The Scottish National Party support signing an international treaty banning nuclear weapons, post independence
THE SNP support signing an international treaty banning nuclear weapons
after independence – despite External Affairs Secretary Angus Robertson
refusing to say as much, The Sunday National understands. The news comes
after Robertson repeatedly declined to commit an independent Scotland to
signing the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) at the
launch of a government white paper on Scotland’s place in the world in
March. The SNP have been clear that the UK’s nuclear weaponry, which is
based on the River Clyde, would have to leave the country after a Yes vote.
Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon had said in 2021 that an independent
Scotland “would be a keen signatory” to the TPNW.
The National 14th April 2024
Production of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) threatens our environment, health, and safety.
The nuclear industry is pushing for mass production of HALEU, which poses
significant risks to our environment, health, and safety. This form of
enriched uranium for new types of nuclear power reactors could perpetuate
the cycle of nuclear proliferation here in the US and worldwide.
Here’s the problem: HALEU requires producing uranium that is close enough to
weapons-grade that it could be used as cover to develop nuclear weapons.
Making it produces more radioactive pollution, and using it would generate
waste that is more hazardous and difficult to manage. And if the U.S.
starts making HALEU for nuclear power plants, other countries will believe
they should have the right to do so–opening the floodgates to weapons
proliferation and forever compromising the U.S. in standing against that.
We must voice our opposition to this reckless endeavor and demand
accountability from decision-makers. Your comment can make a difference in
shaping policy and preventing the acquisition of HALEU.
NIRS 13th April 2024
https://nirs.salsalabs.org/HALEUCommentsApril2024/index.html
Tax day and war resistance
For U.S. citizens, the well-known waste and fraud of the Pentagon should be one outrage. The Pentagon remains the only federal department to never pass a required federal audit. The Pentagon cannot account for 63% of the tax money it receives. That’s our money. Gone. Unaccounted for. Lining the pockets of weapons manufacturers.
by beyondnuclearinternational, By Brad Wolf, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/04/14/tax-day-and-war-resistance/
What can we learn from Philip Berrigan’s quest for peace?
It is April 15 and we can reflect on the life and work of Philip Berrigan and undertake our own ministry of risk for peace—to ease the suffering, to restore human dignity, and to challenge our doomed policy of warmaking.
Each year Americans forfeit a sizable slice of their income to the United States Treasury to fund the government. Tax Day is dreaded. No one likes surrendering their hard-earned cash. But rather than a resigned shrug, Americans should look closely at what they are getting for their money when it comes to government services and policy.
In fiscal year 2023, the Pentagon received $858 billion for the preparation of war. This doesn’t include hidden costs for intelligence services, veterans’ benefits, Homeland Security, or the Department of Energy, which oversees the nation’s nuclear arsenal. All totaled, over $1 trillion a year is allotted for warmaking. By comparison, the 2023 budget for the U.S. Department of State, this nation’s department tasked with making peace across the globe, was a relatively miniscule $63 billion.
One way to register resistance to this profligate spending on warmaking is that of renowned peace activist and then Catholic priest Philip Berrigan. During the Vietnam War, Phil initiated the destruction of U.S. military draft files in Baltimore and Catonsville, Maryland, to save the lives of both Vietnamese and Americans, actions for which he received lengthy prison sentences.
These draft file actions by Phil initiated a new form of resistance to the Vietnam War, since no copies were kept of the draft files. Hundreds of similar actions followed at draft board offices across the country with hundreds of thousands of draft files destroyed, all stopping young men from being conscripted to kill or be killed.
In 1980, Phil initiated the Plowshares movement—which continues to this day—as he and others entered the General Electric nuclear weapons facility in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, pouring blood on weapons blueprints and symbolically hammering on the nosecones of missiles, “Beating swords into plowshares.” A Christian metaphor indeed, but a universal message. Since that first action, there have been over 70 Plowshares actions around the world.
Phil strongly objected to the notion that U.S. citizens should fund needless death and destruction abroad through their taxes, or possibly fund their own destruction by nuclear war. He repeated nonviolent actions time and again, serving a total of 11 years in prison to stop the slaughter of innocents and protest the use of U.S. tax dollars for arms proliferation, nuclear warmaking, and endless wars of choice.
For U.S. citizens, the well-known waste and fraud of the Pentagon should be one outrage. The Pentagon remains the only federal department to never pass a required federal audit. The Pentagon cannot account for 63% of the tax money it receives. That’s our money. Gone. Unaccounted for. Lining the pockets of weapons manufacturers.
