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Opposing The War Machine Is Cool Again, And The Empire’s Getting Nervous

May 12, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US Congress passes major, bipartisan nuclear energy legislation

The House approved a bill Wednesday that includes major, bipartisan nuclear
energy legislation, keeping alive what may be the best hope for passing a
compromise nuclear bill before the end of the year. The chamber voted
393-13 to send S. 870, the “Fire Grants and Safety Act,” to the Senate
after lawmakers attached the “Accelerating Deployment of Versatile,
Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act of 2024.” The fire grants
bill, sponsored by Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), easily passed the Senate
last year, offering what lawmakers and nuclear energy backers believe could
be a nearly bulletproof vehicle for the bipartisan “ADVANCE Act.”

EE News 9th May 2024

‘Close to the goal line’: House OKs nuclear package

May 12, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

United Nations General Assembly backs Palestinian bid for membership

Aljazeera, 10 May 24

Resolution does not give Palestine full UN membership, but recognises them as qualified to join and extends rights.

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has backed a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognising it as qualified to join and recommending the UN Security Council “reconsider the matter favourably”.

The vote by the 193-member UNGA on Friday was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full UN member – a move that would effectively recognise a Palestinian state – after the United States vetoed it in the UN Security Council last month.

The assembly adopted a resolution on Friday with 143 votes in favour and nine against – including the US and Israel – while 25 countries abstained. It does not give the Palestinians full UN membership, but simply recognises them as qualified to join.

The UNGA resolution “determines that the State of Palestine … should therefore be admitted to membership” and it “recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favourably”.

While the UNGA alone cannot grant full UN membership, the draft resolution on Friday will give the Palestinians some additional rights and privileges from September 2024 – like a seat among the UN members in the assembly hall – but it will not be granted a vote in the body.

Reporting from the UN headquarters in New York, Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo said it was significant that such a high number of countries voted in favour of the resolution.

“What we were hearing before the vote was anywhere perhaps between 120, 130 – at top end, 140. The fact that they got 143 meets and exceeds all expectations. It’s been overwhelmingly passed,” he said.

“But they still only have observer status.”…………………………… more https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/10/un-general-assembly-backs-palestinian-bid-for-membership

May 12, 2024 Posted by | Gaza, politics | Leave a comment

Empire Managers Explain Why This New Protest Movement Scares Them


CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, MAY 09, 2024

The US secretary of state and a Bilderberg surveillance tech oligarch have both made some very interesting admissions about the burgeoning protest movement against the US-backed slaughter in Gaza and the problems it poses for the empire they help run.

During a vitriolic rant about university demonstrators at the Ash Carter Exchange on Innovation and National Security on Tuesday, Palantir CEO Alex Karp came right out and said that if those on the side of the protesters win the debate on this issue, the west will lose the ability to wage wars.

For those who don’t know, Palantir is a CIA-backed surveillance and data mining tech company with intimate ties to both the US intelligence cartel and to Israel, playing a crucial role in both the US empire’s sprawling surveillance network and Israeli atrocities against Palestinians. Karp is a billionaire who sits on the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group and regularly features at the World Economic Forum and other platforms of plutocratic empire management.

“We kind of just think these things that are happening, across college campuses especially, are like a sideshow — no, they are the show,” Karp said during his rant. “Because if we lose the intellectual debate, you will not be able to deploy any army in the west, ever.”

Everyone should listen very carefully to Karp’s words here, because he’s giving the whole game away. He’s making it very clear how crucial it is for the empire to stomp out this protest movement and the zeitgeist upon which it rides, because the very existence of the imperial war machine depends on it. At a time when most imperial spinmeisters are trying to dismiss the importance of this movement and what young people are doing on college campuses around the world, this is a really extraordinary admission from someone who lives deep in the guts of the imperial hydra.

Such conferences are great for obtaining useful information from swamp monsters that you don’t normally hear, because when they’re surrounded by like-minded empire goons they tend to get a lot more loose-tongued than they are when they’re more aware that they have an audience of normal people. 

We saw this illustrated again in a conversation between Senator Mitt Romney and Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the McCain Institute last week, during which both acknowledged some facts that generally go unstated by such creatures.

After bemoaning Israel’s lack of success at “PR” regarding its Gaza assault, Romney just came right out and said that this was “why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature” —  with “us” meaning himself and his fellow lawmakers on Capitol Hill. 

“How this narrative has evolved, yeah, it’s a great question,” Blinken responded, saying that at the beginning of his career in Washington everyone was getting their information from television and physical newspapers like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. 

“Now, of course, we are on an intravenous feed of information with new impulses, inputs every millisecond,” Blinken continued. “And of course, the way this has played out on social media has dominated the narrative. And you have a social media ecosystem environment in which context, history, facts get lost, and the emotion, the impact of images dominates. And we can’t — we can’t discount that, but I think it also has a very, very, very challenging effect on the narrative.”

to each other, because that’s how they think about everything.

This is because empire managers are always acutely aware of something that normal human beings are not: that real power comes from manipulating the stories — narratives — that people tell themselves about their reality. 

They understand that humans are storytelling animals whose inner lives are typically dominated by mental narratives about what’s happening, so if you can control those narratives, you can control the humans.

