Connecting Toxic Memories: Hiroshima and Nuremberg
the NATO Three had the temerity to issue a joint statement expressing their total opposition to the approach taken by the so-called Ban Treaty (TPNW), declared it was their intention to continue to rely on nuclear weapons to meet their far-flung security needs broadly specified to include geopolitical deterrence, that is, not only is this weaponry not being limited to the defense of homelands but vital strategic concerns that could potentially arise anywhere on the planet. At present, this commitment to nuclearism is illustrated by the U.S. posture in response to the Ukraine War and the future of Taiwan, as well as by revealing refusal even to accept a No First Use framework of restraint.
What was most controversial about the [Nuremberg] trials was the failure to inquire into the violations of international criminal law by the winning side, which is why these tribunals, however conscientious their work, have been derided over the years as glaring instances of ‘victors’ justice.’
CounterPunch, BY RICHARD FALK, 12 Aug 22,
77 Years After Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Peace activists around the world often choose August 6th and 9th each year to grieve anew the human suffering and devastation caused by dropping atomic bombs on the undefended Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which lacked military significance. Among other things these atomic attacks were ‘geopolitical crimes’ of ultimate terror, with scant combat justification, and intended mainly as a warning to Soviet leaders not to defy the West in the peace diplomacy at the end of World War II.
These August dates marking the utter destruction of these two cities are treated as events giving rise to what has been widely known as the nuclear age. This awful beginning can never be forgotten or redeemed, although ever since the explosions in 1945 the solemnity of these occasions has been overshadowed outside of Japan by widespread fears that a nuclear war might occur at some point and a quiet rage continues to build around the world that the nuclear weapons states, above all the U.S., have stubbornly defiantly refused to take steps to fulfill pledges to seek a reliable path to nuclear disarmament in good faith.
This moral and political pledge became legally obligatory in Article VI of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (1970), a commitment affirmed unanimously in an Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice in 1996. It has become clear that for the security establishments of the ‘NATO Three’ (U.S. France, UK) this disarmament commitment was never more than ‘a useful fiction’ that conveyed the sense that the non-nuclear states were being given something valuable and commensurate to the willingness to give up their conditional option to underpin national security by acquiring nuclear weapons (as Russia and China, as well as Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea have done over the decades).
The non-nuclear Parties to the NPT are not formally obliged to give up their option of acquiring nuclear weapons unconditionally. Article 10 confers on all Parties to the NPT a right of withdrawal if “extraordinary events..have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country.” In practice, as Iran is finding out, this right of withdrawal gives way to the geopolitical priorities of an enforcement regime presided over by the United States. The so-called Jerusalem Declaration signed in July by U.S. and Israel leaders commits to using whatever military force is necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weaponry.
NPT Review Conference at the UN
Currently the NPT Review Conference, postponed since 2020 because of COVID, at UN Headquarters in New York City, two significant contradictory developments dominated the scene. It was the first such meeting of NPT Parties since the Treaty of Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) came into force in early 2021. This treaty, a project of governments from the Global South in active coalition with Global Civil Society has drawn a bright line between the majority views of the peoples of the world and the security elites of these nine nuclear weapons states.
This impasse between the nuclear haves and have-nots amounts to an existential confirmation of ‘nuclear apartheid’ as the precarious and self-serving underpinning of global security unless and until the advocates TPNW muster enough strength and will to mount a real challenge to such a hegemonic and menacing concentration of unaccountable power and discretionary authority.
New Patterns of Geopolitical Rivalry Increase Risks of Nuclear War
The second notable development at the NPT Review Conference lent a sense of immediacy and urgency to what had become 77 years after Hiroshima a somewhat abstract concern is the Ukraine War, and its geopolitical spillover effect of heightening the perceived risks of the use of nuclear weaponry and even the danger of nuclear war. The U.S. has decided it is worth challenging Russia’s attack on Ukraine sufficiently to uphold its strategic logic that since the end of the Cold War the world has political space for one extraterritorial state, which became the sole supplier of global governance when it comes to the international security agenda. Among other things, unipolarity meant that Cold War Era mutual respect for territorial spheres of influence on the borders of Great Powers no longer are pillars of stable geopolitical coexistence. After the Soviet collapse in 1992 the U.S. has acted as if entitled to implement a Monroe Doctrine for the world. To make such a grandiose hegemonic political destiny credible it has shouldered the immense economic and strategic burdens that accompany the role, maintaining hundreds of foreign military bases and naval fleets in every ocean.
