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Austria prepared to sue European Union if it includes nuclear in green finance taxonomy


Austria ready to sue EU over nuclear’s inclusion in green finance taxonomy, By Nikolaus J. Kurmayer | EURACTIV.com, 18 Nov 2021

Austria’s energy and climate minister Leonore Gewessler told EURACTIV in an exclusive interview that her country was ready to go to court if the EU decides to include nuclear power into the bloc’s taxonomy on sustainable finance.

In October, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the EU executive would soon table proposals on gas and nuclear as part of the bloc’s sustainable finance taxonomy, a set of rules designed to provide investors with a common definition of what is green and what is not.

A group of twelve EU countries, led by France and Finland, want nuclear energy included, arguing it is a low-carbon energy source and that radioactive waste can be handled safely if appropriate measures are taken.

But Austria would be ready to challenge that decision in front of the European Court of Justice said Leonore Gewessler, the Austrian minister for climate protection and energy.

“There is no legal basis for including nuclear power in the EU taxonomy,” Gewessler said adding that, “Yes, if the EU taxonomy includes nuclear energy, we are ready to challenge that in court.”

Austria is at the centre of a five-country alliance bringing together Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg and Portugal, which seeks to prevent the inclusion of nuclear energy in the EU’s green finance rules. The alliance was launched during the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Legal analysis

For Gewessler, “the credibility of the taxonomy is at stake” when deciding how to classify nuclear under the EU’s green finance rules.

The Austrian energy and climate ministry commissioned a legal analysis earlier this year, which found that “that the inclusion of nuclear energy is not compatible with the legal basis of Article 10 of the Taxonomy Regulation,” she said.

“We have a great responsibility here, in terms of taxonomy, to remain consistent and coherent”  with the ambitions of the European Green Deal and maintain trust in the financial markets, she argued.

“The considerable damage caused by nuclear energy is well documented historically,” she explained, citing “the dangers of nuclear power itself” as evidenced by the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters.

The safe disposal of spent radioactive fuel is also a matter of concern. “We have not yet found a global solution for…the question of final storage,” she said.

Besides, nuclear power “is much too expensive and much too slow to make a contribution” to the bloc’s climate goals, Gewessler continued.

The next-generation French reactor currently being built at Flamanville, whose construction started in 2007, has been massively delayed, with completion now scheduled in 2023 while costs have increased fivefold, she remarked.

Earlier this month, leading French EU lawmaker Pascal Canfin proposed letting nuclear energy and gas in the taxonomy as “transition” energy sources while the bloc pursues its long-term switch to renewable energy sources.

Canfin’s suggestion is to label gas a “transition” investment when it replaces coal and provided strict emission thresholds are met.

But Gewessler rejected that proposal too. “Just because something is less bad than coal doesn’t make it good or sustainable. It is still fossil energy,” she said………..

Austria’s neighbour Germany can always be counted on in the fight against nuclear power.

“Nuclear power cannot be a solution in the climate crisis, it is too risky, it is too slow, it is too expensive,” explained her German counterpart Svenja Schulze, caretaker minister of the environment, on 11 November.

“No climate activist should rely on nuclear power,” she added.

 2021

Austria ready to sue EU over nuclear’s inclusion in green finance taxonomy

November 22, 2021 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE, Legal | Leave a comment

Non government organisations anxious about Tricastin nuclear station, and about historic law to protect whitleblowers

After Tricastin, we must “protect the whistleblowers and focus on the
alert and not on the messenger”. Three representatives of non-governmental
organizations recall, in a forum at “The World”, the importance of “the
historic law” that the National Assembly is about to vote on the protection
of whistleblowers. They are also calling for the opening of a parliamentary
inquiry into the facts relating to the Tricastin nuclear power plant.

 Le Monde 15th Nov 2021

https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2021/11/15/apres-tricastin-il-faut-proteger-les-lanceurs-d-alerte-et-se-focaliser-sur-l-alerte-et-non-sur-le-messager_6102133_3232.html

November 18, 2021 Posted by | France, Legal, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Nuclear power company First Energy prosecuted for corruption, but still finds it worthwhile to bribe politicians


It is the largest fine ever imposed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio.

But it is a pittance when compared to the earnings it brought in last year: $1.1 billion. For that reason, the company’s stock has a 52-week range of between $26 and its current high of $39 a share. 

