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Revealed: ministers’ doubts over nuclear plant at Torness

Torness Rob Edwards, August 12, 2024

Labour and Conservative governments secretly harboured doubts about building a nuclear power station at Torness in East Lothian in the late 1970s, according to internal documents released by the Scottish Government.

Campaigns against Torness won support within the then Scottish Office, and came closer to success than realised. There was a “real risk” of the treasury in London delaying the project, warned one official.

But the nuclear industry fought a fierce behind-the-scenes battle in defence of the power station, and it ended up being built in the 1980s.

Campaigners condemned past decision-making about Torness as a “total sham”. According to one former UK Government adviser, lobbying by the nuclear industry had always been “more influential” than evidence.

The Ferret analysed 11 large government files on Torness in 1978 and 1979 at the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh. One was only released in 2023 after a request under freedom of information law.

The files reveal that ministers and officials in both James Callaghan’s and Margaret Thatcher’s governments privately raised concerns about the proposed nuclear station at Torness. 

Torness was the target for a series of anti-nuclear protests in the 1970s, initially organised by the Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace (SCRAM). There were demonstrations and an occupation of the site in 1978, and in May 1979 more than 10,000 people joined a weekend protest there.

Despite further protests in 1980 and 1981, the nuclear station was built and formally opened by Thatcher in 1989. It is currently scheduled to keep operating until 2028, though there are plans to run it for longer.

Early in 1978 SCRAM made a submission to the Scottish Office arguing that Torness should be subject to a new public inquiry. An earlier inquiry in 1974 had been inadequate because it had not specified the type of reactors to be built, the campaign group argued……………………………………………………………………………………………………

Case for Torness ‘less than convincing’

However, a covering note from an official on 16 May 1979 admitted that the case for Torness was “less than convincing”. The absence of information in support of the plant was “worrying”, the official commented, “because I think there is a real risk in the present climate of the treasury seeking to re-examine or hold up the project”.

In a memo two days later, Fletcher said: “I still have some doubts concerning the advisability of a nuclear station at Torness”. A handwritten note by an official added simply “Amen”.

A memo on 1 June 1979 reported that Torness’s backer, the government-owned South of Scotland Electricity Board (SSEB), was “most despondent” about the lack of investment approval. All the signs were that the project was “slipping out of control”, it said.

In the end, though, the government documents show that the SSEB, backed by its supporters in the Scottish Office, saved Torness. They worked hard to convince the treasury and, ultimately, Thatcher, that it should go ahead because it was needed to sustain the power station industry…………………………………………………………………………

Torness ‘a total sham’

The veteran environmental campaigner and energy author, Walt Patterson, testified at the Torness inquiry in 1974. “Torness was a total sham, and the inquiry had no relevance to the official decision to build it,” he told The Ferret.

“Torness was ordered just to keep the power station building industry busy, not because we could use the electricity.”

Pete Roche, a nuclear consultant who worked with SCRAM in Edinburgh in the 1970s and 1980s, suggested that politicians might have been worried that cancelling Torness would “somehow legitimise protest”. 

He said: “We knew at the time that the case for Torness was collapsing before our very eyes, but it’s a pleasant surprise to learn that both Labour and Tory Ministers had secretly expressed doubts about the plant.”

Dr Ewan Gibbs, a researcher from the school of social and political sciences at University of Glasgow who has studied Torness protests, pointed out that anti-nuclear activists had mobilised tens of thousands of people in opposition to the plant.

“Thanks to these new research findings, we now know that both Scottish Labour and Tory ministers had serious doubts over the nuclear power station project in the late 1970s.”……………………………………….. more https://theferret.scot/torness-nuclear-doubts-ministers/—

August 13, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

IAEA Director General Statement on Developments in the Russian Federation, (with Kursk Nuclear Power Plant under threat)

“the imperative to ensure the physical integrity of a nuclear power plant. This is valid irrespective of where an NPP is situated.”

Vienna, Austria

The IAEA has been monitoring the situation on the reported military activities taking place in the vicinity of the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant (NPP).

This NPP has six units of two different reactor types: RBMK-1000 and VVER-510. Two of the RBMK-1000 are in shutdown and two are fully operational. The two VVER-510 units are under construction.

In view of the reportedly significant military activity, I wish to remind all parties of the seven indispensable pillars for ensuring nuclear safety and security during an armed conflict. Additionally, I emphasize the five concrete principles to help to ensure nuclear safety and security which have been established for the Zaporizhzhya NPP in the context of the current conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, and which are equally applicable in this situation. These include, among others, the imperative to ensure the physical integrity of a nuclear power plant. This is valid irrespective of where an NPP is situated.

At this juncture, I would like to appeal to all sides to exercise maximum restraint in order to avoid a nuclear accident with the potential for serious radiological consequences. I am personally in contact with the relevant authorities of both countries and will continue to be seized of the matter. I will continue to update the international community as appropriate.

August 13, 2024 Posted by | Russia, safety | Leave a comment

Heat aggravated by carbon pollution killed 50,000 in Europe last year – study

 Hot weather inflamed by carbon pollution killed nearly 50,000 people in
Europe last year, with the continent warming at a much faster rate than
other parts of the world, research has found.

The findings come as
wildfires tore through forests outside Athens, as France issued excessive
heat warnings for large swathes of the country, and the UK baked through
what the Met Office expects will be its hottest day of the year.

Doctors call heat a “silent killer” because it claims far more lives than most
people realise. The devastating mortality rate in 2023 would have been 80%
higher if people had not adapted to rising temperatures over the past two
decades, according to the study published in Nature Medicine.

 Guardian 12th Aug 2024

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/12/heat-aggravated-by-carbon-pollution-killed-50000-in-europe-last-year-study

August 13, 2024 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE | Leave a comment

A game plan for dealing with the costly Sentinel missile and future nuclear challenges

Bulletin, By Stephen J. Cimbala, Lawrence J. Korb | August 9, 2024

Enormous cost overruns in the Sentinel program have engendered a debate about how or if to go forward with a US intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) modernization program. We see five potential paths forward that might reduce costs and maintain or even improve the United States’ strategic posture. But to make the best military and financial choice, the United States government will have to consider how an updated missile force relates to evolving technology in the space and cyber realms and the implications of decisions about ICBM modernization for nuclear arms control.

