University of Ghent to cease all collaboration with Israeli institutions
Friday 31 May 2024, By The Brussels Times with Belga
Ghent University (UGent) plans to end all partnerships with Israeli institutions, citing serious human rights violations and breaches of international law in Gaza, according to chancellor Rik Van de Walle.
Pro-Palestinian activists have occupied the UFO building at UGent for several weeks, demanding a comprehensive boycott against Israeli academic bodies. Hundreds of students have set up encampments in the building’s entrance hall, hoisting flags in protest.
Van de Walle had asked the university’s human rights commission to review all cooperations with Israeli universities and research centres, to bolster Ghent University’s human rights policy. Previously, the university terminated three contracts involving Israeli organisations suspected of involvement in human rights violations……………………………………………
UGent explained that the connection with other organisations or authorities prevents further cooperation. “UGent doesn’t want to be implicated in the very serious human rights and international law violations in Gaza… [or] cooperate with partners involved in these serious human rights violations,” the Flemish institution declared.
The university’s human rights commission – support by the chancellor – advises that for ongoing projects, the consortium should ascertain whether collaboration with the Israeli partner can be ended and take appropriate measures. If this isn’t feasible, “UGent must take the necessary steps to withdraw from the project” itself…….. https://www.brusselstimes.com/1070115/university-of-ghent-to-cease-all-collaboration-with-israeli-institutions
The Widespread Harm of Nuclear Testing
June 2, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/02/opinion/nuclear-testing.html
To the Editor:
Re “Nuclear Testing Victims Deserve More,” by W.J. Hennigan (Opinion, May 26):
The federal government’s nuclear weapons testing program was an assault on its own citizens — an assault that didn’t stop with the end of the Cold War.
Radioactive fallout moved across the country and entered bodies through breathing, food and water. Official denials of any harm followed, while Americans suffered and died from cancers caused by fallout.
The 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to compensate “downwinders” with cancer was a first step, but originally was limited only to those who lived in 20 counties in Utah, Nevada and Arizona. Current efforts to expand compensation are struggling to overcome congressional resistance; without action, the law is set to expire on June 7.
Government failure to act continues even as evidence of harm grows. Studies of radioactive Strontium-90 found in milk and in 320,000 baby teeth proved fallout was building up in bodies. Early results of an ongoing health study show Strontium-90 levels in baby teeth of Americans who died of cancer were more than double that of healthy Americans.
The injustice to those victimized by bomb tests is staggering. The federal government has harmed — rather than protected — its people and has failed to take responsibility. It is crucial that leaders finally recognize the true impact of bomb testing, and expand the law; to not act and let it expire would be unthinkable.
Christie Brinkley
Sag Harbor, N.Y.
The writer, the model, is the vice president of the Radiation and Public Health Project.
To the Editor:
We must finally close the door on nuclear testing forever.
The United States Senate should approve the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which bans all nuclear test explosions. The Senate’s failure to approve the treaty has stalled progress in nuclear arms control and disarmament.
We need to be taking steps to calm international tensions and prevent a costly nuclear arms race with Russia and China. Ratifying the test ban treaty would be an olive branch of peace to other nuclear powers and encourage disarmament negotiations.
The alternative is to drift along with a dangerous and expensive nuclear arms buildup. The resumption of nuclear test explosions will linger over us without diplomatic action.
Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy were both right to pursue a treaty ending all nuclear testing. We have to finish the job today and take a big step to make the world safe from nuclear weapons.
William Lambers
Cincinnati
The writer is the author of “The Road to Peace: From the Disarming of the Great Lakes to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.”
US Energy Secretary calls for more nuclear power while celebrating $35 billion Georgia reactors
AP News, BY JEFF AMY, June 3, 2024
WAYNESBORO, Ga. (AP) — U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Friday called for more nuclear reactors to be built in the United States and worldwide. But the CEO of the Georgia utility that just finished the first two scratch-built American reactors in a generation at a cost of nearly $35 billion says his company isn’t ready to pick up that baton.
Speaking in Waynesboro, Georgia, where Georgia Power Co. and three other utilities last month put a second new nuclear reactor into commercial operation, Granholm said the United States needs 98 more reactors with the capacity of units 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle to produce electricity while reducing climate-changing carbon emissions. Each of the two new reactors can power 500,000 homes and businesses without releasing any carbon.
COMMENT. That’s if you don’t count radioactive emissions, and the huge carbon emissions from the entire nuclear fuel chain.
“It is now time for others to follow their lead to reach our goal of getting to net zero by 2050,” Granholm said. “We have to at least triple our current nuclear capacity in this country.”
The federal government says it is easing the risks of nuclear construction, but the $11 billion in cost overruns at Plant Vogtle near Augusta remain sobering for other utilities. Chris Womack is the CEO of Southern Co., the Atlanta-based parent company of Georgia Power. He said he supports Granholm’s call for more nuclear-power generation, but he added that his company won’t build more soon………….
Friday’s event capped a week of celebrations, where leaders proclaimed the reactors a success, even though they finished seven years late…….
The new Vogtle reactors are currently projected to cost Georgia Power and three other owners $31 billion, according to calculations by The Associated Press. Add in $3.7 billion that original contractor Westinghouse paid Vogtle owners to walk away from construction, and the total nears $35 billion.
Electric customers in Georgia already have paid billions for what may be the most expensive power plant ever. The federal government aided Vogtle by guaranteeing the repayment of $12 billion in loans, reducing borrowing costs…………..
The Biden administration promised that the military would commission reactors, which could help drive down costs for others. It also noted support for smaller reactors, suggesting small reactors could replace coal-fueled electric generating plants that are closing. The administration also pledged to further streamline licensing.
………………………… In Michigan, where Granholm was a Democratic governor, she announced in March up to $1.5 billion in loans to restart the Palisades nuclear power plant, which was shut down in 2022 after a previous owner had trouble producing electricity that was price-competitive.
But with much of the domestic effort focused on building a series of smaller nuclear reactors using mass-produced components, critics question whether they can actually be built more cheaply. Others note that the United States still hasn’t created a permanent repository for nuclear waste, which lasts for thousands of years. Other forms of electrical generation, including solar backed up with battery storage, are much cheaper to build initially.
…………….Regulators in December approved an additional 6% rate increase on Georgia Power’s 2.7 million customers to pay for $7.56 billion in remaining costs at Vogtle, with the company absorbing $2.6 billion in costs. That is expected to cost the typical residential customer an additional $8.97 a month in May, on top of the $5.42 increase that took effect when Unit 3 began operating. https://apnews.com/article/georgia-nuclear-plant-energy-secretary-granholm-05a6e2444a8b5a9e9c7c61b111b87192
A global review of Battery Storage: the fastest growing clean energy technology today
Energy Post 27th May 2024 by IEA
The IEA report “Batteries and Secure Energy Transitions” looks at the impressive global progress, future projections, and risks for batteries across all applications. 2023 saw deployment in the power sector more than double. Strong growth occurred for utility-scale batteries, behind-the-meter, mini-grids, solar home systems, and EVs. Lithium-ion batteries dominate overwhelmingly due to continued cost reductions and performance improvements. And policy support has succeeded in boosting deployment in many markets (including Africa).
Further innovations in battery chemistries and manufacturing are projected to reduce global average lithium-ion battery costs by a further 40% by 2030 and bring sodium-ion batteries to the market. The IEA emphasises the vital role batteries play in supporting other clean technologies, notably in balancing intermittent wind and solar.
New successes include the fact that solar PV plus batteries is now competitive with new coal-fired power in India and, in the next couple years, should become competitive with new coal in China and new natural gas-fired power in the U.S. Looking ahead, deployment must increase sevenfold by 2030. The prospects are good: if all announced plants are built on time this would be sufficient to meet the battery requirements of the IEA’s net-zero scenario in 2030. And although, today, the supply chain for batteries is very concentrated, the fast-growing market should create new opportunities for diversifying those supply chains.
Batteries are an essential part of the global energy system today and the fastest growing energy technology on the market
Battery storage in the power sector was the fastest growing energy technology in 2023 that was commercially available, with deployment more than doubling year-on-year.
