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White House finally confirms greenlight for deep Russia strikes

 https://www.rt.com/news/608194-us-admits-russia-strikes/ 25 Nov 24

Ukraine can use ATACMS to strike in the vicinity of Kursk Region, John Kirby has said

Washington on Monday officially confirmed a well-flagged policy change allowing Ukraine to strike inside Russia using US-supplied ATACMS missiles.

Numerous international officials have spoken about the change in stance over the past week. While US President Joe Biden and his administration remained silent, Kiev fired a volley of ATACMS projectiles at Russia’s Bryansk Region last Monday.

“They are able to use ATACMS to defend themselves in an immediate-need basis,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at a White House briefing on Monday.

“We did change the guidance and gave them guidance that they can use them to strike these particular types of targets,” Kirby said, referring to the Ukrainian attacks “in and around Kursk.”

The US and its allies have provided increasingly powerful weapons systems to Kiev since 2022, while maintaining that it does not make them a party to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons would change the character of the hostilities and make NATO a direct participant. He explained that weapons such as the ATACMS or the UK-supplied Storm Shadow cannot be deployed by Kiev’s forces without the participation of NATO military personnel.

Moscow’s response came last Thursday, when a brand-new hypersonic ballistic missile, the Oreshnik, was used against the Yuzhmash military-industrial complex in Dnepropetrovsk. Putin called it a “combat test” of the new weapon and said such tests would continue depending on circumstances.

November 27, 2024 Posted by | Russia, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Iran to hold nuclear talks with France, Germany, UK

 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/24/iran-to-meet-with-germany-france-uk-in-nuclear-talks

The meeting follows an IAEA resolution denouncing Iran for what it called a lack of cooperation.

Iran says it will hold nuclear talks with officials from France, Germany, and the United Kingdom this week, amid escalating tensions over Iran’s nuclear programme.

The meeting, which is set to happen on Friday, was announced by Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday, and UK officials confirmed the meeting.

“A range of regional and international issues, including the issues of Palestine and Lebanon, as well as the nuclear issue, will be discussed,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said.

Neither London nor Tehran said where the meeting would take place.

On Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) adopted a resolution denouncing Iran for what it called a lack of cooperation. The three European nations, whose representatives will meet Iranian officials, were among those voting for the resolution.

Nineteen countries out of the 35-member IAEA voted to censure Iran – a largely symbolic gesture – while 12 countries abstained. Russia, China, and Burkina Faso voted against the resolution. Thursday’s resolution marked the third time the United Nations body had taken such action since 2020.

The move came as tensions ran high over Iran’s nuclear programme, which critics fear is aimed at developing a nuclear weapon – something Tehran has repeatedly denied.

On Friday, Iran announced a “series of new and advanced centrifuges”, technology that refines enriched uranium into gas. “We will substantially increase the enrichment capacity with the utilisation of different types of advanced machines,” Behrouz Kamalvandi, Iran’s atomic energy organisation spokesman, told Iranian state TV.

Despite the announcement, Iran said it would continue to cooperate with the IAEA.

“We remain committed to taking every diplomatic step to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, including through snapback if necessary,” the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office told the AFP news agency.

In 2015, Iran reached an agreement with world powers, including the United States, to curb its nuclear programme due to concerns about the country potentially developing nuclear weapons.

But in 2018, during President Donald Trump’s first term, the US unilaterally withdrew from the agreement and imposed sanctions on Iran – a move that stoked tensions between Washington and Tehran.

Since then, Tehran has scaled back its cooperation with the IAEA, deactivating surveillance devices put in place by the UN. Concurrently, Iran has increased its stockpile of enriched uranium.

Iran has “begun implementation of preparatory measures” to cap its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. According to leaked reports from the IAEA, Iran is close to the 90 percent threshold needed to produce a nuclear warhead.

November 27, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Christian Nationalism Marches on With ‘Bible-Infused’ Texas Curriculum

“What we’re seeing here in Texas with these lessons is a larger national push to promote the idea that American identity and Christian identity are woven together, are one in the same,” said one professor.

Jessica Corbett, Nov 22, 2024, Common Dreams

Parents, teachers, and other critics of Christian nationalism were outraged by a Texas board’s Friday vote to approve a “Bible-infused” curriculum for elementary school students—part of a broader right-wing push to force Christianity into public education.

“They chose politics over what’s best for students, promoting an evangelical Christian religious perspective and undermining the freedom of families to direct the religious education of their own children,” declared the Texas Freedom Network, accusing the State Board of Education (SBOE) of ignoring warnings from religious studies experts, national media attention, and overwhelming negative feedback from the people they’re elected to serve.”

Like a preliminary vote Tuesday, eight of the SBOE’s 15 members voted to approve Bluebonnet Learning, instructional materials proposed by the Texas Education Agency. Three Republicans joined all four Democrats in opposing the curriculum. The deciding vote in favor of it was cast by Leslie Recine, a Republican recently appointed by GOP Gov. Greg Abbott to temporarily fill a vacant seat.

“In a state as diverse as Texas, home to millions of people from countless faiths and beliefs, the Texas Republicans on the State Board of Education voted to incorporate Biblical teachings into the state curriculum—completely undermining religious freedom,” said Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa in a statement after the final vote.

