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Farmers warn over Hinkley Point C’s saltmarsh plan

Burnham & Highbridge Weekly News 12th October, By John Wimperis,

PLANS to turn a huge swathe of land in North Somerset into a marsh to make up for the environmental impact of Hinkley Point C would “destroy” homes and livelihoods, farmers have warned.

Bosses at Somerset’s new nuclear power station are proposing creating new saltmarsh habitats along the Severn to compensate for the number of fish that will die by being sucked into the power station’s cooling systems. But this means communities along the river and estuary face losing hundreds of acres of farmland.

In Kingston Seymour in North Somerset, the plans to turn 1,500 acres of prime agricultural land between Weston-super-Mare and Clevedon into salt marshes have caused outcry. Farmers, who were left in “extreme distress,” after finding out their land was under threat blocked access to wildlife surveys for the plans in protest on Tuesday (October 8).

A public meeting with EDF — the energy company building Hinkley Point C — is set to be held in Kingston Seymour Village Hall on October 14 at 7.45pm.

Farmers across the affected area have urged EDF to drop the plan.

Young farmer Sophie Cole of the farm at Wharf House said: “I am a third-generation young farmer in Kingston Seymour and all my land and property is directly impacted by this proposal.

“No amount of money can compensate me for the loss of my livelihood and exciting plans for the future.”

Peter and Karen Stuckey of Channel View Farm said: “We have a thriving commercial business which provides employment and services to local people. 

“We also have agricultural land and several dwellings which provides much needed local housing. 

“This proposal will destroy our home and livelihood and is causing us a great deal of worry and anxiety.”

They added: “This will destroy everything we have built up over the last 50 years.”

Meanwhile, at Dowlais Farm, Kathrin and David Kirk said: “We have rebuilt Dowlais Farm from near derelict to a great family home (grade II listed) as well as a thriving campsite and two holiday cottages.

“We purchased the farm seven years ago from North Somerset Council and have invested everything we have both financially and physically into this business and built it up from scratch.

“This proposal would destroy our livelihood and our home. It would also destroy wildlife habitats for otters, bats, badgers, foxes, deer as well as birds such as owls, kestrels and buzzards who all nest in the trees on our land.”

Dan Kostyla of Sea Wall Farm, another young farmer, said: “My family have been farming here for generations — I am fourth generation — and have invested heavily in the farm business.  We have a large dairy and beef farm business.

“All of this will be lost from the food chain and our business will be unviable/destroyed.” 

Another young farmer, Dan Kostyla of Sea Wall Farm said: “My family have been farming here for generations — I am fourth generation — and have invested heavily in the farm business.  We have a large dairy and beef farm business.

“All of this will be lost from the food chain and our business will be unviable/destroyed.” 

EDF said it is obligated to make environmental improvements such as salt marshes to compensate for the power station’s impact on fish populations, which the energy company said would be limited………….

A public consultation will be held on any plans before they go ahead……………………………………………………………… https://www.burnhamandhighbridgeweeklynews.co.uk/news/24646958.farmers-warn-hinkley-point-cs-saltmarsh-plan/

October 13, 2024 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Japanese anti-nuclear organisation awarded 2024 Nobel Peace Prize

ABC News, By Aoife Hilton with wires, 11 Oct 24

In short:

Japanese Hibakusha organisation Nihon Hidankyo has been awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize.

Hibakusha is the grassroots movement for survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings in 1945.

Norwegian Nobel Chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes said the organisation was chosen for its efforts to establish a worldwide “nuclear taboo”.

The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Japanese Hibakusha organisation Nihon Hidankyo, the Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee has announced at a press conference in Oslo.

Hibakusha is the grassroots movement for survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings in 1945.

Committee Chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes said Nihon Hidankyo had become “the largest and most influential Hibakusha organisation in Japan” and had made efforts for “a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating … that nuclear weapons must never be used again”.

He said the Nobel committee “wishes to honour all survivors who, despite physical suffering and painful memories, have chosen to use their costly experience to cultivate hope and engagement for peace”.

The ‘nuclear taboo’

He credited the organisation with contributing to the “nuclear taboo”, referring to the status quo wherein world powers avoid nuclear weapon use.

“Nuclear weapons are the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen,” he said.

“Today’s nuclear weapons have far greater destructive power.”

Mr Fryndes stressed it was “alarming that today this taboo against the use of nuclear weapons is under pressure” with new countries acquiring nuclear weapons and others bolstering their arsenals………………………………………………………………………………….

United Nations spokesperson in Geneva, Alessandra Vellucci, said the movement for Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors “fights against … even the idea that such a war can be fought again”.

“We’ve seen the effects of the bomb in the Second World War. We have got now weapons that are so many more times more powerful than those that we use in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” she said…………………………………………………………………………………………..

Peace Prize winner compares post-war Japan to Gaza

Nihon Hidankyo’s co-head Toshiyuki Mimaki, a survivor himself, was standing by at the Hiroshima City Hall for the announcement.

He said the prize would give a major boost towards efforts to demonstrate that the abolition of nuclear weapons was possible.

“It would be a great force to appeal to the world that the abolition of nuclear weapons can be achieved.”

“Nuclear weapons should absolutely be abolished.”

