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The big mistake of sudden renewed optimism about nuclear power

The global scramble for fuel after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has decidedly ended any debate over whether nuclear energy should be part of the world’s new renewable era. Governments in Europe, Asia and the US have all recently overridden environmental concerns about radioactive waste and nuclear accidents to recommit to nuclear power plants as a part of any transition away from oil and gas.

As the world celebrates Earth Day this weekend, the return of nuclear energy harks back to the 1970s, before the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl scarred its reputation as a safe and cheap alternative to oil and gas.

But the sudden spurt of nuclear optimism from Washington to London is little more than a political feint.
By the time most proposed nuclear projects are paid for and developed, in a decade or more, we will be either well into a new chapter of solar and wind energy dependence or dashed against the globally-warmed rocks of fossil fuel hubris.

Next week, the Biden administration will commit up to $6bn of its infrastructure bill to preserving almost 100 ailing nuclear power plants for future use. Plans to transform closing coal plants – and their
workers – into nuclear facilities, are taking shape. Nuclear power currently makes up about 20 per cent of US energy usage, compared to wind (9 per cent) and solar (3 per cent), according to the US Energy Information Administration.

In Europe, harsh condemnation of nuclear power in places such as Germany, the UK and Brussels has given way this spring to the political expediency of siding with countries such as France, which have
long supported nuclear power. Belgium, for example, has changed its mind and recommitted to building new power plants. Poland plans to build new ones. France has doubled down and even the UK’s Boris Johnson has placed new nuclear facilities squarely within his government’s new energy strategy, even at the expense of onshore wind farms. He wants to move Britain’s nuclear mix to 25 per cent by 2030 from 16 per cent.

The energy crunch caused by Ukraine is an immediate crisis, not one that can be fixed with long-term, expensive solutions. While Europe – and the rest of the world – must think long term to mitigate global heating and stop burning fossil fuels, the decreasing costs of other renewable energies such as wind, solar, and tidal will eventually catch up with expensive alternative plans. Likely faster than we all think, given the reduction in their costs over the past 10 years.

 Independent 21st April 2022

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/earth-day-nuclear-energy-fuel-energy-b2062615.html

April 23, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, politics international | Leave a comment

Overwhelming majority of Members of European Parliament oppose inclusion of nuclear power in Europe’s taxonomy as ”green”

MEPs set to block plan deeming nuclear and gas energy ‘green’

McGuinness seeks to use EU taxonomy of environmentally sustainable activities

  Irish Times,   Naomi O’Leary, 22 Apr 22, Europe Correspondent   A plan by Ireland’s European Commissioner Mairead McGuinness to classify nuclear and gas energy as “green” is facing major opposition in the European Parliament, with MEPs preparing to block the move.

The so-called EU taxonomy was intended as a classification system to label economic activities that are environmentally sustainable in an attempt to direct private investment to industries that help the green transition.

But an attempt by the commission, fronted by Ms McGuinness, to add gas and nuclear to this list is facing a kill vote in the parliament, backed by MEPs from her own centre-right political group, according to the results of an internal consultation seen by The Irish Times.

  MEPs from the European People’s Party, of which Fine Gael is a member, have joined with those from the centre-left Socialists and Democrats; Renew, of which Fianna Fáil is a member; the Greens; and the Independents’ Left group, to which Sinn Féin is affiliated, to back an objection that could block the change from coming into force.

At the parliament’s environment and economy committees, an overwhelming majority of 115 MEPs chose to object to the commission’s move, with just 23 from the hard-right Identity and Democracy and ECR groups opting to acquiesce to the addition of nuclear and gas to the taxonomy, the results show.

The MEPs now have weeks to approve a joint objection text in committees. It would then go to a full vote in the European Parliament in its July session, where a majority of at least 353 MEPs would be sufficient to stop gas and nuclear being added to the taxonomy.

Russia’s invasion

The majority is easily achievable if the same political groups back the objection as they have in the committee stage. Observers believe that if the commission’s move is blocked in July, there would be little political will to make another attempt given the difficulties that have dogged the file and the additional controversy that now surrounds gas since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine……………………………………………

The move to add green and nuclear to this list is being done as a so-called “delegated act” – something which updates existing EU legislation rather than creating new law, and does not need the usual vote of approval by the European Parliament to come into force. It can, however, be blocked by an objection procedure backed by a majority of MEPs.

The opposition of MEPs to adding gas and nuclear to the taxonomy is grounded in doubts about the inherent merits of the move, but also in opposition to the commission’s method in using a delegated act to do it…………………………..   https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/meps-set-to-block-plan-deeming-nuclear-and-gas-energy-green-1.485

April 23, 2022 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

Iran nuclear negotiations at stalemate over IRGC terror listing

Iran and the United States seemingly do not want to budge over the designation of the IRGC in reviving the nuclear deal.  April 20, 2022

The talks in Vienna to revive the Iran nuclear deal have reached a stalemate, with neither side appearing to want to budge from the final sticking point regarding the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the United States.

