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Hibakusha group receives Nobel Peace Prize for “demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again”

Bulletin, By François Diaz-Maurin, Thomas Gaulkin | October 11, 2024

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement formed by survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings and nuclear weapons testing (or Hibakusha), “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.”

“The extraordinary efforts of Nihon Hidankyo and other representatives of the Hibakusha have contributed greatly to the establishment of the nuclear taboo,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in a statement presented by its chair, Jergen Watne Frydnes. “It is therefore alarming that today this taboo against the use of nuclear weapons is under pressure. The nuclear powers are modernizing and upgrading their arsenals; new countries appear to be preparing to acquire nuclear weapons; and threats are being made to use nuclear weapons in ongoing warfare. At this moment in human history, it is worth reminding ourselves what nuclear weapons are: the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen.”

“One day, the Hibakusha will no longer be among us as witnesses to history. But with a strong culture of remembrance and continued commitment, new generations in Japan are carrying forward the experience and the message of the witnesses. They are inspiring and educating people around the world. In this way they are helping to maintain the nuclear taboo—a precondition of a peaceful future for humanity.”

In an interview with the Nobel Prize organization, Masako Wada, a representative of Nihon Hidankyo and survivor of the Nagasaki bombing, said, “The world is currently moving backward on nuclear disarmament. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://thebulletin.org/2024/10/hibakusha-group-receives-nobel-peace-prize-for-demonstrating-through-witness-testimony-that-nuclear-weapons-must-never-be-used-again/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=MondayNewsletter10142024&utm_content=NuclearRisk_NobelPeacePrizeNihonHidankyo_10112024

October 16, 2024 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Biden should channel Trump and talk to Putin.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 14 Oct 24

Democrats are using revelations of candidate Trump’s talks with Russian President Putin to bash him as a ‘Putin Puppet.’ Bob Woodward’s new book ‘War’ claims there have been at least 7 such talks since Trump left the White House, including this year.

President Biden, unlike Trump, has spoken not a word with Putin for all 45 months of his presidency. That willful silence by Biden puts us all at greater risk of the US stumbling into nuclear war with Russia over the conventional war in Ukraine.

Had Biden picked up the phone to discuss Putin’s concerns over US sponsored NATO membership in 2021, war in Ukraine could have been easily avoided. Over half a million Ukrainian soldiers would be alive. Millions would not have been forced to flee to other countries or locales within Ukraine. The 20% of eastern Ukraine now forever lost to Russia would still be under Ukrainian sovereignty. Ukraine’s economy would not be on life support kept alive by NATO’s endless billions.

Biden was simply following US policy going back to the George W. Bush administration to keep Russia out of the Western European political economy by phantacizing Russia as a threat, not an economic partner. The linchpin for such isolation was NATO membership for Ukraine allowing a NATO military buildup on their Ukrainian border.

Isolating Russia was so important to the US that they supported a 2014 coup against the Russian leaning Ukrainian president because he was about to cooperate economically with Russia. That coup demonstrated America’s total hypocrisy championing democracy. It led the Russian leaning Ukrainians in Donbas to seek separation from the Kiev ultranationalists seeking to snuff out their Russian culture.

America’s response was not to support an end to Kyiv’s oppression but to fund it with hundreds of millions in US weapons. Putin’s Russia spent 7 years using diplomacy to stop Kyiv’s repression and keep Ukraine out of NATO. In November 2021, Putin made his last overture to Biden to negotiate Russia’s NATO and Eastern Ukrainian separatists’ concerns. Instead of doing the sensible, diplomatic step of free and open negotiation, Biden, thru his emissaries, essentially told Putin to ‘Go to Hell.’

Instead, Putin went to war, which has now largely destroyed Ukraine as a functioning country, spelling the end of US political dominance in Europe. Senseless US action provoking this unfolding catastrophe is possibly the worst diplomatic blunder in US history.

NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. What it should stand for is No Action Talk Only.

October 16, 2024 Posted by | politics international | Leave a comment

Renewable Energy Surge Lowers UK Blackout Risk

The risk of blackouts in the winter months in the U.K. has fallen to its lowest in four years thanks to the rise of the country’s renewable energy capacity.

To ensure a steady supply of electricity to households, Neso will encourage consumers to reduce their energy use during peak times by offering financial incentives through its demand flexibility scheme.  

By Felicity Bradstock – Oct 12, 2024
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/Renewable-Energy-Surge-Lowers-UK-Blackout-Risk.html

  • The UK has significantly reduced its blackout risk by increasing renewable energy capacity and diversifying its energy sources.
  • The closure of the UK’s last coal-fired power plant marks a major milestone in the country’s transition to clean energy.
  • The government is actively encouraging energy conservation during peak times to further enhance grid stability.

The U.K. has been gradually boosting its energy security by increasing its renewable energy capacity while continuing to produce natural gas. It has done this while also moving away from the ‘dirtiest’ fossil fuel, coal. The diversification of the U.K.’s energy mix is helping the island country to develop its resilience and help it accelerate the green transition. Now, the government must ensure that the country’s transmission infrastructure is prepared for an influx of new clean energy projects in the coming years, and can reliably deliver clean energy to tens of millions of households across the U.K. 

The risk of blackouts in the winter months in the U.K. has fallen to its lowest in four years thanks to the rise of the country’s renewable energy capacity. The National Energy System Operator predicts that the U.K.’s winter power supplies will outpace demand by nearly 9 percent this year. Neso is the new company in charge of keeping the lights on, which was bought by the government in September from National Grid for $825.5 million. The boost in the power supply margin is supported by the recent deployment of large-scale battery storage projects, small-scale renewables and imported electricity, according to Neso. 

As well as producing greater quantities of clean energy at home, the U.K. has also begun importing renewable energy from Denmark through the world’s longest high-voltage power cable – the Viking power link. This cable now provides clean electricity for around 2.5 million U.K. homes, showing the significant potential for clean power sharing across countries. 

The optimistic forecast comes in spite of the closure last month of the U.K.’s last coal­-fired power plant. At the beginning of the year, the Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal plant was used to provide 2.3 percent of the country’s electricity supply during a period of cold weather. Britain kept its coal facilities on standby following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions on Russian energy, mainly natural gas, to ensure there would be power even in the face of severe gas shortages. However, there will be no such backup this year, and, according to Neso, no such need for a backup. 

Gas reserves across Europe have been restored to around 95 percent full. The U.K. is no longer dependent on Russia for its gas, having doubled down on its long-standing relationship with Norway for its LNG supply. Britain will now import gas via Norwegian pipelines and tanker from the U.S. and Qatar during the winter months to use in its power plants, factories and residential buildings. To ensure a steady supply of electricity to households, Neso will encourage consumers to reduce their energy use during peak times by offering financial incentives through its demand flexibility scheme. 

