Uncertainty in UK. Will a Labour government really tread that troubled nuclear power path?
Although technically wedded to the pursuance of new nuclear, whether
Labour in office continues to tread a nuclear path is far from certain.
Labour ministers would face a plethora of competing financial demands from
the onset of their new term in government. In its last period in office
(1997 to 2010), Labour built no new nuclear power plants; consequently, the
civil Nuclear Roadmap may eventually prove to be as washed out as Rishi
Sunak’s rain sodden jacket.
Announcement day was eventful from the onset.
Nuclear Minister Andrew Bowie had been scheduled to meet representatives
from anti-nuclear NGOs in-person at the London offices of his Department of
Energy Security and Net Zero. Others were due to join the Minister online.
Although the meeting had been arranged weeks in advance, Mr Bowie decided
instead to cut and run; there were rumours that Mr Bowie had decided to
make a last-minute trip to Wylfa in North Wales, but, as these have so far
been unsubstantiated, perhaps he was just clearing his desk?
Claire Coutinho in her last act as Energy Secretary had just announced the
non-news that the Wylfa site has been earmarked as the government’s
preferred location for the third gigawatt nuclear power plant. This has
been patently obvious to anyone observing developments in the nuclear
industry for some time. Mr Sunak, and before him Boris Johnson, have
positively gushed over the ‘virtues’ of developing this site over any
others and the recent acquisition of the site with Oldbury for £160
million by Great British Nuclear from former owners Horizon earlier this
year made this choice a certainty.
If built, and remember previous plans
have come to naught, the Wylfa B plant would be similar in size to those in
construction at Hinkley Point C in Somerset and announced for Sizewell C in
Suffolk. Both are being built by French state-owned electricity generator,
EDF, equipped with two European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) with 3.2
Gigawatt generating capacity.
NFLA 26th May 2024
The Slow-Motion Execution of Julian Assange Continues .
Free speech is a key issue. If Julian is granted First Amendment rights in a U.S. court it will be very difficult for the U.S. to build a criminal case against him, since other news organizations, including The New York Times and The Guardian, published the material he released.
The ruling by the High Court in London permitting Julian Assange to appeal his extradition order leaves him languishing in precarious health in a high-security prison. That is the point.
CHRIS HEDGES, MAY 24, 2024, https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-slow-motion-execution-of-julian-986?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=778851&post_id=144930141&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The decision by the High Court in London to grant Julian Assange the right to appeal the order to extradite him to the United States may prove to be a Pyrrhic victory. It does not mean Julian will elude extradition. It does not mean the court has ruled, as it should, that he is a journalist whose only “crime” was providing evidence of war crimes and lies by the U.S. government to the public. It does not mean he will be released from the high-security HMS Belmarsh prison where, as Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, after visiting Julian there, said he was undergoing a “slow-motion execution.”
It does not mean that journalism is any less imperiled. Editors and publishers of five international media outlets —– The New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais and DER SPIEGEL —– which published stories based on documents released by WikiLeaks, have urged that the U.S. charges be dropped and Julian be released. None of these media executives were charged with espionage. It does not dismiss the ludicrous ploy by the U.S. government to extradite an Australian citizen whose publication is not based in the U.S. and charge him under the Espionage Act. It continues the long Dickensian farce that mocks the most basic concepts of due process.
This ruling is based on the grounds that the U.S. government did not offer sufficient assurances that Julian would be granted the same First Amendment protections afforded to a U.S. citizen, should he stand trial. The appeal process is one more legal hurdle in the persecution of a journalist who should not only be free, but feted and honored as the most courageous of our generation.
Yes. He can file an appeal. But this means another year, perhaps longer, in harsh prison conditions as his physical and psychological health deteriorates. He has spent over five years in HMS Belmarsh without being charged. He spent seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy because the U.K. and Swedish governments refused to guarantee that he wouldn’t be extradited to the U.S., even though he agreed to return to Sweden to aid a preliminary investigation that was eventually dropped.
The judicial lynching of Julian was never about justice. The plethora of legal irregularities, including the recording of his meetings with attorneys by the Spanish security firm UC Global at the embassy on behalf of the CIA, alone should have seen the case thrown out of court as it eviscerates attorney-client privilege.
