This week – countering the nuclear-military-industrial -complex
Some bits of good news – Powering Up the Global South Elimination of trachoma as a public health problem in India. A powerful new film shows nature restoration in action.
TOP STORIES.
Is it worse to have no climate solutions – or to have them but refuse to use them?
Israel attacks the United Nations .
Secrets and Lies: This is how the West doomed Ukraine.Senior U.S. Diplomats, Journalists, Academics and Secretaries of Defense Say: the U.S. Provoked Russia in Ukraine.
Nuclear disarmament is an urgent cause in a world on the brink.
The Energy Department just made one plutonium pit. -making more is uncertain.
Making “Australia a Global Nuclear Waste Dump”: Senator Shoebridge on Labor’s Latest Betrayal.
Climate. The Atlantic Ocean’s currents are on the verge of collapse. This is what it means for the planet.
Noel’s notes. All the way with AI – up, up, then -into the abyss? Media enthusiasm for dodgy “cutting edge Lego-like micro-nuclear power plants” , (but doubts creep in).
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AUSTRALIA
Congressional report suggests Australia could dump plans to acquire AUKUS nuclear submarines. Australia’s democracy trashed, as Labor government + Liberal opposition join forces to push AUKUS bills through. Queensland Premier Steven Miles is promising to hold a vote on nuclear power. Here’s why. Deadly war for journalists. More Australian nuclear news at https://antinuclear.net/2024/10/15/australian-nuclear-news-headlines-14-21-october/
NUCLEAR ITEMS
| ARTS and CULTURE. “We’re Spending 2 Trillion Dollars on Weapons That Must Never Be Used” |
| ATROCITIES. Israel Is Routinely Shooting Children in the Head in Gaza: US Surgeon & Palestinian Nurse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgSZ1fTk4r8. We’re Basically Being Asked To Believe That The Palestinians Are Genociding Themselves. Gabor Mate: ‘It’s like we’re watching Auschwitz on TikTok’. |
| CLIMATE. The world’s top lying nuclear salesman is after your climate action money. How carbon capture and storage and nuclear are adding little to decarbonisation compared to solar and wind. |
| ECONOMICS. ‘A catastrophically poor bargain for the UK’: Experts verdict on government plan for new nuclear finance. New investment sought for Hinkley Point C as French twin nuclear reactor switched on. Apollo Global Management Inc in Talks to Partly Finance EDF’s Hinkley UK Nuclear Power Plant. |
| ENERGY. Open AI Wants to Build Data Centres That Would Consume More Electricity Per Year Than the Whole of the U.K. Small nuclear reactors won’t be ready in time for the needs of energy-guzzling needs of Artificial Intelligence ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2024/10/18/2-b1-small-nuclear-reactors-wont-be-ready-in-time-for-the-needs-of-energy-guzzling-needs-of-artificisal-intelligence/ |
| ENVIRONMENT. Oceans. A nuclear kettle of fish at Hinkley Point C. North Somerset village urges re-think on EDF salt marshes. Councillors raise concerns over fish populations at Hinkley C.Some Types of Pollution Are More Equal than Others. |
| LEGAL. Plutonium just had a bad day in court.Environmental groups challenge the nuclear industry’s portrayal of its energy as “clean” and “non-emitting,” citing health risks and long-term radioactive waste. |
| MEDIA. Revealed: The Israeli Spies Writing America’s News. Book: THE FALL OF ISRAEL: The Degradation of Israel’s Politics, Economy & Military. Deadly war for journalists – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykKth4sEbII |
| OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Campaigners welcome international investors to UK summit but urge them to boycott “toxic investment” Sizewell C 14.10.24. Open Letter to the Department for Energy Security –new nuclear power ‘a catastrophically poor bargain’ |
| POLITICS. US opens applications for $900 million for small nuclear reactors (article includes a note of caution). Years after nuclear fiasco soaked ratepayers, leaders look at restarting VC Summer project . |
| POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. “Goodbye Lebanon” – High Israeli Official. Biden Says OK, So Far. “Israel must be expelled from the United Nations”. Israel’s War on the United Nations. Another Phony Biden PR Stunt About Humanitarian Aid In Gaza.Ukraine ‘will seek nuclear weapons’ if it cannot join Nato. Biden should channel Trump and talk to Putin. North Somerset MP objects to salt marsh at Kingston Seymour. |
| SAFETY. New phase in safety work on Chernobyl’s original shelter. Incidents. Nuclear Missile Submarines Collided (Armed with Hundreds of Nuclear Weapons). |
| SECRETS and LIES. Exposed: How Israeli spies control your VPN (Virtual Private Network).Zelensky aide reveals secret clauses of ‘victory plan’. |
SPINBUSTER.Refuting myths about nuclear and renewable energy.The Irony of Powering AI on Atomic Energy.Competition Bureau asked to address nuclear industry’s false and misleading claims of “clean” and “non-emitting” energy. |