In his latest comments Monday on the state of the negotiations, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh said, “Until all issues are agreed upon, nothing is agreed upon.” He said that “the remaining issues in Vienna are clear to everyone.” Meanwhile, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price, responding to a reporter’s question, said, “If Iran wants sanctions lifting that goes beyond the JCPOA, they’ll need to address concerns of ours that go beyond the JCPOA,” using the acronym for the deal’s official name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Price’s comments about addressing other concerns were not welcomed by Iranian media. Javan, a newspaper linked to the IRGC, headlined their article on Price’s comments “Washington’s request again to negotiate beyond the JCPOA.” The story read, “Once again another recommendation to negotiate beyond the JCPOA was put on the table.” The article added that these negotiations would include not just the nuclear program but also Iran’s missile capabilities and regional role. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, has repeatedly said that Iran would not negotiate on other issues within the context of the nuclear deal. Previously, long before the US exit of the 2015 deal, Khamenei had once said that if the JCPOA deal comes to fruition and all sides meet their obligations, then Iran would be open to discussing other matters — though the time for that has passed now apparently.

The Trump administration’s poison pill of designating the IRGC as an FTO has brought the talks to a standstill. Iran wants all Trump-era sanctions removed before it returns its nuclear program to levels written out in the JCPOA, especially concerning the level of enrichment and advanced centrifuges in use. The United States is insisting that the designation of the IRGC is not nuclear-related. Since the US exit in 2018 under former President Donald Trump, Iran and the United States have not negotiated face to face and instead communicate via European intermediaries. ………………………………………….   The best both sides can hope for now is at least an interim agreement of some sort.

    https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/04/iran-nuclear-negotiations-stalemate-over-irgc-terror-listing

April 21, 2022 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

Russia warns of nuclear weapons in Baltic if Sweden and Finland join NATO

Russia warns of nuclear weapons in Baltic if Sweden and Finland join Nato,

Lithuania plays down threat, claiming Russians already have such weapons in Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad Guardian,   Jon Henley and Julian Borger 15 Apr 2022

Moscow has said it will be forced to strengthen its defences in the Baltic if Finland and Sweden join Nato, including by deploying nuclear weapons, as the war in Ukraine entered its seventh week and the country braced for a major attack in the east.

However, the Lithuanian defence minister, Arvydas Anušauskas, claimed on Thursday that Russia already had nuclear weapons stored in its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, which borders Lithuania and Poland. That claim has not been independently verified, but the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) reported in 2018 that nuclear weapon storage bunkers in Kaliningrad had been upgraded.

The Russian former president Dmitry Medvedev, a senior member of Russia’s security council, said on Thursday that all its forces in the region would be bolstered if the two Nordic countries joined the US-led alliance.

Medvedev’s threat is the latest of many instances of nuclear sabre-rattling from the Kremlin aimed at deterring western military intervention on behalf of Ukraine.

“We’re obviously very concerned,” said the CIA director, William Burns. “Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they’ve faced so far militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons.”

But Burns added: “While we’ve seen some rhetorical posturing on the part of the Kremlin, moving to higher nuclear alert levels, so far we haven’t seen a lot of practical evidence of the kind of deployments or military dispositions that we would reinforce that concern.”

Finland and Sweden are deliberating over whether to abandon decades of military non-alignment and join Nato, with the two Nordic countries’ leaders saying Russia’s onslaught on Ukraine has changed Europe’s “whole security landscape”.

Their accession to the alliance would more than double Russia’s land border with Nato members, Medvedev said. “Naturally, we will have to reinforce these borders” by bolstering ground, air and naval defences in the region, he said.

Medvedev, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, explicitly raised the nuclear threat, saying Finnish and Swedish Nato membership would mean there could be “no more talk of any nuclear-free status for the Baltic – the balance must be restored”.

Russia had “not taken such measures and was not going to”, he said. “But if our hand is forced, well … take note it wasn’t us who proposed this.”

Russia borders the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad is sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Alexander Grushko, said Moscow would take the security and defence measures that it would deem necessary if Sweden and Finland join Nato, adding that the move would seriously worsen the military situation and lead to “the most undesirable consequences”.,,…………………..    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/14/russia-says-it-will-reinforce-borders-if-sweden-and-finland-join-nato

April 19, 2022 Posted by | politics international, Russia | Leave a comment

US envoy vows ‘decisive response’ to North Korea missile, nuclear tensions

SEOUL 18 Apr 22, : The US envoy for North Korea said that Washington would act “responsibly and decisively” in response to “escalatory actions” after a series of test missile launches raised concerns that the North was preparing to resume nuclear testing.

US Special Representative Sung Kim and his deputy, Jung Pak, met with South Korean officials, including nuclear envoy Noh Kyu-duk, after arriving in Seoul early on Monday (Apr 18) for a five-day visit…………….  https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/us-envoy-vows-decisive-response-north-korea-missile-nuclear-tensions-2631726

April 19, 2022 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Europe’s reliance on Russian nuclear supplies isn’t ending with the war

In the relevant Council Regulation of 15 March 2022, civil nuclear-related activities were excluded from the definition of the energy sector and are therefore, quite explicitly, not covered by the prohibition on investments in the Russian energy sector. 

The only difference is that while this dependence on gas has been widely discussed, the same cannot be said of the nuclear industry. And yet the EU member states have no intention of ending this nuclear dependence. 

Putin’s uranium self-enrichment — Beyond Nuclear International How dependent is Europe on the Russian nuclear sector?
The below is the second half of the Öko-Institut blog entry — “Energy policy in times of the Ukraine war: Nuclear power instead of natural gas?” — looking at Europe’s reliance on the Russian nuclear sector. Read the full blog article.