Paying Bribes Got FirstEnergy In Trouble, But It Is Still Making Political Donations , Forbes, 15 Nov 21,

Has FirstEnergy Corp. learned anything from its nuclear energy scandal and criminal probe? Prosecutors say that if the company fully cooperates then it will drop the charges against it in three years. But the utility is still giving millions to lobby lawmakers — a bit cringeworthy, given the events. 

It’s legal. But the company’s chief executive since March, Steven Strah, has said that FirstEnergy FE +1.2% will play a more subtle political role. The protocol now is strict oversight of its lobbying activities — the kind of thing that would avoid, for example, bribing public officials to keep open struggling nuclear plants. For sure, FirstEnergy’s campaign spending is already at $1.5 million this year. That is in line with the contributions it has been making for the last decade. 

FirstEnergy is sticking to “the way they did business 50 years ago,“ said Ashley Brown, a former Ohio public utilities commissioner, who now leads the Harvard Electricity Policy Group. “That’s part of why they’re just a lobbying firm with a utility sideline.” 

Brown’s comments appeared in a story by Eye on Ohio, which joined with Energy News Network in the endeavor. Eye on Ohio is a division of the Ohio Center for Journalism. 

In a deferred prosecution agreement reached over the summer between FirstEnergy and federal prosecutors, the utility admitted that it conspired with and subsequently bribed public officials: $60 million, which was used to secure a $1.3 billion bailout package for its nuclear units and to also help defeat a voter initiative that would have thrown out that law. 

The company was penalized $230 million — money to be split equally between the federal and state government. In Ohio, it will be used to help low-income citizens pay their utility bills. It is the largest fine ever imposed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio. But it is a pittance when compared to the earnings it brought in last year: $1.1 billion. For that reason, the company’s stock has a 52-week range of between $26 and its current high of $39 a share. 

Prosecutors said that they wanted the penalty to “sting” but they did not want to disrupt the company’s business. They filed one charge: conspiracy to commit honest services and wire fraud, which will be dismissed if FirstEnergy continues to cooperate. 

“Our activity in this space will be much more limited than it has been in the past, with closer alignment to our strategic goals and with additional oversight and significantly more robust disclosure,” says CEO Strah, before investors. “These efforts, together with enhanced policies and procedures, will help to bring additional clarity around appropriate behaviors at FirstEnergy.” 

The bargain between prosecutors and the utility examines how FirstEnergy took monies from its regulated units and then paid off public officials. Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder has already been charged. Former Ohio Public Utilities Commission Chairman Sam Randazzo has resigned his position. The power company used a dark money group called Generation Now to hide its efforts. A lobbyist has pleaded guilty along with a staffer for Householder, who set up the shady organization to receive the dirty money.

A New Track

Subsequent to this criminal settlement, Ohio’s Attorney General Dave Yost added FirstEnergy’s former CEO Charles Jones to a list of defendants his office is suing. (Prosecutors would not comment on whether Jones is also in criminal trouble.) The civil complaint also includes ex-FirstEnergy senior vice president Michael Dowling and Sam Randazzo. 

The “corruption was more cancerous than previously thought––necessitating adding additional defendants and giving rise to additional claims,” the lawsuit says. Ohio’s legislature, meantime, has revoked the $1.3 billion bailout. ……  https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2021/11/15/paying-bribes-got-firstenergy-in-trouble-but-it-is-still-making-political-donations—and-amends/?sh=1e29ece1150a

November 16, 2021 Posted by | Legal, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

EX manager sues EDF over safety concerns

A former manager at EDF’s Tricastin nuclear plant in southern France has
filed a complaint in a Paris court alleging the state-owned utility failed
to report or minimised safety concerns at the plant, Le Monde newspaper
reported on Friday.

The newspaper said the plaintiff, whom it did not name,
filed the lawsuit in early October at the Paris judicial court. It said the
plaintiff was also suing EDF for harassment, without detailing those
allegations. EDF declined to comment on the allegations, but said safety at
its nuclear sites was its priority. “Transparency and compliance with
regulations are strictly applied and respected at all sites”, it said.

 Yahoo 12th Nov 2021

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/ex-manager-sues-edf-over-123859453.html

November 15, 2021 Posted by | France, Legal, safety | Leave a comment

Precious waters — Tribes file to stop pollution from uranium and other hard rock mines

“The Havasupai Tribe has fought for decades to protect our beautiful water and traditional cultural lands from the harmful effects of uranium mining,”

Tribes file to stop pollution from uranium and other hard rock mines

Precious waters — Beyond Nuclear International Tribes, Indigenous groups, conservation organizations file petition to strengthen federal mining rules, By Earthworks, 7 Nov 21, Tribes, Indigenous groups and conservation organizations filed a rulemaking petition on September 16 with the U.S. Department of the Interior to improve and modernize hardrock mining oversight on public lands. The proposed revisions aim to safeguard critically important lands across the West and Alaska, including sacred lands and their cultural resources, vital wildlife habitat, and invaluable water resources.

