2024 November 16 « nuclear-news

Media Coverage of Amsterdam Soccer Riot Erases Zionist Hatred and Violence

Elsie Carson-Holt 15 Nov 24, https://fair.org/home/media-coverage-of-amsterdam-soccer-riot-erases-zionist-hatred-and-violence/

When violence broke out in Amsterdam last week involving Israeli soccer fans, Western media headlines told the story as one of attacks that could only be explained by antisemitism. This is the story right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants them to tell: “On the streets of Amsterdam, antisemitic rioters attacked Jews, Israeli citizens, just because they were Jews” (Fox News, 11/10/24).

Yet buried deep within their reports, some of these outlets revealed a more complicated reality: that many fans of Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv Football Club had spent the previous night tearing down and burning Palestinian flags, attacking a taxi and shouting murderous anti-Arab chants, including “Death to the Arabs” and “Why is there no school in Gaza? There are no children left there” (Defector, 11/8/24).

As Marc Owen Jacobs of Zeteo (11/9/24) wrote, the media coverage revealed

troubling patterns in how racial violence is reported; not only is anti-Arab violence and racism marginalized and minimized, but violence against Israelis is amplified and reduced to antisemitism.

Buried context

“Israeli Soccer Fans Attacked in Amsterdam,” announced NBC News (11/8/24). That piece didn’t mention until the 25th paragraph the Maccabi fans’ Palestinian flag-burning and taxi destruction, as if these were minor details rather than precipitating events.

Similarly, the Washington Post (11/8/24)—“Israeli Soccer Fans Were Attacked in Amsterdam. The Violence Was Condemned as Antisemitic”—didn’t mention Maccabi anti-Arab chants until paragraph 22, and didn’t mention any Maccabi fan violence.

James North on Mondoweiss (11/10/24) summed up the New York Times article’s (11/8/24) similar one-sided framing:

The Times report, which started on page 1, used the word “antisemitic” six times, beginning in the headline. The first six paragraphs uniformly described the “Israeli soccer fans” as the victims, recounting their injuries, and dwelling on the Israeli government’s chartering of “at least three flights to bring Israeli citizens home,” insinuating that innocent people had to completely flee the country for their lives.

Also at Mondoweiss (11/9/24), Sana Saeed explained:

Emerging video evidence and testimonies from Amsterdam residents (here, here and here, for instance) indicate that the initial violence came from Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, who also disrupted a moment of silence for the Valencia flood victims.

But despite that footage and Amsterdammer testimonies, coverage—across international media, especially in the United States—has failed to contextualize the counter-attacks against the anti-Arab Israeli mob.

Misrepresented video

Several news outlets outright misrepresented video from local Dutch photographer Annet de Graaf. De Graaf’s video depicts Maccabi fans attacking Amsterdam locals, yet CNN World News (11/9/24) and BBC (11/8/24) and other outlets initially labeled it as Maccabi fans getting attacked.

De Graaf has demanded apologies from the news outlets and acknowledgement that the video was used to push false information. CNN World News‘ video now notes that an earlier version was accompanied by details from Reuters that CNN could not independently verify. BBC’s caption of De Graaf’s footage reads “Footage of some of the violence in Amsterdam—the BBC has not been able to verify the identity of those involved.”

The New York Times (11/8/24) corrected its misuse of the footage in an article about the violence:

An earlier version of this article included a video distributed by Reuters with a script about Israeli fans being attacked. Reuters has since issued a correction saying it is unclear who is depicted in the footage. The video’s author told the New York Times it shows a group of Maccabi fans chasing a man on the street—a description the Times independently confirmed with other verified footage from the scene. The video has been removed.

‘Historically illiterate conflation’

Jacobin (11/12/24): “Far from acting like tsarist authorities during a pogrom, the police in Amsterdam seem to have cracked down far harder on those who attacked Maccabi fans than the overtly racist Maccabi hooligans who started the first phase of the riot.”

It is undoubtedly true that antisemitism was involved in Amsterdam alongside Israeli fans’ anti-Arab actions; the Wall Street Journal (11/10/24) verified reports of a group chat that called for a “Jew hunt.” But rather than acknowledging that there was ethnic animosity on both sides, some articles about the melee (Bret Stephens, New York Times, 11/12/24; Fox News, 11/10/24; Free Press, 10/11/24) elevated the violence to the level of a “pogrom.”