But the more pressing concern with these war dollars is their use to initiate wars of choice, often against impoverished countries, because those countries have natural resources beneath the soil that the U.S seems to think belong to them. The cruel joke is, “How dare they put their country over our oil.” And so, we take it. With extreme violence and death.
The U.S. currently has soldiers in northern Syria where massive quantities of oil is extracted for Western fossil fuel companies. The war in Iraq was for oil. We are building new bases in Somalia where oil fields have been found. These wars for corporate profit have gone on for over a century. As decorated war hero Smedley Butler said in the 1930s about his many years in the U.S. military, “I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism… Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints.”
Whether it be gold, fruit, rubber, or sugar in Latin America; oil in the Middle East; or rare earth minerals in Africa, the U.S. taxpayer has long funded the corporate theft of natural resources from Indigenous lands for the benefit of U.S corporations and their wealthy shareholders. Innocents in foreign lands die as a result, while U.S. taxpayers struggle to pay mortgages, rent, healthcare bills, and food costs.
According to Brown University’s Costs of War Project, the United States spent some $8 trillion in the last 23 years for the Wars on Terror. Four-and-a-half to 4.7 million people in foreign lands died because of those wars, most of them innocent civilians. Mothers and fathers and children.
And so, as this Tax Day approaches, perhaps we can reflect on the life and work of Philip Berrigan and undertake our own ministry of risk for peace in whatever form that may take, to ease the suffering, to restore human dignity, to challenge our doomed policy of warmaking. Only in this way can we reconcile ourselves with justice and democracy. Only in this way can we save ourselves, our country, and perhaps the world.
As Phil said, “These blind leading the blind have done more than threaten us with doomsday scenarios. They have, with a devilish ingenuity, convinced us that we ought to pay, through taxes, for our own destruction.”
Hinkley nuclear becomes ever more costly to EDF, but for Sizewell, the taxpayer will pick up the tab
Old Sparky: From the start of EDF’s development at Hinkley we were
promised efficiencies thanks to EDF’s experiences at Flamanville and
Olkiluoto. Yet every year EDF announces Hinkley will cost even more and
start later.
Contractors are browbeaten to get on with pipework that in
some cases will need to be replaced. As they get paid by the metre they
have no incentive to raise issues they notice at the outset. There’s one
saving grace – EDF picks up the tab for cost overruns. But for Sizewell
it will be the taxpayer that picks up the tab.
Private Eye 12th April 2024
Towards an international regulatory framework for AI safety: lessons from the IAEA’s nuclear safety regulations
- Seokki Cha , Nature, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume 11, Article number: 506 (2024)
Abstract
This study explores the necessity and direction of safety regulations for Artificial Intelligence (AI), drawing parallels from the regulatory practices of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for nuclear safety. The rapid advancement and global proliferation of AI technologies necessitate the establishment of standardized safety norms to minimize discrepancies between national regulations and enhance the consistency and effectiveness of these rules. The study emphasizes the importance of international collaboration and the engagement of various stakeholders to strengthen the appropriateness of regulations and ensure their continuous updating in response to the evolving risks associated with technological advancements.
The paper highlights the critical role of subgoal setting mechanisms in AI’s decision-making processes, underscoring their significance in ensuring the technology’s stability and social acceptability. Improperly tuned subgoal setting mechanisms may lead to outcomes that conflict with human intentions, posing risks to users and society at large. The study draws attention to the hidden risks often embedded within AI’s core decision-making mechanisms and advocates for regulatory approaches to guarantee safe and predictable AI operations. Furthermore, the study acknowledges the limitations of directly applying IAEA’s nuclear safety cases to AI due to the distinct characteristics and risks of the two fields.
The paper calls for future research to delve deeper into the need for an independent regulatory framework tailored to AI’s unique features. Additionally, the study emphasizes the importance of accelerating international consensus, developing flexible regulatory models that reflect the situation in each country, exploring harmonization with existing regulations, and researching timely regulatory responses to the fast-paced development of AI technology……………………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-024-03017-1
‘Unprecedented infestation’ of rats at Dounreay site
‘Unprecedented infestation’ of rats at Dounreay site. Dounreay has had to
bring in a pest control company to deal with an “unprecedented infestation
of rats over the past few months,” according to a safety rep at the site.
