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As the US Vetoes UN Ceasefire Resolution, the People Take the Streets for Palestine

Crowds of thousands take to the streets across the country, disrupting centers of power, responding to a call to “Shut It Down for Palestine”

SCHEERPOST, By Peoples Dispatch, December 10, 2023

From Alaska to Florida, people in the US once again took to the streets en masse to demand a permanent ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza and an end US aid to Israel. The Shut It Down for Palestine Coalition, composed of several organizations including the International Peoples’ Assembly, the Palestinian Youth Movement, the ANSWER Coalition, and National Students for Justice in Palestine, called for a day of action on December 8, to continue putting pressure on Israel and the US one week after Israel resumed its genocidal violence against Gaza. This coalition of organizations is bringing together the Palestine solidarity movement to disrupt major centers of power across the country.

Many of the December 8 actions happened simultaneously to the United States vetoing a UN Security Council draft resolution that would have demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. 

Early in the morning, the demonstration was brought directly outside of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s home in McLean, Virginia. Demonstrators chanted, “Blinken Blinken rise and shine, you’re committing genocide!” Last week, Blinken met with Israel’s war cabinet in occupied Jerusalem, after which he urged Israel to limit civilian casualties. Many suspect that he gave the greenlight for Israel to end its temporary pause in aggression and resume full-scale attacks. The death toll of Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza has crossed 17,700……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/10/as-the-us-vetoes-un-ceasefire-resolution-the-people-take-the-streets-for-palestine/

December 11, 2023 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

New Mexico’s delegation outraged at removal of expand nuclear radiation compensation from proposal

New Mexico’s congressional delegation has expressed outrage with the U.S. House leadership’s move to block compensation for people sickened by exposure to radiation during nuclear weapons testing and the mining of uranium during the Cold War

By The Associated Press, December 9, 2023  https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/new-mexicos-delegation-outraged-removal-expand-nuclear-radiation-105510381

SANTA FE, N.M. — All members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation expressed outrage with the U.S. House leadership’s move to block compensation for people sickened by exposure to radiation during nuclear weapons testing and the mining of uranium during the Cold War.

Originally, the bill expanded eligibility for compensation under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, offering up tens of thousands of dollars in compensation to residents of New Mexico, Colorado, Montana, Guam and Missouri — as well as those in some parts of Arizona, Nevada and Utah — who suffered the effects of nuclear testing or uranium mines and who are not covered under the current program.

The Santa Fe New Mexican reported that the compensation was included in a massive defense spending bill that won Senate approval in July. But the GOP-controlled House removed those provisions from the act Wednesday, rendering New Mexicans — including those stricken with ailments from the radioactive fallout of the first atomic bomb — still ineligible for federal help unless it is reattached to the final bill.

“Generations of New Mexicans and their families have gotten sick and died from the radiation exposure and the lasting impacts of the Trinity Test,” said Sen. Ben Ray Luján, referring to the first-ever atomic bomb test in the New Mexico desert in 1945. “For New Mexico to have been ground zero for the first nuclear weapon — and left out of the original RECA program — is an injustice.”

Luján, a Democrat, has introduced radiation exposure compensation bills in every Congress since he was first elected to the U.S. House in 2008.

The hit summer film “Oppenheimer” about the top-secret Manhattan Project and the dawn of the nuclear age during World War II has brought new attention to decades-long efforts to extend compensation for families who were exposed to fallout and still grapple with related illness.

Advocates also have been trying for years to bring awareness to the lingering effects of radiation exposure on the Navajo Nation, where millions of tons of uranium ore were extracted over decades to support U.S. nuclear activities.

December 10, 2023 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

COP28: Global nuclear pledge casts further doubt on UK’s capabilities

CITY AM, RHODRI MORGAN 8 Dec 23

The COP28 conference in Dubai has put the UK’s faltering nuclear sector into the limelight once more.

Microsoft founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates today used the conference as a platform to announce that his nuclear reactor company TerraPower will examine the UAE’s potential for new reactors.

Yesterday, 22 countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Canada, Hungary, and the Netherlands signed a pledge to triple nuclear deployment by 2050.

TerraPower and the UK have stalled on discussions around UK projects, but nuclear on the whole is another energy front on which the UK is currently losing ground.

The target of 24 GW by 2050 was first conceived in the Energy Security Strategy of 2021 but precious little progress has been made since.

Even with the reactor plans it has been able to conceive, the sector remains repeatedly hamstrung by bureaucratic process and the absence of a long-awaited nuclear road map that is likely delayed once more to 2024.

A significant factor halting development is that nuclear investment is still not labelled green, despite being promised by the Chancellor back in March.

Examining the UK’s current stock showcases the problem even further. British nuclear capacity stands at 5.9 GW, 4.7 GW of which retires in less than five years.

Through completing Hinkley Point C, Sizewell C and securing a life extension to Sizewell B, the UK could reach 7.7 GW; less than one third of the 24 GW target.

In the 12 years since the UK restarted nuclear development, only one project has proceeded to a Final Investment Decision (HPC in 2016).

