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Apocalypse Then: 40 Years Ago, A TV Movie Saved the World from Nuclear Annihilation

ABC’s 1983 film ‘The Day After’ — the subject of a new documentary as well as a book —not only blew America’s (and Ronald Reagan’s) mind, but it may also have changed the course of human history.

Hollywood Reporter, BY BENJAMIN SVETKEY, 5 Dec 23

“………………………………… Next to the moon landing, it’s hard to think of a TV moment that had a bigger impact on the collective psyche than The Day After, ABC’s white-knuckle drama depicting the aftermath of a nuclear strike on the United States. Its airing 40 years ago — which is being commemorated on Dec. 4 with a new PBS documentary, Television Event, as well as a just-published book about the film, Apocalypse Television — didn’t just terrify the nation. It may have also altered the course of human destiny, which at that time, the red-hot height of the Cold War, seemed to be barreling towards an inevitable atomic showdown……………

“I’ve come to believe that’s true,” says Nicholas Meyer, 77, who directed the three-hour film. “The movie may have indeed helped prevent a nuclear war. It certainly changed one person’s mind on the subject, and that person just happened to be the President of the United States. Ronald Reagan wrote about watching the movie in his memoir. His biographer, who spent three years in the White House, said the only time he ever saw Reagan flip out was after seeing the movie. Ultimately, it sent Reagan into such a tailspin, he signed the Intermediate Missile Range Treaty, the only treaty that ever resulted in the physical dismantling of nuclear weapons.”

The brains behind The Day After, the one who deserves most of the credit not only for conceiving the concept but also strong-arming a reluctant ABC into putting it on the air, was the late Brandon Stoddard, then the network exec in charge of ABC’s made-for-TV movies. 

“Brandon was stunned by Three Mile Island,” recalls Meyer. “And that’s how he came up with The Day After. ‘What if we showed a nuclear exchange and what would happen to regular people if they got nuked?’”

Unsurprisingly, ABC’s top executives were not entirely onboard with Stoddard’s vision…………………………………

For one thing, there was considerable political pushback. Conservative groups went on the warpath against the network, claiming the movie was Soviet propaganda designed to undermine America’s nuclear deterrent (even though Hume’s script never identified who launched the strike against the U.S. or why). For another, the subject matter of atomic war was, predictably, radioactive to advertisers. They began pulling out in droves………………………………………………………… https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/how-the-day-after-saved-the-world-12357

December 5, 2023 Posted by | media, USA | 1 Comment

China, the U.S., AI and Autonomy in Nuclear Command and Control

Too Much Too Soon: China, the U.S., and Autonomy in Nuclear Command and Control

Lawfare, Ashley Deeks, Monday, December 4, 2023,

China won’t yet commit to keep autonomy out of its nuclear command and control. It will take a lot more talking to get there.

News reports leading up to the meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in November indicated that the United States sought to reach an agreement to keep autonomy out of nuclear command-and-control systems (C2)—or at least set up a formal dialogue on the issue. A South China Morning Post headline, citing unidentified sources, proclaimed: “Biden, Xi set to pledge ban on AI in autonomous weapons like drones, nuclear warhead control: sources.” Before the meeting, an Indo-Pacific expert at the German Marshall Fund told the press that China had signaled interest in discussing norms and rules for artificial intelligence (AI), something Biden’s team surely knew as well. The administration seemingly sought to capitalize on that interest by seeking a meeting of the minds on the narrow but important topic of nuclear C2. 

But the U.S. aspirations, while laudable, proved to be too ambitious. As the New York Times reported, “On one of the critical issues, barring the use of artificial intelligence in the command and control systems of their nuclear arsenals, no formal set of discussions was established. Instead, Mr. Biden’s aides said that Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, would keep talking with Wang Yi, China’s chief foreign affairs official.” 

It is not surprising that the Biden administration was not able to make more progress with China. First, the United States and China do not seem to have had many direct bilateral conversations about military AI to date. Reaching agreement about nuclear AI—even in a statement that would be nonbinding—was an ambitious goal.

Second, the United States already committed unilaterally to maintaining human control over nuclear decisions, so the U.S. government would not have had to “give up” anything to reach a bilateral commitment about nuclear C2.

……………………………………………………………………………. The U.S. government is to be commended for fleshing out in greater detail some norms that states should pursue for their military AI systems, including through its political declaration and its efforts to open a military AI dialogue with China. But these recent developments further illustrate how difficult it will be to obtain legally binding international agreements—even very narrow ones—among states that are actively pursuing military AI. 