Strong growth occurred for utility-scale battery projects, behind-the-meter batteries, mini-grids and solar home systems for electricity access, adding a total of 42 GW of battery storage capacity globally. Electric vehicle (EV) battery deployment increased by 40% in 2023, with 14 million new electric cars, accounting for the vast majority of batteries used in the energy sector.
Despite the continuing use of lithium-ion batteries in billions of personal devices in the world, the energy sector now accounts for over 90% of annual lithium-ion battery demand. This is up from 50% for the energy sector in 2016, when the total lithium-ion battery market was 10-times smaller. With falling costs and improving performance, lithium-ion batteries have become a cornerstone of modern economies, underpinning the proliferation of personal electronic devices, including smart phones, as well the growth in the energy sector. In 2023, there were nearly 45 million EVs on the road – including cars, buses and trucks – and over 85 GW of battery storage in use in the power sector globally.
Lithium-ion batteries dominate battery use due to recent cost reductions and performance improvements…………………………………………………………….
US doubtful it could help Korea on nuclear-powered subs
Korea Times 3 June 24
The United States is unlikely to help Korea build nuclear-powered submarines at the moment, as it is stretched by AUKUS commitments to Australia, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the Shangri-La security dialogue in Singapore.
In 2021 the United States signed the AUKUS pact with Britain and Australia to share nuclear-powered submarine technology and to sell at least three Virginia-class boats to Australia in the 2030s.
Several other allies, including Korea, have expressed interest in involvement.
Asked on Saturday at the security summit how he would respond to a direct Korean request for help obtaining nuclear submarines, Austin said it would be “very, very difficult” for Washington to accommodate that “on top of what we do right now.”
“(AUKUS) is no small endeavour,” he said. “We just started down this path with Australia. (It’s) highly doubtful that we could take on another initiative of this type anytime in the near future.”…………………….. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/06/113_375778.html
TODAY. “Don’t let the people see what is happening” – the forgotten lesson from the Vietnam war.
Dear oh dear!. The USA had learned this lesson – too much TV coverage of US troops suffering and dying, and worse, what was being done to the Vietnamese, with abuses like napalm and the My Lai massacre in 1968. The American public was shocked – riots in cities and university campuses across the nation. What a mistake! – this coverage – regretfully, – the USA had to withdraw their troops in 1973, and lose this lovely war.
But the lesson was well learned. Next time – The Iraq war coverage was a marvel of distant fireworks exhibitions. Lovely coverage of pretty explosions across Iraq. Not a human casualty in sight.
The USA authorities were in control of the “home “media coverage in the Iraq war, and then the Afghanistan one. And indeed, now the Ukraine war is a model of “correct” coverage.
The USA is doing an effective job on Ukraine. In the Ukraine case, we are constantly reassured that of course Ukraine can beat Russia. There are TV visuals and radio podcasts constant reminders of brutality and atrocities by Russians, the brave sufferings of Ukrainians, and of their brave leader Zelensky, versus the tyrant Putin. And of course, lots of Russian soldiers are getting killed, which must be a good thing, mustn’t it?
All that is no doubt true. But we don’t see any atrocities by Ukrainians. We don’t see the sufferings of ethnic and Russian-language Ukrainians over the 10 years of struggle in the Donbass region. We don’t see any questioning of Zelensky’s wisdom in refusing to negotiate with Russia, any questioning of the massive slaughter of Ukrainian troops.
As is the tradition in wartime, in the Ukraine case, the Western media is very successfully brainwashing us . Any questioning of this narrative is immediately dismissed as “disinformation”. A good case in point is the Russian news outlet Rt.com. Yes. of course, much of Rt’s information is indeed propaganda. But some of it is indeed true – facts that are ignored or hidden by the Western media.
So – the Ukraine war drags on – and we all cheer for Zelensky.
The Gaza situation is something different.
It is a technology thing. In Vietnam, it was TV coverage. Even in Ukraine, there are carefully controlled images from Western journalists “embedded” in the Ukraine army. But now – there’s the mobile phone. And suddenly there is real life footage of the genocidal atrocity going on in Gaza.
It is laughable that emissaries like Antony Blinken can run around the world bleating about Israel’s “right to defend itself”, and Joe Biden can make pious statements about how Israel should behave nicely.
Sorry, warmongers, but people now see what Israel, backed by the USA, is doing to Palestinians – and for Gaza, people are not buying Western propaganda.
To continue the Gaza genocide, Israel and the US must destroy the laws of war
Israel presumably dared to defy the court only because it was sure it had the Biden administration’s backing.
Israel has sought to close down Palestinian legal and human rights groups by designating them as “terrorist organisations”.
Middle East Eye Jonathan Cook, 31 May 2024
The world’s two highest courts have made an implacable enemy of Israel in trying to uphold international law and end Israeli atrocities.
Separate announcements last week by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) should have forced Israel on to the back foot in Gaza.
A panel of judges at the ICJ – sometimes known as the World Court – demanded last Friday that Israel immediately stop its current offensive on Rafah, in southern Gaza.
Instead, Israel responded by intensifying its atrocities.
On Sunday, it bombed a supposedly “safe zone” crowded with refugee families forced to flee from the rest of Gaza, which has been devastated by Israel’s rampage for the past eight months.
The air strike set fire to an area crammed with tents, killing dozens of Palestinians, many of whom burnt alive. A video shows a man holding aloft a baby beheaded by the Israeli blast.
Hundreds more, many of them women and children, suffered serious injuries, including horrifying burns.
Israel has destroyed almost all of the medical facilities that could treat Rafah’s wounded, as well as denying entry to basic medical supplies such as painkillers that could ease their torment.
This was precisely the outcome US President Joe Biden warned of months ago when he suggested that an Israeli attack on Rafah would constitute a “red line”.
But the US red line evaporated the moment Israel crossed it. The best Biden’s officials could manage was a mealy-mouthed statement calling the images from Rafah “heart-breaking”.
Such images were soon to be repeated, however. Israel attacked the same area again on Tuesday, killing at least 21 Palestinians, mostly women and children, as its tanks entered the centre of Rafah.
‘A mechanism with teeth’
The World Court’s demand that Israel halt its attack on Rafah came in the wake of its decision in January to put Israel effectively on trial for genocide, a judicial process that could take years to complete.
In the meantime, the ICJ insisted, Israel had to refrain from any actions that risked a genocide of Palestinians. In last week’s ruling, the court strongly implied that the current attack on Rafah might advance just such an agenda.
Israel presumably dared to defy the court only because it was sure it had the Biden administration’s backing.
UN officials, admitting that they had run out of negatives to describe the ever-worsening catastrophe in Gaza, called it “hell on earth”.
Days before the ICJ’s ruling, the wheels of its sister court, the ICC, finally began to turn.
Karim Khan, its chief prosecutor, announced last week that he would be seeking arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, along with three Hamas leaders.
Both Israeli leaders are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including attempts to exterminate the population of Gaza through planned starvation.
Israel has been blocking aid deliveries for many months, creating famine, a situation only exacerbated by its recent seizure of a crossing between Egypt and Rafah through which aid was being delivered.
The ICC is a potentially more dangerous judicial mechanism for Israel than the ICJ.
The World Court is likely to take years to reach a judgement on whether Israel has definitively committed a genocide in Gaza – possibly too late to save much of its population.
The ICC, on the other hand, could potentially issue arrest warrants within days or weeks.
And while the World Court has no real enforcement mechanisms, given that the US is certain to veto any UN Security Council resolution seeking to hold Israel to account, an ICC ruling would place an obligation on more than 120 states that have ratified its founding document, the Rome Statute, to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant should either step on their soil.
That would make Europe and much of the world – though not the US – off-limits to both.
And there is no reason for Israeli officials to assume that the ICC’s investigations will finish with Netanyahu and Gallant. Over time, it could issue warrants for many more Israeli officials.
As one Israeli official has noted, “the ICC is a mechanism with teeth”.
‘Antisemitic’ court
For that reason, Israel responded by going on the warpath, accusing the court of being “antisemitic” and threatening to harm its officials.
Washington appeared ready to add its muscle too.
Asked at a Senate committee hearing whether he would support a Republican proposal to impose sanctions on the ICC, Antony Blinken, Biden’s secretary of state, replied: “We want to work with you on a bipartisan basis to find an appropriate response.”