| TECHNOLOGY. Google Pivots to Nuclear Reactors to Power Its Artificial Intelligence. What does Google’s move into nuclear power mean for AI – and the world? Amazon bets on nuclear power to fuel AI ambitions. To make nuclear fusion a reliable energy source one day, scientists will first need to design heat- and radiation-resilient materials |
| WASTES. How to build a nuclear tomb to last millennia.Decommissioning. First ex-Royal Navy nuclear submarine to be disposed of enters final dismantling phase. Video. Gordon Edwards on Nuclear Fuel Waste Abandonment (South Bruce). |
| WAR and CONFLICT. Volodomyr’s World: A Delusional ‘Victory Plan’. Widening the War: The US Sends Troops to Israel. Leaked US Intelligence Documents Outline Israeli Preparations to Strike Iran. Nuclear Fever: War Mongering on Iran. Report: Israel Plans To Strike Iran Before US Presidential Election. Will Israel cross the red line of targeting Iran’s nuclear sites? An Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could backfire. Under the shadow of a NATO-Russia nuclear war, Hibakusha awarded Nobel Peace Prize. |
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. 200+ Jewish-Led Protesters Arrested at NY Stock Exchange Say ‘Stop Arming Israel’. U.S. to Deploy Missile Defense System and About 100 Troops to Israel.
Germany Dismisses Ukraine’s Demands for Taurus Missiles and NATO Membership. Ukraine must have nukes or NATO – Zelensky.
NATO Announces Nuclear Drills as Nobel Goes to Atomic Weapon Abolitionists.
China’s openness about its latest nuclear missile test shows growing confidence vis-à-vis the United States. China not part of nuclear arms race, says envoy.
The world’s top lying nuclear salesman is after your climate action money.
Do these highly paid leaders really believe what they’re saying? I guess their number 1 motive is to hang on to their lucrative jobs. And number 2 motive – to not look silly by telling the truth.
They all know damn well that the nuclear fuel chain increases greenhouse emissions, along with its radioactive emissions.
They all know that covering the planet with 1000s of small nuclear reactors could never be done in time, even if nuclear did work against climate change.
They all know that the real rationale for nuclear is not climate action – it’s nuclear weapons.
New IAEA Report on Climate Change and Nuclear Power Focuses on Financing.
International Atomic Energy Agency, Matt Fisher, IAEA Department of Nuclear Energy, 18 Oct 24
The 2024 edition of the IAEA’s Climate Change and Nuclear Power report has been released, highlighting the need for a significant increase in investment to achieve goals for expanding nuclear power. The new report was launched last week on the margins of the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) in Brazil.
……….global investment in nuclear energy must increase to 125 billion USD annually, up from the around 50 billion USD invested each year from 2017-2023………
“Across its near century-long lifetime, a nuclear power plant is [?] affordable and [?]cost competitive. Financing the upfront costs can be a challenge however, especially in market driven economies and developing countries,” said IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi “The private sector will increasingly need to contribute to financing, but so too will other institutions. The IAEA is engaging multilateral development banks to highlight their potential role in making sure that developing countries have more and better financing options when it comes to investing in nuclear energy.”
The new report also examines ways to unlock private sector finance, a topic that is gaining increasing attention worldwide. Last month, 14 major financial institutions including some of the world’s largest banks came together during a New York Climate Week event to signal a willingness to help finance nuclear newbuild projects.
The report was presented at a side event jointly organized by the Agency and the CEM’s Nuclear Innovation: Clean Energy Future (NICE) initiative on the margins of the 15th CEM in Brazil.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………. Nuclear power’s [!!!] inclusion in sustainable financing frameworks, including the European Union (EU) taxonomy for sustainable activities, is having a tangible impact. In the EU, the first green bonds have been issued for nuclear power in Finland and France in 2023. Electricité de France (EDF) was one of the first recipients, with the award of €4 billion in green bonds and around €7 billion in green loans between 2022 and 2024. …………………………………………….. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/new-iaea-report-on-climate-change-and-nuclear-power-focuses-on-financing
China not part of nuclear arms race, says envoy
US, with largest arsenal, called on to stop misrepresenting nation’s policy
By MINLU ZHANG at United Nations and SHAO XINYING in Beijing | CHINA DAILY 2024-10-21 https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202410/21/WS671596c9a310f1265a1c88ef.html
A Chinese arms control official called on the United States on Friday to “stop misrepresenting China’s nuclear policy” and said that China “has not, and will not, engage in a nuclear arms race”.