As I wrote in an earlier Lawfare paper, “[R]egulation of national security AI is more likely to follow the path of hostile cyber operations, which have seen limited large-scale international agreement about new rules. Absent a precipitating crisis, small-group cooperation and unilateral efforts to develop settled expectations around the use of national security AI are far more likely.” It will be a good sign if future U.S.-China dialogues about AI—even informal and low-profile ones—proceed, as these meetings will give the United States more chances to explain to China how the Defense Department is trying to establish strong, high-level oversight over uses of military AI. But the bilateral trust between the United States and China is so low and the verification problems are so hard that it may take a while before the two states reach a shared view about keeping autonomy out of nuclear C2.  https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/too-much-too-soon-china-the-u.s.-and-autonomy-in-nuclear-command-and-control

December 5, 2023 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Estonian universities anticipate high costs of training nuclear experts

ERR ee , Joakim Klementi, 4 Dec 23

The future of nuclear energy in Estonia will be decided next year. Universities in Estonia are ready to train specialists in this field, but this requires new curricula, recruiting expensive lecturers from abroad and years of preparation. Due to Estonia’s small population, the pool of nuclear specialists for Estonia must be trained internationally to ensure impartiality in decision making processes.

If Estonia decides to build its own nuclear power plant, it will probably also have to set up a radiation safety and nuclear security authority, similar to as in other nuclear countries.

While the agency could hire a few dozen professionals before the facility is operational, it should eventually employ 60-80 experts. We can compare ourselves to our northern neighbors.

“We have over 100 workers in the nuclear reactor regulation department and roughly 25 in the nuclear waste department in charge of nuclear safety, so about 130-140 people in total,” Tomi Routamo, deputy director of the Finnish radiation protection center, said.

The first reactor is the most expensive for the country, both financially and in terms of the demand for experts. The question of how many experts the plant needs is much more complicated.

“The number of persons in the preliminary phase is about 50-60, while during construction it reaches a few hundred, 200-300. It is expected to be 400 or more throughout the operational period,” Siim Espenberg, the head of the center for applied social science research at the University of Tartu, said.

Since Estonia is the only nuclear country with a small population, predicting the need for experts is impossible. There are few reactors in the world that are a reasonable size for Estonia. However, building a nuclear power facility in Estonia would require 10 or more classes of nuclear experts in additional to the current ones.

There is also a concern characteristic of small population countries that officials from a regulatory body and nuclear plant managers could be past classmates. The agency must be objective and rigorous. This implies that the expert community cannot be too small. It is also critical that nuclear workers have actual expertise in order to deal with unanticipated scenarios……………………………………………………………………………

“Certainly, people should be brought in from overseas, and in my opinion, some people from Estonia should be trained abroad. This type of curriculum, which can span years, can be used to teach professionals at a specific level, but it is also possible for a small number of specialists, perhaps five or ten, to be trained abroad,” Aune Valk, vice-rector of the University of Tartu, said.

These top researchers are quite expensive, particularly if they are recruited from the western Europe or the Nordic countries.

“We are talking about a wage bill of around €150,000 per year. Also, such a top specialist would be expecting investment funding for the establishment of laboratories, a research group, and the recruitment of PhD students. These are very significant investments,” Hendrik Voll, vice rector of Tallinn University of Technology, said.

The new curricula could take seven to 10 years to produce Estonia’s own nuclear engineers, possibly up to 15 years if they are required to obtain practical experience with an employer. Universities are hesitant to start on such costly and time-consuming projects until Estonia has made a solid decision to build a nuclear power plant.

“We might end up educating highly expensive professionals for western Europe, the Nordic countries, or certain eastern European countries if we don’t develop nuclear energy here,” Voll said.

Universities agree that the future of the nuclear power plant in Estonia will require the creation of a school of nuclear engineers…………………

Voll added that in the energy sector, Estonia needs to address the problem that electricity is two or more times more expensive than in its northern neighbors. But whether the solution is a nuclear power plant, neither scientists nor universities can say.  https://news.err.ee/1609184221/estonian-universities-anticipate-high-costs-of-training-nuclear-experts

December 5, 2023 Posted by | Education, EUROPE | Leave a comment

Pro nuclear lies abound at COP 28 – Bill Gates’ push for his shonky sodium -cooled Natrium reactor.

“The use of liquid sodium has many problems. It’s a very volatile material that can catch fire if it’s exposed to air or water,” Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists science advocacy nonprofit, told Fortune previously

“at centre stage”? “clean” ?”

Bill Gates’ nuclear reactor company signs a clean energy deal with the UAE, as nuclear power takes center stage at COP28

Fortune , BY PAOLO CONFINO, December 5, 2023 

A nuclear reactor company cofounded by Bill Gates signed a deal with the United Arab Emirates to explore building advanced reactors in the Gulf country. 

On Monday, TerraPower and the UAE’s state-owned nuclear company Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) signed a nonbinding memorandum of understanding to collaborate on developing new nuclear power plants that would  ? combat climate change. The preliminary deal comes as nuclear power increasingly takes ? center stage at the United Nations’ COP28 conference in Dubai, which started last week. ……………………………………………………

The UAE’s partnership with TerraPower would allow the country to “collaborate across a range of areas including technical design and commercial viability” related to nuclear power, according to a press release. The UAE will have access to TerraPower’s Natrium technology, which uses sodium instead of water to cool nuclear reactors,…

………………………The new partnership could also mean that Emirati engineers will be dispatched to TerraPower’s U.S. headquarters to learn about its work. “Our new agreement with TerraPower will facilitate cooperation in taking nuclear energy technology to the next level, by accelerating its deployment and its use for innovating new solutions including the production of clean molecules and hydrogen,” ENEC CEO Mohamed Ibrahim Al Hammadi said in a statement.

