Algeria: deep resentment of French colonialism and the effects of nuclear bombing -still very real today.
In Algeria, France’s 1960s nuclear tests still taint ties, https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20210729-in-algeria-france-s-1960s-nuclear-tests-still-taint-ties More than 60 years since France started its nuclear tests in Algeria, their legacy continues to poison relations between the North African nation and its former colonial ruler.The issue has come to the fore again after President Emmanuel Macron said in French Polynesia on Tuesday that Paris owed “a debt” to the South Pacific territory over atomic tests there between 1966 and 1996.
The damage the mega-blasts did to people and nature in the former colonies remains a source of deep resentment, seen as proof of discriminatory colonial attitudes and disregard for local lives.
Diseases related to radioactivity are passed on as an inheritance, generation after generation,” said Abderahmane Toumi, head of the Algerian victims’ support group El Gheith El Kadem.
“As long as the region is polluted, the danger will persist,” he said, citing severe health impacts from birth defects and cancers to miscarriages and sterility.
France carried out its first successful atomic bomb test deep in the Algerian Sahara in 1960, making it the world’s fourth nuclear power after the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain.
Today, as Algeria and France struggle to deal with their painful shared history, the identification and decontamination of radioactive sites remains one of the main disputes.
In his landmark report on French colonial rule and the 1954-62 Algerian War, historian Benjamin Stora recommended continued joint work that looks into “the locations of nuclear tests in Algeria and their consequences”.
France in the 1960s had a policy of burying all radioactive waste from the Algerian bomb tests in the desert sands, and for decades declined to reveal their locations.
‘Radioactive fallout’
Algeria’s former veterans affairs minister Tayeb Zitouni recently accused France of refusing to release topographical maps that would identify “burial sites of polluting, radioactive or chemical waste not discovered to date”.”The French side has not technically conducted any initiative to clean up the sites, and France has not undertaken any humanitarian act to compensate the victims,” said Zitouni. According to the Ministry of the Armed Forces in Paris, Algeria and France now “deal with the whole subject at the highest level of state”.
“France has provided the Algerian authorities with the maps it has,” said the ministry.
Between 1960 and 1966, France conducted 17 atmospheric or underground nuclear tests near the town of Reggane, 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) from the capital Algiers, and in mountain tunnels at a site then called In Ekker.
Eleven of them were conducted after the 1962 Evian Accords, which granted Algeria independence but included an article allowing France to use the sites until 1967.
A radioactive cloud from a 1962 test sickened at least 30,000 Algerians, the country’s official APS news agency estimated in 2012.
French documents declassified in 2013 revealed significant radioactive fallout from West Africa to southern Europe. Algeria last month set up a national agency for the rehabilitation of former French nuclear test sites.
In April, Algeria’s army chief of staff, General Said Chengriha, asked his then French counterpart, General Francois Lecointre, for his support, including access to all the maps.
We respect our dead’Receiving the maps is “a right that the Algerian state strongly demands, without forgetting the question of compensation for the Algerian victims of the tests,” stressed a senior army officer, General Bouzid Boufrioua, writing in the defence ministry magazine El Djeich.”France must assume its historical responsibilities,” he argued.President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, however, ruled out any demands for compensation, telling Le Point weekly that “we respect our dead so much that financial compensation would be a belittlement. We are not a begging people.”France passed a law in 2010 which provided for a compensation procedure for “people suffering from illnesses resulting from exposure to radiation from nuclear tests carried out in the Algerian Sahara and in Polynesia between 1960 and 1998”.
But out of 50 Algerians who have since launched claims, only one, a soldier from Algiers who was stationed at one of the sites, “has been able to obtain compensation”, says the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
No resident of the remote desert region has been compensated, it said.
In a study released a year ago, “Radioactivity Under the Sand”, ICAN France urged Paris to hand Algeria a complete list of the burial sites and to facilitate their clean-up.
The 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons obliges states to provide adequate assistance to individuals affected by the use or testing of nuclear weapons.
It was signed by 122 UN member states, but by none of the nuclear powers. France argued the treaty was”incompatible with a realistic and progressive approach to nuclear disarmament”.
ICAN France in its study argued that “people have been waiting for more than 50 years. There is a need to go faster.
“We are still facing an important health and environmental problem that must be addressed as soon as possible.”