Administration officials, speaking to the Financial Times, suggested the measures under consideration “would target prosecutor Karim Khan and others involved in the investigation”.
US reprisals, according to the paper, would most likely be modelled on the sanctions imposed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Joe Biden’s predecessor, after the ICC threatened to investigate both Israel and the US over war crimes, in the occupied Palestinian territories and Afghanistan respectively.
Then, the Trump administration accused the ICC of “financial corruption and malfeasance at the highest levels” – allegations it never substantiated.
Fatou Bensouda, the chief prosecutor at the time, was denied entry to the US, and Trump officials threatened to confiscate her and the ICC judges’ assets and put them on trial. The administration also vowed to use force to liberate any Americans or Israelis who were arrested.
Mike Pompeo, the then US secretary of state, averred that Washington was “determined to prevent having Americans and our friends and allies in Israel and elsewhere hauled in by this corrupt ICC”.
Covert war on ICC
In fact, a joint investigation by the Israeli website 972 and the British Guardian newspaper revealed this week that Israel – apparently with US support – has been running a covert war against the ICC for the best part of a decade.
Its offensive began after Palestine became a contracting party to the ICC in 2015, and intensified after Bensouda, Khan’s predecessor, started a preliminary investigation into Israeli war crimes – both Israel’s repeated attacks on Gaza and its building of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their lands.
Bensouda found herself and her family threatened, and her husband blackmailed. The head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, Yossi Cohen, became personally involved in the campaign of intimidation. An official briefed on Cohen’s behaviour likened it to “stalking”. The Mossad chief ambushed Bensouda on at least one occasion in an attempt to recruit her to Israel’s side.
Cohen, who is known to be close to Netanyahu, reportedly told her: “You should help us and let us take care of you. You don’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family.”
Israel has also been running a sophisticated spying operation on the court, hacking its database to read emails and documents. It has tried to recruit ICC staff to spy on the court from within. There are suspicions at the ICC that Israel has been successful.
Because Israel oversees access to the occupied territories, it has been able to ban ICC officials from investigating its war crimes directly. That has meant, given its control of the telecommunications systems in the territories, that it has been able to monitor all conversations between the ICC and Palestinians reporting atrocities.
As a result, Israel has sought to close down Palestinian legal and human rights groups by designating them as “terrorist organisations”.
The surveillance of the ICC has continued during Khan’s tenure – and it is the reason Israel knew the arrest warrants were coming. According to sources that spoke to the Guardian and 972 website, the court came under “tremendous pressure from the United States” not to proceed with the warrants.
Khan has pointed out that interference in the court’s activities is a criminal offence. More publicly, a group of senior US Republican senators sent a threatening letter to Khan: “Target Israel and we will target you.”
Khan himself has noted that he has faced a campaign of intimidation and has warned that, if the interference continues, “my office will not hesitate to act”.
The question is how much of this is bravado, and how much is it affecting Khan and the ICC’s judges, making them wary of pursuing their investigation, expediting it or expanding it to more Israeli war crimes suspects.
Legal noose
Despite the intimidation, the legal noose is quickly tightening around Israel’s neck. It has become impossible for the world’s highest judicial authorities to ignore Israel’s eight-month slaughter in Gaza and near-complete destruction of its infrastructure, from schools and hospitals to aid compounds and bakeries.
Many tens of thousands of Palestinian children have been killed, maimed and orphaned in the rampage, and hundreds of thousands more are being gradually starved to death by Israel’s aid blockade.
The role of the World Court and the War Crimes Court are precisely to halt atrocities and genocides before it is too late.
There is an obligation on the world’s most powerful states – especially the world’s superpower-in-chief, the United States, which so often claims the status of “global policeman” – to help enforce such rulings.
Should Israel continue to ignore the ICJ’s demand that it end its attack on Rafah, as seems certain, the UN Security Council would be expected to pass a resolution to enforce the decision.
That could range from, at a minimum, an arms embargo and economic sanctions on Israel to imposing no-fly zones over Gaza or even sending in a UN peacekeeping force.
Washington has shown it can act when it wishes to. Even though the US is one of a minority of states not a party to the Rome Statute, it has vigorously supported the arrest warrant issued by the ICC against Russian leader Vladimir Putin in 2023…………………………………………………
Divisions in Europe
It is not just that the US is missing in action as Israel advances its genocidal goals in Gaza. Washington is actively aiding and abetting the genocide, by supplying Israel with bombs, by cutting funding to UN aid agencies that are the main lifeline for Gaza’s population, by sharing intelligence with Israel and by refusing to use its plentiful leverage over Israel to stop the slaughter.
And the widespread assumption is that the US will veto any Security Council resolution against Israel.
According to two former ICC officials who spoke to the Guardian and 972 website, senior Israeli officials have expressly stated that Israel and the US are working together to stymie the court’s work.
Washington’s contempt for the world’s highest judicial authorities is so flagrant that it is even starting to fray relations with Europe.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has thrown his weight behind the ICC and called for any ruling against Netanyahu and Gallant to be respected.
Meanwhile, on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his outrage over Israel’s attacks on Rafah and called for them to stop immediately.
Three European states – Spain, Ireland and Norway – announced last week that they were joining more than 140 other countries, including eight from the 27-member European Union, in recognising Palestine as a state.
The coordination between Spain, Ireland and Norway was presumably designed to attenuate the inevitable backlash provoked by defying Washington’s wishes.
Among the falsehoods promoted by the US and Israel is the claim that the ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel’s military actions in Gaza because neither of them have recognised Palestine as a state.
But Palestine became a state party to the ICC way back in 2015. And, as Spain, Ireland and Norway have highlighted, it is now recognised even by western states usually submissive to the US-imposed “rules-based order”.
Another deception promoted by Israel and the US – a more revealing one – is the claim that the ICC lacks jurisdiction because Israel, like the US, has not ratified the Rome Statute. ……………………..
Might makes right
Both the ICJ and the ICC are fully aware of the dangers of taking on Israel – which is why, despite the dissembling complaints from the US and Israel, each court is treading so slowly and cautiously in dealing with Israeli atrocities.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Taking on Goliath
In making the case against Israel, Khan clearly knew he was taking on a Goliath, given Israel’s stalwart backing from the US. He had even recruited a panel of legal experts to give its blessing, in the hope that might offer some protection from reprisal.
The panel, which unanimously endorsed the indictments against Israel and Hamas, included legal experts like Amal Clooney, the nearest the human rights community has to a legal superstar. But it also included Theodor Meron, a former legal authority in the Israeli government’s foreign ministry.
In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, explaining his reasoning, Khan seemed keen to preempt the coming attacks. He noted that an unnamed senior US politician had already tried to deter him from indicting Israeli leaders. The prosecutor suggested that other threats were being made behind the scenes. ………………………………………………….
The ICC prosecutor made clear that he understands all too well what is at stake if the ICC and ICJ turn a blind eye to the Gaza genocide, as Israel and the US want. He told Amanpour: “If we don’t apply the law equally, we’re going to disintegrate as a species.”
The uncomfortable truth is that such disintegration, in a nuclear age, may be further advanced than any of us cares to acknowledge.
The US and its favourite client state give no sign of being willing to submit to international law. Like Samson, they would prefer to bring the house down than respect the long-established rules of war.
The initial victims are the people of Gaza. But in a world without laws, where might alone makes right, all of us will ultimately be the losers. https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/gaza-genocide-continue-israel-us-must-destroy-laws-war?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Summary of Australian federal and state/territory nuclear/uranium laws and prohibitions
Current prohibitions on nuclear activities in Australia: a quick guide
From Jim Green, 30 May 2024
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp2324/Quick_Guides/NuclearActivitiesProhibitions
PDF Version [564KB]
Dr Emily Gibson
Science, Technology, Environment and Resources; Law and Bills Digest Sections
This quick guide provides an overview of current prohibitions on nuclear activities under Commonwealth, state and territory laws. It considers the primary legislation most relevant to current policy debates about domestic nuclear energy only and consequently does not consider recent changes to Commonwealth law to facilitate Australia’s acquisition of conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS partnership.[1] It also does not include consideration of Australia’s international obligations in respect of nuclear activities, including the safeguarding of nuclear materials and the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
If a domestic nuclear energy industry were to progress, it is expected that a comprehensive framework for the safety, security and safeguarding of the related nuclear material would need to be legislated to accommodate such an industry.[2] Consideration of these issues is beyond the scope of this paper.
