TODAY. Media double standards – Ukraine civilian casualties versus Gaza civilian casualties
| COMMENT. I have now been informed that The missile that struck the hospital in Ukraine has been identified as a Ukrainian air defense missile. Russia did not target a hospital. This is the tragic fact about air defense missiles. They are used to prevent an enemy missile from hitting a military target, but then whether they miss or hit their targets, the debris or the missile harms civilians. The side that uses the air defense missile has chosen to put civilians at risk in order to protect military assets. And what does it tell you about the propaganda system that this damage by an air defense missile, supplied by NATO, is misrepresented as a Russian atrocity “deliberately targeting civilians”? At this stage, I do not have a definite source for this. |
I want to be clear. The bombing of civilians is an atrocity. On July 8th, Russian missile attacks targeted cities across Ukraine. That included a strike that hit the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv. That is an atrocity. (27 civilians, including four children, were killed, and 117, including seven children, were injured.)
On July 9th, an Israeli airstrike targeted a school-turned-refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, the fourth school Israel’s military has bombed in as many days. That is an atrocity. (29 Palestinians have been killed and dozens wounded )
But – contrast the media coverage of these events:
For the Western media – The attack on Ukraine was first of all – a useful news item for ramping up support at the NATO meeting, for more weapons for Ukraine -“A NATO summit is getting under way in Washington, with support for Ukraine top of the agenda after a children’s hospital was hit by a Russian missile.”
Emotional coverage. Australia’s ABC News gave an emotional account: “The offensive on Monday blasted Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt paediatric hospital, where thousands of children undergo treatment for cancer, heart problems, and severe injuries, in broad daylight. Parents holding babies walked in the street outside the hospital, dazed and sobbing after the rare daylight aerial attack. “
To be fair – the ABC also covered the Gaza atrocity, but in a less emotional way.
Over the past few years, the contrast in media coverage has been remarkable. This could be in Gaza, because the Western media are getting their information from Israeli sources, and not from Gaza. While for Ukraine, well the news is exclusively from Ukraine, and not at all from Russia.
Even the language of reporting has often shown the difference. For Ukraine, it has been reporting like ” Putin’s Russian mercenary soldiers have killed hundreds civilians ” For Gaza – “According to Hamas, hundreds of civilians died”. The inference is that in the case of Ukraine, the Putin’s brutal soldiers massacre civilians. But in Gaza, well the news from Hamas is not to be trusted anyway, and the civilian deaths were unfortunate collateral damage in the hunt for Hamas terrorists.
Again, to be fair, I think that media coverage of Gaza is improving. It would need to, as firsthand reports from Gaza cannot be ignored.
But finally – there’s a very clear dilemma for the West, in reporting the events in both countries, and the significance of these events.
Israel is designated as a major non-NATO ally . So is it OK by NATO and USA, for USA to keep supplying weapons for Israel’s attack on Gaza?
NATO is very upset about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, so much so, that the top priority of the current NATO summit in Washington. Apparently the Israeli genocide in Gaza is not an issue.
New Brunswick’s nuclear-powered rate hikes
Commentary, by Janice Harvey, July 8, 2024, https://nbmediacoop.org/2024/07/08/new-brunswicks-nuclear-powered-rate-hikes/
The abject failure of this and previous governments’ energy policies is on full display these days. In the 1970s, New Brunswick was one of only three provinces that bought into the federal government’s agenda to build out a civilian nuclear power industry. Quebec has since shut its nuclear generators down, leaving only Ontario and New Brunswick as the nuclear flag-bearers. How has that worked out for us?
NB Power has come to the Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) with a request for the biggest rate hikes in the utility’s history. While the details are buried in thousands of pages of documents filed with the EUB, evidence from previous EUB hearings makes it crystal clear that the utility’s single greatest financial liability driving up power rates is the much-vaunted Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station.
Point Lepreau has been a financial white elephant since its construction ended up costing three times the original price tag. Its planned 30-year lifespan (over which all this extra cost was to be amortized) was cut short by premature aging of critical reactor components, prompting a decision to undergo an expensive refurbishment, which was to extend the life of the plant by a fantastical 40 years. At the time, the then-PUB determined based on the evidence that refurbishment was too big a financial risk for New Brunswickers to handle and recommended against it. The Lord government went ahead anyway.
Like the original construction, the refurbishment went way over the timeline and budget. The result has been very poor performance, a miserable 60 per cent in 2022 compared to the wildly optimistic 90 per cent capacity assumption that the EUB rejected. The costs of replacement power alone during these shutdowns have repeatedly sabotaged annual financial performance projections. Now, Point Lepreau is facing even more expensive upgrades to fix problems that were not dealt with during the refurbishment.