“It’s long past time to reform the nation’s hardrock mining rules, end generations of mining-inflicted injustice to Indigenous communities, and chart a new course for public lands stewardship toward a sustainable, clean energy economy,” the petition states. “For far too long, mining companies have had free rein to decimate lands of cultural importance to tribes and public lands at enormous cost to people, wildlife, and these beautiful wild places of historic and cultural significance. The harm is undeniable, severe, and irreparable. Reforming these rules will prevent more damage, help us transition to green infrastructure, and leave a livable planet to future generations.”

The petition seeks to significantly update hardrock mining regulations, a need the Biden administration has also identified, to avoid perpetuating the mining industry’s toxic legacy. Current regulations disproportionately burden Indigenous and other disenfranchised communities with pollution and threaten land, water, wildlife and climate. New mining rules would help protect these resources and minimize the damage from the mineral demands of transitioning to a cleaner energy economy……………

“It is unacceptable for mining companies to evade scrutiny and tribal consultation requirements using outdated regulatory loopholes,” said Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Ned Norris, Jr. “At this very moment, mining projects in Arizona are threatening the permanent destruction of dozens of sacred sites for the Tohono O’odham Nation and other tribes. That is why the Tohono O’odham Legislative Council has unanimously taken a position in support of righting this historic wrong. The time has come for the federal government to uphold its responsibility in ensuring that sacred lands and waters are properly protected.”

“The Havasupai Tribe has fought for decades to protect our beautiful water and traditional cultural lands from the harmful effects of uranium mining,” said Vice Chairman Matthew Putesoy, Sr. of the Havasupai Tribe. “Each day uranium mining threatens contamination of Havasu Creek, which is the sole water source that provides life to Supai Village, our tribal homeland located at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.  Without this precious resource, our Tribe and our homeland will be destroyed. We know that uranium poses a serious and irreversible threat to our survival as a people. This petition is necessary to hold the Department of Interior accountable for meeting its federal trust responsibility and helping to protect our sacred traditional cultural homelands and waters from the harmful and often irreversible effects of mining.”……………….

“We face an existential climate crisis, and must move quickly to convert our infrastructure to support low-carbon energy — but we must do so without replacing dirty oil with dirty mining,” said Lauren Pagel of Earthworks. “The Biden administration has an historic opportunity to confront the legacy of injustice to Indigenous communities and damage to the public lands and waters held in trust for all Americans. Seizing that opportunity requires policies that prioritize metals recycling and reuse over new mining. Where new mining is acceptable, the mining industry must undertake the most responsible methods.”

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the metals mining industry is the single largest source of toxic waste in the United States, and hardrock mines have contaminated an estimated 40% of Western watersheds. Unlike the oil, gas, and coal industries, metal mining companies pay nothing to extract publicly owned minerals from public lands across the West and Alaska.

The Interior Department oversees the regulations governing compliance with federal mining law and other public lands laws. The petition proposes revisions to several mining regulations and includes legal and policy analysis for each proposed improvement.

Overhauling the rules is a critical step toward bringing mining regulations and policy into the 21st century to protect public health and Indigenous and public lands and resources in the West.

Proposed revisions include:
 – Clarifying that the BLM must use its authority to protect tribal and cultural resources and values, wildlife, and water quality and quantity; 
 – Requiring the BLM to verify mining rights;
 – Closing loopholes that allow the mining industry to escape public review and consultation with local tribes and governments

The Interior Department is required to respond to the petition within a reasonable amount of time and indicate whether it will revise the rules. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2021/11/07/precious-waters/

November 8, 2021 Posted by | indigenous issues, legal, USA, water | Leave a comment

‘No One Died From Radiation At Fukushima’: IAEA Boss Statement Met With Laughter At COP26   

‘No One Died From Radiation At Fukushima’: IAEA Boss Statement Met With Laughter At COP26, Forbes,    Sofia Lotto Persio Forbes Staff Sustainability I oversee sustainability coverage and curate the Daily Dozen. Nov 21,   The tsunami-triggered destruction of the Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011 provoked a rethink of nuclear power across the world—and remains a sore spot for the industry even as it tries to champion its low-carbon energy source status to gain prominence in the fight against climate change. 

