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Nuclear energy not the way to go: coalition Taiwan

By Yang Yin-ting and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer,  https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2024/07/27/2003821385

Relying on nuclear power is the wrong strategy for Taiwan to achieve net zero emissions, a coalition of environmental groups said yesterday, amid rising calls from some lawmakers and government officials in support of it.

The National Nuclear Abolition Action Platform held a news conference in Taipei yesterday — two weeks before the National Climate Change Response Committee’s inauguration meeting, which is expected to discuss nuclear power.

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has indicated that it would seek to extend the operations of the nation’s nuclear reactors, including the ones at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County, a coalition spokesperson said.

The Ma-ashan plant’s first reactor, which has reached the end of its 40-year service life limit, is to be deactivated today, while its second reactor is scheduled for decommissioning in May next year, it said.

The KMT’s failure to acknowledge the public security risks posed by the nation’s aged reactors or the problem of nuclear waste disposal has exposed the recklessness of the party’s energy policy, it said.

Lawmakers should drop proposed amendments to the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) and allow the Ma-anshan plant to be decommissioned as planned, the spokesperson said.

Green Citizens’ Action Alliance secretary-general Tsuei Su-hsin (崔愫欣) said that high operating costs and the lack of suitable sites for waste disposal make the bid to continue generating nuclear power impractical for Taiwan.

Taiwan Environmental Protection Union executive Lin Ren-pin (林仁斌) said that global energy production trends point to a decline in nuclear energy.

China — which has built more new nuclear reactors than any country in the world — reported that renewables experienced faster growth than nuclear energy, he added.

The Ma-anshan plant straddles a geological faultline in the Hengchun Peninsula and has a terrible safety record, Lin said.

The scarcity of land, high population density and propensity to build nuclear power plants on soft rock strata are a recipe for disaster on the scale of the partial meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, he said.

Moms Love Taiwan Association secretary-general Yang Shun-me (楊順美) said that the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant is practically decommissioned, as the lion’s share of its equipment and transmission towers had already been removed.

The remaining facilities at the power plant has not been maintained for many years, she added.

The Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant has two inoperable reactors, while the Ma-anshan plant cannot resume operations without a full shutdown and replacing critical components, Yan said.

This means none of the nation’s three nuclear power plants stand a chance of contributing to emissions reduction, she said.

Citizen of the Earth Taiwan deputy director Huang Ching-ting (黃靖庭) said opposition lawmakers were making untruthful claims about a purported energy shortage.

Citing Taiwan Power Co’s electricity supply report this month, he said that Taiwan has enough energy to keep the nighttime reserve margin above 10 percent through 2030, which does not indicate a shortage.

Nuclear power plants must obtain safety certifications and replace key components before lengthening their service life, he said, adding that the process is estimated to take five to 10 years.

The Ma-anshan plant is rightly decommissioned since the facility’s reactors generate a marginal amount of electricity compared with the safety risks they represent, he said.

Altogether, there is virtually no chance that Taiwan could get any of its old nuclear power plants back online before 2030, Huang said.

Using nuclear energy to reduce emissions is impractical and impossible to implement in time, he said

July 28, 2024 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, Taiwan | 1 Comment

The World Court Has Cleared the Fog Hiding Western Support for Israel’s Crimes

The Unz Review, JONATHAN COOK • JULY 24, 2024

The legal ruling by the world’s highest court obliges western states not just to end their persecution of the boycott movement but to take up that cause as their own

Don’t be fooled. The ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 19 July that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is unlawful is earth-shattering. Israel is a rogue state, according to the world’s highest court.

For that reason, the judgment will be studiously ignored by the cabal of western states and their medias that for decades have so successfully run cover for Israel.

Doubters need only watch the reception Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu receives during his visit to the United States this week.

Even though he is currently being pursued for war crimes by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, the US Congress will give him a hero’s welcome when he addresses its representatives on Wednesday.

The warm handshakes and standing ovations will be a reminder that Netanyahu has had the full backing of western powers throughout the nine-month slaughter of at least 16,000 Palestinian children in Gaza – with another 21,000 missing, most of them under rubble.

The welcome will be a reminder that western capitals are fully on board with Israel’s levelling of Gaza and the starvation of its population – in what the same court concluded way back in January amounted to a “plausible genocide”.

