Nuclear news and more -week to 7 October
Some bits of good news –
Humanitarian action for children – the work of UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) in 2024 UNICEF a great example of a caring agency that never gives up.
Tripling renewable energy worldwide by 2030 is within reach. Rooftop solar is trending in Australia.
Barcelona is turning subway trains into power stations.
California bans all plastic bags at grocery stores.
TOP STORIESMedia Urge Expansion of Ukraine War—Nuclear Risk Be Damned.
Israel Planning Major Attack on Iran. Biden says he would not back Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites.
Pentagon “goes to school” -William Hartung, The Battle for the Soul of American Science.
Russia revisits nuclear doctrine to allow attacks on non-nuclear states in response to Western weapons in Ukraine- ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/?s=Russia+revisits
Finally Free, Assange Receives a Measure of Justice From the Council of Europe.
Unrealisable Justice : Julian Assange in Strasbourg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai34Uxnv_4s
Climate. Huge Arctic wildfires release 100m tonnes of greenhouse gas in a year. EDF summer heat cuts double but below 9-year median.
Noel’s notes. In praise of Joe Biden – an unfashionable opinion.
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AUSTRALIA. What nuclear power in the United States tells us about the Coalition’s controversial energy policy
Hey Australia, Ontario is no model for energy and climate policy.
Big Super is still investing in nuclear weapons: report More Australian nuclear news at https://antinuclear.net/2024/09/30/australian-nuclear-news-oct-1-7/
NUCLEAR ITEMS
| ATROCITIES. Urgent Action by S. Korean Civil Society in Solidarity with Palestine. |
| CLIMATE. Sorry, AI won’t “fix” climate change – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2024/10/03/1-a-sorry-ai-wont-fix-climate-change/ Hurricane Helene Floods Closed Duke Nuclear Plant in Florida. Hurricane Helene sends a warning. Jane Fonda: Nuclear power at Three Mile Island is no climate solution. Greenpeace warns of flooding risks at France’s biggest nuclear plant. |
| CIVIL LIBERTIES. ‘Pursuit of truth will live on’: Assange speaks to the world. |
ECONOMICS. Sizewell C nuclear project hit by fresh delays as investment talks drag on ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2024/10/05/1-b1-sizewell-c-nuclear-project-hit-by-fresh-delays-as-investment-talks-drag-on/
Czechs take stake in Rolls-Royce vehicle in boost for SMRs ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2024/10/07/1-b1-czechs-take-stake-in-rolls-royce-vehicle-in-boost-for-smrs/
NUCLEAR power is a fiscal sinkhole ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2024/10/07/1-b1-nuclear-power-is-a-fiscal-sinkhole/
| ENERGY. Ukrainian energy minister censured over nuclear plan, response to power grid attacks. South Australia sets spectacular new records for wind, solar and negative demand. |
| ENVIRONMENT. ‘Environmental impact’ of Hinkley Point C debate due.Oceans: IAEA to have marine sampling near Fukushima plant with China, others, |
| ETHICS and RELIGION. Israel’s Ideology of Genocide Must be Confronted and Stopped. Royal Navy chief apologises for ‘intolerable’ misogyny in Submarine Service. |
| EVENT. 10 October – Space Demilitarization – Live Q&A. Beyond the Battlefield: Demilitarizing Space for Global Peace A Live Q&A on Space Militarization and Demilitarization REGISTER. |
| HEALTH. Radon, even at levels below EPA guideline for mitigation, is linked to childhood leukemia. |
| HUMAN RIGHTS. Assange: ‘I’m Free Because I Pled Guilty to Journalism’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vCm6ybW2WA |
| LEGAL.Trial in New Hampshire of protesters against Elbit Systems – supplier of weapons for Israel..DOE Plutonium Pit Plan Found To Violate Environmental Law.Nuclear Waste Storage Site in Texas Draws Supreme Court Review. US Supreme Court to hear nuclear waste storage dispute. Sellafield ordered to pay nearly £400,000 over cybersecurity failings. |
| MEDIA. ‘Western Press Obscured the Sheer Terror of What Israel Had Carried Out’: CounterSpin interview with Mohamad Bazzi on Lebanon pager attacks. Meta Is Aggressively Censoring Criticism Of US-Israeli Warmongering. ‘Petrobromance,’ Nuclear Priesthood, and Police Repression: Feminist Confrontations of Violent Industries, and Movements to Abolish Them. |
| POLITICS. Donald Trump encourages Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear sites. Kazakhstan’s Nuclear Power Vote: Many Questions, But Just One On The Ballot, |
| POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Israel has given no assurances it won’t target Iran’s nuclear facilities, top State Department official tells CNN. “Hit Iran’s Nuclear Sites First”: Donald Trump’s Advice To Israel. France asserts itself against Netanyahu over Lebanon: Macron calls for Arms Embargo against Israel. |
SAFETY.
- DoJ Notified of Suspected Faulty Welds on Subs, Aircraft Carriers at Newport News Shipbuilding. Lawmakers to Investigate Faulty Sub, Carrier Welding at Newport News Shipbuilding.
- Construction of Ontario nuclear reactor should move forward despite incomplete design, ! regulator says.
- Nuclear power for AI: what it will take to reopen Three Mile Island safely. Corrosion exceeds estimates at Michigan nuclear plant US wants to restart, regulator says.
- UN Nuclear Watchdog Warns on Ukraine Plant After Power Failure.
- Russia intercepts drone near Kursk, no damage to nuclear plant, governor says.
- Incident: Ukraine kills nuclear plant’s pro-Russian security chief with car bomb.
- Sellafield Fined for Cybersecurity Failures at Nuclear Site.
- Suffolk radiation emergency evacuation plans updated to include potential Sizewell C incidents.
| SECRETS and LIES. Refurbished Three Mile Island Payment Structure Is Not Quite What It Seems. |
| SPINBUSTER. It is Time to Expose the Great British Nuclear Fantasy Once and for All. What reports got wrong about China’s ‘sunken nuclear submarine’. At last – one corporate newsmedia admits there is no “cloud” – only dirty great steel structures. ALSO AT ……. |
| WASTES. Decommissioning. First civil nuclear site decommissioned in the UK. UK Government seeks software to track radioactive waste as nuclear site decommissioned. |
WAR and CONFLICT. Glenn Greenwald: Who is Really Dragging the US Into Israel’s Wars? – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSJh4A_go6E
Nuclear Annihilation Threatened by Revival of 20th Century McCarthy Era Cold War & Red Scare.
The Israeli Government Must Be Stopped. Israel may launch symbolic attack on Iran nuclear-related facilities, says Ehud Barak. Netanyahu’s dangerous gambit to start nuclear war.
Sullivan: US Will Ensure Iran Faces ‘Severe Consequences’ for Attacking Israel.
Russia’s Nuclear Doctrine Change Is More Cautious Than It May Appear. The guns of August killed 15 million…the missiles of October could kill 8 billion. Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: D.C. Doesn’t Care About Ukraine War MASS DEATHS – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho7IOATIf9s
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. Recognition of “double madness” at the International Day for Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. Governments urged to ‘stop gambling with humanity’s future’ and eliminate nuclear weapons.
Inside the State Department’s Weapons Pipeline to Israel.
Recognition of “double madness” at the International Day for Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
In his opening remarks, the UN Secretary-General called nuclear weapons being “a double madness.” He described the first madness being “the existence of weapons that can wipe out entire populations, communities and cities in a single attack.”
In 2023, nuclear-armed states invested 91.4 billion USD in nuclear weapons.
Emma Bjertén, 2 October 2024, https://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/news/latest-news/17237-recognition-of-double-madness-at-the-international-day-for-total-elimination-of-nuclear-weapons
On 26 September 2024, the UN General Assembly held a high-level event to commemorate the annual International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. Established with the adoption of resolution 68/32 in 2013, the Day aims to enhance “public awareness and education about the threat posed to humanity by nuclear weapons and the necessity for their total elimination, in order to mobilise international efforts towards achieving the common goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world.” The high-level meeting is an opportunity for states and civil society to reflect on the progress made on nuclear disarmament. However, most interventions expressed deep concern with the lack of disarmament and described a world moving in the opposite direction, where nuclear-armed states are engaged in conflicts and new technologies are making the risk of nuclear weapon use higher than ever before.