A representative of the US told the First Committee of the United Nations General Assembly on Friday that Russia is violating the New START Treaty and employing “irresponsible nuclear rhetoric” amid the Ukraine crisis. The representative also claimed that China has not fully disclosed the extent of its nuclear weapons modernization.
Shen Jian, China’s ambassador for disarmament affairs, told the committee that China’s no-first-use policy “requires maintaining a certain level of ambiguity regarding its nuclear arsenal to ensure the survivability of its limited nuclear forces”.
“As long as no country uses nuclear weapons against China, it will not face a nuclear threat from China. This is the most meaningful form of transparency,” Shen said.
He said the US possesses the largest and most advanced nuclear arsenal, adding that it adheres to “the policy of preemptive nuclear strikes, and even tailors nuclear deterrence strategies for other countries”.
“The transparency of the US display of nuclear power is nothing more than a ‘muscle show’ that will not make other countries feel safe,” he said.
“China has consistently maintained its nuclear forces at the minimum level required for national security and has not, and will not, engage in a nuclear arms race,” the Chinese envoy said.
He said China must “appropriately” modernize its nuclear forces to “ensure the safety, reliability and survivability of its minimum nuclear deterrent”, as “China’s external security environment continues to deteriorate”, noting that certain countries are developing global missile defense systems and other weapons that “impact strategic stability”.
He urged the US to “stop misrepresenting China’s nuclear policy”. For 60 years, China has adhered to a no-first-use policy with a high degree of stability, consistency and predictability, he said. Recently, China again formally proposed that nuclear-armed states negotiate a “No First Use Treaty” or issue a joint political statement on the matter as soon as possible.
China has engaged in arms control and nonproliferation dialogues with many countries around the world, including the US, Shen said. As the current coordinator of the P5 mechanism, China is also actively promoting dialogue and cooperation among the five nuclear-weapon states.
The P5 mechanism is a dialogue process among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the US.
Shen said that the US should stop projecting its logic that “power inevitably seeks dominance “onto China.
China not part of nuclear arms race, says envoy
US, with largest arsenal, called on to stop misrepresenting nation’s policy
By MINLU ZHANG at United Nations and SHAO XINYING in Beijing | CHINA DAILY | Updated: 2024-10-21 07:48
A Chinese arms control official called on the United States on Friday to “stop misrepresenting China’s nuclear policy” and said that China “has not, and will not, engage in a nuclear arms race”.
A representative of the US told the First Committee of the United Nations General Assembly on Friday that Russia is violating the New START Treaty and employing “irresponsible nuclear rhetoric” amid the Ukraine crisis. The representative also claimed that China has not fully disclosed the extent of its nuclear weapons modernization.
Shen Jian, China’s ambassador for disarmament affairs, told the committee that China’s no-first-use policy “requires maintaining a certain level of ambiguity regarding its nuclear arsenal to ensure the survivability of its limited nuclear forces”.
“As long as no country uses nuclear weapons against China, it will not face a nuclear threat from China. This is the most meaningful form of transparency,” Shen said.
He said the US possesses the largest and most advanced nuclear arsenal, adding that it adheres to “the policy of preemptive nuclear strikes, and even tailors nuclear deterrence strategies for other countries”.
“The transparency of the US display of nuclear power is nothing more than a ‘muscle show’ that will not make other countries feel safe,” he said.
“China has consistently maintained its nuclear forces at the minimum level required for national security and has not, and will not, engage in a nuclear arms race,” the Chinese envoy said.
He said China must “appropriately” modernize its nuclear forces to “ensure the safety, reliability and survivability of its minimum nuclear deterrent”, as “China’s external security environment continues to deteriorate”, noting that certain countries are developing global missile defense systems and other weapons that “impact strategic stability”.
