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TODAY. Small modular reactors – yes -the nuclear lobby will keep hyping them – no matter what!

Well, we all do know why. The small nuclear reactor (SMR)power industry – moribund though it is, is essential for the nuclear weapons industry – for a number of reasons, but importantly – to put a sweet gloss on that murderous industry.

Never mind that USA’s NuScale’s SMRs were a resounding flop – NuScale is still being touted, along with all the other little nuclear unicorns manouvreing to get tax-payer funding.

The facts remain, and apparently just need to be hammered again and again:

SMRs are not cheap, not safe, do not reduce wastes, are not reliable for off-grid power, are not more efficient fuel users than are large reactors.

The latest hyped -up push for SMRs is in Canada – with the boast that they will benefit indigenous communities . Successful bribery of indigenous people would give a huge boost to the global nuclear lobby, – as indigenous people have historically been the most distrustful of uranium mining and of the whole nuclear fuel chain.

The gimmicks this time are floating nuclear power plants – barges carrying Westinghouse’s eVinci microreactors. These would take over from the current deisal power plants serving remote communities. There are already some solar, wind and battery projects – frowned upon by the nuclear lobby, of course.

These projects are being strongly promoted, but poorly explained to indigenous communities, would bring radiological hazards along Canada’s Northern shoreline

And what really are the chances that these little nuclear power sources would be effective anyway? Recent reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reveal that while 83 small nuclear reactors are “in development”, but there are only 2 in operation.

In both cases, the development of the reactors was a very lengthy and expensive process.

The Chinese SMR HTR-PM- “Between January and December 2022, the reactors operated for only 27 hours out of a possible maximum of 8,760 hours. In the subsequent three months, they seem to have operated at a load factor of around 10 percent.” 

For the Russian SMR –  “The operating records of the two KLT-40S reactors have been quite poor. According to the IAEA’s PRIS [Power Reactor Information System] database, the two reactors had load factors of just 26.4 and 30.5 percent respectively in 2022, and lifetime load factors of just 34 and 22.4 percent.”

Will Canada’s remote indigenous communitites buy the duplicitous nuclear lobby’s propaganda on SMRs ? And then, subsequently, will the rest of us buy it, despite the facts. I guess that the corporate media will help, – if lies are repeated often enough, people come to believe them.

May 4, 2024 Posted by | Christina's notes, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

Horror radioactive leak warning as Russian floods barrel towards uranium mine

Local authorities have flagged the Dobrovolnoye uranium mine as being in the flood zone, Russian investigative site Agentstvo reported on Sunday.

By CHRIS SAMUEL, Mon, Apr 22, 2024 , https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1891008/russia-flood-radioactive-leak-threat-uranium-mines

Russian environmentalists have issued a dire warning over the threat of a radioactive leak threat as floodwaters near a uranium mine in the country’s Kurgan region.

The Russian Urals region and northern Kazakhstan have been hit by the worst flooding in decades, with authorities evacuating tens of thousands of residents from Kurgan and Orenburg, amid rescue operations to save stranded residents and animals.

Experts are now sounding the alarm over the potential for drinking water to be contaminated by radioactive material.

Local authorities have flagged the Dobrovolnoye uranium mine, in the village of Ukrainskoye in Kurgan’s Zverinogolovsky district, as being in the flood zone, Russian investigative site Agentstvo reported on Sunday.

The mine is estimated to hold around 7,077 tons of uranium, with a grade level of between 0.01 percent to 0.05 percent uranium, Global energy news outlet NS Energy Business reported.

Environmental experts fear the Tobol River, which flows close by, could become contaminated with uranium as water levels soar.

Sergei Eremin, head of the regional environmental organization Foundation for Public Control Over the State of the Environment and the Well-Being of the Population, said footage captured by a resident indicates that an old well “that had been leaking [uranium] for 35 years” may already have been submerged, as per Newsweek.

The devasting washout came after an abrupt rise in temperatures this spring, combined with high snow reserves, increased humidity and frozen soil, resulting in the worst flooding in 80 years, Natalia Frolova, a professor in the geography department at Moscow State University, told Bloomberg.

Andrei Ozharovsky, an expert in the Radioactive Waste Safety program of the Russian Social-Ecological Union, told Agentstvo that a uranium leak from the Dobrovolnoye mine will result in an elevated concentration of uranium salts in the Tobol River, which could contaminate drinking water.

May 4, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Small modular reactors aren’t the energy answer for Canada’s remote communities and mines

Screenshot

The energy costs associated with small modular reactors exceed those of diesel-based electricity. Policy-makers should focus on renewables.

by Sarah Froese, Nadja Kunz, M. V. Ramana August 26, 2020  https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/august-2020/small-modular-reactors-arent-the-energy-answer-for-remote-communities-and-mines/

A new type of theoretical nuclear power plant design called small modular reactors (SMRs) has been in the news of late. Earlier this year, at the 2020 Canadian Nuclear Association conference, Minister of Natural Resources Seamus O’Regan announced that the federal government will release an SMR Action Plan this fall. Ontario, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan have announced their backing and possibly some financial support for the development of these reactors.

Promoters suggest that remote communities and off-grid mining operations are promising markets for SMRs in Canada. These communities and mines pay a lot for electricity because they are reliant on diesel generators, and transporting and storing diesel to these locations can be very expensive. Thus, supporters hope, SMRs might be a way to lower electricity costs and carbon dioxide emissions.

We examined this proposition in detail in a recently published paper and concluded that this argument has two problems. First, the electricity that SMRs produce is far more expensive than diesel-based electricity. Second, even ignoring this problem, the total demand for electricity at these proposed markets is insufficient to justify investing in a factory to manufacture the SMRs.

SMRs have been proposed as a way to deal with many problems associated with large nuclear power plants, in particular the high costs of construction, running to tens of billions of dollars. SMR designs have much in common with large nuclear reactors, including, most basically, their reliance on nuclear fission reactions to produce electricity. But they also differ from large nuclear reactors in two ways. First, they have electricity outputs of less than 300 megawatts (MW) and sometimes as low as a few MW, considerably lower than the outputs of 700 to 1500 MW typical of large nuclear reactors. Second, SMR designs use modular means of manufacturing, so that they need only be assembled, rather than fully constructed, at the plant site. While large reactors that have been constructed in recent years have also adopted modular construction, SMR designers hope to rely more substantially on these techniques.