They understand that power is controlling what happens, but true power is controlling what people think about what happens. 

They understand that whoever controls the narrative controls the world……………………………………………………. more https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/empire-managers-explain-why-this?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=144457706&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

May 12, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

USA politicians threaten to invade International Criminal Court if Israel faces war crimes charges

By Ben Norton https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/05/07/us-threat-icc-israel/

US Senators sent a letter to the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, threatening to impose sanctions and even invade the Hague if it issues arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Biden administration is also pressuring the ICC not to charge Israeli officials over their war crimes in Gaza.

US government officials have threatened the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague, telling its Prosecutor Karim Khan that if he issues arrest warrants against Israeli officials over their war crimes in Gaza, the US government could impose sanctions on him, other ICC personnel, and their family members.

US senators even threatened to invade the Hague if it tries to prosecute Israeli officials.

UN experts: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza

This April, Israel’s extreme-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a prominent member of the state security cabinet, called for “total annihilation” of Gaza.

Smotrich cited the Biblical nation of Amalek – a genocidal reference also made by far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

These invocations of Amalek are clear calls for genocide. In the Book of Samuel, God orders King Saul, “Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys”.

The UN’s top legal body, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled this January that Israel could be investigated on “plausible” charges of violating the Genocide Convention. (The ICJ and ICC are separate institutions, although both are located at the Hague.)

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have stated that Israel is violating this ICJ ruling that demands that it abide by the Genocide Convention.

Top UN experts have publicly warned that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

In addition to bombing civilian areas and killing tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children, Israel has used hunger as a weapon, starving Palestinian civilians.

The US director of the UN World Food Program warned that Gaza is now suffering from a “full-blown famine”, after seven months of a suffocating Israeli blockade.

The US government has provided the vast majority of the weapons that Israel is using to bomb civilian areas in Gaza. If Israeli officials face charges over their war crimes, Washington would be complicit.

US senators threaten to sanction and invade the ICC

On April 24, a dozen Republican senators sent a threatening letter to the ICC prosecutor. The media outlet Zeteo obtained the document.

The missive was signed by major GOP leaders, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Tom Cotton.

In the aggressively worded letter, the senators pledged to “sanction your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States” if Israeli officials face charges over their war crimes in Gaza.

“Target Israel and we will target you”, they threatened.

Issuing an arrest warrant for Netanyahu or other top officials would be seen “not only as a threat to Israel’s sovereignty but to the sovereignty of the United States”, the US politicians wrote, making it clear that they see Israel as a key part of the US empire.

“Our country demonstrated in the American Service-Members’ Protection Act the lengths to which we will go to protect that sovereignty”, they added.


The American Service-Members’ Protection Act is popularly known as the “Hague Invasion Act”. The legislation was signed into law in 2002 by President George W. Bush.

Human Rights Watch explained that this law “authorizes the use of military force to liberate any American or citizen of a U.S.-allied country being held by the court”.

By invoking the Hague Invasion Act in their 2024 letter to the ICC prosecutor, the Republican senators made it clear that the two-decade-old legislation is still valid: hawks in Washington are willing to invade the Hague to save Israeli officials if they are prosecuted.

Biden administration double standards on the ICC

It is not just Republicans who are threatening the ICC. This is bipartisan in Washington.

The Israeli press reported that, behind the scenes, the Joe Biden administration is also aggressively pressuring the ICC not to issue arrest warrants for Israeli officials.

In 2020, when Donald Trump was in the White House, the ICC opened an investigation into war crimes committed in the war in Afghanistan. The US and NATO forces were included in this inquiry.

In anger, the US government imposed sanctions on the Hague. Trump administration officials even threatened family members of ICC staff.

When Biden came into power in 2021, he sought to differentiate himself from his Republican predecessor. Secretary of State Antony Blinken publicly announced the end of the Trump-era sanctions and visa restrictions against ICC personnel.

However, despite the Democratic administration’s claims to support the so-called “rules-based international order”, the Biden White House is now also intimidating ICC staff – if only a bit more quietly and less extravagantly than Trump and the Republicans have done.

The Biden administration furiously opposes any efforts to hold Israeli officials responsible for the war crimes they have committed in Gaza, with US weapons and political support.

This demonstrates Washington’s glaring double standards, as Biden himself had praised the ICC for issuing an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2023.

Secretary of State Blinken urged ICC member states to arrest Putin if he entered their territory. But a year later, he is aggressively pressuring the ICC to stop it from charging Israeli officials.

US and Israel supported Karim Khan as ICC prosecutor

Ironically, it was the US and Israel who had lobbied for the election of Karim Khan as ICC prosecutor.

This is despite the fact that the US and Israel are not state parties to the Rome Statute, and therefore are not members of the ICC.

US and Israeli lobbying paid off. In 2021, Khan entered office as ICC prosecutor, and immediately dropped the investigation into war crimes committed by US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

But today, seven months into Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, the ICC is facing global condemnation for its inaction in the face of what UN experts say is clearly a genocide.

Global South leaders have long denounced the ICC as a colonial institution. Until 2016, only Africans had been tried for the worst crimes at the Court.