Jacobin (11/12/24) put the attacks in the context of European soccer riots:

There were assaults on Israeli fans, including hit-and-run attacks by perpetrators on bicycles. Some of the victims were Maccabi fans who hadn’t participated in the earlier hooliganism. In other words, this played out like a classical nationalistic football riot—the thuggish element of one group of fans engages in violence, and the ugly intercommunal dynamics lead to not just the perpetrators but the entire group of fans (or even random people wrongly assumed to share their background or nationality) being attacked.

But Jacobin pushed back against media using the word “pogrom” in reference to the soccer riots:

Pogroms were not isolated incidents of violence. They were calculated assaults to keep Jews locked firmly in their social place…. Pogroms cannot occur outside the framework of a society that systematically denies rights to a minority, ensuring that it remains vulnerable to the violence of the majority. What happened in Amsterdam, however, bears no resemblance to this structure. These were not attacks predicated on religious or racial oppression. They were incidents fueled by political discord between different groups of nationalists….

Furthermore, using that designation to opportunistically smear global dissent against Israel’s atrocities in Gaza as classically antisemitic only serves to trivialize genuine horrors. This historically illiterate conflation should be rejected by all who truly care about antisemitism.

Breaking with the Netanyahu government’s spin, former Israeli President Ehud Olmert said that the riots in Amsterdam were “not a continuation of the historic antisemitism that swept Europe in past centuries.” Olmert, unlike Western media coverage of the event, seemed to be able to connect the violence in Amsterdam to anti-Arab sentiment in his own country. In a more thoughtful piece than his paper’s news coverage of the event, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman (11/13/24) quoted Olmert extensively:

The fact is, many people in the world are unable to acquiesce with Israel turning Gaza, or residential neighborhoods of Beirut, into the Stone Age—as some of our leaders promised to do. And that is to say nothing of what Israel is doing in the West Bank—the killings and destruction of Palestinian property. Are we really surprised that these things create a wave of hostile reactions when we continue to show a lack of sensitivity to human beings living in the center of the battlefield who are not terrorists?

The events in Amsterdam called for nuanced media coverage that contextualized events and condemned both anti-Jewish and anti-Arab violence. Instead, per usual, world leaders and media alike painted Arabs and Pro-Palestine protesters as aggressors and Israelis as innocent victims.

November 16, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, media, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Resisting the nuclear export and import policies in the age of climate crisis – Webinar on the International Joint Response to Nuclear Expansion.

No Nukes Asia Forum (NNAF) is organising this webinar on Tuesday 19 November. Note that the time listed for Australia is “ACST” – ie Adelaide time. Please adjust to fit your time zone.

It will be an opportunity to hear about South Korea’s nuclear export program. As you are no doubt aware, South Korea’s APR1400 and APR1000 reactors have been promoted by the Coalition as candidates for Australia. South Korea constructed the United Arab Emirates reactors on which the Coalition is basing its (unrealistic) timeline.

As the climate crisis grows more serious, countries worldwide are promoting energy transition policies to reduce the use of fossil fuels. Meanwhile, some countries also pursue strategies to expand nuclear power plants by including nuclear power in their energy transition policies. The nuclear industry is emphasizing nuclear power as an alternative solution to the climate crisis, and it is expanding with small modular reactors (SMRs) that are costly and not feasible at present and conventional nuclear power plants with long construction processes. In Asia, South Korea and Japan have been promoting the export of nuclear power plants to the Philippines, Turkiye, Indonesia, and Thailand. Nuclear power plants’ safety and economic feasibility are not achievable and this is an undemocratic policy.

In response, we will host a webinar with Asian nuclear disarmament organizations to examine the current status of nuclear power plant exports and explore ways to jointly respond internationally. We look forward to your interest and participation.

○ Date: November 19 (Tue), 2024, 3:00-5:00 PM (UTC+9)

– Turkiye (UTC+3): 9:00-11:00 AM

– India (UTC+5:30): 11:30 AM – 1:30 PM

– Indonesia/Thailand (UTC+7): 1:00-3:00 PM

– Manila/Taipei (UTC+8): 2:00-4:00 PM

– South Korea/Japan (UTC+9): 3:00-5:00 PM

– Australia (ACST, UTC+10): 4:00-6:00 PM

○ Location: Zoom Webinar / Zoom link will be sent via email later

○ Organized by: No Nukes Asia Forum (No Nukes Asia Form)

