Government Confirms No Nuclear for Australia, At Least Any Time Soon
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2022/10/australia-nuclear-energy/ Asha Barbaschow, October 31, 2022 “……………………………… Addressing Senate Estimates on Friday, representatives from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet put this to bed.
Summarising the government’s position, the department’s acting deputy secretary for the economy, industry and G20, James Chisholm, said the cheapest form of new energy for investment is renewable energy. We’ve got too much sun and wind to not make the most of it.
That is because it has zero marginal cost,” he said.
“By that I mean there’s a cost associated with building it, seeking approval for it and its initial construction, but once that happens it doesn’t have the same costs associated with it that traditional base-load generation, whether it’s coal-fired or nuclear, has.”
There are a lot of costs associated with those forms of energy, with the CSIRO forecasting that small nuclear modular reactors would have a levelized cost of energy of between $136 and $326 per megawatt hour in 2030. Whereas the levelized cost of energy such as renewable energy is a lot lower.
“It would be estimated to cost between something like $53 to $82 per megawatt hour,” Chisolm explained.
“Really importantly, that includes firming costs.
“Often what happens is people look at these figures and say, ‘Yes, but with renewables you’re not factoring in firming and integration costs.’ But the CSIRO work does factor that in. According to CSIRO, and this is consistent with other analyses, it comes in way cheaper. And that flows through to bills.”
Although this report was published a few months ago, Chisholm said as time goes on, that cost comparison becomes more stark.
“We’re seeing it play out in other markets. If you look at those markets where nuclear power is a significant proportion of the generation mix, nuclear is experiencing the same challenges that coal-fired generation has experienced, simply because of how high the cost is. When it comes to competitive markets for energy, it is difficult for those forms of energy to compete with renewables, particularly for firmed renewables,” he said.
Well, there you have it.
Minister Vows Response to Fukushima Reputational Damage
https://www.nippon.com/en/news/yjj2022103000407/ Soma, Fukushima Pref., Oct. 30 (Jiji Press)–Japanese industry minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said Sunday the government will face and surely respond to local people’s concerns about reputational damage related to the planned release of treated radioactive water into the ocean from the disaster-crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The minister made the remark when he visited a fishing port in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, and exchanged opinions with local fishery workers, who voiced such concerns.
Aiming to start the release of the treated water containing radioactive tritium around spring next year, the Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. <9501>, the operator of the Fukushima No. 1 plant, have been giving explanations about the move to local people and proceeding with the construction of related facilities.
At the day’s meeting with Nishimura, the fishery workers called for measures that would allow Fukushima fishery products to be sold at fair prices. They also asked the central and Fukushima governments to work in closer cooperation so that local opinions can be taken in swiftly.
After the meeting, Nishimura told reporters, “We’ll launch the work to establish a new framework for communicating the attractiveness of Fukushima’s fishery products and boosting their consumption through cooperation with businesses and local governments across Japan.” He added that the government will give details of the plan possibly by the end of the year.
Bulgarian nuclear reactor shut down after technical glitch
Tsvetelia Tsolova Reuters, OCT 30, 2022, SOFIA, Oct 30 (Reuters) – Bulgarian nuclear power plant Kozloduy has shut down its 1,000 megawatt Unit 6 late on Saturday following a technical problem in with the cooling system of the unit’s power generator, its spokesperson said on Sunday………………. more https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/bulgarian-nuclear-reactor-shut-down-after-technical-glitch
Kremlin reveals possible basis for Putin-Biden talks
https://www.rt.com/news/565611-russia-talks-biden-putin/ 28 Oct 22, Russia’s proposals on security guarantees could serve as a springboard for re-engagement, Dmitry Peskov says
Potential talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Joe Biden would depend on Washington’s willingness to hear Moscow’s security concerns, the Kremlin press secretary said on Sunday.
Speaking to the Rossiya-1 TV channel, Dmitry Peskov said high-level re-engagement could happen if the United States “pays heed to our concerns.”
It would be contingent on “the US desire to go back to the state of things as of December-January and ask the question: what the Russians are offering may not suit all of us, but maybe we should still sit down with them at the negotiating table?”
The spokesman explained that he was referring to the draft documents on security guarantees that Moscow submitted to both Brussels and Washington before the Ukraine conflict broke out in late February.