He added the situation for children in Gaza is similar to the situation in Japan at the end of World War II.

“In Gaza, children in blood are being held. It’s like in Japan 80 years ago,” Mr Mimaki said……………………………………………

Prize will be presented in December

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has regularly put focus on the issue of nuclear weapons, most recently with its award to the the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), who won the award in 2017.

“The Hibakusha help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable, and to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons,” the committee said in a statement.

The Peace Prize is worth 11 million Swedish crowns, or about $1.57 million.

It is due to be presented in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards in his 1895 will………………………… https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-11/nobel-peace-prize/104464170

October 13, 2024 Posted by | Japan, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US arms dealers witness ‘record profits’ from Israel’s year-long genocide in Gaza, war on Lebanon

The US and Israel’s ongoing military escalation across West Asia has helped the aerospace and defense industry outperform expectations

News Desk, OCT 10, 2024,  https://thecradle.co/articles/us-arms-dealers-witness-record-profits-from-israels-year-long-genocide-in-gaza-war-on-lebanon

US arms manufacturers have outperformed major stock indexes this year in a rally fueled by Israel’s year-long genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the expansion of its war against Lebanon.

Stock funds with holdings in the US aerospace and defense industry – including companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, RTX, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, and L3Harris – saw their profits soar past expectations this year, outperforming the S&P 500 index.

“That handout of taxpayer funds to Israel coupled with Israel’s, and global, demand increasing for weapons in a period of instability, has been jet fuel for stock prices,” reports Responsible Statecraft.


Lockheed Martin, makers of the F-35 aircraft that Israel has used to relentlessly bomb Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, produced a 54.86 percent total return from 7 October 2023 to the same date in 2024, outperforming S&P 500 by about 18 percent.

RTX, the makers of 2,000-pound ‘bunker buster‘ bombs that turned most of Gaza to rubble and are currently being dropped inside the Lebanese capital, saw its total return for investors in the past year reach 82.69 percent, outperforming S&P 500 by about 46 percent.

General Dynamics, which also manufactures bunker busters and is behind the BLU-109 bombs that Israel used to level several apartment buildings in the southern suburbs of Beirut during the assassination of Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, delivered a 37 percent total return for investors, outperforming the S&P 500 by just over 3 percent.

On 1 October, as Israel pushed forward with its ground invasion of Lebanon and Iran launched hundreds of ballistic missiles in retaliation for the bombing of its capital, Forbes reported that the stocks of most US arms makers gained over 2.6 percent in value.

“Both Lockheed Martin and RTX shares booked all-time highs Tuesday, while L3Harris and Northrop Grumman tallied their top share price since 2022,” the US financial publication reported.

Furthermore, the BlackRock-managed iShares US Aerospace and Defense fund indexing the aerospace and defense sector hit a new all-time high last week, extending its 12-month gain to 43 percent and outperforming the S&P 500 by 33 percent.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), between 2019 and 2023, Israel accounted for 2.1 percent of all global arms imports. During the same period, the US accounted for 69 percent of Israel’s arms imports, while Germany accounted for 30 percent.

As Washington retains its long-standing hold as the world’s largest arms dealer – controlling 42 percent of the global arms market – the country has also significantly boosted its military spending to assist Israel, blowing through at least $23 billion in one year.

October 13, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel Jails US Journalist, Fires On UN Peacekeepers, Bombs Beirut, Kills More Kids, Etc

If past behavior is a reliable indicator, the US will now dismiss these accusations, and Israel will promptly accuse the United Nations of antisemitism.

Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 11, 2024,  https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-jails-us-journalist-fires?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=150080118&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

I used to be able to write individual articles about the individual bad things the US empire is involved in around the world. These days I’m increasingly finding it necessary to cram a bunch of them into a single daily write-up to touch on as many of them as I can, just to stay on top of things.

Israel has arrested The Grayzone’s Jeremy Loffredo, an American journalist who had recently done some on the ground reporting on last week’s Iranian missile strikes in Israel. 

Israeli news outlet Ynet reports that the charges against Loffredo “include aiding the enemy during wartime and providing information to the enemy,” which, as his fellow Grayzone reporter Kit Klarenberg notes, can be punished by the death penalty in Israel.

The Grayzone has further clarified in a statement that officially Israeli police are holding the reporter “on suspicion of serious security offenses for publicly publishing… the locations of missile drops near or inside sensitive security facilities, with the aim of bringing this to the notice of the enemy and thereby assisting them in their future attacks.”

Loffredo’s report on the missile strikes features footage of explosions at the IDF’s Nevatim Airbase, as well as shots of the location where a missile landed near the headquarters of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Imagine if an Iranian missile landed right next to the CIA headquarters and the US said was forbidden on pain of death to report anything about this major news story, even for foreign journalists.

Interestingly, these same things have been reported on by other foreign news outlets without any arrests being made. As journalist Dan Cohen noted on Twitter, a report from Nick Schifrin of PBS News also featured footage of the blast site near Mossad headquarters, but Schifrin has not been arrested. Perhaps Loffredo is being singled out more because The Grayzone has been reporting on Israel’s lies and criminality than because of his work in this specific instance.

As of this writing, Loffredo is still jailed. 