Workers, too, have expressed their concerns about the situation with one
saying hundreds were reportedly seen “scurrying away” when pampas
grass-like plants were removed from around the buildings where they were
nesting.
There have been reports of the rats being seen in vehicles, a
kitchen area and near bins, while concerns have been raised about health
implications.
John O’Groat Journal 11th April 2024
https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/unprecedented-infestation-of-rats-at-dounreay-site-347661
In an Ontario town split over a nuclear dump site, the fallout is over how they’ll vote on the future
The town will hold an online vote, but an opposition group demands paper ballots
Colin Butler · CBC News Apr 14, 2024
A citizen’s group opposed to burying Canada’s stockpile of spent nuclear fuel half a kilometre below a southwestern Ontario farm town is demanding a paper ballot rather than an online vote in an upcoming referendum on whether it should welcome radioactive waste.
Canada’s nuclear industry’s quest to find a place to store the growing amount of highly radioactive detritus it produces stretches back decades. The search has narrowed to two potential host communities in Ontario: Ignace (four hours northwest of Thunder Bay) and the Municipality of South Bruce (two hours north of London).
For years, South Bruce has found itself divided over being a potential host — split, between those who believe a new industry is a way to reclaim lost prosperity that lapsed with the glory days of farming, and those who think jobs and subsidies from the nuclear industry has blinded the others to the risks of welcoming radioactive waste into the community.
On Monday, town councillors in South Bruce voted to accept the official question on the ballot: “Are you in favour of the Municipality of South Bruce declaring South Bruce to be a willing host for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s (NWMO) proposed deep geological repository?”
‘Our concern is the way that they’re holding the referendum’
“I have no issues with how the question is worded,” Michelle Stein, a member of the grassroots Protect Our Waterways — No Nuclear Waste, said.
“Our concern is the way that they’re holding the referendum as an online vote.”
Stein said unlike paper ballots, which can be audited and verified by anyone, she argues the way a computerized voting system sorts and tallies ballots is largely a mystery to laymen, hidden beneath source code that’s indecipherable to all who lack specialized knowledge.
“This is a forever decision. Why wouldn’t they want tangible physical proof? We can go back and count those paper ballots and they can say, ‘look, here’s the ballots. This is what the people voted for.'”
The municipality of South Bruce is divided over a potential site for a nuclear waste storage facility deep below their community. A referendum to settle the matter is set for later this year. Host Colin Butler speaks with Michelle Stein, a member of Protect Our Waterways – No Nuclear Waste, to hear her concerns………………………………………………….
Errors or breaches can be difficult to detect
Still, critics say online voting is prone to cyber attacks and there’s no way to guarantee voter privacy, or the integrity of the vote. There is also no provincial standard in Ontario, or, for that matter, federally, when it comes to online voting systems.
“There’s a lot of questions that this technology introduces around that. ‘How do I know my vote counted? How do I know it was kept secret?'” Aleksander Essex, a Western University professor who studies cyber security and crytography, said.
At the same time however, Essex notes, he has never seen any evidence of fraud or tampering with the vote in all the years he has studied online voting. ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/ontario-south-bruce-nuclear-dgr-referendum-online-voting-1.7168326—
Annie Jacobsen: ‘What if we had a nuclear war?’
The author and Pulitzer prize finalist, who has written the latest pick for the New Scientist Book Club, Nuclear War: A scenario, on the “shocking truths” about a nuclear attack
By Annie Jacobsen, 12 April 2024, https://www.newscientist.com/article/2426579-annie-jacobsen-what-if-we-had-a-nuclear-war/
Not long after the last world war, the historian William L. Shirer had this to say about the next world war. It “will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electronic button. Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it. There will be no conquers and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on an uninhabited planet.”
As an investigative journalist, I write about war, weapons, national security and government secrets. I’ve previously written six books about US military and intelligence programmes – at the CIA, The Pentagon, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency– all designed to prevent, or deter, nuclear world war III. In the course of my work, countless people in the upper echelons of US government have told me, proudly, that they’ve dedicated their lives to making sure the US never has a nuclear war. But what if it did?
“Every capability in the [Department of Defense] is underpinned by the fact that strategic deterrence will hold,” US Strategic Command (STRATCOM), which is responsible for nuclear deterrence, insists publicly. Until the autumn of 2022, this promise was pinned on STRATCOM’s public Twitter feed. But to a private audience at Sandia National Laboratories later that same year, STRATCOM’s Thomas Bussiere admitted the existential danger inherent to deterrence. “Everything unravels itself if those things are not true.”