NATO’s insistence early in the Ukraine War on making Russia pay for its invasion by being again reduced to the normalcies of territorial sovereignty was undoubtedly intended to be a master class for the benefit of Russia, and especially China, in the geopolitics of the post-Cold War world. It also provided an occasion to send China, currently the more formidable adversary of the West, a message written with the blood of Ukrainian lives, that any show of force to regain control over Taiwan will be met an even more punitive response, including thinly veiled threats that pointedly refuse to rule out uses of nuclear weapons. Pentagon war games some months ago ominously showed that China would prevail in any military encounter in the South China Seas unless the U.S. was prepared to cross the nuclear threshold. This assessment should be affirming the renewed strategic relevance of nuclear weaponry. It has proven helpful in making the case for even larger military appropriations from Congress.
American diplomacy toward China has aggravated an already inflammatory context by some inexplicably provocative behavior in recent months. First came a gratuitous public pronouncement by Biden last May while in Asia to provide whatever military assistance was deemed necessary to protect Taiwan if under attack by China. And secondly, a totally destabilizing August visit to Taiwan by Nancy Pelosi at a time of already high tensions. These provocations violated the spirit of the Shanghai Communique that was issued by China and the U.S. in 1972………………………………………………………………………………….
What was most controversial about the [Nuremberg] trials was the failure to inquire into the violations of international criminal law by the winning side, which is why these tribunals, however conscientious their work, have been derided over the years as glaring instances of ‘victors’ justice.’
My interest in the connections between Hiroshima and Nuremberg is somewhat different. The insensitivity of such a high profile signing of this agreement on August 8th establishing the Nuremberg Tribunal is appalling. It occurred during the very days of the atomic bombings, arguably the worst crime of World War II at least on a par with the Holocaust. It is more than insensitivity, it is moral numbness, which prepares political actors, whether states, empire, or leaders, to embrace past crimes and commit future crimes. It leads directly to such features of world order as a geopolitical right of exception at the UN by way of the veto and impunity with respect to accountability procedures. In effect, the UN is designed quite literally to give assurances that the most dangerous states, as of 1945, are jurisprudentially protected forever from any adverse Security Council decision as to criminal acts, at least within the UN System.
What is this slightly disguised feature of legality and legitimacy conveying to a curious observer? That law and accountability are relevant for propaganda and punishment against Great Power adversaries, and that the wrongs of victors in major wars are beyond scrutiny but those of the vanquished and weak are to be judged in what amounts to ‘show trials’ because of this core failure to treat equals equally.
There is yet something else to reflect upon. If August 8th had been a different day that of infamy because an English or American city had been targeted by a German atomic bomb and yet Germany still lost the war, the act and the weapon would have been criminalized at Nuremberg and by subsequent international action. We might not be still living with this weaponry if the perpetrators of those dreadful events of August 6th and 9th had been the losers in World War II, which makes the rightly celebrated defeat of fascism on balance a somewhat questionable long-term victory for humanity.
77 years later it seems worth pondering allow this long repressed relationship between Hiroshima and Nuremberg in the context of the recent irresponsible heightening of geopolitical tensions with Russia and China.
Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, Chair of Global law, Queen Mary University London, and Research Associate, Orfalea Center of Global Studies, UCSB. https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/12/connecting-toxic-memories-hiroshima-and-nuremberg/
EDF sues French government for €8.4bn after Macron forces it to sell energy at a loss
EDF is suing the French government for €8.3bn (£7bn) after Emmanuel
Macron forced the nuclear giant to sell energy at a loss.
The company has filed a compensation claim with the Conseil d’Etat, the French
administrative supreme court, over “losses incurred” as a result of a
price cap extended in January. Paris ordered EDF, which is currently 84pc
state owned, to sell more of its power to French rivals at below market
prices in an attempt to support households and businesses as energy costs
soared.
EDF, which is in the process of being fully nationalised by the
French state, said the €8.3bn figure reflected losses “estimated to
date”, suggesting the price cap could cost it €15bn over the full year.
EDF estimated the changes would cost it between €7.7bn and €8.4bn when
they were first announced and said it would consider “any measure to
protect its interests”. Before the measure was enacted, competitors were
allowed to buy 100TWh of EDF’s electricity at a heavy discount to balance
its monopoly position. In January, the Elysée ordered that cap to be
increased by a fifth.