On Thursday, the day dedicated to discussing energy at the COP26 UN Climate Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was given a prominent spot, with director general Rafael Mariano Grossi being interviewed on stage by Financial Times journalist Gillian Tett. 

It was an opportunity for Grossi to highlight the benefits of nuclear power, its appeal as part of a country’s energy mix,  and dispel concerns about nuclear waste and safety, but his assertion that the multiple nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in the town of Okuma—which forced the evacuation of more than 160,000 residents—resulted in no deaths from exposure to radiation was met with skepticism from the audience………

For years since the disaster, Grossi’s statement held true. But in 2018, the Japanese government recognized the death of one Fukushima plant worker to be attributable to radiation exposure, disbursing compensation to his family. The worker, a man in his 50s who had spent nearly 29 years working at nuclear stations in Japan until September 2015, was in charge of measuring radiation at the Fukushima plant. In the period of December 2011 and September 2015, the amount of radiation he was exposed to more than doubled from roughly 34 millisieverts to around 74 millisieverts, as the Japanese newspaper Mainichi reported. The maximum level of radiation exposure workers should be exposed to is 100 millisieverts every five years—an annual exposure to that level of radiation is linked to an increase in cancer risk. The worker was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2016 and died of the disease.

Fukushima nuclear plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. (Tepco) is still facing lawsuits for its failure to safeguard the nuclear complex. In February, the company and the Japanese government were ordered to pay $2.6 million in compensation to 43 evacuees for failing to enact preemptive measures against the disaster. Establishing a clear link between exposure radiation and cancer in a court of law can be more difficult. Tepco won one case in May because the plaintiff, who had worked on removing debris from the Fukushima complex between July and October 2011, developed three cancers between 2012 and 2013, whereas government guidelines stipulate the minimum latency period for a disease to develop following radiation exposure is five years….   https://www.forbes.com/sites/sofialottopersio/2021/11/04/no-one-died-from-radiation-at-fukushima-iaea-boss-statement-met-with-laughter-at-cop26/?sh=241acac17a47

November 6, 2021 Posted by | deaths by radiation, Japan, legal | Leave a comment

Chris Hedges: The Assange case is the most important battle for press freedom in our time

Chris Hedges: The Assange case is the most important battle for press freedom in our time, Rt.com29 Oct, 2021

 If the WikiLeaks founder is extradited and found guilty of publishing classified material, it will set a legal precedent that will effectively end national security reporting.

For the past two days, I have been watching the extradition hearing for Julian Assange via video link from London. The United States is appealing a lower court ruling that denied the US request to extradite Assange not, unfortunately, because in the eyes of the court he is innocent of a crime, but because, as Judge Vanessa Baraitser in January concluded, Assange’s precarious psychological state would deteriorate given the “harsh conditions” of the inhumane US prison system, “causing him to commit suicide.” The United States has charged Assange with 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one count of trying to hack into a government computer, charges that could see him imprisoned for 175 years. 

Assange, with long white hair, appeared on screen the first day from the video conference room in HM Prison Belmarsh. He was wearing a white shirt with an untied tie around his neck. He looked gaunt and tired. He did not appear in court, the judges explained, because he was receiving a “high dose of medication.” On the second day he was apparently not present in the prison’s video conference room.

Assange is being extradited because his organization WikiLeaks released the Iraq War Logs in October 2010, which documented numerous US war crimes – including video images of the gunning down of two Reuters journalists and 10 other unarmed civilians in the ‘Collateral Murder’ video, the routine torture of Iraqi prisoners, the covering up of thousands of civilian deaths and the killing of nearly 700 civilians that had approached too closely to US checkpoints. He is also being targeted by US authorities for other leaks, especially those that exposed the hacking tools used by the CIA known as Vault 7, which enables the spy agency to compromise cars, smart TVs, web browsers, and the operating systems of most smart phones, as well as operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux.  

If Assange is extradited and found guilty of publishing classified material, it will set a legal precedent that will effectively end national security reporting, allowing the government to use the Espionage Act to charge any reporter who possesses classified documents, and any whistleblower who leaks classified information.

If the appeal by the United States is accepted, Assange will be retried in London. The ruling on the appeal is not expected until at least January.