If deterrence fails – what exactly would that unravelling look like? To write Nuclear War: A scenario, I put this question to scores of former nuclear command and control authorities. To the military and civilian experts who’ve built the weapon systems, been privy to the response plans and been responsible for advising the US president on nuclear counterstrike decisions should they have to be made. What I learned terrified me. Here are just a few of the shocking truths about nuclear war.
The US maintains a nuclear launch policy called Launch on Warning. This means that if a military satellite indicates the nation is under nuclear attack and a second early-warning radar confirms that information, the president launches nuclear missiles in response. Former secretary of defense William Perry told me: “Once we are warned of a nuclear attack, we prepare to launch. This is policy. We do not wait.”
The US president has sole authority to launch nuclear weapons. He asks permission of no one. Not the secretary of defense, not the chairman of the joint chief of staff, not the US Congress. “The authority is inherent in his role as commander in chief,” the Congressional Research Service confirms. The president “does not need the concurrence of either his [or her] military advisors or the US Congress to order the launch of nuclear weapons”.
When the president learns he must respond to a nuclear attack, he has just 6 minutes to do so. Six minutes is an irrational amount of time to “decide whether to release Armageddon”, President Ronald Reagan lamented in his memoirs. “Six minutes to decide how to respond to a blip on a radar scope… How could anyone apply reason at a time like that?” And yet, the president must respond. This is because it takes roughly just 30 minutes for an intercontinental ballistic missile to get from a launch pad in Russia, North Korea or China to any city in the US, and vice versa. Nuclear-armed submarines can cut that launch-to-target time to 10 minutes, or less.
Today, there are nine nuclear powers, with a combined total of more than 12,500 nuclear weapons ready to be used. The US and Russia each have some 1700 nuclear weapons deployed – weapons that can be launched in seconds or minutes after their respective president gives the command. This is what Shirer meant when he said: “Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it.”
Nuclear war is the only scenario other than an asteroid strike that could end civilisation in a matter of hours. The soot from burning cities and forests will blot out the sun and cause nuclear winter. Agriculture will fail. Some 5 billion people will die. In the words of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, “the survivors will envy the dead”.
I wrote Nuclear War: A scenario to demonstrate – in appalling, minute-by-minute detail – just how horrifying a nuclear war would be. “Humanity is one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation,” UN secretary-general António Guterres warned the world in 2022. “This is madness. We must reverse course.”
How true.
Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen, published by Torva (£20.00), is available now. It is the latest pick for the New Scientist Book Club: sign up here to read along with our members
Getting bigger but not safer or cheaper – the myth of Rolls Royce and its very big non-modular reactor
By David Toke, April 2024, https://100percentrenewableuk.org/getting-bigger-but-not-safer-or-cheaper-the-myth-of-rolls-royce-and-its-very-big-non-modular-reactor
Rolls Royce’s so-called small modular reactor (SMR) is getting bigger, but is likely to have fewer special safety features compared to EDF’s increasingly pricey design for Hinkley C.
In 2017 Rolls Royce said that its small modular reactor would be between 220 and 440 MW, but the latest design is bigger, at 470 MW. It is strange to call this small. Reactors in service at the moment (the so-called AGR reactors) were around the 600 MW size for each unit and, strange as it might seem, most of the first generation of so-called ‘Magnox’ nuclear reactors built in the UK were actually smaller than 470 MW. They were not called ‘small’. So why is Rolls Royce calling this a SMR? There’s no reason for this other than public relations.
Rolls Royce claim that the parts will be mainly built in factories. Well, of course they will, that’s always the case with nuclear power plant. The difference with building a relatively smaller plant of course is that you get less of the economies of scale in doing this. That is why nuclear power plant have got bigger.
So the fact that the Rolls Royce unit will be about a third the size of the EPR is likely to make them cost more. But there is one way that Rolls Royce will be able to economise compared to the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) being built at Hinkley C, and that is because I have seen no sign that Rolls Royce will include some special safety features that have been included in the EPR.
The best known of these safety features are a) a ‘double containment’ feature that is designed to stop material from the inside getting out (as well as another external shell to shield from aircraft) and b) a ‘core catcher’ to stop a melting core eating its way into the ground and potentially contaminating water courses. I am assuming Rolls Royce will not be including either of these features, although it will have to satisfy the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) that it has other ways of stopping radioactive releases from accidents.
