Yeah, we’re all whingeing about United Arab Emirates hosting the COP28 Climate Summit, and quietly making sure that their oil industry booms on.
Because we, the righteous Western nations are doing so much to slow down global heating. And weare. the USA has its worthy Inflation Reduction Act- cuts down on thehome use of oil gas and coal, and USA promotes renewable energy, heat pumps, electric cars.
Canada has its Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, cutting down on domestic greenhouse gas emissions. Australia is promoting renewable energy and electric cars at home. Norway is big on electric cars, and encouraging climate-friendly systems, at home.
But the reality is- take Australia as an example – the world’s largest exporter of coal, and big exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). USA is a huge exporter of LNG. Canada – oil and natural gas exports. Norway – huge supplier of oil and gas.
All of these national governments approve and support the expansion and export of fossil fuels, while sanctimoniously bleating about “net zero” at home.
Sure, let’s criticise Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber and his lot. But the big Western players are in reality even bigger polluters.
Make no mistake. Israel has committed massive crimes in Gaza and in the West Bank against the Palestinians. When will the thousands killed get justice? Or are we all supposed to just go on with our lives and pretend that it’s all the pursuit of “the right of self-defense?” Who are these IDF snipers who anonymously shoot children, and no one is even curious to know who these killers are? Is this the way of war now, according to the “international rules based order” that we should be so proud of in the West, which is supposedly the hallmark of our “civilization?”
A day of reckoning will come. There are good men and women who are wokring to make that a reality.
And what are we to make of our politcal class that utters not a peep about the slaughter that Netanyahu is doing, but who earlier could not get the ICC to issue an arrest warrant for President Putin fast enough, because Putin was assumed to have “kidnapped” Ukrainian orphans that they might have a decent life in Russia. But Netanyahu can kill as many children as he wants, since that is not a crime according to the “rule of law,” so the “jurists” at the ICC stay busy identifying “Russian crimes” that might be spotted at the backs of their cereal boxes.
Kurt Tucholsky was paraphrasing a French joke when he observed that “the death of one person: that’s a catastrophe. One hundred thousand dead: that’s a statistic!”
What Israel has done for over a month in Gaza is now a matter of statistics, for they have killed over 15,000 so far, more than 4000 of them children. It is the Palestinian Holocaust, because there are many more thousands buried under all those pancaked buildings where people once lived. And now that the Israeli assault continues, many thousands more will die.
Given these grim statistics, it becomes more and more important to remember the one person, rather than mention in passing the vast number of the now faceless thousands dead.
One such person was Elham Farah, a Christian Palestinian, living in Gaza, where she had taught music all her life. She was 84 years old and was the daughter of the Palestinian poet, Hannah Farah.
On November 12, 2023, an Israeli sniper shot her in the leg, as she came out of the Holy Family Church in Gaza City, where she had been sheltering to escape the bombing. She wanted to make sure that her home had not been hit. A sniper was waiting who are trained to shoot in the leg.
Those inside the church tried to rescue her, as she cried out for help, but people were afraid of Israeli snipers who long have had a reputation for being merciless. Elham Farah bled to death over several days. No one came to help her because of the sniping. She had just survived the bombing of Saint Porphyrios, the 850-year-old church in Gaza, which took the lives of 18 other Christians. Is such a death for a gentle old lady acceptable to those who see themselves as “civilized?” And why no one even knows about the crimes of Israeli snipers is unimaginable.
The hell unleashed by the Herod of our time in the Holy Land escapes the mind’s ability to describe horror—to see little children torn apart by bombs, dropped by pilots in their sophisticated flying machines is beyond the reach of words…
Then Herod perceiving that he was deluded by the wise men, was exceeding angry: and sending killed all the menchildren that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.
Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet, saying:
A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not (Matthew 2:16-18).
Rama” or “Ramah” is the name of several Palestinian towns, and “Rachel” stands in for all mothers whose children have been slaughtered by the powerful. Such killing was “righteous revenge” because the Hamas razzia of October 7th was fabricated as brutal, with beheaded babies and babies in ovens, when it was the IDF that did most of the slaughter of Israelis that day. Why the need to lie by Israel? The full truth about what really happened on October 7th is now coming out: Hamas killed IDF soldiers in combat. It was not a “terrorist” attack:
Thus on October 7th:
The IDF killed anything that moved;
Many Israeli captives were still alive, two days after October 7;
Israelis were killed by the IDF with heavy shelling of houses and cars;
Most of the civilian deaths happened because of the IDF;
It was a razzia by Hamas because most of the captives taken were IDF officers.
And in the West, we have the war enthusiasts, eagerly cheering on Netanyahu and his ilk to kill more, to kill without compunction, for there will be no red lines drawn, because Israel is for “civilization,” because that is how you fight wars, by killing as many babies as you can with bombs.
Perhaps in the months or even years ahead, there will come a time for a “Nuremberg Trial” for the murderers that are now in power in Israel—and for the IDF soldiers snipers who shot down Elham Farah and the two liitle Christian Palestinian boys, and also for the many “journalists” and “scholars” who justified and whitewashed the crimes against humanity now permanently recorded for the world to see. Remember, they did hang Julius Streicher, even though he perosnally had killed no one.
Treaty banning nuclear weapons tests was signed in 1996
President Putin has revoked Russia’s ratification
Many Soviet-era nuclear tests were conducted in Kazakhstan
Radiation from the tests affected health of local people
SARYZHAL, Kazakhstan, Nov 30 (Reuters) – As Russia warns of the rising risk of nuclear war, and relations with the United States sink into a deep freeze, communities close to the vast Soviet-era nuclear testing site in northern Kazakhstan have a message for leaders: “Let us be a lesson.”