Assange’s September 2020 trial painfully exposed how vulnerable he has become after 12 years of detention, including seven in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He has in the past attempted suicide by slashing his wrists. He suffers from hallucinations and depression, takes antidepressant medication and the antipsychotic quetiapine. After he was observed pacing his cell until he collapsed, punching himself in the face, and banging his head against the wall, he was transferred for several months to the medical wing of the Belmarsh prison. Prison authorities found “half of a razor blade” hidden under his socks. He has repeatedly called the suicide hotline run by the Samaritans because he thought about killing himself “hundreds of times a day.”

James Lewis, the lawyer for the United States, attempted to discredit the detailed and disturbing medical and psychological reports on Assange presented to the court in September 2020, painting him instead as a liar and malingerer. He excoriated the decision of Judge Baraitser to bar extradition, questioned her competence, and breezily dismissed the mountains of evidence that high-security prisoners in the United States, like Assange, subjected to Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), and held in virtual isolation in supermax prisons, suffer psychological distress. He charged Dr. Michael Kopelman, emeritus professor of neuropsychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, who examined Assange and testified for the defense, with deception for “concealing” that Assange fathered two children with his fiancée, Stella Moris while in refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He said that, should the Australian government request Assange, he could serve his prison time in Australia, his home country, after his appeals had been exhausted, but stopped short of promising that Assange would not be held in isolation or subject to SAMs…………………

There is no legal basis to hold Assange in prison. There is no legal basis to try him, an Australian citizen, under the US Espionage Act. The CIA spied on Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy through a Spanish company, UC Global, contracted to provide embassy security. This spying included recording the privileged conversations between Assange and his lawyers as they discussed his defense. This fact alone invalidated the trial. Assange is being held in a high security prison so the state can, as Nils Melzer, the UN special rapporteur on torture, has testified, continue the degrading abuse and torture it hopes will lead to his psychological if not physical disintegration. The architects of imperialism, the masters of war, the corporate-controlled legislative, judicial and executive branches of government and their obsequious courtiers in the media, are guilty of egregious crimes. Say this simple truth and you are banished, as many of us have been, to the margins of the media landscape. Prove this truth, as Assange, Chelsea Manning, Jeremy Hammond, and Edward Snowden have by allowing us to peer into the inner workings of power, and you are hunted down and persecuted.

Assange’s “crime” is that he exposed the more than 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians. He exposed the torture and abuse of some 800 men and boys, aged between 14 and 89, at Guantánamo. He exposed that Hillary Clinton in 2009 ordered US diplomats to spy on UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and other UN representatives from China, France, Russia, and the UK, spying that included obtaining DNA, iris scans, fingerprints, and personal passwords, part of the long pattern of illegal surveillance that included eavesdropping on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in the weeks before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. He exposed that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the CIA orchestrated the June 2009 military coup in Honduras that overthrew the democratically-elected president, Manuel Zelaya, replacing him with a murderous and corrupt military regime. He exposed that George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and General David Petraeus prosecuted a war in Iraq that, under post-Nuremberg laws, is defined as a criminal war of aggression, a war crime, which authorized hundreds of targeted assassinations, including those of US citizens in Yemen. He exposed that the United States secretly launched missile, bomb, and drone attacks on Yemen, killing scores of civilians. He exposed that Goldman Sachs paid Hillary Clinton $657,000 to give talks, a sum so large it can only be considered a bribe, and that she privately assured corporate leaders she would do their bidding while promising the public financial regulation and reform. He exposed the internal campaign to discredit and destroy British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn by members of his own party. He exposed how the hacking tools used by the CIA and the National Security Agency permit the wholesale government surveillance of our televisions, computers, smartphones, and anti-virus software, allowing the government to record and store our conversations, images, and private text messages, even from encrypted apps.

He exposed the truth. He exposed it over and over and over until there was no question of the endemic illegality, corruption, and mendacity that defines the global ruling elite. And for these truths alone he is guilty. https://www.rt.com/op-ed/538822-assange-battle-for-press-freedom/#comment-5589120643

November 2, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, civil liberties, Legal, media | Leave a comment

USA and UK’s transparent persecution of Australian Julian Assange

The goal is to set a legal precedent which allows journalists who expose the crimes of the powerful to be persecuted not covertly as is normally done in ‘free democracies,’ but right out in the open. To tell journalists “We’ll just throw you in prison if you cross us.

What makes this precedent uniquely dangerous is that it is not just threatening to imprison American journalists who expose US crimes, but any journalist anywhere in the world.