In mid-December last year, the Russian Foreign Ministry published the drafts of two treaties – one with the US and one with NATO – with a list of Moscow’s security demands, in a bid to lower tensions in Europe.
At the time, Russia wanted the West to ban Ukraine from entering NATO and limit the deployment of troops and weapons on the bloc’s eastern flank. It also insisted that the military alliance retreat to its borders as of 1997, before it expanded eastwards.
While neither the US nor NATO gave written responses to Russia’s proposals, they both rebuffed Moscow’s demand that Ukraine should be barred from the bloc.
Earlier this month, Putin said he saw no need for talks with his US counterpart, explaining that “there is no platform for any negotiations yet.” The statement was echoed by the White House, which stated that Joe Biden does not plan to meet with the Russian leader at the G20 summit next month, despite earlier refusing to rule out the possibility.
The last time the two leaders met in person was in June 2021 in Geneva, Switzerland. The talks were followed up by a virtual summit in December, with Ukraine being one of the topics on the agenda.
Academics and industry questioned on UK nuclear power supply.
The Science and Technology Committee begin its Delivering Nuclear Power evidence
sessions on National Engineering Day in the UK. This session examines how
UK nuclear energy production will be maintained and increased. The
Government has said nuclear power will play a key part in the UK’s energy
security and goal of reaching Net Zero emissions by 2050, setting the
intention to triple the current electricity output by 2050.
However, all but one civil nuclear reactor in the UK will be decommissioned by 2028
under current plans. And only one new reactor, Hinkley point C in Somerset,
is currently expected to be operational before 2030. In the final panel,
the Committee will question EDF executives on the four-year delay in the
construction of Hinkley Point C, completion of which is expected in 2027.
The progress in plans for a new reactor in Sizewell C in Suffolk will also
be discussed.
UK Parliament 28th Oct 2022
Sizewell C nuclear could become low on the priority list of UK government projects
Therese Coffey’s appointment as the new Environment Secretary came as a
surprise to those who expected her to return to the backbenches after the
departure of her close friend Liz Truss from Downing Street.
But actually it looks like quite an astute move by new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak if he
wants to keep all wings of his party onside.
What it also does is throw up
a very real challenge for her – the Environment Secretary has one of the
most controversial green issues in the country sitting in the middle of her
constituency and an electorate divided about what the government could do.
Dr Coffey is now in charge of the Department for the Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs – it’s effectively the old Min of Ag with environmental
issues tagged on.
What happens at Sizewell is not up to the Environment
Secretary, but the department has a very big input into the decision. It
would probably have to be one of her more junior ministers who actually
makes its case in the Sizewell debate – but as Secretary of State she will
always be closely identified with that by the public.
Of course, it remains
to be seen how much of an issue Sizewell C is likely to be for the Sunak
government. It is a very expensive project and would require a great deal
of government capital expenditure to get it under way. Given that we’re
facing a second era of austerity in 15 years and that any investment now
will not pay off for a decade, I can’t help feeling that any moves towards
progressing Sizewell C are likely to proceed in first gear (or even be left
in neutral) for the next two or three years.
East Anglian Daily Times 27th Oct 2022
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/23080960.will-coffeys-new-job-mean-sizewell-suffolk-coast/
India headed towards 100% renewables power by 2050
A new optimistic Nature paper from the LUT University in Finland looks to a
key role being played by renewables for rapid transitioning of the power
sector across states in India. Progress has been uneven at times, but LUT
says that a renewables-based power system by 2050 could be ‘lower in cost
than the current coal dominated system’ and have ‘zero greenhouse gas
emissions’ while providing ‘reliable electricity to around 1.7 billion
people’.
Renew Extra 29th Oct 2022
https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2022/10/india-towards-100-renewable-power-by.html
USA’s Westingouse likely to build and fund 49% of Poland’s first nuclear power station
Poland is likely to choose the United States engineering firm Westinghouse
Electric to build its first nuclear power plant and provide 49% equity
financing for the project. State-owned Korea Hydro Nuclear Power (KHNP) may
also be involved in a separate and parallel private nuclear project, Polish
Deputy Prime Minister Jacek Sasin said earlier this week. Warsaw has also
been talking to France’s state-owned EdF utility which has built and
operates the country’s nuclear power plants. After years of shelved plans
to build a civil nuclear capacity in Poland from scratch, the energy crunch
caused by the war in Ukraine, lower gas supplies from Russia and lack of
immediate renewable substitutes, have kicked the issue back up the
political agenda.