In his opening remarks, the UN Secretary-General called nuclear weapons being “a double madness.” He described the first madness being “the existence of weapons that can wipe out entire populations, communities and cities in a single attack.” He described the second madness being that despite these existential risks, states are no closer to eliminating nuclear weapons than they were ten years ago. Instead, the UN Secretary-General stressed, we are heading in the “wrong direction entirely,” lamenting that “nuclear saber-rattling has reached a fever pitch.” He warned that established norms against the use and testing of nuclear weapons are being “eroded,” emphasising recent threats to use nuclear weapons and underscoring the fear of a new arms race. Nearly 80 years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he stressed how nuclear-armed states “continue to roll the dice, resisting disarmament measures and believing that, somehow, our luck will never run out.”
Nuclear-armed states at war
Most delegations raised concerns about the current geopolitical tensions, in particular the alarming situation of two wars that include nuclear-armed states. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s aggressions against Palestine were frequently mentioned. Several delegations stressed how the risk of nuclear war is at its highest since the height of the Cold War.
Malta argued that “Russia, a nuclear-armed state, has not only waged an illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, but it has also normalised nuclear rhetoric and withdrawn its ratification from the CTBT [Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty].” Türkiye noted that “the issue of non-NPT nuclear weapon possessing states has gained even more traction with Israel’s almost confession of possession of these weapons,” and argued it should be substantially addressed.
Several state representatives specifically condemned the nuclear threats made by an Israeli minister, who called for launching nuclear weapons against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Many delegations also called on Russia to cease its dangerous nuclear rhetoric and warned that these kinds of statements can contribute to escalation.
Increased role of nuclear weapons in military doctrines
Many delegations expressed distress over the increased role nuclear weapons play in military doctrines. Others, such as Brazil, warned that the resumption of explosive testing and the establishment of new nuclear sharing arrangements have become mainstream. Mexico raised concern about the rhetoric of those who speak of nuclear weapons as doctrines of deterrence and argued that nuclear weapons are not compatible with humanitarian law. Jamaica said it is a false narrative that nuclear weapons would provide security and said their continued existence only serve to raise tensions. Malaysia regretted that nuclear weapons continue to be in doctrines and argued that the false narrative of nuclear deterrence cannot be allowed. Similarly, Austria raised concern with “shaky assumptions” of nuclear deterrence saying we cannot base security on assumptions but must base them on facts.
Malta emphasised the importance to move away from the logics of war and militarism arguing “we can no longer accept deterrence doctrines as a given. They are fallacious and will never ensure security.” It said, “the only guarantee against the use of nuclear weapons is their total elimination,” which many delegations echoed. Malta argued that dialogue and diplomacy are the only means through which the goal of the elimination of nuclear weapons can be achieved.
In contrast, the United States tried to justify its nuclear weapons and doctrine, arguing that it is “necessary” to “maintain a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent consistent with the NPT,” and saying that it extends “deterrence to our allies and partners so they feel no need to pursue nuclear weapons in their own defense.” The US claimed to do this “alongside our efforts to prevent nuclear buildups and proliferation.”
Nuclear spending and modernisation
Despite such claims, as several delegations stressed, nuclear-armed states are modernising and upgrading their nuclear arsenals, not preventing nuclear buildups but actively engaging in them. Some delegations specifically highlighted how these investments violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). As Brazil summarised:
Every single state in possession of nuclear weapons has worked, over the past year, to improve their nuclear arsenals quantitatively or qualitatively, or both. Budgets for nuclear weapons have increased, modernisation efforts have advanced and even topics which were once considered beyond the pale, such as the resumption of explosive testing, the creation of new basing locations and the establishment of new nuclear sharing arrangements have now become mainstream.
In 2023, nuclear-armed states invested 91.4 billion USD in nuclear weapons. A number of delegations mentioned this figure in their statements, questioning the moral aspect of investing in something that aims to destroy rather than advancing humanity. The Maldives emphasised how funding is a common roadblock to address challenges such as extreme poverty, childhood mortality, and lack of primary health care and education, yet there seems to be no shortage of funds for nuclear weapons. Several delegations stressed that the investments made in nuclear weapons should be allocated instead to fund sustainable development and peace, which nuclear weapons undermine. Namibia stressed that “the production, stockpiling, testing, and modernisation of such weapons of mass destruction perpetuate war and militarism. It is not a strategy for keeping peace.”
The self-image of nuclear-armed states
In recent years, the high-level meeting to commemorate the annual International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons has often illustrated the lack of engagement by nuclear-armed states and their allies. While a small group of nuclear-armed states usually attend to deliver statements, most members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the self-described nuclear alliance, have kept their distance. It was therefore surprising that the United States this year delivered a statement. Other nuclear-armed states participating were China, India, and Pakistan.
The United States referred to its achievements of establishing norms, treaties, and practices to prevent nuclear war and reducing the number of nuclear weapons, but argued, “now these achievements are at risk as some turn away from the tools that have held back the possibility of nuclear war, withdrawing from key agreements, rejecting dialogue and transparency, engaging in irresponsible nuclear rhetoric, the slender thread holding back nuclear catastrophe is framed in this unprecedented security environment.” While these factors are of major concern, the statement did not recognise the US role in this development. It was less than six years ago that a former US president tweeted nuclear weapons threats saying his nuclear button is “much bigger and more powerful” than Kim Jong-un’s and that “it works!” It was also not long ago the same US president decided to pull out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which caused a diplomatic crises and was accused of undermining the value of multilateral diplomacy. With this in mind, it might be hard to convince the world that the US is any different from what it accuses others of being, and for those that argue that it was under another administration, it is not a comforting thought knowing that the US election is in less than six weeks away—and so far the investments into the US nuclear arsenal are independent of party.
The ban on nuclear weapons
Most delegations addressed the alarming humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons. The President of the Marshall Islands described how her country was subjected to 67 known atmospheric nuclear and thermonuclear weapons tests that poisoned the environment and had devastated consequences for the health of its people. Kazakhstan also described the devastating impacts of nuclear weapons testing on its people and highlighted the importance of a trust fund for victim assistance. The representative of the Steppe Organization for Peace: Qazaq Youth Initiative for Nuclear Justice demanded nuclear justice and described how the nuclear tests still impact the third-generation survivors.
While many delegations expressed their disappointment over the failure to adopt an outcome document in the last two Review Conferences of the NPT and emphasised their concern about the stagnation in nuclear disarmament, several delegations referred to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) as a more positive engagement. Several delegations including the African Group, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), International Committee of the Red Cross, Pacific Islands Forum, Austria, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Chile, Comoros, Ecuador, Holy See, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Kiribati, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Myanmar, Nepal, Peru, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Lester, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela, Viet Nam and Zimbabwe, indicated their support for the TPNW and its contribution to nuclear disarmament. Many delegations also called on other states that have not yet done so to sign, ratify, or accede to the TPNW.
Among others, Malaysia, Mexico, and Thailand welcomed or congratulated Indonesia, Sierra Leone, and the Solomon Islands, which two days earlier had ratified the TPNW during a high-level ceremony, adding themselves to the now 73 state parties of the Treaty.
Several states emphasised that the TPNW complements the NPT and its article VI, welcomed the outcomes of the previous two meetings of states parties, and/or stated they were looking forward to the third meeting taking place in New York in March 2025.
Finally Free, Assange Receives a Measure of Justice From the Council of Europe
In the U.S., “the concept of state secrets is used to shield executive officials from criminal prosecution for crimes such as kidnapping and torture, or to prevent victims from claiming damages,” the resolution notes. But “the responsibility of State agents for war crimes or serious human rights violations, such as assassinations, enforced disappearances, torture or abductions, does not constitute a secret that must be protected.”
In his first public statement since his release, Assange said, “I’m free today … because I pled guilty to journalism.”