The U.S. has charged Julian with 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one count of computer misuse, for an alleged conspiracy to take possession of and then publish national defense information. If found guilty on all of these charges he faces 175 years in a U.S. prison.
The extradition request is based on the 2010 release by WikiLeaks of the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs — hundreds of thousands of classified documents, leaked to the site by Chelsea Manning, then an Army intelligence analyst, which exposed numerous U.S. war crimes including video images of the gunning down of two Reuters journalists and 10 other unarmed civilians in the Collateral Murder video, the routine torture of Iraqi prisoners, the covering up of thousands of civilian deaths and the killing of nearly 700 civilians that had approached too closely to U.S. checkpoints.
In February, lawyers for Julian submitted nine separate grounds for a possible appeal.
A two-day hearing in March, which I attended, was Julian’s last chance to request an appeal of the extradition decision made in 2022 by the then British home secretary, Priti Patel, and of many of the rulings of District Judge Baraitser in 2021.
The two High Court judges, Dame Victoria Sharp and Justice Jeremy Johnson, in March rejected most of Julian’s grounds of appeal. These included his lawyers’ contention that the UK-US extradition treaty bars extradition for political offenses; that the extradition request was made for the purpose of prosecuting him for his political opinions; that extradition would amount to retroactive application of the law — because it was not foreseeable that a century-old espionage law would be used against a foreign publisher; and that he would not receive a fair trial in the Eastern District of Virginia. The judges also refused to hear new evidence that the CIA plotted to kidnap and assassinate Julian, concluding — both perversely and incorrectly — that the CIA only considered these options because they believed Julian was planning to flee to Russia.
But the two judges determined Monday that it is “arguable” that a U.S. court might not grant Julian protection under the First Amendment, violating his rights to free speech as enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.
The judges in March asked the U.S. to provide written assurances that Julian would be protected under the First Amendment and that he would be exempt from a death penalty verdict. The U.S. assured the court that Julian would not be subjected to the death penalty, which Julian’s lawyers ultimately accepted. But the Department of Justice was unable to provide an assurance that Julian could mount a First Amendment defense in a U.S. court. Such a decision is made in a U.S. federal court, their lawyers explained.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg, who is prosecuting Julian, has argued that only U.S. citizens are guaranteed First Amendment rights in U.S. courts. Kromberg has stated that what Julian published was “not in the public interest” and that the U.S. was not seeking his extradition on political grounds.
Free speech is a key issue. If Julian is granted First Amendment rights in a U.S. court it will be very difficult for the U.S. to build a criminal case against him, since other news organizations, including The New York Times and The Guardian, published the material he released.
The extradition request is based on the contention that Julian is not a journalist and not protected under the First Amendment.
Julian’s attorneys and those representing the U.S. government have until May 24 to submit a draft order, which will determine when the appeal will be heard.
Julian committed the empire’s greatest sin — he exposed it as a criminal enterprise. He documented its lies, routine violation of human rights, wanton killing of innocent civilians, rampant corruption and war crimes. Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Labour, Trump or Biden — it does not matter. Those who manage the empire use the same dirty playbook.
The publication of classified documents is not a crime in the United States, but if Julian is extradited and convicted, it will become one.
Julian is in precarious physical and psychological health. His physical and psychological deterioration has resulted in a minor stroke, hallucinations and depression. He takes antidepressant medication and the antipsychotic quetiapine. He has been observed pacing his cell until he collapses, punching himself in the face and banging his head against the wall. He has spent weeks in the medical wing of Belmarsh, nicknamed “hell wing.” Prison authorities found “half of a razor blade” hidden under his socks. He has repeatedly called the suicide hotline run by the Samaritans because he thought about killing himself “hundreds of times a day.”
These slow-motion executioners have not yet completed their work. Toussaint L’Ouverture, who led the Haitian independence movement, the only successful slave revolt in human history, was physically destroyed in the same manner. He was locked by the French in an unheated and cramped prison cell and left to die of exhaustion, malnutrition, apoplexy, pneumonia and probably tuberculosis.
Prolonged imprisonment, which the granting of this appeal perpetuates, is the point. The 12 years Julian has been detained — seven in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and over five in high-security Belmarsh Prison — have been accompanied by a lack of sunlight and exercise, as well as unrelenting threats, pressure, prolonged isolation, anxiety and constant stress. The goal is to destroy him.