Questions have been raised about the cost overruns for the Sentinel ICBM modernization program, which aims to replace the existing fleet of Minuteman III missiles beginning in the next decade. Sentinel is one part of a plan to replace all three legs of the U.S. nuclear strategic triad of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) deployed on fleet ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), and bomber-delivered weapons. Columbia class SSBNs and upgraded Trident II D-5 missiles are intended for the next generation of sea-based strategic forces, and the B-21 Raider advanced stealth bomber is already on track to replace both remaining B-52 and B-2 bombers in conventional and nuclear roles.

Plans for modernization of the entire nuclear triad were approved in the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, albeit with some differences in emphasis with respect to the role of nuclear weapons in US deterrence, defense, and foreign policy. The Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States also recommended modernization and replacement of all US strategic nuclear delivery systems.

The sticker shock associated with rising cost estimates for the Sentinel program is understandable. Estimated program acquisition costs for a “reasonably modified” Sentinel have risen to about $140.9 billion. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Department of Defense and Department of Energy, budgetary requests for fiscal year 2023 related to nuclear forces total more than $576 billion for the period 2023-2032, averaging just above $75 billion per year. The history of nuclear modernization does not suggest that complete cancellation of Sentinel is the most probable outcome. The program has the support of the Air Force, members of Congress, and various defense contractors. Given the inertia of the Sentinel program, we believe questions about its cost should focus not on eliminating it, but on the implications of strategic land-based missile modernization for US national strategy, nuclear deterrence, and arms control. Going forward, what are the options for the ICBM leg of the nuclear triad from this perspective?[1]

Alternatives for US ICBM modernization.[2] The first option for dealing with Sentinel’s cost overruns would involve canceling the entire Sentinel program and continuing to modernize and upgrade the existing Minuteman ICBM force………………………………………………………

A second option would be to move to a nuclear strategic dyad instead of a triad and depend on a deterrent of submarine-based weapons and strategic bombers……………………………………………………………

In a third option, future ICBMs would be deployed on mobile platforms instead of in silos………………………………………………………….

Yet another option would be to deploy ICBMs in so-called deep underground basing…………………………………………….

A fifth option for the ICBM force would be “conventionalization” of strategic land-based missile launchers…………………………………………….

Domain challenges to strategic stability: space and cyber. Options for a future ICBM force will have to be considered within the larger context of evolving technology related to deterrence. The domains of space and cyber now form part of the context for military planners.[3] ………………………………………………….

Hypersonic weapons cast another shadow of concern over deterrence and crisis stability.[4] ………………………………………

Finally, there is the issue of strategic nuclear arms control and its potential demise under the pressures of US–Russian political disagreement, of China’s apparent ambition to become a nuclear superpower, of growing political and military alignments between Beijing and Moscow, and of the wobbly status of the last major Russian–American strategic nuclear arms control agreement (New START), originally signed in 2010 and now extended only until February 2026.[5] ………………………………………………………………………………………more https://thebulletin.org/2024/08/a-game-plan-for-dealing-with-the-costly-sentinel-missile-and-future-nuclear-challenges/?utm_source=Newsletter+&utm_medium=Email+&utm_campaign=MondayNewsletter08122024&utm_content=NuclearRisk_CostlySentinelMissileAndFutureNuclearChallenges_080920247

August 13, 2024 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukraine and Russia trade accusations over fire at occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

By Reuters, August 12, 2024

  • Summary
  • Cause of fire unclear
  • Both sides trade blame
  • Main fire since extinguished
  • IAEA head says attacks endanger nuclear safety, must stop

Aug 11 (Reuters) – Moscow and Kyiv accused each other of starting a fire on the grounds of Europe’s largest and now Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine on Sunday, with both sides reporting no sign of elevated radiation.

The U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear watchdog, which has a presence at the vast six-reactor facility, said its experts had seen strong, dark smoke coming from the northern area of the plant in southern Ukraine following multiple explosions.

“These reckless attacks endanger nuclear safety at the plant and increase the risk of a nuclear accident. They must stop now,” IAEA chief Rafael Grossi warned in a separate statement, without attributing blame for the attack.

The fire comes less than a week after Ukraine’s forces launched their largest incursion into Russian territory since the war-start in 2022, a surprise move that has brought conflict into a new phase, after weeks of Moscow’s battlefield gains.

Russian state news agencies, TASS and RIA, cited the country’s nuclear energy company Rosatom as saying the main fire was extinguished shortly before midnight on Sunday.

RIA, citing Rosatom, said a drone attack started the fire at the cooling tower, without providing evidence.

Ukraine’s nuclear power company Energoatom said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app that one of the cooling towers and other equipment were damaged………………………….Ukraine’s Energoatom said Russia’s “negligence” or arson could have sparked the fire. 

Russia’s officials in turn, including Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, accused Kyiv of deliberately trying to destroy the plant and sow “nuclear terror………………………
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-russia-trade-accusations-over-fire-occupied-nuclear-plant-2024-08-11/

August 13, 2024 Posted by | Russia, safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Nuclear disaster warning for two countries as Putin orders urgent mass evacuation

Ukrainian forces have made a surprise incursion into Russian territory sparking fears fighting could develop around the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant.

By Richard Ashmore, Senior News Reporter Aug 10, 2024  https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1934579/nuclear-disaster-warning-ukraine-russia

The head of the international atomic monitoring body has issued a stark warning to Russia and Ukraine to avoid fighting getting close to huge nuclear power plant.

Rafael Grossi, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), urged both militaries to “exercise maximum restraint” if combat erupts near the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant.

In a bold move Ukraine has stunned President Putin and the Kremlin with a military incursion on Tuesday into the Russian provinces of Kursk, and most recently the neighbouring Belgorod region.