Khan is being forced to act, if he hopes to save face and salvage the legitimacy of the ICC. But his former sponsors in the US and Israel have turned against him.

It is not just justice for the Palestinian people, but the reputation of the International Criminal Court itself that is at stake.

May 11, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Polish industry minister announces massive delay in nuclear power plant project

The anticipated opening of Poland’s first nuclear power plant may be postponed by up to seven years, with the new operation date set for 2039-2040, significantly later than previously planned.

BYGRZEGORZ ADAMCZYK 9 May 24  https://rmx.news/article/polish-industry-minister-announces-massive-delay-in-nuclear-power-plant-project/

Polish Industry Minister Marzena Czarnecka stated that the country’s first nuclear power facility is now expected to become operational in 2040, a seven-year delay from initial estimates.

The adjustment comes as a shock following Deputy Minister of Climate and Environment Miłosz Motyka’s earlier suggestion that only a one-year delay was likely in the nuclear plant’s preparation process. However, it has now become evident that the setbacks will be much more severe.

Minister Czarnecka, in an interview with Polish Radio on Tuesday, announced that the first nuclear unit in Poland would commence operations in 2039-2040, criticizing the previous government’s 2033 target as unrealistic. She highlighted what she said was her pragmatic approach, acknowledging that “all investments are subject to certain delays” and marked 2039 as a “breakthrough year” for the Choczewo nuclear plant.

The postponement in the completion of the next major investment after the Central Communication Port (CPK) transport hub has left energy specialists frozen in place. Immediately, voices began to arise that if Poland does not manage to complete the power plant by 2035, an energy disaster awaits the country.

As news of delays in implementing nuclear power in Poland began to heat up in the media and on the web, the minister decided to speak again and clarify what she had said the day before. In response to a publication on Energetyka24.pl, she noted that by mentioning 2039, she was referring to the complete end of construction of the first nuclear power plant. Minister Czarnecka also provided a planned work schedule, which assumes that physical construction will begin in 2028, and the first energy block will be put into operation by 2035. By 2039, the next two blocks are to be connected to the grid.

Recent weeks have also seen rumors of a potential change in location for Poland’s inaugural nuclear facility, which, according to Łukasz Młynarkiewicz, vice-president of Polish Nuclear Power Plants, would not invalidate previous decisions or halt preparatory work at the current site.

However, a relocation could mean additional years of delay. Experts already consider the Polish nuclear energy project to be about two years behind schedule, with every month of delay further widening the gap.

Media reports have also surfaced about requests for re-evaluation of the environmental decision concerning Poland’s first nuclear plant. These requests, submitted to the General Directorate for Environmental Protection (GDOŚ), have come from several environmental organizations and individuals, whose identities remain protected for privacy reasons.

May 11, 2024 Posted by | ENERGY, EUROPE, politics | Leave a comment

Canada: Nuclear Waste Petition Tabled in Parliament

Ottawa – A petition calling on the Government to provide oversight of a controversial nuclear waste burial project has been tabled in the federal House of Commons, with a response  required within 45 calendar days.

Created by Northwatch project coordinator Brennain Lloyd and sponsored by Nipissing-Timiskaming MP Anthony Rota, the petition gained the signatures of 3,327 Canadians who joined the call on the federal government to require the Nuclear Waste Management Organization to demonstrate that it has the consent of residents and communities, including First Nations and Treaty Organizations, along the transportation route and in the region of and downstream of the candidate repository site(s) before selecting a site.

“Canadians expect a fair and accountable process when it comes to projects of this size, risk and long-term consequence”, said petition organizer Brennain Lloyd, coordinator with Northwatch and an organizer with the Northern Ontario alliance We the Nuclear Free North.

The NWMO has said repeatedly that they will only proceed with an “informed and willing host”, but the communities along the transportation route are “hosts” to the same risks as the NWMO’s so-called “host communities” of Ignace and South Bruce. By NWMO design, those living downstream and along the transportation route are shut out of the NWMO’s site selection process. The federal government needs to course-correct the NWMO”.

The NWMO has been engaged in a site search since 2010 and since 2020 has been focused on two municipalities as potential “host communities”: the municipality of South Bruce in Southwestern Ontario, and the Township of Ignace in Northwestern Ontario. The Township of Ignace is 43 km east of the NWMO’s candidate site between Ignace and Dryden, and in a different watershed – factors which critics say disqualify it from acting as a “host” community.

The Township of Ignace is using an online poll and interviews by a consultant to gauge the “willingness” of the Ignace residents. The Municipality of South Bruce has released a draft hosting agreement and has committed to a referendum on October 28th but says that if voter turnout is less than 50 % then Council will make the decision.

“We are grateful to the over 3,300 Canadian citizens who signed the Federal petition requesting that the Government of Canada take action and provide much needed direction to the NWMO regarding their site selection process,” commented Bill Noll, Vice-President of Protect Our Waterways – No Nuclear Waste, a citizens group in South Bruce which opposes the NWMO project.

The online petition was posted on a site operated by the Government of Canada and was open for signatures from citizens and residents of Canada until May 3rd. Signatures were then reviewed and certified by a Clerk of the House of Commons on May 6th, and today the petition is being tabled by M.P. Rota. The federal government has 45 days to respond.