A standard metric used to evaluate the economics of different energy choices is called the levelized cost of energy (LCOE). We calculated that the LCOE for SMRs could be over ten times greater than the LCOE for diesel-based electricity. The cheapest options are hybrid generation systems, with wind or solar meeting a part of the electricity demand and diesel contributing the rest.

Why this high cost? The primary problem is that the small outputs from SMRs run counter to the logic of economies of scale. Larger reactors are more cost-efficient because they produce more electricity for each unit of material (such as concrete and steel) they use and for the number of operators they employ. SMR proponents argue that they can make up for this through the savings from mass manufacture at factories and the learning that comes with manufacturing many reactors. The problem is that building a factory requires a sizable market, sometimes referred to as an order book. Without a large number of orders, the investment needed to build the factory will not be justified.

We estimated the potential market for SMRs at remote mines and communities in Canada. We drew primarily upon two databases produced by Natural Resources Canada regarding mining areas and remote communities. As of 2018, there were 24 remote mining projects that could be candidates for SMR deployment within the next decade. Currently, these projects use diesel generators with a total installed capacity of 617 MW. For remote communities, we calculated a fossil fuel (primarily diesel) generation capacity of 506 MW. But many of these communities had demands that were too low for even the smallest-output SMR under review at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

Even if all these potential buyers want to adopt SMRs for electricity supply, without regard to the economic or noneconomic factors weighing against the construction of nuclear reactors, the combined demand would likely be much less than 1000 MW. The minimum demand required to justify the cost of producing SMRs would be three to seven times higher.

Furthermore, we concluded that the economics of SMRs don’t compete when compared with other alternatives. The cost of electricity from SMRs was found to be much higher than the cost of wind or solar, or even of the diesel supply currently used in the majority of these mines and communities.

Of course, our estimates for the LCOEs of different sources are dependent on various assumptions. We tried varying these assumptions within reasonable limits and found that the main result — that electricity from SMRs is far more expensive than the corresponding costs of generating electricity using diesel, wind, solar or some combination thereof — remains valid. All else being equal, the assumed capital cost of constructing a SMR would have to decline by over 95 percent to be competitive with a wind-diesel hybrid system. The limited experience with SMRs that are being built around the world suggests that construction costs will be higher, not lower, than advocates promise.

Meanwhile, renewables and storage technologies have seen substantial cost declines over the past decades. Recent estimates place wind, solar and hybrid systems at costs competitive with diesel power. Successful demonstrations suggest that renewable hybrid applications are becoming increasingly feasible for heavy industry, and the implementation of numerous numerous projects in northern communities suggests a high level of social acceptance. Many northern and, in particular, Indigenous communities have an interest in self-determined decision-making and maintaining a good relationship with the land. In June 2019, for example, the Anishinabek Chiefs-in-Assembly, representing 40 First Nations across Ontario, unanimously expressed opposition to SMRs. Grand Council Chief Glen Hare announced that the Anishinabek Nation is “vehemently opposed to any effort to situate SMRs within our territory.”

Instead of focusing on SMRs, policy-makers should bolster support for other renewable generation technologies as key mechanisms to reduce carbon emissions and align with community values.

May 4, 2024 Posted by | Canada, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

Gaza Journalists Killed by Israel Honored on World Press Freedom Day

https://youtube.com/watch?v=e3K1oYte87o%3Fsi%3D9NDCoLVfQA3IFJin

“To claim these deaths are accidental is not only incredulous, it is insulting to the memory of professionals who lived their lives in service of truth and accuracy,” said one expert.

Common dreams JESSICA CORBETT, May 03, 2024

As the international community marked World Press Freedom Day on Friday, journalists and advocates across the globe mourned and celebrated those killed in Israel’s ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip.

The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has publicly identified at least 97 media workers killed since Israel launched its retaliatory war on October 7: 92 Palestinian, three Lebanese, and two Israeli reporters.

Since the Israel-Gaza war began, journalists have been paying the highest price—their lives—to defend our right to the truth. Each time a journalist dies or is injured, we lose a fragment of that truth,” said CPJ program director Carlos Martínez de la Serna in a Friday statement. “Journalists are civilians who are protected by international humanitarian law in times of conflict. Those responsible for their deaths face dual trials: one under international law and another before history’s unforgiving gaze.”

Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF)—or Reporters Without Borders—puts the journalist death toll in Gaza above 100. Middle East Monitorreports at least 144 members of the press are among the 34,622 Palestinians that Israeli forces have killed in less than seven months in what the International Court of Justice has called a plausibly genocidal campaign.

RSF on Friday released its annual Press Freedom Index. In its section on the Middle East, the group states:

Palestine (157th), the most dangerous country for reporters, is paying a high price. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have so far killed more than 100 journalists in Gaza, including at least 22 in the course of their work. Since the start of the war, Israel (101st) has been trying to suppress the reporting coming out of the besieged enclave while disinformation infiltrates its own media ecosystem……………………………………………………..

The Paris-based group nominated Palestinian journalists covering Gaza for an annual award from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)—an honor they received during a ceremony on Thursday.

“Each year, the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano Prize pays tribute to the courage of journalists facing difficult and dangerous circumstances,” said Audrey Azoulay, the U.N. organization’s director-general. “Once again this year, the prize reminds us of the importance of collective action to ensure that journalists around the world can continue to carry out their essential work to inform and investigate.”…………………………………….

While Israel has repeatedly claimed—as it did to CNN on Friday—that “the IDF has never, and will never, deliberately target journalists,” members of the press and others have cast doubt on such comments.

“For far too long Israel has been able to operate with impunity in the occupied Palestinian territory, and this has included occasionally killing reporters, like the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, in 2022,” Simon Adams, president of the Center for Victims of Torture, told the Inter Press Service.

Given the number of journalists killed in Gaza since October, he said, “to claim these deaths are accidental is not only incredulous, it is insulting to the memory of professionals who lived their lives in service of truth and accuracy.”…………………………… more https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-journalists

May 4, 2024 Posted by | civil liberties, Gaza, Israel, media | Leave a comment

A Closer Look at Two Operational Small Modular Reactor Designs

There are literally dozens of small modular reactor (SMR) and microreactor designs being developed by different companies around the world, and some of the work has been going on for decades. Yet, only two designs have actually been built and put into commercial operation. POWER takes a closer look at both of them.

