Nuclear Lies, Cover-Ups and Secrecy
Mangano observes: “Nuclear war, like any war, is not an inevitable force of nature, bit a conscious choice of leaders.” (p. 66) So too is any decision to build or maintain a nuclear site.
BY JANETTE D. SHERMAN, OCTOBER 5, 2012, https://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/05/nuclear-lies-cover-ups-and-secrecy/
Do Governments and Corporations lie, cover-up and maintain secrecy as they harm our planet and us? Joe Mangano’s new book, Mad Science – The Nuclear Power Experiment, clearly lays it out that they have done so for more than half a century.
This book is a page-turner, filled with useful information that many of us don’t know or have forgot. His chapter “Tiny Atoms, Big Risks” explains the various forms of nuclear energy in terms that anyone can understand, and details the harm that has come to all life on our planet as a result of nuclear bombs and nuclear power plants.
Among the many nuclear catastrophes that Mangano chronicles – from Three Mile Island, the Nevada and Marshall Island nuclear bomb tests to Chernobyl and Fukushima- is the nuclear accident at the Santa Susana site in Ventura County, close to Los Angeles, CA. Santa Susana is one of the best-kept secrets in the history of nuclear power. The Santa Susana site had 10 sodium-cooled reactors the 1959 accident spewed radioactivity, tetralin – toxic naphthalene, and other chemicals into Simi Valley, the Pacific Ocean and eastward that are still detected over a half-century later.
A near meltdown of the Fermi-1 nuclear reactor nearly destroyed Detroit in 1968. It was a sodium-cooled reactor, as were the ones at Santa Susana. Located at the western end of Lake Erie, a Fermi meltdown would have crippled or destroyed much of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River as well. As has occurred since the Chernobyl meltdown, in the southern lake areas of Belarus, fish and boats travel upstream as well as down-stream.
As many as 16,000 workers were employed at Santa Susana by corporations that included, North American Aviation (a spin-of of General Motors), Rocketdyne, Atomics international and finally Boeing. Santa Susana was closed by 1980, but never fully decontaminated. Everyone in the Los Angeles area who has had a family member with cancer, a low birth-weight child, death of an infant, or thyroid disease should read the book. So should those who live down-wind of a nuclear test area or a nuclear power plant – which includes practically everyone in the United States and Canada.
It was Lewis Strauss, the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission who in 1954 touted nuclear power as “too cheap to meter.” Today we learn it is too costly to bury waste, clean up contaminated land and buildings, and too costly to build and maintain aging nuclear power and bomb plants.
Mangano observes: “Nuclear war, like any war, is not an inevitable force of nature, bit a conscious choice of leaders.” (p. 66) So too is any decision to build or maintain a nuclear site.
Since the Fukushima releases began, Japanese citizens are marching and protesting the continuation of nuclear power as they observe the obvious reality of contamination. How long will it take for U. S. citizens to demand a stop to nuclear power and its’ twin nuclear war weapons.
Janette D. Sherman, M. D., who died in 2019, was the author of Life’s Delicate Balance: Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer and Chemical Exposure and Disease, and was a specialist in internal medicine and toxicology. She edited the book Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and Nature, written by A. V. Yablokov, V. B., Nesterenko and A. V. Nesterenko, published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009. Her primary interest was the prevention of illness through public education.
CIA Front Companies Play Crucial Role in Arms Pipeline to Ukraine and Profit From the Human Misery it Generates
Covert Action Magazine, By CIAgate, April 1, 2024
Noetic Continental Inc. Foists Military Equipment Through Private War Companies
Analyzing the CIA’s records, we’ve noticed that there were many references to the Noetic international Inc., a company with questionable origin and activity.
According to its website, the enterprise specializes in “delivering products and services including assessments, operations and finance to clients in the energy, telecom, space, cybersecurity and intelligence sectors.“
In a previous article on substack we wrote that the CEO of the Noetic International Inc. was Johnna May Holeman, a former U.S. artillery soldier and CIA operative, who took part in the supply of 155mm white phosphorus rounds to Ukraine through a tea-trade company in Bulgaria.
Now we can say that there was another CIA officer behind the creation of the Noetic International Inc. Ladies and gentlemen, please meet John Alan Irvin–the godfather of clandestine operations.
Through his extensive ties, resources and expertise, John Irvin has developed a vast network of contacts, informants and partners to achieve a comprehensive range of goals in accordance with the CIA’s design. Given John’s age, today the bulk of the work is now done by Johnna Holeman. The Noetic International Inc. has offices in Illinois, California, Germany, England and Austria.
The Noetic “specialists” address complex problems in wide range of domains including air- and sea-based drones, renewable energy, cybersecurity and cryptocurrency, technology and robotics, as well as strategic influence campaigns and analysis and decision making.
The network includes hundreds of influencers connected by both personal acquaintance and virtual meetings. The Noetic operatives help local and foreign authorities to achieve goals in order to enlist the support afterwards.
