Inside the ‘suitably opaque’ response to a toxic sewage spill at Chalk River nuclear lab
Internal communications raise questions about transparency at nuclear organizations amid pollution incident
Brett Forester · CBC News ·Aug 20, 2024
When a nuclear research facility was directed to stop polluting the Ottawa River with toxic sewage earlier this year, at least one official seemed pleased with the non-transparency of the facility’s public messaging.
“This is suitably opaque,” wrote Jennifer Fry in an April 24 email to Jeremy Latta, director of communications and government reporting at Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), a Crown corporation.
The two AECL officials were discussing a planned public communiqué from Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) to be released that day. AECL owns the Chalk River nuclear research campus near Deep River, Ont., about 150 kilometres upstream from Ottawa, but outsources site management to private sector corporate consortium CNL.
Chalk River’s sewage plant began failing toxicity tests on Feb. 21, meaning the treated wastewater, or effluent, was confirmed toxic to fish. (One hundred per cent of the rainbow trout directly subjected to the effluent died over a four-day period, records show. A death rate over 50 per cent fails the test.)
And so on April 23, after two months of this toxic water going into the Ottawa River, Environment Canada stepped in, prompting both CNL’s communiqué and AECL’s assessment of it.
“Reads fine to me, not major risks,” Latta had written, “and who knows if it gets traction.”
Those emails are among more than 100 pages of internal communications released by AECL under access-to-information law, which are raising questions about transparency around the pollution incident.
CBC News requested an interview with an AECL spokesperson to discuss the corporation’s handling of the incident based on a review of the records, and Latta agreed to speak last week.
Latta defended the response, maintaining there was no deliberate effort to hide information. He brushed off Fry’s comment as one person’s opinion………………………………………………………………………
“We have absolutely no confidence in the fact that, if there is a major incident, they will disclose it to us,” said Haymond, a vocal opponent of CNL’s plan to build a radioactive waste dump at Chalk River.
“It just really speaks to the challenge in the relationship where they profess to want to have better communications, and said they would make the effort. Time and time again, there’s incidents which demonstrate that that’s not happening.”…………………………………….
CNL ultimately didn’t answer many of CBC’s questions directly at the time, including one explicitly asking whether the effluent was going into the Ottawa River……………………….. https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/chalk-river-sewage-foi-documents-1.7299822
Too big to fail? Who cares if there’s no accountability – the Nuclear Lie
How is it that political parties can get away promising huge projects that won’t eventuate for 10 to 20 years; that’s four to eight election cycles in the future.
Even if the current opposition leader, Peter Dutton, manages to sell the nuclear dream at the next election, he won’t be around to see his promises are kept. He simply isn’t accountable for the claims he’s making today.
by David Salt | Aug 21, 2024 https://sustainabilitybites.com/too-big-to-fail-who-cares-if-theres-no-accountability/
Building big on big promises of endless clean energy ignores the limits of our institutions. It’s something rarely considered in the febrile, volatile environment of contemporary politics. We pull our leaders up on the smallest of inconsistencies but let them get away with the biggest of lies. When you next cast your vote, keep in mind that extraordinary promises require extraordinary accountability.
The nuclear lie
Australia is currently contesting a future based on nuclear energy vs renewables.
The conservative opposition Coalition has put forward a ‘plan’ to build seven government-owned nuclear plants across Australia that will come online around 2035. The promise is that these plants will provide cheap, reliable carbon free electricity and help our nation achieve ‘net zero’ by 2050. It’s a strange policy requiring massive government investment and control from a party the stands for smaller government. But that’s just the beginning of strangeness around this thinking.
To call it a ‘plan’ is drawing a long bow because the proposal comes with no costings or modelling attached; existing legislation prevents the construction of nuclear power plants; and Australia currently lacks the necessary capacity to develop a nuclear power network (something the nuclear loving coalition did nothing about while in government for most of the last decade). Experts from across Australia don’t believe it would be possible to build the plants by 2035, or that they can produce electricity at anything close to what can be produced by renewables.
However, if the electorate was to buy the proposal and vote in the conservatives, it would result in the extension of coal power (to fill the gap till nuclear comes online), the expansion of gas energy and a redirection of investment away from renewables, which don’t really complement nuclear anyway.
While questions are being asked about all of these uncertainties, I think a more fundamental issue relates to governance and scales of time.
How is it that political parties can get away promising huge projects that won’t eventuate for 10 to 20 years; that’s four to eight election cycles in the future. Even if the current opposition leader, Peter Dutton, manages to sell the nuclear dream at the next election, he won’t be around to see his promises are kept. He simply isn’t accountable for the claims he’s making today.
Flawed accountability
Clearly this is a weakness of our democratic system of governance. We vote someone in to represent us for a number of years, three to six years in most electorates around the world, and we hold these representatives to account for the how they perform in delivering what they promised at election time. This tends to have voters actively reflecting on day-to-day business (taxes, health care delivery, education etc), while simply ignoring the hundreds of billions of dollars of commitments made for promises that sit well over the electoral horizon (promises like nuclear submarine fleets and nuclear power plants).
This weakness in accountability appears to be increasingly exploited by all sides of politics. Voters are collapsing under the ‘cost of living’, holding their breaths with every quarterly inflation announcement, and quick to pull down any politician who seems insensitive to the needs of ‘working families’.
Yet, at the same time, voters seem oblivious to the consequences of political leaders making a $100 billion dollar pledge to be delivered in 3-4 election’s time (though I note critics say this plan could easily end up costing as much as $600 billion). Consequently, we’re seeing more of these big announcements because the pollies know the electorate is not going to hold them to account. They simply don’t have the capacity to take it in, they are too absorbed by the day-to-day stuff.
Extraordinary accountability
The late, great astronomer Carl Sagan once said that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. He was referring to the possibility of UFOs and extra-terrestrial life, but the same principle should apply to extraordinary political promises. If a political leader makes an extraordinary promise that can’t be delivered in one to two electoral cycles and commits vast quantities of (scarce) resources, then they need to put up a corresponding level of ‘extraordinary accountability’ before their case should be considered seriously by the broader electorate.
It’s not just the money involved and skills needed, it’s also how such a goal might be met over several electoral cycles. Bipartisan support, you would think, would have to be a basic first step.
A couple of decades ago Prime Minister John Howard passed the Charter of Budget Honesty Act in an effort to make political parties more accountable for the spending they promised. Many claim it has achieved little however, at the very least, it was an effort to show the electorate that politicians were aware that they needed to demonstrate greater accountability for the promises they make.
In the case of Dutton’s nuclear plan, this accountability is completely missing. However, rather than acknowledging this and attempting to build a stronger case, the Coalition has instead been attacking the institutions that have been examining the proposal (like CSIRO and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering). The conservatives have simply written them off when they question the validity of the proposal. (“I’m not interested in the fanatics,” says Dutton.) This doubling down is doubly dumb because it involves both extraordinary promises with no proof and the politicisation of independent experts.
Beyond nuclear
But this tendency to aim extraordinarily big without extraordinary accountability goes way beyond Australia’s future nuclear energy ambitions. Consider the quest for fusion energy.
