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Meta Is Aggressively Censoring Criticism Of US-Israeli Warmongering

Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 07, 2024

I am at risk of getting banned from both Instagram and Facebook as both Meta-owned platforms keep censoring my criticisms of Israel’s US-backed atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon, placing strikes on my accounts in the process.

Both Facebook and Instagram have deleted screenshots of a post I made on Twitter (or whatever you call it now) which reads as follows:

Iran is not my enemy. Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis are not my enemies. My enemies are the western imperialists and their Israeli partners in crime who are inflicting a waking nightmare upon the middle east and working to start a massive new war of unfathomable horror.

In the reasons given for this censorship, both Facebook and Instagram said “It looks like you shared symbols, praise or support of people and organizations we define as dangerous, or followed them.”

My appeals against this removal have been denied, saying the post “does not follow our Community Standards on dangerous individuals and organisations.”

Hours later, Instagram removed a second post citing the same reasons, this one about Lebanon and Hezbollah. It was two screenshots from a longer Twitter post which reads as follows:

Hezbollah are just Lebanese people. There’s this framing of “liberating Lebanon from Hezbollah” like they’re some kind of invasive, alien presence, when they’re an entirely native fighting force organically arising from the injustices and abuses inflicted by Israel and the west.

The imperial spin machine always does this. The empire uses narrative to try and de-couple the people it wants to kill from the rest of the population in the nation they are targeting in order to legitimize the violence they want to inflict upon the country. They want to take out a certain government or element within a nation that conflicts with their interests, so they start babbling about “terrorists” or “evil dictators” or “regimes” in order to make it seem like they’re not just attacking a country and murdering people who disobey them.

If they can uncouple a nation from the people in that nation who they want to kill in the eyes of the public, then they can portray that killing as a heroic act of liberation from a force which doesn’t belong there. If they can get you to believe that, then they can get you to believe they’re killing people for the benefit of the nation they’re attacking, instead of for their own benefit.

It’s literally always solely and exclusively for their own benefit, though. It’s literally always a lie.

As you can see, both of these posts are just criticisms of the foreign policy of the United States, the nation where Meta is based. Meta has an extensive history of working hand in glove with the US government to regulate speech.

This is indistinct from government censorship. If the US government designates its enemies as “terrorists” and massive Silicon Valley platforms are censoring criticism of US wars against those enemies in order to be in compliance with US law, then the US government is just censoring speech which criticizes US warmongering, using a corporate proxy in Silicon Valley.

Meta has been ramping up censorship of speech that’s critical of Israel and its US-backed atrocities for a while now, with a sharp increase that was anecdotally noticeable immediately after the company announced back in July that it would be instituting vague new censorship protocols against the word “Zionism”. After that move, critics of US foreign policy like Aaron Maté, Jonathan Cook, and Tadhg Hickey began reporting that their posts about Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza were being unexpectedly taken down on Facebook. 

I also had one of my articles which was critical of Israel removed from Facebook in July, which the platform refused to reinstate. This followed other acts of censorship that Facebook has been imposing on my account since last October, all for my criticisms of Israel’s US-backed atrocities in Gaza. 

Last November Facebook deleted a Twitter screenshot from my page which read, “You don’t understand man, Hamas uses human shields. Really really advanced human shields, the kind where there aren’t even any Hamas members anywhere near them. It’s just 100% human shield with 0% combatant, the most secure kind of shield there is.”…………………………………………………………………………

I think it’s important to document all this in detail because Meta is such a massive tool of US imperial narrative control. Facebook has a staggering three billion users worldwide, and Instagram has two billion. It’s impossible to overstate the impact that censoring speech in a pro-US direction will have on worldwide human communication.

From my earliest days at this gig I’ve been making a point of forcefully criticizing the world’s mightiest and most tyrannical power structure and then documenting the various ways the imperial narrative managers have worked to diminish my reach. I’ve been algorithmically throttled on Facebook since 2017, I’ve been permanently banned on TikTok and keep encountering censorship there under my new account, and I was even banned from Twitter until some commentators with larger voices than my own intervened on my behalf. 

Whoever controls the narrative controls the world, and the manipulation of information on the internet is a major agenda of the US-centralized empire toward that end. These pricks won’t be happy until we’re all a bunch of mindless, bleating sheep.  https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/meta-is-aggressively-censoring-criticism?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=149899947&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

October 7, 2024 Posted by | media | Leave a comment

NUCLEAR power is a fiscal sinkhole.

The National, Leah Gunn Barrett, Edinburgh 6 Oct 24

 The Sizewell C nuclear project in Suffolk is delayed again and the UK is ponying up £5.5 billion in subsidies (but Reeves can’t afford £2bn for the Winter Fuel Allowance), and the Hinkley Point C plant’s $46bn price-tag exceeds Scotland’s entire £41bn devolved budget.

Scotland has two nuclear plants – Hunterston B in Ayrshire which ceased generating in January 2022 and Torness in East Lothian, which will stop generation in 2028, two years early, due to a rising number of cracks in its core – 46 so far. Cracks can lead to a reactor meltdown and release of radiation into the environment.

Yet Anas Sarwar, the inept English Labour northern branch supervisor, insists that Scotland must invest in nuclear power to cut bills. No kidding.