According to our source, the Noetic International Inc. has a shell company in Puerto Rico, that under the guise of cannabis dispensary addresses essential tasks on behalf of the CIA, such as supply of various kinds of unmanned aerial and maritime drones to foreign countries, including Ukraine, reshore of semiconductor production to the U.S., as well as the supply of small-module nuclear reactors.
Initially, we doubted the veracity of the source’s information. Yet, as it was with the investigation surrounding Chanda Creasy, a yoga coach and a head of the CIA division responsible for arms transfers to militants in Africa and Middle East, painstaking analysis and careful sieving of information made it possible to determine that it was the Anyon Minds LLC……………………………………………………………………………………..
It seems like this outlet is not a trading platform, but a certain communication hub for a dedicated circle of persons…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
We are also extremely curious what kind of advice the cannabis company could receive from a former Chief of Staff of the 82nd Airborne division, Jouni Keravuori, who also worked at the SAS Institute, General Dynamics and the same Pax Mondial and Pax Safe. Perhaps his daughter-in-law and, concurrently, Brigadier General Rose Lopez Keravuori, helps him with this. Since 2023, she has been serving as the Director of intelligence (J2) of the U.S. Command in Africa………………………………………………………………………………..
Drones’ modernization and delivery to foreign countries
According to our source, Mr. Benitez maintained close cooperation with Johnna Holeman and another member of Noetic International, Hans Mumm, mentioned in one of our previous investigations.
The cooperation was focused on:
⦁ improving capabilities of automated drones manufactured by the Airgility and the Safehaven Marine paramilitary companies;
⦁ optimizing the automated functionality of existing UAVs, including an anti-missile drone capable of intercepting shells and counterattacking a missile launch site;
⦁ improving the “world’s fastest sea drone” with a customer-tailored weapons system (aerial and underwater) (Project Barracuda by Safehaven Marine).
⦁ Noetic team also discussed a special “Vanilla program” related to a new unmanned aerial system. Check the project summary here…………………………………………………………………………………………………
What’s the most interesting is that the representatives of the Anyon Minds DIRECTLY negotiated with the Ukrainian authorities. It should be noted that during his trip to Kyiv in October, 2022, Benitez personally communicated with Mykhailo Fedorov, the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for Innovations, Education, Science and Technology–Minister of Ukraine for Digital Transformation. They discussed the issues related to the supply of drones as part of military assistance. …………………………………………………..
This war not only fabulously enriched Benitez and his team, but also allowed the CIA to establish gray-trading schemes and market channels for the sale of unmanned vehicles to Ukrainian officials. And this is only the tip of the iceberg.
PART II
The Gallant Nights LLC
Below we talk about one dubious private military company (PMC) also involved in CIA’s corruption scheme in Ukraine. We will show how the agency uses Hollywood celebrities to empty the wallets of their fans……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://covertactionmagazine.com/2024/04/01/cia-front-companies-play-crucial-role-in-arms-pipeline-to-ukraine-and-profit-from-the-human-misery-it-generates/?mc_cid=af5fe30ca7&mc_eid=65917fb94b
Inside Sellafield behind the razor wire gun- toting guards and blast barriers at the toxic nuclear site
The 700-acre Sellafield complex means different things to different
people. To UK authorities it is a decommissioning hub being used to
spearhead the clean-up of Britain’s early nuclear industry mistakes, made
before the issue of long-term waste disposal was a priority.
In Ireland,
about 180km away, Sellafield is mostly seen as a potential hazard, a byword
for danger. A former reprocessing site for lethal spent nuclear fuel rods,
it was also known for a now-defunct power plant that was tacked on, Calder
Hall, but this was only ever a minor part of it. Reprocessing was the main
activity.
These days, Sellafield is seen as more of a nuclear dump for the
most radioactive material from all over the UK, with work ongoing in a
100-year, £134 billion (€156 billion) decommissioning project.
Yet another view of Sellafield: in the eyes of one nuclear industry source, the
site is a “gravy train” for well-paid staff and big contractors. Sellafield Ltd, the site’s UK state-owned operator whose mission is to make it safe, spends more than £2.5 billion each year on the clean-up strategy. It is also a bustling 24-hour workplace for 11,000 people paid an
average of €91,000 each annually.
The site’s critics, including the UK academic and radioactivity adviser to the Irish State, Dr Paul Dorfman, warn that the nuclear industry tries to dazzle outsiders with glossy public
relations. Sellafield, meanwhile, says it is only trying to be honest and
open about what it does.
The company, which answers to the UK government
through the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), confirms that The
Irish Times is the first media outlet from the Republic to be granted
recent access to the site and its inner sanctum, where the most dangerous
nuclear material is handled. Thirty years after U2′s Bono landed on a
nearby beach in a Greenpeace protest, and almost 20 years after the
Republic last tried to sue the UK over its safety risks, its existential
relevance to Ireland remains.
Sellafield hasn’t gone away, you know. The battle to keep it safe goes on.