…The United States led the coalition of countries that pledged to triple the world’s nuclear power capabilities by 2050. Other major countries to sign on include France, which has long been at the vanguard of nuclear power; Japan, which suffered a devastating nuclear meltdown in 2011 after an earthquake struck a plant in Fukushima; and South Korea, whose second-largest company SK Group, is an investor in TerraPower.

…………………………..“Now, we need to take what looks very promising and scale it up, build the pilot plants, and prove those out,” Gates said on Friday.

December 5, 2023 Posted by | spinbuster | 1 Comment

How Are U.S. Warships Supporting Israel’s Genocide In Gaza?

Wherever you’re located, get out in the streets to demand an end to genocide in Gaza

LISA SAVAGE, DEC 4, 2023

Gaza has been under military blockade since 2006. Its one harbor, in Gaza City, was heavily bombed by Israel recently. Repeated attempts to reach Gaza with boats carrying humanitarian supplies have been thwarted by Israel with U.S. backing and we’ve seen activists beaten and even killed for trying to deliver cargo like medical supplies.

Bringing this question closer to home, How is the genocide in Gaza supported by General Dynamics and Bath Iron Works?

General Dynamics is the world’s fourth largest weapons manufacturer and Bath Iron Works (BIW) is one of its many locations for building weapon delivery systems. In this location in Maine shipbuilders historically profited from building slave ships.

Today, both destroyers and cruisers are built to be nuclear-capable meaning they are designed to be able to deliver first-strike attack nuclear Tomahawk cruise missiles and SM-3 ‘missile defense’ interceptors which would take out an enemy’s defenses following a first strike by the U.S.

Currently there are multiple Bath-built warships in the vicinity of Gaza including the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, and the Gulf of Aden. The USS Kearny, an Aegis destroyer built at BIW, is deployed there as is the USS Mason, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer which on 27 November engaged in a firefight with Yemeni forces on behalf of an Israeli merchant ship it was sent to rescue. U.S. ships have been reported as routinely shooting down drones launched from Yemen that target ships in the vicinity.

On 15 November Aljazeera published a video report, “What does the Western naval build-up in the Middle East look like?” with this comment: “The Middle East is witnessing a Western naval build-up that hasn’t been seen there for decades: aircraft carriers, destroyers, missile cruisers, amphibious assault ships, a nuclear-powered submarine, and many more.”

U.S. warships are deployed to deter resistance forces in the region — such as Hezbollah — from intervening to stop genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. So far they’ve been apparently unsuccessful, however, their presence increases the likelihood of escalation as in the case of the USS Mason fighting Yemen on behalf of Israel.

Since the resumption of Israel’s bombing of Gaza on December 1, these confrontations have indeed escalated.

Treating U.S. warships as inherently different from Israeli warships is mythology. The two nation states have never been in closer lock step as they do the bidding of their corporate overlords.

Israel has been described as “America’s unsinkable aircraft carrier” but the U.S. and Israel have never been so reviled in world opinion as they are today. Their collective reputation is sinking like a warship that’s taking on water.

Join us in Bath this Friday if you’re able. Help us communicate to workers that we know Bath Iron Works only has one customer — the U.S. Navy — but it wasn’t always like that. So many useful things could be built there and even more good union jobs generated, like hospital ships to provide relief for the bombed out children of Gaza.

If you have the courage, watch or read: “A harrowing video shows decomposing babies in a Gaza hospital after they had to be abandoned amid Israeli attacks.”

Then, wherever you’re located, get out in the streets to demand an end to genocide in Gaza and to the military blockade that supports it.

December 5, 2023 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Sweden to slug tax-payers for the costs of small nuclear reactors, and big ones.

Sweden plans new nuclear reactors by 2035, will share costs

By Simon Johnson, November 16, 2023

STOCKHOLM, Nov 16 (Reuters) – Sweden’s government said it aimed to build the equivalent of two new conventional nuclear reactors by 2035 on Thursday to meet surging demand for clean power from industry and transport and was prepared to take on some of the costs.

By 2045 the government wants to have the equivalent of 10 new reactors, some of which are likely to be small modular reactors (SMRs), smaller than conventional reactors.

Energy Minister Ebba Busch said the government was planning a “massive build out” of new nuclear power by 2045.

“It’s decisive for the green transition, for Swedish jobs and at heart for the welfare of our citizens,” she told reporters.

……………..critics have pointed to the huge costs and the private sector’s reluctance to invest without guarantees or other incentives – like Britain’s deal with French nuclear developer EDF for its new Hinkley Point C plant which gave price guarantees.