In short, Point Lepreau is the most unreliable and most expensive power generator on the grid, responsible for the lion’s share of NB Power’s debt. It is not going to get any better. Keeping it afloat until 2040, its new end-of-life target, is going to mean more of the same – throwing scarce money down a deep, black hole paid for by ever-rising power rates.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that New Brunswickers cannot afford nuclear power, the Higgs government has doubled down on nuclear, floating an equally fantastical proposition that the next generation of nukes – so-called small modular reactors – will quarterback New Brunswick’s climate change strategy, while an SMR export industry is expected to drive economic growth. To that end, New Brunswick taxpayers have already fronted a total of $35 million to two private nuclear upstarts, neither of which has designed or built a reactor. This is despite lots of reasons to put their rosy promises of “clean” nuclear-fueled prosperity in the same wishful thinking category as JOI Scientific’s power-from-water scheme that so beguiled NB Power executives.
Just as the EUB rate hearings got underway, an entirely predictable hitch in the Higgs’ nuclear dream occurred. It seems like the SMR upstart ARC Clean Energy is on its way down and out, taking $25 million provincial dollars and $7 million federal with it. If we’re lucky, Moltex Energy, propped up by $10 million in provincial and $50.5 million in federal tax dollars, will be close behind, and we can breathe a sigh of financial relief. The longer this nonsense persists, the more of our tax dollars will go into the nuclear black hole, and the greater the delay in meeting our climate change pollution targets.
Even if Moltex hangs on, or some other SMR promoter replaces them, any electricity that might eventually flow from an SMR will be, like Point Lepreau, the most expensive power on the grid – entirely unaffordable and unnecessary. The Higgs government knows this, passing legislation this spring requiring NB Power to buy electricity from the planned privately-owned SMRs regardless of price, a silent admission that electricity from SMRs, should they ever see the light of day, will be more expensive than any alternative. In other words, SMRs will drive up your power bill.
Meanwhile, the June 22nd issue of The Economist features the exponential growth of solar energy worldwide, the cost of which – even with storage – is falling exponentially. Other than home retrofits, this is the cheapest new power on offer.
The nuclear cost numbers are there for all to see. For elected representatives to support this industry, knowing people cannot tolerate higher power rates, is grossly irresponsible and a betrayal of trust. Renewables naysayers are depriving New Brunswickers of the benefits of this global energy transition. This – and our nuclear-powered rate hikes – need to be on the ballot on October 21.
Janice Harvey is the chair of the Environment and Society program at St. Thomas Universit
Inside the NATO Summit in Washington, D.C.
Neal Resnikoff, 10 July 24
This morning I went through the huge security perimeter around the NATO Summit meeting place, without any problem, to get to a “conversation” with Defense Ministers from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania organized by the POLITICO organization.
The entire time was focused on emphasizing the importance of opposing Russia, including bombing Russia, with nonstop demonization of the Russian government and Putin. There was no mention that the NATO expansionism and other threats and attacks on Russia risks a World War IIII, a possibly nuclear war.
There was maybe a minute of expression of support for Israel and the actions they are taking.
The ministers said their governments would work with whoever is elected in the U.S. One emphasized that the U.S. goveernment is an indispensible partner.
No questions were allowed.
The NATO delegates are obviously worried about opposition. The ministers had body guards, including one in military uniform.
After the program, on my way back down the street, past the entrance for delegates and the convention center, I was interviewed by Channel 4 of Washington. They seemed surprised that I came from Chicago to oppose the NATO Summit, and wanted to know why. I explained that NATO is a war mongering organization using our tax money to risk a possible World War III.
Now to cool off a bit after doing a good amount of walking from and to the Metro station in the 95 degree heat. All the counter NATO protests in the heat we have had on the weekend have been worth it to put the heat on NATO. As one person remarked to me, without our emphasis on NATO, she would not have been aware of it and what it does. Onward with the struggle against the capitalist U.S. ruling class and its NATO seeking to ensure power and profits for their banks and big corporations
The dirty history of ‘Nukey Poo’, the reactor that soiled the Antarctic
By Nick O’Malley, July 10, 2024 , https://www.theage.com.au/environment/conservation/the-dirty-history-of-nukey-poo-the-reactor-that-soiled-the-antarctic-20240708-p5jrzd.html
The rekindled nuclear debate in Australia has stirred old memories in some of a little-known chapter of our region’s history, when the US Navy quietly installed what today we might call a small modular reactor at the US Antarctic base on Ross Island.