He urged the US to “stop misrepresenting China’s nuclear policy”. For 60 years, China has adhered to a no-first-use policy with a high degree of stability, consistency and predictability, he said. Recently, China again formally proposed that nuclear-armed states negotiate a “No First Use Treaty” or issue a joint political statement on the matter as soon as possible.
China has engaged in arms control and nonproliferation dialogues with many countries around the world, including the US, Shen said. As the current coordinator of the P5 mechanism, China is also actively promoting dialogue and cooperation among the five nuclear-weapon states.
The P5 mechanism is a dialogue process among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the US.
Shen said that the US should stop projecting its logic that “power inevitably seeks dominance “onto China.
Shen said that over the past 20 years, the US has withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Iran nuclear deal, and these moves undermine the international arms control regime.
According to The New York Times, amid ongoing global conflicts, the US plans to allocate an estimated $1.7 trillion over the next 30 years to modernize its arsenal.
Shen noted that while some countries have criticized China and Russia with regard to their nuclear arsenals, they made “no mention of other nuclear-weapon states upgrading their arsenals”. He called this a “double standard “and emphasized that such actions, which “draw lines based on ideology and stir up bloc confrontation”, will not advance nuclear disarmament.
Wang Zhen, a researcher of international politics at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of International Relations, told China Daily that “the US’ misrepresenting of China’s nuclear development serves mainly to justify its upgrading of its nuclear arsenal, and the so-called ‘China nuclear threat’ is used as an excuse to adjust its nuclear strategy”.
He said that the US, despite its huge nuclear arsenal, clings to a first-use nuclear deterrence policy, which “underscores its pursuit of nuclear hegemony”.
Gabor Mate: ‘It’s like we’re watching Auschwitz on TikTok’
October 20, 2024 https://scheerpost.com/2024/10/20/gabor-mate-its-like-were-watching-auschwitz-on-tiktok/
Had there been YouTube and Instagram and TikTok around Auschwitz, this is what we would have seen, people burning alive. And it’s beyond horrendous, it’s beyond comprehension.”
In an online meeting with French activist and film producer Frank Barat on Monday, Canadian physician Gabor Mate explored the psychological complexities of witnessing atrocities in Gaza and Palestine, saying: “It’s like we’re watching Auschwitz on TikTok.”
They delve into the emotional and historical roots of violence and oppression, highlighting the trauma, guilt, and helplessness experienced by observers. Mate stresses the need to acknowledge these emotions and examines the normalisation of violence, while contemplating the future implications for Gaza and global society.
Ukraine must have nukes or NATO – Zelensky
https://www.rt.com/russia/605856-zelensky-nuclear-nato-trump/ 16 Oct 24
The leader has described his conversation with former US President Donald Trump as he promotes his ‘victory plan’ to Western backers.
Ukraine can protect itself either by becoming a nuclear state or a member of NATO, Vladimir Zelensky said on Thursday, claiming that he had offered the same line of reasoning to former US President Donald Trump.
Speaking at a press conference after promoting his ‘victory plan’ for the conflict with Russia to European officials, Zelensky suggested that Ukraine would need nuclear weapons, should it not be granted NATO membership.
“Which of the big nations, the nuclear nations, suffered? Everyone? No, just Ukraine,” he stated, referring to the signatories of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. The document involved the US, UK, and Russia extending security assurances to Kiev in return for the removal of Soviet nuclear weapons from Ukraine.
“Speaking to Donald Trump, I told him: ‘What is the way out for us?’ Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, and they will serve as protection, or we need to be in some kind of an alliance. We don’t know any effective alliances except NATO,” Zelensky added.
Ukraine’s choice is to become a NATO member, Zelensky said, claiming that Trump had found his reasoning justified.
Ukraine has never controlled nuclear weapons, but claims it was formerly among the major atomic powers before agreeing to relinquish them. In February 2022, weeks before the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, Zelensky expressed regret at the decision in a speech at the International Security Conference in Munich, suggesting that his country had “every right” to reverse it.
Zelensky confirmed this week that an immediate invitation for Ukraine to join NATO was on his list of requests to Western donors. The secretary general of the US-led bloc, Mark Rutte, said on Thursday that Ukraine may not even be the next nation to become a member.
Video. Gordon Edwards on Nuclear Fuel Waste Abandonment (South Bruce)
Canada’s nuclear waste producers want to bury and eventually abandon all of their high-level radioactive waste (used nuclear fuel) in a Deep Geological Repository (DGR). For this purpose they need to find a “willing host community” that will accept the waste. Accordingly, in 2005 the waste producers created a Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) that has given many millions of dollars to a small number of “candidate communities” over the last 14 years, in addition to meeting on a monthly basis with the members of a Citizens’ Liaison Committee (CLC) chosen for each candidate community, in a program called “Learn More”.