We must free Julian. We must keep him out of the hands of the U.S. government. Given all he did for us, we owe him an unrelenting fight.
If there is no freedom of speech for Julian, there will be no freedom of speech for us.
Q&A – Germany’s nuclear exit: One year after
CLEAN ENERGY WIRE, FACTSHEET, 16 Apr 2024, Benjamin Wehrmann
Decades of debates came to an end in April 2023, when Germany finally shuttered its last nuclear power plants after the energy crisis. One year on, predictions of supply risks, price hikes and dirty coal replacing carbon-free nuclear power have not materialised.
Instead, Germany saw a record output of renewable power, the lowest use of coal in 60 years, falling energy prices across the board and a major drop in emissions. Industry representatives warn that an effect on power costs may still become visible once Germany’s economy moves out of recession.
At the same time, many countries plan to expand nuclear power, suggesting the country’s phase-out has not found many followers. Yet, global nuclear power market numbers indicate that a nuclear revival is not imminent either. [UPDATES Government advisor says power prices higher due to exit; majority in survey says nuclear exit was a mistake]
Content
- How has the phase-out been conducted?
- Was there any supply security risk in the aftermath?
- What was the gap left by nuclear power filled with?
- What changed in electricity imports and why?
- Did power prices go up due to the phase-out?
- What happens with the retired nuclear plants and waste materials?
- How did the national debate about nuclear power develop?
- How did the nuclear debate move on in the rest of the world?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..more https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/qa-germanys-nuclear-exit-one-year-after—
UK Nuclear Plant Sizewell Continues Fundraising Before Election
- Banks offered to lend as much as £12.5 billion for Sizewell C
By Will Mathis, May 24, 2024
The developer of the UK’s Sizewell C nuclear power plant is pushing ahead to complete
financing for the project this year even as a looming election risks
complicating the timeline.
A group of banks offered to lend as much as
£12.5 billion ($15.9 billion) to help finance the plant in eastern
England, according to a person familiar with the matter. They include HSBC
Holdings Plc, NatWest Group Plc and Banco Santander SA, the person said.
Debt will play a role in a multibillion-pound funding effort that also
includes an ongoing effort to raise equity from private investors.
“The two main political parties are committed to Sizewell C and we are carrying
on with the capital raise, preparing for a final investment decision and
mobilizing teams on our site,” a spokesperson for Sizewell said,
declining to comment on the debt specifically.
HSBC and Santander declined to comment. NatWest didn’t immediately comment.
The government had vowed
to reach a final investment decision on the proposed 3.2-gigawatt Sizewell
C station in the current parliament, a process that was on track to
complete this summer. That means the final stage of the fund-raising
process could be among Labour leader Keir Starmer’s first acts if he
becomes prime minister. “Sizewell needs to move forward at pace,”
Starmer said during a visit to another nuclear plant last year. “New
nuclear has to be part of that mix.”
Bloomberg 23rd May 2024
Blinken lobbying for strikes on Russia – NYT
23 May 2024 , https://www.sott.net/article/491680-Blinken-lobbying-for-strikes-on-Russia-NYT
The top US diplomat wants Ukraine to be given permission to use American weapons beyond its borders
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is pushing the administration of President Joe Biden to allow Ukraine to attack targets deep inside Russia with American weapons, the New York Times reported on Thursday, referring to unnamed US officials.
The ban, according to the White House, was imposed out of concern that if US arms were used inside what Washington acknowledges as Russian territory it would trigger an escalation and potentially World War III. Blinken has been advocating for scrapping the restriction after making a “sobering” visit to Kiev earlier this month, the newspaper said, citing insider sources.
Ukrainian officials have claimed that being unable to target Russian forces across the border with American weapons led to the failure of its troops to prevent the recent Russian advances in Kharkov Region.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the offensive is a response to months of Ukrainian artillery and drone attacks in Russia’s Belgorod Region and that a buffer zone is required to deprive Kiev of the capability to make such strikes. The Times said that Ukrainian weapons “don’t pack the power and speed of the American weapons.”