What are nuclear activities?
A nuclear activity is any process or step in the utilisation of material capable of undergoing nuclear fission; that is, any activities in the nuclear fuel cycle.[3] Nuclear activities therefore include:
- mining of nuclear or radioactive materials such as uranium and thorium milling, refining, treatment, processing, reprocessing, fabrication or enrichment of nuclear material
- the production of nuclear energy
- the construction, operation or decommissioning of a mine, plant, facility, structure, apparatus or equipment used in the above activities
- the use, storage, handling, transportation, possession, acquisition, abandonment or disposal of nuclear materials, apparatus or equipment.
Prohibitions on nuclear activities
Commonwealth
Nuclear activities are regulated under the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act 1998 (ARPANS Act) and the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).
Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act 1998
The ARPANS Act establishes a licensing framework for controlled persons (including a Commonwealth entity or a Commonwealth contractor) in relation to controlled facilities (a nuclear installation, a prescribed radiation facility, or a prescribed legacy site).[4] A nuclear installation includes a nuclear reactor for research or the production of radioactive materials for industrial or medical use, and a radioactive waste storage or disposal facility with an activity that is greater than the activity level prescribed by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Regulations 2018.[5]
The ARPANS Act allows the CEO of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) to issue licences for controlled facilities.[6] In issuing a facility licence, the CEO ‘must take into account the matters (if any) specified in the regulations, and must also take into account international best practice in relation to radiation protection and nuclear safety’.[7]
However, subsection 10(2) of the Act expressly prohibits the CEO from granting a licence for the construction or operation of any of the following nuclear installations: a nuclear fuel fabrication plant; a nuclear power plant; an enrichment plant; or a reprocessing facility.[8] This prohibition does not appear to apply to a radioactive waste storage or disposal facility.
Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999
The EPBC Act establishes 9 matters of national environmental significance (MNES) and provides for the assessment and approval of these actions if the action has, will have, or is likely to have a significant impact on the MNES.[9] ‘Nuclear actions’ are one of the MNES.[10] Where a nuclear action is determined to be a controlled action (that is, one likely to have a significant impact and requiring assessment and approval under the Act), the assessment considers the impact of a nuclear action on the environment generally (including people and communities).[11]
The Act establishes offences for the taking of nuclear actions in those circumstances.[14]
Similarly, the Act provides that a relevant entity (as set out below) must not take an action (including a nuclear action) unless a requisite approval has been obtained under Part 9 of the Act or a relevant exception applies:
- a person must not take a relevant action on Commonwealth land that has, will have or is likely to have a significant impact on the environment[15]
- a person must not take a relevant action outside Commonwealth land if the action has, will have or is likely to have a significant impact on the environment on Commonwealth land[16]
- the Commonwealth or a Commonwealth agency must not take inside or outside the Australian jurisdiction an action that has, will have or is likely to have a significant impact on the environment inside or outside the Australian jurisdiction.[17]
The Act establishes offences and civil penalty provisions for the taking of an action in those circumstances.[18]
Subsection 140A(1) prohibits the Minister for the Environment from granting an approval for a nuclear action relating to specified nuclear installations. These installations are a nuclear fuel fabrication plant, a nuclear power plant, an enrichment plant, and a reprocessing facility.
Potential reform of the nuclear action trigger
The second independent review of the EPBC Act, completed in October 2020 by Professor Graeme Samuel (Samuel Review), recommended that the nuclear actions MNES be retained.[19] The review recommended that ‘the EPBC Act and the regulatory arrangements of [ARPANSA] should be aligned, to support the implementation of best-practice international approaches based on risk of harm to the environment, including the community’.[20]
In 2022, the Government’s Nature Positive Plan adopted this approach and stated, ‘[a] uniform national approach to regulation of radiation will be delivered through the new National Environmental Standards’.
In February 2024, a policy draft of the National Environmental Standard for Matters of National Environmental Significance indicates that ‘nuclear actions’ will be renamed ‘radiological exposure actions’ and states:
Relevant decisions must:
Not be inconsistent with the ARPANSA national codesfor protection from radiological exposure actions including in relation to:
- human health and environmental risks and outcomes; and. radiological impacts on biological diversity,
- the conservation of species and the natural health of ecosystems.[22]
States and territories
States and territories generally regulate nuclear and radiation activities through either the health or the environmental protection portfolios. The relevant legislation provides for the protection of health and safety of people, and the protection of property and the environment, from the harmful effects of radiation by establishing licensing regimes to regulate the possession, use, and transportation of radiation sources and substances.[23] Mining of radioactive materials is regulated through the resources portfolio.
In addition, as outlined below, the states and territories have legislation prohibiting certain nuclear activities or the construction and operation of certain nuclear facilities. Importantly, where permitted, nuclear activities (including mining) would also be subject to assessment and approvals under a range of other legislation, including planning and environmental impact assessment, native title and cultural heritage, and radiation licensing laws at the state or territory and Commonwealth level.
New South Wales
Exploration for uranium has been permitted under the Mining Act 1992 since 2012.[24] However, the mining of uranium is prohibited by the Uranium Mining and Nuclear Facilities (Prohibitions) Act 1986 (NSW Prohibitions Act).[25]
The NSW Prohibitions Act also prohibits the construction and operation of certain nuclear facilities, including uranium enrichment facilities, fabrication and reprocessing plants, nuclear power plants, and storage and waste disposal facilities (other than for the storage and disposal of waste from research or medical purposes, or the relevant radiological licensing Act).[26]
Northern Territory
The Atomic Energy Act 1953 (Cth) provides that the Commonwealth owns all uranium found in the territories.[27] Uranium exploration and mining in the Northern Territory (NT) is regulated under both NT mining laws (the Mineral Titles Act 2010 and the Mining Management Act 2001) and the Atomic Energy Act.[28] The Ranger Uranium Mine operated until 2021 and is now undergoing rehabilitation.[29]
The Nuclear Waste Transport, Storage and Disposal (Prohibition) Act 2004 (NT) prohibits the construction and operation of nuclear waste storage facilities, as well as the transportation of nuclear waste for storage at a nuclear waste storage facility in the NT.[30] Nuclear waste is defined as including waste material from nuclear plants or the conditioning or reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.[31]
This Act also:
- prohibits public funds from being expended, granted or advanced to any person for, or for encouraging or financing any activity associated with the development, construction or operation of a nuclear waste storage facility
- would require the NT Parliament to hold an inquiry into the likely impact of a nuclear waste storage facility proposed by the Commonwealth on the cultural, environmental and socio‑economic wellbeing of the territory.[32]
Queensland
Exploration for and mining of uranium are permitted under the Mineral Resources Act 1989. However, it has been government policy to not grant mining leases for uranium since 2015.[33] The government policy ban extends to the treatment or processing of uranium within the state.[34]
The Nuclear Facilities Prohibition Act 2007, in similar terms to the NSW Prohibitions Act, prohibits the construction and operation of nuclear reactors and other nuclear facilities in the nuclear fuel cycle.[35]
Unlike other state and territory prohibition legislation, the Nuclear Facilities Prohibition Act would require the responsible Queensland Minister to hold a plebiscite to gain the views of the Queensland population if the Minister was satisfied that the Commonwealth Government has taken, or is likely to take, steps to amend a Commonwealth law or exercise a power under a Commonwealth law to facilitate the construction of a prohibited nuclear facility, or if the Commonwealth Government adopts a policy position of supporting or allowing the construction of a prohibited nuclear facility in Queensland.[36]
South Australia
The exploration and mining of radioactive material (including uranium) is permitted in South Australia (SA), subject to approvals under the Mining Act 1971 and the Radiation Protection and Control Act 2021 (RP&C Act).[37] For example, uranium is mined at Olympic Dam, Four Mile and Honeymoon. However, conversion and enrichment activities are prohibited by the RP&C Act.[38]
The Nuclear Waste Storage Facility (Prohibition) Act 2000 prohibits the construction or operation of a nuclear waste storage facility, and the import to SA or transport within SA of nuclear waste for delivery to a nuclear waste storage facility.[39]
The Nuclear Waste Storage Facility (Prohibition) Act prohibits the SA Government from expending public funds to encourage or finance the construction or operation of nuclear waste storage facilities.[40] The Act would also require the SA Parliament to hold an inquiry into the proposed construction or operation of a nuclear waste storage facility in SA authorised under a Commonwealth law.[41]
Tasmania
The exploration and mining of atomic substances (which includes uranium and thorium) is permitted under the Mineral Resources Development Act 1995 (Tas), subject to approval.