“This move has ultimately violated parents’ rights to guide their children’s faith while presenting teachers with additional needless challenges,” Hinojosa argued. “Our public schools should be focused on equipping students with the education and skills they need to succeed beyond grade school whether it’s pursuing a higher education or entering the workforce. The teaching of religious doctrine should stay in our places of worship where it belongs.”

Although the curriculum isn’t required, The Texas Tribunereported, “the state will offer an incentive of $60 per student to districts that adopt the lessons, which could appeal to some as schools struggle financially after several years without a significant raise in state funding.”

“Christian nationalists have bought their way into every governing body of the state, including the SBOE. And they will not stop with inserting Biblical content in English textbooks.”

Bluebonnet Learning features lessons from Christianity in reading and language arts materials for kindergarten through fifth grade………………………

Zeph Capo, president of the Texas arm of the American Federation of Teachers, urged districts “to resist the dollars dangled before them and refuse to use Bluebonnet Learning materials,” arguing that they violate the code of ethics for the state’s educators and “the separation of church and state by infusing lessons with Bible-based references more appropriate for Sunday Schools than public schools.”…………………………………………………………………….

Noting the current “moment of profound political division,” the union leader added that the vote “is the latest evidence that Christian nationalists have bought their way into every governing body of the state, including the SBOE. And they will not stop with inserting Biblical content in English textbooks. We can anticipate what will come next, whether that’s the erasure of contributions of marginalized populations in social studies or the minimalization of climate change in science.

The curriculum push coincides with an SBOE effort to restrict library materials. The ACLU of Texas said on social media that “the same politicians censoring what students can read now want to impose state-sponsored religion onto our public schools.”

The Tribunereported Thursday that “10 members on the board responsible for determining what Texas’ 5.5 million public schoolchildren learn in the classroom voted to call on the Texas Legislature, which convenes in January, to pass a state law granting them authority to determine what books are appropriate for school-age children.

Earlier this week, Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University, toldFox 4 that he supports teaching religion in public schools, but in a fair and unbiased way, and he doesn’t agree with the state proposal…………………………………………………………..

At the federal level, Trump—who is set to return to the White House in January—has advocated for dismantling the U.S. Department of Education. For now, he has named Linda McMahon, a former wrestling executive accused of enabling sexual abuse of children, as his pick for education secretary. https://www.commondreams.org/news/christianity-in-schools?utm_source=Common+Dreams&utm_campaign=08cb74510b-Weekend+Edition%3A+Sun.+11%2F24%2F24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-3b949b3e19-600558179

November 27, 2024 Posted by | Education, Religion and ethics, USA | Leave a comment

Huge COP29 climate deal too little too late, poorer nations say

 Richer countries have promised to raise their funding to help poorer
countries fight climate change to a record $300bn (£238bn) a year, but the
deal has come under criticism from the developing world.

The talks at the UN climate summit COP29 in Azerbaijan ran 33 hours late, and came within
inches of collapse. The agreement falls well short of the $1.3tr developing
countries were pushing for. The African Group of Negotiators described the
final pledge as “too little, too late”, while the representative from India
dismissed the money as “a paltry sum”.

But after two weeks of often bitter
negotiations in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, poorer nations did not stand
in the way of a deal. Five key takeaways from COP29 climate talks. The
promise of more money is a recognition that developing nations bear a
disproportionate burden from climate change, but also have historically
contributed the least to climate change.

 BBC 24th Nov 2024, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd0gx4przejo

November 27, 2024 Posted by | climate change | Leave a comment

Mystery drone spotted over British aircraft carrier

A mystery drone has been spotted following a British aircraft carrier at
sea after unmanned aerial vehicles were seen hovering over three air bases
in England.

An unidentified 1.5 by 1.5 metre drone appeared to tail the
Royal Navy flagship HMS Queen Elizabeth as it entered the port of Hamburg,
in Germany, on Friday. The German military positioned guards around the
port and attempted to target the drone with HP-47 jammers before it flew
away, the German newspaper Bild reported.

On Saturday, the US Air Force
also revealed that “small unmanned aerial systems” flew over RAF
Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall, in Suffolk, as well as RAF Feltwell, in
Norfolk, last week.

 Telegraph 24th Nov 2024, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/11/24/russia-ukraine-zelensky-putin-war-latest-news58/

November 27, 2024 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Iran deploys advanced centrifuges in defiance of IAEA resolution

 Iran has begun deploying advanced centrifuges which enrich uranium for the
country’s nuclear program in response to a resolution by the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) calling for greater transparency
into Iran’s nuclear activities.

Speaking during an open session of
parliament on Sunday, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf criticized the resolution,
accusing the United States and European nations of using Iran’s nuclear
program as a pretext for unjustified actions. He said, “The Islamic
Republic of Iran’s reciprocal response to this political misuse of the
Board of Governors was immediately put into action, and the deployment of a
set of new and advanced centrifuges has begun”.

 Iran International 24th Nov 2024,
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202411240306

November 27, 2024 Posted by | Iran, technology | Leave a comment

Nuclear fusion: neither imminent nor relevant to climate change

Billions of dollars have been raised on promises of limitless power from nuclear fusion. However, the technology will not deliver affordable power within our lifetimes.