Telegraph 9th Aug 2022
French Nuclear Giant Sues Government For $8 Billion
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/French-Nuclear-Giant-Sues-Government-For-8-Billion.html— By Charles Hugh Smith – Aug 10, 2022,
French nuclear giant EDF, forced to sell power to competitors below market value, is now suing the French government for over $8 billion in compensation.
EDF says it has lost 8.3 billion euros (nearly $8.6 billion at today’s exchange rate) as of the date of filing the claim against the government, and anticipates losing more than 15 billion euros for the full year.
The French power company, which is already 84% owned by the government and is in the process of being fully nationalized, is forced to sell electricity it produces to rival power plants to increase competition as EDF holds a monopoly.
The initial government decree states that suppliers can purchase up to 25% of EDF’s annual nuclear output between July 2011 and December 2025 at a fixed, discounted price of about $47 per MWh. However, in January this year, the government implemented a larger cap at one-fifth in order to reduce consumer energy bills for this year. Then, in March, the government issued additional decrees, further increasing the volume and reducing the price for EDF.
The losses cited by EDF stem from this time period.
In June, EDF reported earnings showing its largest ever half-year loss. EDF lost 5.3 billion euros in the first half of this year, compared to 4.2 billion euros in profit for the same period of 2021.
EDF’s power stations account for 70-75% of France’s power consumption, and the government is keen on nationalizing the giant in order to ensure energy supplies amid a looming crisis that began when Russia invaded Ukraine.
Losses are mounting for EDF in other areas, as well.
Last week, EDF was forced to slash output at nuclear power stations on two rivers as a heatwave spreading across Europe has rendered the rivers too hot to cool the units.
Legal challenge to Sizewell C nuclear project
Campaign group Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) has now sent a
pre-action protocol letter, signalling the start of judicial review process
challenging the decision, which it contends is “unlawful”. The Planning
Inspectorate’s report to the business secretary stated that “unless the
outstanding water supply strategy can be resolved”, the case for granting
consent was “not made out”.
Building 9th Aug 2022
https://www.building.co.uk/news/sizewell-c-approval-faces-legal-challenge/5118719.article
Sizewell C nuclear station approval faces legal challenge
Campaigners have begun a legal challenge against the government’s decision to give the Sizewell C nuclear power station the go-ahead amid warnings that UK nuclear plants will be on the frontline of climate breakdown.
Citing the threat to water supplies in an area officially designated as seriously water stressed, the threats to coastal areas from climate change and environmental damage, the challenge is the first step in a judicial review of the planning consent.
The business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, overruled the independent Planning Inspectorate to grant permission for the new nuclear reactor in Suffolk in July. Kwarteng is pushing ahead with
government plans to approve one new nuclear reactor a year as part of an energy strategy that aims to bolster the UK’s nuclear capacity, with the hope that by 2050 up to 25% of projected energy demand will come from it.
But Sizewell C has faced stiff opposition from local campaigners, and environmental groups both for its cost and the environmental impact. In a letter to Kwarteng outlining their legal challenge Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) argues that the permission by the government for the plant was given unlawfully. Represented by Leigh Day solicitors and supported by Friends of the Earth, the group says there was a failure to assess the implications of the project as a whole, by ignoring the issue of whether a permanent water supply could be secured, a failure to assess the environmental impact of that project and the suggestion that the site would be clear of nuclear material by 2140, which was not upheld by evidence showing highly radioactive waste would have to be stored on site until a much later date.
The Planning Inspectorate had rejected the scheme saying “unless the outstanding water supply strategy can be resolved and sufficient information provided to enable the secretary of state to carry out his obligations under the Habitats Regulations, the case for an order granting development consent for the application is not made out”.
Pete Wilkinson, chair of TASC, said: “The case against Sizewell C is overwhelming, as has been carefully documented throughout the inquiry stage and was found by the planning inspector to have merit. “Even to consider building a £20bn-plus nuclear power plant without first securing a water supply is a measure of the fixation this government has for nuclear power and its panic in making progress towards an energy policy which is as unachievable as it is inappropriate for the 21st-century challenges we
face.”
Guardian 8th Aug 2022
Russia’s Rosatom to take legal action against Finland company, over terminated €7 billion nuclear power plant project.