Caitlin Johnstone: The Assange persecution lays out Western savagery at its most transparent  https://www.rt.com/op-ed/538713-us-appeal-of-the-julian-assange/28 Oct, 2021  By Caitlin Johnstone, an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her website is here and you can follow her on Twitter @caitozThe first day of the US appeal in the Julian Assange extradition case saw grown adults arguing in court that the US government could guarantee that it wouldn’t treat the WikiLeaks founder as cruelly as it treats other prisoners.

I wish I was kidding.

In their write-up on Wednesday’s proceedings, The Dissenter’s Kevin Gosztola and Mohamed Elmaazi report that the prosecution argued that “the High Court should accept the appeal on the basis that the U.S. government offered ‘assurances’ that Assange won’t be subjected to Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) or incarcerated in ADX Florence, a super-maximum prison in Colorado.”

What this means is that in order to overturn the January extradition ruling which judge Vanessa Baraitser denied on the basis that the notoriously draconian US prison system is too cruel to guarantee Assange’s health and safety, the prosecution has established as one of their grounds for appeal the claim that they can offer “assurances” that they would not inflict some of their most brutal measures upon him. These would include the aforementioned Special Administrative Measures, wherein prisoners are so isolated that they effectively disappear off the face of the earth, or sending him to ADX Florence, where all prisoners are kept in solitary confinement 23 hours a day.

What’s ridiculous about these “assurances,” apart from the obvious, is that within its own legal argument the US government reserves the right to reverse those assurances at any time and impose SAMs or maximum security imprisonment upon Assange if it deems them necessary. As Amnesty International explains:

They say: we guarantee that he won’t be held in a maximum security facility and he will not be subjected to Special Administrative Measures and he will get healthcare. But if he does something that we don’t like, we reserve the right to not guarantee him, we reserve the right to put him in a maximum security facility, we reserve the right to offer him Special Administrative Measures. Those are not assurances at all. It is not that difficult to look at those assurances and say: these are inherently unreliable, it promises to do something and then reserves the right to break the promise.

So the prosecution’s legal argument here is essentially “We promise we won’t treat Assange as cruelly as we treat our other prisoners, unless we decide we really want to.”

This is not just a reflection on the weakness of the extradition appeal, it’s a reflection on the savagery of all the so-called free democracies that have involved themselves in this case.

This same prosecution argued that Assange should not be denied US extradition from the UK on humanitarian grounds as in the case of activist Lauri Love, because Love suffered from both physical and psychological ailments while Assange’s ailments are only psychological. They stood before the court and made this argument even as Assange was visibly pained and unwell in his video appearance from Belmarsh Prison, which he was only able to attend intermittently due to his frail condition.

“For my newspaper, I have worked as media partner of WikiLeaks since 2009,” tweeted journalist Stefania Maurizi who attended the hearing via video link. “I have seen Julian Assange in all sorts of situations, but I have never ever seen him so unwell and so dangerously thin.”

So they’re just openly brutalizing a journalist for exposing US war crimes, while arguing that they can be trusted to treat him humanely and give him a fair trial if granted extradition. This after it has already been confirmed that the CIA plotted to kidnap and assassinate him during the Trump administration, after we learned that the prosecution relied on false testimony from a convicted child molester and diagnosed sociopath, after it was revealed that the CIA spied on Assange and his lawyers in the Ecuadorian embassy, and after intelligence asset Jeffrey Epstein famously died under highly suspicious circumstances in a US prison cell.

The worst atrocities in history have all been legal. All the worst examples of genocide, slavery, tyranny and bloodshed have been allowed or actively facilitated by the state. The persecution of Assange is geared toward entering the imprisonment of journalists into this category.

The goal is to set a legal precedent which allows journalists who expose the crimes of the powerful to be persecuted not covertly as is normally done in ‘free democracies,’ but right out in the open. To tell journalists “We’ll just throw you in prison if you cross us.”

What makes this precedent uniquely dangerous is that it is not just threatening to imprison American journalists who expose US crimes, but any journalist anywhere in the world. This is an Australian journalist in the process of being extradited from the UK for publishing facts about US war crimes in the nations it has invaded. The aim is to set up a system where anyone in the US-aligned world can be funneled into its prison system for publishing inconvenient facts.

This is the savagery of the Western world at its most transparent. It’s not the greatest evil the US-centralized empire has perpetrated; that distinction would certainly be reserved for its acts of mass military slaughter that it has been inflicting upon our species with impunity for generations. But it’s the most brazen. The most overt. It’s the most powerful part of the most depraved power structure on earth looking us all right in the eyes and telling us exactly what it is.