To get to 24 GW of capacity by 2050, the UK nuclear needs to build and start operations on another six Hinkley Point C-size projects and move the stymied Sizewell C project into production.

………………………………….those within the sector believe the government is still avoiding making short-term capital investments to shore up the long-term energy security set out in 2021.

One official involved in the UK nuclear industry told City A.M: “They’re slow and hesitant, we know what happens when you have government money tied up in multi-billion pound projects and a sniff of a cost increase comes along, they opt to slow down and rethink”.

Others believe that despite union backing for large job creators like Hinkley Point, a Labour government isn’t in a position to speed up the nuclear timeline.

“If their policy is a carbon-free grid by 2030, there isn’t a single nuclear that can come on by then – even Hinkley Point C would just replace units that will go offline,” they told City A.M……………………………………………………………………….  https://www.cityam.com/cop28-global-nuclear-pledge-casts-further-doubt-on-uks-capabilities/

December 10, 2023 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

A Scotland without nuclear power would be safer for people and planet.

 https://greens.scot/news/a-nuclear-power-free-scotland-would-be-safer-for-people-and-planet 6 Dec 23

Nuclear power is costly, dangerous and leaves a toxic legacy.

A Scotland without nuclear power would be safer for people and planet, says the Scottish Greens climate spokesperson, Mark Ruskell MSP.

Mr Ruskell’s warnings come as the UK government has committed to trebling nuclear capacity by 2050 as part of a COP declaration, and with reports that the Sellafield nuclear site has been targeted by groups linked to China and Russia.

Mr Ruskell said: “The allegations of hacking at Sellafield should alarm all of us. Nuclear energy is costly, dangerous and unsafe for people and planet. It will leave a legacy of toxic waste and higher bills for generations to come. It has no place in Scotland.

“The Tory’s epic failure to deliver Hinkley Point to time and budget shows just how unreliable and costly new nuclear is. That time and money could have been far better spent on expanding our homegrown renewable energy, which is the real solution to ending our reliance on climate-wrecking fossil fuels.

“With Scottish Greens in government here in Scotland are getting on with the job, and building our new wind and solar capabilities at pace. That is how we will ensure a safer and greener future.”

December 8, 2023 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Scotland’s Energy Secretary Neil Gray points to safety risks as he rejects nuclear power attempts

Herald Scotland, 6th December, By David Bol, @mrdavidbol, Political Correspondent

The SNP’s Energy Secretary has turned down the latest plea for nuclear power stations to be constructed north of the Border – insisting the technology “is not safe, it is expensive and it is not wanted”.

The Scottish Government has a long-held opposition to nuclear power and is not part of its plans for the nation to meet net zero.

Instead, the Scottish Government believes it can meet energy demands by drastically ramping up the capacity for offshore wind and other renewables………………

Power and energy is largely reserved to the UK Government, but Scottish ministers can effectively veto proposals for Scotland through devolved planning regulations.

Torness power station in East Lothian is the only remaining operational nuclear power station in Scotland.

SNP Energy Secretary Neil Gray was asked by Conservative MSP Edward Mountain if the Scottish Government will change its mind and embrace nuclear power.

Speaking in Holyrood, Mr Gray said: “We are doing that because it is not safe, it is expensive and it is not wanted in Scotland. In addition, it is not needed in Scotland.

“We have abundant natural energy resources and capital that can contribute and are contributing to our energy mix.”

He added: “As we are all seeing from experiences elsewhere in the United Kingdom, new nuclear power takes years—if not decades—to become operational, and it will push up household and business energy bills even more.

“Under the contract awarded by the UK Government to Hinkley Point C, the electricity that will be generated will be priced at £92.50 per megawatt hour.

“We know that the Tories care little these days about achieving a pathway to net zero, but the Scottish National Party Government still does. We believe that significant growth in renewables, storage, hydrogen and carbon capture provides the best pathway to net zero for Scotland.”

………………………Mr Gray pointed to “evidence of the alleged hacking of Sellafield this week and what we have seen from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine” as “worries around safety”.

He added: “We in Scotland are not the only ones who have such concerns: many colleagues in the European Union are either moving away from or continue to oppose new nuclear power.”https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23970270.neil-gray-points-safety-risks-rejects-nuclear-power-attempts/

December 8, 2023 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

UK minister demands answers for security failings at Sellafield

Claire Coutinho says cybersecurity issues at UK’s most hazardous nuclear site must be urgently addressed

Anna Isaac and Alex Lawson, Guardian Wed 6 Dec 2023

Cybersecurity vulnerabilities at the UK’s most hazardous nuclear site must be urgently addressed and explanations given for any shortcomings, a cabinet minister has demanded.

Claire Coutinho, secretary of state for energy security and net zero, wrote to the chief executive of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), David Peattie, saying allegations by the Guardian about failings in cybersecurity at Sellafield in Cumbria needed “urgent attention”.