Power, by Aaron Larson 1 May 24

Many nuclear power supporters have long thought small modular reactors (SMRs) would revolutionize the industry. Advocates expect SMRs to shorten construction schedules and bring costs down through modularization and factory construction. They often cite numerous other benefits that make SMRs seem like no-brainers, and yet, only two SMR designs have ever been built and placed in commercial operation.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) publishes booklets biennially on the status of SMR technology. In the IAEA’s most recent booklet, it notes 25 land-based water-cooled SMRs and another eight marine-based water-cooled designs are under development globally. It also lists 17 high-temperature gas-cooled SMRs, eight liquid-metal-cooled fast-neutron-spectrum SMRs, 13 molten-salt SMRs, and 12 microreactors. If you do the math, that’s 83 SMR designs under development, but only the KLT-40S and HTR-PM are actually operational.

KLT-40S

The KLT-40S is a pressurized water reactor (PWR) that was developed in Russia. It is an advanced version of the KLT-40 reactor, which has been used in nuclear-powered icebreakers. The first KLT-40S units, and, to date, the only two of these units to enter commercial operation, were deployed in the Akademik Lomonosov—the world’s first purpose-built floating nuclear power plant (FNPP, Figure 1 on original).

Main Design Features.………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Deployment Details.…………………………….

Construction and testing of the FPU was completed in 2017 at the Baltic shipyard. In May 2018, the vessel was towed 4,000 kilometers (km), around Finland and Sweden, to Murmansk, completing the first leg of its journey to Pevek. Fuel loading was completed in Murmansk in October 2018. First criticality was achieved in November 2018, then in August 2019, the vessel embarked on the second leg of its journey—a distance of 4,700 km—towed by two tugboats to the Arctic port town of Pevek, where it was connected to the grid on Dec. 19, 2019. Akademik Lomonosov was fully commissioned on May 22, 2020, and it currently provides heat to the town of Pevek and supplies electricity to the regional Chaun-Bilibino power system.

HTR-PM

On Dec. 6, 2023, China National Nuclear Corp. announced it had commenced commercial operation of the high-temperature gas-cooled modular pebble bed (HTR-PM) reactor demonstrator. The HTR-PM project was constructed at a site in Rongcheng, Shandong Province, roughly midway between Beijing and Shanghai in eastern China…………………………………

Main Design Features.…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Deployment Details.……………………………………………………………………. The civil work for the nuclear island buildings was completed in 2016 with the first of two reactor pressure vessels installed in March that year. The fuel plant reached its expected production capacity in 2017. Startup commissioning and testing of the primary circuit were finished by the end of 2020. The HTR-PM achieved first criticality in September 2021, and was ultimately grid connected on Dec. 20, 2021.

Spotty Results at Best

While it is laudable that these SMRs—the KLT-40S and HTR-PM—have been placed in commercial operation, their performance since entering service has come under fire. In The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2023 (WNISR), a Mycle Schneider Consulting Project, co-funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety, and Consumer Protection, it says both designs have operated at low capacity factors recently.

Concerning the Chinese HTR-PM, the WNISR says, “Between January and December 2022, the reactors operated for only 27 hours out of a possible maximum of 8,760 hours. In the subsequent three months, they seem to have operated at a load factor of around 10 percent.” The Russian units’ performance has been nearly as dismal. “The operating records of the two KLT-40S reactors have been quite poor. According to the IAEA’s PRIS [Power Reactor Information System] database, the two reactors had load factors of just 26.4 and 30.5 percent respectively in 2022, and lifetime load factors of just 34 and 22.4 percent. The reasons for the mediocre power-generation performance remain unclear,” the report says.

Meanwhile, the promises of shortened timelines and lower costs were not borne out by these projects. “The experience so far in constructing these two SMRs as well as estimates for reactor designs like NuScale’s SMR show that these designs are also subject to the historical pattern of cost escalations and time overruns. Those cost escalations do make it even less likely that SMRs will become commercialized, as the collapse of the Carbon Free Power Project involving NuScale reactors in the United States illustrated,” the WNISR says………….. https://www.powermag.com/a-closer-look-at-two-operational-small-modular-reactor-designs/

May 4, 2024 Posted by | China, Russia, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

Jewish Groups Decry House Passage of Bill Defining Criticism of Israel as ‘Antisemitism’

“Antisemitism is a serious problem, but codifying a legal definition could have dangerous implications for free speech,” said one campaigner.

BRETT WILKINS, May 01, 2024, Common Dreams,

House lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to approve legislation directing the U.S. Department of Education to consider a dubious definition of antisemitism, despite warnings from Jewish-led groups that the measure speciously conflates legitimate criticism of the Israeli government with bigotry against Jewish people.

House members approved the Antisemitism Awareness Act—bipartisan legislation introduced last year by Reps. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Max Miller (R-Ohio), and Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) in the lower chamber and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) in the Senate—by a vote of 320-91.

Both progressive Democrats and far-right Republicans opposed language in the bill. The former objected to conflating criticism of Israel with hatred of Jews, while the latter bristled at labeling Christian scripture—which posits that Jews killed Jesus—as antisemitic.

“Antisemitism is the hatred of Jews. Unfortunately, one doesn’t need to look far to find it these days. But the supporters of this bill are looking in the wrong places,” Hadar Susskind, president and CEO of the Jewish-led group Americans for Peace Now, said following Wednesday’s vote.

“They aren’t interested in protecting Jews,” he added. “They are interested in supporting right-wing views and narratives on Israel and shutting down legitimate questions and criticisms by crying ‘antisemite’ at everyone, including Jews” who oppose Israel’s far-right government………………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://www.commondreams.org/news/antisemitism-awareness-act

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

ARC might need to redesign its SMR technology: former president + US bans import of enriched uranium + more to the story


Susan O’Donnell, 2 May 24
To clarify, there’s currently no enrichment plant in the US that produces HALEU (fuel enriched between 5 and 20 percent), as far as I’m aware. Any nuclear fuel enrichment happening in the U.S. would be for the existing light-water reactors that use fuel enriched to less than 5 percent.
My take: the idea that the ARC reactor design could change from using HALEU fuel to low enriched uranium is frankly ridiculous. It would not be the same reactor at all, it would be a completely different design. 