Rolls Royce are now starting a ‘Generic Design Assessment’ (GDA) process with the ONR which will take around 5 years. After then they will be asking the UK Government for a blank cheque for a project.
Of course there is another factor and that is that EDF have some experience (admittedly not very successful of late) of building nuclear power plant. Rolls Royce do not have experience of building large nuclear power plant (which is what they are really hoping to do). Producing small (and, it must be said extremely expensive) genuinely small reactors for nuclear submarines is not the same thing at all! So Rolls Royce are likely not to have the skills to build large nuclear power plant. That is a bad sign!
The so-called SMRs proferred by Rolls Royce will just be the latest in a long line of very expensive, very lately delivered nuclear power stations in the UK. It is unlikely to be any cheaper than the reactor that EDF is building at Hinkley C (becoming more expensive as time goes on). But it will have fewer safety features.
Sign the petition for mandatory solar panels on buildings , and for fossil fuels to be banned in new buildings. See the petition page here.
Please share the petition page link as widely as you can on social media. Please write to you MP asking for solar pv to be mandatory on all new buildings and for fossil fuel boilers to be banned in them.
Amid Serious Iran-Israel Tension, The Nuclear Elephant Is In The Room
Tuesday, 04/09/2024, Shahram Kholdi, https://www.iranintl.com/en/202404097226
April 7 marked the sixth month of Hamas-Israel open conflict. Six days before this semi-anniversary, Israel’s April 1 strike on Iran’s embassy in Damascus punctuated an alarming turning point.
Israel’s action did not only corner Hezbollah, Iran’s primary quasi-state proxy on the bloody chessboard of their ongoing conflict but have also eliminated key military leaders. Amid various pundits attempting to predict Iran’s next move, many are acknowledging the significant factor of Iran’s nuclear program lurking in the background.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s “fatwa” and opinion on the prohibition of producing nuclear weapons “may change tomorrow,” Mahmoud-Reza Aghamiri, the president of Tehran’s Beheshti University and a pro-regime professor of nuclear physics, told Iran’s state TV this week. Aghamiri says Iran currently has the technology and capability to develop a nuclear bomb, and under such circumstances, developing it is easier than not making it.
The punditry and analyses on a possible “direct” clash between Iran and Israel is indeed all over the map. Some, whilst citing “warnings from unnamed Israeli officials behind the scenes” wonder whether or not Iran will strike Israel back from its own territory. Others probe whether it will have its proxies to escalate their asymmetrical strikes against Israel. And last but not least, a handful quibble over whether Israel’s strike would give President Joe Biden the occasion to proclaim support for Israel against Iran but further pressure Israel to heed the US’ demands on the conclusion of the war in Gaza and negotiations with Hamas for the release of the hostages.
On this very outlet, in an article published four days after Hamas attack on October 11, 2023, Benjamin Weinthal covered various sides of a debate on the (unlikely) possibility of a joint US-Israeli attack against Iran as a state sponsor of Hamas.
On the conventional front, The gravity of Israel’s situation cannot be exaggerated. The Hezbollah of Lebanon is armed with thousands of conventional rockets and cruise missiles that can potentially swarm and overwhelm the Israeli Air Defense Shield and Iron Dome and the analyses of Israel’s ability to take all Hezbollah’s arsenal preemptively has been the subject of much debate.
What most observers do not take into account is the possibility that the Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus may trigger a rude awakening amongst the IRGC top brass and Khamenei. It might prompt them to hasten the development of their nuclear deterrence capabilities. Despite the regime’s longstanding vow to eliminate Israel, dating back to before 1979, the tensions between Iran and Israel are mutual and deep-rooted.
Israel is presently wary of the Iranian ability to deploy a handful of nuclear warheads and the IDF has been preparing itself for a decisive strike on the Iranian nuclear facilities for quite some time before the Hamas October 7 attack on Israel. Israel, as is discussed below, has been acutely aware of Iran’s ever growing weaponization capacity as early as 2018.
Yet Israel’s collective sense of insecurity is not simply rooted in its fear of its enemies or the deep-seated collective trauma of the Holocaust. Israel’s primary source of insecurity is rooted in its historical roller coaster experience of its alliances. The Soviet de jure recognition of Israel and support for its war of independence against the Arab nations was short-lived and inadequate. France was Israel’s major military supplier for much of the 1950s to the mid-1960s, and upon her aid Israel developed its conventional and unconventional nuclear programs.