Victoria
The Nuclear Activities (Prohibitions) Act 1983 prohibits a range of activities associated with the nuclear fuel cycle, including the exploration and mining of uranium and thorium, and the construction or operation of facilities for the conversion or enrichment of any nuclear material, nuclear reactors and facilities for the storage and disposal of nuclear waste from those prohibited activities.[42]
Western Australia
Exploration for and mining of uranium is permitted under the Mining Act 1978. A state policy ban on mining approvals was overturned in November 2008;[43] however, this was reinstated in June 2017, with a ‘no uranium’ condition on future mining leases.[44] The ban does not apply to 4 projects that had already been approved by the previous government.
The Nuclear Activities Regulation Act 1978 aims to protect the health and safety of people and the environment from possible harmful effects of nuclear activities, including by regulating the mining and processing of uranium and the equipment used in those processes. The Nuclear Waste Storage and Transportation (Prohibition) Act 1999 also prohibits the storage, disposal or transportation in Western Australia of certain nuclear waste (including waste from a nuclear plant or nuclear weapons).[45]
Can the Commonwealth override a state ban on nuclear activities?
The Commonwealth Parliament only has the power to make laws in relation to matters specified in the Constitution of Australia, including in sections 51, 52 and 122. Assuming the Commonwealth has a sufficient head of power to legislate, section 109 of the Constitution specifically provides for circumstances in which there might be an inconsistency between Commonwealth and state laws:
When a law of a State is inconsistent with a law of the Commonwealth, the latter shall prevail, and the former shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be invalid.
Therefore, even though some states have enacted prohibitions on certain nuclear activities within their jurisdictions, the Commonwealth Parliament could enact specific legislation in relation to nuclear activities so that such activities can take place within those jurisdictions. One such example is the National Radioactive Waste Management Act 2012 (Cth), which provides for the establishment of a national radioactive waste management facility at a site to be declared by the responsible Commonwealth Minister. Section 12 of that Act provides that state and territory laws have no effect in regulating, hindering, or preventing such a facility
Further information
- ‘Who we regulate’, ARPANSA
- ‘State & territory regulators’, ARPANSA
- ‘Uranium and thorium’, in Geoscience Australia, Australia’s Energy Commodity Resources, 2023 Edition, (Canberra: Geoscience Australia, 2023).
‘Operation al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 237: As Israel’s invasion of Rafah and northern Gaza continues, Smotrich calls for ‘war’ on West Bank
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for launching a “defensive war” on the West Bank in the same way that Israel has done in Gaza.
BY QASSAM MUADDI , https://mondoweiss.net/2024/05/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-237-as-israels-invasion-of-rafah-and-northern-gaza-continues-smotrich-calls-for-war-on-west-bank/
Casualties
- 36,224 + killed* and at least 81,777 wounded in the Gaza Strip.*
- 520+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.**
- Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,139.
- 636 Israeli soldiers have been announced killed since October 7, and at least 3,568 have been announced as wounded.***
*Gaza’s Ministry of Health confirmed this figure on its Telegram channel on May 26, 2024. Some rights groups estimate the death toll to be much higher when accounting for those presumed dead.
** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to the PA’s Ministry of Health on May 26, this is the latest figure.
*** These figures are released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” The number of Israeli soldiers wounded, according to Israeli media reports, exceeds 6,800 as of April 1.
Key Developments
CNN investigation shows that Israeli bombs used in the Rafah tent-city massacre last Sunday, May 26, were U.S.-made Boeing bombs.
Israel kills 240 Palestinians, wounds 1,134 since Monday, May 27, across Gaza, raising the death toll since October 7 to 36,240 and the number of wounded to 81,777, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Israeli strikes target Palestinians trying to return to their homes in Jabalia.
UNRWA chief says Israel has made targeting international missions look legitimate.- Israeli forces raid Ramallah, Nablus, Tulkarem, Tubas, northern Hebron, and Qalqilya in the West Bank, arresting 20 in the past 24 hours.
- Israeli forces cause large fire in main vegetable market in Ramallah.
- Two Israeli soldiers reported killed in car-ramming attack north of Nablus.
- Israel uses drone strikes during raid on Nablus last night.
- Israel’s finance minister Smotrich calls for “defensive war” in the West Bank.
- PLO says Israeli actions in northern West Bank refugee camps “same as in Gaza.”
Israeli forces partially withdraw from Jabalia.
Israel kills 240 across Gaza since Monday
The Gaza-based Palestinian health ministry announced that the remaining hospitals in the Gaza Strip received 240 slain Palestinians in Israeli airstrikes since Monday, May 27, while 1134 others arrived wounded.
Meanwhile, local media sources reported that in the past 24 hours, Israeli strikes killed seven Palestinians in strikes on a shelter for displaced families in Gaza City. Reports also indicated that Israeli troops detonated several houses in the Sheikh Zayed neighborhood in the city.
Israeli forces also targeted the areas of Beit Lahia, Zeitoun, Beit Hanoun, and Jabalia with drone strikes and shelling. Israeli ground troops partially withdrew from Jabalia after a several-week-long invasion.
Residents found large destruction to infrastructure in Jabalia following the partial Israeli withdrawal. Other families who had fled the area at the beginning of the Israeli invasion in mid-May attempted to return to their homes in Jabalia, but Israeli troops opened fire at them, according to reports.
In the central Gaza Strip, heavy combat was reported between Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance fighters in the east of the central governorate. Meanwhile, Israeli forces opened machine gun fire on residents’ homes in the Bureij refugee camp. Israeli fire also targeted houses in the Wadi Gaza area and in the Mighraqa village, north of Deir al-Balah.
In the Nuseirat refugee camp, Israeli forces fired flares last night, while four Palestinians were killed in an air strike on a family house in the camp.
Smotrich calls for ‘war’ in West Bank as Israel ramps up raids
Since Wednesday night, Israeli forces raided the cities of Tulkarem, Nablus, Ramallah, Tubas, and the Arroub refugee camp north of Hebron, arresting at least 20 Palestinians according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.
Last week, an Israeli raid on Jenin killed 12 Palestinians, while largely destroying the camp’s infrastructure. The current raid pattern has been increasing in frequency and violence, especially in the northern West Bank refugee camps — notably in Tulkarem, Jenin, and Nablus.
On Wednesday, the Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who handles the administrative powers over the occupied West Bank, called upon the Israeli army to conduct a “defensive war” in the West Bank, similar to the one in Gaza. Smotrich has called in the past to wipe out Palestinian towns, arguing that it should be the Israeli army, not the settlers, to carry out such actions.
Also on Wednesday, the member of the PLO’s department for refugee camps responsible for the northern West Bank, Nancy Thouqan, told the Palestine News Network that what Israel is doing in the northern West Bank is already similar to what it is doing in Gaza.
Thouqan pointed out that the northern camps house the largest number of Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, and have been the center of Palestinian activism in recent years. According to Thouqan, Israel aims at depopulating these camps, similarly to its attempts to depopulate the Gaza Strip, and to undermine the work of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
On Wednesday, UNRWA’s chief Philippe Lazzarini said that Israel’s smearing of the agency led some to believe that UN missions are legitimate targets. Lazzarini added that the size of Israeli attacks on UNRWA staff in the current war “deserve an investigation.” Since October, Israeli forces have killed 188 UNRWA employees, according to the agency’s own data as of May 7.
Call for next UK government to make ‘big decisions’ on nuclear power projects
The manifesto also pressed for the building of a fleet of Small Modular Reactors.
Independent, Alan Jones, 1 June 24
The next government is being urged to make “big decisions” on nuclear power projects to help deliver jobs and energy security.
The Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) has published its manifesto, saying it was important to ensure continued momentum.
