Putin outlines new rules for Russian use of vast nuclear arsenal
Comments appear to significantly lower the threshold for Russia to use nuclear weapons and come as Western allies consider allowing Ukraine to use weapons inside Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia could respond with nuclear weapons if it were attacked with conventional arms in the latest changes to the country’s nuclear doctrine.
In a televised meeting of Russia’s Security Council, Putin announced that under the planned revisions, an attack against the country by a non-nuclear power with the “participation or support of a nuclear power” would be seen as a “joint attack on the Russian Federation”.
Putin emphasised that Russia could use nuclear weapons in response to a conventional attack that posed a “critical threat to our sovereignty”, a vague formulation that leaves broad room for interpretation.
The Russian president is the primary decision-maker on Russia’s nuclear arsenal and needs to give his final approval to the text.
The change appears to significantly lower the threshold for Russia to use atomic weapons and comes as Ukraine’s Western allies consider whether to allow Kyiv to use longer-range weapons to strike military targets deep inside Russia, and a month after Kyiv launched a surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.
Putin did not refer to Ukraine directly, but said the revisions to the doctrine were necessary in view of a swiftly changing global landscape that had created new threats and risks for Russia.
Russia is making slow but incremental gains in Ukraine since it launched its full-scale invasion of the country two and a half years ago and is trying to dissuade Kyiv’s Western allies from strengthening their support.
Putin has made several implicit threats of nuclear attack since launching his war and has suspended Russian participation in the the New START treaty with the US, which limits the number of nuclear warheads each side can deploy……………………………………..
‘Never good’
Russia’s existing nuclear doctrine, set out in a 2020 decree, says Moscow could use its nuclear arsenal in case of a nuclear attack by an enemy or a conventional attack “when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy”.
Russia’s hawks have been calling for toughening the doctrine for months, claiming the current version is too vague and leaves the impression that Moscow would not ever resort to using nuclear weapons…………………………………………………..
The current version of the document states Russia would use its nuclear arsenal if its receives “reliable information is received about the launch of ballistic missiles targeting the territory of Russia or its allies”……………………. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/26/putin-outlines-new-rules-for-russian-use-of-vast-nuclear-arsenal
US nuclear plants won’t power up Big Tech’s AI ambitions right away
Reuters, By Laila Kearney and Timothy Gardner, September 25, 2024
A plan by Microsoft, opens new tab to use the restart of a Three Mile
Island nuclear reactor to help power its expanding data centers reflects
the tech industry’s hopes nuclear energy can be a quick and
[?] climate-friendly answer to its massive electricity needs.
But it will be tough to swiftly meet soaring power demand from the data centers behind
artificial intelligence with new or resurrected nuclear reactors, as
companies will face high regulatory hurdles, potential fuel supply
obstacles, and sometimes stiff local and environmental opposition.
U.S. data center power use is expected to roughly triple between 2023 and 2030
and will require about 47 gigawatts of new generation capacity, according
to Goldman Sachs estimates, which assumed natural gas, wind and solar would
fill the gap.
Climate conscious investors and regulators are keen to ensure
this spike does not trigger a huge rise in greenhouse gas emissions. In
general, simply purchasing power from nuclear plants to run data centers
just means diverting it away from other consumers, creating competition for
supplies on the grid that could potentially drive up power bills.
In the meantime, the Three Mile Island project is posing a major test of public
appetite for expanded nuclear power. Talabi said four years is likely
enough for Constellation to address any technical issues at Three Mile
Island, which could be substantial when sensitive components such as steam
generators and reactor vessels have been closed for years.
Reuters 24th Sept 2024, https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/us-nuclear-plants-wont-power-up-big-techs-ai-ambitions-right-away-2024-09-24/
Assange to Testify at Council of Europe
The freed publisher will appear in person in Strasbourg on Oct. 1 to address the Council of Europe, WikiLeaks said today.
September 24, 2024, By Joe Lauria, Consortium News
WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who was released from prison in June, will address the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France on Oct. 1 after he was granted Status as a Political Prisoner by a rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), WikiLeaks said today.