Deutsche Welle 28th Oct 2022
https://www.dw.com/en/us-south-korean-firms-to-operate-nuclear-plants-in-poland/a-63576093
Reporters Without Borders leads 16 organisations urging UK Home Secretary to intervene in extradition of Julian Assange.
UK: RSF leads a coalition of 16 organisations in urging Home Secretary Suella Braverman to urgently intervene in Assange extradition
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has led a coalition of 16 organisations in urging the new UK Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, to intervene in the US government’s request to extradite Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange. These groups, representing press freedom, free expression, and journalists’ organisations, have also requested a meeting with Braverman to discuss concerns in the case, after a request for a meeting with former Home Secretary, Priti Patel, went unanswered. The full text of the letter is below.
The Rt. Hon Suella Braverman
Secretary of State for the Home Department
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
7 October 2022
Dear Home Secretary,
We, the undersigned press freedom, free expression and journalists’ organisations, are writing to raise the case of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange and request you to urgently intervene to ensure he is not extradited to the United States.
In June your predecessor, Priti Patel, signed the order to extradite Mr Assange, despite widespread international concern that his extradition would have alarming implications for journalism and press freedom. In fact, many of the signatories in this letter wrote to Ms Patel warning that Assange’s prosecution “would set a dangerous precedent that could be applied to any media outlet that published stories based on leaked information, or indeed any journalist, publisher or source anywhere in the world.”
Our request for a meeting was unfortunately left unanswered. We are therefore now asking you, Home Secretary, to meet with the signatories of this letter to discuss the case in detail.
We urge you, Home Secretary, to intervene in this extradition request as a matter of priority. In the US, Mr Assange would face trial on 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one count under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which combined could see him imprisoned for up to 175 years. He is highly likely to be detained there in conditions of isolation or solitary confinement despite the US government’s assurances, which would severely exacerbate his risk of suicide.
Further, Mr Assange would be unable to adequately defend himself in the US courts, as the Espionage Act lacks a public interest defence. This would not align with the values of fairness, justice and a public commitment to media freedom that the UK continues to promote.
You now have an opportunity to ensure that this extradition does not proceed. An opportunity to demonstrate through action that the UK means what it says in its commitment to media freedom. And most importantly, the opportunity to reunite Mr Assange with his young family after many years of separation – an act that may ultimately save his life. We ask you to seize this opportunity as a matter of urgency and ensure that the UK government acts in the interest of journalism and press freedom and does not enable the US government to continue to pursue this more than decade-old, politically motivated case.
We look forward to hearing from you and discussing the case further. We would be grateful for a prompt response. Please reply via Azzurra Moores at Reporters Without Borders (RSF) at amoores@rsf.org.
Sincerely,
Rebecca Vincent, Director of Operations and Campaigns, Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
Laurens Hueting, Senior Advocacy Officer, European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
Séamus Dooley, Assistant General Secretary, National Union of Journalists
Ricardo Gutiérrez, General Secretary, European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)
Ruth Smeeth, Chief Executive, Index on Censorship
Mark Johnson, Legal & Policy Officer, Big Brother Watch
Peter Tatchell, Director, Peter Tatchell Foundation
Dr Suelette Dreyfus, Executive Director, Blueprint for Free Speech
Romana Cacchioli, Executive Director, PEN International
Daniel Gorman, Director, English PEN
Ricky Monahan Brown, President, Scottish PEN
Alix Parodi, President, PEN Suisse Romand
Tanja Tuma, President, Slovene PEN
Alix Parodi, President, PEN Suisse Romand
Zoë Rodriguez, joint President, PEN Sydney, and Chair of the PEN International Women Writers
Jesper Bengtsson, President, Swedish PEN
Talk World Radio: Dennis Kucinich: Democrats Should Not Make Support for War a Test of Party Loyalty
Australia changes policy tack – moves in the direction of supporting the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
Australia drops opposition to treaty banning nuclear weapons at UN vote
After former Coalition government repeatedly sided with US against it, Labor has shifted position to abstain
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/29/australia-drops-opposition-to-treaty-banning-nuclear-weapons-at-un-vote— Daniel Hurst, 29 Oct 22,
Australia has dropped its opposition to a landmark treaty banning nuclear weapons in a vote at the United Nations in New York on Saturday.
