News countering the nuclear-military-industrial-political complex this week
Some bits of good news: UNICEF has helped reduce child mortality all over the world by working to reach the most vulnerable children, everywhere. After 9 Years of Work, CaliforniaTribe Finally Seas Traditional Land Named a Marine Reserve Bigger Than Yosemite- picturedCoho Anchorage, part of the proposed reserve
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TOP STORIES.
Zelensky’s Last Hail Mary Gets Off to Rocky Start.
Biden’s Legacy: The Decline of Arms Control and Disarmament.
How to Make a ‘War Reserve’ Nuclear Bomb.
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Climate. Rich countries silencing climate protest while preaching about rights elsewhere, says study.
Noel’s notes. What is behind all the drama of long range missiles for Ukraine to send to Russia? An avalanche of objections to the latest proposed AUKUS nuclear treaty.
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AUSTRALIA.
The tangled nuclear web of lies and half-truths – can we believe that Australia will refuse to take USA toxic wastes? David Noonan confronts Australia’s politicians with critical unanswered questions on the AUKUS agreement – will they pretend not to hear this?
Albanese has a second chance with AUKUS.
Protecting the Merchants of Death: The Police Effort for Land Forces 2024. The lucrative charity, yes CHARITY, running the Land Forces weapons expo. From the archives :The fake charity AMDA Foundation is exposed by Michael West Media’s Michelle Fahy. More Australian news at https://antinuclear.net/2024/09/14/australian-nuclear-news-headlines-9-16-september-2/
NUCLEAR ITEMS
| ATROCITIES. United Nations relief agency Says 6 Workers Among at Least 18 Killed in Israeli Strikes on Gaza School. Israel kills 40 in Gaza “humanitarian zone”. | CLIMATE. US Militarism Is a Leading Cause of the Climate Catastrophe. Blackwater – a land in transition. |
- Why nuclear power plant are so expensive, especially in the West.
- Claims that UK’s Wylfa mega-nuclear site is ‘under-review’ with potential switch to mini-nuke plants.
- Support for nuclear is “money down the drain” – Rystad. Why SMRs Are Taking Longer Than Expected to Deploy. NuScale Power Is Great. Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Buy It.
| ENERGY. Nuclear vs Energy Storage. Die Welt predicts a mass exodus of people from Ukraine in winter. | ENVIRONMENT. Somerset campaigners celebrate as EDF Energy U-turns on planned Hinkley Point C saltmarshes. Water: Southern boom town that is just 24 miles away from dangerous canyon contaminated by plutonium | ETHICS and RELIGION. Richard Silverstein: Israel, ‘The Far Right Extremist State That I Can No Longer Identify With |
| EVENTS: PETITION Call off World War III | HEALTH. Christopher Busby: New study: the cause of the cancer epidemic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMauRgvWnII | INDIGENOUS ISSUES. Bloc Québécois backs First Nation fighting nuclear waste site. |
| POLITICS. Sane foreign policy biggest loser in Harris/Biden debate. Biden still slouching toward war, possibly nuclear, with Russia over Ukraine. UK Government considering scrapping Wylfa plans and 24GW nuclear capacity target. | POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Alarm in UK and US over possible Iran-Russia nuclear deal. US and UK press Ukraine before allowing Russia strikes. ‘Blinken, Get Lost!,’ Says Polish MEP Grzegorz Braun. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2HKsBGSlqfI Ukraine will join NATO – Blinken. The Armageddon Agenda. |
| PUBLIC OPINION. Opposed to Netanyahu, two-thirds of Israelis want to negotiate with Hamas. | SAFETY. Dounreay placed on ‘special measures’ over wide-ranging safety concerns. Letter to New First Minister over South Wales Nuclear Overflights. ‘Its been a battle’: Neighbors worry about Palisades Nuclear Plant restarting. Japan, to make the biggest mistake in history: nuclear energy with water, and risk of explosion. |
| SECRETS and LIES. Democracy Dumped in Cumbria. Nuclear Dump Under the Irish Sea Here We Come?! UNLESS… Boris Johnson goes into business with Steve Bannon, Charlotte Owen and a uranium entrepreneur. Federal Conflict Rules Would Have Barred New Brunswick, Ontario Cabinet Ministers from New Corporate Posts, Expert Says. | SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. India considers joining Russia, China to build nuclear plant on Moon. |
| TECHNOLOGY. Flamanville EPR shutdown prompts fresh questions over reactor design. | URANIUM. World’s largest uranium miner warns Ukraine war makes it harder to supply west.. |
WAR and CONFLICT. Putin Warns of ‘Direct’ War as US Mulls Letting Ukraine Use Long-Range Western Missiles .
Ukrainian Tipping Points: UPDATE 3 .x
White House finalizing plans to expand where Ukraine can hit inside Russia. UK approves Ukrainian missile strikes deep inside Russia – Guardian ‘Let’s Just Fight’: How Britain Prefers War Over Peace in Ukraine.
CNN Shared A Glimpse Of Just How Bad Everything Has Become For Ukraine. The NATO/Ukraine Defeat in Kursk (and Beyond). Ukrainian Tipping Points: UPDATE 2.
Neocon Queen Victoria Nuland ADMITS Not Wanting to End Ukraine War Diplomatically.
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. Playing with nuclear fire. Biden administration split over Ukraine’s use of US weapons inside Russia.