The machine, nicknamed “Nukey Poo” by the technicians who looked after it, was installed at McMurdo base in 1961, when Antarctic exploration was expanding and nuclear energy had developed a bright futuristic sheen.
Things did not end well.
Back then, as now, Antarctic missions relied upon lifelines with distant homes. Supplies had to be carried long and sometimes dangerous distances. The US kept its Antarctic sites supplied via an ongoing supply mission called Operation Deep Freeze, which was based at the McMurdo Naval Air Facility.
According to an article on the Nukey Poo incident published in 1978 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – a journal concerned with the potential danger of nuclear technology, founded by Albert Einstein and veterans of the Manhattan Project – while a gallon of diesel cost the US Navy US12¢ back then, by the time the Americans shipped supplies to McMurdo, diesel cost 40¢ a gallon. At South Pole station, diesel was worth $12 a gallon.
But the then US Atomic Energy Commission had a solution to save costs on transporting supplies. What if McMurdo, and other distant US bases, were supplied by small transportable nuclear reactors? Congress agreed and soon the Martin Marietta Corporation won a contract to build them.
In an advertisement in Scientific American, the company boasted in language reminiscent of today’s debate over modular reactors that “because nuclear energy packs great power in little space, it’s extremely useful when you need electricity in remotes spots. It’s portable and gives you power that last for years …” Soon, the company said, nuclear power might be carrying us to outer space and frying our eggs.
A reactor named PM-3A (PM stood for “portable, medium powered”) was shipped out in sea crates and installed at McMurdo – which is within New Zealand-claimed Antarctic territory – over the summer of 1961 and became known on the base as Nukey Poo. Because cement would not cure in the frigid climate, the reactor was not encased in concrete, rather its four major components sat in steel tanks embedded in gravel and wrapped in a lead shield.
Admiral George Dufek described the moment as “a dramatic new era in man’s conquest of the remotest continent”. The US administration was certain the reactor did not violate the Antarctic Treaty’s declaration that “any nuclear explosions in Antarctica and the disposal there of radioactive waste material shall be prohibited”.
Within a year, Nukey Poo caused its first fuss, a hydrogen fire in a containment tank that led to a shutdown and energy shortages. Icebreakers fought to break through and fuel for generators was delivered by helicopter, which burned as much as they delivered over the course of a flight. Over the following years, Nukey Poo proved so unreliable and expensive to maintain that the military gave up hopes of using the technology to displace diesel at other remote locations.
In 1972, the navy began the three-year task of decommissioning the reactor and decontaminating the site. During that process, they discovered corrosion that technicians feared may have caused leaks of irradiated material. No detailed investigation was done. The secretary of the US National Academy of Sciences said the program was ended due to a series of malfunctions and the possibility of leaks, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reported. The New Zealand government declared the decision was economic.
Either way, it was decided not only to remove the reactor, but half the hillside it was built into. Eventually 12,000 tonnes of irradiated gravel and soil was removed on supply ships to be buried in concrete lined pits in the United States.
The young Australian scientist, Dr Howard Dengate, who had run one of the NZ bases, hitched a lift on one those ships, the Schuyler Otis Bland, in 1977. Dengate recalls a grumpy captain who once swore at him for inviting bad luck on the ship by whistling on deck. The captain, Dengate recalled this week, blamed him for “whistling up” the storm that struck the vessel before the Australian disembarked in New Zealand and the ship sailed on to the US.
Though the reactor was little discussed in the wider world, no secret was made on the base of the reactor or its impact. Indeed, Dengate recalled finding an operating manual for the reactor in the American rubbish pits that New Zealanders had developed the habit of fossicking in.
But the story did not end there.
In 2011, an investigation by journalists of News 5 Cleveland found evidence that McMurdo personnel were exposed to long-term radiation, and in 2017 compensation was paid to some American veterans of the base. A year later, New Zealand officials announced that it was possible that New Zealand staff were also affected.
It has since been reported that four New Zealanders had raised claims about their ill health since their time in the Antarctic.
In 2020, the Waitangi Tribunal, a permanent commission in New Zealand to investigate cases against the Crown, launched inquiries. They are not yet complete.
Asked if he was concerned about travelling with the irradiated material, Dengate said he was not. “We were young and dumb and adventurous,” he told this masthead of his time in the Antarctic.
Biden signs a big nuclear bill. Can it remake the industry?