While Australia was yet to actually join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the shift in its voting position to “abstain” after five years of “no” is seen by campaigners as a sign of progress given the former Coalition government repeatedly sided with the United States against it.
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said through a spokesperson that Australia had “a long and proud commitment to the global non-proliferation and disarmament regime” and that the government supported the new treaty’s “ambition of a world without nuclear weapons”.
The previous Coalition government was firmly against the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a relatively new international agreement that imposes a blanket ban on developing, testing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons – or helping other countries to carry out such activities.
Australia voted against opening negotiations on the proposed new treaty in late 2016 and did not participate in those talks in 2017. Since 2018 it has voted against annual resolutions at the UN general assembly and first committee that called on all countries to join the agreement “at the earliest possible date”.
That changed early on Saturday morning when Australia shifted its voting position to abstain. Indonesia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Ireland were among countries to co-sponsor this year’s supportive UN resolution.
Australia traditionally argued the treaty would not work because none of the nuclear weapons states had joined and because it “ignores the realities of the global security environment”.
It also argued joining would breach the US alliance obligations, with Australia relying on American nuclear forces to deter any nuclear attack on Australia.
But the treaty has gained momentum because of increasing dissatisfaction among activists and non-nuclear states about the outlook for disarmament, given that nuclear weapons states such as the US, Russia and China are in the process of modernising their arsenals.
The treaty currently has 91 signatories, 68 of which have formally ratified it, and it entered into force last year.
The Nobel peace prize-winning International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (Ican) had been urging Australia to vote in favour of the UN resolution on Saturday – or at least abstain in order to “end five years of opposition to the TPNW under the previous government”.
Three in four members of the Labor caucus – including Anthony Albanese – have signed an Ican pledge that commits parliamentarians “to work for the signature and ratification of this landmark treaty by our respective countries”.
Labor’s 2021 national platform committed the party to signing and ratifying the treaty “after taking account” of several factors, including the need for an effective verification and enforcement architecture and work to achieve universal support.
These conditions suggest the barriers to actually signing may still be high. But Gem Romuld, the Australia director of Ican, said the government was “heading in the right direction” and engaging positively with the treaty.
Romuld said it “would be completely self-defeating to wait for all nuclear-armed states to get on board” before Australia joined.
“Indeed, no disarmament treaty has achieved universal support and Australia has joined all the other disarmament treaties, even where our ally – the US – has not yet signed on, such as the landmine ban treaty,” Romuld said.
In 2017 the US, the UK and France declared that they “do not intend to sign, ratify or ever become party” to the new treaty, and the Trump administration actively lobbied countries to withdraw.
Wong told the UN general assembly last month that Australia would “redouble our efforts” towards disarmament because Russian president Vladimir Putin’s “weak and desperate nuclear threats underline the danger that nuclear weapons pose to us all”. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/29/australia-drops-opposition-to-treaty-banning-nuclear-weapons-at-un-vote—
Cuban missile crisis, 60 years on: new papers reveal how close the world came to nuclear disaster
In 1962, a Soviet submarine commander nearly ordered a nuclear launch, newly translated accounts show, with modern parallels over Ukraine all too clear
Guardian, Julian Borger in Washington 27 Oct 2022
The commander of a nuclear-armed Soviet submarine panicked and came close to launching a nuclear torpedo during the Cuban missile crisis 60 years ago, after being blinded and disoriented by aggressive US tactics, according to newly translated documents.
Many nuclear historians agree that 27 October 1962, known as “Black Saturday”, was the closest the world came to nuclear catastrophe, as US forces enforced a blockade of Cuba to stop deliveries of Soviet missiles. On the same day a U-2 spy plane was shot down over the island, and another went missing over Siberia when the pilot lost his way.
Six decades on from the “world’s most dangerous day”, last week’s revelation that a Russian warplane fired a missile near a British Rivet Joint surveillance plane over the Black Sea has once more heightened concerns that miscalculation or accident could trigger uncontrolled escalation.
In October 1962, the US sent its anti-submarine forces to hunt down Soviet submarines trying to slip through the “quarantine” imposed on Cuba. The most perilous moment came when one of those submarines, B-59, was forced to surface late at night in the Sargasso Sea to recharge its batteries and found itself surrounded by US destroyers and anti-submarine planes circling overhead.