Pentagon orders study of potential nuclear strike in Eastern Europe. Pentagon orders simulation of consequences of nuclear weapons use in Eastern Europe and Russia.
UK sent Kyiv large supplies of old military equipment, watchdog finds.
Putin Warns of ‘Direct’ War as US Mulls Letting Ukraine Use Long-Range Western Missiles
“It is a question of deciding whether or not NATO countries are directly involved in a military conflict,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Jake Johnson, Sep 13, 2024, https://www.commondreams.org/news/putin-direct-war-nato
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that if the United States and the United Kingdom allow Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia with Western missiles, “it will mean nothing less than the direct involvement of NATO countries.”
“This is not a question of allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It is a question of deciding whether or not NATO countries are directly involved in a military conflict,” Putin told Russian state TV. “This will be their direct participation, and this, of course, will significantly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict.”
Putin’s remarks came amid reports that U.S. President Joe Biden appears poised to let Ukraine use long-range missiles against Russia, signaling a perilous new phase in a deadly war that has dragged on for two and a half years since Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
According toThe New York Times, “President Biden appears on the verge of clearing the way for Ukraine to launch long-range Western weapons deep inside Russian territory, as long as it doesn’t use arms provided by the United States.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that if the United States and the United Kingdom allow Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia with Western missiles, “it will mean nothing less than the direct involvement of NATO countries.”
“This is not a question of allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It is a question of deciding whether or not NATO countries are directly involved in a military conflict,” Putin told Russian state TV. “This will be their direct participation, and this, of course, will significantly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict.”
Putin’s remarks came amid reports that U.S. President Joe Biden appears poised to let Ukraine use long-range missiles against Russia, signaling a perilous new phase in a deadly war that has dragged on for two and a half years since Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
According toThe New York Times, “President Biden appears on the verge of clearing the way for Ukraine to launch long-range Western weapons deep inside Russian territory, as long as it doesn’t use arms provided by the United States.”
“The issue, which has long been debated in the administration, is coming to a head on Friday with the first official visit to the White House by Britain’s new prime minister, Keir Starmer,” the Times reported Thursday. “Britain has already signaled to the United States that it is eager to let Ukraine use its ‘Storm Shadow’ long-range missiles to strike at Russian military targets far from the Ukrainian border. But it wants explicit permission from Mr. Biden in order to demonstrate a coordinated strategy with the United States and France, which makes a similar missile.”
Ahead of the decision, the Pentagon pointed to Iran’s alleged transfer of ballistic missiles to Russia as further reason to bolster Ukraine’s military capabilities. A spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry said in response that “the publication of false and misleading reports about the transfer of Iranian weapons to some countries is simply ugly propaganda to conceal the large illegal arms support of the United States and some Western countries for the genocide in Gaza.”
Ukraine, which has received roughly $55.7 billion in military assistance from the U.S. since February 2022, has already launched repeated drone attacks deep inside Russia, but Western permission for Kyiv to use long-range missiles could be a dire escalation.
As Politiconoted, Moscow could retaliate against a long-range missile strike on Russia by hitting “a target inside NATO, such as the critical weapons supply hub in the Polish city of Rzeszów.” Such an exchange could result in direct conflict between the nuclear-armed powers.
“Military experts argue any guidelines agreed for the British weapons at the two-hour summit in Washington could also then pave the way for the Ukrainians to fire U.S.-supplied ATACMS—a tactical ballistic missile system—at airfields and army bases deep inside Russia,” the outlet observed.
The potential intensification and spread of the war comes as the prospect of a diplomatic resolution appears nonexistent, at least in the near term.
Aída Chávez, communications director and policy adviser at Just Foreign Policy, wrote for The Intercept earlier this week that members of the U.S. Congressional Progressive Caucus were “pilloried” over an October 2022 letter urging Biden to “make vigorous diplomatic efforts in support of a negotiated settlement and ceasefire, engage in direct talks with Russia, explore prospects for a new European security arrangement acceptable to all parties that will allow for a sovereign and independent Ukraine, and, in coordination with our Ukrainian partners, seek a rapid end to the conflict and reiterate this goal as America’s chief priority.”
Today, Chávez wrote, the progressives who signed the letter—which was ultimately withdrawn by the CPC leadership—”look more prescient than ever.”
“Since the ill-fated letter, the war has ground on—with devastating results for the people of Ukraine,” Chávez continued. “Ukraine is not in a position to win the war, nor does it have a stronger bargaining position in talks than it did in late 2022 when the CPC letter came out.”
PETITION – Call off World War III
Tell the Biden administration to call off NATO-backed strikes inside Russia, stop arming Ukraine and support a ceasefire before a world war breaks out between nuclear powers.
Petition to President Biden, Vice President Harris, Defense Secretary Austin, and White House National Security Adviser Sullivan:
We understand the United States and United Kingdom are ready to announce that they will be lifting restrictions on Ukraine’s use of NATO weapons, allowing them to be used to strike deep inside Russia, according to the Guardian and Politico. This news follows former State Department official Victoria Nuland’s admission the US torpedoed a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia a month after Russia invaded Ukraine.
We demand the Biden administration reverse course: call off NATO-backed strikes inside Russia, stop arming Ukraine and support a ceasefire before another world war breaks out.