If he becomes first minister, he’ll no doubt approve the proposed nuclear plant at Ardeer in North Ayrshire that the current administration has rejected.

The private sector is running a mile from nuclear power because of its out-of-control construction costs, the propensity for plants to develop cracks and the intractable problem of what to do with tonnes of radioactive waste.

Scotland doesn’t need nuclear (power or weapons). It generates the bulk of renewable energy within the failing UK, renewables that are being siphoned off by our greedy southern neighbour with the profits lining the bulging pockets of private corporations while Scots not only freeze but pay a premium for having their own energy sold back to them. Come on, Scotland. Let’s get out of here. https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24632469.vote-scottish-labour-want-broken-nuclear-future/

October 7, 2024 Posted by | business and costs | Leave a comment

Refurbished Three Mile Island Payment Structure Is Not Quite What It Seems

In May Constellation applied for a $1.6 billion federal loan guarantee — which coincidentally is precisely the amount of money it plans to invest to restart the shuttered reactor. According to the Washington Post, the taxpayer-backed loan could give Microsoft and Constellation Energy a major boost in their unprecedented bid to steer all the power from a US nuclear plant to a single company.

A loan guarantee would allow Constellation to shift much of the risk of reopening Three Mile Island to taxpayers.

Clean Technica, 4 Oct 24, Steve Hanley

Two weeks ago, the news was filled with reports that Reactor 1 at the Three Mile Island nuclear generating station, which was shut down in 2019, will be refurbished and put back into service for another 20 years or more. Its sole customer will be Microsoft, which needs a lot of electricity to operate its data centers. Reactor 2 is the one that melted down in 1979. It is in the process of being dismantled.

The Three Mile Island facility is currently owned by Constellation Energy, the largest operator of nuclear power plants in America. It told the New York Times it plans to spend $1.6 billion to refurbish Reactor 1 and restart it by 2028, pending regulatory approval. “The symbolism is enormous,” said Joseph Dominguez, chief executive of Constellation. “This was the site of the industry’s greatest failure, and now it can be a place of rebirth.”

Economic Benefits Of Three Mile Island

Local residents and politicians welcome the return of Three Mile Island, which will employ about 600 people when it restarts. “This will transform the local economy and presents a rare opportunity to power our economy with reliable clean energy that we can count on,” said Tom Mehaffie, a Republican state representative whose district includes the plant. “This is a rare and valuable opportunity to invest in clean, carbon-free and affordable power — on the heels of the hottest year in Earth’s history.” A recent poll found that 57% of Pennsylvania residents supported reopening Three Mile Island “as long as it does not include new taxes or increased electricity rates.”

Dominguez was especially proud to announce that Constellation would pay to refurbish the Three Mile Island facility entirely out of its own pocket, and Microsoft would be on the hook for buying electricity from the plant for 20 years. “We’re not asking for a penny from the state or from utility customers,” he said.

There is a lot to unpack here. The demand for electricity is exploding, thanks to cryptomining and AI. Data centers are sucking up vast amounts of electricity, much of it from renewables. That means there is precious little electricity left over to cool our homes and business, power our electric cars, or meet the needs of industries trying to decarbonize their activities. Supplying the crypto and AI sectors with renewable energy threatens to slow or reverse the transition to clean energy for the rest of society. At some point, we may need to ask ourselves just how much crypto and AI we really need.

A $1.6 Billion Federal Loan Guarantee

What Joseph Dominguez failed to mention when he proclaimed that Constellation was not asking for a penny from the state or from utility customers to restart Three Mile Island was that in May it applied for a $1.6 billion federal loan guarantee — which coincidentally is precisely the amount of money it plans to invest to restart the shuttered reactor. According to the Washington Post, the taxpayer-backed loan could give Microsoft and Constellation Energy a major boost in their unprecedented bid to steer all the power from a US nuclear plant to a single company. Microsoft is one of many large tech companies scouring the nation for zero emissions power for its data centers and one of the leaders in the field of artificial intelligence.

The plan to restart the shuttered reactor on Three Mile Island has already generated controversy as energy experts debate the merits of providing separate federal subsidies for the project in the form of tax credits. Constellation’s pursuit of the $1.6 billion federal loan guarantee, which has not been previously disclosed, is likely to intensify that debate. The loan guarantee request has cleared an initial review. It has now reached the stage where the specific terms of a deal would ordinarily start to be negotiated, according to the Washington Post. A loan guarantee would allow Constellation to shift much of the risk of reopening Three Mile Island to taxpayers. The federal government, in this case, would pledge to cover up to $1.6 billion if there is a default. The guarantees are typically used by developers to lower the cost of project financing, as lenders are willing to offer more favorable terms when there is federal backing.

Borrowing Costs For Three Mile Island

In this case, the loan guarantee could save Constellation up to $122 million in borrowing costs for restarting Three Mile Island, John Parsons, an energy economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the Post. It would come on top of the federal tax credits on the sale of the power — passed in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 — which could be worth nearly $200 million annually for Constellation and Microsoft. Over 20 years, that comes to a tidy sum — $4 billion to be exact.  Technology companies already benefit from similar tax credits when they purchase energy from a solar or wind farm, but nuclear power plants generate electricity at a higher cost, making the scale of the subsidy larger. Microsoft and Constellation have not released any details about how much the electricity from Three Mile Island will cost.