Quote: “It’s not something that can’t be fixed,” Sawyer said.

Fixed? WTF? This whole project is a scam.

U.S. Senate passes Russian uranium import ban

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-economy/3858689-us-senate-passes-russian-uranium-import-ban.html

The article above is about the shortage of HALEU, the fuel currently only available in Russia that is needed by the designs of advanced reactors cooled by liquids other than water. The design for the ARC reactor slated for Point Lepreau in New Brunswick requires HALEU.

New Brunswick’s Telegraph Journal:

ARC might need to redesign its SMR technology: former president

Norm Sawyer points to other companies around the world that pivoted quickly to address the lack of enriched uranium available

Adam Huras
Published May 01, 2024

The former president and CEO of ARC Clean Technology says the company might need to redesign its small modular nuclear reactor technology.

Norm Sawyer points to other companies around the world that pivoted quickly to address the lack of enriched uranium available.

Brunswick News reported earlier this week that ARC is still in search of a new enriched uranium supplier, after it originally planned to buy from Russia.

Meanwhile, Energy Minister Mike Holland says he has been assured that “there’s a queue for North American enriched uranium and we’re in it,” maintaining the company that the Higgs government spent $20 million on won’t be shut out.

Firms around the world developing a new generation of small nuclear reactors to help cut carbon emissions have been forced to face a big problem: The only company that sells the enriched fuel they need is Russian.

“It’s not only ARC, the industry in general is really dealing with the fallout of the war,” Sawyer said, who is now a nuclear consultant through his own firm. “Russia is the main supplier of HALEU around the world.”

High-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) is an integral component of the company’s ARC-100 sodium-cooled fast reactor, as well as a number of other advanced reactors currently in development attempting to achieve smaller designs.

But it’s not as simple as finding that enriched uranium closer to home.

While Canada mines uranium – there are currently five uranium mines and mills operating in Canada, all located in northern Saskatchewan – it does not have uranium enrichment plants.

The U.S. opened its first and only enrichment plant last year, operated by Centrus Energy in Ohio, amid a federal push to find a solution to the Russia problem.

It remains the only facility in the U.S. licensed to enrich uranium.

It currently has contracts with two American companies pursuing SMR technology, although it says it could rapidly expand production with federal investment.

One of those, TerraPower, a nuclear reactor developer founded by Bill Gates, has said Russia’s invasion would mean a delay to the deployment of its Natrium reactor by at least two years.

Other companies have pivoted.

Sawyer pointed to Denmark’s Seaborg Technologies that announced last year it would be changing its proposed SMR fuel from HALEU to low-enriched uranium “due to the risks associated with developing a sufficient supply.”

That resulted in design changes.

It was a move the company said was necessary to meet its planned timeline to see a first group of SMRs ready by 2028……………………………………………………..

What I’ve been told that there are a number of things taking place to ensure that there’s a queue for North American enriched uranium and we’re in it,” Holland said.

“That’s what I’ve been told and told definitively.”

Holland said the U.S. has a “vested interest” in aiding Canada and its SMR technology because Canada has the uranium they’re going to need as well.

“There are people saying ‘hey, if Canada is going to be your large supplier we’re going to have to work out, quid pro quo, that we don’t get excluded,’” he said.

Holland maintained that “our toe is stuck in the door so we have an opportunity to be part of that supply chain………………………………..

Sawyer said making a change to a different fuel means components will need to be redesigned.

“Obviously, you design a reactor for the type of fuel you’re going to use so there’s obviously some work to be done to realign the reactor core to the new type of fuel,” he said. “Is it easy? I’m not sure if it’s easy. There is some work to be done, there’s no doubt.”

Sawyer added that there’s two components to SMRs: the reactor design, construction and deployment, and then the fuel.

“Any delay on either one of those sides of the equation could cause a delay later on,” he said.

 https://tj.news/new-brunswick/arc-might-need-to-redesign-its-smr-technology-former-president#:~:text=The%20former%20president%20and%20CEO,small%20modular%20nuclear%20reactor%20technology.&text=Article%20content-,Norm%20Sawyer%20points%20to%20other%20companies%20around%20the%20world%20that,lack%20of%20enriched%20uranium%20available.

May 4, 2024 Posted by | Canada, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

The Fight Over THAAD in Korea

An anti-ballistic missile system can easily be overwhelmed by a full-scale enemy attack. The system’s primary purpose is to support a first-strike capability, in which the United States takes out as many of the enemy’s missiles as possible, leaving the anti-ballistic missile system to counter the few surviving missiles.

In essence, that makes the radar in the THAAD system a first-strike weapon

The effect is to enlist South Korea, willingly or not, in U.S. war plans against China. When residents in Seongju argue that THAAD makes them a target, they are not mistaken.

CounterPunch, BY GREGORY ELICH, 1 May 24

Since the U.S. military brought its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to South Korea in 2017, it has met with sustained local resistance. THAAD is the centerpiece of the numerous actions the United States has undertaken to enmesh South Korea in its hostile anti-China campaign, a course that Korean peace activists are fighting to reverse.

In a unanimous decision at the end of March, South Korea’s Constitutional Court dismissed two challenges lodged by residents of Seongju County against the deployment of THAAD. [1] Since its arrival, the THAAD system has met with recurring demonstrations in the nearby village of Soseong-ri. The hope in the Yoon and Biden administrations is that the court’s decision will dishearten opponents of THAAD. In this expectation, they are already disappointed, as anti-THAAD activists responded to the court’s decision by vowing to “fight to the end.” [2]

Although protestors have regularly held rallies on the road leading to the THAAD site, swarms of Korean police cleared them away to allow free passage for U.S. military supply trucks. Opposition to THAAD has angered U.S. officials, leading the Biden administration to dispatch Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to Seoul to deliver the message that it deemed the situation “unacceptable” and progress on establishing the base needed to accelerate. Austin also raised objections to protests by residents in Pohang over noise from U.S. Apache attack helicopters conducting live-fire exercises. [3] Predictably, the Yoon administration responded by prioritizing U.S. demands over the welfare of the Korean people and promised “close cooperation for normalizing routine and unfettered access to the THAAD site” and “improvement of the combined training conditions.” [4]

THAAD is billed as an anti-missile defense system consisting of an interceptor missile battery, a fire control and communications unit, and an AN/TPY-2 X-band radar. The ostensible purpose of THAAD in Seongju is to counter incoming North Korean missiles, but serious doubts exist about its efficacy in that role. In terms of coverage, THAAD’s position in Seongju puts it in range to cover the main U.S. military base in South Korea, Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, but out of range to protect Seoul, which at any rate is indefensible due to its proximity to the border. Even so, it is questionable how much utility the system offers even for Pyeongtaek.