The Guardian reports, “British government sources indicated that a decision had already been made to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow cruise missiles on targets inside Russia.” The missiles will be launched from Ukraine but targeted and guided by NATO technicians. In response, Putin says long-range arms for Ukraine will mean “NATO countries are at war with Russia.”
We demand the Biden administration pursue a diplomatic resolution to the war in Ukraine, call off NATO-supplied missiles striking inside Russia and avert World War III between nuclear powers.
We want Vice President Kamala Harris to know that we do not support her bellicose pledges to continue the war in Ukraine, nor her warmongering words at the DNC when she promised to ensure America always has the “strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.” The world has suffered enough at the hands of US lies and violence.
In the words of Anatoly Antonov, the Russian Ambassador to the US, Washington “continues to test the limits of our tolerance for hostile steps” and is “paving the way to World War III.”
STOP. Seek a diplomatic resolution now–before it’s too late.
Sincerely,
Dounreay placed on ‘special measures’ over wide-ranging safety concerns
John O’Groat Journal By Iain Grant, 13 September 2024
An action plan has been drawn up by operators NRS to address the issues which include ageing, deteriorating plant, radioactive leaks and the storage of chemicals.
Among the problem areas is the condition of buildings in the prototype fast reactor being used to store drums of radioactive sodium.
An inspection by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), in April made grim reading for site management. It found significant corrosion and metal loss of structural steelwork in the turbine hall.
It concluded “It was judged that the steam generator hall and generator transformer house are not adequate, as the licensee has failed to safely protect the drums against uncontrolled
degradation via air and moisture ingress.
“It is also judged that the licensee is not recognising when there is degradation in these areas.”
The issue first came to light following a probe into a minute leak of
radioactive tritium from a sodium drum in the turbine hall in November
2022. Its exposure to rainwater through a leaky roof was blamed for causing
the corrosion.
The inspection was one of a number carried out at Dounreay
in the spring and summer to receive an amber rating by ONS. Others revealed
some elderly electrical plant in a “degraded” state while Dounreay was
found to have breached the Control of Major Accident Hazards (CoMAH)
regulations by its stockpile of chemicals being over its set limit. A fire
safety inspection was generally positive but flagged up a “significant
shortfall” in assessment and control of sources of dangerous substances.
The inspector said: “It is my judgement that Dounreay do not currently
understand the totality of risk presented by dangerous substances on site
and therefore cannot provide adequate assurance as to the safety of
personnel on site.”
John O’Groat Journal 13th Sept 2024
Ukraine will join NATO – Blinken
https://www.rt.com/news/603873-blinken-ukraine-kiev-nato/— 11 Sept 24
The top US diplomat has repeated Washington’s talking points while visiting Kiev
Washington wants to see Kiev win the conflict against Moscow and join NATO, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said.
Blinken is visiting Kiev with his British counterpart, David Lammy, to reiterate Anglo-American support for Vladimir Zelensky’s government.
“At the July summit, we declared that Ukraine’s path to NATO membership is irreversible,” Blinken said on Wednesday, reminding his hosts that the US-led bloc has “established a command dedicated to support Ukraine’s membership.”
Blinken has made the case for Kiev’s membership in NATO before. However, the bloc has officially declared, both in Washington this summer and last year in Lithuania, that this could only happen “when allies agree and conditions are met.”
Hungary and Slovakia have already said they will not agree under any circumstances, as bringing Ukraine into NATO would mean war with Russia.
During the same speech in Kiev, Blinken painted a rosy picture of Ukraine’s military industry, claiming it had expanded six-fold over the last year.
“In the coming years, that’s going to give Ukraine one of the most advanced defense industries in the world, and it will be able to take that to the global market and take global market share away from other countries like Russia, and also supply NATO allies,” he added.
Kiev is presently entirely dependent on the West for weapons, equipment, ammunition and even cash infusions to keep its government going. Ukraine is also facing widespread electricity shortages, as Russian missile strikes have degraded power production capacity. Blinken himself announced on Wednesday that the US will send $325 million to help repair the Ukrainian power grid and provide emergency backup generators for critical infrastructure.
Another $290 million has been earmarked for “food, water, shelter, health care and education programs for Ukrainians” both in the country and abroad, with the remaining $102 million designated for landmine removal.
“The bottom line is this: We want Ukraine to win,” Blinken declared at another point during his visit, according to AP.
This, too, was stated by Western officials before, as a prerequisite for Kiev’s membership in NATO. This effectively means that Ukraine will never join the bloc, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in June.
NATO’s 2008 announcement about Ukraine’s possible membership “became the trigger for much of the entire crisis that we are observing today,” Ryabkov said at the time. “If NATO members are ready to fall into the same trap again and history teaches them nothing, then they will get hit again and their bruises will get worse,” he added.
Ukrainian Tipping Points: UPDATE 3
Russian and Eurasian Politics, by Gordonhahn, September 13, 2024 https://gordonhahn.com/2024/09/13/ukrainian-tipping-points-update-3/
In the last few hours, both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations have declared that any attack on Russia by Ukraine with Western long-range missiles will be considered by Moscow to be the direct participation of the country from which the weapon has been supplied and will be met with “corresponding measures with all the ensuing consequences” for that particular state. Putin, in particular noted that such an act will “change the very essence, nature if the war” (http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/75092).