Korean organizers: Citizens’ Action for No Nukes, No Nukes News Media Cooperative, Yoon Jong-oh(National Assembly’s member) of the Progressive Party of Korea, National Assembly Economy Forum on Climate Crisis & Decarbonization

Philippines Organizer: Nuclear-Free Bataan Movement(NFBM), YoungBEAN, KILUSAN, Green Peace PH

Japan Organizer: Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center

Turkiye Organizer: Nukleersiz

○ Primary language: English / Interpretation: Korean

○ Presentations (15 minutes each)

Moderator: Korea (Kim Hyunwoo, No Nukes News) & Philippines (DJ Janier, KILUSAN)

Presentation 1: Korea’s Nuclear Power Plant Export Strategy and Issues / LEE Heonseok (Energy Justice Actions)

Presentation 2: Problems of Resuming Power Generation at the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant in the Philippines / NFBM

Presentation 3: The Overview of Japanese Failed Nuclear Exporting Project: Hajime Matsukubo(CNIC)

Presentation 4: On Nuclear Power Plant Projects and Problems in Turkiye and the Export Strategy of Russia/ Pinar Demircan(Nukleersiz)

○ Q&A and discussion: 40 minutes

○ Summary and closing remarks: 20 minutes

○ Contact: GreenReds@gmail.com

○ 참가 신청(한국어) : bit.ly/3AB2yjs

○ Registration Form(English): bit.ly/3AE0JlV

November 16, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Events | Leave a comment

Trump’s Appointments Reflect a More Openly Hawkish Face of US Empire

In appointing Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz and Pete Hegseth to his administration, Trump emboldens volatile warmongers.

By Sam Rosenthal , Truthout, November 14, 2024

After mounting his comeback win against Kamala Harris, Donald Trump has already announced a slew of administration appointments. Compared to other presidents-elect, and to his own first term, Trump is ahead of the typical timeline in announcing these appointments, giving observers an earlier-than-usual view into how the second Trump administration could function, both in the domestic and foreign policy arenas.

On the foreign policy front, Trump will inherit several major international crises and tensions that Joe Biden has been unable to resolve during his time in office, chief among them Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, Russia’s war in Ukraine and escalating U.S. rivalry with China over Taiwan. Trump has already named several high-profile cabinet members who will shape much of his foreign policy and could oversee the consequential conclusions of those conflicts.

Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida, has been tapped for the coveted secretary of state position. Rubio is a well-known China hawk who has recently led the charge against TikTok and other Chinese-based tech companies, a stance that dovetails well with Trump’s promise to impose a 60 percent tariff on all goods exported from China. Beyond economic warfare, Rubio has called China the “threat that will define this century” and pushed repeatedly on known pressure points in U.S.-China relations, including the status of Taiwan.

Rubio — the grandson of Cuban immigrants who moved to the U.S. before the Cuban revolution but hated Fidel Castro from afar — is an ardent anti-communist who has argued vociferously against the legitimacy of the sitting governments in Cuba and Venezuela and supported devastating sanctions on both……………………

Rubio’s aggressive stance toward China will no doubt be compounded by Trump’s newly announced pick for national security adviser, Mike Waltz, currently a House representative from Florida. Waltz has pushed his anti-China rhetoric even farther than Rubio, …………………………………….

Arguably Trump’s most surprising pick so far has been his choice for secretary of defense. …………………………….. For his second term, in an apparent attempt to institute more accommodating leadership at the Pentagon, Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host who served in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, to lead the Department of Defense.

During his time at Fox News, Hegseth has become known for advocating for leniency for military personnel found to have committed war crimes abroad while serving. Hegseth has no governmental experience whatsoever, nor has he served in any command role within the U.S. military…………………………..

During Trump’s last term, he encouraged the then-president to bomb cultural sites in Iran. As head of the Department of Defense, he might focus on internal house cleaning, seeking to remake the military into a more homogenous, more overtly male-dominated entity, with even less care for international law and a firmer belief in U.S. supremacy.

…………………………………………….Tulsi Gabbard, chosen as director of national intelligence……….. has also frequently trafficked in anti-Muslim rhetoric, repeating right-wing talking points about “radical Islamic ideology” that are often used to justify the criminalization and surveillance of Muslim communities…

………………………….Trump has also begun to announce high-profile ambassadorships. Among these early picks, the most consequential is likely to be his selection of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to serve as U.S. ambassador to Israel. Huckabee, whose daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, served as Trump’s press secretary in his last term, is well-known for his Christian evangelicism. …..