But France proved unreliable when President De Gaulle sought a rapprochement with Israel’s Arab enemies and abandoned Israel in the mid-1960s. From the mid-1960s, the United States became Israel’s sole guarantor and ally in all aspects of economy and military from research and development, joint aeronautical and space projects to the development of the sophisticated air-defense systems, namely, “the Iron-Dome”, and the latest sophisticated UAVs.
The United States itself has wavered in its “unequivocal support” for Israel at least on three different occasions. First, President Dwight Eisenhower refused to support Israel in its collusion with the Anglo-French powers during the 1956 Suez Crisis. In fact, Eisenhower turned his back on Israel as he feared escalation with the Soviet Union. Incidentally, there are commentators who believe that President Biden should treat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a similar set of measures that Eisenhower imposed on Israel in 1956.
There are indeed those in the US who believe Johnson failed to act to prevent Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in 1967 and this is a legacy from which Biden must take harsh lessons and act accordingly. Finally, President Barack Obama’s administration sidelined Israel’s Netanyahu to cajole Tehran’s ruling mullahs into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) over their nuclear program causing Israel to distance itself ever farther from the Euro-American alliance. Israel has been less than forthcoming about sharing the details of its assassination and sabotage operations with its Euro-American allies ever since. According to some reports, “the CIA does not know” if Israel plans to bomb Iran.”
Today, Israel and Netanyahu are almost identical in their shared sense of insecurities. Even though a majority of Israelis may not vote him to office if elections were held today, they share the same sense of insecurity that has been the compass of his five mandates over the past thirty years. At the core of this sense of insecurity lies Iran’s nuclear program. Since 2018, Israel has taken possession of thousands of documents that lay bear all the militaristic directions of the Iranian nuclear program (Revealed: Emptying of the Iranian “Atomic Warehouse” at Turquz Abad). Over nearly 15 years, Israel is alleged to have succeeded in sabotaging many critical sites of the Iranian nuclear industrial complex. Moreover, Israel is accused of having masterminded the operations that eliminated Iranian nuclear scientists in the same period. Nonetheless, since Donald Trump left the JCPOA, the Iranian regime has progressively accelerated its uranium enrichment and proved Israel’s, read Netanyahu’s, worst fears. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is effectively and totally is in the dark per the latest reports of IAEA and its dire warnings about the exact state of the Iranian nuclear program. In view of the above, it appears that Israel’s assassination and sabotage operations against the Iranian scientists and nuclear sites have effectively failed.
Israeli-American air forces joint drills for long range operations in the summer of 2023 revealed how alarmed both US and Israel were about the Iranian nuclear program. It was speculated at the time that such drills were to prepare both air forces for a joint operation on the Iranian nuclear facilities. Meanwhile, the Americans were in the midst of secret negotiation with the Iranians to reach an “informal nuclear agreement”.
However, joint exercises of such magnitude with any ally are always planned long in advance and are indicative of longstanding concerns. Accordingly, the joint US-Israeli hint at the fact that the Biden administration did neither have any confidence in the success of those secret negotiations with Iran, nor was it assured of the Iranian side’s honoring any such accord. Three weeks before Hamas attack on Israel, a most telling paragraph in the IDF statement on Israeli and Hellenic air forces’ joint drills for long range operations reads as follows: “The exercise is part of a series of exercises and models carried out by the IAF in the past year and their purpose is to improve operational and mental competence for long-range flights, refueling, attacks in the depth [of enemy territory] and achieving air superiority.”
Khamenei, per his religious edict, fatwa, has stated time and again that the manufacturing and usage of nuclear weapons is forbidden. However, Israel’s elimination of two high-ranking IRGC general inside the Iranian embassy’s compound in Damascus has established that there is no red line that it will not cross to maximize its security and minimize all risks. Such an escalating assault may cause the Iranian ruling clerics and the IRGC to wonder if their nuclear facilities will be next on Israel’s target list and they may consider attaining a deterrence greater than a conventional one. Khamenei may indeed invoke the principle of expediency to overrule his own “anti-Nuclear” fatwa. The principle of expediency, as decreed by the regime’s founder Ayatollah Khomeini in January 1988, stipulates that the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic may even violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith in order to preserve “the Islamic Regime” as the preservation of the Islamic Regime supersedes all else.