A humiliated Vladimir Putin has now been forced to issue a massive evacuation order for more than 76,000 civilians from the Kursk region. The measures, which also apply to the neighbouring Belgorod and Bryansk provinces that border Ukraine, allow the government to relocate residents, control phone communications and requisition vehicles.

The Russian Defence Ministry said today (Saturday) that fighting was continuing in the Kursk and that the army has conducted airstrikes against Ukrainian forces.

In an urgent statement issued last night, IAEA boss Rafael Grossi said: “The IAEA has been monitoring the situation on the reported military activities taking place in the vicinity of the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant.

“In view of the reportedly significant military activity, I wish to remind all parties of the seven indispensable pillars for ensuring nuclear safety and security during an armed conflict.”

Mr Grossi urged Russia and Ukraine to respect principles adhered to so far in the conflict which have been used to protect the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine.

He added: “These include, among others, the imperative to ensure the physical integrity of a nuclear power plant. This is valid irrespective of where an NPP is situated.

“At this juncture, I would like to appeal to all sides to exercise maximum restraint in order to avoid a nuclear accident with the potential for serious radiological consequences.”

August 13, 2024 Posted by | Russia, safety | Leave a comment

This week’s nuclear news- miles too long- sorry!

above – Julian Assange – home with his familySome  bits of good news – People power changes lives – Six months of wins for human rights. Anti-corruption strategies in Nigeria are working.

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are having a positive spillover effect.

TOP STORIES

The Impact of Nuclear Weapons on Children.79 Years After Hiroshima & Nagasaki: A Grim Reminder of Nuclear Annihilation. 

Mutually assured destruction is an outdated nuclear deterrence doctrine.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVunlJOyfB0

World-Ending Maneuvers? America’s Nuclear Weapons Quagmire. Inside the Nuclear-Weapons Lobby Today.

AUKUS Revamped: The Complete Militarisation of Australia. 

Why US nuclear waste policy got stalled. And what to do about it.

UK’s most dangerous nuclear site pleads guilty after endangering national security.
Germany may take another 50 years to find final repository for waste from shuttered nuclear power.

Climate. Extreme heat in South Korea kills 11 and decimates livestock. ‘It made me cry’: photos taken 15 years apart show melting Swiss glaciers.

Noel’s notes.  Relief – Hiroshima Day is over – now to our glorious $2 trillion nuclear weapons “modernization”!    6th August – a day of respectful remembrance, and a day of absurd nuclear hypocrisy   World “experts” are kicking the nuclear waste can down the road – to our great grandchildren.

*************************

AUSTRALIA. 

NUCLEAR NEWS ITEMS

ATROCITIES. Why We Must Oppose Israel’s Dangerous Gamble Before It’s Too Late. ‘Heinous’: Children Among 100 Killed by Israel Bombing of Gaza School Just Hours After US Weapons Approval. Nothing’s changed since 1948 – except now Israel’s excuses don’t work.CLIMATE EDF extends heat-related warning cuts at 3 nuclear plants. France Warns of Nuclear Power Cuts as Heat Triggers Water Curbs.
IAEA concerned about forest fires near occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
ECONOMICS. Lemon socialism? – Rolls Royce might like to gracefully get out of Small Nuclear Reactors (SMRs)? UK Government refuses to release Sizewell C’s predicted price tag.
Biden’s $1.5 Billion Deal To Resurrect A Nuclear Plant Is Facing Fresh Drama.		EMPLOYMENT. Over two hundred jobs may be lost if Haverigg jail is displaced by nuclear dump.
HEALTH. Red Cross Hospital in Japan continuing to treat nuclear bomb victims – the hibakushaHISTORY. US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki remembered amid growing threat of nuclear war. Hiroshima marks 79 years since atomic bombing, as nuclear war fears rise.
PUBLIC OPINION. What do Americans really think about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Majority of Americans support more nuclear power, but future of large-scale nuclear is uncertain.

Radioactive Waste Management – Public Attitudes Survey for Scotland.		SAFETY. IAEA: Cooling pond water levels decreasing at Ukraine nuclear plant. IAEA Director General Statement on Developments in the Russian Federation, (with Kursk Nuclear Power Plant under threat).
Nuclear disaster warning for two countries as Putin orders urgent mass evacuation. Will Ukraine’s attack on Russian territory lead to the seizure of the Kursk Nuclear Plant? Russia strengthens security at Kursk nuclear power plant amid Ukraine’s assault in region.
It must be no to nuclear – whether energy or weapons.
SECRETS and LIES

Biden administration lies on Ukraine war are monstrous.
‘Massive disinformation campaign’ is slowing global transition to green energy.
Ukraine and Russia trade accusations over fire at occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
Nine spycops snooped on anti-nuclear protests in Scotland.
Spy cop ‘made up absurd bomb plot’ over nuclear waste on railway route.
The Trump link to Ohio nuke corruption.

SPINBUSTER. A DUBIOUS PROSPECT? Rolls-Royce looks to sell stake in small nuclear reactor business.

URANIUM. While Cumbrian MPs Blindly Agitate for More Uranium Mining to Feed More Nuclear New Build, Indigenous Australians are celebrating Halt to Poisoning of their Lands 

WASTES. Too short, ill-timed and clumsy: Welsh Nuclear Free Local Authorities critical of Trawsfynydd radioactive waste consultation. Lake District’s Coastal Nuclear Waste Dump Screw Tightens. Radiation monitoring keeps track of nuclear waste contamination. Anti-nuclear Group Criticizes Short Consultation over Trawsfynydd Lake Radioactive Contamination.

WAR AND CONFLICT.

Ukraine war briefing: Main fire at Russia-controlled nuclear plant in Ukraine extinguished. IAEA chief calls for restraint as fighting remains ongoing ‘in the vicinity’ of Russia’s Kursk Nuclear Power Plant.

 Israeli policy means ‘difficult to know’ how close world is to nuclear war, warns International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). Shin Bet said to prepare bunker for Netanyahu, senior leadership amid Iranian threat. Majority of Americans Oppose Using US Troops To Defend Israel .

Nuclear weapons can never bring peace or security – only mass death.