By Marjorie Cohn , Truthout, October 4, 2024
he Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Europe’s foremost human rights body, overwhelmingly adopted a resolution on October 2 formally declaring WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a political prisoner. The Council of Europe, which represents 64 nations, expressed deep concern at the harsh treatment suffered by Assange, which has had a “chilling effect” on journalists and whistleblowers around the world.
In the resolution, PACE notes that many of the leaked files WikiLeaks published “provide credible evidence of war crimes, human rights abuses, and government misconduct.” The revelations also “confirmed the existence of secret prisons, kidnappings and illegal transfers of prisoners by the United States on European soil.”
According to the terms of a plea deal with the U.S. Department of Justice, Assange pled guilty on June 25 to one count of conspiracy to obtain documents, writings and notes connected with the national defense under the U.S. Espionage Act. Without the deal, he was facing 175 years in prison for 18 charges in an indictment filed by the Trump administration and pursued by the Biden administration, stemming from WikiLeaks’ publication of evidence of war crimes committed by the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. After his plea, Assange was released from custody with credit for the five years he had spent in London’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison.
The day before PACE passed its resolution, Assange delivered a powerful testimony to the Council of Europe’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights. This was his first public statement since his release from custody four months ago, after 14 years in confinement – nine in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and five in Belmarsh. “Freedom of expression and all that flows from it is at a dark crossroads,” Assange told the parliamentarians.
A “Chilling Effect and a Climate of Self-Censorship”
The resolution says that “the disproportionately harsh charges” the U.S. filed against Assange under the Espionage Act, “which expose him to a risk of de facto life imprisonment,” together with his conviction “for — what was essentially — the gathering and publication of information,” justify classifying him as a political prisoner, under the definition set forth in a PACE resolution from 2012 defining the term. Assange’s five-year incarceration in Belmarsh Prison was “disproportionate to the alleged offence.”
Noting that Assange is “the first publisher to be prosecuted under [the Espionage Act] for leaking classified information obtained from a whistleblower,” the resolution expresses concern about the “chilling effect and a climate of self-censorship for all journalists, editors and others who raise the alarm on issues that are essential to the functioning of democratic societies.” The resolution also notes that “information gathering is an essential preparatory step in journalism” which is protected by the right to freedom of expression guaranteed by the European Court of Human Rights.
The resolution cites the conclusion of Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, that Assange had been exposed to “increasingly severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as psychological torture.”
Condemning “transnational repression,” PACE was “alarmed by reports that the CIA was discreetly monitoring Mr. Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and that it was allegedly planning to poison or even assassinate him on British soil.” The CIA has raised the “state secrets” privilege in a civil lawsuit filed by two attorneys and two journalists over that illegal surveillance.
In the U.S., “the concept of state secrets is used to shield executive officials from criminal prosecution for crimes such as kidnapping and torture, or to prevent victims from claiming damages,” the resolution notes. But “the responsibility of State agents for war crimes or serious human rights violations, such as assassinations, enforced disappearances, torture or abductions, does not constitute a secret that must be protected.”
Moreover, the resolution expresses deep concern that, according to publicly available evidence, no one has been held to account for the war crimes and human rights violations committed by U.S. state agents and decries the “culture of impunity.”
The resolution says there is no evidence anyone has been harmed by WikiLeaks’ publications and “regrets that despite Mr Assange’s disclosure of thousands of confirmed — previously unreported — deaths by U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, he has been the one accused of endangering lives.”
Assange’s Testimony
The testimony Assange provided to the committee was poignant. “I eventually chose freedom over realizable justice … Justice for me is now precluded,” Assange testified. “I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today after years of incarceration because I pled guilty to journalism.” He added, “I pled guilty to seeking information from a source. I pled guilty to obtaining information from a source. And I pled guilty to informing the public what that information was.” His source was whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who provided the documents and reports to WikiLeaks. “Journalism is not a crime,” Assange said. “It is a pillar of a free and informed society.”………………………………………………………………………………
PACE Urges US to Investigate War Crimes
The resolution calls on the U.S., the U.K., the member and observer States of the Council of Europe, and media outlets to take actions to address its concerns.
It calls on the U.S., an observer State, to reform the Espionage Act of 1917 to exclude from its operation journalists, editors and whistleblowers who disclose classified information with the aim of informing the public of serious crimes, such as torture or murder. In order to obtain a conviction for violation of the Act, the government should be required to prove a malicious intent to harm national security. It also calls on the U.S. to investigate the allegations of war crimes and other human rights violations exposed by Assange and Wikileaks.
PACE called on the U.K. to review its extradition laws to exclude extradition for political offenses, as well as conduct an independent review of the conditions of Assange’s treatment while at Belmarsh, to see if it constituted torture, or inhuman or degrading treatment.
In addition, the resolution urges the States of the Council of Europe to further improve their protections for whistleblowers, and to adopt strict guidelines to prevent governments from classifying documents as defense secrets when not warranted.
Finally, the resolution urges media outlets to establish rigorous protocols for handling and verifying classified information, to ensure responsible reporting and avoid any risk to national security and the safety of informants and sources.
Although PACE doesn’t have the authority to make laws, it can urge the States of the Council of Europe to take action. Since Assange never had the opportunity to litigate the denial of his right to freedom of expression, the resolution of the Council of Europe is particularly significant as he seeks a pardon from U.S. President Joe Biden. https://truthout.org/articles/finally-free-assange-receives-a-measure-of-justice-from-the-council-of-europe/
Netanyahu’s dangerous gambit to start nuclear war
by Hakkı Öcal, Oct 07, 2024 more https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/columns/netanyahus-dangerous-gambit-to-start-nuclear-war
He is doing everything to unite all Muslims and to sever the Western civilization’s centuries-old relations with the Islamic world.
My realism-in-international-relations-theory cap on: Unless you make it intentionally, peace cannot occur all by itself. But wars can. You don’t have to do anything special to start a war. But if there is a war you want to start and for some reason, you yourself cannot initiate it, then you find a dog. After all, why keep a dog and bark yourself?
Now, the cap off; back to what is really happening!
Israeli Prime Minister (or the prime suspect of the only genocide of the 21st century that has been going on for the last year) Benjamin Netanyahu started a deluge in his country, and now he is about to let in all those who facilitated his genocide on the prospect of exterminating at least 2 millions of Tehran residents and making about 100 million people injured and sick in Iran and neighboring countries that is on the path of the wind storms of the thermo-nuclear weapons he is going to drop on Iran.
That seems the only way for Netanyahu to keep himself out of Israeli prison: It would gratify the Zionist Armageddon troops in his coalition government who would never allow the Jerusalem District Court to put its claws on him in one count of bribery and three of fraud; he denies them all. His wife and other family members have been involved in all cases.
Netanyahu refused to resign for the trial; he argued that it would not contradict his work. His trial was suspended in October due to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, raid in the occupied territories; his lawyers asked for another delay claiming he does not have time to prepare, and he will only be able to testify in March of next year. That is, Netanyahu needs to prolong that war to something large and endless like George W. Bush’s “War on Terror.”
As the Hamas Raid provided the favorable circumstances to begin his coalition partners’ plan for the “Final Solution in Palestine,” now he has ample opportunity to respond to the 200 plus rockets the Iranian Mullahs fired on Israel last week as retaliation to Israel’s killing Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon. Now it is Netanyahu’s turn to retaliate against Iran’s counterretaliation. That is his last opening to spread his war on Gaza to the entire Shiite Crescent, starting at the two ends of it, Lebanon and Yemen, and reaching to the center: Iran, itself.
Netanyahu’s Likud has seven coalition partners – United Torah Judaism, Shas, Religious Zionist Party, Otzma Yehudit, New Hope and Noam – and they actually keep him trapped inside the hardline coalition. His partners are spending billions of dollars in the Occupied Territories opening new settlements and religious schools. Hard-line religious parties allowed gun ownership without investigation. If Netanyahu ever objects to any of these government decrees, his National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir the leader of the far-right Jewish Power party, threatened to end the coalition, which might mean Netanyahu goes to prison with his wife.