THAAD’s missiles are designed to intercept incoming ballistic missiles at an altitude of 40 to 150 kilometers. The THAAD battery would have less than three and a half minutes to detect and counter-launch against a high-altitude ballistic missile fired from the farthestpoint in North Korea. By then, the incoming missile would have fallen below the lower-end altitude range of 40 kilometers, leaving it invulnerable to interception. [5] That would be the best-case scenario, as in the event of a war, the North Koreans are not likely to be so accommodating as to launch ballistic missiles from as far away as possible.

Furthermore, the THAAD battery in Seongju is equipped with six launchers and 48 interceptor missiles. With a thirty-minute THAAD battery launcher reload time, incoming missiles would not take long to deplete THAAD’s ability to respond, even under the most accommodating circumstances.

An upgrade was recently made to integrate THAAD with Patriot PAC-3 defense to intercept ballistic missiles at a lower altitude. This enhancement is of doubtful utility, as the radar’s response would still be constrained by the short flight time of an incoming missile. For all the hype about the successful interception of Iranian missiles fired at Israel, the Patriot’s showing in a more suitable scenario was less than stellar. It had an advantage there, as Iranian and Yemeni launch sites were situated much farther away from their target than in the Korean case. Yet, out of 120 Iranian ballistic missiles, the Patriot system shot down only one. The others were intercepted primarily by U.S. warplanes. [6]

North Korea’s development of a solid-fuel hypersonic intermediate-range missile has added another unmeetable challenge for THAAD. Because of its proximity, it is doubtful that North Korea would target US forces with high-altitude ballistic missiles in case of war. Instead, it would likely rely on its long-range artillery, cruise missiles, and short-range ballistic missiles, flying well below the lower limit of THAAD’s altitude coverage.

Despite its doubtful defensive effectiveness on the Korean Peninsula, the United States attaches enormous importance to THAAD’s deployment in South Korea, which suggests an unstated motivation. A clue is provided by the stationing in Japan of two stand-alone AN/TPY-2 radars without an accompanying THAAD system. [7] In other words, it is the radar that matters to the U.S. military, and the linkage to THAAD interceptors is primarily a pretense made necessary by popular feeling in Korea.  

What makes the AN/TPY-2 special is its ability to operate in two modes. In terminal mode, it feeds tracking data to the THAAD missile battery, allowing it to target an incoming ballistic missile as it descends toward its target. In forward-based mode, the THAAD missile battery is not involved, and the role of the radar is to detect a ballistic missile as it ascends from its launching pad, even from deep into China. In this mode, the radar is integrated into the U.S. missile defense system and sends tracking data to interceptor missiles stationed on U.S. territory and Pacific bases. [8] As a U.S. Army publication points out, when in forward-based mode, a field commander may use the radar system “to concurrently support both regional and strategic missile defense operations.” [9]

There are hints that preparations may already be underway to establish the conditions necessary for THAAD to operate in forward-based mode. Last year, South Korea and Japan agreed to link their radars to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii. [10] The ostensible purpose is to enhance the tracking accuracy of missiles fired from North Korea, but the concept applies equally well to Chinese missiles. It is not a stretch to imagine that if South Korean and Japanese radars have been linked to the United States, the same may be true with the THAAD’s AN/TPY-2. Certainly, if the U.S. Army switches the mode, it will not be informing South Korean authorities, so sure are the Americans that they can freely treat Korean sovereignty with contempt. Switching an AN/TPY-2 radar from one mode to the other takes only eight hours, a quick process that is opaque to outsiders. [11]

An anti-ballistic missile system can easily be overwhelmed by a full-scale enemy attack. The system’s primary purpose is to support a first-strike capability, in which the United States takes out as many of the enemy’s missiles as possible, leaving the anti-ballistic missile system to counter the few surviving missiles. In essence, that makes the radar in the THAAD system a first-strike weapon.

The closer the radar is stationed to an adversary’s ballistic missile launch, the more precise the tracking provided to the U.S.-based anti-missile system. South Korea is ideally located for the AN/TPY-2, where its radar can cover much of eastern China. [12] The effect is to enlist South Korea, willingly or not, in U.S. war plans against China. When residents in Seongju argue that THAAD makes them a target, they are not mistaken.

The Yoon administration is taking integration with the U.S. missile defense system one step further in planning to spend an estimated $584 million to procure American SM-3 interceptor missiles, suitable for protecting the United States and its bases in the Pacific.[13] The SM-3 interceptors are to be deployed on South Korean Aegis destroyers, which will need to be upgraded at additional cost to handle them. [14]

Residents in Seongju are also concerned about potential health risks associated with living adjacent to the THAAD installation.

Continue reading →

May 4, 2024 Posted by | South Korea, weapons and war | Leave a comment

A new nuclear energy law will likely mean higher utility bills

RADIO IQ | By Michael Pope, May 2, 2024,  https://www.wvtf.org/news/2024-05-02/a-new-nuclear-energy-law-will-likely-mean-higher-utility-bills

Customers of Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power might soon start seeing higher electric bills. That’s because of a new law signed by Governor Glenn Youngkin that allows for utilities to make customers pay for the costs of developing nuclear power facilities – things like permitting, for example. The bill was introduced by Senator Dave Marsden of Fairfax County.

“Ratepayers could be responsible for $1.40 a month for up to five years in creating the funds necessary to get through the nuclear regulatory commission process, which is hugely expensive,” Marsden says. “It takes four to five years.”

Utility customers don’t usually pay for things like development, and Josephus Allmond at the Southern Environmental Law Center says this poses a risk for ratepayers.

“The risk is that customers are footing the bill for this development several years, and if it doesn’t come to fruition, then they’ve just spent $500 million or $125 million, depending on the utility you’re talking about, going towards development of something that will never benefit them,” Allmond explains.

The new law goes into effect July 1st, but utilities would need to have any plans approved by the State Corporation Commission. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on the goal for Virginia to be emissions free by 2050, a benchmark laid out in the Virginia Clean Economy Act.