And if we can really look at this beast and what it is doing right now, really see it with eyes wide open, it reveals far more about those who rule over us than anything any journalist has ever exposed.

November 2, 2021 Posted by | civil liberties, Legal, UK | Leave a comment

The FBI is still looking for a trove of nuclear submarine secrets in an espionage case

The FBI is still looking for a trove of nuclear sub secrets in an espionage case, NPR, October 20, 2021 ETRYAN LUCAS,

The FBI has not recovered the vast majority of secret documents related to nuclear submarines that a U.S. naval engineer is accused of trying to sell to a foreign power, an FBI agent testified Wednesday.

Special Agent Peter Olinits said the FBI also hasn’t been able to find the $100,000 in cryptocurrency that it gave the defendants — Jonathan Toebbe, who worked on nuclear propulsion for the Navy, and his wife Diana — as part of the sting operation that led to the Maryland couple’s arrest.

The Toebbes, who were arrested earlier this month, have been indicted on espionage charges — one count of conspiracy to communicate restricted material and two counts of communicating restricted data.

Prosecutors say Jonathan Toebbe tried to sell thousands of pages of documents containing secrets about the U.S. Virginia-class nuclear submarine to an unnamed foreign country………….. https://www.npr.org/2021/10/20/1047763060/the-fbi-is-still-looking-for-a-trove-of-nuclear-sub-secrets-in-an-espionage-case

October 23, 2021 Posted by | legal, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Diverse American groups file a lawsuit against DOE opposing production of plutonium pits

What do activist groups from California, New Mexico, and South Carolina
have in common? And why might such a diverse crew have filed a group
lawsuit in June of this year, against the Department of Energy and the
National Nuclear Security Administration?

The answer to that question says
a lot about the environmental implications of nuclear weapons, and what
tactics exist to protect communities – and the world – against the
threat nuclear weapons pose.

The first plutonium pit was produced at Los
Alamos in 1945 and detonated at the Trinity test site. The second plutonium
pit was detonated in Nagasaki shortly after that, killing over 70,000
people. Plutonium pits act as the radioactive core of nuclear weapons,
existing as the central “shell” of nuclear fission chains or what
triggers the detonation. They serve a central role in the existence of
nuclear weapons. Producing plutonium pits, however, is a technically
challenging process that in the past, frequently resulted in environmental
contamination.

 Beyond the Bomb 18th Oct 2021

Plutonium Pits 101

October 23, 2021 Posted by | Legal, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Couple Indicted for Trying to Sell Nuclear Secrets to Foreign Country


Couple Indicted for Trying to Sell Nuclear Secrets to Foreign Country, NewsWeek,
BY TORIA BARNHART ON 10/19/21    couple from Maryland charged with trying to sell information about nuclear-powered warships to a foreign country was indicted following their arrest earlier this month, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Jonathan, 42, and Diane Toebbe, 45, of Annapolis, each faces a single count of conspiracy to communicate restrictive data and two counts of communication of restricted data.

The couple was arrested in West Virginia on October 9 by the FBI and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and charged with violating the Atomic Energy Act—a federal law that assures the proper management of nuclear materials and their byproducts.

“The complaint charges a plot to transmit information relating to the design of our nuclear submarines to a foreign nation,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The work of the FBI, Department of Justice prosecutors, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Department of Energy was critical in thwarting the plot charged in the complaint and taking this first step in bringing the perpetrators to justice.”…….

Jonathan continued speaking with this person for months and agreed to sell the information for thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency,……….. https://www.newsweek.com/couple-indicted-trying-sell-nuclear-secrets-foreign-country-1640644

October 23, 2021 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

US navy engineer charged with trying so sell nuclear submarine secrets


US navy engineer charged with trying so sell nuclear submarine secrets

Jonathan Toebbe and wife arrested in West Virginia after nuclear engineer makes ‘dead drop’ to undercover FBI agent,     Guardian,   Associated Press in WashingtonMon 11 Oct 2021 A US navy nuclear engineer with access to military secrets has been charged with trying to pass information about the design of American nuclear-powered submarines to someone he thought was a representative of a foreign government – but who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.

In a criminal complaint detailing espionage-related charges, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) said Jonathan Toebbe sold information for nearly a year to a contact he believed represented a foreign power. That country was not named in the court documents.

Toebbe, 42, was arrested in West Virginia on Saturday with his 45-year-old wife, Diana Toebbe, after he placed a removable memory card at a prearranged “dead drop” in the state, according to the DoJ. The Toebbes are from Annapolis, Maryland………………………

The FBI paid Toebbe $20,000 for the transaction and provided the contents of the SD card to a navy subject matter expert, who determined that the records included design elements and performance characteristics of Virginia-class submarine reactors, the justice department said.