This political paralysis will not only keep him doing whatever Ben-Gvir wants him to do, but he has to gear up so that he keeps his allies at the U.N. Security Council, the U.S., Britain and France, on a leash. He knows that in America going to a fateful election would not allow him to keep the Israeli armed forces permanently in the Gaza Strip. America wants Israel to withdraw completely, to let the Palestinian Authority take control. Netanyahu cannot accept cooperation with the Palestinians and he can no longer oppose the U.S. demands. The only way out for him seems to raise the level of hostilities in the region.
State built on blood
Israel was created (at the expense of the Ottoman Empire) to provide a safe refuge for Jews. But it has never been what it was intended for. Since its establishment in 1948, over 20,000 Jews have been killed and over 100,000 of them injured and maimed in the wars the Israeli government started. Not all the Israeli prime ministers were warmongers. Yitzhak Rabin, the fifth prime minister of Israel, for instance, wanted to put an end to the violence caused by Israel’s rejection of the U.N.’s partition of Palestine between the Jews and native Muslims and Christians. He signed the Oslo Accords to finally make peace in Palestine. But Yigal Amir, an Israeli law student and ultranationalist who radically opposed Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s peace initiative, particularly the signing of the Oslo Accords, killed him. Guess who benefited from this political murder?
After a brief interval of seven months with Shimon Peres, Netanyahu became the prime minister and again with a coalition of religious hardliners, he rejected the peace accords Rabin signed and began occupying the Palestinian villages and towns.
According to Mouin Rabbani, former senior analyst at the International Crisis Group and co-editor of Jadaliyya Ezine magazine, Netanyahu has three modi vivendi since his first tour of government in 1996. The first is to launch outrageous provocation guaranteed to elicit an armed response. The second is to use overwhelming firepower to kill Arabs and remind them who is boss. The third and the last is to mobilize foreign parties to quickly restore calm on improved conditions.
Forcing their hands
Now Netanyahu is the prime minister for the sixth time, and he has successfully paved the way to elicit any support not only from the U.S. but also from the British, French and German governments.
If, for any reason, he cannot drag the American generals with him into a disastrous war in Iran, there is a way to bring peace to Palestine. American politicians and their trigger-happy generals (who, overruling President Kennedy’s objection, helped Israel go nuclear in the first place) should understand that millions of dead people in Iran and their neighbors, a devastated Tehran and the misery that would follow would make all the Muslim people in the region, Türkiye included, turn their back on the West for good. Those generals should not even think that Iran is a Shiite country and most of the Arabs and Turks are not, so they won’t really bother about the mass killings and devastation in Iran! Even one single, small Jericho rocket with a nuclear bomb would not only demolish the years of efforts to win the hearts and minds of the Middle Eastern nations, but also any future cooperation between the West and the East would be impossible for the foreseeable future.
As professor Stephen Walt, whose realistic cap and basic teachings I borrowed here, says: “If you don’t want someone to do something, you don’t give them the means to do it. One must therefore conclude the U.S. government does not object to what Israel has been doing for the past year.”
We hope the U.S. still has the final control of Netanyahu’s push-button of those bombs which U.S. President Johnson acquiesced to be built in the Negev Desert in Israel after Kennedy was assassinated. (No, I don’t mean that Kennedy was killed by the Israeli Zionists!)
Nuclear Waste Storage Site in Texas Draws Supreme Court Review
by Bloomberg, Greg Stohr, Saturday, October 05, 2024 https://www.rigzone.com/news/wire/nuclear_waste_storage_site_in_texas_draws_supreme_court_review-05-oct-2024-178321-article/
The US Supreme Court will consider reviving a plan to store as much as 40,000 tons of highly radioactive waste at a temporary west Texas site, accepting a case that could be a turning point after decades of wrangling over spent fuel from the nation’s commercial reactors.
Agreeing to hear appeals from the Biden administration and the joint venture that would build and run the facility, the justices said they will review a federal appeals court ruling that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission lacked authority to issue a crucial license.
The above-ground site outside the town of Andrews in the Permian Basin oil field would be the first of its kind, designed to take waste from commercial reactors around the country until a long-running fight over a permanent storage location is resolved.
The plan has the backing of the nuclear power industry. It’s opposed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott and a coalition of landowners and oil and gas operators who call the planned facility a public-health hazard.
In its appeal, the Biden administration said the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals upended more than 40 years of NRC practice by concluding the Atomic Energy Act didn’t authorize the license. The decision put the 5th Circuit, perhaps the country’s most conservative federal appeals court, in conflict with other appellate panels.
The ruling “disrupts the nuclear-power industry by categorically prohibiting the commission from approving offsite storage of spent fuel, despite the agency’s longstanding issuance of such licenses,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued. She also contends that Texas and other opponents lack the legal right to challenge the decision in court.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton urged the justices not to hear the case. He said federal law expressly requires the nation’s nuclear waste to be stored at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, where efforts to build a facility have been scuttled by local opposition.
“Congress specified that the nation would dispose of its nuclear waste at a government-owned facility at Yucca Mountain,” Paxton argued. “By no means can the commission solve its Yucca Mountain problem by disregarding clear statutory language.”
Fasken Land and Minerals Ltd., which owns hundreds of thousands of acres in the Permian Basin, told the justices that the NCR has never authorized a comparable facility, saying that existing temporary storage sites are either owned by the government, located on the sites of decommissioned reactors or in one case set up a half-mile from a working reactor.
The company that would run the site, Interim Storage Partners LLC, joined the federal government in urging Supreme Court review. Interim is a joint venture owned by a unit of Orano SA and J.F. Lehman & Co.’s Waste Control Specialists LLC. The joint venture envisions having nuclear waste shipped by rail from around the country and sealed in concrete casks.
The business-backed Nuclear Energy Institute said the 5th Circuit ruling “will have far-reaching and destabilizing consequences for the nuclear industry if allowed to remain standing.” The group told the justices in court papers that the Texas facility would save the industry more than $600 million as compared to continued onsite storage.
The fight is likely to determine the fate of Holtec International Corp.’s separate planned facility in New Mexico. The 5th Circuit blocked that project in March, pointed to its earlier decision in the Texas case.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments, likely early next year, and rule by early July.
The cases are Nuclear Regulatory Commission v. Texas, 23-1300, and Interim Storage Partners v. Texas, 23-1312.
Meta Is Aggressively Censoring Criticism Of US-Israeli Warmongering
Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 07, 2024
I am at risk of getting banned from both Instagram and Facebook as both Meta-owned platforms keep censoring my criticisms of Israel’s US-backed atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon, placing strikes on my accounts in the process.
Both Facebook and Instagram have deleted screenshots of a post I made on Twitter (or whatever you call it now) which reads as follows:
Iran is not my enemy. Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis are not my enemies. My enemies are the western imperialists and their Israeli partners in crime who are inflicting a waking nightmare upon the middle east and working to start a massive new war of unfathomable horror.
In the reasons given for this censorship, both Facebook and Instagram said “It looks like you shared symbols, praise or support of people and organizations we define as dangerous, or followed them.”
My appeals against this removal have been denied, saying the post “does not follow our Community Standards on dangerous individuals and organisations.”
Hours later, Instagram removed a second post citing the same reasons, this one about Lebanon and Hezbollah. It was two screenshots from a longer Twitter post which reads as follows:
Hezbollah are just Lebanese people. There’s this framing of “liberating Lebanon from Hezbollah” like they’re some kind of invasive, alien presence, when they’re an entirely native fighting force organically arising from the injustices and abuses inflicted by Israel and the west.
The imperial spin machine always does this. The empire uses narrative to try and de-couple the people it wants to kill from the rest of the population in the nation they are targeting in order to legitimize the violence they want to inflict upon the country. They want to take out a certain government or element within a nation that conflicts with their interests, so they start babbling about “terrorists” or “evil dictators” or “regimes” in order to make it seem like they’re not just attacking a country and murdering people who disobey them.