The idea is that each community would learn about how safe the management, transport, packaging and burial of this intensely radioactive material will be, so that they are “fully informed” about the proposed project. Now NWMO has narrowed down the original list of 22 candidate communities to just two: one near Revell Lake north of Lake Superior, between the Ontario towns of Ignace and Dryden, and the other near Teeswater, South Bruce, a small farming community a few kilometres west of Lake Huron.
Unfortunately, NWMO withheld information about the individual radioactive constituents of used nuclear fuel (like radioactive iodine, radioactive caesium, radioactive strontium, and plutonium) and the biomedical dangers they pose. NWMO also erroneously affirmed that the used fuel pellets are solid ceramics that can not leak, which is untrue. Until recently, NWMO neglected to tell the communities that the used fuel will have to be “repackaged” before burial, an elaborate and potentially dangerous operation. In addition NWMO withheld information about the specific risks associated with “reprocessing” – the option of extraction of plutonium from the used fuel before burial, which requires the destruction of the nuclear fuel matrix, thereby releasing a very large quantity of radioactive solids, vapours and gases that are difficult to contain.
The Ignace town council has already signed an agreement with NWMO to proceed, and we are awaiting the decision of Wabigoon Lake First Nation – one of the closest indigenous communities to the Revell Lake site. The citizens of South Bruce will be voting in a referendum near the end of October whether or not to give their approval, after which the nearby Saugeen Ojibway First Nation will render its decision whether or not to support the project. In both cases, the decision of the indigenous peoples will be of great importance. Canada has accepted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) as a fundamental component of federal decision-making. UNDRIP asserts that no toxic waste shall be stored or disposed of o indigenous lands without the Free, Prior, Informed Consent of those indigenous rights-holders.
Widening the War: The US Sends Troops to Israel
October 20, 2024, Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/widening-the-war-the-us-sends-troops-to-israel/
The dangers should be plastered on every wall in every office occupied by a military and political advisor. Israel’s attempt to reshape the Middle East, far from giving it enduring security, will merely serve to make it more vulnerable and unstable than ever. In that mix and mess will be its greatest sponsor and guardian, the United States, a giant of almost blind antiquity in all matters concerning the Jewish state.
In a measure that should have garnered bold headlines, the Biden administration has announced the deployment of some 100 US soldiers to Israel who will be responsible for operating the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. They are being sent to a conflict that resembles a train travelling at high speed, with no risk of stopping. As Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant promised in the aftermath of Iran’s October 1 missile assault on his country, “Our strike will be powerful, precise, and above all – surprising.” It would be of such a nature that “They will not understand what happened and how it happened.”
In an October 16 meeting between the Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Gallant, the deployment of a mobile THAAD battery was seen “as an operational example of the United States’ ironclad support to the defense of Israel.” Largely meaningless bits of advice were offered to Gallant: that Israel “continue taking steps to address the dire humanitarian situation” and take “all necessary measures to ensure the safety and security” of UN peacekeepers operating in Lebanon’s south.
The charade continued the next day in a conversation between Austin and Gallant discussing the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. THAAD was again mentioned as essential for Israel’s “right to defence itself” while representing the “United States’ unwavering, enduring, and ironclad commitment to Israel’s security.” (“Ironclad” would seem to be the word of the moment, neatly accompanying Israel’s own Iron Dome defence system.)
A statement from the Pentagon press secretary, Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, was a fatuous effort in minimising the dangers of the deployment. The battery would merely “augment Israel’s integrated air defense system,” affirm the ongoing commitment to Israel’s defence and “defend Americans in Israel, from any further ballistic missile attacks from Iran.”
The very public presence of US troops, working alongside their Israeli counterparts in anticipation of broadening conflict, does not merely suggest Washington’s failure to contain their ally. It entails a promise of ceaseless supply, bolstering and emboldening. Furthermore, it will involve placing US troops in harm’s way, a quixotic invitation if ever there was one.
As things stand, the US is already imperilling its troops by deploying them in a series of bases in Jordan, Syria and Iraq. Iran’s armed affiliates have been making their presence felt, harrying the stationed troops with increasing regularity since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7 last year. A gradual, attritive toll is registering, featuring such attacks as those on the Tower 22 base in northern Jordan in January that left three US soldiers dead.