The Energy Department declined to comment on the application, but Constellation  told the Post it has not decided whether to accept the loan guarantee if one is offered, but claimed that any financial risk for taxpayers would be negligible. “Rest assured that to the extent we may seek a loan, Constellation will guarantee full repayment,” said a statement from the company. “Any notion that taxpayers are taking on risk here is fanciful given that any loan will be backstopped by Constellation’s entire $80-billion-plus value.” If that is so, then why the need for the federal loan guarantee in the first place?

The biggest risk to taxpayers would be if the project were to fail after a significant amount of money is spent trying to get Three Mile Island operational. Such setbacks are common when new nuclear plants are being built. The last new nuclear reactors to go online near Augusta, Georgia, were seven years late and $17 billion over budget. Constellation says it is confident Three Mile Island won’t face such setbacks because the company is restarting an existing unit rather than building a new one from the ground up. Some may view that as wishful thinking, or as my old Irish grandmother liked to say, “There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip.”

…………………… Another Kink In The Program

To hear Microsoft and Constellation tell it, every electron generated by the rejuvenated Three Mile Island plant would be used to power Microsoft data centers. That’s not quite how it will work out in practice, however. The electricity from the restarted nuclear reactor will not be connected directly to Microsoft’s data centers. Instead it will flow into the broader power grid that serves 13 states and D.C. As the purchaser of the clean energy, Microsoft can use it to erase — on paper — the emissions from burning gas or coal to produce electricity that does flow into its data centers. Microsoft is among several large tech firms using such accounting methods to brand their data centers climate friendly. CleanTechnica readers are savvy enough to recognize there is great potential for all of this euphoria over Three Mile island to become little more than another corporate greenwashing scheme, one paid for in large part by federal taxpayers.

Some critics question if Constellation is presenting an overly optimistic assessment of how quickly and cheaply a nuclear plant can be restarted. The company said last month that $1.6 billion would cover the full cost of reopening Three Mile Island by 2028. “We have one Big Tech company trying to do something that is not aligned with how the markets should be working, and they want to do it on the backs of ratepayers and taxpayers,” said Evan Caron, co-founder of Montauk Climate, which invests in clean energy technologies.

If there are any cost overruns or delays, Microsoft would probably have the option of abandoning the deal and Constellation would need to find another buyer willing to pay a premium for Three Mile Island power, he said. “This has real risk. I think the likelihood of that plant coming back online by 2028 is low to zero,” Caron said………………….

The Takeaway

There is nothing overtly wrong with the plan to restart Three Mile Island, but when the details are examined, there certainly are some reasons to be skeptical. First, when the company bragged it was putting its own money unto the project, it should have been upfront about the federal loan guarantee. Second, when Microsoft bragged it was increasing the supply of renewable energy to its data centers, it should have been upfront about how the process will actually work. In point of fact, none of the electricity from Three Mile Island may ever be used to power a Microsoft data center. There are carbon offsets and accounting shenanigans at work here, which open the door to chicanery or what some might call “creative accounting.” more https://cleantechnica.com/2024/10/04/refurbished-three-mile-island-payment-structure-is-not-quite-what-it-seems/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFvCNVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHcU7hX-pedORjEJ_lcT_tU0Hsy_C2HBPk6pbnMqSpjCnc7SnZtgJeCxCcQ_aem__L52Lun4mpFIcwhpVmUUpw

October 7, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Inside the State Department’s Weapons Pipeline to Israel

Leaked cables and emails show how the agency’s top officers dismissed internal evidence of Israelis misusing American-made bombs and worked around the clock to rush more out while the Gaza death toll mounted.

ProPublica, by Brett Murphy, Oct. 4, 2024

In late January, as the death toll in Gaza climbed to 25,000 and droves of Palestinians fled their razed cities in search of safety, Israel’s military asked for 3,000 more bombs from the American government. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew, along with other top diplomats in the Jerusalem embassy, sent a cable to Washington urging State Department leaders to approve the sale, saying there was no potential the Israel Defense Forces would misuse the weapons.

The cable did not mention the Biden administration’s public concerns over the growing civilian casualties, nor did it address well-documented reports that Israel had dropped 2,000-pound bombs on crowded areas of Gaza weeks earlier, collapsing apartment buildings and killing hundreds of Palestinians, many of whom were children. Lew was aware of the issues. Officials say his own staff had repeatedly highlighted attacks where large numbers of civilians died. Homes of the embassy’s own Palestinian employees had been targeted by Israeli airstrikes.

Still, Lew and his senior leadership argued that Israel could be trusted with this new shipment of bombs, known as GBU-39s, which are smaller and more precise. Israel’s air force, they asserted, had a “decades-long proven track record” of avoiding killing civilians when using the American-made bomb and had “demonstrated an ability and willingness to employ it in [a] manner that minimizes collateral damage.”

While that request was pending, the Israelis proved those assertions wrong.  In the months that followed, the Israeli military repeatedly dropped GBU-39s it already possessed on shelters and refugee camps that it said were being occupied by Hamas soldiers, killing scores of Palestinians. Then, in early August, the IDF bombed a school and mosque where civilians were sheltering. At least 93 died. Children’s bodies were so mutilated their parents had trouble identifying them.

Weapons analysts identified shrapnel from GBU-39 bombs among the rubble.