Russian state entity plans claim over Finnish nuclear project, Jack Ballantyne 22 July 2022 Russian state entity Rosatom is preparing to launch an arbitration against a Finnish company that cited the war in Ukraine when it terminated a contract for work on a €7 billion nuclear power plant project…………… (Subscribers only) more https://globalarbitrationreview.com/article/russian-state-entity-plans-claim-over-finnish-nuclear-project
Employee shareholders to sue EDF over France nationising nuclear industry
An association of EDF employee shareholders announced on Sunday their plan
to sue the French state regarding its nationalisation of the power giant.
“Today the state needs to explain itself for the management as
ultra-majority stakeholder of the company,” the association “Energie en
actions” said in a statement.
The association holds that the government’s
decision goes against the interest of the company and the minority
shareholders, the statement added. The government will announce details of
its plan to fully nationalise the EDF, which runs the nation’s nuclear
power plants, by July 19.
Reuters 17th July 2022
Documents show Australian Labor government supports Assange’s extradition to the US
as far as the Labor government is concerned, Assange’s extradition is a done deal.
the greatest mistake defenders of Assange could make would be to harbour illusions that Labor will act to free the WikiLeaks founder.
as far as the Labor government is concerned, Assange’s extradition is a done deal.
the greatest mistake defenders of Assange could make would be to harbour illusions that Labor will act to free the WikiLeaks founder.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/07/18/rqbf-j18.html Oscar Grenfell @Oscar_Grenfell, 18 July 22,
Documents obtained by lawyer Kellie Tranter and published on the Declassified Australia website cast a damning light on the Australian Labor government’s role in facilitating the continued imprisonment of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange and his extradition to the US.
The material gives the lie to the claims of Labor supporters that the newly-elected government may be seeking to secure Assange’s freedom through backroom diplomacy, despite the refusal of Labor ministers to condemn the attempted US extradition and prosecution.
They show that Labor is willing to let Assange be sent to the US, despite doctors and his family warning that it would be a death sentence. A successful extradition would also set a sweeping precedent for attacks on journalists and political dissidents globally.
Assange faces 17 charges under the Espionage Act, and 175 years imprisonment, for publishing true information exposing massive US-led war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tranter, a longstanding legal advisor to Assange, has for many years filed freedom of information requests aimed at acquiring official documents revealing the role of Australian governments in the persecution of Assange. Those released by Declassified Australia are the first she has published since the Labor government was installed after the May 21 federal election.
The two documents are redacted. What is present, however, gives a sufficient picture of Labor’s acquiescence to Assange’s extradition, and the cynical, duplicitous character of the ambiguous public statements its leading representatives have made.
The first are internal “talking points” prepared for Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus on June 2. It is entitled: “Julian Assange – International Transfer of Prisoners process – talking points and background.” Its heading indicates the central preoccupation of the document, which states:
“Prisoner transfers cannot be agreed between governments in advance of a person being a prisoner (after a criminal trial, conviction and sentencing) in a particular country, and require the consent of the prisoner;
“International prisoner transfers to Australia are initiated by an application from a prisoner after the prisoner has been convicted and sentenced;
“If surrendered, convicted and sentenced in the US, Assange could apply under the ITP scheme to serve his sentence in Australia;”
In other words, Assange is to be extradited to the US, where the former Trump administration and the CIA plotted to kidnap or assassinate him from London in 2017, before settling on a pseudo-legal criminal indictment. He would be hauled before a kangaroo court in the District of Virginia, with a jury stacked by the very same CIA officers and their relatives. The hearings would proceed in secret and Assange’s detention regime would be one of total isolation.
With this hanging over his head, the document suggests that perhaps Assange will feel compelled to plead guilty to the “crime” of journalism revealing the illegal killings of civilians, torture and other violations of international law.
Tranter notes that following a redacted section, the document continues: “However, the UK High Court’s judgment does note that the US has provided an assurance that they will consent to Mr Assange being transferred to Australia to serve any custodial sentence on him if he is convicted.”
The US “assurances” are not worth the paper they are written on. Their sole aim was to overcome an earlier British court ruling, which found that Assange’s extradition would be “oppressive” because of his deep on-going health issues and the horrific conditions in which he would be held in a US prison.
The assurances, accepted by a British High Court as bona fide last October, asserted that Assange’s conditions of detention would not be as bad as his lawyers claimed. But those very assurances made plain that the intelligence agencies, including the CIA, would have complete control over the circumstances of Assange’s imprisonment, which could be changed at any time.