Modernizing Nuclear War’

WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES.

August 13, 2024 Posted by | Christina's notes | Leave a comment

‘Heinous’: Children Among 100 Killed by Israel Bombing of Gaza School Just Hours After US Weapons Approval

“It is hard to comprehend how the Biden administration can justify rewarding Israel with new weapons, despite Israel’s persistent defiance of every single plea the Biden administration has made urging a modicum of restraint.”

Yanis Varoufakis, former finance minister of Greece and co-founder of Progressive International, asked the same on Saturday.

“Israel has now killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wounded well over 92,000 others,” said Varoufakis. “Thousands more lie, uncounted, under the debris. Some 10,000 Palestinians have been abducted by Israel’s occupying forces. Question: Where is the ICC indictment?”

Jon Queally, Aug 10, 2024  https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-massacre-us-weapons

The Palestinian Authority’s Fatah government in the Occupied West Bank released a statement Saturday describing the attack on the al-Tabin school in Gaza City as a “heinous bloody massacre” that represents the “peak of terrorism and criminality” by the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Just hours after the Biden administration Friday announced approval of $3.5 billion in military funds for Israel and shipments for new weaponry, an Israeli bombing of a school-turned-shelter in Gaza has killed 100 people or more, including scores of civilian men, women, and children in what was described as a “bloody massacre” that struck during morning prayers, leaving body parts scattered “in pieces” and healthcare workers overwhelmed with the dead and wounded.

“Committing these massacres confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt its efforts to exterminate our people through the policy of cumulative killing and mass massacres that make living consciences tremble,” said the PA.

Footage taken by volunteers working alongside Palestinian medical units in Gaza City showed wounded small children and adults being taken to local hospitals as well as scenes of carnage from the scene of the bombing [Warning: Images are graphic]. Gaza journalist Motasem A. Dalloul also posted his reporting from the scene, including footage of the carnage [Also graphic].

Al-Jazeera spoke with witnesses at the scene of the massacre, one of whom said many of the dead—which included women, children, and old people who had been praying and others sleeping when the missiles struck—were collected afterward “in pieces”:

Tamer Kirolos, a regional director for Save the Children, called Israel’s attack on al-Tabin the “deadliest attack on a school since last October.”

“It is devastating to see the toll this has taken, including so many children and people at the school for dawn prayers,” Kirolos said. “Civilians, children, must be protected. An immediate definitive ceasefire is the only foreseeable way that will happen.”

Just hours before the bombing, the U.S. State Department announcement that a $3.5 billion tranche of funds—part of a larger $14.1 billion in overseas military aid approved by Congress earlier this year—would be released to the Israeli government for weapons procurement.

As CNNreported, while some of those weapons purchases made possible by the fund may take years, the “supplemental funding also allocated billions of dollars’ worth of equipment that the Pentagon can draw from its own stockpiles to send directly to Israel on a much faster timeline.”

Unverified reporting indicated that at least one of the missiles dropped on the al-Tabin school overnight may have been a U.S.-made MK-84 bomb weighing 2,000 pounds.

On Friday night, after the State Department announcement but before news of the latest bombing in Gaza broke, Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the human rights and advocacy group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), was among those confounded by the U.S. government’s continued determination to arm the Israelis in the face of the human suffering in Gaza and the repeated massacre of civilians, day after day and month after month.

“It is mind-boggling that despite the overwhelming evidence of the IDF’s unprecedented crimes in Gaza that has shocked the conscience of the entire world, the Biden administration is greenlighting the transfer of additional lethal weapons to Israel,” said Whitson in a Friday night statement following news that the State Dept. had greenlit the release of taxpayer funds for a new round of weapons destined for Israel.

Making a similar argument in a Saturday morning post on X, Sami Abou Shehadeh, leader of Israel’s leftist Balad Party, said that while President Joe Biden “could have stopped the genocide” by using his leverage of military aid to force the Israelis in a different direction, instead “he just released $3.5 billion for more weapons to kill civilians.”

Shehadeh warned that without any internal opposition “to the genocide” by Israel’s Zionist political parties, Netanyahu’s policies would continue, even as the region inches toward further destabilization over the crisis in Gaza that has also spread to Lebanon and beyond. Calling for the International Criminal Court to intervene, he asked, “If the ICC doesn’t take action now, then when?”

Yanis Varoufakis, former finance minister of Greece and co-founder of Progressive International, asked the same on Saturday.

“Israel has now killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wounded well over 92,000 others,” said Varoufakis. “Thousands more lie, uncounted, under the debris. Some 10,000 Palestinians have been abducted by Israel’s occupying forces. Question: Where is the ICC indictment?”

It is truly horrific,” Raed Jarrar, DAWN’s policy director told Common Dreams via email Saturday. “Last night’s massacre was another example of how Blinken and Biden have blood on their hands.”

Referencing a separate decision by the State Department to suspend an investigation into documented abuse violations by the “notorious” Netzah Yehuda Unit within the IDF, Jarrar said the “decisions of sending weapons to Israel and not sanctioning Israeli human rights abusers are not just corrupt policy decisions, they are criminal acts.”

August 12, 2024 Posted by | Atrocities, Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel Runs the U.S. No, the U.S. Runs Israel. No, Wait …

The occasion of Netanyahu’s address, his fourth before a joint session, puts all the complexities before us. Who was, in that hour, in charge — the insane man from the periphery, driven by rage, or his audience of adoring lawmakers at the imperial center, driven by… driven by what? I would say driven by greed, ideology and the work of running an imperium that is failing but has not failed yet. Who controlled whom that day? .

This is power.  

Joe Biden, in this same line, accepted more money from the Israeli lobby than anyone else on Capitol Hill during his decades in the Senate — $4.2 million according to Open Secrets, and I understand this is a very low estimate if we count Biden’s post–Senate political career. Code Pink, in a signature-gathering campaign, says Harris has received $5.4 million from the Israel lobby, although it does not indicate at what stage in her career she accepted this extraordinary sum.   