Contact:  Brennain Lloyd, Northwatch and We the Nuclear Free Northbrennain@northwatch.org, 705 497 0373 office, 705 493 9650 cell 
Bill Noll, Protect Our Waterways – No Nuclear Wastewjnoll@yahoo.com, 519 507 9905 cell

May 11, 2024 Posted by | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

UK Taxpayers to fund fast-tracked nuclear fusion reactors

Planning exemptions and financial support proposed in bid to boost UK energy industry

Jonathan Leake, 8 May 2024

Pioneering nuclear fusion power plants are to be fast tracked through the planning process and supported with taxpayer money as Britain attempts to become a world leader in the technology……………. (Subscribers only)  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/08/nuclear-fusion-reactors-britain-fast-tracked-taxpayer/

May 10, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

France’s mini nuclear reactor plan – Nuward, gets another financial handout from the European Commission

The European Commission (EC) has approved, under European Union (EU) state
aid rules, a €300m ($320m) French measure to support Electricité de
France’s (EDF) subsidiary Nuward in researching and developing small
modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). The EC said the measure will contribute to
the achievement of the strategic objectives of the European industrial
strategy and the European Green Deal.

France notified to the Commission its
plan to grant €300m to Nuward to support its research and development
(R&D) project on SMR technology. The project aims to develop processes for
the design and construction of SMRs based on a simple and modular design
and with a power output equivalent to or less than 300 MWe. The front-end
design is the third phase of the overall Nuward project, which contains
five distinct phases.

In December 2022, the Commission already approved a
€50m French measure to support the second phase of the project, aimed at
acquiring new knowledge for the design and construction of SMRs. The aid
will take the form of a direct grant of up to €300m that will cover the
R&D project until early 2027. The measure will support Nuward in sizing the
modules and components of the SMRs and validating their integration in the
SMRs by means of numerical simulators and laboratory tests. Nuward will
also carry out industrialisation studies relating to the modular design and
mass production of SMRs. Finally, the measure will also support Nuward in
the preparation of the required safety demonstrations for the approval of
the project by the national nuclear safety authorities.

 Nuclear Engineering International 1st May 2024

https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newseuropean-commission-approves-state-aid-for-nuward-smr-11725920

May 10, 2024 Posted by | EUROPE, politics, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste at center of testy Nevada Senate race

The Hill , BY NICK ROBERTSON AND ZACK BUDRYK – 05/05/24

Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sam Brown is under fire from Democrats for 2022 remarks in which he expressed support for plans to store federal nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

Nevada lawmakers from both parties have strongly resisted a federal plan to turn the isolated southwest Nevada mountain — about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas — into a nuclear waste storage facility since the idea was first proposed in the 1980s.

But Brown has expressed support for the idea in the past, and he can be heard in a new recording from his 2022 campaign saying the state risked losing out on an opportunity if it blocked the plans.

“If we don’t act soon, other states … are assessing whether or not they can essentially steal that opportunity from us,” he said in the recording, first obtained by The Los Angeles Times.

Brown, who is seen as a favorite in Nevada’s GOP Senate primary this June, said in a statement to The Hill he was not actively calling for the reopening of Yucca Mountain, but that future proposals should be considered.

“I am not strictly committed to opening Yucca Mountain at this time,” Brown said. “However, I will consider all thoroughly vetted future proposals, with the safety of Nevadans being my top priority, while ensuring the proposals are substantially economically beneficial.”

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), who is running for reelection, quickly seized on the comments. Rosen is seen as vulnerable this fall in a state where former President Trump is up in polls. The Cook Political Report lists her seat as a toss-up.

“For decades, Nevadans across party lines have been clear that we will not allow our state to become the dumping ground for the rest of the nation’s nuclear waste,” Rosen said in a statement. “I’ve been fighting against Washington politicians trying to force nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain since Sam Brown was still living in Texas, and his extreme support for this dangerous and unpopular project underscores how little he understands the needs of our state.”…………………………………………………. more https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4642131-nuclear-waste-at-center-of-testy-nevada-senate-race/

May 8, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

UK’s Nuclear roadmap is a massive detour

UK plan reveals true ‘energy’ agenda is pathway to nuclear weapons sector

By Jonathon Porritt, Beyond Nuclear 6 May 24

After 14 years of Tory mismanagement, the UK finds itself bereft of an energy strategy.

This was finally confirmed in the release of the Government’s new Nuclear Roadmap. At one level, it’s just the same old, same old, the latest in a very long line of PR-driven, more or less fantastical wishlists for new nuclear in the UK. But at another, it’s a total revelation.

For years, a small group of dedicated academics and campaigners have suggested that the UK Government’s Nuclear Energy Strategy is being driven more by the UK’s continuing commitment to an “independent” nuclear weapons capability than by any authoritative energy analysis. For an equal number of years, this was aggressively rebutted by one Energy Minister after another, both Tory and Labour.

The new Nuclear Roadmap dramatically changes all that. It sets to one side any pretence that the links between our civil nuclear programme and our military defence needs were anything other than small-scale – and of no material strategic significance. With quite startling transparency and clarity, the Roadmap not only reveals the full extent of those links, but positively celebrates that co-dependency as a massive plus in our ambition to achieve a Net Zero economy by 2050.