In the months before and since, an array of State Department officials urged that Israel be completely or partially cut off from weapons sales under laws that prohibit arming countries with a pattern or clear risk of violations. Top State Department political appointees repeatedly rejected those appeals. 

……………………………….“But it is a question of making judgments,” Blinken said of his agency’s efforts to minimize harm. “We started with the premise on October 7 that Israel had the right to defend itself, and more than the right to defend itself, the right to try to ensure that October 7 would never happen again.”

The embassy’s endorsement and Blinken’s statements reflect what many at the State Department have understood to be their mission for nearly a year. As one former official who served at the embassy put it, the unwritten policy was to “protect Israel from scrutiny” and facilitate the arms flow no matter how many human rights abuses are reported. “We can’t admit that’s a problem,” this former official said.

The embassy has even historically resisted accepting funds from the State Department’s Middle East bureau earmarked for investigating human rights issues throughout Israel because embassy leaders didn’t want to insinuate that Israel might have such problems, according to Mike Casey, a former U.S. diplomat in Jerusalem. “In most places our goal is to address human rights violations,” Casey added. “We don’t have that in Jerusalem.”

Last week, ProPublica detailed how the government’s two foremost authorities on humanitarian assistance — the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department’s refugees bureau — concluded in the spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza and that weapons sales should be halted. But Blinken rejected those findings as well and, weeks later, told Congress that the State Department had concluded that Israel was not blocking aid.

The episodes uncovered by ProPublica, which have not been previously detailed, offer an inside look at how and why the highest ranking policymakers in the U.S. government have continued to approve sales of American weapons to Israel in the face of a mounting civilian death toll and evidence of almost daily human rights abuses. This article draws from a trove of internal cables, email threads, memos, meeting minutes and other State Department records, as well as interviews with current and former officials throughout the agency, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The records and interviews also show that the pressure to keep the arms pipeline moving also comes from the U.S. military contractors who make the weapons. Lobbyists for those companies have routinely pressed lawmakers and State Department officials behind the scenes to approve shipments both to Israel and other controversial allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia. When one company executive pushed his former subordinate at the department for a valuable sale, the government official reminded him that strategizing over the deal might violate federal lobbying laws, emails show.

The Biden administration’s repeated willingness to give the IDF a pass has only emboldened the Israelis, experts told ProPublica………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Weapons sales are a pillar of American foreign policy in the Middle East. Historically, the U.S. gives more money to Israel for weapons than it does to any other country. Israel spends most of those American tax dollars to buy weapons and equipment made by U.S. arms manufacturers……………………………………………………………………

There is little sign that either party is prepared to curtail U.S. weapons shipments. ………………………………………………………………………………………

The U.S. gives the Israeli government about $3.8 billion every year and much more during wartime to help maintain its military edge in the region.  Congress and the executive branch have imposed legal guardrails on how Israel and other countries can use the weapons they buy with U.S. money. The State Department must review and approve most of those large foreign military sales and is required to cut off a country if there is a pattern or clear risk of breaking international humanitarian law, …………………

the bulk of that review is conducted by the State Department’s arms transfers section, known as the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, with input from other bureaus. For Israel and NATO allies, if the sale is worth at least $100 million for weapons or $25 million for equipment, Congress also gets final approval. If lawmakers try to block a sale, which is rare, the president can sidestep with a veto.

For years, Josh Paul, a career official in the State Department’s arms transfers bureau, reviewed arms sales to Israel and other countries in the Middle East. Over time, he became one of the agency’s most well-versed experts in arms sales.

Even before Israel’s retaliation for Oct. 7, he had been concerned with Israel’s conduct. On multiple occasions, he said, he believed the law required the government to withhold weapons transfers. In May 2021, he refused to approve a sale of fighter jets to the Israeli Air Force. “At a time the IAF are blowing up civilian apartment blocks in Gaza,” Paul wrote in an email, “I cannot clear on this case.” The following February, he wouldn’t sign off on another sale after Amnesty International published a report accusing Israeli authorities of apartheid.

In both cases, Paul later told ProPublica, his immediate superiors signed off on the sales over his objections……………………………………………………………

 Paul resigned in protest over arms shipments to Israel last October, less than two weeks after the Hamas attack. It was the Biden administration’s first major public departure since the start of the war. By then, local authorities said Israeli military operations had killed at least 3,300 Palestinians in Gaza.

Internally, other experts began to worry the Israelis were violating human rights almost from the onset of the war as well……………………………………………………

. In late December, just before Christmas, staff in the arms transfers bureau walked into their Washington, D.C., office and found something unusual waiting for them: cases of wine from a winery in the Negev Desert, along with personalized letters on each bottle.

The gifts were courtesy of the Israeli embassy………………………………………………

One month later, Lew delivered his endorsement of Israel’s request for the 3,000 precision GBU-39 bombs, which would be paid for with both U.S. and Israeli funds. Lew is a major figure in Democratic circles, having served in various administrations. He was President Barack Obama’s chief of staff and then became his treasury secretary. He has also been a top executive at Citigroup and a major private equity firm.

The U.S. defense attaché to Israel, Rear Adm. Frank Schlereth, signed off on the January cable as well. In addition to its assurances about the IDF, the memo cited the Israeli military’s close ties with the American military: Israeli air crews attend U.S. training schools to learn about collateral damage and use American-made computer systems to plan missions and “predict what effects their munitions will have on intended targets,” the officials wrote.