August 10, 2024 By Patrick Lawrence / Original to ScheerPost

That deranged speech Bibi Netanyahu delivered to a joint session of Congress last month: I cannot get it entirely out of my mind. It did not change anything — neither the Israeli prime minister nor his hosts seem to desire or intend to change anything in U.S.–Israeli relations. And in this way, there is not much to say about that weird hour the world’s No. 1 terrorist — yes, think about it and tell me I’m wrong — spent at the podium under the Capitol’s rotunda. But the speech did clarify certain things,  and then it raised an important question. Let us see about these matters.

There is, to begin with, the question of Netanyahu’s mental stability. If we consider his many outlandish assertions — Israel has minimized civilian casualties in Gaza, Israeli soldiers are to be commended for their moral conduct, those protesting in behalf of Palestinians are probably in Iran’s pay, and so on — we must conclude that the man given to such preposterous misrepresentations is, let’s say, perpendicular to reality. 

I am sure Netanyahu spoke in large measure for effect. This must be so. But I am equally sure  —  note the demeanor in the videos, for instance — he was certain of the truth of what he had to say. Dr. Lawrence’s diagnosis: A man consumed with resentment and hatred, who has led Israel to the brink of a cataclysmic war at the irretrievable cost of its international standing, while dragging the U.S. into it (at similar cost), suffers from severe psychosis with symptoms of paranoia and obsessive-compulsive megalomania. 

I do not say this to indulge some cheap denigration of one of the many contemptible political figures now walking around the Western world and its appendages. After Netanyahu’s notably strange performance in Congress July 24 — at times he seemed pure id — I say this diagnosis would hold in a clinical setting. We should all take note of this and brace ourselves accordingly. Never mind who’s driving the bus: It would be better in this case if no one were driving it.  

There is also the reception Netanyahu enjoyed on Capitol Hill. Seventy-two ovations by my count, 60–odd of them standing, for a war criminal, a flouter of international law, a man who commits to waging “a seven-front war” across the Middle East? 

Bibi’s big theme, running all through his remarks, was congruence, the perfect alignment of Israeli and American interests. Remember? “Our enemies are your enemies, our fight is your fight, and”—here the left fist pounded—“our victory is your victory.” 

The response among those in attendance tells you all you need to know about what America’s lawmakers think of this idea. Netanyahu was looking merely for reaffirmation of standing arrangements at a moment when when terrorist Israel’s conduct had begun to turn more stomachs than he had bargained for. And he got what he wanted, needless to say. 

This brings us to the question Netanyahu’s speech forces upon us. Does the U.S. control Israel or does Israel control the U.S.? Is the apartheid state another of Washington’s client regimes, albeit — let’s borrow a little from the Chinese — a client with Zionist characteristics? Or is Israel a case — rare, if not unique — of a distant outpost that dictates to the imperial center? The periphery exercises power over the metropole, this to say: This would have to be something new under the sun, surely.

This is not a new question. A lot of people have pondered it for months, if not longer —

The occasion of Netanyahu’s address, his fourth before a joint session, puts all the complexities before us. Who was, in that hour, in charge — the insane man from the periphery, driven by rage, or his audience of adoring lawmakers at the imperial center, driven by… driven by what? I would say driven by greed, ideology and the work of running an imperium that is failing but has not failed yet. Who controlled whom that day? ………………………………………………………………………

This is power.  

Joe Biden, in this same line, accepted more money from the Israeli lobby than anyone else on Capitol Hill during his decades in the Senate — $4.2 million according to Open Secrets, and I understand this is a very low estimate if we count Biden’s post–Senate political career. Code Pink, in a signature-gathering campaign, says Harris has received $5.4 million from the Israel lobby, although it does not indicate at what stage in her career she accepted this extraordinary sum.  

Harris is now wowing all the dreamy liberals in our midst with gestures here and there intended to suggest that she will be tougher on the Israelis than Joe-the-Zionist and more sympathetic to the Palestinians. Follow the bouncing ball, please, as those honorable Arab–Americans up in Michigan follow it: Harris makes it quite clear, on those occasions she fails to avoid the topic, that she has no intention of making any meaningful adjustment in U.S. policy toward the terrorist state. Let the murdering go on, as long as the Israelis want it to continue.

This, as I say, is power—perversely acquired and perversely exercised………………………………………..

What is at issue in all this is the question of responsibility. Israel exercises considerable power over the U.S. — yes, we all know this — but this is by dint of a corrupt abdication on America’s part. We must not miss this. Washington’s whorish elites have sold U.S. policy to the Israelis, and Congress has sold itself similarly………………………………..

……………………………………..America could sink Netanyahu’s boat any time it chooses to do so. Don’t let the moment fool you: Bibi, as history will show, is at bottom merely a passing punk.    

This, to finish the thought, is the power that matters most — imperial power. 

Here’s the important thing about the distinction I draw. The ephemeral power Israel asserts in the U.S., accumulated over the eight postwar decades, reaches an historic impasse. It is waning, in a word. 

In his final days as a public figure, Joe Biden will continue to carry on about the Zionist state as he has the whole of his political career. “Without Israel, no Jew in the world is safe,” he declared the other day, and hardly for the first time. Kamala Harris is not saying anything about Israel and the Gaza crisis in part because she has little to say about anything, but mostly because, when circumstances require her to break this silence — “weird” indeed, this — it will not be good news for those anticipating even a millimeter’s worth of change. 

………………………………………………………………….there was an interesting item at the end of last month on WMAC Radio, the NPR station  broadcasting in Upstate New York and western New England. Kamala Harris was just then raising hundreds of millions of dollars, cashing in on the irrational exuberance by then evident among Democrats. At a typically boisterous campaign stop in Pittsfield, Mass., she also faced protesters carrying placards that read, among other things, “End the Genocide” and “All This Money Will Not Wash the Blood Off Your Hands, Kamala.” 