Europe is chasing the holy grail of clean energy by investing in fusion power. The multi-country International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project was dreamt up in the 1980s and took over 25 years to come together as a formal collaboration between China, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the United States. Construction began in 2010 with operations expected to start about a decade later. But manufacturing faults, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the complexity of a first-of-a-kind machine (one of the most complex machines in the world) have all slowed progress and now ITER will not turn on until 2034, 9 years later than currently scheduled. Energy producing fusion reactions—the goal of the project—won’t come online until 2039!
ITER is a doughnut-shaped reactor, called a tokamak, in which magnetic fields contain a plasma of hydrogen nuclei hot enough to fuse and release energy. The technocrats running the project will gleefully explain that particle beams and microwaves heat the plasma to 150 million degrees Celsius—10 times the temperature of the Sun’s core—while a few meters away the superconducting magnets must be cooled to minus 269°C, a few degrees above absolute zero. Amazing as that sounds, it’s possibly less challenging than coordinating the actions and investment choices of the world’s superpowers decades into the future; Russia, China and the US are not exactly buddies at the moment. How strong do the ‘particle beams’ have to be to hold this agreement together for 20-30 years.
And even if ITER never eventuates, the possibility of ‘unlimited, clean energy’ over the horizon impacts investment decisions today. We’re seeing this even with the nuclear fission debate today in Australia as investors become wary of putting their money into renewables with the opposition promising nuclear powerplants just down the road.
And then there’s growing talk about implementing geoengineering solutions to fix humanity’s existential overheating problem (‘global boiling’). We’re talking pumping sulphates into the stratosphere, giant mirrors in space and fertilising the ocean to draw down carbon in the atmosphere. Playing God by ‘controlling’ the Earth system is going to be as big a governance issue as it is a technical challenge. And, given we’re doing so poorly on energy solutions using technology that’s relatively well understood, we’d be wise to demand extraordinary accountability before swallowing any promises in this domain.
Going thermonuclear
Which is not to say that ‘thermonuclear’ is not potentially a big part of a possible energy solution, just not the man-made kind. That big ball of energy in the sky called the Sun is driven by thermonuclear fusion, and this energy is there for the harvesting via photovoltaic cells (and indirectly by wind turbines).
And the accountability on these renewable sources of power doesn’t need the same level of extraordinary accountability that nuclear and thermonuclear demands because it can be delivered now, in the same electoral cycle as the promise to deliver it.
Renewables are not without their own set of issues but in terms of cost, feasibility AND accountability, it’s a solution that Australia (and the world) should be implementing now. Renewables are not ‘too big to fail’ but waiting twenty years before switching to them is simply too little too late.
Labour MP under fire for accepting £2,000 donation from Sizewell C developer.
Opposition to the proposed power plant accuse Jack Abbott of being in ‘EDF’s pocket’
Luke Barr, 19 August 2024
A Labour MP whose constituency borders the proposed Sizewell C nuclear power station has been criticised for accepting a £2,000 donation from the developer behind the project.
Jack Abbott, the newly appointed MP for Ipswich, is facing scrutiny over the decision to
take cash from the French energy giant EDF earlier this month. EDF is the
main private investor behind the proposed nuclear project, which is
expected to cost £20bn and will be part-funded by the taxpayer.
New filings show that Mr Abbott registered the EDF donation on Aug 2, just weeks after
he was elected in Ipswich. His constituency neighbours Sizewell C, which
once completed will serve as a 3.2 gigawatt power station providing energy
to around 6m homes.
However, the project has faced opposition from
campaigners who claim that it risks large cost overruns that will fall on
household bills and that it will spoil local nature.
Alison Downes, executive director of the Stop Sizewell C campaign group, claimed the EDF
donation suggested Mr Abbott was “in EDF’s pocket”. She said: “A huge
project like this has money and will likely use it to persuade people to
lend their support. It is telling that an organisation like ours doesn’t
have lots of money but still has plenty of support.”
A final investment decision on Sizewell C has yet to be made despite around £2.5bn already
being spent on the project. The Government had expected to secure backing
from private investors by the end of the year, although negotiations are at
risk of running into 2025.
Telegraph 19th Aug 2024
6 Billionaire Fortunes Bankrolling Project 2025
More than $120 million from a few ultra-wealthy families has powered the Heritage Foundation and other groups that created the plan to remake American government.
DeSmog, ByJoe Fassler, Aug 14, 2024
Since 2020, donor networks linked to just six family fortunes have funneled more than $120 million into Project 2025 advisory groups, a DeSmog analysis has found.
More than 100 nonprofits led by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank that has engaged in climate change denial and obstruction for decades, have signed on as advisors to the Project 2025’s 900-page “Mandate for Leadership” document — a plan to rapidly “reform,” or radically alter, the U.S. government by shuttering bureaus and offices, overturning regulations, and replacing thousands of public sector employees with hand-picked political allies.
In its official Project 2025 materials, Heritage Foundation leadership repeatedly draws attention to the size and diversity of its advisory board, suggesting that its numerous “coalition partners” are part of a broad, “movement-wide effort” representing a variety of independent viewpoints.
“Project 2025 is unparalleled in the history of the conservative movement—both in its size and scope but also for organizing [so many] different groups under a single banner,” the organization wrote in an October 2023 press release.
But an analysis of financial disclosure forms shows the same small group of donors supporting Project 2025’s advisors again and again — hardly a sign of ideological diversity. Of the 110 nonprofits formally supporting Project 2025, almost 50 received major donations from the same six sources of wealth since 2020.
Many of the organizations the six families funded also have close ties to Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, DeSmog found. Trump has repeatedly denied involvement in or knowledge of Project 2025, though that position conflicts with a growing number of news reports — a disavowal made more awkward by the fact that Vance wrote the forward to Dawn’s Early Light, a forthcoming book by Heritage Foundation president Kevin D. Roberts that describes his Project 2025 vision. DeSmog’s review of Project 2025’s financial backers found additional links to Trump, Vance, and key figures in their orbit that had not been previously known.
These six donor networks, linked to the family fortunes of a handful of wealthy industrialists, have spent years working to loosen environmental regulations and promote climate change denial. Though Heritage describes Project 2025 as a mainstream effort to “return government to the people,” its funding sources suggest something far less populist: a vehicle for the obsessions of ultra-rich donors on the far-right fringe, pushing an agenda to reshape American democracy and overturn regulations needed to maintain a livable climate.
Representatives from the six donor networks did not respond to DeSmog’s outreach on this story. The Heritage Foundation did not reply to a request for comment.
The Coors Family
At least $2.7 million to Project 2025 groups since 2020 …………………………………………………………..
Charles G. Koch
At least $9.6 million to Project 2025 groups since 2020 ……………………………………………
Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein
At least $13 million to Project 2025 groups since 2020
The Uihleins are co-founders of Uline, a company that sells shipping and packing supplies — including its ubiquitous brand of cardboard boxes — and other bulk business goods. ……………………………………………………………..
The Scaife Family
At least $21.5 million to Project 2025 groups since 2020
Richard Mellon Scaife died in 2014, but his contribution to conservative causes is still felt today. ……………………………………………………………..
Barre Seid
At least $22.4 million to Project 2025 groups since 2020
The enigmatic industrialist Barre Seid primarily built his fortune through his company Tripp Lite, an electronics manufacturer specializing in surge protectors…………………………………………………………….