In the early stages of the war, Israel used American-made unguided “dumb” bombs, some likely weighing as much as 2,000 pounds, which many experts criticized as indiscriminate. But at the time of the embassy’s assessment, Amnesty International had documented evidence that the Israelis had also been dropping the GBU-39s, manufactured by Boeing to have a smaller blast radius, on civilians. Months before Oct. 7, a May 2023 attack left 10 civilians dead. Then, in a strike in early January this year, 18 civilians, including 10 children, were killed. Amnesty International investigators found GBU-39 fragments at both sites. (Boeing declined to comment and referred ProPublica to the government.)

At the time, State Department experts were also cataloging the effect the war has had on American credibility throughout the region. Hala Rharrit, a career diplomat based in the Middle East, was required to send daily reports analyzing Arab media coverage to the agency’s senior leaders. Her emails described the collateral damage from airstrikes in Gaza, often including graphic images of dead and wounded Palestinians alongside U.S. bomb fragments in the rubble.

“Arab media continues to share countless images and videos documenting mass killings and hunger, while affirming that Israel is committing war crimes and genocide and needs to be held accountable,” she reported in one early January email alongside a photograph of a dead toddler. “These images and videos of carnage, particularly of children getting repeatedly injured and killed, are traumatizing and angering the Arab world in unprecedented ways.”

Rharrit, who later resigned in protest, told ProPublica those images alone should have prompted U.S. government investigations and factored into arms requests from the Israelis. She said the State Department has “willfully violated the laws” by failing to act on the information she and others had documented. “They can’t say they didn’t know,” Rharrit added……………………………………………………..

In Israel’s New York consulate, weapons procurement officers occupy two floors, processing hundreds of sales each year. One former Israeli officer who worked there said he tried to purchase as many weapons as possible while his American counterparts tried just as hard to sell them. “It’s a business,” he said.

Behind the scenes, if government officials take too long to process a sale, lobbyists for powerful corporations have stepped in to apply pressure and move the deal along, ProPublica found.

Some of those lobbyists formerly held powerful positions as regulators in the State Department. In recent years, at least six high-ranking officials in the agency’s arms transfers bureau left their posts and joined lobbying firms and military contractors…………………………………………….more https://www.propublica.org/article/israel-gaza-america-biden-administration-weapons-bombs-state-department

October 7, 2024 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: D.C. Doesn’t Care About Ukraine War MASS DEATHS

October 7, 2024 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

France asserts itself against Netanyahu over Lebanon: Macron calls for Arms Embargo against Israel

Informed Comment Juan Cole10/06/2024

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In a radio interview with France Inter on Saturday, French president Emmanuel Macron called for an arms embargo against Israel over its ongoing attacks on Gaza and now Lebanon.

BFMTV reported that he said, “I think that today the priority is to return to a political solution, and that we must halt the delivery of arms for pursuing combat against Gaza. France will not deliver them.”

He clarified that France would continue to export defensive materiel, such as parts for the Israeli Iron Dome anti-missile defense system.

The station notes that President Joe Biden has often called for the avoidance of civilian casualties but has steadfastly declined to use his leverage with Israel, given its dependence on US weaponry and ammunition, to pressure it. In Britain, the Labour government of PM Keir Starmer has halted 10 out of 350 weapons licenses on the grounds that those ten weapons would likely be used by Israel against civilians.

Macron is the first leader of a major European country to argue for an embargo of offensive weapons to Israel in response to its total war on Gaza.

The French president has been heavily criticized by former French diplomats and other public figures for not showing the spine toward the Israeli……………………………. more https://www.juancole.com/2024/10/asserts-against-netanyahu.html

October 7, 2024 Posted by | France, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Urgent Action by S. Korean Civil Society in Solidarity with Palestine.

Urgent Action by S. Korean Civil Society in Solidarity with Palestine, Facebook Page, 6 Oct 24

We Will Stand Together for Palestinian Liberation Until the Very End

One year. One year has passed as the Israeli occupation has escalated the genocide in Gaza. Throughout this past year, we saw children torn to pieces by American weapons. We saw civilians with white flags being executed. We saw the stream of refugees following evacuation orders from the occupation, only to be bombed on the road. We saw refugees burned alive in hospitals, UN-run schools, and tents in the so-called safe-zones. We saw medical staff who tended to patients, journalists who spread the truth, UN workers who provided aid, all massacred. Throughout the past year, we saw in real-time how Israel turned Gaza into an extermination camp, systematically destroying 2 percent of its population.

The survivors of the bombardment are dying of starvation and disease. Since last October 7, Israel escalated the 16-year-long blockade of Gaza, calling its residents “human animals” and cutting off all access to water, food, medicine, electricity and fuel. Children, sole survivors of their families, suffer through amputation without anesthetics, and find that they have no home to go back to. Those who cannot follow Israeli evacuation orders, such as patients, the disabled and the elderly, are taken to concentration camps where they are tortured, raped, or murdered. Israeli politicians are already planning to build illegal settlements over the ruin, and Israeli soldiers are singing and dancing over the murder of Gazans, while fake news endlessly tries to legitimize the genocide. Israel is escalating its ethnic cleansing in its other illegal occupations in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, preparing for forceful annexation of these territories.