EE News, By Zach Bright | 07/10/2024
President Joe Biden signed legislation Tuesday that aims to deploy advanced nuclear reactors more quickly, placing wind at the backs of companies feverishly striving to carve out a bigger niche for nuclear technology as a zero-carbon source of electricity.
The ADVANCE Act, aims to further streamline permitting for new reactor designs, give the Nuclear Regulatory Commission more resources, and promote deployment across the globe.
For the NRC, it’s a chance at redemption. The pace of permitting projects is regarded by nuclear advocates as a major impediment to any future nuclear renaissance. The latest injection of support from Congress builds on the agency’s ongoing effort to sift through applications and put easier safety assessments on faster tracks.
……. close observers of the industry cautioned that it comes down to implementation. A vacant seat on the five-member NRC means the pace of licensing the next generation of reactors could hinge on who occupies the White House in 2025.
Both Biden and former President Donald Trump — with much of the Republican Party in tow — tout a return to nuclear energy as a potential solution to U.S. energy and climate challenges. Biden’s Department of Energy has helped shore up existing reactors and cast a $1.5 billion lifeline to a shuttered nuclear plant in Michigan that aims to restart in 2025. At the global climate summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, last December, the United States pledged with more than 20 other countries to triple the world’s nuclear energy capacity by 2050.
The Trump administration also took actions aimed at developing and exporting U.S. nuclear technology.
Yet given the huge financial commitment required to build out the nuclear industry, Trump’s strategy is less clear today. During his previous four years in office, he wanted to eliminate the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office. And through political surrogates such as the Heritage Foundation, Trump’s backers have indicated they’d significantly pare DOE spending on nonfossil energy.
The DOE loan program provided support to the $30 billion Vogtle nuclear expansion in Georgia that slogged its way to completion earlier this year.
Changing its mission
The ADVANCE Act passed with bipartisan support. But it’s also the first significant nuclear legislation in almost two decades.
Since 2005, the last time Congress put its foot on the scale hoping to spur more nuclear projects, the energy mix has changed significantly. Natural gas is the largest source of electricity. Solar power is dominating new generation. Battery technology and more transmission are enabling remote wind power to travel longer distances. And investment in technology to pull more carbon pollution out of the air is advancing.
Westinghouse is no longer the only company developing nuclear technology at scale. And the leading companies developing smaller-scale nuclear reactors are rooted in the West Coast tech industry — not Pittsburgh.
The other tough reality is that building a new nuclear reactor from scratch has proven extremely expensive.
Under the ADVANCE Act, Congress directed the NRC to revise its mission statement to ensure it uses its oversight authority “in a manner that is efficient and does not unnecessarily limit” the use of nuclear energy.
……… the tweak to the commission’s mission statement marks a big change for nuclear scientists and public health advocates who say it makes advancing civilian nuclear energy a top priority of the agency.
“It essentially compromises the independence of the NRC’s regulatory authority by forcing the agency to have to consider the health of the nuclear industry in everything it does,” said Edwin Lyman, nuclear power safety director for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“It essentially compromises the independence of the NRC’s regulatory authority by forcing the agency to have to consider the health of the nuclear industry in everything it does,” said Edwin Lyman, nuclear power safety director for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“If this mythology that nuclear power is completely safe — that it doesn’t need to be heavily regulated — takes hold, we could see a whole generation of really dangerous experimental nuclear facilities being licensed and built around the world,” Lyman continued. “And the first time that there’s a catastrophe, it’s going to set back the industry for decades.”……………………………… https://www.eenews.net/articles/biden-signs-a-big-nuclear-bill-can-it-remake-the-industry/
Texas Nuclear Power Plant Hit By Hurricane Beryl
Jul 08, 2024 , By Anna Skinner, https://www.newsweek.com/texas-nuclear-power-plant-hit-hurricane-beryl-1922433?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR29mvidVj1SSXxwkVTE1ZlgUDnniN1ns2WYungAgepziqraWPcHYqrf1Ng_aem_n7E5P5-vOaqLLjIkP0kOkg
Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Matagorda, Texas, on Monday morning as a Category 1 hurricane, prompting concern and preparations at a nuclear power plant just miles away.
Beryl strengthened into a hurricane last Saturday, becoming June’s easternmost major hurricane in the Atlantic. The storm underwent rapid intensification and, at one point, was categorized as a Category 5 hurricane. It has killed at least 11 people in the Caribbean and two people in Texas, according to The Associated Press.