The second, June 8 document, is a “ministerial submission,” entitled “Julian Assange – extradition request from the United States to the United Kingdom.” It recommends that Dreyfus “note” the situation confronting Assange, in the lead up to an announcement by British Home Secretary Priti Patel on whether she would approve extradition. Several weeks later, Patel gave her green light.
The submission to Dreyfus bluntly stated: “The UK Home Secretary is due to make a final decision on Mr Assange’s extradition to the US by 20 June. Mr Assange will have one final avenue of appeal with the leave of the High Court, otherwise he must be extradited within 28 days of the Secretary of State’s decision.”
And again: “If Mr Assange is extradited, convicted and sentenced in the US, he may apply for transfer to Australia under the International Transfer of Prisoner’s Scheme. This will require the consent of the US and Australian authorities.
“The UK High Court’s judgment notes that the US has provided an assurance that it will consent to Mr Assange being transferred to Australia to serve any custodial sentence imposed on him if he is convicted.”
Later on, the document stated: “‘If Mr Assange is convicted and sentenced to imprisonment in the US, it will be possible for him to apply under the ITP scheme to serve the remainder of his sentence in Australia. A transfer would also require the consent of the US, the Australian Government (through you as Attorney-General), and the relevant minister in the state into whose prison Mr Assange would be transferring.
“In making any such decision, the department would provide you with advice on factors such as the extent to which the transfer would assist the prisoner’s rehabilitation, sentence enforcement, community safety and any relevant humanitarian considerations, in addition to any conditions of transfer required by the US.’”
In other words, as far as the Labor government is concerned, Assange’s extradition is a done deal.
Also striking is the fact that the documents do not countenance the possibility that he would be found “not guilty” in a US court. The entire thrust of the two documents is that the extradition and successful prosecution have already been stitched up, in a conspiracy involving the British government, the UK courts, the American authorities and the Labor administration.
Once Assange were in the US, moreover, the documents acknowledge that any “prison transfer” would be dependent upon the acquiescence of the American government whose President, Joe Biden, has previously branded Assange as a “high-tech terrorist.” A prison transfer, even in the unlikely event that it occurred, would mean years more of Assange’s incarceration, in Britain, the US and then Australia.
The contempt of the government for Assange is summed up by the reference to “factors such as the extent to which the transfer would assist the prisoner’s rehabilitation.” Assange does not need to be rehabilitated. He is a heroic journalist who has done a major service to humanity. It is the war criminals he has exposed who need to be placed in an institution.
Obviously it is unknown what is contained in the redacted section. It may deal with the elephant in the room, which is excluded from the rest of the documents. Assange’s doctors, lawyers and family have all testified that the WikiLeaks founder would take his life if he were to be extradited to the US. That judgment was effectively upheld by the British District Court, before it was overturned on the basis of the bogus US assurances.
All of the talk about “prison transfers” and the like is therefore window dressing for what would amount to a death sentence.
The documents reveal the sinister character of statements by Labor leaders, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Dreyfus, that the Assange case has ‘gone on for too long,” and “needs to be brought to a close.” When asked by journalists, each has refused to elaborate on what this precisely means.
One thing that is entirely absent from the documents is any suggestion that Labor has so much as suggested the US government drop the charges against Assange and end the extradition proceedings. The continuation of the judicial frame-up and victimisation is taken as given.
The documents vindicate the warnings of the Socialist Equality Party that the greatest mistake defenders of Assange could make would be to harbour illusions that Labor will act to free the WikiLeaks founder.
The 2010-2013 Gillard Labor government initiated Australia’s collaboration with the persecution of Assange. Gillard slandered Assange by falsely claiming that he had broken Australian laws. Assange publicly accused Gillard and other senior ministers of secretly collaborating with the American state against him and other Australian citizens associated with WikiLeaks.
Those actions were bound up with the Gillard government’s full-throated support for the “pivot to Asia,” a vast military build-up aimed at preparing for an aggressive US-led war against China.
A decade on and the military preparations are far advanced. The new Labor government is functioning as an attack dog of the Biden administration throughout the region. Last week, during a visit to Washington, Defence Minister Richard Marles hailed the US-Australia alliance as “unbreakable,” as he outlined a further massive military-build up.