Hundreds of tests were carried out between 1949 and 1989 on the barren steppe near the city of Semey, formerly known as Semipalatinsk, close to the Kazakh-Russian border. The effect of radiation had a devastating impact on the environment and local people’s health, and continues to affect lives there today………………………..
“Let our suffering be a lesson to others,” said Serikbay Ybyrai, local leader in the village of Saryzhal, who saw tests being carried out some 20 km (12 miles) away when he was a boy. “If this (testing) resumes, humanity will disappear.”
When devices were detonated above ground – until 1963 when tests went underground – authorities would order local people out of homes and schools because of fears that ground tremors might cause buildings to collapse.
“I remember I was about five years old,” said Baglan Gabullin, a resident of Kaynar, another village that lived under the shadow of nuclear testing.
He recalled how adults would instruct him and his friends not to look in the direction of the blast.
“We were small, so on the contrary, out of curiosity we looked. The flash was yellow at first, and then the black mushroom grew,” he said.
Kazakh authorities estimate up to 1.5 million people were exposed to residual radioactive fallout from testing. Over 1 million received certificates confirming their status as victims of tests, making them eligible for an 18,000-tenge ($40) monthly payout.
‘EVERYONE STARTED DYING’
Maira Abenova, an activist from the Semey region who set up a non-governmental organisation protecting the rights of nuclear test victims after losing most family members to diseases she said were related, urged politicians not to allow nuclear escalation.
“As someone living with the consequences of what you could call 40 years of nuclear warfare, I think we can tell the world what we have gone through,” she said.
There is little reliable data on the specific health impact of testing in Kazakhstan.
But scientists say exposure to radioactive material on the ground, inhalation of radioactive particles in the air and ingestion of contaminated food including local livestock contributed to increased cancer risk and cases of congenital malformation.
In Saryzhal, a village of around 2,000 people living in small white-painted homes surrounded by blue wooden fences, Gulsum Mukanova recalls how she and other children would watch above-ground explosions, known as atmospheric tests.
“We were children, everything was interesting to us,” she said. “We would stare at those mushrooms.
“My father died at the age of 58; then my elder brother died, then my sister,” added Mukanova, who is in her mid-60s. “Everyone started dying.”
Gabullin, speaking near a small monument to victims of nuclear tests erected in Kaynar, also said losses were common.
“There were about 300 tractor drivers who worked with me … now only two or three are alive. All died of cancer and leukaemia,” he said. “Even the schoolchildren who worked for me then, now they are 50-53 years old, they are already dying.”……….
While villages such as Kaynar and Saryzhal were exposed to direct radiation, steppe winds carried nuclear fallout across an area the size of Italy.
Much of the territory, pockmarked with lakes resulting from blast craters, is still considered too contaminated to inhabit or cultivate.
CONTAMINATION LASTS FOR GENERATIONS
About 450 tests were carried out there, more than 100 of them atmospheric tests and the rest underground. The latter were used after a 1963 treaty went into force banning nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, in space or underwater, and are considered less harmful.
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Moscow no longer had access to the Kazakh site. Its main equivalent today is in Novaya Zemlya, an active military site on an Arctic archipelago in Russia’s far north.
Nuclear experts said that any testing today would likely be underground, which carries environmental and health risks.
“Underground testing can also have severe consequences,” said Alicia Sanders-Zakre of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
“Radioactive particles can vent into the air, and there is also the potential for contamination of groundwater,” she told Reuters, adding that Russia’s position was that it did not intend to test at this time.
“What’s so dangerous about radioactive contamination is that it lasts for generations.”
The official version of the Hamas-Israel war raises more questions than it answers. Here, the author highlights seven major contradictions. On reflection, Hamas and Benjamin Netanyahu, far from being enemies, are acting in concert with no regard for the lives of Palestinians or Israelis. Behind them, the United States and the United Kingdom are pulling the strings.
VOLTAIRE NETWORK | PARIS (FRANCE) | 28 NOVEMBER 2023 by Thierry Meyssan
We are reacting to the attack on Israel on October 7 and the massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza on the basis of the information available to us. However, we feel that the official version of the Israeli government and Hamas is a lie.
Seven major questions remain unanswered:
1. How did Hamas manage to dig and build 500 kilometers of tunnels at a depth of 30 meters without arousing suspicion?
Tunnel-drilling equipment is considered to have both civilian and military uses. It is not manufactured in Gaza and cannot be brought in under any circumstances, unless there is complicity within the Israeli administration.
The excavated earth (1 million m3) was not detected by aerial surveillance. Even supposing it had been scattered in many different places and mixed in with the soil from other construction sites, it is impossible for the Israeli intelligence services not to have detected anything for twenty years.
Tunnel ventilation equipment is not considered to be for military use. It is possible to bring it into Gaza, but the quantity required should have attracted attention.
The reinforced concrete needed to solidify the walls is not manufactured in Gaza. It too is not considered military equipment, but the quantity required should have attracted attention.
2. How could Hamas stockpile such an arsenal?
Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, has large quantities of rockets and handguns at its disposal. Hamas may have manufactured parts of the rockets itself, but it has managed to import thousands of handguns into Gaza, mainly from the Ukraine, despite high-performance scanners. This seems impossible without complicity within the Israeli administration.
3. Why did Benjamin Netanyahu dismiss all those who warned him?
Egypt’s Minister of Intelligence, Kamel Abbas, personally phoned him to warn of a major Hamas attack.