Opposed to Netanyahu, two-thirds of Israelis want to negotiate with Hamas
Voltairenet.org, by Thierry Meyssan 13 Sept 24
The recent general strike in Israel is not just a demonstration against the rhetoric that we shouldn’t negotiate with terrorists and that the IDF will release the hostages held in Gaza. It marks the beginning of a realization that Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu is not defending Jews. While Jewish Israelis are not yet aware of the ethnic cleansing in Gaza, they are becoming aware of the anti-Arab pogroms in the West Bank. Gradually, they are beginning to admit that their enemies are not their neighbours, but are among them. These are the revisionist Zionists.
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 12 September 2024
Israeli public opinion is changing. After having turned away from Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, ineffective during the October 7 attack, some Israelis rallied behind him again after the Iranian retaliation on April 11. About a third of them now support him. They are both settlers, illegally implanted in the West Bank, and citizens who perceive Arabs, Turks and Persians as enemies.
The remaining two-thirds are slowly opening their eyes. The execution of six hostages by Hamas on August 31, just as the “Defense Forces” (IDF) were about to free them, showed them that, far from allowing their release, the presence of soldiers in Gaza condemns them to death. They now see the Prime Minister’s obstinacy in invading not only Gaza, but also the West Bank, to the detriment of the hostages’ lives, as proof that he serves the interests of the settlers alone, and not those of all Israeli Jews. Yet they fail to see the suffering of Israeli Arabs, the pogroms in the West Bank and the ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
It was against this backdrop that Israel’s historic trade union, the Histadrut, which was the main Yichuv organization between the wars, called a general strike. ……………………………………………………the strike was well attended. It inscribed in the minds of Israelis that Benyamin Netanyahu did not defend Jews, that he had never defended them.
At the same time, one of the government’s 32 members, Defense Minister General Yoav Gallant, declared in cabinet that the Prime Minister’s new objective of occupying the Philadelphia Corridor (i.e., the small Egyptian-Gazawi border strip) violates the Camp David Accords without bringing the slightest strategic advantage. When the cabinet discussion turned to invective, General Gallant took the matter public……………………………………………………………………………..
At the time, no one understood the connection between the unionists and the general. However, we later learned that he had been dismissed for having exploded in the Council of Ministers and demanded an explanation for the Prime Minister’s lack of reaction to reports from the Shin Bet (counter-intelligence) and the IDF. Four months before the October 7 attack, all Israeli intelligence services were drafting report after report announcing the “Perfect Storm” (code name for the October 7 “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation) that the Palestinian Resistance was preparing. The Prime Minister refused to listen. He remained deaf to General Gallant’s outburst. He did not defend his country during the October 7 attack, but used it to ethnically cleanse Gaza and allowed anti-Arab pogroms to multiply in the West Bank.
As a result, the question we’ve been asking since mid-November [1] is also starting to resonate with Israelis: what if Benyamin Netanyahu wasn’t incompetent, but an accomplice in the attack?
This question is on the minds of many Israelis, who have called for a state commission of inquiry into all aspects of the October 7 attack, its preparation and response. Israel’s Attorney General, Gali Baharav Miara, who considers the issue relevant, has also called for this. However, Benjamin Netanyahu and his accomplices opposed it.
This question has been on everyone’s lips ever since the Israeli press revealed that the counter-espionage Shin Bet/Shabak had warned the Prime Minister of the imminent attack 10 weeks earlier [2]. This time, we’re no longer talking about foreign sources, but about one of Israel’s security agencies.
Gradually, the story of the current coalition government resurfaces. Jewish supremacists (the Kahanists) are not just another Jewish sect. Certainly, they militate for the destruction of the Al-Aqsa mosque and the rebuilding in its place of Solomon’s temple, whereas the Haredi rabbis, both Ashkenazi and Sephardic, in addition to the leading Israeli rabbis, consider such acts impure and forbid all Jews to enter the courtyards of the Al-Aqsa mosque. They thus seem to distinguish themselves from the revisionist Zionists of Volodymyr Jabotinski and Benzion Netanhayou, who campaigned for a Jewish state from the Nile to the Euphrates. In reality, Rabbi Meïr Kahane was an agent of Yitzhak Shamir (Jabotinky’s successor) in the United States, who financed him through Mossad, of which he was then one of the leaders. In fact, during his first term as Prime Minister, in 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu had a tunnel dug under the Al-Aqsa mosque.
No one in Israel would fail to recall that Volodymyr Jabotinsky and Benzion Netanhayou (the Prime Minister’s father) were allies of Benito Mussolini, who hosted their militia, the Betar, in Rome [3]. A fortiori, no Israeli dares question the links between these historic fascists and Nazism. It’s true that Jabotinsky died at the start of the war, on August 4, 1940, in New York, without having to comment on the latter’s racial ideology. But during the inter-war period, as a director of the (World) Zionist Organization, he had allied himself with the Ukrainian integral nationalists of Symon Petlioura and Dmytro Dontsov against the Soviets. Their men massacred Jews without eliciting the slightest reaction from him. When the Zionist Organization demanded an explanation, he resigned without reply.
David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Allied Prime Minister, said that Jabotinsky was surely a fascist and possibly a Nazi, which is why he opposed the transfer of his ashes to Jerusalem.