If they can uncouple a nation from the people in that nation who they want to kill in the eyes of the public, then they can portray that killing as a heroic act of liberation from a force which doesn’t belong there. If they can get you to believe that, then they can get you to believe they’re killing people for the benefit of the nation they’re attacking, instead of for their own benefit.
It’s literally always solely and exclusively for their own benefit, though. It’s literally always a lie.
As you can see, both of these posts are just criticisms of the foreign policy of the United States, the nation where Meta is based. Meta has an extensive history of working hand in glove with the US government to regulate speech.
This is indistinct from government censorship. If the US government designates its enemies as “terrorists” and massive Silicon Valley platforms are censoring criticism of US wars against those enemies in order to be in compliance with US law, then the US government is just censoring speech which criticizes US warmongering, using a corporate proxy in Silicon Valley.
Meta has been ramping up censorship of speech that’s critical of Israel and its US-backed atrocities for a while now, with a sharp increase that was anecdotally noticeable immediately after the company announced back in July that it would be instituting vague new censorship protocols against the word “Zionism”. After that move, critics of US foreign policy like Aaron Maté, Jonathan Cook, and Tadhg Hickey began reporting that their posts about Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza were being unexpectedly taken down on Facebook.
I also had one of my articles which was critical of Israel removed from Facebook in July, which the platform refused to reinstate. This followed other acts of censorship that Facebook has been imposing on my account since last October, all for my criticisms of Israel’s US-backed atrocities in Gaza.
Last November Facebook deleted a Twitter screenshot from my page which read, “You don’t understand man, Hamas uses human shields. Really really advanced human shields, the kind where there aren’t even any Hamas members anywhere near them. It’s just 100% human shield with 0% combatant, the most secure kind of shield there is.”…………………………………………………………………………
I think it’s important to document all this in detail because Meta is such a massive tool of US imperial narrative control. Facebook has a staggering three billion users worldwide, and Instagram has two billion. It’s impossible to overstate the impact that censoring speech in a pro-US direction will have on worldwide human communication.
From my earliest days at this gig I’ve been making a point of forcefully criticizing the world’s mightiest and most tyrannical power structure and then documenting the various ways the imperial narrative managers have worked to diminish my reach. I’ve been algorithmically throttled on Facebook since 2017, I’ve been permanently banned on TikTok and keep encountering censorship there under my new account, and I was even banned from Twitter until some commentators with larger voices than my own intervened on my behalf.
Whoever controls the narrative controls the world, and the manipulation of information on the internet is a major agenda of the US-centralized empire toward that end. These pricks won’t be happy until we’re all a bunch of mindless, bleating sheep. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/meta-is-aggressively-censoring-criticism?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=149899947&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
NUCLEAR power is a fiscal sinkhole.
The National, Leah Gunn Barrett, Edinburgh 6 Oct 24
The Sizewell C nuclear project in Suffolk is delayed again and the UK is ponying up £5.5 billion in subsidies (but Reeves can’t afford £2bn for the Winter Fuel Allowance), and the Hinkley Point C plant’s $46bn price-tag exceeds Scotland’s entire £41bn devolved budget.
Scotland has two nuclear plants – Hunterston B in Ayrshire which ceased generating in January 2022 and Torness in East Lothian, which will stop generation in 2028, two years early, due to a rising number of cracks in its core – 46 so far. Cracks can lead to a reactor meltdown and release of radiation into the environment.
Yet Anas Sarwar, the inept English Labour northern branch supervisor, insists that Scotland must invest in nuclear power to cut bills. No kidding.
If he becomes first minister, he’ll no doubt approve the proposed nuclear plant at Ardeer in North Ayrshire that the current administration has rejected.
The private sector is running a mile from nuclear power because of its out-of-control construction costs, the propensity for plants to develop cracks and the intractable problem of what to do with tonnes of radioactive waste.
Scotland doesn’t need nuclear (power or weapons). It generates the bulk of renewable energy within the failing UK, renewables that are being siphoned off by our greedy southern neighbour with the profits lining the bulging pockets of private corporations while Scots not only freeze but pay a premium for having their own energy sold back to them. Come on, Scotland. Let’s get out of here. https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24632469.vote-scottish-labour-want-broken-nuclear-future/
Refurbished Three Mile Island Payment Structure Is Not Quite What It Seems
In May Constellation applied for a $1.6 billion federal loan guarantee — which coincidentally is precisely the amount of money it plans to invest to restart the shuttered reactor. According to the Washington Post, the taxpayer-backed loan could give Microsoft and Constellation Energy a major boost in their unprecedented bid to steer all the power from a US nuclear plant to a single company.
A loan guarantee would allow Constellation to shift much of the risk of reopening Three Mile Island to taxpayers.
Clean Technica, 4 Oct 24, Steve Hanley
Two weeks ago, the news was filled with reports that Reactor 1 at the Three Mile Island nuclear generating station, which was shut down in 2019, will be refurbished and put back into service for another 20 years or more. Its sole customer will be Microsoft, which needs a lot of electricity to operate its data centers. Reactor 2 is the one that melted down in 1979. It is in the process of being dismantled.
The Three Mile Island facility is currently owned by Constellation Energy, the largest operator of nuclear power plants in America. It told the New York Times it plans to spend $1.6 billion to refurbish Reactor 1 and restart it by 2028, pending regulatory approval. “The symbolism is enormous,” said Joseph Dominguez, chief executive of Constellation. “This was the site of the industry’s greatest failure, and now it can be a place of rebirth.”
Economic Benefits Of Three Mile Island
Local residents and politicians welcome the return of Three Mile Island, which will employ about 600 people when it restarts. “This will transform the local economy and presents a rare opportunity to power our economy with reliable clean energy that we can count on,” said Tom Mehaffie, a Republican state representative whose district includes the plant. “This is a rare and valuable opportunity to invest in clean, carbon-free and affordable power — on the heels of the hottest year in Earth’s history.” A recent poll found that 57% of Pennsylvania residents supported reopening Three Mile Island “as long as it does not include new taxes or increased electricity rates.”
Dominguez was especially proud to announce that Constellation would pay to refurbish the Three Mile Island facility entirely out of its own pocket, and Microsoft would be on the hook for buying electricity from the plant for 20 years. “We’re not asking for a penny from the state or from utility customers,” he said.
There is a lot to unpack here. The demand for electricity is exploding, thanks to cryptomining and AI. Data centers are sucking up vast amounts of electricity, much of it from renewables. That means there is precious little electricity left over to cool our homes and business, power our electric cars, or meet the needs of industries trying to decarbonize their activities. Supplying the crypto and AI sectors with renewable energy threatens to slow or reverse the transition to clean energy for the rest of society. At some point, we may need to ask ourselves just how much crypto and AI we really need.
A $1.6 Billion Federal Loan Guarantee
What Joseph Dominguez failed to mention when he proclaimed that Constellation was not asking for a penny from the state or from utility customers to restart Three Mile Island was that in May it applied for a $1.6 billion federal loan guarantee — which coincidentally is precisely the amount of money it plans to invest to restart the shuttered reactor. According to the Washington Post, the taxpayer-backed loan could give Microsoft and Constellation Energy a major boost in their unprecedented bid to steer all the power from a US nuclear plant to a single company. Microsoft is one of many large tech companies scouring the nation for zero emissions power for its data centers and one of the leaders in the field of artificial intelligence.
The plan to restart the shuttered reactor on Three Mile Island has already generated controversy as energy experts debate the merits of providing separate federal subsidies for the project in the form of tax credits. Constellation’s pursuit of the $1.6 billion federal loan guarantee, which has not been previously disclosed, is likely to intensify that debate. The loan guarantee request has cleared an initial review. It has now reached the stage where the specific terms of a deal would ordinarily start to be negotiated, according to the Washington Post. A loan guarantee would allow Constellation to shift much of the risk of reopening Three Mile Island to taxpayers. The federal government, in this case, would pledge to cover up to $1.6 billion if there is a default. The guarantees are typically used by developers to lower the cost of project financing, as lenders are willing to offer more favorable terms when there is federal backing.