The U.K. was finally able to close its last coal-fired power plant in September, a target which was stated during the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021, after 142 years of reliance on coal. The U.K. was the birthplace of coal power, and it is the first G7 country to end coal production. The rapid transition away from a dependence on coal is impressive given that coal contributed 39 percent of the U.K.’s power in 2012. The U.K. established its first legally binding climate targets in 2008, which supported the phasing out of coal. In 2015, the then-energy and climate change secretary, Amber Rudd, stated that the country would stop using coal within the next decade. This has been made possible by the rapid expansion of the U.K.’s renewable energy capacity, with green energy rising to contribute over half of the country’s power in the first half of 2024, from just 7 percent in 2010. 

Most of the U.K.’s electricity came from renewable energy sources for the first time in 2020, at around 43 percent. The green energy mix consists mainly of wind, solar, bioenergy and hydroelectric sources. In 2023, wind power contributed 29.4 percent of the U.K.’s total electricity generation, biomass contributed 5 percent, solar power accounted for 4.9 percent and hydropower added 1.8 percent of the mix. While the U.K. is currently depending on a mix of homegrown green and fossil fuel energy, as well as imports of energy from renewables and natural gas, the government plans to dramatically increase its renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade to solidify the country’s energy security. This includes increasing offshore wind output to 50 GW and solar capacity to 70 GW, as well as developing new nuclear plants.

Investing in the diversification of the U.K.’s energy mix has helped the country boost its energy security, as well as move away from a heavy reliance on fossil fuels. As the U.K. undergoes a green transition, the government is working in collaboration with utilities and regulators to ensure that the country does not face shortages, particularly in the winter months. This is further supported by strong energy agreements with other countries in Europe, North America and the Middle East, which will help to alleviate the burden of instability associated with renewable energy sources.  

October 15, 2024 Posted by | renewable, UK | Leave a comment

Book: THE FALL OF ISRAEL: The Degradation of Israel’s Politics, Economy & Military

“Israel is in deep trouble at home and abroad. It has become an apartheid state that is executing a genocide in Gaza. The Fall of Israel does an outstanding job explaining the causes and the evolution of the disastrous path that Israel is on.

Dan Steinbock,  https://www.claritypress.com/product/the-fall-of-israel/ 15 Oct 24

The path to the obliteration of Gaza was paved by the confluence of a set of longstanding forces. This great conjuncture has transformed Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories while driving the region to the edge. In The Fall of Israel, Dr Dan Steinbock connects the dots among these lethal headwinds. What makes The Fall of Israel unique is its comprehensive scope. It covers Israel’s political, economic, social and military changes, the shifts in the Palestinian struggle for sovereignty, Israel’s degradation into apartheid rule, the attendant atrocities, the regional and global reverberations and the  human and economic costs, both prior and subsequent to Israel’s fatal war on Gaza. There, its nightmarish actions have led to the engagement of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, renewed international boycotts, and massive domestic and international protests.

“Israel is in deep trouble at home and abroad. It has become an apartheid state that is executing a genocide in Gaza. The Fall of Israel does an outstanding job explaining the causes and the evolution of the disastrous path that Israel is on. This book deserves to be widely read by anyone interested in understanding contemporary Israel.”—JOHN MEARSHEIMER, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago and co-author of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

“This impressive book provides a comprehensive and incisive answer to the question how we got to where we are in Israel and Palestine today.  In a very accessible manner, Steinbock narrates the making of a messianic and theocratic Israel which is a menace for the Palestinians, the region and no less important, to itself. Its downfall as the book predicts is neigh, but on the way, it wreaks havoc and destruction. This is the picture world leaders must be aware of and challenge before it is too late.” —ILAN PAPPE, Professor of History, Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies, Author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

“Eight years ago I said that Israel would not be a state in 20 years; today I reaffirm that prognosis adding only that it won’t take 12 more years.  Many of my reasons for reaching that conclusion — and indeed far more  — are elaborated in The Fall of Israel.  Apparently, not many Americans want to know these truths — they’re too nuanced, complex, and damning; but if you happen to be in that group of us who believe strongly in the rule of law — U.S. domestic law and international humanitarian and criminal law in particular — and in democracy, then you need to read this book.  When you finish, I hope you will understand that our current national path leads us straight to hell. “—LAWRENCE WILKERSON, Col, USA (Ret) and former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell

The Fall of Israel is one of the most comprehensive academic books on the Palestinian crisis. . .This book thoroughly and accurately explains significant facts about the objectives and crimes of Zionism, the likes of which are rarely found in previous academic works.”—SEYED HOSSEIN MOUSAVIAN, Middle East Security and Nuclear Policy Specialist, Princeton University

“Dr. Steinbock’s research illuminates what the public is reluctant to digest: Namely that Israel operates in open rebellion against international law, refusing to live in peace with Palestine’s native population and with neighboring States.”—ALFRED DE ZAYAS, Former UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order

“Dr Steinbock’s book The Fall of Israel is an illuminating and intelligent contribution to our understanding of the events in the Middle East.”—DR. ERKKI TUOMIOJA, Historian and longest serving Minister for Foreign Affairs, Finland, who had a prominent role as the spokesman for European foreign policy

“The Fall of Israel explains excellently how 76 years of repression and suffering for the Palestinians has been facilitated by the unconditional American support for Israelf.”—MOGENS LYKKETOFT, Former Danish Foreign Minister and President of the United Nations General Assembly 2015-2016

“Vital reading for anyone concerned with this issue, and provides perceptive insight that is sorely needed.” —JONATHAN KUTTAB, international human rights attorney, co-founder of Nonviolence International and co-founder of the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq

October 15, 2024 Posted by | Israel, media, resources - print | Leave a comment

Israel intensifies genocide in Gaza and deepens killings in Lebanon

Mike Head @MikeHeadWSWS, 12 October 202, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/10/12/qbdw-o12.html

Armed to the teeth by the Biden-Harris administration in the US, the Israeli regime is re-intensifying its slaughter in refugee camps, schools and hospitals in northern and central Gaza, even as it expands its invasion and bombardments in Lebanon, including the centre of Beirut.

In the most recent attacks in Gaza, at least 22 people were killed yesterday in an air strike in Jabalia—the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps—in northern Gaza. Dozens were injured, with some ambulances unable to help rescue efforts due to fuel shortages.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued virtually impossible orders for residents, hospitals and healthcare centres across the area to evacuate, placing thousands of people, including healthcare workers and their maimed patients, directly in danger.