This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.

May 4, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

US House votes to officially label Israel critics ‘antisemites’

“it would likely chill free speech of students on college campuses by incorrectly equating criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism.”

Rights groups have warned that the definition could be used to target pro-Palestine protesters on university campuses

News Desk, MAY 2, 2024  https://thecradle.co/articles-id/24681

The US House of Representatives passed a bill on 1 May to expand the federal definition of antisemitism, coming in the wake of widespread pro-Palestine protests on university campuses across the country. 

The bill passed in a 320 to 91 vote, and will now go to the Senate for consideration. 

If successful, the bill would codify a definition of antisemitism established by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). IHRA defines antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

The IHRA definition of antisemitism also includes the “targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.” 


The definition says any comparison between “contemporary Israeli policy” and “that of the nazis” is antisemitic, as well as referring to Israel as “racist.” 

This bill could potentially be used to bar funding of any institution perceived as advocating antisemitism, as many university campuses have been recently due to widespread support for the Palestinian cause. 

Some have warned that it could specifically be used to confront pro-Palestine protests at US university campuses, which many have accused of being anti-Jewish. 

Certain rights groups have criticized the bill for this reason. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called on members of the House to vote against it, clarifying that US federal legislation against antisemitism already exists. 

The bill is “not needed to protect against antisemitic discrimination,” ACLU said, adding that, “Instead, it would likely chill free speech of students on college campuses by incorrectly equating criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism.”

Campus protests have continued to rage in universities across the US, with violent police crackdowns taking place over the past few days. Dozens of protesters at New York’s Columbia University were aggressively detained by police on Tuesday night when the NYPD raided a building in which the students had barricaded themselves in. 

Similar violent arrests involving the use of pepper spray took place at other universities. 

Pro-Israel counter-protesters attacked the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at UCLA on 30 April, facing little to no backlash from campus authorities and police. The incident has spurred major outrage and criticism. 

On Wednesday evening, riot police surrounded the pro-Palestine encampment at UCLA and are planning to move on the protesters and clear them out.

May 4, 2024 Posted by | civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

NATO state rejects €100 billion Ukraine war chest ‘madness’

 https://www.rt.com/news/596896-hungary-nato-ukraine-madness/ 02 May 2024

Budapest is opposing a potential €100-billion ($107 billion), five-year NATO plan to fund Ukraine in its conflict with Russia,Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said. The draft plan on the military aid fund was presented to member states of the US-led bloc by Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg earlier this week, Szijjarto revealed.

The minister made the remarks on Thursday to Hungarian broadcaster M1 before heading for a ministerial meeting of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in Paris. Szijjarto said:

“On Tuesday, the NATO member states received the secretary-general’s proposal to raise 100 billion that NATO plans to spend on the war. Since the money is to be collected over five years, this means NATO expects the hostilities to continue for this period.”

Budapest will oppose the initiative and is not planning to participate in arming Kiev or training its soldiers, Szijjarto stressed. The draft plan was presented to the bloc’s member states in its “first reading” and is still a subject to negotiations, the senior diplomat noted.

“In the coming weeks during negotiations we will fight for Hungary’s right to stay away from this madness, from collecting these 100 billion and siphoning them out of Europe.”

Budapest prioritizes the security of its own people before anything else and will do its best to “stay out of war,” Szijjarto explained, adding Hungary’s opinion remains that the conflict can only be resolved through negotiations. Nonetheless, Budapest acknowledges mounting global security issues and wants to be ready to face them, he said.

Szijjarto urged:

“We cannot ignore the threat of a new world war and the preparations for a nuclear war. This madness here in Europe must be stopped.”

Hungary has consistently expressed its opposition to the ever-growing involvement of the US-led NATO bloc – and of the EU – in the Ukrainian conflict, refusing to send arms to prop up Kiev or to train its troops, and forbidding use of its territory to funnel such shipments from third countries.

Budapest has also publicly spoken out against the potential accession of Ukraine into NATO, which has long been one of the key goals of Ukrainian leadership.

May 4, 2024 Posted by | EUROPE, weapons and war | Leave a comment

New York Times Not Much Concerned About Israel’s Mass Murder of Journalists

HARRY ZEHNER, 1 May 24  https://fair.org/home/nyt-not-much-concerned-about-israels-mass-murder-of-journalists/

A devoted New York Times reader might get the impression that the paper cares deeply about protecting journalists from those who seek to suppress the press.

After all, the Times runs sympathetic features on journalists like Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was detained by Russia over a year ago. The paper (6/3/22) has written stingingly of Russia’s “clamp down on war criticism,” including in a recent editorial (3/22/24) headlined “Jailed in Putin’s Russia for Speaking the Truth.”

It has castigated China for its “draconian” attacks on the press in Hong Kong (6/23/21). The Times has similarly criticized Venezuela for an “expanding crackdown on press freedom” (3/6/19) and Iran for a “campaign of intimidation” against journalists (4/26/16).

Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger, in his keynote address at the 2023 World Press Freedom Day, spoke forcefully:

All over the world, independent journalists and press freedoms are under attack. Without journalists to provide news and information that people can depend on, I fear we will continue to see the unraveling of civic bonds, the erosion of democratic norms and the weakening of the trust—in institutions and in each other—that is so essential to the global order.

‘Targeting of journalists’

Yet since October 7—as Israel has killed more journalists, in a shorter period of time, than any country in modern history—the Times has minimized when not ignoring this mass murder. Conservative estimates from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) estimate that 95 journalists have been killed in the Israel/Gaza conflict since October 7, all but two being Palestinian and Lebanese journalists killed by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Other estimates, like those from the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (4/4/24), place the number closer to 130. All told, Israel has killed about one out every 10 journalists in Gaza, a staggering toll.

(Two Israeli journalists were killed by Hamas on October 7, according to CPJ, and none have been killed since. Other tallies include two other Israeli journalists who were killed as part of the audience at the Supernova music festival on October 7.)

CPJ (12/31/23) wrote in December that it was “particularly concerned about an apparent pattern of targeting of journalists and their families by the Israeli military.” It noted that, in at least two instances, “journalists reported receiving threats from Israeli officials and IDF officers before their family members were killed.” This accusation has been echoed by groups like Doctors Without Borders. Israel has demonstrably targeted reporters, like Issam Abdallah, the Reuters journalist who was murdered on October 13 (Human Rights Watch, 3/29/24).