The Bradley Family
At least $52.9 million to Project 2025 groups since 2020
The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation was originally established in 1942 by brothers Lynde and Harry Bradley, founders of the Allen-Bradley company, which made its fortune manufacturing a wide range of electronic products. Their descendants have continued to financially support the foundation for years to come, including with a reported $200 million gift in 2015.
But it was Michael W. Grebe, who served as CEO of the foundation between 2002 and 2016, who cemented its reputation as a conservative powerhouse, steering donations to a network of activist organizations like The Heritage Foundation, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, and the Heartland Institute (all Project 2025 coalition partners). The current chairman is James Arthur “Art” Pope, CEO of the North Carolina grocery chain Variety Wholesalers, a longtime Koch ally. …………………………………………more https://www.desmog.com/2024/08/14/project-2025-billionaire-donor-heritage-foundation-donald-trump-jd-vance-charles-koch-peter-coors/
Ukraine’s plan to buy Russian-made nuclear reactors sparks uproar
Lawmakers argue buying aging atomic energy equipment from Bulgaria won’t help keep the lights on and could fuel corruption.
Politico, August 15, 2024 , By Gabriel Gavin
Ukraine’s government is fighting off growing opposition to a multimillion-dollar scheme to buy mothballed nuclear reactors, facing accusations that officials are opening the door to corruption just as they push to clean up the country’s energy sector.
The government wants to bring two new units online at the Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Station in Western Ukraine, arguing they will help shore up the country’s energy grid that Russian bombs have decimated. The quickest and fastest way to do so, they argue, is to buy Russian-made reactors currently sitting in storage in Bulgaria at an estimated cost of $600 million.
But the deal needs lawmakers’ sign-off, and several parliamentarians — including at least one from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s own party — are alleging the deal could blow a massive hole in the country’s tattered budget for outdated technology that won’t necessarily help Ukrainians stave off looming blackouts.
………………………………………The row has created another point of contention as Ukraine tries to crack down on corruption in its energy sector. Earlier this week, Galushenko’s deputy minister, Oleksandr Kheil, was arrested over allegations he pushed for a bribe of half a million dollars in exchange for transferring coal mining equipment belonging to a state enterprise.
Zhupanyn and his colleagues claim the Russian nuclear reactor purchase will become another venue for such dodgy dealing.
“In the last 10 years, there have been many criminal cases against people using tenders to extract cash from Ukraine’s state nuclear power company,” he said in an interview. “If you allow them to spend billions of hryvnia on this, you can expect a pipeline of criminal cases in the next 10 years.”
Galuschenko denied accusations the government was withholding information…………………………………….
“There are a lot of MPs from basically all factions that are not supporting it,” Yaroslav Zheleznyak, an economist and MP from Ukraine’s liberal Holos party, told POLITICO following the meeting on Tuesday. “We are concerned about corruption in this procurement process and we have not received any explanations.”………………………………………………………………………..
Ukrainian energy and environment NGO Ekodiya has also raised concerns about the proposals for Khmelnytskyi, arguing that the project would rely on “obsolete Russian-made equipment” and that “the use of outdated technology can lead to serious safety and efficiency problems.”
Instead, the group argues, the better investment would be in smaller electricity-generating facilities, including renewables, distributed across a wider area. Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the chief executive of state power firm Ukrenergo, told POLITICO earlier this year that building a broad green energy network would make the grid less susceptible to Russian attacks……………………………………….. https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-buy-russia-made-nuclear-reactor-uproar-war-corruption/
Spy cop ‘made up absurd bomb plot’ over nuclear waste on railway route
Undercover officer infiltrated ‘anarchist movement’ in the early 1980s
Friday, 9th August — By Tom Foot, https://www.islingtontribune.co.uk/article/spy-cop-made-up-absurd-bomb-plot-over-nuclear-waste-on-railway-route
A SPY cop’s report about a plot to blow up North London Line trains transporting nuclear waste was an absurd fantasy used to justify a top secret undercover unit’s existence, an inquiry has heard.
An officer who infiltrated the “anarchist movement” in the early 1980s claimed “people against the nuclear programme built a bomb” that was “actually found” on the overground railway that runs through Islington.
The route goes through Highbury and Islington station and has recently been renamed the Mildmay Line by London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
The explosive claims from Roger Pearce, known to the inquiry as officer HN85, are discredited by several activists in statements published by the Undercover Policing Inquiry for the first time this week.
The statements tell how for many years nuclear waste was transported on the line from power stations in Kent, Suffolk and Essex to Sellafield, Cumbria.
The documents show how peace groups feared a terrorist attack on the trains could cause a national emergency and considered planting a fake bomb on the network for publicity.
The witness statement from Michael Zeitlin, a campaigner for the anti-nuclear movement, said: “I firmly believe that HN85 has deliberately suggested that a real bomb was planted in order to elevate the status of his reports and so justify his spying.
“I am convinced that any possible ‘bomb on the North London Line’ refers to informal discussions of placing a fake bomb as a publicity stunt, in order to draw attention to the threat created by the transportation of nuclear waste through residential areas.
“The idea that an actual bomb would have been planted is patently absurd as the whole issue was one of public safety. Such a bomb plot does sounds very much like fiction as might be found in a novel.”
The documentss show how a meeting of the Hampstead CND branch had heard discussions about “some form of action to protest against the transportation of nuclear fuel” but this had been “completely taken out of context and then grossly exaggerated” by the undercover officer.
Mr Pearce’s statement to the inquiry said: “There were people who were prepared to take violent action against the nuclear policy of the UK and I felt this provided justification for reporting on them.
“People against the nuclear programme, including anarchists who were my associates, built a bomb on the North London Line which transport nuclear waste.”
The inquiry docs show how Roger Pearce – there is no reporting restriction on using his name – trained as an Anglican Priest at Durham before joining the police in 1973.
He joined the Special Demonstration Squad that was set up by the Met to “prevent violent disorder” but led to officers spying on dozens of left-wing organisations and pacifist groups over four decades with little to no gain.
Training for the “top secret unit” took place at Holborn police station, Mr Pearce’s witness statement reveals, while recruitment took place on a “tap on the shoulder in the corridor” basis.
He chose the “legend” Adrian Roger Thorley, a name taken from a child who was killed in a road accident in in Stoke on Trent, and lied about being a van driver delivering spare parts for the car company Ford.
He lived in a “cover flat” off the Goldhawk Road in west London and wore red and black with shoes with “worn through soles”, claiming he was given the prestigious nickname “Trotsky” by activists he was spying on.
“Using a deceased child’s identity was a distasteful practice and a violation of privacy but we felt it would never be revealed,” his statement said.
The UCP Inquiry was launched in 2017 after it was revealed that some SDS officers used names of dead children and fathered children with activists.
Huge resources were ploughed into the discredited project with critics saying the ends did not justify the means.
More than one million documents have been submitted to the inquiry –already the longest and most expensive in British history – that is not expected to conclude until 2026.
‘Massive disinformation campaign’ is slowing global transition to green energy
UN says a global ‘backlash’ against climate action is being stoked by fossil fuel companies
Fiona Harvey Environment editor, Thu 8 Aug 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/08/fossil-fuel-industry-using-disinformation-campaign-to-slow-green-transition-says-un
Fossil fuel companies are running “a massive mis- and disinformation campaign” so that countries will slow down the adoption of renewable energy and the speed with which they “transition away” from a carbon-intensive economy, the UN has said.