A strike on a school sheltering displaced people in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah also killed at least 28 people, including a child and seven women, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where bodies were taken. It said several other people were wounded.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said 61 Palestinians were killed and 231 were wounded in the latest 24-hour reporting period.

Thousands of people are trapped in Jabalia as Israeli forces continue to attack the area, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said. “Nobody is allowed to get in or out, anyone who tries is getting shot,” Sarah Vuylsteke, MSF project coordinator, said in a post on X.

The Israeli army issued evacuation orders for residents in the camp on October 7, “while carrying out attacks at the same time, preventing people from leaving the area safely,” MSF said.

Forced evacuations and bombing of neighbourhoods are turning Gaza’s north into “unhabitable ruins,” MSF added.

Haydar, an MSF driver inside the camp, said: “We were staying at the Al-Yemen Al-Saeed Hospital, but they bombed it. About 20 people were killed. I don’t know what to do, at any moment we could die. People are starving. I am afraid to stay, and I am also afraid to leave.”

United Nations officials voiced concerns yesterday that the Israeli offensive, as well as evacuation orders in northern Gaza, might affect the second phase of a polio vaccination campaign set to start next week.

Aid groups carried out an initial round of vaccinations last month after a baby was partially paralysed by the Type 2 polio virus in August, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.

“I am, of course, concerned about the developments in the north, and specifically with these evacuation orders,” the World Health Organization’s representative in occupied Palestinian territory, Rik Peeperkorn, told reporters in Geneva.

Peeperkorn said three attempts by the UN health agency and its partners to assist and evacuate patients from northern Gaza hospitals under evacuation orders have been thwarted this week.

This renewed Israeli offensive, combined with systematic starvation and denial of medical access, underscores the genocidal intent of the Netanyahu government. By the official Gaza health statistics, the IDF has killed more than 42,000 people, mostly women and children over the past 12 months, but the true toll may be closer to 200,000, counting the unrecovered bodies beneath the rubble.

Israel’s assault on Lebanon is widening and deepening at the same time. On Thursday night, 22 people were killed and 139 wounded in strikes in the heart of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, said caretaker Prime Minister Najib Makati.

Videos published by local news channels showed chaotic scenes following the attacks on Ras el-Nabaa and al-Nuweiri in Beirut. The strikes hit densely-populated residential areas. Many residents left their apartments in the high-rise blocks in the area and gathered in courtyards as emergency services rushed to the scene.

Israel did not issue evacuation warnings ahead of the strikes, which were the deadliest on central Beirut since the IDF offensive began last month. The area is outside the city’s southern suburbs, which Israeli forces have already pulverised.

The bombardments allegedly targeted Wafiq Safa, who heads Hezbollah’s liaison and coordination unit working with the Lebanese government, and is therefore considered a political figure rather than a military one. That marks a heightening of the Israeli aggression.

A US-made munition was used in the strikes, the Guardian reported. The newspaper found remnants of a US-manufactured joint direct attack munition (JDAM) amid the debris of a building that was reduced to rubble.

According to the report, “JDAMs are guidance kits built by the US aerospace company Boeing that attach to large ‘dumb bombs’ ranging up to 2,000 lbs (900kg), converting them into GPS-guided bombs.”

Earlier in the day, Israel warned Lebanese civilians not to return to their homes in the south of the country. The IDF soldiers were pushing on with their ground “incursion” inside Lebanon, as its fighter jets attacked more than 110 targets in the country in a single day.

Israeli strikes have killed at least 2,169 people, wounded more than 10,000 and displaced more than 1.2 million people in Lebanon over the past year, the Lebanese government said in its daily update.

Israel’s flagrant assault on Lebanon, which it last invaded in 2006, was further demonstrated when an Israeli airstrike killed two Lebanese soldiers and wounded three others. That was just hours after the Israeli military fired on the headquarters of UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, for the second time in as many days.

Two UNIFIL soldiers were also injured on Friday by an Israeli strike near their monitoring watchtower.

In the statement posted to X, UNIFIL also said an IDF bulldozer knocked over barriers at a UN position near the “Blue Line,” the unofficial demarcation line between Israel and Lebanon. 

“Any deliberate attack on peacekeepers is a grave violation of international humanitarian law,” the statement concluded.

UNIFIL has some 10,000 personnel, with Italy, France, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India among the biggest contributors. It was created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after Israel’s 1978 invasion and was expanded after the 2006 Israeli invasion, allowing its troops to deploy along the Israeli border.

Various imperialist governments, including the US, UK, France, Italy and Spain, issued statements condemning the attacks on UNIFIL as serious violations of humanitarian international law and UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ruled that UNIFIL personnel would replace the Israeli forces occupying southern Lebanon.

But the same governments are continuing to facilitate and arm Israel’s barbarism.

US President Joe Biden reaffirmed his “ironclad” support for Israel during a 30-minute phone call with Netanyahu on Wednesday, the White House said. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, joined the call, which reportedly discussed Israel’s plans to strike Iran.

“The president affirmed Israel’s right to protect its citizens from Hezbollah, which has fired thousands of missiles and rockets into Israel over the past year alone, while emphasizing the need to minimize harm to civilians, in particular in the densely populated areas of Beirut,” the White House said.

The latter phrase is another desperate bid, in the face of widespread opposition among workers and youth in the US and globally, to cover up US imperialism’s responsibility for the ongoing slaughter in Lebanon, as well as Palestine. The US provides Israel at least $3.8 billion in military aid annually, and the Biden-Harris administration has authorised $14 billion in further assistance to its proxy to help fund the genocide and a wider war for domination over the resource-rich and strategic Middle East, directed against Iran, Russia and China.

On Wednesday, the Socialist Equality Party in the US hosted a live-streamed discussion to mark the one-year anniversary of the Gaza genocide, analysing the historical roots of the US-Israeli rampage in the Middle East and advancing a socialist strategy to stop it. 

The event, featuring SEP National Secretary Joseph Kishore, WSWS Labor Editor Jerry White and WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North, referenced the centuries of colonial rule in the Middle East, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory since 1967, and the brutal US wars throughout the region since 1991.

October 15, 2024 Posted by | Atrocities, Israel | Leave a comment

U.S. to Deploy Missile Defense System and About 100 Troops to Israel

The Pentagon announced it would send the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery and its crew as Israel considered retaliatory attacks against Iran.


NY Times, By Helene Cooper, Reporting from Washington, Oct. 13, 2024

The United States is sending an advanced missile defense system to Israel, along with about 100 American troops to operate it, the Pentagon announced on Sunday. It is the first deployment of U.S. forces to Israel since the Hamas-led attacks there on Oct. 7, 2023.

President Biden directed Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, and its crew, Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement on Sunday.