Sweden’s government has already offered 400 billion crowns ($37.71 billion) of loan guarantees to support new nuclear power, which it says is needed to power developments like fossil-fuel free steel production, but said it was now willing to shoulder more of the burden.

“Guarantees are very important, but that won’t be enough,” Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson said. “For this type of infrastructure it is going to require the state to take part and share the risk.”  https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/sweden-plans-new-nuclear-reactors-by-2035-can-take-costs-2023-11-16/—

December 5, 2023 Posted by | business and costs, Sweden | Leave a comment

Seymour Hersh: Russia, Ukraine peace underway, 4 new region additions

By Al Mayadeen English, Source: Agencies, 1 Dec 2023  https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/seymour-hersh–russia–ukraine-peace-underway–4-new-region

Included in the potential deal would also be Russia’s agreement to Ukraine’s accession to NATO provided that NATO troops are not stationed on its territory and only defensive weaponry is located there.

In his newly released article, renowned US journalist Seymour Hersh assured that peace negotiations between top Russian and Ukrainian generals Valery Gerasimov and Valerii Zaluzhnyi respectively are currently underway which include a potential security of Crimea and another four former regions of Ukraine as part of Russia.

Included in the potential deal would also be Russia’s agreement to Ukraine’s accession to NATO provided that NATO troops are not stationed on its territory and only defensive weaponry is located there.

According to Hersh, both Russia and Ukraine agree that the persistence of war is illogical and that Russian President Vladimir Putin would be with an agreement that fixates borders according to where the troops are stationed after the end of peace negotiations.

Hersh cited a US official involved in the top negotiations as saying: “This was not a spur-of-the-moment event,” adding: “This was carefully orchestrated by Zaluzhny. The message was the war was over and we want out. To continue it would destroy the next generation of the citizens of Ukraine.”  

On the other hand, the Biden administration is strongly opposing the peace deal while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky remains the “wild card” but has been allegedly told that “this is a military-to-military problem to solve and the talks will go on with or without you”. 

“The White House is totally against the proposed agreement,” the US official said, noting: “But it will happen. Putin has not disagreed.”

December 5, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

‘Prepare for bad news’ from Ukraine – NATO chief

 https://www.rt.com/news/588418-nato-chief-stoltenberg-ukraine-bad-news/ 4 Dec 23

Jens Stoltenberg said the military bloc’s defense industry has yet to reach the level of cooperation needed to satisfy Kiev.

The Ukrainian military has failed to achieve any breakthroughs on the battlefield over the past several months, but the West should stand by the country regardless, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has argued. The official also lamented the apparent failure of the military bloc’s defense industry to establish provide Kiev with the munitions it requires.

Earlier this week Stoltenberg warned that Moscow had been amassing missiles ahead of the winter, noting that Russian weapons manufacturers were operating “on a war footing.”

In an interview with Germany’s Das Erste TV channel aired on Saturday, Stoltenberg acknowledged that the frontlines in Ukraine have remained largely unchanged of late, adding that “wars are difficult to plan.”

“We have to be prepared for bad news. Wars move in phases, but we must stand by Ukraine in good and in bad times alike,” NATO’s chief insisted.

According to Stoltenberg, “ramping up production is of decisive importance” at this juncture.

When asked what Kiev should do in the meantime while its backers increase weapons production capacities – something that is bound to take time – Stoltenberg said that he would leave these “difficult operative decisions” to the Ukrainian leadership and military commanders.

“I think one of the problems that we must address is the fragmentation of the European defense industry. We are not capable of working so closely together as we should,” NATO’s secretary general stated. He called on all member states to “overcome the national, narrow interests” and increase supplies instead of enjoying rising prices.

Speaking after a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on Wednesday, Stoltenberg warned that “Russia has amassed a large missile stockpile ahead of winter, and we see new attempts to strike Ukraine’s power grid and energy infrastructure.”

Two days prior, he told reporters that “we should never underestimate Russia.” NATO’s chief noted that Moscow had set its “defense industry on a war footing,” making it “hard to achieve the territorial gains we hope for.”

However, he stopped short of characterizing the current situation as a “stalemate” – a description used by the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, General Valery Zaluzhny, in early November.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry’s latest estimates, Kiev’s counteroffensive, which began in early June, has resulted in over 125,000 casualties for the Ukrainian side as of December 1.

December 5, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Canadians should be afraid of radiation: Frank Greening.

Dr. Frank Greening, Hamilton, Ont. 4Dec 23

Re: “We can manage predictable radiation: Canadian Nuclear Society,” (The Hill Times, Nov. 15, 2023, letter to the editor. The gist of this CNS letter to The Hill Times appears to be: we should not be afraid of radiation because it’s predictable and we can manage it.

I have to say that when it comes to radiation exposures at nuclear power stations, the Canadian nuclear industry has proven time and again that radiation exposures to workers have often been quite unpredictable and totally mismanaged. As proof of this assertion consider what happened at Pickering Nuclear Generating Station (NGS) in March 1985 and at Bruce NGS in January 2010. 