Writing in August for The Guardian, former US army major Harrison Mann eventually realised an awful truth about the mounting assaults on these sandy outposts of the US imperium: “there was no real plan to protect US troops beyond leaving them in their small, isolated bases while local militants, emboldened and agitated by US support for Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, used them for target practice.” To send more aircraft and warships to the Middle East also served to encourage “reckless escalation towards a wider war,” providing insurance to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he could be protected “from the consequences of his actions.”
Daniel Davis, a military expert at Defense Priorities, is firmly logical on the point of enlisting US personnel in the Israeli cause. “Naturally, if Americans are killed in the execution of their duties, there will be howls from the pro-war hawks in the West ‘demanding’ the president ‘protect our troops’ by firing back on Iran.” It was “exactly the sort of thing that gets nations sucked into war they have no interest in fighting.”
Polling, insofar as that measure counts, suggests that enthusiasm for enrolling US troops in Israel’s defence is far from warm. In results from a survey published by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in August, some four in ten polled would favour sending US troops to defend Israel if it was attacked by Iran. Of the sample, 53% of Republicans would favour defending Israel in that context, along with four in 10 independents (42%), and a third of Democrats (34%).
There have also been some mutterings from the Pentagon itself about Israel’s burgeoning military effort, in particular against the Lebanese Iran-backed militia, Hezbollah. In a report from The New York Times, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., is said to be worried about the widening US presence in the region, a fact that would hamper overall “readiness” of the US in other conflicts. Being worried is just the start of it.
Councillors raise concerns over fish populations at Hinkley C
Forty-four tonnes of fish could die every year once the site is running
South Gloucestershire Council have raised concerns over the potential loss
of wildlife at Hinkley Point C as bosses propose installing saltmarsh land
in parts of North Somerset and Gloucestershire. EDF energy, who run the
nuclear power station at Hinkley C, are planning to build the habitat to
compensate for the 44 tonnes of fish that could die every year once the
site is running. But land owners and councillors in South Gloucestershire
have raised concern about the loss of wildlife and the health of the
region’s rivers.
Rayo 18th Oct 2024,
https://hellorayo.co.uk/greatest-hits/bristol/news/hinkley-south-gloucestershire-letter/
“Goodbye Lebanon” – High Israeli Official. Biden Says OK, So Far.
By Ralph Nader / Nader.org, October 18, 2024
Biden’s bombs and missiles, dropped daily on Lebanon, a U.S. ally, by his puppet master Netanyahu, is wreaking havoc in this small defenseless country. The Israeli genocidal machine is waging an incinerating assault on fleeing civilians and critical facilities. The scorched-earth Israeli strategy is the same as what we have seen in Gaza. Attack in Lebanon anyone who moves or anything that stands – whether a hospital, a dense residential area, a café, a municipal building, a market, a school, or a Mosque – and allege there was a Hezbollah commander or a Hezbollah site here or there. Two recent New York Times headlines express some of the impact of this latest Israeli war: “In Just a Week, a Million People in Lebanon Have Been Displaced” and “Lebanon’s Hospitals Buckle Amid an Onslaught: ‘Indiscriminate’ Strikes Overwhelm Health System, U.N. Says.”
Historical note: Hezbollah, also a political Party and social service organization, was created to defend impoverished Shiite Muslims in southern Lebanon in 1982 right after the Israeli army once again invaded Lebanon and badly mistreated the residents during an 18-year-long military occupation.
No matter what or who the Israeli Air Force’s American F-16 fighter aircraft bomb, no matter the deaths and injuries to thousands of Lebanese families, many of them children and women, Biden keeps unconditionally and savagely shipping weapons of mass destruction. He is violating six federal laws requiring conditions be met – such as not violating human rights or not obstructing U.S. humanitarian aid. Netanyahu is violating these and other conditions and mocking his major benefactor, the United States government.
Israel has long had designs on a slice of Lebanon going up to and including the Litani River area. Water is valuable. Over the years, Israel has routinely violated Lebanese air space, executed incursions into Lebanon and has used forbidden cluster bombs and white phosphorous. According to Aya Majzoub, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, “It is beyond horrific that the Israeli army has indiscriminately used white phosphorous in violation of international humanitarian law.”
The White House knows all this. It doesn’t care. Wherever Israel invades, bombs, assassinates, or boobytraps pagers and walkie-talkies, Bibi-Biden continues his servility to the Israeli terror regime and its genocidal leader Netanyahu, who is despised by three out of four Israelis for his domestic policies and is under indictment by Israeli prosecutors for corruption.