His friend, Colonel Yigal Carmon, Director of Memri, personally warned him of a major Hamas attack.
The CIA sent Israel two intelligence reports warning of a major Hamas attack.
Defense Minister Yoav Galland was fired in July because he warned the government of the “perfect storm” prepared by Hamas.
4. Why did Benjamin Netanyahu demobilize the security forces on the evening of October 6?
The Prime Minister had authorized the Security Forces to stand down for the holidays of Sim’hat Torah and Shemini Atzeret. At the time of the attack, therefore, there were no personnel available to monitor the security fence around Gaza.
5. Why did security officials remain locked up at Shin Bet headquarters that morning?
The Director of Counterintelligence (Shin Bet), Ronen Bar, had called a meeting of the heads of all the security services for 8 a.m. on October 7, to examine the second CIA report warning of a major Hamas operation in preparation.
However, the attack began at 6.30 a.m. on the same day. Security officials didn’t react until 11am. What did they do during this interminable meeting?
6. Who triggered the “Hannibal directive” in this way, and why?
When the Security Forces began to react, the IDF was ordered to apply the “Hannibal directive”. This stipulates that enemies must not be allowed to take Israeli soldiers hostage, even if it means killing them. An Israeli police investigation confirms that the Israeli air force bombed the crowd fleeing the Supernova Rave Party. A significant proportion of those killed on October 7 were therefore not victims of Hamas, but of Israeli strategy.
In theory, the “Hannibal directive” only applies to soldiers. Who decided to bomb a crowd of Israeli civilians, and why? It is not possible today to determine with any certainty which Israelis were killed by the attackers and which were killed by their own army.
7. Why are Western forces threatening Israel?
The Pentagon has deployed two naval groups, around the USS Gerald Ford and the USS Eisenhower, and a cruise missile submarine, the USS Florida. Haaretz even mentioned a third aircraft carrier. America’s allies (Saudi Arabia, Canada, Spain, France, Italy) have installed fighter-bombers in the region.
These forces are not installed to threaten Turkey, Qatar or Iran, which the Western press accuses of being involved in the Hamas attack, but off the coast of Israel, in Beirut and Hamat. They are encircling Israel. And Israel alone.
WHAT LIES BEHIND THESE MYSTERIES?
Obviously the version defended by both Hamas and Israel is false. We must consider other possible explanations so as not to be manipulated by either one or the other.
Let’s formulate a hypothesis. There is nothing to say whether it is the correct one, but it is compatible with the factual elements, which is not the case with the version shared today by everyone. So it’s better than that one. It is obviously extremely shocking, but only those who are able to answer the previous 7 questions can dismiss it.
This interpretation is based on an analysis of the complex structure of Hamas, whose rank-and-file fighters are unaware of what their leaders are up to. There it is :
The entire operation of Hamas and Israel is led by Americans, perhaps under the direction of the Straussian Eliott Abrams [1] and his Vandenberg Coalition (Think Tank which succeeded the Project for a New American Century). The Muslim Brotherhood and the Revisionist Zionists, who apparently are waging a cruel war, are in reality accomplices at the expense of the rank-and-file Hamas fighters, the Palestinian people and Israeli soldiers. Here is their plan: Hamas is presented as the only effective resistance force to the oppression of the Palestinians, but it lets Israel liquidate the hope of a Palestinian state, while the Muslim Brotherhood, crowned with the sacrifice of the Palestinians, takes power in the Arab world.
The heads of Hamas’s military and political branches are both subordinate to the Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, Mahmoud Al-Zahar, the successor to Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, yet nobody talks about him. From his point of view, the Brotherhood will be the big winner of the “Flood of Al-Aqsa”, even if Gaza is razed to the ground and the Palestinians driven from their land.
Hamas is now divided into two factions. The first, under the leadership of Ismaël Haniyeh, follows the Brotherhood’s line. It seeks neither to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation, nor to found a Palestinian state, but is dedicated to building a Caliphate over all the countries of the Middle East. The second, under the leadership of Khalil Hayya, has abandoned the Brotherhood’s ideology, and is fighting to put an end to the oppression of the Palestinian people by the Israelis.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a political secret society, organized by British intelligence services on the model of the United Grand Lodge of England [2]. It was gradually taken over by the CIA to the point of being represented on the US National Security Council. After the collapse of the Islamist regimes of the Arab Spring, the Brotherhood fractured into two trends. The London Front, led by Guide Ibrahim Munir (who died a year ago), proposed a way out of the crisis by leaving the political arena and securing the release of prisoners in Egypt. The Istanbul Front, led by interim leader Mahmoud Hussein, advocates, on the contrary, changing nothing and continuing the struggle to establish a Caliphate. A third group is attempting to establish an intermediate position, putting forward the idea of abandoning politics until the prisoners have been released, only to return to it at a later date………………………… more https://www.voltairenet.org/article220078.html
The nuclear energy industry will be highly visible at the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28), taking place in Dubai over the coming weeks, World Nuclear Association Director General Sama Bilbao y León told delegates at the World Nuclear Exhibition 2023 in Paris.
………..” certainly we are seen as a positive force at the COP meetings”.”
…….. At COP27, held in Sharm El-Sheikh in 2022, there was the first Atoms for Climate Pavilion, a collaboration between the International Atomic Energy Agency and global nuclear trade associations. Bilbao y León said this was “truly a turning point in how nuclear is presented at COP meetings”.
…………….. in order to achieve a trebling in nuclear capacity, the industry needs to “turn this political good will that we are starting to see into actionable and pragmatic policies”. Licensing and regulatory processes need to streamlined and affordable financing must be secured. In addition, the supply chain and human resources must be expanded.