Huckabee’s pick as ambassador to Israel likely portends an even more openly hostile stance toward Palestinian human rights and comes with possibly apocalyptic consequences for the West Bank. Huckabee, an avowed Zionist (like President Biden), has long supported Benjamin Netanyahu. …………………………………….. He has said that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are not illegal, contradicting the overwhelming consensus of international law experts…………………………..

Beyond that, though, Huckabee ascribes to a particular brand of Christian evangelical thought, rooted in the belief that the existence of modern Israel is ordained by God. Huckabee has close ties to Christian Zionist organizations, including Christians United for Israel (CUFI), one of the largest of its type in the U.S., which is already celebrating his nomination.

But Huckabee’s connection with Hagee and CUFI isn’t just alarming because of its founder’s overt antisemitism; Hagee is part of an extreme segment of the Christian Zionist tradition that believes that a cataclysmic war in Israel and Palestine will be the precipitating event for the second coming of the Christian messiah. Hagee and others in this line of thinking, therefore, encourage the hastening of violent conflict between Israel and its neighbors as much as possible. Whether Huckabee himself is aligned with this particular strain of Christian Zionism is not clear, but his close connection with the broader movement, and with Hagee in particular, should be enough to raise the highest level of alarm about what policies Huckabee intends to support toward an Israeli state that is already deeply enmeshed in the bloodiest campaign of its entire existence.

It is not a foregone conclusion that all of these nominees will make it through the Senate confirmation process. Although Republicans now control the chamber, more moderate caucus members, or those with more traditional views of how the federal government should be run, might be hesitant to confirm some of Trump’s most unorthodox picks. Hegseth and Gabbard, in particular, could face strong headwinds. However, that is dependent on whether Republicans are willing to risk antagonizing Trump, who is infamous for his ability to hold and prosecute personal vendettas, at the outset of his second term. If these nominees are confirmed, they will comprise among the most unusual, and unpredictable, stewards of U.S. foreign policy that the country has ever had.

November 16, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

How Trump Will Seek Revenge on the Press

Ari Paul, 14 Nov 24,https://fair.org/home/how-trump-will-seek-revenge-on-the-pres

“Revenge—it’s a big part of Trump’s life,” Mother Jones‘ David Corn (10/19/16) wrote just before Trump was elected to the presidency the first time:

In speeches and public talks, Trump has repeatedly expressed his fondness for retribution. In 2011, he addressed the National Achievers Congress in Sydney, Australia, to explain how he had achieved his success. He noted there were a couple of lessons not taught in business school that successful people must know. At the top of the list was this piece of advice: “Get even with people. If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard. I really believe it.”

Knowing this about Trump, Democrats and liberals worry that he will use the Department of Justice, especially if Matt Gaetz is confirmed as attorney general, as an unrestrained vehicle to pursue the prosecution of political enemies.

But given Trump’s constant attacks on media—“the opposition party,” as his ally Steve Bannon called the fourth estate (New York Times, 1/26/17)—journalists fear that he will use the power of the state to intimidate if not destroy the press.

Defunding public broadcasting

Trump called for defunding NPR (Newsweek, 4/10/24) after a long-time editor accused the radio outlet of liberal bias in the conservative journal Free Press (4/9/24). Rep. Claudia Tenney (R–NY) introduced legislation to defund NPR because “taxpayers should not be forced to fund NPR, which has become a partisan propaganda machine” (Office of Claudia Tenney, 4/19/24). With Republicans also holding both houses of congress, bills like Tenney’s become more viable.

Trump has previously supported budget proposals that eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (Politico, 3/27/19).

The infamous Project 2025, a conservative policy agenda many see as a blueprint for the second Trump term, calls for the end to public broadcasting, because it is viewed as liberal propaganda:

Every Republican president since Richard Nixon has tried to strip the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) of taxpayer funding. That is significant not just because it means that for half a century, Republican presidents have failed to accomplish what they set out to do, but also because Nixon was the first president in office when National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which the CPB funds, went on air.

In other words, all Republican presidents have recognized that public funding of domestic broadcasts is a mistake. As a 35-year-old lawyer in the Nixon White House, one Antonin Scalia warned that conservatives were being “confronted with a long-range problem of significant social consequences—that is, the development of a government-funded broadcast system similar to the BBC.”