U.S. Weighing New Sanctions on Iran as Nuclear Deal Hangs in Balance
U.S. Weighing New Sanctions on Iran as Nuclear Deal Hangs in Balance https://www.democracynow.org/2021/7/30/headlines/us_weighing_new_sanctions_on_iran_as_nuclear_deal_hangs_in_balance HEADLINEJUL 30, 2021 The U.S. is reportedly planning to impose sanctions on Iran’s drone and guided missile programs. This comes following reports the Biden administration is weighing tightening oil sanctions on Iran if talks to relaunch the nuclear deal — which the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from — fail. Iran has repeatedly said it will not recommit to the agreement until the U.S. lifts its devastating sanctions.
UK government headed for huge costs, and a major row with China over Hinkley C nuclear power station.
The Government is likely to become responsible for a huge bill for building Hinkley C power station. This is despite an insistence by the UK Government since they signed a deal with EDF to build Hinkley C in 2012
that electricity consumers will not have to pay for cost overruns for the project.
Yet it is now looking increasingly likely that this will end up being the case. When the deal was signed in 2012 the Government agreed to pay a much higher than expected £92.50 per MWh (in 2012 prices), this
price to be paid by consumers in their electricity bills (over twice the price given to recent offshore wind projects).
The Government claimed that there would be no bail-out if the project experienced large cost overruns
since the risk was borne by the holders of the share capital, EDF and also the Chinese state nuclear company, CGN. CGN holds around one third of the equity in Hinkley C.
But now there are mounting pressures on the Government to ensure that, for political and security reasons, China (through CGN) is not allowed to build its own nuclear design at Bradwell in Essex. Yet CNG only agreed to finance Hinkley C (and also in a similar fashion the planned Sizewell C project in Sufflok) on the basis that it was going to get the chance to showcase its own ‘Hualong’ nuclear plant at Bradwell.
If China’s Bradwell ambitions are thwarted then they will certainly pull out of the Sizewell C project and also do as much as is legally possible to forshorten their risks and responsibilities at Hinkley C. The Government is likely to have to take on big liabilities in the case of Hinkley C – that is against a long succession of pronouncements by Government ministers over the past nine years. Some are even urging the Government to take over all of CGN’s shareholdings in Hinkley C.
But even if the Chinese company cannot reclaim the money it will have spent on the project so far, if CGN is denied the opportunity to build at Bradwell they are very likely to refuse to pay for any cost overruns at Hinkley C (as well as pull out of Sizewell C). This means that the UK Government will have to take on the liability of future cost overruns, and maybe end up in a major row with China about financial compensation.
100% Renewables 28thy July 2021
French President acknowledges France’s debt to Polynesia, but no apology.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that Paris owed “a debt” to
French Polynesia over nuclear tests conducted in the South Pacific
territory between 1966 and 1996, but stopped short of apologising.
Daily Mail 28th July 2021
Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG) welcomes news that Chinese company may pull out of Bradwell project
The Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG) has welcomed the news of the possible withdrawal of the Chinese project to build a gigantic nuclear power station at Bradwell but has struck a note of caution. ‘BANNG has campaigned against a new nuclear power station at Bradwell for the past 13 years’, said Andy Blowers, Chair of BANNG.
The news that the Chinese company developing the site may be under pressure to withdraw comes as
little surprise and has looked on the cards for some while especially since CGN, the majority shareholder, announced a pause in the development in February.
We believe the Bradwell site is unsuitable, unsustainable and unacceptable – whoever proposes to develop it. We must remain vigilant and continue to oppose any further nuclear development at this site’. Quite aside from the Government’s concerns, BANNG has long argued that the project is doomed for other reasons, not the least of which has been the overwhelmingly hostile reaction of the communities led by BANNG around
the Blackwater.
Plans for Bradwell B were launched just as the Covid-19 pandemic broke and shocked the public by the sheer scale of the project and its devastating impact on environment, communities and wellbeing. The
development encountered strong local political opposition with Maldon District Council, which had for many years supported it, declaring its opposition and Colchester Borough Council Councillors unanimously declaring theirs. West Mersea Town Council is also opposed and others have consistently voiced concerns.