Irish Times 30th March 2024
TODAY. Sellafield scandals – a case study in why the nuclear industry must be shut down.
If you had any illusions about the nuclear industry being “clean” and “safe” and “honest”, the latest bit of news in the tawdry saga of UK’s Sellafield nuclear waste dump might cause you to stop and think.
It doesn’t seem that much – “prosecution for alleged cybersecurity offences” and “no suggestion that public safety has been compromised”.
But if you bother to do your homework on this sprawling rubbish dump, the world’s most complex nuclear site, with the world’s largest stockpile of plutonium – you will find a litany of alarming nuclear stories:
- Sellafield: ‘bottomless pit of hell, money and despair’ at Europe’s most toxic nuclear site
- secrecy valued more than public safety.
- Cracks in ponds holding highly radioactive fuel rods. wastes pumped into the seas. Irish Sea contaminated with plutonium.
- US, Norway and Ireland anxious over risk of a devastating accident.
- sudden changes in security leadership.
- Office for Budget Responsibility – site poses a “material source of fiscal risk” to the country.
- a toxic workplace culture.
- site hacked by groups linked to Russia and China. Dishonesty:
- British authorities knew it was wrong to proceed with the thermal oxide reprocessing plant (Thorp) at Sellafield.
And what does the world nuclear authority, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have to say about all this? –
“World nuclear chief praises Sellafield progress”
Wake up world!
I’m sorry to have to say this, – but you can’t depend on the world leaders and the nuclear authorities to tell you the truth about this ghastly industry. So many depend on it for their livelihood, for their local economy – etc etc. But the truth must be told.
The political and business leaders are waiting till after their retirement – hoping that the shit won’t hit the fan while they might cop the blame. Like the security bosses at Sellafield, they might have to get out in time. I wonder how long Rafael Grossi can last, can keep up the pretense.
Sellafield is arguably the worst case of nuclear danger and corruption. But then there are the horrors of the Russian nuclear industry, including City 40. Then there’s Japan, with its eternal Fukushima calamity, and its many nuclear reactors close to earthquake zones.
It’s really only thanks to Anna Isaac and Alex Lawson, of the Guardian, that we get to find out about Sellafield.
And to others, like Kate Brown. revealing the reality of the nuclear waste-plutonium disaster endangering the planet
And I wonder, as the USA prepares to lock up Julian Assange forever, how long will the powerful allow these intrepid writers to spill the beans on nuclear scandals?
Israel Lies About Being A Victim So That It Can Victimize
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, MAR 30, 2024, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-lies-about-being-a-victim?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=143090068&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The Washington Post reports that in recent days the Biden administration has quietly signed off on sending Israel billions of dollars worth of fighter jets and the 2,000-pound bombs that have been causing so much death and destruction in Gaza, even as Israel prepares to launch a bloody assault on the strip’s densely-populated southernmost point.
Literally just completely ignore every single thing US officials say about the need to protect civilians and how Biden’s feelings are privately “frustrated” with Netanyahu. Just ignore their entire narrative about what their goals are in Gaza. Their actions make it clear.
Protesters from Palestine Action have forced Israel-based arms dealer Elbit Systems to permanently close one of its factories in the UK as demonstrators have made it too difficult for the factory to operate. We’ll never vote the empire away, but we might someday be able to direct action it away.
Video footage has surfaced of IDF troops murdering two unarmed Palestinians in cold blood and then burying their bodies with bulldozers to conceal their crime. This is surely not anywhere close to the first time such a thing has happened in Gaza, and is yet another sign that the death toll from this onslaught is probably a massive undercount.
Israel’s assault on Gaza features heavy earth-moving equipment more extensively than any other military operation anyone’s ever seen. One reason is because it’s a great way to destroy Palestinian homes. Another reason is because it’s a great way to hide dead Palestinian bodies.
An IDF commander has told Israeli media that on October 7 he made the decision to fire on vehicles he knew could have Israelis in them because “it’s better to stop the abduction and that they not be taken,” adding more weight to the mountain of evidence that Israeli troops fired on Israelis on October 7 to prevent them from being taken hostage. Israeli bombs and blockades have been picking off the remaining hostages ever since, with Israel now estimating that only 60 to 70 of the 134 hostages are still alive.
Whenever you run into an Israel apologist who is defending against criticisms of Israel’s actions in Gaza by saying “Hamas just needs to release the hostages and this all ends,” maybe go ahead and remind them of this.
ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt just went on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and compared wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh to wearing a Nazi armband. The mass media keep having this lunatic on as an expert analyst and he keeps saying the most bat shit insane things imaginable. Any screaming schizophrenic off the street would be just as qualified as Greenblatt.
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A former ranking IDF officer has told Haaretz that Israel is conducting “a war of cruel rich people” which is causing many times more destruction than necessary to accomplish its stated objectives against Hamas.
“In principle, it would be possible to arrive at similar achievements with 10 percent of the destruction we have caused,” the unnamed source told Haaretz.