The move will put American troops operating the ground-based interceptor, which is designed to defend against ballistic missiles, closer to the widening war in the Middle East. It comes after Iran launched about 200 missiles at Israel on Oct. 1 and as Israel plans its retaliatory attack.

The THAAD battery, a mobile defense system, will give the Israel Defense Forces another layer of protection to defend cities, troops and installations from short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles like those deployed by Iran in its last attack…………………………………………………………………………………

 late last month, the Pentagon said that it would send a “few thousand” American troops to the Middle East as Israel intensified its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, with one official putting the figure between 2,000 and 3,000. The United States also sent a THAAD battery along with other air defense systems to the region weeks after the attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/13/us/politics/us-missile-defense-iran-israel.html?unlocked_article_code=1.R04.e14E.qqRr91Mg9WWs&smid=em-share—

October 15, 2024 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

We’re Spending 2 Trillion Dollars on Weapons That Must Never Be Used

By Donald A. Smith, PhD. Using my lyrics and Udio.com for the music, I created this military march about the risk and costs of the nuclear modernization program. 14 Oct24

Audio on original  https://progressivememes.org/war/We-are-Spending-Two-Trillion-Dollars-on-Weapons-That-Must-Never-Be-Used.html

We are spending two trillion dollars 
on weapons that must never be used.
Nuclear missile modernization they call it.
The waste and risks cannot be excused.

Two trillion dollars, and what does it buy?
Weapons of extinction to light up the sky.
Corruption and greed keep the war machine alive.
If the weapons are ever used, no one will survive.

Politicians grin, saying "jobs will be made"
While the truth is that we're all being played.
For every job made building weapons of war,
Money spent elsewhere creates two or three times more.

We’re spending 2 trillion dollars on death's quiet plan,
Building bombs in the shadows, buried deep in the land.
Sentinel missiles standing ready to fly.
If they ever launch, we’ll watch the world die.


We tore up arms treaties, walked away from the deals.
Now the money flows faster, greased by power’s appeal.
What’s the true cost when we flirt with the flame?
It’s humanity’s end, in this high-stakes game.

Cost overruns soar and the profits are high.
Politicians line pockets, with kickbacks that satisfy.
What are the opportunity costs? And who’s made more safe?
The end of the world is the risk that we face.

We are pawns in a system that’s broken and blind,
Building weapons of war that will wipe out mankind.
For some jobs and for profit, for power and gain,
We face a future of deprivation, death and pain.

We are spending 2 trillion dollars, but it’s all for the few.
As we edge toward the brink, what can we do?
A system so broken, with the darkest design,
Where we gamble existence, for the sake of their bottom line.

October 15, 2024 Posted by | culture and arts | Leave a comment

“Israel must be expelled from the United Nations”

International legal expert Fabio Marcelli makes the case that, following the attack on UN peacekeepers, the conditions are ripe for a UN General Assembly vote on Israel’s expulsion from the latter

Thomas Fazi, Oct 13, 2024,  https://www.thomasfazi.com/p/israel-must-be-expelled-from-the—

Israel must be expelled from the United Nations: the conditions are ripe

by Fabio Marcelli, international legal expert, research director of the Institute for International Legal Studies of the Italian National Research Council and member of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers

Originally published in Italian on the website of Il Fatto Quotidiano.

The deliberate and criminal attack on the Italian Sassari Brigade and other UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) international contingents marks a new and unprecedented stage in Netanyahu’s efforts to devastate the neighbouring peoples of Israel, threaten global peace, and lead his own country to self-destruction, which now seems closer than ever.

[Italian Defense] Minister Crosetto’s condemnation of the attack as a war crime is commendable, as is his commitment that UNIFIL will not yield to blackmail or threats and will continue to carry out its mission. His assertion that Italy does not take orders from Israel is also notable.

However, it is crucial to closely monitor the fulfilment of this commitment, especially given the contradictory stance of the Meloni government, which has consistently supported Israel’s crimes. This contradiction becomes even more apparent when Western-supplied weapons, including a significant contribution from Italy’s military-industrial complex, are used against Italian forces. Unfortunately, Crosetto’s position seems unlikely to bring about meaningful consequences, especially given the silence from other Italian leaders, such as prime minister Giorgia Meloni and president Sergio Mattarella — a silence that must be harshly criticised considering the severity of the affront to Italy and the dangers to global peace.


UNIFIL must remain on the ground and, indeed, should be strengthened and equipped with appropriate equipment and weapons to effectively respond to any potential Israeli aggression. Similarly, steps should be taken to establish a comparable military protection force in Gaza and the West Bank to ensure the safety of the Palestinian people, who have paid a huge price in blood and continue to pay it every day in terms of civilians killed, mutilated and subjected to starvation, thirst and lack of medical supplies, denied by the genocidal occupation.

At the core of the expanding conflict, which now poses a serious threat to global peace, lies the persistent violation of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. This ongoing crisis stems from over fifty years of impunity granted to Israeli governments that have continually defied international law and the UN — and are now brutally attacking the organisation, declaring Secretary-General Guterres persona non grata and bombing his peacekeeping forces, including the cream of the Italian Armed Forces.

Given such sustained and repeated criminal behaviour, there are grounds for Israel’s expulsion from the United Nations. According to Article 6 of the UN Charter, “a Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council”.

However, it is clear that Western states in the Security Council, particularly the United States — complicit in Netanyahu’s criminal actions — will use their veto power to block such a proposal, once again obstructing the proper functioning of the international organisation and the enforcement of international law. Nonetheless, it would be equally important for the UN General Assembly to vote on such a resolution, giving free expression to the condemnation of Israel that now comes from the vast majority of the world’s countries as well as from international public opinion.

Such a declaration of principle should be followed by the imposition of sanctions under Article 41 and, if these measures prove insufficient, it could lead to multilateral military action under Article 42. This would complete the procedural steps outlined in Chapter VII of the Charter to end threats to international peace and security.

The adoption of these measures by the General Assembly and by a large number of states represents a necessary response to the grave threat to world peace posed by the criminal policies of the Netanyahu government, determined to provoke a nuclear conflict to avoid legal accountability, as well as by the equally criminal complicity of Western nations, led by the United States, today headed by a president who is a shadow of himself and therefore the shadow of a shadow.

Moreover, there are significant precedents in international law since World War II, such as the “Uniting for Peace” resolution adopted by the General Assembly when the Security Council failed to act. Such measures must now be considered in the face of the current danger to international peace.

October 15, 2024 Posted by | Israel, Legal | Leave a comment

Japan PM Ishiba eyes more renewables, less nuclear in energy mix

New leader plans stimulus package for ‘structural transformation of the economy’

 Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Saturday stressed Japan’s potential to
develop renewable energy sources and vowed to raise their share in the
country’s overall power supply, indicating he will prioritize
decarbonization as his government prepares an economic stimulus plan.