The intervention follows the revelation that the vast nuclear waste and decommissioning dump has been hacked by groups linked to China and Russia, and its potential effects covered up by senior staff. It emerged as part of Nuclear Leaks, a year-long Guardian investigation into problems spanning cyber hacking, radioactive contamination, and toxic workplace culture at Sellafield.

Coutinho said: “The allegations are a worrying reminder of the longstanding nature of some of these issues, specifically cybersecurity at Sellafield, which I understand has been under enhanced regulatory scrutiny since 2014.”…………………………………………………………………………….

The government has also formally requested an update on a range of activities at the site, including work on cleaning up leaking silos of radioactive sludge and liquid after a report by the Guardian on growing safety concerns……………………………………………………………………….

Carla Denyer, co-leader of the Green party, which opposes nuclear power, said: “This toxic legacy of nuclear weapons and nuclear power poses a serious risk to life and public health as well as poisoning relations with other countries, especially Norway, that would be devastated by a radioactive plume if ever there was a major incident at Sellafield.

“This is Europe’s most hazardous nuclear site, so the government must put in place the investment needed to make it as safe as possible.”………………. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/05/uk-minister-demands-answers-for-security-failings-at-sellafield

December 7, 2023 Posted by | politics, safety, UK | Leave a comment

Energy-rich Scotland does not require any nuclear power stations.

Andrew Bowie, undersecretary for nuclear, is pushing expensive and
dangerous nuclear power onto energy-rich Scotland. That’s insane. Nuclear
power has consistently failed to deliver energy on time or on budget.

The much-touted Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) don’t yet exist, are heavily
dependent on government subsidies to come on stream and will generate more
toxic nuclear waste for which there is no safe disposal.

Unlike renewables, where costs are falling, nuclear costs keep climbing. The UK Government has flung billions at Hinkley Point C, guaranteeing £92.50 per MW hour over the
next 35 years, twice as much as is guaranteed for wind. When finished,
Hinkley Point C will be one of the most expensive power stations in the
world. And Scottish households will pay £80 a year for nuclear on top of
already exorbitant energy bills.

The National 30th Nov 2023

https://www.thenational.scot/politics/23960602.energy-rich-scotland-not-require-nuclear-power-stations/

December 2, 2023 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Renewable or nuclear? What your energy preference says about you – public opinion

 The main low-carbon energy sources available in the UK in the battle
against climate change are solar, wind, biomass and nuclear energy, but
what sorts of people prefer these different options? That’s the topic of
a new study in the December issue of the journal Energy authored at the
Energy Policy Research Group at Cambridge Judge Business School, which
finds that people’s preferred energy source is related to respondents’
views on the anticipated impact of climate change.

Specifically: people who
believe that climate change will be catastrophic tend to prefer renewable
energy sources such as solar and wind, while those less concerned about
climate change are more favourable towards nuclear power. The study also
finds that people prefer energy sources about which they are more
knowledgeable or familiar.

 Cambridge University 28th Nov 2023

https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/2023/renewable-or-nuclear-what-your-energy-preference-says-about-you/

December 1, 2023 Posted by | public opinion | Leave a comment

Hydro- Quebec decides against restarting Gentilly 2 nuclear station

Hydro-Québec has decided not to go ahead with recommissioning Gentilly 2 but nuclear remains an option it is considering to increase its production capacity beyond 2035, and it will keep studying nuclear energy, CEO Michael Sabia has said. Earlier this year the government-owned corporation launched a feasibility study on the possible restart of the 675 MWe unit which closed in 2012.

AtkinsRéalis “did a 50,000-foot analysis of the viability of Gentilly”, Sabia said. “For now, given the social acceptability issues, we have decided not to proceed with this. But there are a lot of evolutions in technologies”, SMRs “could be very well structured for some places in Quebec”, he added, according to the Montreal Gazette.

Source: World Nuclear News, 1 December 2023

December 1, 2023 Posted by | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

Ralph Nader: An Open Letter to Members of the United States Congress

By Ralph Nader / Nader.org November 29, 2023

RE: Hamas-Israel-Gaza-Genocide

We are writing to exercise our First Amendment to petition Congress for redress of grievances.  We are urging Congress to end the United States’ unconditional, close, and continual military and intelligence support of Israel in its ongoing physical destruction of 2.3 million Palestinians residing in Gaza. The United States is responsible for genocide under any plain reading of the Genocide Convention.

Congress commands plenary power over the foreign policy of the United States. It employed the power of the purse to end United States combat in Indochina on August 16, 1973. It prohibited the CIA from intermeddling in Angola with the Clark Amendment in 1975. And by statute, Congress has insisted that Israel receive weapons that ensure a Qualitative Military Edge over its neighbors.

Words only diminish our revulsion at the congressional dereliction in enabling President Joe Biden to transfer weapons and share real-time intelligence with Israel to destroy Palestinian civilians in Gaza in violation of multiple laws: the Genocide Convention, the federal prohibition of genocide,18 U.S.C. 1091, the Leahy Amendments, the Declare War Clause of the Constitution, and the statutory restriction on the use of American arms for defensive purposes only.