In the case of the Pickering NGS 1985 event, workers involved in the refurbishment of Units 1 and 2 were exposed to airborne beta-active particulate.

Most unfortunately for the CNSC, there is ample evidence that the Bruce alpha exposure event was not unforeseen. Indeed, in November 2009, the CNSC reported that a routine survey during refurbishment operations at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station detected the presence of radioactive alpha contamination in the Unit 1 reactor vault. Nevertheless, both Bruce Power and the CNSC proceeded with the Unit 1 refurbishment.

I would say that Canadians should be afraid of radiation when our very own nuclear industry and the regulatory body, responsible for the safety of nuclear facilities, appear to be incapable of protecting nuclear workers from needless radiation exposures during reactor refurbishments.

December 5, 2023 Posted by | Canada, incidents | Leave a comment

Ukraine has lost up to 300,000 soldiers – ex-Zelensky aide

Rt.com 4 Dec 23

Kiev’s refusal to negotiate with Moscow has only caused the country heavy battlefield casualties, Aleksey Arestovich says.

Ukraine has lost up to 300,000 soldiers during its conflict with Russia, Aleksey Arestovich, a former aide to President Vladimir Zelensky, has claimed.

Arestovich made the revelation on Friday while speaking to journalist Yulia Latynina via video link. The former presidential aide was addressing the recent admission made by top Ukrainian MP David Arakhamia, who said the Istanbul talks between Moscow and Kiev were derailed by then-UK PM Boris Johnson, who urged Ukraine to “just continue fighting” instead of attempting to reach a deal with Russia.

“I was a member of the Istanbul negotiating team, but even I don’t know how it happened that we decided to break off the Istanbul [talks],” Arestovich stated.

The initiatives floated during the Istanbul talks were actually “very good,” he admitted, claiming that Ukraine’s neutrality and its non-alignment with NATO was a “red line” for Moscow.

Refusing to negotiate, however, has only resulted in heavy casualties, while its prospects to join NATO still remain dubious, he suggested.

“Where is NATO? Does it accept us or not? And will it accept us? … Then the 200 thousand [Ukrainian servicemen] or whatever, 300 thousand, would still be alive,” the ex-aide said.

…………………………..In recent weeks, top Ukrainian officials admitted the counteroffensive had failed to reach the desired outcome, and they seemed to shift blame for the failure on each other. Early in November, for instance, Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top general, said the battlefield situation had reached a “stalemate,” with Kiev unlikely to achieve a breakthrough unless it received a wonder-weapon of sorts.

The assessment has been vehemently rejected by Zelensky, who insisted the counteroffensive was still making progress. In an interview with AP published on Friday, however, Zelensky finally admitted that it had failed, stating that he considers the fact that his country’s troops are not retreating at the moment a “satisfying” enough result.  https://www.rt.com/russia/588358-ukraine-losses-zelensky-aide/

December 5, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Australia’s AUKUS nuclear submarines could fuel regional arms race despite assurance

“AUKUS is designed to shore up American power in East Asia, not de-escalate tensions,”

By Su-Lin TanDec 4, 2023,  https://johnmenadue.com/australias-aukus-nuclear-submarines-could-fuel-regional-arms-race-despite-assurance/

Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy says Australia is not worsening the arms race and gives assurance about the submarines’ nuclear reactors. The deal could still spark a defence build-up in Asia-Pacific while Australia lacks the facilities to deal with nuclear waste, analysts say.

Australia may have asserted that its acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines under AUKUS is not aggravating the “arms race”, but the deal and the three-nation alliance could still fuel a defence build-up in the Asia-Pacific and heighten regional tensions, security analysts say.

At the national press club in Canberra on Tuesday, Australian Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy reiterated the importance of the submarines to the country’s defence while debunking “myths” about the trilateral deal struck with Britain and the United States, which is largely seen as a countermeasure targeting China.

“The arms race is the greatest it’s been since 1945, and that is why I reject assertions … that Australia is somehow fuelling that arms race,” he said, adding that rising tensions in the Asia-Pacific had posed the most challenging strategic environment for Australia since World War II. “We are responding to it in a responsible and mature manner, like Australian governments should.”

Australia will own at least eight submarines over the next three decades through the A$368 billion (US$243 billion) deal. First announced in 2021 and finalised earlier this year, the controversial pact has raised concerns in the region.

Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said Conroy’s comment was not a surprise as countries including China and others in Asia-Pacific often couched their arms acquisitions in “defensive terms”.

Most countries would do so in the name of national security interests but it did not mean such actions ensured peace or safety, he said.

Even before AUKUS was announced in 2021, China and other regional countries had already embarked on significant military build-up since the 1990s, Koh said.