By Ross McCracken, 22/11/2024, 
https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables-energy-transition/563251/nuclear-fusion-neither-imminent-nor-relevant-to-climate-change/

As a child, my father, a senior experimental plasma physicist at the UK’s Culham Laboratory, would tell me that an electricity-generating fusion reactor was just 30 years away. His opinion had not changed by the time he retired, and I believe it would be the same now, if he were alive. But then, he always was an optimist.

With the exception of those on which their business is based, such as France’s EdF, electric utilities in the western world have largely given up on building new nuclear fission reactors. They are expensive; the capital outlay and commercial risks are too high, and they take too long to build.

Market forces and climate policies are now driving the construction of wind and solar farms, which generate cleaner electricity more cheaply, even when energy storage is included. As nuclear power has largely failed as a commercial market proposition, nearly all nuclear newbuild in the world today is heavily state sponsored in one form or another, rather than market driven.

But the nuclear industry is far from out. It has ‘new’ propositions, one of which is still nuclear fusion.

Dubious claims

Private companies have entered the sector, claiming that they can solve the problems encountered by decades of international research with new reactor designs and fusion processes.

Investors hope that innovation from an agile private sector will rejuvenate and overtake the slow process of publicly funded science, represented by the ITER project currently under construction at Cadarache, in France. Fusion will generate limitless clean energy and, in the process, become a key tool for addressing climate change – according to its proponents.

US company Helion, which in 2015 promised a “a useful reactor in the next three years”, now promises a fusion plant by 2028, for example. Microsoft has even agreed to purchase electricity from the facility.

However, the claims of clean, unlimited energy do not stand up to scrutiny. Or as nuclear fusion scientist SJ Zweben put it more bluntly in an article for Physics and Society in January, they are:

“At best wildly optimistic but more often mistaken, delusional, deceitful or fraudulent.”

The scientific and engineering challenges facing nuclear fusion reactors are legion, and as Zweben points out they all need to be resolved at the same time. This is extremely challenging because the solutions proposed for one problem often exacerbate others or create new ones.

The many challenges include energy confinement, impurity contamination, plasma disruptions, wall erosion, the tritium fuel cycle, availability in terms of operational uptime, excessive power consumption by the plant itself, cost and – yes, contrary to industry marketing – radioactive waste.

Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP)

The UK is basing its fusion hopes on STEP, having left the international ITER project with Brexit. A site has been chosen for the project, but it is not yet clear whether the experiment will garner the same support from the current government as it did from the previous one.

In a recent article for Physics World, fusion scientist Guy Matthews noted that the energy stored in STEP’s plasma would need to be about 5,000 times larger than that produced in the UK’s MAST-U spherical tokamak experiment. He describes the single giant leap to a power plant as “an extreme, and unprecedented, extrapolation of physics and technology”.

It may even be dangerous. There is no way yet of reliably avoiding or mitigating plasma instabilities, known as ‘disruptions’. Without a robust solution, the consequent damage “would render a power plant inoperable”.

Other experienced fusion scientists share these and other concerns.

John Evans, who worked at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell, recently highlighted the lack of a proven solution for the fusion fuel cycle.

This involves breeding and reprocessing unprecedented quantities of radioactive tritium – a hydrogen isotope that does not occur naturally and needs to be generated from a massive ‘breeding blanket’ containing lithium. A solution must be in place before any fusion power plant can operate and each fusion plant would consume, annually, more tritium than is currently available globally.

Put simply, the technical and scientific challenges posed by any approach to fusion, whether using spherical, ‘toroidal’ tokamaks or lasers, are huge.

Will fusion be clean?

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), “Fusion does not create any long-lived radioactive waste”. This is true only in theory.

A fusion reactor produces helium, an inert gas, as a result of a fusion reaction between the hydrogen isotopes tritium and deuterium. Tritium is very radioactive with a half-life of 12.3 years. The tritium is both produced and consumed by the fusion reactor so, in a perfect world, there is no nuclear waste.However, 80% of the power from the fusion reaction is delivered as fast neutrons that generate the tritium from the surrounding breeding blanket, which is likely to require periodic replacement.Nuclear reactions between the neutrons, and impurities or primary elements in the blanket, make it radioactive and degrade the materials – i.e. increasing the need for replacement.Materials in a more compact fusion reactor, like STEP, would accumulate neutron damage more rapidly and would therefore need more frequent replacement.

As a result, Matthews provides a somewhat different message to the IAEA: “If conventional engineering materials are used, fusion reactors have the potential to generate far larger volumes of long-lived radioactive waste than fission reactors.”

The extent to which suitable low-activation fusion materials can be developed to mitigate this challenge at an acceptable cost is one of the many unsolved problems facing fusion power.

A neutron-free fusion reaction is possible using hydrogen and boron, but for this to work the plasma temperature needs to be around 7,000 million degrees – which makes the deuterium-tritium reaction (JET, ITER), at a mere 100 million degrees, seem like a walk in the park.

Fusion’s costs are misunderstood or ignored

Fusion advocates use the term ‘limitless’ energy to imply cheap energy. But will fusion provide either?

It could be limitless in the sense that the base fuel sources – lithium and deuterium – are abundant and only relatively small amounts are required to produce huge amounts of power. Unfortunately, the idea that a limitless or near-limitless energy source means cheap energy is plain wrong because, however energy is generated, it has a cost.