BANNG 26th July 2021
Hinkley Point C and Sizewell nuclear power projects could unravel, leaving France’s nuclear company EDF with huge debt.
| It was never very likely that the government would allow a Chinese state-owned company to build a nuclear power station in Britain. So news that it is now looking for ways to remove China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) from future nuclear projects hardly comes as a surprise. Under the terms of a deal struck in 2015 CGN was to take minority stakes in two French-led new nuclear power stations, Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C, while taking a majority stake in a third, Bradwell in Essex, which would use CGN’s own technology. This deal, first agreed by the coalition government, was approved with only minor alterations by Theresa May after a review concluded that Britain’s robust regulatory and technological safeguards were sufficient to protect against any threats to national security. Whether or not that assessment was right, the political context has since changed. The mood in parliament, particularly among Conservative MPs, has turned decisively against China, making it inconceivable that any government could allow China to build such sensitive national infrastructure. CGN was blacklisted from US government contracts in 2019 after being accused by the Trump administration of technology theft. That has made it harder for France’s EDF to attract the infrastructure investors that it needs to make Sizewell C financially viable. The risk is that China does not take its rejection well and the entire three-part deal unravels, with CGN withdrawing from Hinkley Point C in protest. That could leave EDF with a further shortfall of up to £4 billion. Times 26th July 2021 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-chinas-role-in-nuclear-plants-power-play-v70d2r76k |
Egypt postpones nuclear power plant amid tensions with Russia.
Egypt postpones nuclear power plant amid tensions with Russia over Nile dam,
Egypt pauses El-Dabaa nuclear power plant project for two years amid tensions hanging over the relationship with Russia due to its recent position on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam crisis and its rapprochement with Ethiopia. George Mikhailuly 28, 2021
Egypt announced the postponement of the completion of the El-Dabaa nuclear plant project to 2030 instead of 2028. Egyptian Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority spokesman Karim al-Adham confirmed in statements to the Egyptian economic newspaper Enterprise July 14 that El-Dabaa nuclear plant will not be completed before 2030 due to the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic…………. https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/07/egypt-postpones-nuclear-power-plant-amid-tensions-russia-over-nile-dam
The nuclear industry determined to influence climate talks before COP26
Nuclear industry under fire for trying to influence climate talks ahead of COP26. The National By Rob Edwards 25 July 21, HE nuclear industry has come under fire for trying to influence international talks in the run-up to the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in November.
Six people from the European Nuclear Society registered to attend UN negotiations in May and June. Two were from the UK Government’s Magnox Ltd, which is decommissioning nuclear plants, and one was from the US nuclear firm, Westinghouse.
There were also 12 representatives from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN body charged with both promoting and regulating nuclear power, plus one from the Canadian Nuclear Association.
The nuclear industry was accused by environmentalists of “jumping on the bandwagon” of climate change. “The latest wheeze is to tell us that nuclear is the answer,” said Dr Richard Dixon, director of Friends of the Earth Scotland.
“With renewables and energy efficiency cheaper, quicker and safer than nuclear, they have already lost this argument and should have no place at COP26. The nuclear industry’s disastrous history of cost and time over-runs show very clearly that what they offer would be too little, too expensive and far too late.”
Pete Roche, policy adviser to the Scottish Nuclear Free Local Authorities, said: “When you look at nuclear power you find it is hopelessly expensive, far too slow to be of any use and hugely problematic – producing dangerous waste and with a potential risk of a serious accident.”……….. https://www.thenational.scot/news/19466992.nuclear-industry-fire-trying-influence-climate-talks-ahead-cop26/
Emmanuel Macron in French Polynesia – not likely to satisfy campaigners resentful of France’s nuclear tests legacy
In French Polynesia, Macron tackles nuclear test legacy, China dominance, President Emmanuel Macron is visiting French Polynesia to showcase France’s commitment to the region amid concerns about the impact of climate change on the Pacific island territory, the legacy of French nuclear testing on its atolls — and most of all, growing Chinese dominance in the region……Residents in the sprawling archipelago of more than 100 islands located midway between Mexico and Australia are hoping Macron confirms compensation for radiation victims following decades of nuclear testing as France pursued atomic weapons.
The tests remain a source of deep resentment, seen as evidence of racist colonial attitudes that disregarded the lives of islanders.
Analysis: France’s efforts to redress effects of nuclear testing unlikely to satisfy campaigners
French officials denied any cover-up of radiation exposure at a meeting earlier this month with delegates from the semi-autonomous territory led by President Édouard Fritch.