“Startling” is actually an understatement. Such a comprehensive volte-face is rare in policy-making circles. Every effort is usually made by Ministers to obscure the scale (let along the significance) of any such screeching handbrake turns. That is so not the case with the new Roadmap.

Courtesy of the latest forensic work done by Professors Andy Stirling and Phil Johnstone at Sussex University (who have been absolutely at the forefront of seeking to bring these links into the public domain over many years – often with mighty little support from mainstream environmental organisations, let alone “independent” commentators), chapter and verse of this volte-face can be laid bare. Just a couple of examples from the Roadmap:

  • “Not only does this Roadmap set a clear path for the growth of nuclear fission…it acknowledges the crucial importance of the nuclear industry to our national security, both in terms of energy supply and the defence nuclear enterprise.”
  • “Government will proactively look for opportunities to align delivery of the civil and nuclear defence enterprises, whilst maintaining the highest standards of non-proliferation.”
  • “To address the commonalities across the civil and defence supply chains, and the potential risk to our respective nuclear programmes due to competing demand for the supply chain, the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) is working closely with the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Nuclear Sector.”

And there’s a whole lot more than that! As Andy Stirling has said: “Without any reflection on what this says about previous efforts to suppress discussion of this issue, the Government is now openly emphasising its significance.”

Indeed!

As usual, the UK’s ill-informed and unbelievably gullible mainstream media would appear to have missed the significance of this gobsmacking inflection point. So one can hardly expect them to have grasped its even more significant implications for UK energy strategy as a whole. In every single particular.

Let me briefly unpack some of those particulars:

  1. Nuclear

The new Roadmap reads like an outing to a massive nuclear sweet shop. On top of Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C, we’ll have one more big one. And then we’ll have lots of Small Modular Reactors, all over the country. And we’ll have a new fuel processing plant. And a new Geological Disposal Facility – at some much more distant point. And so on and on. 24 fantastical Gigawatts to be designed and delivered by 2050.

The reality couldn’t be more different:

  • We will indeed end up with Hinkley Point C – at a staggering of cost of somewhere between £26 billion and £30 billion, with consumers paying twice as much for its electricity as they will for offshore wind. And it will almost certainly not come online until the end of the decade, 15 years on from the time it was meant to be up and running.
  • We may possibly get Sizewell C, though the Government cannot currently guarantee the required level of investment. So a Final Investment Decision is unlikely before the next Election. At which point, Starmer may come to his senses and kill off this absurd white elephant.
  • We will never get a third big reactor. The economics are literally impossible to justify.
  • We are unlikely to get more than a couple of hugely expensive Small Modular Reactors, at some indeterminate point in the future, even with a new “flexible approach” to planning and financial inducements. Even that may prove to be an illusion. As Professor Steve Thomas has written: “Advocates of Small Nuclear Reactors claim they are cheaper and easier to build, safer, generate less waste, and will create many jobs compared to existing large reactor designs. These claims are unproven, misleading, or just plain wrong. Worldwide, no commercial design of SMR has even received a firm order yet.”
  • And we may or may not get life extensions for the last five power stations in the “legacy fleet” – subject to regulatory approval, which may not be all that easy given extensive cracking in their reactor cores.

In short, the Roadmap is just a massive diversion from reality. Entailing incalculable opportunity costs. And putting at risk our entire Net Zero by 2050 strategy.

Ministers know all that. But they don’t really care. Our nuclear weapons programme (including upgrading Trident) will be protected as a consequence of this, via an unceasing flow of public money into the civil nuclear cul-de-sac, at a time when our defence budget is already massively overstretched. So who cares about the missing 24GW?

  1. Renewables

We’ll continue to see new investment into renewables here in the UK, despite (not because of) government policy, which has seriously messed up our offshore wind industry, maintained a de facto ban on onshore wind, couldn’t care less about solar, witters on vapidly about tidal without doing anything etc etc.

Meanwhile, on a global basis, renewables continue to boom………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The reasons for this almost complete silence can be traced back to successive governments’ grim intent to hang onto our so-called “independent nuclear deterrent”. At literally any costs……………………………… more https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/05/06/nuclear-roadmap-is-massive-detour/

May 7, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK | 1 Comment

Canada’s federal budget -calls nuclear energy “clean” – the height of absurdity!

Nuclear energy never will be ‘clean,’ write Jones and Edwards.

THE HILL TIMES | MONDAY, MAY 6, 2024

The 2024 federal budget contains many references to nuclear energy as
a “clean” source of electricity.  In our view, referring to
nuclear electricity as “clean” is the height of absurdity.

The nuclear fuel chain begins with the mining of uranium from rock
underground where, without human intervention, it would remain safely
locked away from the biosphere. Uranium has many natural radioactive
byproducts, including radium, radon, and polonium-210 that are
discarded in voluminous sandlike “tailings” at uranium mine sites.
These materials are responsible for countless thousands of deaths in
North America alone. Canada has accumulated 220 million tonnes of
these indestructible radioactive mining wastes, easily dispersed by
wind and rain over the next 100,000 years.

Inside a nuclear reactor, uranium atoms are split to produce energy.
The atomic fragments are hundreds of newly created radioactive
poisons, most of them never found in nature before 1940. They make
used fuel millions of times more radioactive than the original
uranium. One used fuel bundle, freshly discharged, will deliver a
lethal dose of radiation in seconds to any unshielded human nearby.
There are hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste irradiated fuel
bundles worldwide and the quantity grows larger each year. There is no
operating repository anywhere in the world for such wastes, but there
are several failed repositories.

Radioactive waste has the “reverse midas touch” turning everything
it touches into more radioactive waste. This includes the nuclear
vessel in which the waste is created, and everything that comes in
contact with the cooling water needed to prevent the waste from
melting down. Containers for radioactive waste become radioactive
waste themselves. All radioactive waste must be kept out of our food,
air and drinking water for countless millennia.

Radioactive atoms are unstable. They disintegrate, throwing off a kind
of subatomic shrapnel called “atomic radiation.” Emissions from
disintegrating atoms damage living cells. Chronic radiation exposure
can cause miscarriages, birth defects, and a host of degenerative
diseases including cancers of all kinds. Genetic damage to eggs or
sperm can transmit defective genes to successive generations.

Plutonium is one of the hundreds of radioactive byproducts created in
used nuclear fuel. It is of special concern because it is the primary
nuclear explosive in nuclear arsenals worldwide. “Reprocessing” of
nuclear fuel waste to extract plutonium is sometimes called
“recycling” but this is disinformation; the resulting waste is
more difficult to manage than the original fuel waste. Many serious
accidents have occurred around the world at reprocessing plants.
Places where extensive reprocessing has occurred are among the most
radioactively contaminated sites on Earth. Plutonium can be used as a
nuclear fuel, but extracting it is a nuclear weapons proliferation
risk.

Managing radioactive waste is difficult and very expensive. The
projected multi-billion-dollar cleanup cost for the legacy waste at
Chalk River, Ont., is the federal government’s biggest environmental
liability by far, exceeding the sum total of all other federal
environmental liabilities across Canada.

The multinational consortium running Canada’s federal nuclear
laboratories is receiving close to $1.5-billion annually, much of it
for managing legacy radioactive wastes. The consortium’s plans
include piling up one million tonnes of waste in a giant mound beside
the Ottawa River and entombing old reactors in concrete and grout
beside major drinking water sources. Many are of the view that the
plans fail to meet the fundamental requirement to isolate waste from
the biosphere and have been met with widespread concern, opposition
and legal challenges. Nuclear energy is not now, never has been, and
never will be “clean.”

The sooner our elected officials come to terms with this fact, the
better for Canada and Canadians. Honesty is the best policy.

May 7, 2024 Posted by | Canada, politics, radiation, Reference | Leave a comment

The Summer of Student Activist Protests

This power center for the U.S. Empire – Capitol Hill – presents serious students with an opportunity to educate their elders.

Make U.S. engagements in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a major electoral campaign issue for November.

By Ralph Nader, May 3, 2024,  https://nader.org/2024/05/03/the-summer-of-student-activist-protests/

At many college campuses, students are protesting in opposition to the Biden Administration’s unconditional backing, with weapons and diplomatic cover, of Netanyahu’s continuing serial war crimes slaughtering tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, most of them children and women. Hundreds of faculty members are defending these valiant youngsters and criticizing excessively harsh crackdowns by failed University presidents who are calling in outside police.

With graduations approaching, pro-Netanyahu lobbies and cowed University heads (like Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, who makes a salary of over $2,000 an hour) expect the students to disperse from campus for the summer and end their demonstrations.

The Israeli genocidal crimes against Gazans will continue and intensify if Israel invades Rafah. Millions of refugees will suffer. What will become of the organized student calls for a permanent ceasefire, greatly increased humanitarian aid and cessation of U.S. weapons shipments? The students who leave their campus protests can and should focus on members of Congress in their Districts and in Washington.

In two weeks, hundreds of Congressional summer student interns will begin arriving to work in Congressional offices. Congress is the decades-long reservoir for Israeli colonial aggression. Moreover, Congress, under AIPAC’s extraordinary pressure, has blocked testimony by prominent Israeli and Palestinian peace advocates since 1948. Not once have any of these peace advocates, many of whom are Israeli retired cabinet ministers, mayors, security and military leaders been invited to a Congressional Committee Hearing.

This power center for the U.S. Empire – Capitol Hill – presents serious students with an opportunity to educate their elders. Such an opportunity materialized during the Vietnam War when Congressional interns in the late 1960s organized a highly visible petition drive and engaged in peaceful protests.

Back in the Congressional Districts, the access is easier and available to many more students and faculty. Because Congress is in “recess” for much of the summer – Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and the entire month of August to Labor Day – students and citizens can demand public meetings preceded by formal summons to Senators and Representatives. (See my column “Sending Citizens Summons to Members of Congress”).

Five hundred to a thousand clearly legible signatures with the individuals’ occupations and emails should get these politicians to your well-prepared community meetings.

There would be no more notorious incommunicado behavior, laced with robo-letters to inquiring constituents. Instead, there would be person-to-person questioning, dialogue, and responses where evasions and sweet talk will be more difficult for the lawmakers to utilize.