Why has Congress neglected public hearings to expose and redress these offenses to the rule of law?

Congress should enact a Joint Resolution endorsing a two-state solution featuring a Palestinian state initially administered by a United Nations caretaker mission to organize free and fair elections.

The United States’ current unlawful foreign policy is indistinguishable from “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” voiced by Thucydides in History of the Peloponnesian War.

Section 2 of the Genocide Convention defines the crime as including “intentionally creating conditions of life calculated to physically destroy a racial, religious, ethnic, or national group in whole or in part.” Evidence in the public domain authoritatively establishes that Israel is intentionally creating conditions of life in Gaza intended to physically destroy the 2.3 million Palestinian occupants. Israeli officials, without dissent, announced a siege of Gaza including the genocidal refrain, “no food, no water, no power, no electricity, no medicine, no shelter, no anything.” See e.g., “‘Erase Gaza’: Conflict Unleashes Inflammatory Rhetoric From Israeli Leaders,” New York Times, A7, November 16, 2023. Palestinians are even prohibited from collecting or storing rainwater which is considered the property of the Israeli government.

The siege of Gaza’s population has been fortified by a land invasion and bombings of hospitals, clinics, ambulances, bread bakeries, water mains, schools, apartment buildings, marketplaces, fleeing refugee families to nowhere, journalists, mosques, churches, and clearly marked United Nations schools and relief sites. Death certificates are prepared before the ink on birth certificates dries. Fires cannot be extinguished. Diseases are spreading. Deaths are at least 20,000 and probably twice or three times that number increasing by the hour, from lack of water, food, and urgent medical treatment, for those homeless battered families being driven south under Israeli bombardment and communications blackouts. There are no safe sanctuaries whether in North or South Gaza – even in hospitals they blockaded. Gaza is a free fire zone for the IDF.


Israel has turned its brutal war machine on the entire Palestinian population in Gaza. Israel’s President declaimed, “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true about civilians not aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true.” An Israeli Knesset member echoed, “The Children of Gaza brought it upon themselves.” The Defense Minister insisted, “We are fighting human animals and will treat them accordingly.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu added that the Gaza conflict is between 21st century progress and “the barbaric fanaticism of the Middle Ages” and a “struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness.” He reminded Israeli Jews of the Lord’s ordering the destruction of Amalek in the Book of Samuel, “This is what the Lord Almighty says,” the prophet Samuel tells Saul. “I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 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 Nazis in World War II attempted to conceal the Holocaust fearing legal accountability.  Israel’s genocide is unfolding in plain view confidant of impunity, including unconditional callous congressional support and gross misdirection of taxpayer dollars for violence, in lieu of satisfying the critical needs of the American people.

Congress is poised, without even public hearings and witnesses, to spend an additional $14.3 billion of taxpayer dollars to compensate for a staggering blunder of Israeli intelligence. Why?

Israel has taken an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth standard of justice of Leviticus to a criminal, genocidal level: 10,000 eyes for an eye, 10,000 teeth for a tooth. It is turning Gaza into a vast sick and dying huddle of civilian families exposed to American bombs and missiles. As the Washington Post reported, “hunger, thirst and disease are quickly spreading.” Babies are dying alone having lost their parents.

Had the touted Israeli defenses and intelligence not been colossally AWOL, the October 7th attack could never have occurred. As one elderly Holocaust survivor told The New York Times, “It should never have happened…”

President Biden has made the United States a belligerent and co-belligerent with Israel against Hamas without a constitutionally required declaration of war by Congress. Systematically providing the IDF with massive weapons made us a co-belligerent and sharing real-time battlefield intelligence made us a belligerent.

Such presidential wars are impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors as Mr. Biden himself vigorously underscored in his presidential campaign for the 2008 Democratic nomination in an interview with Chris Matthews on Hardball on December 4, 2007.

Listen further to the fundamental, historical provocation of the war as elaborated by David Ben-Gurion, founder and first Prime Minister of Israel:

“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true, God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” Printed in “The Jewish Paradox,” (p. 121) by Nahum Goldmann.

Ben Gurion’s recognition was echoed by Israel’s acclaimed war hero Moshe Dayan. Standing close to the Gaza border in 1956 eulogizing a 21-year-old Israeli security officer who had been slain by Palestinian and Egyptian assailants, Dayan reflected, “Let us not today cast blame on his murderers. What can we say against their terrible hatred of us? For eight years now, they have sat in refugee camps of Gaza and watched how, before their very eyes, we have turned their land and villages, where they and their forefathers previously dwelled, into our home.”

Also often forgotten by most Members of Congress is P.M Netanyahu’s widely quoted strategy of supporting and funding Hamas over the years to thwart a two-state solution with the Palestinian Authority. Roger Cohen of the New York Timeswrote on October 22, 2023, “All means were good to undo the notion of Palestinian statehood. In 2019, Mr. Netanyahu told a meeting of his center-right Likud party: ‘Those who want to thwart the possibility of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy.’”

