Consulting Group and a member of the Irish government’s Environmental Protection Agency’s radiation protection advisory committee, says these concerns are entirely justified. According to him, a military attack on a nuclear power plant would lead to catastrophic consequences. To the point, even, of calling into question the development of civil nuclear power in the world? Interview.
In your opinion, is there a risk that the conflict in Ukraine could trigger a nuclear accident?
Paul Dorfman Of course, no nuclear power plant in the world is safe from military attack. These attacks could target either the reactor or the storage basins for highly radioactive spent fuel, which are significantly less protected.
There is no doubt that a military attack on the Ukrainian Zaporizhia power plant would trigger a catastrophe, with radioactive releases that would have a serious impact on the surrounding environment and human health. Additionally, if weather conditions are unfavorable, such as a wind blowing towards Central Europe or Russia, the consequences could extend well beyond Ukraine.
According to an article published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists by Jungmin Kang and Eva Lisowski, the effects of such an attack could be comparable, if not greater, to those of Chernobyl ?
L’Express 21st April 2024
04/21/2024
Nuclear test campaigner demands access to medical files
By Andrea Ormsby, BBC News, 23 Apr 24
A campaigner from Devon is suing the government over missing medical records belonging to veterans exposed to radiation more than 70 years ago.
Susan Musselwhite’s father, Derek, was one of 22,000 servicemen who took part in nuclear tests in the 1950 and 1960s.
Ms Musselwhite said access to missing medical files would help veterans and descendants who said their health had suffered as a result of the trials.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said no information was withheld from veterans.
Ms Musselwhite, 44, from Paignton, is part of a group of former military personnel and their families who have sent a letter before action on the MoD, formally warning of a potential court claim, and handed a petition into Downing Street in March 2024.
Ms Musselwhite said: “What these men witnessed you only see in movies. But they witnessed it, they lived it; they know the deadliest weapon ever created.”
The group is calling for the government to create a special tribunal to oversee compensation.
Personnel from all three armed forces took part in Cold War nuclear weapons trials between 1952 and 1967 in Australia and the South Pacific.
Susan Musselwhite said the government “sent their men as cannon fodder and those men deserve to be recognised for what they did”, including her Royal Navy diver father.
Like many of the veterans’ children and grandchildren, Ms Musselwhite said she was struggling with serious health issues.
Campaigners say they are currently unable to access their records or parts are missing or incomplete because the samples have been reclassified as “scientific data” and placed at the MoD’s Atomic Weapons Establishment research facility.
MoD sources previously told the BBC that archives at the facility have been searched and do not contain the medical records in question.
Ms Musselwhite said missing medical records of blood and urine tests taken by the military during the trials could provide vital information…………………………….. more https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-68883809
1 This Month.
5 January -Webinar-What is Trump’s Golden Dome?
REGISTER AT Massachusetts Peace Action Education
New book – https://www.amazon.com/dp/1923372157?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Now until to February 10, 2026 Radioactive waste storage in France: the debate is finally open! How to participate?
-
Archives
- December 2025 (236)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (377)
- September 2025 (258)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
- June 2025 (348)
- May 2025 (261)
- April 2025 (305)
- March 2025 (319)
- February 2025 (234)
- January 2025 (250)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 