In other news, Axios reports that the US and Israeli governments have moved closer to a consensus on Israel’s coming “major attack” on Iran, with the Biden administration accepting that this enormous escalation is going to happen despite fears that it will spark a large-scale war.

“The Biden administration accepts that Israel will soon launch a major attack on Iran, but it fears that strikes on certain targets could dramatically escalate the regional war,” writes Axios’ Barak Ravid.

A UN inquiry has accused Israel of “extermination” because of its systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system via “relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities.”

“The report found that Israeli security forces have deliberately killed, detained and tortured medical personnel and targeted medical vehicles while tightening their siege on Gaza and restricting permits to leave the territory for medical treatment,” a UN press release reads. “These actions constitute the war crimes of willful killing and mistreatment and of the destruction of protected civilian property and the crime against humanity of extermination.”

If past behavior is a reliable indicator, the US will now dismiss these accusations, and Israel will promptly accuse the United Nations of antisemitism.

Israeli forces repeatedly fired on UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon on Thursday, injuring two UN workers by causing them to fall from a tower that was struck. Israel has killed hundreds of UN humanitarian workers in Gaza over the past year, but extending these attacks to the UN Interim Force in Lebanon is a significant new addition to the list of Israeli criminality.

Israeli airstrikes in a densely populated residential area of central Beirut have reportedly killed at least 22 people, injuring at least 117.

Israel killed at least 28 people in an airstrike on a school where civilians have been sheltering in Gaza, reportedly including many women and children as per usual. Al Jazeera reports that they’re having trouble identifying and counting the dead because the bodies are so unrecognizably shredded. Dozens more were killed elsewhere in Gaza over the last 24 hours.

And then there’s the New York Times report we discussed yesterday adding to the mountains upon mountains of evidence that Israeli forces are routinely, deliberately shooting Palestinian children in the head throughout the Gaza Strip. There is too much evidence that this is happening for anyone to legitimately deny it at this point.

Today the US State Department did not hold a press briefing, which is understandable. If I were in charge of justifying the behavior of the US government and its allies, I wouldn’t want to face the press today either.

UPDATE: The Grayzone reports that Jeremy Loffredo has been released after three days in jail. Israeli police are still holding his passport and forbidding him to leave the country until October 20th while they look through his phone. Further updates to follow.

October 13, 2024 Posted by | Atrocities, Israel | Leave a comment

Canada’s false ‘solution’ for used nuclear fuel waste

Potentially trucking waste to a deep geological repository could be a recipe for disaster.

BY WILLIAM LEISS | October 7, 2024, William Leiss is an author, and emeritus professor at Queen’s University

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) is a curious hybrid body created out of whole cloth by the federal government in its 2002 Nuclear Fuel Waste Act to find a permanent solution for that waste. Governments tried and failed to find that solution for the previous quarter-century. Now, NWMO is weeks away from identifying the “final resting place” in a deep geological repository (DGR) in Ontario, either far into the province’s northwest at Ignace near Dryden/Wabigoon Lake First Nation, or South Bruce close to Lake Huron near Teeswater and the Bruce Peninsula. One of two small municipalities and one of two groups of treaty-rights holding First Nations will need to agree, but millions of Canadians potentially affected won’t get a say.

Last month, The Globe and Mail described the organization’s DGR solution: “For 40 or so years … big trucks carrying specially designed waste containers would trundle from the reactor sites to the DGR facility, where the fuel canisters would be lowered.”

More than 90 per cent of that waste is currently at the Pickering, Darlington, and Bruce nuclear generating stations. The rest is at far-off Point Lepreau, N.B., and in Quebec, Manitoba, and Ottawa. If NWMO chooses the Ignace site and an all-road transportation method, it estimates that those trucks will travel 84 million kilometres on Canadian roads.

Each truckload will hold exactly 192 used fuel bundles, packed into a special steel container weighing 35 tonnes. The current array of operating reactors will ultimately produce a total of six million bundles. But that figure doesn’t include the announced “Bruce C” development of new reactors, or other new ones yet to be unveiled, adding at least two million more bundles. Eight million bundles will require 40,000 truckloads over at least a 40-year period.

And there will be a further 20,000 dry-cask containers in which those bundles had previously been stored which will also require transportation to a DGR. Empty, they each weigh 60 tonnes and will be radioactive. They will need to be cut in half due to their weight, adding up to another 40,000 truckloads. If they go to a DGR in Ignace, that will add another 84 million kilometres of truck travel on Canadian roads. (The NWMO has not done this estimate.)

Is everybody OK with all this? Are most Canadians even aware of these scenarios? The NWMO says that the containers on the trucks will survive any imaginable road accident, and no radioactivity will escape. But trucks travelling 168 million kilometres are—quite obviously—going to be involved in a fair number of road accidents, some serious, across those four or more decades. In those cases, folks likely will be told, “Don’t worry, it may look awful, but you and your kids won’t be irradiated.”

The two small communities designated as potential “hosts” for the DGR do not, apparently, care too much about the transportation issue. However, others are starting to become alarmed, especially in and around the city of Thunder Bay, which is on the road route for those 80,000 trucks if the DGR is sited in Ignace. If the choice is South Bruce, well, who knows? The NWMO has not published any kind of transportation plan for that choice. Just looking at a map, however, a lot of those trucks will have to go through or near the already grid-locked GTA.