Ten percent. Israel is causing ten times more damage than it needs to to achieve its stated objectives because its stated objectives are false — Israel’s real goal is not to defeat Hamas, it’s to grab a bunch of land from a Palestinian territory.
Of all the pants-on-head idiotic things Israel and its apologists ask us to believe, “The UN just hates Israel for no good reason so all its claims should be dismissed” is definitely among the dumbest.
Israel apologists constantly claiming the UN is antisemitic and treats Israel unfairly remind you of a boy who never does any homework and keeps saying his bad grades are because his teacher hates him. The UN talks about Israel a lot because Israel is a murderous criminal regime.
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If you still have any doubt that we live in a profoundly sick dystopia as deranged as anything that’s ever been imagined in fiction, take note of the fact that the most powerful empire in history is currently trying to propagandize you into thinking an obvious genocide is fine.
They lied about decapitated babies so that they could kill babies.
They lied about rape so that they could rape.
They lied about Hamas using civilians as human shields so that they could use civilians as human targets.
They lie about being victims so that they can victimize.
UN expert says she faces threats after Israel-Gaza genocide report
Francesca Albanese had stated there were clear indications Israel has violated three acts in the UN Genocide Convention.
A United Nations expert who published a report saying there were reasonable grounds to believe Israel has committed genocide in its war on Gaza says she has received threats throughout her mandate.
Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, presented a report entitled “Anatomy of a Genocide” to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday, which Israel said it “utterly rejects
In the report, Albanese said there are clear indications that Israel has violated three of the five acts listed under the UN Genocide Convention in its war on Gaza.
Asked whether her work on the report had caused her to receive threats, Albanese said: “Yes, I do receive threats. Nothing that so far I considered needing extra precautions. Pressure? Yes, and it doesn’t change either my commitment or the results of my work.”
Albanese, who has held the position since 2022, did not elaborate on the nature of the threats, nor did she say who had issued them.
“It’s been a difficult time,” she said. “I’ve always been attacked since the very beginning of my mandate.”
27:55
Israel has criticised Albanese, saying she was “delegitimising the very creation and existence of the State of Israel”. Albanese denied the accusation.
Albanese said one of her key findings was that Israel’s executive and military leadership and soldiers have intentionally “subverted their protection functions in an attempt to legitimise genocidal violence against the Palestinian people”.
“The only reasonable inference that can be drawn from the unveiling of this policy is an Israeli state policy of genocidal violence toward the Palestinian people in Gaza,” she said, adding that it was a “long-standing settler colonial process of erasure”.
She called for the “ongoing Nakba” to stop, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948.
Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva said the use of the word genocide was “outrageous” and said the war was against Hamas and not Palestinian civilians.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, is one of dozens of independent human rights experts mandated by the United Nations to report on specific themes and crises.
The views expressed by special rapporteurs do not reflect those of the global body as a whole.
The Empire Slowly Suffocates Assange Like It Slowly Suffocates All Its Enemies
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, MAR 27, 2024, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-empire-slowly-suffocates-assange?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=142993532&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The British High Court has ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may potentially get a final appeal against extradition to the United States, but only within a very limited scope and only if specific conditions are met.
The court ruled that Assange may appeal only on the grounds that his freedom of speech might be restricted in the US, and that there is a possibility he could receive the death penalty. If the US provides “assurances” that neither of these things will happen, then the trial moves to another phase where Assange’s legal team may debate the merits of those assurances. If the US does not provide those assurances, then the limited appeal will move forward.
Absurdly, the court determined that Assange’s lawyers may not argue against extradition on matters as self-evidently critical as the fact that the CIA plotted to assassinate him, or on the basis that he is being politically persecuted for the crime of inconvenient journalism.
The mass media are calling this a “reprieve”, even “wonderful news”, but as Jonathan Cook explains in his latest article “Assange’s ‘reprieve’ is another lie, hiding the real goal of keeping him endlessly locked up,” that’s all a bunch of crap.
“The word ‘reprieve’ is there — just as the judges’ headline ruling that some of the grounds of his appeal have been ‘granted’ — to conceal the fact that he is prisoner to an endless legal charade every bit as much as he is a prisoner in a Belmarsh cell,” writes Cook. “In fact, today’s ruling is yet further evidence that Assange is being denied due process and his most basic legal rights — as he has been for a decade or more.”
Cook writes the following:
“The case has always been about buying time. To disappear Assange from public view. To vilify him. To smash the revolutionary publishing platform he founded to help whistleblowers expose state crimes. To send a message to other journalists that the US can reach them wherever they live should they try to hold Washington to account for its criminality.
“And worst of all, to provide a final solution for the nuisance Assange had become for the global superpower by trapping him in an endless process of incarceration and trial that, if it is allowed to drag on long enough, will most likely kill him.”
This kind of slow motion strangulation is how the empire operates all the time these days, across all spheres. Helping Israel starve Gaza while slowly pretending to work toward solutions. Drawing out a proxy war in Ukraine for as long as possible to bleed Russia. Slowly killing Assange in prison without trial under the pretense of judicial proceedings.