The US and the European powers are colluding with the Israeli genocide at an unprecedented level. They exponentially increased their weapons supply to Israel, and blatantly defended Israel’s war crimes. On top of this, they imprisoned and punished their own citizens who condemned the genocide. Throughout this past year, as the genocide unfolded in Gaza, the international community failed to stop the Israeli war crimes, and failed to stop Israel from escalating the war across the Middle East. From September 23, Israel started bombing southern and eastern Lebanon, and on September 29, over the course of 24 hours, Israel bombed Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and Syria. On September 30, Israel began the ground invasion against Lebanon, and now they are threatening to start a war with Iran as well.

However, the Palestinian struggle is changing the course of history. Palestinians still shout that existence is resistance, and the refugees still vow to return to their homes, even after 76 years of displacement. The new generations are inheriting the resistance struggle, without breaking under the oppression. Palestinians everywhere expose and shatter the hypocrisy and double standards of this world. All over the world, students occupied their campuses demanding their universities to stop their collusion in the genocide and colonial rule, while dockworkers refused to service ships headed to Israel, stopping them from leaving port. Protests of unprecedented scale are filling the streets, shouting from the river to the sea Palestine will be free. This solidarity with the Palestinian struggle led to the ICJ ordering Israel to stop its genocide, and to the ICC seeking arrest warrants for the Israeli war criminals. The UN General Assembly resolution not only demanded Israel to end its illegal occupation of Palestine within a year, but also obligated member states to sanction Israel. Slowly but surely, the Zionist Israeli entity is being isolated.

We stand together with the Palestinian resistance. October 7 changed everything. To end Israeli genocide, military occupation and colonial rule have become our own problem as well. We will bring Palestinian liberation forward with even stronger solidarity. We will pressure the Korean government to issue a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel. We will hold Korean companies accountable, when their machines destroy Palestinian lives. We will reject all attempts at whitewashing that seeks to normalize the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Until Palestinians reclaim their lands, and all refugees return to their homes, we will stand with the Palestinian resistance to the very end.

October 7, 2024 Posted by | Atrocities, Israel, South Korea | Leave a comment

Czechs take stake in Rolls-Royce vehicle in boost for SMRs.

Partnership with Rolls-Royce consortium to build SMRs in Czech Republic to be
underpinned by minority holding as engine maker vies to secure UK deal.

The Czech government is taking a minority stake in the Rolls-Royce SMR
consortium, which hopes to build and sell fleets of small nuclear reactors
to meet increasing demand for electricity in the 2030s. Last month, the
Czech Republic announced a strategic partnership with Rolls-Royce SMR to
build small modular reactors (SMRs) in the eastern European country. Rolls
beat six other companies in a selection process led by Cez, the country’s
state-backed energy group.

It has now emerged that the Czech government
will take an equity stake in the Rolls consortium via Cez for an
undisclosed sum, in a move that underlines its determination to advance SMR
technology.

Rolls-Royce SMR is majority owned by the FTSE 100 engine maker,
which has a stake of about 70 per cent. Other shareholders include the
Qatar Investment Authority, US energy firm Constellation and BNF Capital,
an investment vehicle set up by the billionaire Perrodo family of France.

It is not known how big a stake Cez will take in the SMR consortium,
although it is expected to come via Rolls selling down its holding. Last
year, Tufan Erginbilgic, the chief executive of Rolls-Royce, said his
intention was to take the company’s shareholding in the SMR business down
to about 50 per cent.

Times 6th Oct 2024, https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/companies/article/czechs-take-stake-in-rolls-royce-vehicle-in-boost-for-smrs-536q2njgb

October 7, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Radon, even at levels below EPA guideline for mitigation, is linked to childhood leukemia

By ONA Editor  October 6, 2024 , https://oncologynews.com.au/latest-news/radon-even-at-levels-below-epa-guideline-for-mitigation-is-linked-to-childhood-leukemia/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFvCqBleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHS5488aZnUZ2hNIA841-HCIezMi-9ZMQB1QfxQQZpYE67Zfdt00GeqwWew_aem_ccu2uE8COyQskZQX6eY3Bw

A study of more than 700 counties across multiple U.S. states found a link between childhood leukaemia and levels of decaying radon gas, including those lower than the federal guideline for mitigation.

The findings are important because there are few established risk factors for cancer in children and the role of the environment has not been explored much, said Oregon State University’s Matthew Bozigar, who led the research.

Radon, a naturally occurring gas, is a product of the radioactive decay of uranium, which is present in certain rocks and soils.

Upon escaping from the ground, radon itself decays and emits radioactive particles that can get within the body and collect in many tissues, where they can damage or destroy the cells’ DNA, which can cause cancer.

Odourless, tasteless and colourless, radon gas dilutes quickly in open air and is generally harmless before it decays, but indoors or in areas with poor air exchange, it can easily concentrate to dangerous levels and is recognised as a significant risk factor for lung cancer.

Radon, measured with small, passive detectors and mitigated through passive or active ventilation in basements and crawl spaces, has not been linked to other cancers, according to the World Health Organisation.

But in an 18-year statistical modelling study of 727 counties spread among 14 states, Bozigar and collaborators not only found a connection between childhood leukaemia and radon, but at concentrations below the Environmental Protection Agency’s recommended guideline for mitigation.