All of which means that the next conservative president must finally get this done, and do it despite opposition from congressional members of his own party if necessary. To stop public funding is good policy and good politics. The reason is simple: President Lyndon Johnson may have pledged in 1967 that public broadcasting would become “a vital public resource to enrich our homes, educate our families and to provide assistance to our classrooms,” but public broadcasting immediately became a liberal forum for public affairs and journalism.

PBS and NPR, as FAIR (10/24/24) has noted, has for decades caved in to right-wing pressures—PBS by adding conservative programming, NPR by trying to rid itself of political commentary altogether. But the right will never let go of its ideological opposition to media outlets not directly owned by the corporate class.

‘Whether criminally or civilly’

Trump also has a well known track record of revoking the credentials of journalists who produce reporting he doesn’t like (Washington Post, 2/24/17, 5/8/19; New Republic, 11/5/24). It is realistic to assume that a lot more reporters will be barred from White House events in the years ahead.

While a bill that would grant the secretary of the treasury broad authority to revoke nonprofit status to any organization the office deems as a “terrorist” organization has so far failed (Al Jazeera, 11/12/24), it is quite possible that it could come up for a vote again. If this bill were to become law, the Treasury Department could use this ax against a great many progressive nonprofit outlets, like Democracy Now! and the American Prospect, as well as investigative outlets like ProPublica and the Center for Investigative Reporting.

The department could even target the Committee to Protect Journalists, which has already said in response to Trump’s victory, “The fundamental right to a free press, guaranteed by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, must not be impaired” (11/6/24).

Margaret Sullivan (Guardian, 10/27/24), an avid media observer, said there is no reason to think Trump will soften his campaign against the free press. She said:

In 2022, he sued the Pulitzer Prize board after they defended their awards to the New York Times and the Washington Post. Both newspapers had won Pulitzer Prizes for investigating Trump’s ties to Russia.

More recently, Trump sued ABC News and George Stephanopoulos for defamation over the way the anchor characterized the verdict in E. Jean Carroll’s sexual misconduct case against him. Each of those cases is wending its way through the courts.

She added:

There is nothing to suggest that Trump would soften his approach in a second term. If anything, we can expect even more aggression.

Consider what one of Trump’s most loyal lieutenants, Kash Patel, has said.

“We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” Patel threatened during a podcast with Steve Bannon. “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”

Trump has already gone after the New York Times and Penguin Random House since Sullivan wrote this. CJR (11/14/24) said:

The letter, addressed to lawyers at the New York Times and Penguin Random House, arrived a week before the election. Attached was a discursive ten-page legal threat from an attorney for Donald Trump that demanded $10 billion in damages over “false and defamatory statements” contained in articles by Peter Baker, Michael S. Schmidt, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner.

It singles out two stories coauthored by Buettner and Craig that related to their book on Trump and his financial dealings, Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success, released on September 17. It also highlighted an October 20 story headlined “For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a Moment of Judgment” by Baker and an October 22 piece by Schmidt, “As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator.”

And just before his victory, Trump sued CBS News, alleging the network’s “deceitful” editing of a recent 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris “misled the public and unfairly disadvantaged him” (CBS News, 10/31/24).

Expect more of this, except this time, Trump will have all the levers of the state on his side. And whatever moves the next Trump administration makes to attack the press will surely have a chilling effect, which will only empower his anti-democratic political agenda.

November 16, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | media, USA | Leave a comment

A comprehensive review of the revolving door between Fox and the second Trump administration

Trump has picked 5 former Foxers — so far

by Matt Gert, 11/13/24

Incoming president Donald Trump’s unprecedented relationship with Fox News is once again creating a revolving door between the right-wing propaganda network and his administration. Trump has named three current or former Fox employees to high-ranking positions in the week since he was elected president — and more seem sure to follow.

Trump, an obsessive Fox viewer whose worldview is shaped by the network’s programming, stocked his first-term White House and federal agencies with familiar faces from the network. At least 20 people with Fox on their resumes joined his administration over the course of his tenure, including Cabinet secretaries, top White House aides, and ambassadors.

Trump also consulted privately with an array of Fox stars, creating a shadow Cabinet of advisers with immense influence over government affairs whose key credential was their ability to attract attention via right-wing bombthrowing. And he frequently made important decisions based on what people were telling him on his favorite network — at times with disastrous results.

As Trump ramps up his second term, he is once again plucking top administration officials from the network’s stable.