The system has since weakened to a tropical storm with maximum sustained wind speeds of 70 miles per hour. Despite the weakening, the storm still had the potential for life-threatening impacts, prompting a slew of weather-related warnings for much of southeastern Texas on Monday, including a tropical storm warning, flash flood warning and a storm surge warning, among others.
The South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Company (STPNOC), which is “one of the newest and largest nuclear power facilities in the nation” according to its website, has two nuclear units that provide energy to 2 million Texas homes. It is located in Bay City, which is near Matagorda. Storm-related warnings remain in place for Matagorda and Bay City as of Monday afternoon.
According to a satellite image from AccuWeather, STPNOC was directly in the path of the storm. It’s unclear what measures were taken at the facility to prepare for the severe weather, given that the company hasn’t provided an update to its website or social media pages. Newsweek reached out to STPNOC by email for comment.
Hurricane Harvey made landfall on the Texas coast on August 25, 2017, as a Category 4 hurricane.
“STP’s performance during 2017’s Hurricane Harvey helps make the case for nuclear power – thanks to a resilient Storm Crew, a robust design and solid severe weather plan,” the webpage said.
As of Monday afternoon, more than 2.7 million Texans were without power.
Beryl is the first hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season and the second named storm. Tropical Storm Alberto made landfall in Mexico on the morning of June 20. Shortly after Beryl formed, the third named storm of the season—Tropical Storm Chris—formed quickly on June 30. Chris made landfall in Mexico that night, with wind speeds around 40 mph.
Multiple agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), have issued forecasts warning that 2024 will be an exceptionally strong year for hurricanes.
“The Sun has won”: exponentially growing solar destroys nuclear, fossil fuels on price
Given Dutton’s claims about solar power costing more than nuclear are made ridiculous by the fact that solar’s break-even price has fallen by a factor of more than 1000 and the trend is continuing.
Meanwhile cost overruns in nuclear are endemic and SMR’s only exist in Dutton’s imagination.
By Noel Turnbull, Jul 11, 2024, https://johnmenadue.com/the-sun-has-won-exponentially-growing-solar-destroys-nuclear-fossil-fuels-on-price/—
It’s not known if Peter Dutton [ Australia’s pro-nuclear Opposition leader] reads The Economist but if he does, he must probably think from time to time that it is sometimes dangerously left wing.
In the 22 June issue, it had a special essay on solar power – headlined ‘The Sun Machine’. The sub-head was “An energy source which gets cheaper the more you use it marks a turning-point in industrial history’.
The essay is a total contradiction of almost everything Dutton is claiming about nuclear and renewable energy.
“What makes solar energy revolutionary is the rate of growth which brought it to this just-beyond the marginal state”, the essay says.
They cite a veteran energy analyst, Michael Liebreich, who shows that in 2004 it took a year to install a gigawatt of solar power capacity; in 2010 it took a month; in 2016 a week; and in single days in 2023 there were a gigawatt of installation worldwide.
Current projections are that solar will generate more electricity than all the world’s nuclear plants in 2026; than wind turbines in 2027; dams in 2028; gas-fired plants in 2026; and coal-fired ones in 2032.
All that well before Dutton’s nuclear plants – if at all – start generating power. Moreover, unlike nuclear power which notoriously always takes longer to build than predicted, predictions about the rate of solar power roll-out are consistently under-estimates.
The Economist points out that in in 2009 The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted solar would increase from 23GW to 244GW by 2030. It hit that milestone in 2016 – less than a third of the predicted time. The world capacity was 1419GW by 2023.
Ironically, one of the few organisations which got their predictions roughly right was Greenpeace – yet even their prediction was an under-estimate.
Given Dutton’s claims about solar power costing more than nuclear are made ridiculous by the fact that solar’s break-even price has fallen by a factor of more than 1000 and the trend is continuing. Meanwhile cost overruns in nuclear are endemic and SMR’s only exist in Dutton’s imagination.
Dutton is stronger on ideology and outrageous claims than economics, but the manufacture of photovoltaics is a classic example of the benefits of mass production – benefits which have always eluded the nuclear power industry.
As The Economist points out solar cells are standardised products all made in basically the same way and “they have no moving parts at all, let alone the fiendish complexity of a modern turbine.”
“Manufacturers compete on cost, by either making cells that make fractionally more electricity, by either making cells that make fractionally out of a given amount of sunshine or which cost less.”
Economics 101 teaches us that a commoditised product does not lead to more and more aggressive competition on the supply side – simply in this case by getting more electricity out of any given amount of sunshine or by costing less.
Rob Carlson, a technology investor, told The Economist: “There is no other energy-generation tech where you can install one million or one of the same thing depending on your application.”