Selwin Hart, the assistant secretary general of the UN, said that talk of a global “backlash” against climate action was being stoked by the fossil fuel industry, in an effort to persuade world leaders to delay emissions-cutting policies. The perception among many political observers of a rejection of climate policies was a result of this campaign, rather than reflecting the reality of what people think, he added.
“There is this prevailing narrative – and a lot of it is being pushed by the fossil fuel industry and their enablers – that climate action is too difficult, it’s too expensive,” he said. “It is absolutely critical that leaders, and all of us, push back and explain to people the value of climate action, but also the consequences of climate inaction.”
He contrasted the perception of a backlash with the findings of the biggest poll ever conducted on the climate, which found clear majorities of people around the world supporting measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The survey found 72% of people wanted a “quick transition” away from fossil fuels, including majorities in the countries that produce the most coal, oil and gas. Green parties and plans may have suffered reverses in some parts of the world, he said, but in others they have gained seats, and seen policies that would once have been considered radical enter the mainstream.
Governments must take note, said Hart, who acts as special adviser on climate to the UN secretary general, António Guterres. “This should alert political leaders – those that are ambitious are not only on the right side of history, they’re on the side of their people as well.
“Climate appears to be dropping down the list of priorities of leaders,” he said. “But we really need leaders now to deliver maximum ambition. And we need maximum cooperation. Unfortunately, we are not seeing that at the moment.”
He warned that the consequences of inaction were being felt in rich countries as well as poor. In the US, many thousands of people are finding it increasingly impossible to insure their homes, as extreme weather worsens. “This is directly due to the climate crisis, and directly due to the use of fossil fuels,” he said. “Ordinary people are having to pay the price of a climate crisis while the fossil fuel industry continues to reap excess profits and still receives massive government subsidies.”
Yet the world has never been better equipped to tackle climate breakdown, Hart added. “Renewables are the cheapest they’ve ever been, the pace of the energy transition is accelerating,” he said.
Governments should also take care to ensure that their climate policies did not place unfair burdens on those on low incomes, as poorly designed measures could hurt the poor, according to Hart. “Each country will really need to ensure its transition is well planned to minimise the impact on people and vulnerable populations, because a lot of the so-called pushback comes when there’s a perception that the costs on poor and vulnerable persons are being disproportionately felt,” he said.
For that reason, the UN is calling for new national plans on the emissions reductions required under the 2015 Paris agreement, in which governments must set out clearly not just their targets but how they will be achieved through policy, and what the probable impacts are.
The new national plans, called nationally determined contributions (NDCs), should be “as consultative as possible so that whole segments of society – young people, women, children, workers – will be able to provide their perspective on how the transition should be planned and well-managed, and how it will be financed”, he said.
“Despite everything we see [in the form of extreme weather], we’re still not seeing the level of ambition or action that the world desperately needs.”
Biden administration lies on Ukraine war are monstrous
https://heartlandprogressive.blogspot.com/ 6 Aug 24
Notice mainstream news has imposed a virtual blackout of news about US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. One can watch 24/7 and see nary a story on a war that could go nuclear in a heartbeat.
Couple of reasons for this. Mainstream news understands the US is suffering a staggering defeat in its effort to save its proxy state Ukraine in order to weaken Russia. Neither Republican nor Democratic media want to touch covering America’s dysfunctional war policy. Bleeding only leads when it’s the other side doing all the bleeding.
A second reason is media fatigue from the Biden administration endless lies for all 30 months of this war without a single truth worth reporting.
The original and biggest lie was the one that kicked off this war on February 24, 2022. Biden claimed Russian President Putin woke up one morning and decided to recreate the Soviet Union…starting by gobbling up Ukraine.
The truth is the US had been provoking the Russian invasion starting with President George W. Bush’s 2008 pledge to entice Ukraine into NATO to weaken, isolate Russia. Russia allowing this senseless US provocation to go on for 14 years is something America would never have done if the situation were reversed. It took the US about 14 hours to respond militarily to Russian missiles in Cuba 60 years earlier.
Biden’s next big whopper was framing the resulting conflict as democracy versus authoritarianism. He proclaimed Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky ‘The 21st Century Churchill’, saving Ukrainian democracy from Russian authoritarianism.
But for the past 30 months Zelensky has snuffed out every vestige of the touted Ukraine democracy. He’s cancelled elections under martial law, essentially making him president for the war’s life. No wonder he’s doing nothing to negotiate its end. When the war ends, so does Zelensky’s grasp on power, and possibly his life.
Additionally, Zelensky has banned opposition parties, squelched Ukraine’s free press, curtailed religious freedom and erased any hint of Russian culture among Ukrainian citizens so inclined.
But Biden’s most monstrous lie was that he’d do nothing in supporting Ukraine that could trigger nuclear war, something he said was a real possibility.at the war’s start. For 30 months he’s done the opposite, steadily arming Ukraine with nuclear capable F-16 fighters, Abram tanks and long-range missiles that can hit the heart of Russia. Telling Ukraine to be cautious not to provoke nuclear war with them is akin to giving matches to a kid, then telling him to use them judiciously.
There are many more in Biden’s blizzard of lies over the US proxy war in Ukraine. The saddest for the dying country of Ukraine being sacrificed on the altar of Biden’s lust to weaken, isolate Russia is this. “We will stand with Ukraine forever. We will never abandon Ukraine to Russian aggression.” Biden abandoned Ukraine 30 months ago. The US press and citizenry, weary of Biden’s endless lies on Ukraine, have moved on.
Britain’s nuclear submarine software built by Belarusian engineers
Fears that coding work outsourced to Russia and its allies could pose national security threat
Telegraph UK, By Camilla Turner, 2 August 2024
Britain’s nuclear submarine engineers use software that was designed in Russia and Belarus, in contravention of Ministry of Defence rules, The Telegraph can reveal.
The software should have been created by UK-based staff with security clearance, but its design was partially outsourced to developers in Siberia and Minsk, the capital of Belarus.
There are fears that the code built by the Russian and Belarussian developers could be exploited to reveal the location of Britain’s submarines.
The Telegraph understands that the MoD considered the security breach a serious threat to UK defence and launched an investigation.
The inquiry discovered that the firm that outsourced the work – on a staff intranet for nuclear submarine engineers – to Russia and Belarus initially kept it secret and discussed whether it could disguise where the workers were based by giving them fake names of dead British people.
As well as the UK’s submarine fleet, there are fears that further defence capabilities could have been compromised because it has emerged that a previous project was also outsourced to developers in Minsk.
National security in jeopardy
On Friday, experts warned that the UK’s national security could have been jeopardised if personal details of those with classified knowledge of Britain’s nuclear submarine fleet fell into the wrong hands, leaving them exposed to blackmail or targeted attacks.
Ben Wallace, the former defence secretary, said the breach “potentially left us vulnerable to the undermining of our national security”. He added: “Time and time again, countries like China and Russia have targeted the supply chains of our defence contractors. This is not a new phenomenon.”
James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, said it was an “absolute imperative” to ensure “our most sensitive defence programmes have total resilience and security”……………………………………………………………. more https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/02/britains-nuclear-submarine-software-designed-russia-belarus/
Israel lobby ramps up scare campaigns in fear of truth
By Bilal Cleland | 1 August 2024, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/israel-lobby-ramps-up-scare-campaigns-in-fear-of-truth,18826
srael lobby groups have increased efforts to silence those accusing the nation of genocide in Gaza, writes Bilal Cleland.