And it will serve as a heavy slap in the face to those like the World Court committed to international law – reminding them that the West and its most favoured client state believe they are untouchable.

Western politicians and columnists will keep emphasising that the World Court is offering nothing more than an “advisory opinion” and one that is “non-binding”.

What they won’t point out is that this opinion is the collective view of the world’s most eminent judges on international law, the people best positioned to rule on the occupation’s legality.

And it is non-binding only because the western powers who control our international bodies plan to do nothing to implement a decision that doesn’t suit them.

Nonetheless, the ruling will have dramatic consequences for Israel, and its western patrons, even if those consequences will take months, years or even decades to play out.

‘Top secret’ warning

Last week’s judgment is separate from the case accepted in January by the ICJ that put Israel on trial for genocide in Gaza. A decision on that matter may still be many months away.

This ruling was in response to a request from the United Nations General Assembly in December 2022 for advice on the legality of Israel’s 57-year occupation.

That may sound more mundane a deliberation than the one on genocide, but the implications ultimately are likely to be every bit as profound.

Those not familiar with international law may underestimate the importance of the World Court’s ruling if only because they had already assumed the occupation was illegal.

But that is not how international law works. A belligerent occupation is permitted so long as it satisfies two conditions.

First, it must be strictly military, designed to protect the security of the occupying state and safeguard the rights of the occupied people.

And second, it must be a temporary measure – while negotiations are conducted to restore civilian rule and allow the occupied people self-determination.

Astonishingly, it has taken 57 years for the world’s highest court to deliver a conclusion that should have been staring it – and everyone else – in the face all that time.

The military nature of the occupation was subverted almost from the moment Israel occupied the Palestinian territories in June 1967.

Within months, Israel had chosen to transfer Jewish civilians – mostly extreme religious nationalists – into the occupied Palestinian territories to help colonise them.

Israel knew that this was a gross violation of international law because its own legal adviser warned it of as much in a “top secret” memo unearthed by the Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg some two decades ago.

In a declaration enlarging on the ICJ’s reasoning, Court President Nawaf Salam specifically referenced the warnings of Theodor Meron, who was the Israeli foreign ministry’s legal expert at the time.

In September 1967, his memo cautioned that any decision to establish civilian settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories “contravenes explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention”. Those provisions, he added, were “aimed at preventing colonization”.

Nine days later, the Israeli government rode roughshod over Meron’s memo and assisted a group of young Israelis in setting up the first settlement at Kfar Etzion.

Sham peace-making

Today, hundreds of illegal settlements – many of them home to what amount to armed militias – control more than half of the West Bank and much of East Jerusalem.

Rather than protecting the rights of Palestinians under occupation, as international law demands, the Israeli military assists Jewish settlers in terrorising the Palestinians. The aim is to drive them off their land.

In the words of the Israeli government, the settlements are there to “Judaise” Palestinian territory. In the words of everyone else, they are there to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population.

Which brings us to Israel’s second violation of the laws of occupation. In transferring hundreds of thousands of settlers into the occupied territories, Israel intentionally blocked any chance of a Palestinian state emerging.

The settlements weren’t makeshift encampments. Some soon developed into small cities, such as Ariel and Maale Adumim, with shopping malls, parks, public pools, synagogues, factories, libraries, schools and colleges.

There was nothing “temporary” about them. They were there to incrementally annex Palestinian territory under cover of an occupation that Washington and its European allies conspired to pretend was temporary.

The whole Oslo process initiated in the early 1990s was a switch-and-bait exercise, or a “Palestinian Versailles”, as the Palestinian scholar Edward Said warned at the time.

Israel was never serious about allowing the Palestinians meaningful statehood – a fact the then-Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, admitted shortly before he was killed by a far-right settler in 1995………………………………………………………………………..

Apartheid rule……………………………………………………………………………………….

Acts of aggression……………………………………………………

Complicit in war crimes

But the implications don’t just apply to Israel………………………………………………………

The fog clears

Israel’s supporters will take comfort from the fact that an earlier judgment from the World Court on Israel was roundly ignored by both Israel and its western patrons.