The question arises for two reasons: firstly, revisionist Zionists conducted negotiations with the Nazis throughout the Second World War against the Allies. It was the Germans who refused to go any further in their collaboration, whereas the Jewish followers of Jabotinsky were for continuing……………………. more https://www.voltairenet.org/article221242.html
The NATO/Ukraine Defeat in Kursk (and Beyond)
by Gordonhahn, September 14, 2024, https://gordonhahn.com/2024/09/14/the-nato-ukraine-defeat-in-kursk-and-beyond/
Contrary to the view of Beltway pundits regarding the sunny side or various alleged successes of Ukraine’s Kursk incursion (https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/kursk-offensive-and-future-russia-ukraine-war-%C2%A0-212669), the Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy’s newest simulacra attack – substituting a fake reality for the real one – has led to yet another predictable catastrophe in the real world of war and politics.
Zelenskiy’s gambit had no military logic behind it. Its essence was made up of a propagandistic/PR component and perhaps a terrorist element. It was a reckless, desperate last roll of the dice to overturn the playing board which never had a hope of succeeding. Not one of the goals stated by Ukrainian officials was achieved, nor was the unstated, potential goal of seizng the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant achieved. What was ‘achieved’ was a decimation of some of Ukraine’s best remaining men and materiel`.
Ukrainian officials publicly stated several goals of the operation: (1) to force Moscow to redeploy troops away from Russian forces’ increasingly rapid advance on Pokrovsk and across the Donetsk front; (2) to seize Russian territory to encourage Moscow to negotiate and to trade for the return of Ukrainian lands in peace talks with Moscow; (3) to capture Russian prisoners of war to exchange for Ukrainian prisoners; (4) to create angst in Russia among the elite and population in order to weaken support for the war and/or Putin’s hold on power; and (5) to make Russia feel the pain of death and destruction that Ukraine has been feeling (Zelenskiy alone said this). None of these goals was achieved.
Regarding the first goal, Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander Gen. Oleksandr Syrskii has acknowledged that the Russian forces did not redeploy from Donetsk to Kursk. The strategy was misconceived from the get-go. The Ukrainians tried to get the Russians to make an obvious mistake: divert forces need for their offensives in Donetsk to the Ukrainians’ mini-salient in Kursk and thereby weaken their offensive force. Ironically, in order to get the Russians to make the mistake of diverting valuable resources from Donetsk to Kursk the Ukrainians had done the same. This led to an acceleration of the Russian advance towards Pokrovsk – a key hub and perhaps the last best barrier hindering the Russian army’s march to the Dnieper.
Regarding the second and third, before the incursion Putin and other Russian officials had repeated their willingness to negotiate, but Kiev refused or ignored each statement. After the incursion, the Russians announced that there will be no talks while Ukrainian forces remain in Kursk and other Russian territories, according to Moscow’s definition (https://ctrana.news/news/471809-v-rf-snova-zajavili-chto-ne-budut-vesti-perehovory-s-ukrainoj.html).
Moreover, as one exiled Ukrainian newspaper Ctrana.news, notes, no Russian is going to give back 18 percent of Ukrainian territory held by Russia in return for 5 percent of Kursk region’s territory. The same paper notes that even prominent Russian liberals, editor-in-chief of the banned Ekh Moskvy Aleksei Venediktov and Yabloko Party leader Grigorii Yavlinskii (who met with Putin weeks back to discuss peace talks), thought negotiations might have begun by year’s end until the Kursk incursion spoiled the mood in the Kremlin (https://uiamp.org/kurskiy-tormoz-kakie-seychas-perspektivy-peregovorov-ukrainy-i-rossii). No talks means there will be no trading for land or prisoners, contrary to Kiev’s goals.
Regarding the fourth goal, there has been no discernible elite or popular demand for a change in Putin’s ‘special operation policy’ (SMO). To the contrary, prominent hardliners and others intensified their clamor for untying the Russian military’s hands and undertaking a full-scale war on Ukraine, and this may explain an escalation in Russian missile attacks. In terms of the population, public opinion surveys demonstrate both continuing popular support for Putin and the mirror opposite effect on its views than that intended by Kiev. Ukrainian forces began their incursion on August 6th, crossing the Ukrainian-Russian border between Sumy, Ukraine and Kursk, Russia. In the Levada Center’s polling in July Putin’s approval rating was 87 percent. In August it fell a mere 2 points to 85 percent (within the margin of error) ((www.levada.ru/2024/08/29/rejtingi-avgusta2024-goda-otsenki-polozheniya-del-v-strane-nastroeniya-respondentov-odobrenie-organov-vlasti-doverie-politikam-i-partiyam/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_source_platform=mailpoet&utm_campaign=newsletter-post-title_81).
Levada’s polling also shows that after a short period of shock regarding the Kursk incursion, Russian public opinion adapted and is taking in stride. It ranks fifth in the populace’s mind among the most important events since the SMO’s start in February 2022. Concern was largely localized to regions around Kursk, and discontent with performance was directed at the military, border troops, and intelligence services, not the political leadership, no less Putin personally. Levada’s monthly polling on the public mood showed a barely significant jump just above the margin of error. Whereas in July negative feeling was registered among 18 percent, in August it rose to 24 percent.