The association called for measures including pressing ahead with the planned Sizewell C power station, as well as extending the life of current power stations.
The manifesto also pressed for the building of a fleet of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) across the country and a third large-scale station at Wylfa on Anglesey in north Wales.
Tom Greatrex, chief executive of the NIA, said: “Big decisions on new nuclear projects are needed as a matter of urgency during the next parliament……………………………….. https://www.independent.co.uk/business/call-for-next-government-to-make-big-decisions-on-nuclear-power-projects-b2554453.htm
On the Brink: The NATO-Russia Ukrainian War Comes to Europe
Russian and Eurasian Politics, by GORDONHAHN, June 2, 2024
The NATO-Russia Ukrainian for, the war for and against NATO expansion, is on the brink of expanding to the NATO countries that provoked Russia to invade Ukraine on 24 February 2024 and have supported its continuation ever since, save one—the United States of America—ironically, the real force behind the war’s genesis. Sixteen years ago today’s CIA Director, at the time US Ambassador to Moscow, William Burns was ignored when he informed Washington:
“Ukraine and Georgia’s NATO aspirations not only touch a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about the consequences for stability in the region. Not only does Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine Russia’s influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests. Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face. ….“Russia’s opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia is both emotional and based on perceived strategic concerns about the impact on Russia’s interests in the region. It is also politically popular to paint the U.S. and NATO as Russia’s adversaries and to use NATO’s outreach to Ukraine and Georgia as a means of generating support from Russian nationalists. While Russian opposition to the first round of NATO enlargement in the mid-1990’s was strong, Russia now feels itself able to respond more forcefully to what it perceives as actions contrary to its national interests” (https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html).
Rather than heed Burns’s warning and that of numerous objective experts, the US and NATO tried to remake Ukraine, funding anti-Russian forces and backing what became a violent, terrorist coup led by neofascists in February 2013, confounding an agreement worked out by regime, opposition, Europe, and Russia that would have resolved the crisis.
The post-coup NATO involvement in Ukraine was discussed in unusual pieces. One had purposes beyond the present discussion, The New York Times (NYT), acknowledged that the CIA was involved in Maidan Ukraine no later than immediately after the coup (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/world/europe/cia-ukraine-intelligence-russia-war.html).
In one rare objective opinion published in NYT on the subject, it was noted: “Over the next decade, the US and its allies built a powerful Ukrainian army while sabotaging the Minsk agreement and later (after the Russian invasion) also sabotaged the Istanbul negotiations. Weapon systems poured in, Ukrainian ports were modernised to fit American warships, and Ukraine was becoming a de facto NATO member. Top Ukrainian officials like Arestovich argued openly they were preparing for a war with Russia. A top adviser to former president Nicolas Sarkozy, warned that the US-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership of November 2021 convinced Russia that it must attack or be attacked’” (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/opinion/us-ukraine-putin-war.html).
The decision to supply nuclear capable F-16 fighter jets to Kiev and the recent French and presumably other Western countries’ coming declarations making official their previous and future deployments of ‘instructors’ and ‘advisors’ to the Ukrainian front is dangerously escalatory enough. Moscow is required to respond with an answering escalation to save face internally before the Russian people and externally before the world. Now NATO, in the person of its GenSec, has opened up the Overton window by way of convening discussions with member-states on the introduction of troops and the use of Western-supplied mid-range rockets to hit deep inside Russian territory.
Poland is on the verge of deploying its missile defense systems to protect Ukraine from Russia attacks. Moreover, a claim is being circulated to the effect that decision of 12 NATO countries (UK, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania so far) to allow Kiev to use Western missiles to strike deep into Russia — as far as Moscow and Russia’s ‘second capitol’ of St. Petersburg. Germany, not included in the list, has apparently changed its position and now supports attacks on Russia using Western weapons, as Chancellor Olaf Shultz stated standing next to French President Emmanuel Macron last week. Berlin also is still considering sending long-range Taurus missiles to Kiev.
For its part, the US is considering giving permission to Kiev to use US weapons, such as ATACM missiles (180-mile range), against military targets deep inside Russia (https://www.wsj.com/world/blinken-signals-u-s-may-allow-ukraine-to-strike-inside-russia-with-u-s-weapons-61fedb10). The US has announced that it will allow the use of weapons it has supplied to Ukraine for attacks on Russian proper in the battle in the Kharkov (Kharkiv) border region now the focus of a Russian counteroffensive.
Otherwise, for the moment Washington will continue to pretend it is opposed to Ukraine’s use of American weapons against Russia proper, using official statements and media plants to this tune: “a U.S. official said Washington had expressed concerns to Kyiv over Ukraine’s strikes — using its own weapons — on Russian radar stations that provide conventional air defense and early warning of nuclear launches by the West.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/05/30/ukraine-us-strategy-disagreement-corruption/).
Ukraine’s armed forces could not have made this attack without US assistance. The US also will soon conclude a US-Ukraine Security Pact likely intended to institutionalize US weapons, training, intelligence, operational, and financial support to Kiev for the ‘long war.’ Fifteen European states have already concluded such long-term security agreements with Kiev over the last few months (https://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2024/05/31/7458547/).
All this —added to the Western weapons, intelligence, training, operational planning, and undercover military personnel contributed to Kiev — makes Ukraine de facto a full-fledged NATO member-state. In other words, NATO countries — and thus de facto NATO itself — are preparing to do officially what they have been doing clandestinely since February 2022: fight Russia in Ukraine for the right to expand NATO when and where Washington and Brussels want. Before all this, Western countries — all the leading members of NATO — were de facto and de jure co-belligerents with Ukraine against Russia. Suffice it to note that Ukraine does not have space based reconnaissance data for targeting but is receiving such from French, German, US and other NATO militaries.
It appears that the recent Western escalations are driven in part by the need to prevent a Russian victory at all costs in order to save face for the US and NATO and, perhaps no less importantly, to salvage US President Joe Biden’s career in the coming presidential elections—a career that has been so disastrous for his family, Americans in general, and now the world. ………………………………………………
………………….. A kind of perfect storm is coming. This autumn there likely will be: the collapse of the Ukrainian front and/or army and/or regime; the Russian army’s approach to the Dniepr and perhaps encirclement of Zaporozhe, Kharkiv, even Kiev; and an American political crisis (given the guilty verdict against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump). The possibilities are almost endless, and some rather dire ones are becoming increasingly more probable.https://gordonhahn.com/2024/06/02/on-the-brink-the-nato-russia-ukrainian-war-comes-to-europe/
Plutonium found in Indiana Street air filters near Rocky Flats; Boulder Commissioners reconsider trail project
High winds carry plutonium-laden dirt from former weapons plant to filters on Indiana Street, experts say
ARVADA PRESS, by Rylee Dunn, May 30, 2024
A recent discovery of plutonium in air filters on Indiana Street near Rocky Flats has given Boulder County Commissioners pause as they appear to reconsider involvement in the Rocky Mountain Greenway Project trail system.
The Greenway project began in 2016 as an effort to connect three National Wildlife Refuges — Rocky Mountain Arsenal, Two Ponds and Rocky Flats — through an interconnected trail system.
The project calls for the installation of an underpass connecting Rocky Flats to Boulder Open Space through the Rock Creek Corridor and an overpass to connect Westminster trails to the Greenway.
When gale-force winds hit on April 6, chemist and DU Professor Michael Ketterer and retired FBI agent Jon Lipsky — who led the 1989 raid of Rocky Flats that eventually led to the plant being shut down and designated as an EPA Superfund site — set up air filters in three locations nearby to conduct a study on the contaminated soil’s activities in high winds.
Ketterer said he has taken air filter samples near Rocky Flats a handful of times, but that the high wind event of April 6 drew special interest because dirt was visibly moving in the air.
“We both observed large, rapidly moving suspended dust clouds extending from ground level up to heights of hundreds of feet, originating from areas on the (Central Operating Unit of Rocky Flats) and/or contaminated buffer zone,” Ketterer said in an affidavit written after collecting the samples.
Two samples were collected along Indiana Street while high winds were blowing from the west. Ketterer sent the samples to the radiochemistry lab at Northern Arizona University, where scientists used mass spectronomy to study the filters.