“Conroy may not be necessarily wrong to say AUKUS responds to this already ongoing condition, yet at the same time, it’s also not wrong to say that AUKUS … may not only be used by Beijing to legitimise its naval build-up, it also could be exploited as a justification for other regional countries’ military build-up programmes,” Koh said.

Australia’s acquisition of the submarines might trigger new problems as other countries could argue that they should also acquire similar capabilities, said Maria Rost Rublee, a nuclear politics expert at Monash University.

These countries are not limited to “dangerous actors”, for instance, in South Korea where the majority of its people have expressed a desire for their country to own nuclear weapons, Rublee added.

“Just having this type of technology in the hands of a country where you have strong popular support for nuclear weapons could be an issue,” she said.

In an analysis earlier this month, Ankit Panda, the Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, warned the accumulation of weapons such as missiles could potentially lead to unintended attacks.

“The Indo-Pacific region has entered a new missile age … each nation individually seeking deterrence while as a whole steering the region into ever more dangerous waters,” he said. “A particular risk concerns the prospects of attacks on the nuclear forces of countries like North Korea and China, by US or allied forces in ways that may not be intended.”

By the 2030s, the Indo-Pacific region would be “full of thousands of new missiles that can be expected to be used widely in the context of a major regional war”, Panda said.

Responding to Conroy’s comments, the national convenor of Labor Against War in Australia, Marcus Strom, said: “If your answer to growing regional tension is to add offensive weaponry, you create a logic towards war.

“AUKUS is designed to shore up American power in East Asia, not de-escalate tensions,” he added.

While Conroy has given assurances about the safety of sealed nuclear reactors within the submarines, analysts argued that the lack of facilities in Australia for the eventual disposal of these reactors is worrying.

“The strength of this agreement is that the reactor module comes to us sealed. It comes sealed, designed to be never opened over the life of a submarine. You don’t have to refuel it, you don’t have to insert new fuel rods … [over] the life of the submarine,” Conroy said.

But nuclear waste expert Ian Lowe said in an analysis on The Conversation website earlier this year that Australia has failed for decades to find long-term storage solutions for small quantities of low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste.

Even Australia’s allies and AUKUS partners, the US and the UK, do not have long-term solutions for nuclear waste storage, according to Lowe.

“This should be concerning. To manage the waste from our proposed nuclear submarines properly, we’ll have to develop systems and sites which do not currently exist in Australia,” Lowe said.

Australian states such as Victoria, Queensland and South Australia have said they would not accept a nuclear waste facility within their borders.

While it will be another 30 years before Australia has to worry about dumping the submarine’s nuclear reactors, it is not a long time, Rublee said.

“If they take their nuclear stewardship obligations seriously, they must immediately begin working on the long-term storage of high-level nuclear waste,” she added.

December 5, 2023 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

URANIUM WARHEAD POISONING IS THE SPECIALTY OF US AGAINST RUSSIANS, ISRAEL AGAINST PALESTINIANS

by John Helmer, Moscow , December 2023
  @bears_with

Long before the British intelligence agency MI6  invented the story that Russian military agents had carried the nerve agent weapon Novichok into England, fired it at two Russians, and left it in a dustbin for a local scavenger to find, take home and kill his girlfriend, there was depleted uranium poisoning.

This is a weapon of mass destruction (WMD).

In the past thirty years it has been used by the US, British, and Israeli armies in their wars against Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine (Gaza), Serbia, and recently against the Russians on the Ukrainian battlefield. As a US invention, however, depleted uranium dispersal as a gas to contaminate terrain for enemy soldiers has been acknowledged in secret since 1943.   

In the official military manuals, depleted uranium rounds are used because their metal concentration and intense heat burn their way through armour plate. In practice, they vaporise high concentrations of radioactive particles to cover large swathes of territory, civilian and military.

The US Department of Homeland Security defines a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) as “a nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological, or other device that is intended to harm a large number of people.” DU harms a relatively small number of soldiers on a battlefield operating in tanks, other armoured vehicles, self-propelled artillery and reinforced  bunkers. DU  strikes a much larger number of people through the release of radiation downwind of the battlefield by penetrating their bodies, attacking their genetic codes, and triggering cancers, birth defects, miscarriages of the unborn, and premature death of adults.  

According to Homeland Security, it “works every day to prevent terrorists and other threat actors from using these weapons to harm Americans.” But when the US supplies its DU weapons to the Israeli and Ukrainian armies, it intends to cause this mass destruction by not caring for the harm they do — in fact concealing this harm, and publicly pretending DU ordnance is not what it is.

DU is a WMD by stealth. The US knows this because US and British soldiers who participated in the first battlefield use of DU shells and bombs, the war against Iraq in 1991, have been the long-term victims of their own weapons.

When the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) fire their DU shells and bombs into the buildings of Gaza, they are not aiming at Hamas tanks, armoured personnel carriers, or howitzer units – the Palestinian forces have none of those. Instead, the Israelis are aiming at the mass destruction of the Palestinian people, including those still unborn. The supply chain for this WMD includes the Cypriot, Greek, German and British governments.