It will be the first time Assange will speak in public since his hearing in U.S. federal court on the North Mariana islands in June, at which he was granted his release after a plea deal.
Assange will give evidence before the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which will meet from 8.30am to 10am at the Palace of Europe, WikiLeaks said.
It follows the PACE inquiry report into Assange’s case, written by Rapporteur Thórhildur Sunna Ævarsdóttir.
“The report focuses on the implications of his detention and its broader effects on human rights, in particular freedom of journalism,” WikiLeaks said in a press release published on X. “The report confirms that Assange qualifies as a political prisoner and calls on the UK [to] conduct an independent review into whether he was exposed to inhuman or degrading treatment.”
Ævarsdóttir called Assange’s case a “high profile example of transnational repression.” Her report “discusses how governments employ both legal and extralegal measures to suppress dissent across borders, which poses significant threats to press freedom and human rights,” said WikiLeaks.
Still Recovering
Assange is “still in recovery following his release from prison,” it said. He will travel to France because of “the exceptional nature of the invitation and to embrace the support received from PACE and its delegates over the past years”………………………………………………………. more https://consortiumnews.com/2024/09/24/assange-to-testify-at-council-of-europe/
Japan and 11 other countries call for early start of fissile material ban talks
New York – https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/09/24/japan/politics/kishida-nuke-material-ban-treaty/
Japan and 11 other countries on Monday agreed to work together to launch negotiations immediately on a proposed treaty banning the production of fissile materials, including highly enriched uranium and plutonium, for nuclear weapons.
A Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty will significantly contribute to nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, high-level representatives from the 12 countries, including Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, said in a joint statement after a meeting in New York.
“A nondiscriminatory, multilateral and effectively verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and other nuclear explosive devices would represent a significant practical contribution to nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation efforts,” the statement said.
“The participants confirmed that they would work closely together…for the immediate commencement of negotiations on an FMCT,” the statement said. The 12 countries included three nuclear powers — the United States, Britain and France.
Kishida told the meeting that a strong political will is needed to start FMCT negotiations. Creating a momentum for an early start of the negotiations will help to maintain and strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime, he said.
He also said Japan will send hibakusha atomic bomb victims abroad to promote the understanding of the reality of exposure to nuclear weapons. Next year marks 80 years since the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Going From “The Civilian Buildings Are Hamas” To “The Civilian Buildings Are Hezbollah”
Caitlin Johnstone, Sep 24, 2024, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/going-from-the-civilian-buildings?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=149346214&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
I have no patience for people who this late in the game still say they don’t know enough about the Palestine situation to have an opinion. It’s like, okay, well, that’s a character flaw, and you should change it.
Western ignorance and indifference on this issue is hurting real human beings; you don’t get to just be all “tee hee I don’t like learning” and expect this attitude to be treated as some kind of cute little personal foible.
It’s not a complicated issue, bitch. Learn.
Now that Israel has ramped up its attacks on Lebanon, the IDF is saying that Hezbollah are hiding missiles in civilian homes.
So I guess we’re doing this again. If you liked “All the civilian buildings are Khamas,” you’ll love Israel’s new hit “All the civilian buildings are Khezbollah.”
❖
Israel has spent a year committing genocide, attacking its neighbors, trying to start World War 3, destroying hospitals, assassinating journalists and lying, yet next month the entire western political-media class is still going to spend a day tearfully portraying it as a victim.
Everyone who publicly criticizes Israel gets accused of working for Hamas and Hezbollah, and now Israel apologists are showing up in our notifications making “jokes” about murdering us with weaponized electronic devices. They’re deliberately trying to sow fear among western critics of Israel.
This is who these people are. This is the quality of person who supports Israel. They’d happily murder us all with the push of a button, just because we criticized their favorite apartheid state.
❖
Netanyahu has reportedly said he is considering a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from northern Gaza. After a year of lies and spin, they’re finally starting to get a bit honest about what this has always been about.