What are we looking at here? Pittsfield is a small postindustrial city struggling back to life after General Electric abandoned it decades ago. But this is just the point: Anger about “the Biden–Harris administration” for its participation in Israel’s genocide seems to run right down to this nation’s broken sidewalks. Harris has since gotten the same treatment at a big campaign rally in Philadelphia, and again the other day in Detroit, where she high-handedly dismissed protesters with “I am speaking.” You come away with the impression Americans are simmering — virtually everyone I know is simmering, now that I think about it — and the major media, complicit with the Harris bandwagon, are doing their part to keep this out of sight. Let us not forget: American campuses are quiet after the honorable demonstrations this past spring, but classes resume in a month. 

You can bribe some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t bribe all of the people all of the time. I think I have my Lincoln right. And I think the Israelis, who, I imagine, don’t bother much with Abe, are on the way to learning that the power they have long exerted over U.S. politics and policy will eventually, in however long, prove ephemeral.   https://scheerpost.com/2024/08/10/patrick-lawrence-israel-runs-the-u-s-no-the-u-s-runs-israel-no-wait/ 

August 12, 2024 Posted by | Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

US to send more military aid to Ukraine, as Ukrainian drones target Kursk and the Kursk Nuclear Power PLant

On Friday, Ukrainian drones targeted the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in Kurchatov, briefly cutting power supplies to the town.

https://www.rt.com/news/602400-pentagon-ukraine-military-aid/ 10 Aug 24

Ammunition worth $125 million comes after Ukraine invaded Russia’s Kursk Region

Washington will send Kiev another $125 million worth of missiles and ammunition, the Pentagon announced as fierce fighting continued in Russia’s Kursk Region.

The US Department of Defense noted on Friday that this was the 63rd batch of aid provided to Ukraine since August 2021 – six months prior to the launch of Russia’s military operation.

To help Kiev meet “critical security and defense needs,” the US will send Stinger anti-aircraft missiles; ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS); rounds for 155mm and 105mm artillery; Javelin, AT-4 and TOW anti-tank missiles; small-arms ammunition; and demolitions ordnance, the Pentagon said in a statement.

The package also included multi-mission radars, Humvee ambulances, spare parts, services, training and transportation. 

Washington’s previous batch of military aid, worth $1.7 billion, was sent at the end of July. According to the Pentagon’s own numbers, the US has sent more than $56.2 billion in military aid to Ukraine since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.

Earlier this week, Ukraine sent several battalions worth of troops into Russia’s Kursk Region. Moscow has accused the invaders of indiscriminately targeting civilians with artillery, small arms and drone strikes. On Friday, Ukrainian drones targeted the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in Kurchatov, briefly cutting power supplies to the town.

“We don’t feel like this is escalatory in any way,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters on Thursday, when asked about US military aid to Kiev. 

According to Singh, everything Ukraine does is legitimate self-defense from the Russian “invasion,” while Russia can always de-escalate by withdrawing.

The Ukrainian leadership has said the primary goal of the Kursk operation was to induce “fear” in the hearts of the Russian people. One of the units involved in the operation, according to Ukrainian media, is named ‘Nachtigall’ after the notorious Nazi auxiliary from WWII commanded by Roman Shukhevych.

At least five civilians have been killed and 21 wounded – including six children – by the Ukrainian attacks, according to Russian authorities. The defense ministry in Moscow said that the invaders have lost almost 1,000 troops and over 100 armored vehicles as of Friday.

August 12, 2024 Posted by | Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nine spycops snooped on anti-nuclear protests in Scotland

The Ferret Rob Edwards, August 11, 2024

At least nine officers from London’s secret undercover policing unit, known as spycops, aided the infiltration and surveillance of anti-nuclear protests in Scotland between 1978 and 1983, The Ferret can reveal.

Two spycops, who had adopted the names of dead children and pretended to be anti-nuclear activists, joined attempts to occupy the site for a nuclear power station at Torness in East Lothian in 1980 and 1981. They were both picked up, detained and then released by Lothian police. 

The pair, one of whom said he was nicknamed “Trotsky”, were supported by three senior officers from the Metropolitan Police’s Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), who travelled to Scotland to liaise with local police. 

Along with four other spycops, they produced 16 reports for the Met’s Special Branch and the UK security service, MI5, on anti-nuclear groups active in Scotland. The groups included the Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace (SCRAM), the Torness Alliance and Friends of the Earth.

The SDS reports contained minutes of meetings, mailing lists, internal briefings and funding appeals. They included details of hundreds of individuals and groups across the UK, and gave inside accounts of campaigners’ plans, problems and disagreements.

The revelations come from documents and statements released by the SDS and MI5 and published by the UK government’s Undercover Policing Inquiry in London. The inquiry was launched in 2015 and is aiming to produce its final report in 2026.

Activists who were spied upon have condemned the SDS’s undercover operations, with one saying he felt “sick and angry”. They claimed their campaigning had suffered “profound damage”.

Anti-nuclear campaigners in Scotland have also been very critical, suggesting that spycops were “out of control” and “an affront to the very idea of democracy”………………………………………………………….

The SDS was disbanded in 2008. In July 2023 an interim report by the inquiry’s judge, Sir John Mitting, concluded that the spying was not justified. 

The inquiry’s remit, however, is only to investigate undercover policing in England and Wales. Campaigners have challenged the failure to inquire into undercover policing in Scotland, but so far without success.

In 2021 The Ferret reported initial evidence to the inquiry suggesting that Scottish anti-nuclear groups had been spied upon. In July 2024 the inquiry released more than 100 SDS reports on the surveillance of the anti-nuclear movement across the UK in the 1980s.

According to the Guardian, they revealed extensive spying on the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in England, as well as on women who protested against nuclear missiles at Greenham Common in Berkshire.

Inquiry documents have also disclosed the hitherto unknown extent of spying on anti-nuclear protests in Scotland. Spycops active north of the border have been named, and some of their undercover activities exposed…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://theferret.scot/spycops-torness-anti-nuclear-scotland/

August 12, 2024 Posted by | UK | Leave a comment

Miliband urged to save mini-nuke site in Cumbria

Moorside’s hopes of hosting first small modular reactors are in jeopardy, MPs warn

Matt Oliver, Industry Editor and Szu Ping Chan, 11 August 2024 

MPs and businesses have warned the energy secretary that the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is putting Moorside’s hopes of hosting
the first small modular reactors (SMRs) in jeopardy.