The documents confirm that the fight for Assange’s freedom requires a political struggle by the working class, the social constituency for democratic rights, against the Labor government and all of its defenders. A Labor government will only intervene diplomatically and legally to free Assange, if it is forced to do so by a mass movement from below.
INSIDE THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR GOVERNMENT’S ASSANGE GAME PLAN
Is Australia urging the United States in non-negotiable terms to give priority to human rights and press freedom over any intelligence service-based vendetta or US domestic political considerations, and drop the case against Assange completely?
The imprecise language of the Labor government statements on using “quiet diplomacy” to “bring the matter to a close”, rather than clearly saying what they are seeking, may be giving false hope to the Australian public. Without putting forward its “quiet diplomacy” in non-negotiable terms to the US, it may be that the dropping of charges will not even be considered.
Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus It is not open to the Australian Government to directly interfere with either the jailing of Mr Assange in the United Kingdom, or the extradition request that’s been made by the United States to the United Kingdom.
“The Assange case is unique. One of the ways in which that is the case is the attempted extraterritorial use of the US Espionage Act. The US is seeking to establish a precedent where it could seek to extradite any journalist anywhere in the world for disclosure of US information.
“If Australia were to sanction a ‘deal’ whereby Assange pleaded guilty to a charge in exchange for an Australian served sentence, it would be endorsing that approach.”
New revelations on the Labor Government’s secret planning to act on the Assange case without offending the Americans.
https://declassifiedaus.org/2022/07/16/exclusive-inside-labors-assange-game-plan/ by Kellie Tranter | Jul 16, 2022, Quiet diplomacy”, a “soft approach”, a “loud approach” and “avoiding megaphone diplomacy” have all been floated as strategies to “bring to an end” the case against WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. In situations like his, the best form of diplomacy is that which produces results most favourable to the citizen involved and at the same time keeps them safe and in good health.
But government documents obtained this week by Declassified Australia under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act from the Attorney-General’s Department, indicate the new Labor Government does certainly not rule out the physical extradition of Assange from the United Kingdom to the United States, nor does it give any hint about how it might deal with possible fallout from that.
Continue readingFukushima nuclear power plant disaster: Court slaps 94 billion dollar fine on ex-Tepco bosses
Four former executives failed to fulfil their duty to implement the utmost safety precautions despite knowing the risks of a serious accident in case of a major tsunami, the court said.
New Indian Express15th July 2022 By Express News Service
TOKYO: A Tokyo court on Wednesday ordered four former executives of the utility operating the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant to pay 13 trillion yen ($94 billion) to the company, holding them liable for the 2011 disaster.
In the closely watched ruling, the Tokyo District Court said the former chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (Tepco), Tsunehisa Katsumata, and three other former executives failed to fulfil their duty to implement the utmost safety precautions despite knowing the risks of a serious accident in case of a major tsunami.
It said they could have prevented the disaster if they had taken available scientific data more seriously and acted sooner…………………………………………………. https://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2022/jul/15/fukushima-nuclear-power-plantdisaster-court-slaps-94-billion-dollarfine-on-ex-tepco-bosses-2476787.htm
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Austria to take EU to court over ‘greenwashing’ of gas and nuclear
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/07/13/austria-to-take-eu-to-court-over-greenwashing-of-gas-and-nuclearBy Euronews 13/07/2022 –
Austria wants the European Court of Justice to rule on whether the Commission was allowed to issue a Delegated Act to label gas and nuclear as green, the country’s minister said on Wednesday.
A controversial plan by the European Commission to include gas and nuclear in its taxonomy — a planned EU classification to give the financial sector clarity on which economic activities can be considered sustainable — was approved by MEPs last week with Austria immediately announcing it will challenge the vote in court.
Speaking from Luxembourg ahead of an informal meeting of EU environment ministers on Wednesday, Leonore Gewessler stressed that “from the very beginning, Austria was strongly opposed to greenwashing fossil gas and to greenwashing nuclear in the taxonomy.”
“We will file a lawsuit at the European Court of Justice to prevent this greenwashing programme, I cannot call it otherwise, to come into force.”
“There is a legal period of two months after the entry into force that is there to file the suit for the annulment of the legislation under the treaties,” she explained, adding: “Of course, we will respect this time frame.”
Luxembourg has also announced it will turn to the courts over the issue but Gewessler said other member states could join them.
“Several other states have been very critical of, and very vocal also, in their criticism on the delegated act and so we will also look for further allies in the lawsuit,” she told reporters.