In a May 2023 report, CPJ (5/9/23) found that the IDF had killed 20 journalists since 2000. None of the killers faced accountability from the Israeli government, despite the incidents being generally well-documented. Despite its demonstration that Israel’s military has targeted—and murdered—journalists in the past, important context like this report is generally absent from the Times. (The CPJ report was mentioned at the very end of one Times article—12/7/23.)

We used the New York Times API and archive to create a database of every Times news article that included the keyword “Gaza” written between October 7, 2023, and April 7, 2024 (the first six months of the war). We then checked that database for headlines, subheads and leads which included the words (singular or plural) “journalist,” “media worker,” “news worker,” “reporter” or “photojournalist.” Opinion articles, briefings and video content were excluded from the search.

Failing to name the killer

We found that the Times wrote just nine articles focused on Israel’s killing of specific journalists, and just two which examined the phenomenon as a whole.

Of the nine headlines which directly noted that journalists have been killed, only two headlines—in six months!—named Israel as responsible for the deaths. Both of these headlines (11/21/23, 12/7/23) presented Israel’s responsibility as an accusation, not a fact.

Some headlines (e.g., 11/3/23) simply said that a journalist had been killed, without naming the perpetrator. Others blamed “the war” (e.g., 10/13/23).

During this same six-month period, the Times wrote the same number of articles (nine) on Evan Gershkovitch and Alsu Kurmasheva, two US journalists being held on trumped-up espionage charges by Russia.

From October 7 until April 7, the Times wrote 43 stories that mentioned either the overall journalist death toll or the deaths of specific journalists. As noted, 11 of these articles (26%) either focused on the death of a specific journalist or on the whole phenomenon. But in the vast majority of these articles, 32 out of 43 (74%), the killing of journalists was mentioned in passing, or only to add context, often towards the end of a report.

Many of these articles (e.g., 10/25/23, 11/3/23, 11/21/23, 12/15/23) contained a boilerplate paragraph like this one from November 4:

The war continues to take a heavy toll on those gathering the news. The Committee to Protect Journalists said that more news media workers have been killed in the Israel/Hamas war than in any other conflict in the area since it started tracking the data in 1992. As of Friday, 36 news workers—31 Palestinians, four Israelis and one Lebanese—have been killed since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, the group said.

Saying that “the war” was taking a heavy toll, and listing the number of journalists “killed in the Israel/Hamas war,” the Times‘ standard language on the death toll for reporters omits that the vast majority have been killed by Israel. It does note, however, that these deaths occurred “since Hamas attacked Israel,” suggesting that Hamas was directly or indirectly to blame.

It took a month for the Times to write a single article (11/10/23) focused on what had become “the deadliest month for journalists in at least three decades.” This November article, published on page 8 of the print edition, and apparently not even deserving of its own web page—named “the war” as the killer, managing for its entire ten paragraphs to avoid saying that Israel had killed anyone.

Again, the writing subtly implied that Hamas was to blame for Israel’s war crimes (emphasis added):

At least 40 journalists and other media workers have been killed in the Israel/Hamas war since October 7, when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, making the past month the deadliest for journalists in at least three decades, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

There was no mention of Israel’s long pattern of targeting journalists.

Obscuring responsibility

It took until January 30, nearly four months and at least 85 dead journalists into the war, for the New York Times to address this mass murder in any kind of comprehensive manner. This article—“The War the World Can’t See”—aligned with the Times practice of obscuring and qualifying Israeli responsibility for its destruction of Gaza. Neither the headline, the subhead nor the lead named Israel as responsible for reporters’ killings. Israel’s responsibility for the deaths of scores of reporters appeared almost incidental.

The lead positioned the mass death of journalists and the accompanying communications blackout as tragic consequences of “the war”:

o many people outside Gaza, the war flashes by as a doomscroll of headlines and casualty tolls and photos of screaming children, the bloody shreds of somebody else’s anguish.

But the true scale of death and destruction is impossible to grasp, the details hazy and shrouded by internet and cellphone blackouts that obstruct communication, restrictions barring international journalists and the extreme, often life-threatening challenges of reporting as a local journalist from Gaza.

Remarkably, we have to wait until the 11th paragraph for the Times to acknowledge that Israel is responsible for all of the journalists’ deaths in Gaza. Palestinian accusations that Israel is intentionally targeting journalists were juxtaposed, in classic Times fashion, with a quote from the Israeli military: Israel “has never and will never deliberately target journalists,” spokesperson Nir Dinar said, and the suggestion that Israel was deliberately preventing the world from seeing what it was doing in Gaza was a “blood libel.”

This rebuttal was presented without the context that, as discussed earlier, Israel has for decades been accused by human rights groups and other media organizations of intentionally targeting journalists. The article leaves the reader with the general impression that a terrible tragedy—not a campaign of mass murder—is unfolding.

This review of six months of the New York Times’ coverage exposes a remarkable selective interest in threats to journalism. Despite Sulzberger’s lofty rhetoric, the Times seems to only care about the “worldwide assault on journalists and journalism” when those journalists are fighting repression in enemy states.

May 4, 2024 Posted by | Israel, media, USA | Leave a comment

Australia and the F-35 supply chain: in lockstep with Lockheed

The Australian government has continued arms exports to Israel while assuring Australians it has not sent weapons to Israel for five years

MICHELLE FAHY. MAY 03, 2024,  https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/lockstep-with-lockheed-australia?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=297295&post_id=143751160&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Australia is one of six western countries that are complicit in the ‘genocidal erasure’ of the Palestinian people by continuing to supply Israel with arms, according to Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British-Palestinian surgeon and newly elected rector of Glasgow University.

Israel’s relentless bombing campaign has systematically destroyed all of Gaza’s 11 universities plus more than 400 schools, and killed 6,000 students, 230 teachers, 100 professors and deans, and two university presidents.

The elimination of entire educational institutions (both infrastructure and human resources) is ‘scholasticide’ and is a critical component of the genocidal erasure, says Dr Abu-Sittah.

He named the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and France as comprising an ‘axis of genocide’ because they have been supporting the genocide in Gaza with arms, and had also maintained political support for Israel.