Asked for an advisory opinion, the judges ruled in 2004 that, under cover of security claims, Israel was illegally annexing swaths of territory by building its 800km-long “separation wall” on Palestinian land………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Words have power. They are our route to understanding reality. And the World Court has just cleared away the fog. It has wiped clean the mist on the window.

The West will do its level best once again to shroud Israel’s crimes. But the World Court has done the Palestinians and the rest of mankind a service in unmasking Israel for what it is: a rogue, criminal state.  https://www.unz.com/jcook/the-world-court-has-cleared-the-fog-hiding-western-support-for-israels-crimes/

July 28, 2024 Posted by | Israel, Legal | Leave a comment

Hundreds protesting Netanyahu visit arrested at US Capitol

The protesters belonged to the Jewish Voice for Peace activist group

News Desk, JUL 24, 2024,  https://thecradle.co/articles/hundreds-protesting-netanyahu-visit-arrested-at-us-capitol

Around 200 pro-Palestine protesters were detained on Capitol Hill on 23 June, ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the US Congress the day after. 

The protest took place in the Canon House Office Building. The demonstrators, wearing shirts with the slogan “Not in our name,” were organized by the Jewish Voice for Peace group. 

According to police, the protesters were warned that demonstrating in the Canon House Office Building was illegal. 

Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace, Stefanie Fox, said the Israeli premier’s speech in Congress on Wednesday was the reason for the demonstration. 

“For nine months, we’ve watched in horror as the Israeli government has carried out a genocide, armed and funded by the US. Congress and the Biden administration have the power to end this horror today. Instead, our president is preparing to meet with Netanyahu and Congressional leadership has honored him with an invitation to address Congress,” she said. 

Republican representative Mike Lawler called the protest an “embarrassment” and accused the Jewish Voice for Peace activists of being “pro-Hamas.”

Netanyahu’s address to Congress was announced in late May by Mike Johnson, Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives. At the time, the International Criminal Court (ICC) had announced its decision to seek arrest warrants against Netanyahu and his defense minister. 

Johnson threatened during his announcement in May that the US “should punish” the ICC for its decision. 

The Israeli prime minister arrived in Washington on Monday, ahead of his speech at Congress on 24 May and a meeting with US President Joe Biden, scheduled for the following day. 

The ICC said on Tuesday that it has accepted 64 filings by states, individuals, and organizations to intervene regarding arrest requests against Netanyahu and others, including Hamas leaders. 

It is highly expected that Netanyahu’s address will focus on the idea of continuing the war in Gaza until Hamas’ defeat – in line with his government’s stated goals and in stark contradiction to efforts to reach a ceasefire deal.

The premier’s much-anticipated address in Congress comes on the 292nd day of Israel’s genocidal war against the Gaza Strip, which has killed over 39,000 people – mainly women and children – and has injured over 90,000. 

July 28, 2024 Posted by | Israel, Legal, politics | Leave a comment

Spain: Nuclear Industry Reels After Tax Increase

Energy Intelligence Group, Fri, Jul 26, 2024, Author, Grace Symes, London, Editor, Phil Chaffee

Spain’s nuclear operators are warning that last month’s move by Madrid to significantly raise a tax on these utilities may undermine the commercial viability of Spain’s seven operating reactors, even as they approach a government-mandated nuclear phaseout by 2035.

\The 30% tax rise is meant partly to cover the costs of seven separate interim nuclear waste storage facilities for spent fuel and high-level waste, a strategy mandated after the government discarded plans for a controversial single centralized facility. Owners argue they had no say in the storage decision, and should not be required to pay the significant added costs it will entail…………… (Subscribers only)  https://www.energyintel.com/00000190-bb7f-db32-ad93-bb7ff87a0000

July 28, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Spain | Leave a comment

Nuclear Risks on the Rise

BY KARL GROSSMAN, CounterPunch , 26 July 24

“Nuclear risks are on the rise. The chance of nuclear weapons use [is] higher than at any time in my—and many others in this room’s—lifetime,” said Naomi Zoka at a meeting this week of the Preparatory Committee for the Eleventh Nuclear Non-Proliferation Review Conference.

“The path to a world without nuclear weapons lies through the TPNW [Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons],” said Zoka delivering to diplomats from around the world the statement of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

“Nuclear-armed states are launching threats faster than they are test-launching delivery systems, resulting in a less stable, less secure and more dangerous world,” said Zoka at the meeting June 23rd in Geneva, Switzerland. She is a member of Belgium’s Pax Christi Flanders.