By Anke Herold, Dr Roman Mendelevitch and Dr Christoph Pistner, 17Apr 22,
Europe is heavily dependent on Russia for nuclear energy as well, perhaps to an even greater extent than for gas. The main sources of uranium imports into the EU in 2020 were Russia (20%), Niger (also 20%), Kazakhstan (19%), Canada (18%), Australia (13%) and Namibia (8%). Just 0.5% of the uranium used in the EU comes from the EU itself. 

However, this apparent diversity of sources is deceptive. Russia has a close relationship with Kazakhstan, while the mines in Niger belong to Chinese state-owned companies, as do two of the three largest uranium mines in Namibia. The third Namibian mine is largely Chinese-owned. 

In other words, in 2020, only 21% of uranium imports into Europe were supplied by firms that are not owned by totalitarian regimes. It follows that here too, Europe has placed itself in a position of high import dependence.

Around 25% of uranium enrichment and some processes in fuel rod fabrication for the EU take place in Russia. Many Russian-designed reactors source their fuel rods largely from the Russian company TVEL – now part of Rosatom – on the basis of long-term supply contracts that run for 10 years or more. 

There are Russian-designed nuclear reactors in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary and Slovakia. The 16 older pressurised water reactors, type WWER-440, are totally dependent on TVEL for fuel rod fabrication. These older reactors can be found in Bulgaria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary. 

Even the Euratom Supply Agency itself identifies this dependence as a significant vulnerability factor. The operators are dependent on imports of Russian technology. 

The Western European nuclear power plants are also far from being independent. The French company Areva collaborates with TVEL in order to supply fuel rods for seven reactors in Western Europe, including the Loviisa nuclear power plant in Finland. 

As recently as December 2021, the French nuclear company Framatome signed a new strategic cooperation agreement on the development of fuel fabrication and instrumentation and control (I&C) technologies.

The Russian fuel rod manufacturer TVEL was also keen to enter into fuel rod production at the factory in Lingen, Germany, which currently belongs to the French company ANF. Lingen supplies fuel rods to British, French and Belgian nuclear power plants. The German Federal Cartel Office approved the venture in March 2021, whereupon the Federal Economics Ministry conducted an open-ended review until the end of January 2022. 

On the day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Ministry announced that the Rosatom subsidiary TVEL had withdrawn its application. In Germany, the Rosatom Group also owns a subsidiary, NUKEM Technologies, which specialises in the decommissioning of nuclear facilities, decontamination, waste management and radiation protection. In Germany, it plans and constructs storage facilities for radioactive waste and is involved in decommissioning the Neckarwestheim and Philippsburg nuclear power plants.

So Putin manoeuvred the European nuclear industry into a position of dependence on Russia long ago, and he himself earns income from the decommissioning of the German nuclear power plants. 

The only difference is that while this dependence on gas has been widely discussed, the same cannot be said of the nuclear industry. And yet the EU member states have no intention of ending this nuclear dependence. 

In the relevant Council Regulation of 15 March 2022, civil nuclear-related activities were excluded from the definition of the energy sector and are therefore, quite explicitly, not covered by the prohibition on investments in the Russian energy sector. 

Although practically 100% of the EU’s uranium is imported, as is most of the fuel rod supply, the EU classes nuclear energy as “domestic” production because fuel rods can easily be stockpiled.

Here, we see a similar Orwellian use of language as in the EU Taxonomy, which describes nuclear energy as a technology which does not cause significant harm to the environment.

As the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on 18 March 2022, even the EU’s flight ban on Russian aircraft was lifted for a delivery of nuclear fuel into Slovakia.

So our conclusion on this topic is that as regards nuclear energy too, the dependence on Russia must be drastically reduced. Supply security with no dependence on totalitarian regimes requires a substantial reduction in nuclear energy use in Europe. Read the full blog.

April 18, 2022 Posted by | EUROPE, politics international, Uranium | Leave a comment

Biden’s genocide comment raised concern

SOTT, Carol E. Lee, Josh Lederman, NBC News, Fri, 15 Apr 2022

President Joe Biden’s declaration this week that Russia is committing “genocide” in Ukraine raised concerns among some officials in his own government and has so far not been corroborated by information collected by U.S. intelligence agencies, according to senior administration officials.

At the State Department, which is tasked with making formal determinations of genocide and war crimes through an independent legal process, two officials said that Biden’s seemingly offhand declaration during a domestic policy speech in Iowa on Tuesday made it harder for the agency to credibly do its job.

U.S. intelligence agencies collect information when allegations are made of actions that could amount to genocide, but policymakers are the ones who actually decide whether to declare it. Intelligence reports on Ukraine currently do not support a genocide designation, officials said.

“Genocide includes a goal of destroying an ethnic group or nation and, so far, that is not what we are seeing.”…………..

The question of when to label Russia’s actions in Ukraine “genocide,” particularly the legal threshold for doing so had been discussed inside the White House ever since images of mass graves and civilian torture and assassinations emerged in Bucha, people familiar with the discussions said. Biden had recently begun to make his views clear in private, so White House officials weren’t surprised that he called what’s happening in Ukraine “genocide,” but they were taken aback that he did so offhandedly in a speech in Iowa about inflation, the people said.

Biden’s ‘personal’ views

The president’s declaration of genocide in Ukraine was the third time in recent weeks that the president has tried to separate what he says are his personal views from official U.S. policy to take a position that he believes is right even though it’s not aligned with the position of his own government.