And what about the First Nations? Here’s where things get interesting. The designated First Nation treaty rights holders for the Ignace site are the 28 First Nation communities of Grand Council Treaty 3, the governing body of the Anishinaabe Nation in Treaty 3, which maintains rights to all lands and water in the territory. Development in the Treaty 3 territory requires the consent, agreement, and participation of the Anishinaabe Nation in Treaty 3. To date, that consent hasn’t been granted.

The designated First Nation treaty rights holder for the South Bruce site is Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON): the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation–Neyaashiinigmiing Anishinaabek, and the Chippewas of Saugeen First Nation. CBC News recently quoted Greg Nadjiwon, one of SON’s two chiefs, that “if you think about how many [other] treaty territories that waste would have to go through, I don’t think it will happen.” The CBC then paraphrased the chief: “Nadjiwon says even if Ignace and nearby Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation say yes to the proposed nuclear dump, he doubts the spent nuclear fuel from the Bruce station, which is currently in temporary storage, would ever leave his nation’s traditional territory.” Mere weeks from a site selection announcement, there clearly isn’t agreement.

NWMO’s approach isn’t going to work. Canadians do not have an acceptable solution to the problem of long-term storage or disposal of used nuclear fuel. It’s past time to consider some alternative options.

October 13, 2024 Posted by | Canada, safety | Leave a comment

Slaughter In Gaza And Lebanon As War With Iran Approaches

And the US is encouraging Israel to move forward. On Tuesday State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller told the press that the Biden administration no longer supports a ceasefire with Hezbollah, saying “We support Israel’s efforts to degrade Hezbollah’s capability” instead. Two weeks ago CNN reported that the administration has also essentially given up on a ceasefire in Gaza.

Whoever wins the US election in November appears to be committed to riding with Israel down this path into the depths of hell. 

Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 09, 2024 https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/slaughter-in-gaza-and-lebanon-as?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=149992165&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Israel appears to have begun its long-planned ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza, with the IDF dropping bombs, issuing evacuation orders for multiple hospitals, attacking civilians with sniper drones, and besieging civilian populations in order to force tens of thousands of people to either move south or die. Israel has reportedly been dropping leaflets on the Jabalia refugee camp ordering people to leave, and then shooting anyone who tries to.

Since the seventh of October last year Israel has committed roughly 100 October sevenths in Gaza; scores of American medical workers who volunteered in the enclave signed an open letter to president Biden estimating the real death toll from Israel’s onslaught at over 118,000. Israel has also committed about two October sevenths in Lebanon during that time, with the majority of the 2,100 Israeli killings in that country coming just in the last few weeks.

As Israeli murderousness ramps up in both Gaza and Lebanon, Benjamin Netanyahu has issued a statement addressed to the Lebanese people telling them that they need to somehow defeat Hezbollah in order to “save Lebanon before it plunges into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza.”

Israeli officials have been saying they’re going to destroy Lebanon like they destroyed Gaza for months. Back in December Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant said, “Every person in Lebanon can take the map, the aerial photograph of Gaza, place it on an aerial photograph of Beirut, and ask themselves if this is what they want to happen there.” Now Netanyahu himself is saying this.

Notably, Netanyahu’s statement was delivered in English, with English subtitles. This wasn’t actually a plea made to the people of Lebanon, it was propaganda made for western consumption. Netanyahu does not actually believe the Lebanese people are going to take up arms against Hezbollah to stop their country from being destroyed, he’s just creating a narrative to justify what he already plans on doing to Lebanon.

And the US is encouraging Israel to move forward. On Tuesday State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller told the press that the Biden administration no longer supports a ceasefire with Hezbollah, saying “We support Israel’s efforts to degrade Hezbollah’s capability” instead. Two weeks ago CNN reported that the administration has also essentially given up on a ceasefire in Gaza.

And we haven’t even talked about Iran yet. NBC News reports that US military officials have been discussing directly joining in Israel’s planned attack on Iran, potentially launching their own airstrikes on the Iranian military whenever Israel begins its attack. 

Whether the US joins with Israel in its coming attack or not, Iran has already made it clear that it will retaliate against any further aggressions by Israel, and Israel has made it clear that if Iran strikes back it’s going to ramp up its aggressions and perhaps start attacking Iranian energy infrastructure. If this blows up into full-scale war, as looks increasingly likely, it’s inevitable that the US will come to Israel’s defense.

Axios and its Israeli intelligence insider Barak Ravid have a new report out on how super duper frustrated the Biden administration is becoming with Israeli warmongering. In typical Axios fashion the outlet reports that the White House is becoming “increasingly distrustful” of Israel’s planned military operations against Iran and Lebanon, but that, in typical Biden administration fashion, its American sources admit that the US “would very likely help Israel defend itself regardless” of whatever happens.

Whoever wins the US election in November appears to be committed to riding with Israel down this path into the depths of hell. 

In an interview with 60 Minutes, Vice President Kamala Harris defended the Biden administration’s genocidal support for Israel, saying the weapons it has been giving them “allow Israel to defend itself.” She also named Iran as the number one enemy of the United States.