“Japan has large untapped potential for renewable energy development,
including geothermal, wind and small-scale hydroelectric power,” Ishiba
said in an interview with Nikkei Asia.

 Nikkei Asia 12th Oct 2024 https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/Japan-PM-Ishiba-eyes-more-renewables-less-nuclear-in-energy-mix

October 15, 2024 Posted by | Japan, renewable | Leave a comment

Google Pivots to Nuclear Reactors to Power Its Artificial Intelligence

Science Alert, 15 October 2024, Glenn Chapman,

Google on Monday signed a deal to get electricity from small nuclear reactors to help power artificial intelligence.

The agreement to buy energy from reactors built by Kairos Power came just weeks after word that Three Mile Island, the site of America’s worst nuclear accident, will restart operations to provide energy to Microsoft………………………………………..

Insatiable AI

Tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are rapidly expanding their data center capabilities to meet the AI revolution’s computing needs while also scouring the globe for sources of electricity………………………………….

However, the technology is still in its infancy and lacks regulatory approval, leading companies to seek out existing nuclear power options……………………………..

Is it safe?

………………………………… This area faces severe strain from data centers’ massive energy consumption, raising concerns about grid stability as AI demands increase.

Amazon’s AWS agreed in March to invest $650 million in a data center campus powered by another Pennsylvania nuclear plant.

Nuclear energy has staunch opponents due to concerns about radioactive waste disposal, the potential for catastrophic accidents, and the high costs associated with plant construction and decommissioning………..  https://www.sciencealert.com/google-pivots-to-nuclear-reactors-to-power-its-artificial-intelligence

October 15, 2024 Posted by | technology, USA | 1 Comment

The climate crisis threatens societal collapse—how many more hurricanes will it take for us to wake up?

As a new scientific report warns that the world is on the ‘brink of an irreversible climate disaster’, why do politicians and the media seem so uninterested?

By Alan Rusbridger, October 11, 2024, https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/environment-news/climate-change/68197/how-many-more-hurricanes-before-we-wake-up-to-the-climate-crisis

It took a dangerous category 3 hurricane in Florida to force climate change onto some, but not all, newspaper front pages. Normally this is a subject for gentle condescension.

You’ll have read a dozen such pieces. Climate change is genuine—there’s no denying that—but let’s be real about so-called “net zero”. We need to be “financially prudent as well as environmentally responsible”, as the Times intoned this week in endorsing BP’s retreat from agreed targets. We must stand against the politicisation of the weather, as Florida governor Ron De Santis is fond of speechifying. Blah, blah, blah, as Greta Thunberg would say.

A mega storm lashing into Florida is difficult to ignore: well-off Americans as victims, lots of vivid film footage etc. And so Hurricane Milton will receive many more eyeballs and clicks than, say, the 1,700 people killed in 2022 when torrential flooding hit Pakistan, submerging a third of the country and affecting 33m people. For some reason this was considered not so newsworthy.

News judgements over such things can be fickle. The day before Milton made landfall a group of respected scientists issued a report which warned that “the future of humanity hangs in the balance” and that we could be facing “partial societal collapse”.

Now, it’s been some time since I worked in daily news, but this feels like what we call “a story”. Not just a story, but what is known in the trade as a “marmalade-dropper”—a story so gripping that it could lead to a distracted breakfast accident. The internal machinations of the Conservative party are important, sure, but how do they compare with the future of humanity?

The report was barely covered. Did any news editor deign to glance at this academic paper, in the journal Bioscience? If they had, they might have been struck by the very startling language of the scientists who wrote it.

“We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster,” it began. “This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperilled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.” 

Let’s imagine a range of news desk reactions to this alarming news. The first might be a stifled yawn—as in “we’ve heard all this before, tell us something new.” The second might be to question: “Who are these so-called experts?”

There’s something in the first reaction: we have, indeed, heard dire warnings before—albeit not always in such stark terms. As to the second, the 14 authors are easily Googled: they come from top-notch universities around the world. The journal, published by Oxford University Press, comes from the American Institute of Biological Sciences. I think we can call this kosher.

But there are two deeper problems with the way the media thinks about climate change. The first is that it has become the subject of ideology more than science. Our imaginary news editor will have to factor in any prejudices his/her editor, or proprietor, may have in regard to the climate crisis. If the general newsroom feeling—arrived at by a process of mysterious osmosis—is that it’s all a load of overblown woke nonsense, then our news editor will ignore the story. The science doesn’t stand a chance.

The second problem is that journalism is most comfortable when looking in the rearview mirror. Something that happened yesterday is news: something that might, or might not, happen in 30 years’ time is prediction.

How can journalism adapt so that it can—with the assistance of experts—look forward as well as back? “I think journalism has to help us imagine and comprehend the true scale of what will happen if we don’t change course,” is how Wolfgang Blau, who created an Oxford University programme in climate journalism, puts it. It is sometimes referred to as “anticipatory journalism”.

But there are plenty of things in the here and now to be covered. One question might be, “Who is funding Kemi Badenoch?” The information is hiding in plain sight. Her register of interests shows that she’s accepted £10,000 for her leadership campaign from the chair of a climate science denial group.

Let’s make this really easy. Google the excellent research outfit desmog.com and you’ll find that climate campaigners have done the heavy lifting already, investigating the donation from Neil Record, a millionaire Tory donor and founder of the investment firm Record Financial Group. He is chair of Net Zero Watch (NZW), the campaign arm of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF).

“Based in 55 Tufton Street, Westminster, the GWPF is the UK’s leading climate science denial group,” reports desmog. The GWPF’s director Benny Peiser has suggested it would be “extraordinary anyone should think there is a climate crisis”, while the group has also expressed the view that carbon dioxide has been mischaracterised as pollution, when in fact it is a “benefit to the planet”. 

What’s more, it turns out—and thanks to Bloomberg for this nugget of information—that Badenoch has been running her leadership campaign from Mr Record’s home. While she has declared the £10,000 donation from Mr Record, the use of the house has not been declared. A spokesman for the candidate suggested she had done nothing wrong.

Badenoch has previously criticised the UK’s climate targets, calling them “arbitrary” in a 2022 interview. Badenoch has previously suggested that she would be in favour of delaying the UK’s commitment to reach net zero by 2050. She argued that new fossil fuel licences were compatible with the UK’s climate targets.

Badenoch’s rival for the Tory leadership, Robert Jenrick, has also been examined by desmog, which found a growing record of attacks on climate action. He denounces “net zero zealotry” and has labelled the UK’s net zero target as “dangerous fantasy green politics unmoored from reality.” He has supported the opening of new coal mines.s previously critic.