However, Levada offered comparative context by noting that this jump pales in significance to the more than doubling (21 to 47 percent) of those admitting to a negative mood in autumn 2022, when the Putin government announced a mobilization of new soldiers for the SMO (www.levada.ru/2024/09/03/privychnaya-trevoga-chto-dumayut-rossiyane-o-nastuplenii-vsu-v-kurskoj-oblasti/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_source_platform=mailpoet&utm_campaign=newsletter-post-title_81 and www.levada.ru/2024/08/30/konflikt-s-ukrainoj-i-napadenie-na-kurskuyu-oblast-osnovnye-pokazateli-v-avguste-2024-goda/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_source_platform=mailpoet&utm_campaign=newsletter-post-title_81). Support for the SMO strengthened in the wake of the Kursk invasion as of August. Support for the military’s war efforts slightly increased (78 percent), and the percentage of those who supported continuing the war without peace negotiations and of those who supported beginning talks shifted from 58 percent and 34 percent, respectively, to 49 percent and 41 percent, respectively. (www.levada.ru/2024/09/03/privychnaya-trevoga-chto-dumayut-rossiyane-o-nastuplenii-vsu-v-kurskoj-oblasti/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_source_platform=mailpoet&utm_campaign=newsletter-post-title_81).
The only way the Kursk incursion could spark greater discomfort with the SMO and Putin’s course would be if a second mobilization is undertaken in response, since this was the most alarming event for Russians since the SMO began, according to Levada’s surveys (www.levada.ru/2024/08/30/konflikt-s-ukrainoj-i-napadenie-na-kurskuyu-oblast-osnovnye-pokazateli-v-avguste-2024-goda/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_source_platform=mailpoet&utm_campaign=newsletter-post-title_81).
Regarding the Ukrainians’ goal of making Russians feel their pain, as noted above the pain has been limited and adjusted to by Russians. Moreover, if there was pain it was in response to Ukrainian brutality broadcast on Russian media and it has led, as noted above, to greater support for continuing the SMO or upgrading it to full-scale war, which so far Putin has resisted. Thus, among those in the already noted Levada opinion survey who expressed concern about Ukraine’s Kursk invasion, the second-most frequently expressed concern (25 percent) was outrage over the cruelty of the Ukrainian troops in relation to Russian civilians as conveyed by Russian media (www.levada.ru/2024/09/03/privychnaya-trevoga-chto-dumayut-rossiyane-o-nastuplenii-vsu-v-kurskoj-oblasti/). This, as noted in Levada surveys noted above, and the fact of the incursion itself apparently provoked outrage that only increased the desire among Russians to continue the war and decreased the number of those preferring to start peace talks.
In regard to the Kursk gambit’s unstated and likely real goal of seizing the Kursk NPP and or nuclear weapons storage site in the hope of holding the local population and the Putin government hostage to a possible terrorist attack and/or trading control of the Kursk object(s) for control over the Zaporozhe NPP, now held by the Russians and badly needed to help Ukraine get throught the upcoming winter, given the diminution of the country’s electricity system as a result of Russia’s repeated attacks. So just like the attempts to destroy the Crimean Bridge and the drone attacks on Moscow and St. Petersburg, the effect of this newest Kievan-Western move has been the precise opposite of what was supposedly intended. Moscow and all Russia are even more committed to ‘Putin’s unprovoked war of aggression’ and any ‘unprovoked responses’ the Kremlin may mount.
Worst of all for the bright lights who conjured up this operation in Langley or elsewhere, the war is getting closer to ‘the last Ukrainian.’ The Kursk gambit has led to the destruction of much of Kiev’s best fighters and equipment, and it is likely many of those Ukrainian and other troops who made the incursion will be encircled in short time. At the same time, the Kursk gambit made Russian advances greater along much of the front but especially on the Donetsk and southern Donetsk fronts, which will lead to the more rapid fall of Pokrovsk, Vugledar, and the entire Ukrainian defense effort east of the Dnieper River. And do the Second Ruin of Ukraine continues with Western crocodile tears and calls to keep up the fight in defense of NATO expansion for as long as ‘it’ takes.
Why nuclear power plants are so expensive, especially in the West
David Toke, Sep 13, 2024,
https://davidtoke.substack.com/p/why-nuclear-power-plant-are-so-expensive
An explanation for a lot of the reason for nuclear power’s high costs can be found in the so-called ‘Baumol effect’. This is named after a US economist who discussed how it is that some sectors of the economy do not improve their productivity, yet sell their services at increasing cost. This includes nuclear power because, as an industry that is, essentially, an exercise in large-scale construction, it does not improve its productivity. In fact, it has been dragged by the need to make it safer away from increases in productivity towards the opposite direction. It became more focused on achieving safety standards rather than improving production efficiency. There’s little potential for production efficiency anyway since it is based on steam generation technology which has long ago achieved all it can. All attempts to build nuclear power plant in the West this century, in the USA, France, Finland and now, it seems in the UK, have involved massive delays and cost overruns. But then large-scale construction projects of all types in the West often suffer the same fate.
Economist Andrew Sissons describes the Baumol effect (see HERE) thus:
‘when productivity rises in one part of the economy — often the manufacturing sector — wages rise in all parts of the economy, even in industries where productivity does not grow. This helps to explain why musicians, hairdressers, economists have seen their wages rise dramatically even if they produce no more output than they did 100 years ago’. He also lists construction as one of the areas where productivity has not risen.