The list below will be updated as additional former Fox employees join or leave the Trump administration.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/comprehensive-review-revolving-door-between-fox-and-second-trump-administration

November 16, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | media, USA | Leave a comment

Trump 2.0 promises US enabled Israeli genocide on steroids.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL, 15 Nov 24

President Biden set a high bar for enabling Israeli genocide in Gaza. Like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden didn’t’ lift a finger to bring the remaining 97 Israeli hostages back safely from Gaza. But he’s used over 50,000 tons of weapons, costing over $18 billion for Israel to complete the genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

He did nothing to force Israel to provide food, water and medicine to the 2,300,000 sick and starving Palestinians (less the 100,000 or so already dead) as a condition for supplying genocide weapons. On October 12th he issued a demand giving Israel 30 days to start allowing in life saving supplies. When Israel did nothing to comply, Biden essentially said ‘Just kidding about the consequences….keep up the genocide.’

But at least Biden said a ceasefire along with food and medicine were needed to stop the Palestinians’ suffering.

Unlike Biden, Trump will continue US genocide enabling without the veneer of sympathy for its victims. He repeatedly demands that Israel “Finish the job” in Gaza.

His picks on foreign policy promise even more genocide in Gaza compared to Biden’s tough act to follow.

Trump tabbed uberhawk Mike Waltz to be his National Security Advisor. Waltz is totally against ceasefire, charging it will only lead to larger Middle East war, when it’s only the ongoing genocide in Gaza fueling it. He’s a huge fan of Netanyahu’s conduct of the genocide, claiming Biden has been too reactive compared to Netanyahu’s proactive aggression.

Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to run Defense, is all in for Israeli expanding the genocide in Gaza and bombing of Lebanon, to take out Iranian nuclear sites. He’s enamored of Israeli bombing and assassinations in Iran because he charges Biden is too weak to do it. He carries visible symbols of his beliefs—a large Crusader’s Jerusalem Cross tattoo on his chest and the biblical verse Matthew 10:34, which reads, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.” When in charge of Defense, Hegseth should change its name to Department of Endless War and Genocide.

Trump’s selection of Marco Rubio to head the State Department is equally dreadful. Rubio defends the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza saying “Israel’s enemies are also our enemies. The Iranian regime and its proxies – Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and a multitude of groups in Syria and Iraq seek Israel’s destruction as part of a multi-stage plan to dominate the Middle East and destabilize the West. The Jewish state is on the front lines of this conflict, fighting with many shared American-Israeli lives.” Rubio would be more accurate in saying ‘Israel is on the front lines of genocide.’

But Trump’s pick of Mike Huckabee to be Ambassador to Israel trumps even Waltz, Hegseph and Rubio for genocidal support. Huckabee, a Christian Evangelist claims “There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as occupation….there’s no such thing as a Palestinian.”

As grotesque as Biden’s enabling of Israeli genocide in Gaza is…Trump 2.0 figures to be much worse.

November 16, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Evaluation of Nuclear as a Solution

in evaluating solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy
security, two important questions that arise are

(1) should new nuclear
electricity-producing plants be built to help solve these problems, and

(2)
should existing, aged nuclear plants be kept open as long as possible to
help solve the problems?

This section discusses these issues after nuclear
power is explained.

In sum, before accounting for waste storage or meltdown
damage costs, a new nuclear lant costs about 3 to 4 times that of a new
onshore wind farm, takes 7 to 21 years longer between planning and
operation than a wind farm, and produces nine to 37 times the emissions per
unit electricity generated as a wind farm.

Thus, funds spent on new nuclear
means much less electricity, a much longer wait, and a much more emissions
than the same funds spent on WWS. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change similarly concludes that the economic, social, and technical
feasibility of nuclear power have not improved over time.

Stanford University 30th Oct 2024, https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/WWSStillNMN/SNMN-WhyNotNuclear.pdf

November 16, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change | Leave a comment

North Somerset Council says no to ‘crazy’ EDF salt marsh plan

Chard and Ilminster News, By John Wimperis, 15 Nov 24

NORTH Somerset Council is set to urge the government to block “crazy” plans to flood hundreds of acres of farmland near Kingston Seymour.

Power company EDF wants to turn a huge swath of farmland by the village into a salt marsh to make up for fish killed at Hinkley Point C.

But councillors are calling for EDF to drop the plan and instead invest in biodiversity in ways the area wants and needs.

“It is crazy, chairman, to destroy habitat to mitigate for killing fish,” Peter Burden, Conservative Portishead South, told a full council meeting November 12.