“The Sun has won” he says.
The Economist said: “From the mid-1970 to the early 2020s cumulative shipments of photovoltaics increased by a factor of a million which is 20 doublings. At the same time prices dropped by a factor of 500. That is a 27% decrease in cost of doubling of installed capacity, which means a halving of costs every time installed capacity increases by 360%.
Adair Turner, an eminent economist and financial services executive, was Chair of Britian’s Climate Change Committee which was set up to help transition to zero emissions.
He told The Economist: “We totally failed to see that solar would come down so much.”
BloombergNEF estimated, in 2015, that the cost for solar on a global basis was $122 per MWH – higher than on shore wind and coal. Today both solar and onshore wind are almost half the cost of coal.
Meanwhile, Dutton has welcomed Keir Starmer’s election win by pointing to his support for nuclear power. Which, given that the UK has already installed nuclear power, the cautious Starmer is unlikely to announce that he is closing it down.
Moreover, Starmer’s major problem with nuclear is managing the spiralling delays in, and cost of, nuclear plants being constructed following typical Tory blunders.
The question which Dutton needs to answer is why he knows more about nuclear and solar power than The Economist reporters, Bloomberg, Adair Turner, Rob Carlson, many major investment funds and the overwhelming majority of Australian scientists?
He might ponder all that while the Murdoch media is becoming a tad critical of him – criticising his policy on supermarket divestment and speculating on who might be the Liberal Party leader if Dutton loses the next election.
Meanwhile, notwithstanding their doubts about Dutton’s chances and policies (other than nuclear) The Australian never totally loses its manic opposition to anything progressive. The inimitable Greg Sheridan opined on The Australian front page (6/7) that Labour had not won but the Tories had lost. Partly true obviously, but his piece was enough to prompt the subs to headline the piece with “Self-described socialist is set to drag Britain far to the left”.
Sheridan also rehearsed his regular hates and speculated how it would all come undone.
Jeremy Corbyn would love that to be the case but Starmer not so.
Perhaps the funniest lines in Sheridan’s’ piece were: “Starmer is brainy and works hard. Too deep immersion in the law has rendered it impossible for Starmer to write felicitous prose or create memorable images.”
From a journalist who year after year simply reproduces the same old opinions on the same old subjects that is, to say the least, a bit much.
‘Horrific Massacre’: Israel Bombs Gaza School Used as Refugee Camp, Killing Dozens.
“Schools have gone from safe places of education and hope for children to overcrowded shelters and often ending up a place of death and misery,” said UNRWA’s commissioner-general.
JAKE JOHNSON, Jul 10, 2024 https://scheerpost.com/2024/07/10/horrific-massacre-israel-bombs-gaza-school-used-as-refugee-camp-killing-dozens/
Israeli forces killed dozens of people Tuesday in an airstrike on a school-turned-refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, the fourth school Israel’s military has bombed in as many days as the country continues its massive assault on the enclave’s starving population.
At least 29 people were killed and dozens more were wounded in Tuesday’s attack, including women and children—who have made up roughly two-thirds of those killed in Israel’s latest assault on Gaza, which began following a Hamas-led attack in October. The death toll from Tuesday’s attack is expected to rise, as many of those injured were reportedly in critical condition and taken to the under-resourced and overwhelmed Nasser Hospital.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) acknowledged carrying out the airstrike—which hit the entrance of the school—but claimed to be targeting a Hamas militant “adjacent” to the complex. The IDF, whose internal investigations rarely result in accountability for atrocities, said the “incident is under review.”
Video footage posted to social media shows displaced Palestinians playing in the schoolyard when the airstrike hit, sparking panic and chaos. [Video on original –Warning: The footage is graphic]
Citing witnesses, the BBC reported that “the area was teeming with displaced people at the time” of the airstrike, which “resulted in widespread destruction and the deaths of women and children.”
“Body parts were scattered across the site and many people staying in tents outside the school were also injured,” the British outlet reported. “Ayman Al-Dahma, 21, told the BBC there had been as many as 3,000 people packed into the area at the time, which he said housed a market and residential buildings. Describing the number of casualties as ‘unimaginable,’ he said he had seen people whose limbs had been severed by the blast.”
Tuesday’s attack marked the fourth time in four days that the IDF has attacked a school in the Gaza Strip, according to Agence France-Presse. Over the weekend, Israeli forces killed more than a dozen Palestinians in an attack on a United Nations-run school in central Gaza.
Most of Gaza’s education infrastructure has been damaged or completely destroyed by Israeli forces, and the schools still standing are being used to shelter those displaced by the IDF assault, which is now in its 10th month. The United Nations estimates that 90% of Gaza’s population has been internally displaced since October, with some displaced up to 10 times.
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East called the IDF’s latest attack “a horrific massacre,” adding, “Annihilation is the point.”
“Nothing can justify Canada’s failure to act,” the group wrote on social media.
Canada is one of a number of major countries that have supplied weaponry to the Israeli government as it has carried out its utter devastation of the Gaza Strip, nearly all of which is now uninhabitable.
The United States and Germany together provided 99% of the arms Israel imported last year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Germany’s Foreign Office called Wednesday’s attack “unacceptable” and demanded a swift investigation.
“People seeking shelter in schools getting killed is unacceptable. Civilians, especially children, must not get caught in the crossfire,” the foreign office said. “The repeated attacks on schools by the Israeli army must stop.”
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said Wednesday that “schools have gone from safe places of education and hope for children to overcrowded shelters and often ending up a place of death and misery.”
“Nine months in, under our watch, the relentless, endless killings, destruction, and despair continue. Gaza is no place for children,” he added. “The blatant disregard of international humanitarian law cannot become the new normal… Cease-fire now before we lose what is left of our common humanity.”
NATO member to fight ‘pro-war propaganda’ – official
https://www.rt.com/news/600664-hungary-fight-war-propaganda/ 10 July 24
Budapest wants media financing. to be “transparent” as part of its “anti-war action plan,” said Gergely Gulyas
Hungary is set to introduce a new “anti-war action plan” which will include measures aimed at countering “war propaganda,” Gergely Gulyas, the head of the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office, announced at a press conference on Monday.
Under the plan, any political forces or media outlets accused of promoting belligerent policies would be required to reveal their funding sources. The goal is “full transparency,” Gulyas said. The measure is primarily aimed at the media, the nation’s news outlets reported, noting that political parties in Hungary are already legally barred from receiving funds from abroad.
The government would also reserve the right to block any foreign funding and send the money back to whoever provided it, if it is used to bankroll “war propaganda,” Gulyas said.
The official provided few details as to how the government would decide what exactly constitutes “war propaganda.” He said that the Justice Ministry would develop a mechanism to determine whether a media outlet is involved in the practice.
When asked if “foreign funding” included money coming from within the EU, Gulyas said that the measure would be focused on financing coming from outside the bloc. He argued, however, that the EU itself is dominated by “war propaganda” focused on the ongoing conflict between Kiev and Moscow.
Gulyas said Budapest is facing “political, legal and financial blackmail” which aims to force it to join the ranks of Kiev’s Western war backers, but that it has so far resisted the pressure. “There is no blackmail that [can force] Hungary to change its conviction that every political step must serve the end of war,” he said.
His words came as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban embarked on what he called a peace mission that included visits to Kiev and Moscow within the span of several days. In the Ukrainian capital, he called for a ceasefire, describing it as a first step towards conflict resolution. The idea was rejected by Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky.
Orban called his Moscow trip the first step to restoring dialogue. The move drew criticism from the EU, which said the Hungarian prime minister, whose nation currently holds the bloc’s rotating presidency, had no mandate to speak on behalf of Brussels.
On Monday, Gulyas addressed the issue by saying that peace cannot be achieved without direct dialogue with all the warring parties. “Hungary would like to be in contact with any country that can contribute to peace,” he added.
COMMENT. From outside the bloc could be countries like the US, and the UK.
The move from Hungary comes after the visits of Victor Orban.
Ignace, Ontario, betrayed by Council, on nuclear waste decision
Ignace has voted in favour of continuing in the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s siting process, which brings Northwestern Ontario one step closer to being put on the receiving end of all of Canada’s high-level nuclear waste.
The NWMO has said it will select a single site by the end of 2024 for a deep geological repository for Canada’s existing stockpiles and future inventory of high-level nuclear fuel waste. The project will include transportation of the waste in 2-3 trucks per day for over 50 years, then processing at the site in a still-to-be-designed waste transfer facility, and finally placement deep underground in a series of tunnels and vaults so radioactive no workers can be present during the emplacement process.
An “ad hoc willingness committee”, appointed by the Township in February, delivered its recommendation in a special meeting of Council this afternoon. Immediately after the presentation by Committee co-chair Roger Dufault, Council voted to continue in the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s site selection process.