Concerns over data-driven ‘factory’ that significantly increases the number of targets for strikes in the Palestinian territory.
srael’s military has made no secret of the intensity of its bombardment of the Gaza Strip. In the early days of the offensive, the head of its air force spoke of relentless, “around the clock” airstrikes. His forces, he said, were only striking military targets, but he added: “We are not being surgical.”
There has, however, been relatively little attention paid to the methods used by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to select targets in Gaza, and to the role artificial intelligence has played in their bombing campaign.
As Israel resumes its offensive after a seven-day ceasefire, there are mounting concernsabout the IDF’s targeting approach in a war against Hamas that, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, has so far killed more than 15,000 people in the territory.
The IDF has long burnished its reputation for technical prowess and has previously made bold but unverifiable claims about harnessing new technology. After the 11-day war in Gaza in May 2021, officials said Israel had fought its “first AI war” using machine learning and advanced computing.
The latest Israel-Hamas war has provided an unprecedented opportunity for the IDF to use such tools in a much wider theatre of operations and, in particular, to deploy an AI target-creation platform called “the Gospel”, which has significantly accelerated a lethal production line of targets that officials have compared to a “factory”.
The Guardian can reveal new details about the Gospel and its central role in Israel’s war in Gaza, using interviews with intelligence sources andlittle-noticed statements made by the IDF and retired officials.
This article also draws on testimonies published by the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, which have interviewed several current and former sources in Israel’s intelligence community who have knowledge of the Gospel platform.
Their comments offer a glimpse inside a secretive, AI-facilitated military intelligence unit that is playing a significant role in Israel’s response to the Hamas massacre in southern Israel on 7 October.
The slowly emerging picture of how Israel’s military is harnessing AI comes against a backdrop of growing concerns about the risks posed to civilians as advanced militaries around the world expand the use of complex and opaque automated systems on the battlefield.
…………………………………..a short statement on the IDF website claimed it was using an AI-based system called Habsora (the Gospel, in English) in the war against Hamas to “produce targets at a fast pace”.
The IDF said that “through the rapid and automatic extraction of intelligence”, the Gospel produced targeting recommendations for its researchers “with the goal of a complete match between the recommendation of the machine and the identification carried out by a person”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
However, experts in AI and armed conflict who spoke to the Guardian said they were sceptical of assertions that AI-based systems reduced civilian harm by encouraging more accurate targeting.
A lawyer who advises governments on AI and compliance with humanitarian law said there was “little empirical evidence” to support such claims. Others pointed to the visible impact of the bombardment.
“Look at the physical landscape of Gaza,” said Richard Moyes, a researcher who heads Article 36, a group that campaigns to reduce harm from weapons.
“We’re seeing the widespread flattening of an urban area with heavy explosive weapons, so to claim there’s precision and narrowness of force being exerted is not borne out by the facts.”
According to figures released by the IDF in November, during the first 35 days of the war Israel attacked 15,000 targets in Gaza, a figure that is considerably higher than previous military operations in the densely populated coastal territory. By comparison, in the 2014 war, which lasted 51 days, the IDF struck between 5,000 and 6,000 targets.
………………………“We prepare the targets automatically and work according to a checklist,” a source who previously worked in the target division told +972/Local Call. “It really is like a factory. We work quickly and there is no time to delve deep into the target. The view is that we are judged according to how many targets we manage to generate.”
A separate source told the publication the Gospel had allowed the IDF to run a “mass assassination factory” in which the “emphasis is on quantity and not on quality”. A human eye, they said, “will go over the targets before each attack, but it need not spend a lot of time on them”.
Andrew Bowie, undersecretary for nuclear, is pushing expensive and dangerous nuclear power onto energy-rich Scotland. That’s insane. Nuclear power has consistently failed to deliver energy on time or on budget.
The much-touted Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) don’t yet exist, are heavily dependent on government subsidies to come on stream and will generate more toxic nuclear waste for which there is no safe disposal.
Unlike renewables, where costs are falling, nuclear costs keep climbing. The UK Government has flung billions at Hinkley Point C, guaranteeing £92.50 per MW hour over the next 35 years, twice as much as is guaranteed for wind. When finished, Hinkley Point C will be one of the most expensive power stations in the world. And Scottish households will pay £80 a year for nuclear on top of already exorbitant energy bills.
For those of us unable to bury ourselves completely in our ordinary lives of family, friends, and work to avoid seeing the tragedies of horrific violence unfold all around us, these are dark times indeed. The multiple wars that started after September 11, 2001 have only multiplied, and rarely end, imparting suffering to tens of millions of people around the globe. The risk of nuclear war is greater than anytime since the Cuban missile crisis, with all nine nuclear states building new nuclear weapons, several increasing their totals for the first time in 35 years, and several practicing nuclear war games on each other’s borders. At least one is threatening to use nuclear weapons if anyone challenges its aggression. The global military budget is well over $2 trillion dollars a year to wage current wars and prepare for the next ones. Two nuclear armed alleged democracies seem determined to carry out genocide in Gaza.
So it was wonderful to spend three days at the United Nations in New York amid hundreds of bright people attending the second meeting of states parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The 63 governments who have ratified the Treaty, for whom it is now international law to eschew any activity supporting nuclear weapons and to try to remediate the enormous harms already done by them, meet yearly to see how they are doing, help each other implement the law, and encourage others to join.