Burden tabled a motion, amended by Annemieke Waite (Winford, Green), for the council to urge the government to insist that EDF obey the original planning conditions.

Councillors voted to pass the resolution unanimously.

Steve Bridger (Yatton, Independent), a local councillor for the village on North Somerset Council, described the EDF plan as “ham-fisted.”

Farmers and businesses dismayed

Farmers and local businesses have expressed dismay at the plans. Third generation young farmer Sophie Cole, whose entire farm could be affected, said in September: “No amount of money can compensate me for the loss of my livelihood and exciting plans for the future.”

When Somerset’s new nuclear power station was granted planning permission, it was told to install speakers to scare off fish from getting sucked into its cooling systems.

But EDF now says this would be “dangerous to install,” and wants to compensate for the 44 tonnes of fish expected to die each year by creating 340 hectares of saltmarsh along the Severn……………………..

Mr Burden said any changes to sea defences should be dealt with in the same way as other shoreline changes.

“I think we should ask for serious amounts of cash to be put into proper nature conservation and environment improvements in the wider area, not set up a completely new scheme by an organisation that’s interested in making power,” he said.

Involving central government

The council resolution sees it commit to continue working with the Environment Agency and local communities to develop a strategy to protect residents and the natural habitat, and to write to Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband, as the secretaries of state responsible for local government and energy, to urge them to enforce the original planning conditions on EDF, and not let them swap them for creating salt marshes……….. https://www.chardandilminsternews.co.uk/news/24725089.north-somerset-council-says-no-crazy-edf-salt-marsh-plan/

November 16, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Imprisoned ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder to ask Donald Trump for clemency, campaign attorney says

By Jeremy Pelzer, cleveland.com, COLUMBUS, Nov. 11, 2024,

Ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, who’s serving a 20-year prison sentence for overseeing the largest bribery scandal in Ohio history, is preparing to ask President-elect Donald Trump for clemency, according to his campaign’s attorney.

Householder, a Perry County Republican, is planning to submit an official pardon application to the U.S. Justice Department at some point closer to Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025, according to the attorney, Scott Pullins.

“We will also be working to build support and communicate with the President and his team,” Pullins stated in a message. Pullins is not a member of Householder’s criminal defense team; rather, he’s advised Householder about legal and political matters over the years and represented him in some state elections cases.

Mark Marein, one of Trump’s criminal defense attorneys, declined comment.

U.S. presidents have the power to offer two kinds of executive clemency for federal crimes: a presidential pardon, and commuting a prison sentence. Either would result in Householder being immediately released from prison……………………………………………………………………….

Last year, Householder was convicted by a federal jury of leading a scheme to use $60 million in bribes from FirstEnergy to help pass and maintain House Bill 6, a 2019 energy law that offered the Akron-based utility a windfall of financial perks – headlined by a $1 billion-plus bailout of two Ohio nuclear power plants owned at the time by a company subsidiary.

……………………………………….. Even if Trump grants a presidential pardon for his federal conviction, Householder could still remain behind bars if he’s convicted of pending state-level charges filed against him last March claiming he lied on state ethics disclosure forms and illegally used campaign funds to pay criminal defense fees from his federal trial.

While Householder was prosecuted at trial by the office of U.S. Attorney Kenneth Parker, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden, the House Bill 6 corruption investigation was launched under Parker’s predecessor, Trump appointee David DeVillers………………………………………….. more https://www.cleveland.com/news/2024/11/larry-householder-imprisoned-ex-ohio-house-speaker-to-ask-donald-trump-for-clemency-campaign-attorney-says.html?outputType=amp&fbclid=IwY2xjawGjYXRleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHVnzOLnrs4RtAZadAmLBy1ftyo-ntH8VLFbM5eb32xO1e2i2iaCHrnYdmQ_aem_C0GQArV6rnh_v9JKVSeyGQ

November 16, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Trumped: $9B to US and UK shipyards … but why not make Australia make again?

The Government is shy on spending money on a steel works which they would have complete control over, in terms of success, but are happy to recklessly throw money at US shipyards.

Senator David Shoebridge: “The AUKUS submarine deal is a non-refundable $368 billion gamble on the goodwill of some future US President, and the US just elected Donald Trump. You only need to put these two facts side by side to realize what a disaster the whole thing is.”

by Rex Patrick | Nov 16, 2024, https://michaelwest.com.au/aukus-9b-to-us-and-uk-shipyards-but-wait-theres-more/

Make Australia Make Again?