The “From the river to the sea” expression originated with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party pressing for a “Greater Israel” in all of Palestine, not with Hamas. Further, the idea is also consistent with peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Jews, by people advocating a one-state solution.

Dante observed, “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.” The Congressional positions against Palestinian civilians, three-quarters of whom are children and women, are far beyond neutrality. Read the front-page article of the New York Times (November 26, 2023) headlined: “Israel Has Killed More Women and Children Than Have Been Killed in Ukraine.”

Congress should follow the example of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 who interceded in the Suez crisis to stop the attacks by Israel, France, and the United Kingdom, on Egypt. He also initiated the United Nations peacekeeping force in the Sinai.

Congress should conduct public hearings in the House and Senate featuring prominent and longtime Israeli peace advocates, holding past high-level government positions, along with Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups. Their voices have been excluded from Capitol Hill since 1948. You know why? Shame!

Congress cannot escape the judgment of history which will endure for the ages over its defining role in the annihilation of innocent Palestinian families – mostly children and women – inside Gaza – long described as Israel’s illegally blockaded open-air prison.

We look forward to a congressional response, from U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives respectful of citizen petitions.

Sincerely,

Bruce Fein, Esq., Ralph Nader, Esq.

November 30, 2023 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

UK government hopes that United Arab Emirates will invest in Sizewell C nuclear power plan.

UAE approached to invest in Sizewell C nuclear power plan

UK lines up Middle East investor for stake in £20bn-£44bn project despite growing row over other Emirati investment plans.

Alex Lawson,  https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/27/uae-approached-to-invest-sizewell-c-nuclear-power-plant

A United Arab Emirates investor has been approached to take a stake in the Sizewell C nuclear power plant project in Suffolk, it has emerged.

Ministers are searching for new investors in the project, which could cost between £20bn and £44bn, after removing the Chinese state-owned CGN last year due to security concerns over UK infrastructure amid poor Anglo-Sino relations.

The Times reported on Monday that the UK government had lined up Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi fund run by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the owner of Manchester City football club, to back the energy project, with a decision due early next year.

However, a source close to Mubadala denied the fund was interested in Sizewell but said other UAE entities were interested. A separate source said that Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, which is owned by Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ, could be a good fit for the project.

The UAE interest comes against the backdrop of Westminster tensions over a separate Emirati deal. Last week, RedBird IMI – a joint-venture between America’s Redbird Capital and International Media Investments, an Abu Dhabi investor also backed by Mansour – announced a deal to take control of the Telegraph group. The government has indicated it will launch a public interest investigation into the newspaper deal.

The Sizewell C plant aims to generate enough energy to power 6m homes. It is backed by France’s EDF and the UK government, which has spent nearly £100m buying CGN out of the project. CGN had held a 20% stake.

Rishi Sunak hosted Mubadala’s Khaldoon Al Mubarak at a meeting of global business leaders at Hampton Court, south-west London, on Monday as he attempts to attract foreign investment to the UK.

Although a formal search for outside investment launched in September, Sizewell C has been touted to potential investors – including sovereign wealth funds, infrastructure and pension funds – for years. The government earmarked a further £341m to develop the project in August.

Bankers at Barclays have been tasked with procuring investment for the project, which has faced significant opposition in Suffolk.

The interest from the UAE – host of Cop28, which begins this week – in Sizewell C has been mooted for more than a year. Last week, campaigners parked a sign reading “Sizewell C is a toxic investment” outside the UAE embassy in London.

Alison Downes, of the Stop Sizewell C campaign, said: “There may be a dearth of UK interest in Sizewell C, but there is no energy security in handing chunks of the UK’s critical national assets to countries that don’t share our values. If the UAE is not good enough for the Telegraph, it’s definitely not good enough for Sizewell C.”

Investors in Saudi Arabia and Australia have also previously reportedly been approached to back Sizewell C. However, a source close to the project denied there was active interest from Saudi investors.

The project is set up as a 50-50 joint-venture between the government and EDF, which is behind the sister Hinkley Point C development in Somerset. That project is significantly over budget and years late.

Ministers overruled the independent Planning Inspectorate to grant Sizewell C planning consent. Backers are seeking a development consent order that will precede a final investment decision by its backers.

The plant is not expected to generate power until at least the mid-2030s, after most of Britain’s nuclear power stations have been retired.

Sunak’s government hopes to kickstart a renaissance in the nuclear power industry, and launched a new delivery body, Great British Energy, in the summer.

Separately, the boss of Rolls-Royce, Tufan Erginbilgic, is expected to urge the government to back its plans to build small nuclear power plants at an investor day on Tuesday.

Sizewell C and Mubadala have been approached for comment.

November 29, 2023 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

The Myth that Putin Was Bent on Conquering Ukraine and Creating a Greater Russia

By John J Measheimer / Substack https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/27/the-myth-that-putin-was-bent-on-conquering-ukraine-and-creating-a-greater-russia/

There is a growing body of compelling evidence showing that Russia and Ukraine were involved in serious negotiations to end the war in Ukraine right after it started on 24 February 2022 (see below). These talks were facilitated by Turkish President Recep Erdogan and former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and featured detailed and candid discussions on the terms of a possible settlement.