Those submarines are sophisticated and nuclear-powered “cruise missile fast-attack submarines”, according to the complaint…………..

The complaint alleges violations of the Atomic Energy Act, which restricts the disclosure of information related to atomic weapons or nuclear materials.

The Toebbes are expected to have their initial court appearances on Tuesday in Martinsburg, West Virginia.

Jonathan Toebbe has worked for the US government since 2012, holding a top-secret security clearance and specializing in naval nuclear propulsion, the FBI says. He has also been assigned to a laboratory in the Pittsburgh area that officials say works on nuclear power for the US navy……. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/10/us-navy-engineer-charged-with-trying-so-sell-nuclear-submarine-secrets

October 11, 2021 Posted by | Legal, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Legal challenge launched to stop waste from nuclear plant construction being dumped in the Bristol Channel

News in brief: Legal challenge launched to stop waste from nuclear plant
construction being dumped in the Bristol Channel. Campaigners from England
and Wales have formed a new group to oppose the dumping of sediment from
the construction of a nuclear power station in the Severn Estuary and are
taking legal action to block the plans.

The Save the Severn Estuary /
Cofiwch Môr Hafren campaign involves the Geiger Bay coalition and groups
from the English side of the estuary, and is seeking to halt the dumping of
sediment from the construction of the Hinkley C power station in the Marine
Protected Area (MPA) near Portishead, Bristol.

The group is urging the
Marine Management Organisation (MMO) to revoke the license granted earlier
this year to EDF to dump the waste, which they say puts the MMO in breach
of its international obligations to protect marine environments such as the
Severn Estuary. They are also demanding the UK’s Secretary of State for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, George Eustice, acknowledges the ban
on any dumping that causes harm in the Marine Protected Area and instruct
the MMO appropriately.

 Nation Cymru 7th Oct 2021

News in brief: Legal challenge launched to stop waste from nuclear plant construction being dumped in the Bristol Channel

October 9, 2021 Posted by | legal, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear executive to go to prison for fraud


Former exec readies for 2 years in prison in nuclear debacle, abc, By Jeffrey Collins, Oct 5, 2021  Associated Press  COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — An executive who spent billions of dollars on two South Carolina nuclear plants that never generated a watt of power, lying and deceiving regulators about their progress, is ready to go to prison.

Former SCANA Corp. CEO Kevin Marsh has agreed with prosecutors that he should spend two years in prison. He goes before a federal judge Thursday who will decide whether to accept that deal…..

Marsh is the first executive to go to prison for the nuclear debacle. A second former SCANA executive and an official at Westinghouse Electric Co., the lead contractor to build two new reactors at the V.C. Summer plant, have also pleaded guilty. A second Westinghouse executive has been indicted and is awaiting trial.

Marsh in February pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud in federal court, and obtaining property by false pretenses in state court. Prosecutors agreed to his request to serve his entire sentence on both sets of charges in a federal prison.

Marsh already paid $5 million in restitution. SCANA had paid Marsh $5 million in 2017, the year the utility abandoned the hopelessly behind-schedule project in Fairfield County

Marsh lied and presented rosy projections on the progress of the reactors that he knew was false in earning calls, presentations and press releases. The CEO wanted to keep investors pumping money into the project and the company’s stock price up, prosecutors said.

His actions took more than $1 billion from the pockets of ratepayers and investors, authorities said in an 87-page Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit filed against them in 2020………….. https://www.abccolumbia.com/2021/10/05/former-exec-readies-for-2-years-in-prison-in-nuclear-debacle/

October 7, 2021 Posted by | Legal, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

October 27 – Julian Assange’s extradition appeal hearing

Dan Monceaux, 5 Oct 21 Julian Assange’s extradition appeal hearing is approaching on October 27 this year. The Americans (at least the CIA) are hoping to win the right to pluck him from the maximum security Belmarsh Prison in the UK, try him before a Grand Jury in Virginia with no permitted defence… then ultimately incarcerate him for 175 years. He will be committed to a slow, torturous death. This is the most horrendous case of “shooting the messenger” one could ever imagine. Assange is being punished for daring to publish documentary evidence of imperial transgressions to the interested public.October 27 will be a turning point in history… for better or worse.

October 5, 2021 Posted by | Legal, UK | Leave a comment

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