Becquerels per cubic metre is a unit for expressing the concentration of radioactive decay in a given volume of air.

The EPA says no level of radon is safe and advises that mitigation efforts be taken when radon concentration reaches 148 becquerels per cubic metre; the study considered concentrations as low as half of that.

“This is the largest study of its kind in the U.S., but more robust research is necessary to confirm these findings on an individual level and inform decision-making about health risks from radon in this country and globally,” said Bozigar, an assistant professor in the OSU College of Health.

Leukaemia, the most common cancer in children, affects the blood and bone marrow.

About 3,000 new cases of childhood leukaemia – defined in the study and by the National Institutes of Health as involving patients up to age 19 – are diagnosed in the United States each year, according to the NIH.

The annual incidence rate is 4.8 cases per 100,000 children.

Boys are more likely to receive a leukaemia diagnosis than girls, but the research suggests radon increases the likelihood of leukaemia in both sexes.

“Our study design only allows us to identify statistical associations and to raise hypotheses, so studies that can better determine whether radon exposure causes childhood leukaemia are needed,” Bozigar said.

Counties examined in this study were in the states of Washington, California, Idaho, Utah, New Mexico Iowa, Louisiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

The counties are those that during the study period reported their cancer data to the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results registry, a programme that collects and analyses cancer information.

Known as SEER, the registry is supported by the National Cancer Institute.

Collaborating with Bozigar were scientists from the National Cancer Institute, Harvard University and Imperial College London.

The research, funded in part by the Environmental Protection Agency, was published in Science of the Total Environment.

For Bozigar, the research has its roots in personal experience.

He grew up in Portland, which has pockets of high radon levels, and noticed what seemed to be a high incidence of cancer, particularly in younger age groups.

There were multiple cancer diagnoses among his own family and friends.

“As an epidemiologist, I started considering possible environmental causes and connected with awesome collaborators who provided important data and other resources to enable innovative new analyses,” he said.

“We are working on many different radon studies, and we are continuing to find harmful effects not limited to the lungs in adults. We will have more to share in the coming months and years as our studies are published.”

Source: Oregon State University

October 7, 2024 Posted by | health | Leave a comment

IAEA to have marine sampling near Fukushima plant with China, others

 The International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday it will conduct a
sampling of the marine environment near the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power
plant from next week with international experts including those from China.
China, a staunch opponent of the discharge of treated radioactive water
from the power complex into the sea, imposed a blanket ban on seafood
imports from Japan immediately after the discharge started in August last
year. Meanwhile, the Japanese government has repeatedly urged Beijing to
repeal the ban. The environment monitoring and assessment activities will
be carried out from Monday to Oct 15 by a team of IAEA scientists and
experts from laboratories in China, South Korea and Switzerland.

 Japan Today 5th Oct 2024, https://japantoday.com/category/national/iaea-to-have-marine-sampling-near-fukushima-plant-with-china-others

October 7, 2024 Posted by | Japan, oceans | Leave a comment

Sellafield Fined for Cybersecurity Failures at Nuclear Site

 Sellafield Ltd has been fined £332,500 ($437,440) for cybersecurity
failings running the Sellafield nuclear facility in Cumbria, North-West
England. The fine was issued by Westminster Magistrates Court following a
prosecution brought by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), the UK’s
independent nuclear regulator.

Sellafield Ltd has also been ordered to pay
prosecution costs of £53,253.20 ($70,060). The offences relate to
Sellafield’s management of the security around its information technology
systems between 2019 to 2023 and breaches of the Nuclear Industries
Security Regulations 2003.

 Infosecurity 4th Oct 2024 https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/sellafield-fined-cybersecurity/

October 7, 2024 Posted by | legal, UK | Leave a comment

Suffolk radiation emergency evacuation plans updated to include potential Sizewell C incidents

 Suffolk Resilience Forum’s (SRF) plans to evacuate
people in response to potential nuclear or radiological incidents have been
updated to include the planned Sizewell C power station.

 New Civil Engineer 4th Oct 2024

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/suffolk-radiation-emergency-evacuation-plans-updated-to-include-potential-sizewell-c-incidents-04-10-2024/

October 7, 2024 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

“Hit Iran’s Nuclear Sites First”: Donald Trump’s Advice To Israel

The former president, speaking at a campaign event in North Carolina, referred to a question posed to Democratic President Joe Biden this week about the possibility of Israel targeting Iran’s nuclear program.

Agence France-Presse, Oct 05, 2024,  https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/donald-trump-says-israel-should-hit-irans-nuclear-facilities-6719212

Washington:

Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump said Friday he believes Israel should strike Iran’s nuclear facilities in response to the Islamic republic’s recent missile barrage.

The former president, speaking at a campaign event in North Carolina, referred to a question posed to Democratic President Joe Biden this week about the possibility of Israel targeting Iran’s nuclear program.

“They asked him, what do you think about Iran, would you hit Iran? And he goes, ‘As long as they don’t hit the nuclear stuff.’ That’s the thing you want to hit, right?” Trump told a town hall style event in Fayetteville, near a major US military base.

Biden was asked on Wednesday whether he would support strikes against Iranian nuclear sites and the US president told reporters: “The answer is no.”