The meeting came after the investigative website Disclose reported in March that the impact from the fallout was far more extensive than authorities had acknowledged, citing declassified French military documents on the nearly 200 tests.
Only 63 Polynesian civilians have been compensated for radiation exposure since the tests ended in 1996, Disclose said……….
Climate change, pandemic also on the cards
Macron also plans to address risks for the islands from rising sea levels as well as cyclones that some scientists warn could become more dangerous due to climate change………. https://www.france24.com/en/france/20210725-in-french-polynesia-macron-tackles-nuclear-test-legacy-china
China threatens Japan with nuclear war over intervention in Taiwan
China threatens Japan with nuclear war over intervention in Taiwan, Business Standard, 23 July 21,
Deputy PM Aso urged dialogue to resolve any issue The Chinese Communist Party aired a video in which it warned Japan of a nuclear response and “full-scale war” if the island nation interferes in China’s handling of Taiwan, Fox News reported.
The video, which appeared on a channel approved by the CCP, singles out Japan as the one exception to China’s policy to not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear powers.
“We will use nuclear bombs first,” the video said. “We will use nuclear bombs continuously. We will do this until Japan declares unconditional surrender for the second time.” The video was deleted from Chinese platform Xigua after gaining 2 million views, but copies were uploaded to YouTube and Twitter, Taiwan News reported. Accoding to Fox News,the threats follow comments made two weeks ago by Japanese officials about Taiwan’s sovereignty, with Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso saying that Japan must “defend Taiwan,” The Japan Times reported……. https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/china-threatens-japan-with-nuclear-war-over-intervention-in-taiwan-121072300030_1.html
Do Germany and the Netherlands want to say goodbye to US nuclear weapons?
Do Germany and the Netherlands want to say goodbye to US nuclear weapons? Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists By Michal Smetana, Michal Onderco, Tom Etienne, July 21, 2021 Does stationing US nuclear weapons in Europe still make sense? As of 2021, there remain about 100 B61 nuclear bombs stored at military bases in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Turkey (Kristensen and Korda 2021). Deployed under NATO’s nuclear sharing policy, these air-deliverable weapons are supposed to serve as a tool of extended deterrence against Russia and assurance of European allies about the willingness of Washington to defend them with all means available.
Yet, there are new—and loud—voices on both sides of the Atlantic that question the need to continue this Cold War-era practice in the 21st century. While certainly not everyone agrees with the recent proposal by Harvard University’s Stephen Walt to “fold America’s nuclear umbrella” altogether (Walt 2021), many politicians in European hosting states advocate for at least an early removal of the remaining US bombs from their soil. Arguably, the debates over the future of US nuclear weapons in Europe are now of paramount importance given the attempts of the new US administration to balance its approach vis-à-vis Moscow (Squassoni 2021) and Europe’s ambition to seek strategic autonomy (Meijer and Brooks 2021)……… (subscribers only) https://thebulletin.org/premium/2021-07/do-germany-and-the-netherlands-want-to-say-goodbye-to-us-nuclear-weapons/
After the lab-leak theory, US-Chinese relations head downhill
The United States and China could work together in sharing biosecurity-related samples, genetic materials and data, developing protocols and countermeasures against biosafety accidents, promoting transparency in dual-use research of concern, countering disinformation, and strengthening compliance with global health laws, including the Biological Weapons Convention and the International Health Regulations.
But the US push to investigate the lab leak and the political context in both countries likely puts the goal of finding the origins of COVID-19 and many other ambitions at risk………
After the lab-leak theory, US-Chinese relations head downhill, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, By Yanzhong Huang | July 16, 2021 In October, 2018, more than a year before the COVID-19 pandemic, dozens of international trainees visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology for an expansive workshop meant to “promote the cooperation between China and other countries in the field of biosafety.” The attendees, many from developing countries, took classes on virus handling and bioethics, they listened to speeches by Chinese and UN arms control officials, and learned from eminent scientists. For the organizers, the 10-day event was a chance to showcase China’s expertise in biosafety management. And for this, they could hardly have chosen a more perfect location, a prestigious virology institute that had just months earlier opened the country’s first state-of-the-art, specialized facility for safely studying the world’s most dangerous pathogens, a biosafety-level (BSL) 4 lab.
The marketing plan hasn’t paid out.