Worth covering? Perhaps by the same newshounds who have so enthusiastically gone in search of the generous donors who have kept Labour’s top team in smart suits, Taylor Swift tickets and football freebies?

Hurricane Milton will soon be off the front pages. Normal service will resume. But it’s hard, once you’ve read it, to dislodge the spectre of “partial societal collapse” if we continue to pretend climate change isn’t an urgent threat to our way of life. We will all have to adapt—including politicians and journalists.

Alan Rusbridger is the editor of Prospect and the former head of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. He was editor of the Guardian from 1995 to 2015.

October 14, 2024 Posted by | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

Patrick Lawrence: Truths That Come Out Like the Sun

This is official abuse. I am abused. You are abused. And as we are abused we watch Palestinians, other human beings, suffer.  

l it makes you conclude there is simply no lower limit to the Zionists’ depravity while you wonder—as many of us have this past year—what it means to be human. 

 October 13, 2024 , https://scheerpost.com/2024/10/13/patrick-lawrence-truths-that-come-out-like-the-sun/

I read the other day the latest paper put out by those good people who run the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute. It is called “United States Spending on Israel’s Military Operations and Related U.S. Operations in the Region, October 7, 2023–September 30, 2024” and has all sorts of information in it. Since the Zionist state began its latest assault on the Palestinians of Gaza a year ago, the Biden regime has spent $22.76 billion financing it, and this is a very conservative figure even by the three authors’ reckoning. 

That same paper has a remarkable graph showing the growth of U.S. military aid to Israel (grants and loans, in constant 2024 dollars) during the 65 years from 1959, when it was zero, to this year, when it reached $18 billion. There was a sharp spike in the years following the 1967 war, when the policy cliques in Washington began to consider the Zionist state a strategic asset in the region. 

And then I read a related paper the people at Watson finished recently. “The Human Toll: Indirect Deaths from War in Gaza and the West Bank, October 7, 2023 Forward” measures and analyzes, as the introduction explains, “the impact on population health of the destruction of public infrastructure, livelihood sources, reduced access to healthcare, water, and sanitation, and environmental damage.”  Then, beginning with the next sentence, the paper starts to hit you hard:

For instance, 96 percent of Gaza’s population (2.15 million people) faces acute levels of food insecurity. According to an October 2, 2024, letter to President Biden from a group of U.S. physicians, 62,413 people in Gaza have died of starvation.

As it happens I had already read the letter the Watson report mentions, an open letter that 99 physicians and other American medical professionals wrote to President Biden and Vice–President Harris after serving in Gaza this past year. It reads in part:

This letter and the appendix show probative evidence that the human toll in Gaza since October is far higher than is understood in the United States. It is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 118,908…. 

With only marginal exceptions, everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both. This includes every national aid worker, every international volunteer, and probably every Israeli hostage: every man, woman, and child.

The physicians’ letter seems to be one of numerous put out by this group under the title, “Gaza Healthcare Letters.” Among the organizers is Feroze Sidhwa, a West Coast trauma surgeon who has been energetically getting out the truth of the Gaza crisis for some time. This newest letter arrived (and my thanks to both) via John Whitbeck, an American attorney who puts out an informative blog from his home in Paris, and Dave DeCamp’s excellent piece in Antiwar.com. 

Well, right after I read the physicians’ letter and the DeCamp piece and the Costs of War material, I watched the documentary Al Jazeera’s investigative unit put out Oct. 3 as a sort of one-year-on project. “Investigating war crimes in Gaza” is an hour and 20 minutes of gut-turning footage so powerful it makes you conclude there is simply no lower limit to the Zionists’ depravity while you wonder—as many of us have this past year—what it means to be human. 

My advisory: The Al Jazeera documentary is very difficult to watch but we must, as a matter of conscience and, for those who have spent the year flinching, as a rite of passage. We must let the truth push itself in our faces. My partner’s advisory: Don’t watch it before you go to bed. 

Read more: Patrick Lawrence: Truths That Come Out Like the Sun

A day or so after I saw the Al Jazeera film, having already read the Watson reports, the open letter, and the DeCamp commentary, I read Brett Murphy’s latest piece in ProPublica. “Inside the State Department’s Weapons Pipeline to Israel” lays out the whole awful tale: Here, by way of leaked diplomatic cables, email, and Murphy’s interview work, we see how obsessed all those corrupt flunkies at State were (and are) to get weapons and more weapons to terrorist Israel, at times under pressure from the arms lobbies, while ignoring vast accretions of evidence that these supplies should have been blocked by law because of the Israelis’ genocidal crimes. By the time I read of this I had already seen Murphys’ earlier report that Secretary of State Blinken had suppressed and then lied to Congress about two State Department reports on some of these derelictions.   

This is official abuse. I am abused. You are abused. And as we are abused we watch Palestinians, other human beings, suffer.  

You have to admire Brett Murphy for his perspicacity in delivering these truths to us. Even a few years ago I would have said I hope The New York Times picks this guy up. No more of that. I hope for Murphy’s sake, and the sake of his readers, The Times keeps its befouled hands off a fine journalist—and for the sake, I will add, of his fineness. 

A day or so after I saw the Al Jazeera film, having already read the Watson reports, the open letter, and the DeCamp commentary, I read Brett Murphy’s latest piece in ProPublica. “Inside the State Department’s Weapons Pipeline to Israel” lays out the whole awful tale: Here, by way of leaked diplomatic cables, email, and Murphy’s interview work, we see how obsessed all those corrupt flunkies at State were (and are) to get weapons and more weapons to terrorist Israel, at times under pressure from the arms lobbies, while ignoring vast accretions of evidence that these supplies should have been blocked by law because of the Israelis’ genocidal crimes. By the time I read of this I had already seen Murphys’ earlier report that Secretary of State Blinken had suppressed and then lied to Congress about two State Department reports on some of these derelictions.   

This is official abuse. I am abused. You are abused. And as we are abused we watch Palestinians, other human beings, suffer.  

You have to admire Brett Murphy for his perspicacity in delivering these truths to us. Even a few years ago I would have said I hope The New York Times picks this guy up. No more of that. I hope for Murphy’s sake, and the sake of his readers, The Times keeps its befouled hands off a fine journalist—and for the sake, I will add, of his fineness. 

On Friday morning I awakened to a report in Middle East Monitor—again courtesy of John Whitbeck, who likes to make sure we get off to a bushy-tailed start—that one Matthew Brodsky, a former adviser to the White House, has just called for the Israelis to carpet-bomb an Irish contingent of U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon “and then drop napalm over it.” Altogether sound. And in keeping, too: The day of the Middle East Monitor’s report the Israelis shelled—knowingly, with intent—buildings in southern Lebanon from which U.N. peacekeepers operate. 