By all accounts, these negotiations, which took place in March-April 2022, were making real progress when Britain and the US told Ukrainian President Zelensky to abandon them, which he did. 

Coverage of these events has focused on how foolish and irresponsible it was for President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson to put an end to these negotiations, given all the death and destruction that Ukraine has suffered since then – in a war that Kyiv is likely to lose. 

Yet an especially important aspect of this story regarding the causes of the Ukraine war has received little attention. The well-entrenched conventional wisdom in the West is that President Putin invaded Ukraine to conquer that country and make it part of a Greater Russia. Then, he would move on and conquer other countries in eastern Europe. The counter-argument, which enjoys little support in the West, is that Putin was mainly motivated to invade by the threat of Ukraine joining NATO and becoming a Western bulwark on Russia’s border. For him and other Russian elites, Ukraine in NATO was an existential threat.

The negotiations in March-April 2022 make it clear that the conventional wisdom on the war’s causes is wrong, and the counter-argument is right, for two main reasons. First, the talks were directly focused on satisfying Russia’s demand that Ukraine not become part of NATO and instead become a neutral state. Everyone involved in the negotiations understood that Ukraine’s relationship with NATO was Russia’s core concern. Second, if Putin was bent on conquering all of Ukraine, he would not have agreed to these talks, as their very essence contradicted any possibility of Russia conquering all of Ukraine. One might argue that he participated in these negotiations and talked a lot about neutrality to mask his larger ambitions. There is no evidence, however, to support this line of argument, not to mention that: 1) Russia’s small invasion force was not capable of conquering and occupying all of Ukraine; and 2) it would have made no sense to delay a larger offensive, as it would afford Ukraine time to build up its defenses.

In short, Putin launched a limited attack into Ukraine for the purpose of coercing Zelensky into abandoning Kyiv’s policy of aligning with the West and eventually bringing Ukraine into NATO. Had Britain and the West not intervened to scotch the negotiations, there is good reason to think Putin would have achieved this limited objective and agreed to end the war.

It is also worth remembering that Russia did not annex the Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia until September 2022, well after the talks had ended.  Had a deal been reached, Ukraine would almost certainly control a far greater share of its original territory than it does now.

It is becoming increasingly clear that in the case of Ukraine, the level of foolishness and dishonesty among Western elites and the mainstream Western media is stunning. 

November 29, 2023 Posted by | politics, Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

President Biden has morphed into the Murder Monster.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL  27 Nov 23

What is going on in the 81 year old soul of Joe Biden?

He looks out from his privileged life in safe America and sees about half of Gaza’s buildings turned into rubble. Over 14,000 mainly innocents dead with likely thousands more buried under the rubble. Food, water, medicine, electricity largely denied the 2.3 million Palestinians with over three quarters now refugees.

All of this enabled and supported by President Biden. He’s sent billions in weapons to Israel to complete the removal of Palestinians from Gaza.

Even the NY Times acknowledges the historical mass killing in Gaza. “People are being killed in Gaza more quickly, than in even the deadliest moments of US-led attacks in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, which were themselves widely criticized by human rights groups.”

They quote former former Pentagon analyst Marc Garlasco, “It’s beyond anything that I’ve seen in my career.” He cited Israel’s use of US 2,000 lb. bombs as being the worst use of superpower bombs in densely crowed areas “since Vietnam or World War II.”

But those two thousand pounders are not enough for Biden. He’s moved to lift restrictions on additional weapons to Israel prevented by government regulations. Current restrictions only allow transfer of weapons to Israel that are obsolete or surplus. Biden wants a blank check to send any weapons, surplus/obsolete or not. He also calls for reducing the concessions Israel must offer for such weapons, eliminate the 30 day waiting period for weapons transfers and scrap the $200 million annual cap on the US replenishing weapons transfers.

Pivoting to Ukraine, Biden is demanding another $61 billion in weapons for Ukraine. His first $113 billion simply extended the US proxy war against Russia for 20 months, causing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian deaths. In one of the most murderous acts in presidential history, Biden torpedoed the Zelensky-Putin peace agreement in the first month of the war to ‘weaken Russia.’

Biden made one wonderful move for peace in his first seven months by ending our illegal and criminal 20 year Afghan war. In the 28 months since it’s been ocean of blood drowning Biden’s legacy and shaming America, possibly beyond redemption.

November 29, 2023 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | 2 Comments

Israel’s Genocidal Antisemitism Against the Arab Civilians of Gaza

Netanyahu has unleashed a “unifying” genocidal war against every child, woman and man that comprise the 2.3 million population of Gaza.