CNN, The Jewish Insider and the Anti-Defamation League have been colluding in a full-on mass media psyop to deceive the public into thinking Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib made an antisemitic comment about her state’s attorney general. CNN’s Jake Tapper has been knowingly lying about comments Tlaib made in an interview, falsely reporting that the congresswoman said Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel only filed charges against anti-genocide protesters “because she’s Jewish and the protesters are not.” CNN’s Dana Bash then repeated these false allegations.
It never happened. They made the whole thing up. Tlaib never made any comments remotely of that nature, and the reporter who did the interview has been all over social media saying CNN is falsely reporting on her words.
It’s perhaps not the most significant thing happening in the world right now, but it does say important things about the outlets and reporters who tell people how to look at major world events in our society.
CNN, The Jewish Insider and the Anti-Defamation League have been colluding in a full-on mass media psyop to deceive the public into thinking Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib made an antisemitic comment about her state’s attorney general. CNN’s Jake Tapper has been knowingly lying about comments Tlaib made in an interview, falsely reporting that the congresswoman said Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel only filed charges against anti-genocide protesters “because she’s Jewish and the protesters are not.” CNN’s Dana Bash then repeated these false allegations.
It never happened. They made the whole thing up. Tlaib never made any comments remotely of that nature, and the reporter who did the interview has been all over social media saying CNN is falsely reporting on her words.
It’s perhaps not the most significant thing happening in the world right now, but it does say important things about the outlets and reporters who tell people how to look at major world events in our society.
Biden had another lost at the podium moment the other day, this time forgetting he was meant to be introducing Indian Prime Minister Nerendra Modi after a speech.
Biden supporters were so rabidly nasty to those of us who said he has dementia. They called us Russian agents, fascists, and conspiracy theorists. They never admitted they were wrong. They just pulled him from the race and, much like their president, forgot the whole thing.
It’s so surreal how we’re all seeing clear and undeniable evidence that the US has no functioning president and doesn’t actually need one even as the presidential race consumes all political energy and attention in the nation for months.
During a speech at the Israeli American Council on Thursday, Donald Trump admitted that while he was president the late megadonor Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam were at the White House “almost more than anybody outside of people that worked there” demanding political favors for Israel, and that he “gave” them what they wanted.
In 2013 Sheldon Adelson said the US should drop a nuclear bomb on Iran. This was the sociopathic oligarch who, according to Trump, essentially bought his way into the White House via campaign donations.
Donald Trump is a big fat Israel slut.
If the UK and US carved out a piece of China or Russia and gave it to the Mormons, that new nation would exist in a continuous state of western-backed violence for as long as it existed. Israel exists in a continuous state of western-backed violence for the exact same reason.
A push for compensation for U.S. nuclear testing fallout resumes on Capitol Hill
Claudia Grisales, September 24, 2024, https://www.npr.org/2024/09/24/g-s1-24270/nuclear-testing-compensation-congress?fbclid=IwY2xjawFgMcFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHaoow4FFmd5Ia__F-BpVC_tgR2mpWKfNIVdqg30GD9-0BUfjjDMrp1DJnQ_aem_QzuWFWxPV8Pxo44ykAqKIg
Dozens of advocates are blanketing Capitol Hill this week to continue their push for Congress to revive a program that provided compensation for people suffering long-standing impacts from U.S. nuclear testing programs.
A group of Indigenous Americans and people suffering effects from the downwind effects of atomic testing are calling on Congress to revive the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA, a 34-year-old federal program that expired on June 7.
Advocates say the program was a lifeline for individuals sickened by the U.S. atomic testing program, including so-called atomic veterans. A group of about 50 people boarded a bus in Albuquerque early this week to make a 30-hour drive to Washington, D.C., to make their case.
They are focused on convincing House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to hold a vote on a bill that passed the Senate in March that would renew and expand the program. They are facing resistance from some House Republicans who have raised concerns about the program’s cost.
“What’s really difficult for us is that when Speaker Johnson blocks this bill, he’s saying no to over 50 Republican House districts that would benefit from RECA,” advocate Tina Cordova told NPR. “They make it out to be this issue of money … while we’ve been paying for it with our lives.”
RECA advocates who will be on Capitol Hill this week include members of the Navajo Nation, Laguna Pueblo, Acoma Pueblo and Hopi tribes, as well as former uranium workers and a group of St. Louis women affected by contamination issues in their community.