Despite reports that Biden steams in private against Netanyahu, and considers him a liar and a supporter of Trump’s re-election, Biden knows that that this foreign authoritarian has the big card: CONGRESS. Most of the legislators who attended his noxious address to a joint congressional session last June gave him a record-breaking 52 standing ovations. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “Benjamin Netanyahu’s presentation in the House Chamber today was by far the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary invited and honored with the privilege of addressing the Congress of the United States.”
Biden, who is known to conduct foreign and military policy without any authorization by Congress, doesn’t want to offend the powerful “Israel government can do no wrong” Lobby in the U.S. – to which he has been indentured for his entire fifty-year political career. This includes Israel’s current destruction of Lebanon, where tens of thousands of Americans are residing. The Washington Post reports that the Biden White House “has so far given full backing to Israel’s ground operations in Lebanon, even amid a growing international outcry over the civilian toll … and Israeli clashes with United Nations peacekeepers,” who have been assigned there for decades.
Having full U.S. government backing, and now backed by U.S. warships, Marines and logistics, plus 100 U.S. soldiers arriving this week in Israel, Netanyahu knows he has a free hand to attack Iran and drag the U.S. into a regional war.
Both Netanyahu and Bibi-Biden have been briefed about the possibilities of “blowback” (the CIA’s term) against the U.S. These concerns come from U.S. intelligence agencies who study scenarios like future 9/11s or the recent inexpensive armed drones that can be constructed and deployed anywhere. Militarists and corporatists in the U.S. aren’t that concerned because whenever “blowback” occurs they can concentrate more power, with bigger military budgets and profits, in another “war on terror,” silencing dissent and subordinating or sidelining critical domestic priorities.
That is the lethal fix and fate that America has been subjected to by its cowardly, Constitution-violating politicians from both Parties. The power structure – the corporate state – or what Franklin Delano Roosevelt once called in a 1938 message to Congress “fascism,” is telling the American people: “Heads we win, Tails you lose.”
Here is how bad Biden has gotten. Recently, two letters signed by 65 American doctors and health workers back from the horrors, the killing fields of Gaza, to President Joe Biden, have gone unanswered. (See, “65 Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics: What We Saw in Gaza” by Feroze Sidhwa, New York Times Sunday, October 13, 2024). Their letters plead for a ceasefire and immediate humanitarian aid for the starving, dying people of Gaza. They request a meeting with President Biden, who has often met with the pro-Israeli lobby. Scranton Joe says no way.
These brave physicians and nurses also are requesting that Joe Biden demand that Netanyahu allow children in Gaza who are seriously burned or are amputees be air-lifted to America to be treated by compassionate specialists in ready American hospitals. Biden, a practicing Catholic, has no interest.
President George Washington warned his country about avoiding foreign entanglements in his farewell address. Were he possessed of more prescience; he would have added the word “surrenders.”
How to build a nuclear tomb to last millennia
These enthusiastic articles about nuclear technology!
The writers never for a moment consider the thought of also just stopping making the foul stuff!
A promising site may turn out to be too close to vital aquifers that supply fresh water to local communities, or to the side of a valley, which in 10,000 years’ time may mean it’s at risk from an advancing glacier, and the hunt has to start again.
Then there is the nature and volume of the waste, and the amount of heat it generates. Intermediate waste produces less heat and so it can be stored safely, with containers stacked relatively close together in large vaults. High-level nuclear waste produces a great deal more heat, and must be stored in small amounts, far apart.
There is also the need for physical barriers to stop radiation from escaping from the GDF, which can range from the design of the containers to the type of rock that surrounds it. But critics fear these barriers may fail over time.
Nuclear waste remains toxic for thousands of years. How do you build a
storage facility that will keep it safely buried for millennia? How do you
go about designing, building and operating structures that take decades to
plan and even longer to build, that operate over centuries and must survive
for 100,000 years, and that contain some of the most dangerous materials on
the planet?
Four hours’ drive east of Paris, the 2.4km (1.5 miles) of
tunnels are home to countless scientific experiments, construction
technique testing and technological innovations. France’s National
Radioactive Waste Agency (Andra) needs these to demonstrate to the
regulators if it is to be awarded a licence to build a geological disposal
facility (GDF) next to the tunnels.