By Ralph Nader / CounterPunch,  https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/27/israels-genocidal-antisemitism-against-the-arab-civilians-of-gaza-2/

“It should never have happened,” an elderly Holocaust survivor of a Nazi death camp told the New York Times. He was referring to the colossal failure on October 7th, of Israel’s touted high-tech military and intelligence operations that opened the door to Hamas’ attack on Israeli soldiers and civilians. In many parliamentary countries, the government ministers who are responsible for this kind of failure would have immediately been forced to resign. Not so with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s ministers.

Instead, Netanyahu’s coalition of extremists, who know that the Israeli people are enraged about their government’s failure to defend the border, has unleashed a “unifying” genocidal war against every child, woman and man that comprise the 2.3 million population of Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no fuel, no water. … We are fighting human animals and will act accordingly” was the opening genocidal war cry from defense minister Yoav Gallant to defend the onslaught that massive military forces are implementing against the long-illegally blockaded Gazan population.

Israeli leaders declare that there are Hamas fighters possibly in and under every building in Gaza. Israel has long made computer models using their unprecedented surveillance technology (see Antony Loewenstein’s interview in the November/December 2023 issue of the Capitol Hill Citizen). Nothing and no one is off limits for the Israeli bombing.

Keep in mind that Israel is an ultra-modern military superpower, with hundreds of thousands of fighters on land, air and sea, going after the few thousand Hamas fighters who have limited supplies of rifles, grenade launchers and anti-tank weapons. Moreover, all of Israel’s supplies are being replenished daily from the U.S. stockpiles in Israel and new shipments arriving by sea, compliments of President Biden. The invasion is a “piece of cake” an experienced U.S. government official told reporter Sy Hersh.

Contradictions abound. First, Netanyahu has always referred to Hamas as a “terrorist organization.” Yet he told his own Likud party for years that his “strategy” to block a two-state solution was to “support and fund Hamas.” (See, the October 22, 2023 article by prominent journalist Roger Cohen in the New York Times).

If Netanyahu believes dropping over 20,000 bombs and missiles on the civilian infrastructure of this tiny crowded enclave and its people, nearly half of whom are children, is so restrained, why has he kept Western and Israeli journalists out of Gaza, other than a few recently embedded reporters restricted to their seats in Israeli armored vehicles? Why has he ordered four nightmarish total telecommunications and electricity blackouts, with excruciating consequences, over the whole Gaza Strip for as long as 30 hours at a time?

None of this or international laws matter to the prime minister whose top priority is to keep his job, with his coalition parties, as long as the invasion continues. And before an outraged majority in Israel ousts him from power for not defending their country on October 7th from some two thousand urban guerrilla fighters on a homicide/suicide mission.

As the slaughter of defenseless babies, children, mothers, fathers and grandparents in Gaza continues to drive the death, injury and disease toll to higher numbers each day, the observant world wonders what the Israeli government, which regularly blocks humanitarian aid, intends to do with Gaza and its destitute, homeless, starving, wounded, sick, dying and abandoned civilian Palestinians.

After all, Gaza has only so many hospitals, clinics, schools, apartment buildings, homes, water mains, ambulances, bakeries, markets, electricity networks, solar panels, shelters, refugee camps, mosques, churches, and the clearly marked remaining United Nations’ facilities left, to bomb to smithereens. Endless American tax dollars are funding the carnage. Israel has also killed over 50 journalists, including some of their families, in the past seven weeks – a record.

Why will it take months to clear out the tunnels? Not so, say military experts in urban warfare. Flooding the tunnels with water, gas, napalm and robotic explosives are quick and lethal and would be deployed were it not for the Israeli hostages.

In addition to the reality that all Gazans are now hostages, over 7,000 Palestinians are languishing in Israeli jails without charges. Many are youngsters and women who were abducted over the years to extort information and to control their extended families in Gaza and the West Bank. What’s holding up an exchange, as Israel did twice before in 2004 and 2011? Again, the Netanyahu coalition stays in power by postponing the pending official inquiries into their October 7th collapse, that Israelis are awaiting.

Meanwhile, the hapless Joe Biden dittoheaded the previously hapless presidential pleas for a two-state solution. The dominant politicians in Israel have always sought “a Greater Israel” using the phrase “from the river to the sea,” meaning all of Palestine. Year after year Israel has stolen more and more land and water from the twenty-two percent left of original Palestine, inhabited by five million Palestinians under oppressive military occupation.

With Congress overwhelmingly in Israel’s pocket, Israeli politicians laugh at proposals for a two-state solution by U.S. presidents. Recall when Obama was president, Netanyahu went around him and addressed a joint session of Congress whose members exhausted themselves with standing ovations – a brazen insult to a U.S. president, unheard of in U.S. diplomatic history!

Day after day, the surviving Palestinian families are trapped in what is widely called “an open-air prison” being pulverized by Israel and its aggressive co-belligerent, the Biden regime. A regime in Washington that urges Netanyahu to comply with “the laws of war,” while enabling Israel with more weapons and UN vetoes to violate daily “the laws of war” and the Genocide Convention. (See our October 24, 2023 Letter to President Joe Biden and the Declarations from genocide scholars William Schabas and other expert historians).