Accompanying the diplomats are doctors, lawyers, scientists, activists, scholars, and victims from many organizations, living the antidote to despair – each working hard to advance the sanity of this treaty among a world awash in nuclear madness. Leading the dozens of civil society efforts was the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which was the ten-year driving force behind the negotiation of the TPNW in 2017. This was a major international treaty driven primarily by civil society, and a potent reminder that ordinary people can make a huge difference in a world usually dominated by the rich and powerful.
Leaders of civil society organizations were allowed to present their views in the plenary sessions along with the government representives. These statements were supplemented by educational sessions on dozens of topics. Most powerful for me were the young students from many countries who condemned nuclear weapons as creating insecurity and violating their right to life, who demanded more inclusion of youth and women in policy making. Scientists reminded us of the climate and agriculture research predicting that even a limited regional nuclear war will darken the earth’s skies enough to cause mass starvation of billions after the blast and fallout kills the first hundred million people. Representatives of the indigenous peoples who were harmed by weapons production and testing in the U.S., Australia, Khazakstan, and the Pacific gave stirring testimony of the loss of their land and multigenerational health, demanding justice for what they have suffered. The parties to the TPNW formally agree to address their concerns for healing and remediation. Several of the remaining Hibakusha (nuclear bomb survivors) from Japan shared their incredible stories and pleas for never again. Lining the hallways were works of beautiful art from the dawn of the nuclear age to the present. Concerts, vigils, prayer services, and protest marches were held at city venues nearby.
Representatives from the organizations that we count on to rescue us during disasters all made statements that there will be no meaningful help after multiple nuclear explosions . This included the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, the World Medical Association, the International Council of Nurses, and the World Federation of Public Health Associations. All of these bodies agree with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War that the only way to assure that nuclear weapons will not cause an unmitigated disaster for humanity is to eliminate them. The principle means of doing that will be educating as many people and leaders as we possibly can about the threat these weapons pose.
I noticed among the many statements decrying nuclear weapons a sentiment that I heard less frequently at antinuclear events in the past – that war itself is the problem, and that we would do well to oppose all war rather than expend energy supporting one side or the other in any given war. This created the opportunity to introduce folks to World BEYOND War, whose mission is replace war with a just and sustainable peace.
Mingling with capable people dedicated to preserving life and our future through the TPNW illuminated the world that often seems dark with hatred and killing, and energized me to continue the current work of creating space for peace and human dignity.
While thousands gathered in San Francisco to protest the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s presence at its meetings, United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken signed a new Section 123 Nuclear Agreement with the Philippine Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla. This agreement would allow the United States to export nuclear technology and material to Manila. Negotiations for the agreement began upon Kamala Harris’ November 2022 trip to the Philippines, making it the fastest Section 123 agreement ever signed, according to Blinken.
President Marcos Jr. portends the so-called “peaceful nuclear cooperation,” to be an alternative energy solution for the Philippines. The agreement must now go before the US Congress for approval.
Here are five reasons why we must act now to oppose it:
In a country already prone to climate disaster, vulnerable communities in the Philippines will be further at risk. Located in the notoriously active seismic zone known as the “ring of fire,” the Filipino people are among those that climate change and natural disasters most endanger, seen in the yearly typhoons and major disasters such as Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, which some estimate affected around 16 million people. History meanwhile provides no doubt about the potential disasters that can come with nuclear energy; we are already witness to the devastation caused by the nuclear accidents in Chernobyl and Fukushima. US-based nuclear companies are pivoting their projects to the Philippines, making the country a guinea pig for their untested and risky technologies.
2 Nuclear energy poses a threat to the health and safety of communities in the Philippines. Exposure to toxic nuclear waste is linked to increased rates of cancer, cardiovascular disease and other adverse health effects, particularly in sensitive populations including children. The Philippines is highly abundant in safer forms of renewable energy, and it is better to use precautionary principles than put already vulnerable communities at further risk. There is no confidence in the Philippine government to handle this type of radiation processing of energy, especially if they are privatized and the main objective is profit.
3 Fashioned in the style of the Marcos Sr. Dictatorship, this deal benefits only the US and Philippine elite. This is not the first attempt of the Philippine government to prioritize nuclear energy with the United States. Marcos Sr., following his declaration of Martial Law, worked with US companies to begin the building of the Bataan Nuclear Plant. The Bataan Plant, a point of protest for activists in the Philippines, quickly failed and was mothballed when the Marcos dictatorship, full of corruption and plundering of public funds for personal use, could not complete the construction. Now, Marcos Jr., known for his lavish spending on global travel, has sought to revive a nuclear project like his father’s to earn foreign investment. House of Representatives Member Mark Cojuangco, a billionaire and long-time supporter of the Marcos family, has been a proponent of nuclear projects. These families support said nuclear project because it benefits their widespread power over land and profit in the Philippines Creating a deal with the US and foreign corporations will serve their business interests, not those of the Filipino people. For the US and US based corporations, it gives the opportunity to control and profit further from the resources in the Philippines, a country which, since 2022, has allowed 100 percent foreign ownership over “clean” energy projects.