A nuclear fusion power plant will have a capital cost, an operational cost and a maximum generating capacity like any other power plant. The price of a first-of-a-kind reactor will be huge and an ‘nth of a kind’ reactor will not be cheap. ITER’s costs are currently estimated at €18-22 billion, but will likely prove much higher and it is an experiment – not a power plant.

STEP’s cost is estimated to run to several billion pounds before construction has even started and it is a far more challenging project. Moreover, the role of STEP (if successful) is only to provide a “pathway to commercialisation” according to Howard Wilson, fusion pilot plant lead at the US’ Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Cost trajectory

For wide-scale deployment, fusion must be economically viable. The general ‘rule’ used in forecasting future costs is that they halve as production of a commodity doubles. However, this is a popularisation and over-optimistic simplification of Wright’s Law, which states that for every cumulative doubling of units produced, costs will fall by a constant percentage.

The extent of that percentage is usually governed by the complexity of the technology concerned and the degree to which it can be modularised and subject to the cost gains of mass manufacturing. Technical complexity and safety concerns, when major, mean that the cost reduction of higher production volumes can be small or non-existent.

Just as nuclear fission has struggled to follow Wright’s Law, there is no reason to believe that fusion, which is much more complex, will be any more successful.

Relevance to climate change

Nuclear fusion is still decades away from working (i.e. producing sustainable net energy gains), and then decades more from economic viability. Even then, it would be more decades still from deployment on a scale large enough to have any impact on climate change.

It is almost 2025, and to remain on track to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, the world, not just individual countries, needs to achieve net-zero carbon by 2050. It is a goal that is already slipping away. Fusion is simply too far off to be of any use.

Ross McCracken is a freelance energy analyst with more than 25 years experience, ranging from oil price assessment with S&P Global to coverage of the LNG market and the emergence of disruptive energy transition technologies.

November 26, 2024 Posted by | technology | Leave a comment

Israel Attacks Kill 155 Palestinians in Gaza Over 72 Hours

Israel again targeted the Kamal Adwan Hospital and injured its director

by Dave DeCamp November 24, 2024,  https://news.antiwar.com/2024/11/24/israel-attacks-kill-155-palestinians-in-gaza-over-72-hours/

Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip killed at least 155 Palestinians over 72 hours, according to death toll updates released by Gaza’s Health Ministry.

On Saturday, the Health Ministry said Israeli forces killed 120 Palestinians and wounded over the previous 48-hour period. On Sunday, the ministry said 35 Palestinians were killed and 94 were wounded in the past 24 hours.

The ministry’s figures are based on the number of dead and wounded Palestinians brought to hospitals and morgues. “There are still a number of victims under the rubble and on the streets, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them,” the ministry wrote on Telegram.

Israeli strikes on Sunday included attacks on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza and in the Jabalia refugee camp in the north, which has been under a total siege since early October as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign. The Israeli military issued a new evacuation order for Shejaiya, an eastern suburb of Gaza City, resulting in more forced displacement of Palestinian civilians.

Israeli forces again targeted the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beith Lahia, another city that’s been under total siege. The shelling wounded the hospital director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, who has been drawing attention to the siege by releasing video statements and talking to media outlets.

According to Al Jazeera, Gaza Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal said that Abu Safia suffered an injury to his back and left thigh due to metal fragments but was now in a “stable” condition in hospital.

From his hospital bed, Abu Safia said the attack won’t stop him and other hospital staff from “completing our humanitarian mission, and we will continue to do this job at any cost.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry said the latest violence brought its death toll since October 2023 to 44,211 and the number of wounded to 104,567. A group of American healthcare workers who volunteered in Gaza estimated in an open letter to President Biden in October that the US-backed Israeli onslaught has killed at least 118,908 Palestinians, a total that includes indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege.

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, who led the letter, told Antiwar.com in a recent interview that the estimate was the bare minimum they came up with by looking at the available data.

November 26, 2024 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

Indigenous views on nuclear energy and radioactive waste

 https://cedar-project.org/indigenous/ 25 Nov 24

The Point Lepreau nuclear reactor is the only power reactor in Atlantic Canada. The nuclear plant, in New Brunswick on the Bay of Fundy, opened in 1983. The plant’s owner, the public utility NB Power, is also proposing to build two smaller, experimental, reactors on the nuclear site.

The affected Indigenous nations did not consent to the existing reactor, or the proposed new reactors, or the storage of radioactive waste on their homelands.

Since the Point Lepreau reactor started up 40 years ago, it has produced hundreds of tons of intensely radioactive high-level nuclear waste (used nuclear fuel) that NB Power is storing at the site in aging concrete silos less than a kilometre from the Bay of Fundy.

The CEDAR project’s Indigenous partners – Chief Hugh Akagi of the Passamaquoddy Recognition Group (PRGI) and Chief Ron Tremblay of the Wolastoq Grand Council– are concerned about the existing radioactive waste, that the reactor is continuing to produce more of it, and that the proposed experimental reactors, if built, will produce new forms of radioactive waste at the site.

Radioactivity cannot be turned off – that’s what makes it so dangerous. The radioactivity from high-level waste can take millennia to decay. If exposed, radioactivity can damage living tissue in a range of ways and can alter gene structure. For this reason, high-level waste must be kept isolated from living things for millennia.