In a newly translated account, one of the senior officers on board, Captain Second Class Vasily Arkhipov, described the scene……………………………………………………………
In his account, Arkhipov played down his role and how close the B-59 submarine commander, Savitsky, came to launching the submarine’s one nuclear-tipped torpedo. However, Svetlana Savranskaya, the director of the National Security Archive’s Russian programmes, interviewed another submarine commander from the same brigade, Ryurik Ketov, who said Savitsky was convinced they were under attack and that the war with the US had started.
The commander panicked, calling for an “urgent dive” and for the number one torpedo with the nuclear warhead to be prepared. However, because the signalling officer was in the way, Savitsky could not immediately get down the narrow stairway through the conning tower, and during those few moments of hesitation, Arkhipov realised that the US forces were signalling rather than attacking, and deliberately firing off to the side of the submarine.
“He called to Savitsky and said: ‘calm down, look they are signalling, not attacking, let’s signal back.’ Savitsky turned back, saw the situation, ordered the signalling officer to signal back,” Savranskaya said. She added that two other officers would have had to confirm any order from Savitsky before the nuclear torpedo could have been launched.
Tom Blanton, the director of the National Security Archive, said the aggressive tactics used by the American submarine hunters contributed to the close shave…………………………………………….
Saved ‘primarily because of luck’
The B-59 incident was just one of a cascade of crises that day. A U-2 went missing over Siberia when the pilot lost his bearings, blinded by the aurora borealis and misled by compass malfunction close to the north pole.
Some F-102 interceptor jets were scrambled to protect the U-2, but the joint chiefs of staff who gave the order for their launch were not aware they had been armed with nuclear missiles as a matter of course once the alert level was raised to Defcon 2.
Minutes later, the joint chiefs heard that another U-2 had been shot down over Cuba and assumed it was a deliberate escalation by Moscow. In fact, the order had been given independently by two Soviet generals in Cuba. The joint chiefs were also unaware that there were 80 nuclear warheads on the missiles already in Cuba when they gave their recommendation for the US to carry out airstrikes and then an invasion of Cuba.
The recommendation was overruled by president John Kennedy, as negotiations with Soviet representatives, some of them in a Washington Chinese restaurant, were making progress, leading ultimately to the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba while US missiles were pulled back from Turkey.
Tom Collina, the director of policy at the Ploughshares Fund, a disarmament advocacy group, said Black Saturday “reminds us that the reason we’ve gotten out of things like that in the past is primarily because of luck”.
“We had some good management, we had some good thinkers,” Collina, co-author of The Button, a book on the nuclear arms race, said. “But basically, we got lucky in the closest situations where we could have gotten involved in nuclear war.”……………………………..
“The lesson we should have learned in 1962 is that humans are fallible, and we should not combine crises with fallible humans with nuclear weapons,” Collina said. “Yet here we are again.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/27/cuban-missile-crisis-60-years-on-new-papers-reveal-how-close-the-world-came-to-nuclear-disaster
Every nuclear power plant is a ‘dirty bomb’ in waiting: watchdog
https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/a-dirty-bomb-in-waiting/ Brett Wilkins and Common Dreams October 26, 2022, With Ukraine and Russia each trading renewed accusations that the other is planning to weaponize Ukrainian atomic reactors, a leading anti-nuclear group warned Wednesday that all such power plants have the potential to become radioactive “dirty bombs.”
“Like all nuclear power plants, Ukraine’s reactors are inherently dangerous pre-deployed nuclear weapons,” Maryland-based Beyond Nuclear said in a statement. “Nuclear power plants—and their mounting inventory of high-level nuclear waste—are inherently dangerous and their use should be permanently discontinued.”
The group’s warning comes as Russian officials this week doubled down on unfounded allegations that Ukraine is planning to weaponize a nuclear reactor, while Ukrainian officials accused Russia of carrying out secret construction work at the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest such facility in Europe.
Russia’s August shelling of Zaporizhzhia, as well as last month’s Russian missile strike a few hundred meters from the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant near Yuzhnoukrainsk, have raised eyebrows and alarm among nuclear experts and other observers around the world. Experts also fear that possible Russian destruction of Ukrainian dams and other hydroelectrical infrastructure could leave the Zaporizhzhia plant without enough water to cool its reactors.