The US-centralized empire hunts not like a tiger, killing its prey with one fatal bite to the jugular, but more like a python: slowly suffocating the life out of its prey until it perishes. It favors the long, drawn-out, confusing strangulation of inconvenient populations and individuals, carried out under the cover of bureaucracy and propaganda spin. In today’s world it prefers sanctions, blockades and long proxy conflicts over the big Hulk-smash ground invasions we saw it carry out in places like Iraq and Vietnam.
These slow suffocations can take more time, but what they lack in efficiency they make up for in the quality of perception management. It’s bad PR to just openly invade countries and murder people, which is why the leaders of the western empire have been able to wag their fingers at Putin despite their being quantifiably far more murderous than Russia. People start snapping out of the propaganda matrix you spent so much time building for them and begin organizing against the political status quo your power is premised on.
So they opt for slow strangulation strategies where they can confuse the public about what’s happening and who’s responsible, outsourcing the blame to other parties while posing as the good guy who’s trying to bring peace and stability. It takes time, but the empire has time to burn. That’s what happens when you’re the most powerful empire in the history of civilization; you have the luxury of biding your time while orchestrating large-scale, long-term operations to advance your power agendas.
Meanwhile Gaza starves, Ukraine bleeds, and Assange languishes in prison, each needing this to end with more urgency every day.
‘The graveyard of the Earth’: inside City 40, Russia’s deadly nuclear secret
The city’s residents know the truth, however: that their water is contaminated, their mushrooms and berries are poisoned, and their children may be sick. Ozersk and the surrounding region is one of the most contaminated places on the planet, referred to by some as the “graveyard of the Earth”.
City 40’s inhabitants were told they were “the nuclear shield and saviours of the world”
From the late 1940s, people here started to get sick and die: the victims of long-term exposure to radiation.
‘The graveyard of the Earth’: inside City 40, Russia’s deadly nuclear secret, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jul/20/graveyard-earth-inside-city-40-ozersk-russia-deadly-secret-nuclear Samira Goetschel, Wed 20 Jul 2016 Ozersk, codenamed City 40, was the birthplace of the Soviet nuclear weapons programme. Now it is one of the most contaminated places on the planet – so why do so many residents still view it as a fenced-in paradise?
“Those in paradise were given a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative.” (From the dystopian novel We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, 1924)
Deep in the vast forests of Russia’s Ural mountains lies the forbidden city of Ozersk. Behind guarded gates and barbed wire fences stands a beautiful enigma – a hypnotic place that seems to exist in a different dimension.
Codenamed City 40, Ozersk was the birthplace of the Soviet nuclear weapons programme after the second world war. For decades, this city of 100,000 people did not appear on any maps, and its inhabitants’ identities were erased from the Soviet census.
Today, with its beautiful lakes, perfumed flowers and picturesque tree-lined streets, Ozersk resembles a suburban 1950s American town – like one of those too-perfect places depicted in The Twilight Zone.
Continue readingIAEA Unaware Of Secret Iranian Nuclear Site Targeted By Israel
Iran International Newsroom, https://www.iranintl.com/en/202403252483—26 Mar 24
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says it has no information about a purported Iranian nuclear site that was set on fire in Tehran’s Shadabad neighborhood in 2020.
This after Iran International’s investigative report revealed Tehran concealed an Israeli sabotage operation that targeted a covert nuclear facility owned by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.
Iran International’s in-depth investigative report relied on authenticated documents obtained from both the judiciary and the Ministry of Intelligence. These resources were made available through Ali’s Justice – a network of hacktivists known for their ongoing disclosure of Iranian government documents.
In late July 2020, the destruction of the nuclear site swiftly escalated into a critical national security concern for Iran, prompting reports to reach Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic.
Of particular note, mere weeks after the incident, the IAEA’s Director General, Rafael Mariano Grossi, made a visit to Iran – seemingly oblivious to the events.
Following months of tension between Iran and the agency, Grossi had arrived in Tehran to negotiate access for inspectors to two suspected former atomic sites.
Though the IAEA did not identify the sites, Israeli intelligence officials pinpointed one as the Abadeh Nuclear Weapons Development Site.
Iran’s then-nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, lauded the talks with Grossi as “constructive,” heralding a supposed “new chapter of cooperation” between Iran and the agency.
Fast forward about four years: This month, Grossi informed the IAEA Board that his agency has lost crucial “continuity of knowledge” regarding Tehran’s activities.
The IAEA concluded a meeting earlier this month without passing a resolution against the Islamic Republic for advanced work on its atomic program and its refusal to cooperate with the IAEA.
While the US called on the IAEA Board to be ready for further action if Iran’s cooperation does not significantly improve, it remains to be seen whether this latest report could lead to Iran’s censure over its non-compliance.
The facility, undisclosed to the IAEA, raises serious concerns about Iran’s nuclear program and its compliance with safeguards obligations – and it prompts concerns about the existence of other undisclosed facilities and the extent to which Iran may be concealing other nuclear activities.
Israel And Iran’s Nuclear Program
According to judicial documents, the Islamic Republic considers the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, as the main perpetrator of this sabotage operation.
Despite its belief that Israel was responsible, Tehran tried to conceal the sabotage.
Following Iran International’s reporting, a spokesman from the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office simply stated, “No comment: “We have no comment.”
Sabotage operations targeting Iranian nuclear facilities are not unprecedented.
From 2009 to 2011, five individuals associated with Iran’s nuclear industry, whom the Islamic Republic regarded as scientists, were assassinated.
Tehran has consistently accused Israel of these assassinations.
Arguably the most prominent instance of sabotage within Iran’s nuclear program was the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the former head of the Ministry of Defense’s Research and Innovation Organization, which occurred on November 27, 2020.
Israel had labeled Fakhrizadeh as a key figure within Iran’s “nuclear weapons program” two years prior to his assassination.
The 2020 sabotage at the nuclear warehouse in Shadabad in Tehran occurred approximately five months before Fakhrizadeh’s assassination.
In contrast, Israel did officially claim responsibility for the theft of Iran’s nuclear documents from a warehouse in Tehran’s Shourabad area in 2018 – with Benjamin Netanyahu revealing that Israel had obtained 55,000 pages and 55,000 digital files through an intelligence operation.
Report: Justice Department Considering Plea Deal for Assange
While such a deal could potentially secure Assange’s freedom, it could still set a dangerous precedent since it would criminalize the relationship between a journalist and his source.
the US could have leaked the talk of a plea deal to the press to portray Assange as unreasonable if he didn’t take it.
A plea deal could free Assange from prison
by Dave DeCamp March 20, 2024 https://news.antiwar.com/2024/03/20/report-justice-department-considering-plea-deal-for-assange/
The Justice Department is considering whether to offer WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange the opportunity to plead guilty to a reduced charge of mishandling classified information, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The report said DOJ officials and Assange’s legal team have already had preliminary talks on what a plea deal might look like. However, Barry Pollack, a lawyer for Assange, said he has been given no indication that the department will take a deal.
“It is inappropriate for Mr. Assange’s lawyers to comment while his case is before the UK High Court other than to say we have been given no indication that the Department of Justice intends to resolve the case and the United States is continuing with as much determination as ever to seek his extradition on all 18 charges, exposing him to 175 years in prison,” Pollack said in a statement.
Consortium News reported later in the day that it had previously learned of the talks between the US and Assange’s legal team on a potential deal, but the information was given off the record, so the outlet did not publicize it.
Under the DOJ’s indictment against Assange, he could face up to 175 years in prison under the Espionage Act for exposing US war crimes by publishing classified documents leaked to WikiLeaks by former Army Private Chelsea Manning in 2010.
If Assange is convicted, it would set a dangerous precedent for press freedom since publishing information obtained by a source is a standard journalistic practice, whether classified or not.
The Journal report said that if the DOJ offers a deal for Assange to plead guilty to a lesser charge of mishandling classified information, it would be a misdemeanor, and he could potentially enter the plea remotely without going to the US. His time in London’s Belmarsh Prison, where he’s been held since April 2019, would count toward his sentence, and Assange could be free shortly after reaching the deal.
While such a deal could potentially secure Assange’s freedom, it could still set a dangerous precedent since it would criminalize the relationship between a journalist and his source.
Kevin Gostzola, author of the book “Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange,” suggested the US could have leaked the talk of a plea deal to the press to portray Assange as unreasonable if he didn’t take it.
“Basically, US officials chat to the press about some possible plea deal for Assange when he isn’t guilty of any crime. If Assange’s team signals it would never be acceptable, then it is Assange’s fault that he remains in prison. Officials can say he wants to martyr himself,” Gostzola wrote on X.
Last month, Assange’s legal team presented its case for an appeal to the UK home secretary’s decision to extradite Assange to the US, and a decision on whether or not he can appeal is expected to happen soon.
The Australian government has been calling on President Biden to drop the charges against Assange, who is an Australian citizen. Some members of Congress have also been calling for an end to the persecution of the WikiLeaks founder, including Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who brought Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, to President Biden’s State of the Union.
WikiLeaks and Assange supporters are asking Americans to add to the pressure by contacting Congress. Americans can call their House representatives to support H.Res.934, a bill introduced by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) that calls for the US to drop the charges against Assange.
Click here to find your representative, or call the House switchboard operator at (202) 224-3121. Tell them to support the resolution to protect the First Amendment and press freedom.
Canadian Nazi Yaroslav Hunka given a military award by Ukrainian provincial government
The announcement didn’t specify if Hunka’s contribution was his recent political fiasco in Ottawa or his work with the Nazi SS during the 1940s.
By Ezra Levant, March 23, 2024 https://www.rebelnews.com/breaking_canadian_nazi_yaroslav_hunka_given_a_military_award_by_ukrainian_provincial_government
Yaroslav Hunka, the former Nazi SS officer whose invitation to Canada’s Parliament by Justin Trudeau sparked an international scandal six months ago, has been awarded a state honour by the regional council of Ternopil, a province in Western Ukraine.
The award, named after Ukrainian Nazi collaborator Yaroslav Stetsko, was given to Hunka last week for “significant personal contribution to providing assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, active charitable and public activities”, according to the Ukrainian news service Suspilne. The announcement didn’t specify if Hunka’s contribution was his recent political fiasco in Ottawa or his work with the Nazi SS during the 1940s. Ternopil had a significant Jewish population until 1943 when the Nazis and their collaborators murdered thousands of Jews, and sent thousands more to death camps in Poland.
While Hunka himself did not attend the awards ceremony in person, Ternopil politician Oleg Syrotyuk presented the award to Hunka’s grand-niece Olga Vitkovksa, suggesting that the family still takes pride in their Nazi past.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has said that one of his reasons for invading Ukraine was to root out Nazis, a claim disputed by Ukraine.
1
“Anonymous” claims it has infiltrated Israel’s nuclear plant in Dimona
Hacker group discloses 7GB of documents it claims to have stolen, though Israeli sources view this primarily as psychological warfare rather than an act of substantive harm
AUDIO FILE here https://www.ynetnews.com/business/article/byblpvdaa
Israel Wullman, 20 Mar 24
Visa & Mastercard: The Real Threat To The Digital ID Control System
March 11, 2024 By Corey Lynn and The Sharp Edge
The question isn’t whether Visa and Mastercard are at the forefront of the Digital ID control system, the question is whether Visa, Mastercard and central banks will be able to pull it off without the implementation of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). A “Digital ID” may sound convenient and harmless, but the intention behind it is far reaching – compiling and connecting data and biometrics while removing every form of privacy in order to control how one spends their money, achieves access to services, and ultimately takes control over all assets. This will have an impact on all areas of life, including education, healthcare, food, agriculture, transportation, real estate, and technology, which of course will all be controlled through the Digital ID connected to banks, and a person’s social credit score. This isn’t an imaginary scheme. These intentions are well documented by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), central banks, the World Bank, financial institutions, credit card companies, and government.
In simple terms, the Bank For International Settlements’ (BIS) blueprint proposes that all private property in the real world, such as money, houses, cars, etc., would be “tokenized” into digital assets within an “everything in one place” global unified ledger. Of course, smart contracts on a “programmable” platform with rules on how each asset can and cannot be used are the key ingredient.
By using fear of cyber attacks on any single institution, big Gov and financial institutions want everyone to believe that consolidating all data and assets of a person’s life into tokens under a Digital ID will somehow protect them from attacks by having everything in one location.
Though many are under the impression that the battle is against the ushering in of CBDCs, it would seem that all of the appropriate financial rails and interoperability are already in place, or darn close to it, to expand on the mountain of identity verification processes already dialed in, to initiate the all-in-one Digital Identity and lock those dominoes into place.
This digital world they intend to manifest is being fashioned to look like a convenient and necessary way everyone must live, and as they build these “rails” of prison cells, consumers are sinking further into debt and relying more and more on credit cards. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York issued a report noting that credit card balances in Q4 of 2023 increased by $50 billion to a record high of $1.13 trillion, while also reporting a rise in delinquencies. The report states that credit card delinquencies increased over 50% in 2023. Total household debt also rose by $212 billion reaching $17.5 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to the report.
Visa and Mastercard are at the forefront of this takeover and if they succeed, the monitoring, tracking, and control will be immeasurable and there will be no going back. Consumers need to think twice before using credit cards and use cash as often as possible, while state legislators need to get on board with implementing creative legislation with independent systems that not only provide protection for the citizens of their state, but build strong financial freedom with the ability to operate utilizing cash, precious metals, and unique structures as pointed out in this article.
“I get why China would be interested. Why would the American people be for that?” – Neel Kashkari, President of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, ‘The Threat of Financial Transaction Control,’ the Solari Report, February 24, 2024.
The International Atomic Energy Agency recruiting spies?
I have recently received three offers via LinkedIn to apply for different job openings at the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Needless to say I won’t be pursuing a tax-free life in Vienna, or at least not with the IAEA. I’ll actually be in Brussels with something to say about their ridiculous summit, along with a network of activists from different organizations across Europe.
And at Beyond Nuclear — as well as on my LinkedIn page — we will continue to call out the hypocrisies and conflicts of interest of the IAEA.
The official mission of the IAEA, an agency of the United Nations, is that it quote “seeks to promote the safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear technologies.”
What it is actually seeking to promote, with unprecedented aggression, is a massive expansion of nuclear energy. This is the exact opposite of “peaceful” and presents some real proliferation problems the agency seems entirely willing to ignore.