The plan to manage the the new forms of waste from the proposed experimental reactors is unknown. NB Power plans to transport the high-level radioactive waste from the existing reactor by public roads through New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario to a proposed nuclear waste dump, a deep geological repository. Our project focused on the perspectives of Indigenous nations and communities in these three provinces on nuclear energy and radioactive waste.

In collaboration with CEDAR, the Passamaquoddy Recognition Group (PRGI) organized a meeting in Ottawa at the end of April 2024, inviting Indigenous leaders from communities in New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec and representatives from NGOs across Canada involved in nuclear issues.

The purpose of the meeting was to share information and common concerns about: uranium mining and processing; nuclear energy and radioactive waste; the nuclear industry’s plans to transport radioactive waste through Indigenous homelands; industry proposals to develop radioactive waste dumps on Indigenous territories; plans to develop more nuclear reactors on Indigenous homelands that would produce even more, and new forms, of nuclear waste; and concerns about the close ties between the nuclear industry and the regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

A press conference was held at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa. Participants were Chief Hugh Akagi and Kim Reeder of PRGI, Chief Ron Tremblay of the Wolastoq Grand Council, Councillor Peyton Pitawanakwat of Missisauga First Nation, and Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada. To watch the video of the press conference, click HERE. To read the media release, click HERE.

A team from Eleven North Visuals filmed interviews in Ottawa with Chief Akagi, Chief Tremblay and Councillor Pitawanakwat. Later they produced the video, Askomiw Ksanaqak (Forever Dangerous) – Indigenous Nations Resist Nuclear Colonialism, available for viewing on this page.

Following the Ottawa events, in the summer of 2024, a PRGI-CEDAR team in New Brunswick–including research assistants Abby Bartlett with the CEDAR project and Robbie Atwin with PRGI, supervised by CEDAR primary investigator Susan O’Donnell – worked on a report, Indigenous Views on Nuclear Energy and Radioactive Waste, available for download from this page. A French version is currently in development.

For the report, we analyzed 30 public statements about nuclear energy and radioactive waste by Indigenous communities in New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario. We also gathered more than 125 documents submitted to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) by Indigenous organizations in these three provinces.

The report – featuring photos of the Bay of Fundy by William (Eric) Altvater, a member of Passamaquoddy Nation in Maine – was co-published in November 2024 by PRGI and the CEDAR project. We are currently organizing an event at St. Thomas University to launch the report and the video.

The CEDAR-PRGI team and collaborators across Canada are now discussing the next steps for this work.

For more information, feedback on the report or the video, or to get in touch for any reason, contact the CEDAR team.

The CEDAR project is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Canada (SSHRC).

November 26, 2024 Posted by | Canada, indigenous issues | Leave a comment

Inside Project Esther, the right wing action plan to take down the Palestine movement

The Heritage Foundation’s “Project Esther” claims to combat antisemitism but in fact, aims to destroy the Palestine solidarity movement as a first step in a crusade against all domestic dissent in the U.S. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPar-qf5FwY

By Mitchell Plitnick  November 22, 2024 ,  https://mondoweiss.net/2024/11/inside-project-esther-the-right-wing-action-plan-to-take-down-the-palestine-movement/?ml_recipient=138796694236038510&ml_link=138796674607744710&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2024-11-23&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation

Mitchell Plitnick is the president of ReThinking Foreign Policy. He is the co-author, with Marc Lamont Hill, of Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics. Mitchell’s previous positions include vice president at the Foundation for Middle East Peace, Director of the US Office of B’Tselem, and Co-Director of Jewish Voice for Peace. You can find him on Twitter @MJPlitnick.

The Heritage Foundation got a lot of publicity during this election cycle for its infamous Project 2025. But that’s not the only project they intend to carry out now that Donald Trump is returning to the White House.

Project Esther is a new proposal from Heritage that claims to lay out a plan to combat antisemitism in the United States. In fact, it aims to destroy the Palestine solidarity movement as a first step in a crusade to, ultimately, restrict activism against American policy of all sorts, foreign and domestic. .

It’s not a new enterprise, of course. Disingenuous accusations of antisemitism have been weaponized by the Zionist movement and the State of Israel for a century or more but Project Esther means to unify and coordinate the cynical use of the fight against real antisemitism in order to completely destroy the movement for Palestinian rights. 

But that is only its initial ambition. As the full plan makes clear, the people who produced this scheme see it as the key to devastating movements against both American imperialism abroad and white supremacy domestically.

What is Project Esther?

The Project Esther document describes its purpose this way: “Named after the historic Jewish heroine who saved the Jews from genocide in ancient Persia, Project Esther provides a blueprint to counter antisemitism in the United States and ensure the security and prosperity of all Americans.”

It should raise concerns right away that the document treats the story of Esther as historical. Most biblical scholars agree that the story is apocryphal, or at best allegorical. Only the most puritanically fundamentalist approach to the Book of Esther would treat it as history.

The key strategy Project Esther proposes is to identify the Palestine solidarity movement as the “Hamas Support Network,” and organizations in the movement as “Hamas Support Organizations.”

This strategy carries two key effects. One is to discredit the Palestine solidarity movement and all the organizations within it by associating it with Hamas, an organization most of the American public identifies as nothing but a terrorist organization, based on decades of misrepresentations of the group and its goals. 