Matthew Brodsky now survives in the Zionist reaches of Think Tank Land in Washington. He is said no longer to advise the White House. Whether he still briefs Congress, the State and Defense Departments and the National Security Council, as he has in the past, is unclear. Either way, as Chas Freeman, the distinguished former ambassador, points out, this is the kind of person who climbs through the bureaucratic scene in Washington and ends up in advisory roles by dint of extremism dressed up as expertise. 

After thinking about all this reading and viewing in so short a time I didn’t want to think about anything for a while. Then I thought of a famous adage of Aeschylus that I used to keep on my desk: “He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

Suffering, pain, despair. Then I thought of something else. Failing in my recall, I thought of whoever it was who said “The truth is like the sun.. It always comes out.” 

The Israelis are not at war with the Palestinians of Gaza, just as the Reich was not at war with the Jews of Europe. Genocide is something different, and it is always important to name things properly if we are to understand them as they are. But there has indeed been a war raging this past year. It is not as bloody as what Palestinians now endure, and what the Lebanese now seem to be in for, but it is arguably just as consequential. This is our war for the truth against those who would bury it in the cause of distorting events, burying reality itself and, specifically, of shielding those who conduct the genocide in Gaza. It is a war in the cause of lifting a heavy lid so that the truth can do its work, the work it always does, its work in defense of the human cause. 

“Our war,” “we.” I am wary of these words. Who are “we” in any given case? But there is a “we” now, a very big, crowded “we.” And we are getting there. We are winning our war. This is what I draw from the past week’s journalism as I have reviewed it. A solidly documented true story takes shape out of all the day-to-day reporting of the past year. It is all in the record now, or will be, a coherent whole—this while all the official lies and the corporate media lies are exposed. Let us not miss the significance here. Can we not conclude the truth is proving once again as persistent as the sun?

A case in point: On Oct. 10, The Times published a piece I found reviving of the spirit under the headline, ‘Relentless’ Israeli Attacks on Gaza Medical Workers Are War Crime, U.N. Panel Says. Beneath this was an account of a U.N. commission’s report that found Israel guilty of “relentless and deliberate attacks” on hospitals and other medical facilities, on doctors and other medical professionals, and on civilian patients. The pithy passage in the statement of Navi Pillay, formerly the U.N.’s high commissioner for human rights and the director of the commission:

Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s health care system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities.

This is the truth rising to the surface. Do you think Pillay’s commission would have studied conditions in Gaza and drawn its conclusions without the prompt of the medical people now speaking out, chiefly via independent media? Do you think The Times would have published this piece if circumstances, an accumulation of truths too large to inter or ignore, had not forced it to do so?  

At the end of Atrocity Inc., Max Blumenthal urges those who viewed the footage to speak out and to continue doing so as long as this is possible—until the law, he means to say, prohibits free speech. Implicit in this, if I read him correctly, is the conclusion I have just suggested: It matters, our war is going well,  and it is no use waiting for The Times to tell us so. 

Will the truths now emerging at an increasing and encouraging rate reach some critical mass such that either Israel or the U.S. will change policy? It may seem bitter to ask this question, given Israel’s escalating barbarities and Washington’s indifference even to common decency. But we must not miss the extent to which Israel is destroying itself before our eyes and dragging the U.S. down with it—both in large part because the truth of this crisis has turned world opinion  against these two rogue states. 

There are the yet-to-be-written histories of our time to be considered. We all know George Orwell’s line in  “1984”: “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” It is essential, then, to get the record of our time set down accurately, truthfully, such that the way can open to proceeding in a new direction. Let us appreciate the power of the truthful work being done now, some of which I have reviewed, with this in mind.  

October 14, 2024 Posted by | Atrocities | Leave a comment

Planned nuclear plant in a Kenyan top tourist hub and home to endangered species sparks protest


 Daily Mail. By Associated Press, 12 October 2024 

KILIFI, Kenya (AP) – Dozens rallied against a proposal to build Kenya’s first nuclear power plant in one of the country’s top coastal tourist hubs which also houses a forest on the tentative list of the UNESCO World Heritage site.

Kilifi County is renowned for its pristine sandy beaches where hotels and beach bars line the 165-mile-long coast and visitors boat and snorkel around coral reefs or bird watch in Arabuko Sokoke forest, a significant natural habitat for the conservation of rare and endangered species, according to the U.N. organization.

The project, proposed last year, is set to be built in the town of Kilifi – about 522 kilometers (324 miles) southeast of the capital, Nairobi. Many residents have openly opposed the proposal, worried about what they say are the negative effects of the project on people and the environment, leading to a string of protesters which at times turned violent.

Muslim for Human Rights (MUHURI) led the march Friday in Kilifi to the county governor´s office where they handed him a petition opposing the construction of the plant.

Some chanted anti-nuclear slogans while others carried placards with “Sitaki nuclear”, Swahili for “I don´t want nuclear.”

The construction of the 1,000MW nuclear plant is set to begin in 2027 and be operational by 2034, with a cost of 500 billion Kenyan shillings ($3.8 billion).

Francis Auma, a MUHURI activist, told the Associated Press that the negative effects of the nuclear plant outweigh its benefits.

“We say that this project has a lot of negative effects; there will be malformed children born out of this place, fish will die, and our forest Arabuko Sokoke, known to harbor the birds from abroad, will be lost,” Auma said during Friday´s protests.

Juma Sulubu, a resident who was beaten by the police during a previous demonstration, attended Friday’s march and said: “Even if you kill us, just kill us, but we do not want a nuclear power plant in our Uyombo community.”

Timothy Nyawa, a fisherman, participated in the rally out of fear that a nuclear power plant would kill fish and in turn his source of income. “If they set up a nuclear plant here, the fish breeding sites will all be destroyed.”

Phyllis Omido, the executive director at the Centre for Justice Governance and Environmental Action, who also attended the march, said Kenya´s eastern coastal towns depended on eco-tourism as the main source of income and a nuclear plant would threaten their livelihoods.

“We host the only East African coastal forest, we host the Watamu marine park, we host the largest mangrove plantation in Kenya. We do not want nuclear (energy) to mess up our ecosystem,” she said.

Her center filed a petition in Nov. 2023 in parliament calling for an inquiry and claiming that locals had limited information on the proposed plant and the criteria for selecting preferred sites. It also raised concerns over the risks to health, the environment and tourism in the event of a nuclear spill, saying the country was undertaking a “high-risk venture” without proper legal and disaster response measures in place. The petition also expressed unease over security and the handling of radioactive waste in a country prone to floods and drought.