“With Russia’s stationing of weapons in Belarus, and the continued U.S. deployment of [nuclear] weapons in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Türkiye, the NPT [Nuclear Anti-Proliferation Treaty] is failing to meet its first principles,” the ICAN statement continued.

The TPNW was adopted in 2017 by the UN General Assembly with 122 nations in favor. It bans the development, testing, production, stockpiling, stationing, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. Some 163 nations have now either formally signed or ratified the TPNW.

“Let’s eliminate these weapons before they eliminate us,” Secretary-General Guterres has said of the TPNW, a treaty “toward our shared goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.”

In 2017, ICAN received the Nobel Peace Prize with cited its major work leading to the passage of the TPNW.

ICAN declares on its website: “Nuclear weapons are the most inhumane and indiscriminate weapons ever created. They violate international law, cause severe environmental damage, undermine national and global security, and divert vast public resources away from meeting human needs. They must be eliminated urgently.”

The so-called nuclear-armed states, which include the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom, have, however, not signed on to the TPNW.

“The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty opened for signature in 1968….A total of 191 states have joined the treaty, including the five [then acknowledged] nuclear-weapon states,” notes the website of the UN’s Office for Disarmament Affairs. More countries have ratified the NPT than any other arms limitation and disarmament agreement, a testament to the treaty’s significance.”

The NPT declares: “Considering the devastation that would be visited upon all mankind by a nuclear war and the consequent need to make every effort to avert the danger of such a war and to take measures to safeguard the security of peoples, Believing that the proliferation of nuclear weapons would seriously enhance the danger of nuclear war, In conformity with resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly calling for the conclusion of an agreement on the prevention of wider dissemination of nuclear weapons.”

The ICAN statement delivered by Zoka at NPT review meeting continued: “Despite their commitments under NPT’s Article VI, the nuclear-armed states in the NPT spent $86 billion dollars on their [nuclear] arsenals in 2023. U.S. spending accounts for 54% of the global total, at $51.5 billion, while China and Russia also spent exorbitant amounts at $11.8 billion and $8.3 billion respectively. The UK increased spending by 17% from the previous year. Across the board, every nuclear-armed state increased the amount spent on their arsenals. Meanwhile the profit-seeking private industry hires powerful lobbyists to secure billion dollar contracts to develop these weapons of mass destruction.”

It went on: “Runaway nuclear spending is increasing the risks of nuclear weapons use—as are the applications of emerging technologies to nuclear weapons command, control, communications and delivery systems. We are entering an era of AI assisted information gathering to facilitate decision making.”

“That is not the world in which we want to live. We cannot abide by policies in which one—or nine [now the number of acknowledged nuclear-armed states]…are allowed to hold the rest of the world hostage through weapons of mass destruction, because the use of those weapons knows no borders. A conflict involving nuclear weapons thousands of miles from this conference room will still cause chaos and catastrophe to all of us, our families, and our future.”

“Yet, the nuclear-armed countries are recklessly embarking on a new nuclear arms race. Every year, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN, exposes the unacceptable nuclear weapons.”

What needs to be done? Indeed, as the ICAN statement said, the “the path to a world without nuclear weapons lies through the TPNW,” and added to that was: “we invite all states to join us as we move closer to it without delay.”………………………………………… more https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/07/26/nuclear-risks-on-the-rise/

July 28, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

In Congressional Address, Netanyahu Slams American Protesters and Receives Standing Ovation

The Israeli leader asked for more US military aid and called for a new anti-Iran alliance in the Middle East

anti-war.com by Dave DeCamp July 24, 2024

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday delivered an address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday and spent a good portion of his speech attacking Americans who have been protesting Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza.

Netanyahu accused the pro-Palestine protesters, which include many Jewish Americans, of being pro-Hamas and “standing with evil” and said they should be “ashamed of themselves.” The majority of the lawmakers in the chamber responded with a standing ovation.