In my book ‘Energy Revolutions’ (see HERE: Pluto Press, page 30), I talk about reasons why nuclear power is so expensive:
‘Among the problems facing efforts to develop new nuclear power plants, there are four big issues. First is the fact that nuclear power plant designers have incorporated safety features designed to minimise the consequences of nuclear accidents, but in doing so the plants have become much more complicated and difficult to build without great expense. A second reason is that large construction projects of whatever type, at least in the West, tend to greatly overrun their budgets.40 In the West, improvements in health and safety regulations to protect construction workers have no doubt played a part in this. A third factor is that, in the West at least, the cheap industrialised labour force that dominated the industrial economies of the past and which could be used to develop nuclear programmes (in the way that France did in the 1980s) has ceased to exist. A fourth factor is simply that renewable energy technologies, especially wind and solar power, can be largely manufactured offsite in a modular fashion and their costs have rapidly fallen, leaving nuclear power increasingly uncompetitive.’
The point, with respect to nuclear power, is that as other parts of the economy improve their productivity, the (massively) construction-based nuclear power becomes more and more expensive. Meanwhile, those energy technologies that have the benefit of improvements through manufacturing and a rapidly expanding market – such as solar pv and batteries – become relatively cheaper. Supporters of nuclear power will always claim that the next plant will be cheaper, but the reverse will happen – it becomes ever more expensive, a consequence of its stagnating productivity. It is claimed that nuclear plant outside the West are being delivered more cheaply. To the extent that might be true it is a simple reflection of the relatively lower wage levels, apart from anything else, in these countries. The cost will go upwards in these countries as wage levels rise.
Advocates of ‘small modular reactors’ get the benefit of wishful thinking that there will be an advance in productivity based on mass manufacturing. But there will be no mass manufacturing. Probably hardly any apart from, if they are lucky, single, demonstration plant heavily underwritten by the state.
The logic of the Baumol effect is indeed that nuclear power is on a path to oblivion through ever-rising costs.
How Corporate News Has Tried To Numb Americans To The Horrors In Gaza
“a consistent bias against Palestinians.” Those highly influential news outlets “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict” and “used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians.”
eurasia review By Norman Solomon
As the Gaza war enters its 12th month with no end in sight, the ongoing horrors continue to be normalized in U.S. media and politics. The process has become so routine that we might not recognize how omission and distortion have constantly shaped views of events since the war began in October.
During the first five months of the war, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post applied the word “brutal” or its variants far more often to actions by Palestinians (77 percent) than to Israelis (23 percent). The findings, in a study by Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), pointed to an imbalance that occurred “even though Israeli violence was responsible for more than 20 times as much loss of life.” News articles and opinion pieces were remarkably in the same groove; “the lopsided rate at which ‘brutal’ was used in op-eds to characterize Palestinians over Israelis was exactly the same as the supposedly straight news stories.”
Despite exceptional coverage at times, what was most profoundly important about the war in Gaza—what it was like to be terrorized, massacred, maimed, and traumatized—remained almost entirely out of view. Gradually, surface accounts reaching the American public came to seem repetitious and normal. As death numbers kept rising and months went by, the Gaza war diminished as a news topic, while most interview shows seldom discussed it.
Gaps widened between the standard reporting in media terms and the situation worsening in human terms. “Gazans now make up 80 percent of all people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, marking an unparalleled humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s continued bombardment and siege,” the United Nations reported in mid-January 2024. The UN statement quoted experts who said: “Currently every single person in Gaza is hungry, a quarter of the population are starving and struggling to find food and drinkable water, and famine is imminent.”
President Biden dramatized the disconnect between the Gaza war zone and the U.S. political zone in late February when he spoke to reporters about prospects for a “ceasefire” (which did not take place) while holding a vanilla ice-cream cone in his right hand. “My national security adviser tells me that we’re close, we’re close, we’re not done yet,”……………………………………………………… more https://www.eurasiareview.com/10092024-how-corporate-news-has-tried-to-numb-americans-to-the-horrors-in-gaza-oped/
The Gaza war received a vast amount of U.S. media attention, but how much the media actually communicated about the human realities was a whole other matter. Easy assumptions held that the news enabled media consumers to see what was really going on. But the words and images reaching listeners, readers, and viewers were a far cry from experiences of being in the war zone. The belief or unconscious notion that news media were conveying of the war’s realities ended up obscuring those realities all the more. And journalism’s inherent limitations were compounded by media biases.
In-depth content analysis by the Intercept found that coverage of the war’s first six weeks by the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times “showed a consistent bias against Palestinians.” Those highly influential news outlets “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict” and “used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians.” For example: “The term ‘slaughter’ was used by editors and reporters to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 60 to 1, and ‘massacre’ was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 125 to 2. ‘Horrific’ was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 36 to 4.”
FBI Sued For Withholding Files On Assange And WikiLeaks
Kevin Gosztola, Sep 12, 2024, https://thedissenter.org/fbi-sued-for-withholding-files-on-assange-and-wikileaks/
“With the legal persecution of Julian Assange finally over, the FBI must come clean to the American people,” Chip Gibbons, policy director for Defending Rights & Dissent.
The civil liberties organization Defending Rights and Dissent sued the FBI and United States Justice Department for withholding records on WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange.
“For nearly a decade and a half, we’ve been trying to get at the truth about the U.S. government’s war on WikiLeaks,” declared Chip Gibbons, the policy director for Defending Rights and Dissent.