Kiev has launched a lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill to pressure the White House over the issue and has some allies among lawmakers. A group of representatives signed a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Monday calling for the Ukrainian request to be granted.
During a hearing in Congress on Tuesday, Senator Michael McCaul displayed a map showing the strike range of ATACMS missiles – a weapon the US has donated to Ukraine – if Kiev were allowed to use them inside Russia. He called the outlined territory a “sanctuary zone” for Russian troops and accused the Biden administration of tying the hands of the Ukrainians behind their backs.
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has urged increased NATO involvement in the conflict and has argued that the West should not fear Russia’s reaction. Moscow believes that Zelensky’s goal is to trigger an escalation to maintain his position.
Russia is currently conducting a military drill to test its capability to use non-strategic nuclear weapons, which Putin ordered in response to hostile rhetoric by Western officials. One such remark identified by Moscow came from British Foreign Secretary David Cameron, who said earlier this month that Kiev “has the right” to use weapons donated by his nation to attack targets inside Russia.
Comment:
1) The above news was published the same day as Boris Johnson and British MPs met with representatives of the Azov Brigade. See Russia reacts to UK MPs applauding Ukrainian neo-Nazis On the occasion, Johnson gave a speech in which he made recommendation similar to those promoted by Anthony Blinken:
2) Regarding: “British Foreign Secretary David Cameron, who said earlier this month that Kiev “has the right” to use weapons donated by his nation to attack targets inside Russia.”
Indigenous opposition to nuclear waste being transported through their territory
Concerns growing surrounding nuclear waste management
Anishinabek, The voice of the Anishinabek nation. May 22, 2024, By Rick Garrick
FORT WILLIAM — Fort William’s Elysia Lone Elk is raising concerns about the transportation of nuclear materials through Northern Ontario if the proposed nuclear waste site near Ignace in Treaty #3 territory gets the go-ahead.
The Trans-Canada Hwy. was closed for about 20 hours in 2001 after a head-on collision between two transport trucks, one of which was transporting two canisters of radioactive material — iridium — about 25 kilometres east of Dryden, 105 kilometres west of Ignace. The collision resulted in “widespread destruction” and the deaths of four people, two from each vehicle, according to a news report. Officials from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission eventually arrived on site, found there was no leakage, and removed the canisters to a safe location.
“Water is life, it’s our most sacred resource,” Lone Elk says. “We need that to survive, animals need that to survive, and I don’t think we should be drilling underground and playing with aquifers with a very toxic harmful material that has a half-life beyond my conception of time.”
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) has been following a process to select a site for Canada’s plan to safely manage used nuclear fuel long-term since 2010, and has since narrowed down the potential sites to two areas for Canada’s deep geological repository, the Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation-Ignace area in northwestern Ontario, and the Saugeen Ojibway Nation-South Bruce area in southwestern Ontario. If the Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation-Ignace area is selected as the site, nuclear materials would have to be transported across Northern Ontario to the site.
“If it’s so safe, then why are you even transporting it, just bury it where it is? We know how dangerous those highways can be,” Lone Elk says. “The fact that no one on the [potential transportation] corridor gets a say is a democratic problem, very frustrating.”
Lone Elk adds that the nuclear material would be transported across Northern Ontario for the operating life of the proposed deep geological repository. The NWMO states on their website that based on current projections of Canada’s inventory of used nuclear fuel, transportation is anticipated to take about 40 years to complete. The NWMO adds that they are exploring road and/or rail options for transporting used nuclear fuel to the deep geological repository.
“The (Fort William) Band Council has passed two resolutions, one focusing on the proximity principle and then the other one specifically outright stating we do not support nuclear fuel being transported through our traditional territory,” Lone Elk says. “We’re trusting their scientists, we’re trusting industry scientists, we’re trusting industry factors; so when does the First Nation get to participate with Indigenous knowledge?”
Fort William Chief Michele Solomon says Fort William passed two resolutions in the last four years opposing nuclear waste being brought into Fort William territory.
“I think that it’s fair to say we stand with other First Nations in Robinson Superior Treaty territory to say that there’s nothing that gives us comfort that there would be any safety with this being transported through our communities,” Solomon says. “We see the increase in accidents on the highways going through our homelands so we’re strongly opposed to it.”