He also repeated unsubstantiated claims that Iran was funding the protests in the US. “They want to disrupt America,” Netanyahu said, referring to Iran. “For all we know, Iran is funding the anti-Israel protests that are going on right now outside this building … well, I have a message for these protesters. When the tyrants of Tehran, who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair, are praising, promoting, and funding you, you have officially become Iran’s useful idiots.”…………………………

A small number of Democratic lawmakers did not stand up to applaud Netanyahu during much of his speech, and about half of the Democrats in the House and Senate skipped the address. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), the only Palestinian American in Congress, attended and was spotted holding a sign that said “war criminal.”

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) didn’t attend and slammed Netanyahu after the address, calling his speech “the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary invited and honored with the privilege of addressing the Congress of the United States.”………………….

Overall, however, Netanyahu received strong support, and Congress gave him a big public relations victory by frequently standing up and applauding him. The address and its reception also demonstrated the strong US support for Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.

In the address, Netanyahu asked for the US to provide even more military aid than it has and called for a new anti-Iran alliance in the Middle East. “I have a name for this new alliance. I think we should call it the Abraham Alliance,” he said.

The Israeli leader also said Israel must maintain indefinite “security control” over Gaza, meaning a long-term military occupation. He thanked the US and Congress for the strong support and thanked President Biden for being a “proud Irish American Zionist.”…………..more https://news.antiwar.com/2024/07/24/netanyahu-slams-american-protesters-in-congressional-address-receives-standing-ovation/

July 28, 2024 Posted by | Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

US and Israel should create ‘Middle East NATO’ – Netanyahu

 https://www.rt.com/news/601611-netanyahu-abraham-alliance-nato-congress/ 26 July 24

The Israeli prime minister has proposed an alliance aimed against Iran

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has proposed the creation of a new military bloc modeled after NATO and called the “Abraham Alliance,” aimed against Iran.

Netanyahu spoke before the joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday. It was his fourth address to American lawmakers, beating Winston Churchill’s record, although about 70 House and Senate members declined to attend for one reason or another. 

“America forged a security alliance in Europe to counter the growing Soviet threat,” Netanyahu said at one point. “Likewise, America and Israel today can forge a security alliance in the Middle East to counter the growing Iranian threat.” 

He said a “glimpse” of that alliance could be seen on April 14, when Iran launched a missile and drone attack against Israel and the US and the UK helped shoot some of them down.

Netanyahu thanked US President Joe Biden “for bringing that alliance together,” as well as his predecessor Donald Trump for brokering the ‘Abraham Accords’ between Israel and several Arab countries during his term.

“I think we should call it the Abraham Alliance,” he said of the proposed NATO-like bloc.

According to the Israeli prime minister, countries at peace with West Jerusalem or that intend to do so ought to join the bloc, as Iran is a threat to them all.

“When we fight Iran, we are fighting the most radical and murderous enemy of the United States,” Netanyahu said. When Israel fights and works to prevent a nuclear Iran, “we are not only protecting ourselves, we are protecting you,” he argued.

“Our enemies are your enemies, our fight is your fight, our victories will be your victories,” Netanyahu told US lawmakers. “I know that America has our back.”

The US has given military aid to Israel throughout the nine-month war with Hamas that Netanyahu declared following the Palestinian armed group’s raid out of Gaza. Pressed by Palestinian and Arab Americans in Biden’s party, his government has proposed a three-stage ceasefire plan for the enclave, but West Jerusalem has been reluctant to accept it.

Israel will not stop until it has destroyed the military capabilities of Hamas, ended its rule in Gaza, and recovered all the captives taken in the October 7 attack, Netanyahu said, adding, “That’s what total victory means. And we will settle for nothing less.”

July 28, 2024 Posted by | Israel, politics international | Leave a comment

Potential claims against NANO Nuclear Energy Inc. 

 Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C., a nationally recognized stockholder rights
law firm, is investigating potential claims against NANO Nuclear Energy
Inc. (“Nano Nuclear” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: NNE) on behalf of
Nano Nuclear stockholders. Our investigation concerns whether Nano Nuclear
has violated the federal securities laws and/or engaged in other unlawful
business practices.

 Global Newswire 26th July 2024

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/07/26/2919325/0/en/NANO-NUCLEAR-ALERT-Bragar-Eagel-Squire-P-C-is-Investigating-NANO-Nuclear-Energy-Inc-on-Behalf-of-Nano-Nuclear-Stockholders-and-Encourages-Investors-to-Contact-the-Firm.html

July 28, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment