EDF nears cut-price deal for GE nuclear turbine unit with Russian contracts
French energy group renegotiates terms for business that also supplies Rosatom
Sarah White in Paris YESTERDAY 6 Print this page French power operator EDF has renegotiated a deal to buy a nuclear turbine maker from General Electric, cutting its offer price for a business seen as strategic for France’s atomic industry but that is exposed to the risk of sanctions because of orders from Russia’s Rosatom. State-controlled EDF, which is on the cusp of being fully renationalised, was encouraged into making a move on the turbine company by the French government in a deal announced by President Emmanuel Macron at the start of the year.
The acquisition was touted as a way of recovering French control of the technology as EDF gears up to build new reactors, while also securing the future of a large factory in eastern France at a time when GE was exploring asset sales and looking to cut jobs. But the business has since been caught up in the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, even though its dealings with state-owned Rosatom, one of the world’s biggest nuclear plant developers, have not faced sanctions so far………………………. more https://www.ft.com/content/4e3f8a9e-e89c-47c9-9caa-b84825db1e70—
World-Wide Backing as Parliament Encircled for Assange
Protests around the world supported the human chain that formed around the British parliament in support of an imprisoned publisher, reports Mohamed Elmaazi
By Mohamed Elmaazi, in London, Consortium News, 10 Oct 22,
Thousands of supporters of Julian Assange descended upon London’s Palace of Westminster to form a human chain around the Houses of Parliament in support of the embattled WikiLeaks publisher on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the London action was backed up by rallies in Melbourne, Australia, Washington D.C., San Francisco and other locales.
In the British capital, men and women from a myriad of backgrounds attended the demonstration from across the U..K, and beyond, including from France, Germany and the United States. It was the first known human chain to surround the Houses of Parliament.
Stella Assange, wife of the imprisoned publisher, said around 5,000 people showed up to form the chain despite a nation-wide strike announced by the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transportation Workers (RMT). Other estimates put the crowd as high as 7,000.
The chain extended over Westminster Bridge to Lambeth on the other side of the River Thames and then along the south bank and over Lambeth Bridge, through Victoria Tower Gardens to the front of Parliament, a distance of about 2.5 kilometers. Hundreds of other supporters also attended the demonstration, albeit without joining the human chain.
“The Human chain is self-proving” Stella Assange said. “Julian has enormous support and much more. He has millions of people around the world who are disgusted by the injustice that is unfolding.”
Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour Party leader, British actor Russell Brand, Iraqi-British hip hop artist Lowkey, former counsel to the Ecuadorian Embassy Fidel Narvaez, Craig Murray, the former British diplomat and WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnnson were among those who formed part of the chain. Members of France’s Yellow Vest movement also took part.
Corbyn said:
“Julian Assange is a journalist who told the uncomfortable truth all around the world of what happened in Iraq, what happened in Afghanistan, what happened in Syria, Libya, environmental destruction, the power and interface of big business and arms companies with governments. That truth made a lot of very powerful people very uncomfortable so the U.S. has tried to charge him under the Espionage Act.
If we believe in free speech, if we believe in independent, democratic journalism, then Julian Assange should be freed from Belmarsh and not removed to the United States. Today we’ve shown the levels of public support for Julian by having this huge human chain all around Parliament despite the obvious transport difficulties today because of the rail strike. Internationally there is huge support for Julian Assange. … So my message to journalists around the world is, take up your chosen profession to take on a responsibility to tell the truth without fear nor favor. Tell the truth about Julian and say to the British government, refuse the extradition.”
…………………………………………………………………………………. Radio Silence
The mainstream British media ignored or underreported the extraordinary event. The Independent said only “hundreds” of people showed up, as did The Daily Mail. The Guardian, The Times, The Sunday Times had no report at all. The BBC hasn’t had a story about Assange since July 1.
Overcoming the Strike
The event was organized by WikiLeaks’ official Don’t Extradite Assange (DEA) campaign with the support of the NUJ as well as the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). The IFJ, along with the EFJ and NUJ, represents “600,000 media professionals from 187 trade unions and associations in more than 140 countries”, its website says……………
The cancellation of trains across England likely reduced the overall attendance figures in the end, with people noting their desire to attend on social media but also the difficulty of getting there and back.
The event was publicized via social media, adverts in widely read newspapers like The Guardian, Evening Standard and Camden News Journal and as well as via volunteers leafleting across the U.K.
Actions Around the World
There were at least 21 other solidarity events held in cities across the world including in Washington D.C.; Ontario, Canada; Rio de Janero, Brazil; Hamburg, Germany; Paris, France; Pretoria, South Africa; Melbourne, Australia and Wellington New Zealand.
In solidarity with the London events, about 5,000 people crowded across Prince’s Bridge in the central business district of Melbourne, where they heard Assange’s father and brother, John and Gabriel Shipton, address supporters. In San Francisco Assange defenders crowded Harry Bridges Plaza to hear speakers support Assange.
In Washington about 300 protestors with a 240-foot yellow ribbon walked around the Department of Justice building, inside of which the prosecution of Assange is being managed.
Speaking at the ensuing rally in front of the DOJ’s doors on Pennsylvania Avenue, former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, said:
“The more you look at this case, the more you become traumatized. This is an assault not only on freedom of the press, it makes a complete mockery of our judicial system, it’s an attack on human rights, it is absolutely unacceptable.”
Ben Cohen, a founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, said: “According to the U.S. government, publishing the truth has become a crime. They are literally killing the messenger.”
Scott Ritter, military analyst, asked: “What has Julian Assange given us?” He has “defined the facts, reported the facts, turned them over to the people so they can judge the facts and hold people accountable for the facts.”
Comic, activist and radio host Randy Credico said, “This is going to be a very tough road to hoe going forward, because there is a lot of apathy and a lot of antipathy towards Julian Assange here in D.C. We are up against a mammoth force. People gotta know how important this is.”
C.I.A. whistleblower John Kiriakou called on the crowd to be outside the courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia every day, should Assange be extradited there.
Where the Case Stands
On Aug. 26 Assange’s lawyers filed Perfected Grounds of Appeal with the High Court and are currently waiting to hear whether they will be permitted to present their arguments that District Judge Vanessa Baraitser erred when ruling against all but one of his grounds opposing extradition to the U.S.
Among the grounds for appeal argued is that Assange is being prosecuted for speech protected under Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights, that he is being punished for his political views and opinions, that the US government has “misrepresented the core facts” of the case to the UK courts and that the request itself is an “abuse of process.”
The appeal also challenges then-Home Secretary Priti Patel’s decision to grant extradition on the basis that it violates Article 4 of the U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty which prohibits extradition where the prosecution is “politically motivated” or where the alleged crime in question is a “political offense.”
If extradited to the U.S., Assange faces up to 175 years in prison for his role in receiving and publishing government documents without authorization, an act which journalists and publishers around the world engage in on a daily basis.
Joe Lauria in Washington and Cathy Vogan in London contributed to this report. https://consortiumnews.com/2022/10/09/world-wide-backing-as-parliament-encircled-for-assange/
We Survived The Last Nuclear Standoff Through Compromise And De-Escalation
You and I are alive today because Kennedy backed down from the brink and struck a compromise
as history tells us, it’s not caveman chest-thumping that has allowed us to remain alive on a planet full of stockpiled armageddon weapons. It’s the sensibility to know when to compromise and relent rather than pushing continuously toward the edge.
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/we-survived-the-last-nuclear-standoff Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 6 2022,
Vladimir Putin has signed documents finalizing the Russian annexation of four regions in eastern Ukraine, meaning there’s now a western-backed Ukrainian counteroffensive underway to recapture what Russia officially considers parts of its homeland.
Moscow has made it clear that it will use all weapons systems at its disposal to defend against attacks on territories it claims as its own, which could include nuclear weapons. Depending on if and how that happens and what kind of day all the relevant decision makers are having when it does, there is a distinct possibility that a chain of events could follow which leads to the end of the world.
This happens as Ukraine’s President Zelensky signs a decree officially ruling out the possibility of any peace talks with Putin, who recently publicly requested such talks. The US empire, which has been driving this proxy war from the beginning, is also not currently engaged in peace talks with Moscow. Things are accelerating faster and faster toward the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen, and as far as we know nobody’s got a foot anywhere near the brake pedal.
Meanwhile, everyone has gone insane. The propaganda blanket has been laid on so thick since this war started that it has become the mainstream position that only continual escalation is acceptable. Public calls for de-escalation and detente are met with accusations of Kremlin loyalty, as we just saw with the vitriolic responses to Elon Musk’s online proposal of possible terms to end the war.
There’s a popular post going around Twitter right now by a pro-Kyiv pundit named Thomas Theiner which sums up the delusional sentiments we’ve been seeing on this front.
“I grew up during the Cold War. I studied the Cold War,” Theiner writes. “When the russians/Soviets say: ‘We will use nuclear weapons!’, the only answer must be: ‘Try and die.’ All else is seen as weakness by the kremlin and will lead to the russians using nukes.”
Theiner is wrong, and has made no serious study of the cold war (or to be more precise the last cold war, since we’re in another one now). The only reason we survived the most dangerous part of that era was because of compromise and a sincere commitment to de-escalation, not because anyone was yelling “Try and die” at Moscow.
Back in 2013 The Atlantic published a solid article titled “The Real Cuban Missile Crisis,” subtitled “Everything you think you know about those 13 days is wrong.” Its author Benjamin Schwartz details how the crisis was peacefully resolved not because JFK was on the phone yelling “Try and die” at Nikita Khrushchev, but because he secretly cut a deal to remove the Jupiter missiles the US had stationed in Italy and Turkey which provoked the 1962 incident in the first place.
Back in 2013 The Atlantic published a solid article titled “The Real Cuban Missile Crisis,” subtitled “Everything you think you know about those 13 days is wrong.” Its author Benjamin Schwartz details how the crisis was peacefully resolved not because JFK was on the phone yelling “Try and die” at Nikita Khrushchev, but because he secretly cut a deal to remove the Jupiter missiles the US had stationed in Italy and Turkey which provoked the 1962 incident in the first place.
Moscow perceived that the only reason why that type of midrange weapon would be placed in such a way would be if the US was planning a nuclear first strike to disarm Russia, and Schwartz writes that that suspicion was entirely well-founded: the Kennedy administration had indeed strongly contemplated such a strike during the Berlin crisis of 1961. In response to this threat, as well as the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, Khrushchev moved ballistic missiles to Cuba, whose discovery led to the tense standoff which brought us far closer to nuclear annihilation than most of us care to contemplate. A secret deal was struck whose nature wouldn’t become public knowledge until decades later, resulting in both sides removing their offending missile placements.
You and I are alive today because Kennedy backed down from the brink and struck a compromise (as well as our sheer dumb luck at having one cool-headed Soviet officer on a nuclear-armed submarine refuse to deploy the weapon while being bombarded by the US navy during the standoff between JFK and Khrushchev). Kennedy conditioned his acquiescence to Moscow’s demands on assurances that his doing so would be kept secret, because then, as now, there were tremendous political pressures not to be seen as “backing down” and “looking weak” before the enemy.
But as history tells us, it’s not caveman chest-thumping that has allowed us to remain alive on a planet full of stockpiled armageddon weapons. It’s the sensibility to know when to compromise and relent rather than pushing continuously toward the edge.
Detente used to be a household term. It was a routine subject of mainstream political discourse; mainstream politicians were expected to have a clear and articulate position on the diplomatic easing of tensions with the USSR. Now people don’t even know detente is a thing. I say that word to people and it’s clearly the first time they’ve ever encountered it, and the concept itself is completely alien to them. People I talk to tend to believe the only options on the table are either (A) continuing to escalate this insane game of nuclear chicken with Russia, or (B) giving Putin everything he wants. They’re completely unaware that a third option of negotiation, compromise and de-escalation exists, much less that it has historically been viable and successful.
This is entirely by design. People don’t know that detente is an option because the political/media class virtually never mentions it anymore. The news media are supposedly responsible for helping to create an informed populace, but because their real job is propaganda they generally end up doing the exact opposite. If the public were permitted to become widely aware that these games of nuclear brinkmanship are not a necessity but a choice that is being made on their behalf, and that their leaders are rolling the dice on their lives and the lives of everyone they know and love for no other reason than to work toward securing unipolar planetary hegemony, they would no longer consent to this madness.
If people really understood how much is being risked here, and how little it benefits them, Washington DC would be on fire right now. That’s why their understanding is continually manipulated and obscured by the managers of empire.
Julian Assange tests positive for COVID-19
WSWS, Thomas Scripps 10 Oct 22,
Julian Assange has contracted COVID-19. He received the test result Saturday, on the day several thousand people formed a human chain around Parliament in London to protest his persecution.
His wife, Stella, told the press, “I am obviously worried about him and the next few days will be crucial for his general health. He is now locked in his cell for 24 hours a day.” She said Assange had been feeling ill throughout the week and developed a fever and cough on Friday.
Assange’s infection confirms the repeated warnings of medical professionals and his legal team that his health and life are endangered by his wrongful imprisonment. It must lend renewed urgency to the demand for his immediate release.
Just months before the pandemic, over 100 doctors signed an open letter to the British government warning that Assange’s life was at risk while he was kept in HMP Belmarsh—the UK’s top-security prison. When COVID-19 began to spread rapidly throughout Britain, one of the lead signatories, Dr Stephen Frost, told the World Socialist Web Site, “Given what we know about this case, Mrs Assange is right to be concerned. Julian Assange, because he is immuno-compromised, following years of arbitrary detention first in the Ecuadorian Embassy and latterly in Belmarsh prison, is necessarily at higher risk of contracting any viral or bacterial infection, including infection by coronavirus.
“He should be released on bail immediately, so that he can access the health care which he urgently requires. The UK government is effectively playing Russian roulette with Julian Assange’s life.”
Another doctor, Lissa Johnson, explained, “As long ago as 2015 medical and human rights experts warned that anything more than a trivial illness could prove fatal for Julian Assange. His health is even more fragile now, and the coronavirus only renders those warnings more urgent and more dire.”
She added, “If Julian Assange does succumb to coronavirus or any other catastrophic illness in prison, it will not be an accident. It will be a foreseeable result of prolonged psychological torture and wilful medical neglect.”
…………………………. By the end of October 2020, Ministry of Justice figures showed that 1,529 inmates had been infected, 600 in the previous month alone. At least 32 prisoners had been killed by the virus.
In November, a wave of infections hit Belmarsh prison. Stella Assange revealed, “I’ve been told the number of people infected with COVID on Julian’s house block is 56, including staff.” This was on a block with fewer than 200 inmates.
Assange and the other inmates were placed under an indefinite lockdown, kept in their cells 24 hours a day. His lawyer Edward Fitzgerald had warned at his bail application of the “risk to his mental health and his human contact” posed by lockdown procedures. At Assange’s extradition hearing that autumn, his defence team presented extensive medical evidence of the damage done to his mental health and of the risk of suicide.
……………………………. Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, examined Assange with a medical team inside Belmarsh Prison in May 2019 and concluded that he showed symptoms of psychological torture. He commented on his illness, “Assange’s stroke is no surprise. As we warned after examining him, unless relieved of the constant pressure of isolation, arbitrariness and persecution, his health would enter a downward spiral endangering his life. [The] UK is literally torturing him to death
Melzer added, “As Assange clearly was not medically fit to attend his own trial through videolink, how can they even discuss whether he is fit to be exposed to a show trial in the US, a country that refuses to prosecute its torturers and war criminals but persecutes whistleblowers and journalists?”
Saturday’s protest was the largest yet organised in defence of Assange, attracting a broader range of ages and social backgrounds. It indicated the potential that exists for a mass, global campaign to secure the WikiLeaks founder’s freedom and safety. ………… https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/10/10/picp-o10.html
NYT: Senior Ukrainian official confirms Ukraine orchestrated truck bomb attack on Crimean Bridge
Chris Menahan, InformationLiberation, Oct. 09, 2022,
The New York Times reported Saturday evening that a “senior Ukrainian official” corroborated Russian reports that Ukraine was behind the truck bomb attack on the Crimean bridge which killed at least three civilians.
From The New York Times, “Blast on Crimean Bridge Deals Blow to Russian War Effort in Ukraine”:
The blast and fire sent part of the 12-mile Kerch Strait Bridge tumbling into the sea and killed at least three people, according to the Russian authorities. A senior Ukrainian official corroborated Russian reports that Ukraine was behind the attack. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of a government ban on discussing the blast, added that Ukraine’s intelligence services had orchestrated the explosion, using a bomb loaded onto a truck being driven across the bridge.
[…] It was unclear if the driver of the truck, who died in the blast, was aware there were explosives inside. In video captured by a surveillance camera on the bridge, a huge fireball is seen, seeming to consume several vehicles. A small sedan and a tractor-trailer truck driving side by side appear at the epicenter of the blast. The explosion caused two sections of the bridge to partly collapse.
The truck driver was identified by Russian media as 51-year-old Mahir Yusubov of Azerbaijan.
Yusubov reportedly received an order to transport fertilizer through the internet and may have had his truck wired with explosives by Ukrainian special-ops units who used him as an unwitting suicide bomber.…………………………… more http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=63391
Austria Sues EU Executive Over Green Label for Gas, Nuclear
https://www.voanews.com/a/austria-sues-eu-executive-over-green-label-for-gas-nuclear-/6784510.html BERLIN — 10 Oct 22,
The Austrian government said Monday it has filed a legal complaint with the European Union’s top court over plans by the bloc’s executive branch to label natural gas and nuclear power generation as sustainable energies.
Austria’s environment minister, Leonore Gewessler, warned that the measure could “greenwash” nuclear power and gas despite the environmental damage they cause.
Another EU member, Luxembourg, announced later that it would stand by Austria in the legal case, adding more political weight to the move.
The EU’s executive Commission plans to add certain nuclear and gas plants next year to a list that helps investors determine which projects are sustainable.
Gewessler said the disasters in Chernobyl in Ukraine and Fukushima in Japan have showed that nuclear power plants come with “incalculable risks.” Meanwhile, the burning of natural gas, a fossil fuel, adds greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, stoking climate change.
A dozen environmental groups have already launched legal challenges to the Commission’s plans, backed by the bloc’s lawmakers in July.
Austria’s environment minister, Leonore Gewessler, warned that the measure could “greenwash” nuclear power and gas despite the environmental damage they cause.
Another EU member, Luxembourg, announced later that it would stand by Austria in the legal case, adding more political weight to the move.
Ukraine is preparing a law on full control over the media, as the last vestiges of press freedom disappear in Kiev
Rt.com By Olga Sukharevskaya, ex-Ukrainian diplomat, 8 Oct 22,
A bill approved by the Verkhovna Rada will finally finish off freedom of speech in Ukraine.
While fierce battles continue to rage between the Ukrainian and Russian armies in Donbass, Kherson Region, and Zaporozhye, the Kiev regime is busy eradicating the last vestiges of freedom of speech in the country.
On August 30, Ukraine’s rubber-stamp parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed a bill on the media at the first reading. Despite the numerous changes that the 300-page document has undergone since President Vladimir Zelensky’s team developed and submitted it a few years ago, its essence remains unchanged. If it becomes law, the authorities’ power over virtually all outlets will be essentially limitless.
The main danger this bill presents is that it grants government agencies the authority to block internet resources without any court proceedings, and revoke licenses from broadcast and print media solely on the basis of complaints. This huge power would be vested in the National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting.
No room in the EU
Ukrainian journalists have been criticizing this bill since the first version appeared in 2018, asserting that it abolishes both freedom of speech and freedom of the press. OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Harlem Desir called that version of the law “a blatant violation of freedom of speech,” stating that its adoption “could jeopardize pluralism in the media market, impose additional costs on the media, and negatively affect the reflection of a diversity of ideas and opinions.”
Criticism of the bill from both the OSCE and Ukrainian journalists had an effect. In 2020, it was sent for revision, but the changes only include some clarifications concerning gender equality and coverage of sexual orientations.
At the same time, it still contains a ban on publishing any messages contradicting the official government line on military issues. It is likewise forbidden to cover speeches made by officials of the ‘aggressor country’ [meaning Russia] or cast former USSR party functionaries in a positive light. For example, including Ukraine’s own Leonid Brezhnev.
The law would also hold foreign media responsible for any of its audiovisual content available in Ukraine. Moreover, social networks, including foreign ones, will be obliged to remove any material the National Council deems undesirable. The deadlines for removing ‘incorrect’ content or replacing it with ‘correct’ material have also been tightened. Among the ‘offenses’ that can get a media outlet banned is distributing programs in which any participant is on the ‘list of persons who pose a threat to the national media space of Ukraine.’ This is compiled by the National Council itself and does not require anyone’s consent.
Otherwise, the essence and spirit of the bill is preserved, including severe censorship of “objectionable” media. The American Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) didn’t call on the Verkhovna Rada to reject Bill No. 2693-D ‘On Media’ for nothing.
Maya Sever, president of the European Federation of Journalists, has bluntly stated that it means compulsory media regulation “fully controlled by the government worthy of the worst authoritarian regimes.” She is convinced that “a state that would apply such provisions simply has no place in the European Union.
From Gongadze to Shariy
Kiev’s war on journalists did not begin today. In 2000, there was the abduction and death of Georgiy Gongadze, the creator of the ‘Ukrainian Truth’ website, who harshly criticized corruption in the country’s highest echelons of power. A number of high-ranking officials were accused of being involved in the murder of the journalist, who then-President Leonid Kuchma viewed as objectionable, but the investigation revealed the involvement of only four perpetrators. One of these was the head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs’ main Criminal Investigation Department, General Pukach, who allegedly gave the order to liquidate Gongadze.
Nevertheless, there are many grey areas in the case. It was highly politicized and used as one of the pretenses for demanding a change of power during the days of the Orange Revolution.
Anatoly Shariy, who was engaged in high-profile investigative journalism for a number of Ukrainian publications from 2008 to 2011, almost shared Gongadze’s fate……………………………..
It is noteworthy that Shariy’s name has also been brought up in current discussions of the scandalous media bill. In justifying her support for the legislation, the head of the Board of the National Association of Ukrainian Media, Tatiana Kotyuzhinskaya, mentioned the authorities’ desire to limit the influence of Shariy and other bloggers in Ukraine’s infosphere.
It’s possible that, among other things, the reason the blogger’s activities have met with such disapproval was his publication of screenshots from messages sent by the Consul of Ukraine in Hamburg, Vasily Marushchinets, which contained calls for “death to anti-fascists,” comments like “it’s honorable to be a fascist,” and statements in the spirit of “Jews declared war on Germany back in March of 1934.” It was only after this that Nazi views in Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry became widely known to the public.
Threats, sanctions, arrests, attacks, and murders
Although the Ukrainian media has always had to fight the authorities’ attempts to restrict its activities, it was the Western-backed 2014 Euromaidan that triggered systematic persecution of press freedom in general, and individual journalists in particular.
Less than a month after the coup the new government tried to close down one of the two most widely read Ukrainian weeklies specializing in news analysis, ‘2000’, which took a negative view of the political forces that had violently seized power. The newspaper’s editorial offices were ransacked, and many left-wing outlets were shuttered. In particular, these included Borotba, as well as Rabochaya Gazeta, whose editor-in-chief ended up in the dungeons of Ukraine’s secret police, the SBU.
In the same year, Konstantin Dolgov, the editor-in-chief of ‘Glagol’, an online publication based in Kharkov, and Andrey Borodavka, a journalist, were arrested and persecuted by the new authorities. Olga Kievskaya, editor-in-chief of the ‘Anti-Orange’ website, was forced to emigrate due to threats ………………….
The vast majority of these cases were not covered in the Ukrainian media because these people were immediately declared “subversive elements” based on the so-called “moratorium on criticism of the authorities,” which the authorities announced themselves back in March of 2014, long before the start of hostilities in Donbass.
In 2018, Igor Guzhva, the head of the ‘strana.ua’ website, was forced to flee to Austria, where he received political asylum. The authorities’ efforts to prosecute him began after his investigations into Pyotr Poroshenko’s scandalous commercial activities. Later, under Zelensky, Ukraine imposed personal sanctions on Guzhva, and his website was blocked extrajudicially, while he himself, along with one of his journalists, Svetlana Kryukova, were entered into the ‘Register of State Traitors’. According to the head of Ukraine’s Union of Journalists, Sergey Tomilenko, these sanctions are political, and the European Federation of Journalists issued a statement condemning these actions as “a threat to the press, freedom, and media pluralism in the country.”
But not all Ukrainian journalists managed to emigrate, even after surviving prison. In April of 2015, the famous Ukrainian writer-historian and journalist Oles Buzina died at the hands of ‘Patriots of Ukraine’ after receiving threats and attacks due to his views. Despite appeals from the UN, the authorities have hampered the investigation in every possible way, and the murder suspects are still at large, evidence notwithstanding. In July of 2016, another journalist, Pavel Sheremet, was killed by participants in Kiev’s ‘Anti-Terrorist Operation’ (ATO) and supporters of the “purity of the white race.”
“Government critics, journalists, and non-profit organizations have come under increasing pressure from the authorities and far-right groups, which have embarked on the path of infringing freedom of speech and freedom of association under the pretext of countering Russian aggression,” Amnesty International said in a 2017 report.
No room for foreigners
Since the first half of 2014, even calling for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in the east of the country has been considered a crime in Ukraine. In particular, Ruslan Kotsaba, a journalist who refused to be drafted due to the consequences of a stroke, was imprisoned for this reason. In fairness, it should be noted that he was acquitted by an Appeals Court after a year and a half of imprisonment.
A few years before the start of Russia’s military operation, journalists whose material was published in the Russian media were subject to criminal prosecution…………………………………………….
The OSCE is aware, but Ukraine’s authorities don’t care
In 2018, a report was published by OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Harlem Desir in which he asserts that he had handed the Ukrainian authorities more than 20 statements and appeals collected from July 6 to November 21, 2018, concerning freedom of speech and the rights of journalists in Ukraine. ………………………………………
No room for freedom of speech in Ukraine
We have specifically chosen the report of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, which was published quite some time ago, to demonstrate that the attitude of the Ukrainian authorities towards freedom of speech and the right of journalists to freely express their own opinions have long-standing roots, and their persecution is systemic. Any similar report covering any period from 2014 to the present would contain no fewer instances of violations of these rights and freedoms. The whole list would require a decent-sized book to document………………………………………………………………………….
The fact that the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine supported the bill ‘On Media’ gives reason to fear that the situation for the country’s journalists will become even worse. Once again, the Zelensky regime has confirmed that it’s not building a democratic, but an authoritarian or even totalitarian state, which has no room for such concepts as freedom of speech and the press. https://www.rt.com/russia/564217-ukraine-vs-freedom-of-speech/
US lawmakers propose halting arms sales to Saudi Arabia
Despite promising to make the kingdom a ‘pariah,’ the Biden government has approved billions in weapon sales to Riyadh
The Cradle, By News Desk- October 10 2022,
Lawmakers from the US Democratic party, Richard Blumenthal and Ro Khanna, have proposed legislation to put an end to US arms sales to Saudi Arabia as a response to the decision by OPEC+ to cut production output levels.
According to the two lawmakers, Riyadh’s support for Moscow, as it is seen by Washington, calls for a “far-reaching review of the US-Saudi relationship.”
In an opinion piece co-written by Blumenthal and Khanna, released by US media outlet Politico on 9 October, they wrote: “The Saudi decision was a pointed blow to the US, but the US also has a way to respond: It can promptly pause the massive transfer of American warfare technology into the eager hands of the Saudi.”
Although US President Joe Biden previously vowed to make the kingdom a “pariah,” US arms have continued to make their way into Saudi hands, helping fuel Riyadh’s war against Yemen. Right after taking office, Biden approved $650 million in air-to-air missiles to Saudi Arabia.
On 2 August, Biden approved and notified Congress of a possible multibillion-dollar weapons sale to both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, totaling as much as $5.3 billion. If the legislation to halt sales to the kingdom passes, the US stands to lose billions of dollars, making it unlikely that such a decision would be ratified…………………..more https://thecradle.co/Article/news/16681
Belarus has no intention to go to war with neighbors, but it will defend itself — defense minister
TASS, Mon, 10 Oct 2022
Belarus will not go to war with neighboring states provided there are no wrong steps on their part, Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said on Monday.
“We don’t want to be at war with Lithuanians or Poles, let alone Ukrainians. If you don’t want to and don’t take wrong steps, then there will be no war,” the Defense Ministry’s press-service quotes Khrenin as saying.
He urged Ukraine not to provoke the Belarusian side and to refrain from spreading fake news about an allegedly impending attack by Minsk……………….
7,000 form human chain in London to protest treatment of Assange
WSWS 9 Oct 22, Around 7,000 people formed a human chain around the Houses of Parliament in the UK Saturday, protesting the British government’s persecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
The chain ran continuously from Parliament Square along the Palace of Westminster, across Lambeth Bridge, along South Bank to Westminster bridge, then back over the Thames river to Parliament Square—roughly two miles. The event was organised by the Don’t Extradite Assange campaign.
Assange is currently held in Belmarsh maximum security prison in London. The United States government is seeking his extradition under the Espionage Act for exposing the war crimes and human rights abuses of US imperialism and its allies. It has plotted his assassination and levelled charges which carry a life sentence in solitary confinement. The WikiLeaks founder is seeking to overturn orders by the British judiciary and the home secretary approving his extradition. His legal team filed an appeal with the High Court in August.
Stella Assange, the WikiLeaks publisher’s wife, told protestors on Saturday, “Julian is suffering and part of the point of making this human chain was to show that what is happening here is not a legal process, it’s not a legitimate process. It is the instrumentalisation of the law in order to persecute a person, a journalist, in order to keep him in prison indefinitely.
“People around the world are witnessing this atrocity and that is what compels them to come here to show their solidarity, to show that they care about Julian. That they believe in justice, that they see what is happening here is a state that has committed crimes against innocent, that is now committing crimes against a journalist who exposed those crimes they committed.
“Let’s not forget that the US planned to assassinate Julian in the UK, while he was in the embassy and now they’ve put him in the harshest prison in the UK for almost four years.”
WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson said proceedings against Assange were “not a legal case,” because of the way the legal system has “bent itself to the demands and requests of the government… it’s appalling.”
He continued, “Julian is a political prisoner. He’s being politically persecuted. The chain around Parliament is sending a message to those inside. They are there to serve the people on the outside. And those are Julian’s supporters. Thousands of them here today, and millions around the world who know that this is a travesty.”
Labour MP and former shadow chancellor John McDonnell had the brass neck to announce, “As we go into the 18 months up to a general election, this will become a general election issue. Every MP will be asked: do you stand up for journalism, do you stand up for the rights of journalist to report freely, do you stand up for his basic human rights, do you stand up for justice?”……………………..
Reporters from the World Socialist Web Site spoke with some of the protestors……………………………………………
A number of those protesting travelled to London from other countries to do so. Mantas, who traveled from Lithuania that day to support Assange as part of the chain, told our reporters, “Assange told the truth about war crimes, and he fought for human rights and freedom of the press.”
The US and UK governments “want to make a clear and obvious example of Assange so that no-one attempts what he did. The powers that be are trying to impose their own world view, control how people think, to seduce them into thinking nothing can be done or that the world is as it’s supposed to be, when we are actually entering into wholesale madness in the world.”
He said of the war in Ukraine that the weapons manufacturers and businesses “want to promote a new war, and they don’t care about the consequences for the Ukrainian people or the Russian people. I don’t agree with Putin’s actions, but I think there was another option, but Zelensky was encouraged to take a hard line and oppose any deals from the Russian Federation.”
Listing the crimes exposed by WikiLeaks he said, “Where do you start? You can look at the video of an Apache helicopter shooting civilians. The Afghan and Iraq war logs and so on. People should look into it. There’s too much to go into herethat many crimes have been uncovered. People should look into what WikiLeaks has done what its expose and be objective about the matter.”
Assange’s case “shows that if anyone finds out something like this and tries to tell the public then they can be prosecuted for it. So obviously that can threaten everyone.” https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/10/08/chai-o08.html?fbclid=IwAR0oU-kS9VcRD34qsOcy2SC2BTcKB2CmeY6IwAoPfyc-MniCzPt3xsgXEu4
Chris Hedges: the corporate state, the CIA, and the lynching of Julian Assange
Chris Hedges: The Puppets and the Puppet Masters
The judicial proceedings against Julian Assange give a faux legality to the state persecution of the most important and courageous journalist of our generation.
This is the talk given by Chris Hedges outside the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. on Saturday October 8 at a rally that called on the U.S. to revoke its extradition request for Julian Assange.
https://scheerpost.com/2022/10/09/chris-hedges-the-puppets-and-the-puppet-masters/ By Chris Hedges / Original to ScheerPost, 9 Oct 22,
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Merrick Garland and those who work in the Department of Justice are the puppets, not the puppet masters. They are the façade, the fiction, that the longstanding persecution of Julian Assange has something to do with justice. Like the High Court in London, they carry out an elaborate judicial pantomime. They debate arcane legal nuances to distract from the Dickensian farce where a man who has not committed a crime, who is not a U.S. citizen, can be extradited under the Espionage Act and sentenced to life in prison for the most courageous and consequential journalism of our generation.
The engine driving the lynching of Julian is not here on Pennsylvania Avenue. It is in Langley, Virginia, located at a complex we will never be allowed to surround – the Central Intelligence Agency. It is driven by a secretive inner state, one where we do not count in the mad pursuit of empire and ruthless exploitation. Because the machine of this modern leviathan was exposed by Julian and WikiLeaks, the machine demands revenge.
The United States has undergone a corporate coup d’etat in slow motion. It is no longer a functioning democracy. The real centers of power, in the corporate, military and national security sectors, were humiliated and embarrassed by WikiLeaks. Their war crimes, lies, conspiracies to crush the democratic aspirations of the vulnerable and the poor, and rampant corruption, here and around the globe, were laid bare in troves of leaked documents.
We cannot fight on behalf of Julian unless we are clear about whom we are fighting against. It is far worse than a corrupt judiciary. The global billionaire class, who have orchestrated a social inequality rivaled by pharaonic Egypt, has internally seized all of the levers of power and made us the most spied upon, monitored, watched and photographed population in human history. When the government watches you 24-hours a day, you cannot use the word liberty. This is the relationship between a master and a slave. Julian was long a target, of course, but when WikiLeaks published the documents known as Vault 7, which exposed the hacking tools the CIA uses to monitor our phones, televisions and even cars, he — and journalism itself — was condemned to crucifixion. The object is to shut down any investigations into the inner workings of power that might hold the ruling class accountable for its crimes, eradicate public opinion and replace it with the cant fed to the mob.
I spent two decades as a foreign correspondent on the outer reaches of empire in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans. I am acutely aware of the savagery of empire, how the brutal tools of repression are first tested on those Frantz Fanon called “the wretched of the earth.” Wholesale surveillance. Torture. Coups. Black sites. Black propaganda. Militarized police. Militarized drones. Assassinations. Wars. Once perfected on people of color overseas, these tools migrate back to the homeland. By hollowing out our country from the inside through deindustrialization, austerity, deregulation, wage stagnation, the abolition of unions, massive expenditures on war and intelligence, a refusal to address the climate emergency and a virtual tax boycott for the richest individuals and corporations, these predators intend to keep us in bondage, victims of a corporate neo-feudalism. And they have perfected their instruments of Orwellian control. The tyranny imposed on others is imposed on us.
From its inception, the CIA carried out assassinations, coups, torture, and illegal spying and abuse, including that of U.S. citizens, activities exposed in 1975 by the Church Committee hearings in the Senate and the Pike Committee hearings in the House. All these crimes, especially after the attacks of 9/11, have returned with a vengeance. The CIA is a rogue and unaccountable paramilitary organization with its own armed units and drone program, death squads and a vast archipelago of global black sites where kidnapped victims are tortured and disappeared.
The U.S. allocates a secret black budget of about $50 billion a year to hide multiple types of clandestine projects carried out by the National Security Agency, the CIA and other intelligence agencies, usually beyond the scrutiny of Congress. The CIA has a well-oiled apparatus to kidnap, torture and assassinate targets around the globe, which is why, since it had already set up a system of 24-hour video surveillance of Julian in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, it quite naturally discussed kidnapping and assassinating him. That is its business. Senator Frank Church — after examining the heavily redacted CIA documents released to his committee — defined the CIA’s “covert activity” as “a semantic disguise for murder, coercion, blackmail, bribery, the spreading of lies and consorting with known torturers and international terrorists.”
All despotisms mask state persecution with sham court proceedings. The show trials and troikas in Stalin’s Soviet Union. The raving Nazi judges in fascist Germany. The Denunciation rallies in Mao’s China. State crime is cloaked in a faux legality, a judicial farce.
If Julian is extradited and sentenced and, given the Lubyanka-like proclivities of the Eastern District of Virginia, this is a near certainty, it means that those of us who have published classified material, as I did when I worked for The New York Times, will become criminals. It means that an iron curtain will be pulled down to mask abuses of power. It means that the state, which, through Special Administrative Measures, or SAMs, anti-terrorism laws and the Espionage Act that have created our homegrown version of Stalin’s Article 58, can imprison anyone anywhere in the world who dares commit the crime of telling the truth.
We are here to fight for Julian. But we are also here to fight against powerful subterranean forces that, in demanding Julian’s extradition and life imprisonment, have declared war on journalism.
We are here to fight for Julian. But we are also here to fight for the restoration of the rule of law and democracy.
We are here to fight for Julian. But we are also here to dismantle the wholesale Stasi-like state surveillance erected across the West.
We are here to fight for Julian. But we are also here to overthrow — and let me repeat that word for the benefit of those in the FBI and Homeland Security who have come here to monitor us — overthrow the corporate state and create a government of the people, by the people and for the people, that will cherish, rather than persecute, the best among us.
You can see my interview with Julian’s father, John Shipton, here.
NOTE TO SCHEERPOST READERS FROM CHRIS HEDGES: There is now no way left for me to continue to write a weekly column for ScheerPost and produce my weekly television show without your help. The walls are closing in, with startling rapidity, on independent journalism, with the elites, including the Democratic Party elites, clamoring for more and more censorship. Bob Scheer, who runs ScheerPost on a shoestring budget, and I will not waver in our commitment to independent and honest journalism, and we will never put ScheerPost behind a paywall, charge a subscription for it, sell your data or accept advertising. Please, if you can, sign up at chrishedges.substack.com so I can continue to post my now weekly Monday column on ScheerPost and produce my weekly television show, The Chris Hedges Report.
Radioactive releases from the nuclear power sector and implications for child health
British Medical Journal Paedistrics,Cindy Folkers & Linda Pentz Gunter 9 Oct 22, :
Although radioactivity is released routinely at every stage of nuclear power generation, the regulation of
these releases has never taken into account those potentially most
sensitive—women, especially when pregnant, and children.
From uranium mining and milling, to fuel manufacture, electricity generation and
radioactive waste management, children in frontline and Indigenous
communities can be disproportionately harmed due to often increased
sensitivity of developing systems to toxic exposures, the lack of resources
and racial and class discrimination.
The reasons for the greater susceptibility of women and children to harm from radiation exposure is not
fully understood. Regulatory practices, particularly in the establishment
of protective exposure standards, have failed to take this difference into
account.
Anecdotal evidence within communities around nuclear facilities
suggests an association between radiation exposure and increases in birth
defects, miscarriages and childhood cancers.
A significant number of academic studies tend to ascribe causality to other factors related to diet
and lifestyle and dismiss these health indicators as statistically insignificant.
In the case of a major release of radiation due to a serious
nuclear accident, children are again on the frontlines, with a noted
susceptibility to thyroid cancer, which has been found in significant
numbers among children exposed both by the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear accident
in Ukraine and the 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan.
The response among authorities in Japan is to blame increased testing or to
reduce testing. More independent studies are needed focused on children,
especially those in vulnerable frontline and Indigenous communities. In
conducting such studies, greater consideration must be applied to
culturally significant traditions and habits in these communities.
BMJ Paediatrics 7th Oct 2022
Nuclear share in energy generation falls to lowest in four decades-report
Nuclear share in energy generation falls to lowest in four decades-report | Reuters By Nina Chestney LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) – The share of nuclear power in global gross electricity generation fell below 10% last year to the lowest in around four decades, an industry report showed on Wednesday.
Nuclear energy generated 2,653 terawatt hours of electricity last year, accounting for 9.8% of global generation – the lowest since the 1980s, the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR) showed.
Proponents of nuclear say as a low-carbon power source it could be vital in helping countries meet climate targets, but several plants around the world are coming to the end of their life expectancies and many new ones have faced delays.
The most nuclear power in the world is generated in the United States, followed by China.
As of mid-2022, 411 reactors were operating in 33 countries, four less than a year earlier and 27 below a 2002 peak of 438.
The slow pace of new projects coming on stream has meant the average age of reactors is around 31 years old.
Out of 53 reactors under construction currently, at least half of the projects are delayed. Five new units became operational in the first half of this year, while eight closed last year.
Global investment in new nuclear construction projects last year was around $24 billion, accounting for 6.5% of total investment of $366 billion in non-hydro renewables projects.
Nuclear power is also losing ground to renewables in terms of cost as reactors are increasingly seen as less economical and slower to build.
The levelised cost of energy – which compares the total lifetime cost of building and running a plant to lifetime output – fell to $36 per megawatt hour (MWh) last year for solar photovoltaic from $359/MWh in 2009, while the cost for wind fell to $38/MWh from $135/MWh, the report showed.
However, nuclear power costs rose by 36% last year to $167/MWh from $123/MWh in 2009.
The great ratepayer robbery: how UK new nuclear rips off its customers
the taxpayer will be liable for the inevitable cost overruns and the RAB scheme itself makes it even less likely that developers will keep within the bounds of their agreements, thereby further increasing costs.
decision on Sizewell C as a stitched up deal behind closed doors, bringing extra cost to the consumer, producing unmanageable waste and squandering our capital on a white elephant scheme.
it is criminal that our time and money is wasted and all our futures thrown away on the back of this scam.
How new nuclear rips off its customers
By Linda Clare Rogers
A recent BBC documentary called Big Oil versus the World exposed the excellent job by oil companies in fending off what could have been an existential threat to their future, at the cost of one for the rest of us. The program revealed how the oil industry brought us near to catastrophe while knowingly lying about the role of fossil fuels in creating global warming.
There are vital lessons to be learned from this about the nuclear power industry. As with the oil industry, the nuclear industry continues to mislead us about the need for nuclear power to save the planet, in order to preserve itself. And, like the oil industry, it contributes to the catastrophe of global warming.
Nuclear power stations take too long to build to help mitigate the effects of global warming, and divert money from renewable power and other more immediate means of doing so.
To add insult to injury, we, as taxpayers, are now being asked to contribute to this catastrophe by paying for the building of yet more destructive nuclear power stations. The astronomical cost of nuclear power means that the industry itself can’t and won’t take on the economic risk.
Instead, money taken from our earnings and our benefits (in the U.K, low-income people on Universal Credit are not to be exempted), to set up new nuclear build, is meant to encourage other investors to take the risk in the future. This is before the plants are actually built.
The name of the UK government scheme , or, more accurately, scam, is the Regulated Asset Base model, known as RAB. (Editor’s note: In the U.S., a similar fleecing of ratepayers exists in some states, known as Construction Work In Progress or CWIP.)
In the introduction to RAB — the Ministerial Foreword to the Statement on Procedure and Criteria for Designation — we are told that the government will be taking one nuclear project to Final Investment Decision this parliament and two projects to Final investment Decision in the next parliament, including small modular reactors. The push for this scenario is undermining safety, fleecing the taxpayers at a time of economic crisis, and disregarding the real problems increasingly associated with nuclear power.
The Nuclear Energy Financing Act 2022 implements the nuclear RAB model and is meant to facilitate investment in the design, construction, commissioning and operation of new nuclear energy generation projects.
There are two criteria that government say have to be met in order that a new nuclear power project should receive RAB funding. But both of these criteria are largely meaningless:
Criterion one: the Secretary of State is of the opinion that the development of the relevant nuclear project is sufficiently advanced to justify the designation of the nuclear company in relation to the project, for instance, that the project has received a Development Consent Order (DCO).
Criterion two: the Secretary of State is of the opinion that designating the nuclear company in relation to the project is likely to result in value for money.
The government draft designation document for the two-reactor EDF project at Sizewell C in Suffolk, emphasizes these criteria. To fulfill the first, it is necessary that a DCO is approved, amongst other markers. The DCO contains evidence about the suitability of the proposed site for the project as well as the impact on the local community and its environment.
The Planning Inspectorate have advised that the DCO for Sizewell C be rejected. This in itself is really important news. Those of us who have been fighting against the building of Wylfa B, or Wylfa Newydd, are familiar with this scenario.
The Planning Inspectorate also advised the Secretary of State to reject the DCO application for Wylfa B. Many of the reasons were on similar grounds as those given for the rejection of the application for Sizewell C. The scheme broke habitat regulations and had detrimental impacts on biodiversity and the environment.
Notably, one of the main reasons for the advised rejection of the DCO for Sizewell C was the impact on the local water supply. We need only see what happened in France this past summer, with the shutdown of nuclear power stations due to the overheating of the rivers necessary for the cooling of the plants, to see that issues over water supply will only get worse as climate change gets worse.
So, for RAB funding to be designated, the DCO has to be granted. The Planning Inspectorate recommended it be rejected, and the government went ahead and passed it anyway. This is a profoundly dangerous decision and needs to be fought.
Hard on issuing the DCO will come the designation of RAB funding. The second criterion to allow for this will also be sure to pass: value for money for the taxpayer. The government explains that RAB will be eliminating significant compound interest on capital invested, thus saving us money. It makes the hopeful statement that, “the RAB model has the potential to reduce the financial cost for new nuclear projects, thereby reducing consumer bills while still preserving incentives for the private sector to complete nuclear projects to time and budget”.
Commentators have made it clear that the taxpayer will be liable for the inevitable cost overruns and the RAB scheme itself makes it even less likely that developers will keep within the bounds of their agreements, thereby further increasing costs.
The model has been criticized by two advisory bodies, the Climate Change Committee and the National Infrastructure Commission.
The draft document for the designation of RAB for Sizewell C would be laughable if it were not so serious in its implications and its precedent for further nuclear developments.
Under the heading —Results: Value for Money for Consumers — we are told, “this has been calculated by comparing the cost of the electricity system with and without Sizewell C….. The modelling compares the cost of an electricity system with a RAB funded Sizewell C against two different net zero compliant counterfactuals.” (These latter are the use of renewables and carbon capture and storage.)
It then provides a chart showing the costings and savings for the taxpayer. All that can be seen in each and every box are a row of the letter x. No figures at all.
When the chief executive of the Nuclear Industry Association, Tom Greatrex, was asked what he knew about the lack of figures available for the Sizewell C agreement on Radio 4, he could give no answer, but offered that RAB was a “different finance mechanism” that would allow for a very predictable price for electricity for a very long time.
This is another example of the nuclear industry and government getting together to present a false narrative: this one uses the present scandal of the cost of energy to persuade us that nuclear power can give us future security and control over future energy supplies.
It should be noted that Hitachi withdrew its application to build Wylfa Newydd for cost reasons, prior to the advised rejection of the DCO. The £5 billion offered by UK government to subsidize building that project was not enough for the Japanese company. This underlines how little risk developers are willing to take and how much risk government is happy to heap on us.
Another major issue with the RAB funding scheme is that, as government documents delicately put it, “the Secretary of State is aware that there could be a perception of a conflict of interest between his role in determining the DCO application for the Sizewell C project and his role in determining whether or not to designate the nuclear company. To avoid any perceived conflict of interest the Secretary of State will delegate the final decision on the DCO to another BEIS minister.”
Well that sorts that problem out then. Of course, while the taxpayer is paying for a nuclear project, it is unlikely to be halted by government. The overriding of the Planning Inspectorate findings against Sizewell C bears this out. How will the government not grant a Final Investment Decision, due next year?
Greenpeace has described the decision on Sizewell C as a stitched up deal behind closed doors, bringing extra cost to the consumer, producing unmanageable waste and squandering our capital on a white elephant scheme.
We say no to nuclear, no to RAB and will be looking to other allies and partners to fight this scheme. Maybe, like the Peace Tax 7, we can find ways to withhold our payments. Perhaps there are legal ways to stop the self -serving deceptions and corruption.
We need to keep calling out the UK government and the Welsh government on these deceptions. When so many people are in fuel poverty and it is so important that the best is made of our precious resources, it is criminal that our time and money is wasted and all our futures thrown away on the back of this scam.
Linda Clare Rogers is a member of People Against Wylfa B and CND Cymru.
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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