The NWMO has been studying the Revell Site, between Ignace and Dryden, since 2010. In 2020 the NWMO narrowed its list of candidate sites to just two: the Revell Site in Northwestern Ontario and the Teeswater site in the Municipality of South Bruce in Southwestern Ontario. The Revell Site is 45 kilometres outside the Township of Ignace and is in a different watershed.
“We feel betrayed”, said Ignace resident Sheila Krahn.
“For the last ten years we’ve been bombarded with promotional messages from the NWMO, and when it was finally time for a decision, we didn’t even get a vote. I don’t believe that the majority of people in Ignace support this project, but so many people didn’t trust the so-called “willingness process” and didn’t participate.”
Instead of a referendum such as the one scheduled for South Bruce on October 28th, Ignace hired a consultant to conduct interviews and run an online poll. The online registration required scans of government ID and asked residents if they supported continuing in the NWMO siting process, rather than asking a more direct question about whether they agreed with the NWMO’s project.
“The NWMO siting process is all about getting to “yes”, so they can claim some semblance of public support”, explained Northwatch spokesperson Brennain Lloyd.
“They missed the mark with this one. They’ve spent an estimated $10 million of electricity ratepayers’ money trying to convince Ignace to support their nuclear waste project, but at the end of the day what they bought was a questionable outcome from a largely unelected council of a community that has no authority and is not even in the same watershed as the NWMO’s candidate site.
The NWMO has deemed Ignace to be the “host community”, despite Ignace’s distance from the site, lack of jurisdiction, and the presence of other communities closer to the site and downstream. In 2020 the Township of Ignace passed a resolution that the Township itself would make the decision on behalf of the people of Ignace, rather than holding a referendum, as the Municipality of South Bruce will carry out on October 28, 2024. In 2023 the Township hired the consulting firm With Chela Inc., which conducted a number of interviews and held an online poll. The consultant’s report was presented in-camera to Ignace’s “Ad Hoc Willingness Committee”, which had been selected and appointed by the Council in February. This “ad hoc” committee recommendation to Council, presented today, is to stay in the NWMO siting process. Minutes later Council voted to accept the recommendation, committing the current and future councils to adhering to the terms and conditions of a “hosting agreement” signed by the Township of Ignace and the NWMO in March 2024.
“At minimum this should be a regional decision, not the decision of one small upstream council”, added Wendy O’Connor, a volunteer with the northern Ontario alliance We the Nuclear Free North.
“There is a growing list of municipalities and First Nations passing resolutions against the NWMO using northern Ontario as the dumping ground for high-level nuclear waste. It will be astounding to see the NWMO select the Revell site, despite the poor decision made by the Ignace Township Council today”.
There is broad opposition to the NWMO project from individuals, community and citizens’ groups, municipalities, and First Nations. In addition to criticism of the project itself due to the negative impacts on the environment and human health during transportation and operation and after radioactive waste abandonment, the NWMO siting process and the Township of Ignace’s approach have also been soundly criticized for being secretive, undemocratic, and lacking scientific and technical rigour.
How Netanyahu Has Systematically Foiled Talks to Release Hostages From Hamas Captivity
Michael Hauser Tov, 10 July 24,
The past six months, during which Israel negotiated a framework for the release of Israeli hostages being held captive by Hamas in the Gaza Strip – were riddled with hopeful moments that shattered one after the other. While Hamas impeded the talks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly torpedoed their progress – particularly when it came to decisive moments…………………..(Subscribers only) https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-07-10/ty-article-timeline/.premium/how-netanyahu-has-systematically-foiled-talks-to-release-hostages-from-hamas-captivity/00000190-9b91-d591-a7ff-fff341120000
Newly Signed Bill Will Boost Nuclear Reactor Deployment in the United States
ENERGyYGOV JULY 10, 2024
President Biden signed the Fire Grants and Safety Act into law chalking up a BIG win for our nuclear power industry.
Included in the bill is bipartisan legislation known as the ADVANCE Act that will help us build new reactors at a clip that we haven’t seen since the 1970s. …………………………………
Incentivizing Competition
The ADVANCE Act builds on the successes of previous legislation to develop a modernized approach to licensing new reactor technologies. ……………………………..
The ADVANCE Act directs the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to reduce certain licensing application fees and authorizes increased staffing for NRC reviews to expedite the process.
It also introduces prize competitions that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) can award to incentivize deployment.
These awards are subject to Congressional appropriations but will cover the total costs assessed by the NRC for first movers in a variety of areas, including the first advanced reactor to receive an operating or combined license. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/newly-signed-bill-will-boost-nuclear-reactor-deployment-united-states
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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