Borrowing Costs For Three Mile Island
In this case, the loan guarantee could save Constellation up to $122 million in borrowing costs for restarting Three Mile Island, John Parsons, an energy economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the Post. It would come on top of the federal tax credits on the sale of the power — passed in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 — which could be worth nearly $200 million annually for Constellation and Microsoft. Over 20 years, that comes to a tidy sum — $4 billion to be exact. Technology companies already benefit from similar tax credits when they purchase energy from a solar or wind farm, but nuclear power plants generate electricity at a higher cost, making the scale of the subsidy larger. Microsoft and Constellation have not released any details about how much the electricity from Three Mile Island will cost.
The Energy Department declined to comment on the application, but Constellation told the Post it has not decided whether to accept the loan guarantee if one is offered, but claimed that any financial risk for taxpayers would be negligible. “Rest assured that to the extent we may seek a loan, Constellation will guarantee full repayment,” said a statement from the company. “Any notion that taxpayers are taking on risk here is fanciful given that any loan will be backstopped by Constellation’s entire $80-billion-plus value.” If that is so, then why the need for the federal loan guarantee in the first place?
The biggest risk to taxpayers would be if the project were to fail after a significant amount of money is spent trying to get Three Mile Island operational. Such setbacks are common when new nuclear plants are being built. The last new nuclear reactors to go online near Augusta, Georgia, were seven years late and $17 billion over budget. Constellation says it is confident Three Mile Island won’t face such setbacks because the company is restarting an existing unit rather than building a new one from the ground up. Some may view that as wishful thinking, or as my old Irish grandmother liked to say, “There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip.”
…………………… Another Kink In The Program
To hear Microsoft and Constellation tell it, every electron generated by the rejuvenated Three Mile Island plant would be used to power Microsoft data centers. That’s not quite how it will work out in practice, however. The electricity from the restarted nuclear reactor will not be connected directly to Microsoft’s data centers. Instead it will flow into the broader power grid that serves 13 states and D.C. As the purchaser of the clean energy, Microsoft can use it to erase — on paper — the emissions from burning gas or coal to produce electricity that does flow into its data centers. Microsoft is among several large tech firms using such accounting methods to brand their data centers climate friendly. CleanTechnica readers are savvy enough to recognize there is great potential for all of this euphoria over Three Mile island to become little more than another corporate greenwashing scheme, one paid for in large part by federal taxpayers.
Some critics question if Constellation is presenting an overly optimistic assessment of how quickly and cheaply a nuclear plant can be restarted. The company said last month that $1.6 billion would cover the full cost of reopening Three Mile Island by 2028. “We have one Big Tech company trying to do something that is not aligned with how the markets should be working, and they want to do it on the backs of ratepayers and taxpayers,” said Evan Caron, co-founder of Montauk Climate, which invests in clean energy technologies.
If there are any cost overruns or delays, Microsoft would probably have the option of abandoning the deal and Constellation would need to find another buyer willing to pay a premium for Three Mile Island power, he said. “This has real risk. I think the likelihood of that plant coming back online by 2028 is low to zero,” Caron said………………….
The Takeaway
There is nothing overtly wrong with the plan to restart Three Mile Island, but when the details are examined, there certainly are some reasons to be skeptical. First, when the company bragged it was putting its own money unto the project, it should have been upfront about the federal loan guarantee. Second, when Microsoft bragged it was increasing the supply of renewable energy to its data centers, it should have been upfront about how the process will actually work. In point of fact, none of the electricity from Three Mile Island may ever be used to power a Microsoft data center. There are carbon offsets and accounting shenanigans at work here, which open the door to chicanery or what some might call “creative accounting.” more https://cleantechnica.com/2024/10/04/refurbished-three-mile-island-payment-structure-is-not-quite-what-it-seems/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFvCNVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHcU7hX-pedORjEJ_lcT_tU0Hsy_C2HBPk6pbnMqSpjCnc7SnZtgJeCxCcQ_aem__L52Lun4mpFIcwhpVmUUpw
Inside the State Department’s Weapons Pipeline to Israel
Leaked cables and emails show how the agency’s top officers dismissed internal evidence of Israelis misusing American-made bombs and worked around the clock to rush more out while the Gaza death toll mounted.
ProPublica, by Brett Murphy, Oct. 4, 2024
In late January, as the death toll in Gaza climbed to 25,000 and droves of Palestinians fled their razed cities in search of safety, Israel’s military asked for 3,000 more bombs from the American government. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew, along with other top diplomats in the Jerusalem embassy, sent a cable to Washington urging State Department leaders to approve the sale, saying there was no potential the Israel Defense Forces would misuse the weapons.
The cable did not mention the Biden administration’s public concerns over the growing civilian casualties, nor did it address well-documented reports that Israel had dropped 2,000-pound bombs on crowded areas of Gaza weeks earlier, collapsing apartment buildings and killing hundreds of Palestinians, many of whom were children. Lew was aware of the issues. Officials say his own staff had repeatedly highlighted attacks where large numbers of civilians died. Homes of the embassy’s own Palestinian employees had been targeted by Israeli airstrikes.
Still, Lew and his senior leadership argued that Israel could be trusted with this new shipment of bombs, known as GBU-39s, which are smaller and more precise. Israel’s air force, they asserted, had a “decades-long proven track record” of avoiding killing civilians when using the American-made bomb and had “demonstrated an ability and willingness to employ it in [a] manner that minimizes collateral damage.”
While that request was pending, the Israelis proved those assertions wrong. In the months that followed, the Israeli military repeatedly dropped GBU-39s it already possessed on shelters and refugee camps that it said were being occupied by Hamas soldiers, killing scores of Palestinians. Then, in early August, the IDF bombed a school and mosque where civilians were sheltering. At least 93 died. Children’s bodies were so mutilated their parents had trouble identifying them.
Weapons analysts identified shrapnel from GBU-39 bombs among the rubble.
In the months before and since, an array of State Department officials urged that Israel be completely or partially cut off from weapons sales under laws that prohibit arming countries with a pattern or clear risk of violations. Top State Department political appointees repeatedly rejected those appeals.
……………………………….“But it is a question of making judgments,” Blinken said of his agency’s efforts to minimize harm. “We started with the premise on October 7 that Israel had the right to defend itself, and more than the right to defend itself, the right to try to ensure that October 7 would never happen again.”
The embassy’s endorsement and Blinken’s statements reflect what many at the State Department have understood to be their mission for nearly a year. As one former official who served at the embassy put it, the unwritten policy was to “protect Israel from scrutiny” and facilitate the arms flow no matter how many human rights abuses are reported. “We can’t admit that’s a problem,” this former official said.
The embassy has even historically resisted accepting funds from the State Department’s Middle East bureau earmarked for investigating human rights issues throughout Israel because embassy leaders didn’t want to insinuate that Israel might have such problems, according to Mike Casey, a former U.S. diplomat in Jerusalem. “In most places our goal is to address human rights violations,” Casey added. “We don’t have that in Jerusalem.”
Last week, ProPublica detailed how the government’s two foremost authorities on humanitarian assistance — the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department’s refugees bureau — concluded in the spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza and that weapons sales should be halted. But Blinken rejected those findings as well and, weeks later, told Congress that the State Department had concluded that Israel was not blocking aid.
The episodes uncovered by ProPublica, which have not been previously detailed, offer an inside look at how and why the highest ranking policymakers in the U.S. government have continued to approve sales of American weapons to Israel in the face of a mounting civilian death toll and evidence of almost daily human rights abuses. This article draws from a trove of internal cables, email threads, memos, meeting minutes and other State Department records, as well as interviews with current and former officials throughout the agency, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The records and interviews also show that the pressure to keep the arms pipeline moving also comes from the U.S. military contractors who make the weapons. Lobbyists for those companies have routinely pressed lawmakers and State Department officials behind the scenes to approve shipments both to Israel and other controversial allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia. When one company executive pushed his former subordinate at the department for a valuable sale, the government official reminded him that strategizing over the deal might violate federal lobbying laws, emails show.