That is because GBN has signalled it will only pick sites that have enough land available for
several SMRs. As a result, Moorside is at risk of missing out after the NDA
unveiled plans to use most of the site’s space for other decommissioning
purposes. In a letter seen by The Telegraph, MPs, Lords, business leaders
and union officials urged Mr Miliband to instruct the NDA and GBN to
prioritise the land at Moorside for new nuclear use “first and
foremost”, warning that failure to do so would have “considerable”
consequences.

“A lack of clear direction on Moorside is likely to knock
West Cumbria out of the running for the GBN process and our community will
once again have had their hopes raised and dashed,” the letter says.
Moorside is seen as a potentially strong candidate because it is already in
state ownership. By comparison, Bradwell is still owned by China General
Nuclear – which has been frozen out of future British nuclear projects
– and Heysham and Hartlepool, owned by French giant EDF, are still used
by operational nuclear plants. The mounting pressure on Mr Miliband and the
NDA comes after Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, effectively
blocked a new coal mine in the area that would have created thousands of
new jobs.

 Telegraph 11th Aug 2024

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/11/miliband-urged-save-mini-nuke-site-cumbria/

 

August 12, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nothing’s changed since 1948 – except now Israel’s excuses don’t work

8 August 2024  https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2024-08-08/1948-israel-excuses/

We have been lied to for decades about the creation of Israel. It was born in sin, and it continues to live in sin

A headline about community displacements is about yet another Israeli operation to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians in the tiny, besieged and utterly destroyed enclave of Gaza, was published in yesterday’s Middle East Eye.

When I began studying Israeli history more than a quarter of a century ago, people claiming to be experts proffered plenty of excuses to explain why Israelis should not be held responsible for the 1948 ethnic cleansing of some 750,000 Palestinians from their homes – what Palestinians call their Nakba, or Catastrophe.

1. I was told most Israelis were not involved and knew nothing of the war crimes carried out against the Palestinians during Israel’s establishment.

2. I was told that those Israelis who did take part in war crimes, like Operation Broom to expel Palestinians from their homeland, did so only because they were traumatised by their experiences in Europe. In the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust, these Israelis assumed that, were the Jewish people to survive, they had no alternative but to drive out the Palestinians en masse.


3. From others, I was told that no ethnic cleansing had taken place. The Palestinians had simply fled at the first sign of conflict because they had no real historical attachment to the land.

4. Or I was told that the Palestinians’ displacement was an unfortunate consequence of a violent war in which Israeli leaders had the best interests of Palestinians at heart. The Palestinians hadn’t left because of Israeli violence but because they has been ordered to do so by Arab leaders in the region. In fact, the story went, Israel had pleaded with many of the 750,000 refugees to come home afterwards, but those same Arab leaders stubbornly blocked their return.

Every one of these claims was nonsense, directly contradicted by all the documentary evidence.

That should be even clearer today, as Israel continues the ethnic cleansing and slaughter of the Palestinian people more than 75 years on.

1. Every Israeli knows exactly what is going on in Gaza – after all, their children-soldiers keep posting videos online showing the latest crimes they have committed, from blowing up mosques and hospitals to shooting randomly into homes. Polls show all but a small minority of Israelis approve of the savagery that has killed many tens of thousands of Palestinians, including children. A third of them think Israel needs to go further in its barbarity.

Today, Israeli TV shows host debates about how much pain soldiers should be allowed to inflict by raping their Palestinian captives. Don’t believe me? Watch this from Israel’s Channel 12: [on original]

2. If the existential fears of Israelis and Jews still require the murder, rape and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians three-quarters of a century on from the Holocaust, then we need to treat that trauma as the problem – and refuse to indulge it any longer.

3. The people of Gaza are fleeing their homes – or at least the small number who still have homes not bombed to ruins – not because they lack an attachment to Palestine. They are fleeing from one part of the cage Israel has created for them to another part of it for one reason alone: because all of them – men, women and children – are terrified of being slaughtered by an Israeli military, at best, indifferent to their suffering and their fate.

4. No serious case can be made today that Israel is carrying out any of its crimes in Gaza – from bombing civilians to starving them – with regret, or that its leaders seek the best for the Palestinian population. Israel is on trial for genocide at the world’s highest court precisely because the judges there suspect it has the very worst intentions possible towards the Palestinian people.

We have been lied to for decades about the creation of Israel. It was always a settler colonial project. And like other settler colonial projects – from the US and Australia to South Africa and Algeria – it always viewed the native people as inferior, as non-human, as animals, and was bent on their elimination.

What is so obviously true today was true then too, at Israel’s birth. Israel was born in sin, and it continues to live in sin.

We in the West abetted its crimes in 1948, and we’re still abetting them today. Nothing has changed, except the excuses no longer work.

August 12, 2024 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

The Trump link to Ohio nuke corruption

   By David DeWitt, Ohio Capital Journal https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/08/11/the-trump-link-to-ohio-nuke-corruption

Former president’s top campaign money bundler connected to Ohio’s largest public corruption scandal

FirstEnergy was the company behind the largest political bailout and bribery scandal in Ohio history, which funneled $61 million in dark money bribes to Ohio lawmakers in order to pass a $1.3 billion nuclear and coal bailout at the expense of every Ohio family that pays utility bills.

Now, Sludge has reported that Donald Trump’s top known campaign money bundler advised FirstEnergy on its contributions to a dark money group that pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in Ohio’s House Bill 6 bailout scandal.

FirstEnergy pleaded guilty in a deferred prosecution agreement. So did the aforementioned dark money group used to funnel the bribes, Generation Now. Former Republican Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder is serving 20 years in federal prison on racketeering charges, and former Ohio Republican Party chair and FirstEnergy lobbyist Matt Borges is serving five years for his role.

One former Ohio lobbyist charged in the scandal died by suicide, as did Ohio’s former top utility regulatorwhile he was under state and federal indictments. FirstEnergy admitted bribing him $4.3 million. Two other former FirstEnergy lobbyists cooperated and are awaiting sentencing. Two former FirstEnergy executives have been charged by the state of Ohio on charges alleging the spearheaded the bribery scheme. They’ve pleaded not guilty.