Environmental NGOs, including Greenpeace and WWF, have also condemned the vote by the European Parliament with Greenpeace also considering a legal challenge.
Opponents argue that adding branding gas and nuclear as sustainable could lead to billions of euros being invested in these two energy powers rather than in renewables or other green technologies which would, in turn, endanger commitments made under the Paris Climate Agreement as well as the European Climate Law.
These plan for the bloc to become the world’s first carbon-neutral continent by 2050 and to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels.
The taxonomy, the Austrian environment minister stressed on Wednesday, is “a tool where financial markets, investors, ordinary people who want to invest their money into something good and useful and green and climate-friendly need to have the certainty that wherever there is a green label on, they are truly green projects.”
“So neither fossil gas, nor nuclear fulfil the criteria for really truly green investments. And we also question whether the Commission has the power to regulate this in a delegated act, and all of this will be put in the lawsuit,” she concluded.
Extradition of Julian Assange – a travesty of justice
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Alan William Preston Australia, 2 July 22, 1174 days in solitary confinement in London’s Belmarsh prison for having published evidence of the American military’s deliberate breaching of the Geneva Conventions during their illegal occupation of Iraq during which their personnel recorded 61,000 civilian deaths caused by their activities.
This is only a small corner of the truth he was shining the light on.
No further investigations or prosecutions for these war crimes have ever been pursued. Now the U.K. government is scrambling to disconnect itself from the European Court of Human Rights.
The U.N. had deemed that Julian Asssange had the right to publish this material and that his imprisonment is arbitrary and that the conditions equate to psychologicial torture and is ‘intimidation and reprisal’ being inflicted by the states that stand implicated by the evidence received and published.
We need to set the terms of reference for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the dysfunction in all the checks and balances that have allowed this travesty of injustice to occur.
Julian Assange files new appeal fighting extradition to US.
Washington Examiner. by Ryan King, Breaking News Reporter, July 01, 2022
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is appealing the United Kingdom’s order to extradite him to the United States.
Two appeals were filed in the High Court of Justice in London to challenge the extradition, and the court will decide whether to evaluate the case, Assange’s attorney Gareth Peirce announced, according to the Wall Street Journal……………………………………
Friday was the deadline for Assange to appeal the extradition order, according to the BBC. He is being held at Belmarsh prison in London.
His lawyers claimed that he could face up to 175 years behind bars if he stands trial in the U.S., but the U.S. argued he will likely face between four and six years.
A myriad of groups championing freedom of the press urged the U.K. not to extradite Assange, arguing that doing so could set a bad precedent and hamper press freedoms in the future. For example, the International Federation of Journalists has expressed concerns the move could pose a “chilling effect” on journalists worldwide.
“The US pursuit of Assange against the public’s right to know poses a grave threat to the Fundamental tenets of democracy, which are becoming increasingly fragile worldwide,” the group said. “Irrespective of personal views on Assange, his extradition will have a chilling effect, with all journalists and media workers at risk.”
“The case sets a dangerous precedent that members of the media, in any country, can now be targeted by governments, anywhere in the world, to answer for publishing information in the public interest,” the group added.https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/courts/julian-assange-files-appeal-fighting-extradition
Harsher anti-protest laws targeting environmentalists are putting greed before green
Guardian, Bob Brown 27 June 22,
Penalties for peaceful action are now the same as for aggravated assault.
Last Friday dozens of armed New South Wales police officers raided a camp near Sydney and arrested two environmentalists. One was Aunty Caroline Kirk, an Aboriginal elder. She was charged with “wilfully obstructing and intimidating police”.
“I can’t run, I can’t climb,” she said. “All I can do … is teach my culture. Why are they doing this?”
The answer lies in the showdown of our age between greed and green.
At the heart of this is greenophobia, the fear of things green, including environmentalists. It involves the blighted idea that people should be stopped from taking action to defend the environment, especially if it gets in the way of making money.
It has infected the world of natural resource extractors and they have found the established political parties around the world extra helpful. So, in this year’s Queen’s speech, Boris Johnson announced a bill to jail peaceful UK protesters for up to 10 years. The proposal of those measures was one of the triggers that brought 400 alarmed scientists out to support environmental activists last year.
Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, is a greenophobe who is letting the Amazon rainforest and its Indigenous cultures be destroyed. His nation has descended into environmental lawlessness in which two rainforest defenders, British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous advocate Bruno Pereira, were murdered this month. Globally, 220 environmentalists were murdered last year and thousands more were injured, terrorised or imprisoned. Most of the perpetrators have not been arrested or charged.
MMG’s lobbying helped influence the Tasmanian parliament to vote last week for harsher penalties for the defenders of the Tarkine and its giant masked owls. A clear majority of Tasmanian MPs want MMG to get its toxic waste dump in the Tarkine and Tasmania’s defenders of nature to get a cell in Risdon prison.
Tasmania’s laws match those of NSW, with penalties of up to $11,000 for peaceful environmental protest and double that, or two and a half years in jail, for a second offence. Had these laws been in place in other jurisdictions at other times, the Franklin River would be dammed, the Daintree rainforest razed and much of Kakadu national park mined.
Victoria has also introduced legislation, one aim of which is to deter scientists who have previously gone into the highlands and found forests with protected species – such as the greater glider and the state’s critically endangered faunal emblem, the Leadbeater’s possum – being logged. That’s illegal. While the loggers faced no charges, the intention of the new laws is to stop or arrest those scientists next time.
In Newcastle last year a young man was sentenced to a year in jail for delaying a coal train. The court did not hear the assessment of the former chief scientist at Nasa who told the US Congress that, in this world of dangerous global heating, transporting coal is a criminal activity.
Greenophobia is percolating down. On the Monday before Aunty Caroline’s arrest, 100 or so officers raided Blockade Australia’s camp for peaceful protest at Colo near Sydney after four undercover officers who failed to identify themselves “feared for their lives” – though the police had the guns and the people in the camp, including the children, had none……………………………..
Corporate PR machines, with the rightwing media ready to go, are developing greenophobia to divert attention to their business wellbeing and away from the graver threat of the collapse of Earth’s biosphere, including through global heating and species extinctions. As the NSW attorney general, Mark Speakman, put it: “What we are stopping, or criminalising even further, are protests that shut down major economic activity.” It’s money before the planet.22
The new federal environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, is now Australia’s most powerful environmentalist. She will decide if MMG should treat its toxic wastes inside or outside the Tarkine rainforest. In doing so she will also decide if Tasmania’s environmentalists will face the new draconian sentences there. Those penalties, for peaceful environmental action, are now the same as for aggravated assault or for threatening neighbours with a shotgun.
Such laws may be tested in the high court as earlier laws were, after I was among those arrested in Tasmania’s Lapoinya rainforest in 2017. The court found those laws unconstitutional because they took away the right to peaceful protest. Meanwhile the Lapoinya forest was flattened and burnt, along with its rare wildlife. No one was arrested for that… The court found those laws unconstitutional because they took away the right to peaceful protest. Meanwhile the Lapoinya forest was flattened and burnt, along with its rare wildlife. No one was arrested for that.
If MMG’s needless waste dump is given the go-ahead I, for one, will help defend that vital forest, its owls, kingfishers and Tasmanian devils. They can take us out of nature but they can’t take nature out of us.
As for the “terrifying” Aunty Caroline, I would like to meet her and thank her. She may not be able to run or climb but she is an inspiration. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/27/harsher-anti-protest-laws-targeting-environmentalists-are-putting-greed-before-green-bob-brown
- Bob Brown is a former senator and leader of the Australian Greens and is patron of the Bob Brown Foundation……
Court rules Japanese government not responsible for Fukushima nuclear disaster damage
ABC News18 June 22
Key points:
- The nuclear disaster, caused by a tsunami striking the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes
- The ruling in the government’s favour may set a precedent for future cases
- The company Tepco were forced to pay damages to about 3,700 people in March K
Japan’s government is not liable for damages demanded by people whose lives were devastated by the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the country’s top court said on Friday, the first such ruling in a series of similar cases.
The ruling’s effect as a precedent will be closely watched, local media said……………… https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-17/japan-government-not-responsible-for-nuclear-damage-court/101163670
1 This Month
22 June – Virtual Event –Climate Change: New Data, New Debate
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25 June- THE PUKE ON NUKES
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From NRC & DOE Deregulation to Techno-Fascist Billionaires Going Nuclear, Plus a Few Songs from Atomic Cabaret REGISTER
26 June – Radiation Trainwreck at the NRC / Join the Protect Better Campaign – https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/4ZlZ5_qLSHGiLSCg8FF6Bg#/registration
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
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