In Gaza, and in the Ukraine, they are all witting participants in targeting a race of people for extermination, now and for the future.

According to US Government publications, the use of depleted uranium (DU) as a super-burning, heavy-metal weapon began in the US in the 1970s.  

“Naturally occurring uranium ore is abundant in nature and contains several forms of uranium called isotopes. All uranium isotopes are radioactive; however, only one of these isotopes, Uranium-235 (U-235), provides the fuel used to produce both nuclear power and the powerful explosions used in nuclear weapons… In nature, U-235 only makes up a very small part of the uranium ore. Given its importance for nuclear power and nuclear weapons technology, U-235 is often removed from the natural uranium ore and concentrated through a process called uranium enrichment. Depleted uranium hexafluoride, also known as DU, is the material left behind after enrichment. Like the natural uranium ore, DU is radioactive. DU mainly emits alpha particle radiation.”  …………………………………………………………………………….

US nuclear bomb designers describe the DU artillery shell or bomb as a “dirty radiation weapon” because of its uncontrollable dispersal on wind, rain, and through the soil targeting civilian populations far from the battlefield targets; indeed, the very civilian populations supporting and paying for the use of DU munitions against their purported enemies.  “Some of the uranium used with DU weapons vaporises into extremely small particles, which are dispersed into the atmosphere where they remain until they fall to the ground with the rain. As a gas, the chemically toxic and radioactive uranium can easily enter the body through the skin or the lungs and be carried around the world until it falls to earth with the rain. AFP asked Marion Falk, a retired chemical physicist who built nuclear bombs for more than 20 years at Lawrence Livermore lab, if he thought that DU weapons operate in a similar manner as a dirty bomb. ‘That’s exactly what they are,’ Falk said. ‘They fit the description of a dirty bomb in every way.’”

According to Falk, more than 30 percent of the DU fired from the cannons of U.S. tanks is reduced to particles one-tenth of a micron (one millionth of a meter) in size or smaller on impact. ‘The larger the bang the greater the amount of DU that is dispersed into the atmosphere,’ Falk said. With the larger missiles and bombs, nearly 100 percent of the DU is reduced to radioactive dust particles of the micron size or smaller, he said.”      

One of the leading nuclear physicists in Europe to have researched the long-range dispersal of DU biochemical damage is Christopher Busby. Here is his report, published in 2011, of the long-term poisoning of Iraqi civilians following the US and British use of DU ammunition during the fighting at Fallujah in 2004. The data on which Busby and his colleagues based their findings came from soil and water sampling, as well as from spectrometric analysis of the hair of civilian children, fathers and mothers in Iraq. The abnormally high concentrations of uranium were traced to the use by US and UK forces of artillery shells, ground-fired missiles, and air-fired rockets, missiles and bombs. According to Busby, “US forces also used Fallujah to combat-test prototypes of at least two new types of thermobaric weapons – Thermobaric Hellfire missiles – AGM-114N [54]- and a new thermobaric RPG called SMAW-NE (Shoulder-fired, Multi-purpose Assault Weapon – Novel Explosive).”

Testing new radiation weapons in civilian areas of Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan has been standard practice for the US, the British, and the Israelis over more than thirty years.  

The conclusion of Busby’s Fallujah study of September 2011 was that “we found significant levels of Uranium, a material which has been associated with weapons employed in Iraq and in the Balkans since 1991 and also with genotoxicity. These levels were significantly higher than those expected on the basis of published control group data from various studies and particularly from Southern Israel. Further, the pattern of contamination with regard to hair length indicated a major contamination event in the past. The levels of Uranium could not be explained by any local Uranium deposits in the soil since measurements made of soil Uranium showed only modest concentrations though the Uranium was slightly enriched…Since none of the other elements found in excess in the parents were genotoxic except Uranium we conclude that these results support the belief that the effects in Fallujah follow the deployment of a Uranium-based weapon or weapons of some unknown type.”  

Other research studies by Busby and others have produced the evidence of Israeli use of DU air-dropped bombs and artillery fired shells against Arab targets in Gaza and Lebanon since 2006.     Independent research has been undertaken by Arab experts of late miscarriages, stillbirths, and birth defects for pregnant Palestinian women at the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. “These data suggests a causative/favouring role of acute exposure of parents to the weapons-associated contaminants, and/or of their chronic exposure from their persistence in the environment on the embryonic development of their children.”   

In a research paper published in December 2021, Arab scientists from Egypt and Gaza, with a Japanese colleague, and collaboration from a German institute in Munich, reported that uranium weapon contamination was found in sand, stone, concrete, demolition and other building materials in Gaza as well as in Egyptian Sinai. “The past and ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip has led to a severe shortage of building materials since 2007. Many houses, buildings and infrastructure were destroyed and produced huge amounts of demolition debris after the war in the Gaza Strip in 2008. As a result, re-use of the degraded building materials has been required in the past and present. According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the amount of demolition debris in the Gaza Strip, produced from 2008 through 2009, was estimated to be 600,000 tonnes. The demolition debris was crushed, sieved and re-used as recycled building materials.”  