4 The so-called “peaceful transfer” of nuclear materials thwarts the Filipino people’s right to peace, development and self-determination. Known as the deadliest country for land defenders, environmental activists, indigenous people, farmers and people in rural areas of the Philippines are currently facing brutal attacks under the Marcos’ counterinsurgency program – recently documented by UN Special Rapporteur Ian Fry. In its attempts to squash the CPP-NPA-NDF, the Marcos regime has continued the US-designed counterinsurgency policy of Duterte and many presidents before him that result in the militarization of indigenous and rural communities, indiscriminate aerial bombings, forced surrender of civilians and mass displacement of people from their homelands. At the roots of the armed conflict in the Philippines is the Filipino people’s struggle for land and sustainable, national development, free from foreign intervention and control. The transfer of nuclear materials paves the way for more displacement of indigenous people, land grabbing for the sake of foreign corporations and further militarization of the countryside. The potential monopoly of foreign ownership over energy in the Philippines further aggravates the people’s aspiration to control and determine the development of their own economy. The US agreement with the Marcos regime gives further approval of Marcos’s policies and rewards his family for their ongoing plunder and exploitation of the Filipino people.
5 As tensions with China escalate, the storage of nuclear materials will set a precedent for the US to allow a nuclear arsenal to be stored in the Philippines. The required technology and infrastructure for facilities to hold nuclear materials will open up the door for conversations to allow for the potential storage of US nuclear weapons on Philippine soil. President Marcos has already allowed the ongoing Kamandag war game exercises between the US, Philippines, South Korea, and Japan, only serving to escalate tensions in the region and drag the Philippines into conflict between the US and China. By allowing the US to store nuclear materials in the Philippines, Marcos is setting the stage to welcome US nuclear weapons as an opportunity to advance his foreign affairs relationship with US President Biden.
For these reasons, we, members of the Filipino community and allies in solidarity, demand that members of US Congress halt the Section 123 US-PH Nuclear Deal.
Small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) could be built in the north-east of England but not by Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC (LSE:RR.), Britain’s leading candidate to develop the technology.
In the same week that shockwaves were felt around the industry as an expected first SMR project in the US was cancelled due to a lack of interest from local utilities, US-based Westinghouse Electric was today reported to be close to agreeing a deal to build four SMRs near Hartlepool……………………………….
Rolls-Royce is seen as one of the frontrunners to develop the first UK SMR projects, with its £1.8 billion-per-site design using tech similar to that in nuclear submarines to power up to a million homes.
It was shortlisted in the government-run SMR competition in October, along with Westinghouse’s UK arm, EDF, GE-Hitachi, Holtec Britain, and NuScale Power, the operator with the cancelled US project earlier this week.
But of those names, only Rolls was thought to be currently undergoing assessment from the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and Environment Agency for the first order, which it insisted put it almost two years ahead of its competitors in bringing an SMR on-stream and receiving funding from the UK government to build the reactors, though others have also applied for regulatory approval.
Rolls chief executive Tufan Erginbilgic has previously said the winner of the UK’s ongoing government-run SMR competition will need “tangible commitments in terms of projects – multiple projects”.
Earlier this week at its much-trumpeted investor event, Rolls said is planning to work with a “broad set of partners” to develop SMRs.
The government is close to publishing its long-awaited nuclear roadmap, which will set out plans to build a new generation of small and large nuclear reactors around Britain.
A cover image of the New York Post (11/16/23) depicted a supposedly shocking find. The headline “Guns Behind the MRI Machine” accompanied a photo of what Israeli troops had allegedly uncovered: Hamas guns at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
On the Post cover were fewer than a dozen AK-47s and matching magazines, as well as a few tactical vests. In its subhead, the Post called this “proof Hamas used hospital as military base in stunning war crime.”
Many other media outlets reported Israel’s claims—and accompanying photos and videos the IDF offered as evidence—with little pushback other than Hamas’s denials and an acknowledgment that the outlet could not independently verify the claims. “IDF ‘Found Clear Evidence’ of Hamas Operation out of Al-Shifa Hospital, Says Spokesperson,” was an NBC News headline (11/15/23); Fox News (11/15/23) had “Watch: Israel Finds Weapons, Military Equipment Used by Hamas in Key Gaza Hospital After Raid, IDF Says.”
Israel’s assault on Al Shifa hospital provoked widespread international outrage, so a great deal hinged on its claim that the hospital was being used as a military base. But there are many reasons to question this display of weaponry, questions that imply that not only did the Israeli military make a weak case, but that some media outlets and pundits were too quick to take this presentation at face value.
The laws of war
While civilian infrastructure, and in particular medical infrastructure, are protected under the laws of war, the Israeli government claimed that the hospital’s protection was nullified because Hamas was using it as a military base, using the medical staff and patients as human shields.
The IDF released a 3D animation (YouTube, 10/27/23) depicting Al Shifa as “the main headquarters for Hamas’ terrorist activity,” with a warren of underground chambers hiding crates of weapons, missiles, barrels and meeting rooms bedecked with Islamic flags.
The US government supported this line of thinking (ABC News, 11/16/23). The Wall Street Journal editorial board (11/14/23) spelled out the argument:
The law of war in this case is clear: Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Hamas’s use of Al Shifa for military purposes vitiates the protected status granted to hospitals. Israel is still required to give warning and use means proportionate to the anticipated military advantage, and it has.
But the law of war is not, in fact, clear in the way the Journal claims. “Even if there is a military facility operating under the hospital, this does not allow Israel to bomb the site,” the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem (11/7/23) said in a statement before the hospital raid.
Even if a hospital were used for “acts harmful to the enemy,” that does not give that enemy “the right to bombard it for two days and completely destroy it,” Mathilde Philip-Gay, an expert in international humanitarian law at France’s Lyon 3 University, told the Guardian (11/17/23).