Biden said Russia was committing war crimes in Ukraine — another symbolically and legally significant moment in which he got ahead of his own administration — a week before the U.S. government completed its legal process and formally made that declaration.

Biden also said Russian President Vladimir Putin should no longer be in power, prompting a scramble by his aides to say that’s not what he meant and stress that U.S. policy is not regime change in Moscow. Biden later said he did mean what he said — that it was his “personal” view — but not U.S. policy.
……………  “These aren’t gaffes,” said one person close to the White House. “He’s doing this very purposefully.”

Responding to questions about Biden’s genocide declaration, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters this week, “The president was calling it like he sees it, and that’s what he does.”

The apparent disconnect between the president and the bureaucracy he oversees is striking given Biden’s extensive experience in foreign policy and government. Biden also has stressed since the 2020 campaign that “the words of a president matter.” And he’s gone out of his way to say he would not try to influence independent Justice Department decisions, but some administration officials see a willingness for him to do just that with other independent legal processes.

Once the president says he believes genocide and war crimes have been committed, administration officials said that puts immense pressure on career government officials to reach the same conclusion. The concern is that if and when the State Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice reaches those conclusions on its own, the office risks appearing late to the game or like it’s trying to justify Biden’s public comments, the officials said. One of the administration officials said Biden’s comments had put particular pressure on Beth Van Schaack, the U.S. ambassador for global criminal justice, who was confirmed by the Senate last month. On Friday, Schaack met with Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, to compare notes as Venediktvoa’s office investigates alleged Russian war crimes by Russia. Venediktova, like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has already accused Russia of genocide in Ukraine.

U.S. intelligence shows that the Russians have been told that Ukrainians in the eastern Donbas region, where fighting is expected to intensify, are Nazis and that the Ukrainian civilians are Nazi sympathizers, raising concerns about genocide, officials said. The Russians also have been told the same about Ukrainians in Mariupol, officials said, with one noting how brutal Moscow’s military campaign has been there.

Genocide is a specific crime defined under international law, and proving it requires showing an intent at high levels to commit genocide.

Biden’s early accusation against Russia, which was welcomed by Zelenskyy, came even ahead of human rights organizations that have often pushed U.S. administrations to declare that a regime has committed genocide.

Human Rights Watch, for instance, so far has not found evidence of a genocidal campaign waged by Russia, according to Tara Sepehri Far, acting deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Washington office.

“Our research is not matching the definition yet,” said Sepehri Far. “It doesn’t mean it’s not happening.”

Biden has throughout his decades long career at times been quicker than others in the U.S. government to speak out about genocide…………………………..  https://www.sott.net/article/466834-Biden-genocide-comment-raised-concern-among-some-U-S-officials

April 18, 2022 Posted by | politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

U.S. Jews Favor Return to Iran Deal

Jews support a return to the Iran deal by 68-32, according to a new survey. And when Jews are asked to name their top two political issues, Israel shows up near the bottom of the list, well behind climate change.

Portside, April 16, 2022, Philip Weiss MONDOWEISS

merican Jews overwhelmingly support the renewal of the Iran deal, and very few American Jews consider Israel a political priority, according to a new survey of American Jewish voters.

Jews support a return to the Iran deal by 68-32, the Jewish Electoral Institute found in a poll of 800 Jews this spring. The proportion is nearly 4-to-1 among Reform Jews (79-21) and women (77-23). And Jews over 65 are for the deal by a larger percentage (72-28) than Jews under 40. Only the orthodox are against the Iran deal, by 85-15! But orthodox make up just 9 percent of the Jewish population.

Now here’s the indifference to Israel question.

Voters were asked to say which two issues they wanted the president to focus on. Israel got clobbered. Only 4 percent listed it as one of their two issues.

When you break it out by denomination, it’s even starker. 1 percent of non-denominational Jews and 2 percent of Reform Jews think Israel should be a priority. And those two groups make up more than two-thirds of American Jews — 31 percent non-denominational, 37 percent Reform. Though 5 percent of Conservative and 18 percent of Orthodox Jews see Israel as a priority.

Other issues are just way more important. 42 percent of nondenominational Jews say climate change should be a top priority; 32 percent say voting rights; 12 percent say crime…………………

The new poll also shows that 93 percent of American Jews are concerned about antisemitism. The Reform number there is 95 percent concerned, the orthodox 96 percent, the non-denominational 89 percent concerned…….   https://portside.org/2022-04-16/us-jews-favor-return-iran-deal

April 18, 2022 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

In Ukraine, with the blessing of the Western countries, those who are in favor of a negotiation have been eliminated – Jacques Baud

Retired Swiss Military-Intelligence Officer. Is it possible to actually know what has been and is going on in Ukraine? Jacques Baud, The Unz Review 02 Apr 2022

” ……………………………. Conclusions. As an ex-intelligence professional, the first thing that strikes me is the total absence of Western intelligence services in accurately representing the situation over the past year. In fact, it seems that throughout the Western world intelligence services have been overwhelmed by the politicians. The problem is that it is the politicians who decide — the best intelligence service in the world is useless if the decision-maker does not listen. This is what has happened during this crisis.

That said, while a few intelligence services had a very accurate and rational picture of the situation, others clearly had the same picture as that propagated by our media. The problem is that, from experience, I have found them to be extremely bad at the analytical level — doctrinaire, they lack the intellectual and political independence necessary to assess a situation with military “quality.”