Geological disposal facilities for
nuclear waste are, or will be, some of the largest underground structures
humanity has ever built. They are planned, in development, about to start
construction or about to open in the UK, France, Sweden, Finland and around
20 other countries.
BBC 19th Oct 2024,
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20241018-how-to-build-a-nuclear-tomb-to-last-millennia
Some Types of Pollution Are More Equal than Others
There is a BIG taboo around Radioactive Pollution. We published a report last June into acid mine pollution alongside radioactive pollution in Whitehaven Harbour – so far ignored by mainstream media.
Marianne Birkby, Oct 20, 2024 https://radiationfreelakeland.substack.com/p/some-types-of-pollution-are-more?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2706406&post_id=150473856&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Whitehaven Mine Pollution- Report by Radiation Free Lakeland – evidence to inform Authorities in future mitigation/prevention regarding mine pollution
The Westmorland Gazette and other local press have today published a feel good article about beach cleans in Cumbria. So far so good but the beaches contain far more insidious and long lived pollution than plastic, in the form of radioactive wastes from decades of Sellafield’s operations. In Whitehaven Harbour these radioactive wastes are literally magnified by the presence of the ongoing acid mine pollution pouring into the harbour. Instead of addressing this ongoing pollution event the local MP Josh MacAlister is greenwashing the ongoing devastation by bigging up Whitehaven as the West Coast Riviera and fizzingly pushing for a ferry service while boats are understandably leaving because of the visible acid mine pollution.
Less visible is the “historic” radioactive pollution still pouring out of Sellafield with more radioactive waste arriving almost daily.
Zelensky Once More Puts Allies Under Nuclear Shadow
Simplicius, Oct 19, 2024
A new central flashpoint around the issue of Ukraine obtaining nuclear weapons has suddenly taken hold of the narrative after Zelensky appeared to imply that Ukraine’s future can only be secured either via NATO or nuclear weapons. In fact, he said that’s what he explained to Trump and may be the real root kernel of his ‘Victory Plan’
Julian Roepcke at BILD went on to report that some high-ranking Ukrainian official disclosed that if given the order, Ukraine can build a nuke “within a matter of weeks”:
The Official specializing in weapons procurement, said in a closed round: “We have the Material, we have the Knowledge. If there is, the arrangement, we need only a few weeks until the first bomb.“
The West should be “less about Russia’s red lines, instead of thinking a lot more about our red lines,” the warning of the Official.
He was forced to defend himself after another round of backlash
However, after the report caused a firestorm, Zelensky’s press office was forced to issue an official refutation of Roepcke’s statements:
The Office of the President of Ukraine denied reports of the tabalid Bild that the Ukrainian authorities are allegedly seriously considering the possibility of restoring nuclear stockpiles.………………………
Interestingly, the above publication also notes the following, insinuating that as a last desperate line of defense Ukraine would rapidly obtain nukes if Russia were to assault Kiev again:
According to Bild analyst Julian Röpke, Zelensky’s statement came as a “shock” to Western journalists. He claims that a few months ago, a senior Ukrainian official allegedly told the publication and other members of a narrow circle of politicians and officials that Ukraine would not accept a second Russian army offensive on Kyiv.
“We have materials, we have knowledge. If there is an order, it will take us only a few weeks to get the first bomb. The West should “think less about Russia’s red lines and much more about our red lines,” the Ukrainian official said, according to the journalist.
Zelensky himself immediately began to walk back his statements after realizing the hot-water he may have landed himself in with his sponsors:
First a couple quick obligatory clarifications. Zelensky himself continues to spout the debunked lie that Ukraine “gave up its nuclear weapons” during the Budapest Memorandum.
Here’s the truth again:
First a couple quick obligatory clarifications. Zelensky himself continues to spout the debunked lie that Ukraine “gave up its nuclear weapons” during the Budapest Memorandum.
Here’s the truth again:
Ukraine never had control over those nukes. Secondly, it was revealed that it was actually the US itself rather than Russia that forced Ukraine to give up its nukes during that period, not wanting live nukes to fall into the hands of some failed state. Sure, Ukraine would not have been able to launch them, but could have potentially cracked them open and sold the enriched plutonium to bad actors on the black market………………………
1 This Month.
5 January -Webinar-What is Trump’s Golden Dome?
REGISTER AT Massachusetts Peace Action Education
New book – https://www.amazon.com/dp/1923372157?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Now until to February 10, 2026 Radioactive waste storage in France: the debate is finally open! How to participate?
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