In an appearance on The View, Harris was asked what she would have done differently from President Biden, and she said “There is not a thing that comes to mind.” Then later she added, “You asked me what is the difference between Joe Biden and me, that will be one of the differences: I’m going to have a Republican in my Cabinet.”

And lest you make the mistake of thinking Trump would be any better, last week the former president said that Israel should attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, and criticized the Biden administration for not being sufficiently aggressive on this front.

“They asked [Biden], what do you think about Iran, would you hit Iran?” Trump said at a campaign event on Friday. “And he goes, ‘As long as they don’t hit the nuclear stuff.’ That’s the thing you want to hit, right? I said I think he’s got that one wrong.”

Anyone who still says Trump is a peacemaker is a damn fool. Statements like this are in full alignment with the absolute worst warmongers in Washington like John Bolton or Lindsey Graham.

Anyway, that’s where we’re at right now. That’s the trajectory the US empire has us on. An active genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the threat of another extermination campaign in Lebanon, and acceleration toward a direct war of unimaginable horror with Iran.

These psychos must be stopped.

October 13, 2024 Posted by | MIDDLE EAST, weapons and war | Leave a comment

“Greater Israel:” Cabinet Minister Plots Seizure of Territory from 6 Neighbors, including Lebanon

Gaining territory from other countries by military means is prohibited by the United Nations Charter, to which Israel is a signatory.

Juan Cole, 10/11/2024,  https://www.juancole.com/2024/10/territory-neighbors-including.html—

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Thursday that Israel has no designs on Turkey, denying charges by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan that “the Israeli government, which has gone mad in the Holy Land, will possibly target our homeland with its religious fanaticism after Palestine and Lebanon.”

Unfortunately for Herzog, on the same day, remarks surfaced from 2016 by Minister of Finance and Civil Administrator of the Palestinian West Bank, Bezalel Smotrich, which gave credence to Erdogan’s fears of Israeli expansionism. Smotrich belongs to the Kahanaist, Religious Zionism Party, the Israeli equivalent of Neo-Nazism.

Herzog is a member of the center-left Labor Party, which at some points has been willing to accept a Palestinian state. Labor itself, however, has attempted to expand Israeli territory at the expense of its neighbors on some occasions, as with its seizure of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Palestinian Gaza in 1956, and again in 1967 with its seizure of the Palestine territories of Gaza and the West Bank, along with the Sinai and the Syrian Golan Heights.

The Jordanian foreign ministry on Thursday condemned the remarks by Smotrich as a “reflection of religious fanaticism.” In a television interview that has resurfaced on social media, Smotrich said that a prophecy predicted that Jerusalem would extend to Damascus. He also said that Israel would extend to the east of the Jordan River into the country of Jordan, and would have parts of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. It goes without saying that he wanted, as well, Gaza and the West Bank. Smotrich in 2016 was a member of parliament for the Jewish Home Party (HaBayit HaYehudi), one of the components of his present Religious Zionism Party.

Gaining territory from other countries by military means is prohibited by the United Nations Charter, to which Israel is a signatory.

Smotrich is allied with Jewish Power extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir, the minister of national security. Although the two are often underestimated, they appear to have a hold on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and have been central to the prosecution of the total war on Gaza and now Lebanon.

The two are advocating an Israeli military occupation of Gaza like that in the Palestinian West Bank, as well as the establishment of Israelis squatter-settlements in Gaza. They also want the Israeli army to take over the task of the distribution of food aid, though they advocate limiting daily calories available to Palestinians to what is sufficient to keep them from starvation.

October 13, 2024 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Hinkley Point C saltmarsh plans ‘a disaster’, say MPs

A debate was held in Westminster Hall on October 10

Somerset Live By Daniel Mumby, Local Democracy Reporter, 11 Oct 24

Creating saltmarshes to offset the impact of Somerset’s new nuclear power station would be “a disaster”, according to local MPs. EDF Energy held a public consultation in January and February over its proposals for new saltmarshes on the Pawlett Hams, which lie on the right bank of the River Parrett near the villages of Combwich and Pawlett.

The company U-turned in early-September following a successful campaign by local residents, and is currently exploring four additional sites in Somerset and Gloucestershire which could offset the construction of Hinkley Point C. But local MPs have warned that saltmarshes will not address the underlying environmental issues and could harm existing flood defences

Sir Ashley Fox, the Conservative MP for Bridgwater, secured a parliamentary debate on this issue, which took place in Westminster Hall on Wednesday morning (October 9). He said: “The Pawlett Hams proposal was highly unpopular with the local community.

“In fact, it was difficult to find anyone who thought it was a good idea, and when I met representatives from EDF, even they seemed a little half-hearted about it.” When EDF Energy secured planning permission to build Hinkley Point C, it set out three separate proposals to prevent the loss of fish stocks in the Bristol Channel, from which water will be sourced to cool the power station’s reactor:……………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/hinkley-point-c-saltmarsh-plans-9620846

 

October 13, 2024 Posted by | environment | Leave a comment

EDF Seeks to Raise Up to £4 Billion to Help Fund Construction of UK’s Hinkley Nuclear Plant

  • Company is talking to funds for a stake sale in Hinkley Point
  • EDF would reimburse investors if the nuclear project fails


Electricite de France SA is holding talks with investors over funding for
the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant under construction in the UK, as
the French utility grapples with the ballooning cost of the project.