Thus, if Israel continues to expand its unrelenting attacks on IRGC top brass and Iranian military and diplomatic facilities in the region, and the Iranian regime continues to plunge into the depths of a maelstrom of economic troubles, will Khamenei perceive such an assault as compromising the survival of the regime? And if so what will he do? Will he invoke the principle of expediency and order the rapid manufacturing of nuclear devices and their deployment in the form of a dozen or so warheads? Or will he be resigned to Israel’s overwhelming assault on its proxies and, like his predecessor, will drink from the poisonous chalice of surrender?
Keir Starmer slammed over staunch defence of nuclear weapons
“it’s increasingly clear that Starmer’s offer is just more of the same: billions of pounds wasted on nuclear weapons and nuclear power, and a belligerent foreign policy that includes support for the Aukus pact, Nato, and continuing arms sales to Israel, used to kill Palestinians.
“Putting billions of pounds into the pockets of arms companies and their investors will not reinvigorate the economy in any meaningful way.”
The National By Hamish Morrison @HMorrison97 Political Reporter, 10 Apr 24
KEIR Starmer has said Trident is the “bedrock” of Labour’s defence policy – despite growing concern over the state of the ageing nuclear fleet critics say is a “grotesque” waste of money.
The Labour leader launched a full-throated defence of Britain’s nuclear weapons in an attempt to stress the distance he has taken the party since its leadership under Jeremy Corbyn – who voted against the renewal of Trident while in charge.
During a visit to Barrow today, where nuclear submarines are being built, Starmer is expected to focus on increasing jobs and skills in defence.
Starmer said: “The changed Labour Party I lead knows that our nation’s defence must always come first. Labour’s commitment to our nuclear deterrent is total.
“In the face of rising global threats and growing Russian aggression, the UK’s nuclear deterrent is the bedrock of Labour’s plan to keep Britain safe.
“It will ensure vital protection for the UK and our Nato allies in the years ahead, as well as supporting thousands of high paying jobs across the UK………………………..
Labour will ensure that new UK leadership within Aukus helps make this national endeavour a success for Britain.”
The Aukus pact unites Australia, the UK and the USA in a military pact in the South Pacific, which critics say escalates tensions with the Chinese.
China’s government has described Aukus – which will see Australia provided with nuclear-powered submarines – as indicative of an “obsolete Cold War zero sum mentality”.
The SNP have said Labour’s commitment to Trident was “grotesque”.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (below), the party’s defence spokesperson, said: “Westminster has already wasted billions of pounds of taxpayer’s money on nuclear weapons and expensive nuclear energy.
“It is therefore grotesque that Sir Keir Starmer is prepared to throw billions more down the drain when his party claim there is no money to improve our NHS, help families with the cost of living or to properly invest in our green energy future.
“This money would be better spent on a raft of other things – not least investing in the green energy gold rush, which would ensure Scotland, with all its renewal energy potential, could be a green energy powerhouse of the 21st century.”
He blasted the “misfiring Trident missiles”, drawing attention to a high-profile blunder which saw a test missile dramatically fail to launch, landing just yards from the submarine carrying it.
Docherty-Hughes said the Government should provide more money for “underpaid and under-resourced” armed forces staff and conventional defence systems.
Alba general secretary Chris McEleny, who worked at HM Naval Base Clyde, where nukes are stored, said: “When one in four children in Scotland live in poverty it is obscene that resources are wasted to ensure that we have the best defended foodbanks in the world.”
He added that the “war-mongering Labour Party have now made it clear that independence is the only way to free Scotland of nuclear weapons”.
Healey, Labour’s shadow defence minister, said a “strong defence industrial strategy” would be “hardwired” in the party’s quest to promote economic growth if it gains power at the election.
He added: “We will make it fundamental to direct defence investment first to British jobs and British industry.”……………………………..
Kate Hudson, general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said voters were “desperately looking for hope from the Labour Party”.
She added: “However, it’s increasingly clear that Starmer’s offer is just more of the same: billions of pounds wasted on nuclear weapons and nuclear power, and a belligerent foreign policy that includes support for the Aukus pact, Nato, and continuing arms sales to Israel, used to kill Palestinians.