Advocates say those sickened by the tests have suffered from a multitude of radiation-related illnesses, including thyroid cancer and lung disease.
“So many in my family have suffered from radiation-related cancers,” said Maggie Billiman, one of the trip’s organizers, in a statement from the group.
Billiman and Cordova are described as downwinders, or people who have suffered effects of atomic radiation that was blown from the original testing site to other areas in the vicinity.
Billiman’s father, a Navajo Code Talker in World War II and a downwinder, died from stomach cancer. She was part of a group that made a similar trip to Capitol Hill earlier this year.
The group will be in Washington, D.C., for several days, kicking off events with a briefing followed by a march to the Capitol on Tuesday morning. They’ll also join members who have pushed for the plan, including Sens. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and several members in the House. They’ll also hold demonstrations at the Capitol, including prayers, songs, dance and a vigil for several days.
On Wednesday, the group hopes to deliver medical documents to Johnson showing expenses incurred by survivors and their families to treat radiation-related illnesses, followed by a wreath-laying ceremony on the Capitol steps that evening.
“We go into financial ruin … having been basically subject to a bomb by our own government, and then left to deal with the consequences on our own,” Cordova said. “We regularly hold bake sales and garage sales to meet our expenses. In the greatest nation on earth, that’s what we’re left with. We were bombed as American citizens. … And for Speaker Johnson to say it’s going to cost too much is totally unconscionable.”
Walking a fraying nuclear tightrope
At this perilous moment, a recommitment to nuclear arms control is nothing short of a moral imperative. We’ve done this work before; we can do it again.
Politico, September 25, 2024 , By Joel H. Rosenthal
As leaders gather in New York for the U.N. General Assembly this week, we find ourselves in a world without a single treaty limiting the number of strategic nuclear weapons.
Let me be clear: In an increasingly volatile geopolitical environment, there’s no nuclear ceiling — and worse, there’s no plan to establish one.
At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. had approximately 30,000 nuclear warheads to the Soviet Union’s 40,000 — numbers driven by the strategy of deterrence, which was normalized as the doctrine of “mutual assured destruction.” And despite these seemingly astronomical arsenals, arms control agreements like the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START) managed to temper competition.
Today, however, we’re walking a fraying nuclear tightrope…………………………………………… https://www.politico.eu/article/walking-nuclear-tightrope-geopolitics-un-general-assembly/
Nuclear fuel costs soar as conversion and enrichment bottleneck strains supply.
Russia controls 22% of global uranium conversion capacity and 44% of enrichment capacity.
Jackie Park, September 23, 2024
The cost of nuclear fuel has soared in the past two years as the uranium conversion and enrichment bottleneck – driven primarily by the Russian invasion of Ukraine – continues to impact supply chains. Transforming mined uranium into nuclear reactor fuel involves several steps. First, raw uranium ore is processed into uranium concentrate, known as yellowcake, which is then converted into uranium hexafluoride gas. The gas is enriched to raise the concentration of the uranium isotope needed for fission, after which the enriched uranium is shaped into pellets to be used in reactors.
According to nuclear market research company UxC, as seen by the Financial Times (FT), prices for converted uranium hexafluoride have jumped fourfold to $68/kg since the beginning of 2022, while enriched uranium prices have more than tripled to $176 per separative work unit. ……………………………………………………………..
Companies such as Orano and Urenco have in response attempted to increase enrichment capacity to reduce reliance on Russia. However, no new conversion facilities are currently being developed in the West.
Although the US, France, Canada and China are also home to large-scale uranium conversion facilities, their current capacity remains insufficient to keep nuclear fuel prices stable independent of Russian supply. ………………….. https://www.power-technology.com/news/nuclear-fuel-costs-soar-as-conversion-and-enrichment-bottleneck-strains-supply/
1 This Month.
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REGISTER AT Massachusetts Peace Action Education
New book – https://www.amazon.com/dp/1923372157?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Now until to February 10, 2026 Radioactive waste storage in France: the debate is finally open! How to participate?
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