“Even if the building loses its special protection, all the people inside retain theirs,” Rutgers Law School international law expert Adil Haque told the Washington Post (11/15/23). “Anything that the attacking force can do to allow the humanitarian functions of that hospital to continue, they’re obligated to do.” The director of the hospital, Mohammad Abu Salmiya, said that 179 patients died while the facility was surrounded by Israeli forces and had to be buried in a mass grave (Al Jazeera, 11/14/23). (Abu Salmiya was later arrested by Israeli forces along with other Palestinian medical personnel—Al Jazeera, 11/11/23.)
After the raid, viewing the evidence, Human Rights Watch was not at all persuaded. “Hospitals have special protections under international humanitarian law,” said Human Rights Watch UN director Louis Charbonneau (Reuters, 11/16/23):
Doctors, nurses, ambulances and other hospital staff must be permitted to do their work and patients must be protected. Hospitals only lose those protections if it can be shown that harmful acts have been carried out from the premises. The Israeli government hasn’t provided any evidence of that.
DECEMBER 1, 2023
Press Relayed Israeli Claims of Secret Hospital Base With Insufficient Skepticism
A cover image of the New York Post (11/16/23) depicted a supposedly shocking find. The headline “Guns Behind the MRI Machine” accompanied a photo of what Israeli troops had allegedly uncovered: Hamas guns at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
On the Post cover were fewer than a dozen AK-47s and matching magazines, as well as a few tactical vests. In its subhead, the Post called this “proof Hamas used hospital as military base in stunning war crime.”
Many other media outlets reported Israel’s claims—and accompanying photos and videos the IDF offered as evidence—with little pushback other than Hamas’s denials and an acknowledgment that the outlet could not independently verify the claims. “IDF ‘Found Clear Evidence’ of Hamas Operation out of Al-Shifa Hospital, Says Spokesperson,” was an NBC News headline (11/15/23); Fox News (11/15/23) had “Watch: Israel Finds Weapons, Military Equipment Used by Hamas in Key Gaza Hospital After Raid, IDF Says.”
Israel’s assault on Al Shifa hospital provoked widespread international outrage, so a great deal hinged on its claim that the hospital was being used as a military base. But there are many reasons to question this display of weaponry, questions that imply that not only did the Israeli military make a weak case, but that some media outlets and pundits were too quick to take this presentation at face value.
The laws of war
Israeli computer animation (YouTube, 10/27/23) depicting what was claimed to be “the main headquarters for Hamas’ terrorist activity” beneath Al Shifa Hospital.
While civilian infrastructure, and in particular medical infrastructure, are protected under the laws of war, the Israeli government claimed that the hospital’s protection was nullified because Hamas was using it as a military base, using the medical staff and patients as human shields.
The IDF released a 3D animation (YouTube, 10/27/23) depicting Al Shifa as “the main headquarters for Hamas’ terrorist activity,” with a warren of underground chambers hiding crates of weapons, missiles, barrels and meeting rooms bedecked with Islamic flags.
The US government supported this line of thinking (ABC News, 11/16/23). The Wall Street Journal editorial board (11/14/23) spelled out the argument:
The law of war in this case is clear: Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Hamas’s use of Al Shifa for military purposes vitiates the protected status granted to hospitals. Israel is still required to give warning and use means proportionate to the anticipated military advantage, and it has.
But the law of war is not, in fact, clear in the way the Journal claims. “Even if there is a military facility operating under the hospital, this does not allow Israel to bomb the site,” the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem (11/7/23) said in a statement before the hospital raid.
Even if a hospital were used for “acts harmful to the enemy,” that does not give that enemy “the right to bombard it for two days and completely destroy it,” Mathilde Philip-Gay, an expert in international humanitarian law at France’s Lyon 3 University, told the Guardian (11/17/23).
“Even if the building loses its special protection, all the people inside retain theirs,” Rutgers Law School international law expert Adil Haque told the Washington Post (11/15/23). “Anything that the attacking force can do to allow the humanitarian functions of that hospital to continue, they’re obligated to do.” The director of the hospital, Mohammad Abu Salmiya, said that 179 patients died while the facility was surrounded by Israeli forces and had to be buried in a mass grave (Al Jazeera, 11/14/23). (Abu Salmiya was later arrested by Israeli forces along with other Palestinian medical personnel—Al Jazeera, 11/11/23.)
After the raid, viewing the evidence, Human Rights Watch was not at all persuaded. “Hospitals have special protections under international humanitarian law,” said Human Rights Watch UN director Louis Charbonneau (Reuters, 11/16/23):
Doctors, nurses, ambulances and other hospital staff must be permitted to do their work and patients must be protected. Hospitals only lose those protections if it can be shown that harmful acts have been carried out from the premises. The Israeli government hasn’t provided any evidence of that.
Concern for Rolls-Royce, other developers after US mini nuclear setback
Proactive ,30 Nov 2023
A major setback in the roll out of mini nuclear power plants in the US has raised concern over the UK’s own bid to introduce the technology, whose developers include Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC (LSE:RR.).
Cancelling plans for its first small modular reactor (SMR) in the US earlier this week, NuScale blamed a lack of interest in the plant’s power output by local utilities.
“Despite significant efforts […] it appears unlikely that the project will have enough subscription to continue toward deployment,” the company said in a statement.
Given the plant was set to be the first of its kind in the US, having been granted regulatory approval in 2022, concern has been raised over the ramifications on other countries looking to utilise modular nuclear technology………………………..
Rolls-Royce is among frontrunners developing such technology in the UK, with its SMR representing the only system currently being assessed by independent regulators.
Cambridge University nuclear energy professor Tony Roulstone commented that failure of NuScale to push through its SMRs was “bad for the broader market”, however.
“They’re the one with a ticket from a safety authority,” he added. NuScale has received some US$600 million from the US government since 2014.