The Biden administration’s repeated willingness to give the IDF a pass has only emboldened the Israelis, experts told ProPublica………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Weapons sales are a pillar of American foreign policy in the Middle East. Historically, the U.S. gives more money to Israel for weapons than it does to any other country. Israel spends most of those American tax dollars to buy weapons and equipment made by U.S. arms manufacturers……………………………………………………………………
There is little sign that either party is prepared to curtail U.S. weapons shipments. ………………………………………………………………………………………
The U.S. gives the Israeli government about $3.8 billion every year and much more during wartime to help maintain its military edge in the region. Congress and the executive branch have imposed legal guardrails on how Israel and other countries can use the weapons they buy with U.S. money. The State Department must review and approve most of those large foreign military sales and is required to cut off a country if there is a pattern or clear risk of breaking international humanitarian law, …………………
the bulk of that review is conducted by the State Department’s arms transfers section, known as the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, with input from other bureaus. For Israel and NATO allies, if the sale is worth at least $100 million for weapons or $25 million for equipment, Congress also gets final approval. If lawmakers try to block a sale, which is rare, the president can sidestep with a veto.
For years, Josh Paul, a career official in the State Department’s arms transfers bureau, reviewed arms sales to Israel and other countries in the Middle East. Over time, he became one of the agency’s most well-versed experts in arms sales.
Even before Israel’s retaliation for Oct. 7, he had been concerned with Israel’s conduct. On multiple occasions, he said, he believed the law required the government to withhold weapons transfers. In May 2021, he refused to approve a sale of fighter jets to the Israeli Air Force. “At a time the IAF are blowing up civilian apartment blocks in Gaza,” Paul wrote in an email, “I cannot clear on this case.” The following February, he wouldn’t sign off on another sale after Amnesty International published a report accusing Israeli authorities of apartheid.
In both cases, Paul later told ProPublica, his immediate superiors signed off on the sales over his objections……………………………………………………………
Paul resigned in protest over arms shipments to Israel last October, less than two weeks after the Hamas attack. It was the Biden administration’s first major public departure since the start of the war. By then, local authorities said Israeli military operations had killed at least 3,300 Palestinians in Gaza.
Internally, other experts began to worry the Israelis were violating human rights almost from the onset of the war as well……………………………………………………
. In late December, just before Christmas, staff in the arms transfers bureau walked into their Washington, D.C., office and found something unusual waiting for them: cases of wine from a winery in the Negev Desert, along with personalized letters on each bottle.
The gifts were courtesy of the Israeli embassy………………………………………………
One month later, Lew delivered his endorsement of Israel’s request for the 3,000 precision GBU-39 bombs, which would be paid for with both U.S. and Israeli funds. Lew is a major figure in Democratic circles, having served in various administrations. He was President Barack Obama’s chief of staff and then became his treasury secretary. He has also been a top executive at Citigroup and a major private equity firm.
The U.S. defense attaché to Israel, Rear Adm. Frank Schlereth, signed off on the January cable as well. In addition to its assurances about the IDF, the memo cited the Israeli military’s close ties with the American military: Israeli air crews attend U.S. training schools to learn about collateral damage and use American-made computer systems to plan missions and “predict what effects their munitions will have on intended targets,” the officials wrote.
In the early stages of the war, Israel used American-made unguided “dumb” bombs, some likely weighing as much as 2,000 pounds, which many experts criticized as indiscriminate. But at the time of the embassy’s assessment, Amnesty International had documented evidence that the Israelis had also been dropping the GBU-39s, manufactured by Boeing to have a smaller blast radius, on civilians. Months before Oct. 7, a May 2023 attack left 10 civilians dead. Then, in a strike in early January this year, 18 civilians, including 10 children, were killed. Amnesty International investigators found GBU-39 fragments at both sites. (Boeing declined to comment and referred ProPublica to the government.)
At the time, State Department experts were also cataloging the effect the war has had on American credibility throughout the region. Hala Rharrit, a career diplomat based in the Middle East, was required to send daily reports analyzing Arab media coverage to the agency’s senior leaders. Her emails described the collateral damage from airstrikes in Gaza, often including graphic images of dead and wounded Palestinians alongside U.S. bomb fragments in the rubble.
“Arab media continues to share countless images and videos documenting mass killings and hunger, while affirming that Israel is committing war crimes and genocide and needs to be held accountable,” she reported in one early January email alongside a photograph of a dead toddler. “These images and videos of carnage, particularly of children getting repeatedly injured and killed, are traumatizing and angering the Arab world in unprecedented ways.”
Rharrit, who later resigned in protest, told ProPublica those images alone should have prompted U.S. government investigations and factored into arms requests from the Israelis. She said the State Department has “willfully violated the laws” by failing to act on the information she and others had documented. “They can’t say they didn’t know,” Rharrit added……………………………………………………..
In Israel’s New York consulate, weapons procurement officers occupy two floors, processing hundreds of sales each year. One former Israeli officer who worked there said he tried to purchase as many weapons as possible while his American counterparts tried just as hard to sell them. “It’s a business,” he said.
Behind the scenes, if government officials take too long to process a sale, lobbyists for powerful corporations have stepped in to apply pressure and move the deal along, ProPublica found.
Some of those lobbyists formerly held powerful positions as regulators in the State Department. In recent years, at least six high-ranking officials in the agency’s arms transfers bureau left their posts and joined lobbying firms and military contractors…………………………………………….more https://www.propublica.org/article/israel-gaza-america-biden-administration-weapons-bombs-state-department
France asserts itself against Netanyahu over Lebanon: Macron calls for Arms Embargo against Israel
Informed Comment Juan Cole10/06/2024
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In a radio interview with France Inter on Saturday, French president Emmanuel Macron called for an arms embargo against Israel over its ongoing attacks on Gaza and now Lebanon.
BFMTV reported that he said, “I think that today the priority is to return to a political solution, and that we must halt the delivery of arms for pursuing combat against Gaza. France will not deliver them.”
He clarified that France would continue to export defensive materiel, such as parts for the Israeli Iron Dome anti-missile defense system.
The station notes that President Joe Biden has often called for the avoidance of civilian casualties but has steadfastly declined to use his leverage with Israel, given its dependence on US weaponry and ammunition, to pressure it. In Britain, the Labour government of PM Keir Starmer has halted 10 out of 350 weapons licenses on the grounds that those ten weapons would likely be used by Israel against civilians.
Macron is the first leader of a major European country to argue for an embargo of offensive weapons to Israel in response to its total war on Gaza.
The French president has been heavily criticized by former French diplomats and other public figures for not showing the spine toward the Israeli……………………………. more https://www.juancole.com/2024/10/asserts-against-netanyahu.html
Urgent Action by S. Korean Civil Society in Solidarity with Palestine.
Urgent Action by S. Korean Civil Society in Solidarity with Palestine, Facebook Page, 6 Oct 24
We Will Stand Together for Palestinian Liberation Until the Very End
One year. One year has passed as the Israeli occupation has escalated the genocide in Gaza. Throughout this past year, we saw children torn to pieces by American weapons. We saw civilians with white flags being executed. We saw the stream of refugees following evacuation orders from the occupation, only to be bombed on the road. We saw refugees burned alive in hospitals, UN-run schools, and tents in the so-called safe-zones. We saw medical staff who tended to patients, journalists who spread the truth, UN workers who provided aid, all massacred. Throughout the past year, we saw in real-time how Israel turned Gaza into an extermination camp, systematically destroying 2 percent of its population.
The survivors of the bombardment are dying of starvation and disease. Since last October 7, Israel escalated the 16-year-long blockade of Gaza, calling its residents “human animals” and cutting off all access to water, food, medicine, electricity and fuel. Children, sole survivors of their families, suffer through amputation without anesthetics, and find that they have no home to go back to. Those who cannot follow Israeli evacuation orders, such as patients, the disabled and the elderly, are taken to concentration camps where they are tortured, raped, or murdered. Israeli politicians are already planning to build illegal settlements over the ruin, and Israeli soldiers are singing and dancing over the murder of Gazans, while fake news endlessly tries to legitimize the genocide. Israel is escalating its ethnic cleansing in its other illegal occupations in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, preparing for forceful annexation of these territories.