Solomon adds that their community has not been consulted on this issue.
Based on how the community has responded to other possible threats to our homelands, the people have been strongly opposed to other things that have been proposed for our territory,” Solomon says. “If the government wants to proceed with this, then they need to consult with the rights holders of this territory. So if it needs to pass through Robinson Superior territory, you need to consult with all of those communities.”
Solomon says it is not enough for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization to say that it is safe.
“I think there should be independent research done and that has not happened as far as I know,” Solomon says, noting that unhealthy things have been brought into her community’s airspace and waterways before. “So we are strongly opposed.”
The Assembly of First Nations is holding four Regional Dialogue Sessions: A Dialogue on the Transportation and Storage of Used Nuclear Fuel at locations across the country, including on May 22 at the Delta Hotels by Marriott in Thunder Bay.
--
Nuclear-free councils hit out at ‘mad delusion’ of new reactor
By Alan Hendry – alan.hendry@hnmedia.co.uk, 25 May 2024
Calls for a nuclear revival in Scotland – including the possibility of a new Dounreay reactor – have been dismissed as “folly” and a “mad delusion”.
Scottish Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLAs), a grouping of councils opposed to civil nuclear power, insisted that renewables “represent the only way forward to achieve a sustainable, net-zero future”.
The secretary of state for Scotland, Alister Jack, confirmed last week that he had asked the UK energy minister to plan for a new nuclear site north of the border as part of a nationwide strategy.
Dounreay had been put forward among the possible locations for a small modular reactor (SMR), a series of 10 power stations that engineering giant Rolls-Royce was planning to build by 2035.
Jamie Stone, the Liberal Democrat MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, was quick to press the case for Dounreay to be considered. After a conversation with the Scottish secretary, Mr Stone claimed there was “all to play for”.
Ross-shire Journal 25th May 2024
“Nuclear War: A Scenario”: An Absolute Must-Read
Jonathon Porritt, 24 May 24
Every single person of influence here in the UK (and globally) absolutely
ought to read Annie Jacobsen’s “Nuclear War: A Scenario”. We somehow
seem to have forgotten that we’re still living in a world which could be
entirely destroyed (by design or by accident) by a nuclear war. At any
point.
Even Putin’s occasional flourish of his “big nuclear stick”
seems to stir few fears – outside of a group of extraordinarily
well-informed security and defence experts. I suspect that may have been
Annie Jacobson’s motivation in writing “Nuclear War: A Scenario”.
How have we become so complacent? Why is nuclear disarmament the poor cousin of
any international security gathering – a ghost at every G20/G7 Summit?
Why will nuclear disarmament barely feature in the manifestos of the major
parties in the UK General Election – and, so much more importantly, in
the presidential campaigns of either Biden or Trump?
Jonathon Porritt 24th May 2024
Altman-Backed Oklo Sees Data Centers Boosting Nuclear Demand, (though OKLO design not yet approved)
Will Wade, Bloomberg News
Bloomberg) — A day after announcing a deal to provide nuclear energy to a data center, Oklo Inc. says it expects to sign additional contracts from the power-hungry industry.
About 80% of Oklo’s inbound inquiries are coming from data center operators, according to Jacob DeWitte, chief executive officer of the company that is backed by Sam Altman, CEO of the AI firm OpenAI Inc. It went public this month through a merger with Altman’s AltC Acquisition Corp.
Oklo agreed Thursday to deliver 100 megawatts of power to Wyoming Hyperscalar to run a data center campus. “This is just a scratch on the tip of an iceberg,” DeWitte said in an interview Friday at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York. “There’s going to be a lot more.”
While utilities are racing to meet demand that’s forecast by some analysts to soar thanks to artificial intelligence and data centers, it will be years before Oklo can help meet that need. The Santa Clara, California-based company has yet to receive regulatory approval to build its reactor and DeWitte said it’s unlikely one will be in service before 2027.
Blinken’s blunders epitomize the bankruptcy of U.S. power and diplomacy
Strategic Culture Foundation, Fri, 24 May 2024, https://www.sott.net/article/491682-Blinkens-blunders-epitomize-the-bankruptcy-of-US-power-and-diplomacy
As the Iranian nation mourned the tragic death of President Ebrahim Raisi this week, the United States could not even muster a respectful offer of condolence.