The second aim is to attack the ability of organizations to function by casting them as supporters of terrorism, and specifically of an organization that has been designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization. This would make it impossible for those organizations to legally raise money or complete legal business transactions. 

Unsurprisingly, the “Hamas Support network” purportedly revolves around American Muslims for Palestine and prominently includes Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. Completing the picture are funding organizations such as the Open Society Institute, Tides Foundation, and Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

This demonization of the movement combines with the conspiratorial thinking that permeates the entire world in 2025 to take aim at many common tactics of activism. 

After laying out allegedly “sinister” exploitation of the “open society” the United States ostensibly has, Project Esther makes the mere use of press releases, social media posts, letters to and meetings with elected officials, and other common tools of activism sound illegitimate simply because Palestine solidarity activists are using them. Again, they do this simply by talking about these activities being conducted by “Hamas Supporting Organizations.”

After establishing this, they state, without evidence, “It should be obvious at this point even to the casual observer that there is an active cabal of Jew-haters, Israel-haters, and America-haters in Washington—all apparently aligned with the far left, progressive movement.”

A political witchhunt

Throughout the document, in addition to erasing the distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, the writers attempt to paint the movement as a threat not only to Israeli apartheid—which, of course, it is—but also to democracy in the United States.

The conspiracy that Project Esther tries to paint also reaches into the United States government. The document names Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, Summer Lee, Ayana Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Greg Casar, Andre Carson, Hank Johnson, Jan Schakowsky, Mark Pocan, Pramila Jayapal, Bernie Sanders, Chris Van Hollen, and Elizabeth Warren as being part of or supporting the “Hamas Caucus.”  

There is a lot to be read into who is on that list and who is not. 

Anyone who follows Congress would immediately see that the range of Democrats listed is very wide. It includes some like Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, and Jamaal Bowman whose stances on Palestine have featured very prominently in their political images and stances. 

But others on the list have been cautious about Palestine, sometimes standing for Palestinian rights, sometimes not, but even when they do, it has been with relatively little fanfare. That would include some like Jayapal and Casar, and even some like AOC and Pressley who have tried, on one hand to appease their left-wing base on Palestine but have generally been more cautious than Tlaib, Bowman, and Bush. 

More telling though is the absence of any Republicans. Before Bernie Sanders’ current effort at passing a Joint Resolution of Disapproval on sales of certain arms to Israel, no senator has been more active in slowing, delaying, and questioning aid to Israel than Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. 

In the House, Rep. Thomas Massie routinely breaks with his party to vote against military aid and other bills related to Israel. Yet neither his name nor Paul’s appear in the Project Esther document. 

If, as the authors claim, votes against Israel in Congress are forms of antisemitism, and Project Esther is all about going after antisemitism in the guise of anti-Israel resolutions, where are Massie and Paul in this document? 

Their absence clearly reveals the game. The document also attacks outgoing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, whom Project Esther says “called for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s ouster for no apparent reason other than Netanyahu’s being on Israel’s political right.”

Schumer did make such a call and did so because he believed that Netanyahu was leading Israel down a disastrous path with his attempt at a judicial coup that threatened to strip away Israel’s thin veneer of democracy even within its 1948 borders. It wasn’t ideological, or even political; it was Schumer trying to save the apartheid state from itself, as he demonstrated shortly thereafter by attending Netanyahu’s despicable address to Congress.

Project Esther’s selective criticism shows its fundamental aim is certainly not to protect Jewish safety, and is politically broader than just the Palestine solidarity movement it targets. 

Return to McCarthyism

Project Esther wants to pull out all the stops in its attempt to destroy the Palestine solidarity movement. 

Its initial focus is very squarely on the academy, where the document makes clear it hopes to establish a new standard in universities and lower-level schools that treat critical examination of both Israel and the United States as unacceptable. So most of its first tactics revolve around many of the efforts we’ve already seen in universities, twisting existing anti-discrimination laws to defend Israel, using “naming and shaming” and doxing tactics, lawfare, and, of course, congressional activism.

But Project Esther seeks to expand on this, and it goes to great lengths to try to equate the growing movement in support of Palestinian rights with the rise of pro-Nazi elements in the United States prior to World War II. 

They note how, in response to the rise of the pro-Nazi Bund in the U.S., various elements came together to fight them. These included organized crime figures from the so-called “Jewish gangland,” as they note, “Jewish gangsters like Meyer Lansky, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, Abner “Longy” Zwillman, and Meyer “Mickey” Cohen—sometimes at the behest of their rabbis—happily coordinated “less than kosher” activities, pro bono, to disrupt and thwart the Bund.” That partnership with organized crime echoes Donald Trump’s own association with vigilante racist groups like the Proud Boys.

They further cite the creation of the House Un-American Activities Committees (HUAC) as a key element in the fight against both support for Nazism and Communism. “New York Democratic Congressman Samuel Dickstein, a Lithuanian-born Jew, worked with Texas Congressman Martin Dies to establish the House of Representatives’ Special Committee on Un-American Activities, also known as the Dies Committee, charged with uncovering Nazi and Communist activities inside the United States.”

The Dies Committee became HUAC in 1945 when it became a standing House committee, and it went on to commit some of the worst violations against civil rights in the United States of the 20th century. 