The US and the European powers are colluding with the Israeli genocide at an unprecedented level. They exponentially increased their weapons supply to Israel, and blatantly defended Israel’s war crimes. On top of this, they imprisoned and punished their own citizens who condemned the genocide. Throughout this past year, as the genocide unfolded in Gaza, the international community failed to stop the Israeli war crimes, and failed to stop Israel from escalating the war across the Middle East. From September 23, Israel started bombing southern and eastern Lebanon, and on September 29, over the course of 24 hours, Israel bombed Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and Syria. On September 30, Israel began the ground invasion against Lebanon, and now they are threatening to start a war with Iran as well.
However, the Palestinian struggle is changing the course of history. Palestinians still shout that existence is resistance, and the refugees still vow to return to their homes, even after 76 years of displacement. The new generations are inheriting the resistance struggle, without breaking under the oppression. Palestinians everywhere expose and shatter the hypocrisy and double standards of this world. All over the world, students occupied their campuses demanding their universities to stop their collusion in the genocide and colonial rule, while dockworkers refused to service ships headed to Israel, stopping them from leaving port. Protests of unprecedented scale are filling the streets, shouting from the river to the sea Palestine will be free. This solidarity with the Palestinian struggle led to the ICJ ordering Israel to stop its genocide, and to the ICC seeking arrest warrants for the Israeli war criminals. The UN General Assembly resolution not only demanded Israel to end its illegal occupation of Palestine within a year, but also obligated member states to sanction Israel. Slowly but surely, the Zionist Israeli entity is being isolated.
We stand together with the Palestinian resistance. October 7 changed everything. To end Israeli genocide, military occupation and colonial rule have become our own problem as well. We will bring Palestinian liberation forward with even stronger solidarity. We will pressure the Korean government to issue a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel. We will hold Korean companies accountable, when their machines destroy Palestinian lives. We will reject all attempts at whitewashing that seeks to normalize the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Until Palestinians reclaim their lands, and all refugees return to their homes, we will stand with the Palestinian resistance to the very end.
Czechs take stake in Rolls-Royce vehicle in boost for SMRs.
Partnership with Rolls-Royce consortium to build SMRs in Czech Republic to be
underpinned by minority holding as engine maker vies to secure UK deal.
The Czech government is taking a minority stake in the Rolls-Royce SMR
consortium, which hopes to build and sell fleets of small nuclear reactors
to meet increasing demand for electricity in the 2030s. Last month, the
Czech Republic announced a strategic partnership with Rolls-Royce SMR to
build small modular reactors (SMRs) in the eastern European country. Rolls
beat six other companies in a selection process led by Cez, the country’s
state-backed energy group.
It has now emerged that the Czech government
will take an equity stake in the Rolls consortium via Cez for an
undisclosed sum, in a move that underlines its determination to advance SMR
technology.
Rolls-Royce SMR is majority owned by the FTSE 100 engine maker,
which has a stake of about 70 per cent. Other shareholders include the
Qatar Investment Authority, US energy firm Constellation and BNF Capital,
an investment vehicle set up by the billionaire Perrodo family of France.
It is not known how big a stake Cez will take in the SMR consortium,
although it is expected to come via Rolls selling down its holding. Last
year, Tufan Erginbilgic, the chief executive of Rolls-Royce, said his
intention was to take the company’s shareholding in the SMR business down
to about 50 per cent.
Times 6th Oct 2024, https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/companies/article/czechs-take-stake-in-rolls-royce-vehicle-in-boost-for-smrs-536q2njgb
Radon, even at levels below EPA guideline for mitigation, is linked to childhood leukemia
By ONA Editor October 6, 2024 , https://oncologynews.com.au/latest-news/radon-even-at-levels-below-epa-guideline-for-mitigation-is-linked-to-childhood-leukemia/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFvCqBleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHS5488aZnUZ2hNIA841-HCIezMi-9ZMQB1QfxQQZpYE67Zfdt00GeqwWew_aem_ccu2uE8COyQskZQX6eY3Bw
A study of more than 700 counties across multiple U.S. states found a link between childhood leukaemia and levels of decaying radon gas, including those lower than the federal guideline for mitigation.
The findings are important because there are few established risk factors for cancer in children and the role of the environment has not been explored much, said Oregon State University’s Matthew Bozigar, who led the research.
Radon, a naturally occurring gas, is a product of the radioactive decay of uranium, which is present in certain rocks and soils.
Upon escaping from the ground, radon itself decays and emits radioactive particles that can get within the body and collect in many tissues, where they can damage or destroy the cells’ DNA, which can cause cancer.
Odourless, tasteless and colourless, radon gas dilutes quickly in open air and is generally harmless before it decays, but indoors or in areas with poor air exchange, it can easily concentrate to dangerous levels and is recognised as a significant risk factor for lung cancer.
Radon, measured with small, passive detectors and mitigated through passive or active ventilation in basements and crawl spaces, has not been linked to other cancers, according to the World Health Organisation.
But in an 18-year statistical modelling study of 727 counties spread among 14 states, Bozigar and collaborators not only found a connection between childhood leukaemia and radon, but at concentrations below the Environmental Protection Agency’s recommended guideline for mitigation.
Becquerels per cubic metre is a unit for expressing the concentration of radioactive decay in a given volume of air.
The EPA says no level of radon is safe and advises that mitigation efforts be taken when radon concentration reaches 148 becquerels per cubic metre; the study considered concentrations as low as half of that.
“This is the largest study of its kind in the U.S., but more robust research is necessary to confirm these findings on an individual level and inform decision-making about health risks from radon in this country and globally,” said Bozigar, an assistant professor in the OSU College of Health.
Leukaemia, the most common cancer in children, affects the blood and bone marrow.
About 3,000 new cases of childhood leukaemia – defined in the study and by the National Institutes of Health as involving patients up to age 19 – are diagnosed in the United States each year, according to the NIH.
The annual incidence rate is 4.8 cases per 100,000 children.
Boys are more likely to receive a leukaemia diagnosis than girls, but the research suggests radon increases the likelihood of leukaemia in both sexes.
“Our study design only allows us to identify statistical associations and to raise hypotheses, so studies that can better determine whether radon exposure causes childhood leukaemia are needed,” Bozigar said.
Counties examined in this study were in the states of Washington, California, Idaho, Utah, New Mexico Iowa, Louisiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
The counties are those that during the study period reported their cancer data to the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results registry, a programme that collects and analyses cancer information.
Known as SEER, the registry is supported by the National Cancer Institute.
Collaborating with Bozigar were scientists from the National Cancer Institute, Harvard University and Imperial College London.
The research, funded in part by the Environmental Protection Agency, was published in Science of the Total Environment.
For Bozigar, the research has its roots in personal experience.
He grew up in Portland, which has pockets of high radon levels, and noticed what seemed to be a high incidence of cancer, particularly in younger age groups.
There were multiple cancer diagnoses among his own family and friends.
“As an epidemiologist, I started considering possible environmental causes and connected with awesome collaborators who provided important data and other resources to enable innovative new analyses,” he said.
“We are working on many different radon studies, and we are continuing to find harmful effects not limited to the lungs in adults. We will have more to share in the coming months and years as our studies are published.”
Source: Oregon State University
IAEA to have marine sampling near Fukushima plant with China, others
The International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday it will conduct a
sampling of the marine environment near the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power
plant from next week with international experts including those from China.
China, a staunch opponent of the discharge of treated radioactive water
from the power complex into the sea, imposed a blanket ban on seafood
imports from Japan immediately after the discharge started in August last
year. Meanwhile, the Japanese government has repeatedly urged Beijing to
repeal the ban. The environment monitoring and assessment activities will
be carried out from Monday to Oct 15 by a team of IAEA scientists and
experts from laboratories in China, South Korea and Switzerland.
Japan Today 5th Oct 2024, https://japantoday.com/category/national/iaea-to-have-marine-sampling-near-fukushima-plant-with-china-others
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