EDF is seeking to raise as much as £4 billion ($5.2 billion) through a bespoke
financial instrument which would give investors a stake in the Hinkley
project, people familiar with the matter said asking not to be named
because the discussions are private. Investors would be reimbursed if the
construction isn’t completed, one of the people said.

 Bloomberg 10th Oct 2024

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-10/edf-looks-for-fresh-4-billion-to-fund-costly-hinkley-uk-nuclear-plant

October 13, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Are DOE and NNSA Complying with the National Environmental Policy Act?

The Court found the DOE’s plan had fundamentally changed from the one site plan to its two site plan.  DOE did not consider alternatives while moving forward and spending tens of billions of taxpayers’ dollars.  The Court found that the plaintiffs had standing to challenge DOE’s two-site plan.

October 10th, 2024,  https://nuclearactive.org/

On Monday, September 30th, United States District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis ruled that the Department of Energy (DOE) and its National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) because the federal agencies failed to take a “hard look” at the alternatives to fabricate plutonium pits, or the triggers, for nuclear weapons at two of its sites. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) was created to design and fabricate the atomic bombs used during World War II.  The Savannah River Site in South Carolina has never fabricated pits for nuclear weapons.

In the late 2000s, DOE released for public review and comment its Complex Transformation Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement stating that pit production would take place exclusively at LANL.  https://www.energy.gov/nepa/doeeis-0236-s4-complex-transformation-supplemental-programmatic-environmental-impact-statement 

Yet in 2019 DOE expanded its proposal to improve the resiliency, flexibility and redundance of the nuclear security enterprise to also fabricate plutonium pits at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.  DOE failed to prepare a new NEPA document for public review and comment detailing how the two sites would interact to fabricate up to 80 plutonium pits per year.

A coalition of non-governmental organizations challenged DOE’s action in the United States District Court of South Carolina.  The plaintiffs are the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition https://gullahgeecheenation.com/gullahgeechee-sea-island-coalition/ , Nuclear Watch New Mexico https://nukewatch.org/home/ , Savannah River Site Watch https://srswatch.org/ , and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, or Tri-Valley CARES https://trivalleycares.org/ ,  and individual Tom Clements.  They are represented by Ben Cunningham of the South Carolina Environmental Law Project https://www.scelp.org/ .

The Court found the DOE’s plan had fundamentally changed from the one site plan to its two site plan.  DOE did not consider alternatives while moving forward and spending tens of billions of taxpayers’ dollars.  The Court found that the plaintiffs had standing to challenge DOE’s two-site plan.

Cunningham said, “This is a significant victory that will ensure NEPA’s goal of public participation is satisfied.  Public scrutiny is especially important because the activities at issue here, by their very nature, result in the production of dangerous weapons and extensive amounts of toxic and radioactive waste.  I hope the public will seize the upcoming opportunity to review and comment on the federal agencies’ assessment.”

The Court ordered the parties to confer and present the Court with a joint proposal about appropriate remedies to resolve the case, including “Plaintiffs’ request for injunctive relief.”  The proposal is due to the Court on Friday, October 25th.

To access the Court documents, go to:  https://nukewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Court-Rules-U.S.-Nuclear-Weapons-Production-Plan-Violates-Federal-Law.pdf

October 13, 2024 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

A new military-industrial complex: How tech bros are hyping AI’s role in war

The current debate on military AI is largely driven by “tech bros” and other entrepreneurs who stand to profit immensely from militaries’ uptake of AI-enabled capabilities.

the new military-industrial complex wherein business leaders are framing the future direction of war, despite their lack of military experience.

Bulletin, By Paul Lushenko, Keith Carter | October 7, 2024

Since the emergence of generative artificial intelligence, scholars have speculated about the technology’s implications for the character, if not nature, of war. The promise of AI on battlefields and in war rooms has beguiled scholars. They characterize AI as “game-changing,” “revolutionary,” and “perilous,” especially given the potential of great power war involving the United States and China or Russia.

In the context of great power war, where adversaries have parity of military capabilities, scholars claim that AI is the sine qua non, absolutely required for victory. This assessment is predicated on the presumed implications of AI for the “sensor-to-shooter” timeline, which refers to the interval of time between acquiring and prosecuting a target. By adopting AI, or so the argument goes, militaries can reduce the sensor-to-shooter timeline and maintain lethal overmatch against peer adversaries…………………..

 It encourages policymakers and defense officials to follow what can be called a “primrose path of AI-enabled warfare,” which is codified in the US military’s “third offset” strategy……………………

The current debate on military AI is largely driven by “tech bros” and other entrepreneurs who stand to profit immensely from militaries’ uptake of AI-enabled capabilities. Despite their influence on the conversation, these tech industry figures have little to no operational experience, meaning they cannot draw from first-hand accounts of combat to further justify arguments that AI is changing the character, if not nature, of war. Rather, they capitalize on their impressive business successes to influence a new model of capability development through opinion pieces in high-profile journals, public addresses at acclaimed security conferences, and presentations at top-tier universities.

To the extent analysts do explore the implications of AI for warfighting, such as during the conflicts in Gaza, Libya, and Ukraine, they highlight limited—and debatable—examples of its use, embellish its impacts, conflate technology with organizational improvements provided by AI, and draw generalizations about future warfare.