“The reality all of this exposes is that nuclear power plants are inherently dangerous with their large inventories of radioactive materials that must be protected for hundreds to thousands of years from escaping into the environment,” Paul Gunter, Beyond Nuclear’s director of reactor oversight, said in Wednesday’s statement.
With Ukraine and Russia each trading renewed accusations that the other is planning to weaponize Ukrainian atomic reactors, a leading anti-nuclear group warned Wednesday that all such power plants have the potential to become radioactive “dirty bombs.”
“Like all nuclear power plants, Ukraine’s reactors are inherently dangerous pre-deployed nuclear weapons,” Maryland-based Beyond Nuclear said in a statement. “Nuclear power plants—and their mounting inventory of high-level nuclear waste—are inherently dangerous and their use should be permanently discontinued.”
The group’s warning comes as Russian officials this week doubled down on unfounded allegations that Ukraine is planning to weaponize a nuclear reactor, while Ukrainian officials accused Russia of carrying out secret construction work at the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest such facility in Europe.
Russia’s August shelling of Zaporizhzhia, as well as last month’s Russian missile strike a few hundred meters from the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant near Yuzhnoukrainsk, have raised eyebrows and alarm among nuclear experts and other observers around the world. Experts also fear that possible Russian destruction of Ukrainian dams and other hydroelectrical infrastructure could leave the Zaporizhzhia plant without enough water to cool its reactors.
“The reality all of this exposes is that nuclear power plants are inherently dangerous with their large inventories of radioactive materials that must be protected for hundreds to thousands of years from escaping into the environment,” Paul Gunter, Beyond Nuclear’s director of reactor oversight, said in Wednesday’s statement.
“The only reason there is such justifiably high anxiety right now about the possibility of these plants being used as dirty bombs—as well as the very real threat of a missile attack—is because of the lethal radioactivity that would be released, sickening and killing countless people and contaminating land and water indefinitely,” Gunter continued. “This sends a clear message that using this already highly expensive form of electricity generation is, and was always, a mistake.”
War, propaganda, and blindness
We are easy to convince because we know nothing about Ukrainian history and culture.
Nato propaganda tells us about the real sufferings of the Ukrainians, but it does not mention the eight years of torture, murder and massacres that preceded it.
We do not see that we are supporting the very ideas we believe we are fighting against
VoltaireNet by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé 28 Oct 22
Propaganda makes you stupid. We know that the Ukrainian integral nationalists have committed abominable massacres, especially during the Second World War. But we don’t know what they have been doing on our doorstep for the last thirty years, including the civil war they have been waging for the last eight years. Our own stupidity allows us to endure the war cries of our political leaders on the side of these criminals.
When war comes, governments always believe that they must boost the morale of their people by showering them with propaganda. The stakes are so high, life and death, that debates get tougher and extremist positions become popular. This is exactly what we are witnessing, or rather how we are being transformed. In this game, the ideas defended by some and others have nothing to do with their ideological presuppositions, but with their proximity to power
In the etymological sense, propaganda is just the art of convincing, of propagating ideas. But in modern times, it is an art that aims at reconstructing reality in order to denigrate the adversary and magnify one’s own troops.
Contrary to a widespread idea in the West, it was not the Nazis or the Soviets who invented it, but the British and the Americans during the First World War [1].
Today, Nato coordinates efforts in this area from its Strategic Communication Centre in Riga, Latvia [2]. It identifies the points on which it wants to act and organizes international programs to carry them out.
For example, NATO has identified Israel as a weak point: while former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a personal friend of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, his successor, Naftali Bennett, recognized the validity of Russian policy. He even advised the return of Crimea and Donbass and, above all, the denazification of Ukraine. The current Prime Minister, Yair Lapid, is more hesitant. He does not want to support the fundamentalist nationalists who massacred a million Jews shortly before and during the Second World War. But he also wants to stay on good terms with the West.
To bring Israel back into line, Nato is trying to persuade Tel Aviv that in case of a Russian victory, Israel would lose its position in the Middle East [3]. To this end, it is spreading the lie that Iran is Russia’s military ally as widely as possible. The international press is constantly claiming that Russian drones are Iranian on the battlefield, and soon the medium-range missiles will be too. Yet Moscow knows how to manufacture these weapons and has never asked Tehran for them. …………………….
The British, on the other hand, traditionally excel in activating networked media and enlisting artists. MI6 relies on a group of 150 news agencies working within the PR Network [4]. They convince all these companies to take up their imputations and slogans.