This is what Project Esther would re-create if given the opportunity. And they are well aware that they have the opportunity right now. Written with Joe Biden still in office, and with too many Democrats doing their part to help create fertile ground for this plot, Project Esther states, “Our hope is that this effort will represent an opportunity for public–private partnership when a willing Administration occupies the White House.” That willing administration will arrive on January 20.

It only starts with Palestine solidarity

Speaking with Zeteo, Professor Joseph Howley of Columbia University, an anti-Zionist Jew, said, “[F]ar-right Zionist hegemonists have wanted for years to make being an anti-Zionist or non-Zionist or Israel-critical Jew illegal. This year they’ve succeeded in getting universities to make it policy …. Now they want to make it federal law.”

Once that is accomplished though, the aim is clearly against all possible dissent.

Jewish Voice for Peace’s executive director Stefanie Fox told Zeteo, ““It has never been clearer that defending Palestinian solidarity organizing is one of the most critical frontlines of democracy defense today… this McCarthyite initiative is led by Christian Nationalists, who directly threaten the safety and freedom of all marginalized people, including BIPOC peoples, religious minorities, queer people and women.”

Fox is right, and it goes even further. Project Esther intends to destroy the Palestine solidarity movement as a first step toward crushing dissent of all kinds against white supremacy within the United States and American military and imperial hegemony internationally. There is a very narrow band of people who will be safe from this effort if it’s not stopped.  

November 26, 2024 Posted by | culture and arts, politics, USA | Leave a comment

 The secret audit that crucifies most French nuclear start-ups.

Classified as a top secret, the results of the audit conducted in the spring by the High Commissioner for Atomic Energy and submitted to the Élysée Palace reveal that many subsidized nuclear start-ups will not keep their promises.

By Géraldine Woessner  Le Point 22nd Nov 2024

This is what could be called a vast smokescreen operation. On November 19, the start-up Naarea, founded in 2020 to develop fourth-generation modular reactors, with molten salts and fast neutrons, published a triumphant press release on its LinkedIn account: “It is a great honor to have been able to discuss with the High Commissioner for Atomic Energy the conclusions of his report,” the company trumpeted, proudly announcing to potential investors that the audit conducted by the experts had “not identified any unavoidable blocking point” concerning the deployment of its program……… (Subscribers only) https://www.lepoint.fr/economie/exclusif-l-audit-secret-qui-crucifie-la-plupart-des-start-up-francaises-du-nucleaire-22-11-2024-2575980_28.php

November 26, 2024 Posted by | France, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

The entanglement of fusion energy research and bombs

By Arjun Makhijani | November 12, 2024

The recent achievement of fusion ignition—meaning more
energy came out of a self-sustaining fusion reaction than was put in—at
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF)
has brought to the fore long-simmering questions about whether certain
experiments violate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on nuclear
explosions.

Fusion research for peaceful use and military use are highly
intertwined, despite attempts to cloak nuclear weapons with the aura of the
so-called “peaceful atom.” Ignition has been achieved, but there is
still a remarkable silence around whether pure fusion weapons—weapons
that could kill large numbers of humans with neutron radiation but have
blast effects much smaller than current thermonuclear weapons—are an
objective of the overall program.

Even if not an explicit objective, would they be built if fusion technology makes them feasible? Research and experiments into weapons-related nuclear fusion and commercial energy fusion are highly entangled, and have been notably so since the 1950s,
after the Soviets conducted their “layer cake” nuclear test with a
fusion component in 1953, and the US did its 15-megaton Bravo test in
1954—a test of a thermonuclear weapon.

To improve the terrible public
relations image that those tests cast over the world, the Eisenhower
administration came up with a carefully orchestrated propaganda campaign
for nuclear power, with the tag line “atoms for peace.” That is
happening again after the recent achievement of ignition at the National
Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, with the
difference that the world does not even know whether pure fusion weapons
are on the agenda.

 Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 11th Nov 2024,
https://thebulletin.org/premium/2024-11/the-entanglement-of-fusion-energy-research-and-bombs/

November 26, 2024 Posted by | technology, weapons and war | Leave a comment

UK Government urged to end secrecy over ‘worrying’ drone sightings near nuclear-linked air bases

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/govt-urged-end-secrecy-over-worrying-drone-sightings-near-nuclear-linked-airbases 24 Nov 24

THE government was urged today to end its “wall of secrecy” over drone sightings at three air bases in East Anglia amid escalating tensions with Russia.

The US Air Force has confirmed “unmanned aerial devices” were spotted over RAF Lakenheath, which is set to house US nuclear weapons, RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk and RAF Feltwell in Norfolk between November 20 and 22.

Unconfirmed reports claim F-15E Strike Eagles were scrambled to chase the drones, which affected the flight operations at the bases.

The USAF, which has fighter jets on standby at the bases, declined to comment on those claims but said it retains “the right to protect” installations.

On Thursday, Russian leader Vladimir Putin said military facilities in Britain and the US could become valid targets for the Kremlin’s forces as a direct response to Ukraine’s firing of US and British missiles at targets on Russian territory.

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) general secretary Sophie Bolt said that it appeared the drones were a co-ordinated launch within Britain.

She said: “The fact they happened in three bases means it was co-ordinated. Other than that we just don’t have any more information.