Gibbons added, “With the legal persecution of Julian Assange finally over, the FBI must come clean to the American people.”
On June 25, 2024, U.S. government attorneys submitted a plea agreement [PDF] in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands after Assange agreed to plead guilty to one conspiracy charge under the U.S. Espionage Act.
Assange was released on bail from London’s Belmarsh prison, where he had been jailed for over five years while fighting a U.S. extradition request. He flew on a charter flight to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory where a plea hearing was held.
The plea agreement marked the end of a U.S. campaign to target and suppress Assange and WikiLeaks that spanned 14 years and first intensified after WikiLeaks published documents from U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning that exposed crimes committed in U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as U.S. complicity in human rights abuses in dozens of countries around the world.
“As soon as we began publishing newsworthy stories about US war crimes in 2010, we know the US government responded to what was one of most consequential journalistic revelations of the 21st century by spying on and trying to criminalize First Amendment-protected journalism,” stated WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson.
Hrafnsson continued, “While WikiLeaks has fought for transparency, the U.S. government has cloaked its war on journalism in secrecy. That’s why Defending Rights & Dissent’s lawsuit is so important, as it will help unmask the FBI’s efforts to criminalize journalism.”
On June 27, Defending Rights and Dissent requested [PDF] “all records created, maintained, or in the custody of the FBI that mention or reference: WikiLeaks; Julian Assange.”
The FBI separated the request into two requests—one for files mentioning “WikiLeaks,” one for files mentioning Julian Assange. And by August 19, the organization was informed by the FBI that it would take around five and a half years (2,010 days) to “complete action.”
Previously, on June 22, 2021, Defending Rights and Dissent submitted a nearly identical request. It took the FBI two years to respond and notify the organization that the documents could not be provided because there was a “law enforcement” proceeding that was pending against Assange.
The FBI became involved in pursuing an investigation against Assange and WikiLeaks in December 2010.
In 2011, FBI agents and prosecutors flew to Iceland to investigate what they claimed was a cyber attack against Iceland’s government systems. But as Iceland Interior Minister Ögmundur Jónasson told the Associated Press in 2013, it became clear that the FBI agents and prosecutors came to Iceland to “frame” Assange and WikiLeaks.
The FBI was interested in interviewing Sigurdur Thordarson, a serial liar and sociopath who embezzled funds from the WikiLeaks store and sexually preyed on underage boys. As I recount in my book “Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange,” Thordarson subsequently became an FBI informant or cooperating witness.
“When I learned about it, I demanded that Icelandic police cease all cooperation and made it clear that people interviewed or interrogated in Iceland should be interrogated by Icelandic police,” Jónasson added.
A little more than a year before the U.S. government’s prosecution against Assange collapsed, the FBI approached three journalists who had worked with Assange but had a falling-out with him. Each refused to help U.S. prosecutors further their attack on journalism.
“The decision to respond to reporting on U.S. war crimes with foreign counterintelligence investigations, criminal prosecutions, and dirty tricks continues to cast a dark shadow over our First Amendment right to press freedom,” Gibbons said.
Gibbons concluded, “We will work tirelessly to see that all files documenting how the FBI criminalized and investigated journalism are made available to the public.”
Biden still slouching toward war, possibly nuclear, with Russia over Ukraine.
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL, 14 Sept 24
Kamala Harris has a lot more to be concerned about than possibly losing to Donald Trump November 5…her boss President Biden escalating the Ukraine war beyond control.
As early as this weekend President Biden may approve Ukrainian long range missile strikes into Russia, even reaching Moscow, using US and UK missiles. That would represent a huge US escalation that further overturns Biden’s initial comments on the Russian invasion that he would not foolishly escalate US involvement, least it provoke nuclear war.
But during the 31 months of war largely destroying Ukraine as a functioning nation, Biden has taken increasingly provocative actions risking wider war. Blowing up a Ukraine Russia peace agreement early on to win a zero sum game, check. F-16’s, check. Abrams tanks, Check. Providing long range missiles with strings attached, check.
But removing those strings may be a missile to far for Russian President Putin. He shot back at Biden’s deranged likely escalation charging “This would in a significant way, change the very nature of the conflict. It would mean that NATO countries, the US, European countries, are at war with Russia. If that’s the case, then taking into account the change of nature of the conflict, we will take the appropriate decisions based on the threats that we will face. Supporting long-range Ukrainian strikes inside Russian territory is a decision on whether NATO countries are directly involved in the military conflict or not.”
President Biden keeps double and tripling down on his refusal to concede it has turned Ukraine into the Humpty Dumpty of Europe. But unlike the poor soul of the nursery rhyme, Ukraine didn’t fall of the wall of functioning nations. President Biden pushed it with his lust to bring Ukraine into NATO and weaponize Ukraine’s civil war against Russian leaning Ukrainians in Donbas Ukraine.
It’s possible Harris understands Biden’s reckless folly and will pivot from bombs and missiles to diplomacy to end it should she become president.
But don’t count on it. Harris has been an unbridled proponent of US exceptionalism and world dominance her entire political career. She is unlikely to buck the US security establishment which has and will exert virtually total control over her if elected.
Let’s all push a President Harris to pivot to peace to prevent her blowing up the world. We don’t want her to be America’s last president….that is unless Joe Biden, with his reckless war escalations in Ukraine, beats her to it.
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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