“Plutonium was unequivocally detected in the two Indiana Street air filters,” a statement from Ketterer said. “With less than 30 minutes sample collection time, quantities ranging from 47 to 128 milligrams of filter ash were recovered from air filters; plutonium was detected in all six of the individual preparations of ash from the two Indiana Street samples.”
The concern surrounding Ketterer’s findings, he says, is that if the Greenway is constructed, increased foot traffic will spread the contaminated soil to neighboring communities.
“The more that people walk on the refuge, and the more land use that is taking place… undisturbed soil is pretty well protected against wind erosion, but once people and animals start walking on the development, then the erodibility, if you will, of the soil surface is going to greatly increase,” Ketterer said.
He added that this could mean more contaminated soil being transported off the refuge toward neighboring properties.
Radioactive plutonium is a material that is produced by nuclear reactors, and has been known to cause lung, bone and liver cancer in people exposed to it, according to the CDC.
The two isotopes of plutonium Ketterer found near Rocky Flats are 239 and 240, which have a “fingerprint” that confirms they originated at the former nuclear weapons plant.
Now, Ketterer’s findings are giving some governmental agencies pause about the construction of the Greenway Project, which calls for the Federal Highway Administration to install the underpass and overpass.
At an April 4 Boulder County Commissioners meeting, Lipsky warned county leaders of the dangers of building such structures on the site, referencing the Colorado State construction standard that forbids building when more than 0.9 picocuries per gram are found in soil.
Ketterer’s recent samples ranged from 0.15 to 1.19 picocuries of plutonium per gram of soil.
“I have a couple concerns: there is going to be digging, and the standard at Rocky Flats changes dramatically, exponentially, when it goes below three feet,” Lipsky said. “If it goes below six feet, there is no standard, and there’s no consideration for the workers, no consideration for the residents, like Superior, that will be receiving contaminants from this digging.”
Ketterer also gave comment at the April 4 meeting and did not mince words in his caution to commissioners.
“Commissioners, it’s not a marvelous idea to dig up and disturb plutonium-contaminated soils,” Ketterer said. “It’s all very unsettling to me. Not only do the soils near Rocky Flats and the Indiana Street corridor have plutonium in them, but a lot of it is in these discreet particles… I think this whole area is generously sprinkled with that.
“Commissioners,” Ketterer continued, “Rocky Flats is just one of the unsettling places in the U.S. and the world that we should worry about plutonium at — there’s a whole mess of uncontained plutonium at the central operating unit (of Rocky Flats) buried under… and we’re seeing a few breadcrumbs on the surface.”
………………………………………………………. legal action was brought in January when the advocacy group Physicians for Social Responsibility Colorado filed a lawsuit that seeks to block construction of trails in and around Rocky Flats. That litigation is ongoing as of press time…………………………………. https://coloradocommunitymedia.com/2024/05/30/plutonium-found-in-indiana-street-air-filters-near-rocky-flats-boulder-commissioners-reconsider-trail-project/
They Can’t Control The Gaza Narrative Because Too Much Has Been Seen
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, JUN 02, 2024, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/they-cant-control-the-gaza-narrative?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=145222547&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
A lot of mainstream-adjacent progressives act like Gaza is some radical deviation from normal US behavior, which is infantile nonsense. The US inflicts similar horrors on the world all the time; the only major difference is (A) this one’s being live-streamed and (B) there was a pro-Palestine movement in place before it began
With regard to (B), Gaza is really illustrating how much the US empire benefits from moving through its foreign military violence relatively quickly. When it can move from propagandizing the population about Evil Dictatorship X to destroying the country in question to moving on to its next war in the span of a few short years, there’s not enough time for public awareness to grow of exactly how evil the empire is being. It was years before a mainstream consensus developed that the invasion of Iraq was wrong, and it will probably be decades before there’s mainstream consensus about the evil shit the empire did in Syria from 2011 onwards.
With Gaza, people saw this one coming and were calling it what it is from the moment it began, because there was already a widespread political understanding — at least on the left — that Israel is a murderous settler-colonialist project and that the Palestinians are a colonized people. This widespread understanding occurred because the Israel-Palestine debate has been raging for generations, so the collective has had enough time to really examine the facts and circulate its arguments through public consciousness. Those facts and arguments were there ready to be picked up and understood and used — even by young people who are new to the situation — after October 7.
So what’s really hurting the empire’s information interests today is the fact that there was widespread social consciousness about Palestine already in place before the Gaza assault began, combined with the consciousness-expanding effects of social media and the ease with which ordinary people can now circulate raw video footage. Which really goes to illustrate the fact that consciousness and dysfunction cannot coexist, whether you’re talking about humans as individuals or as a collective. If we can really see something and deeply understand it, it’s much harder for depravity to function.
The light of awareness makes it very difficult for an empire which is fueled by human blood to operate, which is why so much effort has been going into shutting off the lights. Shutting off the lights here looks like circulating lies and propaganda, killing Palestinian journalists in record numbers, blocking western journalists from entering Gaza, banning TikTok, stomping out student protests, and smearing everyone who tries to spread awareness of Gaza as an anti-semite.
In that sense we actually kind of are seeing a struggle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness here — not in the sense the Zionist ideologues mean it, but in the sense that there are people who are trying to spread the light of awareness coming into direct conflict with people who are trying to shut that light down.
And that’s how humanity will eventually move into health: by the light of awareness spreading throughout our collective consciousness to all the various ways our species is still dysfunctional. This spreading of awareness happens in ways that are as diverse as investigative journalism, teaching, research, tweeting, making videos, writing blogs, informing others in interpersonal conversations, and expanding your own personal consciousness with inner disciplines like meditation and self-inquiry.
We can each participate in this unfolding of human consciousness in our own way throughout our lives, and every contribution we make toward that end makes a difference. Anything you do to make the unseen seen and cast the light of awareness on areas of dysfunction helps move humanity into a higher level of functionality, whether you’re spreading awareness of dysfunction out there in the world, or in yourself by bringing more consciousness to your own inner processes.
We can each do many things every single day to help move humanity into the light, so that we may one day become a fully conscious species. We can each cultivate a practice of constantly looking for opportunities to expand consciousness in this way from moment to moment.
In 2024, Gaza is very, very fertile ground for such expansion.
Presidents Who Gamble With Nuclear Armageddon
Each of the last five presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, have brought us closer to the brink. We desperately need leaders with a knack for peace who can steer the nation, and the world, toward a more secure and less dangerous future.
JEFFREY D. SACHS, May 29, 2024, https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/nuclear-armageddon
The overriding job of any U.S. president is to keep the nation safe. In the nuclear age, that mainly means avoiding nuclear Armageddon. Joe Biden’s reckless and incompetent foreign policy is pushing us closer to annihilation. He joins a long and undistinguished list of presidents who have gambled with Armageddon, including his immediate predecessor and rival, Donald Trump.
Talk of nuclear war is currently everywhere. Leaders of NATO countries call for Russia’s defeat and even dismemberment, while telling us not to worry about Russia’s 6,000 nuclear warheads. Ukraine uses NATO-supplied missiles to knock out parts of Russia’s nuclear-attack early-warning system inside Russia. Russia, in the meantime, engages in nuclear drills near its border with Ukraine. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg give the green light to Ukraine to use NATO weapons to hit Russian territory as an increasingly desperate and extremist Ukrainian regime sees fit.
These leaders neglect at our greatest peril the most basic lesson of the nuclear confrontation between the U.S. and Soviet Union in the Cuban Missile Crisis, as told by President John F. Kennedy, one of the few American presidents in the nuclear age to take our survival seriously. In the aftermath of the crisis, Kennedy told us, and his successors:
Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy—or of a collective death-wish for the world.
Yet this is exactly what Biden is doing today, carrying out a bankrupt and reckless policy.
Nuclear war can easily arise from an escalation of non-nuclear war, or by a hothead leader with access to nuclear arms deciding on a surprise first strike, or by a gross miscalculation. The last of these nearly occurred even after Kennedy and his Soviet counterpart Nikita Khrushchev had negotiated an end to the Cuban Missile Crisis, when a disabled Soviet submarine came within a hair’s breadth of launching a nuclear-tipped torpedo.