Second, it seems that in some European countries, politicians have deliberately responded ideologically to the situation. That is why this crisis has been irrational from the beginning. It should be noted that all the documents that were presented to the public during this crisis were presented by politicians based on commercial sources.

Some Western politicians obviously wanted there to be a conflict. In the United States, the attack scenarios presented by Anthony Blinken to the UN Security Council were only the product of the imagination of a Tiger Team working for him — he did exactly as Donald Rumsfeld did in 2002, who “bypassed” the CIA and other intelligence services that were much less assertive about Iraqi chemical weapons.

The dramatic developments we are witnessing today have causes that we knew about but refused to see:

  • on the strategic level, the expansion of NATO (which we have not dealt with here);
  • on the political level, the Western refusal to implement the Minsk Agreements;
  • and operationally, the continuous and repeated attacks on the civilian population of the Donbass over the past years and the dramatic increase in late February 2022.

In other words, we can naturally deplore and condemn the Russian attack. But WE (that is: the United States, France and the European Union in the lead) have created the conditions for a conflict to break out. We show compassion for the Ukrainian people and the two million refugees. That is fine. But if we had had a modicum of compassion for the same number of refugees from the Ukrainian populations of Donbass massacred by their own government and who sought refuge in Russia for eight years, none of this would probably have happened.

Whether the term “genocide” applies to the abuses suffered by the people of Donbass is an open question. The term is generally reserved for cases of greater magnitude (Holocaust, etc.). But the definition given by the Genocide Convention is probably broad enough to apply to this case.

Clearly, this conflict has led us into hysteria. Sanctions seem to have become the preferred tool of our foreign policies. If we had insisted that Ukraine abide by the Minsk Agreements, which we had negotiated and endorsed, none of this would have happened. Vladimir Putin’s condemnation is also ours. There is no point in whining afterwards — we should have acted earlier. However, neither Emmanuel Macron (as guarantor and member of the UN Security Council), nor Olaf Scholz, nor Volodymyr Zelensky have respected their commitments. In the end, the real defeat is that of those who have no voice.

The European Union was unable to promote the implementation of the Minsk agreements — on the contrary, it did not react when Ukraine was bombing its own population in the Donbass. Had it done so, Vladimir Putin would not have needed to react. Absent from the diplomatic phase, the EU distinguished itself by fueling the conflict. On February 27, the Ukrainian government agreed to enter into negotiations with Russia. But a few hours later, the European Union voted a budget of 450 million euros to supply arms to the Ukraine, adding fuel to the fire. From then on, the Ukrainians felt that they did not need to reach an agreement. The resistance of the Azov militia in Mariupol even led to a boost of 500 million euros for weapons.

In Ukraine, with the blessing of the Western countries, those who are in favor of a negotiation have been eliminated.This is the case of Denis Kireyev, one of the Ukrainian negotiators, assassinated on March 5 by the Ukrainian secret service (SBU) because he was too favorable to Russia and was considered a traitor. The same fate befell Dmitry Demyanenko, former deputy head of the SBU’s main directorate for Kiev and its region, who was assassinated on March 10 because he was too favorable to an agreement with Russia — he was shot by the Mirotvorets (“Peacemaker”) militia. This militia is associated with the Mirotvorets website, which lists the “enemies of Ukraine,” with their personal data, addresses and telephone numbers, so that they can be harassed or even eliminated; a practice that is punishable in many countries, but not in the Ukraine. The UN and some European countries have demanded the closure of this site — but that demand was refused by the Rada [Ukrainian parliament].

In the end, the price will be high, but Vladimir Putin will likely achieve the goals he set for himself. We have pushed him into the arms of China. His ties with Beijing have solidified. China is emerging as a mediator in the conflict. The Americans have to ask Venezuela and Iran for oil to get out of the energy impasse they have put themselves in — and the United States has to piteously backtrack on the sanctions imposed on its enemies.

Western ministers who seek to collapse the Russian economy and make the Russian people suffer, or even call for the assassination of Putin, show (even if they have partially reversed the form of their words, but not the substance!) that our leaders are no better than those we hate — sanctioning Russian athletes in the Para-Olympic Games or Russian artists has nothing to do with fighting Putin.

What makes the conflict in Ukraine more blameworthy than our wars in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya? What sanctions have we adopted against those who deliberately lied to the international community in order to wage unjust, unjustified and murderous wars? Have we adopted a single sanction against the countries, companies or politicians who are supplying weapons to the conflict in Yemen, considered to be the “worst humanitarian disaster in the world?”

To ask the question is to answer it… and the answer is not pretty.

About the author

Jacques Baud is a former colonel of the General Staff, ex-member of the Swiss strategic intelligence, specialist on Eastern countries. He was trained in the American and British intelligence services. He has served as Policy Chief for United Nations Peace Operations. As a UN expert on rule of law and security institutions, he designed and led the first multidimensional UN intelligence unit in the Sudan. He has worked for the African Union and was for 5 years responsible for the fight, at NATO, against the proliferation of small arms. He was involved in discussions with the highest Russian military and intelligence officials just after the fall of the USSR. Within NATO, he followed the 2014 Ukrainian crisis and later participated in programs to assist the Ukraine. He is the author of several books on intelligence, war and terrorism, in particular Le Détournement published by SIGEST, Gouverner par les fake news, L’affaire Navalny. His latest book is Poutine, maître du jeu? published by Max Milo.