In other words, the Israeli-American DU attacks on Gaza make the recycling of the current destruction hazardous for rebuilding. The findings indicate that long before the present war began last month,  it has been Israeli state policy, backed and supplied by the US, to make Gaza uninhabitable for the future. This is genocide, using genotoxic weapons. For the first attempt at documenting the wind dispersal of DU radioactive particles fired by the IDF since October 7 to Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel itself, click on this.    

In time Busby and Arab scientists will report the evidence of DU health damage among the Gazans who survive direct destruction by Israeli attack.

On November 25, Busby has reported new research documenting the bioch

Busby has now updated the earlier findings in a research paper issued on November 25. Because the standard European and US academic publishers are so far refusing to report the evidence, Busby’s report is published here in full.    

The Khmelnitsky Ukraine Uranium explosion revisited.
The calculated source term is approximately 50 tons.
Public health implications for Poland and Western Ukraine.
By Christopher Busby, PhD………………………………………………………………………………more https://johnhelmer.net/biochemical-weapon-for-race-war-uranium-warhead-poisoning-is-the-specialty-of-us-against-russians-israel-against-palestinians/?fbclid=IwAR2H2vUD6Fw26z_-MTk2qEOyRLXTmRK4vUCjw8Bs8N_QIYxMgg3OcAgCDnY

December 5, 2023 Posted by | depleted uranium, USA | Leave a comment

U.S. to Develop Unanticipated New Nuclear Bomb

December 2023, By Shannon Bugos

The U.S. Defense Department unexpectedly announced its intention to develop an additional variant of the B61 nuclear gravity bomb, to be known as the B61-13.

………………………………….. The Pentagon acknowledged its hope that the B61-13 variant would help catalyze the stagnant retirement process of the B83 megaton gravity bomb.

“The B61-13 will provide the President with additional options against certain harder and large-area military targets, even while the department works to retire legacy systems such as the B83-1,” according to a Pentagon fact sheet……………………………..

“The case for the B61-13 is strange,” assessed the Federation of American Scientists in an Oct. 27 blog post. “For the past 13 years, the sales pitch for the expensive B61-12 has been that it would replace all other nuclear gravity bombs,” as well as “cover all gravity missions with less collateral damage than large-yield bombs.”

The B61-13 would be deliverable by modern aircraft and have a maximum yield similar to the 360-kiloton B61-7 variant, a massive increase when compared to the most recent 50-kiloton B61-12. The B61-12 is scheduled for initial deployment this year, replacing the 100 B61-3/4 bombs believed to be stationed across Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey under the NATO nuclear sharing mission………………………..

In an Oct. 24 letter to Congress, the Energy Department officially requested to amend its fiscal year 2024 budget request to cover development engineering activities for the B61-13.

Whether the request will be granted remains to be seen because Congress has yet to pass the necessary legislation to fund any department for all of fiscal year 2024. https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2023-12/news/us-develop-unanticipated-new-nuclear-bomb

December 5, 2023 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant suffered power outage, energy ministry says

Reuters, December 2, 2023

KYIV, Dec 2 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant lost its power supply after the last remaining line to it from Ukrainian-controlled territory was disrupted, but it has since been repaired, the energy ministry said on Saturday.

The plant was occupied by Russia in March 2022 and is no longer generating power, but needs a supply of electricity to cool one of its four reactors which is in a state of ‘hot conservation’ – meaning it has not fully been shut down.

According to a statement published by Ukraine’s energy ministry on Telegram, one power line to the plant was disrupted late on Friday, while the last, 750 kW, line was broken at 2:31 a.m. (0031 GMT) on Saturday.

“This is the eighth blackout which occurred at the (Zaporizhzhia plant) and could have led to nuclear catastrophe,” the statement said.

The ministry said that after losing grid connection the plant turned on 20 backup generators to supply its own electricity needs.

December 5, 2023 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Swiss nuclear power plants are running out of staff

After warning Switzerland over two years ago, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recommends the authorities develop a roadmap to deal with the impending problem of labour shortage in Swiss nuclear power plants.

This content was published on December 3, 2023 – 14:17December 3, 2023 

Switzerland’s existing nuclear power plants are on the verge of having their lifetimes extended from 50 to 80 years. But now a problem is threatening to thwart these plans.

The search for skilled labour is becoming increasingly challenging, as reported by the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday. There are currently over 40 vacancies at the Beznau, Gösgen and Leibstadt nuclear power plants.

A team of experts from the IAEA warned Switzerland back in October 2021. In a report, the agency concluded that the search for personnel was one of the biggest challenges for Swiss nuclear plants and for the supervisory authority itself…………………https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/swiss-nuclear-power-plants-are-running-out-of-staff/49027136

December 5, 2023 Posted by | employment, Switzerland | Leave a comment

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