It is possible that AI-enabled technologies, such as lethal autonomous weapon systems or “killer robots,” will someday dramatically alter war. Yet the current debate for the implications of AI on warfighting discounts critical political, operational, and normative considerations that imply AI may not have the revolutionary impacts that its proponents claim, at least not now.

………………………………………………….. Our research suggests that three related considerations have combined to shape the hype surrounding military AI, informing the primrose path of AI-enabled warfare. First, that primrose path is paved by the emergence of a new military industrial complex that is dependent on commercial service providers. Second, this new defense acquisition process is the cause and effect of a narrative suggesting a global AI arms race, which has encouraged scholars to discount the normative implications of AI-enabled warfare. Finally, while analysts assume that soldiers will trust AI, which is integral to human-machine teaming that facilitates AI-enabled warfare, trust is not guaranteed.

………………………………………………………………….The primrose path of AI-enabled warfare is paved by a new military-industrial complex. Countries typically acquire military technologies, such as drones, for reasons that relate to supply, demand, and status considerations………………………………………………………………………

The political economy of the primrose path of AI-enabled warfare is different. It flips these defense acquisition processes on their heads such that industry drives, rather than responds to, militaries’ requirements for new capabilities. This approach reflects the United States’ historical preference for technology standards that are based on a “bottom-up, laissez-faire corporate-led strategy,” which emphasizes the anticipated economic advantages of leading-sector innovation.

These industry drivers consist of businesses that are funded by venture capitalists, including Anduril, Black Cape, Inc., Clarifai, CrowdAI, and ScaleAI; established defense contractors such as AWS, ECS Federal, IBM, Maxar, Microsoft, Palantir, Raytheon, and the Sierra Nevada Corporation; and business magnates like Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and Eric Schmidt. ………………………………………….. Luckey, founder of Anduril, promises to “save western civilization…as we make tens and tens of billions of dollars a year.”

Similarly, Musk’s Starlink uses low-earth orbit satellites to provide militaries’ assured communication in expeditionary and contested environments. Earlier in its war with Russia, Musk decided if Ukraine could use the Starlink satellite network, thus shaping the country’s military operations against Russia on the basis of his fears of crisis escalation. Schmidt’s new start-up, White Stork (previously Swift Beat), is designed to develop fully-autonomous drones. Schmidt, capitalizing on his previous roles as Chairman of the National Security Commission on AI and Director of the Defense Innovation Board, also instantiates the new military-industrial complex wherein business leaders are framing the future direction of war, despite their lack of military experience.

……………………………………………………………………………..the primrose path of AI-enabled warfare is also shaped by a military-industrial complex that provides technical warfighting solutions as a service, meaning they often do not respond to validated military requirements. Thus, companies’ have hedged their bets, investing billions of dollars into end-to-end AI-enabled technologies that they assume militaries will need to purchase to maintain lethal overmatch of adversaries during future conflict. This also means that businesses, especially their software engineers referred to as field engineers, are embedded within military organizations to an unprecedented degree that may muddle the legitimate use of force, at least for some critics.

………………………………………….. an assumption that a monopoly over these technologies will result in economic gains that undergird military power and shape the global balance of power. Russian president Vladimir Putin argued that whoever leads the development of AI will dominate the world; President Xi Jinping intends for China to surpass the United States as the world’s leader of AI development by 2030; and the United States is outspending other countries for AI development……………………………….survey research in the United States shows that support for AI-enabled warfare among both the public and military is strongly shaped by a perceived AI arms race globally.

This perspective has implications for the legal, moral, and ethical considerations that shape countries’ use of force, which scholars emphasize to greater or lesser degrees when characterizing future war. Skeptics caution that AI-enabled warfare will deskill humans and supplant their agency, leading to unintended consequences including crisis escalation, civilian casualties, and accountability and responsibility gaps for these outcomes.

………………………………………………………….Soldiers do not trust AI. The military-industrial complex, and the narratives of an AI arms race that encourages it, assumes that soldiers will trust human-machine teaming. In a recent opinion piece with Schmidt, Mark Milley, formerly chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, pontificated that “soldiers could sip coffee in their offices, monitoring screens far from the battlefield, as an AI system manages all kinds of robotic war machines.” Despite this sanguine prediction, it is unclear what shapes soldiers’ trust in AI, thus encouraging them to overcome inherent skepticism of machines.

…………………………………………………………………. Our findings suggest that soldiers’ trust in AI is not a foregone conclusion. Further, we found that trust is complex and multidimensional. Importantly, these findings are consistent across the military ranks.

First, senior officers do not trust AI-enhanced capabilities. …………………………………………………………………………………

Visualizing the future of war. Still, it is not only likely, but probable, that AI will shape future warfare in unique ways. As discussed above, the development of AI for commercial applications is re-ordering the defense acquisitions process…………………………………………………………………….

The use of AI to create novel text, images, and video will likely exacerbate the challenge of cognitive warfare. This form of non-lethal warfare explains the social engineering of adversaries’ beliefs, with the overall intent to affect their defense priorities, military readiness, and operations. In this way, countries will attempt to harness AI to produce misinformation and disinformation, which are designed to mislead and deceive opponents, and across the competition continuum ranging from peace to war.