This article appears through the gracious courtesy of Centre Français de Recherche sur le Renseignement, Paris. more https://www.sott.net/article/466340-Retired-Swiss-Military-Intelligence-Officer-Is-it-Possible-to-Actually-Know-What-Has-Been-And-is-Going-on-in-Ukraine

April 16, 2022 Posted by | politics international, Reference, secrets,lies and civil liberties, spinbuster, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukraine crisis a risk to nuclear security

By Li Zhe | China Daily | 2022-04  The risks to nuclear security have increased with the continuation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The geopolitical game involving Russia and Ukraine but also the United States and some European countries poses a big threat to nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear deterrence.

Perhaps a bigger threat is that the nuclear risks will carry with them the hidden dangers to nuclear security in the post-conflict era.

Strategic stability is possible only if the arms race among major powers ends, and the nuclear powers pledge to non-first use of nuclear weapons. That’s why the US and the Soviet Union signed treaties to limit, rather reduce, their nuclear arsenals………….

Ukraine and Belarus respectively are allied with the US and Russia, and both want to repossess nuclear weapons. This shows the political wrestling between the US-led West and Russia has shaken countries caught in the middle and could prompt many of them to develop or get nuclear weapons.

Besides, Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said in a recent interview with German newspaper Die Welt that Poland was open to stationing US nuclear warheads on its soil.

Ukraine and Belarus do not possess nuclear weapons. Under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Guarantees, they transferred the nuclear weapons inherited from the Soviet Union to Russia for decommissioning in exchange for security assurances from the US and the United Kingdom and Russia. Also, despite not being in a position to acquire or develop nuclear weapons, they are caught in the vortex of large-scale political, economic and military confrontations and conflicts between the West and Russia.

With the Korean Peninsula and Iran nuclear issues yet to be resolved, the attempts of Ukraine and Belarus to acquire nuclear weapons could fuel a new round of nuclear proliferation.

Since Biden took office, the US administration’s stance on nuclear nonproliferation has been wavering and ambiguous. Early in his tenure, Biden talked about the necessity of nuclear arms control, including reducing the nuclear weapons arsenal, saving the cost of competition, preventing nuclear proliferation, and maintaining nuclear stability. But of late, he has been talking about great power competition, providing nuclear deterrence to US allies, and has not ruled out the use of nuclear weapons as deterrence.

The nuclear posture review of the Biden administration, too, is unclear, and it is likely to use the Russia-Ukraine conflict to accord higher priority to nuclear weapons in national security, and accordingly increase the defense budget to finance Washington’s geopolitical games. In fact, the administration has already proposed a huge budget including higher spending, of $813 billion, on defense………………

Global nuclear security has deteriorated over the past few years and the Ukraine crisis has made the future gloomier. So it is imperative that all parties make concerted efforts and restrain their respective military actions, and exhibit courage to hold talks on arms control and nuclear nonproliferation.  http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202204/15/WS6258ae63a310fd2b29e57111.html

April 16, 2022 Posted by | politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Spain outraged as massive US nuclear-powered submarine arrives in Gibraltar

SPAIN has launched an official complaint against the arrival of a US nuclear-powered submarine in Gibraltar.

By ALESSANDRA SCOTTO DI SANTOLO, Apr 14, 2022 The arrival of a USS Georgia submarine in the port of Gibraltar has sparked a diplomatic row between Spain and the US. The Spanish Foreign Ministry has confirmed that it has lodged an official protest with the US.

The Spanish authorities wanted the submarine to anchor at the Rota naval base instead, where the US Georgia had already been based in August 2020.

The reasons and the duration for the stopover of the submarine remain unknown.

Since the port of Gibraltar was ceded by Spain to the United Kingdom in 1713, the Spanish government actually lacks the authority to prevent such moves.  The British Overseas Territory has been at the centre of a bitter row between the UK and EU after Brexit, as access to Gibraltar was not included in the trade agreement. Under an EU proposal, Spain would gain control over the country’s external border……………………https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1596057/spain-news-Gibraltar-uss-Georgia-submarine-nuclear-uk-latest

April 16, 2022 Posted by | politics international, Spain | Leave a comment

Rep. Ilhan Omar: Accountability for Russia Means Abandoning US ‘Hypocrisy’

Akbar Shahid Ahmed/HuffPost,  

The congresswoman revealed a proposal to make America a member of the International Criminal Court and revoke a Bush-era measure that undermines it.

Mounting evidence of widespread Russian atrocities in Ukraine is spurring the Biden administration and lawmakers from both parties to demand justice at a global level — specifically, at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Now Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) is challenging them to boost that prospect by making the U.S. a member of the court and repealing a George W. Bush-era law that requires the U.S. to block the court from investigating Americans.

“We’ve engaged in a process for a long time of delegitimizing these international institutions that essentially call for accountability, and I think it is really disturbing that we now think they are powerful enough … to hold Russia accountable. It’s easy for people to see the hypocrisy in those two statements when we’ve said previously that we don’t believe in the ability of the court to [be] unbiased,” Omar said on Wednesday………….
“It’s really important for us not to have a law on the books that says in many ways it is OK for everyone to be prosecuted” but not Americans, Omar told HuffPost. “Think about just how much more powerful of a statement it would be if we didn’t just call for accountability for war crimes in Ukraine in holding Russians accountable for the possible war crimes they have committed but if we actually had skin in the game.”