The Doomsday Clock was at 17 minutes to midnight when Clinton came to office, but just 9 minutes when he left it. Bush pushed the clock to just 5 minutes, Obama to 3 minutes, and Trump to a mere 100 seconds. Now Biden has taken the clock to 90 seconds.
Most presidents, and most Americans, have little idea how close to the abyss we are. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which was founded in 1947 in part to help the world avoid nuclear annihilation, established the Doomsday Clock to help the public understand the gravity of the risks we face. National security experts adjust the clock depending how far or how close we are to “midnight,” meaning extinction. They put the clock today at just 90 seconds to midnight, the closest that it’s ever been in the nuclear age.
The clock is a useful measure of which presidents have “gotten it” and which have not. The sad fact is that most presidents have recklessly gambled with our survival in the name of national honor, or to prove their personal toughness, or to avoid political attacks from the warmongers, or as the result of sheer incompetence. By a simple and straightforward count, five presidents have gotten it right, moving the clock away from midnight, while nine have moved us closer to Armageddon, including the most recent five.
Truman was president when the Doomsday Clock was unveiled in 1947, at 7 minutes to midnight. Truman stoked the nuclear arms race and left office with the clock at just 3 minutes to midnight. Eisenhower continued the nuclear arms race but also entered into the first-ever negotiations with the Soviet Union regarding nuclear disarmament. By the time he left office, the clock was put back to 7 minutes to midnight.
Kennedy saved the world by coolly reasoning his way through the Cuban Missile Crisis, rather than following the advice of hothead advisors who called for war (for a detailed account, see Martin Sherwin’s magisterial Gambling with Armageddon, 2020). He then negotiated the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with Khrushchev in 1963. By the time of his death, which may well have been a government coup resulting from Kennedy’s peace initiative, JFK had pushed the clock back to 12 minutes to midnight, a magnificent and historic achievement.
It was not to last. Lyndon Johnson soon escalated in Vietnam and pushed the clock back again to just 7 minutes to midnight. Richard Nixon eased tensions with both the Soviet Union and China, and concluded the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I), pushing the clock again to 12 minutes from midnight. Yet Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter failed to secure SALT II, and Carter fatefully and unwisely gave a green light to the CIA in 1979 to destabilize Afghanistan. By the time Ronald Reagan took office, the clock was at just 4 minutes to midnight.
The next 12 years marked the end of the Cold War. Much of the credit is due to Mikhail Gorbachev, who aimed to reform the Soviet Union politically and economically, and to end the confrontation with the West. Yet credit is also due to Reagan and his successor George Bush, Sr., who successfully worked with Gorbachev to end the Cold War, which in turn was followed by the end of the Soviet Union itself in December 1991. By the time Bush left office, the Doomsday clock was at 17 minutes to midnight, the safest since the start of the nuclear age.
Sadly, the U.S. security establishment could not take “Yes” for an answer when Russia said an emphatic yes to peaceful and cooperative relations. The U.S. needed to “win” the Cold War, not just end it. It needed to declare itself and prove itself to be the sole superpower of the world, the one that would unilaterally write the rules of a new U.S.-led “rules-based order.” The post-1992 U.S. therefore launched wars and expanded its vast network of military bases as it saw fit, steadfastly and ostentatiously ignoring the red lines of other nations, indeed aiming to drive nuclear adversaries into humiliating retreats.
Since 1992, every president has left the U.S. and the world closer to nuclear annihilation than his predecessor. The Doomsday Clock was at 17 minutes to midnight when Clinton came to office, but just 9 minutes when he left it. Bush pushed the clock to just 5 minutes, Obama to 3 minutes, and Trump to a mere 100 seconds. Now Biden has taken the clock to 90 seconds.
Biden has led the U.S. into three fulminant crises, any one of which could end up in Armageddon. By insisting on NATO enlargement to Ukraine, against Russia’s bright red line, Biden has repeatedly pushed for Russia’s humiliating retreat. By siding with a genocidal Israel, he has stoked a new Middle East arms race and a dangerously expanding Middle East conflict. By taunting China over Taiwan, which the U.S. ostensibly recognizes as part of one China, he is inviting a war with China.
Trump similarly stirred the nuclear pot on several fronts, most flagrantly with China and Iran.Washington seems of a single mind these days: more funding for wars in Ukraine and Gaza, more armaments for Taiwan. We slouch ever closer to Armageddon. Polls show the American people overwhelmingly disapprove of U.S. foreign policy, but their opinion counts for very little. We need to shout for peace from every hilltop. The survival of our children and grandchildren depends on it.
Biden Lets Ukraine Strike Russia With US Weapons While Ukraine Attacks Russian Nuclear Defenses
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, MAY 31, 2024, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/biden-lets-ukraine-strike-russia?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=145149954&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Well it finally happened: Biden is now letting Ukraine strike Russian territory with US-supplied weapons. Escalations in nuclear brinkmanship which would have been unthinkable a few short years ago are becoming increasingly common as Ukraine loses more and more territory and runs out of soldiers to fight.
In a new report from Politico titled “Biden secretly gave Ukraine permission to strike inside Russia with US weapons” which cites multiple anonymous US officials, the article’s authors correctly describe the new White House authorization as a “stunning shift the administration initially said would escalate the war by more directly involving the U.S. in the fight.”
This report comes shortly after an article by The New York Times titled “From Allies and Advisers, Pressure Grows on Biden to Allow Attacks on Russian Territory,” in which David E Sanger accurately forecast that “Biden is edging toward what may prove to be one of his most consequential decisions in the war for Ukraine: whether to reverse his ban on shooting American weapons into Russian territory.”
Politico reports that the approval for these attacks is limited to “solely near the area of Kharkiv,” but, again, these escalations were once unthinkable even for this administration, and every time a new escalation is authorized the warmongers are already well on their way to pushing for a further one. We will surely see increasing calls for Biden to authorize US-backed strikes deeper into Russian territory in the coming weeks.
This new development comes just after we learned that Ukraine has been repeatedly attacking Russia’s early warning systems for incoming nuclear strikes, with Ukrainian drones targeting Russian radar sites hundreds of miles from Ukrainian-controlled territory.
Just a few years ago if I had told you that a NATO proxy would soon be attacking Russia’s nuclear defense infrastructure, you’d probably have assumed we’d be pretty close to another Cuban Missile Crisis-level nuclear standoff, and that it would be receiving high levels of alarm and attention. But this report is barely in the news, and hardly anyone in the west even knows it’s happening.
This also comes as Reuters reports that France is preparing to send “several hundred” troops to Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces, which of course means we may soon be seeing the armed forces of a NATO power getting killed by the Russian military.
Any of these three new developments has the potential to lead to unpredictable events which spiral out of control into a nuclear war between NATO and the Russian Federation, which would be the single worst thing that could possibly happen on planet Earth. There is no excuse for anyone to be playing around anywhere remotely close to such a precipice, and yet here we are.
As we discussed last year, the terrifying thing about the west’s pattern of continually escalating against Russia every time it doesn’t get a nuclear ICBM in the kisser for the last escalation naturally incentivizes Russia to attack NATO directly in order to re-establish its credibility for deterrence. So far Russia has been content to respond to NATO’s escalations by just tearing into Ukraine with greater and greater ferocity, but if the western empire keeps interpreting every time Russia doesn’t attack NATO forces directly as a sign that it’s safe to keep escalating, at some point Russia’s going to have to hit NATO.
It is not sane or acceptable that any of this is happening. The empire knowingly provoked this war, and now it’s getting more and more casual about risking the life of everyone on this planet as its proxy runs out of lives to throw into its gears.
And it’s so hard to draw attention to this, because there are so many other horrible things happening in the world which the western empire is also directly responsible for. The empire is increasingly acting like a wounded, cornered animal as China rises and the US slowly sinks into post-primacy, the only major difference being that wounded, cornered animals have teeth and claws instead of weapons of armageddon.
1 This Month
23 April – WEBINAR – Why new nuclear reactors are the wrong tools for decarbonization Thursday, April 23 • 1 AM – 2 AM AEST
World Nuclear Power. Reactors 1951-2026, 75 Years of Nuclear Power.
Interactive Map– https://dv.worldnuclearreport.org/
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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