The future of Whyalla’s steelworks is of vital national importance and should matter to all of us. It is critical to Australia’s manufacturing, construction and national security and resilience.

Being frank, the steelworks are in dire straits. They are 60 years old and have been on a rocky road for well over a decade. Its blast furnace has been out of action for over six months now, and whilst there is some optimism that they will get it back up and running it will not change the fact that the steelworks have been in operation for some six decades.

In 2016 when the previous owner, Arrium, went into administration with $4 billion in debts, UK billionaire Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance bought the steelworks making lots of big promises for a bright future, but it was not to be. At the turn of the decade Greensill Capital, GFG’s financier, collapsed and there’s been trouble ever since.

As it stands, the future of the steelworks, and Whyalla, is in the hands of a court entangled foreign billionaire with a gaping chasm between his promises and delivery. Those promises of a 21st century industrial transformation look very much like ever receding mirages.

The Federal Government needs to have the SA Government bring matters to a head by putting GFG’s South Australian operations into administration (by calling for unpaid and overdue mining royalties), taking an equity stake in the steelworks alongside someone like BlueScope Steel, and investing the necessary billions to build a new green steel industry for Australia.

It would be a part of Make Australia Make Again.

Make America Great Again!

Prime Minister Albanese’s focus is on investment in US industry, not Australian industry.

In September 2023 the Federal Government announced it was pouring $4.7 billion ($US3B) into the US submarine industrial base to assist the largest economy in the world get their submarine production rate up to 2.3 subs per annum (from the current rate of 1.4 subs).

Some $1.5 billion will be paid to the US this financial year, and $1.8 billion next financial year. The remaining $1.4B will follow thereafter.

The Government is shy on spending money on a steel works which they would have complete control over, in terms of success, but are happy to recklessly throw money at US shipyards.

Go figure!

Make Great Britain Great Again Too!

That’s not the end of the story though.

The British are in on this deal of a lifetime too. They’ve managed to pull $4.4B (£2.4 billion) over the next decade from Australian consolidated revenue.

There is no clawback on payment to the United Kingdom either.

Everyone must be feeling pretty chuffed in Groton, Connecticut, and Barrow-in-Furness, England.

But Wait, There’s More!

Whilst the Federal Government has been open about the totals, albeit with a little ‘encouragement’ from Green’s Senator David Shoebridge at Senate Estimates, there’s a dark secret being withheld from the Parliament and the public.

There’s more ‘shared’ cost to come.

FOI returns from the US Department of the Navy reveal that behind the scenes the three AUKUS government participants have been negotiating trilateral cost sharing principles to guide future cost sharing negotiations.

There’s more ‘shared’ cost to come.

Senator David Shoebridge backed this in telling MWM, “Why on earth do cost-sharing principles need to be secret? Of course they should be made public.”

He went on to comment, “Once again, we get more transparency on AUKUS out of the US than Australia.“

“The one-sided secrecy is because the US has a whole lot less to be embarrassed about than Australia. They are the ones getting all our money after all.”

Transactional Trump

The approved appropriations in the US for enhancing their submarine industrial base through upgrades as well as recruitment and training of thousands of additional workers amount to $US14.7B. Australia adds another $US3B to that. But the total the US administration is seeking for this work is in the order of $US28.4B.

Of course, there is some quid quo pro in all of this with the Australia Government having committed to spending $8 billion upgrading HMAS Stirling near Rockingham to support the operations of UK and US nuclear powered submarines from 2027, and possibly Australian nuclear submarines from 2035.

There is a danger under the incoming Trump administration that the President will seek a greater contribution from Australia – just as he has demanded that members of NATO pull their weight. And it will be a case of having no choice but to pay, no matter the cost sharing principles negotiated, because our Defence Department simply has no Plan B.

Senator Shoebridge commented, “The AUKUS submarine deal is a non-refundable $368 billion gamble on the goodwill of some future US President, and the US just elected Donald Trump. You only need to put these two facts side by side to realize what a disaster the whole thing is.”

Ships and Steel

Meanwhile, as Australian money is being tossed around the US and UK like it’s free, Albanese is sitting on his hand on the issue of green steel manufacturing in Whyalla.

Anthony Albanese says he wants to revitalise manufacturing and Make Australia Make Again. But in this topsy-turvey world, he’s instead working to deliver on Donald Trump’s slogan to Make America Great Again.

November 16, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, politics international | Leave a comment