The Senate suspended the inquiry until a lawsuit two layers filed in July seeking to stop the plant´s construction, claiming public participation meetings were rushed and urging the Nuclear Power and Energy Agency (Nupea) not to start the project, was heard………………………. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-13952403/Planned-nuclear-plant-Kenyan-tourist-hub-home-endangered-species-sparks-protest.html 

October 14, 2024 Posted by | Kenya, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Canada’s nuclear watchdog green-lights operation of aging Pickering reactors to 2026

Pressure tubes, which are six-metre-long rods that contain fuel bundles of uranium, are regarded as the major life-limiting component in CANDUs. They deteriorate as they age, gradually increasing their propensity to fracture, an event which could lead to a serious accident.

Matthew McClearn,  October 11, 2024 https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canadas-nuclear-watchdog-green-lights-operation-of-aging-pickering/

Canada’s nuclear safety regulator again extended a crucial permit for the country’s oldest nuclear power plant on Friday, allowing it to continue operating beyond its original design life.

On Friday the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission authorized its owner, Ontario Power Generation, to operate the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station for an additional two years, to Dec. 31, 2026. The extended permit applies only to its newest four reactors, Units 5 through 8, which are collectively known as Pickering B. Those reactors entered service between 1983 and 1986.

The licence extension was granted by commissioners Timothy Berube, Marcel Lacroix and Andrea Hardie, who decided OPG would make adequate provisions for protecting the environment and public safety.

Canada’s homegrown reactor, the CANDU, was originally assigned a design life of 30 years, which had been incorporated into CNSC licensing requirements. If followed, they would have dictated that all four reactors shut down for major overhauls or decommissioning years ago. The CNSC, though, amended those rules and extended the station’s licence three times, while imposing more thorough inspection requirements on key components. The Pickering B reactors are now around 40 years old.

Pickering Station, located roughly 30 kilometres northeast of downtown Toronto, employs about 3,000 people and until recently supplied about 11 per cent of Ontario’s electricity. Nuclear power plants play a crucial role in the province’s grid, but their output has declined: Pickering Unit 1 shut down permanently last month, and Unit 4 is scheduled to follow in December. (The other two Pickering A units were idled permanently decades ago.)

OPG said Pickering B’s continued operation is needed because reactors at other stations are offline for overhauls.

Pressure tubes, which are six-metre-long rods that contain fuel bundles of uranium, are regarded as the major life-limiting component in CANDUs. They deteriorate as they age, gradually increasing their propensity to fracture, an event which could lead to a serious accident. Pressure tubes and related components are collectively known as fuel channels.

Nuclear reactor pressure tubes are deteriorating faster than expected. Critics warn regulators are ‘breaking their own rules’

The main cause of that deterioration is called deuterium ingress, which is measured in parts per million (ppm) of hydrogen equivalent concentration. Previously, Pickering’s licence contained a condition that effectively capped hydrogen concentrations at 120 parts per million.

But in recent years a small number of pressure tubes in Canada have been found to have greatly exceeded that limit. The CNSC removed the 120 ppm limit from Pickering Station’s licence on Friday, and introduced a new requirement that OPG “implement and maintain an enhanced fitness for service program” for its fuel channels.

Familiar patterns of support and opposition emerged during public hearings held by the CNSC in June, with host municipalities emphasizing the plant’s economic importance. A deluge of submissions from nuclear industry contractors, lobbyists and unions also supported the plant’s continued operation, including the Society of United Professionals and the Canadian Nuclear Association.

The CANDU Operators Group, which represents utilities that use those reactors, wrote in a statement that experimental work had confirmed that the station’s fuel channels could operate safely until 2026, and that OPG “will continue with its exemplary safety record in every aspect of its operations.”

Environmental activists such as the Canadian Environmental Law Association recommended the CNSC reject the permit, partly owing to risks associated with the plant’s aging equipment.

“Old nuclear plants are particularly susceptible to accidents,” it wrote in its submission, adding that the dangers of allowing the plant to continue operating are “high and increasing.”

Sunil Nijhawan, a nuclear safety consultant and frequent intervenor before the CNSC, said that OPG’s own estimates showed “that the degradation of fuel channels is widespread; a number of component and system failure mechanisms are fast converging to put the reactor into unsafe operation territory.”

Several First Nations asserted that the plant’s continued operations required their consent, and some also raised concerns about aging pressure tubes. The Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation declared in a written statement that it was “not comfortable with the risk management methods being employed by the CNSC and OPG.”

The CNSC found that the licence extension “does not present any novel adverse impact on any potential or established Aboriginal claim or right.”

A second life is planned for the Pickering B reactors following the planned 2026 shutdown: In January, the Ontario government authorized OPG to begin a refurbishment that would return them to service in the mid-2030s.

October 14, 2024 Posted by | Canada, safety | Leave a comment

Kamala Harris’ foreign policy agenda music to war party, anathema to swing state voters

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 13 Oct 24

It’s standard procedure for presidential candidates to promote bellicose US foreign policy in their campaigns. When the weapons makers, career generals, Congressional Hawks and pro war pundits pounce on candidates promoting peace over war, the warning is clear: don’t mess with US unipolar dominance.

But Kamala Harris has taken that to another level with her positions that are furthering the Israeli genocide in Gaza, destruction of Ukraine, looming war with Iran, and endless war provocations in the Far East with China.

She calls the $17.9 billion in US weapons obliterating Palestinian moms and kids “defense” and vows to continue it in a Harris administration. That alone disqualifies her to serve as president. That is not an endorsement of Trump, who’s even more ravenous for Israel to “to finish the job (genocide) in Gaza”

Harris remains in complete denial that US provocations made the Russian invasion of Ukraine inevitable. She’s committed to providing Ukraine with war weapons, already exceeding $150 billion, that have largely destroyed Ukraine as a functioning state. She calls negotiations to end the war “surrender”, something she will never do.

Harris’ claim that Iran is “America’s greatest adversary” is preposterous. She’s cool with Israel bombing folks in Tehran, but when Iran bombed back in protest, Harris got on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to discuss US help in Israel’s planned reprisals. That is not stateswomanship . That is criminal warmongering.

Harris is also on board endless US provocations against China in the Far East that could provoke war with the third largest nuclear power. Why? Harris says “The US must “win the competition for the 21st century with China.” A competition that ends in war is not winning. It is self destruction.

Harris may be pleasing the US war party, but not voters in swing states. They are not supporting endless US wars sucking up US treasure needed for the Homeland. They favor Trump’s approach to ending them (however unrealistic) over Harris’ bellicose stance by a margin of 58% to 42%. That alone could cost Harris the electoral votes she needs for victory November 5. Her foreign policy is not just wrong…it is stupid.

On domestic issues Kamala checks all the right boxes. On foreign policy issues she my be leading America and the world to ruin.

October 14, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

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