The U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, officially that country’s top diplomat, made a crass remark that the Iranian people would be “better off”. This as the Islamic Republic had declared five days of mourning for the late president whose funeral in the city of Mashhad was attended by millions of Iranians.
President Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash along with the country’s much-respected Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and several other dignitaries who were also on board the aircraft. The fatal crash happened in treacherous weather over a mountainous region in northwest Iran as the president’s entourage returned from a visit to Azerbaijan.
Most of the world expressed shock and grief over the loss. The UN General Assembly held a minute’s silence and at the funeral, 68 nations were represented including officials from Russia and China.
The United States and Iran have been staunch adversaries for more than half a decade following the Iranian revolution in 1979. Nevertheless, it is a basic matter of diplomacy and etiquette for countries to show a token of sympathy at such a time of national mourning.
The disgraceful and cheap comments about the death of Iran’s president show how inadequate Blinken is as the supposed U.S. primary diplomat. But the failure is not merely a personal matter, it epitomizes the general collapse of Washington’s political quality and international standing. The United States presumes to be a world leader but it evidently has no class. Biden, the president and Blinken’s boss, is a foul-mouthed crank who regularly insults other leaders with ignorant prejudice.
On Blinken’s insult over the Iranian president’s death, Russia’s presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed the disgust of many observers around the world when he said: “It is hard to believe that a diplomat — let alone a high-ranking official of a country such as the United States — would make such a clumsy remark, to say the least. In essence, it was an insult directed at an entire nation.”
Apart from the lack of human decency, there is a total lack of politics. Blinken’s offensive comment comes at a moment of extreme tension in the Middle East amid a genocide perpetrated by the Israeli regime with support from the United States. The powder-keg situation could explode at any time into an international war engulfing the entire region. Israel and Iran have already exchanged military blows.
All diplomats worth their salt should be trying to calm tensions, not inflame them. Blinken’s contemptible insult to the Iranian people is a reckless provocation.
But such sensibility and respect are too much to expect from Blinken who has shown himself to be way out of his depth as a diplomat.
Last week, the “top diplomat” embarrassed his office by playing guitar on stage in a bar during an official visit to Kiev. Blinken was in the Ukrainian capital promising billions of dollars more in military aid to prolong a bloody and futile proxy war against Russia. Reliable estimates put the Ukrainian military death toll at over 500,000 in over two years of combat. Yet, here was Blinken strumming electric guitar with a local rock band. Even more cringe-making was his choice of song, Neil Young’s ‘Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World’. Not only was Blinken tone deaf to the horror of war, but he was oblivious to the fact that the song is an explicit condemnation of American imperialist barbarity.
How could anyone be so stupid and insensitive? That is the measure of Antony Blinken right there.
Lamentably, Blinken has a lot of dubious company in Washington. Their collective arrogance and incompetence are driving the world to calamity. It is reported this week that Blinken is among those in Washington advocating for the supply of long-range U.S. weapons to strike Russian territory. Others pushing this recipe for World War Three include Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and former State Department official Victoria Nuland.
Blinken’s blunders should have seen him sacked long ago in disgrace. He was a chief cheerleader for arming the Kiev regime long before the conflict escalated in February 2022. He along with Nuland and others was instrumental in setting the course for this proxy war that runs the risk of spiraling into a nuclear war.
During his previous posts as national security advisor to President Obama and Biden when he was vice president, Blinken endorsed the NATO “human rights” war on Libya and the “pro-democracy” proxy war for regime change in Syria. The latter involved Washington arming sectarian terror gangs – until Russia and Iran put an end to that dirty operation.
This trail of disaster chartered by Blinken should have ensured his barring from ever ascending to the prominence of Secretary of State. However, that is assuming such appointments are made based on sanity and sound foreign policy.
No, Blinken is a war criminal whose ignorant narcissism knows no bounds. He is nothing but a useful tool for American imperialist warmongering. The guitar-playing, Harvard-educated Blinken is a manikin that provides a pseudo-liberal image to cover for the barbarity of US global power.
His ineptitude is leading the world to an abysmal state of confrontation in the Middle East and between nuclear powers over Ukraine.