Pointing to the UK, he suggested just one version of the technology was needed, given companies will need several orders to help bring down costs as a whole.
“You can do it if you’ve got an order for ten,” he said. “You can’t do this if you’ve got an order for one.”
A host of companies are indeed looking to build SMRs though, such as EDF, GE-Hitachi and of course Rolls-Royce and NuScale.
Alongside the fact each is looking for public support and contracts, concern has been raised in the UK over a lack of urgency on the government’s part.
Sometimes Israel’s crimes are so horrific that at first you don’t even understand what you’re looking at. You just stare at it trying to make sense of what you’re seeing for a bit, like you would if you suddenly saw a space alien or a leprechaun or something.
It happened to me yesterday when I was watching a Sky News report about a teenage boy who was shot by Israeli forces in Jerusalem for celebrating the release of Palestinian prisoners in the hostage negotiations with Hamas. I was watching it thinking to myself, I must be misunderstanding what I’m looking at. I know that Israel does gross things, but surely the story here isn’t that they shot a kid for being happy about something.
Then, as has happened so many times over the last two months, I kept watching and learned that yes, that is indeed what happened. The deputy mayor of Jerusalem Fleur Hassan-Nahoum is seen defending the shooting by saying “part of the deal is that there would be no celebrations for the release of attempted murderers” (this was actually not a part of the deal, it was just a decree issued by Israel’s national security minister) and claiming dishonestly that “we’re talking about the release of attempted murderers” (the vast majority have not been convicted of any crime and have been denied any due process for the accusations against them).
The band Eve6 nicely summed up what it felt like watching the clip of the deputy mayor’s comments, tweeting, “The remarkable thing about this clip is her self assurance. Like she’s supremely confident that ‘we shot the teenager because he was celebrating’ is a thing that people will find reasonable.”
I had the same experience reading about the five premature babies who were left to die after the IDF raided al-Nasr Pediatric Hospital in Gaza earlier this month, their decomposing bodies only discovered when the temporary ceasefire allowed access to the hospital. It’s just too insane to believe — they attacked a pediatric hospital? And then they left the babies there to die? What??
The only reason we’re learning about this now is because the pause in fighting allowed journalists to get cameras into the building and show the dead infants to the world. This calls to mind the Politico report immediately prior to the ceasefire which said that the White House was worried “an unintended consequence of the pause” would be “that it would allow journalists broader access to Gaza and the opportunity to further illuminate the devastation there and turn public opinion on Israel.”
Indeed, since the pause in fighting began the world has been receiving drone footage from mainstream platforms like Reuters and The Washington Post revealing vast expanses of urban terrain completely destroyed by a blanket of Israeli military explosives spanning from city block to city block. Looking at the blatantly indiscriminate devastation that’s been caused by Israel’s assault on Gaza since October 7 makes it clear that the IDF are not targeting Hamas but Gaza itself………………………….
I cannot imagine what it’s like to be living in the midst of this horror for the last two months, trying to figure out the best way to survive while also grieving the family, friends and neighbors you’re losing along the way. These people have all been deeply traumatized in ways that will haunt them for the rest of their lives, if they survive the violence, disease and deprivation that’s to come.
This thing is so astonishingly ugly, and it could get a whole lot uglier after the ceasefire ends. If there’s anything positive to be found in this living nightmare, it’s that it’s so earth-shakingly ugly that it just might shake the world awake.
GLOBAL 2000 publishes fact-checking video on the COP 28 climate conference – nuclear power more than twice as expensive as renewables, aging-related nuclear power plant failures endanger security of supply.
At the start of COP 28 in Dubai tomorrow, GLOBAL 2000 and its German partner organization BUND Umwelt are publishing an animated video that analyzes the facts about nuclear power as a possible contribution to climate protection. The explanatory video is intended to appeal particularly to younger people who are exposed to disinformation campaigns via YouTube and other social media platforms.
“Many of the nuclear industry’s claims do not stand up to an objective fact check based on reputable sources such as the International Energy Agency or the World Report of the Nuclear Industry,” explains Reinhard Uhrig, nuclear expert at GLOBAL 2000.
“The announcements of ‘new’ or ‘modular’ reactor concepts (SMR and nuclear fusion) are also coming too late in the next decade relevant to the climate crisis – if they ever become ready for series production, because, according to the Nuclear Energy Agency of the International Energy Agency, this is questionable .”
Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 2023-11-13
The U.S. led War on the People of Palestine and the Middle East is a Criminal Undertaking Introduction
We stand in Solidarity with Palestine. But we must recognize that the United States Military and Intelligence apparatus is firmly behind Israel’s genocide directed against the People of Palestine.
Andthis must be part of the solidarity campaign, namely to Reveal the Truth regarding Washington’s insidious role, which is part of a carefully planned military agenda directed against Palestine and the broader Middle East. Netanyahu is a proxy, with a criminal record. He has the unbending support of Western Europe’s “Classe politique”…..
Israel and the Zionist lobby in the U.S. are NOT exerting undue influence AGAINST U.S. Foreign Policy as outlined by numerous analysts.
Quite the opposite. The Zionist lobby is firmly aligned with U.S. foreign policy, and Vice Versa. It targets those who are opposed to war, who call for a cease fire. It exerts influence in favour of the conduct of the U.S. military agenda in support of Israel. The US military-intelligence establishment in coordination with powerful financial interests is calling the shots in regards to Israel’s genocidal intent to “Wipe Palestine off the Map”.…………………………….. https://www.globalresearch.ca/planned-us-israeli-attack-on-iran-2/5615443