During competition, countries will likely use AI to stoke social, political, and economic grievances among their opponents, such that their defense planning and military readiness are embroiled by increasing levels of partisanship, social unrest, and even political violence…………………………………………………………………………………….

During armed conflict, the confusion created by AI-generated psychological operations will threaten situational awareness required for timely decision-making. In the worst case scenarios, this could cause misidentification of friendly forces, leading to fratricide…………………………………………………………….

In the more distant future, as AI matures, further delegation of military operations would likely go to autonomous systems. This is often referred to as minotaur warfare, such that machines control humans during combat and across domains, which can range from patrols of soldiers on the ground to constellations of warships on the ocean to formations of fighter jets in the air…..  https://thebulletin.org/2024/10/a-new-military-industrial-complex-how-tech-bros-are-hyping-ais-role-in-war/

October 13, 2024 Posted by | technology | Leave a comment

NATO state’s PM pledges to block Ukrainian membership

 https://www.rt.com/news/605332-nato-state-kiev-never-join/ 11 Oct 24

Admitting Kiev into the US-led bloc could trigger a global war, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has said

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has said that his country will not allow Ukraine to join NATO as long as he is in power. Admitting Kiev into the US-led military alliance would trigger a new world war, he warned in an interview with STVR on Sunday. 

“As long as I am the prime minister of the Slovak Republic, I will lead the legislators, whom I have control over as a party chairman, to never agree to Ukraine’s membership in NATO,” Fico said. “Ukraine’s entry into NATO would serve as a good basis for a third world war.” 

Fico, a longtime critic of Western military and financial aid to Ukraine, has insisted that the conflict must be resolved through diplomatic means. He has repeatedly warned against further escalation with Moscow. 

The accession of new countries must be approved by all of NATO’s 32 members, with national parliaments voting in favor of or against new candidates. 

Kiev formally applied to join NATO in September 2022, citing the conflict with Russia. While many Western states publicly back Ukraine’s aspirations, they have refused to provide a concrete roadmap or timetable for accession. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky acknowledged in July that “we will not be in NATO until the war is over in Ukraine.”

Russia views NATO’s expansion eastward as a security threat and has cited Ukraine’s cooperation with the bloc as one of the main reasons behind the conflict. 

President Vladimir Putin warned last month that using Western-supplied longer-range weapons for strikes deep inside Russia would be tantamount to “direct involvement” of NATO in the conflict. 

October 13, 2024 Posted by | EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

Report: US Considers Launching Airstrikes Against Iran To Support Israeli Attack

US officials say Israel hasn’t briefed the US on its specific plans to attack Iran,

by Dave DeCamp October 8, 2024,  https://news.antiwar.com/2024/10/08/report-us-considers-launching-airstrikes-against-iran-to-support-israeli-attack/#gsc.tab=0


The US has discussed the idea of supporting Israel’s expected attack on Iran with intelligence or with airstrikes of its own, NBC News reported on Tuesday, citing two unnamed US officials.

The report said senior US military officials have discussed launching “very limited” airstrikes against Iranian targets inside Iran or outside of the country, though the US officials said intelligence support for Israel was more likely.

So far, no final decision on US action has been made, according to the report, and the US officials said Israel has not briefed the US on its specific plans to strike Iran in response to the Iranian missile barrage that hit Israel last week.

Iran launched nearly 200 ballistic missiles into Israel in response to multiple Israeli escalations in the region, including the July 31 assassination of Hamas’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran. In the aftermath, the US said it would work with Israel to ensure Iran faces “severe consequences” for the attack.

The NBC report said US officials were worried that Israel could launch its attack while Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is meeting with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon on Wednesday. However, after the report was published, Gallant’s trip to the US has been canceled.

Israeli media said the trip was postponed because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to speak with President Biden and wants the Israeli security cabinet to agree on a plan to attack Iran before Gallant heads to Washington.

The Israelis are considering several types of targets to hit in Iran: military and intelligence infrastructure, air defenses, and energy facilities. Based on media reports, Israel does not plan to strike Iranian nuclear facilities in its first attack, but could if Iran hits back and the situation turns into a full-blown war, which Israeli officials think is likely to happen.

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

Ukraine wants UN nuclear watchdog to place foreign observers near all its nuclear plants

Kyiv Independent, by Dominic Culverwell, October 3, 2024

Ukraine is in talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to place foreign observers near its nuclear power plants amid reports Russia is planning to attack the infrastructure connecting the plants to the country’s energy grid, an Energy Ministry official said.

President Volodymyr Zelensky warned on Sept. 24  that Russia is planning to strike three power plants as it continues its broader strategy of targeting and crippling Ukraine’s energy system for the third year in a row.

While Zelensky did not specify which ones, the country only has three operating nuclear facilities — Rivne and Khmelnytskyi plants in the country’s west, and the Pivdennoukrainsk plant in the south. The Chornobyl plant is decommissioned, while the Zaporizhzhia plant has been under Russian occupation since 2022……………………………………………………………. https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-discussing-with-atomic-agency-to-place-missions-near-all-its-nuclear-power-plants/

October 13, 2024 Posted by | safety | Leave a comment