“I think he’s got that one wrong,” Trump said Friday, in response to a participant’s question about the issue. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to hit? I mean, it’s the biggest risk we have, nuclear weapons,” he said.

“When they asked him that question, the answer should have been, hit the nuclear first, and worry about the rest later,” Trump added.

“If they’re going to do it, they’re going to do it. But we’ll find out whatever their plans are.”

Biden on Wednesday expressed his opposition to such strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, in response to the firing of nearly 200 Iranian missiles towards Israel.

We’ll be discussing with the Israelis what they’re going to do,” he said, adding that all G7 members agree Israel has “a right to respond, but they should respond in proportion.”

Trump, locked in a tooth-and-nail presidential election battle with US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, has spoken little about the recent escalation in tensions in the Middle East.

He issued a scathing statement this week, holding Biden and Harris responsible for the crisis.

October 6, 2024 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

What reports got wrong about China’s ‘sunken nuclear submarine’

Western news organizations often miss crucial context—and even the real news—about Chinese military modernization.

Defense One, By J. Michael Dahm and Peter W. Singer 4 Oct 24

The purported sinking of a Chinese nuclear submarine at a Wuhan shipyard pier is the latest example of Western reporting on military developments in China that overlooks important details and context, or even takes the wrong lessons from the fragments of stories they tell.

The incident, which took place in June, drew some mention the following month on social media and even in the defense press, but it went viral after a Sept. 26 report in the Wall Street Journal touched off coverage from Fox News to CBS. What apparently lit up the U.S. media landscape were the assertions, attributed to unnamed U.S. defense officials, that the submarine was nuclear-powered. Many of the subsequent reports suggested that the incident revealed safety concerns about a new class of PLA Navy nuclear submarine and a serious setback for China’s military modernization.

These are mischaracterizations. Moreover, the reporting actually buried the lead. The shipyard accident tells us very little about the future of PLA naval modernization, but the submarine itself does.

The afflicted boat was said to be a “Type 041 Zhou-class submarine” powered by a nuclear reactor. But tracing that claim to its origins reveals the importance of context and of using varied sources………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The point is that a preponderance of public sourcing indicates there is far more uncertainty about the ship itself than the headlines would have it. Indeed, there is nothing in the available reporting that indicates an actual nuclear incident. The satellite photos showed four crane barges that may have been deployed to raise a sunken object, but no nuclear-response efforts were detected. This was not Chernobyl.

……………………………….. This story also underlines a larger problem in Western media reporting on China’s military in recent years: too often, it swings between two extremes that portray the PLA as either comically inept or ten feet tall……………………………………

…………… The issues in U.S.-China security are of growing domestic interest and political importance, especially during an election season. As such, it is ever more vital that mass media reporting on PLA capabilities avoids the temptation to hunt for “clicks” and “eyeballs” and instead seeks out the details and context necessary to fully understand the implications of China’s military modernization.

J. Michael Dahm is a Senior Associate with BluePath Labs, a Senior Fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, and a Lecturer in International Affairs at the George Washington University.

P.W. Singer is a best-selling author of such books on war and technology as Wired for War, Ghost Fleet, and Burn-In; senior fellow at New America; and co-founder of Useful Fiction, a strategic narratives company.  https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2024/10/chinas-sunken-nuclear-sub-was-likely-nothing-sort/400001/

October 6, 2024 Posted by | China, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Corrosion exceeds estimates at Michigan nuclear plant US wants to restart, regulator says

By Timothy Gardner, October 3, 2024, WASHINGTON, Oct 2 (Reuters) –

Holtec, the company wanting to reopen the Palisades nuclear reactor in Michigan, found corrosion cracking in steam generators “far exceeded” estimates, the U.S. nuclear power regulator said in a document published on Wednesday.

President Joe Biden’s administration this week finalized a $1.52 billion conditional loan guarantee to the Palisades plant. It is part of an effort to support nuclear energy, which generates virtually emissions-free power, to curb climate change and to help satisfy rising electricity demand from artificial intelligence, electric vehicles and digital currency.

Palisades, which shut under a different owner in 2022, is seeking to be the first modern U.S. nuclear power plant to reopen after being fully shut.

A summary of an early September call between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Holtec published on Wednesday said indications of stress corrosion cracking in tubes in both of Palisade’s steam generators “far exceeded estimates based on previous operating history.” It found 1,163 steam generator tubes had indications of the stress cracking. There are more than 16,000 tubes in the units.

Steam generators are sensitive components that require meticulous maintenance and are among the most expensive units at a nuclear power station.

Holtec wants to return the plant to operation late next year. Patrick O’Brien, a company spokesperson, said the results of the inspections “were not entirely unpredicted” as the standard system “layup process”, or procedure for maintaining the units, was not followed when the plant went into shutdown…………………….

Holtec still needs permits from the NRC. “Holtec must ensure the generators will meet NRC requirements if the agency authorizes returning Palisades to operational status,” an NRC spokesperson said.

The NRC said last month that preliminary results from inspections “identified a large number of steam generator tubes with indications that require further analysis and/or repair.”

Steam generator issues can pose problems for nuclear power plants. Parts of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California were shut in 2012 after steam generators that had a design flaw leaked. Problems with new generators led to the closure of the plant in 2013. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-report-says-corrosion-michigan-nuclear-plant-above-estimates-2024-10-02/

October 6, 2024 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

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