“Putting billions of pounds into the pockets of arms companies and their investors will not reinvigorate the economy in any meaningful way.” https://www.thenational.scot/news/24248069.keir-starmer-slammed-staunch-defence-nuclear-weapons/
Biden ‘very proud’ of expanding NATO to Russia’s borders
https://www.rt.com/news/595718-biden-proud-nato-expansion/ 12 Apr 24
The US leader believes it would be a “disaster” if the bloc were to break up
US President Joe Biden has hailed NATO’s further expansion toward Russia’s borders, while accusing Republican rival Donald Trump of undermining the unity of the American-led military bloc.
Russia has for years voiced concern about NATO’s creeping encroachment, viewing its policies as an existential threat. However, in an interview with Spanish-language broadcaster Univision that aired on Tuesday, Biden touted the recent addition of Finland and Sweden to the bloc’s ranks amid the Ukraine conflict as a great achievement.
“We’ve done something that I was very proud of. I’ve engaged with NATO for my whole career. We were able to expand NATO, and we have 2,000 miles of border because you have two Nordic nations having joined NATO. You have a whole range of NATO countries along the Russian border,” the US president said.
Biden went on to argue that a stalemate in Congress over his $61 billion military aid package for Kiev is “very dangerous” for the bloc’s unity, accusing his former US leader Trump of virtually holding the measure – and the entire Republican party – hostage.
“Trump runs that party. He maintains a sort of a death grip on it. Everybody’s afraid to take him on whether they agree with him or not, and it’s incredibly dangerous. The last thing we need is to see NATO start to break apart. It would be a disaster for the United States, a disaster for Europe, a disaster for the world,” Biden said.
The US has provided Ukraine with over $113 billion in various forms of assistance since the start of hostilities with Russia. Moscow has repeatedly condemned foreign arms shipments to Kiev, arguing they will only prolong the conflict, while making the West a direct participant in the hostilities.
Finland shares a 1,300km border with Russia, and Moscow has argued that NATO membership has threatened, not guaranteed, Finnish security. After Helsinki joined the alliance last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the creation of a new military district bordering the Nordic nation. Sweden joined the bloc last month.
Putin has warned for nearly two decades that NATO’s policies undermine Russian national security, but a real “red line” for Moscow would be an attempt to move the bloc’s forces into Ukraine. The conflict in Ukraine is an “existential” one for Moscow and a “matter of life and death,” Putin said in February, while for the West it is simply a matter of “improving its tactical positions.”
UK Government decision to withhold nuclear power plant information unlawful
Government decision to withhold nuclear power plant information unlawful.
A ruling by the Information Commissioner (IC) requiring the Secretary of
State for Energy Security and Net Zero requesting the disclosure of
information in respect of a proposed nuclear power plant on Anglesey was
upheld by the General Regulatory Chamber (GRC) which concluded that the
public interest supported its disclosure.
Planning Resource 11th April 2024
Nuclear energy ‘now an obstacle to delivering net zero’ – Greenpeace.
Nuclear energy has been touted as key to the global transition,
but concerns around costs and timescales have generated scepticism.
According to Greenpeace director of policy Doug Parr: “Nuclear power
can’t bridge the gap between anything and anything. It is too slow. It is
too expensive. It is a massive distraction.”
Speaking about the role of
nuclear energy in the UK’s transition, Parr tells Energy Monitor: “It
doesn’t help with the kind of grid system that we need, which is going to
be renewables heavy. I think the UK focus on nuclear power is now an
obstacle to delivering net zero because it is sucking up time, energy and
political bandwidth, which can be spent on more useful things.”
Parr argues that governments should be investing in more immediate solutions. He
points to investment in Sizewell C – the 3.2GW power station set to be
built in the English county of Suffolk – where construction is set to
commence this year. It is likely to take between nine and 12 years to
complete, but delays at Hinkley C (of which Sizewell C will be a close
copy) have stirred doubt.
“We will be putting a lot of money into
something like Sizewell C, when actually we will find that it is a white
elephant by the time it has opened,” he contends. “We will have spent
all that time, energy and effort, which could have been put into improving
our housing stock, improving our grid or improving the ability of electric
vehicles to meet the needs of people through a proper charging network –
things that would actually would deliver this decade, not in 15 years time.
So, we would cut a lot more carbon, we would get something done that is
useful and we wouldn’t have piles of messy radioactive waste that we
still don’t know what to do with.”
Energy Monitor 10th April 2024, https://www.energymonitor.ai/features/nuclear-energy-now-an-obstacle-to-delivering-net-zero-greenpeace/
1 This Month
23-25 October – on Zoom – World BEYOND War’s annual global conferenc
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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