Two years on, the lofty vision the workshop at the advanced Chinese biolab embodied—one of international collaboration on disease control and scientific research—has disintegrated as the United States and China tangle in an increasingly nasty fight over the origins of the still-raging coronavirus pandemic. In the United States, President Joe Biden, prominent scientists, and once-skeptical mainstream media outlets have collectively revived a hypothesis that was initially largely framed as a conspiracy theory, that the COVID-19 virus could have escaped from the Wuhan lab. Meanwhile, in China, many are convinced COVID-19 started somewhere else, outside of the country.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology now sits at the forefront of the US-China row on the origins of a once-in-a-century pandemic.
Continue readingProgressive lawmakers join across the world in a Global Alliance For A Green New Deal.
Labour MP Clive Lewis and Caroline Lucas of the Green Party join lawmakers from US, Brazil, EU and Costa Rica in new global climate justice campaign. Leading progressive lawmakers from the UK, USA, Brazil, Costa Rica, and the European Parliament are among those joining forces in a new Global Alliance for a Green New Deal today, in a bid to promote the case for “a rapid and just transition in response to Covid-19 and the climate and nature crises”.
The Alliance calls for the creation of “a new internationalism based on cooperation, collaboration and global justice” in order to address the interlinked climate, biodiversity, and coronavirus crises. It adds that a ‘Green New Deal’ should be placed at the heart of national and global Covid economic recovery efforts. Among the 21 founding politicians in the Alliance are British MPs Clive Lewis from the Labour Party and the Green
Party’s Caroline Lucas, who both co-chair the All Party Parliamentary Group on the Green New Deal in the UK.
Business Green 19th July 2021
https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4034612/moonshot-moment-uk-mps-join-global-alliance-green-deal
Nuclear-free Asia Pacific Report
Nuclear-free Asia Pacific Report
By APR editor – July 19, 2021 Over the past 50 years, France has continued to deny the tragedies of nuclear testing in French Occupied Polynesia by propagating the theory of “clean nuclear tests”. Image: Youngsolwara Pacific
Asia Pacific Report newsdesk Moana activists, campaigners, scholars, researchers and Green MPs gathered today in a show of solidarity for Tahiti’s Ma’ohi Lives Matter rally at Auckland University of Technology and vowed to work towards independence for the French-occupied Pacific territory.
A live feed from the Tahitian capital of Pape’ete was screened and simultaneous events happened across the Pacific, such as in Fiji.
Many of the Auckland participants were stalwarts from the early days of the Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement from the 1970s and 1980s and declared their support for pro-independence Tahitian leader Oscar Temaru.
Many speakers protested that Tahitians were still awaiting compensation for the legacy of health problems and the devastation of Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls during 30 years of testing and 193 nuclear blasts, both atmospheric and underground.
The speakers said it was appalling that serious attempts for compensation and a state apology had not happened in the two decades since the tests ended in 1996.
However, reports from Paris at the weekend hinted that the French Polynesian President had indicated that France had for the first time conceded it should compensate Tahiti’s social security agency CPS for the medical costs caused by the tests.
The agency had repeatedly said that since 1995 it had paid out US$800 million to treat a total of 10,000 people suffering from cancer as the result of radiation from the tests.
French PM’s letter
Tahiti’s territorial President Édouard Fritch said he received a letter from French Prime Minister Jean Castex, in which he admitted that the demand for a re-imbursement of the outlays was legitimate…………….
Environmental journalist, author and academic Dr David Robie denounced the “decades of lies, bluster and cover-ups” by French authorities, saying recent allegations published by the book Toxique and investigative website The Moruroa Files were a “game changer” forcing action from Paris…………
The rally participants acknowledged the connection between indigenous struggles in Mā’ohi Nui, Aotearoa, Australia, Hawai’i, Kanaky New Caledonia, Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, Rapa Nui, Solomons, Vanuatu, West Papua, and the rest of Moana.,,,,,,, https://asiapacificreport.nz/2021/07/19/nuclear-free/
Nuclear colonialism
An Australian artist has accused a group of Conservative councillors of
using “bullying strategies” to silence and censor her work after an
installation she created to highlight Britain’s “identity as a colonial
nuclear state” was removed from a park in Essex. The councillors
threatened to “take action against the work” if it was not removed,
according to Metal, the arts organisation that commissioned and then
removed the installation from Gunners Park in Southend.
Guardian 17th July 2021
21
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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