A spy in Vienna
By Linda Pentz Gunter beyondnuclearinternational, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/03/17/a-spy-in-vienna/
The IAEA is recruiting, but it’s barking up all the wrong trees
Note: On March 21st the International Atomic Energy Agency will be hosting what it bills as the “First Nuclear Energy Summit” in Brussels, Belgium, co-hosted with the Belgian government. We will have something to “show” and “tell” about that next week.
I have recently received three offers via LinkedIn to apply for different job openings at the International Atomic Energy Agency. Each time, the representative from the IAEA who pitched me wrote that: “I just came across your profile, and it caught my attention”, then described the job itself and why my skill set was ideally suited. Really?
Caught their attention, yes, although evidently they didn’t actually read what is on my LinkedIn page. Unless the IAEA is looking to “turn” me, because I presume what they don’t want is a dissenting mole in their midst. That would mean the IAEA had suddenly developed a conscience.
It was tempting, though, given the goodies thrown in.
“As this position is based in Vienna, Austria, we would support you with multiple benefits, including relocation, rental subsidy, visa support, education grant for your children, tax-free salary, health insurance, and many more,” read each invitation.
Wow, I am in the wrong job! But for all the right reasons.
The official mission of the IAEA, an agency of the United Nations, is that it quote “seeks to promote the safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear technologies.”
What it is actually seeking to promote, with unprecedented aggression, is a massive expansion of nuclear energy. This is the exact opposite of “peaceful” and presents some real proliferation problems the agency seems entirely willing to ignore.
The IAEA’s Director General, Rafael Grossi, has insisted, as the war in Ukraine drags on, imperiling its 15 nuclear reactors — most dangerously the six at Zaporizhzhia — that nuclear power is not the problem; the war is. “It’s very simple, the problem in Ukraine and in Russia is they are at war. The problem is not nuclear energy,” Grossi told the BBC.
And yet, even as Grossi sounds ever more urgent alarms about the potential for nuclear catastrophe in Ukraine (despite his agency’s mission statement that nuclear energy is intrinsically safe, secure and peaceful), he is busy promoting the expansion of nuclear power around the world with evangelical zeal.
Currently, the IAEA’s proudest headline amongst its 2023 highlights and achievements is that nuclear power “made history at COP28.”
It’s referring, of course to the ludicrous and widely panned announcement, by 22 countries at the time, during last winter’s COP28 climate summit in Dubai, that the world should triple its nuclear capacity by 2050, something that has absolutely zero chance of happening. Nor should it.
This followed an October 2023 IAEA press release, that trumpeted, “First-Ever Nuclear Energy Summit to be Held in Brussels in March 2024.” It will mark a gathering of the cabal that supports the IAEA’s misleadingly titled campaign, Atoms4NetZero, which of course is impossible. Nuclear power involves uranium mining, fuel manufacture, transportation, construction and waste production, none of which is now — or ever will be — net zero.
The Brussels summit, says the IAEA, will see “leaders from around the world” gathering “to highlight the role of nuclear energy in addressing the global challenges to reduce the use of fossil fuels, enhance energy security and boost economic development”.
Again, none of this is achievable. Nuclear power, given its extreme costs and long timelines (never mind the dangers and human rights violations) can only impede and slow reductions in fossil fuel use by getting in the way of cleaner, safer, cheaper and faster renewable energy implementation whose technology, unlike the fantasy fission and fusion reactors of the future, is here now.
The IAEA has a long history as a nuclear apologist, promoter and defender. After the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear explosion, the agency was notorious in downplaying and even concealing the true health impacts of the disaster. It effectively has a gag order on the World Health Organization, which must be subordinate* to the IAEA on matters of radiation and health — something the IAEA is not qualified to assess. And yet, the IAEA effectively censors the WHO in its own area of expertise!
The IAEA was lurking around the halls of the Second Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in New York last November. On November 30, a declaration was published wrapping up the meeting that was abruptly revised and re-issued the next day. The new version contained a clause (27) missing from the previous day’s statement that read:
“We once again emphasize that nothing in the TPNW shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of its States Parties to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination.”
The burning need to re-emphasize what is effectively the IAEA’s mission apparently came on the initiative of Vietnam, although there was no dissent. How ironic that it was Vietnam, a country that has considered building massive nuclear power plants in the coastal province Ninh Thuan through contracts with Russia and Japan. For now, both schemes have been canceled. Vietnam will be one of the first countries to be inundated by climate crisis-induced sea-level rise and yet, despite its eighteen hundred miles of vulnerable coastline, the country is once again toying with the idea of new nuclear power plants, this time both small modular and floating off-shore reactors.
Needless to say I won’t be pursuing a tax-free life in Vienna, or at least not with the IAEA. I’ll actually be in Brussels with something to say about their ridiculous summit, along with a network of activists from different organizations across Europe.
And at Beyond Nuclear — as well as on my LinkedIn page — we will continue to call out the hypocrisies and conflicts of interest of the IAEA.
*The Independent WHO vigils are no longer active.
Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and curates Beyond Nuclear International.
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