Progressives like Omar see developing a loud, nuanced position on Ukraine as critical to expanding their influence over national security policy and reforming the U.S.’s approach to global affairs.Conservatives and the Pentagon have argued for years that if the U.S. joined the court, American officials would face unfair and politically motivated investigations. But every Republican in the Senate recently voted for legislation recommending the court as a venue for probing Russia’s abuses, and House Republicans are supporting a bill urging the court to prosecute Putin if any harm befalls Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy……………….    https://www.rsn.org/001/rep-ilhan-omar-accountability-for-russia-means-abandoning-us-hypocrisy.html

April 16, 2022 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

U.S. foreign policy, corporate news on Ukraine and elsewhere is steeped in racism

Nonstop Corporate News on Ukraine Is Fueling Support for Unchecked US Militarism,  
Henry A. Giroux, Truthout, 13 Apr 22 ”…………………………………….    

U.S. foreign policy is soaked in blood; torture; the violations of civil rights; abductions; kidnappings; targeted assassinations; illegal black holes; the scorched bodies of members of a wedding party in Yemen killed by a drone attack; and hundreds of women, children and old men brutally murdered by U.S. soldiers in the Vietnam village of My Lai.

In a war culture, memory fades, violence is elevated to its most visible and mediating force, and logic is refigured to feed a totalitarian sensibility. Under such circumstances, as London School of Economics Professor Mary Kaldor has argued, we live at a time in which the relationship between politics and violence is changing. She states: “Rather than politics being pursued through violent means, violence becomes politics. It is not conflict that leads to war but war itself that creates conflict.”

Behind this disproportionate response by the international community and its media platforms lies the ghosts of colonialism and the merging of culture and the undercurrents of white supremacy. For example, the general indifference to comparable acts of war and unspeakable violence can be in part explained by the fact that the Ukrainian victims appearing on the mass media are white Europeans. What is not shown are “Black people being refused at border crossings in favor of white Ukrainians, leaving them stuck at borders for days in brutal conditions [or] Black people being pushed off trains.” The mainstream media celebrate Poland’s welcoming of Ukrainian refugees but are silent about the Polish government boasting about building walls and “creating a ‘fortress’ to keep out refugees from Syria and Afghanistan.”

The war in Ukraine makes clear that racism is not deterred by global boundaries. Empathy in this war only runs skin deep. It is easy for white people in the media to sympathize with people who look just like them. This was made clear when CBS News Senior Correspondent Charlie D’Agata, reporting on the war, stated that it was hard to watch the violence waged against Ukrainians because Ukraine “isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European [country] … one where you wouldn’t expect that, or hope that it’s going to happen.” In this case, “civilized,” is code for white. D’Agata simply echoed the obvious normalization of racism as is clear in a number of comments that appeared in the mainstream press. The Guardian offered a summary of just a few, which include the following:

The BBC interviewed a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine, who told the network: ‘It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blond hair … being killed every day.’ Rather than question or challenge the comment, the BBC host flatly replied, ‘I understand and respect the emotion.’ On France’s BFM TV, journalist Phillipe Corbé stated this about Ukraine: ‘We’re not talking here about Syrians fleeing the bombing of the Syrian regime backed by Putin. We’re talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives…. And writing in the Telegraph, Daniel Hannan explained: ‘They seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking. Ukraine is a European country. Its people watch Netflix and have Instagram accounts, vote in free elections and read uncensored newspapers. War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations.’

There is more here than a slip of the tongue; there is also the repressed history of white supremacy. As City University of New York Professor Moustafa Bayoumi writing in The Guardian observes, all of these comments point to a deeply ingrained and “pernicious racism that permeates today’s war coverage and seeps into its fabric like a stain that won’t go away. The implication is clear: war is a natural state for people of color, while white people naturally gravitate toward peace.”

Clearly, in the age of Western colonialism, a larger public is taught to take for granted that justice should weigh largely in favor of people whose skin color is the same as those who have the power to define whose lives count and whose do not. These comments are also emblematic of the propaganda machines that have resurfaced with the scourge of racism on their hands, indifferent to the legacy of racism with which they are complicit……………… https://truthout.org/articles/nonstop-corporate-news-on-ukraine-is-fueling-support-for-unchecked-us-militarism/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=77fff940-46b2-4233-a46f-c6b8512452b6

April 14, 2022 Posted by | indigenous issues, politics international, USA | 1 Comment

For the Middle East, the introduction of nuclear reactors poses dangers at every turn

Should Middle East climate change be tackled with nuclear energy?……. for Middle East nations there are dangers at every turn.  Aljzaeera,  By Sanam Mahoozi, 12 Apr 2022,   If history is any indication, nuclear accidents can happen and when they do, they have deadly outcomes for humans as well as for the environment.  Chernobyl and Fukushima are still paying the price for the nuclear mishaps that exposed them to radioactive material.

……………… For most countries in the Middle East, fossil fuels play a dominant role and replacing them with cleaner sources is crucial.

But some experts say transitioning to nuclear energy represents an even higher risk.

‘Risks must be considered’

As Ghena Alhanaee, a researcher in the field of civil and environmental engineering, told Al Jazeera, “there are many layers of implications if an incident were to occur in the Gulf, given the uniqueness of the region”.