The subject matter of these public meetings can extend beyond ghastly scenes of dead, dying, sick, and starving families in Gaza to Biden’s foreign and military policies. Our government is fueling an Empire producing disasters that are conducted in the name of the powerless American people, whose sovereign powers under our Constitution are delegated to Congress and the Executive Branch. The abuse of this power starts with Congress.

Nothing can compare to face-to-face meetings with the lawmakers. Letters, phone calls, and emails rarely can be relied on to reach them directly – that is if you are not a big campaign contributor. Besides, unlike in the past, today’s legislative staffers are much more likely to ignore these missives without even an acknowledgment. (See The Incommunicados report: https://incommunicadoswatch.org/).

A people’s town meeting has an agenda set by the people. Some suggestions follow:

1. There have been no Congressional hearings since before October 7th on the overall policies in the Middle East pursued by the White House and Congress. The House and Senate Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees have not been active. Instead, there have been show hearings berating University presidents to stifle free speech on their campuses and answer hypothetical questions about anti-semitism against Jews but not the other ongoing Congressionally weaponized anti-semitism against Gazan Arabs, who are Semites, being annihilated in that tiny enclave. Disgraceful! Demand public hearings for the citizenry.

2. Make U.S. engagements in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a major electoral campaign issue for November. This is a major opportunity to get the direct attention of the 535 lawmakers and to push them to stop kicking the can down the road. The decades-long control of Congress by the “Israeli-government-can-do-no-wrong lobby” must end. There is too much massive, preventable suffering being ignored in the Middle East, too much danger of wider regional wars involving the super-powers, and too much damage to civil liberties and democratic processes in our own country to avoid these matters any longer.

3. The students and teachers will find allies in their Congressional Districts from long-time advocates like the American Friends Committee (Quakers), the Unitarians, united Jewish, Christian, and Muslim peace groups, the increasing numbers of outspoken labor union leaders, and just plain Americans fed up with the costly U.S. Empire and its military-industrial complex (remember President Eisenhower’s warnings).

People want their tax dollars returned to the crucial public necessities back home. They don’t like big business controlling Congress and getting away with looting Uncle Sam by their out-of-control greed and power. Over 70% of Americans believe these big companies have too much control over their lives including many liberal and conservative families.

Larger reforms, redirections, and horizons of society often start with one compelling abuse or outrageous travesty of justice. This has occurred in the labor, farmer, consumer, environmental, and civil rights movements throughout our history.

There will be high-visibility protests outside the National Democratic Party Convention in Chicago and probable demonstrations at the National Republican Party Convention in Milwaukee this summer. But the laser-focused citizen pressure should be on those 535 members of YOUR Congress, their local offices, and their staff.

Change Congress and you change America! That is leverage!

May 7, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear-waste compensation (?bribery) numbers raise eyebrows

South Bruce would receive $418 million in total compensation if its site is selected; the comparison figure for Ignace is $170 million.

NWO Newswatch, Mike Stimpson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, 3 May 24

IGNACE – As a community vote on nuclear-waste concluded, residents of this Northwest municipality were talking about the deep geological repository’s other potential host municipality.

The Municipality of South Bruce, in southwestern Ontario near Lake Huron, on Monday published the hosting agreement it negotiated with the Nuclear Waste Management Organization.

The South Bruce agreement promises far more for that municipality than Ignace would receive if it is selected to host repository operations.

If the South Bruce site is selected for the proposed underground waste storage facility, the municipality would receive about $418 million over the project’s 138-year life, according to documents released by South Bruce.

The comparison figure for Ignace is approximately $170 million.

Reaction on social media included Ignace residents saying the divergent figures make Ignace look either foolish or an attractive bargain………………………………………………………..

Both municipalities must communicate their continued willingness to be host communities to the NWMO before a site is chosen.

If South Bruce voters decide in a referendum on Oct. 28 that they are not willing to continue as a potential host community, the industry-funded NWMO would remit a $4-million “exit payment” to the municipality.

If the Township of Ignace declares itself not willing, the exit payment would be $5 million.

If South Bruce is willing but not selected, it is to receive $8 million; Ignace would receive the same amount if willing but not selected.

In addition to the municipalities, nearby First Nations must be willing to participate in order for a site to be selected.

For the Revell Lake site, Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation must express willingness. The potential First Nations partner for the South Bruce site is Saugeen Ojibway Nation.

The NWMO has committed to selecting a site by December 31, 2024.

Construction is projected to begin around 2034 and take about 10 years to complete, Ponka said.  https://www.nwonewswatch.com/local-news/nuclear-waste-compensation-numbers-raise-eyebrows-8683186

May 7, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Canada, politics | Leave a comment

Inside story: Will Iran’s supreme leader revise his ‘nuclear fatwa’?

 https://amwaj.media/article/inside-story-will-iran-s-supreme-leader-revise-his-nuclear-fatwa 5 May 24

The direct confrontation between Iran and Israel has sparked speculation about a potential shift in the Islamic Republic’s nuclear policies under the leadership of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Following Iran’s Apr. 14 military action against Israel in response to the Apr. 1 bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) explicitly suggested the possibility of a revision to Tehran’s objection to atomic weapons. The suggestion may only be a part of the war of words between Iran and Israel. However, the fact that such discourse is rapidly becoming mainstream in Iran raises questions of what may lie ahead—including whether a shift may take place under Khamenei, who has long opposed atomic weapons on a religious basis.