SHAIMA FARWANEH, 16, in the coastal displacement camp in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, was preparing to make breakfast for her family on 13 July when the Israeli bombs fell.
Ninety people, mainly women and children, were killed and over 300 injured.
Shaima told Mondoweiss:
There is no country in all the world that does this to children, women, and civilians. This isn’t how wars are.
A leg hit me and I saw dismembered bodies a few metres away. I saw a young child screaming. He lost his lower limbs and was crawling on his hands and screaming. The bombs didn’t stop and suddenly the boy disappeared. I saw how he vanished before me while we ran and lowered our eyes to the ground, unable to do anything but run.
Israel in trouble
Following 7 October, by the end of 2023, from over 4,000 immigrants a month only about 1,000 a month were arriving in Israel. A 70 per cent decline.
In that same couple of months, about 470,000 Israelis fled.
As reported in Anadolu Ajansi:
‘Therefore, there is a negative migration of about half a million people, and this does not include thousands of foreign workers, refugees and diplomats who left the country.’
Despite the support given to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the ruling parties across North America, much of Europe and Australia, one in four Israeli Jews and four in ten Arab Israelis would like to leave Israel according to a new survey. This reflects ‘a steady distrust with Israel’s political and military leadership’.
International institutions closing in
Haaretz published the stunning International Court of Justice (ICJ) findings on the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory:
- Israel must end its presence in the occupied territories as soon as possible.
- Israel should immediately cease settlement expansion and evacuate all settlers from the occupied areas.
- Israel is required to make reparations for the damage caused to the local and lawful population in the Palestinian territories.
- The international community and organisations have a duty not to recognise the Israeli presence in the territories as legal and to avoid supporting its maintenance.
- The UN should consider what actions are necessary to end the Israeli presence in the territories as soon as possible.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague is expected to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant within a fortnight.
Conflating opposition to genocide with anti-Semitism
The United States makes much of the role of the Iranian Council of Guardians selecting acceptable candidates for political office but ignores the role of its own Council of Guardians, AIPAC, which decides on suitable candidates for office.
U.S. Congressman Jamaal Bowman, once a recipient of lobby largesse, after seeing reality in Palestine on a J Street-funded excursion, called Gaza a genocide and said boycotts were legitimate.
Israeli lobby groups spent $9.9 million in a Democrat primary to get rid of him in favour of a supporter of Israel.
The scare campaign around rising anti-Semitism, which conflates criticism of Israel’s mass atrocities with prejudice against Jews, is a feature of most of the old colonial countries.
Mary Kostakidis, one of Australia’s most respected journalists, who speaks truth to power, has written regarding the Israeli genocide in Gaza:
‘In an effort to silence me, the Zionist Federation have filed a complaint with the [Australian Human Rights Commission] for racial vilification, aided by a reporter who can’t do his own research.’
The lobby levelled another case of harassment and suspicious accusations against a Palestinian Australian engaged in anti-genocide activity.
Hash Tayeh, who had to present himself to the police over alleged anti-Semitic comments, was not charged and his matter has been referred to the Office of Public Prosecutions.
His Caulfield Burgertory outlet was set on fire, allegedly by two men, on 10 November, an attack he claimed was linked to his involvement in a pro-Palestine rally and thus a hate crime.
Then we witnessed the arrest of a Palestinian activist in the Prime Minister’s electoral office.
Sarah Shaweesh, who was asking about the delay in visas for her family in Gaza, was arrested.
The office refused to help her.
She is a key organiser of the 24/7 Gaza sit-in protest in front of the PM’s office.
Complicity in genocide
In early March, Sydney law firm Birchgrove Legal lodged a communiqué to the ICC prosecutor claiming that the Australian PM and a number of other high-level local politicians are complicit in the Gaza genocide.
On Tuesday this week, it announced that the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC had added the document:
‘“…to the evidence gathered as part of the ICC’s investigation into the Situation in the State of Palestine,” as well as having been transmitted “to relevant staff members for further review”.’
Meanwhile, Muslim Votes Matter is mobilising the anti-genocide vote in preparation for the next federal electio
‘Low level’ ionizing radiation, and the history of debate about its effects
From Hiroshima to Fukushima to You, Dale Dewar, 4 July 2024
“……………………………………………………………………………………………………. Humans have lived with natural radiation for thousands of years – has it caused damage?
There are two distinct examples of natural radiation causing cancer: radon, largely in basements, and skin cancers from cosmic rays.
Cosmic rays were discovered in 1912 by an Austrian physicist, Victor Hess. He went up in a balloon and measured the ionizing radiation as he ascended and found that it was three times higher at 5300 meters elevation than at ground. Others discovered that cosmic rays were largely made up of protons (89%) and alpha particles (10%).
Alpha particles are stopped by skin, beta particles pass just through the skin and x-rays and gamma rays pass completely through a human body. This would make x-ray and gamma rays seem to be the most dangerous as they leave a trail of ions in their passage but if the particles become internal (by eating or breathing) they are up to 20 times more dangerous.
When any of these particles or rays interact with anything including biological matter, they cause ions. Sometimes the damage can be repaired, sometimes it cannot, and the cell dies or replicates the damage. Sometimes the damage affects the very process of replication itself.
This is what happens when a tumour is formed. A cell “goes wild” and doesn’t know when to turn off its growth.
If radioactive dust is inspired or eaten, the release of radioactivity occurs in the body. If it is radium dust, for example, the release of radioactivity continues for as long as the tiny bit of radium is present or 16,400 years (the half-life of radium x 10). The skeletal remains of the “radium girls” will still be radioactive for 16 millennia!
In 1927, an American, Hermann Muller was able to show the effect of radiation (he used x-rays) on genetic material. He had no doubt that it produced mutations in succeeding generations and remained a staunch defender of radiation protection measures and was opposed to atmospheric nuclear tests[iv].
To answer the question, how dangerous is the radiation that we call “background” radiation, the radiation that we cannot avoid? Some European researchers compared the incidence of cancers in children who lived in areas with low background radiation (0.70 mSv) to those who lived in areas with higher background radiation (2.3 mSv). Every tumour marker studied was higher in the children with the higher background radiation.[v]
Why do we know so little about radiation’s danger to health?
The nuclear industry has a singular interest in keeping populations ignorant. It continues to market nuclear energy as “safe” when no nuclear power plant can be operated without release of radiation in the form of tritiated hydrogen gas. By the time that Japan has released all its tritiated water (from Fukushima) into the Pacific Ocean, there will be no “unexposed” population with which to compare cancer rates.
In 1962 Dr. John Gofman was recruited by the US Atomic Energy Commission to head a biomedical unit. He was told that “the AEC was on the hot seat because a series [of atmospheric atomic bomb tests] had clobbered the Utah milkshed[vi]with radioiodine. And they have been getting a lot of flak. They think that maybe if we had a biology group working with the weaponeers at Livermore[vii], such things could be averted.”
The recruitment came with a very generous budget – 3 million dollars (almost three trillion dollars in 2020 dollars). John surrounded himself with scientists and technicians along with an outstanding colleague and Nobel laureate, Arthur Tamplin.
His first task as the chair of the biomedical unit was to squash a research paper[viii] by Dr. Harold Knapp that concluded a one hundred fold increase in the amount of radiation received from fallout by the people who lived in the downwind areas. Gofman and five other experts reviewed the data, asked technical questions and concluded that the research was scientifically sound and ought to be published.
The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) balked,” We’ve told these people [in the fallout zone] all along that it’s safe and we can’t change our story now.”
Gofman’s committee remained firm.
It was clear that Gofman was not a lapdog hireling. When his department could not support the “Plowshares Project”[ix], the use of atomic bombs for “good”, they became known as the “enemy within”. Gofman thought that they were being teased and it was all in fun but this was the beginning of his demise as a go-to person for the AEC.
In 1969, Dr. Ernest Sternglass published research papers claiming that up to three hundred thousand children might have died from radioactive fallout from atmospheric bomb testing. It received popular coverage in Esquire under the title “The Death of all Children”. John’s colleague Arthur Tamplin re-calculated the data, and his result was an estimation of four thousand. Unfortunately, the AEC was still deeply displeased. The only answer they wanted was zero, that is, no children affected.
The Atomic Energy Commission had been promoting a “safe threshold” of radiation below which no health effects could be detected. A safe threshold made it possible to expose servicemen to atomic bomb tests, for workers in nuclear power plants to receive yearly doses of radiation and for people living near nuclear power plants to receive regular discharges of radiation. Drs Gofman and Tamplin estimated that the cancer risk from radiation was twenty times as bad as the most pessimistic estimate previously made.[x] Not only did they conclude that the risk was high, they also concluded that there was no safe amount of radiation and that it could be assumed that there was some risk all the way down to zero.” They presented their research at the Institute for Electrical Electronic Engineers (IEEE) meeting in October, 1969. A month later, John was invited to give the same paper to hearings convened by Senator Muskie.
Their research was picked up by the Washington Press. Their bosses in the AEC made a decision and started rumors. John heard that he “didn’t care about cancer at all and that he was trying to undermine national defense”[xi]. (He had already resigned his directorship of the laboratory but remained as a research associate.) Dr. Tamplin’s research staff was fired.
When John was called before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, a Congressional committee, he and Arthur reviewed all the data they could find. They concluded that “as a matter of fact, we’d underestimated the hazard of radiation when we’d given the Muskie testimony”. They wrote fourteen more research papers. John’s main research was now into chromosomes and their response to radiation. He applied elsewhere for funding to continue, including the Cancer Society but research funding had dried up. The AEC restructured its biomedical unit; it had discovered that doctors and health researchers were hard to control.
At the same time, two scientists with the Union of Concerned Scientists revealed that AEC didn’t know if the cooling system for a type of reactor worked. The credibility held by the AEC became questioable.
The government abolished it and created two new agencies: ERDA (Energy Research and Development Agency) and NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), the former to oversee research and the latter to regulate the industry.
Drs John Gofman, Arthur Tamblin, and Harold Knapp were harassed, ridiculed, and sidelined because their research showed that radiation affected health. The industry didn’t stop there. Drs. Linus Pauling, Alice Stewart, Ernest Sternglass and Hermann Muller suffered similar fates. The US desire for nuclear arms required nuclear power plants. Nuclear radiation had to be safe………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://ionizingradiationandyou.blogspot.com/
Never Forget Julian Assange
SCHEERPOST, JULY 19, 2024
Although Julian Assange is free and home in his native Australia, his story and decade-long suffering at the hands of the U.S. government must never be forgotten for the sake of the survival of the First Amendment. In this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast, host Robert Scheer is joined by Kevin Gosztola, who runs The Dissenter newsletter and has been reporting on the Assange case and whistleblowers in the U.S. for more than a decade. Together, they underscore the significance of the Assange case and delve into the details explored in Gosztola’s recent book, “Guilty of Journalism.”
Gosztola makes clear one of the main points of the whole ordeal, which is the inconsistency in the U.S.’s interpretation of its own laws. “The First Amendment and the Espionage Act are in conflict in this country. You can’t reconcile the two, at least the way that the Justice Department wants to use the Espionage Act against people who aren’t even just U.S. citizens. They’re trying to apply U.S. law to international journalists,” Gosztola told Scheer.
The U.S. response to the internet age and the powerful journalistic revelations of Assange and WikiLeaks was to criminalize such actions, sending a clear message: anyone attempting to blow the whistle or expose the U.S. government’s crimes would face severe punishment, including the use of the Espionage Act, which could imprison someone for life.
“Unlike Daniel Ellsberg, [Chelsea] Manning didn’t have to sit there at a Xerox machine making copies. [She] just sent the copies of the documents to WikiLeaks, and then WikiLeaks had all these files that they could share with the world,” Gosztola said.
Despite the online journalism revolution, many in the media space still remained quiet throughout the Assange debacle both because of their ties to government officials and their lack of professional rigor. Gosztola posed several questions to them:
“Where were you? Why weren’t you doing the investigations to uncover these details? Why did this WikiLeaks organization come along and reveal these details about Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the nature of US foreign policy? Why do you accept that all of this information that was classified should be classified?”
TRANSCRIPT – ……………………………………………………………………………. , https://scheerpost.com/2024/07/19/never-forget-julian-assange/
Time to confront the cover-up of the harm of low-level radiation.
From Hiroshima to Fukushima to You, Dale Dewar, 4 July 2024 “………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. The ways in which scientists can be harassed might be subtle, for example, their research doesn’t get published or their funding is cut off. It can also be blatant as in public ridicule, not merely their research but also their person. A mighty industry highly subsidized by government and the fascination with big bombs not unsurprisingly had control of much of the media. Scientists could spend inordinate amounts of time defending their positions in industry or in colleges and universities but, in fact, many cannot afford to dissent or even publish critical material.
Dr. Ernest Sternglass defended his research before a US Senate hearing in favour of a ban on atmospheric nuclear bomb tests. The “400,000 dead babies’ theory” was simple mathematics. Every year starting well before atmospheric atomic testing counties had public health numbers for the numbers of babies born and the numbers of babies that reached their first birthday. As health care, vaccinations and antibiotics became widespread and better food became available, there were more children reaching their first birthday. Then suddenly when atmospheric testing started to occur, the number of one-year-olds decreases. It flat lines until the first limited voluntary Test Ban Treaty occurs in 1958 when the healthy trend is resumed. After a brief flurry – including the headlines in Esquire magazine – his work was mothballed.
Dr. Linus Pauling received a Nobel Prize for much of the same results. And then there is the little known exchange between Dr. Kathyrn Behnke who saw an increase in newborn deaths in August 1945 after the Trinity atomic bomb test and the project physician Dr. Warren Spafford who denied her findings, his assistant saying, “we can find no pertinent data concerning infant deaths”[xii]Furthermore, he “wanted to assure you that the safety and health of the people at large is not in any way endangered.”
Several other studies claiming the role of radiation in disease occurred in quick succession. Dr. Alice Stewart in the UK had uncovered a link between x-rays in the mothers and leukemia in the offspring. She found such a strong link that she says, “by the time we reached 32 pairs[xiii], it was there”.
In the USA, Dr. Rosalie Bertell, an epidemiologist working on the Tri-State Leukemia Survey – a project founded to determine why a rare disease in children was suddenly becoming more common. The researchers had found that the use of x-rays on the mothers in their pregnancies was associated with a two-fold increase in leukemias in the so-exposed offspring. What was surprising was that these children continued to show increased leukemias throughout their lives.
The medical profession and the nuclear industry desperately wanted to believe otherwise. A third study out of Harvard done by a male researcher, Dr. McMahon, found the same results
The nuclear industry, if it acknowledged Drs Pauling and Sternglass’s findings, did so dismissively stating that more research must be done. With respect to Drs Stewart, McMahon and Bertell, they strongly emphasized that x-rays are not gamma rays.
It was only a decade later, in my medical class in 1976 at the U of Saskatchewan, the obstetrics professor taught us how to do pelvimetry, the art of calculating the size of a pregnant woman’s pelvis with x-rays, but also said without explaining why, that the practice was “now frowned upon”.
In 1979, Dr. Bertell had become obsessed with radiation and the human body. She was invited to meet with workers at Erwin, Tennessee who were striking – not for higher wages but for the right to retire at age 55 and collect a pension. They didn’t believe that they would live to age 65. One man asked her what was meant by blood in his urine. At a show of hands, every single man present had the same complaint. Rosalie says, “Out of a hundred workers, a hundred had experienced gross blood in the urine.”[xiv]
She tried to get blood samples to do a limited survey of several workers but the union doctors failed to get the sample or deliver them promptly. After Rosalie contacted the doctors, the union leaders were jailed and the men forced back to work.
This small seemingly inconsequential Catholic nun was not to be deterred and kept trying to proceed with a health study of workers at Rocky Flats, Colorado and at Paducah, Kentucky. Officials who supported her were fired or departments “reorganized”. The industry was not about to risk real statistics.
Sometimes, however, they had to accept real statistics. In Canada, a study of uranium miners in Northern Saskatchewan established a connection between uranium mining and lung cancer. The original Eldorado study (named for the mining company) was published in 1986. It counted lung cancer deaths among miners from 1948 to 1980 who had been working at Beaverlodge and Port Radium mines[xv] concluding that there were almost double the cancer deaths among miners than among a cohort of non-miners. They also found, not surprisingly that the higher the exposure to radioactivity, the greater the risk of lung cancer.
Kikk Study
Although several English and French studies had shown a link between radioactive emissions and children’s leukemia (a cancer of the blood), there was huge resistance to accept their findings. The industry found fault, legitimate or otherwise, with all of them.
However, enough people in Germany were concerned about the increase in leukemia in children living close to nuclear power plants that they endeavoured to do the “definitive study”.
The research panel included people of every political bent and various backgrounds with respect to nuclear power – they tried to create a research board that could not be criticized as “biased”. They chose children living within different distances, 5, 10, up to 25 km from the plant and paired them with children outside of those areas.
They used the data from the nuclear power plants to calculate the average amount of radiation that each child likely received.
They concluded that there was a distinctive increase in leukemia that also increased the closer the child was to the nuclear power plant. The researchers said that they didn’t know why.[xvi]
Closer examination reveals what happens. Nuclear power plants average their releases of radioactive gasses over three months although they are actually released intermittently as “puffs” of gasses. What looks like a steady low dose release of tritium is actually a bunch of radioactive puffs of tritium.
In 1976, a professor in the College of Medicine, Dr. Sylvia Fedoruk tossed a well-protected glass vial at me, “Catch” she said. I caught it at which she announced that it contained radioactive iodine. I was hugely pregnant. As I returned the vial, she said, “See, it didn’t hurt you.”[1]
I knew that it was an alpha emitter and that I was well-protected by the glass, but my classmates may not have known. Dr. Fedoruk was deeply invested in developing nuclear medicine, but the incident whetted my interest as well. I wanted to know why there was such aggressive interest in promoting the safety of radioactivity.
The 1962 physics professor’s question had stayed with me, “What about the nuclear waste?”. I was unclear about health risks. I became a member of the International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). Its early iteration did not oppose nuclear power.
Committing to activism in the 1970’s was hardly in the cards. I was in my final year of medical college, mother of two children, partner to someone who was already an activist.
But now it is 2023, and I no longer have babies but I do have a grandchild. I am appalled that we are still spewing ionizing radiation into their atmosphere. And pretending that it is ok. Maybe that generation will be fine but what of the next?
As Dr. Gordon Edwards says, “Who is speaking for our grandchildren?” https://ionizingradiationandyou.blogspot.com/
US-made missile suddenly ‘transformed’ into a ‘Russian’ one and killed 40 civilians
One video clearly shows a SLAMRAAM (Surface Launched AMRAAM) missile falling and hitting a civilian building. This US-made weapon is based on an AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) and is used by the much-touted NASAMS (Norwegian/National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System). However, the Neo-Nazi junta is insisting that the weapon in question is a Russian Kh-101 long-range air-launched cruise missile.
Drago Bosnic, InfoBrics, Tue, 09 Jul 2024, https://www.sott.net/article/493060-US-made-missile-suddenly-transformed-into-a-Russian-one-and-killed-40-civilians
On July 8, the Russian military launched large-scale strikes on various targets across Ukraine. According to the mainstream propaganda machine, one strike was “particularly deadly”, as it allegedly “killed 41 civilians” and “destroyed a children’s hospital”. Reuters says:
“Russia blasted the main children’s hospital in Kyiv with a missile in broad daylight on Monday and rained missiles down on other cities across Ukraine, killing at least 41 civilians in the deadliest wave of air strikes for months.”
The report tried playing into the emotional aspects with the graphic descriptions of parents and children affected by these “evil Russian strikes”. Reuters says that “parents holding babies walked in the street outside the hospital, dazed and sobbing after the rare daylight aerial attack”, while “windows had been smashed and panels ripped off, and hundreds of Kyiv residents were helping to clear debris”.
While on his way to the NATO summit in Washington DC, the Neo-Nazi junta frontman Volodymyr Zelensky claimed more than 170 people were injured, while around 100 buildings were damaged, including the aforementioned children’s hospital and a maternity center in Kiev, as well as children’s nurseries, a business center and homes. He also stated that “Russian terrorists must answer for this” and that “being concerned does not stop terror, condolences are not a weapon”. The Kiev regime announced a day of mourning for today, calling the strikes “one of the worst air attacks of the war”, insisting it “demonstrated that Ukraine urgently needed an upgrade of its air defenses from its Western allies”. Interestingly, they also claim that their air defenses allegedly “shot down 30 of 38 missiles”. Quite peculiar that the Neo-Nazi junta forces are “so successful” in shooting down Russian missiles.
At the same time, they still “urgently need” NATO-sourced SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems. The question is, which is it? Either the current air defenses are not enough, meaning that the reports about shootdowns are a blatant lie, or the reports are “true”, meaning that the Kiev regime forces don’t really need “better air defenses“. After all, they “regularly shoot down” two out of six 9-S-7760 “Kinzhal” air-launched hypersonic missiles. However, in all seriousness, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the sheer ridiculousness of propaganda in the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict. For instance, Reuters reports that it obtained “an online video showing a missile falling towards the children’s hospital followed by a large explosion” and insists that “the location of the video was verified from visible landmarks”. And indeed, there’s horrifying footage of children injured by the shrapnel and falling debris.