Trump’s top money bundler is named Geoff Verhoff. As Sludge reported, Verhoff is a “senior adviser at public affairs firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, has bundled more than $3.6 million this year for Trump 47 Committee, according to a new filing with the Federal Election Commission.”

Verhoff also pleaded the Fifth when called to testify at Householder’s trial last March on his role in FirstEnergy’s Ohio bribery scheme.


From Sludge: “Verhoff was one of four individuals who was present at an October 2018 meeting where a FirstEnergy lobbyist paid a bribe to former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder. According to the testimony of the government’s cooperating witness, former FirstEnergy lobbyist Juan Cespedes, during the meeting lobbyist Robert Klaffky slid an envelope containing a $400,000 check under the hand of former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder. In response to the check, Cespedes said, Householder, gave ‘very strong verbals and nonverbals that he would introduce’ the FirstEnergy bailout legislation. The check was written out to Generation Now, a dark money nonprofit controlled by Householder that later pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in the matter.”

The article is full of details and is worth getting a subscription to read in full. Sludge reports on money in politics — that dark toxin poisoning our body politic alongside gerrymandering, as we’ve discussed previously.

Verhoff is just one of two FirstEnergy-connected lobbyist bundlers working to gather money for Trump to be reelected, according to the article. Verhoff also served as vice-chair of the RNC finance committee from 2017-2021. The Akin group Verhoff is part of got $68 million for their FirstEnergy work, Sludge reported, and Verhoff got $675 an hour from FirstEnergy.

August 12, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Australia is still finding out what it doesn’t know about its secretive AUKUS deal

7.30 / By Laura Tingle, Sat 10 Aug 2024

When US President Joe Biden announced he would not be standing for another term, Australia’s political leaders expressed their gratitude for his contribution to public life. But this week, Australian voters had something else for which to be grateful to Biden.

For it was only as a result of a letter the US president wrote to the US Congress, that we found that there had been an update to the AUKUS agreement which will allow naval nuclear propulsion plants, rather than just nuclear propulsion “information”, to be transferred to Australia.

But it is not this part of the letter that has raised eyebrows and hackles even if, as usual, we find out about such deals from the Americans before we find out about them from our own government. The formal part of the deal will be exposed when it is submitted to the Treaties committee of our own parliament.

It is a side agreement, between the US, the UK and Australia that is of considerable concern: a non-legally binding “understanding” that includes “additional related political commitments”.

What are these? Well, they are secret.

The AUKUS saga moves on without much scrutiny

Critics argue that the “understanding” and “additional related political commitments” could include how and where these vessels are used. That is, what conflicts Australia would be expected to show up for, and how.

Some speculate on the possibility that it involves Australia agreeing to accept nuclear waste from the US and the UK, something the government has denied.

The idea that any of these such undertakings may have been made, but we aren’t allowed to know, is simply outrageous.

A quick recap of the AUKUS deal reveals that we are still expecting to receive two second-hand US Virginia class submarines, before embarking on building an entirely new, and so far unseen, British submarine in Adelaide.

Of course, we get a bit of a say in the design and plans for that new sub, don’t we?

Well the UK announced in October 2023 that it had selected BAE Systems for the SSN-AUKUS submarine. That month, Greens senator David Shoebridge asked officials about what involvement Australia had in the selection of the company that would build both the UK and Australian submarines.

The Australian Submarine Agency’s Alexandra Kelton told the Senate that “we had, through our high commission, some notification that an announcement would be made and some context around that but not of the content in great detail”.

The AUKUS submarine saga moves on with not much scrutiny in Australia, let alone apparently much input from Australia, given its cost and its huge strategic investment in one particular idea.

The second-hand Virginia class subs and later the AUKUS-class subs to be built in Adelaide are supposedly “sovereign Australian assets operating under the complete control of the Australian government”.

The Greens’ Shoebridge is one critic who warns the secret undertakings could include commitments on how the subs are used.

And this is a position which seems to be backed in by the authoritative papers written for the US Congressional Research Service.

Voters likely to be the last to know

In its latest update on the Virginia-class submarines, dated August 5, the Service’s analysts once again outline the relative benefits costs and risks of an “alternative division-of-labor approach”.

That’s technical talk for an alternative plan in which “up to eight additional Virginia-class SSNs would be procured and retained in US Navy service and operated out of Australia along with the US and UK SSNs that are already planned to be operated out of Australia … while Australia invested in military capabilities (such as, for example, long-range anti-ship missiles, drones, loitering munitions, B-21 long-range bombers, or other long-range strike aircraft)”.

That is, we don’t get any submarines, the Americans (and Brits) just run theirs out of here. Along with an expansion of bomber visits, personnel and troop rotations.

The “deterrence and warfighting cost-effectiveness” arguments for doing this “include [the fact that] Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles in March 2023 reportedly confirmed that in exchange for the Virginia-class boats, Australia’s government made no promises to the United States that Australia would support the United States in a future conflict over Taiwan.”

“Selling three to five Virginia-class SSNs to Australia would thus convert those SSNs from boats that would be available for use in a US-China crisis or conflict into boats that might not be available for use in a US-China crisis or conflict. This could weaken rather than strengthen deterrence and warfighting capability in connection with a US-China crisis or conflict.”

There’s a lot more like that.

Riled on Friday by the prime minister’s dismissal of his observations on AUKUS, Albanese’s predecessor Paul Keating warned that “the strength and scale of the United States’s basing in Australia will eclipse Australia’s own military capability such that Australia will be viewed in the United States as a continental extension of American power akin to that which it enjoys in Hawaii, Alaska and more limitedly in places like Guam”.

“Such an outcome is likely to turn the Australian government, in defence and security terms, into simply the national administrator of what would be broadly viewed in Asia as a US protectorate,” he said.

If that happens, voters are likely to be the last to know about it.

Laura Tingle is 7.30’s chief political correspondent

August 12, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

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