What’s more though is the deplorable truth that Washington is full of clones like Blinken. The level of political culture in the U.S. establishment that spawns the likes of Blinken is so putrid and prevalent, that it is difficult to envisage any quality thinkers and leaders emerging.
The degeneration of politics and diplomacy in the United States has been on a long decline much like its global power. Some of Blinken’s more recent predecessors include Mike Pompeo (“we lie and cheat all the time”) and Hillary Clinton (who gloated about the murder of Muammar Gaddafi with “we came, we conquered, he died”); Condoleezza Rice (of Iraq war and rendition torture notoriety) and Colin Powell (who told barefaced lies to the UNSC over WMD). The list of degenerates goes on.
But in Blinken’s case, he’s probably the high point – or maybe that should be the low point – of polished incompetence.
Cometh the hour of U.S. failure, cometh the man who embodies abject failure.
Israel will not stop ‘this madness’ until we make it stop: UN rapporteur
May 25, 2024 more https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240525-israel-will-not-stop-this-madness-until-we-make-it-stop-un-rapporteur/
The UN’s special rapporteur on Palestine on Saturday urged member states to impose sanctions on Israel along with an arms embargo until it stops “this madness,” Anadolu reports.
“Let’s be clear. As the ICJ orders Israel to stop its offensive in Rafah, Israel intensifies its attacks on it,” Francesca Albanese said on X.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its latest ruling ordered Israel to immediately halt its military offensive in Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where more than 1.5 million displaced Palestinians had sought refuge.
“The news I am receiving from the people trapped therein are terrifying,” she said.
“Be sure: Israel will not stop this madness until WE make it stop,” she added.
Albanese urged all UN member states to “impose #sanctions, arms embargo and suspend diplo/political relations with Israel till it ceases its assault.”
On Friday, the ICJ reaffirmed its previous orders and indicated further measures including, keeping the Rafah border crossing open and allowing access for investigators to the blockaded enclave.
Over 35,800 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, the vast majority being women and children, and nearly 80,300 others injured since October following an attack by Hamas.
More than seven months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.
Officials set up road closures around Sunnyside Community Hospital for radiation concerns
Le’Ana Freeman NonStop Local Digital Journalist, May 26, 2024, SUNNYSIDE, Wash. https://www.nbcrightnow.com/news/sunnyside-police-warn-public-to-avoid-sunnyside-hospital-for-radiation-concerns/article_f8308f6e-1ba9-11ef-98e3-af76c9eab7ef.html
Sunnyside Police have confirmed they are blocking off the Sunnyside Hospital area from Franklin Ave to East Edison Ave to continue decontamination efforts.
Officials are asking the public to avoid the area.
Officials have asked the public to avoid the Sunnyside Hospital area.
According to the Sunnyside Police Department, construction workers arrived at the Sunnyside Hospital and reported radiation exposure from a construction site out of town. The hospital is decontaminating the emergency room and patients.
Police ask the public to divert from the hospital and avoid the area for safety.
SNPs Stephen Flynn claims Labour ‘will divert £20bn of Scotland’s oil cash’ to build nuclear power plants in England
John Ferguson, Sunday Mail political editor, 25 May 24
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn has accused Labour of planning to divert £20billion of tax receipts from Scotland’s oil wealth to build nuclear power plants in England……………………………………………………………………… https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/snps-stephen-flynn-claims-labour-32893362
Who was to blame for the failure to properly survey the geology at Hinkley?
Writing in Private Eye, Old Sparky says EDF has stepped up its PR efforts
with a whingeing puff piece in the Spectator which blames UK regulatory
agencies for all its woes. Old Sparky points out that EDF already knew
about the regulatory regime before it committed to building Hinkley. And he
asks why the delays at Flamanville were so bad if the ONR is to blame for
everything on this side of the channel. Who was to blame for the failure to
properly survey the geology at Hinkley?
Private Eye 24th May 2024
1 This Month.
Let’s keep radioactive waste away from our river!
Nuclear Power? -Never again
(Switzerland –https://www.greenpeace.ch/de/handeln/atomkraft-nie-wieder/+)
PETITION – Close Down the Monticello Nuclear Reactor on the Mississippi River!
Now until to February 10, 2026 Radioactive waste storage in France: the debate is finally open! How to participate?
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