The political West is now also using the UN to spread the narrative about the “brutal Russian attack”. The United Kingdom called for a UN Security Council meeting, which will take place today to “discuss a Russian missile attack on Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital that was part of a massive attack on July 8 that hit several cities across the country, killing at least 41 people and injuring at least 140”, according to the CIA front Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). So, once again, we’re seeing the UN being used for the political West’s “soft power” projection purposes. It should be noted that the reports about injuries to civilians are true, as the footage is certainly undeniable. However, there’s a “slight problem” with the narrative. Namely, the video that Reuters referenced is also indisputable evidence that Russia didn’t conduct the aforementioned strike on the children’s hospital in Kiev.
One video clearly shows a SLAMRAAM (Surface Launched AMRAAM) missile falling and hitting a civilian building. This US-made weapon is based on an AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) and is used by the much-touted NASAMS (Norwegian/National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System). However, the Neo-Nazi junta is insisting that the weapon in question is a Russian Kh-101 long-range air-launched cruise missile. The mainstream propaganda machine is also pushing the same narrative, despite the fact that the Russian missile has a massive warhead weighing 400 kg, meaning that the explosion would’ve completely leveled any building, which was simply not the case with the one damaged by the SAM fired by the Kiev regime forces. What’s more, it’s highly likely that the Russian cruise missile has an upgraded warhead weighing 800 kg, meaning that the discrepancy is far worse.
In case such a missile hit any residential area, the death toll would’ve been in the hundreds, if not thousands. However, the mainstream propaganda machine doesn’t really care about such inconsistencies. All it cares about is its vaunted narrative. That’s precisely why they quote Zelensky’s statements about “Russian terrorists” while also openly talking about NATO’s and Neo-Nazi junta’s terrorist attacks against Russian schoolchildren as if it were a “completely normal thing”.
However, apart from the video evidence showing that Russia didn’t conduct the aforementioned strike, there’s also the history of other blatant lies by the Neo-Nazi junta. Namely, it regularly uses SAM systems without any consideration for civilians, such as in the case of Przewodow, a Polish village that was hit by 5V55K SAMs fired by the Kiev regime forces back in mid-November 2022. Two civilians were killed.
The Neo-Nazi junta was adamant that Russia “deliberately” attacked Poland. At the time, I argued that the location of the incident was nowhere near the engagement range of any Russian SAM system that uses the 5V55K missiles. All evidence suggested that the weapon was fired from an older iteration of the Soviet-era S-300 SAM system. At the time, the Kiev regime forces still operated several versions, with the vast majority belonging to the S-300P/PS/PT series. The missile in question has a maximum engagement range of approximately 45 km.
Updated versions of the post-Soviet era were never deployed in Ukraine, while the closest Russian air defense units are at least 150-200 km away, in Belarus, and operate much more advanced systems such as the S-400. Poland itself later confirmed that the Neo-Nazi junta lied, even leading to strained relations between the two. The latest incident is in no way different.
Comment: This attack is not in Russia’s playbook, but evidently a page out of Kiev’s.
Australian Opposition leader Dutton’s claim about G20 nuclear energy use doesn’t add up
William Summers , July 5, 2024, https://www.aap.com.au/factcheck/duttons-claim-about-g20-nuclear-energy-use-doesnt-add-up/
WHAT WAS CLAIMED
Australia is the only G20 nation that doesn’t use nuclear power.
OUR VERDICT
Misleading. Five other G20 nations don’t generate nuclear power, and two of those don’t use it.
AAP FACTCHECK – Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton claims Australia is the only country not to use nuclear energy out of the world’s 20 largest economies.
This is misleading. Five other nations in the top 20 – Germany, Italy, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia – do not generate nuclear energy.
Germany, Italy and Turkiye import very small amounts of electricity generated from nuclear sources, but Indonesia and Saudi Arabia don’t consume any nuclear power.
Australia is the only top 20 economy that doesn’t generate, import or have a plan to do so.
Mr Dutton has made the claim at least four times in interviews about the coalition’s plan to build seven nuclear power stations in Australia without clarifying that he’s counting countries planning to use nuclear power among those that are actually using it.
Mr Dutton said nuclear power was “used by 19 of the 20 biggest economies in the world” at a June 18 press conference in NSW.
He again claimed that of the top 20 economies in the world, “Australia is the only one that doesn’t have nuclear” in a June 20 interview on Sky News.
That same day, the opposition leader spoke out about how Australia could benefit from nuclear power “as 19 of the world’s top 20 economies have done” in an ABC News Breakfast interview.
Mr Dutton again said Australia was the only one of the 20 biggest economies that “doesn’t operate” nuclear at a press conference on July 5.
When asked to clarify his claims, the opposition leader’s spokeswoman told AAP FactCheck that he’s counting countries that have nuclear power and those “taking steps towards embracing nuclear”.
Mr Dutton accurately stated 19 of the world’s 20 biggest economies used nuclear power or “have signed up to it” in another press conference on June 19, and a Today Show interview on June 21.
He also said Australia was the only G20 member that didn’t use or plan to use nuclear power in an ABC TV interview on April 21.
The G20 is a global forum for countries with large economies. Despite its name, the G20 includes only 19 nations, plus the African Union and the European Union. Spain is invited to the G20 as a permanent guest.
It’s unclear if Mr Dutton is referring to the G20 countries plus Spain, or the 20 largest nations by gross domestic product, as he’s used both interchangeably.
However, AAP FactCheck has analysed the former because the nations that don’t generate nuclear power and the nations that only import small amounts of it are exactly the same for both groupings, as per World Bank 2023 GDP data.
Fourteen G20 countries operate nuclear power plants: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, France, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, the UK and the US.
Three G20 nations that don’t generate nuclear power but import small amounts are Germany, Italy and Turkiye.
Germany shut down its final three reactors in April 2023. That year, about 0.5 per cent of the electricity consumed there was imported from France, which generates about two-thirds of its electricity from nuclear sources.
Italy closed its last reactors in 1990. About six per cent of its electricity consumption is imported nuclear power.
The country effectively banned nuclear power in 2011, but the current government wants to restart it.
Turkiye is building a plant that could start generating electricity from 2025. The country is also planning to build two other nuclear plants.
In 2022, the country imported a tiny amount of the electricity it consumed, including 0.8 per cent from Bulgaria, which generates about 35 per cent of its electricity from nuclear sources.
Therefore, a fraction of Turkiye’s electricity consumption could be produced from nuclear – likely less than half a per cent.
Saudi Arabia doesn’t use any nuclear energy either but it’s taking steps towards doing so in future.
Indonesia doesn’t have any nuclear reactors but has tentative plans to build some in the coming decades.
Dr Yogi Sugiawan, a policy analyst at the Indonesian government agency responsible for developing nuclear energy policies and plans, told AAP FactCheck that his country doesn’t generate or import nuclear energy.
However, Dr Sugiawan says Indonesia’s government is considering nuclear power, with an initial plant “expected to be commissioned before 2040”.
THE VERDICT
The claim that Australia is the only G20 nation that doesn’t use nuclear power is misleading.
Evidence and experts say six G20 countries do not generate any nuclear energy, and three of those don’t consume it either.
Misleading – The claim is accurate in parts but information has also been presented incorrectly, out of context or omitted.
AAP FactCheck is an accredited member of the International Fact-Checking Network. To keep up with our latest fact checks, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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