Dr Abu-Sittah worked in Gaza for 43 days in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attacks. His experience was cited in South Africa’s genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

In his submission to the ICJ, Dr Abu-Sittah wrote: ‘There was a girl with just her whole body covered in shrapnel. She was nine. I ended up having to change and clean these wounds with no anaesthetic and no analgesic. I managed to find some intravenous paracetamol to give her…her Dad was crying, I was crying, and the poor child was screaming…’

Australia defies the UN

The Albanese government has consistently denied it is supplying weapons to Israel, even as the United Nations pointed a finger directly at Australia, alongside the US, Germany, France, the UK, and Canada, asking these countries to immediately halt all weapons transfers to Israel, including weapons parts, and to halt export licences and military aid.

The Defence Department has refused to answer questions about whether it has halted the arms export permits for Israel that were in place before October 7, the day of Hamas’s deadly attack in Israel.

Defence approved new export permits to Israel after October 7

Defence approved three new export permits to Israel in October 2023, and none in November, December or January (to 29/1), according to figures Defence released following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request I lodged on 29 January.

In a Senate estimates hearing on February 14, the Defence Department revealed it had approved two new export permits to Israel since the Hamas attacks of October 7. Asked for clarification about the timing, Defence’s deputy secretary of Strategy, Policy, and Industry, Mr Hugh Jeffrey, said, ‘Two export permits have been granted since the time of the last estimates’. The previous estimates hearing had been on 25 October 2023.

The Senate Estimates and FOI evidence together show that Defence approved one export permit to Israel prior to October 7 and two in the period October 25–31.

Mr Jeffrey refused to say what items the two new permits covered. Instead he said they ‘would have been agreed on the basis that they did not prejudice Australian national interests under the criterion of the legislation’.

Possible implications

Israel has been using its F-35 fighter jets in its bombardment of Gaza. Australia is one of a number of countries that manufacture and export parts and components into Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet global supply chain. Given this, there are several reasons why the above information may be significant:

  • The head of the F-35 joint program office, Lieutenant General Michael Schmidt, a US Air Force officer, said a year ago that the F-35 program was established with a ‘just in time’ supply chain, where parts arrive just before they’re needed and very little inventory is stockpiled. [Emphasis added.] Lt-Gen Schmidt described that situation as ‘too risky’.

  • In mid-December, a US Congressional hearing on the F-35 program revealed that the F-35 joint program office had been moving ‘at a breakneck speed to support…Israel…by increasing spare part supply rates’. [Emphasis added.]
  • More than 70 Australian companies are involved in the global supply chain for the F-35. Several of the companies are the sole global source of the parts they produce. Without them, new F-35 jets cannot be built and those parts in existing jets cannot be replaced. The US recently authorised the transfer to Israel of 25 more F-35s.

The F-35 global supply chain is vulnerable to disruption, which is why Australia could be under pressure to continue meeting supply contracts.

In his testimony to the December 12 Congressional hearing, Lieutenant General Schmidt also made clear the role of the F-35 joint program office in closely supporting Israel:

I had the opportunity to talk with [Israel’s] Chief of Staff just yesterday… [Israel is] very satisfied with [the] performance [the] sustainment enterprise is giving them. We could learn a lot from them in terms of the quickness with which they’re turning airplanes, [plus] all of the things we’re learning ourselves with moving parts around the world in support of a conflict. [Emphasis added.]

Defence Department and Australian industry partnering with F-35 program office

Defence issued a media release on October 30, around the same time it approved the two additional export permits to Israel.

The release announced that Melbourne company Rosebank Engineering had established an important regional F-35 capability that would also contribute to the global F-35 program. The release said Australian industry is playing an increasingly important role in the production and sustainment of the global F-35 fleet and that Rosebank and the Defence Department had partnered with the US F-35 joint program office and Lockheed Martin to establish the new facility.

Lockheed Martin removes information from its website

US multinational Lockheed Martin is the world’s largest arms manufacturer and the prime contractor for the F-35 fighter jet. As the horror of Israel’s war on Gaza has unfolded over the past seven months, there have been court cases and protests targeting the F-35 and its global supply chain.

In this context, Lockheed Martin recently edited the Australian page of its F-35 website to remove the ‘Industrial Partnerships’ section. The text had acknowledged that Australian parts were used in every F-35 fighter jet.

The deleted section can be viewed at the Wayback Machine web archive. This was the opening paragraph:[screenshot on original]

Lockheed Martin has also deleted other information from its website. A feature post about Marand Precision Engineering, another Melbourne-based company supplying the F-35 program, has been removed. The page had described how Marand engineered, manufactured, and now sustains ‘one of the most technically advanced mechanical systems’ ever created in Australia. The system, an engine removal and installation mobility trailer for the F-35, comprises 12,000 individual parts. The page said, ‘Marand has worked in close concert with Lockheed Martin on the F-35 program for many years’ and revealed that in 2022 the company had established a maintenance facility for its F-35 trailer in the US, ‘to better meet Lockheed Martin’s sustainment needs’. The deleted page can be viewed at the Wayback Machine web archive.

Sydney-based Quickstep Holdings is another long-term Australian supplier to the F-35 program. In December 2020, it announced it had produced its 10,000th component for the F-35 program. Quickstep estimated it had completed just 20% of its commitment to the program. The company revealed it manufactures more than 50 individual components and assemblies for the F-35, representing about $440,000 worth of content in each F-35.

Last year, Lockheed Martin also acknowledged that Queensland’s Ferra Engineering had been providing products for the F-35 since 2004 and that it remained a vital partner supporting delivery of the aircraft.

Despite the Albanese government’s persistent and misleading claim that no weapons have been supplied to Israel for the past five years, all of the above companies have supplied parts and components into the F-35’s supply chain during this period.

Threshold for genocide met, says UN Special Rapporteur

On March 26, Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in the West Bank and Gaza, said, ‘Following nearly six months of unrelenting Israeli assault on occupied Gaza, it is my solemn duty to report on the worst of what humanity is capable of, and to present my findings.’

Ms Albanese said there were ‘reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide… has been met’.

On April 5, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution that included a call for an arms embargo on Israel.

Some 28 countries voted in favour of the resolution and 13 abstained. Israel’s two largest suppliers of weaponry, the US and Germany, along with four other countries, voted against it. (The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. Australia is not currently a member.)

May 4, 2024 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, weapons and war | Leave a comment