Most of the countries in the region fund their economies almost exclusively through oil and gas revenues, and any disruption to these trading activities by a nuclear accident would lead to calamitous financial losses.

About half of the world’s desalination capacity is found in the region. Studies show that Gulf countries such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Kuwait get more than 90 percent of their drinking water from desalination, a process that removes salt from the seawater.

“So if you get any nuclear accident in that environment you can start to say goodbye to Gulf desalination plants,” Paul Dorfman, associate fellow at the University of Sussex and chair of the Nuclear Consulting Group, told Al Jazeera.

Simply put, a nuclear incident could endanger the security of energy, water and food sectors in the region.

“All such risks must be considered by the nations sharing this very unique natural treasure,” said Kaveh Madani of United Nations University, the former deputy head of Iran’s environment department.

When it comes to nuclear power generation, “the appealing side of it is clear, as is the side that could be harmful to the health and environment of its surroundings”, Madani said.

The nuclear industry in the Gulf region is expanding, with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) currently helping some countries develop their nuclear programmes. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of them.

As it stands, there are only two active nuclear power facilities in the region: the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran, and the Barakah nuclear power plant in the UAE. Bushehr has one operational reactor and another one under construction, and Barakah has two operational reactors with two more on the way.

Nuclear energy development in the Middle East is still in its early stages, but the number of plants is expected to increase given Saudi Arabia’s plans to take forward its own capabilities.

…………..   the risks may indeed outweigh the benefits if something were to go wrong with any of the facilities.

“There is this paradox about nuclear; one never knows whether it would help you or damage you,” Dorfman pointed out.

………….. Extreme weather can also damage nuclear facilities and result in radiation footprints that last thousands of years. The European heatwaves that either shut down or slowed down the nuclear reactors in France and Germany in 2003 and  2019 are evidence of this possibility.

The region is rife with rivalries between countries, also making nuclear power dangerous.

“They can use one nuclear power programme to build up the infrastructure to at least send a signal that they could eventually develop the capability for nuclear weapons, so there are strategic reasons to want to move in that direction,” Gregory Jaczko, former chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told Al Jazeera.

When faced with the prospect of going nuclear for whatever reason, countries around the Gulf “need to always think about the unthinkable and should have a chronic unease because this technology, by its nature, is a safety-critical technology and its accident is characterised as low-probability, high consequence,” said Najmedin Meshkati, civil environmental engineering professor specialising in nuclear safety at the University of Southern California.

“If something goes wrong,” said Meshkati, “these consequences will have a punishing impact for the workers, for the company, for the country, and for the entire region.”   https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/12/should-middle-east-climate-change-be-tackled-with-nuclear-energy

April 14, 2022 Posted by | MIDDLE EAST, politics international | Leave a comment

The US-Australia-UK pact seems determined to pursue great power competition at the risk of real conflict.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/04/11/aukus-goes-from-nuclear-submarines-to-hypersonic-weapon-technology/

APRIL 11, 2022

Written by
Sarang Shidore

The leaders of the United States, United Kingdom and Australia — the three nations that form the AUKUS security grouping— have issued a joint statement recently on deepening their cooperation to include new technologies. The statement spoke of “new trilateral cooperation on hypersonics and counter-hypersonics, and electronic warfare capabilities, as well as to expand information sharing and to deepen cooperation on defense innovation.” 

AUKUS is an explicitly military pact announced in September 2021 aimed to counter China in the Asia-Pacific. It has been generally portrayed as an agreement to transfer highly sensitive nuclear submarine technology to Australia and equip Canberra with such craft. Since then, the submarine plans have made some progress, with the Exchange of Naval Nuclear Propulsion Information Agreement signed by the three countries, which allows sharing of sensitive data. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has also announced the earmarking of an additional base for nuclear submarines on the country’s east coast. 

But AUKUS is as much, or even more, about other defense technologies such as cyber, artificial intelligence, quantum physics, and others to which hypersonics is just the latest addition. The likely reason for adding the latter is China’s own progress in this technology, with a recent test that was seen in the United States as a breakthrough. The United States is widely considered to be behind China and Russia in hypersonic technology. However, Washington is very much implicated in Chinese advances. The United States probably sparked China’s drive for hypersonics when it withdrew from the bedrock Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in 2001.

Last year, I wrote about the dangers and risks AUKUS presents to the stability and security of Asia. These include setting a poor precedent for curbing nuclear proliferation, problematic weaponization of norms and values claims, the perception of an Anglo-Saxon club in Asia, and risks of sparking a new arms race. Deterrence has a place in any U.S. approach toward China, but the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy is heavy on deterrence and light on reassurance. The inclusion of hypersonics in AUKUS is simply another sign that we have entered a world of decreasing safeguards against chances of great power conflict with all its potential to go nuclear. Nuclear war, more than the rise of China, is a core and existential threat to the United States.

Last year, I wrote about the dangers and risks AUKUS presents to the stability and security of Asia. These include setting a poor precedent for curbing nuclear proliferation, problematic weaponization of norms and values claims, the perception of an Anglo-Saxon club in Asia, and risks of sparking a new arms race. Deterrence has a place in any U.S. approach toward China, but the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy is heavy on deterrence and light on reassurance. The inclusion of hypersonics in AUKUS is simply another sign that we have entered a world of decreasing safeguards against chances of great power conflict with all its potential to go nuclear. Nuclear war, more than the rise of China, is a core and existential threat to the United States.

April 12, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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