Consider the plight of these innocent civilians, caught in the deadly crossfire of F-16s, helicopter gunships, and thousands of precision 155mm artillery shells. Whether huddled in their homes and schools or fleeing to nowhere under Israeli orders, the IDF is still bombing them.

Palestinians cannot escape their blockaded prison. They cannot surrender because the Israeli army does not want to be responsible for prisoners of war. They cannot bury their dead, so their families’ corpses pile up, rotting in the sun being eaten by stray dogs.

They cannot even find water to drink, since Israel has destroyed the water infrastructure – another of its many war crimes.

For years under Israel’s occupation law, collection of rainwater with rainwater harvesting cisterns has not been permitted. Rain is considered the property of the Israeli authorities and Palestinians have been forbidden to gather rainwater!

The Israeli armed forces will soon control the entire Gaza Strip. Under international law, Israel would become responsible for the protection of the civilian population as well as the essential conditions for Palestinian safety and survival. Will they at last abide by just one international law? Or will they establish obstructive checkpoints to restrict humanitarian charities trying to save lives while Israel continues to push the Gazans into the desert or neighboring countries?

The Israeli operation precisely fits the Genocide Convention’s definition by “intentionally creating conditions of life calculated to physically destroy a racial, religious, ethnic, or national group in whole or in part.” Netanyahu’s regime further incriminates itself by defining the targets for annihilation as being between 21st-century progress and “the barbaric fanaticism of the Middle Ages” and a “struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness.”

November 28, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics, Reference, weapons and war | Leave a comment

REVEALED: Biden’s ‘nuclear football’ contains BOOK that tells president how to launch attack by contacting ‘Looking Glass’ plane and spherical bunker where four keys ignite missiles

  • The ‘nuclear football’ contains attack plans for the president to pick 
  • Once selected, the command gets set to a ‘Looking Glass’ plane always in the air
  • Then, officers in a bunker use multiple keys to launch the nuclear attack 

By RACHEL BOWMAN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM, 27 November 2023  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12792663/Nuclear-football-book-launch-nuclear-attack-plane-bunker.html

The most important football in the world is not a ball at all, rather it is the ‘nuclear football’ carried with the President of the United States that tells them how to launch a nuclear attack – and its contents may surprise most Americans.

Moran Cerf, 46, a neuroscience professor who studies the procedures of how a president can order a nuclear attack, told The Sunday Times what steps the leader of the free world has to take to launch a strike.

Cerf said the satchel does not contain the technology to directly launch missiles. Instead, it holds a number of plans for the president to pick through.

‘There’s a book, a really thick book with all the nuclear options. Essentially it’s like Choose Your Own Adventure,’ said Cerf. 

‘You open the book and it says, “If you want to bomb North Korea, go to page 470. And if you want to bomb North Korea and you’re going to focus on Pyongyang, go to 471.”‘

Next, the commander in chief will tell an aide what plan they have selected and that begins moving through a chain of command.

‘[This aide] has a communications device that he uses to have the president connect the command and control center, of which there are two,’ said Cerf.

One of these command posts is aboard a plane that is constantly in the air as three planes fly in shifts.

‘There’s always a plane in the air. It’s called the “Looking Glass,”‘ said Cerf.

The command then goes to a military bunker that is ‘spherical, floating on springs in a hollow cavity in the ground’ where two officers are required to launch the missiles. 

Cerf said: ‘Someone reads to them the authentication code, so that they know it’s a real thing. Each one of them has a chain with a key round his neck and they both go to a safe and insert the keys, and then they unlock the safe that has in it two other keys. And those are the keys that are actually the keys.’

‘They have to turn the keys at the same time and hold for eight seconds. And then it launches and from then on, no one can stop it.’

One of five military aides to the president – one from each branch of the armed forces: army, navy, air forces, marines and coast guard – always carries the ‘nuclear football’ in close proximity to the leader.

It has been carried by every president since Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s.

The president authenticates their identity with codes found on a small plastic card carried with them. In case the president is incapacitated or has died, an identical nuclear football is assigned to the vice president.

In the event of a devastating attack on the US, the president – or vice president as backup – would confirm their identity to the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon over a secure phone by reading codes from the Sealed Authenticator System card – also known as the ‘biscuit’ – that they are supposed to carry with them at all times.

Military leaders and White House national security advisors would then brief the president or vice president on the nature of the threat and the options for retaliating. If either person wanted to consult the written options, they could do so.

Then, the president would choose a retaliatory option and the command would be read back to them. Once confirmed, the command center would use the military’s launch authorization codes to release nuclear missiles.

‘In the U.S. protocol you have to rehearse the entire process every four months, so three times a year,’ Cerf said.

However, Cerf said modern presidents rarely run through the drill.

‘The answer is zero times — [Biden] never does it. He always says, “I’m going to send someone else instead. Not a good time for me…” What about Trump? How often do you think Trump did it? And the answer is zero.’

‘The last person to have done it is Carter in the Seventies,’ Cerf said.

November 28, 2023 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

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