Rapidly changing discourse

Amid media speculations of a major Israeli attack in response to Iran’s Apr. 14 drone and missile strike on sites inside Israel, Gen. Ahmad Haqtalab—the commander of the Protection and Security Corps of Nuclear Centers—on Apr. 18 stated, “If the Zionist regime wants to use the threat of attacking our country’s nuclear centers as a tool to pressure Iran, it is possible to review the nuclear doctrine and policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran and deviate from the previous considerations.”

The warning was rare, and even as tensions eased between Tehran and Tel Aviv, Iranian officials continued to underscore the significance of the matter. Four days after Haqtalab’s intervention, former IRGC commander and current MP Javad Karimi Qoddousi tweeted, “If permission is issued, there will be [only a] week before the first [nuclear] test.” Qoddousi separately posited that the same amount of time was needed to test missiles with an increased range of 12,000 km (7,456 miles).

However, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani promptly interjected, dismissing the notion of any alteration to the country’s nuclear doctrine. Meanwhile, government-run Iran daily slammed Qoddousi, characterizing his statements as “untrue” and possibly being exploited by “enemies” to pursue further sanctions and fear mongering against Iran. Several other outlets, including conservative-run media, notably echoed such criticisms.

Yet, despite the blowback, Qoddousi went ahead and posted a video on Apr. 25 in which he said that Iran needs only half a day to produce the 90%-enriched uranium necessary to build nuclear bombs.

Khamenei and the ‘nuclear fatwa’

In Shiite Islam, a fatwa is a religious edict issued by a high-ranking Islamic jurist on the basis of interpretation of Islamic law. To followers of the jurist in question, fatwas are binding and the primary point of reference for everything from major life decisions to day-to-day matters. Fatwas can also be a part of state policies.

Ayatollah Khamenei has on multiple occasions over the past two decades reiterated his objection to the development, stockpiling, and usage of nuclear weapons as haram or religiously impermissible. Among believers, violating what is deemed haram would have serious consequences both in this life and the hereafter. In 2010, the supreme leader reiterated his objection to weapons of mass destruction in a message to an international conference on nuclear disarmament, stating they “pose a serious threat to humanity” and that “everyone must make efforts to secure humanity against this great calamity.”

Critics of what became known as the nuclear fatwa have over the years raised a variety of objections, from the modality of Khamenei’s religious edict to the manner in which it has been presented. Some even question whether the ruling really exists. What is indisputable, however, is that the religious edict has previously averted conflict by aiding diplomacy.

For instance, in connection with the 2013-15 nuclear negotiations that led to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and world powers—which saw Tehran agree to restrictions on its atomic program in exchange for sanctions relief—there were suggestions that the Islamic Republic should codify the fatwa.

Amid the nuclear negotiations with Iran, then-US secretary of state John Kerry in 2014 stated, “We take [Khamenei’s fatwa] very seriously….a fatwa issued by a cleric is an extremely powerful statement about intent. Our need is to codify it.” In another interview the same year, Kerry asserted that “the requirement here is to translate the fatwa into a legally binding, globally recognized, international understanding…that goes beyond an article of faith within a religious belief.”

Only days after the signing of the JCPOA in 2015, Khamenei said, “The Americans say they stopped Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. They know it is not true. We had a fatwa, declaring nuclear weapons to be religiously forbidden under Islamic law. It had nothing to do with the nuclear talks.”

Will Khamenei change his fatwa?

Khamenei is not the first Iranian Islamic jurist to issue a fateful religious edict on a highly politicized matter. Back in 1891, Mirza Mohammad Shirazi (1815-95), a leading Shiite religious authority at the time, issued a hokm or verdict against the usage of tobacco in what became known as the Tobacco Protest. The move came in protest against a concession granted by the Qajar monarch Naser Al-Din (1848-98) to the British Empire, granting control over the growth, sale, and export of tobacco to an Englishman. The hokm issued by Shirazi ultimately led to the repeal of the concession.

Neither a fatwa nor a hokm is set in stone and can be revised. The main distinction between the two types of rulings is that a hokm tends to have more conditions and requirements attached to it. Moreover, while a fatwa must be followed by the followers of the Islamic jurist who issued it, a hokm must be followed by all believers—including Shiites who are not followers of the jurist in question.

Explaining the intricacies of a hokm, a cleric and professor of Islamic law (fiqh) at the Qom Seminary told Amwaj.media, “There are primary hokm and secondary hokm. The former is like the necessity of the daily prayer that is mentioned in the Quran and the hadiths [traditions], or the prohibition on consuming alcohol. The secondary hokm is based on expediency and necessity that leads to the first ruling being changed. For example, if alcohol helps someone stay alive, then it is not haram [religiously impermissible] for him or her [to make use of it].” He added, “A fatwa can be changed too.”

May 6, 2024 Posted by | Iran, politics, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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