“People will be understandably very worried, therefore there needs to be responsibility around what information is shared.

“There’s a complete lack of transparency within the British government, who still completely refuse to acknowledge they have given permission for Storm Shadow missiles to be used by Ukraine.

“It’s invariably the case in terms of the military and specially around military bases and around defence generally to have a wall of secrecy.

“This is completely unacceptable because people have a right to know what’s going on

“They have definitely been launched in the local area … and I think we just have to be very careful about what’s going on, because there’s a particularly escalatory climate.

“More broadly, armed drones need to be banned.

“The US, the UK and Israel are well known for using these terrible weapons.”

November 26, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

A Nobel in the nick of time

 by beyondnuclearinternational

Japan’s Hibakusha are aging and diminishing, but they were finally awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, writes Elizabeth Chappell

The 2024 Nobel peace prize has been awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese grassroots organisation created by survivors of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Nihon Hidankyo has provided thousands of witness accounts and public appeals by survivors, who are known as hibakusha, and has sent annual delegations to the UN. 

Their work was commended by the Nobel committee, who decided to award the prize to Nihon Hidankyo “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating that nuclear weapons must never be used again”.

Nihon Hidankyo’s co-chair, Toshiyuki Mimaki, said: “I never expected we would win the Nobel peace prize. Now we want to go further and appeal to the world to achieve lasting peace. We are old, but we never give up.”

There are an estimated 106,000 hibakusha still living in Japan, with many more alive around the world. There are also survivors – and their descendants – of the more than 2,000 nuclear tests that have taken place worldwide since 1945. Some of these people use the term hibakusha to describe themselves.

This was not the first time the prize had been awarded to a nominee for their efforts towards nuclear disarmament. And it probably won’t be the last.

In 1985, the prize was awarded to an organisation called the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. And then, in 1995, the prize was won by Joseph Rotblat, the only scientist to have left the Manhattan Project – the US government’s research project to produce the first atomic bomb – on moral grounds. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The logic of nuclear deterrence

We are currently at a time where the threat of nuclear weapons is growing. This was reflected by the committee who, when awarding Nihon Hidankyo with the prize, noted that the “taboo” against their use was “under pressure”. 

Nuclear deterrence relies on the logic of the threat to inflict “unacceptable damage” on the enemy. But nuclear deterrence is not foolproof. What is unacceptable to one adversary may be acceptable to another, depending on the circumstances. 

It’s worth remembering that the 1945 atomic bombings were not, as is commonly believed, the only reason the Japanese surrendered the following week and brought the war to an end. Various factions in the war council had been attempting to find ways to surrender for over a year, and the bombs offered Japan’s Emperor Hirohito a way to save face.

As M.G. Sheftall, the author of the 2024 book, Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses, has noted:

The bombs didn’t force the Japanese to surrender, they gave Hirohito the opportunity to surrender … News of the Nagasaki bomb came as they were having a meeting of the imperial war council about what to do about the Soviets coming into the war. It should be known that there was never any special imperial war council meeting after the Hiroshima bomb. That wasn’t considered weighty enough to make everyone drop what they were doing and head to the Imperial Palace.

The effects of radiation on the human body were little known in 1945, due to censorship both by the Japanese military and the US occupation that followed. As I was told in an interview with a hibakusha called Keiko Ogura, who was eight when the first bomb was dropped: “No one understood why people were still dying days, weeks, months and years after the attacks – they thought the atomic bomb was poison gas.”

We now know much more about the devastating consequences of radiation for humans, animals and the environment across generations. However, research is still not widely publicised, with ICAN taking the lead as an international forum for important new findings to be shared and known. 

Let’s hope this year’s award will help inform the world once and for all of the nature of these weapons. As former US president, John F. Kennedy, said in a speech to the UN in 1961: “A nuclear disaster, spread by wind and water and fear, could well engulf the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the committed and the uncommitted alike.”

Next year will mark the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings. This prize should help ban what Kennedy described as the “sword of Damocles” that still threatens life on earth.

Read the Nihon Hidankyo statement on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, here.

Elizabeth Chappell is a researched in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at The Open University.  https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/11/24/a-nobel-in-the-nick-of-time/

November 26, 2024 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

European states vow to arrest Israeli PM

Rt.com 24 Nov 24

The ICC issued warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant earlier this week.

Several Western states have pledged to execute an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The Hague-based court on Thursday issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu along with former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas commander Ibrahim al-Masri. West Jerusalem claims that al-Masri is already dead. The warrants are for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity linked to the Gaza conflict.

The decision has elicited mixed reactions in the West. Several nations emphasized their respect for the independence of the court, while others voiced support for Israel. 

The Netherlands, Switzerland, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, and Norway all claimed they would meet their commitments and obligations under the Rome Statute and international law. However, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto stressed that the ICC was “wrong” to put Netanyahu and Gallant on the same level as Hamas. Austria also said that it would obey the decision, but its foreign minister, Alexander Schallenberg, added that the warrant was “utterly incomprehensible.”

Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp assured the country’s parliament that the authorities would act on the warrants and avoid non-essential contacts with those named…………………………………..  https://www.rt.com/news/608045-european-states-vow-arrest-netanyahu/

November 26, 2024 Posted by | EUROPE, Israel, politics international | Leave a comment

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