They are the ones who successively convinced you that President Vladimir Putin was dying, then that he had gone mad, or that he was facing strong opposition at home and that he would be overthrown by a coup. Their work continues today with cross interviews with soldiers in Ukraine. You hear Ukrainian soldiers say they are nationalists and Russian soldiers say they are afraid but must defend Russia. You hear that Ukrainians are not Nazis and that Russians, living under a dictatorship, are forced to fight.
………………………………………………… We are easy to convince because we know nothing about Ukrainian history and culture.
………….. We in Ukraine are unaware of the atrocities of the interwar period and the Second World War, and have a vague idea of the violence of the USSR. We ignore that the theoretician Dontsov and his disciple Stepan Bandera did not hesitate to massacre all those who did not correspond to their “integral nationalism”, first the Jews in this Khazar country, then the Russians and the Communists, the anarchists of Nestor Makhno, and many others. The “integral nationalists”, who had become admirers of the Führer and deeply racist, returned to the forefront with the dissolution of the USSR [6]. …………………………………
Modern Ukraine has patiently built its Nazi regime. After proclaiming the “genetic heritage of the Ukrainian people”, it enacted various laws. The first one grants the benefit of human rights by the state only to Ukrainians, not to foreigners. The second defines who the majority of Ukrainians are, and the third (enacted by President Zelensky) who the minorities are. The trick is that no law speaks about Russian speakers. Therefore, by default, the courts do not recognize them the benefit of human rights.
Since 2014, a civil war has pitted the integral nationalists against the Russian-speaking populations, mainly those of Crimea and Donbass. 20,000 deaths later, the Russian Federation, applying its “responsibility to protect,” launched a special military operation to implement Security Council Resolution 2202 (Minsk Agreements) and end the martyrdom of Russian speakers.
…………………………. Nato propaganda tells us about the real sufferings of the Ukrainians, but it does not mention the eight years of torture, murder and massacres that preceded it. It talks about “our common values with Ukrainian democracy”, but what values do we share with the integral nationalists and where is the democracy in Ukraine?
We do not have to choose between one or the other, but only to defend peace and therefore the Minsk Agreements and resolution 2202.
War drives us crazy. There is a reversal of values. The most extremist triumph. Some of our ministers speak of “stifling Russia” (sic). We do not see that we are supporting the very ideas we believe we are fighting against https://www.voltairenet.org/article218325.html#social
‘Small but important step’: Australia’s shift on treaty banning nuclear weapons applauded
Australia abstained from voting on the UN treaty banning nuclear weapons for the first time in five years. Previously, the country had opposed the treaty.
SBS News 29 Oct 22,
Anti-nuclear campaigners welcomed the shift in the Australian government’s position on a UN treaty banning the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Australia was among 14 nations to abstain from voting. There were 43 nations who voted against the UN resolution co-sponsored by New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Ireland. A total of 124 nations voted in favour of the motion.
The Australian branch of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) described the move as “a small but important step forward”.
“ICAN looks forward to a formal decision by the Albanese government to sign and ratify the TPNW (the treaty) – in line with its pre-election pledge,” the group said.
The overwhelming majority of Australians support joining this treaty, and progress towards disarmament is more urgent than ever.”
ICAN said it was encouraging to see that the majority of nations stood united on the risks of nuclear war, particularly “in light of the war in Ukraine”.
It ends years of Canberra siding with the United States by actions on the treaty to ban the deadly weapons and comes as Australia looks to nuclear submarines to boost its navy…………………………………
Australia also recently faced criticism from nuclear powers for joining a Pacific push to help deal with the consequences of nuclear testing.
New Zealand, a signatory to the nuclear weapons ban, has previously pushed for Australia to join.
A total of 93 countries have signed the treaty, including 68 nations that have formally ratified it. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/small-but-important-step-australias-shift-on-treaty-banning-nuclear-weapons-applauded/j3cz2yr7l
1 This Month
Read the Public Inquiry Report, the Commissioners’ report, Surrendering Australia: The AUKUS Deception is available to download for free at aukuspublicinquiry.com. Or just watch the replay of the National Press Club Luncheon.
19 November – Webinar – The Reality of Reprocessing
Time: 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) / 2:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM UK / 8:00 PM CET
Register for the Zoom Event Here
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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